Capitalism doesn’t have a handbrake

A further report from Maria Maza in Spain.

Things are getting more and more difficult as days pass by. We are seeing the Government implementing measure after measure as events are coming. No emergency protocol whatsoever on any western country, but witnessing it in my own country is heartbreaking.

To give them their due, they’ve been ruling for just two or three months, and a considerable number of the ministers had no previous experience on governing and face a corrosive campaign of hate and lies from the racist and authoritarian far-right. Plus this is overwhelming to all countries.

Some of the actions are absolutely right, some are not enough, some are just nonsense. While they have assured the banks their good chunk of profits by endorsing the businesses credits, they don’t dare to properly cover up the small business, the freelances, the housekeepers, and the precarious workers.
It was just yesterday that they announced they are going to implement some kind of a moratorium on rentals. (Let’s not forget that due to the construction bubble bursting, and mortgage blackhole, Spain has a chronified problem on housing -many people without house, many houses empty). But does that cover the rental of locals for commercial activity?

The feeling of vulnerability is enormous. We know this is a tough week, reaching the peak of contagiousness -or so they say. We have to use gloves in supermarkets, stay far away from other people, avoid roaming on the streets, keep our bodies as healthy as possible not to use hospitals.
But we see our cherished ones falling to COVID19. We have uncertainty about our close future, and the doom of another crisis hitting hard on the country without having recovered from the previous one. It is going to be an expensive bill on mental health, I’m afraid.

There is no handbrake on this system focusing on profits and not on people.

We have to stop, in order to protect our weak and frail members of society. We can’t let them down. Our elders didn’t have a nice childhood, being raised in the post Civil War Spain. They rebuilt a country devastated by bombs and punishment while suffering a brutal forty years long dictatorship. They held us again when the crisis came in 2008, supporting many families with all adults unemployed. And now they are dying alone.

But we also have to be able to move on. Are we going to continue towards the same direction that has led us to this point? The path before us is divided in two: a form of capitalism mixed up with authoritarianism, that looks very suitable for the überpowerful -which will include supercontrol on movement, speech and thought, with zero care about environment, social welfare and life itself. The other path, that just glimpses on our sight, is the path of communitarianism, rhizomatic distribution of resources, and a gridded organisation of society. A path respectful with life in all its forms.

I keep these two paths in mind, one to have hope, the other to gather rage to continue fighting.