Vidal Aragonés: "Punishment seems like a defeat to me."
Lawyer, professor of labor law at the UAB, and father of 10-year-old Nin. He now leaves university to make time for his son. He was a member of Parliament for the CUP (United Leftist Party). He has published "Pobretariado. Precariedad laboral y otros debates sobre la clase y el trabajo" (Tigre de Papel), a well-documented essay that updates the concept of the working class and the causes of job insecurity.
BarcelonaWhen I was a child, the streets weren't paved. When it rained, the spaces between the buildings in the Sant Ildefons neighborhood of Cornellà were muddy. Today, there are few children.
I was also a child in this neighborhood, fifteen years before you, and I spent my afternoons on the street.
— The streets used to be filled with children, but the generation of gangs and drug addicts separates me from a romantic vision. Today, children socialize less and less, while public spaces become less public. Businesses occupy public space, and there are rules prohibiting playing ball in the street.
How does your child experience the streets?
— One of the most fun times is when we go out to shoot. He really enjoys it when he puts me in goal and shoots, or when we play dribbling. He knows that he's from a city where people live off their work, not off the exploitation of others, and that you only improve when you fight.
Principles often take precedence over emotions. Do you find it difficult to be strict?
— Yes, the way a child deals with emotional issues is complicated for parents to manage. I've become somewhat less rigid, but I don't let improvisation and changing plans become the norm.
Our parents didn't have a problem being strict.
— They grew up in repression and a traditional family. Punishment seems like a defeat to me. Of course, discipline is a necessity in the process of learning and maturing. Making people believe that the only possible family model is a traditional one is also a defeat. Discipline is a value assumed to be traditional, but for me, it's a revolutionary necessity in the process of learning and maturing.
How do you imagine the world of work in 10 years, when your child is looking for a job?
— He poverty This is the segment of the working class that, despite working, lives materially impoverished, with incomes below 60% of the average wage. In 10 years, the world of work will be worse, with more part-time contracts, lower wages, more temporary "permanent" jobs, and more temporary employment agencies. At the same time, there will be a certain devaluation of labor due to the impact of AI.
There is a poverty and also one alkylate.
— There is a working aristocracy that passes on home ownership to its descendants, and a working class that receives no inheritance. This will be the major factor in the fragmentation of the working class in the period we are entering.
And young couples must leave their neighborhoods.
— This disrupts the construction of class consciousness. In times of political ebb, the community, the neighborhood, could be the space of identity from our childhood and in the names of our neighbors.
You've said somewhere that "education is a moment of happiness and affection, in the face of a system of barbarism."
— The capacity to love, strive, and learn escapes capitalist and patriarchal logic. Love for children is unconditional and pure. But competitiveness, consumption, and aesthetic pressure are very strong. We want children to live socially, sharing, and building community, with strong values of equality, social justice, and respect for diversity, while avoiding indoctrination.
Tell me an anecdote.
— Nin was born on May Day, and for her mother and me it was the first gift she wanted to give us.