PDF《Beyond Development》

s Prologue The Crisis of Civilisation and challenges for the left

6 physical limits C and consequently the limits of its capacity to absorb pollution and waste C or the inevitable niteness of the natural assets that the capitalist system has at its disposal. It continues to o er us more expansion, more growth, and increasingly sophisticated technological solutions to natural disasters and the energy crisis. With the so-called '

green economy'

, the system has already identi ed the way to its next modernising leap forward: the commercialisation of nature itself and of its conservation, the sale of pollution rights, and investment in renewable energies or harm-mitigation technologies, where all this promises juicy pro ts for the futures markets. As ever in capitalism, each crisis is an opportunity: there will be losers C probably more of them than ever C but the system itself will regenerate, and thus will seek to assert its superiority over any alternative. Inthisglobalscenario,thepoliticalconstellationsinLatinAmericaareexceptional. In the Andean region alone, four out of ve countries now have governments whose stated aim is to break away from the neoliberal model and put an end to the shameless plundering practised until recently by the old elites. ree countries C Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela C have drawn up new constitutions collectively. eir new governments were only able to win elections as a result of lengthy processes of social struggle, whose protagonists were neither the traditional le nor political parties, but social movements of smallholder farmers, women, city-dwellers and in........