Center and peripheries in Europe - The dynamics of inequalities since 1990[1]
Globalization is as old as humanity and its acceleration by capitalism has generated
immense inequalities. No social or political struggle to combat inequality has any
seriousness or validity if it does not have as its ultimate objective the end of
capitalism.
1 - Summary of capitalism’s recent evolution
2 - Possible alternatives for peripheral states
3 - The formation of inequalities in Europe - 1
4 - The formation of inequalities in Europe - 2
5 - Notes for a solution
1 - Summary of capitalism’s recent evolution
The dynamics of inequalities are a consequence of a very complex process of
interaction between economic, social, demographic, cultural and geopolitical variables.
Focusing this process on any particular aspect such as external or budget deficits,
unemployment or job creation, on tools such as currency, it is a tricky way to defend
the continuity of capitalism’s invasive, destructive and genocidal drive.
We recently observed purchasing power differences in Portugal and its evolution in the period 2004/13, and how the policy
of collective impoverishment to satisfy the gluttony of the financial system was
reflected in the different parts of the country. We will now look at inequalities
in Europe and its dynamics through population changes, as a means of gauging whether
what happened in Portugal was an isolated episode or is part of the constant formation
of centers and peripheries inherent to capitalistic economic and social structure.
A territory’s population variations reveal the attraction or repulsion that
territory exerts on humans. This can occur because of more or less basic socio economic
reasons or due to extreme causes such as war or calamities, some more natural than
others.
In the most flattering situations, those territories retain and allow greater
longevity to their population, their regular reproduction and, furthermore, arrivals
of people from other places where living conditions are comparatively less attractive.
When life becomes difficult and opportunities become worse than elsewhere, the birth
rate falls, in step with rising emigration, and that opportunities deficit
may promotes population stagnation or fall. These forms of mobility have happened
throughout history, having had individuals, families, or large masses of people
as protagonists, with peaceful, or violent, or invasive, or conquering
ways, and also as a result of environmental changes. Basically, it is through this miscegenation that humanity developed, born of the cross breading of Neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens.
ways, and also as a result of environmental changes. Basically, it is through this miscegenation that humanity developed, born of the cross breading of Neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens.
We highlight some essential aspects in order to mark the path that we have been
treading:
·
Roughly between the end of World War I and the end of the
Second World War, the Western world lived through periods of depression, especially
the Great Depression in the US, with the generation of large pockets of unemployment
and poverty, in addition to the immense destruction of human lives and infrastructure,
caused by those conflicts;
·
Between World War II and the oil shock in 1973 a period
of economic growth – it is the pinnacle of Keynesianism – was established with great
involvement of states in creating infrastructure and social welfare institutions,
under the so called European social model that, however, is not uniform since it
has variants within Europe (Scandinavian and Rhine) and outside of it (Japanese)
and in which trade unions played a significant role. To the above one must add,
in that period, the creation of the first multilateral institutions that have started
and shaped what came to be called globalization – the Bretton Woods agreements,
the dollar as the dominant currency, the IMF/World Bank, the GATT (now WTO), the
EEC as a lever for European integration, NATO and its variants outside the Atlantic
scenario;
·
The depletion of this model came when the impact of the
recovery from the destruction of the war became irrelevant and with the end of cheap
energy, the emergence of environmental issues, inflation, postcolonial war in Indochina,
and an increased affirmation of the so-called Third World. A new capitalist paradigm
– neoliberalism – has since been affirmed,
one whose initial deployment will remain linked to the "humanitarian" Pinochet / CIA / Milton Friedman coalition in
Chile and to Thatcher’s and Reagan’s anti-social policies;
·
The economic growth limitations reduced the expectations
about the continuity of technological innovation and multinational’s investment
in them leading to an increased dependency, in that area, of those created under
the military umbrella, such as the internet and information technologies in general,
whose role clearly marks the most recent decades. The East-West competition increased
with the development of the arm’s race, as destructive as dangerous, which came
to contribute to the collapse of the so called Eastern bloc and its state capitalism,
with the rapid recycling of its politicians into inflamed heralds of neoliberalism;
·
In the sequel, the financial markets merged into a single
network based on the deepening of information technologies, raising the indebtedness
and speculation levels to figures without any connection with reality, creating
the bases for the unsustainability of the financial environment that can be seen
today. In turn, the multinationals operating space has expanded, with branches sprouting
all over as mushrooms during wet weather and, for better exploitation of the low
wages and degrading working conditions imposed by regimes more or less dictatorial,
invented the relocation, corresponding to the segmentation of goods’ production
by various locations or countries, generating
a logistics and transportation network, extremely dense and heavy in terms
of the capital involved as well as its environmental damages;
·
This segmentation of the production inherent to the relocation
contributed to the dismantling of what was left of the "social state"
in Western Europe, in the USA, or in those countries born out of state capitalism
in Eastern Europe. And, by disconnecting locally or nationally the various stages
of the production processes, the efficacy of strikes and the workers' claiming power
were lost, since unions did not follow, in the least, capitalist centralization,
and kept labor struggles with geographically limited scope of action. Politically,
a unique, economistic thinking was generated, based on the Washington consensus which divided party systems into more reactionary and less reactionary groups,
pushing leftist ideas into a media marginality;
·
The freedom of movement of goods and capital inherent in
relocations has destroyed the structure of cross sector national matrices, accentuated
the regional and local inequalities within each country, as well as deepened the usual ditches among peripheral countries and so-called winning countries
or regions in the context of globalization, around which the former gravitate. These
disruptions and restructuring have led to massive destruction of capital, abandonment
of fields, houses and productive infrastructures, as well as large migrations, simultaneously
restricted and desired by the powers, with security mechanisms cynically parallel
to the license for the commodification of human beings, aiming at the availability
of a cheap and submissive labor force, in the exact measure of their precarious
life;
·
Thus, today, along with the consolidation in the West of
structural unemployment articulated with labor precariousness, there is a resort
to immigrants, with or without papers, both in central and peripheral countries
– also coexisting, in these, with the emigration of their most qualified naturals.
All of them, however, embedded into the logic of capital, seeking lower costs for
the labor resource in order to increase competitiveness, attract investment and
... generate employment, a discourse that is common within the political classes
and the media. Never do they mention, in those situations where there is, in fact,
new jobs, they are characterized by a salary and contractual or working conditions
more degrading than the previous ones.
·
This mobility is based on the variety and ease of traveling
of human beings, which increased the possibility of geography change for many millions
of people, despite the difficulties to those movements placed by the States, though
guards, controls, and border walls and nets. The political classes and their police
forces can only seek to track, decipher and place obstacles to mobility but can
never nullify the huge creativity of the poor, generated by their great drive to
live. Still on this topic, one needs to add, because of the inhumanity and dram
it evidences, the case of the millions of displaced persons and refugees from the
Middle East, left to their own devices or exploited as cheap labor in "host"
countries that, “coincidentally”, have very high responsibilities in the wars and
the atrocities, which is common knowledge.
2 - Possible alternatives for peripheral states
Capitalism has always generated inequalities, be them between people or groups
of people, or between regions or countries; inequality lies in its genetic code
because current capitalist accumulation is based on the inequality of income and
the usufruct of civilization, on sweeping to the gutter those who do not count in
this accumulation of capital. No social or political fight is serious or valid if
it does not have as its ultimate goal the end of capitalism.
The EU, as a pioneering place of the historically recent globalization, has
since its inception aimed at freedom of movement of capital, goods and people, so
that the market be extended – read: to provide
capitalist accumulation – with minimal restrictions of "context", legislative,
administrative, social, cultural, while reducing national idiosyncrasies. The national
and local capitalists, especially those in the peripheral or with weaker economic
structures nation-states, are left with the following alternatives, particularized
for the Portuguese case:
·
Insertion into the globalized market, through the venerated
competitiveness, which requires productive and financial dimension, commercial,
technological and management capability, fiscal benefits and public support. Let us call it, applying it to Portugal, the logic of
the Portuguese Tiger, which deployment is lacking “only” a dynamic capitalist class with investing capacity and available budget to
support it;
·
Business capture through privileged links with the state and the local political class (where corruption is key),
which can be hampered by the massive invasive drives of global capital, as hinted
by those present in the dark TTIP and CETA cases. It is the desire for nationalist
strength, in a post-Salazarist logic implicitly defended by the Keynesian augurs, defenders of a
state owned currency and domestic quantitative easings, tempered by the convenient
repression of those rebelling against inflation;
·
The subordinate insertion (or the pure and simple integration
of the technical and worker force assets) into the business networks of the large
companies headquartered at the Center or multinationals – this is the logic followed
by the Passos government and followed with some restraint by Costa, with the added
difficulty of Portugal not being of special interest to multinationals, either as
a producer or as a consumer; that is, Portugal tends to be seen, mainly, as a complement
to the Spanish market;
·
Anemia or disappearance, due to the small dimension, because
adequate capitalization is not possible, technology or management capacity is lacking,
and debt, as a consented instrument of dominance, is asphyxiating. This is the remaining
scenario, signifying a role as a satellite of the Spanish state (if it persists)
which is already visible in the ECB's search to anchor an Iberian banking system
on Santander, similarly to a past situation of the escudo being indexed to the peseta
and the Portuguese government having had to wait for the end of the negotiations
for the integration of Spain in the then EEC, in order to make a joint entry.
Hence the continuation of the process of reducing the role of nation-states
in the European and world space , especially of small and medium-sized ones, to
large municipalities, level 1 NUTs in the phraseology of Brussels, vocationally
tending to exercise the puncture tax, the monopoly of violence (courts, police,
legislative coercion and rules) to ensure the presence of sad Rambos in the Nato
wars, to buy military junk from suzerain powers’ industry, to maintain the financial
system fattening debt service or a social assistance that sustains meekness in the
plebs and, finally, to guarantee the flag’s presence at international meetings,
or the national anthem at the soccer national team’s matches, for the pride of the
patriots.
3 - The formation of inequalities in Europe - 1
These various ongoing processes, inherent to the dominant production mode, originate
a very complex matrix of population movements and changes in the classification
of regions as people attracting or repelling. As is known, people will not move
to other than the usual places if they do not have a marked level of discomfort
and disenchantment; and the distance or risks they are willing to take are directly
proportional to their unhappiness. From a demographic point of view these dynamics
are continuously restructuring the space, setting up centers and peripheries, confluence
areas for people and activities and zones of exclusion and abandonment.
The evolution of the population in the various regions of the present EU space
during a relatively broad period of time (in this case around 25 years) thus gives
clear indications about the formation of these central or peripheral territories.
This is in spite of the transfer of public financial resources, made in the name
of territorial cohesion and the approximation of living conditions among all those
who live in the EU; but, in reality, aiming primarily at the flow of goods and services,
better access to raw materials, the centralization of capital, and labor exploitation;
in short, all the motivations inherent in the capitalist production mode.
We considered the size of the European population, as much as possible, in five
moments, separated by five-year lapses, starting in 1990 and ending in 2015; and
computed the five-year variations at the country level and its regional districts
at the second (NUTS-2) or third level (NUT-3), whenever the available data would
allow us.
For the 28 EU countries, we have observed those with decreases in
population in each of the five-year periods and measured the representativeness
of the sum of their populations in the Community total:
Countries with decreasing population
|
|||||
1995/1990
|
2000/1995
|
2005/2000
|
2010/2005
|
2015/2010
|
|
No.
|
9
|
10
|
10
|
9
|
12
|
Population (1000)
|
66049
|
103189
|
104190
|
168365
|
234261
|
% of total EU
|
13.7
|
21.2
|
21.1
|
33.5
|
46.2
|
All periods - Bulgaria, Estonia, Croatia, Latvia,
Lithuania, Hungary and Romania
In 4 periods - Poland, except 1995/90
In three periods - Czech Republic (the top three);
In two periods - Slovenia (the top two) and Germany
(the latter two)
In a single period - Slovakia (2005/2000); Greece, Spain and
Portugal (in the latter)
|
|||||
Primary source: Eurostat
These elements reveal:
·
Some constancy in the number of countries with a decreasing
population but which has been expanding in the last five years, as an evident effect
of the financial crisis , for countries in the South;
·
There is a consolidate core of countries with continued
population regression – those forming EU’s East periphery – showing the failure of its integration in the EU after
the crash in 1991 of state capitalism countries. In fact, what was intended with
this integration, that had Germany as its main protagonist, was the access to natural
resources and to educated and cheap labor.
·
The cases with some success in the demographic evolution,
in the last periods, are the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Slovakia.
·
We highlight the case of Germany, which reveals a population
regression in the last ten years, and Merkel's desire to accommodate many thousands
of refugees, whose desperation facilitates the imposition of low wages and restrictions
to working conditions and citizenship.
In this context, the populations in regression increased from 13.7% in 1995
to around 21% in 2000 and 2005 due to the inclusion of Poland; to 33.5% in 2010
with the entry of Germany into the group; and to 46.2% in 2015 with the reinforcement
constituted by the countries victims of the exorcisms of the financial capital,
in the south edge.
More broadly, EU countries can be allocated according to the average values
(in %) for population trends in the five-year periods:
Decrease
|
Weak growth
|
Average growth
|
High growth
|
|||||||
Latvia
|
-5,73
|
Czech Republic
|
0.35
|
Italy
|
1.41
|
France
|
3,26
|
|||
Lithuania
|
-4.56
|
Slovakia
|
0.50
|
Greece
|
1.44
|
Spain
|
3.71
|
|||
Bulgaria
|
-3.85
|
Germany
|
0.53
|
Finland
|
1.92
|
Malta
|
4.03
|
|||
Estonia
|
-3.49
|
Slovenia
|
0.66
|
Denmark
|
1.96
|
Ireland
|
5.76
|
|||
Romania
|
-3.05
|
Portugal
|
0.76
|
Austria
|
2.31
|
Cyprus
|
8.20
|
|||
Croatia
|
-2.40
|
Netherlands
|
2.38
|
Luxembourg
|
8.24
|
|||||
Hungary
|
-1.02
|
Belgium
|
2.51
|
|||||||
Poland
|
-0.01
|
Great Britain
|
2.57
|
|||||||
Sweden
|
2.72
|
|||||||||
Primary source: Eurostat
In addition to those countries with the already mentioned populational regression
situations, there are others with almost no growth in population during the period,
among which are Germany, three peripheries of the Germanic world and Portugal, that
stands out clearly against the other EU’s southern periphery countries.
Among the countries having higher average population growth, we intend to highlight
the similarities and differences between those involved in banking or deficit "adjustment
programs". All of them show sharp declines in population growth rates over
the last five years, with the exception of Italy where there has been a steady positive
trend over the last 25 years; and among those, Greece, Portugal and Spain have population
regression in 2010/15. On the other hand, the demographic growth in Cyprus and Ireland
in all the years before the crisis and in Spain in the first decade of the century
is remarkable.
In general – with the notable exception of Germany – the majority of cases of
higher population growth happen in the EU’s richest countries, particularly Luxembourg,
in those where the of recent years’ crisis (2010/2015) had little effect on the
population growth pace (France, Denmark, the Netherlands and Great Britain), or
did not prevent the continuation of the increases (Belgium, Italy, Austria, Finland
and Sweden).
Emigration bound for those richer countries has great responsibilities in what
was stated above, demonstrating that the highest density of productive structures
and a higher economic dynamism — even in the global context of anemic GDP growth
rates – attract people of areas where the economic and social situation is much
worse. Those are the cases of war (Libya, sub-Saharan Africa, Sudan ...), an essentially
economy related emigration that, more recently, blended with the multitudes of refugees
victims of the total disorganization fostered by Western strategic interests in
the Middle East.
Countries with declining populations do not have the euro as currency or have
recently joined the euro, as is the case of the three Baltic countries. Among the
nations with mediocre growth two founders of the euro zone (Germany and Portugal)
are included, others having few years within the same (Slovenia since 2007 and Slovakia
after 2009) and the Czech Republic which keeps its own currency. Countries with
average population growth in the 25 years of observation are founders of the Eurozone
in 1999 (Greece, which was integrated in the same two years later) as well as Britain
and Denmark, that maintain their national currencies. Finally, the countries with
the highest population increases are all members of the euro from the start or from
2008 (Malta and Cyprus).
It would be simplistic and demagogic to link demographic developments with integration
or not in the euro area[2] . The recent integrated do
not show changes in the demographic evolution that can be imputable to the use of
the so-called common currency; and among the adherents in the period 2007/2009 there
are as many cases of mediocre population growth as of clearly expansive demography.
Finally, it seems more relevant to note that the euro or its absence did not specifically
change the historical inequalities within Europe, while maintaining the Eastern
periphery (clearly), the South periphery (more diverse in the demographic change
theme) and a Center made up of the richer countries, to which Switzerland and Norway
must be added, in spite of the population decline observed in the EU's main economic
and financial power, Germany. This should disgust Portuguese fans of Le Pen for
whom integration into the single currency introduced hell where once there was only
national sovereignty and a rich and happy people.
4 - The formation of inequalities in Europe - 2
What was stated before on the establishment of central and peripheral areas
within the European framework, particularly in the EU space concerns will enriched,
sharpened, if we consider the territorial division in NUT-2 regions. We highlight
some conclusions from the following table:
EU regions with
population decline in the five-year period
|
|||||
1995
|
2000
|
2005
|
2010
|
2015
|
|
Belgium (11)
|
1
|
1
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
Bulgaria (6)
|
6
|
6
|
6
|
6
|
6
|
Czech Republic (8)
|
na
|
6
|
7
|
1
|
3
|
Denmark (5)
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
1
|
Germany (36)
|
5
|
11
|
12
|
25
|
25
|
Select by country
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
Ireland (2)
|
na
|
na
|
-
|
-
|
1
|
Greece (4) (a)
|
1
|
2
|
|||
Spain (19) (b)
|
5
|
5
|
2
|
-
|
11
|
Select a country
|
2
|
5
|
1
|
1
|
3
|
Croatia (2)
|
na
|
na
|
na
|
1
|
2
|
Italy (19) (c)
|
7
|
11
|
7
|
3
|
2
|
Cyprus (1)
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
Latvia (1)
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
Lithuania (1)
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
Luxembourg (1)
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
Hungary (7)
|
3
|
7
|
7
|
6
|
6
|
Malta (1)
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
Netherlands (12)
|
-
|
-
|
1
|
1
|
4
|
Austria (9)
|
-
|
3
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
Select by country
|
na
|
12
|
10
|
9
|
11
|
Portugal (7)
|
na
|
2
|
1
|
3
|
6
|
Romania (8)
|
7
|
7
|
8
|
7
|
7
|
United States (1)
|
1
|
1
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
United States (4)
|
-
|
-
|
3
|
2
|
2
|
Finland (5)
|
-
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
-
|
Sweden (8)
|
-
|
5
|
3
|
3
|
-
|
G Brittany (35) (d)
|
6
|
10
|
2
|
-
|
1
|
EU Total(252)
|
46
|
97
|
75
|
73
|
97
|
Notes: the total number of regions in each country is in ()
(a)
Data referring to
only 4 of the 13 Greek regions which held about 46% of the total population
(b)
In 1995 without data
from Ceuta and Melilla
(c)
Until 2005 without
data from Emilia-Romagna and Marche
(d)
The total number
of regions with elements is: 25 (1995), 31 (2000). 33 (2005), and 35 (2010 and 2015)
Primary source: Eurostat
·
The number of regions with population declines between
1995 (19.3% of the total) and 2000 (39.4%), more than doubles, the main contributions
coming from countries such as Germany, Italy, Sweden, Great Britain, and the inclusion
of Poland in this list only in 2000.
·
In the first decade of this century the number of regions
with declining population remains constant (about 30% of the total), with emphasis
in the contributions of Germany, Poland, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria to which
have been added in the last five years Greece, Portugal and Spain, as the most relevant
cases;
·
This situation reveals that, on the eastern periphery,
the integration of those countries that have left state capitalism regimes is very
distant from the eternal bliss promised by the heralds of neoliberalism, in spite
of community funds channeled or foreign investors coming from the Occident that,
naturally, perpetuated low wages and corruption, destroying the cushions of social support that those
peoples had previously benefited from, a destruction that has been feeding the known
fascist drifts. Colonization, as a rule, integrates colonized peoples into spaces
where inequalities worsen and economic and social disintegrations increase.
When one observes, as in the following table, the population share of regions
with demographic regression, a more precise measure of the volume of those excluded
by the dynamics of the markets and their relevance in the various national plans
is obtained.
Share of the national
population contained in regions with a population decrease (%)
|
|||||
1995
|
2000
|
2005
|
2010
|
2015
|
|
Belgium (11)
|
9.4
|
12.5
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
Bulgaria (6)
|
100.0
|
100.0
|
100.0
|
100.0
|
100.0
|
Czech Republic (8)
|
na
|
78.2
|
88.8
|
11.8
|
33.8
|
Denmark (5)
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
14.5
|
Germany (36)
|
17.5
|
31.9
|
30.2
|
58.4
|
66.3
|
Select by country
|
100.0
|
100.0
|
100.0
|
100.0
|
100.0
|
Ireland (2)
|
na
|
na
|
-
|
-
|
26.5
|
Greece (4) (a)
|
-
|
4.0
|
-
|
-
|
81.5
|
Spain (19) (b)
|
24.1
|
23.3
|
2.6
|
-
|
56.3
|
Select a country
|
3.5
|
12.0
|
2.1
|
2.1
|
7.1
|
Croatia (2)
|
na
|
na
|
na
|
67.1
|
100.0
|
Italy (19) (c)
|
26.5
|
56.7
|
26.1
|
4.8
|
1.5
|
Cyprus (1)
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
Latvia (1)
|
100.0
|
100.0
|
100.0
|
100.0
|
100.0
|
Lithuania (1)
|
100.0
|
100.0
|
100.0
|
100.0
|
100.0
|
Luxembourg (1)
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
Hungary (7)
|
50.7
|
100.0
|
100.0
|
70.5
|
69.7
|
Malta (1)
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
Netherlands (12)
|
-
|
-
|
7.0
|
6.8
|
15.6
|
Austria (9)
|
-
|
25.2
|
6.8
|
6.7
|
6.5
|
Select by country
|
na
|
63.9
|
58.0
|
50.2
|
56.7
|
Portugal (7)
|
na
|
9.9
|
7.4
|
64.4
|
72.9
|
Romania (8)
|
89.7
|
83.0
|
100.0
|
89.3
|
88.5
|
United States (1)
|
100.0
|
100.0
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
United States (4)
|
-
|
-
|
70.7
|
59.2
|
58.7
|
Finland (5)
|
-
|
25.4
|
24.8
|
24.2
|
-
|
Sweden (8)
|
-
|
45.4
|
18.9
|
18.2
|
-
|
G Brittany (35) (d)
|
24.3
|
37.6
|
7.3
|
-
|
0.9
|
Total EU
|
20.6
|
38.2
|
27.0
|
25.6
|
35.1
|
(1000)
|
99412
|
186068
|
133469
|
128979
|
178274
|
Primary source: Eurostat
·
Bulgaria, like the three ex-Soviet Baltic countries, shows
that its entire territory is in demographic regression, and that its borders are
real gaps through which the population goes. In 25 years, Bulgaria has lost 18%
of its population and this decrease reaches 1/3 of the total in Severozapaden
region, while in Estonia the loss is 16.4%, in Latvia 25.6% and in Lithuania 21%,
so it can be said with heavy irony, that there is a real ... territorial homogeneity.
It is appropriate to ask what kind of European integration is being made when, after
a few years of implementation (Baltic countries since 2004 and Bulgaria after 2007),
a significant proportion of those people are forced to emigrate and reduce their
reproduction levels?
·
Conversely, Cyprus, Malta and Luxembourg show a progressive
increase of population, even taking into account their small territorial extension
and the insular and the peripheral character of the first two countries. Cyprus
substantially reduced its population growth in the last five years, compared to
the previous ones, but – and despite the intervention of the troika – its
population increased 3.4% in 2010/15, much above that of Portugal in any the five
five-year periods since 1990.
·
Belgium and Slovenia, in this century, no longer have
within their territories regions in demographic regression, contrary to what happens
with Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Slovakia; or even in Greece, in the
area for which there is data. Also notable are the cases of Italy, Britain and
also of Sweden or Finland, where the population in areas of regression is reduced.
·
The cases of large growth of parts of the population
pertaining to territories in demographic regression are found in Germany, in the
aforementioned Greece, Spain, Croatia and
Portugal, where the regression is announced in this century, long before the troika
intervention; it is also the situation in the Czech Republic, following the progress
achieved in the period 2005/10.
·
The German case deserves particular emphasis because in
contradiction to the economic power of Germany, its capabilities in technology and
exports that afford it huge trade surpluses, there is a set of demographically depressed
regions, home to two-thirds of the population. And that goes well beyond the problems
of integration of the regions belonging to the defunct GDR. Germany is a clear case
of the inequalities immanent in capitalism, even if there are transfers of public
funds to fill them and despite the influx of capital accumulated in the country.
·
More generally, the EU is a space of inequalities, as are
the vast majority of nation-states, of any size or global level of well-being. And
all the measures coming from the Brussels bureaucracy in articulation with the national
political classes, only generate any reduction of inequalities if that is convenient
for the multinationals and the business of the financial system, which determine
the actions of those bureaucracies .
The map of Europe below presents a clear image of those inequalities:
·
which are all around them, and which signify a huge range
of territories to the East, which runs from the Gulf of Finland to the Aegean and
where demographic regression is evident (no data being available for the whole of
the Greek territory it is considered very plausible that it should be displayed
in red);
·
a large part of Germany where, essentially, only the southern
regions are excluded;
·
most of the territory of the Iberian Peninsula;
·
the most extensive region with strong or reasonable population
growth develops from the Bay of Biscay to southern Germany and from there to
the south up to Rome;
·
there are also other areas of equal demographic dynamism
in southern Scandinavia, England, and Belgium;
·
In many countries the areas of the respective capitals
- Great Britain, Portugal and Spain, all the Scandinavian countries, Belgium, Germany,
Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary, Romania, and Italy stand out as areas of relative
population attraction. These realities are the other side of the coin of population
decline desertification situations, phenomena of inequalities exacerbation.
5 – Notes for a solution
Any solution to the well-being of the people must include:
· priority given to the satisfaction of peoples' needs and not to an unhealthy
fixation on an abstract GDP growth, with the evident contempt for the sustainability
of use of the planet’s resources;
· satisfaction of these needs as a social objective, which excludes the logic
of the private surplus and the enslavement by the work, releasing the humans to
the activities more suitable to each one, mainly, in the scope of leisure, culture,
sport and for the management of the affections
· organization and democratic decision-making by the people, from the grassroots
up, with the application of the principle of subsidiarity, in successive spheres
of population according to the critical mass necessary to satisfaction of the needs[3];
· abolition of the political classes while catalyzers and monopoly holders of
the decision power over the collective interest, and their replacement by
direct democracy processes, with responsibilities determined through (direct)
democratic choice in a transient and always (at any time) revocable way;
· elimination of the competition of everybody against everybody primacy and
its replacement by solidarity, helping each other and being complementary
amongst the human population;
· elimination of nation-states as elements of segregation, imposition and
discrimination, on the internal level, and exclusion regarding the outside, without
any harm to the cultural differences between peoples.
To be continued
This and other texts at:
[1] This is the first of three documents on the
inequalities, mainly demographic, in Europe. The three chapters in Portuguese
language can be found below:
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