And here the English translation of a recent article in Catalan.
Sovereignty
versus neo-liberalism
The collective work "Sovereignties. A
proposal against the capitalism" is, from the perspective of radical
transformation of the capitalism, one of the important recent texts. After the
analysis of the economic and social context to the international European and
Catalan framework, they propose the fundamental criteria of the process of
transformation of the capitalism with the aim to attain the reproductive
sovereignty. This will involve to develop projects where the production was
headed to the coverage of the needs of the population -and no to the profit of
the capital-, putting the accent in the reorientation of the social relations
of production to this purpose.
They consider that the reproductive
sovereignty supposes the possibility of an integral process of transformation,
that connects central elements of an anti-capitalist vision (the socialism, the
feminism and the ecology) with a clear bet for a sovereign process in
accordance with the demands and the reality of the capitalism of the 21st
century. The reproductive sovereignty has to allow the global transformation of
the main social relations of the capitalism, as well as overthrow and transform
gradually the reproduction of the capitalism in the reproduction of the life.
Next they analyse different concrete sovereignties.
Now it has just been published the book
"Reclaiming the State" of William Mitchell and Thomas Fazi that it
poses the subject of the national/state sovereignty as the strategy against the
neo-liberalism, for the democracy, from the leftist anti-capitalism.
The predominant vision today is that the
national sovereignty has become irrelevant in an international economy
increasingly global (with the internationalisation of the finances and the
increasing importance of the multinational firms). In this context, the
individual states cannot do autonomous economic and social policies, especially
of progressive type. Therefore, the only solution is that the states give up
his sovereignty and transfer it to some supra-national institutions (how the
European Union-EU) that they are sufficiently big and powerful to be able to
make listen his voice in this globalized world.
This is coherent with the ideology of the
neo-liberalism that proposes the reduction of the intervention of the state,
the expansion of the free markets and of the businesses and entrepreneurship.
But, actually, the neo-liberal economic policy has given place to a role of the
state more and more extensive, intense and permanent with the support of all
the greater international institutions and political parties. It is by means of
this intervention that has been produced : the liberalisation of the markets of
goods and capitals and particularly of the financial markets; the rescue of big
companies and banks; the privatisation of natural resources and of public
services; the reduction of the wages and of the rights of the workers; the
decrease of the income and wealth taxes and the growth of the inequalities; the
elimination of social programs; etc. The neo-liberal ideology seems basically a
convenient excuse for a political project directed by the states, with the aim
that the driving of the economic policies was in the hands of capitalists and
especially of the financial interests.
Unfortunately, the vision (erroneous) that the
neo-liberalism has supposed a decrease of the role of the state continues to be
a fixation of the traditional left. It bases in the idea that the globalisation
and the internationalisation of the finances have finished with the period of
the nation states and with his capacity to carry out policies that do not agree
with the dictations of the global capital. With the neo-liberalism, the
cutbacks in the national sovereignty and the participatory democracy would be
the unavoidable price to pay for the globalisation. It is the "there is no
alternative" from Thatcher.
There is, but another vision. The
international economic integration continues being very limited: it continues
having a significant uncertainty of the exchange rates; important cultural and
linguistic differences that limit the full mobilisation of the resources
between the borders; a high correlation between the rates of investment and of
national saving; severe restrictions in the international mobility of the work;
the flows of capital between rich and poor countries are much more limited of
what foresee the theoretical models. The globalisation in the neo-liberal
period -that in some respects can have restricted the economic sovereignty of
the states- in the essential elements -industrial delocation,
deindustrialisation, liberalisation and deregulation of the markets of goods
and of capitals, etc.- It has been a process established and promoted actively
for the states.
And it is the result of a deliberated and
conscious limitation of the rights of the sovereign states from the national
elites, by means of between others: the reduction of the power of the
legislative with regard to the executive; the formal independence of the
central banks of the government; the aim of the inflation as a main (or only)
aim of the policy of the central banks; adopting rules -for instance in
budgetary politics- that limit the possibilities of an autonomous economic
policy; going back to systems of fixed exchange rates; bending the national
prerogatives to supra-national institutions like the UE. The creation and
auto-constraint of this "external restriction" that allows to the
national politicians to reduce the costs of the anti-popular measures which
suppose the neo-liberal policies.
Therefore, the fight against the
neo-liberalism has to suppose a recovery of the national processes of taking
decisions, that is to say, of more democratic control on the policies (in
particular the economic policies) and on the global destructive flows unchained
by the neo-liberalism. And this only can be done since the national confines.
In fact, the crises of the EU and of the monetary union have to be seen as a
big opportunity to refuse the neo-liberal restrictions that these institutions
suppose and to implement a democratic platform, really progressive, from the
sovereign states, that still can have the resources for a democratic control of
the economy and the national finances and that, since the sovereignty, will be
able to implement a multilateral cooperation between these states. The fight
for the national sovereignty is a fight for the democracy and for a really
progressive policy.
