The litany of the economic crisis constantly afflicts us, a crisis that from time
to time has weighted and articulated explanations: the difficulties of China, theserious problems of the United States, a giant on the waning avenue, the recoveryof the economy in the post pandemic that has triggered an inflationary spiral,Russia's treacherous war against Ukraine and the resulting energy and graincrisis, to name a few factors characterizing the global economy; if we then cometo the Italian situation, we appeal to those phantom structural limits that wouldprevent finally lasting growth of the national company: lack of infrastructure,low productivity, low internal and external competitiveness. The data that arepitted at every opportunity, by Istat, Eurostat, the Bank of Italy and dozens ofother institutes of various kinds and nature, certify this state of perennialcrisis, except occasionally mentioning some indicator that in a few months , orquarter registers a positive sign, useful for raising morale. But the generalpicture returned is that of a situation that for decades now has been screwed upin a continuous state of difficulty, not to mention the previous and punctualcrises of the capitalist system, studied by economists through the so-calledcycles. However, this constancy, rather than identifying the market andcapitalist economy - despite having favorable conditions such as cheap labor andunlimited use of natural and collective resources - is responsible for thefailure and an intrinsic inability to respond to needs at times elements of thewhole society, is presented as the result of the limitations of the potentialthat the market and capital would otherwise be able to release. Thus the emphasisplaced on the crisis is transformed into a powerful tool for imposing substantialjob precariousness - after time we start talking again about poor workers, forcedto carry out more activities, not counting the many unemployed or inactive, asthey are classified from statistics - in the name of an alleged nationalcorporate interest. While on the contrary the huge inequalities certified even byinstitutions would represent a small inconvenience necessary for the circuit thatensures the well-being of the majority to start again. First investments andprofits, then better wages and salaries, it is argued: an alleged economic lawthat has never been proven.In this depressing picture in which axioms - growth, competitiveness, etc. - aretaken for granted, even by those who should oppose them, mirages appear on thehorizon from time to time that focus public attention and function as perfectdistractors. A last one, which has been discussed for a few weeks, is that of thereduction of working hours for equal wages, in order to expand the number ofemployed people, said in a trade union language. Naturally in Italy such aproposal has sparked the clear opposition of the business world which accusesthem of not being able to bear the costs of such an operation in a moment ofdifficulty. Others believe that, in addition to having employment benefits,reducing working hours to four days a week would lead to an improvement inproductivity, due to the fact that workers would work more attentively and withless stress. To support this, the positive experiments carried out in Iceland andthose started in Spain are cited.In a recent interview with the newspaper La Stampa, Maurizio Landini, generalsecretary of the CGIL, also supports the cause of the reduction in working hours.When the journalist asks him: "How do you get to the new world?", Landinireplies: "In many ways, but certainly with the reopening of the discussion onworking time with the short four-day week: whoever did it had results also interms of productivity. At the same time, the right to ongoing training within theworking hours must be ratified". Now it is evident that the new world so desiredby the journalist, Marco Zatterin, as by the secretary of the largest Italiantrade union closely resembles the precariousness - which can be declined in manyways - in which we live. The usual unassailable principles of innovation,productivity, growth, saving triad are re-proposed which, like the trinity, areelusive and inexplicable, and since pointing to profits, in order to carry out aprofound redistribution of wealth, is "morally" reprehensible, the category isused of extra profits, something random and not precisely qualifyable. Itdoesn't go any better, as far as proposing a broad vision of the crucial passagein which we are immersed - climate and environmental change, pandemics, permanentwars, migrations - in the composite (but small) archipelago of grassroots tradeunionism and its political referents. Looking at the platform of the unitarystrike of last December 2nd, one seems to read a weary repetition of requests -including that of the reduction of working hours - which appear abstract, devoidof impact force, all the more so since the very proclamation of these strikes hasbecome an empty, disembodied ritual: the body and imagination of the workers.Nothing to do with that radicalism that in not so distant times animated,probably as a forward flight, the discussion and ignited the imagination onworking time and life time, on the refusal of an increasingly invasive consumersociety. In these years of ours in which we are slowly and numbly sliding towardsa predicted catastrophe that could put a large part if not all of humanity atrisk - renewed atomic threats, profound climatic and environmental upheavals - itwould be necessary to make the effort to go beyond the homework of avindictiveness that finally does not differ much from the babel of chatter thatcirculates in the rooms of the institutions and of power. We do not want to denythe extreme difficulty of only proposing such a profound alternative, but we canno longer postpone at least the attempt to start a reflection, to undertakepaths, to experiment with possibilities."A complicated but interesting game", as my friend Cosimo Scarinzi concluded inan article recently published in Umanità Nova, who also thinks about what we havetried to do in this article.Angelo Barberihttps://www.sicilialibertaria.it/_________________________________________A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C EBy, For, and About AnarchistsSend news reports to A-infos-en mailing listA-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten