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"Inequalities come from an unfair distribution of economic freedom," Alex Chafuen, president of the Atlas Network. The expert gave a lecture at the seminar 'Crony Capitalism as an Obstacle to Development', organized by the Navarra Center for International Development of Institute for Culture and Society (ICS).

Alex Chafuen, one of the leading researchers on nepotism in government, presented ideas core topic on the identification and contextualization of this concept. According to him, governments need to incorporate therule of law into the exercise of their functions in order to generate equal opportunities among citizens.

In that sense, he defended that the form of corruption of favoritism or nepotism in governments can be solved with the implementation of the rule of law. "This concept must be present in any discussion about inequality, capitalism or democracy."

Nepotism: impact on the market and civil society

On the other hand, he wondered "how can we talk about the morality of wealth distribution, where in three quarters of the world there is no rule of law".

"There is a great temptation to favor a friend over other people," he said. For him, this basic model of nepotism hinders the efficiency of the market, since people or institutions seek their profits through the government and not the market.

On the other hand, he indicated that favoritism also has a great impact on civil society, since it leads to "cynicism, hypocrisy and fatalism".