DDuring the second half of the XXe century, the reduction of inequalities required public policies that could redistribute the “fruits of growth” through social transfers and investments in education and infrastructure. Policy makers could count on increasing tax revenues thanks to the high growth rates of our economies. But does this historical strategy remain applicable when the paradigm of economic growth withers to make way for an era of post-growth?
Today, many researchers point out that growth is no longer desirable for social and ecological reasons; eighteen European parliamentarians recently called, in The worldTo “get out of the dogma of growth”. Our social performance and well-being indicators are now decorrelated from economic growth. Our productivist society is incompatible with environmental limits if we want humanity to be part of a sustainable ecosystem. It is therefore time for post-growth, a social project that goes beyond the objective of growth of the gross domestic product to marry that of the satisfaction of basic human needs without exceeding planetary limits.
If the era of post-growth is gradually intruding into our frameworks of thought, we are still far from having suitable solutions to respond to the new configuration of societal challenges that this paradigm raises. Among these, the reduction of economic inequalities arises from a new angle.
Indeed, it is no longer a question of redistributing the surplus of national production in a game where everyone is a winner. It is now necessary to arbitrate on the distribution of wealth within an economy without growth. In such a context, if certain deciles or percentiles of the population receive a larger share of income, it is necessarily to the detriment of other deciles of the population for whom income will decrease. There are therefore implicit limits to wealth if we wish to avoid an inexorable increase in inequalities.
New framework of thought
This observation, widely documented by ecological economists, shows us that reducing inequalities in a post-growth society necessarily leads to a reduction in the income and wealth of the richest. While the policies devised during the 20e century now have a limited impact on inequality and that the rise of the latter is essentially explained by the development of extreme wealth (the richest 0.1%), public policies introducing limits to wealth could be essential to reducing inequalities in a post-growth society.
You have 54.83% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.