20N.

In the midst of one of the most crude crisis in Spain's history, citizens have voted. Mariano Rajoy, leader of the conservative party, will govern the country with ample majority, while the Socialist Party crumbles into one of its most sounded defeats in the history of Spanish democracy. Though democracy sounds almost surreal these days - poignantly in Europe,  where the self-acclaimed champions and preachers of democracy worldwide are finding their own elected governments displaced in favor of so-called "experts" and "technocrats", the only ones who know how to make everything right again. 


Everything right?


The "recipe" against the crisis in Europe sounds familiar: "Austerity. Drastically reduce social spending (and taxes to the private sector). Appease the markets. Private initiative will take us out of this hole, the markets will balance themselves naturally. Unemployment, too, will be spontaneously fixed". While austerity is the only way to resolve the crisis according to ['scientific'] economic theory, experience proves it only worsens the situation: as many people lose their jobs along with their ability to live with dignity, inequalities rise drastically, deepening social unrest. 


To make things worse, Spain's electoral law favors large parties instead of proportional representation. If the law had been designed according to the 1 Person 1 Vote precept, the conservatives would not have reached absolute majority, which would have forced them to find agreements with smaller parties in order to pass new laws. But while "The Markets" are not elected by the people, they have the power to impose harsh austerity and privatization plans, like the ones Rajoy is now publicly exhorted to endorse even before taking office - by the way, isn't the austerity way scandalous for as long as fiscal fraud remains rampant and the concentration in global corporate power keeps growing? 

"Fortunately, we the markets have no Constitution"....

(El Roto, El Pais, Sept. 3rd, 2011)

ElRoto has summed it up as follows:

"The Hidden Program", during the campaign,

(El Pais, Nov 17, 2011)

And the elections results: 

"Pilates Method. Saluting the Markets"

(ElPais, Nov 21st, 2011)

In this context, Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine is not only enlightening, it's a must read. Klein adds the economic chapter to the official history of Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Poland, Russia, China, Iraq... Through her extensive and rigorous research, Naomi Klein discredits the widespread idea that free markets and democracy go hand in hand. The rich countries, however, have been taking advantage of this double discourse for so long, praising it was natural for inequalities to keep growing at an alarming pace everywhere, pretending they were doing everything they possibly could to make things right, defending their civilizing mission as if there was nothing to prove continuous abuse. 

Until very recently, organizations like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank seemed to be working not only in the interests of "the markets", speculators and powerful corporate groups, but also clearly in line with the interests of the West or the so-called 'developed' world. But today the structural funds and the Shock Doctrine strategies tested in so many countries before are at Europe's own doorsteps. It seems like it's now our turn to dismantle social benefits and public assets in favor of privately owned, for profit corporations, though this will imply them taking over not only our welfare and our wealth, but our democratic prerogatives too.

Perhaps now, we who have been so privileged and so condescending upon poverty, abuse and violence worlwide, will realize what it is like to be harshly exploited and discriminated against for the sake of democracy and free market. Perhaps now, with the frontal attacks of such “markets” to the welfare states, as the peoples of the West are beginning to find themselves on the other side of the fence, the dichotomy between the rich and the poor will be reshaped and reconfigured. And perhaps it is these reconfigurations that have been seeding the Occupy movements, opening the door to a worldwide movement of protest now known under the "We Are the 99%" motto. Perhaps it is, indeed, time to unite, time to rise up.