The building of our state institutions is shaking like it would in an earthquake, and the growing wave of corruption cases spans such a wide spectrum that it is only possible to speak of a systemic problem. Meanwhile, no one is truly convinced any more by those who say that ‘we shouldn’t generalise’ or that ‘it’s only a few isolated cases’.
In short, none of Spain’s political institutions works in the way that it should, and the monarchy has played a shameful role in this situation in recent years. The Parliament and Senate, for example, are basically luxury travel agencies used by their members for their pleasure cruises, as their ‘affairs’ are clearly more important to them than the suffering of the many citizens they claim to represent. The party leadership of the PP, meanwhile, are left constantly holding their breath, worried as they are about being arrested by the Guardia Civil or being called to testify by the Audiencia Nacional. At the same time, the brand new general secretary of the PSOE was given an easy path to power by the Federación Andaluza, in exchange for the impunity and continued membership of the two ex-presidents of the party – so they do not have to give up their seats. Furthermore, the president of the Constitutional Court, who was a member of the party that had named him, hid this clear conflict of interests, while the Court of Auditors is simply a cesspool of nepotism and ‘string-pulling’.
Meanwhile, there are: autonomous communities whose management of accounts would lead to hundreds of corruption indictments; council presidents in jail and municipal institutions governed from behind bars; and municipalities which are infiltrated by corrupt urban developers. At the same time, the Bank of Spain allowed the deception of savers and the looting of funds from savings banks; employers’ organisations have representation in prison; the managers of savings banks are awaiting trial; and past trade union leaders have millions of euros hidden away in opaque bank accounts.
The corruption and lack of transparency present in the management of public institutions has no borders, either. Jean-Claude Juncker, for example, who is the president of the European Commission, previously negotiated secret agreements with three hundred multinational corporations in order to help them evade taxes in other countries when he was the finance minister of Luxemburg. And, considering that the EU chose a disloyal collaborator of tax evaders as the president of its most powerful institution, how can the political body possibly claim to have any moral prestige? For, thanks to people like Juncker, multinational corporations in Spain pay twenty times fewer taxes than they ought to (which, when added to the existent government subsidies, leaves the world’s wealthiest in a very favourable financial situation). Spaniards, meanwhile, should not forget that Mariano Rajoy was one of Juncker’s biggest defenders.
Is it an exaggeration, therefore, to say that we are ruled by a gang of thieves? At this point, we can no longer give kind or respectful judgements to our ruling elites. Simply speaking, our institutional lives have been significantly infiltrated by criminal organisations, and the eternal regeneration promised to us by our country’s political parties is a merely cosmetic change, with faces and seats changing but reality remaining the same.
In whom, then, should we place our trust? What we really need is a Second Transition, one in which it is made impossible for our institutions to be occupied by criminal gangs. And the severity of the problem makes it intolerable for us to accept the claim that those who have created the problems can lead the regeneration. They would not change anything, and therefore they have absolutely no authority. In short, they must go!
Nonetheless, the main political parties and media outlets push a message of fear and ‘defence of the current institutional order’, thus confusing a ‘necessary institutional order’ with the current order. And that is something unacceptable. But even big businesses have promised to stop unemployment in its tracks in exchange for the continued existence of the long-standing two-party political order, showing very clearly that mass unemployment, for these ‘employers’, is simply a business of socio-economic blackmail. With this reality in mind, we can see very clearly that obedience, fear, and submission can never offer us a way out of our civil dilemma.
Another false solution is that of substituting ‘the ideal’ for idealism. Our problems are simply too serious to be solved by meetings on TV or in university departments, where clever Mr Know-It-Alls design solutions for ordinary citizens. In many impoverished nations, such populist experiences have gone badly, and the suffering populations have found themselves living in greater poverty. Effectively, it is a business version of politics, in which even figures like Santander boss Ana Patricia Botín try to direct societal forces towards ‘social democracy’.
In other words, we need to encourage popular self-government (with parties and associations capable of promoting true activism and designing long-term employment plans). We need to refuse to deal with the corrupt. And we need to foster a society in which activists do not try to lead the People from above. If we fail to do this, we face many more decades of servitude.
Publishing house of Self-management magazine