Alba Rico on the Crisis: demagoguery and realism

The sometimes genial Spanish philosopher Santiago Alba Rico, creator of the unforgettable TV character Bruja Avería (Breakdown Witch) and her slogan: "viva el Mal, viva el Capital!" (long live Evil, long live Capital!), writes now on The Crisis and the billion people affected by famine.

Breakdown Witch: long live Evil, long live Capital!

He says that confronted with the dilemma of spending billions in saving the banks or the many people suferng famine, the realistic option is to choose the first one, while the second one is demagogic. The reason is that the World is hostage of the banks and corporations and would we not rescue them, they would take revenge. That is not likely to be the case with the billion global citizens suffering famine: they have virtually no power.

For a captive Humankind, he says, it is realistic only to accept the blackmail and side out truth, compassion, sensitivity, solidarity. A system that, when things go well, kills by hunger one billion people and, when things go bad, can kill all the rest, is not just a morally but also economically failed.

Capitalism just does not work, he adds.

There is something beautiful and gratifying in the fact that six powerful states have coordinated efforts to save the global economy: that is called "planification". In the time of Marx, Capitalism was "only an exception in some areas of the planet" and, if it has come to cover all the planetary surface, it has been only because of a permanent state intervention, to an uninterrupted state planning that combined and combines the land expropiation, armed intervetions, protectionist measures, state coups and international agreements. Never in history an economical experiment has enjoyed so powerful means nor so favorable conditions to show its superiority. In the last 60 years, the organized minority that manages global capitalism has bee supported, at an unprecedented scale, by a large array of international institutions (IMF, World Bank, WTO, G-8, etc.) that have acted freely and aplicated against all obstacles policies of liberalization and privatization of the global economy. After 200 years of free existence, supported, defended, lifted by all the powers of Earth have brought us here: one billion human beings are suffering famine and, if we do not rush now to protect the culpirits, the rest may end up buried with the poorest ones after having killed each other.

It seems therefore that planifying to save banks and insurance companies is useless. And planifying to save lifes? That is something we havenot tried yet. (...)

Cuba is the only country in the World where, even after a hurricane that has destroyed 15% of all homes, the realistic thing to do is to save lives and the demagogy to rob from a brother. (...)

Link to the same article in English (thanks Joan Vecord).