Summary of talk delivered by Serge Latouche , Tuesday, February 10, 2011 at 8 pm at the College Mayor Larraona in Pamplona, \u200b\u200bPamplona, \u200b\u200borganized by the collective DALE VUELTA - BIRA BESTE Alder (MOVEMENT FOR THE DECREASE)
talk begins with the story of your food in Bilbao, during the Days of Decay, "Decay and Vivie Good ", which has just participated. In the restaurant had recorded Marx, Groucho, not Karl, which brought to mind the words of the comedian:
"Why do we have to worry about the future? Does the future worry about us?
For those who share that phrase, do not care the "decrease or barbarism." What
is barbarism?
barbarism we are experiencing now, even in our countries, in most developed and richest countries in the world. Especially in the PIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Spain). Neoliberal policy and reactionary applied, for example, Spain and Greece, for ruling Socialists, whose election platforms and their party politics, were referred to quite contradictory measures that are being implemented, are in the direction of plunge large masses of the people of those countries into extreme poverty.
We are already walking toward barbarism.
But how to avoid it?
To do this, you must first identify the nature of the current crisis.
The current crisis is not only an economic crisis but a crisis of civilization.
The present civilization, the Western capitalist civilization, which has spread almost all over the world, is based primarily on growth.
precisely, the decrease is the way to avoid this global crisis, the collapse of the society to which we turn inexorably, because of the exponential growth is exhausting the limited resources of our planet.
What is the decrease?
"Decrease" is a commonly used word relatively recent. Before 2002 the word was not used to the routine with which it currently uses.
is a provocative word, it intends to launch a missile at the waterline of the current capitalist system whose "religion" neoliberal is a God: The growth for growth to maximize capital gains.
The word "decline" is, and that was intended to use a bomb semantics.
arises as a response to the slogan of "sustainable growth" launched by the world's elites.
This concept was coined by the World Sustainable Development Club, which is supported by major environmental criminal in the world (Monsanto, Nestle, ...)
And society has fallen into that trap semantics, that of sustainable development, sustainable growth (in itself a contradiction in terms, given the limited nature of resources on which mankind can have on a finite planet like Earth).
result of the collaboration (of Latouche), with a group of thinkers, activists in South America, found that the development of the northern hemisphere was possible thanks to the destruction of the South.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the first world, the Western bloc, and second world, the socialist bloc, united, and in fact became a world ruled only by thinking and neoliberal policies.
But this decline need not be extend to all categories of reality.
must grow in water quality in the world.
have to grow in the quality of air we breathe. (An allusion to what is happening right now in Madrid, Barcelona and other English cities)
must grow in quality of life, joy, happiness.
have to grow in wheat production in the world, not to feed the pigs, the animals, but to feed humans.
have to say NO, growth for growth.
growth Western society has been swallowed up by the economy, the capitalist system.
The growth is absolutely essential to increase the profits of the capitalists. The process of capital accumulation, described nearly 150 years of Karl Marx, not Groucho, which is essential for growth, regardless of whether that growth is beneficial or not for individual human beings or humanity as a whole , is the engine of the capitalist system.
Since the Second World War, a little later in the English case because of the Franco regime was introduced in the western world mass consumer society.
are three pillars of consumer society in which we live:
• Advertising, which creates gaps in the mostly false needs, because they can not be covered by the vast majority of the population, turn into frustration. Happy people do not need to eat. People are frustrated, you need to consume to get a false happiness. "It's just who else is happy, who would consume, but the less I need" or as one friend says, "is preferable to get a new friend, a new car."
• planned obsolescence, this is to produce products that will last a while particular, need to renew and continue to consume. (Eg printers, which are scheduled for apparently damaged, and when they intend to fix, it is cheaper to buy a new one, with the consequent waste of energy and raw materials to repair the one you have.)
• CREDIT provided by these philanthropic institutions called banks, that "generously" provided the money that we do not have (and may never be able to have) to buy a multitude of goods or gadgets that do not make us any failure. As has been seen banks to lend money to NINJAS (NO INCOME, NO JOBS, NO ASSETS = NO INCOME, NO JOB, NO ASSETS (PROPERTY / WARRANTY)
NINJAS Such credits to, or better known as SUBPRIMES, toxic loans, bad debts are those that have been the trigger for the financial crisis, when mixed indiscriminately with other assets contaminating the entire global banking, causing the collapse of Lehman Brothers, and putting the edge of bankruptcy the entire global banking system had to be sanitized by injecting huge amounts of money. According to estimates, the sum required for complete sanitation global financial system will require some funds equivalent to between 10 and 15 times world GDP.
From the Wall Berlin this model of society goes global, globalizing: Everything becomes a commodity.
The decrease is a movement to which the company out of that "religion" the religion of growth for growth, sustained growth, not sustainable.
Although it might be better to speak of to-grow, we should become agnostics or atheists, "religion" of growth.
We must be able to implement an alternative project of building a new paradigm.
This will be done differently in each place in each country. Each must find their own path and build their own alternative.
Indeed this movement towards an alternative society starts already in the 70's: the autonomous society.
In such a society are the men who shape their own future, and not leave that as has happened in the present system, the project of modernity is betrayed by the economy.
That's what happened in Greece, and is happening in Spain: are the markets that dictate the decisions neoliberal must assume, either yes or yes, socialist governments, contrary to its own program, and what more seriously, against the will and the majority interest of their peoples.
In the past, when the Kings or rulers put in place policies that plunged into misery and starvation in their villages, the solution was relatively simple: the people
rebelled and sent to the guillotine to the satraps.
But now, how the markets trimmed? How do we apply the old law of cutting off the hand of thieves, and cut the "invisible hand" of the market?
Faced with the current situation and to address the looming collapse, we have no choice, not to plunge mankind into barbarism, to create a society of "frugal abundance," to the world, which is limited, it can handle.
is important to be able to create a relative abundance of objects indispensable to the survival and happiness of all humans within a paradigm of frugality, restraint and voluntary restraint and responsibility.
Why is this change necessary?
Because the current social model is not sustainable.
And because in that society, despite, or better, thanks to frugality, would live better.
To understand why can not the current model of society we must explain what the "ecological footprint" and what is its current global dimension and the level of individual regions and countries.
What is the ecological footprint?
El hombre, las sociedades humanas, los países, la humanidad en su conjunto para vivir, para desarrollar sus actividades vitales, necesita espacio, tierra.
Necesita espacio para cultivar sus alimentos, para construir sus habitáculos, sus ciudades, sus vías de comunicación, necesita bosques y masas verdes para regenerar el anhídrido carbónico y transformarlo en oxígeno,...
Y la tierra, esa gran bola que flota en el espacio, aunque su superficie nos pueda parecer inmensa, es limitada.
En la actualidad cada persona está ocupando un promedio de 2,2 Has, lo que viene a suponer un 40% más de la superficie total disponible (descontando los océanos, las high mountains, deserts, ...). This means that we are occupying and using more land available to us, and this is possible because we are stealing (by over-exploitation of resources - fossil fuels and minerals - and the increasing pollution of our wastes) to future generations , our children and grandchildren.
But if we see what the distribution between countries, we see that the English are occupying 3 lands that Americans hold 10 planets, while all African countries take up much less space than their share of the Earth by volume population, but despite its "generous gift" in developed countries as a whole occupy much surface above their means, that on the whole, humanity will need at the moment, to have available additional land almost another half.
But look in more detail what happens to energy resources.
The main energy resource that has enabled the development of society, has been oil. And oil is reaching its peak, its peak, its peak production, according to the Hubbert curve, American geologist expert in oil extraction, he predicted with amazing accuracy the date on which it was intended to produce maximum production and subsequent decline of U.S. wells.
And it is a reality that we have reached (2005), according to some, or are very close, according to others (2012-2015) peak oil, "peak oil."
The current production is slightly below 88 million barrels a day, will be unlikely to be exceeded, and since then more than likely begin to decline, despite the growing demand for oil.
The immediate consequence of this exponential growth is that we are destroying, eroding soils, tropical forests, which has the largest biodiversity.
According to some scientists, we are witnessing the sixth extinction. The Fifth was the brontosaurus ...
The main problem is that the rate of extinction of species is in the current extinction process much faster: they're dying between 50 and 100 species a day.
And besides, this process is being caused by man.
From another point of view, this society is not desirable: inequality in the world is advancing at a fast increasing. The three richest people in the world equal to the total GDP of Africa.
And what's worse, even in richer societies, most privileged people are not happy, there more and more unhappiness, more suicides, even children ...
According to nef (new economics foundation, http://www.neweconomics.org), who created and produces the Index of Happiness (http://www.happyplanetindex . org), which takes into account life expectancy, the ecological footprint and welfare of the people (subjective satisfaction in life), countries with higher GDP per capita, are at the greatest Happiness Index for example, the U.S. is ranked 150, down from China (31), Italy (66), Iran (67), Luxembourg (74), Belgium (78), Germany (81), Spain (87), India ( 90), Japan (95), United Kingdom (108), Sweden (119), France (129), Greece (133), Portugal (136).
While the tiny archipelago of Vanuatu in the South Pacific Ocean, 1000 miles east of northern Australia, took the first position, followed by a surprising second place in Colombia, and a string of countries in Central America and the Caribbean (Costa Rica, Dominica, Panama, Cuba, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Lucia).
is not surprising that the post 13 is holding a small and not particularly rich or developed country, Bhutan, King Jigme Singye Wangchuk which in 1972 introduced the concept as director axis policy that should govern their country by introducing significant reforms to democratize the country happened to be governed by a Council of Ministers and which have recently been made the first elections to democratically elect the National Assembly.
And the end of the list is made up of countries like Russia (172), Estonia (173), Ukraine (174), Democratic Republic of Congo (175), Burundi (176), Swaziland (177), and Zimbabwe (178) .
society we see that growth, even in countries that have had growth, not a happy society. But
but is that from the recent crisis, the company West has become so evident.
While it is true that this phenomenon, society-of-growth without growth, was already happening, but in a hidden, not so obvious. One of the main proponents of this false sense of illusory growth in recent decades has been Alan Greenspan, although the issue comes from the 70, where neoliberal policies were introduced by Reagan and Thatcher. The wording has been a tax reduction to higher income and capital income, accompanied by an expansionary monetary policy, with very low interest rates, which have favored a high level of speculation.
But if we make a more detailed analysis of the evolution of global GDP in recent years, and deduct the total GDP, the repair costs to compensate for the destruction caused by economic activity (increase in health expenditure as a result of increase in diseases caused by environmental degradation, expenditures for environmental improvement, or better for less deterioration of it, arms spending to try to conserve energy sources such as gas and oil, ..., activities all these sums are included as in traditional GDP calculations), we note that since 1970 the real GDP has been decreasing.
words, the real decline of the economy and is a fact that has been occurring since the mid-70's, although it has maintained the fiction, the illusion that we were still growing. In fact the benefits of the ruling classes continued to grow rapidly and the concentration of wealth in fewer hands has accelerated.
Although society as a whole does not actually experienced no improvement, until the recent crisis had the false illusion "that were still growing.
From this crisis and we do not have this false illusion "of growth. (Although the process of progressive enrichment and concentration of wealth in fewer hands continues to occur, but now for the transfer of wealth from those powerful weakest to strongest - see as Booty still being made with the "spoils" of many foreign banks, and as soon and that is of my own, will serve on a plate, after having "groomed" for the occasion with little money of all taxpayers English, the most greedy of our savings banks, the last stronghold of our social banking country, although in recent times have been pillaged and unpresentable factions of our political class.) And now we
find the worst, the oldest, the crudest, most outrageous, and the most Machiavellian of the paradoxes (which does Unamuno, genius of the paradoxes, it would have been able to imagine):
SOCIETY OF GROWTH WITHOUT GROWTH,
a consumer society without consumption. And this decrease
forced and unexpected, is not the same as the decrease voluntary and planned.
imposed austerity IS NOT THE SAME AS THE FRUGAL CHOSEN.
There is nothing but a growth society without growth, and that means a significant increase in unemployment, and that there are fewer resources available for health, for education, to improve the environment, to combat pollution ...
We are a company controlled by the oligarchy, and "markets." Serge Latouche said that in his recent visit to Bilbao, I was struck by the number of surveillance cameras that were on the streets, watching us all, controlling us all.
That is just an example of a phenomenon that is spreading throughout Europe, the increased repression.
For all these reasons we must opt \u200b\u200bfor a society in decline.
must activate the Virtuous Circle: RE-EVALUATE
RE-VALUATION
reconceptualise
RE-USE RE-DISTRIBUTE
RE-RE-STRUCTURE SEARCHING
re-cycling
How?
Every country, every region, every town is different, and ways must be and will be different: not the same Texas to Chiapas.
Cultural Revolution is needed: the first thing we have to change the very paradigm of each of us.
We must change our concepts both in terms of consumption or production of what we need to live.
And we must act collectively and politically.
This is an outline of the reform program presented at the recent French elections:
• Ensure that our Ecological Footprint is bearable: eat better, relocate, avoiding unnecessary energy consumption in transport
• Reduce the increasing international transport costs thereof with appropriate environmental taxes (story of the crash in France of a English truck carrying tomatoes and Northern Europe of a Dutch truck carrying tomatoes in Spain: results of the crash, a huge European tomato sauce)
• Relocate
activities
• Restore traditional peasant agriculture
• Reassign productivity gains, reducing working time and increasing employment
• Relaunch the production of goods "relational" not consume resources
• Reduce energy consumption by 4 (for 4 Why? simply took the number of French technical organization that NEGA WATT calculated that figure, and that to them with that reduction could be kept roughly equal the current living standards)
• Restrict advertising heavily
• Redirecting R & D: to democratize its objectives
• reappropriate the money:
- creation of parallel currencies (local, regional)
- the local savings is invested in local projects
Briefly advocates a return to the stoicism of Seneca was a great exponent of English.
Navarra, February 11, 2002
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