1. La otra historia de México. Hidalgo e Iturbide (La gloria y el olvido). Armando Fuentes Aguirre, Catón (10/02/2011 - 02/21/2012)
2. Cumbres borrascosas. Emily Brontë (04/23/2012 - 05/09/2012)
3. The enigma of capital and the crises of capitalism. David Harvey (12/05/2011 - 05/17/2012)

Acabo de terminar de leer el libro The enigma of capital and the crisis of capitalism de David Harvey.

Buena parte del libro está resumida en esta charla con animaciones de RSA:

Pero, claro, el libro abarca mucho más. En especial el problema de que todo país debe crecer al 3% anual para considerarse una economía "sana". Cito:

Compound growth for ever is not possible and the troubles that have beset the world these last thirty years signal that a limit is looming the continuous capital accumulation that cannot be transcended except by creating fictions that cannot last. [..]

It must first be clearly recognised, however, that development is not the same as growth. [..] It is false to maintain that growth is a precondition for poverty and inequality reduction or that more respectful environmental policies are, like organic foods, a luxury for the rich.

[..] The struggle for radical egalitarianism also requires a reconceptualisation of the relation to nature, such that nature is no longer viewed as 'one vast gasoline station', as the German philosopher Martin Heidegger complained in the 1950s, but as a teaming source of life forms to be preserved, nourished, respected and intrinsically valued.

También ofrece una explicación a las crisis económicas: no son más que racionalizaciones irracionales de un sistema irracional.

At times of crisis, the irrationality of capitalism becomes plain for all to see. Surplus capital and surplus labour exist side by side with seemingly no way to put them back together in the midst of immense human suffering and unmet needs.

[..]

The irrational way to do this [profit-making and surplus absorption] in the past has been through the destruction of the achievements of proceeding eras by way of war, the devaluation of assets, the degradation of productive capacity, abandonment and other forms of 'creative destruction'. [..] Crises, we may conclude, are the irrational rationalisers of an irrational system.

Como parte de estas soluciones irracionales están los famosos rescates bancarios:

Put crudely, the policy was: privatise profits and socialise risks; save the banks and put the screws on the people (in Mexico, for example, the standard of living of the population dropped by about a quarter in four years after the financial bail-out of 1982) [..]

El economista Michael Hudson lo dice aún más claro: el sistema financiero, históricamente, siempre se termina convirtiendo en un parásito de la economía real. Vean este vídeo con una entrevista a Hudson, no tiene desperdicio:

Y permítanme cerrar con las palabras de Stéphane Hessel, de su inspirador libro "Indignez-vous":

[..] appelons-nous toujours à "une véritable insurrection pacifique contre les moyes de communication de masse que ne proposent comme horizon pour notre jeunesse que la consommation de masse, le mépris des plus faibles et de la culture, l'amnésie généralisée et la compétition à outrance de tous contre tous."