One definition, in my simple and functional view, of desire is “the impartial distribution of resources among people and groups in society.” As we conceptualized in the Academic Team in Social Desigualdad, the discussion space I coordinate at the Iberoamerican University of León.
And it is that in this academic context we visualize the multiple and deep differences and gaps, it is decided, desires between groups of people and communities that are class, ethnic, gender, economic, socio-economic, political and power and are understandable in their forms of expansion of structural violence combined with poverty, racism, patriarchy and colonialism.
This represents a complex and less visible combination of stratification and exclusion, crystallized throughout history by certain elites and mechanisms created by them, which are socially “normalized” and accepted as “eternal” or “just” through symbolic or cultural violence.
The beliefs and habits that justify it the status quothe power of one and the other and the sumisión of the latter “because it was and must be”, because it is better to “maintain order” or because in the end “it suits us all”. This is obviously not certain, but by hegemonic consensus and stability it is presented as inevitable, natural, functional.
Asymism, if it is constructed and propagated by engaging meritocratic discourses, to hide or promote the eternal inferiority of certain social sectors, the offer of racial or exclusive not only “pastel” division of the social hierarchy, as well as decisions about how it should be formed and left.
When we look a little deeper into these concepts, we learn about the distribution process as a social phenomenon, and not about natural or physiological differences between people. These exist and are normal, while social desire is generated by the system, decisions, preferences and social nature and ultimately politics.
On the other hand, when we talk about “recursos”, it is obviously not possible to limit the matter to the most immediate and average dimension of the word, or the sea, like “retirement”, because it is necessary to take into account the wealth or the accumulated inheritance and above all the recursion of power and politics in the matter of collective decision-making and influence on how legally or illegally interest groups and elites operate, employ people, companies.
Therefore, it is difficult to say that the dominant classes and groups, if they do not have internal and external social pressures against countries, or if the political costs of certain things do not increase, must be considered perverse judgments or favoring the subversion of the social order and the rise of “subaltern” capas and sectors. You can open up the system, “democratize”, incorporate or selectively co-opt other groups, but you can’t sacrifice your privileges to “give it away for free”.
The NGO Oxfam, an international confederation of civil society organizations in the UK in 1941 to fight want, poverty and injustice, published a new report titled: “Contra el imperio de los más ricos. Defense of democracy against the power of the millionaires”In this context, the dichotomy between oligarchy and democracy is understood as a symbol of a contemporary and contested field. In this text, the organization analyzes the form of extreme population concentration by examining democratic systems and mayoral rights around the world and suggests possible ways forward.
The work represents a global update in the critical line that Oxfam has maintained for decades on the problem of poverty and poverty, starting with the devastating balance sheet of Trump’s first year in the White House: “Since the election of Donald Trump as president in November 2024, the total wealth of the planet’s millionaires has grown three times faster than in the previous five years. Although the largest growth corresponds to the growth of the world’s millionaires also in two million countries. digits What we took from the mandate of President Trump, the biggest people in the world have benefited, whether already by preventing more deregulation or limiting the fight for actions that would require more effective taxation of large corporations.”
The central point is that we are experiencing an unprecedented increase in the final price, because since November 2024 the fortunes of millionaires have increased three times faster than in the first half of the previous five years, in which case the tendency to increase the price accumulates so much against the mayor.
Today, the theme of the movement will never remain valid Occupy Wall Street that “we are the 99 percent” and the economy disproportionately benefits one hundred percent of the planet: in 2011, this protest movement was a symbol of the global uprising associated with the Arab Spring as a result of the global crisis of 2007-2009 and as a form of condemnation of the injustices and perverted structures of the system.
For the first time in history, the number of millionaires exceeded three million. This fact would in no way be alarming, since global public structures and policies for the redistribution and re-functionalization of capital and accumulated income for the good of society are parallel.
In October 2025, Elon Musk became the first person to accumulate more than the average account ($500 million) of dollars: this means that Musk could enjoy a million dollars a day for about 370 years before making money.
On the issue of poverty, it is notable that while elite demand is disproportionate, 25 percent of the world’s population suffers from poverty and food insecurity. Although Latin America has seen improvements in poverty in relative terms, particularly in Mexico and Brazil, poverty reduction has weakened globally and continued to increase in Africa.
As we witness day after day in our region or in Europe, the former was and is now a factor in the success of democracy and the desire for access to political power. Big decisions that affect the affairs of the 300 million people living on the planet are often caused by the golden birth of the financial, political and business elite in the style of the terrible Board of Peace with premium members proposed by Trump to “manage” the current “redevelopment” of Gaza and its subsequent conversion into a resort, with less contempt for the victims of the current genocide.
It is clear that the democratic erosion of high-aspiration countries, where Latin America still holds this sorry record, is much greater. The rise of extreme brownfields in America is a response to a variety of factors, and thus a key element is the indecisiveness of desire as a fundamental characteristic of contemporary capitalism.
Social and collective pain associated with structural violence, especially with poverty and desire, in a world of growing aspirations and unrestrained consumerism, often multiplied by algorithms and technologies of omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient cases, affects the life, psyche and economy of the most vulnerable social capacities, anesthesia at social levels, among other types of dynamic dependencies, also limits the subversiveness of these dependencies and dynamic potential. gravity.
This is a reflection on the disproportionate, asymmetric, anti-democratic by way and conformity political power, legitimized by toxic narratives and highly emblematic but false cases of success and flamboyant empresadurism: according to Oxfam, millionaires have four thousand Now it is more likely that the political load can be taken by the common and ordinary person. There is a secret to suupesto éxito.
On influence through capital, accumulated ad libitumMany times, in violation of the most basic ethical principles, it is actively used to finance campaigns, lobbying and interventions that do not, from now on, lead to the common good or the protection of the planet: by 2024, one out of every six political donations in the United States There are only so many millionaire families. The results are forms of control that are most effective in government decisions, as well as “mentalistic” control of communication media or applications of artificial intelligence.
Control of the digital space and repression is another topic and therefore a priority for the NGO. On digital platforms that excel as social media control (such as The masses of Grok, AI from The meaning of this, in my opinion, must change: the abandonment of pseudo-libertarian anathemas in favor of balanced but firm control, including the limits on education and schools of certain reds, which have been approved in Australia and are at the center of discussions in the European Union.
Finally, Oxfam mentions that summer responses to citizen protests over the high cost of living and the erosion of the welfare state and wages have been subject to political repression and violence, in addition to responding with redistributive policies in Kenya and Argentina, for example. I believe the list of countries can easily be expanded by examining movements and demonstrations over the past year, such as the pre-retirement events in France.
Among the main recommendations of Oxfam’s work to reverse, at least in part, the degeneration of the model:
“Reduce economic desire”, implement national plans to reduce Desigualdad and create an “International Panel for Desigualdad” similar to the climate change model. “Cut the power of the super-rich”, apply effective measures against large fortunes, regulate lobbying practices, ban millionaires from political campaigns and protect media independence. “Strengthen the power of the mayor,” protect civic space, encourage unionization, and ensure that excluded groups have a voice in political decision-making.
In Mexico, as we have commented in various columns in this space, the debate about a real progressive fiscal reform, or sea, an intergenerational, interregional and interclass pact of solidarity, radically redistributive, with the aim of consolidating the state of general welfare financed mainly by general taxation (health and education, pension system, among others, minimum social income, economic programs), has frozen.
We hope that the questions of appropriateness and the progressive fiscal pact in Mexico are unblocked, perhaps they have become re-accusations, cases that have always been defended by the most modest, socially and politically interested in the world for more than a century.
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