Let’s start at the beginning. What exactly do you mean by ‘prosperity’?

‘It’s about access to the basics, such as food, housing, and healthcare, but it’s also about securing conditions for meaningful social relations. The important question is: how does society understand prosperity and how does it aim to achieve it? Is it through empowering businesses, by for example lowering taxes? Or is it by mandating the sharing of surplus, which could be done by creating protection for workers or taxing capital? Societies coalesce around different paths to prosperity at different times. In some periods the government is made more responsible for achieving prosperity, and in other times the market gets attributed a more prominent role. These shifts have happened repeatedly. Today, we are living in a time when there’s an urgent need to make a transition to a new vision of prosperity.’

Why do we need to talk about “shared prosperity” now?

‘There is a growing dissatisfaction in society that those in power are not responding to. The dominant “privatized” route to prosperity has entered a legitimacy crisis with the 2008 financial breakdown. Although the financial system has let us down, it was the poorer people who had to pay for the failures of banks and governments. The government should have done more to reimagine prosperity, to reconsider how people can secure sustained access to basic material, social and institutional goods. But the opposite happened: people were not presented with a compelling vision of prosperity and how it might be secured, only a further hollowing out of public services.’

What are the consequences of this?

‘Instead of offering a path to shared prosperity, where the benefits of social cooperation would be more equitably shared, post 2008 governments have doubled down on privatization and austerity. This has not only created economic challenges for many people, but it has also contributed to a loss of trust, dignity and hope. In neoliberal societies, this has been made worse by the powerful narrative that if you haven’t made it, it’s your own fault. You haven’t worked hard enough. This cocktail makes a perfect breeding ground for the far and extreme right.

What role does the radical right play in the current moment?

‘This political force appropriately identifies that there is a problem with prosperity in our societies, both at the level of welfare and at the level of dignity. Yet, it offers a very limited set of answers to this problem. It suggests that migrants, very often asylum seekers in particular, are responsible for the experienced lack of prosperity. This could be about the lack of housing, good education or healthcare. But while blaming asylum seekers may address the problem of dignity, because there is now someone else lower on the social ladder to hold responsible for the existing problems, it does not do much for prosperity. It operates at the level of expressing identity, rather than working to actually change the reality.’

Doesn’t migration also affect prosperity in society?

‘Migration is surely an important problem in some cities and areas. While its relation to prosperity remains ambiguous, migration certainly needs to be taken seriously in the political discussion and addressed with adequate solutions. At the same time, it should not take a disproportional space in the political discourse. We shoot ourselves in the foot if we allow one contributory cause to a problem, let’s say to the housing crisis, to crowd out all other important causes. A deficient problem definition makes it impossible to develop adequate solutions. What is more, the underlying gross reduction of politics to the question of identity and the confrontation with ‘the other’, as I outline in my upcoming book, carries also a plethora of other problems for the democratic institutions, science or the rule of law.’

How do we solve the problem with distribution of welfare and dignity?

‘In my inaugural lecture, I argue that developing a new imaginary of “shared prosperity” cannot be focused solely, or predominantly, on demanding more progressive taxation. Rather societies need to look at the (pre)distribution of market outcomes. That is, who gets to keep how much in the pocket from any single ‘deal’?The response to this question is fundamental not only for the distribution of material benefits but also of dignity and respect, because people want to see themselves as active and value-creating members of society. Crucially, this distribution of market outcomes is largely shaped by the rules of private law.’

What does this mean in practice?

We need a comprehensive reform of private law rules in ways that radically depart from the dominant neoliberal paradigm of private law. For instance, we need to make sure that asymmetry of power and resources does not end up in unfair exploitation and diminishing of workers, tenants and debtors. Furthermore, societies need to make sure that corporations are not primarily driven by the interests of shareholders but rather genuinely work in the benefit of all stakeholders and society. We also need to update financial structures to reward companies that have societally beneficial business models. Finally, limiting our dependence on markets for access to basic goods, such as energy and housing, is paramount as geopolitics grows more volatile. Eventually, a differently structured economy, that makes more space for the energies of ordinary people to shape it, would not only be more socially beneficial but also more dynamic - especially if people are better protected against risks by, for example, a basic income. The purpose of such an economy is then less to make outsized profits and more to be able to enjoy a fulfilling life and to contribute to society.’

What are you hoping to accomplish as professor of Transnational Private Law?

‘I want to put private law on the ‘just transition’ agenda in the Netherlands and in the EU. This is important for prosperity, dignity and it also protects our democracy. Historically, it was the common purpose that societies found in pursuing prosperity that has integrated largely pluralist communities, giving democracy meaning and direction. Most people don’t mobilise around democracy as such, because that’s very abstract. But all people fight for a good quality of life. Private law has everything to do with that. The EU seems to understand that it needs to do more to reform private law, and I want to make constructive suggestions for ways to do that. This is also very important for the Netherlands, which has a good basis to embark on a new path to prosperity, but as most other countries in Europe it stands at a crossroads – and one road leads downhill.’