Ara Balears in English - capitalism

The sold sky

Marcos Torío — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 06:02:51 +0000

When Neil Armstrong stepped on the Moon on July 20, 1969, he uttered a phrase full of epic that would mark an era: “That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” As the past is romanticized and idealized through nostalgia, we believe today that the mission's objective to the satellite was knowledge or the conquest of space. But it was born out of pure rivalry with the Soviet Union. It was simply a geopolitical positioning within the space race.

Poor against poor

Maria Llull — Sun, 08 Mar 2026 07:00:43 +0000

The deception isn't sophisticated, but it is effective. The wheel of the system turns in favor of the capitalists, who always win in this roulette of bad luck. On the other hand, there are the poor, who rent out their bodies and brains by the hour in exchange for a wage they must spend to feed the 'natural' state of things.

Beyond growth

Margalida Ramis — Sat, 21 Feb 2026 07:30:52 +0000

We live immersed in the conflict between capital and life. We are condemned to a profound and permanent contradiction that manifests itself in situations of extreme violence, of polarization exacerbated by bewilderment, uncertainty, and fear. And we have the feeling that everything is happening at an ever-increasing pace, and therefore, in a more alienating way. We see a multitude of emergencies erupt, becoming chronic and intensifying, while politics and states are either incapable of confronting them or, directly, operate by intensifying the dynamics of the logic of capitalist accumulation, as if the future were a secondary and even negligible variable.

Shark board

Marcos Torío — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 20:56:52 +0000

When he arrived in 2007, the group of friends was divided between those from eight Mallorcan lineages, with a home secured by inheritance, and those of us who were children of outsiders, who only we could inherit our parents' mortgageIn my group of friends, it was an axiom.

Christmas lights

Sebastià Alzamora — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 18:45:59 +0000

The Christmas lights have been coming on for days, and with them comes that curious effect where traffic in cities seems to intensify and become even more difficult, more aggressive, more—precisely—impassable. Traffic jams without tone or sound, cars blocking the way wherever they belong, congestion on main roads, horns, horns, horns. A dissonant symphony of horns, loudly proclaiming one of the characteristics of this time of year: the surge in all forms of incivility. People calling out, people pushing, people fighting in the street, in entertainment venues, in shopping centers. "It's the Christmas spirit," they proclaim, while then hurling insults at someone who has just passed by or walked in front of them. Meanwhile, the Christmas lights adorn the streets and avenues, the facades, the shop windows, and even the trees on the street, with those absurd condom-shaped lights that are screwed onto the trunks. Globalization makes the landscape more or less the same in all large cities of the Western world, and Palma, which thanks to tourism has all the disadvantages of a large city but none of the advantages, is an exception.

Everything that doesn't move, breaks

Antoni Riera — Mon, 03 Nov 2025 21:00:29 +0000

In the spring of 2022, I had the opportunity to interview Oriol Junqueras. He had been released from prison just under a year before. I began the interview by addressing the division among pro-independence individuals and groups concerned with preserving the unique identity of Catalan culture. Junqueras suddenly alerted me: in Europe, discussing identity issues is frowned upon, especially now with the rise of the far right and the fear that we are regressing to the situation before the Second World War.

Domestic Nirvana

Marcos Torío — Sun, 26 Oct 2025 18:19:57 +0000

For some reason I don't know, Google offers me news about Marie Kondo, a Japanese woman who has become rich with a cleaning and organizing method. The last suggested news item states: "People who don't cut the labels off their clothes are making a mistake." I feel compelled to decipher the clickbait. They say that getting rid of this textile appendage allows you to connect with the garment, increase traffic from the store to your home, and live in harmony. We must give thanks for its function, so that it continues its karmic path towards the recycled polyester route.

Capitalism and feelings of guilt

Joan Cabot — Sat, 05 Jul 2025 17:30:52 +0000

In I was here and I remembered you. (Anagrama, 2024), Anna Pacheco infiltrated the underworld of luxury hotels to try to find out how the workers of these establishments perceived their work, considering that many of them could never afford a night's accommodation in the hotels where they work.