Pandemic, poverty and contrast to inequality

The effects of the pandemic will not only be the current ones, which are still ongoing and which are primarily of a health nature. With the mere lowering of the contagion, which is certainly not eradicated, however, it is necessary to analyze the effects, which are already underway, at an economic level, not only of the local type but with a broader, macroeconomic view. One of the heaviest effects expected concerns thirty million people, who would see their condition worsen until they enter the state of extreme poverty; this estimate, which concerns above all the African continent, involves a multitude of consequences, which go well beyond the fundamental moral aspect. Such a widespread condition of poverty framed in the current globalized context will not fail to affect migratory flows, the greater ease of recruitment by terrorist groups and the problems connected with finding and distributing food resources. It is clear that western countries, especially those bordering the Mediterranean, will soon be subjected to more intense pressure, which will reflect on relations between states and the dynamics within them; moreover, these problems will add up to the drop in gross domestic product that the richer countries are already suffering from. The average forecast is for a decrease of around five percent, but for some countries this decrease will be even greater. It is understood that the possible consequences combined by external and external factors must be addressed with policies capable of proceeding in parallel and without being left to the competence of individual states, which must be mitigated by supranational organizations capable of greater ability to maneuver. This does not mean de-authorizing the sovereignty of individual states, which must preserve their peculiarities, but concentrate the greatest onerous effort, in terms of practical organization, in larger organizations, however controlled by individual nations. Health check alone, certainly essential, alone is not enough to ward off economic and therefore social crises; protection of jobs and incomes is essential and therefore spending power, especially starting from the weakest individuals in the social whole. This consideration invests globally the need to contain, in a first phase, the phenomenon of inequality, and then extend the measures to try to mitigate it as much as possible. This is an enormous effort, which, unfortunately, is not shared universally, both by political forces and by governments, but which could have practical effects both from the point of view of internal and international politics. In the long term, that is, by 2030, estimates foresee the possibility of an increase in extreme poverty for 130 million people, causing an increasingly high, as well as permanent, state of tension. According to United Nations economists, measures of great fiscal and monetary stimulus used indiscriminately would risk being deleterious, without selective use, capable of containing the phenomena caused by inflation. An injection of great liquidity not oriented towards production orientations would risk being functional to stock exchange speculation without creating widespread value. Investments allocated following the pandemic must be oriented towards productive activities capable of creating work and therefore income to be redistributed in the widest possible way to allow the economic and social effects of the health crisis to be mitigated. Now this is true in the most advanced and complex societies, but it is still more decisive in developing countries, which must not see compressed that economic growth trend that allows to increase average per capita incomes, still too close to survival incomes. . What needs to be understood is that beyond certain limits it is no longer possible to compress the incomes of poor countries, because this causes political repercussions capable of compromising already unstable equilibriums, which are reflected in the global economic and social sphere. The pandemic, which has brought so much mourning and poverty to the world stage, must also be an opportunity to rethink the allocation of global resources in order to encourage an overall socially sustainable development plan capable of ensuring a level of redistribution. capable of affecting inequalities, to invest in the search for a minimum level of wealth to be guaranteed for all.