Helmut Melzer
How nice to have bought a cheap mobile phone from China again. Stylish textiles dyed with poisonous dyes in Bangladesh. Blood diamonds from Liberia, blood gold from Congo. Cheap meat from tortured animals from Eastern Europe. – We are happy about cheap goods, our economy celebrates fat margins – and thus accept oppression and suffering. Reason enough to celebrate - with an Olympics in China, a football World Cup in Qatar. The world is wonderful, thinks Putin too.
"Defective Democracies"
For the first time, the DemocracyTransformation Index of the Bertelsmann Foundation - which captures the annual global political development - more authoritarian than democratically governed states: "The ideals of democracy and the market economy are under great pressure and are being challenged by corrupt elites, illiberal populism and authoritarian rule," the current report diagnoses. New: Ivory Coast, Guinea, Madagascar, Mali, Nigeria, Zambia and Tanzania. And: In the last ten years, almost every fifth democracy has lost quality, the study finds. For example, Brazil, Bulgaria, India, Serbia, Hungary and Poland are now considered “defective democracies”.
Ukraine is left alone
Despite this, or perhaps because of this, Ukraine is not doing well. she is alone Once again, the West will probably just look on and continue to lose influence in the world. Another democracy less. Yes, there are sanctions. But probably none that let us feel the war too. Shut down the Swift financial transaction network for Russia? OMG, this could also affect our economy.
Waiting costs
Europe's geopolitics can also be compared with the tentative political steps towards more sustainability: the longer you wait, the more expensive and difficult the matter becomes. Already now, like that Study COIN, the climate crisis alone costs Austria around two billion euros a year. By the middle of the century, damage from drought, bark beetles, floods and heat waves, for example, is expected to amount to up to twelve billion euros. But our kids do it.
diluted Supply Chain Act
In the third attempt, the EU also presented the draft of the Supply Chain Act these days. Even if watered down by lobbyists, the initiative represents a huge step in the right direction Criticism, for example, from attack: "Please fix it. To ensure that human rights violations, exploitative child labor and the destruction of our environment are no longer the order of the day, the EU directive must not contain any loopholes that make it possible to undermine the regulation.” The problem: the supply chain law should (for the time being) only apply to companies with 500 or more employees *inside and with an annual turnover of 150 million euros. That's a ridiculous 0,2 percent of companies in the EU area.
"The Whore of the Rich"
Unfortunately, it is like this: nothing, nothing at all will change significantly as long as prosperity is allowed to build on suffering, environmental destruction or oppression. As long as politics listens to the profiteers. As long as justice doesn't cost anything. "Who pays creates", chatted the ÖVP and acknowledges her role as the "whore of the rich". I say nope, we the taxpayers pay. Let's finally make sure that we too decide. Maybe with a little direct democracy? In any case, please with a clear election result - probably this year. So that no one has to prostitute themselves in politics anymore - and that alone makes the world a much better place.
Photo / Video: Option.
