The First Majory Casualty of the Crisis

While launching an offensive to contain the financial crisis, the welfare state is at risk of being disassembled. Society and global leaders must provide answers to those who are looking for opportunity.

It began in the south arc of the Mediterranean, where popular demonstrations took down the corrupt regimes in Tunisia and Egypt and eroded the dictatorships of Libya and Syria. Then came the fires in Greece; and now it is Chile’s and England’s turn. At the same time, a fire without flames or smoke cracks the foundation of the European Union and consumes the sacred reliability of U.S. Treasury bonds.

Every day evidence is collected, evidence from the international scene that shows that humanity is approaching the end of an era. However, it is not obvious if the next era will be better. The hope remains that it will be more equitable than that of today.

It is often said that in all wars, the first casualty is the truth. The welfare state will barely survive the debt crisis. It will be attacked in the name of economic health, a balanced budget and reasonable sovereign debt levels in an economy monopolized by a mixture of the American tea party and a state of emergency.

The welfare state, created by Otto von Bismark, guaranteed the protection of the most vulnerable groups of society: the young and old. For the young it assured free access to health care and education; for the old it ensured decent care for the last years of life.

But the welfare state is now being sacrificed. Italy’s actions confirm containing public spending means amputating or eliminating subsidies granted to families with disabilities; taxes on household income will increase between 1,200 and 1,800 euros annually at the same time that 438 rebates and deductions will be deleted or lowered — this represents the majority of the welfare state.

Meanwhile, politicians are promoting “free access to opportunities.” An empty idea, which is why young Chileans went to the streets to win the right to free access to education, as tuition is an unsustainable cost to parents and a mortgage on their future as alumni. The flames that devoured cars on the weekend in France illuminated the drama of a sector of the youth that suffer the shame of racial discrimination because, although they are French by birth, they are children of immigrants from the north of Africa who believe in a religion demonized by Western and Christian cultures. They are then marginalized in the work environment and are subject to fierce beatings by the police.

There are 11 million unemployed people in the United States, five million in Spain, and many more in the four corners of the planet that are excluded from this count. All are without hope, have empty days, and years of crisis. Society and global political figures owe them an answer.