Why calls are growing for a more equal world

‘Story lost’

According to Zaslove, the origins of globalisation lie at the end of the Cold War, in the early 1990s. “It was widely concluded at the time that the liberal market as a system had won,” he recalls. “Global movements of people, goods and services emerged. Companies were looking for ways to produce more efficiently. Like the automotive industry. Previously, manufacturers made the cars entirely in-house, or in collaboration with companies in their own country. That changed when car manufacturers discovered it was cheaper to have certain parts produced abroad. That led to job losses and ultimately the growth of inequality between people.” Because, Zaslove knows, the highly educated were the ones who tended to benefit from globalisation. “They kept their jobs and were given opportunities to develop and earn more money, while the group that had lost their jobs fell further and further behind.”

That disadvantage for the latter group of people remained, also for their later generations. Philosopher Sandel argues that the degree of success in general is increasingly determined by the environment in which you were born. That leads to dissatisfaction because the ideal of climbing the social ladder is nullified. “The subsequent disappointment causes people to align themselves with populists,” Zaslove explained. “This is also because the more traditional parties, such as the CDA and PvdA in the Netherlands, still don’t know how to respond to globalisation; they’ve lost their story in that respect. You saw it in the last parliamentary elections: the politics of most parties looked inward - focused on their own country - not outward.”

International solution

In their book  ‘Equality. What it means and why it matters’, Piketty and Sandel argue that growing inequality is a threat to democracy. A view that Zaslove would like to nuance. “Populism is growing because we still don't have appropriate answers to the questions about inequality. It’s not that populists are generally opposed to democracy. What they want is a democracy that works as promised to them. The question here is: what exactly do they mean by democracy? Do they mean direct democracy or a liberal democracy? The latter is about representation, separation of power and minority rights: topics populists are often wary of. They usual prefer direct democracy: a form of government where they can directly influence the legislative process themselves. They’ve got more confidence in that.”

In their book, Piketty and Sandel also propose ways to achieve more equality, such as a global tax on wealth. Zaslove is moderately positive about this, in particular stressing that inequality needs to be addressed globally, not just nationally. “There must be an international solution to inequality,” he advocates. “That’s not a popular view in politics; most parties want to solve inequality within their own national borders. In this respect, globalisation and populism are opposites of each other: the former is outward looking, the latter inward looking. I feel that globalisation is now so advanced that a country can’t reduce inequality alone. By working together more intensively as countries, we can find the answer to inequality. If we don't, populism within our own borders will only increase.”

Want to know more about the 'Equality according to Piketty and Sandel' course starting on 15 May 2025? Read more and sign up (Please note: this course is in Dutch)

Photo: Jacek Dylag via Unsplash