The Trumpian duties affair has the entire world in suspense, disoriented
at the same time by the continuous and sudden changes of choice of the
US president, who in the space of a few weeks has changed his mind
several times, with a back and forth that has probably also favored rich
stock market speculations. The main objective of the American
protectionist turn is undoubtedly to counter the rise of China and to
give new life to the national manufacturing industry, and yet a debate
has been ignited that opposes protectionists and free marketeers, that
is, a bad capitalism and a good one. On the one hand, Trump who, from
time to time, is defined as arrogant, a show-off, a bully, a madman, an
exponent of a capitalism that has returned to its most blatant animal
spirits; on the other, almost all the European governments, balanced and
champions of a liberal and free market capitalism that aims to spread
goods and well-being (and profits), despite some distortions that can
always be amended. However, liberalism and protectionism are nothing
more than the two poles of the same capitalist logic that requires both
openness and closure of foreign trade, in order to incentivize profits
and develop the economy. Not to mention that the strongest economies
always tend to impose themselves with internal closure to foreign goods
and foreign opening to their own. Liberals and protectionists at the
same time! The history of capitalism is full of situations of this kind,
a mix of protectionism and liberalism aimed at ensuring the affirmation
of their goods on world markets. Almost all European and non-European
countries were protectionists at the time of the birth and take-off of
the national industry, from Italy to Japan, from Germany to the United
States. Protectionists, and largely interventionists, through government
policies in order to consolidate industrialization. Liberals towards the
outside when their goods could assert themselves on the markets. In this
respect, Italy has a textbook history. It was the liberals of the late
nineteenth century who promoted a protectionist policy for the nascent
industry (incidentally causing those territorial imbalances that still
today go under the name of the Southern question); then when the
industry consolidated, people began to demand freedom for their goods.
After all, what was the much vaunted globalization if not the
possibility for large financial capital to grab resources around the
world, and continue to exploit at will with new and more sophisticated
forms of colonialism what today we call (once again with a Eurocentric
and racist flavor) the global south? So liberalism and protectionism are
nothing but fictions of a predatory system that in plundering creates
imbalances and then tries to resolve them with new exploitation and, if
it fails, with wars, like those currently underway and those that are
threatened on our horizon.
Taking sides for liberalism or protectionism is therefore a false
problem, but one cannot even imagine or prefigure the possibility that
our system, supposedly intrinsically democratic, has within itself the
tools to be able to mend its ways and take a different path. As Emiliano
Brancaccio seems to propose in an article published in Il Manifesto,
recalling the so-called social standards, that is, "proposals put
forward by the ILO (the UN agency for labor and social policies), rules
present in the EU Treaties and clauses contained in the statute of the
International Monetary Fund", which would consist "in a limitation of
trade with those countries that implement policies of downward
competition on wages, working conditions, environmental and health
protection regimes". While sharing Brancaccio's very respectable
analyses, one cannot begin by saying "Will we die as liberals or
protectionists? According to the political agenda, these are the only
ropes we can choose to hang ourselves with today", and then in the same
article propose a solution that is entirely internal to capitalism.
Because of the contradiction that does not allow it, one might say.
First of all, which political forces, even those on the left, would be
capable of carrying out such a battle today? And then would this system
allow for such far-reaching reforms to be carried out painlessly,
without an adequate force of impact, a widespread and radical
mobilization? It is reasonable to doubt it. But I believe the real
question is another. Can we still now, faced with a very serious
environmental and climate crisis, continue to think in terms of
commercial limitations, of market regulation, which would still continue
to function according to competitive logic, with a view to continuous
development that cannot do anything other than grab and plunder ever new
resources? It is not enough, as Brancaccio seems to believe, to put some
constraints and hope that there are independent and authoritative
governments to enforce them.
What should therefore be done by those who, as Brancaccio always writes,
"intend to represent the demands of work, the environment and collective
health"? Certainly they cannot be satisfied with introducing rules, more
or less stringent, within the system. It is also necessary to make an
effort of imagination and propose if not solutions at least indications
that go beyond the system and follow truly different paths. And these
are not lacking. In a world invaded by goods, most of which are harmful
or useless, would it not be the case to fight for a reduction in
production rather than to keep factories open or to set up new ones? And
in a world in which goods circulate wildly from one end to the other
causing pollution and altering the climate, would it not be the case to
reorient the production and distribution of goods on a local scale?
Incentivize useful productions, not harmful to the environment and
people, direct, equal and supportive exchange? In a moment like the
current one of reorganization of capitalism that has been called
transition (ecological, digital) to mask that everything always happens
according to the usual extractivist and monopolistic logics - Trump's
blatant interest in Ukrainian minerals could be the perfect example of
what transition really means - we should more lucidly escape the
dominant narrative, not imitate its systemic solutions, even if these
seem reasonable to us, while the reversal of logic seems illusory to us.
In his poem Gli alberi, published in 1973 in the collection Questo muro,
Franco Fortini focuses on the disasters of industrial civilization that
destroys, drowns, pollutes; in the end, metaphorically addressing his
daughter, he invites her not to despair but to know. Here, awareness
should at least be our fixed point from which to start or restart to
prevent this system from annihilating us between bombs and artificial
intelligence.
ANGELO BARBERI
https://www.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
at the same time by the continuous and sudden changes of choice of the
US president, who in the space of a few weeks has changed his mind
several times, with a back and forth that has probably also favored rich
stock market speculations. The main objective of the American
protectionist turn is undoubtedly to counter the rise of China and to
give new life to the national manufacturing industry, and yet a debate
has been ignited that opposes protectionists and free marketeers, that
is, a bad capitalism and a good one. On the one hand, Trump who, from
time to time, is defined as arrogant, a show-off, a bully, a madman, an
exponent of a capitalism that has returned to its most blatant animal
spirits; on the other, almost all the European governments, balanced and
champions of a liberal and free market capitalism that aims to spread
goods and well-being (and profits), despite some distortions that can
always be amended. However, liberalism and protectionism are nothing
more than the two poles of the same capitalist logic that requires both
openness and closure of foreign trade, in order to incentivize profits
and develop the economy. Not to mention that the strongest economies
always tend to impose themselves with internal closure to foreign goods
and foreign opening to their own. Liberals and protectionists at the
same time! The history of capitalism is full of situations of this kind,
a mix of protectionism and liberalism aimed at ensuring the affirmation
of their goods on world markets. Almost all European and non-European
countries were protectionists at the time of the birth and take-off of
the national industry, from Italy to Japan, from Germany to the United
States. Protectionists, and largely interventionists, through government
policies in order to consolidate industrialization. Liberals towards the
outside when their goods could assert themselves on the markets. In this
respect, Italy has a textbook history. It was the liberals of the late
nineteenth century who promoted a protectionist policy for the nascent
industry (incidentally causing those territorial imbalances that still
today go under the name of the Southern question); then when the
industry consolidated, people began to demand freedom for their goods.
After all, what was the much vaunted globalization if not the
possibility for large financial capital to grab resources around the
world, and continue to exploit at will with new and more sophisticated
forms of colonialism what today we call (once again with a Eurocentric
and racist flavor) the global south? So liberalism and protectionism are
nothing but fictions of a predatory system that in plundering creates
imbalances and then tries to resolve them with new exploitation and, if
it fails, with wars, like those currently underway and those that are
threatened on our horizon.
Taking sides for liberalism or protectionism is therefore a false
problem, but one cannot even imagine or prefigure the possibility that
our system, supposedly intrinsically democratic, has within itself the
tools to be able to mend its ways and take a different path. As Emiliano
Brancaccio seems to propose in an article published in Il Manifesto,
recalling the so-called social standards, that is, "proposals put
forward by the ILO (the UN agency for labor and social policies), rules
present in the EU Treaties and clauses contained in the statute of the
International Monetary Fund", which would consist "in a limitation of
trade with those countries that implement policies of downward
competition on wages, working conditions, environmental and health
protection regimes". While sharing Brancaccio's very respectable
analyses, one cannot begin by saying "Will we die as liberals or
protectionists? According to the political agenda, these are the only
ropes we can choose to hang ourselves with today", and then in the same
article propose a solution that is entirely internal to capitalism.
Because of the contradiction that does not allow it, one might say.
First of all, which political forces, even those on the left, would be
capable of carrying out such a battle today? And then would this system
allow for such far-reaching reforms to be carried out painlessly,
without an adequate force of impact, a widespread and radical
mobilization? It is reasonable to doubt it. But I believe the real
question is another. Can we still now, faced with a very serious
environmental and climate crisis, continue to think in terms of
commercial limitations, of market regulation, which would still continue
to function according to competitive logic, with a view to continuous
development that cannot do anything other than grab and plunder ever new
resources? It is not enough, as Brancaccio seems to believe, to put some
constraints and hope that there are independent and authoritative
governments to enforce them.
What should therefore be done by those who, as Brancaccio always writes,
"intend to represent the demands of work, the environment and collective
health"? Certainly they cannot be satisfied with introducing rules, more
or less stringent, within the system. It is also necessary to make an
effort of imagination and propose if not solutions at least indications
that go beyond the system and follow truly different paths. And these
are not lacking. In a world invaded by goods, most of which are harmful
or useless, would it not be the case to fight for a reduction in
production rather than to keep factories open or to set up new ones? And
in a world in which goods circulate wildly from one end to the other
causing pollution and altering the climate, would it not be the case to
reorient the production and distribution of goods on a local scale?
Incentivize useful productions, not harmful to the environment and
people, direct, equal and supportive exchange? In a moment like the
current one of reorganization of capitalism that has been called
transition (ecological, digital) to mask that everything always happens
according to the usual extractivist and monopolistic logics - Trump's
blatant interest in Ukrainian minerals could be the perfect example of
what transition really means - we should more lucidly escape the
dominant narrative, not imitate its systemic solutions, even if these
seem reasonable to us, while the reversal of logic seems illusory to us.
In his poem Gli alberi, published in 1973 in the collection Questo muro,
Franco Fortini focuses on the disasters of industrial civilization that
destroys, drowns, pollutes; in the end, metaphorically addressing his
daughter, he invites her not to despair but to know. Here, awareness
should at least be our fixed point from which to start or restart to
prevent this system from annihilating us between bombs and artificial
intelligence.
ANGELO BARBERI
https://www.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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