Until inequalities are reduced, the benefits of migration cannot be positive for everyone. This uncertainty fuels the fear and hatred that the national-populist far right talks about so much.
Pedro Sánchez is right when he talks about our history: we come from the Spaniards who arrived in Venezuela in 1949 full of nits, from those exiled in Mexico and France in 1939, from those who emigrated to Switzerland to look for work in 1959, to Germany in 1969… No. There are decades left during which we would be asked to stay alive. They were all our fathers, mothers, grandparents.
There are also episodes of generosity in our history. Being a girl, I remember the different accents of the conversations that took place at home with family friends: Argentinians, Chileans, Uruguayans, all exiled from their respective dictatorships. Having them as friends was a sign of pride: it meant recognizing oneself in them. The memory of our own dictatorship and our own exile was still alive; also the fundamental idea of the Enlightenment: that our freedom and our rights will not last long if there is not freedom for everyone everywhere. This intimate relationship between our rights and those of every other human being is fading, judging by the way we make life difficult for asylum seekers and refugees.
More and more deceived people try to convince us that to guarantee our freedom and well-being, we must lock ourselves in the European prison. This is false. The truth is precisely the opposite, as Condorcet explains: “The more free peoples there are, the more freedom is assured in each of them. » If we don’t support the persecuted elsewhere, we will end up being persecuted too. If anyone believes that democracy can function in isolation in a handful of – increasingly smaller – countries, they are wrong.
Regarding economic migrants, it is fair to say, as the President of the Government did yesterday, that we need them for economic and demographic reasons. Either this is not a utilitarian argument, or it is one in the opposite direction: they recognize that they come here to advance, not because they like Iberian lynx or beans with sausage. Economic need is historically one of the factors that encourage migration. And it’s always better to explain things as they are.
What is relevant in this case is that our economic needs and yours fit together like the pieces of a Tetris (and like in Tetris, you have to be skillful to make everything go well). However, when the need for migrants for economic growth or to compensate for labor shortages is invoked politically, the inequality gap appears.
I put myself in the place of a worker who works unpaid overtime, who earns less than the minimum wage without being able to complain or who has seen her salary increase well below the price of her rent, and I wonder how she receives this economic speech. , which is macro and not micro. The social ladder is broken and increased corporate profits or economic growth do not translate into a general improvement in living conditions. According to the latest OECD report, real wages have not regained their pre-pandemic purchasing power, despite Spain’s strong growth in recent years. Migration contributes to growth, it is agreed; but it is necessary to distribute the benefits of this growth to reduce inequalities. Otherwise, many will think that migrants increase the results of certain companies, but this has no impact on better living conditions.
The underlying problem, which has been getting worse for decades, is the distribution of wealth, that generated by those who come from other countries and those who are already here. Until inequalities are reduced, the benefits of migration cannot be positive for everyone. This uncertainty fuels the fear and hatred that the national-populist far right talks about so much. The determined speech of the President of the Government is an antidote to this poison, but it alone will not prevent him from continuing to inoculate himself in the heat of underlying inequalities.
