Go for them who are few and coward. That's how the title of the successful live album by Loquillo and Los Trogloditas published at the end of the 80s said. More than 30 years have passed -Treinta y tantos-, but it still sounds powerful . We do not know if the enlightened people responsible for the Ministries of Labor and Social Security, as well as that group of entities suckers of public money who pretend to represent the self-employed group and who initially always pretend to disagree with political leaders, are fans or not by José María Sanz and his band, but what all of them falsely call the self-employment contribution reform seems to emulate the title of the mythical double album but in the opposite direction: Go for them, who -still- are many and brave... and perhaps most importantly, always ready to be milked. "We are going to squeeze every last drop out of them; there must always be some sucker who continues to pay for the party, and what better than these three million dupes", the reformers must have thought or, why not, better call them the annihilators.
Because that's what this atrocity is about. Reform? Said plan supposes an assassination against entrepreneurship that, on purpose, perhaps is what some really intend: to destroy the middle classes and gradually shape a new society of grateful poor people. A simple example serves to illustrate the nature of the new contributions system. A self-employed person who has an income of less than 670 euros per month must pay a monthly fee of 230 euros; that is, he/she has 440 euros left to survive... understanding that those 670 euros are net income. Faced with such an aberration, what message is being sent to current entrepreneurs and to those who dare with entrepeneurship? Well, it's not worth it, that's why you better go for the help of 400 euros -if they end up giving them to you, there's always a trick- and to complete your subsistence in the black labor market. And the other message that also emerges is none other than: go to the public sector, the private sector is no longer worth it.
A public sector that in the case of Spain is oversized, because apart from those who have deservedly earned their place, it has a huge amount of salaries as a result of nepotism derived from political patronage. And all this happens not only at the level of the central government, but is reproduced on a scale in each of the Regions -regional governments-, provinces -provincial governments- and municipalities. Of course, it is to be assumed that someone will ask: and how are all these public salaries paid? Well, no, it's not about money falling from the sky through a pipe to the state coffers. It comes from the collection of taxes and fees that we all pay, but mainly from those who create wealth with their activity, that is, small and medium-sized companies and the self-employed people, who make up the bulk of the Spanish productive fabric.
Spain is not a country that has natural resources such as oil or gas, minerals or precious metals, with which its government can trade to obtain enough foreign currency to subsidize its population. In addition, there are many examples of countries rich in these resources, which have opted for political regimes where the state predominates or directly annihilates the private sector, and in the end they have not even been able to maintain basic and dignified conditions for their populations, who have ended up condemned to misery... and to the lack of freedom and fundamental rights. Yes, because if there are still those who have not found out, the middle classes are not only a symptom of a greater or lesser degree of prosperity, but also a guarantee of individual freedom.
If this coup de grâce to entrepreneurship ends up being perpetrated in Spain through the approval of a medieval and extractive reform against the self-employed sector, while small and medium-sized companies continue to be plundered, the country is on the way to a scenario where the State and a few large corporations become its new productive fabric. Although, let us point out, public employment does not generate wealth, and the large corporations have a limited number of workers, so that a good part -the majority- of the active population would come to depend on Nanny State and, where is it going to get the resources to deal with a public spending that is currently unaffordable? In reality, we are talking about a bankrupt country, which artificially maintains its vital signs thanks to the purchase of debt by the European Central Bank.
The party is over... It's time to get up and fight...
