Inequality Is Always Political

Abstract

This reflection on Juan Pablo Pérez Sáinz’s proposal regarding secondary groups’ inequality-related consequences and responses –which delves into migration, violence, religiosity and collective action– advocates re-centering discussions of Latin American social inequalities. Reygadas proposes a number of reflections on the relationship between social actions and inequality. He asserts that social disparities are not sufficient to explain the responses Pérez Sáinz has emphasized. We must understand that persistent inequality-reproduction occurs over the long-term whereas social actions exert short-term impacts and additionally require transformations in other links along the reproduction chain. Ultimately the essay nuances Pérez Sáinz’s emphasis on basic-market (land, labor and capital) distribution; from Reygadas’s perspective, the locus of inequality also lies in re-distribution, through progressive tax structures, in the economy and in public policy, in markets, society and public institutions and, not least of all, in material distribution and symbolic configurations.