"The new rich have gotten into the castle and have erected barricades"

Zygmunt Bauman, during his visit to Madrid. (EFE)

Smiling happy when he finds an ashtray in the room that the Rafael del Pino Foundation has enabled press interviews. Heavy smoker, has his pipe (off) hand during the conversation, which shows an unexpected vitality to its nearly ninety. Zygmunt Bauman, born in Poland in 1925, resides in the United Kingdom since 1971, where he taught at the University of Leeds, but was from the 90s when his work became popular, becoming the sociologist of reference, through conceptual contributions as liquid society. Late success prolific author says write as before, only now it published. Spain granted him in 2010 the Prince of Asturias Award for Humanities, ex aequo with Alain Touraine.

In his latest book published in Spain, does the wealth of the few benefits us all? (Polity Press), Bauman refutes these popular thesis according to which we live in a better world because there are more global wealth. "We can assess how the world is doing average, but the average human being does not exist, is a statistical fiction. A very enlightening research, by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett [edited by Turner in Spain entitled Inequality] shows how the quality of life of a society is not measured by the median income, but by the degree of inequality income. Alcoholism, violence, crime and other social pathologies when they do increase inequality but global wealth will increase. "

We are not in a good time, says the sociologist, because we fallback, returning to levels of imbalance believed to have left for good. Bauman notes that in the three decades following World War II tried to state policies that would increase the total wealth, but also their distribution reached as many people as possible, so that more people could join a club situation . However, from the 70s, this trend changed direction, now accelerating alarmingly. Bauman uses words of Pope Francisco to point out how these differences in income have become too obvious "a minority earnings are growing exponentially, which causes also grow the gap between the vast majority of the prosperity enjoyed those few happy. "

"Nobody feels safe today. Nobody trusts the future "

The social consequences of this separation are remarkable. Firstly, because they build a radically different outlook on life. According to the author of Postmodernism and its discontents in societies of mid-twentieth century there was a middle class looking confidently to the future, which seemed to live better, and a dwindling proletariat composed of people living near or below the poverty line. But today, "that distinction is blurring. The middle class and the proletarians are already part of a joint class, precariousness, people who are unsure of their future. Market laws imply that your company can be eaten by another and you dont go to the street, suddenly losing all earned in a lifetime. No one is safe today. Nobody trusts the future. "

A significant example of this loss of vital horizon appears in the new generations "which are the first since 1950 to not start his career from that achieved by their parents, but are concerned about trying to achieve and recreate the conditions under which they have lived. Do not look to the future, they are already folded defensively, and that's a very powerful change. "

Second, because a gap of this magnitude causes the company to lose all cohesion. The author of Work, consumerism and the new poor indicates that good macroeconomic indicators were concluded "because before we thought the wealth that was generated above would seep down and end up benefiting the whole. But the new millionaires have built a barricade from the rest of the population. They have been locked in the castle and have raised drawbridges. "

That attitude also involves breaking the unwritten agreement whereby privileges also entailed obligations. That moral duty were the most favored regarding persons who lived with them into a number of policies and business actions Bauman exemplified in the instant Henry Ford in the early twentieth century, "doubled wages to their workers arguing with humor that wanted employees who could buy the cars they manufactured. In doing so, he managed to be faithful to your company, but also established a relationship of mutual dependence. Now that relationship has been canceled unilaterally. "

A 'double bind' fatal

That sense of responsibility is lost because the new elites have been detached from the territories in which they reside. "They have no sense of belonging, so they have no relationship with the people around them that. Les just a laptop to transfer his entire fortune to a more accommodating country ... "The separation of this moral duty makes much more inhospitable societies as social ties inevitably break when the target becomes mere survival. "We have entered into a merciless world where you have to prove to your boss that you're irreplaceable, and where your main goal is that you do not throw when the next round of cuts comes." In this context, also the possibilities of resistance weaken, "because when rebelling involves only get fired and strike only causes the owners closed the business and lead to a country where wages are very low, it is more than likely nobody is mobilized. "

This hands tied we live in labor is a feature that fully defines our societies, the big problem has gone from 'what can we do' a 'who's going to do it.' According to Bauman, we get the politicians saying they are corrupt, they have no heart or who are only concerned with their own agenda, but even if they were honest and wise would still have to face what Gregory Bateson called double bind, a mandate in the two contradictory orders must be made at the same time. On the one hand, "politicians know they have to undergo re-election, and thus should listen to people and ask them what they promise, but otherwise have to deal with that stratum Manuel Castells called the space of flows, where live from the financial capital to the mafia, and easily resists local authorities. If you do not do what they want, they leave to a more hospitable site. If politicians follow the wishes of their voters, will be re-elected, but they can not carry out what they promised, when they undergo what is asked from this transnational power, be praised, but not re-elected. They have to reconcile the irreconcilable. "

According to Bauman, thirty years ago, national governments had in their hands the springs needed to activate the policies decided. Today, however, "we live in a divorce between power and politics. This home is maintained, as in the twentieth century, while the real power, which resides in the flow, is extraterritorial. The states were created for nations to control their own destinies, but now they are not prepared to handle the new situation "