Michael Lowy Capital is a formidable machine of reification. After the Great Transformation spoken of Karl Polanyi, ie after the capitalist market economy is autonomous, that is, so to speak, "unclogging", it works only for their own laws, the impersonal laws of profit and accumulation. That is, Polanyi emphasizes, "the transformation of human and natural substance of society into commodities," thanks to a device, the self-regulating market, which inevitably tends to "break human relationships y. .. destroy the natural habitat of man. "
is a merciless system, which throws individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds "under deadly wheels of progress, that car of Jagannath."
Max Weber had already detected dramatically logic "reified" of capital in his great work Economy and Society: "The reification (Versachlichung) of the economy founded on the basis of the socialization of the market is absolutely its own objective legality (sachlich ) ... Reified universe (Kosmos versachlichte) of capitalism leaves no room for charitable orientation ... "Weber concludes from this that the capitalist economy is structurally incompatible with the ethical criteria," in contrast to other forms of domination, economic domination of capital because of its impersonal nature, could not be regulated ethically ... Competition, market, labor market, the money market, ie objective considerations, not ethical or unethical, just unethical ... commanding performance at the decisive point and introduce impersonal instances between human beings involved. " In style neutral and uncommitted, Weber indicates the essentials: the capital is by its essence, "unethical."
At the root of this inconsistency is the phenomenon of quantification. Rechenhaftigkeit-Inspired by the spirit of rational calculation referred to Weber, the capital is a formidable machine of quantification. Recognizes only calculation of gains and losses, production figures, the measure of prices, costs and benefits. Submits to the economy, society and human life to the domination of exchange value of the goods and, in its most abstract, of money. These quantitative values, measured at 10, 100, 1,000 or 1,000,000, you know neither fair nor unfair, neither good nor evil, dissolve and destroy the values \u200b\u200bof quality and, in particular, ethical values. Between the two is "antipathy" in the old sense, alchemy, the term: lack of affinity between two substances.
Today, the total kingdom-indeed, totalitarian- commercial value, quantitative value, money, finance capitalism, came to a degree unprecedented in human history. However, the logic of the system had already been the victim of a lucid critique of capitalism since 1847, "finally came a time where all men were saved as inalienable became an object of exchange, traffic and could be alienated. Is the time when the very things that until now were reported but never traded, never sold, acquired but not bought-virtue, love, opinion, science, conscience, etc.-time in which everything went to trade. It's time general corruption, of universal venality in which, to speak in terms of political economy, everything, moral or physical, becoming market value, is taken to market to be valued at its fair value. " Initial reactions
not only workers but also peasants and popular anti-capitalist commodification have occurred in the name of certain social values, certain social needs regarded as more legitimate than the political economy of capital. Studying the movements of crowds, hunger revolts in the eighteenth century English historian EP Thompson talks about the confrontation between the "economy moral "of the people and the capitalist market economy (which Adam Smith in his first major theoretical). The food riots (in which women played a leading role) was a form of resistance to market-in the name of the old "moral economy" of the traditional community norms, which had its own rationale and long-term had saved the grassroots of the famine.
Modern socialism is the heir to the social protest of this "moral economy." Want to start production and not on market criteria and capital-the "effective demand", profitability, gain, accumulation, but in terms of social needs, the "common good" social justice. This is qualitative values, irreducible to the commercial and monetary quantification. Rejecting productivism, Marx emphasized the priority of being of individuals, the full realization of their human potential-by on the belt, the possession of property. For him, social staple, the more imperative, and would have the doors of the "realm of freedom" was the free time, reduced hours of work, the performance of individuals in the game, study, citizen activity, creating art, love.
Among these needs is one that takes an ever more crucial importance today, and that Marx had not sufficiently taken into account (except in some isolated passages) in his work: "the need to safeguard the natural environment, the need for breathing air, drinking water, food free of chemical poisons or nuclear radiation. A need is identified, which tends, with the same imperative for the survival of the human species on this planet, where the ecological balance is seriously threatened by the catastrophic consequences, greenhouse effect, destruction of the ozone layer, nuclear-threat the infinite expansion of capitalist productivist.
ecology Socialism and then share qualitative social values, irreducible to the market. They also share a rebellion against the "Great Transformation", against reified economic empowerment in relation to society and a desire to "relocate" to the economy in a social and natural environment. However, this convergence is possible only provided that the Marxists subjected to critical analysis the traditional concept of "productive forces", return to this point, and that environmentalists break with the illusion of an "economy market "clean. This dual operation is the work of a current ecosocialism, which achieved a synthesis between the two approaches.
What then ecosocialism? This is a school of thought and action that integrates ecological fundamental contributions of Marxism, freed from the slag productivist, a stream that he understood the logic of the capitalist market and profit-and the techno-bureaucratic authoritarianism of the deceased " people's democracies "- are incompatible with environmental protection. Finally, a stream, to criticize the ideology of the mainstream labor movement, known workers and their organizations are an essential force for any radical transformation of the system.
Ecosocialism-developed from the research of some Russian pioneers late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Serge Podolinsky, Vladimir Vernadsky) - especially during the last 25 years, thanks to the work of thinkers the likes of Manuel Sacristán, Raymond Williams, Andre Gorz (in his earlier writings) and the important contributions of James O'Connor, Barry Commoner, Juan Martinez Allier, Francisco Fernández Buey, Jean-Paul Deléage, Elmar Altvater, Frieder Otto Wolf, Joel Kovel and many others.
This current is far from homogeneous politically. However, the majority of their representatives shared certain common themes. In a break with the productivist ideology of progress "in its capitalist and / or bureaucratic (read" real socialist ") - and opposed to the infinite expansion of a mode of production and consumption environmentally destructive, depicted in the green movement latest trend, more sensitive to the interests of workers and peoples of the South, who understood the impossibility of a "sustainable development" in the context of the capitalist market economy.
What might be the main elements of an eco-socialist ethics, which is radically opposed to the destructive logic and "unethical" (Weber) of capitalist profitability and overall market, this system of universal venality "(Marx)?
will move forward here some assumptions, some starting points for discussion.
First, I think it is a social ethic: it is an ethic of individual behavior, does not point to blame the people, promote self-restraint or asceticism. It is important that individuals are educated to respect the environment and waste rejection, however, true knot is elsewhere: the change of the capitalist economic and social structures-commercial, establishing a new paradigm of production and distribution, founded, as we have seen above, in consideration of social needs, in particular the essential need to live in a non-degraded environment. A change that requires social actors, social movements, environmental organizations, political parties and not only individuals of good will.
This ethic is a humanistic ethic. Living in harmony with nature, protecting endangered species are human values, and the destruction by medicine, life forms that attack human life (microbes, viruses, parasites). The Anopheles mosquito, carrier of yellow fever, not the same "right to life" that Third World children threatened by this disease: to save the latter, it is ethically legitimate to eradicate, in certain regions, the first .. .
The ecological crisis threatening the natural balance of the environment, endangers not only the fauna and flora, but also and above all health, living conditions, the very survival of our species. No need then to make war on the humanity or the "anthropocentrism" for the protection of biodiversity or animal species in danger of extinction, a demand The political and ethical battle to save the environment, which is necessarily the fight for a change in civilization, is a human imperative, not only concerning this or that class, but to all individuals.
This imperative is related to future generations, threatened to get us a world uninhabitable because of the uncontrolled accumulation of ever more environmental damage. But the speech that focused primarily on environmental ethics that danger, is now largely overcome. This is a more urgent issue directly related to the present generation: the people who live at the beginning of XXI century already know the tragic consequences of the capitalist destruction and poisoning of the biosphere, and risk in any case be-young-twenty or thirty years catastrophes.
It is also an egalitarian ethic: the mode of production and current consumption of the advanced capitalist countries, based on a logic of unlimited accumulation (capital, profits, goods), waste of resources, of conspicuous consumption and accelerated destruction of the environment, can in no way be extended to the whole planet at risk of a major ecological crisis.
This system is then necessarily based on the maintenance and aggravation of loud inequality between north and south. The ecological and social projects aimed at a worldwide redistribution of wealth and a joint development of resources, thanks to a new economic paradigm.
The social ethical requirement of satisfaction of social needs but does not make sense within a spirit of social justice, equality, which does not mean homogenization, and solidarity. It involves, ultimately, ownership of the means of production and distribution of goods and services "to each according to his needs." It has nothing to do with the alleged "Equity" liberal who wants to justify social inequalities insofar as they were "linked to functions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity" (Rawls) classic argument of defenders of "free competition" economic and social development.
Ecosocialism implies, likewise, an ethic of democracy: while the economic decisions and choices are productive in the hands of an oligarchy of capitalists, bankers and technocrats, or the defunct system of state-run economies, a bureaucracy that escape democratic control, we will not productivism infernal cycle of worker exploitation and environmental destruction. Economic democratization "that involves the socialization of the productive forces means that the major decisions about production and distribution will be made by" market "or a Politburo, but by society itself after a democratic and pluralistic debate which oppose the proposals and the different options. Is the necessary condition for the introduction of other socio-economic logic and a different relationship with nature.
Finally, eco-socialism is a radical ethic, in the etymological sense of the word ethics proposed to go to the root of evil. Half-measures, the semirreformas, the Rio, the pollution rights markets are unable to provide a solution. It requires a radical change of paradigm, a new model of civilization, a revolutionary transformation.
This revolution up to the social relations of production, private property, division of labor, but also the productive forces. Against a vulgar Marxism, which can be supported on some texts of the founder, who conceived only as a deletion change in the sense of Hegelian Aufhebung-capitalist social relations, "obstacles the free development of productive forces "have to call into question the very structure of the production process.
To paraphrase Marx's famous formula about the state after the Paris Commune: workers, the people may not take the production system and it just works to their advantage: they have to "break" and replace it with another. Which means a profound transformation of the technical structure of production and energy sources, mainly fossil or nuclear-shape it. A technology that respects the environment and renewable energy, including solar-is in the heart of ecological and social projects.
ecological socialist utopia, a "solar communism" does not mean you have to fight today for immediate objectives that foreshadow the future and are inspired by these same values:
- Give priority to public transport against the monstrous proliferation of private cars and road transport.
- Exit the nuclear trap and develop renewable energy sources.
- Demand respect the Kyoto agreement on greenhouse effect, rejecting the myth of "market for pollution rights."
- Fight for farming, fighting multinationals and their GMO seeds.
are only some examples, one could easily extend the list. We find these claims, and the like, between the demands of the international movement against capitalist globalization and neoliberalism, which has emerged from the conference "intergalactic" against neoliberalism and for humanity, organized by the Zapatistas in the mountains of Chiapas, and which showed his strength of protest demonstrations in the streets of Seattle (1999), Prague, Quebec, Nice (2000) and Genoa (2001). A movement that is not only critical of monstrous social injustice produced by the system, but is also able to propose concrete alternatives, such as the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre (January 2001).
This movement, which rejects the commodification of the world, is the moral inspiration for his rebellion and his proposals in an ethic of solidarity inspired by social and ecological values \u200b\u200bclose to those listed here.
Translation: Massimo Modonesi
MEMORY Taken
social networking
0 comments:
Post a Comment