A few weeks ago, GOB Mallorca took advantage of the opportunity afforded to civil society to "occupy" the Parliament building to engage in politics. Yes, to engage in politics, which is what we do every day through our activism, our daily lives, and also, obviously, through grassroots, popular organizations, what are called social movements or organized civil society. Not partisan politics, but politics in the broadest and most social sense of the word, deployed with its full potential.
To request permission to use the Parliament's chambers, we were asked to justify that the event was related to the most significant current parliamentary debates and initiatives. A requirement we fully met, because we were going to talk about the economy (tourism) and labor, two central issues in the current social and political debate.
On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the negative social and territorial consequences and impacts stemming from the economic specialization of tourism and the reality of the ecological and climate crisis are two of the most recurring themes, and that, separately and together, they lead us to a major challenge: a change of model. A challenge that, unfortunately, is currently being used as an excuse for the deployment and acceleration of devastating neoliberal policies that exploit crises (for example, the housing crisis) as new business opportunities, increasing inequalities, entrenching privileges, and taking a further step towards territorial devastation (reclassifications, reductions in protection and parameters, the possibility of new uses by changing territorial planning frameworks, increased touristification and real estate speculation, etc.).
Faced with this singular response, we need to propose an alternative, a beacon. One that implies a paradigm shift that opens our minds, at least, to imagining a plan B, a possibility. Faced with a model and policies that consistently use job blackmail, it was essential to address this issue within the framework of the ecosocial transition, which, along with denunciation and mobilization, has long been a cornerstone of territorial defense and the environmental struggle within the environmental movement, and specifically within GOB Mallorca. That is why, two years ago, we embarked on a journey, accompanied by leading figures and experts in the field. Luis González Reyes and other collaborators associated with the Garúa Cooperative and Ecologists in Action had previously presented similar work for Catalonia and the Basque Country. This time, they adapted the proposal to our specific context from the perspective and analysis of the ecosocial metabolism that has long informed a significant part of critical geography at the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB), thanks to the work of Ivan Murray Mas. Thus, we began a project that culminated on November 7th with the presentation of the report in the Balearic Parliament. Impact on employment of the ecosocial transformation of the Balearic Islands economy. A degrowth proposal
A rigorous, comprehensive, and groundbreaking proposal, based on official statistics, to answer the question we are so often asked and ask ourselves: how would we make a living if we didn't depend on tourism? And what we are trying to propose/answer is not just what, but how. Because the proposal we are making, the provocation, is a transformation—with an initial scenario projected 10 years into the future—in terms of salaried work linked to the production model, which would obviously be diversified with the consequent decrease in the weight of tourism and construction. This would also involve a strong and strategic push for sectors linked to producing what we truly need to sustain life: food and biodiversity, as well as other needs that could be addressed by an industry adapted to the size and needs of the territory or through regeneration frameworks. Furthermore, we advocate for a reduction in paid working hours so that we can have time to undertake caregiving tasks—that is, to provide ourselves with time for the connections and relationships that nourish and sustain our fragility as human beings. Therefore, we are talking about work, but not only paid work. This commitment implies rethinking leisure, time, needs (both material and non-material), and work, redistribution, and time itself. And all of this within a context of degrowth, not as a political option but as an undeniable reality, because the illusion of abundance ends the moment energy and materials cease to be available and exploitable in the abundance they have been until now. In other words, we must acknowledge, on the one hand, the real biophysical limits and, on the other, the reality of an unprecedented ecological crisis, which is already irreversible in many respects and which presents us with numerous challenges that, precisely in our island context, become an unavoidable duty to address urgently.
Thus, the proposal is a possibility, that of another possible and desirable economy and society. On the 7th, we gave the first presentation, which is available, along with the report, on the GOB website. But what we want from here on out is to put the proposal up for discussion: with unions, with the academic world, with the political world, with social organizations, with environmentalists, and with movements organized in resistance. We want it to be a working document that opens our minds, that breaks down habitual patterns of thought, that forces us to reflect on what is truly possible and what is not, and, above all, that allows us to contest a possibility different from the one presented to us as impossible to overcome and which leads us to the abyss.
So, a first step to continue talking about the Metamorphosis Necessary – the title of the latest book by activist, anthropologist, teacher, and leading figure Yayo Herrero – addresses the changes needed to rectify human relationships with all that sustains life and, as she herself says, "to rebuild a world in which we can all live with dignity." And as the campaign with which we launched this report states, to truly live and not merely survive in this territory that has chosen to inhabit us.
