Capitalism vs Territory in the It is an attack on the Catalan language

We publish the writing of Eduard Baeza, union activist and militant of CUP-L'H, to the II Forum of Socialist Political Ecology (LIS).

“I was asked to make a brief presentation on the impact that capitalism has on the territory where I live., work and military. First, I would like to explain what this territory is, since often the mental framework and capitalist cultural hegemony prevent us from being aware of certain realities. I live and work in the Catalan Countries (PPCC); a set of territories with a cultural heritage, common historical and geographical area that is currently under the yoke of the Spanish states, French, Andorran and Italian. The revolutionary organizations in which I am active are committed to emancipation and national sovereignty, as well as for solidarity and the construction of joint strategies with the rest of the people to achieve liberation as a class.

Made this small paragraph, It is also important to reaffirm, although for us it is basic, What is the relationship established between the logic of capitalist production and our planet?. Liberal economic theory is based on an idea that dictates that self-profit (understood as the particular interest) is capable of benefiting the common people of a society. This statement is not wrong and precisely its original implementation became an evident social transformation in many societies that thus surpassed more barbaric formulas.. What then is the error? What is so harmful intrinsic to the relations of capitalist production according to the revolutionary? Simply put, these relationships generate two common, two classes with precisely two interests that conflict. further, what I thought, designed and erected for a purpose cannot be reformulated to go against its original purpose. The purpose of the capitalist production relationship is the capitalist's profit by transferring the wealth of the working class into his own hands.. This phenomenon constantly occurs through production and/or the offer of services., that allow the transactions from which the capitalist feeds. This apparent perpetual motion machine, like is logic, It is riddled with defects. The two most obvious are: first, that strips the labor force of the possibility of living, appropriating its effort, time and profits, And in second place, exterminates the planet itself by making unrestricted use of finite material and energy resources and allowing uncontrolled harmful impacts originating from the transformation processes themselves..

That it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism is as obvious as asking what would be expected to happen if we locked a young lion and an injured fawn in a small cage.… We could hardly imagine a series of bizarre coincidences that would allow the deer to escape or defeat the lion.. Capitalism is a predatory agent of humanity and the planet itself.

From the first evidence of the negative global impact arising from the relocation of pollution with the industrial revolution, Many voices began to raise the enormous power of transformation that an entire political subject organized around the fight against this environmental terrorism would have.. At present, These postulates seem to have been well diagnosed, since throughout the globe organizations, entities and social movements in favor of protecting the planet have begun to become common, and the reaction and repression of capital are beginning to become increasingly evident and virulent. Some examples of this reactionism are the case of the illegalization of environmental organizations perpetrated by Macron in the French state.; harassment, the caricature and paternalism suffered by young activists who carry out actions with the aim of putting them at the center of public opinion (that not published) their anguish and fear of the uncertainty of a future that is difficult to live in; and the 800 Egyptian citizens arrested in November during the COP27 summit for speaking out in favor of linking climate justice and political freedoms (totally violated in Egypt).

The lack of control of the impact of human activity due to capitalist impunity, that continues to put personal interest first, the right to private property of the means of production and the misnamed “freedom” trade, has already caused a climate crisis that is difficult to alleviate. To do it, The imminent eradication of these logics and a firm commitment to a productive model that decreases would be necessary., focused on the satisfaction of needs and rights at the cost of the loss of privileges of the exploiting and speculating minority.

Returning to my territory, This climate crisis is manifested in absolutely heartbreaking data: The average annual temperature has increased almost 2º (reaching almost 3º during the summer) since the middle of the 20th century, and there has been a decrease in 40% in the precipitation. The rise in sea level on our coasts has been 10 cm in the last 30 years and the trend is exponential. When I was a kid, They taught us in school that our territory had a Mediterranean climate characterized precisely by moderate temperatures and not very abundant rains concentrated during spring and autumn.. At present, the drastic change is already evident, The temperatures are typical of a climate close to tropical and the rain episodes are torrential and concentrated in the seasons where it was not usual., which increases the risk and presence of fires throughout the year. All these phenomena happen on a global scale precisely due to the delocalization of the impact that local activities have., but, in the Catalan Countries, What are the prevailing economic activities complicit in and causing this attack in our home?? To answer this question, You just need to realize that Barcelona is the municipality with the greatest external visibility and what do we think of when we talk about Barcelona? Well, Barcelona has become a brand in itself, a brand that fills the pockets of multinationals of all kinds. The industrial fabric of Barcelona, Valencia, Mallorca, Andorra and surrounding areas have been reduced to a minimum, there is no local industry, the agrarian territory is being destroyed; and all economic activity orbits around this brand that is Barcelona and is based on a model of wild and cannibalistic tourism that denigrates working women to the point of maximum precariousness..

This exploitation of our territory by tourist speculators has the complicity of the ruling parties.: PP, PSOE, We can… and is evident in many examples. For example, in the celebration of macro musical festivals or the construction of luxury campsites and resorts in areas that are considered LICs (Places of Community Interest). It is curious that many of the lands near these areas are or were in the hands of Sareb., the company created in 2012 by the Popular Party government to save the banks and provide liquidity to financial entities after the crisis of 2008. Today, This institution has become the most massive real estate and speculative agent in Europe and is dedicated to transferring its assets to large investment funds.. Behind the promoters of these projects, There are also linked agents, for example, to the proposal to expand the port of Valencia that would benefit the cruise company MSC and the construction companies involved. To the detriment of the seabed, would aggravate the violence of the storms, could make the beaches of the south of the Valencià Country and the strip of sand that protects the Albufera lake disappear; an entire natural heritage that today allows the preservation of a rich and diverse ecosystem. But as we say, your profit goes ahead. It was already demonstrated when with the PSOE government in 2008 Florentino Pérez's company ACS was allowed to inject gas into the seabed off the coasts of Tarragona and Castelló, to build a gas warehouse and that caused a series of seismic movements that affected nearby homes and towns. The project was stopped, but they had to be allocated 1.350 millions of euros of public money to pay the debt to the banking entities that gave the credit to start the activities. The capitalism, once again, socializes only the losses and debts of the capitalist. Another activity that shows the plundering of our territory and the threat to agricultural and forestry land are the more than 200 wind and photovoltaic megaprojects and the construction of more high-voltage lines and gas pipelines that cross the country and that only respond to the economic interests of the electrical oligopoly, international investment funds and large companies converted to the growing renewable energy business. In the territory we also currently have 98 golf courses in operation while the average level of the reservoirs barely reaches 30%. A small part of these fields has been sanctioned with ridiculous fines for misuse of water, But let us remember that the annual water consumption of all these fields is equivalent to the annual domestic consumption of a population of one million inhabitants.. More than 4 millions of cruise passengers every year, hay 8 terminals and others are being built 2. A Low Emissions Zone is promoted within the city that affects the popular majority, but in no case is this business put a limit despite it being one of the main agents that pollute the air. The arriving cruise passengers are part of the more than 43 millions of tourists who come to the PPCC each year and who on average consume 5 times more water than a citizen. All these economic activities, that we could consider as climate attacks, logically cause climate victims, the working class, generate, as expected to happen, strong popular resistance. In the PPCC it is being articulated, under the motto “We defend the earth, we build the future”, a mass counterpower against the expansion of the Barcelona airport, the implementation of the B-40 highway, the construction of the Hard Rock tourist and leisure complex (projects that have been planned in the Catalan budgets of the last year), the Barcelona-Pirineus candidacy for the Winter Olympic Games of 2030 and other speculative projects of this type. The majority of the working population understands that these projects increase mobility and energy consumption from fossil fuels, deplete absolutely scarce natural resources, They have a negative impact on already fragile ecosystems and preserve precarious economic activities that distribute income very unequally and mortgage the lives of future generations who will have neither territory nor the option to work with dignity..

In summary and, in conclusion, making the sentence evident “no aggression without response” and in the face of the more than possible collapse that will ensue, “It is time to work on the construction of an organized revolutionary subject around the environmental struggle.”.