The far-right, climate denial & subsistence

and the role of financial inclusion in the silencing of subsistence

1. Context

   1. The far-right has no patience for reasonable arguments. To think that the far-right’s climate denial can be appeased by appealing to science is delusional. If anything, science is used by the far-right as fodder for its conspiracy theories [Notes-a].

   2. What keeps the far-right in check is pluralism & diversity. The far-right thrives in dark silos of mono-culture.

   3. When it comes to preserving Pachamama, “white-supremacist-capitalist-patriarchy” (via bell hooks) co-opted the voices from the colonies, esp. woman-centric subsistence-oriented ones that are plural and diverse [Notes-b]. These subsistence-rooted ways have also been a bulwark against the historic decimation of livelihoods that is the hallmark of capitalism everywhere, esp. in the South.

   4. If this white paternal gaze had not prevailed and the pluralist, subsistence-oriented perspectives of women of the South were to guide us - or perhaps even lead us - there would be less dark silos of mono-culture and more light [Notes-c].

   5. Anti-South (a specialized case of anti-people) avant-gardism entrenched in climate science allows its polemic rival - the far-right - to thrive.

2. Linkages to Financial Inclusion

   1. Here we bring in Financial Inclusion. Earlier, I had talked of this latest World Bank driven agenda as furthering the emaciation of the already emaciated Southern poor. The chart below (from CGAP) gives an indication of the increasing interest in this emaciation.

      

   2. In the context of the capital’s war on subsistence, financial inclusion takes on a larger dimension.

   3. It is a gospel, and it is very much spoken of in evangelistic rhetoric that the priests of capital are pushing despite evidence on the contrary of its uselessness and even harm [Notes-d].

   4. In a future post, I’ll link this war on subsistence with another ignored dimension, namely militarization, esp. in Africa (and Africom.)

3. Again

   1. The ordinary ways of common folk are the best defense against the far-right, so invisibilizing the former will only end up empowering the latter.

   2. Ignoring the role of global finance in this invisibilization is neither an innocent nor a trivial oversight.

4. Notes:

   1. “White skin, black fuel. On the the danger of Fossil Fascism” - Andreas Malm and the Zetkin Collective.

   2. “I used to go through the books of Mark Lutz, Herman Daly and others to see if they counted households, caring, or domestic activities as part of the human economy, but they rarely acknowledge it, not to mention assess its value and importance.” We in the North are the biggest problem for the South - Hilkka Pietila. In the case of Herman Daly, revered father of ecological economics, this is compounded by him being “best known for his time as a senior economist at the World Bank from 1988 to 1994”.

   3. “The changes required for a subsistence approach do not presuppose a political avant-garde. Nor do they have to wait until the situation or the productive forces are ‘ripe’. They can be started by every woman and every man here and now. But they do need a different perspective, a different vision. Women in subsistence societies have no problem with the development of such a radically new perspective, but the women of the middle class, who consider the cage in which they are sitting a paradise, do have a problem. For that reason, we would now like to give voice to women of the South, who belong to the lowest level of the exploited, to express their analysis of the dominant economic system. Their vision of a different economy and society is far clearer than that of most feminist academicians in our countries.” The Subsistence Perspective - Maria Mies, Veronica Bennholdt-Thomsen (1999).

   4. Philip Mader’s research on financial inclusion is an excellent starting point to uncover the pack of lies.