Редакция журнала «Позитивные изменения»
Позитивные изменения. Тематический выпуск «Экономика будущего» (2023). Positive changes. Special issue «The economy of the future» (2023)
В контексте рассказа о дискуссии под эгидой Высшей школы социальных наук Парижа, нужно обязательно сказать хотя бы несколько слов про концепцию культурного капитала её первого ректора – Пьера Бурдье. В книге «Воспроизводство: элементы теории системы образования» (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1970) вместе с соавтором он пишет о воспроизводстве неравенства на социальном уровне. Так, ученики разных классовых принадлежностей имеют разный уровень культурного капитала, и это различие усугубляется институтом образования. Сильно упрощая, можно описать механику конвертации одного капитала в другой: экономический капитал родителей позволяет предоставить их ребёнку больший культурный капитал, который предзадаёт дальнейшее усугубление культурного неравенства в рамках институтов образования; далее, это неравенство в культурном капитале выступает основой для разницы в социальном положении и, в свою очередь, в экономическом капитале. Так, посредством системы образования и неравенства культурного капитала воспроизводится социальное и экономическое неравенство.
Именно на этот взгляд на неравенство Пикетти опирается в «Краткой истории равенства» (Piketty, 2022). Инвестиции в образование призваны сократить неравенство в распределении культурного капитала, который выступает как тропа зависимости в социальное неравенство. Вложения в здравоохранение ориентированы на более справедливый доступ к развитию человеческого капитала в целом. Примечательно, что аргументы о социальном развитии через вложения в образование и здравоохранение, а также прогрессивную шкалу налогообложения, активно используются в актуальных политических дискуссиях о пенсионной реформе во Франции[21].
ЗАКЛЮЧЕНИЕ
Подводя итог дискуссии, резюмируем, что экономическое развитие опосредовано социальными и экологическими факторами, которые способны сдерживать его. При этом они сами подвержены его влиянию: экономический рост может создавать условия для усиления эксплуатации окружающей среды и низших классов; или наоборот – сопутствовать распространению ценностей ответственного отношения к окружающей среде и появлению социального государства. Сокращение социального неравенства осуществляется посредством воздействия на социальные институты и не является проблемой, имеющей исключительно экономическое решение.
Два основных условия в сокращении социального неравенства состоят в наличии социального государства и социальных институтов, увеличивающих участие граждан. Социальное государство занимается стимулированием социальных инвестиций для развития человеческого капитала, посредством увеличения доступа к которым достигается социальное равенство. При этом, рост социальных инвестиций наблюдается за счёт сокращения расходов на бюрократический и военный аппарат, поэтому благоприятная внешнеполитическая обстановка, как напоминает Померанц, выступает условием для функционирования социального государства. Наличие разнообразия социальных институтов, в том числе форм предпринимательства, позволяет стимулировать участие и инклюзию на локальном уровне, что создаёт условия для сокращения неравенства.
Обзор дискуссии о факторах социального неравенства даёт представление о макроуровне тех явлений, которые в рамках академического дискурса социальной политики разбираются на мезо- и микроуровне: проекты развития, социальные инвестиции и социальная инклюзия. Экономика развития и история экономического неравенства позволяют связать их в единый сюжет, который разворачивается в разные исторические периоды и в разных социальных контекстах.
СПИСОК ИСТОЧНИКОВ
1. Bourdieu, P., & Passeron, J. C. (1970). La reproduction éléments pour une théorie du système d’enseignement. Editions de Minuit.
2. Garbinti, B., & Goupille-Lebret, J. (2018). The evolution of wealth inequality in France from 1800 to 2014. Rue de la Banque, (66).
3. Hirschman, A. (1981). The Rise and Decline of Development Economics. Annales: histoire, sciences sociales (French ed.), 36(5), 725–744. DOI:10.4324/9780203838518
4. Morrisson, C., & Murtin, F. (2013). The Kuznets curve of human capital inequality: 1870–2010. The Journal of Economic Inequality, 11, 283–301. DOI:10.1007/ s10888–012–9227–2
5. Nettleton, C., Napolitano, D., & Stephens, C. (2007). An overview of current knowledge of the social determinants of Indigenous health.
6. Piketty, T. (2001). Les hauts revenus en France au XXe siècle. Hachette.
7. Piketty, T. (2022). A brief history of equality. Harvard University Press.
8. Pistor, K. (2019). The code of capital. In The Code of Capital. Princeton University Press.
9. Pomeranz, K. (2000). The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy. Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j. ctt7sv80
10. Weil, D. N. (2015). Capital and wealth in the twenty-first century. American Economic Review, 105(5), 34–37. DOI: 10.1257/aer.p20151057
(In)equality in the Past and in the Future. A View by the Authors of “the Most Influential Books on Economic History in the New Millennium”
Ivan Smekalin
DOI 10.55140/2782–5817–2023–3-S1–39–48
The Paris School of Economics and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales organized a roundtable in May 2023 to discuss the books The Great Divergence by Kenneth Pomeranz and Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty. According to the organizers of the discussion, these are two of the most influential books on economic history of the new millennium, offering complementary perspectives with a focus on national economic differentiation and social inequality. We present an analytical overview of the discussion by a participant of that meeting – Ivan Smekalin.
Ivan Smekalin
Analyst, Positive Changes Factory, master’s student at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (Paris)
We can talk about the economy of the future from an analytical or regulatory viewpoint. In other words, from the position of a researcher, who shares his vision of what the economy might become in the future based on an analysis of the current situation and historical experience. Or we can look at it from the position of a visionary who describes what the economy should become. These two positions come together in a discussion of social inequality that has not disappeared since the nineteenth century. New books being published on the subject are always accompanied by lively discussions[22]. One such scholarly debate is presented in this article.
SOCIAL EQUALITY AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Thomas Piketty, professor of economics at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales and the Paris School of Economics, presented a report titled “Social Equality and Economic Development. Reflections on The Great Divergence and the Long-Term Trend toward Equality and Welfare.” The Great Divergence is Kenneth Pomeranz’s term for a phenomenon in the institutional arrangements of the West and the East after the nineteenth century (difference in the development pace between different countries), which predetermined their divergence in economic development.
Piketty’s main thesis is that society tends to move toward greater social equality in the long run. He develops this idea in his books on inequality in France, capital in the twenty-first century, but the most clear and concise definition is given in his latest book published in 2022 (Piketty, 2022).
Another panelist, Kenneth Pomeranz, professor of history at the University of Chicago, writes in his book that extreme inequality, slavery, and colonial domination were central to the rise of Europe and the Industrial Revolution (Pomeranz, 2000). For example, 75 % of all cotton used in Europe’s textile industry was produced by slaves on the plantations in the US. Environmental, not monetary, constraints played a key role. Consideration of environmental factors is better suited to the study of long-term development, since it does not rely on relative prices, which leads to erroneous calculations. Thus, rapid deforestation in the Old World was offset by colonial conquests of new lands.
Figure 1. Concentration of Wealth in France 1800–2018
Source: Garbinti, B., & Goupille-Lebret, J. (2018)
However, as Piketty says, just because development is based on institutional divergence does not mean that extreme inequality was necessary for the development in the New Age (18th and 19th centuries). In other words, development does not necessarily lead to greater social inequality. In addition, a more egalitarian[23] globalization process (and New Age colonization is seen as an initial stage of globalization) could support a faster and more sustainable development with a more equitable labor regime and less hierarchy in international relations that would not include slavery and colonialism.
At the domestic policy level, the twentieth century demonstrated a long-term evolution toward greater social equality and prosperity through the rise of the social state, democratization of education, and progressive taxation. “This can and should be continued into the twenty-first century,” Piketty concludes.
Piketty refers to an example from his earlier books (Piketty, 2001) about inequality in France. The income distribution in this country changed significantly between 1800 and 2000 (Figure 1). The income share of the top 10 percent of the population has declined over the past two centuries, from half to one-third of the total national wealth. More importantly, the middle class (40 % of the population) got to own 40 % of total personal income, that is, their share in the ownership structure doubled. The lower class went up from owning 0 % of the wealth to about 10 % – “they did not become oligarchs, but they rose to the level where they could make plans for the future and be more independent”[24].
Probably one of the greatest reasons for this change is the rise of the social state. The social state is a broader interpretation than the welfare state, because it emphasizes education, pensions, healthcare and social support for families, the unemployed, etc. The trend for increased social spending by the state started as early as in the 1950s.
At the domestic policy level, the ХХ century demonstrated a long-term evolution toward greater social equality and prosperity. This can and should be continued into the XXI century.
Piketty notes the decline in the growth of education spending, which becomes a barrier to the further expansion of equality. Inequality of educational opportunities exists not only within the national context but also between countries. For example, in French Algeria (which existed from 1830 to 1962) French settlers appropriated 82 % of all educational expenditures. This led to a situation where the best educational investments went to just 10 % of the population. By comparison, in today’s France, the top 10 % of the population by income receive 20 % of all educational expenditures.
Progressive taxation becomes another fundamental factor of social equality for Piketty. Prior to the advent of neoliberal stabilization era in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the use of progressive taxation expanded worldwide: taxes on the rich were rising in Europe throughout postwar history.
Figure 2. Replication of the ‘elephant curve’. Growth in average per capita household income, 1988–2008 (%)
Source: Giles & Donnan (2016)
A HISTORY OF (IN)EQUALITY AND GREAT DIVERGENCES
Kenneth Pomeranz presented a report “Reflections on the History of (Non)Equality and the Great Divergences.” The expert talked about the differences between countries and within countries, the role of political institutions, particularly China’s authoritarian development institutions. Remarkably, Piketty presents the Western experience, while Pomeranz focuses on the East.
Pomeranz argues that before colonization and globalization, levels of inequality in the West and the East were comparable in scale. The external political context also affected the difference, as the need to increase the military spending because of a hostile international environment reduces the scope for social expenditures. Comparing this position with Piketty’s speech, one can see that the growth of social expenditures in the postwar period was accompanied by the creation of military and political alliances in the West, with the associated reduction in military spending. This allowed the countries of Western Europe to cut military spending and increase social expenditures. Meanwhile, Asia was the region of strategic instability, where armed conflicts were forcing increased defense spending. As Pomeranz notes, the economic hardships in Asia in the 19th and 20th centuries were incomparable to Europeans’ cost of fighting for independence. Therefore, the social state in this part of the world emerged much later.
Figure 3. Human Development Index in Rural and Urban China
Source: Nettleton, Napolitano, & Stephens (2007)
If we examine the income dynamics of the world’s population from 1988 to 2008 on the Elephant Curve[25] (Figure 2), we find that the poorest people are locked in their position in all contexts: both domestic and global. Pomeranz separately discusses the contributions of such countries as China, Russia, and Japan to the Elephant Curve. Middle-class income increased, primarily due to the construction of a middleincome society in China. Over the past 30 years, China has contributed greatly to reducing global inequality and increasing middle-class incomes. At the same time, Russia and Japan also contributed to the curve in the part where the upper middle class had declining incomes. The collapse of the Soviet Union caused an “income catastrophe” in the post-Soviet states. Judging by the curve, these trends can be seen against the backdrop of the increasing wealth of the global elites.
When we talk about the growth of income in a country, we need to make a reservation that it is primarily the growth of the middle-and upper-class income. Moreover, class boundaries are not based on economic reasons alone, but are mediated by social and cultural reasons. Therefore, as the economy develops and income increases, so does inequality and social exclusion, that is, the exclusion of certain social groups from social institutions.
If we follow Pomeranz and take a look at the Human Development Index (HDI) in China (Figure 3), the gap between urban and rural areas is evident. Moreover, the further a province is from the trade routes, the greater the gap between town and countryside, and the lower the Human Development Index. For example, Shanghai has the highest average HDI values and the lowest gap between urban and rural areas. In the Tibet, located far from the sea and trade routes, HDI in the cities is about the same as in rural Shanghai, and the gap between urban and rural areas is almost twice as big. It also illustrates his argument that development leads to greater inequality.
Kenneth Pomeranz argues that development must be achieved by institutions that encourage public engagement at the local level. Inequality can be reduced by maintaining greater institutional diversity, developing the institutions and mechanisms to protect minority rights. The lack of public dialog does not allow us to cope with environmental challenges: for example, although China is reducing emissions per capita, it is not abandoning carbon-based technologies such as coal-fired thermal power plants, which in the long run does not help addressing environmental challenges, Pomeranz notes.
Over the past 30 years, China has contributed greatly to reducing global inequality and increasing middle-class incomes. At the same time, in Russia and Japan the upper middle class had declining incomes.
DISCUSSION: SOCIAL CONDITIONS FOR DEVELOPMENT
Katharina Pistor, professor of comparative law at Columbia University, joined the discussion In the context of addressing the role of economic institutions in reducing inequality. She turned to her book, The Code of Capital (Pistor, 2019), and noted that before the twentieth century, both Europe and Asia saw a greater diversity of entrepreneurship forms. The corporate form, which simplifies this diversity, has now become dominant. On the one hand, it is important to have a state that is strong enough to redistribute wealth and effectively invest in the social sphere. However, on the other hand, this model of a sustainable development requires the existence of an autonomous society with a diverse landscape of social institutions and economic players, as a counterbalance to the state.
Another panelist, Alessandro Stanziani, professor of history at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, suggests that during the colonial period, European countries used economic advantages to establish indirect economic control over Africa under the aegis of a civilizing mission. He refers to the principles of development economics by Albert Hirschman (Hirschman, 1981), who emphasizes that various countries can have different paths of economic development. In addition, one of the principles of development economics suggests that economic relations between developed and developing countries can be regulated so that these relations are beneficial to all parties. In other words, colonialism is not the only format of trade between the developed and developing economies.
Inequalities in cultural capital further translate to differences in social status and, in turn, in economic capital. In this way, inequalities are reproduced.
Piketty and Pomeranz continued the discussion with their views on how development and inequality are related. In their view, the rise in equality in the West was not inevitable, but rather caused by a combination of factors within the states and by the external political context. Piketty believes that the social state is not merely about redistributing goods, to mechanically achieve greater equality. The social state acts as a developmental state, with social spending being just “another mode of production, another mode of organization.”
CULTURAL CAPITAL AND THE REPRODUCTION OF SOCIAL INEQUALITY
It might be reasonable to also refer to the academic discussion of aforementioned literature outside the Paris university, and to tell more about the context of the ideas outlined and the way researchers reacted to these ideas.
Thus, American scholar and economist David Weil (Weil, 2015) notes that Piketty only considers traded assets when he talks about capital. Therefore, human capital and its corresponding inequalities fall out of the scope of analysis. At the same time, according to Ruben Enikolopov, Rector of Russia’s New Economic School, ignoring human capital results in an overstatement of overall estimates of social inequality, since the inequality of human capital in Western countries has fallen by half since the late 19th century[26]. In his interview for the Russian Journal of Economic Sociology, Piketty already speaks of two kinds of inequality: cultural and economic[27]. And while economic inequality is a matter of distribution of wealth, cultural inequality refers in particular to differences in access to education. Each type of inequality belongs to a different classic of sociology: Marx and Bourdieu, respectively. “Reconciling” their views is what Piketty identifies as the goal of his book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century.
In the context of the discussion at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, it is necessary to say at least a few words about the concept of cultural capital proposed by its first rector, Pierre Bourdieu. In La reproduction: eléments pour une théorie du système d’enseignement (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1970), he and his co-author write about the reproduction of inequality at the social level. Thus, students of different class backgrounds have different levels of cultural capital, and this difference is exacerbated by the educational system. In a greatly simplified way, we can describe the mechanics of converting one capital into another: the parents’ economic capital allows them to provide their child with more cultural capital, which promotes further cultural divergence within educational institutions; these inequalities in cultural capital further translate to differences in social status and, in turn, in economic capital. In this way, social and economic inequalities are reproduced through the educational system and the inequality of cultural capital.
It is this view of inequality that Piketty draws on in A Brief History of Equality (Piketty, 2022). Investment in education is designed to reduce inequalities in the distribution of cultural capital, which acts as a path of dependency into social inequality. Investment in healthcare focuses on fairer access to human capital development in general. It is noteworthy that arguments about social development through investment in education and healthcare, as well as a progressive taxation scale, are actively used in current political debates about pension reform in France[28].
CONCLUSION
To summarize the discussion, we conclude that economic development is mediated and can be held back by social and environmental factors. At the same time, these factors themselves are influenced by economic development: economic growth can create conditions for more intense exploitation of the environment and the lower classes; or vice versa, it can accompany the spread of environmental responsibility values and the emergence of a social state. Social inequality is reduced by influencing social institutions, and it is not a problem that can be addressed merely by economic methods.
Two basic conditions in reducing social inequality are the existence of a social state and social institutions that increase public engagement. The social state is concerned with stimulating social investment for the development of human capital, and increased access to social investment helps achieve social equality. At the same time, the growth of social investment comes at the expense of reduced spending on the bureaucratic and military apparatus, so a favorable foreign policy environment, as Pomeranz reminds us, is an important condition for the functioning of the social state. The diversity of social institutions, including forms of entrepreneurship, encourages public engagement and inclusion at the local level, which creates conditions for reducing inequality.
Reviewing the discussion of social inequality factors provides insight into the macro-level phenomena that the academic discourse of social policy addresses at the mezzo- and micro-level: development projects, social investment, and social inclusion. The economics of development and the history of economic inequality allow us to link them into a single story that unfolds in different historical periods and in different social contexts.
REFERENCES
1. Bourdieu, P., & Passeron, J. C. (1970). La reproduction éléments pour une théorie du système d’enseignement. Editions de Minuit.
2. Garbinti, B., & Goupille-Lebret, J. (2018). The evolution of wealth inequality in France from 1800 to 2014. Rue de la Banque, (66).
3. Hirschman, A. (1981). The Rise and Decline of Development Economics. Annales: histoire, sciences sociales (French ed.), 36(5), 725–744. DOI:10.4324/9780203838518
4. Morrisson, C., & Murtin, F. (2013). The Kuznets curve of human capital inequality: 1870–2010. The Journal of Economic Inequality, 11, 283–301. DOI:10.1007/ s10888–012–9227–2
5. Nettleton, C., Napolitano, D., & Stephens, C. (2007). An overview of current knowledge of the social determinants of Indigenous health.
6. Piketty, T. (2001). Les hauts revenus en France au XXe siècle. Hachette.
7. Piketty, T. (2022). A brief history of equality. Harvard University Press.
8. Pistor, K. (2019). The code of capital. In The Code of Capital. Princeton University Press.
9. Pomeranz, K. (2000). The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy. Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j. ctt7sv80
10. Weil, D. N. (2015). Capital and wealth in the twenty-first century. American Economic Review, 105(5), 34–37. DOI: 10.1257/aer.p20151057
