Alternatives in a World of Crisis

ALTERNATIVES IN A WORLD OF CRISIS GLOBAL WORKING GROUP BEYOND DEVELOPMENT MIRIAM LANG, CLAUS-DIETER KÖNIG EN AND ADA-CHARLOTTE REGELMANN (EDS) ALTERNATIVES IN A WORLD OF CRISIS INTRODUCTION 3 I NIGERIA NIGER DELTA: COMMUNITY AND RESISTANCE 16 II VENEZUELA THE BOLIVARIAN EXPERIENCE: A STRUGGLE TO TRANSCEND CAPITALISM 46 III ECUADOR NABÓN COUNTY: BUILDING LIVING WELL FROM THE BOTTOM UP 90 IV INDIA MENDHA-LEKHA: FOREST RIGHTS AND SELF-EMPOWERMENT 134 V SPAIN BARCELONA EN COMÚ: THE MUNICIPALIST MOVEMENT TO SEIZE THE INSTITUTIONS 180 VI GREECE ATHENS AND THESSALONIKI: BOTTOM-UP SOLIDARITY ALTERNATIVES IN TIMES OF CRISIS 222 CONCLUSIONS 256 GLOBAL WORKING GROUP BEYOND DEVELOPMENT Miriam Lang, Claus-Dieter König and Ada-Charlotte Regelmann (Eds) Brussels, April 2018 SEEKING ALTERNATIVES BEYOND DEVELOPMENT Miriam Lang and Raphael Hoetmer ~ 2 ~ INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION ~ 3 ~ This book is the result of a collective effort. In fact, it has been written by many contribu- tors from all over the world – women, men, activists, and scholars from very different socio-cultural contexts and political horizons, who give testimony to an even greater scope of social change. Their common concern is to show not only that alternatives do exist, despite the neoliberal mantra of the “end of history”, but that many of these alternatives are currently unfolding – even if in many cases they remain invisible to us. This book brings together a selection of texts portraying transformative processes around the world that are emblematic in that they been able to change their situated social realities in multiple ways, addressing different axes of domination simultaneously, and anticipating forms of social organization that configure alternatives to the commodi- fying, patriarchal, colonial, and destructive logics of modern capitalism. These processes of course have faced a series of challenges and contradictions, both internally and from the outside, which have resulted in a diversity of landscapes of transformatory achieve- ments in practice. Nevertheless, and maybe precisely because of their partial failures, they have all produced a range of insights. In this sense, this book does not intend to romanticize the social struggles it presents. It seeks instead to portray their contexts, conditions, and complex evolution through honest analysis and in solidarity with those affected in order to contribute to the knowledges of social movements, peoples, and collectives that promote emancipatory, multidimensional change. As Boaventura de Sousa Santos states (2017, p. 239), at the beginning of the 21st century we are left with no convincing model of progressive social transformation. Both revolution and reformism, the overall concepts that marked two distinct transformative paths toward a better society in the 19th and 20th centuries, have proven insufficient, as have the theoretical and political instruments that nourished them. In this sense, the changing global political context we are currently living in is marked by the end of short-term cycles, such as the cycle of progressive governments in Latin America, but also by the end of a long-term cycle that started centuries ago. Western dominance in the global geopolitical system is being reconfigured, whilst the Nation-State as the principal institution of our societies, associated with the modern capitalist economy, might become outdated. Our world is facing a multidimensional crisis arising from the very civilizational founda- tions that capitalist modernity is built on: on its firm belief that science and technology are the privileged means of solving social problems, and accordingly, on the scientific and technological domination of Nature, conceived only as a pool of “natural resources”; on the assumption that well-being depends on the accumulation of material goods; on its framing of humankind according to the ontology of homo oeconomicus, an overall rational, profit-maximizing, and individualistic being; on the enshrinement of unlimited economic growth as the axis of social and economic organization; and on the tendency ~ 4 ~ to commodify all aspects of life. These bases have not only produced a specific set of problems, they also shape the possible solutions that are envisioned, but often only aggravate the status quo – which explains why the current crisis is often characterized as a civilizational crisis. In the following, we will describe some of its features. CIVILIZATIONAL CRISIS Firstly, our world is facing an unprecedented level of accelerated ecological destruction that is in many ways related to modern capitalist civilization. It includes climate change, the destruction of existing water sources, the degradation of livelihoods, contamination, deforestation, the dramatic reduction of biodiversity, etc. While the future of humankind itself is at risk due to these forms of ecological destruction, extractivism1 is threatening livelihoods around the world, Nature is being more and more commodified, and global institutions and negotiations are busy promoting technocratic pseudo-solutions to these problems. As a consequence, ecological problems are increasingly framed as security issues requiring military solutions. Continuous wars, the ecological destruction of livelihoods, and the growing number of natural disasters have generated the most important migra- tion crisis in history – but again, this is an issue that Western societies mainly address by building walls and increasing securitization. Secondly, technologization, automatization, and digitalization are reshaping the labor market, the organization of our political and cultural systems, our subjectivities, and, actually, most of contemporary human life. Our world is more connected and technolo- gized than ever before, allowing decision-making and communication to take place at higher speeds than ever before. Most technology production takes place under corporate conditions exclusively for profit, and thus produces technologies which we, as user communities, control less and less. Instead of serving practical community needs, new technologies often nourish artificial needs, which are inflated by the media. Artificial intelligence and robotics are replacing humans in more and more areas and dimensions of society, in ways that entrench exploitation and discrimination instead of promoting emancipation. The unprecedented levels of supervision and vigilance are producing a full-spectrum surveillance society according to the interests of governments and corpo- rations. Another crucial element defining the current context is the rise of right wing populism and nationalism, in alliance with a conservative counteroffensive against human rights, 1 Extractivism is defined, for example, by theGrupo Permanente de Alternativas al Desarrollo as the large-scale extraction of raw materials, such as oil and minerals, or industrial agricultural monocultural products intended not for local consumption but for export, which entails many countries’ economic integration into and dependency on the capitalist world market. INTRODUCTION ~ 5 ~ women’s and LGTB rights, indigenous and collective rights, and the rights of Nature in many parts of the world. Over the last years we have witnessed dangerous alliances between sectors of big capital,2 conservative churches and lobbies, illegal capital, and others that launched campaigns against the peace process in Colombia, or against “gender ideology” in Latin America and Southern Europe. The rise of Duterte in the Philippines, Macri in Argentina, Orban in Hungary, Modi in India, or Trump in the US all reflect this. Clearly, the global conservative right has learned a lot from the progressive movements of the previous decades and has, to a large extent, co-opted their languages and agendas. All this results in a highly aggressive new phase of capitalism with very little respect for rights, democracy, and existing political institutions. Corporate power and the intense concentration of wealth in the hands of very few people are continuously increasing, creating new state-corporate sovereignties, either in economic corridors and special economic zones, or through increased corporate participation in government. National and international regulation of transnational companies largely continues to benefit free trade and private capital. Alliances between formal and informal, or even illegal, capital forces determine the diverse manifestations of capitalism today. The increasing competition over power has resulted in skyrocketing electoral campaign costs, blurring the thin line between governments, politics, corporate power, lobbies, and economic elites. All of this threatens the quality of democracy, which is – and this is another factor – increasingly conditioned by media groups related to the same economic powers that reinforce dominant ideas: they spread fear, inse- curity, and the notion that people have no alternative but to embrace contemporary capitalist society. The Global South and the Global North are linked to each other through a specific, neocolonial division of Nature and labor. Hegemonic patterns of production, distribu- tion, and consumption, re-enforced by related social imaginaries and subjectivities, determine the outlines of an imperial mode of living (Brand & Wissen, 2017) that is deeply embedded in the day-to-day practices of the majorities in the Global North and is increasingly also finding its way into the upper and middle classes of countries in the Global South. This mode of living is imperial

Load more