The Uprising of the Pandemials E-Book

Federico Dominguez

• Herausgeber: Editores Argentinos
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Serie: Colección Mundos
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 266

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

The Pandemials are the young people who will be between the ages of 10 and 26 after the pandemic is over. They will be faced with societies devastated by inequality, the end of meritocracy, loneliness, digital automation, the depletion of natural resources and a myriad of environmental crises that will deeply affect life on our planet. In addition to lacking the economic prosperity enjoyed by their parents –which for example granted them access to university educations or to more comfortable lives– this generation will also face fewer job opportunities, discouraging prospects and a growing need to radicalize their complaints. Covid-19 has not only aggravated this scenario, which was already a serious challenge even before the Crisis of 2020. The asymmetries exposed by the pandemic accelerated predicted timelines, and cycles such as Inequality, Mother Nature, Technology and the Human Spirit will collapse during the Decade of Turbulence (2020-2030). As a result, Pandemials will expect much more from governments, and when their neglect is not addressed, they will rebel. They will go straight after the technocratic elites and the foundations of the capitalist system. The lack of solutions to these problems from liberal governments will push them to rekindle old models and left-wing utopias. Liberalism –the ideology of freedom, human dignity, and science, which enabled the greatest reduction in poverty in human history– is now dominated by exclusive, self-serving technocratic elites. The complex system they created can only be enjoyed by a select few, while common citizens become ever more alienated from their governments. The end of a society based around the middle class and meritocracy is happening amidst a crisis of human spirit, and worsened by the toxic relationship between technological development and the crumbling of certain social institutions. New rituals and forms of relating to each other have not yet taken their place. In his book The Uprising of the Pandemials, financial specialist and economic analyst Federico Dominguez employs his clear prose and clever analysis of the available information to convey the elements needed for understanding this new generation, the challenging decade that lies ahead and the personal, collective, economic and business changes that will be crucial in overcoming the turbulent times on the horizon.

Leseprobe

The Uprising of the Pandemials

Federico Dominguez

The Uprising of the Pandemials

Human Cycles and the Decade of Turbulence

Editores Argentinos

Table of Contents

HALF TITLE

INTRODUCTION

PART 1 THE HUMAN CYCLES

THE HUMAN CYCLES

THE CYCLE OF INEQUALITY

THE CYCLE OF MOTHER NATURE

THE TECHNOLOGICAL CYCLE

THE CYCLE OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT

PART 2 PANDEMIALS

THE GENERATION OF REBELLION

THE UPRISING

PANDENOMICS

PART 3 LIBERALISM

LIBERALISM IN CRISIS

CONCLUSION

EPILOGUE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

REFERENCIAS

Domínguez, Federico

The uprising of the pandemials : Human cycles and the decade of Turbulence / Federico Domínguez. - 1a ed - Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires : Editores Argentinos y hnos. , 2021.

Libro digital, Amazon Kindle

Archivo Digital: descarga

ISBN 978-987-47882-2-1

1. Ecología. 2. Pandemias. 3. Geopolítica. I. Título.

CDD 577.09

© 2020, Federico Dominguez

© 2020, Editores Argentinos

Photography: Florencia Castillo

Cover design: Gonzalo Lercari

Translation: Lucas Martinez and Tara Sulllivan

Book design: Gustavo Lencina

Editores Argentinos

www.eeaa.com.ar

[email protected]

Primera edición en formato digital: diciembre de 2020

Versión: 1.0

Digitalización: Proyecto451

Queda rigurosamente prohibida, sin la autorización escrita de los titulares del “Copyright”, bajo las sanciones establecidas en las leyes, la reproducción parcial o total de esta obra por cualquier medio o procedimiento, incluidos la reprografía y el tratamiento informático.

Inscripción ley 11.723 en trámite

ISBN edición digital (ePub): 978-987-47882-2-1

For Flor

INTRODUCTION

“This is the most dangerous time for our planet.”

–Stephen Hawking, December 2016

Liberty has been rare in human history. Until the arrival of modern liberal states, people had little to no rights and lived mainly in rural areas of extreme poverty. This began to change with the Glorious Revolution of 1688, when the British Parliament put a limit on the monarchy and assured a series of rights, laying the groundwork for individual liberties, economic growth, and the rise of the liberal state as we know it. One century later, the American and French Revolutions consolidated and solidified the process begun in the United Kingdom.

Liberalism, the founder of the modern world, is a doctrine that promotes liberties –civil and economic– and opposes absolutism and conservatism by stating that all human beings hold the same moral value and rights. It is a commitment to human dignity, small government, individual liberties, science, debate, and constant reform in the pursuit of human progress. Modern liberal states led humanity into a cycle of increasing prosperity rooted in technological advances, freedom, democracy, capitalism, and an uninterrupted drop in poverty. For developed countries, the most prosperous period came after World War II, during which people from every social background could aspire to a good job, affordable housing, and quality education to help them progress.

During those years of prosperity (1945–1980), the greatest achievement was meritocracy, a set of assured rights paired with an economic environment that allowed anyone who worked hard to achieve economic prosperity. Meritocracy is a political system in which economic assets and political power are distributed based on talent, effort, and achievement, rather than inherited wealth or social class. The ideal of pure meritocracy is challenging: there will always be those who are dealt a better hand for economic, cultural, or even generational reasons. However, the system’s goal is to guarantee a baseline of opportunities that will allow greater social mobility.

The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 marked the culmination of the cycle of increased prosperity and expansion of liberties that had begun more than two centuries earlier. A period of relative stagnation followed this milestone. It expanded worldwide and continues to this day. Currently, liberalism is dominated by exclusive technocratic elites who have created a complex system that can only be exploited by a select few and distances citizens from their governments. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the absence of an adversary led liberal governments to lose their way; they stopped taking care of the common people, stopped investing in science, and entered an era of disenchantment. Governments are ultimately made up of human beings, many of which adopted the highly individualistic and less collective spirit that became the hallmark of the 1980s and 1990s. The social order of many Western countries broke its promise of offering opportunities to all. The tacit agreement between citizens and their governments began to fall apart. The pandemic has only deepened this crisis of representation and, during events such as these, it is common for constituents to turn to a leader figure who will solve their problems.

The Covid-19 pandemic has not only aggravated this scenario, which posed a serious challenge even before the Crisis of 2020, but it has also exposed asymmetries and accelerated predicted timelines, heralding the collapse of cycles such as Inequality, Mother Nature, Technology, and Human Spirit during the decade of 2020.

The precariat is the social class that emerged from this period of disenchantment. It is made up of a large number of people facing stagnant incomes, job instability, and academic over-qualification for the jobs they can get. Guy Standing, professor at the University of London, defined three subgroups within the precariat. The first subgroup is comprised of the atavists. They have a low level of education, were raised in families and communities that have experienced deindustrialization, and long for the past. Among them are the many supporters of Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro, Marie Le Pen, and the Italian Northern League. They tend to constitute the ethnic majority of society. Next are the nostalgics, made up of ethnic minorities and immigrants who do not feel recognized as citizens or heard by the state. In practice, they are usually regarded as second-class citizens. They are prone to voting for centrist politicians such as the Democrats in the United States. The third group is constituted by the progressives; they foresee a lost future. They are the younger generation who went to university believing in the promise made to them by their families, communities, and teachers: if you work hard, you will have a guaranteed future. (1) But as adults, they realized things are much harder than they expected. Many of them vote for candidates such as Bernie Sanders, and parties such as Podemos in Spain, the Workers’ Party (PT) in Brazil, and Kirchnerism in Argentina.

The precariat no longer belongs to a community that offers security and identity, a sense of solidarity, reciprocity, and mutual support. They cannot even fully exercise their rights as citizens because the system created by the technocracy is so complex that only the richest people have the necessary resources to enjoy it. Their economic distress is mitigated by complex welfare programs aimed at keeping them afloat and dependent on the technocrats but never actually resolving their underlying problems. Governments do the bare minimum to keep them out of poverty.

In consequence, a large part of the political spectrum looks to the past. Make America Great Again, the slogan that touches the hearts of those who long for the United States of 1945–1989, which they see as the country’s best years; populist governments in Latin America who promote statist economic policies akin to those of the 1940s and 1950s; Brexit with its Let’s Take Back Control slogan struck a chord among those who yearn for the mighty Britain of strong leaders the likes of Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher.

In the mid-term, demographics will start to play against right-wing populism, while the left will thrive on a generation of young people who are being increasingly neglected and expect more from the state. What happened in Latin America in the 2000s with the rise of populist left-wing governments (often disguised as progressives) could repeat itself in developed countries if liberal governments do not renew their commitment to the middle class and take the necessary measures to rebuild the meritocracy.

Pandemials are the young people born in the years following the fall of the Berlin Wall and entering the job market during the Covid-19 crisis. They are a generation with strong ethical values and ecological awareness owing to having been born knowing that the planet is at risk. They will find societies marked by inequality, the end of meritocracy, solitude, digital automation, the depletion of natural resources, and a variety of environmental crises that will affect life on the planet. In addition to not enjoying the same economic prosperity as their parents –which, for example, allowed them to access a university education or lead more comfortable lives– this generation will face fewer job opportunities, discouraging prospects, and a growing need to radicalize their complaints. As a result, pandemials will expect much more from governments, and when their neglect is not addressed, they will rebel. They will go after the technocratic elites and the foundations of the capitalist system. Liberal governments’ lack of answers to these problems will push them to rekindle old models and left-wing utopias.

Pandemials are carrying out a rebellion in response to the lack of interlocutors or policies to resolve their problems. Their revolution is against the technocracy, the powerful group that has handled public policy since World War II. To them, the technocracy is represented by the political parties who have been in office for the last few decades, bankers, lobbyists, and institutions such as the European Commission or the International Monetary Fund (IMF). They are also rebelling against right-wing populism, rejecting authoritarianism, discrimination, and conservative values on social matters. This new rise in populism, conservatism, and authoritarianism has taken place in a large portion of the world: the United States, parts of Europe, Latin America, and East Asia.

Faced with this situation, liberalism radiates stubbornness and inspires disenchantment: it tries to solve the problems of today using the recipes of the past on a larger scale. The ideology that used to look to the future now turns inward, displaying its inability to renovate its ideas and come out from under the dominion of a self-serving technocracy. This closed-minded even elitist approach does not reflect the essence of liberalism, i.e., the meritocracy and openness that characterizes it. Without a renewal of ideas and a greater openness, the spread of populism will be hard to stop.

GLOBAL GROWTH INCIDENCE CURVE (2)

New, non-statist approaches will be needed to recover meritocracy and provide solutions to the complaints of young people, which range from lower sales and income taxes to more efficient education models such as charter schools, from a serious stance against climate change to a monetary policy that contributes to human progress.

The elephant-shaped graphic reflects the dissatisfaction of the middle class in many developed countries. In it, you can see the global income growth per income quintile between 1988 and 2008. The middle section pertains to emerging countries such as China, whose middle-class incomes grew a lot more. In the 80-95 quintile, the lower rate of growth reflects the middle classes in developed countries. The trunk relates to the rich whose income has grown significantly.

The paradox of liberalism is that in many of the countries where it was implemented, its middle classes sunk into the precariat, while in the rest of the world, the free market and globalization upheld by its ideology lifted millions of people out of poverty. From a global standpoint, the world has never been better off and the percentage of people in the middle class is at a record high thanks to the economic growth of China and other emerging countries. However, this process is losing steam. China’s initial progress, which relied on copying technology and exporting to the rest of the world, is starting to face the limitations caused by a lack of freedom and innovation.

The pandemic struck in this context, which is like an iceberg of problems that we could only see the tip of at first but now it has fully emerged. Following events of this magnitude, two things happen: social and economic processes accelerate and demands for change intensify.

PART 1

THE HUMAN CYCLES

THE HUMAN CYCLES

“The world will never be the same.” “This is the end of liberalism.” “We will see a new world order.” “China will dominate the world.” “Covid-19 was sent by God as punishment for the damage we are doing to our planet.” “The ‘New Normal’ is here to stay.” I read these proclamations and many others like them about the pandemic during the first several months of the global lockdown in 2020. In truth, the world will not just change because of Covid-19, there will be an acceleration of many processes that began over the last few decades. Changes we expected to see in five or ten years will happen in just two or three.

Premiered in May 2019, the UK television series Years and Years, co-produced by the BBC and HBO, depicts what could happen if the world were to continue down the current path. The series follows the lives of the Lyons family between the years 2019 and 2034 as Britain is rocked by unstable political, economic and technological advances.

During this period, the UK and world political realities become increasingly unstable and give the viewer a glimpse of a possible future. In the show, the impact of technological innovation on the economy and society, inequality, and the expansion of populism fill the characters’ lives with misery. At the end of each episode, the viewer is left with a feeling of anguish and emptiness, well-aware that even though such a future is unlikely, it remains a possibility.

Since its beginning, humanity has coexisted with different forces: inequality, mother nature, technology, and the human spirit; each one with its own cycle; all of them interconnected.

Many of the powerful changes that are currently driving the Uprising of the Pandemials began in the 1980s. The cycle of increased equality that began with the welfare state following World War II came to an end with the fall of the Berlin Wall, giving way to a cycle of growing inequality. Technological change combined with the rise in the price of the meritocracy basket (housing, education, and health) increased inequality around the world. Throughout the decade, the threats to the cycle of mother nature –the mounting evidence of the threat of climate change and the depletion of natural resources– became irrefutable. In the 1980s, toward the end of the Cold War, the governments of the world began to invest increasingly less in science and technology. At the same time, the crisis of the human spirit caused by the shattering of century-old structures and institutions was aggravated, while the new models had still not been consolidated, all of which were amplified by new technologies that deepened the crisis of loneliness.

The next important period was the global crisis of 2007–2008 when it became clear that the four cycles were headed toward an implosion, an ending that would give way to new cycles. It was during this crisis that the inequality and injustices of the system rose to the surface, along with the strong support of many voters for populist governments.

In 2007, the first iPhone was released; Facebook went from a university social network to a platform for the general public; Twitter hit the market. But the critical year was 2008 when all these networks began to grow exponentially and increase their hourly daily usage, which began to weaken real connections in favor of digital ones. This led to the epidemic of loneliness that lies at the center of the cycle of the human spirit. Also, that same year, renewable energies became increasingly viable from an economic standpoint and started to be mass-produced, sparking interest among the public. For the first time, people understood that it was possible to end the era of fossil fuels once and for all.

These four cycles share two factors: they will implode during the decade of 2020 and they will be accelerated by the effects of the pandemic. The years 2020–2030 are already poised as the Decade of Turbulence.

The shift in cycles can either be a gradual and relatively peaceful process or an arduous and even violent one. The cycle of increased inequality exposed by the pandemic will evolve into a cycle of greater equality during this decade or the start of the next. This will happen either through the rebuilding of the meritocracy alongside liberal governments or by populist governments. But in either case, the shift will be inevitable. It may be through democratic processes or by demonstrations and riots as we saw in France with the yellow vests movement; in Chile, following the increase in the price of public transport; and in the United States, after the murder of George Floyd.

In terms of the cycle of mother nature, climate change is entering a critical stage and the decade of 2020 will be our last chance to strongly reduce emissions if we want to avoid an increase in temperatures with potentially catastrophic effects. The cycle of technology is running out. The benefits of the Cold War’s major scientific developments –the microchip, the internet, GPS, among a wide array of other technologies– will become obsolete during the decade of 2020 and the next. This could slow down the rate of progress unless new technologies appear to drive a new cycle.

These cycles are interconnected. The cycle of technology combined with overpopulation precipitated the most recent cycle of inequality. Without new technologies, it will be very hard to stop climate change at the speed our planet requires. If we do not address climate change, it will be even more difficult to reduce inequality in a context of droughts, food scarcity, and extreme climate events. And without a new cycle of meritocracy and reduction of inequality, we cannot achieve a new cycle of the human spirit.

All the energy of the pandemials fuels these four cycles. Their strong sense of morality and ethics does not tolerate the high levels of inequality caused by an agonizing meritocracy. Their strong ecological awareness, which reflects a humanist view of nature and a strong concern over the imminent environmental catastrophe, makes them highly active on all issues related to climate change. Their high capacity to adapt to technology accelerates the technological cycle while also driving the crisis of the human spirit through the creation of virtual communities that weaken physical connections.

To understand the turbulence we will experience during the coming decade, we will need to understand how these cycles work. They are a warning sign which gives us the chance to decide what we want as a human species and to demand public policies that will assure our desired future.

The Uprising of the Pandemials is the young, revitalizing energy that must be channeled through the ideological and pragmatic foundation of liberalism to enforce these policies and prevent the future depicted in Years and Years.

THE CYCLE OF INEQUALITY

In his book “Supermarket USA: Food and Power in the Cold War Farms Race,” Shane Hamilton explains how American propagandists viewed supermarkets as ideological weapons during the Cold War. The image of the American family strolling down the aisles of well-stocked shelves of food products at affordable prices, loading their groceries in the car, and living in a nice house with a yard in the suburbs traveled around the world. It was a clear display of the advantages of American capitalism and liberal democracy. Only capitalism could offer this standard of living to its entire population, as opposed to the authoritarianism and the chronic scarcity of communist countries. This image was the basis of the anti-communist propaganda throughout the 40 years of the Cold War. (3)

The end of World War II and the dawn of the Cold War gave way to a worldwide battle between two paradigms. Capitalism was no longer the only option. A competitor emerged born out of Russia and it began to spread through eastern Europe, China, North Korea, Vietnam, and Cuba. And so, a bipolar world was born, in which each side needed to prove to its citizens and humankind that its model was superior. The solution found by Western governments was to accelerate the process of expansion of public education and healthcare, in addition to other social programs launched after the crisis of 1930. In Europe, this was represented by the welfare state that emerged in the post-war era. In the United States, this solution was represented by Lyndon B. Johnson and his “War on Poverty” and concept of a “Great Society.” The goal was a happy public to keep Soviet totalitarianism far from their citizens.

THE MIDDLE-CLASS PARADISE

To be a middle-class family meant being able to buy a house, own a car, eat out once a week, go on vacation every year, and send your kids to college. The middle class was living proof of the success of capitalism and liberal states. Property was inexpensive. Young people had access to a quality university education without having to take on unpayable debt. There was quality, accessible healthcare. All these goods and services make up the meritocracy basket and were the basis of this prosperity. It was a happy world where those who worked hard could access the benefits of the system. Between 1946 and 1980, the total income in America grew 95%. For middle-class Americans, these were the best years in the country’s history. During this period, after-tax income grew by a whopping 129% for half of the population with the lowest incomes. (4) This was the golden age for the middle class, not only in the United States but in most of the developed world.

Middle classes woke abruptly from this sweet dream in the early 1980s. On one hand, stalled incomes; on the other, a rise in the price of certain goods and services, rendering them less accessible. The technological revolution and automation had created stagnancy in the incomes of many workers. The after-tax income of the bottom half of Americans grew by 21% between 1980 and 2014, as opposed to the 113% increase for the top 10%. (5) Between 1980 and 2020, the American economy tripled and its GDP per capita practically doubled. (6) Globally, these have been excellent years for the economy, although the distribution of benefits has been highly uneven.

The cycle of economic prosperity that started after World War II reached its end in the early 1980s, but the increases in debt levels avoided its collapse. It did not affect the baby boomers, who had already purchased their homes and secure their pensions, with a state that covered their medical expenses. They had no need to protest. Nor did their children, who were born in the 1970s: they had acquired relatively reasonable debt to buy their houses and pay for their education. The problem arose for millennials, born during the 1980s and 1990s: they found that the debt they had to take on to access the same education and housing as their parents was becoming more and more expensive and unsustainable. In truth, the cycle had already ended by the early 1990s, but cheap debt avoided its utter collapse. This became clear during the crisis of 2008 when supporters of Donald Trump, Brexit, Bernie Sanders, Podemos, and Le Pen came forward, many of whom felt abandoned by the system. And lastly came the pandemic, the final blow to expose any of the system’s remaining flaws.

The cycle of growing inequality is in its final stages due to the social pressure and shifts in demographics, which I will address later. It will happen, whether under a liberal government or a left-wing administration. The pandemials have come to accelerate this process with their sense of justice and meritocracy. Depending on which kinds of policies governments adopt, we will either see a society that becomes poorer and more equal, or richer and more equal. But equality will undoubtedly play a central role.

EMERGING GAPS

In the 1980s, a massive gap began to emerge between the rich and the rest of society. The income of the lowest segment practically came to a standstill, while the richest 10% –especially the top 1%–watched their income grow leaps and bounds. Since 1980, the percentage of total after-tax income of the top 10% of Americans doubled, reaching 40%. (7) This group enjoys a high standard of living, large houses and apartments, luxury cars, organic food, trips to exotic destinations, education at the best universities, and a healthcare system with the best specialists in the world. In contrast, the bottom 50% of Americans saw their incomes shrink by 20%. Not only have they lost income, but also social status.

Inequality is not a problem in and of itself. It is understandable that there are people with higher incomes and more wealth than others. It is part of the capitalist, democratic system we live in. The question is: to what extent can this inequality be explained by meritocracy? Are the disenfranchised this way due to a lack of effort or lack of opportunities? The lack of an assured baseline –or the stall in the income of the lowest earners for decades on end– while also failing to see their efforts yield their desired results, brings them great frustration and unease.

If a businessperson who earns hundreds of millions a year wants to buy an enormous house in The Hamptons, a flat in NYC, a penthouse in Paris, an original Picasso, and a private jet to escape to an island during the pandemic, they are in their full right to do so, provided they pay their taxes and do not break any laws.

How should the system work in order to be fairer? Here are a few examples: for every flight taken by millionaires, they should pay to compensate for the CO2 emissions generated; for the apartments they own in New York and Paris, they should pay an additional tax if they are not their primary residence and are not offered as rentals and located in areas with housing deficits. Conceptually, these taxes are fair because the planet belongs to everyone: the use of scarce available space should follow a principle of fairness, while the damage to mother nature should comply not only with a rule of fairness but also of remedy and conservation, given it involves intergenerational resources.

Now, this person, like any other, should not be allowed to use fiduciary structures such as irrevocable trusts to diminish their tax obligations. I see no reason why they should pay an income tax higher than the 30% or 40% in effect in most countries, but –as Warren Buffet once said– their secretaries should not be paying a higher tax rate than them. Also, as in many countries, it would be fair for their heirs to pay an inheritance tax once that person passed away. These types of legal frameworks increase the perception that the system is fair.

In many countries, there is resentment toward the upper classes. In general, this is driven by politicians looking to politically benefit from poverty. In others, it is because some people believe that their fortunes come from privilege: that their companies are protected by powerful lobbyists, that the government favors them with fiscal benefits, that they are spineless bankers, that they inherited their money without pay taxes or something along those lines. Most of the time this is not the case, and these people are simply doing everything within the legal framework to maximize their income. On the other hand, when the poor see their lives become increasingly difficult, they become frustrated. But what we must understand is that the problem is not the millionaires, but rather governments and their flawed public policies that increase inequality.

IMPOSSIBLE ACCESS

The central issue here is meritocracy. During the post-war era, the belief that everyone had the same chances of success and that their accomplishments were a result of their effort was part of the national spirit of many countries. For a child born in a poor suburb, this meant having access to an excellent education, being able to receive training at the best universities without having to spend the rest of their life in debt, provided they pass their admission exam. The idea was that a person born at the very bottom could rise to the top, which was so much more frequent in the years leading up to the 1980s. For example, a middle-class worker could buy a house without becoming overwhelmed by debt or no one would go bankrupt for not being able to pay their medical expenses. When these problems disappear, the resentment toward the upper classes diminishes significantly.

In terms of social equality, Europe is much better off than the United States and most other regions in the world. Its model is very successful in terms of pre-distribution: investments in education, universal healthcare, and regulation of the job market to guarantee high minimum wages.

The issue of inequality in Europe has much more to do with access to housing, high taxation of consumption and labor, and strongly regulated job markets that result in high unemployment rates, especially among young people, which prevents economic growth.

Inequality and the rejection of the governing technocratic class, which is perceived as lacking empathy, corporate in nature, and alien to the problems of the common people, are the basis for the unrest that led millions to support Brexit in England or vote for Donald Trump in the United States. It is a reflection of the part of the population punished by globalization, automation, and a state that was unable to respond to those transformations.

Inequality has always been associated with periods of social instability. The French Revolution, the Gilded Age in the United States, the Russian Revolution, the post-WWI era that led to fascism, and the 1990s in Latin America that ended in populist governments were all periods of great inequality. People need to express their frustration, which makes them susceptible to falling into the hands of populist politicians. There are two types of populism: on one hand, left-wing populism which blames the rich and seeks to charge them higher taxes to rampantly increase public spending. This is the favorite solution of politicians like Bernie Sanders in the United States, the Podemos political party in Spain, or Kirchnerism and Chavism in Latin America. On the other hand, right-wing populism blames immigrants, the media, the opposition, and foreign nations. This group is represented by the likes of Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro.

If we follow the current trend of inequality, populist movements will grow massively within the next years alongside two phenomena. One is the pandemic that destroyed millions of jobs around the world, which will take years to recover from. On the other, the intensification of technological change will accelerate the expansion of the technologies of the Third Industrial Revolution, and in 10 or 20 years we will see the beginning of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. These two revolutions demand increasing numbers of IT specialists, engineers, scientists, researchers, mathematicians, and programmers, which will widen the wage gap between the world of science and technology and all other jobs. In the medium and long term, these advances will be extremely positive for the economy and society but in the short term, we will have to learn to live with its consequences.