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Put simply, if U.S. government policy is to "make every lender whole" before anything else is done, the mass of the U.S. population will see no recovery in their lifetimes. No economy in the world can grow at more than a snail's pace if every dollar earned is taken to pay unpayable debts -- which is where we are today despite the illusory signs of "recovery" in many of our cities.Remember, debts that cannot be repaid won't be repaid, despite the best effort of creditors to squeeze debtors even to the grave. All that can happen is an escalation of social cruelty. In cases like these, when governments become the creditors' enforcement mechanism, revolts are bound to follow.
In the U.S., we're living with the consequences of that revolt today, in the form of the current presidency. (Imagine the state of that revolt if Sanders had been available, and elected instead. Imagine government as the friend, not the enemy, of the long-suffering debtor class.)
And now, in response to hurricane devastation, those same "bankers" are inducing the U.S. government to offer hurricane "relief" in the form of even more loans. Put simply, to get out of hurricane trouble, they must make their debt trouble worse or live with the status quo.
Climate writer Naomi Klein and Elizabeth Yeampierre, writing in The Intercept:
"[T]he fact that the House-approved relief package contains $5 billion in loans for the island, rather than grants, is a special kind of cruelty. Because on an island already suffering under an un-payable $74 billion debt (and another $49 billion in unfunded pension obligations), Puerto Ricans understand all too well that debt is not relief. On the contrary, it is a potent tool of perpetual impoverishment and control from which relief is urgently needed.Neoliberalism at its best -- and most obvious. Note the role that racism plays in making this even palatable, here as in New Orleans.
"The very fact that the House of Representatives bundled that loan into its sweeping multi-disaster bill (up for a vote in the Senate any day now) is symbolic of a deep fear that has lurked in the background for many Puerto Ricans ever since hurricanes Irma and Maria struck. The fear is that however much islanders are suffering in the midst of their ongoing humanitarian emergency, it's the phase after the emergency passes that could be even more perilous. That's when policies marketed as reconstruction could well morph into their own kind of punishment, leaving the island more unequal, indebted, dependent, and polluted than it was before the hurricanes hit.
"This is a phenomenon we call 'the shock doctrine,' and we have seen it play out many times before. A disaster strikes, public sympathy is awakened, and there are grand pledges to 'build back better,' bringing justice to those who have just lost everything. And yet almost immediately the emergency atmosphere becomes the pretext to push through a wish list for big polluters, real estate developers, and financiers at the expense of those who have already lost so much. Think of the public schools and public housing closed and torn down in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Think, too, of the way the 2010 earthquake in Haiti became a pretext to push for sweatshops and luxury resorts, while basic housing was neglected and the minimum wage was suppressed."
An Anti-Neoliberal Recovery Plan
Which brings us to the real point of Yeampierre and Klein's article: Not only is an anti-neoliberal recovery plan possible, but it's starting to happen. The writers offer two data points -- about power generation and agriculture -- but there are other areas of restructuring that could have been brought up as well.
First, here's what an anti-neoliberal solution to damaged power facilities looks like -- wide-spread installation of distributed solar infrastructure to replace the old fossil fuel generators (emphasis mine):
"[T]hese are only the preconditions for the real work [examples include rescinding the Jones Act], which is not reconstructing the island as it was, but reimagining and remaking an economic system that was in direct conflict with both the island's people and its ecology. Before Irma and Maria knocked out the vast majority of its electricity, Puerto Rico was getting 98 percent of its power from fossil fuels. A just transition would replace that extractive model with a system based on micro-grids of renewable energy generation, a decentralized network that would be more resilient in the face of inevitable weather shocks, while reducing the pollution making our climate go haywire in the first place.About the solar solution to rebuilding power generation, note:
"This energy transition is already underway in grassroots relief efforts, thanks to innovative projects, like Resilient Power Puerto Rico, which has been distributing solar-powered generators to some of the most remote parts of the island. The organizers are working toward a full-blown, permanent solar revolution designed and controlled by Puerto Ricans themselves. 'Rather than perpetuate the island's dependence on vulnerable distribution hardware and carbon-heavy fuel,' Resilient Power explains on its website, 'we prioritize clean production of energy that allows each household to be self-reliant.'"
- "Decentralized solar generation helps protect the island against future storm damage by reducing interdependency.
- "Renewable power sources are the inverse of carbon-based sources -- they're climate-friendly, not climate-destructive.
- "The 'bankers' and others in the world of the wealthy are heavily invested in a carbon bubble they are desperate to get out of before it collapses. Much of the world's money is tied to unburnable in-the-ground carbon, and they need to sell as much as they can before the bubble collapses -- preferably after most of them are dead or otherwise financially secure.
"As a result, most of the world of money will hate this idea and work to make it impossible to implement."
Next, the anti-neoliberal plan for agricultural recovery looks like this:
"Many of the island's farmers are demanding a similar revolution in agriculture. Farmers report that Maria destroyed almost all of this season's crops while contaminating much of the soil, providing yet another opportunity to reimagine a system that was broken before the storm. Today, far too much of Puerto Rico's fertile land goes uncultivated, leading islanders to import roughly 80 percent of their food. Before the hurricanes, there was a growing movement to break this cycle by reviving local agriculture through farming methods, such as 'agroecology,' that draw on both indigenous knowledge and modern technology (and include the added bonus of carbon sequestration).
"Farmers' groups are now calling for the proliferation of community-controlled agricultural cooperatives that would grow food for local consumption. Like the renewable energy micro-grids, it's a model that is far less vulnerable to supply-chain shocks like hurricanes -- and it has the additional benefit of generating local wealth and increasing self-sufficiency.
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