Junts per Catalunya, the party that exempts the electricity oligopoly from paying taxes, wants to lower the maximum personal income tax rate, repeal inheritances or makes the social shield measures decline, raised a debate last Tuesday in Parliament on the broken or non-existent Catalan social elevator. The post-convergents, with their renewed liberal catechism, to citizens and companies.” In short, we must let the economy take its course. It is something like the doctrine of “sin a lot and believe more strongly” of a Luther who, forgetting the virtue of charity, ended up supporting the privileges of the German princes against the radical reformers of Thomas Müntzer.
It is still paradoxical, as Junts did in last Tuesday’s debate, that while inequality is enthroned, the topic of the culture of effort is resorted to. As if it had not rained since those times when the presidency of the Generalitat publicly praised meritocracy, while the family offspring, that basic and endearing cell of society, actively benefited from Private Vices, Public Virtues. But not for stormy Mayerling-style tragedies, but to make cash. Those were times when, in public, the defense of the laborious craftsmanship was maintained while in private the elevator of business was opened to the family. And they didn’t move from the solarium.
In today’s Catalonia some still continue to propose this kind of Christianity courses with evangelical pretensions. But his pastoral care fails to mask the scars: 24.8% of the population is at risk of poverty and social exclusion, according to Idescat. The elevator is stuck, monopolized in the attic by the usual guys. It never reaches the ground floor or the basements. The old reality with which a large part of Catalan society has become accustomed to living: the chronicification of poverty. GDP grows by 2.5% and child poverty skyrockets by 36.1% in Catalonia
We are strange: we have the leadership in kilometers of AVE in Europe and we have a shameful commuter network, whose sleepers were the offspring of a time when the oligarchy wisely managed the desire for profit from the State. We are also almost leaders in chronic poverty in Europe, according to Eurostat. We only have Greece, Romania and Bulgaria behind. Faced with this situation, some propose fixing the social elevator by reducing taxes, further oiling the pockets of the highest incomes. 33 Spanish billionaires hoard 197.5 billion euros, more than almost 19 million of their beloved poorest compatriots, which is equivalent to 39% of the population, Oxfam-Intermón warned last January.
There is hardly any talk of changing the production model, everything relies on tourism, which is fundamental for the Catalan economy as well, but which requires a strategic review, as suggested by a recent report by the Cercle d’Economia.
Almost a quarter of the eight million people living in Catalonia are at risk of poverty or social exclusion, according to the AROPE rate index that measures income, consumption possibilities or the quality of employment. Unemployment is decreasing in macro figures, but 1.8 million Catalans, 42.4% of the active population, live in a precarious situation despite working, according to data from the Catalan Social Action Entities (ECAS). Given this panorama, the usefulness of growing 2.5% of GDP has more than relative significance. The elevator still does not admit the poorest.
