Few weeks have passed after my first class in the Master Program Degrowth held by the UAB from Barcelona, and I can already say that I see our history very differently. I became increasingly suspicious about how we were told capitalism developed, the roots of poverty and the solutions for our growing lists of crisis. Here I would like to explain, as I would, to my daughter when she will be 10 years, a story very different to the one I heard in school, university, home and basically everywhere.
History is told by the winners, and the winners are not always the nice guys. For many years, I believed that the system we live in was the most democratic and the reason why a significant proportion of the people I know are doing quite well. I was wrong. First, there are a lot of people who are suffering because of this system and second, it is despite it that we make some progress in democracy and social fairness. Capitalism, and the false mandate to grow and accumulate, are at the core of the many crises we face now. Here, I am trying to share with you another story as the one I was told. But please, do not take it like gospel, do search and read by yourself, and do not let your father or any centralized institution tell you what truth is. Look at the facts and listen to your instinct, they are quite strong together.
The not so dark Middle Age
Feudalism was unjust. In those times, a few people exploited others, so they can consume too much and engaged into stupid wars. This system was meant to collapse, as it was unfair to the many.
Luckily it did, not because of capitalism, but despite its expansion. For a short period of time, many people become owners of small land and engage into a peasant economy where cooperation and not competition was the drive that bring resilience and prosperity for the many.
Yes, you guess it, the elites from feudal times were not happy. They could not bear the idea that those peasants were doing so well, and that they need to work too to get what they want. In a very violent way they destroyed what the peasants have built, a resilient community in harmony with nature (will call it commons from now, as we are also nature).
Highway to Industrialization
Without commons such as healthy soil, forests and clean water... the peasant life is not possible, and peasants were forced to work cheaply and desperately in the industry. The expansion of capitalism needed people who need to work to survive, for others, in dangerous places, day and night. Producing more, cheaper...is the goal of capitalism. Not better, not human, not for higher ends... just bigger, faster and cheaper.
Kids like you have to work there, people die in those places, too young and too miserable. They do it in the name of growth, not clear for what and for who, by capitalism was succeeding. It created a very productive monster, and very effectively, expand oversees. Capitalism become a new imperial order, that is willing to expand and destroy any disident, by violent means if necessary.
Imperialism, by product of capitalism
In order to have your population engaging into the industry, someone has to bring food, and also a lot of capital to build the factories and infrastructure required. The aim for cheapness, lead to the violent 'conquest' or better called invasion of other countries. Those countries, many of them with similar peasant economies as the ones we talked before, were exploited and killed to support the transfer of cheap food, capital, minerals and other resources to the European capitalistic machine.
Capitalism and colonialism are not separate ideas, the first need the second to extend their expansion. At this point, forget about a single person, or even a small group, the idea of capitalism and growth became so dominant, that even science and the mind of people is kidnapped. It was not like a single terrific dragon, but like a virus, that propagates and makes the victim weak, but ideally not too much so to keep the exploitation going.
With the global expansion of capitalism and colonialism, we start separating the world with the idea of the North (dominant, imperial, "developed", "civilized") and the South (raped, exploited, "underdeveloped", "uncivilized"). Despite the efforts to keep this unequal arrangements, the South raised against these imperials regimes and with few exceptions liberated from the domination of the North (I will call it interchangeably The Empire, because it is too similar to the one from Star Wars, a film your father liked a lot as a kid).
The raise and fall and another raise and fall of the South
The South was not happy, and the reasons were obvious. How would you feel if someone else forces you to produce what they want and the price they want? Not the mentioned if they mistreated you because of your race or ethnicity.
People in the South organized, claiming their rights for autonomy, for real democracy. Some people died, some people were killed to defend their freedom of their country, but they succeed. Slowly, they own their companies and their commons again, and could invest money in what we consider essential, such as proper education and health regimes for all. Everything was improving, the people of the South believed the times from colonization will never got back.
But not so fast... as in fictions, quiet times do not last forever. Some countries in the North, with special presence of USA, were very decided to keep under their control the countries of the South.
Open invansion like in the past was not an option, as very little people in North like you and me would support it, so they find local people to be willing to stablish a coup and follow North countries guidelines (the servants of the Empire order).
This is what happened, one after the other, like by strange bad luck, those countries were led by dictators who were criminal with their own citizens, but were very docile with the Empire.
It was a very dark period, many people were killed to defend the progress made, living conditions were worsened like nothing seen in decades. But the South was raising again, a spark of hope slowly remove the dictatorships regimes and establish a track of positive development on those regions. Not only democracy came back, but also good economic and social prospects. But this was not going to end so easily, as the imperial order have a plan to keep imposing its conditions to the South, this time without directly engaging into coups or war, but rather with economic violence.
The Empire strikes back
At this point in time, the economic relationships around the world were quite global, everyone buys or sells something to everyone else. Rare were the cases of local economies anymore. The right not to trade, was something of the past.
The Empirial order of the North, controlled the most strong currencies worldwide, and also the international institutions of credit. That means, they have the majority of the power on how much money you get and at which cost/interest. Normally for large projects you need credit, and that was the tool that the Empire used to struggle, once and for all, the South.
The South depends on such credit, and the Empire decided to increase the cost of credit, to an extent that more and more money or wealth from the South was transfer to the North. A series of events, such as the increase of the prices of oil, make the situation even more critical to the South, requiring even more money.
That was a key point, as in order to give that money, the North and its servant insitutions, ask those countries to prioritize the service of that debt at all cost, and incur in adjustments programs that cut investments in the commons and also puts wages down. As more money was send to the Empire, the economic welfare and sovereignty of those countries fade away.
Tales of Trade
Things look bad, but will look worse in a moment. I always heard global trade benefit everyone, because you focus on what you do relatively better than the other. It sounds reasonable, in theory. But is a theory, in practice, the international institutions that regulate trade and the arrangements are based on a very unequal set of forces. It is like you are asked to join a monopoly table game but some hours later from start, with a debt pilling up on your backs. Would you accept that set up?
The result of that is a permanent situation where the South is forced to sell too cheap, and the North too expensive. In trade, as in any other arrangement, unequal levels of power, leads to unequal levels or bargaining. The Empire, and all the partnerts in the North enjoyed a privilege and abusive regime with the South, making the end of poverty an apparent impossible feat, because the South could not get out of the artificial poverty traps created by the unfairness of global trade.
If we want to end up poverty, we should not send more money to the "poor". Instead, if we build fair trade institutions and reward producers worldwide fairly for the highly valuable goods and services, we will provide sufficient food, land, energy and other basic supplies for the 8 billion people on Earth without growth. International aid and growth, are promises that will never deliver.
Instead of stealing from you seventy, and giving you 1 later, would it not be fairer not to steal you at all?
The game is not over
It looks awefull, I know, but there is hope. The exhaustion of capitalism is clear, its promises of permanent growth and global trade to end poverty and create jobs for all does not hold. Mother Earth screams at the latest years of unchecked expropiation of the commons, but some people are organizing.
The first thing that is happening is that the version of the history I was told is believed by less and less people. Growth is not sexy, useful nor desirable. Capitalism is traiting the people who work very hard for its success. There are less and less people benefiting from capitalism, and any war, even on the name of democracy, have less supporters outside the elites.
I have not faith on capitalism, nor in the Elites that profit from the missery of the billion, while giving 1% of the money they steal. But I am excited and thrilled by the ideas on degrowth. Activists, scientists, leaders of all fields and causes are saying no to the Empire and its unfair means to achieve empty ends.
They identify capitalism as the root cause of our crisis and the unacceptable amount of poverty we see today. Instead of selling a false consensus, degrowth is open, it does not follow a single author or line of thinking. It does not put all possible means towards an stupid end like growthism. It is democratic and rigorous like nothing I have seen.
Degrowth tell us a different story, not even named by my economic teachers, the media or my close ones. But it is the one I choose to believe now. Please note, there is nothing natural, fair and just in capitalism and its bugs. It was an invention from the elite for the elite, and at the risk of disagreement, I believe in the power of the democratization of the economical and social, and also in the autonomy of the communities. To finish today, I would like to leave you with the following notes:
" Dare to disagree, but be rigorous, methodic, serious while you smile. Read history, not only from those who impose an order, the so called winners, but those who are suffering today or deeply disagree to the mainstream. Be open to ideas, be confortable in the pluriverse, because the universe have more misteries that you will ever reveal. Scape dogmatism, uncritical faith and passivity. Be the change, with others, you want to see in this world, the only one we could live in. You do not need much to live well, all you need is degrowth ; )"
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