to read the articles by Ulrich Brand and Wilfried Gaum, click on
http://la.indymedia.org/news/2015/08/272819.php
Excessive consumption of natural resources destroys the environment and fuels climate change. The weaker members of society and regions are impacted by this climate change. Far-reaching use of renewable energy is imperative.
Good life for all is a political challenge and does not only have a cultural dimension of changed lifestyles. Decisions between alternatives are made amid power and interests. Employees and their organizations play a central role. The rebuilding process must be politically organized. This should not be left to investors and businesses and their political representatives.
The drivers of growth must be tackled. How can power be contained and how can democracy be developed? For a long while, the dominant experience of most people is that society cannot be organized. Others sit at the levers of political, economic and cultural power.
The challenge of neoliberalism took an offensive form in the countries of the global North with Thatcher’s 1979 election victory in Great Britain and Reagan’s 1980 presidency. This history has been written often enough. Still both Thatcher and Reagan came to office in elections in parliamentary democracies. No coup and no dictatorship were needed to gain mass loyalties and mass support for carrying out the political ideological hegemony of neoliberalism. How did neoliberal policy gain a mass influence? To neoliberalism, we must soon oppose a great alternative narrative of freedom, democracy and solidarity before the social dislocations neutralize the positive resources amid a collapsing world climate.
