Por JORGE SENIOR
Al hacer mi lista de los libros más importantes de la segunda década del siglo XXI en el género no-ficción, me encuentro con la entretenida tarea de desempatar el primer lugar entre El capital en el siglo XXI de Thomas Piketty y En defensa de la Ilustración de Steven Pinker. Ambos textos abordan la macrohistoria secular de la Modernidad, con diagnóstico y propuestas de soluciones basadas en datos, todo ello producto de investigaciones sociales a gran escala. Éste es un signo esperanzador, pues muestra que la crisis de las ciencias sociales tiene salida.
Un lector acucioso de este par de obras maestras y fiel a El Unicornio notará que las dos lecciones que nos deja la pandemia, tema de mi pasada columna, corresponden precisamente a sendas tesis muy cercanas a estos autores: la defensa del Estado social por Piketty y la defensa de la racionalidad por Pinker. Tuvo que llegar una pandemia para recordarnos que tales ideas complementarias no son elucubraciones de intelectuales sino exigencias políticas de la realidad imperante.
Si usted, amable lector, no ha leído los dos volúmenes, tal vez querrá atender mi recomendación. Pero sepa de antemano que le esperan 1.400 páginas…¡y eso que ambos son “resúmenes” de un acopio de información mucho mayor! Ambos escritores cuentan con la facilidad de tener equipos que los respaldan en la cosecha de datos y no escatiman extensión en los procesos argumentativos, que los llevan desde las evidencias hasta las tesis que pretenden defender. Pero si usted quiere ahorrarse tamaña maratón, puede leer Piketty esencial, el breve texto del sueco Jesper Roine y mi reseña del libro de Pinker aquí.
El capital en el siglo XXI es un verdadero tratado sobre la desigualdad, con base empírica, pues usa datos de 27 países. El economista francés muestra la dinámica de la relación capital/ingreso a lo largo de siglos y cómo ha evolucionado la distribución del ingreso y de la riqueza durante el S. XX y la primera década del presente. Luego detalla cómo ha aumentado la concentración de ingreso y de riqueza en los últimos 40 años, esto es, en la era neoliberal, con diferencias entre el modelo anglosajón y el europeo continental, que reflejan la contradicción entre Estado de bienestar y fundamentalismo de mercado. Pero lo más importante es que a largo plazo la dinámica de la desigualdad obedece fundamentalmente a un mecanismo intrínseco del capitalismo mediante el cual el rendimiento del capital es superior a la tasa de crecimiento, sin desconocer que también incide -a favor o en contra- la dimensión política, lo cual explica las fluctuaciones históricas. Ahora bien, también hay mecanismos que favorecen la igualdad. Los dos principales son la difusión del conocimiento y la inversión en educación, los cuales permiten eventualmente la convergencia de la racionalidad económica y la racionalidad democrática.
En defensa de la Ilustración es un verdadero tratado sobre el pensamiento crítico racional con base empírica. El psicólogo canadiense defiende la razón, la ciencia, el humanismo y el progreso contra el ataque incesante que en las últimas décadas han desatado múltiples formas de irracionalismo y oscurantismo en todos los ámbitos: la política, la economía, la academia, la escuela, la medicina, el periodismo, la cultura, la religión, las redes sociales. Pero el talante excesivamente optimista de Pinker le juega una mala pasada en el capítulo 9 donde aborda el tema de la desigualdad. Precisamente en la página 135 cita a Piketty: “La mitad más pobre de la población mundial es tan pobre en la actualidad como lo era en el pasado, con apenas el 5% de la riqueza total en 2010, al igual que en 1910”. Y luego lo despacha con el peregrino argumento de que “la riqueza total actual es infinitamente mayor que en 1910, por lo que, si la mitad más pobre posee la misma proporción, es mucho más rica, no ‘igual de pobre’”. Parece que ni la desproporción entre 50% y 5%, ni el concepto de injusticia le dicen nada al autor. Y lo de “infinitamente” es un mero recurso retórico, no un dato. Pinker coquetea con la “teoría del goteo” y la utopía neoliberal del crecimiento ilimitado de la torta. Parodiando el argumento, diríamos: “no importa que recibas migajas, pues gracias a los que reciben la mayor parte de la torta ésta es cada vez más grande, y así mismo, aunque no en la misma proporción, crecen tus migajas”. Adicionalmente Pinker aunque alardea de conciencia ambiental, no parece concebir los límites de la capacidad de carga del sistema Tierra. Intuyo un sesgo ético/axiológico en el psicólogo cognitivo experto en sesgos.
En este debate clave sobre la desigualdad le doy la razón, tan preciada por Pinker, a Piketty. Y también a Harari, quien vislumbra otros peligros en el presente siglo, por la disrupción tecnológica que puede generar la convergencia de las tecnologías BIO e INFO, la biología sintética y la Inteligencia Artificial. Una distopía en la cual la segregación tradicional de ricos y pobres se transformaría y amplificaría en la segmentación de castas tecnobiológicas. Lo que era ciencia ficción en la película GATTACA, con la bella Uma Thurman, ahora se encuentra en el horizonte de las posibilidades, como lo reconoce el filósofo Jurgen Habermas en El futuro de la naturaleza humana.
Sin ir tan lejos, la desigualdad está impresa en el trágico drama del diario de vivir para millones de personas que aún sobreviven en medio de la miseria absoluta, como lo vemos en campos y ciudades colombianas. En sintonía con Piketty, aquí también, en nuestro país, la buena ciencia económica ha estudiado la Dinámica de las desigualdades en Colombia, título del libro de Luis Jorge Garay y Jorge Espitia. Recomendado.
De vuelta al tinglado, levanto la mano del economista francés en su duelo con el canadiense por ocupar el primer lugar en mi top ten personal de los libros de la década, pasatiempo de cuarentena más divertido que los viernes de siluetas. Y como corresponde a tiempos de redes y pandemia, lo ratifico al comparar los trinos poco relevantes de Steven Pinker frente a la emergencia mundial, con los pronunciamientos certeros de Thomas Piketty, como el que sustenta en su columna del 14 de abril en Le Monde: “Para evitar la hecatombe, lo que se requiere es un Estado social, no un Estado prisión. La reacción correcta a la crisis debería ser reanudar el ascenso del Estado social en el Norte y especialmente acelerar su desarrollo en el Sur”.
Y ya puestos, ¿le gustaría conocer mi listado de libros de la década? Dele click.
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