The crisis of neoliberalism has reached the heart of the main countries that assumed unto themselves the right not only to determine the economic-financial processes, but also to set the very course of human history. It is a crisis of the political ideology of the minimalized state and privatization of public goods, as well as of the capitalist form of production, exacerbated to the extreme by a concentration of power such as history has never before seen. We expect that this crisis will have a systemic and terminal character.

The genius of capitalism has always found means to their ends of unlimited accumulation, and has used them all, including war. Capitalism would gain by destroying, and then by rebuilding. The crisis of 1929 was solved not by economic means, but by the Second World War. That course seems now impracticable, because war is so destructive that it could exterminate human life and the better part of the biosphere. But we are not certain that, in its insanity, capitalism will not resort to this means.

This time there are insurmountable limits, that allow to say that the historic time of capitalism is ending. The first is the filled-up world, that is, capitalism has occupied all the space at the planetary level for its expansion. The other, that is truly insurmountable, are the limitations of planet Earth. Her goods and services are limited and many of them are not renewable. As Italian analyst Luigi SojaIn assures us, the past generation has consumed more energy resources than all previous generations combined. What will we do when they reach a critical point, or simply are exhausted? The scarcity of drinking water can force humanity to confront the destruction of millions of lives.

Until now, the regulations and controls that have been proposed have simply been ignored. The United Nations Commission for the International Financial and Monetary Crisis, whose coordinator was Nobel laureate for Economics Joseph Stiglitz, (known as the Stiglitz Commission), launched a great effort in January 2009 to present Keynesian type, intra-systemic reforms.

It proposed a reform of the international financial organisms (IMF, World Bank) and of the WMO (World Market Organization). It envisioned the creation of a global Council of Economic Coordination at the same level as the Security Council, the construction of a system of global reserves to counterbalance the hegemony of the dollar as the currency of reference, the institution of an international fiscal system, the abolition of tax havens and banking secrecy, and, finally, reform of the certification agencies. It was all rejected. The UN accepted only the creation of a permanent Group of Experts for the Prevention of Crises, to which no one pays any attention, because what really matters are the stock markets and financial speculation.

This disappointing realization convinces us that the logic of this hegemonic system can cause the planet to become unfriendly to us, and lead us to grave socio-ecological catastrophes, so severe that they could threaten our civilization and the human species. In Rio+20, this type of capitalism was dressed up in green, in order to put a price on all natural goods and services that are common to humanity. The fact is that it lacks the medium and long range conditions needed to guarantee its hegemony. A different way of inhabiting the planet Earth and utilizing her goods and services must arise.

The great challenge is how to handle the transition towards a post-capitalist liberal world, namely, to a social system that is oriented towards the Well Being of Humanity and of the Earth, that sustains all life and reflects a new relationship of belonging and of synergy with nature and the Earth.

Production is necessary, but in a way that respects the reach and limits of each eco-system, not merely to accumulate but to meet human needs, in a sufficient and decent form. It is also important to care for all forms of life and to seek a social equilibrium, with a view always to the future generations that have a right to a well-preserved and inhabitable Earth.

On these pages, we must set forth alternatives. We start with what is possible within the current system, because there is no way to get out of it in a short time.

We see that in the international division of labor, Latin America and Brazil are condemned to exploit what is extracted from their mines and commodities, natural goods like food, grains and meats. To confront this type of exploitation we must follow the steps suggested by several analysts, especially by the great friend of Brazil, François Houtart, in his recent book, with other collaborators: A Post-Capitalist Paradigm: the Common Good of Humanity (Un paradigma poscapitalista: el Bien Común de la Humanidad, Panamá 2012).

First, to fight within the system for ecological norms and international regulations that, to the extent possible, care for the natural goods and services imported from our countries, and restrict their use to socially responsible and ecologically correct forms. Soybeans are first for feeding the people, and only after that, the animals.

Second, to protect our autonomy, to reject the neocolonialism of the central countries that, as in yesteryear, keep us on the periphery, secondary, subordinated and lesser suppliers of the raw materials they need. We must look for ways to incorporate technologies that give added value to our products, that create technological innovations and direct the economy, first, toward the internal market and only thereafter, to the external market.

Third, to demand that importing countries pollute the environment as little as possible, and that they contribute financially to the care and ecological regeneration of the ecosystems from which they import raw materials, especially from the Amazon and remote regions.

It is about reforms and not yet of revolutions. But they will help create a basis for proposing a new paradigm that is not a prolongation of the present, perverse and decadent one.

 

 

 

Those who have read my recent texts on ecology and the dramatic situation of the Earth, have perhaps been left with an impression of pessimism. Those who perceive the real dangers that endanger our destiny cannot be pessimists. We must always respect reality, but at the same time, we must broaden our understanding of that reality. That is key, because the potential is also part of the actual. All events present a utopic reserve. If we understand reality thus enriched, a static pessimism is not justified, but a hope-filled realism. This captures the eventual emergence of the new, that which is hidden within the potential and the utopic. The new then makes history, creates another state of consciousness and inaugurates a different social essay.

Moreover, if we step back and measure our history against cosmic time, we find even more reason for hope. If we condense into one year the 13.7 billion years that is the presumed age of our universe, we will notice that as we humans have existed for only a tiny fraction of that time. Thus, on December 31st, at 5 p.m., our pre-human ancestors emerged. On December 31st at 10 p.m. the primitive human being entered the scene. On December 31st at 10 seconds after 11:58 p.m., the humans of today, called sapiens, emerged. On December 31st at 56 seconds after 11:59 p.m., Jesus of Nazareth was born. On December 31st at 59.2 seconds after 11:59 p.m., Cabral arrived to Brazil.

As can be seen, time-wise we are almost nothing.

Further, if we consider the 15 great destructive events that Earth has endured, especially the Cambrian of 570 million years ago, in which between 75 and 90% of the biotic capital disappeared, we can see that life has always endured and survived. And if we concentrate only on human beings, we have survived the many glaciations. In addition, the human being had a highly accelerated process of encefalization (increasing brain size relative to total body mass). For some 2.2 million years, there appeared homo habilis, then homo erectus, and in the last one hundred thousand years, homo sapiens, already clearly human. They were social beings, demonstrated cooperativity, and used speech, a human characteristic.

In the space of one million years, the brain of these three types of homo doubled in volume. After the appearance of homo sapiens, 100 thousand years ago, brain size did not increase. It was no longer necessary, given the development of the exterior brain, artificial intelligence, that is, the capacity of knowing, of creating instruments and artifacts to transform the world and create culture, a singular characteristic of the homo sapiens sapiens.

Starting with the neolithic age, around 10 thousand years ago, the first cities were established, thus beginning the process of developing culture, the state, bureaucracy and also, war. The systematic use of the instrumental reason to dominate nature, to conquer and to submit to others, was also established. There were obviously other types of reason as well, such as the emotional, symbolic and cordial, but they were subordinate to instrumental reason, a form of reason that is simultaneously both creative and destructive, and which, up to the present, has assumed hegemony.

The process of the butterfly offers us a suggestive metaphor. The butterfly is not born a butterfly. It is at the beginning a simple egg that transforms itself into a caterpiller, an insatiable devourer of leaves. Then she coils up and builds around herself a cocoon (chrysalis). Inside the cocoon, nature weaves her body and paints it with colors. When all is ready, the cocoon breaks and the splendid butterfly surges.

We are still in the stage of caterpillars and cocoons. Caterpillars, because day and night we devour nature; cocoons, because we have closed in on ourselves, seeing nothing around us.

Wherein lies our hope? That reason may break forth from the cocoon and emerge as butterfly-reason. Perhaps the present situation of grave danger will force the birth of butterfly-reason. She will fly about, not destructive but cooperative, because the butterfly aids the pollenation of flowers.

We are still in genesis. We have not finished being born. Once we are fully born, we will respect and coexist with all beings. We will have overcome forever the phase of the caterpillar and the cocoon . As butterflies, we will be carriers of the sensible reason that enables us to share with the Earth a future without threats.

 

 

 

We are not mistaken if we understand the present tragedy of humanity, incapable of explaining its crisis and of projecting an aura of hope, as a failure of the type of reason that has been predominant for the past five hundred years. We have already analyzed how the break between objective reason (the logic of things) and subjective reason (self interest) has occurred. The latter was imposed on the former, to the point that it was established as the exclusive force for organizing society, and history.

Thus subjective reason was understood as a desire for power, and power as domination over people and things. Today, the power of «I» is central. It is the exclusive carrier of reason and meaning. It spawned what naturally follows: individualism as the supreme affirmation of the «I». It took shape in capitalism, which is powered by individual accumulation, with no social or ecological considerations. Trusting subjective reason alone as the framework for all of reality was a high risk cultural decision. It has implied a true dictatorship of reason that has diminished or destroyed the exercise of other forms of reason, such as sensible, symbolic and others.

The ideal is that the «I» will endlessly seek unlimited progress, in the unquestioned supposition that the resources of the Earth are also limitless. The infinite nature of progress and of resources constitute the ontological a priori and the parti pris.

But, after five hundred years, we have come to see that both infinities are illusory. The Earth is small and finite. Progress has approached the limits of the Earth. Those limits cannot be exceeded. The time of the finite world is here now. Failing to respect this finitude means inhibiting the capacity for reproducing life on Earth, and thus endangering the survival of the species. The historic time of capitalism has passed. To continue with capitalism will cost so much that it will end up destroying sociability and the future. Persisting in that effort will reveal the destructive character of the irrationality of reason.

What is even more serious is that capitalism/individualism has introduced two conflicting forms of logic: the logic of the private interests of the «I», the enterprises, and the logic of the collective interests of the «we», of society. Capitalism, by its nature, is anti-democratic. It is not at all cooperative, but is only competitive.

Will there be a way out? With reforms and regulations designed only to maintain the system, as Neo-Keynesians in the style of Stiglitz, Krugman and others want, no. We must change if we want to save ourselves.

In the first place, it is important to build a new accord between objective and subjective reason. This implies broadening reason, and thus freeing her from the yoke of power-domination. She can be emancipating reason. For the new accord, it is urgent that we rescue sensible and cordial reason, to blend them with instrumental reason. It is based in the limbic brain that appeared more than two hundred million years ago, when, with the mammals, affection, passion, caring, love and the world of values came into being. This allows us to give an emotional and value-filled reading of the scientific data that comes from instrumental reason, that emerged only 5 to 7 million years ago. This sensible reason awakens in us the necessary re-enchantment for life and for Mother Earth, so that we may care for them.

Then a new centrality must arise: instead of the private interest, the common interest, respect for the goods common to life and to the Earth, destined to all. Then, economics needs to return to being that which it naturally is: a guarantee of the conditions needed for the physical, cultural and spiritual life of all persons. After that, politics must be rebuilt, as an endless democracy, always inclusive of all humans, so that they may be the subjects of history and not merely attendants or beneficiaries. Finally, the new world will not have a human face unless it is governed by shared ethical-spiritual values, with contributions from many other cultures, together with the Judeo-Christian tradition.

These steps are all very utopian. But without utopia we would drown in the swamp of private and corporative interests. Happily, essays are appearing everywhere that are forerunners of the new, such as solidarian economy, sustainability and caring, lived as paradigms to perpetuate and to reproduce all that exists and lives. We do not renounce the ancestral longing for fellowship: everyone eating and drinking together, as brothers and sisters, at home.