The other side of the crisis

On the fast train from Cordoba to Madrid, with one more night in Spain, I "read" - through an automatic web translator - an opinion piece by Jordi Soler in today's El Pais titled The Reverse of the Crisis. He reminds his Spanish readers of Orwell's  analysis of the positive benefits to community life in London during the second world war, ranging from growing, sharing and exchanging food and skills; to more reading (and more sophisticated reading) by bored soldiers at the front line and civilians deprived of other entertainment at home. Orwell argued that this response to hard circumstances encouraged a more thoughtful and community minded sensibility.

Soler suggested Spain's situation, while not as serious as the London that Orwell was writing about, also provided opportunities for a sophisticated, communitarian response: the other side or face of the Crisis could lead to a collaborative economics.

So reflecting on Australia, it must be fair to say we are not in a similar crisis, structural adjustment not withstanding. The focus on consumption in our consumer society remains pretty well undiminished. But we are picking up the economic and political rhetoric that seems to drive the dominant government responses to the crisis in this part of the world: We must pull our belts in. People on low incomes are too dependant on the state. A balanced budget is the priority before social well being.

The thing that unsettles me about this equation is we aren't being pitched together to make do creatively in Australia today, as arguably people were in London in the 1940s, or even people are in Europe today.   It looks like the language of hardship and striving might just be an excuse to narrow our thinking to self interest.