The Global Financial Crisis

Occupy: movement for the Future?

The Global Financial crisis economic and social disaster

"It’s not just the economy, it’s a human rights crisis: the world is sitting on a social, political and economic time bomb". Irene Kahn, Amnesty International.

Without borders, for global change

The global financial crisis, really started to show its effects in the middle of 2007 and into 2008. Around the world stock markets have fallen, large financial institutions have collapsed or been bought out, and governments in even the wealthiest nations have had to come up with rescue packages to bail out their financial systems. In The world, a number of major financial institutions failed. Others needed rescuing. The world financial crisis marked the end of a long political cycle. Since the 1980s, many countries tried to build a modern welfare state on the ruins of a destroyed labor society and to finance it through speculation and debts. The welfare states were built without a productive foundation strong enough to make it sustainable in the long term. From a historical perspective, this project “finance- capitalist welfare state” is done and over with. Following a period of economic boom, a financial bubble—global in scope —has now burst. A collapse of the US sub-prime mortgage market and the reversal of the housing boom in other industrialized economies have had a ripple effect around the world. Furthermore, other weaknesses in the global financial system have surfaced. Some financial products and instruments have become so complex and twisted, that as things start to unravel, trust in the whole system started to fail. On the one hand many people are concerned that those responsible for the financial problems are the ones being bailed out, while on the other hand, a global financial meltdown will affect the livelihoods of almost everyone in an increasingly inter-connected world. Human rights has long been a concern. Recent years have seen increasing acknowledgment that human rights and economic issues such as development go hand in hand. Long before the global financial crisis took hold, human rights concerns were high the world over, as annual reports from Amnesty International and other human rights organizations repeatedly warned about. The global financial crisis has led to an economic crisis which in turn has led to a human rights crisis, says Amnesty in their 2009 report1. They find that as millions more slide into poverty as a result of the current crisis, social unrest increases resulting in more protests. These protests are sometimes met with a lot of suppression. Other times, people are exploited further. The World Bank agrees. The World Bank has warned of a “human catastrophe” in the world’s poorest countries unless more is done to tackle the global economic crisis and fears massive social upheaval if more is not done to address the crisis. Ineffective regulation of Human rights by governments have been exacerbated by the world economic crisis, which brought the problems of poverty and inequality to the fore. Millions of people are suffering from insecurity,

1 Amnesty International Report 2009, May 27, 2009. The Amnesty International Report 2009 highlights the impact of the economic crisis on human rights across the world, calling for a new deal on human rights to go hand-in-hand with any proposed financial solutions. injustice and indignity around the world. In many cases, the economic crisis made matters worse, with millions more sliding into poverty. Increased poverty and deprivation have led to denial of economic and social rights – including food shortages and the use of food as a political weapon; forced evictions; abuse of rights of indigenous peoples. Yet human rights problems have been relegated to the backseat as political and business leaders grapple with the economic crisis. The results of attack on the society of labor and by extension on the countries productive economy have been very far reaching. First, job quality and working conditions were downgraded in record time. Second, value chains have been split and scattered all over the territory through a very aggressive outsourcing policy. Third, employment has concentrated in environmentally unsustainable sectors such as construction, mass tourism and car making. Highway transportation has become a key factor for mobility in a spatially dispersed and ill-planned territory. This allows for dualisation of the labor market and consumes lots of space, lengthens commuting time and causes high levels of energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions. «It is not mere capitalism but ugly capitalism.»2 In the past few years saw massive rises in the price of the most basic of necessities – food – which had the effect of making the poorest people in the world even poorer. People took to the streets across the world and, in many countries, were faced with violent repression. Many people are now calling for fundamental reforms of the financial systems, internationally. This includes international banking and finance, to reform of international financial institutions such as the World Bank and IMF. Part of the reform suggestions also include giving more voice and power to poor countries, who typically have little say in how the global economy is shaped.

2 CRISIS IN EUROPE – CRISIS OF EUROPE - site under construction, “Financial Crisis and the Remaking of the Society of Labor”. Social tensions and economic disparities led to thousands of protests throughout all the world. Hundreds of activists protesting against economic decline and social conditions were arrested and detained without charge.

The contents of the crisis. The first things that usually marked as problem are the common contents that usually appear in other campaign, movement and mobilizations, activist groups or assemblies: environment (no nuclear, protecting the environment, etc.), banks (control the markets, tax havens, etc.), education (free and public education, etc.), social care, migration, wars… But these contents depend a lot on each country’s context and its problems, the priorities change a lot from one country to another. Probably environment would be one of the contents in Europe, but for sure war or food would be the one in Africa. It’s difficult to determine global priorities, as well as the ideas that should give a path to change the world. Therefore, the main idea is to change the point of view. Roots of the problems are important, the roots that are causing all these problems; roots that are common worldwide. And that fundamental issue that lie behind all the other problems is that the people of the world, are not deciding what the world should be. If they could, most of these problems would just disappear. That’s the main idea that is behind all mobilizations in Egypt, Tunisia, Spain, Greece, Iceland, Israel, USA etc. People want to decide what their countries should be, instead of dictators, markets, or governments that do not listen to the people. And once we get back the power we will find the specific answers to our problems, probably different from one country to another. That very basic, but powerful idea led to two main contents:  For giving the power to the people. For a direct democracy in a local and global level.  Against who are deciding for us. The whole world can feel this two ideas like their own content, and at the same time be a global answer to the global problems. In a next level each country could develop this contents according to each local view.

The events we've seen with the world economic crisis at the top, demand a new kind of protest movement, movements where each normal citizen has a voice.

We know that the powers are global, that we live in a globalized world, and therefore our answer should be global too.

“… We are doesn’t know whether there’s going to be enough money to make this month’s rent. We are gets sick and toughs it out because we’ll never afford the hospital bills. We’re trying to move a mountain of debt that never seems to get any smaller no matter how hard we try. We do all the things we’re supposed to do. get a second job. We take classes to improve our skills. But it’s not enough. It’s never enough. The anxiety, the frustration, the powerlessness is still there... all we can do is think about the next one and how much harder it’s all going to be.

They say it’s because you’re lazy. They say it’s because you make poor choices. They say it’s because you’re spoiled. If you’d only apply yourself a little more, worked a little harder, planned a little better, things would go well for you. They say you have no one to blame but yourself. They say it’s all your fault.

They are the 1 percent. They are the banks, the mortgage industry, the insurance industry. They are the important ones. They need help and get bailed out and are praised as job creators. We need help and get nothing and are called entitled. We live in a society made for them, not for us. It’s their world, not ours. If we’re lucky, they’ll let us work in it so long as we don’t question the extent of their charity.

We are the 99 percent. We are everyone else. And we will no longer be silent. It’s time the 1 percent got to know us a little better…”

To be continued …..

From Spain’s 15 May movement to Occupy movement