Thursday, February 24 in Bologna, in the 'Aula Magna Ciamician Via Selmi, held a meeting with S. Latouche, who presented his new essay way out of the society consumption: the tao of decrease.
's analysis of contemporary culture to Latouche, lucid and radical, is sometimes lightened by humor and quotes from "the greatest philosopher exists: W. Allen and Marx," but not Karl Marx Groucho Marx. "
We try to reconstruct the main content of his speech.
exit from the consumer society is to break the paradigm Western, as popular between the sixteenth and the eighteenth century, of "more and more", the "productivity".
The roads that we are facing two.
The first way is called the "growth with growth " is one that leads to extinction of the species. She remembered how in the history of the planet there have been five great extinctions, the last of which is the one that led to the disappearance of the dinosaurs. Today disappear every day, hundreds of animal species. Particularly dear to us as a species threatened with extinction is that of the bees (with all the problems that poses to the ecosystem, I might add!). The nature in Western thought is not subject law, so we will abused, rape (for the nature of Western thought is not the great mother, Pachamama of the peoples of South America).
In the current situation reminded Latouche, even if we stop burning oil completely, the global temperature rise of 2 degrees, however. At its current level of consumption is expected to hand a rise in temperature of 5 degrees or more. This means that whole areas of the planet will soon be submerged! Several times
Latouche pointed out that only a madman or an economist can conceive of infinite growth on a finite planet!
The way out and Decolonization the imagination of growth. The infinite growth is a mythical story that builds the equation = HAPPINESS = Cost of goods GDP growth. GDP growth of 2% projected in 2000 years (a relatively short period of time for the life of a planet) gives unimaginable figures produced goods and, therefore, huge quantities of waste can not be disposed of.
This whole economic machine (first theorized by Adam Smith in 1776 with the Essay on the wealth of nations) is based on the premise that "always more" that usually define greed becomes instead the condition of public happiness. But instead of this economy produces wealth of nations enormous wealth on the one hand and the misery of millions of people!
If Marx (Karl, in this case) had already been mentioned in his time of "immense accumulation of commodities", what would he think today we are entering a mall?
The consumer society has worked "well" in the thirty years after the war thanks to three powerful factors: the marketing and advertising (the main instrument of colonization of the imagination), the credit (and therefore the loans as an incentive for consumption); the planned obsolescence of products (such as a computer "expire" after a few years).
But now "the party is over. " We are moving from the dream of the nightmare of Darwin Smith! Over all, the company that supplies new needs, continuously produces frustration: it feeds the desire in the absence of the desired object.
True abundance is produced by limiting the need, with frugality.
As Castoriadis says we live in a democracy governed by the post lobbies and the media, fueled by what the Greeks termed hibrys , dramatically.
The second way is that we are taking today: The growth without growth ! It is the road of despair, that of a company's growth is not growing, increasingly populated by the unemployed. A society that, to make ends meet, cuts in social expenditure, health, school ... Around the corner from the company's growth without growth there are authoritarian regimes, in which the repressive apparatus in the service of defending the privileges ! In terms of environmental impact the second way could be better than the first because it produces less. But it's like crashing into a wall at 200 per hour instead of 300!
The only way out is Degrowth which implies first and foremost a cultural revolution (the decrease can also see my article THE WISDOM OF SNAIL ).
Latouche concluded his speech by showing an engraving on stone zen whose meaning is: "you can access the happiness by limiting desires .
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