The Economy of Ants
The Economy of Ants
It will not be the street demonstrations, now or ever, that will change this world or the worlds that history presents to us if, together with the demonstration or protest, a path is not proposed.
We will not change, if not only in the anarchist direction, if we do not make a serious effort to think about a possible future world.
The crisis of our time is a systemic crisis. A man-environment system that has stalled due to the absurd assumption that Development is infinite.
On the other hand, history had taught us that civilization developed (also and precisely in the algebraic sense) and as long as this occurred the System was based on laws that were only possible thanks to the availability of space and energy.
The principle of Sustainable Development itself, as Serge Latouche rightly points out, is an oxymoron, that is, a contradiction in terms, as sustainability and development are energetically contrasting concepts.
We are therefore faced with a scenario in which the most advanced thought of recent decades (Sustainable Development) was born from an oxymoronic civilization. That is, a civilization that contains within itself a “germ” of contradiction and non-resolution of the question.
Jeremy Rifkin in his book Entropy, written more than 20 years ago, already foresees the present day and analyzes it precisely with the thermodynamic principle of Entropy, that is, that quantity that energy systems (which also include society and the environment) produce and which gradually leads to a situation of chaos.
The situation of chaos is that of our days; chaos not yet reached in its maximum expression, as it is still generated by thermodynamic models (our social model) still in force: use of non-renewable resources, enlargement of some management structures (read public administrations), centralization of production and distribution systems of goods in large structures (multinationals), decrease in micro-enterprises (agriculture, crafts, etc.).
The pyramid model, which tends to erode the base (the micro organization) and to enlarge the top (Large Industries, Administrations and Multinationals) will sooner or later fall, and it will fall thunderously. Predicting what the consequence of this fall will be is truly very complex and (mathematically) difficult to analyze.
However, the analysis that is carried out on the causes, as often happens in many mathematical questions, leads us to an absurd solution. In fact, if we absurdly reverse the causes that are generating the effects of the pyramid’s overturning, we realize that the absurd is only in our conceptual models as Westerners (colonialists and invaders to the core).
Let’s see what concepts absolutely need to be dismantled or modified:
• First of all, we must take it out of the mouth, especially of those politicians, economists and scientists with a few too many cobwebs, that it is no longer possible to talk about development but, if anything, about social progress (which configures a substantially different socioeconomic and energy model and which now we will try to explain).
• The rate at which we erode soil, resources, territories, cultures, traditions, beliefs, etc. must stop or even reverse. Let us never forget that the place where man draws his sources of sustenance, including cultural ones, (which are also energetic) is the surface of the planet he inhabits and where solar energy, in its various transformations (agriculture, fishing, ) is the only renewable source; all the others follow the principle of exhaustion.
• The relationship between man and territory (work) must be relocalised and split up: we are in the presence of too many transfers (men and goods) and oversized structures, which only respond to the needs of an unbridled and speculative capitalism which burns, with a geometric rhythm, the available resources. If you read the article for which I provide you with the link: Inefficiency – we are clear that agriculture, which is the primary sector of the economy of all states, was transformed first with the development of technology instead of becoming more efficient increasingly into a machine that devours energy and resources (30% of its energy form has been devoured from the soil alone in the last thirty years: fertility, biodiversity, etc.). The economy of the future will necessarily have to be based on a society with microstructures, more localized and respectful of the ecosystem.
• State structures will have to be significantly downsized in favor of light states. The maintenance of unsustainable public spending has generated the well-known failures of an economy that is no longer sustainable and which not only damages citizens but absorbs rates of finance and energy in exponential form.
• Science, schools and training will have to be directed towards a glocal culture (a neologism that identifies the condition of those who look in global terms but act and move in a local context). It is an assumption that recovers the deepest meaning of that tradition that a wicked Enlightenment (bringer of good things but also of evil) attempted with impunity to dismantle by giving rise to that materialism that created capitalism and communism: crippled children of human civilization .
Only in this direction will we find new energy (and in every sense); only in this renewed condition can we guarantee new democracy. Let’s learn to contest and protest. However, two conditions are necessary: the condition of firm peaceful dissent and the objective you want to achieve. Everything else is noise for personal use and consumption but not for social progress.
Guido Bissanti