Thomas Piketty: 'The future billionaires are preparing for us is dystopian'

Most of the planet with incomes equivalent to €5,000 a month (nearly $5,600) by 2100. Average temperatures only 1.8 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. Less meat, industry and mining. More health care and education. And who would lose out? The world’s Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellisons and Elon Musks. A tiny group of billionaires representing 0.001% of the population would see their share of global wealth fall from the current 6.4% to 0.05%, while the poorest 50% of the planet would rise from holding just 2% to 30%.

Those are the numbers from the Global Justice Project, estimated by a team of 200 researchers, with which French economist Thomas Piketty and 44 co‑authors seek to present an alternative to the dystopian future of floods, fires, masters and serfs that artificial intelligence, inequality and climate change seem to be sketching out. Piketty, 55, spoke to EL PAÍS by video call to explain the basis for these conclusions.

Question. Is it possible to achieve those figures? Or are they merely an ideal to aim for?

Answer. If people want to debate some of the numbers, fine. What we offer is a toolbox to think about possible trajectories, giving orders of magnitude rather than precise numbers. But even those orders of magnitude can change with more democratic deliberation. We are simply trying to take seriously the aspiration of the global South for prosperity. The big message is that we can achieve shared prosperity, but this will come with conditions. A slow transition to a low‑carbon economy by transforming the energy system is not enough. We also have to reduce inequality and embrace what we call “sufficiency”: shorter working hours, changing food habits, and shifting importance away from industry and mining toward the immaterial sector. We don’t need to have 10 iPhones per person. But the exact magnitude of all this can and should be discussed.

Q. The project has been criticized as utopian…

A. It is hard to achieve, but what is the alternative? All scenarios will be complex. If we maintain the inequality between Africa and Europe, for example, are we going to deploy millions of drones across the Mediterranean for a century? Business as usual is not an option: more fossil fuel extraction, more economic and social inequality, conflicts over territory and resources, militarized borders… It is not only [U.S. President Donald] Trump who is going crazy. Europe is too. Or does anyone really believe a plausible strategy is to return to the traditional family so women will stay home, have more children and thereby increase fertility in Europe?

Q. The report stresses, as if that made it easier, that the main challenge is not technical but political: achieving an international coalition.

A. International cooperation is hard, but conflicts over territory and resources are also very hard. Our path is not easy, but compared with the alternatives it is the most desirable and also the most doable. A world in conflict over resources, with growing inequality within and between countries, leads to the collapse of democratic institutions, with states allocating more resources to the military than to education, health care or low‑carbon energy infrastructure. That is solving none of our problems.

Q. To what extent did the social‑democratic revolution that drastically reduced inequality in Europe require the catastrophe of the two world wars?

A. In the 20th century, major catastrophes were needed to legitimize halving working hours and increasing public spending that brought universal health care and education. “This will be the collapse of the economy,” anyone asked in 1900 would have replied if you suggested moving from the roughly 3,000 hours worked annually in Europe then to the 1,500 of today. We do not know whether catastrophes will play a role in the coming decades. Nobody knows. What we do know is that we need to discuss alternative development paths before one happens.

Q. Why?

A. In times of crisis, societies must take decisions very quickly. And often they invent new institutions, new solutions that were once considered impossible. That is why anything democratically debated in advance has a better chance of shaping debate during a crisis. Before the major crises of the 20th century, unions, parties, intellectuals and social scientists had already discussed social security and progressive taxation. But major catastrophes are neither sufficient nor necessary, as the development of the welfare state in Sweden during the 20th century shows — a country that suffered comparatively less destruction than other European nations during the two world wars.

Q. Sweden was less involved in the wars, but its ruling classes feared the expansion of Soviet communism, as elsewhere in Europe, and that threat has disappeared…

A. Today we face the threat of global warming. It is not the same context, but current conditions are also bad for many people worldwide. Demand for change in the North — and even more so in the South — will be very strong. Even if not channeled through organizations like 20th‑century trade unions, which were strong on certain issues but did not care about planetary habitability, gender equality, colonial reparations or racial discrimination, future mobilization will arise around the issues I just listed. And it can be equally powerful. Seeing Brazil and South Africa push for a global wealth tax at the G‑20 summit in 2024 was a very important sign of change.

Q. That proposal for a global wealth tax did not advance.

A. But in Europe, and even in the U.S., the reaction was not outright rejection. They said, “let’s see how,” but it was not a frontal refusal. When the issue resurfaces — and it will in a few years — countries of the South will once again say: “Your historical responsibilities for emissions are huge and we have a right to development; it is your responsibility to pay for some of the climate damage you have imposed on us.” And that will not be paid by the average taxpayer in France or Spain, but by those at the top, who have the greatest historical responsibility for investment decisions. If billionaires were making all the necessary investments in clean energy, education and health, and the world were becoming fantastic thanks to their leadership, I would even be happy to let them keep deciding on investments, media and policies. But that is not happening. The future the billionaires are preparing for us is dystopian.

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