Following my article of March 12 titled "Ecolo, or the mountain that gave birth to a mouse", friends environmentalists have criticized me vehemently to make them a very bad case. Obviously I did not want to hurt people, nor to question their commitment or sow doubts about their sincerity individual. That's a overall logic is that when involves compromises, and even blackmail, which leads the current fiscal year of power in a capitalist social democracy.
The views expressed by each other in a cabinet are not so strongly influenced by beliefs (even if some of the highlight, of course) by reasonable accommodation with reality very few receptive - I agree easily - with radical ideas and desires of profound change. Exercise the power is not easy, especially in coalitions as "colorful" (a euphemism for "absurd") than under current federal, Walloon and French Community. This, I said in my article, and I repeat here. But is it so far justified to speak of a "bad process"?
After all, without wishing to give lessons too (but I'm committed researcher also exposed daily to derogatory judgments of colleagues - I know a little of what I mean), do politics is to affirm the ideals then seek to implement to the extent of what is really possible. These two words - "ideals" and "real" - are crucial. Realism is obviously not to have no ideals, as is the case in a good part of the PS speaking of good old school and ideals, there are at Ecolo. That is not the issue. Just browse the latest works of Jean-Michel Javaux , Bernard Wesphael or Jean-Marc Nollet , or seeing what themes working on some members of Etopia . The ideal, and even rather radical ideal, is at the heart of political ecology since its inception and especially since the heyday of Ivan Illich and Andre Gorz.
But then, why the hell is there so little radical in "Ten Proposals" released by the Green Party on March 11? The question that environmentalists, when they were in opposition, rightly addressed to the PS and CDH (I do not even speak here of the MR, which truly is offscreen in this whole discussion of progressivism) - this same question, should not they be urgently ask it now they are themselves in power? Why now drowning under a post-capitalist party firmly on the left (at least at the time of its creation) in truisms like "redeployment of our green economy "(p. 1) or" strict control measures "for" Meet the challenges of fighting against unfettered capitalism "(p. 2)? [I refer here, and now, the pages of the document " Ten Proposals ".]
For we must clearly: if" our "economy to be greened, it is capitalism's it is - framed by a social democracy, of course, but still. And one wonders what "regulation" may be in a system where one does not question, radically, the dependence of localities with respect to global investors or dependency of workers in respect of shareholders and / or contractors whose only concern is the ultimate maximum return on their capital. Ecolo would apparently re-"restrain" capitalism (as it says "unbridled") - but what "reforms in the economic and financial system" (p. 2) can it be, if it does not state clearly and unequivocally the need for disconnection against capitalism and way to force states and communities to compete? The "series of concrete proposals" (p. 2) involving "radical reforms" of the capitalism appears particularly on pages 98 to 105 of the book The Green Deal Jean-Marc Nollet. It includes measures of re-regulation of financial and banking sectors; it may be useful and certainly reasonable, but not the transition to double relaxation we seek here. Regulated capitalism, it is still capitalism, especially when considered irreversible globalization sharply limit, de facto , the latitudes of regulation ...
When do we say finally that, since its emergence centuries ago, capitalism has never and will never have to worry employment nor democracy, and that he puts local communities in an unsustainable dependence with respect to "financial resources" they must beg, in a globalized context, by selling off cheaply their independence and sovereignty? Regulate capitalism - but it still wants to believe that? No, it must de-con-nec-ter , otherwise we will never catch our breath because of the pace it imposes on us ... That is what is meant by (a little more highbrow, certainly) "post-capitalism".
citizens movements - such as Cities and Communities in Transition or Objectors Growth (who is stuck again and again, especially in Ecolo, the absurd and inaccurate label of "decay") - have the freedom to make clear the basic economic truths. They include women and men who do not necessarily want to send a particular party in power, or depend on any particular investor to survive, but who simply want to be supported publicly in the construction of all new production methods to consume. They do not care which party claims to embody these ideals post-capitalist - at municipal level, these citizens will vote for the PS, for ECOLO or the HRC provided that the commitments of local elected representatives of these parties they seem radical enough and sufficiently credible. This is where the word "really" that I mentioned above. Argue that one is in coalition and, therefore, the ideal that one door can not materialize - so we prefer the outset of modest proposals and "realistic" - c is the usual reflex of political compromise. Result: we present the moment a strange mix between a rhetoric of radicalism (which weaken a little hunting unemployed passes for humanism avant-garde) and a policy of softening prior ideals .
Thus, Ecolo claims to want "to facilitate the transition to a greener economy, towards a friendly environment" (p. 3). Who, one wonders, does not it? And why "facilitate" and not "impose emergency in ways radically new? The document indicates that it must "resolve the dilemmas posed by the growth" (p. 3) - but, one wonders, really wants strengthen, or make insoluble , the dilemmas of growth? Although the MR has any interest in solving the dilemmas of growth - whether he thinks there are, and certainly because he thinks he is informed by competent economists who understand capitalism - in order to continue implementation of an ideology of economic growth at any cost . Of course, one can agree with ECOLO it is time "to take into account in developing the social policy, inequality, health, education, welfare, ecological footprint by not focusing more exclusively on growth "(p. 4) - but the Liberals will counter with irony that they either do not focus" only "about growth! They simply have to acknowledge that realism, the logic of capitalism , health, education and Abatement (they take them too) that can through revenue growth and production and thus the attraction to Belgium, Brussels and Wallonia Chinese investors, German, Indian, Japanese, English, Brazilian, etc.. in search of profit in the short term without any regard for "our" socio-cultural fabric.
Do not focus only on growth, it must find other ways of creating value - and indeed ECOLO proposes to encourage the development of alternative indicators to GDP (Proposal No. 2) . but in what context, in what context these indicators are expected to be "Alternative"? The answer, alas, is disappointing for those of us who aspire to a disconnect with regard to capitalism. Indeed, in another proposal (No. 3), the document indicates that it is to encourage monitoring and dashboards where environmental "initiatives might arise generating profits for both the environment for businesses. Besides the occupation of new niches bearing and compression of certain costs [sic ], the implementation of environmental policies [emphasis in italics] indeed allow companies to meet increasing demands shareholders, investors, contractors, public authorities and associations for environmental management "(p. 5). New indicators may be an excellent idea in itself, but that we do not make too many illusions in terms of radicalism: they will actually be implemented by ECOLO within a social-democratic capitalist logic (with "shareholders", the "investors" and "government public "who put their" requirements ", the" cost containment ") that apparently does not think to question. Lesson immediate environmentalists government will indeed have to resign "Focus solely on growth" ... because the system in which they are registered they are given little choice.
In the framework of public procurement (Proposal No. 8), which are indeed an important lever for government action, it is well to encourage the purchase of "products and services environmentally and workers' rights "(p. 10). This makes sense and is reasonable. But why be guided by the strange principle that wants the government "must take the lead" (p. 10 and p. 11) - a principle that has obviously makes sense in a capitalist economy where tries, somehow, to "regulate" private actors who have an interest in following the "example" for other private actors, that is to say their competitors in the race for profitable niches? In a post-capitalist economy citizen, the idea that the state must set an example seem strange to people who, themselves, would set an example especially to their political leaders by logging out of capitalism and its "constraints". To whom, about what "example" should it be directed? We simply note said Ecolo, to "alternative, less polluting" and "buying more ethical" (p. 10) - under the "green clauses" which paragraph one above, were still "social and environmental clauses. The "social" tends to be quickly retracted; only remains environmental. But is this surprising? It is quite clear - as I indicated in my note "Transition ecological and economic transition," pp. 1-3 - that if the environmental clauses have gained plausibility for private actors of capitalism (the component bioenvironmental now seen as a source of profitability), social clauses have significantly less or no (c ' is the environmental component anthropologists saw as an obstacle to the profitability of capital). It feels longer bothered to impose too long even in a programmatic text like this which is meant a formulation of an ideal to be pursued ...
remains the stronghold - or should we say here's alibi - the social economy (proposal No. 10). I have already proposed some elements of analysis in my message of 12 March. However, insofar ECOLO even claims to be promoting a radical alternative preferring "Grand Soir (...) dozens of mornings, made from the combination of local actions and global citizenship and policy" (Noll, Green Deal , p. 152), he must try to clarify the problem. How big are supposed to have these "actions"? I quote again one of the key passages: "The social economy organizations and solidarity often emerge in response to social demands or economic market in which and / or public action can not respond adequately or quickly" ( p. 10). It is said that public buildings will be insulated (proposal No. 9) but at the same time, capitalism and human waste little or no recorded will only be strengthened through a third sector that will kindly fill gaps increasing. Let us make the social economy in 20 years, what has become roughly unions today - a palliative internal system, increasingly co-opted but at the same time, discredited by the established players in the name of "competitiveness" and "flexibility"? Is this what Ivan Illich and Andre Gorz awaited political ecology? It seems not.
This article is particularly long, I apologize. Because I wanted to propose a detailed discussion of the reasons I write what I wrote a week ago. I do not spit in the soup, and I do not think the owner of "transition." But I think those who, in Ecolo, find that I make them a "bad process" make me a bad case. Nothing in these "Ten proposals," does allow citizens to see how a party in which some say they are radical, even anti-capitalist, it will take to fight capitalism with proposals that take capitalism as a given starting , never questioned. I repeat what I wrote March 12: might be the secret hope of environmentalists is Belgian he dint of "green" private capitalism by state rules they will one day, as if by surprise, triggering the second expansion of the post-capitalist economic transition. But I think they could convince us that they were more state to the citizens who elected them, blackmail real (employment, relocation, re-election) which they are subjected against their will by the system, as the elect of other parties elsewhere. They could then encourage a greater awareness with real economic transition disconnection post-capitalist. Pretend they were going to revolutionize things annoying or harassing the dominant players in this globalized capitalist logic, while anchoring itself in this logic to make proposals, seems too short - and is not partly what makes some people abstainers?
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