"The rise of insignificance"

Given the ecological crisis, the extreme inequality of the distribution of resources between rich and poor countries, the almost complete inability of the system to continue its current course, what is required is a new imaginary creation whose significance can not be compared with anything similar in the past, a creation that would put at the center of human life meanings other than increased production and consumption, that would set different life goals, for which people could say they are worthwhile. This would of course require a disorganization of social institutions, labor relations, economic, political, cultural relations.

But this orientation is incredibly far from what people think, and perhaps from what people desire today. This is the colossal difficulty we have to face. We should want a society in which economic values ​​have ceased to be central (or unique), where the economy is back in place, that is, it has become a mere means of human life and not an ultimate purpose, in which therefore we will have given up the crazy race towards an ever-increasing consumption. This is not just necessary to avoid the final destruction of the earth's environment. It is necessary mainly to get out of the mental and moral misery of modern people.

So from now on people (I am talking about rich countries now) should accept a decent but austere standard of living and give up the idea that the central purpose of their lives is to increase their consumption by 2 to 3% per year. time. To accept this, something else would have to give meaning to their lives. We know, I know what this is all about - but what good is it if the vast majority of people do not accept it and do not do what is right? This other is the development of people, instead of the development of garbage products. This would require another organization of work, which should cease to be a chore and become a field of display of human abilities. Another political system, a true democracy that would involve the participation of all in decision-making. Another organization of education, so that citizens capable of exercising and beginning, according to the wonderful expression of Aristotle - and so on.

Of course, all this poses fundamental problems: for example, how could a true, direct democracy work, no longer with 30.000 citizens, as in classical Athens, but with 40 million citizens, as in France, or even and with many billions of people on the planet? Problems of colossal difficulty, but in my opinion can be solved - provided that the majority of people and their abilities will be mobilized to create solutions, instead of worrying about when they will be able to get XNUMXD TV.

These are the tasks we have before us - and the tragedy of our time is that dual humanity is far from caring about them. How much longer will humanity be haunted by the vanities and illusions we call commodities? Will a catastrophe of any kind - ecological, for example - cause a violent awakening, or will the emergence of authoritarian or totalitarian regimes? No one can answer such questions. "What we can say is that all those who are aware of the terribly serious nature of the issues should try to speak out, to criticize this frantic path to the abyss, to awaken the conscience of their fellow citizens." (pp. 128-131)

"(.) The decomposition becomes apparent mainly through the disappearance of meanings and the almost absolute fading of values. And that threatens the long-term survival of the system itself. When it is openly stated, as is now the case in Western societies, that the only value is money, profit, that the supreme ideal of social life is "get rich", one may wonder if it is ever possible for a society to continue to function and to be reproduced only on this basis.

If that were the case, then civil servants would have to ask for and receive bribes to do their job, judges to make court decisions at auction, teachers to give good grades to children whose parents gave them a check etc. Almost fifteen years ago I wrote that the only barrier for people today is the fear of criminal sanctions. By what logic, however, will those who impose sanctions be themselves incorruptible? Who will guard the guards? The generalized corruption that we observe in the modern political-economic system is not a regional or anecdotal phenomenon but has become a structural feature, endogenous in the system of the society in which we live.

We thus touch here on a fundamental factor, known to the great political thinkers of the past and completely unknown to today's supposedly political philosophers, bad sociologists and wretched theorists: the close connection between a social regime and the anthropological type (or spectrum) of such is necessary for this regime to work. Most of these anthropological types were inherited by capitalism from earlier historical periods: the incorruptible judge, the Weberian civil servant, the dedicated teacher, the worker for whom his job was, in all circumstances, source of pride. Such persons become unthinkable in modern times: one wonders why they would be reproduced, who would reproduce them, in the name of what they would function. Even the anthropological type that is a creation of capitalism itself, the sub-Sumerian businessman - who combines technical ingenuity, the ability to raise capital, organize a business, explore, penetrate, create markets - is disappearing. It is being replaced by management bureaucracies and speculators.