The socio-political ideas in relation to the type of society wherein one wishes to live, the role of the State in society as promotor of social justice and equity in social groups, the exchange of rights and obligations between the State and the citizens in relation to the taxes paid and public services received; as well as the cost of investment in properties, public services or social benefits, are based on juridical and economic techniques that turn the State-Community agreement into a juridical, political and economic institution which regulates the relationship between the citizens and the State, wherein the former are obliged to contribute and have the right to demand compensation by way of service and the latter has the obligation to provide them and the right to demand the contribution.

Some comments in the blog by Darío Gonzales, in relation to the economic proposals of the States in order to face the coronavirus pandemic, have urged me to reflect on the effects of compliance of the social pact that are assumed by the controlling policies of individual freedom which some countries are applying and the deficiencies in the State’s social assistance.

Society is seriously threatened by natural causes and in order to face them, reasons left aside, the social order is hardened, by cloistering society with severe sanctions for its disobedience and limiting in such a way legitimate rights such as labor for providing subsistence. This which could be relatively tolerable by society in the first world countries, where there are less scarcities, is not so in impoverished countries with high margins of extreme poverty, where conflicts between the citizens and the State are at times solved through abuses of power and physical and psychological violence.

Some countries have developed their technology for centralizing the sanitary control of citizens with devices that may determine their symptoms, that are common to the sovereignty of the individuals, and adding to the exercise of their power, the possibility of following up conducts and predicting behaviors for other purposes.

Vis-a-vis these facts of reality, I wonder whether:

• an injection of the central banks could mitigate the recession resulting from the forced lack of economic activity which will certainly lead to social discontent originating from the lack of resources for survival?

• the variable tax policy of the economic policy stimulates the economy by contributing liquidity through the reduction of the tax burden or the postponement of tax payments?

And I add:  is there an economy that may continue to resist emergency policies?  Will there be voluntary contribution that may continue tolerating the injustice of regressive policies wherein the most suffering classes bear inefficient bureaucratic States far removed or rejecting the welfare of society?

Albert Einstein mentioned two infinite things: stupidity and the universe. “Not everything can be quantified and not all that may be quantified counts”. Madness is to the same thing one time and over again expecting to obtain different results”.

States must be cautious in adopting measures in critical times as those being experienced, especially those that contribute oxygen to the bureaucratic survival of their budgets with short term solutions. It is a matter of reconsidering a historical situation wherein it appears that society has been the exclusive support of the social pact and to propose structural changes that may in the future improve the State’s participation in the pact.

The State of Welfare requires the in-depth review of the mandate granted and the proposal of new rules of the game wherein solidarity may impose itself in the behavior of both parties. Social cohesion is an attribute of society which implies equal opportunities so that the population may exercise its fundamental rights and ensure its welfare, without any type of discrimination and responding to diversity.

When rights are corrupted with political and economic privileges, the principles that originated them are violated, namely: with respect to the State, to contribute to provide to the needs of the people with the equity deserved by the distribution of wealth and to society, abidance by the rule that regulates the contribution so that this may be possible.

In order for the citizen to find himself in this position of solidarity, he must feel compensated with the State, included and satisfied with the latter. The State-citizen relationship comes down specifically to the fiscal issue, wherein the citizens perceive the payment of taxes according to their moral values, as a contribution to the common welfare.

An IEF study indicated that the citizens with low levels of education and politicized information judge democracy according to what they live and have lived.  Education, the main service which should be provided by the State, contributes to the democratic development of the culture of the people. When it is missing or insufficient, the communities with low educational level are based on populistic political scenarios disguised by authoritarian regimes whose management only contributes to the strengthening of their power to the detriment of the provisions of works and services.

For many years the States have tolerated informal economies based on illegal acts and managed by under-occupation which constitute the life support of millions of human beings who have barely received minimum levels of education and eventually access to inefficient and costly health services.

Currently, the poor countries have doubts as whether they may hold back the pandemic. It has been years of slackness of sanitary policies and the appropriate infrastructure for responding to social needs, wherein education has been used only to safeguard minimum conditions of living together, although insufficient for facing circumstances wherein society must generate its own antibodies.

Millions of inhabitants with extreme levels of poverty living in rubbish dumps, improvising homes with mat panels covered with plastic cloths, lacking water, sewage services, electricity and communications, consider distant the promises of inefficient governments, irregularly obtaining water through cistern trucks and improvised storage in recycled receptacles.

In these conditions, the health organizations given the coronavirus urge the citizens to the obligation of “washing hands frequently” and not leave their precarious lodgings, while the governments adhere to the recommendation and without contributing to their needs, compulsively supervise society with the law forces, ignoring the lack of basic elements for subsistence and work for providing it.

Citizens whose desperation leads to avoid controls and jails are insufficient to lodge them, as well as the morgues where their corpses end up as a result of the pandemic, while the established order gradually leads society to an anarchic behavior predisposed to social disorder.

Public expenditure, one of the main instruments of the State’s tax policy, has three main functions: stimulate and stabilize the economy; redistribute income and wealth to the most vulnerable sectors, and assign public resources in an efficient manner. The last two are the ones that most directly affect the opinion of the citizens and these are not solved with the short-term policies which the countries are evaluating to mitigate the effects of the pandemic.

When society does not agree with the prevailing social order, does not receive the benefits of its contributions and lacks mutually binding morality, the result is chaos that inhibits the possibility of agreeing on adjustment to the decisions of power. Social anomie is the response to desperation and political, social and economic inequalities, to corruption, nepotism, the monopoly of opportunities and injustice. Social anomie modifies the nature of society and originates sociopathic behavior patterns. Contrary to what is stated, it becomes de dominant ideology and is imposed on society by the ruling classes and institutions.

In France, on May 5, 1789, a representation of the nobility, clergymen and commoners from the cities and parishes of France were invited to list their complaints: impassable roads and broken bridges, undesirable hospitals, lack of representation and arbitrary justice, ineffective police, proliferation of swindlers, surgeons without certification and beggars and ecclesiastical privileges gave way to the beginning of the French revolution.

Perhaps we are on the path …

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