4. The role of Political Economy: further advice

In recent years, globalization inspired by neoliberal adjustment policies has resulted in a consistenttransfer of wealth from labour to capital, from the peripheries to the centre and from the poorest population groups to the most favoured, according to reliable reports on the distribution of income and wealth.2

Given all the considerations, it is surprising that the economic policies applied in recent years, sometimes imposed without excuse by international organizations, have been based on measures (mainly the radical control of inflation and budget deficits) that do not have sufficient theoretical or empirical support in the literature when presented outside of simple rhetoric. 

All this makes it possible to suspect that economic policy is not carried out based on objective criteria or neutral interests, but rather  from a very significant social conflict and in a context of great inequality, so that only the most powerful subjects and institutions can influence governments to adopt the policies that interest them most. These actors do so to ensure that the applied economic policies are those that best safeguard their economic, financial and political interests.

Therefore, we must understand the functioning of this most conservative economic science, the one which has the approval of the status quo, powerful means of dissemination and which reduces societies to the field of individuality and rational behaviour is in fact exclusively in the interests of profit. It is urgent for everyone to understand that behind every economic policy decision there is an interest in making the choice. 

2  According to the World Inequality Report 2018: in recent decades, income inequality has increased in nearly all countries, but at different speeds, suggesting that institutions and policies matter in shaping inequality. Since 1980, income inequality has increased rapidly in North America, China, India, and Russia. Since 1980 up to 2018 the global top 1% earners have captured twice as much of that wealth as the 50% poorest individuals.