By Prof. Silverio Allocca
Sustainable development means putting people first without leaving anyone behind contrary to what has been done throughout most of the 20th century and even more so-despite everything-in this broad glimpse of the 21st, a time when a nation’s developmental progress has been measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on the assumption, unconfirmed by the facts, that as national wealth increased, earnings would somehow be shared more or less equally among the population, improving everyone’s well-being.
Unfortunately, of little use were the examples of great entrepreneurs such as Ford and Olivetti who were among the first to understand how the sharing of labor in profits-and more adequate wages-must be valued as true productive investments since co-interest generates an improvement in productive capacity and improved wage profitability promotes domestic demand for goods and services, thus acts as an internal flywheel for the economy and produces growth in GDP itself in a natural and hopefully steady way.
Alongside those we find other factors such as, for example, safety, health, respect for the environment and circularity -just to name a few-, which contribute to the growth not only of the quality of life but of the entire system in a more stable and lasting way than can occur in systems that are disinclined to consider such aspects and which, as a result, sooner or later, will be affected by factors of instability and conflict at all levels-and in every sphere, such as to weaken the entire socio-productive system.
In 1990, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) published an innovative “Human Development Report” in which it proposed to replace GDP as a singular measure of progress with a new Human Development Index (HDI) that combines measures of wealth (gross national income per capita), education (years of schooling) and health (life expectancy): an index that has been a precursor to other indices all inspired by the same principle, namely, that which defines development as a multidimensional concept of which income represents only one of the parameters.
In this sense the HDI was a precursor to the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) that focus on “people first” and “leaving no one behind.” It is a pity that the end of the Cold War produced the birth of a mono-centric New World Order that with globalization led to the emergence of productive relocations from developed countries to developing countries that were all the more inserted into the economic system the less measures were adopted in them in terms of labor protection, security, social welfare as well as environmental protection as this allowed the drastic reduction of production costs and social burdens borne by companies and consequently the maximization of profits according to neo-colonialist logics fueled by political powers subordinate to capital.
A whole series of distortions have resulted from this development model, ranging:
1) from the excessive concentration of the economic systems of developed countries on the tertiary sector (a sector that is supportive of those primary is secondary in the absence of which the overall economic system becomes a system centered on consumption and thus on indebtedness: a circumstance that in the long run leads to the need to reduce welfare due to the blatant unproductiveness of the same in such contexts),
2) to an anomalous growth of the countries subject to the relocations insofar as in them the exported economic-political model has been the vetero-capitalist model centered on GDP and as such in need of a predominantly external economic flywheel represented by a third country to be financed under conditions of increasing risk (a risk that grows the greater the flattening of its economic system to the tertiary sector),
3) to a prevalence, in the framework contemplating the parameters taken into consideration for medium- to long-term national economic planning (Budget Laws and the like) of the significance of merely speculative indices of no significance whatsoever for what concerns contexts outside those represented by the financial markets, but passed off as such by logics and needs deriving from other factors (see the case of the spread between Italian and German 10-year bonds in the Italy of the Monti technical government),
4) not to mention the distortions arising from everything pertaining to the negative influences of the financialization of the banking operations of the delocalizing countries as a result of the disappearance of the demand for banking operations centered on financial intermediation when the provision of money made by credit institutions cannot translate into the disbursements of money to companies in need of the capital necessary to promote primary and secondary business activities (speculative drift and derivative pollution of banking systems are the less obvious, but more dangerous, fruit of such a modus operandi) , as well as
5) of fictitious economic programming centered on choices made demagogically to promote changes involving large movements of capital to innovate basically nothing: this is the case of the current Green conversion concerning the electric car, which fictitiously starts from the need to reduce CO2 emissions by boasting as decisive the use of electricity produced through the use of Natural Gas (which in reality involves greater CO2 emissions) and thereby promoting something that actually involves putting a hand in household savings, where present, in order to insert them into a context that in the end produces neither new wealth nor development but only represents a way, to put it bluntly, of pretending an economic recovery of the most to the full and exclusive benefit of those who are able to extract and market the gas while also speculating on the excess of demand over real production capacity.
In such a context, it is obvious that wars are around the corner at every turn as immovable engines of economies that are no longer really viable or rather in search of stabilization of their areas of influence. Hence the need for a new World Order hoped for Multipolar by many, but that does not seem to be what has been slowly peeping out on the international scene for a couple of years now, BRICS or non-BRICS as it may be.
The key to interpreting the recent meeting between Xi Jinping and Biden, as well as the present conflict between the Gaza Strip and Israel as well as the forgotten Russian-Ukrainian conflict or the one, in my opinion in the making, in the Balkan hot zone (Kosovo) is all contained in these notes in my opinion salient and currently little taken into account for the benefit of a granguignolesco gossip that has been raging for months (and even more so in these last weeks) with very little lucidity on social on the pages of newspapers and in most current analyses that seem very little inclined to delve into the broader causes preferring to focus on the contingent ones of the moment.
Few in this sense, just to stay on topic, have given space, for example dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian war, to considerations regarding the mobile immobility of the major international competitors despite the fact that all they do is talk about a ceasefire between Hamas and the IDF: November 22, 2023, was the turn of the BRICS with the same usual tone of the other equally flimsy pronouncements that despite the many distinctions and reprimands leave, in fact, a free hand to Netanyahu without anyone wondering why.
A why in some ways unveiled, at least as far as China is concerned (but extendable to other geopolitical players as well), by what happened on November 15, 2015 when an Al Jazeera reporter, present at the regular Chinese Foreign Ministry press conference in Beijing, did his best to try to force spokesman Mao Ning to comment on the reasons for the Chinese establishment’s rather soft approach to the growing intensity of the military confrontation between Israel and Hamas.
On this occasion, taking his cue from international press reports about the attack launched by the Israeli occupation forces on the Al-Shifa hospital under the cover of the United States -a fact that has created a humanitarian crisis described by many as unacceptable partly as a result of the international community’s failure to exert sufficient pressure on Israel to induce it to adopt if nothing else, a different military strategy-, the aforementioned Al Jazeera reporter specifically asked spokeswoman Mao Ning, in light of the lack of clear condemnation by the permanent members of the Security Council, what China’s position was on Israel’s illegal military operations and whether there was, in her view, a direct way for China to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and stop the killing of Palestinians.
Emblematic, because of the circumstances of time and place, was the spokeswoman’s response, which read, “We have stated our position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on several occasions. We condemn all acts that harm civilians and oppose violations of international law. China has repeatedly called for a ceasefire and to avoid further humanitarian catastrophes. We have always worked and mediated for this. We will continue to work with the other parties to play an active and constructive role in the cessation of hostilities, de-escalation of the situation, alleviation of the humanitarian situation, and, ultimately, the realization of a lasting peace between Palestine and Israel through the two-state solution.
A … ‘diplomatic’ response entirely eloquently devoid of any reference to the de facto inactivity displayed at this juncture, as mentioned, by all the major players active in the square, an inactivity that the reporter again emphasized decisively by rephrasing his own question in a rather stringent manner: “Is there anything China will do to stop the killing?”
A direct, dry, and well-substantiated question that was followed by an answer worthy of appearing in an NLP textbook where we deftly find the deployment of the techniques of minimization and deferral preceded, as is appropriate in such cases, by a formal reception of the question that only earned the “answer-not-answer” quoted here in full: “We fully agree with you. The humanitarian situation in Gaza is deeply disturbing and heartbreaking. As the rotating chair of the Security Council this month, China will respond to the call of the international community, intensify coordination with stakeholders, particularly Arab countries, advocate justice, build consensus, and promote responsible and meaningful actions by the Security Council for de-escalation of the conflict, protection of civilians the alleviation of the humanitarian situation and the restoration of the peace process,” and again “You may have noticed that the Chinese government’s special envoy for the Middle East issue and the director general of the Department of West Asian and North African Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs recently visited the countries concerned and engaged in mediation efforts for peace.” Concluding with an “We will continue to play an active and constructive role for the de-escalation of the situation” dismissal from the reporter.
The reason for the non-response, for the unstated in explicit terms willingness to do absolutely nothing to concretely respect the, for now, sphere of influence of the West -and the United States in particular- in the region, became apparent when the Global Times correspondent expressly referred to what the day before, on Nov. 14, 2023 was made known with the publication of the annual report of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in the EU (CCCEU), a report in which with an abundance of detail found its place both in the timely listing of the priority areas of cooperation of Chinese enterprises in the EU and in the proposals put forward in the form of policy suggestions to the institutions and governments of the EU member states in order to further improve the business environment.
This reminder -and not surprisingly, as seen, only this one- was promptly echoed by spokesperson Mao Ning to emphatically emphasize the stability and soundness of Chinese enterprises in Europe as well as the level of cooperation on which many of them have come to stand in the green sector, digital economy, sci-tech innovation and sustainable development fulfilling all their corporate commitments without forgetting their social responsibilities, helping to create jobs in the EU and improve people’s welfare as well as ” establishing themselves as important participants in the EU’s recovery and transition“ despite the EU’s tendency to “politicize trade issues, abuse the concept of national security, the impact of its de-risking strategy, and business environment issues such as frustrated R&D collaboration and lack of efficiency in services and communication.”
The most significant part of Spokesperson Mao Ning’s response is the concluding part and especially the part where we read sentences like the ones I quote here:
1) “China and the EU are both important forces in promoting an open world economy and upholding multilateral trade rules.”
2) “The two sides should jointly advocate the right direction of economic globalization, promote liberalization and facilitation of trade and investment, reduce existing barriers and avoid adding new ones, and achieve mutually beneficial cooperation at a higher level” all in light of the wishful thinking of Chinese companies that the relationship with the EU be all
3) “under the banner of market economy rules” in a context of safeguards
4) of “solid and steady growth of China-EU economic and trade ties,” all in “a fair, transparent, stable and predictable business environment for Chinese companies investing or operating in the EU.”
On closer inspection, how does this articulate wish list differ from what the forerunners of liberalism theorized and, albeit clumsily, implemented in their time from the desiderata of a von Hayek? What remains of the ideological controversies of yesteryear? At the moment, it is undeniable that what is taking place is an internal conflict within capitalism that of the class struggle of yesteryear does not even have the faintest semblance and should be read as such by the establishments of the various countries in order to avoid making wrong choices, perhaps by virtue of agreements and alliances that have nothing to do with current logics almost 80 years after the end of World War II and almost 25 years after the collapse of the Berlin Wall.
The real problem on the table that most have not grasped is the fact that there is no longer political room to correct the course either:
1) because of, as mentioned, the end of the primacy of politics itself, which, despite everything, early liberalism pointed to as an indispensable factor but which, then, badly gave way when the corporate world gave birth in a context of total political deregulation to a globalized macroeconomic system that as such had not been taken into account in the slightest beforehand and that developed out of a euphoric drift throughout the West that took its cue from the collapse of the Berlin Wall;
2) both because of the lack of an all-encompassing economic theory of all the parameters needed to interpret current facts in a highly connected world such as the present one that is about to experience the effects of the revolution of everything known thanks to the arrival of Artificial Intelligence in a context for the world closest to us, of rampant functional illiteracy that, as such, is likely to put Western democracies on the ropes in short order in primis because of that, by now congenital and overt, inability and impossibility to express a political class that enjoys real and not just facinorous electoral consensus.
