Draft for a Shared Revolution E-Book

Nino Cortesi

• Herausgeber: Alkemia Books
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

This book has the ambition of being a contribution towards finding a way out of the dangerous conditions under which we are all living today.
As the title suggests, this amounts to a Necessary Utopia, but one less utopian than we’ll find by hoping for salvation by staying within the present system. It is a draft which we would wish to see taken on board by those numerous individuals who, whilst sharing a vision of the critical nature of the situation, have failed to act, seeing how so much knowledge, the fruit of so many years of study, research and observation, has been lost in apparent oblivion.

Leseprobe

Nino Cortesi

DRAFT FOR A SHARED REVOLUTION

The Necessary Utopia

DRAFT FOR A SHARED REVOLUTION

The Necessary Utopia

© Nino Cortesi, 2016

www.alkemiabooks.com

ISBN: 978-88-98191-53-6 paperback

978-88-98191-54-3 eBook

Translated by Gary Michael Cawley

Cover image: graphic representation of tempera work on wood, work of the author

1st edition, finished and printed in November 2016

Indice

Premise

PART ONE

POWER

PART TWO

PART THREE

EPILOGUE

NINO CORTESI

Premise

This book has the ambition of being a contribution towards finding a way out of the dangerous conditions under which we are all living today.

As the title suggests, this amounts to a Necessary Utopia, but one less utopian than we’ll find by hoping for salvation by staying within the present system. It is a draft which we would wish to see taken on board by those numerous individuals who, whilst sharing a vision of the critical nature of the situation, have failed to act, seeing how so much knowledge, the fruit of so many years of study, research and observation, has been lost in apparent oblivion.

We are endeavouring to build up a network that will permit those concerned in this project to contribute to its definition and diffusion. All profits from the sale of this book and its predecessor (‘Fable of a died-outrace’) will be invested in the realisation of this network.

Success to you all in your tasks!

Nino Cortesi

PART ONE

The present historical moment displays a condensation of serious problems to which it has become urgent to provide a lasting and effective solution.

These problems are of enormous entity and it’s the first time that humanity has been faced with them. Despite their coming upon us unexpectedly and despite their being the fruit of choices made by Man, these problems have yet to be properly confronted.

Raising our heads above the cacophony of voices that assail us, we might observe the complex of dangers which the human race has brought about through capitalist methods of production and accumulation and which, we might see, is leading inexorably to its extinction. Through globalisation, in every part of the world, every individual is forced to undergo at least one of the devastating effects caused by the present economic system:

famine, poverty and the attendant diseasesunemploymentpollution and the wasting of the environmentcollective poisoning due to the use made of chemicalsthe privatisation of water, food, education, health, etc.lack of access to knowledgean increase in Man’s exploitation of Manmigrations

The whole of human society has come to a crossroads: either believe in the free market and let events unfold, staying in the present degenerative process till the bitter end, or else re-instate the meaning and values inherent in life, making epoch-changing decisions that will go to redefining the ground rules for a new model of living together. Limiting ourselves to just tinkering with the problem is no longer enough.

For the past few years, everything has gone out of control: environmental management, economic questions, even the military and demographic. What has come about is the same as occurred in the past when empires expanded too much: they imploded.

In a textbook manner, we are now being faced with “the invasion of the barbarians” (ISIS), arriving just on time and who are already in the door: it is the system itself that has created them and continues to nourish them. Socrates, around 2,500 years ago, held that excessive economic development was dangerous in that it would impose the need for perpetual expansion: expansion which is impossible now, after globalisation, without the destruction and subsequent reconstruction of vast areas of the world.

Our times, beyond placing upon us the onus of an immediate solution to enormous, is also harbinger of a great new and positive element for humankind. For the first time in history, Man has at his disposal the instruments with which he can break down the totality of power without generating chaos.

These instruments are the means of communication, enough to act as vectors in every part of the world and in real time for questions and answers that will be game-changers for all existing rules.

Let’s ask a few questions, to which each and everyone has the right to an answer:

How are we to arrest the rising of global temperatures?Is it possible to solve the problems caused by the present system, without redistributing wealth?Is it possible to solve the problem of the environment without eliminating consumerism?How are we to achieve disarmament, the indispensable condition for eliminating war?How are we to solve the problem of unemployment in the world (1,800,000,000 unemployed plus the partially employed)?How are we to solve the problem of migration in the world (more than 500,000,000 people forced to migrate)?How are we to solve the problem of the exponential growth in population currently under way?Is the absence of planning in the use of non-renewable resources acceptable?Is the private ownership of non-renewable materials acceptable?How come the continent richest in raw materials is populated by the poorest people?What limits should be set to genetic research and to the current experimentation and its applications?What purpose does it serve to possess inordinate riches, greater than the needs of life?What future awaits us?

For whoever has the answers to these questions, I submit them to all, because they are thoughts among the most useful to the entire species, they constitute the very heart of politics. Let us dwell for a moment longer on a few simple statements true for this historical phase, which are the measure of the self-destructive madness and which will, then offer some guide.

The alteration of the climate due to the atmospheric emissions produced by Man has modified seasons and climates in every part of the world, but in the present world economic conflict, the topic of the environment is done away with, almost as if it was a luxury we can’t afford.The unchecked growth in the population (now, we number more than 7 billion; in 1950, we were 2.5 billion), without the redistribution of wealth, has generated immense zones of poverty all around the world and has dragged down the price of labour.More than 800 million human beings do not have access to drinking water.Climatic changes and the resulting droughts have afflicted vast areas of the world, brought to their knees by wars waged recently by the West, provoking waves of migration which we are just seeing the beginning of.Approximately one billion, 800 million people are now without work and a good share of the rest are only employed occasionally and precariously.Speculation destroys production and precludes planning, because it is able, in an instant, to make uncompetitive and unmarketable production that is the fruit of years of labour. Consequently, even productive capitalism, stemming from small to medium businesses not based on speculation, have no future because they are crushed between the forces of speculation, monopolies and de-localisation. The credit exposure of the world stock exchange is around 650,000 billion dollars of worthless securities. The world GDP amounts to something around 70,000 billion dollars and the public debt, now, for all nations together has surpassed 100,000 billion dollars, therefore the world is in debt to the tune of 140% of its GDP: all the rating agencies would consider this as the point of no return. At the same time, we are seeing the amassing of private wealth as never before: the Global Wealth Report of 2014 presented by Credit Suisse, informs us that in 2013, global private wealth reached the staggering figure of 263,000 billion. In the year 2000 alone, it amounted to 117,000 billion. 41% of this wealth is in the hands of 1% of the population; 86% is held by 10%, and just 1% is held by 50% of the poorest part of the Earth’s population. 650,000 billion dollars of toxic financial products, the bitter fruit of speculation actuated by the banks, agencies, stock exchanges, etc., are not the fruit of operative errors: they are the consequence of choices made by international finance; they represent a credit exposure which can never be paid off, everyone knows and yet no one dares put a stop to this evident perversion. Evident, because it is occurring in parallel with this virtual roulette of figures and gambles; very few get to pocket real money drawn from the many shareholders, interests and the money from sales.What is referred to as the ‘economic crisis’ can’t be resolved, in that the choice has been made not to amend the rules that gave rise to it in the first place.

It’s easy to see among these seven points the links that make them interdependent, if we follow the money trail. This is capitalism in its final evolutionary phase, producing an oligarchy of powers able to control information, the banks, multinationals, finance, the market in arms and almost all governments.

And it is this oligarchy that commands a large part of the world and which conditions the rest; it is this same that makes and breaks the rules; the people are almost completely excluded from the decision-making process and when they are able to achieve something, as in some South American countries, they are heavily conditioned and threatened by the multinationals, by the financial world and by the United Sates. Through the multinationals, the stock exchange and the banks, these lords of capital are able to condition the activity of all states and respective governments; The World Trade Or [...]