Stasis is not possible: either we go forward or we will decline, and only in the former case can we mitigate social inequalities. 16 Economic policy today in the advanced countries must first distinguish the vicissitudes of the economic cycle from structural trends and act on both with the appropriate instruments. Employment is the first challenge.
An important role in promoting employment and participation in the labour market and aiming for levels and trends in pay that reconcile competitiveness with workers’ aspirations falls to both macroeconomic policies, aimed at restoring steady expansion of aggregate demand and the economy, and structural policies designed to remedy the age-old defects of the labour market and more generally of the  16  Picketty (2014).