coldhearted scientist وداد

“If y’all are losing, who’s winning? ‘Cause it ain’t us.” Meet Chris Rock, commenting on the situation of white people who, as we know, are suffering renewed oppression.

We like to argue and speculate about race, but class – long a taboo topic in “A-merry-ca” (h/t Field Negro) where everyone can “pursue happiness” – has been marginalized as a category for analysis since the putative fall of the Marxian paradigm.

Yet we are all losing to the transnational corporations in the rise of neoliberalism. The friend who sent me the Chris Rock reference lives in Spain and has these fascinating comments on the economy there:

The EU is a neo-liberal construction and therefore neo-liberal policies and constructs are the most successful there. The reaction in Spain and other countries is to leave nationalism behind and opt for more local ethnic and cultural identities. You see the resurgence of the Catalan question in Spain, but also an Andalusian movement, a Galician movement. People now tend to identify by region with the EU being the hegemonic center, non-geographically based.

The EU is a bit like the Wizard of Oz because there is really no centralized government or figurehead, just a collection of laws and funding that has developed over thirty years. The kicker is that the same neo-liberal policies that made it so easy for European companies to become multinational powerhouses have raped and pillaged Europe and are now off to conquer the developing world: Latin America, Africa, China and India.

You have kept up with the news about Repsol in Bolivia and Nicaragua I am sure. These deals could not have been made without the long-term backing of the EU. Right now things are starting to sour because so much of the economic growth was based on speculation in the real estate market, just as in the US. While they still try to blame current woes on the US subprime market, a large part of the problem has been created locally.

I was let go from my office job yesterday because the company handles investments for British funds here and no one is willing to put any money into Europe for the forseeable future. Then the Euro goes up and prices on imports rise, salaries stay the same and purchasing power diminishes. People are locked into abusive mortgages for houses that they cannot unload. They are therefore are unable to pick up and move to greener pastures. But all of the companies have moved. They are in India and China right now.

Most of the Spanish banks and funds are in Poland and Romania. They picked up stakes here a year ago and went where the new EU money is. English companies are getting out of England totally and going into the former colonies. So in Europe we have cemented the exact set of circumstances for labor abuse: a large, immobile workforce tied to the land – nowadays a house – through debt, and companies that have no social, legal or financial responsibility. If you have avoided taking out a mortgage, you can make a go of it in the new borderless Europe. If you do have a mortgage, you cannot.

Latin America, however, already understands (and for good reason) the perils of the neoliberal model.

Axé.