It is ultimately an old adage that unfortunately seems to work. When the
disasters of the financialization of the economy emerge, then it is
argued that salvation lies in reviving the real economy; when we reflect
on the social and environmental degradation caused by productivism, then
we invoke an immaterial and hyper-technological capitalism and invent
phantom transitions: ecological, digital. As long as the capitalism of a
thousand lives maintains its hegemony. After all, we have been
inculcated and we have internalized the idea that our only possible
horizon is the capitalist market system, despite it being considered the
main responsible for the current climate crisis and its deleterious
developments. Thus two opposing but convergent assumptions seem to
dominate, two real ideological fetishes that return the image of a
resilient capitalism that, like a phoenix, is continually reborn from
its ashes. On the pessimistic side is the idea, which Tomasi di
Lampedusa gave a powerful representation of in his famous novel, that
everything must change so that nothing changes. This applies to power in
itself as well as to capitalism. On the optimistic side, the Smithian
image of the invisible hand prevails, according to which "It is
certainly not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the
baker that we expect our lunch, but from the fact that they care for
their own interests". Regardless of what Adam Smith, the undisputed
founder of political economy, actually meant to say, the belief that
each person, by behaving selfishly, ends up doing the best for the
entire community and ensuring the well-being of the majority has a
remarkable strength and reassuring capacity.
I found a recent representation of this fideistic optimism in an article
published by the newspaper Il Manifesto on 10 November and signed by
Stefano Ciafani, president of Legambiente. The basic thesis supported in
the article, whose title is exemplary "Dangerous braking. But green is
the only market", is that capitalist development is moving in the
direction of a renewal that focuses on new technologies and green,
sustainable and environmentally friendly production. Therefore, neither
Trump nor Meloni can stop this process, although, says Ciafani, they are
slowing it down just when it would be necessary to accelerate its path.
But in the end this virtuous and convenient process, is the confident
conclusion, will triumph. Some passages of the article are truly
illuminating of this way of reasoning: "Fortunately, the world economy
on the energy supply chain is going almost entirely towards renewables,
efficiency and innovation. We environmentalists are not saying this, but
the International Energy Agency.[...]What can realistically happen is
that the U-turn of the US in climate policies could cause the US to lose
leadership on the transition compared to China.[...]The new von der
Leyen commission must then abandon the nonsense of the sovereignists and
conservatives, with which it has flirted in the last year and a half,
and invest in a new Clean Industrial Act[...]As for Italy, it is already
pulling the brakes on clean technologies.[...]Extending the times is the
best way to distance ourselves further from China. Where already now
half of the cars sold are electric". A speech, as you can see, all
stuffed with economism, with those refrains that constitute the verb of
self-reforming capitalism: efficiency, innovation, sustainability. Which
necessarily fits into a context of a competitive, profit-producing
market. Therefore, if Italy does not want to "lose share in the world
market" it must support its natural evolution which would be the green one.
The closing of the article is then all aimed at demonstrating that on
the left or rather the progressives are more aware than the capitalists
themselves of the evolution of capitalism. In fact, regarding nuclear
power, it is stated: "Nuclear power is dead and we environmentalists
have not killed it, in the world, but the market that many people talk
about so much, starting with Confindustria".
However, it is not surprising at all that Ciafani, and with him all the
mannered environmentalism, expresses these positions. For him, for them,
capitalism is truly the best of all possible worlds; certainly to be
mitigated, to be reformed, to be improved, but from which we cannot
ignore. If then this capitalism, as is already happening, adopts its
extractivist and predatory logic also in green production, also for new
renewable energies, also for new means of transport compatible with the
environment, this is not a problem. Like the new/old colonialism, which
multinationals and powers continue to impose on much of Africa and a
good part of Asia and South America to procure the materials needed for
green production, and the heavy impact on the territories, to be able to
produce the considerable amount of energy essential for an
energy-intensive system like the industrial one, end up becoming the
price to pay for a higher purpose. Which is hopefully at least, in the
minds of the supporters of pro-capitalist environmentalism, that of
saving the planet and human societies from extinction. If then it were
only a matter of competitiveness and making headway in the global market ...
At least in the absurdity of classical Marxism it was thought that only
the complete affirmation of capitalism would have put into action all
those contradictions that would then have allowed its overcoming and the
realization of the socialist society, the abolition of exploitation and
equality for all. Today, however, capitalism can easily renew itself, it
can reproduce all its contradictions without us even being able to
imagine its overcoming.
Angelo Barberi
http://sicilialibertaria.it
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
disasters of the financialization of the economy emerge, then it is
argued that salvation lies in reviving the real economy; when we reflect
on the social and environmental degradation caused by productivism, then
we invoke an immaterial and hyper-technological capitalism and invent
phantom transitions: ecological, digital. As long as the capitalism of a
thousand lives maintains its hegemony. After all, we have been
inculcated and we have internalized the idea that our only possible
horizon is the capitalist market system, despite it being considered the
main responsible for the current climate crisis and its deleterious
developments. Thus two opposing but convergent assumptions seem to
dominate, two real ideological fetishes that return the image of a
resilient capitalism that, like a phoenix, is continually reborn from
its ashes. On the pessimistic side is the idea, which Tomasi di
Lampedusa gave a powerful representation of in his famous novel, that
everything must change so that nothing changes. This applies to power in
itself as well as to capitalism. On the optimistic side, the Smithian
image of the invisible hand prevails, according to which "It is
certainly not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the
baker that we expect our lunch, but from the fact that they care for
their own interests". Regardless of what Adam Smith, the undisputed
founder of political economy, actually meant to say, the belief that
each person, by behaving selfishly, ends up doing the best for the
entire community and ensuring the well-being of the majority has a
remarkable strength and reassuring capacity.
I found a recent representation of this fideistic optimism in an article
published by the newspaper Il Manifesto on 10 November and signed by
Stefano Ciafani, president of Legambiente. The basic thesis supported in
the article, whose title is exemplary "Dangerous braking. But green is
the only market", is that capitalist development is moving in the
direction of a renewal that focuses on new technologies and green,
sustainable and environmentally friendly production. Therefore, neither
Trump nor Meloni can stop this process, although, says Ciafani, they are
slowing it down just when it would be necessary to accelerate its path.
But in the end this virtuous and convenient process, is the confident
conclusion, will triumph. Some passages of the article are truly
illuminating of this way of reasoning: "Fortunately, the world economy
on the energy supply chain is going almost entirely towards renewables,
efficiency and innovation. We environmentalists are not saying this, but
the International Energy Agency.[...]What can realistically happen is
that the U-turn of the US in climate policies could cause the US to lose
leadership on the transition compared to China.[...]The new von der
Leyen commission must then abandon the nonsense of the sovereignists and
conservatives, with which it has flirted in the last year and a half,
and invest in a new Clean Industrial Act[...]As for Italy, it is already
pulling the brakes on clean technologies.[...]Extending the times is the
best way to distance ourselves further from China. Where already now
half of the cars sold are electric". A speech, as you can see, all
stuffed with economism, with those refrains that constitute the verb of
self-reforming capitalism: efficiency, innovation, sustainability. Which
necessarily fits into a context of a competitive, profit-producing
market. Therefore, if Italy does not want to "lose share in the world
market" it must support its natural evolution which would be the green one.
The closing of the article is then all aimed at demonstrating that on
the left or rather the progressives are more aware than the capitalists
themselves of the evolution of capitalism. In fact, regarding nuclear
power, it is stated: "Nuclear power is dead and we environmentalists
have not killed it, in the world, but the market that many people talk
about so much, starting with Confindustria".
However, it is not surprising at all that Ciafani, and with him all the
mannered environmentalism, expresses these positions. For him, for them,
capitalism is truly the best of all possible worlds; certainly to be
mitigated, to be reformed, to be improved, but from which we cannot
ignore. If then this capitalism, as is already happening, adopts its
extractivist and predatory logic also in green production, also for new
renewable energies, also for new means of transport compatible with the
environment, this is not a problem. Like the new/old colonialism, which
multinationals and powers continue to impose on much of Africa and a
good part of Asia and South America to procure the materials needed for
green production, and the heavy impact on the territories, to be able to
produce the considerable amount of energy essential for an
energy-intensive system like the industrial one, end up becoming the
price to pay for a higher purpose. Which is hopefully at least, in the
minds of the supporters of pro-capitalist environmentalism, that of
saving the planet and human societies from extinction. If then it were
only a matter of competitiveness and making headway in the global market ...
At least in the absurdity of classical Marxism it was thought that only
the complete affirmation of capitalism would have put into action all
those contradictions that would then have allowed its overcoming and the
realization of the socialist society, the abolition of exploitation and
equality for all. Today, however, capitalism can easily renew itself, it
can reproduce all its contradictions without us even being able to
imagine its overcoming.
Angelo Barberi
http://sicilialibertaria.it
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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