by: Farooque Chowdhury
One can identify the present time as The Age of Crises. “The world system is riddled with crisis.”1 Crises in the areas of finance banking, and environment-ecology have brought the issue of crisis starkly into public perception. “In the capitalist world-economy of the modern world system, accumulation on a world scale can no longer proceed as it did in the postwar era of expansion until and unless unequal development and dependent accumulation are put on a new footing.”2 However, a section of theoreticians try to disregard analysis of this time of crisis. Disregarding the analyses of crises in the capitalist world system is part of their effort to show “invincibility” and “eternity” of the world capitalist system. But, crises in the capitalist system persists. “Crisis does not mean the end. On the contrary, ‘crisis’ refers to the critical time during which the end will be avoided through new adaptations if possible; only failing these, the end becomes unavoidable.”3 “[C]yclical crises have characterized the history of capitalism for at least a hundred and fifty years, and most of them have not left any lasting effect. [….] [M]ost of them have had a beneficial effect in that they have been the means whereby accumulated distortions and disequilibria have been corrected and the system has prepared itself for a new advance.”4
Whatever escapes way the capitalist system prepares, all the time the system puts burden of preparing the escape ways on the people, and benefits itself.
Which crisis isn’t hurting people in countries? It’s not possible to name. Capitalism in its life spanning centuries has never before created so many crises simultaneously. There’re crises in all aspects of life, nature, environment and ecology, not only in human life or in a particular branch of flora and fauna. There’re crises in all aspects of economy, not only in the area of production relations or mode of production or in the mechanism and arrangements for production and distribution, not only in the area of employment. There’re crises in capitalism’s highest form – imperialism, in imperialism’s diplomatic and military power, in imposing its hegemony, within its political system, in election, legislative, juridical and its so-called separation of power arrangement, with its credibility, acceptability and media.
Reality of decadence
Today’s towns and cities are burning examples of capitalism’s failure to create livable abode for human beings. It’s the system’s crisis with living space, which is related to labor and reproduction. These are, especially the parts of cities and towns lived by the poor, low-income group of population, the exploited are burning furnaces. Human beings can’t live in these areas. Despite this bitter fact, millions of human beings live in these furnaces, dungeons of decay. In the Third and Fourth Worlds, the urban scene is more inhuman, more brutal, more unlivable, more stuffed with inconsideration and illogic. In the last century, it was said:
- “Few city governments in the developing world have the power, resources, and trained staff to provide their rapidly growing populations with the land, services, and facilities needed for an adequate human life: clean water, sanitation, schools, and transport. The result is mushrooming illegal settlements with primitive facilities, increased overcrowding, and rampant disease linked to an unhealthy environment.”5
- “In most Third World cities, the enormous pressure for shelter and services has frayed the urban fabric. Much of the housing used by the poor is decrepit. [….] So too is the essential infrastructure of the city; public transport is overcrowded and overused, […] Water supply systems leak, […] A large proportion of the city’s population often has no piped water […].
“A growing number of the urban poor suffer from a high incidence of diseases; most are environmentally based and could be prevented or dramatically reduced through small investments.”6 - “Nor is the emphasis on Third World cities meant to imply that problems within the cities of industrialized countries are not serious. They are. Many face problems of deteriorating infrastructure, environmental degradation, inner-city decay, and neighbourhood collapse. The unemployed, the elderly, and racial and ethnic minorities can remain trapped in a downward spiral degradation and poverty, […] City or municipal governments often leave a legacy of poorly designed and maintained public housing estates, mounting costs, and declining tax bases.”7
Today, decades after the findings by the Brundtland Commission, mentioned above, the urban picture hasn’t changed much. Rather, it has deteriorated further. Press and study reports from countries and international organizations tell many tales of this disheartening and painful reality.8 It’s like towns in twilight – urban living condition in decline. Findings from one such United Nations report include: - “Cities are consuming land faster than they grow in population: Urban sprawl is an increasingly common phenomenon. Once associated with the land-rich developed countries of North America and Australia, it is now occurring in cities all over the world. Whether horizontal spreading, dispersed urbanization or peri-urbanization, the physical extent of urban areas is growing much faster than their population, thereby consuming more land for urban development. The unbridled expansion of urban areas has profound implications for energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, climate change and environmental degradation. Findings from a global sample of cities show that between 1990 and 2015, cities in developed countries increased their urban land area by 1.8-fold while the urban population increased by 1.2-fold; thus, implying that the expansion of urban areas in relation to urban population growth increased by a ratio of 1.5.”
- “Inequality remains a persistent trend in urban areas: Growing levels of inequality and exclusion are becoming persistent trends in urban areas. For more than two-thirds of the world’s urban population, income inequality has increased since 1980. This widening gap means that about 2.9 billion people are living in cities where income inequalities are currently more pronounced than they were a generation ago. In a rapidly urbanizing world, the nature of inequality will largely depend on what happens in cities. Today, many US, UK, Latin American, Caribbean and African cities have levels of inequality higher than their respective countries. Inequality can fuel social unrest, as witnessed in Chile in 2019.”
- “Affordable housing remains elusive: Housing affordability is not confined to a handful of expensive cities; it is a global challenge that affects virtually all households. Globally, prospective homeowners are compelled to save more than five times their annual income to afford the price of a standard house. Renter households often spend more than 25 per cent of their monthly income on rent. High levels of unaffordability mean that inadequate housing and slums remain the only housing choice for low-income households. Currently, 1.6 billion people or 20 per cent of the world’s population live in inadequate housing, of which one billion reside in slums and informal settlements. In developed countries, unsheltered or homeless populations are a small but significant feature of the urban landscape.”
- “Urban areas bore the initial brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic: Even as coronavirus has now hit rural areas, the pandemic was initially an urban phenomenon as epicentres flared in Wuhan, Milan, Madrid, New York City, Guayaquil and Manaus among other cities. As the world slips into a severe recession, urban areas, which account for more than 80 per cent of global GDP, will be affected in several ways.”9
Two years later, another UN report found: - “Globally, 1.6 billion people or 20 per cent of the world’s population live in inadequate housing, of which one billion reside in slums and informal settlements. Under these conditions, the goal of eradicating poverty in all its forms by 2030 and leave no one behind will not be achieved.”
- “While the city population share doubled from 25 per cent in 1950 to about 50 per cent in 2020, it is projected to slowly increase to 58 per cent over the next 50 years. The share of other settlements in the urban-rural continuum (towns and semi-dense areas as well as rural areas) is expected to decrease; towns and semi-dense areas are expected to drop to 24 per cent (from 29 per cent in 2020) and that of rural areas to 18 per cent (from 22 per cent).”
- “Low-income countries have much higher absolute and relative city population growth than higher income countries. From 1975 to 2020, their city population grew fourfold to about 300 million.”
- “Most expansion of city land area will occur in low-income countries — without effective planning, urban sprawl might become a low-income country phenomenon: The new data show that changes over the next five decades — in terms of growth of city land area from 2020 levels — will mostly take place in low-income countries (141 per cent), lower-middle-income (44 per cent) and high-income countries (34 per cent).”
- “Small cities and towns remain critical to achieving sustainable urban futures in low-income countries: Small cities (less than 250,000 inhabitants) cover almost half of city land (about 45 per cent) in low-income countries, a trend that will persist over the coming decades.”
- “Urban poverty and inequality remain one of the most intractable challenges confronting cities: Urban poverty and inequality are highly complex and multidimensional challenges whose manifestation go beyond lack of income. Urban poverty and inequality are intertwined; they reinforce each other to create conditions of disadvantage that constrain the poor from enjoying the benefits of sustainable urbanization.”
- “Without concerted action at all levels, poverty and inequality could become the face of the future of cities: Poverty and inequality are increasingly becoming pervasive in our cities. In developing countries, slums and informal settlements are the most enduring spatial manifestation of poverty and inequality. For the millions living in slums, access to essential services remains elusive; thus, preventing the realization of a better urban future. In cities of developed countries, pockets of poverty and destitution have become entrenched, where minority groups endure marginalization and stigmatization coupled with underinvestment in urban infrastructure. If decisive actions are not taken, urban poverty and inequality will become endemic.”
- “The twin crises of climate change and the loss of global biodiversity threaten the futures of cities: Climate impacts and other environmental crises interact with drivers of urban inequality, affecting people’s capacity to anticipate the impact, then respond and recover from them. Dealing with future risks — including environmental risks — has become one of the main concerns for local governments and other urban-based actors, eliciting diverse responses.”10
The reality that emerges is of decadence.
- “Today, some 56% of the world’s population – 4.4 billion inhabitants – live in cities. This trend is expected to continue, with the urban population more than doubling its current size by 2050, at which point nearly 7 of 10 people will live in cities. [….] The expansion of urban land consumption outpaces population growth by as much as 50%, which is expected to add 1.2 million km² of new urban built-up area to the world by 2030. Such sprawl puts pressure on land and natural resources, resulting in undesirable outcomes; cities represent two-thirds of global energy consumption and account for more than 70% of greenhouse gas emissions.”11 “In much of the world, the growth and developmental advantages of living in cities have diminished in the twenty-first century […]”12
The existing reality shows: The system, no doubt, is failing to sail smoothly. Its core components are shaking and tearing apart the system. Never before the world system imperialism has built up and commands has faced so much questions and challenges that put at stake its legitimacy in so many areas of the globe.
The recently-gone pandemic starkly and powerfully pressed the capitalist system to a precarious position, which was unprecedented: Entire livelihood and health care systems capitalism operates in countries stood sterile; global governing system in commodity production and distribution went ineffective hurting not only peoples in countries, but also the system itself. It came out the system can’t operate in certain situations.
First of all, these crises fatally hurt people, as capitalism transfers the crises into people’s life within shortest possible time; followed by the system creating the crises: capitalist economy and politics.
How to survive?
The question is:
1] How can people survive in these overwhelming crises? The answer, in brief, is radically changing the system that produces so many crises. It’s a long task.
2] Should people sit idly for a long period of time, turn into helpless witness to all the catastrophic “games” capitalism plays with and engages in misadventures for transferring burdens of crisis from its shoulder to people’s life while reaping profit?
3] Should inaction dominate people’s life being battered by crises of an alien system?
If, “no” and “not at all” are the answers to the 2nd and 3rd questions above, then, what initiatives can people take within the interim period – a period for transition from capitalism?
It’s, people initiating steps within the interim period, a huge task. With this perspective, T Vijayendra writes in “Preface” of Transition Town Movement, Local Action in the Wake of Global Emergency and Collapse:
“The Pandemic has taught us many things. It has shown the inability of the state to help people during deep crises. Most importantly it has shown us that people and life find ways of taking care of themselves without assistance from the state. Now I no longer fear the collapse of capitalism. The sooner the better!”
The states’ inabilities that T Vijayendra is pointing out are relative, and all states haven’t rescinded its responsibilities towards their citizens during the pandemic. At initial stage, many states just left away or brushed out souls they governed; the poor, the working classes, the most vulnerable. Economically, socially and organizationally the weakest section of societies were left to the consideration of “fate”, and “fate”’s consideration was nothing, but brutal death, and in cases having no-death, that was unemployment/loss of earning, destitution, hunger. In cases of hundreds of thousands, as media reports showed, the first phase was walking away of hundreds of miles. In cases, scores, in total hundreds, of working persons huddling in small, narrow living quarters, while the pandemic demanded keeping safe distance from one another. Many, hundreds, of the huddled souls died. Those were like running away or living in of scared beasts of prey. This section – the weakest, the most silent, the most disorganized – had least access, and in many/most cases, at all no access to essentials for survival. Later, state machines extended survival services to the haunted; and that was for the interests the state machines were assigned to protect. That was for capital’s regeneration. Without labor power, capitals fail to regenerate, fail to make profit, as labor power is the “magic” that creates profit, and capitals can’t survive without making profit. So, T Vijayendra’s assertion – states don’t help people during deep crisis – stands valid. His finding – people find ways of taking care of themselves – is also valid. He cites the last pandemic to substantiate his claim. It was found not only during the last pandemic, but also at other times, in many areas. One example was found in Greece during its recent period of turmoil – the period of austerity measures imposed by seemingly all powerful Troika. A number of citizens moved to villages from urban areas in Greece, and organized community living, beginning with collectively preparing food. These are people’s rejections of the state machine. But, the main message of these developments is capitalist state machine’s failure. Assault by so-called neo-liberalism, so-called because it’s fundamentally capitalism, and there’s nothing new other than a few neo-words, terms and sentences, a few measures intensified and made brutal, is another evidence of capitalist state machine’s failure to attend to the citizens the machine rules. (Courtesy: Counter Currents)
Farooque Chowdhury writes from Dhaka, Bangladesh.
