The crisis of the left
Roberto Savio *
Rome
The victory of the right in Chile has caused me some thoughts on the crisis of the left. In 1992, he was driving left the fifteen European Union countries, and now governs only five among them, Portugal and Spain are in serious economic and social difficulties, and Greece is on the verge of collapse.
is difficult to see a crisis coming from far away, for those with less than fifty years. There seems to be a short-term solution.
must remember that the end of World War II and the creation of the United Nations began an extraordinary process of political modernity based on constitutional principles: social justice and democratic participation. Economic expansion has been accompanied by a major process of reform (such as agriculture), on workers' rights, health and employment.
On the international scene, an important step was the adoption by the General Assembly, in the '70s, a declaration on the New International Economic Order, in which there was talk of "social justice world and is recognized in Third World countries the right to increase their participation in the global economy, reducing the privileges of the industrialized countries.
In the documents of the time, the values \u200b\u200bof human development on a global level were the basis of the political debate. He then opened a summit of 22 heads of state, the North-South dialogue, with a first and a second meeting in Paris to Cancun (1980). Meanwhile, UNESCO approved the creation of a New World Information Order, to rebalance the flow of information monopolized by a few countries of the North.
At the Cancun meeting attended by the newly elected Ronald Reagan, not interested in international justice, but very attracted to the trade, here was coined the famous slogan "Trade not Aid" (Trade not aid). A few years later came the World Trade Organization (WTO), outside of the United Nations, and against the UN had declared a war as a source of de-legitimization of decisions in the world.
The New Information Order and the New Economic Order were cleared, the U.S. went out by UNESCO (along with England and Singapore) and launched the new monetary order and economic development of the Washington Consensus, which imposed the thought neoliberal only as the foundation of international relations. Do not forget the deliberate destruction of union power.
Reagan and Margaret Tathcher in the UK changed the course of history. In the same decade, in 1989, fall of the Berlin Wall and the fall opens the way for an interpretation without hesitation: the winners had not defeated an enemy, the Soviet Union, but everything went against capitalism. The neoliberal Yoshihiro Francis Fukuyama, neocon guru of thought, especially in foreign policy, said that this was the end of the story, because by then there would have been only capitalism, growing and uncontrolled effects. To give an idea
del clima dell'epoca, in una conferenza a Milano nel 1994, il direttore della OMC Renato Ruggero affermava che le fortezze d'Europa, Asia e Stati Uniti si sarebbero presto integrate in un unico blocco economico, che il mondo non avrebbe visto più guerre, ci sarebbe stata una sola moneta, e che l'enorme ricchezza creata dalla globalizzazione si sarebbe estesa al mondo intero, facendo ciò che la teoria dello sviluppo non avrebbe mai potuto fare.
Il comunismo era morto, adesso si decretava la fine delle ideologie. Il pensiero unico spazzò via ogni opinione diversa nel mondo. Il mercato era il miglior meccanismo regolatore dell'economia, della società e della cultura. E si arrivò perfino a dire dell'istruzione.
Di fronte a questa grande bugia, la sinistra cercò di essere meno stridente e antistorica possibile, mimetizzandosi negli stili e negli immaginari collettivi del momento. In linea generale, si divise in due gruppi: le vedove e le vergini.
Le vedove si collocarono ai margini della politica, eccetto nei paesi ex socialisti. Le vergini cominciarono ad intonare la fine delle ideologie, verso il pragmatismo: "Bisogna essere pragmatici" era il motto degli anni '90. Dal linguaggio politico uscirono molte parole (codici di comunicazione) che non facilitavano le vergini: giustizia sociale, solidarietà, trasparenza, partecipazione, ridistribuzione, tassazione progressiva, e così via.
Il pragmatismo ha un problema clear: without a conceptual framework in which to operate, it becomes a mechanism by which it does only what is possible, and therefore what is useful. And then it is not pragmatism but utilitarianism. The policy focuses on administrative problems, without an overview of the company and without a scale. You left without an identity, who lives in constant controversy over the right staffing and administrative issues.
Parallel to this shift in the political sphere, another has imposed even more decisive in the economic world. With the removal of all controls on banking, decreed by President Clinton in 1989, and the thrill of the Bush administration neo-liberal, which invented high-risk financial instruments without precedent, the real economy of goods and services has lost its force in the face of finance, which has seen a growth instead multiplied by winds than the real economy.
The relationship between politics and economy has changed dramatically. The reality of the factories, the production is no longer the main point of reference. And in the face of global finance and totally devoid of control mechanisms, the world's national space, its laws and its institutions, began to lose more and more important and consistency. It has reduced the weight of politics and the triumph of the values \u200b\u200bof globalization has become the center of political debate.
In this debate, the old terms are captured for a new Cold War: Barack Obama, the Republicans, is a socialist. For Berlusconi, the opposition are all communists.
And the left? The left is now with the vocabulary, without communication codes with which people identify with. He can not talk about social justice, solidarity, justice, or redistribution without being accused of communist nostalgia.
In Italy there was the extraordinary phenomenon of the Ministry of Labour has changed its name to Ministry of Welfare, Welfare ie, without saying absolutely nothing left, not to seem too left.
La lista delle concessioni fatte in ogni paese europeo riempirebbe un libro intero. Di fronte all'eccezionale fenomeno di un giovane di colore eletto presidente degli Stati Uniti con voto popolare di massa, vediamo che è la vecchia squadra economica, responsabile della crisi, a salire al potere insieme a lui. Questo fatto impedisce ogni possibilità di riforma di un sistema finanziario ridotto al collasso e sostenuto dai cittadini americani, che ha già provocato cento milioni di nuovi poveri, e che probabilmente tornerà a crollare ancora più a picco entro breve tempo, se non ci sarà nessuna riforma.
Il Nobel dell'economia Joseph Stiglitz afferma che i vincitori del muro di Berlino sono i perdenti di oggi, con the collapse of the other wall, one of Wall Street (Wall means the wall). But how does a young man who has not experienced the whole process, to understand the paradox of Stiglitz, and believe that without a left identity is the way to a company other than that which exists today?
© IPS
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