Londres y cómo estamos

Encontré esto en la página de Radiohead, bajo la sección "Offtopic". Y la verdad me gustó bastante. Siempre hay cosas para opinar, pero igual me parece bueno que le peguen una leída.

Occupy Our World

This is a letter I read in The Independent, a British newspaper. It is, in my opinion, a very succinct summation of the Occupy movement.

The protesters in London's financial district are not opposed to capitalism, per se; they are opposed to the abuse of power, the greed and the corruption which have led so catastrophically to spiralling unemployment, massive national debt and the dismantling of our services and infrastructure.

Despite all the banging on by politicians and financial institutions about the failure of communism and how capitalism is the only system which works, it was their decision to shift virtually all manufacturing to the communist state of China – which has somehow led to reduced production costs and yet not yielded a corresponding reduction of prices – that has been largely responsible for the collapse of western economies. This manoeuvre provided a massive short-term gain to the directors and shareholders of the companies who took advantage of the cheap, unregulated labour market, but at an incalculable long-term cost to our own industries and our workforce.

Combined with other dubious money-market activities such as gambling in commodities which may or may not exist, and trading in debt, this has been a very dangerous game. Now real people are paying with their livelihoods and with the futures of their children.

Yet still we hear the wearisome whine: "Tax the rich to excess and they'll leave our shores." Please, let them shift their tax-avoiding activities elsewhere – after all, they've already shipped all the jobs; their contribution to society is negligible and their denial of responsibility is offensive in the extreme.

Julian Self

Milton Keynes

Stanley

No solamente es cosa de Londres, no es solamente cosa de Europa. Sobre si estamos realmente blindados o no contra lo que se viene yo no lo sé (aunque decir "No sé" pareciera ser un acto de antiargentinismo total, pero bueno).

Sí sé que en ciertos aspectos estamos más cerca de ocupar un lugar como el de China en cuanto a ser el país de mano de obra barata, pero siendo además que a pesar de tener una tasa de desempleo indecianamente linda no podemos darnos el lujo de rechazar un empleo por cuestiones morales. Se los digo yo, que he ido a entrevistas para tercerizaciones de trabajos de España. Y cuando pienso estas cosas pareciera ser que eso del homo economicus no es del todo chamuyo, y no hay #alosbotes que valga. Ojo, sé que esto no es Londres (por ahora), pero no viene mal ir pensando en qué va a ser del mundo en un tiempo. No quedarse en que supuestamente todo está bien y evaluar todo visto desde todos los lados posibles.

Pero el control remoto está ahí tan a mano...