Is Good Capitalism just a myth after all? By Chieh-Hsin Yang

While capitalism being criticized for inequity in distribution of wealth and causing injustice and enlarging social gap, some suggest the concept of “good” capitalism in contrast with the original bad capitalism. The good capitalism is still pro-capitalist, pro-market mechanism, and pro-business. But it’s more than that. It includes more social responsibility among the business in the society. It does hate the original capitalism, it just believe there’s a better version of capitalism existed.

The agents in reality that intend to put into practice the ideal of good capitalism are probably the social democratic parties in each European countries. Through modest and gradual reform, they hope to achieve democratic socialism. Some of the examples are German Social Democratic Party (SPD), Swedish Social Democratic Party (SAP), and Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE).

However, not only the social democratic parties promote the good capitalism. The leader of Labour party of Great Britain, Ed Miliband in 2011 proclaimed its position of continuity of pro-capitalist and pro-business, while condemning the current bad capitalism, and said that the successive British governments hadn’t distinguished well enough between good and bad capitalism.

The good and bad capitalism are hard to categorized and define. However, in a looser way, the good capitalism are usually formed by fairer regulation, taxation and procurement of goods and services and also, more well-rounded social policies in spheres of education, health, labor, etc.

However, does good capitalism really exist? Or it is just an aloft goal, an imaginary myth?

The longtime victory of and the support to social democratic parties and the praises to social democratic governments could possible imply the answer to this question is positive.

But as the crisis in 2007 broke out and many states enter a period of permanent austerity up until now, there are more doubts in the existence of good capitalism and the operation under the belief of achieving good capitalism. Instead of taking the advantage of the economic crisis which could be considered causing by the free-market, the popularity of the social democratic parties declined significantly. SPD, PSOE, and SOP all experienced their lowest supporting rate post-war.

The notion of good capitalism goes bad is associated with the moralizing of the holding of debt of European countries in the crisis. And this provided a platform to solve anxieties and concerns of the public in the implication toward the crisis. The implications included that Germany took constitutional action, and the media and the European Commission, the European Central Bank (ECB), and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) criticized Spain and Greece constantly for encouraging the unsustainable excess.

Instead of saying the good capitalism is gone, it’s more accurate to say the practice of good capitalism has shifted from simple neoliberalism to more authoritarian neoliberalism. Not only for the ideal of good capitalism, but rather more of the necessity of current reality. The public requests for more immediate appeal to material circumstances to relocate the inequality and distortion of wealth and resources in the society. Under this circumstance, to implicate necessary social policies, the reconfiguring and strengthening of the state’s power is emphasized. These could be deem not so democratic, but to improve the current difficult situation, more coercive legal and constitutional rules are required. Also, on the other hand, the non-market institutions had played even more important role, and not merely in the ways of coercive exercises, but also in deeper and long-term recalibration.

Related to that, many different new commons are being created. The relation between social movement and the making of social policies has always been close and interactive. The different focuses or features in different time periods are just in response to the need of that time. Therefore, nowadays new commons are revolved around urban and the issues within it, playing as strong non-market institutions. In response to the immediate material necessity, the new commons demand for simply more decent everyday life. And furthermore, the new commons try to redefine welfare and claim that in the city we live, everyone should be able to find a place, physically, and socially. In the coercive ways mentioning above, they take non-violent but effective measures to make the changes happen. And in the deeper and longer-term sense, the commons are don’t just ask for one-time achievement, but rather, continue to supervise and submit proposal to the government and demand for profound reform in the regulation system.

Therefore, the good capitalism is still alive, but trying very hard to survive. And it tries to survive in a different way. What’ for sure is, in the period of austerity, the good capitalism should continue to live on as the crisis made the dislocation of wealth in the society grow even larger, the good capitalism is still the only clue and cure.

References:
Ian Bruff, 2013, The Rise of Authoritarian Neoliberalism.
Ida Susser and Stéphane Tonnelat, 2013,Transformative cities: The three urban commons
Will Hutton , 10.02. 2011, ‘Good capitalism does exist. And it’s more crucial now than ever’, The Guardian.

How the PAH produced a reformulation of the squatting and occupying. By Ferran Martinez Salcedo

In this occasion, I will focus in how the occupation of empty flats and buildings by the PAH produced a reformulation of the occupying common. Political and economic systems shape the urban territory and cities according to its dynamics and necessities. The PAH has to be seen as a reaction to neoliberals housing policies and logics, which are especially harsh for the lower classes in Spain (Barbero, 2015). Neoliberalism, understood as the current form of modern capitalism is no different, differing maybe in the speed (faster as years go by) which this shaping has taken. Neoliberalism seeks to transform Western Cities from industrial centres into hubs which create wealth through economic sectors based in services, development of technology, communication, spectacle, speculation and tourism (Susser & Tonnelat). Those sectors don’t need the same amount of workers than the old industrial ones but the immigration to cities did not stop. Thus, a great “reserve army of labour” has been created. As a reaction to impoverishment, privatisations and lack of decision power lower and middle classes start to redraw the class frontiers implicating in the defence of their cities, trying to turn them in liveable places by reproducing a physical and psychological encounter which seeks to defend the public interests called the commons. “The commons manifests the belonging of its members through a sharing principle, which is neither private nor public” (Susser & Tonnelat, 2013). The right to a decent live which is the reason of the commons existence includes next to the right to housing, work, collective consumption introducing, for example, new systems of exchange and bartering, and public services produced and consumed collectively.

The commons have to be transformative in order to be actual commons, because the relations created between the urban inhabitants and their territory (neighbourhoods, cities and metropolis) are shaping continuously its reality by creating new spaces, in the imaginary collective but also in actual physical locations. This new relations manage to reach its higher transformative levels when they involve the three types of commons coming together: Labour and social movements, public space and public sphere and Art (Susser & Tonnelat, 2013).

The PAH has reinforced a common reformulating the ones which existed thanks to the activity of older social movements. The Platform, by occupying empty houses widely through all Spain and gaining public opinion to its side it has created an alternative vision in which unique individuals who squat flats or buildings belong to an imagined community. This community did exist before, known as the okupa movement, with K. In Spain, occupation started in the mid- eighties. It was done by young people with anti-systemic political ideas which had no places to live or to meet to do any type of leisure and cultural activities (Ayllón, 2014). The Okupa word was given by the young movement to itself and rapidly taken by the mass media which did not hesitate to use the K if needed in order to assimilate this movement with the punk subculture. The PAH helped to transform this community bigger with its occupations of buildings with C (ocupaciones) which had no underground culture or great ideological characteristic. Occupation was seen only as necessity activism activity, the activism which is made to survive in dignified conditions, the one made because “the circumstances have pushed people to occupy empty houses” (Barbero, 2015). Slowly the solidarity between ocupas and okupas began to include in the same imaginary group (while maintaining its differences) all those who could sympathize with occupation as a housing solution of the lower classes of the precariat but also those who were keen into the okupa movement. Hence, everyone can fit in this imaginary, from the libertarian who wants to occupy because its part of his underground or political culture to the young family who needs to occupy because their precarious jobs don’t allow them to pay their rents, while including students, immigrants or single parent families. Some of them do share some of these traits, but which is important here is that anyone can maintain its unique identity while being part of a united collective. Occupied places are seen as public spaces which recover the privatised public space to the citizens, while ending its isolation as individualized citizens. This confluence in the collective imaginary could be seen with its splendour when the Barcelona City Council tried to evict the squatted centre Can Vies in Sants neighbourhood, which was taken by the Sants inhabitants as an attack to the community. People which hadn’t have any relationship or any kind of contact with the centre felt the eviction, through the imaginary collective, as an aggression to themselves. Some months later, the Central PAH office and the most important PAH local in Spain moved to Sants recognising the collective imaginary which existed there1.

As a conclusion it can be said that the Platform helped to normalize the occupation in the social imaginary, while maintaining the differences inside the occupation movement, which has broaden. Nowadays, occupation is something accepted by large swaths of Urban population. Those in the lower classes are more likely to accept it, but the redrawing of frontiers caused by the construction of the imaginary created an “us” which includes all type of people, without regard of their social position. Therefore, even if the PAH did not create a new common, it has reformulated the okupa common, which always went hand in hand with the public sphere commons, broadening it, making it more heterogeneous and producing a new imaginary which also comprehends the old squatter common.

Bibliography:

Barbero, Iker. When rights need to be (re) claimed: Austerity measures, neoliberal housing policies and anti-eviction activism in Spain. Critical Social Policy (2015)
Susser, Ida & Tonnelat, Stéphane. Transformative cities: The three urban commons. Focaal – Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology 66 (2013)
Ayllón, D. (2014). From: http://www.lamarea.com/2014/12/07/el-movimiento-okupa-cumple-30-anos/
[1] http://www.secretariat.cat/pahbarcelona How th

Civil Rights Movement in America- Successful or Not so much? By Anmol Hussain

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana, 20th century American philosopher

Upon beginning my investigation of social movements, I quickly concluded that the definitions surrounding the concept are inconspicuous and subject to much debate; there is no universally acknowledged definition though there have been many attempts, “they are large groupings of individuals or organizations which focus on specific political or social issues…” (Tilly, 2004). What can be ascertained however, are the characteristics that a social movement entails. Diani, 1992, noted that the most common characteristics or criteria that the definitions share are “a network of informal interactions between a plurality of individuals, groups and/or organizations, engaged in a political or cultural conflict, on the basis of a shared collective identity”.

One of the most well known social movements is the civil rights movement in America. On the 11th of June 2014, media across the United States reported the story of Rachel Dolezal, current chapter president of the NAACP. Dolezal is being scrutinised for deceiving her colleagues by telling them she is an afro Caribbean woman instead of the truth, which is that she is entirely Caucasian. The uproar provoked my interest and in this blog post I hope to examine the civil rights movement in America and investigate the criticisms it is faced with also.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, founded in 1909 is accredited by some as initiating the civil rights movement. In actual fact, the challenge to white supremacy did not start until the 50´s/ 60´s under the leadership of Martin Luther King. That era enjoyed small victories in the movement towards equal civil rights- Rev Brown in 1954. In 1954 the Supreme Court voted in favour of Rev Brown, and he consequently won the right to send his black child to a white school- this decision “overturned the separate but equal doctrine that had been used as the standard in Civil rights lawsuits” (Douglas, 2013). After this it was declared unconstitutional to have separate public schools or black and white students; the court stated that segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law; for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the Negro group” and that segregation to be phased out over time, “with all deliberate speed” (Wild, 2005). This was a major milestone in the movement; “in the consideration of the progress of legislative reform, it can be argues that the movement was very effective in abolishing racial discrimination” (Linder, 2013). Other such incidents include the Montgomery Bus Boycott, led by Rosa Parks, and the Washington Freedom March in 1963 whereby a quarter of a million people made their way to the Lincoln Memorial to hear Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech. The Civil Rights Act (1964) completely annihilated all possibilities of segregation in schools, employment, and public places, and this was shortly followed by the Voting Rights Act (1965). This act made it illegal to do anything that prohibits or limits the number of citizens allowed to vote. It is no secret that black people were more subject to poverty and thus had little access to education; The Fair Housing Act (1968) outlawed any discrimination in the housing area, and the most recent success of equality for colored people came with the election of President Barack Obama as Head of the United States in 2008.

However, many criticisms are still held against the civil rights movement in America.
Civil rights did not give black Americans prosperity or jobs- even today “Black Americans remain poor, angry and trapped in their ghettos”, “As a result of these frustrations, more extreme black leaders such as Malcolm X, and more radical groups such as the Black Panthers were created, black protests in the 1970s became more violent” (bbc.co.uk).

Most of the data and readings we have of the civil rights movement are derived from the time that it was actually happening. At the time it was such a radical change that to a certain extent it can be argued that the literature is exaggerated or at least glorified to focus on the heroes of the movement, the above mentioned Rosa parks and martin Luther king- though these figures are brave and are responsible for great achievements in the civil rights movement, Becker (2008) argues that “the period is reported through rose tinted glasses”. “Many of these books portrayed civil rights as a struggle between the bigoted white segregationists of the south and idealistic civil rights workers from the north” (BBC.co.uk)

It was not until the 1980´s where revisionist studies showed how the civil rights movement was the reward of efforts from thousands of local churches and communities and that the “noble blacks fighting the evil whites” (bbc.co.uk) is an inaccurate generalisation. The reality was that not only black people, but Latinos, and many other disadvantaged groups had faced discrimination for such a long time, they were not able to take advantage of the opportunities that this new movement was providing them with, so effectively the civil rights movement wasn’t working. Public opinion and an economy as large as America´s requires a vast amount of time for any changes to be fully implemented and generations passed before the movement’s efforts could be enforced. Becker, 2008 argues that “essentially, the civil rights movement of America sounds much more impressive than it actually was, and a 100% rise in black employment could mean a rise from 1 black employee to 2 black employees”. Though the situation had and continues to improve, complete integration remained a hope instead of a reality. In 1968, evidence suggested that the civil rights movement faced disappointment; rioting in northern cities of America was still ongoing and this created a negative public opinion- people felt that black people were being unappreciative, and the newfound respect that they had been given was disappearing as quickly as they had appeared.

Nonetheless, the civil rights movement in America is renowned as overhauling society. Though there were and are many problems facing the black population, Employment and education did improve. Black families found themselves with access to the privileges that the rest of the population enjoyed. The civil rights movement had “exploded the myth of segregation and shown integration could work. The march on Washington showed that the black population did have a political voice. The position of black people could only improve with the legal protection they now had” (schools-history.com). To conclude this blog post, I would then like to say that having examined and investigated the civil rights movement in regards to being a fundamental example of an efficient social movement, I would agree that the movement has been successful to a certain extent, what I do disclose also is that progress still needs to be made, the civil rights movement is not a movement that has achieved all of its goals until social policy and legislation conquers public opinion and removes inequalities an oppression from society altogether.
References
Bbc.co.uk,. ‘BBC – KS3 Bitesize History – The Civil Rights Movement In America : Revision, Page 6’. N.p., 2015. Web. 14 June 2015.
Birzer, M. L. ‘Debunking The Myth That All Is Well In The Home Of Brown V. Topeka Board Of Education: A Study Of Perceived Discrimination’. Journal of Black Studies 36.6 (2006): 793-814. Web.
Mavrinac, Albert A. ‘From Lochner To Brown V. Topeka: The Court And Conflicting Concepts Of The Political Process’. The American Political Science Review 52.3 (1958): 641. Web.
schools-history.com,. ‘So Did The Civil Rights Movement Work?’. N.p., 2009. Web. 14 June 2015.
Tilly, Charles. Social Movements, 1768-2004. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers, 2004. Print.
Wild, Mark. ‘Thinking About The Civil Rights Movement In A Conservative Age’. History Compass3.1 (2005): **-**. Web.

When being poor becomes a crime. Homlessness and poverty in Barcelona. By Claudia Escobar

Imagine that for reasons of life, you lose your job, or your family, or any financial support you may have. And you end up finding in an extreme situation: you sleep on the streets, collect garbage, or ask for alms in a corner of a street. With all that this entails, in addition, government does not help you, the local government will fine you because what you’re doing is an “uncivil behavior”. What you think is survive, for them is a crime. You’re not poor for them, or yes, but you will be treated like a criminal. A poor criminal.

This happens in Barcelona. The Draft of the Ordinance of Measures to Promote and Ensure Peaceful Coexistence of 2005 was designed to regulate the uncivil behavior. Is considered uncivil, for example, paste posters on the walls, drinking on the street, or playing in some areas of the city. If we look at that draft, we see that there is a title: “Other behaviors in public spaces: occupation of public space by adopting forms of begging”, which describes as “uncivil” certain actions, such as sleeping in the street or begging. We can continue reading, and other titles also clarify that it is uncivil washing clothes in public spaces, sleeping in the street or prostitution. The City Council seems unwilling to relate these behaviors with poverty, but simply are actions that difficult that the city can shine.

We often have a permanent suspicion of the victims of poverty, we blame their situation and accuse them of lazy and parasites. That’s what Albert Sales (2014) says, and argues that the cause of this is the neoliberal model of the current management of poverty. This, according to Sales (2014) have allowed the removal of the social care of that collectives from the public administration, and the delegation to social entities. In addition, they use the penal system, repression and punishment to finish with poverty, or to hide poverty to the city.

The capitalist model tells us that the success or failure, wealth and poverty are the consequences of a personal choice (Tinessa, 2008). Thus, we reject other social or environmental causes that may influence the outcome. And for this reason, this unfounded idea capitalism has curdled in our minds. The poor it is because it has sought, and we don’t want to help them. The logical consequence is that the state doesn’t take care of what they think they have responsibility, and that is exactly what is happening right now.

Public administration ignores that problem and delegates that social care to social entities. The task of social assistance is increasingly seen as voluntary. Those affected by poverty can no longer claim a right to state (or council, in this case), but should seek help from a volunteer organization, such as NGOs.

The fact that Barcelona has a large number of tourists every year justified the actions of this ordinance against the poor, and they suffer police and criminal harassment (Sales, 2014). Vagrants, hawkers, prostitutes and other groups are treated as groups that do not want to rejoin society. We can see that there is a big difference between, for example, Barcelona (or Spain) and Sweden. In Sweden there is a program that prevents anti-social behaviors from the citizens, and the state has a very important role. On the other hand, as we said before, in Spain there is the thought that their situation their own responsibility.

With measures such as that ordinance propose, with its sanctions and police interventions, they don’t attack the causes of poverty, but only have the interest to hide them. Behind the Beautiful Barcelona there is another one, the Dirty Barcelona, and it seems that the administration doesn’t want it to disappear, it just want to hide it. The poorest groups are still there, and we might ask ourselves whether the City Council really helps them to improve their situation, as stated in the draft of the ordinance we have talked about. At the moment, it seems that only the good will of voluntary organizations and individuals can relieve some suffering of those who suffer poverty. Only if when the society and government understand we have to work together to turn our cities more equal, we will be able to change the reality.

Bibliography

Ajuntament de Barcelona (2005). Projecte d’ordenança de mesures per fomentar i garantir la convivència ciutadana a la ciutat de Barcelona.

Government offices in Sweden. Social services in Sweden. Available at: http://www.government.se/sb/d/15473/a/182986 (seen 21^st March, 2015)

Sales, Albert (2014). El delicte de ser pobre. Setmanari La Directa. Available at: https://albertsales.wordpress.com/2014/04/23/cuando-ser-pobre-es-un-delito/ (seen 21^st March, 2015)

Tinessa, Giulio (2008). Marginados, minorías e inmigrantes: criminalización de la pobreza y encarcelamiento masivo en las sociedades capitalistas avanzadas. Documentación social. Universidad de Comillas.

Does austerity lead to disaster? The case of the Argentinean crisis and the IMF role. By Gilliane Brauen

Argentina, a developing country, was a model student for the international financial institutions during the 90’s. Indeed, the country was applying structural adjustment programs to promote flexibility, an open economy and the near non-intervention of the state. Argentina also implemented strict monetary policies that led to relative growth. But external factors, such as the devaluation of the Brazilian currency, the oil crisis and the rise of the dollar led Argentina into a major crisis.

Thus, the IMF and the World Bank justified their intervention to lift Argentina out of the crisis: the introduction of austerity policies such as, increasing taxes, reducing the salaries and functionaries pensions and privatizing social security. These effectively deprived Argentina from 8 billions of dollars per year. Then the IMF pushed the restrictions and the austerity further, with a strong reduction in social expenditure and the preservation of the reduction of salaries and a reduction of 900 millions of dollars of subsidies to the provinces.

In 2001, the IMF refused a loan of 1,26 billion dollars to Argentina, which caused “the terminal phase” of its crisis with a devaluation of their currency by approximately 70%, the inflation that reached almost 125% and the private debt reaching more than 72 billion Euros. This led to anarchy, a paralyzed economy, an unemployment rate of 25% and half of the population living under the poverty line.

But in 2002, with the presidency of Eduardo Duhalde and the Minister of Finance Roberto Lavagna, the situation in Argentina changed.[1] They decided that they will no longer accept the aid of IMF with its conditions such as drastic austerity programs that were drowning Argentina in even more debt. Austerity policies were inefficient and did not lift Argentina out of the crisis. The recession worsened and the country was borrowing more dollars without the possibility to repay it. From this decision, Argentina began to recover with their primary focus being on reducing the poverty, resulting in major budget programs in social expenditure and “fixing” the real economy. The economy could finally restart again. In the same lines, his predecessor, Nestor Kirchner reinforced and multiplied the public investments in the social programs and in the education.[2]

The example of Argentina shows how the imposition of austerity programs by international institutions is inefficient. In 2014 the IMF affirmed in a report that austerity policies were not efficient. The IMF’s economists admitted that these austerity measures in countries that are asking for aid are damaging the economy and their economic growth. Moreover, it led to higher socio-economic inequalities, where the poor and lower-middle classes are most exposed to the consequences of such measures. They are suggesting now to governments to invest more in social programs and to find a way for other incomes, such as higher taxes for the rich for example. [3]

The economists (Nobel Prize winners), Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman are even tougher about the austerity subject. According to them, austerity policies are leading to disastrous failures. From this perspective, they do not believe austerity would allow prosperity for countries facing difficulties.

According to them, prosperity is reached through creating more job opportunities and by investing heavily in education, infrastructures, innovation and technology. They also think that the bank and financial sectors should be sharply regulated.

The example of island proves their point as they followed the example of Argentina in refusing the Austerity plan from the IMF. They instead decided to invest considerably in social programs, which improved the social protection of their citizens. The unemployment rate was only 5% and they had an economic growth rate of 3% in 2012.[4]

Argentina is a great example of the complete failure of austerity measures, and today, with the European crisis (especially Greece), Joseph Stiglitz’s perspective is very radical.

“Austerity has failed. But its defenders are willing to claim victory on the basis of the weakest possible evidence: the economy is no longer collapsing, so austerity must be working! But if that is the benchmark, we could say that jumping off a cliff is the best way to get down from a mountain; after all, the descent has been stopped. » […] Viewed in these terms, austerity has been an utter and unmitigated disaster, which has become increasingly apparent as European Union economies once again face stagnation, if not a triple-dip recession, with unemployment persisting at record highs and per capita real (inflation-adjusted) GDP in many countries remaining below pre-recession levels.”[5]

Finally, austerity is causing more damage than it repairs. The word “austerity” is clearly not synonymous with “recovery”. In reality it leads to the impoverishment of the population, the deterioration of the economy and its growth, creating more inflation and more unemployment.

There are other alternatives to get a country back on track; even if Argentina is now facing difficulties it does not mean austerity would have helped, in fact, it could have made it even worse. Thus, we can see with the example of Island that other possibilities can work.

Sources

Le Nouvelliste (2014) :

http://www.lapresse.ca/le-nouvelliste/chroniques/le-monde-vu-dici/201412/15/01-4828452-lausterite-est-inefficace-selon-le-fmi.php

La Documentation Française (2005):

http://www.ladocumentationfrancaise.fr/dossiers/d000105-argentine-la-crise-econonomique-de-2001/le-role-du-fmi

Libération (2012) :

http://www.liberation.fr/economie/2012/02/19/nous-avons-sauve-les-gens-plutot-que-les-banques_797163

Rfi (2011) :

http://www.rfi.fr/ameriques/20111220-dix-ans-apres-crise-argentine-est-devenue-autre-pays/

IB Times (2011):

http://www.ibtimes.com/us-austerity-really-foolish-stiglitz-270051

Social Europe; Joseph Stiglitz (2014) :

http://www.socialeurope.eu/2014/09/europes-austerity-disaster/

The Guardian; Paul Kurgman (2015) :

http://www.theguardian.com/business/ng-interactive/2015/apr/29/the-austerity-delusion

The New York Times; Paul Krugman (2011) :

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/29

[1] http://www.liberation.fr/economie/2012/02/19/nous-avons-sauve-les-gens-plutot-que-les-banques_797163

[2] http://www.rfi.fr/ameriques/20111220-dix-ans-apres-crise-argentine-est-devenue-autre-pays/

[3] http://www.lapresse.ca/le-nouvelliste/chroniques/le-monde-vu-dici/201412/15/01-4828452-lausterite-est-inefficace-selon-le-fmi.php

[4] Ibid.

[5] http://www.socialeurope.eu/2014/09/europes-austerity-disaster/

The Future of Welfare States in Southern European Countries after the Economic Crisis and Recession. By Irina Frappola

The “Titanic story” – Lessons and hopes towards a new and more Democratic Society.

“Greek democracy today chose to stop going gently into the night. Greek democracy resolved to rage against the dying of the light.”

Yanis Varoufakis references Dylan Thomas on his blog, 26 January 2015 – Dying of the light

 

Coming from the so called “emerging” world and currently living in Spain, I have a particular perception of the crisis which is currently hitting millions of Europeans, particularly in the South of Europe. Somehow, I have already seen that movie, way back home, with different actors, different scenes, and perhaps some lessons to share.

Impossible to avoid using the story of the Titanic wreckage to illustrate the state of mind and quality of life of most Europeans previous to current economic crisis in 2007. Just as the passengers in the Titanic in 1912, life for them was peaceful, protected, allowing them to enjoy wealth, fortune, happiness, and welfare rights that most of them took for granted because of being European citizens.

“All was peaceful and the world had an even tenor to its way. Nothing was revealed in the morning the trend of which was not known the night before…..unexpectedly…the disaster ” a Titanic Survivor was quoted to say.

But the peaceful dream was fragile and based on unstable pillars. Viral bubbles, public and private debts, and ethics decay threading in all through the whole social, economic and political system at the national and international level, just as global economy suddenly exploding and having severe impact on European economy and citizens, resulted on very little capacity of European, mainly Southern European, countries to avoid the “iceberg” approaching them.

Nobody had paid attention nor listened to warning voices advising that a dangerous iceberg was approaching the Boat.

And the iceberg hit the Ship at its very heart. It was there … to tell passengers that living in a global society had positive but also some side effects that could be negative for most vulnerable people, unless some democratic and ethical rules were respected. People soon learned that official speeches and solutions were not actually focusing on the real causes of crisis and wreckages, but that, on the contrary, they reflected the principles and conceptions of ideologies which could be excellent for normal times, but quite unfair during crisis.

Thus “passengers” realized that their magic party at sea was over, and that they were to pay for its bill. But not all passengers were then to pay the same type of bill. As in all wreckages, the wealthiest, the healthiest, the most prepared ones have always more chances to survive.

And so… what should be done next? Much has been written and said. I rather share and build up on the lessons learned from allegory in the Titanic wreckage. And also, from the experience back home, where I come from.

I may say: it is time to stop, stand and seriously think which way to go. In times of turmoil it is easy to make wrong decisions.

There are no simple answers and solutions. It is important to keep a clear mind so as to identify the real causes of crisis and the basis for a new social, political and economic framework so as to prevent future crisis and restore wellbeing during and after the present one.

Political actors, mainly long standing traditional parties (liberal and social democracies) are pillars and should be the first ones to take the lead towards a regeneration of politics and systems. Much has been also said as to the inherent problems these actors have, such as their inability to prevent or manage the challenges and risks of the crisis and the fact that they may have even contributed to social, economic and political crisis. First, on the liberal side, because of inefficient, improper or excessively authoritative behavior. Second, on the social democratic side, also because of some improper behaviors and their inability to update their priorities and focus. However, they are the guarantee for permanence of democratic principles and rights which were so hard for Europe to achieve.

On the whole, traditional values, traditional political parties, traditional institutions and symbols, the so called establishment, (a complex word no doubt) although with needed corrections, should be indeed the pillars of a new society after the Crisis.

Third, on the side of new social and political movements appeared or strengthened after or during the crisis now they will have a good opportunity to demonstrate they are serious, capable and trustful, and particularly, that they are and will always remain on the democratic path of the road.

These actors, together with other actors called to play a key and joint role in a time of new and changing scenarios (p.e. the private sector, NGO´s, social organizations, religious organizations, international organizations, and in this case the European Union) are to work hard towards rethinking political, social and economic models on the basis of democratic principles and the most basic values and rights. The goal: the recovery of stability, progress, development and welfare state rights and systems after the wreckage.

Democracy is at stake as a result of the crisis affecting Southern European Countries. The new political, social and economic agenda for the future is waiting. There is no safe recipe to construct it and make it happen. But, as it´s said in the article by Hall (quoted by Ian Bruff) “it remains the case that unless people identify with and become the subjects of a new conception of society,” a new and better world will not be possible at all.

Bibliography

Bruff, Ian (2014) The Rise of Authoritarian Neoliberalism, Rethinking Marxism: A Journal of Economics, Culture & Society, 26:1, 113-129, DOI: 10.1080/08935696.2013.843250

Varoufakis, Yanis. The Global Minotaur. America: The true origins of the financial crisis and the future of the World Economy. University of Chicago Press. 2011.

Politikon: http://politikon.es/

LSE Europp blog: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/

SPERI blog: http://speri.dept.shef.ac.uk/comment/

Andreas Bieler blog: http://andreasbieler.blogspot.com.es/

Crisis in Spain: Responsibilities and alternatives to austerity. By Marcel Ninot

Since the beginning of the economical crisis in United States and Europe, it has been assumed that the crisis was a cyclical step in every capitalist economy. Taking that for granted would constitute a short view of the responsibilities and implications of some groups on the ongoing crisis.

The recession in Spain began in the fourth quarter of 2007. Since then, job losses have continued and the unemployment rate has risen to 21.3 percent (Banyuls and Recio, 2012). We have been told that we, the citizens, are the ultimate responsible for the crisis, getting too used to high standards of life, and signing conditions on mortgages that we could not fulfill. But the true is that most of the times, not even the commercials in the banks knew what where they selling. This generated a situation of completely fraud, where citizens were victims, instead of responsible. However, there has been a relocation of responsibility for the crisis from financial institutions to these victims; individuals citizens (Ian Bruff, 2014).

Most crisis fallacies engage responsibilities not only into citizens, also in the government body. This is not generally true: first because governments have limited actions to manage a crisis originated by the actions of the private bank sector, and second because governments are citizens too, so we are using the previous argument again. However, in the case of Spain, there have been several political decisions, including La ley del suelo 1998, promoted by Aznar, or the Rajoy’s decision of injecting public money to save Spanish banks. These political decisions, respectively, generated the conditions for housing crisis and increased the spending on public money, in order to save private banks, but reducing at the same time the welfare state. The trap here is the intimate relation and private interests between politicians and private sector. Some of them participated in the bank’s corporative bodies, and profited from their actions on their own benefit. Although the government’s behavior could be accused of doing nothing to control these escalating crisis, the main responsible for the Spanish crisis are the ones who gave big amounts of credit to people unavailable or with difficulties to return it, the mortgage debt initiators: the Spanish private banks and their directors.

The responsibles of the crisis, however, have been blessed with political protection. The economical crisis in Spain inspired an authoritarian neoliberal response from the government, defending the interests of the same responsibles that originated the economic failure: the private bank sector. Their main measures have been to save the banks, and to implement austerity measures, -which imply reducing the welfare state spending-. In this scenario, the population (and specially those not on the top of it), suffer not only from the direct consequences of the economic recession –unemployment, difficulties to access to credit, etc- but also from the austerity measures that implies the reduction of the scale and scope of social policies: unemployment benefits, education, health, pensions, etc. Austerity is not –as it is sometimes assumed to be-, the result of governments spending too much. Is much more about private credit debt. And besides that, governments still try to save banks with public money. The authoritarian neoliberal response of austerity, given by the government in Spain, seems to protect those who are responsible for the crisis.

But is austerity the only available measure? Are there any alternatives for the government? Neoliberal governments -like Partido Popular in Spain- seems to focus too much on preventing costs, instead on creating conditions for generating new incomes. The PP privatizing response, in this sense, is a completely danger for the employment. The first serious alternative on austerity, in this scenario, is to re-nationalize the privatized companies that used to be public. By doing this, salaries in this sector will rise, and people will have more money to spend, in favor of domestic consumption, generating at the same time safe jobs.

Another alternative on this field is the control of the salaries. Raising the salaries would increase the domestic consumption and thus, the government’s income by taxation. The only added problem is the risk of inflation, reason why the rising on the salaries should focus on the minimum salary. But acting on the salaries is not sufficient itself. This will only create conjuctural improvement, and the Spanish problem is structural, -about productivity-. The long term strategy on this field should take into account the necessary development in higher value-added goods, and the less dependence on tourism and cheap labor work.

A progressive system of taxation is also an alternative and a urgent need. Is completely necessary to maintain and apply again the taxation system, with special focus on big fortunes: the inheritance tax –impuesto de sucesiones and impuesto sobre el patrimonio-, giving the state a tool in order to increase their income taxation. But this policy in a national context implies some problems: the escape of businessman to tax heavens. A necessary coordination on European or global level in banning tax heavens is here completely necessary.

A further measure in the field of mortgages is to limit the mortgage years. People do not know how his life will be in 30 years. By establishing a maxim number of years in mortgage contracts people will become more conscious about the real cost of the house. Another urgent measure is the dation in payment, in order to solve the debt with the bank delivering the house. This, and other measures to prevent crisis in a long-term, should become a reality in Spain and Europe: the creation of a public agency of rating, in order to prevent subjective and interested ratings from private agency ratings, or the creation of a international banking constitution or statute, with restraints on the political power of the private bank sector.

In Spain, the people who originated the conditions for such failure, and who tried to benefit from the crisis are not only their responsible; they are also the ones who should suffer their consequence. A different policy, with a progressive system of taxation, raising the minimum salary, re-nationalization of privatized companies, conditions on mortgage contracts favorable to citizens, and long-term measures oriented to solve the structural problems of the Spanish economy should be a guideline in order to offer an alternative on austerity and to change the excessive political power of the private bank sector in Spain.

Bibliography

Navarro, V., Torres J., y Garzón A. Hay alternativas. Propuestas para crear empleo y bienestar social en España.(2011) Ediciones sequitur, Madrid.

Lehndorff, S. A triumph of failed ideas. European models of capitalism in crisis.(2012) Spain: the nightmare of Mediterranean neoliberalism, Banyuls, J and Recio, A. ETUI publisher (Brussels).

Bruff, I. Rethinking Marxism. The Rise of Authoritarian Neoliberalism. (2014) University of Manchester Library. (Manchester).

http://www.economiadigital.es/es/notices/2014/06/_quien_es_el_culpable_de_la_crisis_financiera_espanola_55931.php

http://www.elblogsalmon.com/economia/el-ahogo-por-la-austeridad-no-da-resultados-portugal-tambien-incumple

http://politikon.es/2013/05/08/salarios-trabajadores-y-empresas/

Austerity’s flaws and Germany’s responsibility to present alternatives. By Anonymous

Europe found itself in one of the most severe crisis since 2008, which not only severely affected economic stability and growth but also challenged the idea of European integration as a whole. In order to address economic difficulties and to outbalance what has gone off the rails, austerity has been considered an effective tool. Austerity- the argumentation goes- will apart from decreasing massive debts in the affected countries also send important signals of credibility to financial markets thereby ensuring low interest rates and future economic growth. Greek’s debt has skyrocketed in 2011 to about 170% of its GDP, well above the Maastricht Treaty goal of 60% (BBC, 2013). Consequently, the need to curb down deficit spending seemed urgent and necessary.

It was argued that when a family or a household has accumulated debt, the only way to reduce it is by increasing savings and cutting spending. Short-term suffering will be offset by future prosperity. The case for discipline sounds reasonable at first sight particularly when considering ones’ own highly volatile student budgeting, but it runs into problems when applying the same logic for states. A country as compared to an individual, works within a system of interconnected entities. A state that introduces fiscal discipline, which in the context of a monetary union can only be done by internal devaluation, namely cutting public spending or raising taxes, will negatively affect the income of its population. Cutting public spending increases unemployment, which in turn negatively affects income and consumption and hence lowers overall income. As Krugman (2012) simply puts it: “Your spending is my income, and my spending is your income”; and calls this mutual interdependence the death spiral of austerity.

Germany had been the ‘trendsetter’ for austerity and determines austerity’s omnipotence on a European scale up until now. From 1995 onwards, newly reunified Germany underwent a struggling period of low growth and high unemployment and was referred to as ‘The sick man of Europe’. They tackled this period, however, by addressing labour market rigidities and their productivity with reforms to accelerate trade. In the period from 2003 to 2007, real unit labour costs decreased by 8% due to an increase in labour productivity and wage moderation (Robert Schuman Foundation, 2013) Reforms pursued during chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s tenure (1998-2005) such as the Agenda 2010 and the Hartz IV reforms followed neoliberal goals of free market, workfare and less state intervention. Austerity proved to be successful in the case of Germany, which managed the Euro-Crisis’ impact notably well.

Germany’s success might be one of the reasons why it is now, together with the Troika, pushing so strictly for austerity in the crisis-hit peripheral countries. The rise of authoritarian neoliberalism as Bruff (2014) puts it has led to constitutionalising austerity as the one and only measure to address economic difficulties. Many European constitutions now include a 3% cap for deficit spending. It is discipline time, no matter what! Money provision for crisis countries is conditioned on severe measurements of deficit reduction despite obvious drawbacks. In response to austerity policies, Greek public health spending was almost halved, 35.000 doctors and caregivers were fired and 100 out of 183 hospitals were closed. At the same time, suicide rates have doubled between 2011 and 2014, HIV infections have increased by 52% and overall risk of infectious diseases has risen significantly (Bayrischer Rundfunk, 2014). This is only one consequence of the blinkered focus on austerity and the obsession with balanced budgets together with others that are negatively affecting education, employment and the welfare state.

In the name of austerity, sick patients were put on a diet with the prospect of future recovery and flourishing. Medical treatment was, however, not provided thereby making fasting lethal. Germany has become one of the strongest advocates of austerity dieting thereby forgetting its own history. Germany’s positive development before the crisis was partly due to austerity but mainly due to reforms addressing the labour market, productivity and competitiveness. Shortly after the crisis in 2008, Germany introduced Keynesian tools increasing public spending to trigger demand and foster growth. Medical treatment is essential. How can a country and its economy flourish in the future without for example human capital investments and stable health levels where both have significant positive impacts on economic growth?

Germany imposes austerity not only on other countries but it restricts itself with tight fiscal policies and low levels of investment despite its large trade surplus and constant economic growth. Its large surplus and the lack of domestic investment negatively affect employment and output in other EU countries but are also reflected in decreasing quality of German infrastructure, education and other public areas (Bernanke, 2015). With an ever more integrated Europe Germany has a responsibility to increase domestic spending not only to foster European progress but also to keep the German economy on track. Loosening austerity measurements in crisis countries and focusing more on Keynes’ ideas of deficit spending seem a promising goal. If we talk of authority, it not only involves the execution of power but also the need to undertake responsibilities.

Bibliography:

Bayrischer Rundfunk (2014) “Wer das Sparen erfand und wem es heute nützt”, Online available: http://www.br.de/radio/bayern2/kultur/radiofeature/austeritaet-toetet-100.html. Accessed: 27.05.2015.

BBC News (2013) “In graphics: Eurozone crisis” Online available: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-13366011. Accessed: 27.05.2015.

Bernanke, B. (2015) “Germany’s trade surplus is a problem” Brookings Institute, Online available: http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/ben-bernanke/posts/2015/04/03-germany-trade-surplus-problem?cid=00900015020089101US0001-04071. Accessed: 27.05.2015.

Bruff, I. (2014) “The Rise of Authoritarian Neoliberalism”, Rethinking Marxism, Vol. 26, No. 1, pp. 113-129.

Krugman, P. (2012) “The Austerity Agenda” The New York Times, Online available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/opinion/krugman-the-austerity-agenda.html. Accessed: 27.05.2015.

Robert Schuman Foundation (2013) “Labour Costs and Crisis Management in the Euro Zone: A Reinterpretation of Divergences in Competitiveness” European Issue n°289, Online available: http://www.robert-schuman.eu/en/european-issues/0289-labour-costs-and-crisis-management-in-the-euro-zone-a-reinterpretation-of-divergences-in. Accessed: 27.05.2015.

Austerity, a Medicine that made us sicker: comparing the United States and the EU. By Enric Camps González

As you all know in 2007 a strong economic crisis, known after as the Great Recession, hit the economies of most developed countries and had terrible consequences. Nevertheless, the policies that governments chose to implement in order to fight the recession have had much to do in the evolution of each country particularly. Taking a look at this we can come with several questions: Why have some states managed to overcome the Recession more successfully than others? Why are some of them growing reasonably fast again and already close to full employment, and others are experiencing only a slight growth and keep with high unemployment rates?

If we compare the policies that the US government implemented and the ones chosen by the EU countries we might see that they took almost opposite strategies. While the US decided to increase public expenditures in order to reactivate the economy and encourage consumption, the EU states cut them in order to prioritize the control of short-term deficit. This policy, known as austerity, has led many of the EU countries into a much larger and deeper recession while the US economy has been growing again in the last years. Martin Mckee, professor of European Public Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine said in his research publication, “Many governments in Europe, either of their own volition or at the behest of the international financial institutions, have adopted stringent austerity policies in response to the financial crisis. By contrast, the USA launched a financial stimulus. The results of these experiments are now clear: the American economy is growing and those European countries adopting austerity, including the UK, Ireland, Greece, Portugal and Spain, are stagnating and struggling to repay rising debts”. It is noteworthy to say that not all EU members are in the same situation, while Germany has a reasonably healthy economy, the southern European countries have strong deficits, a huge debt and high rates of unemployment.

In my opinion, austerity policies are to blame for most of this situation, I will explain why: When the economy goes into a downturn – recession or depression – employers lay off workers.  Households are able to spend less money.  Even households that keep their jobs are likely to spend less due to fear of losing their jobs.  Thus, aggregate consumption further declines.  Businesses lay off more workers and reduce their investments in physical capital.

Austerity adds gasoline to this fire.  When the government cuts spending, it lays off more workers.  If it raises taxes, it reduces household income. In either case, workers reduce consumption, resulting in further loss of jobs.  If the government cuts social spending such as pensions, unemployment compensation, health benefits, the effect again is to further reduce household income and consumption, resulting in more layoffs.

In his New York Times op-ed article “Keynes was right,” Paul Krugman quotes the economist John Maynard Keynes in 1937: “The boom, not the slump, is the right time for austerity at the Treasury.”

It was precisely this British economist who had already provided us with advice on how policies should be managed when the economy experiences a recession. Keynesians refer to the paradox of thrift.  If the government tries to balance the budget during a recession, either by raising taxes or reducing government spending, it will drive the economy into a deeper crisis and likely further increase the deficit. Anyway, contemporary policymakers have acted according to an anti-Keynesian belief and have come out with these awful results.

Spain and Greece are prime examples of the folly of austerity. On the other hand, the Obama Administration had an expansionary fiscal policy in 2009-2010.  The Republicans took control of the House in 2011, and I believe their efforts to reduce the deficit slowed the economy.  The Republicans predicted that the deficits of Obama would lead to sky-high interest rates, high rates of inflation, and a decline in the value of the dollar.  Just the opposite occurred and when Obama’s fiscal policy could go on American economy started growing again and proved that Keynesians policies were suitable. Again, referring to Keynes in the same article: “The good news, such as it is, is that President Obama has finally gone back to fighting against premature austerity — and he seems to be winning the political battle. And one of these years we might actually end up taking Keynes’s advice, which is every bit as valid now as it was 75 years ago”.

Negating the Poor: Resisting the Imposition of Modernity in Brazil. By Claire Sieffert

Modernizers can render the poor invisible in their discourse of an ordered and advanced society. For progressives seeking to transform society, visible poverty is a direct contradiction to their idealized modernity. When the poor are viewed as an impediment to positive change, it facilitates the stigmatization, marginalization, and even criminalization of poverty. The criminalization of poverty is increasingly becoming a reality, even though the welfare state era was supposed to give the state a more active role in improving the human condition—not in demonizing the lower classes. When the state is guided by a modernizing plan, interventions to improve the human condition can become top-down impositions that are motivated by a normative dogma of how society should look.

To better understand the marginalization and criminalization of the poor, it is important to understand some of the motivations behind this social discrimination. In Seeing Like A State: How Certain Plans to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (1998), James C. Scott coined the term “authoritarian high modernism” to describe the ideology that aims to reshape society and the built environment through rational, scientifically-informed schemes. The authoritarian high modernizers are ambitious, aiming to bring society and its surroundings in line with their rigid conception of “order” (p. 88). Examples of these high modernizers include Lenin, Condorcet, Le Corbusier, Nyerere, Trotsky, and McNamara, who all idealized a modern society that was ordered around rational, “modern” principles. Even the United Kingdom’s ASBOs could be considered an example of authoritarian high modernism; when the state unilaterally decides which behaviours are acceptable and which are anti-social, they are actively seeking to shape the public sphere to conform with their definition of the ideal modern society (Government of United Kingdom, 2014). Although high modernizers may believe that they are improving the human condition, they are often blinded by their dogma of what modernity must look like, leaving no room for the opinions of the “backwards” poor.

This high modernist vision is often achieved through state imposition, making it an authoritarian act that does not democratically consult with society itself on how it would like to be “improved”. Authoritarian high modernism relegates the poor because they are contrary to the advanced society. This justifies interventions in their lives as a legitimate object of state policy; even criminalizing poverty becomes justifiable, as the state is simply seeking to correct society for the good of society itself. However, because this ideology is grounded in the authoritarian imposition of modernity, it may improve the material conditions of the poor at the expense of open dialogue and empowerment. In Brazil, authoritarian high modernism has a long history of failing to view the poor as legitimate partners in development because of a patriarchal assumption that the state knows best.

Brazil: Poverty vs Modernity

The construction of Brasília between 1956-1960 demonstrates how the poor’s presence was discouraged in the new “modern” Brazil. The mission to construct Brasília in just 41 months was led by Costa and Niemeyer, an urban planner and architect respectively who believed that in their utopian city they could banish the street and the plaza, and thereby eliminate the problem of “crowded slums, with their darkness, disease, crime, pollution, traffic jams and noise, and lack of public services” (Scott, 1998, p. 125). Constructed according to this stigmatized and narrow perception of the poor, Brasília represents an attempt to cleanse Brazil of the “criminal” poor. With the city’s layout designed to inhibit spontaneous public gatherings or visible poverty, Brasília’s lay-out can be considered an attempt at situational crime prevention. By changing the built environment, the high modernizers behind Brasília sought to remove signs of backwards poverty from the new Brazilian capital.

Brazil’s government again prescribed to the high modernist ideology in the lead-up to the 2014 FIFA World Cup. As the host country, Brazil wanted to showcase their modern state—which required negating the image of impoverished favela-dwelling Brazilians. The government pursued their goal by physically negating many of the favelas. Jo Griffin (2014) reported on the forced evictions in the Santa Marta slum outside Rio de Janeiro, where two campaigns were fighting to define the favela. On the one hand, there were government officials and foreign NGOs that claimed the evictions were an opportunity to introduce affordable housing and to clean up the favelas. On the other side were the residents themselves, who covered their houses with banners that read “No to removals” and “Santa Marta is not for sale.” This exemplifies a lack of consultation with the poor, who were not heard in the authoritarian plans to transform their lives according to someone else’s definition of improvement. Although the supposed introduction of more affordable and secure housing can be perceived as an upgrade to the poor’s standard of living, a benevolent patriarchy is still a patriarchy. The favela evictions violated residents’ capabilities by taking away the poor’s right to choose.

The criminalization of poverty remains an on-going topic of debate in Brazilian society. In The World Organization Against Torture’s (2009) report, they noted that the criminalization of poverty perpetuates the poverty cycle in Brazil. When the poor face stigma and jail-time because of the demonized image held against them, how can they break the poverty cycle? The poverty trap also challenges their ability to resist state-imposed modernization; according to Scott (1998), the imposition of absolute modernization is facilitated by a prostrate or weak civil society (p. 88). When the poor are targeted by authoritarian high modernist plans, they may have limited resources to mobilize, weakening their resistance to top-down reforms of their daily lives.

Despite the stereotype that people below the poverty line may be helpless because of their poverty, the resistance to eviction in Santa Marta shows that the poor can be active agents in asserting their right to determine their own modernity. Other projects have also given the poor a face in Brazil. Between 2008-2009, the French artist JR worked with the Moro de Providencia favela to paste massive posters of local women’s eyes and faces on the side of the favela dwellings. As JR-Art (n.d.) explains, the project was conceived “In order to pay tribute to those who play an essential role in society but who are the primary victims of war, crime, rape and political or religious fanaticism.” When the favela was shown to be a hub of art instead of a hub of crime, it challenged the stigmatization and criminalization of poor shantytown dwellers. Projects such as these can counter the myth that Brazil’s government must bring modernity to the favelas, asserting that people have the right to build their own community without the top-down imposition of supposed improvements.

References

Government of the United Kingdom. (2014). “Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs).” Retrieved May 20, 2015, from: https://www.gov.uk/asbo

Griffin, J. (2014, January 17). “Rio’s favela dwellers fight to stave off evictions in runup to Brazil World Cup.” The Guardian. Retrieved May 18, 2015, from: http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2014/jan/17/rio-favela-evictions-brazil-world-cup

JR-Art. (n.d.) “Women Are Heroes – Brazil.” Retrieved May 18, 2015, from: http://www.jr-art.net/projects/women-are-heroes-brazil

Scott, J. C. (1998). Seeing Like A State: How Certain Plans to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

World Organization Against Torture. (2009). “The Criminalization of Poverty: A Report on the Economic, Social, and Cultural Root Causes of Torture and Other Forms of Violence in Brazil.” Retrieved May 18, 2015, from: http://www.rtfn-watch.org/uploads/media/Criminalization_Brazil.pdf