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Santiago Nino-Becerra.
Barcelona, 1951. Professor Emeritus at the Ramón Llull University and Professor of Economic Structure at the IQA School of Management.
In
Future, what future?
(Ariel) he analyzes the bleak future that awaits us.
He assures that the pandemic will cause great economic and social changes.
Which?
Since 2007-2008 we have been in a crisis of the model that was launched after World War II.
And that crisis -which is far from over yet- has had different manifestations: a financial manifestation, a debt crisis manifestation, an energy manifestation... And now the pandemic manifestation has arrived, which has accelerated the implementation of a series of elements, fundamentally technological, that were already there but for whatever reason were not being used.
For example, online work has existed since the 1990s, what happens is that back then it was really very difficult to work online because the technology did not give enough of itself.
Today Yes.
The International Energy Agency has recently published a small study, and the European Commission endorsed it, which says that 30% of jobs can be done online;
almost one in three.
And what repercussions will that have?
On the one hand, energy repercussions in terms of energy savings by not having to travel.
But, on the other hand, it will affect the parallel consumptions that are made when going to work in person, such as vehicle maintenance, purchases associated with workplaces, consumption, catering, etc.
And the houses are going to have to be organized in another way.
Now much more importance is given to the state and maintenance of the house, to comfort;
homes with space, a garden, a patio, a large balcony, a terrace...
A person who is dedicated to domestic reforms recently told me that for two years he has not stopped working.
What other changes will the coronavirus leave?
The pandemic has shown that states are useful for what they are useful for.
Before the pandemic, states were already in decline, and large corporations were gaining in importance.
But the pandemic has shown how states have saved our lives.
But that's the end of it, because it has been at the cost of taking on public debt and fiscal deficits.
And, in parallel, the power of large corporations is increasing.
All these changes that I have mentioned are of great caliber and are going to have social consequences.
You maintain, for example, that the growing robotization is going to make employment much more unstable than it is now, right?
Yes.
It has a lot to do with technology and productivity, with how productivity was and is understood.
In the previous model, the one that went into crisis in 2007-2008, productivity was understood as producing more with the same human resources or with fewer resources.
If 100 workers produced 1,000 units, increasing productivity meant producing 2,000 units with those 100 workers, or even producing 2,000 units with 50 workers.
But now the objective is not that.
What is being aimed at right now is to produce the units that are needed at any given time with one or zero workers.
The paradigm has completely changed, and it has done so thanks to technology.
This is leading to a return of productions to the places from which they came to go to third countries,
It was already happening before the pandemic but this has accelerated it.
What will work be like in the future?
I think that work is going to be more and more on demand, punctual, on request and for specific needs.
And that collides head-on with the labor reform that has now been approved in Spain and that seeks indefinite contracts.
I don't know how this will be resolved, but technology is not aimed at full-time, indefinite jobs, but at jobs on demand and for a specific period of time.
You say in your new book that to deal with such a brutal change in the production and work system, it will be necessary to implement what you call the 'social trinomial': basic income, legal marijuana and free leisure... Yes .
The basic income, if you remember, until ten years ago was reviled by practically everyone,
there were very few of us who defended it.
Today more and more politicians, businessmen and experts defend basic income and assume that it is inevitable.
It is inevitable because there will be a number of people who will not be necessary from the labor point of view, which will have to provide them with a quantity of monetary resources so that they can live.
And there will be others who will have jobs, but they will be part-time jobs and closely linked to a specific project, so their income level will be very low, and the basic income will complement it.
Basic income is indeed a fairly low income, but productivity will be so high that it will allow the production of basic necessities at a price that is really very, very low and affordable by basic income.
And leisure?
Due to the changes in the work model there will be a lot of time available, both voluntarily and involuntarily, and that available time will have to be filled with something.
And I think that something is going to be free or practically free entertainment.
Here we would enter the entire world of the metaverse, which is being talked about more and more and whose fundamental destiny I believe will be leisure-oriented.
And what about the legalization of marijuana?
Legalizing marijuana has many tax advantages, because marijuana is supposed to pay taxes.
And, secondly, legalization reduces drug trafficking.
It will not completely end it, there will be smuggling for sure, but drug trafficking will go down.
And also thirdly, marijuana is a painkiller,
and will help to dilute the possible social conflicts that may arise due to this change.
If I remember correctly, in 37 states of the United States marijuana is already legal, when until ten years ago if someone was caught with five grams of marijuana they were put in jail.
Governments are assuming this 'need'.
But wouldn't this possible legalization of marijuana and this free entertainment that you predict be a way to keep us entertained, sedated and to avoid social unrest in the new world that is coming? In part, yes.
After World War II, social peace was bought with social protection.
Those people, especially in Europe, who had been crushed by a war that caused 50 million displaced people in Europe, destruction and misery, were presented with a very clear model: if you behave well,
if you vote for things that are within normal limits and you work, you will be protected, you will have a retirement pension, health care that will be paid for with taxes, a public education that will also be paid for with taxes... Because, especially in the early years The rich paid much more.
We have already forgotten that the tax on corporate income in the United States with Eisenhower reached 80%.
The rich paid heavy taxes and agreed to do so to buy social peace.
Today social peace does not need to be bought like that.
With the level of unemployment and underemployment that exists today, with the possibilities of social control that exist and the low professional expectations that young people have, it is very easy to buy social peace.
To a great extent, the dream of humanity has been not to have to work so much and to be able to enjoy more free time.
But it doesn't seem that the future you propose is very appealing... With basic income, no one is going to be able to buy a Ferrari.
And that thing about you asking for a loan and going on vacation to the Maldives, let's forget it.
Since the 1980s, inequality has been growing enormously.
In the United States in 1928, when there was no social provision at all, the richest 1% of the population controlled 27% of the wealth.
After World War II, policies of social redistribution began to be put into practice, and in 1975 in the United States the richest 1% of the population controlled 7.5% of the wealth.
Today, in America, the richest 1% control 34% of the wealth.
Inequality is increasing because there is a concentration of capital in the hands of corporations.
And the only way for the population to support that is by guaranteeing it a minimum and with a tremendous control of public order.
I don't know if it's true, but a couple of months ago a Chinese government spokesman said that today the Chinese state already has technology to control 100% of the Chinese population in real time.
He says that the big corporations are getting more and more power.
Are the big corporations going to govern us? The turnover of the 50 main companies in the world already amounts to 25% of the planet's GDP.
And govern, they already govern.
I am convinced that interest rates, for example, will begin to rise when these large corporations are interested.
In the United States they have begun to increase because the big banks and the big funds were interested in doing so.
It has been justified with inflation, but this type of inflation that we have monetary policy does not cure, because it is a type of inflation caused by insufficient supply.
And we are talking about the Federal Reserve and the United States government... Think of other countries at a lower level, such as Spain: the response capacity of a government today is minimal, to say the least.
With the inflation that we have right now in Spain, and that is around 10%, would it be a good or a bad idea to lower taxes?
The inflation that we have in Spain is the same type of inflation, although in a different percentage, than that of the United States, France, Germany, Canada, Australia...
It is a type of inflation generated by the lack of supply, by an insufficient supply.
There is not enough supply because the pandemic broke production chains and logistics chains, so when production resumed there were no components, let us remember, for example, the famous chips that power cars.
And to this is added that the price of energy has skyrocketed: because the price of emission rights has skyrocketed, because we have a price calculation system that I believe does not benefit the consumer and because the conflict in Ukraine has further stressed the entire energy issue.
The inflation that we have is of this type and the monetary policy has already shown that in the face of this type of inflation it does not work, and neither does the fiscal policy.
If taxes are lowered, more money reaches the pocket of citizens,
with which the consumption level increases, that is, the demand rises.
But if since before the tax cut the offer was insufficient, after lowering them it will still be higher.
Unfortunately, this type of inflation can only be reduced by normalizing supply.
Everything possible must be done so that the supply is normalized, so that the goods that arrived before arrive and to reduce consumption.
In quotes and in terms of inflation, right now it would be more useful to increase taxes than to reduce them.
And do you like that world that is coming?
I obviously don't like it.
But I am a product of the past.
Generation T, the one that goes from 2008 to 2023, will be the one that will start this new situation because it will not have any ballast from the past.
I and the vast majority of humanity have burdens from the past.
But Gen T doesn't.
demand rises.
But if since before the tax cut the offer was insufficient, after lowering them it will still be higher.
Unfortunately, this type of inflation can only be reduced by normalizing supply.
Everything possible must be done so that the supply is normalized, so that the goods that arrived before arrive and to reduce consumption.
In quotes and in terms of inflation, right now it would be more useful to increase taxes than to reduce them.
And do you like that world that is coming?
I obviously don't like it.
But I am a product of the past.
Generation T, the one that goes from 2008 to 2023, will be the one that will start this new situation because it will not have any ballast from the past.
I and the vast majority of humanity have burdens from the past.
But Gen T doesn't.
demand rises.
But if since before the tax cut the offer was insufficient, after lowering them it will still be higher.
Unfortunately, this type of inflation can only be reduced by normalizing supply.
Everything possible must be done so that the supply is normalized, so that the goods that arrived before arrive and to reduce consumption.
In quotes and in terms of inflation, right now it would be more useful to increase taxes than to reduce them.
And do you like that world that is coming?
I obviously don't like it.
But I am a product of the past.
Generation T, the one that goes from 2008 to 2023, will be the one that will start this new situation because it will not have any ballast from the past.
I and the vast majority of humanity have burdens from the past.
But Gen T doesn't.
But if since before the tax cut the offer was insufficient, after lowering them it will still be higher.
Unfortunately, this type of inflation can only be reduced by normalizing supply.
Everything possible must be done so that the supply is normalized, so that the goods that arrived before arrive and to reduce consumption.
In quotes and in terms of inflation, right now it would be more useful to increase taxes than to reduce them.
And do you like that world that is coming?
I obviously don't like it.
But I am a product of the past.
Generation T, the one that goes from 2008 to 2023, will be the one that will start this new situation because it will not have any ballast from the past.
I and the vast majority of humanity have burdens from the past.
But Gen T doesn't.
But if since before the tax cut the offer was insufficient, after lowering them it will still be higher.
Unfortunately, this type of inflation can only be reduced by normalizing supply.
Everything possible must be done so that the supply is normalized, so that the goods that arrived before arrive and to reduce consumption.
In quotes and in terms of inflation, right now it would be more useful to increase taxes than to reduce them.
And do you like that world that is coming?
I obviously don't like it.
But I am a product of the past.
Generation T, the one that goes from 2008 to 2023, will be the one that will start this new situation because it will not have any ballast from the past.
I and the vast majority of humanity have burdens from the past.
But Gen T doesn't.
Unfortunately, this type of inflation can only be reduced by normalizing supply.
Everything possible must be done so that the supply is normalized, so that the goods that arrived before arrive and to reduce consumption.
In quotes and in terms of inflation, right now it would be more useful to increase taxes than to reduce them.
And do you like that world that is coming?
I obviously don't like it.
But I am a product of the past.
Generation T, the one that goes from 2008 to 2023, will be the one that will start this new situation because it will not have any ballast from the past.
I and the vast majority of humanity have burdens from the past.
But Gen T doesn't.
Unfortunately, this type of inflation can only be reduced by normalizing supply.
Everything possible must be done so that the supply is normalized, so that the goods that arrived before arrive and to reduce consumption.
In quotes and in terms of inflation, right now it would be more useful to increase taxes than to reduce them.
And do you like that world that is coming?
I obviously don't like it.
But I am a product of the past.
Generation T, the one that goes from 2008 to 2023, will be the one that will start this new situation because it will not have any ballast from the past.
I and the vast majority of humanity have burdens from the past.
But Gen T doesn't.
so that the goods that arrived before arrive and to reduce consumption.
In quotes and in terms of inflation, right now it would be more useful to increase taxes than to reduce them.
And do you like that world that is coming?
I obviously don't like it.
But I am a product of the past.
Generation T, the one that goes from 2008 to 2023, will be the one that will start this new situation because it will not have any ballast from the past.
I and the vast majority of humanity have burdens from the past.
But Gen T doesn't.
so that the goods that arrived before arrive and to reduce consumption.
In quotes and in terms of inflation, right now it would be more useful to increase taxes than to reduce them.
And do you like that world that is coming?
I obviously don't like it.
But I am a product of the past.
Generation T, the one that goes from 2008 to 2023, will be the one that will start this new situation because it will not have any ballast from the past.
I and the vast majority of humanity have burdens from the past.
But Gen T doesn't.
It will be the one that will start this new situation because it will not have any ballast from the past.
I and the vast majority of humanity have burdens from the past.
But Gen T doesn't.
It will be the one that will start this new situation because it will not have any ballast from the past.
I and the vast majority of humanity have burdens from the past.
But Gen T doesn't.
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