Proponiamo un'intervista all’economista e filosofo francese, teorico della “decrescita”. Serge Latouche is a lanky and very kind gentleman who embodies with his theory of decline, linked to every possible imaginary "quality of life" which was conceived and championed in recent decades. He did not and do not use the phone and traveling without laptop, uses the correspondence by mail but only at his home in Paris. It is an economist, but as you know "preaches" the output from the economy they see as a historical category conventional built to speak of phenomena experienced, not eternal and unchanging essence. So, against all "principle" economic growth seen in the enemy of humanity. Many consider him a madman, especially left, and others, on the left, consider him a prophet. In fact, his theory is much less imaginative of the Vulgate ecologist, has solid economic fundamentals, but also philosophical and sociological in his latest book, "As you exit the consumer society" (Bull Hogarth Press, pp. 192, € 16), describes paths that are on the whole sensible and realistic and do not have much in common with the idea of \u200b\u200ba return to the kind of bucolic medieval subjective and sometimes can be found embodied in some of his "followers". Professor Latouche, in his latest book, she seems quite satisfied with the economic crisis that seems to confirm his predictions. But sui giornali leggiamo che ci sono segnali di ripresa…
"No, io sono convinto che la crescita è finita e non riprenderà mai. Ma non parlo di quest’ultima crisi. La crescita è finita negli anni Settanta, più precisamente nel ’75. Dopo di allora abbiamo vissuto una finta crescita, una crescita fittizia, grazie alla magia del responsabile della Fed, Greenspan. Naturalmente gli indici del Pil hanno continuato a crescere, ma il benessere no, non è cresciuto. Abbiamo vissuto la vera crescita tra il 1945 e il 1975, un periodo che ha portato reale benessere nelle case dei lavoratori, ma dopo la crisi del fordismo la produttività non è più cresciuta come prima e il degrado dell’ambiente è stato talmente strong that even at the end of the month was up to employees higher wages, but the costs occasioned by pretending they were always the strongest growth in benefits. For this reason I say that since then has been a growing port. A little 'as the light that we see yet, but that comes from stars off. Since 2007, the so-called subprime crisis after September 16, 2008 and the failure of Lehman Brothers, one can no longer hide the fact that we live in a society of growth without growth. "
Governments have tried everything to save
the situation ... "Yeah, they spent twenty-four thousand billion dollars to save the financial system, one third of global GDP, a huge thing, fatta da governi che non trovano cento milioni di dollari per salvare lo stato sociale, la scuola, la sanità. Ma sono interventi che se pure massicci, creano una finta ripresa: la speculazione immobiliare è ripresa, la speculazione nelle borse è ricominciata, ma durerà poco ed è molto, molto fragile. Del resto, il prezzo del barile di petrolio è già salito moltissimo e nessun governo osa frenare ciò che con evidenza è solo frutto di speculazione."
La situazione mediorientale non aiuta. Era prevedibile l’esplodere delle rivolte nel Maghreb e ora in Libia?
"La situazione mediorientale era oggettivamente esplosiva ed è esplosa, ma non è questo che ha grandi effetti sulla crisi economica. Anche the situation in Libya is not a big problem, Libya is the largest oil producer, is an accidental effect is not particularly significant. "
The crisis is still an opportunity for reflection. It may be that incentive to consider more carefully the reasons for the decline?
"I do not think. The opportunity to think out there, there have been over the decades. At that point we can say that we are obliged to fall? In my opinion, this point was passed long ago. But we have a great ability to hide things, to do the ostrich policy. "
In his latest book, she says you have to subtract the money to the banks, and talks about the experience of small communities that have embraced the theory and practice of decrease, the spirit rejoins the experiences of English utopians such as those told by William Morris' News from Nowhere. " She describes as "his" utopia decrease. But perhaps there is more need of political utopia.
"But politics does not make sense without utopia! Socialism for two centuries has been a utopia but has had political effects, fed election programs. It continues to do so."
Socialism has made terrible effects produced and killed
freedom ... "Yes, this happened in the East, but socialism has also made We, in the social democracies of northern Europe, a model in the European left has yet to nostalgia. I certainly do not enhance those experiences, those were also the consumer society because they had accepted the capitalist system and the pervasiveness of the market. I just wanted to say that utopia of socialism has been partially achieved, produced the programs, not always good, but for Europe also had positive effects. For me the design of the decline is a real utopia. I've said before: no utopia policy would not make sense, we need to have a prospect of change. In my next book I make a distinction between myth and utopia. I call the myth as something unrealistic, che può essere strumentalizzato a fini negativi: il mito della razza, per esempio, utilizzato dal nazismo, ma anche i miti del socialismo, penso a George Sorel, al mito dello sciopero generale… Il mito è pericoloso perché serve a manipolare le persone. L’utopia della società della decrescita si fonda su dati che possono farla funzionare. Se la vogliamo, quest’altra società è possibile. Naturalmente dobbiamo volerla, non sono affatto sicuro che si realizzerà, ma non è un’idea astratta e impossibile da concretizzare e può servire da guida per la politica, ad esempio, per costruire un programma politico per le prossime elezioni."
Come ci si può “riappropriare” della Money?
"It is a concrete stage of society in decline. It's hard to think but not to achieve small levels and running already. There are a lot of local currencies that work well. In Switzerland there is a wir that is used between contractors, is an alternative currency. At the level of local exchanges there are several. Even in Italy, Aspromonte in the park when he was chairman Tonino Perna, there was ecoaspromonte, a local currency for the park. Argentina, after the peso crisis, has survived thanks to local currencies. I say that money is a common thing, a very important thing that you should not be left to bankers. You must remove it from the banks, finance, and return to society through the action of local authorities. "
The decrease is related to ecology, but ecology often start diktat illiberal.
" Ecology is both a science and a political movement. Scientists think they know the truth and when someone thinks he knows the truth there is no room for democracy. It is a wrong way, even if there is an important part of scientific ecology, because the issue is not about saving the planet, the planet will save itself alone, it is about saving humanity. And to save humanity must ask men to participate in a project, if they want. You can not force them. Men may prefer to commit suicide. In the meetings that I do around Europe it often happens that someone says, but no, we go on like this until the end, everything we consume and goodnight. We can not save humanity against his desire to commit suicide. The problem, in my opinion, is that consumption does not make us all happy: this is the most important dimension is the starting point of the project of decrease that to me is more important than the ecological dimension. But even if mine is a strong belief we are facing a phenomenon of drug addiction. The consumer society is an addict of consumption, can know that is not good but can not do otherwise. It is a drug problem, and there are two actors. The traffickers, the big corporations that make profits and do not want to give up, and drug addicts, we, who are simultaneously victims and accomplices. Only under severe threat will undertake a cure. "
We need a shock. Do you think the economic crisis is not enough?
" The crisis was a shock, but I think only the last four years: the crisis is not only financial and economic and ecological crisis, social crisis, cultural crisis, we are indeed at the beginning of a crisis of civilization. In Western history we have only one example, very complicated, which is the fall dell’impero romano, il passaggio alla società cristiana. Ma questo processo si è svolto in tre-quattro secoli, forse di più. La nostra crisi di civiltà inizia negli anni Settanta, come dicevo, e oggi è già palpabile; comunque sarà molto più veloce perché in un modo o nell’altro ne usciremo prima del 2050, quando si stima che avverrà l’esaurimento delle risorse energetiche fossili."
Se questa che viviamo è una crisi di civiltà, dobbiamo aspettarci un lungo periodo di barbarie?
"Ma le nuove barbarie sono già qui. Si chiamano Berlusconi, Sarkozy, Marchionne… Si capisce che la barbarie può peggiorare, si possono espellere più immigrati, deportare more rom, make more semi-slave laborers, and so on, and this probably will happen in very little. There are one hundred thousand Egyptian press outside of Italy. What will the Italian government? Concentration camps, I guess. This is called barbarism, or not? So we are faced with a choice: either the barbarity, or the company's decline. I call it as a frugal society of abundance, it seems a paradox but it is not. If we understand that ours is a society of abundance but of frustration, we also understand that the only opportunity to create wealth is thrift. If we restrict all our needs then we can satisfy them, and this is mathematically as possible. "
How can one talk of decline and the workers laid off workers who want to work and therefore the development?
" You have to explain to them that is not true that the development produces work. Is not the development that creates jobs. The development was the solution to the crisis of the postwar period to allow profits to increase wages and so too, but all this is over. We must find a way out because there will be a return to work, it will become a scarce resource and we must share it. Less work all work and basic income. We must put pressure on the states through political programs. We must seek to reduce working hours to provide work to all and raise taxes on financial profits, because we got to the huge levels of inequality. This has left the great responsibility he has accepted the paradigm of infinite progress without wondering where it would bring. "
She speaks of the spirit of the gift within the project of decrease, as recognition of ecological debt, and gives it a first philosophy , that of being. What do you mean?
"I want to say that we live in a world abounding in natural means of subsistence, but were commodification, they have been established for the convenience of the limited few and has also been decided to not consider the other side of the production merchant, that is, waste, pollution, disruption of ecosystems. So the company has shown growth of "forgetting" to be. Denied our situation in a world that is generous and limited at the same time. It is as if negassimo our human condition. In my idea of \u200b\u200bdecline is the spirit of giving in social relations as a reminder of what the Greeks had caritas, philia, mentioned by Marcel Mauss. This friendship, this community. Concepts necessary to avert the destructive drive of any democratic society. "
"No, io sono convinto che la crescita è finita e non riprenderà mai. Ma non parlo di quest’ultima crisi. La crescita è finita negli anni Settanta, più precisamente nel ’75. Dopo di allora abbiamo vissuto una finta crescita, una crescita fittizia, grazie alla magia del responsabile della Fed, Greenspan. Naturalmente gli indici del Pil hanno continuato a crescere, ma il benessere no, non è cresciuto. Abbiamo vissuto la vera crescita tra il 1945 e il 1975, un periodo che ha portato reale benessere nelle case dei lavoratori, ma dopo la crisi del fordismo la produttività non è più cresciuta come prima e il degrado dell’ambiente è stato talmente strong that even at the end of the month was up to employees higher wages, but the costs occasioned by pretending they were always the strongest growth in benefits. For this reason I say that since then has been a growing port. A little 'as the light that we see yet, but that comes from stars off. Since 2007, the so-called subprime crisis after September 16, 2008 and the failure of Lehman Brothers, one can no longer hide the fact that we live in a society of growth without growth. "
Governments have tried everything to save
the situation ... "Yeah, they spent twenty-four thousand billion dollars to save the financial system, one third of global GDP, a huge thing, fatta da governi che non trovano cento milioni di dollari per salvare lo stato sociale, la scuola, la sanità. Ma sono interventi che se pure massicci, creano una finta ripresa: la speculazione immobiliare è ripresa, la speculazione nelle borse è ricominciata, ma durerà poco ed è molto, molto fragile. Del resto, il prezzo del barile di petrolio è già salito moltissimo e nessun governo osa frenare ciò che con evidenza è solo frutto di speculazione."
La situazione mediorientale non aiuta. Era prevedibile l’esplodere delle rivolte nel Maghreb e ora in Libia?
"La situazione mediorientale era oggettivamente esplosiva ed è esplosa, ma non è questo che ha grandi effetti sulla crisi economica. Anche the situation in Libya is not a big problem, Libya is the largest oil producer, is an accidental effect is not particularly significant. "
The crisis is still an opportunity for reflection. It may be that incentive to consider more carefully the reasons for the decline?
"I do not think. The opportunity to think out there, there have been over the decades. At that point we can say that we are obliged to fall? In my opinion, this point was passed long ago. But we have a great ability to hide things, to do the ostrich policy. "
In his latest book, she says you have to subtract the money to the banks, and talks about the experience of small communities that have embraced the theory and practice of decrease, the spirit rejoins the experiences of English utopians such as those told by William Morris' News from Nowhere. " She describes as "his" utopia decrease. But perhaps there is more need of political utopia.
"But politics does not make sense without utopia! Socialism for two centuries has been a utopia but has had political effects, fed election programs. It continues to do so."
Socialism has made terrible effects produced and killed
freedom ... "Yes, this happened in the East, but socialism has also made We, in the social democracies of northern Europe, a model in the European left has yet to nostalgia. I certainly do not enhance those experiences, those were also the consumer society because they had accepted the capitalist system and the pervasiveness of the market. I just wanted to say that utopia of socialism has been partially achieved, produced the programs, not always good, but for Europe also had positive effects. For me the design of the decline is a real utopia. I've said before: no utopia policy would not make sense, we need to have a prospect of change. In my next book I make a distinction between myth and utopia. I call the myth as something unrealistic, che può essere strumentalizzato a fini negativi: il mito della razza, per esempio, utilizzato dal nazismo, ma anche i miti del socialismo, penso a George Sorel, al mito dello sciopero generale… Il mito è pericoloso perché serve a manipolare le persone. L’utopia della società della decrescita si fonda su dati che possono farla funzionare. Se la vogliamo, quest’altra società è possibile. Naturalmente dobbiamo volerla, non sono affatto sicuro che si realizzerà, ma non è un’idea astratta e impossibile da concretizzare e può servire da guida per la politica, ad esempio, per costruire un programma politico per le prossime elezioni."
Come ci si può “riappropriare” della Money?
"It is a concrete stage of society in decline. It's hard to think but not to achieve small levels and running already. There are a lot of local currencies that work well. In Switzerland there is a wir that is used between contractors, is an alternative currency. At the level of local exchanges there are several. Even in Italy, Aspromonte in the park when he was chairman Tonino Perna, there was ecoaspromonte, a local currency for the park. Argentina, after the peso crisis, has survived thanks to local currencies. I say that money is a common thing, a very important thing that you should not be left to bankers. You must remove it from the banks, finance, and return to society through the action of local authorities. "
The decrease is related to ecology, but ecology often start diktat illiberal.
" Ecology is both a science and a political movement. Scientists think they know the truth and when someone thinks he knows the truth there is no room for democracy. It is a wrong way, even if there is an important part of scientific ecology, because the issue is not about saving the planet, the planet will save itself alone, it is about saving humanity. And to save humanity must ask men to participate in a project, if they want. You can not force them. Men may prefer to commit suicide. In the meetings that I do around Europe it often happens that someone says, but no, we go on like this until the end, everything we consume and goodnight. We can not save humanity against his desire to commit suicide. The problem, in my opinion, is that consumption does not make us all happy: this is the most important dimension is the starting point of the project of decrease that to me is more important than the ecological dimension. But even if mine is a strong belief we are facing a phenomenon of drug addiction. The consumer society is an addict of consumption, can know that is not good but can not do otherwise. It is a drug problem, and there are two actors. The traffickers, the big corporations that make profits and do not want to give up, and drug addicts, we, who are simultaneously victims and accomplices. Only under severe threat will undertake a cure. "
We need a shock. Do you think the economic crisis is not enough?
" The crisis was a shock, but I think only the last four years: the crisis is not only financial and economic and ecological crisis, social crisis, cultural crisis, we are indeed at the beginning of a crisis of civilization. In Western history we have only one example, very complicated, which is the fall dell’impero romano, il passaggio alla società cristiana. Ma questo processo si è svolto in tre-quattro secoli, forse di più. La nostra crisi di civiltà inizia negli anni Settanta, come dicevo, e oggi è già palpabile; comunque sarà molto più veloce perché in un modo o nell’altro ne usciremo prima del 2050, quando si stima che avverrà l’esaurimento delle risorse energetiche fossili."
Se questa che viviamo è una crisi di civiltà, dobbiamo aspettarci un lungo periodo di barbarie?
"Ma le nuove barbarie sono già qui. Si chiamano Berlusconi, Sarkozy, Marchionne… Si capisce che la barbarie può peggiorare, si possono espellere più immigrati, deportare more rom, make more semi-slave laborers, and so on, and this probably will happen in very little. There are one hundred thousand Egyptian press outside of Italy. What will the Italian government? Concentration camps, I guess. This is called barbarism, or not? So we are faced with a choice: either the barbarity, or the company's decline. I call it as a frugal society of abundance, it seems a paradox but it is not. If we understand that ours is a society of abundance but of frustration, we also understand that the only opportunity to create wealth is thrift. If we restrict all our needs then we can satisfy them, and this is mathematically as possible. "
How can one talk of decline and the workers laid off workers who want to work and therefore the development?
" You have to explain to them that is not true that the development produces work. Is not the development that creates jobs. The development was the solution to the crisis of the postwar period to allow profits to increase wages and so too, but all this is over. We must find a way out because there will be a return to work, it will become a scarce resource and we must share it. Less work all work and basic income. We must put pressure on the states through political programs. We must seek to reduce working hours to provide work to all and raise taxes on financial profits, because we got to the huge levels of inequality. This has left the great responsibility he has accepted the paradigm of infinite progress without wondering where it would bring. "
She speaks of the spirit of the gift within the project of decrease, as recognition of ecological debt, and gives it a first philosophy , that of being. What do you mean?
"I want to say that we live in a world abounding in natural means of subsistence, but were commodification, they have been established for the convenience of the limited few and has also been decided to not consider the other side of the production merchant, that is, waste, pollution, disruption of ecosystems. So the company has shown growth of "forgetting" to be. Denied our situation in a world that is generous and limited at the same time. It is as if negassimo our human condition. In my idea of \u200b\u200bdecline is the spirit of giving in social relations as a reminder of what the Greeks had caritas, philia, mentioned by Marcel Mauss. This friendship, this community. Concepts necessary to avert the destructive drive of any democratic society. "
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