Center and peripheries in Europe - The dynamics of inequalities since

19901
Globalization is as old as humanity and its acceleration
by capitalism has generated immense inequalities. No
social or political struggle to combat inequality has any
seriousness or validity if it does not have as its ultimate
objective the end of capitalism.

1 - Summary of capitalism’s recent evolution

2 - Possible alternatives for peripheral states
3 - The formation of inequalities in Europe - 1
4 - The formation of inequalities in Europe - 2
5 - Notes for a solution

1 - Summary of capitalism’s recent evolution

The dynamics of inequalities are a consequence of a very complex process of

interaction between economic, social, demographic, cultural and geopolitical variables.
Focusing this process on any particular aspect such as external or budget deficits,
unemployment or job creation, on tools such as currency, it is a tricky way to defend
the continuity of capitalism’s invasive, destructive and genocidal drive.

We recently observed purchasing power differences in Portugal and its evolution in the
period 2004/13, and how the policy of collective impoverishment to satisfy the gluttony
of the financial system was reflected in the different parts of the country. We will now
look at inequalities in Europe and its dynamics through population changes, as a
means of gauging whether what happened in Portugal was an isolated episode or is
part of the constant formation of centers and peripheries inherent to capitalistic
economic and social structure.

A territory’s population variations reveal the attraction or repulsion that territory exerts
on humans. This can occur because of more or less basic socio economic reasons or
due to extreme causes such as war or calamities, some more natural than others.

In the most flattering situations, those territories retain and allow greater longevity to
their population, their regular reproduction and, furthermore, arrivals of people from

1
This is the first of three documents on the inequalities, mainly demographic, in Europe. The three chapters in
Portuguese language can be found below:
http://grazia-tanta.blogspot.pt/2016/04/centro-e-periferias-na-europa-dinamica.html
http://grazia-tanta.blogspot.pt/2016/06/centro-e-periferias-na-europa-2.html
http://grazia-tanta.blogspot.pt/2016/06/centro-e-periferias-3-portugal-uma.html

GRAZIA.TANTA@GMAIL.COM 18/04/2016 1
other places where living conditions are comparatively less attractive. When life
becomes difficult and opportunities become worse than elsewhere, the birth rate falls,
in step with rising emigration, and that opportunities deficit may promotes population
stagnation or fall. These forms of mobility have happened throughout history, having
had individuals, families, or large masses of people as protagonists, with peaceful, or
violent, or invasive, or conquering ways, and also as a result of environmental
changes. Basically, it is through this miscegenation that humanity developed, born of
the cross breading of Neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens.

We highlight some essential aspects in order to mark the path that we have been
treading:

 Roughly between the end of World War I and the end of the Second World War,
the Western world lived through periods of depression, especially the Great
Depression in the US, with the generation of large pockets of unemployment and
poverty, in addition to the immense destruction of human lives and infrastructure,
caused by those conflicts;

 Between World War II and the oil shock in 1973 a period of economic growth –
it is the pinnacle of Keynesianism – was established with great involvement of states
in creating infrastructure and social welfare institutions, under the so called
European social model that, however, is not uniform since it has variants within
Europe (Scandinavian and Rhine) and outside of it (Japanese) and in which trade
unions played a significant role. To the above one must add, in that period, the
creation of the first multilateral institutions that have started and shaped what came
to be called globalization – the Bretton Woods agreements, the dollar as the
dominant currency, the IMF/World Bank, the GATT (now WTO), the EEC as a lever
for European integration, NATO and its variants outside the Atlantic scenario;

 The depletion of this model came when the impact of the recovery from the
destruction of the war became irrelevant and with the end of cheap energy, the
emergence of environmental issues, inflation, postcolonial war in Indochina, and an
increased affirmation of the so-called Third World. A new capitalist paradigm –
neoliberalism – has since been affirmed, one whose initial deployment will remain
linked to the "humanitarian" Pinochet / CIA / Milton Friedman coalition in Chile and
to Thatcher’s and Reagan’s anti-social policies;

 The economic growth limitations reduced the expectations about the continuity
of technological innovation and multinational’s investment in them leading to an
increased dependency, in that area, of those created under the military umbrella,
such as the internet and information technologies in general, whose role clearly
marks the most recent decades. The East-West competition increased with the
development of the arm’s race, as destructive as dangerous, which came to
contribute to the collapse of the so called Eastern bloc and its state capitalism, with
the rapid recycling of its politicians into inflamed heralds of neoliberalism;

 In the sequel, the financial markets merged into a single network based on the
deepening of information technologies, raising the indebtedness and speculation
levels to figures without any connection with reality, creating the bases for the
unsustainability of the financial environment that can be seen today. In turn, the
multinationals operating space has expanded, with branches sprouting all over as

GRAZIA.TANTA@GMAIL.COM 18/04/2016 2
 mushrooms during wet weather and, for better exploitation of the low wages and
degrading working conditions imposed by regimes more or less dictatorial, invented
the relocation, corresponding to the segmentation of goods’ production by various
locations or countries, generating a logistics and transportation network, extremely
dense and heavy in terms of the capital involved as well as its environmental
damages;

 This segmentation of the production inherent to the relocation contributed to the

dismantling of what was left of the "social state" in Western Europe, in the USA, or in
those countries born out of state capitalism in Eastern Europe. And, by
disconnecting locally or nationally the various stages of the production processes,
the efficacy of strikes and the workers' claiming power were lost, since unions did not
follow, in the least, capitalist centralization, and kept labor struggles with
geographically limited scope of action. Politically, a unique, economistic thinking was
generated, based on the Washington consensus which divided party systems into
more reactionary and less reactionary groups, pushing leftist ideas into a media
marginality;

 The freedom of movement of goods and capital inherent in relocations has

destroyed the structure of cross sector national matrices, accentuated the regional
and local inequalities within each country, as well as deepened the usual ditches
among peripheral countries and so-called winning countries or regions in the context
of globalization, around which the former gravitate. These disruptions and
restructuring have led to massive destruction of capital, abandonment of fields,
houses and productive infrastructures, as well as large migrations, simultaneously
restricted and desired by the powers, with security mechanisms cynically parallel to
the license for the commodification of human beings, aiming at the availability of a
cheap and submissive labor force, in the exact measure of their precarious life;

 Thus, today, along with the consolidation in the West of structural

unemployment articulated with labor precariousness, there is a resort to immigrants,
with or without papers, both in central and peripheral countries – also coexisting, in
these, with the emigration of their most qualified naturals. All of them, however,
embedded into the logic of capital, seeking lower costs for the labor resource in
order to increase competitiveness, attract investment and ... generate employment, a
discourse that is common within the political classes and the media. Never do they
mention, in those situations where there is, in fact, new jobs, they are characterized
by a salary and contractual or working conditions more degrading than the previous
ones.

 This mobility is based on the variety and ease of traveling of human beings,
which increased the possibility of geography change for many millions of people,
despite the difficulties to those movements placed by the States, though guards,
controls, and border walls and nets. The political classes and their police forces can
only seek to track, decipher and place obstacles to mobility but can never nullify the
huge creativity of the poor, generated by their great drive to live. Still on this topic,
one needs to add, because of the inhumanity and dram it evidences, the case of the
millions of displaced persons and refugees from the Middle East, left to their own
devices or exploited as cheap labor in "host" countries that, “coincidentally”, have
very high responsibilities in the wars and the atrocities, which is common knowledge.

GRAZIA.TANTA@GMAIL.COM 18/04/2016 3
2 - Possible alternatives for peripheral states

Capitalism has always generated inequalities, be them between people or groups of

people, or between regions or countries; inequality lies in its genetic code because
current capitalist accumulation is based on the inequality of income and the usufruct of
civilization, on sweeping to the gutter those who do not count in this accumulation of
capital. No social or political fight is serious or valid if it does not have as its ultimate
goal the end of capitalism.

The EU, as a pioneering place of the historically recent globalization, has since its
inception aimed at freedom of movement of capital, goods and people, so that the
market be extended – read: to provide capitalist accumulation – with minimal
restrictions of "context", legislative, administrative, social, cultural, while reducing
national idiosyncrasies. The national and local capitalists, especially those in the
peripheral or with weaker economic structures nation-states, are left with the following
alternatives, particularized for the Portuguese case:

 Insertion into the globalized market, through the venerated competitiveness,

which requires productive and financial dimension, commercial, technological and
management capability, fiscal benefits and public support. Let us call it, applying it to
Portugal, the logic of the Portuguese Tiger, which deployment is lacking “only” a
dynamic capitalist class with investing capacity and available budget to support it;

 Business capture through privileged links with the state and the local political
class (where corruption is key), which can be hampered by the massive invasive
drives of global capital, as hinted by those present in the dark TTIP and CETA cases.
It is the desire for nationalist strength, in a post-Salazarist logic implicitly defended by
the Keynesian augurs, defenders of a state owned currency and domestic
quantitative easings, tempered by the convenient repression of those rebelling
against inflation;

 The subordinate insertion (or the pure and simple integration of the technical
and worker force assets) into the business networks of the large companies
headquartered at the Center or multinationals – this is the logic followed by the
Passos government and followed with some restraint by Costa, with the added
difficulty of Portugal not being of special interest to multinationals, either as a
producer or as a consumer; that is, Portugal tends to be seen, mainly, as a
complement to the Spanish market;

 Anemia or disappearance, due to the small dimension, because adequate

capitalization is not possible, technology or management capacity is lacking, and
debt, as a consented instrument of dominance, is asphyxiating. This is the remaining
scenario, signifying a role as a satellite of the Spanish state (if it persists) which is
already visible in the ECB's search to anchor an Iberian banking system on
Santander, similarly to a past situation of the escudo being indexed to the peseta and
the Portuguese government having had to wait for the end of the negotiations for the
integration of Spain in the then EEC, in order to make a joint entry.

Hence the continuation of the process of reducing the role of nation-states in the
European and world space , especially of small and medium-sized ones, to large
municipalities, level 1 NUTs in the phraseology of Brussels, vocationally tending to
GRAZIA.TANTA@GMAIL.COM 18/04/2016 4
exercise the puncture tax, the monopoly of violence (courts, police, legislative coercion
and rules) to ensure the presence of sad Rambos in the Nato wars, to buy military junk
from suzerain powers’ industry, to maintain the financial system fattening debt service
or a social assistance that sustains meekness in the plebs and, finally, to guarantee the
flag’s presence at international meetings, or the national anthem at the soccer national
team’s matches, for the pride of the patriots.

3 - The formation of inequalities in Europe - 1

These various ongoing processes, inherent to the dominant production mode, originate
a very complex matrix of population movements and changes in the classification of
regions as people attracting or repelling. As is known, people will not move to other
than the usual places if they do not have a marked level of discomfort and
disenchantment; and the distance or risks they are willing to take are directly
proportional to their unhappiness. From a demographic point of view these dynamics
are continuously restructuring the space, setting up centers and peripheries,
confluence areas for people and activities and zones of exclusion and abandonment.

The evolution of the population in the various regions of the present EU space during a
relatively broad period of time (in this case around 25 years) thus gives clear
indications about the formation of these central or peripheral territories. This is in spite
of the transfer of public financial resources, made in the name of territorial cohesion
and the approximation of living conditions among all those who live in the EU; but, in
reality, aiming primarily at the flow of goods and services, better access to raw
materials, the centralization of capital, and labor exploitation; in short, all the
motivations inherent in the capitalist production mode.

We considered the size of the European population, as much as possible, in five

moments, separated by five-year lapses, starting in 1990 and ending in 2015; and
computed the five-year variations at the country level and its regional districts at the
second (NUTS-2) or third level (NUT-3), whenever the available data would allow us.

For the 28 EU countries, we have observed those with decreases in population in each
of the five-year periods and measured the representativeness of the sum of their
populations in the Community total:

Countries with decreasing population

1995/1990 2000/1995 2005/2000 2010/2005 2015/2010
No. 9 10 10 9 12
Population (1000) 66049 103189 104190 168365 234261
% of total EU 13.7 21.2 21.1 33.5 46.2
All periods - Bulgaria, Estonia, Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary and Romania
In 4 periods - Poland, except 1995/90
In three periods - Czech Republic (the top three);
In two periods - Slovenia (the top two) and Germany (the latter two)
In a single period - Slovakia (2005/2000); Greece, Spain and Portugal (in the latter)
Primary source: Eurostat

GRAZIA.TANTA@GMAIL.COM 18/04/2016 5
These elements reveal:

 Some constancy in the number of countries with a decreasing population but

which has been expanding in the last five years, as an evident effect of the financial
crisis , for countries in the South;

 There is a consolidate core of countries with continued population regression –

those forming EU’s East periphery – showing the failure of its integration in the EU
after the crash in 1991 of state capitalism countries. In fact, what was intended with
this integration, that had Germany as its main protagonist, was the access to natural
resources and to educated and cheap labor.

 The cases with some success in the demographic evolution, in the last periods,
are the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Slovakia.

 We highlight the case of Germany, which reveals a population regression in the

last ten years, and Merkel's desire to accommodate many thousands of refugees,
whose desperation facilitates the imposition of low wages and restrictions to working
conditions and citizenship.

In this context, the populations in regression increased from 13.7% in 1995 to around
21% in 2000 and 2005 due to the inclusion of Poland; to 33.5% in 2010 with the entry
of Germany into the group; and to 46.2% in 2015 with the reinforcement constituted by
the countries victims of the exorcisms of the financial capital, in the south edge.

More broadly, EU countries can be allocated according to the average values (in %) for
population trends in the five-year periods:

Decrease Weak growth Average growth High growth

Czech
Latvia -5,73 Republic 0.35 Italy 1.41 France 3,26
Lithuania -4.56 Slovakia 0.50 Greece 1.44 Spain 3.71
Bulgaria -3.85 Germany 0.53 Finland 1.92 Malta 4.03
Estonia -3.49 Slovenia 0.66 Denmark 1.96 Ireland 5.76
Romania -3.05 Portugal 0.76 Austria 2.31 Cyprus 8.20
Croatia -2.40 Netherlands 2.38 Luxembourg 8.24
Hungary -1.02 Belgium 2.51
Poland -0.01 Great Britain 2.57
Sweden 2.72
Primary source: Eurostat

In addition to those countries with the already mentioned populational regression

situations, there are others with almost no growth in population during the period,
among which are Germany, three peripheries of the Germanic world and Portugal, that
stands out clearly against the other EU’s southern periphery countries.

Among the countries having higher average population growth, we intend to highlight
the similarities and differences between those involved in banking or deficit "adjustment
programs". All of them show sharp declines in population growth rates over the last five
years, with the exception of Italy where there has been a steady positive trend over the
last 25 years; and among those, Greece, Portugal and Spain have population

GRAZIA.TANTA@GMAIL.COM 18/04/2016 6
regression in 2010/15. On the other hand, the demographic growth in Cyprus and
Ireland in all the years before the crisis and in Spain in the first decade of the century is
remarkable.

In general – with the notable exception of Germany – the majority of cases of higher
population growth happen in the EU’s richest countries, particularly Luxembourg, in
those where the of recent years’ crisis (2010/2015) had little effect on the population
growth pace (France, Denmark, the Netherlands and Great Britain), or did not prevent
the continuation of the increases (Belgium, Italy, Austria, Finland and Sweden).

Emigration bound for those richer countries has great responsibilities in what was
stated above, demonstrating that the highest density of productive structures and a
higher economic dynamism — even in the global context of anemic GDP growth rates
– attract people of areas where the economic and social situation is much worse.
Those are the cases of war (Libya, sub-Saharan Africa, Sudan ...), an essentially
economy related emigration that, more recently, blended with the multitudes of
refugees victims of the total disorganization fostered by Western strategic interests in
the Middle East.

Countries with declining populations do not have the euro as currency or have recently
joined the euro, as is the case of the three Baltic countries. Among the nations with
mediocre growth two founders of the euro zone (Germany and Portugal) are included,
others having few years within the same (Slovenia since 2007 and Slovakia after 2009)
and the Czech Republic which keeps its own currency. Countries with average
population growth in the 25 years of observation are founders of the Eurozone in 1999
(Greece, which was integrated in the same two years later) as well as Britain and
Denmark, that maintain their national currencies. Finally, the countries with the highest
population increases are all members of the euro from the start or from 2008 (Malta
and Cyprus).

It would be simplistic and demagogic to link demographic developments with

integration or not in the euro area2 . The recent integrated do not show changes in the
demographic evolution that can be imputable to the use of the so-called common
currency; and among the adherents in the period 2007/2009 there are as many cases
of mediocre population growth as of clearly expansive demography. Finally, it seems
more relevant to note that the euro or its absence did not specifically change the
historical inequalities within Europe, while maintaining the Eastern periphery (clearly),
the South periphery (more diverse in the demographic change theme) and a Center
made up of the richer countries, to which Switzerland and Norway must be added, in
spite of the population decline observed in the EU's main economic and financial
power, Germany. This should disgust Portuguese fans of Le Pen for whom integration
into the single currency introduced hell where once there was only national sovereignty
and a rich and happy people.

2
http://grazia-tanta.blogspot.pt/2014/07/portugal-deve-sair-do-euro-sim-ou-nao-1.html
http://grazia-tanta.blogspot.pt/2014/08/portugal-deve-sair-do-euro-sim-ou-nao-2.html
http://grazia-tanta.blogspot.pt/2014/09/a-nao-solucao-com-um-novo-escudo-1.html

GRAZIA.TANTA@GMAIL.COM 18/04/2016 7
4 - The formation of inequalities in Europe - 2

What was stated before on the establishment of central and peripheral areas within the
European framework, particularly in the EU space concerns will enriched, sharpened, if
we consider the territorial division in NUT-2 regions. We highlight some conclusions
from the following table:

EU regions with population decline in the five-year period

1995 2000 2005 2010 2015

Belgium (11) 1 1 - - -
Bulgaria (6) 6 6 6 6 6
Czech Republic (8) na 6 7 1 3
Denmark (5) - - - - 1
Germany (36) 5 11 12 25 25
Select by country 1 1 1 1 1
Ireland (2) na na - - 1

Greece (4) (a) 1 2

Spain (19) (b) 5 5 2 - 11
Select a country 2 5 1 1 3
Croatia (2) na na na 1 2
Italy (19) (c) 7 11 7 3 2
Cyprus (1) - - - - -
Latvia (1) 1 1 1 1 1
Lithuania (1) 1 1 1 1 1
Luxembourg (1) - - - - -
Hungary (7) 3 7 7 6 6
Malta (1) - - - - -
Netherlands (12) - - 1 1 4
Austria (9) - 3 1 1 1
Select by country na 12 10 9 11
Portugal (7) na 2 1 3 6
Romania (8) 7 7 8 7 7
United States (1) 1 1 - - -
United States (4) - - 3 2 2
Finland (5) - 1 1 1 -
Sweden (8) - 5 3 3 -
G Brittany (35) (d) 6 10 2 - 1
EU Total(252) 46 97 75 73 97
Notes: the total number of regions in each country is in ()
(a) Data referring to only 4 of the 13 Greek regions
which held about 46% of the total population
(b) In 1995 without data from Ceuta and Melilla
(c) Until 2005 without data from Emilia-Romagna and
Marche
(d) The total number of regions with elements is: 25
(1995), 31 (2000). 33 (2005), and 35 (2010 and
2015)
Primary source: Eurostat

 The number of regions with population declines between 1995 (19.3% of the
total) and 2000 (39.4%), more than doubles, the main contributions coming from
countries such as Germany, Italy, Sweden, Great Britain, and the inclusion of Poland
in this list only in 2000.

GRAZIA.TANTA@GMAIL.COM 18/04/2016 8
  In the first decade of this century the number of regions with declining
population remains constant (about 30% of the total), with emphasis in the
contributions of Germany, Poland, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria to which have
been added in the last five years Greece, Portugal and Spain, as the most relevant
cases;

 This situation reveals that, on the eastern periphery, the integration of those
countries that have left state capitalism regimes is very distant from the eternal bliss
promised by the heralds of neoliberalism, in spite of community funds channeled or
foreign investors coming from the Occident that, naturally, perpetuated low wages
and corruption, destroying the cushions of social support that those peoples had
previously benefited from, a destruction that has been feeding the known fascist
drifts. Colonization, as a rule, integrates colonized peoples into spaces where
inequalities worsen and economic and social disintegrations increase.

When one observes, as in the following table, the population share of regions with
demographic regression, a more precise measure of the volume of those excluded by
the dynamics of the markets and their relevance in the various national plans is
obtained.

Share of the national population contained in

regions with a population decrease (%)

1995 2000 2005 2010 2015

Belgium (11) 9.4 12.5 - - -

Bulgaria (6) 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

Czech Republic (8) na 78.2 88.8 11.8 33.8

Denmark (5) - - - - 14.5

Germany (36) 17.5 31.9 30.2 58.4 66.3

Select by country 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

Ireland (2) na na - - 26.5

Greece (4) (a) - 4.0 - - 81.5

Spain (19) (b) 24.1 23.3 2.6 - 56.3

Select a country 3.5 12.0 2.1 2.1 7.1

Croatia (2) na na na 67.1 100.0

Italy (19) (c) 26.5 56.7 26.1 4.8 1.5

Cyprus (1) - - - - -

Latvia (1) 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

Lithuania (1) 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

Luxembourg (1) - - - - -

Hungary (7) 50.7 100.0 100.0 70.5 69.7

Malta (1) - - - - -

Netherlands (12) - - 7.0 6.8 15.6

Austria (9) - 25.2 6.8 6.7 6.5

Select by country na 63.9 58.0 50.2 56.7

Portugal (7) na 9.9 7.4 64.4 72.9

Romania (8) 89.7 83.0 100.0 89.3 88.5

GRAZIA.TANTA@GMAIL.COM 18/04/2016 9
 United States (1) 100.0 100.0 - - -

United States (4) - - 70.7 59.2 58.7

Finland (5) - 25.4 24.8 24.2 -

Sweden (8) - 45.4 18.9 18.2 -

G Brittany (35) (d) 24.3 37.6 7.3 - 0.9

Total EU 20.6 38.2 27.0 25.6 35.1

(1000) 99412 186068 133469 128979 178274

Primary source: Eurostat

 Bulgaria, like the three ex-Soviet Baltic countries, shows that its entire territory
is in demographic regression, and that its borders are real gaps through which the
population goes. In 25 years, Bulgaria has lost 18% of its population and this
decrease reaches 1/3 of the total in Severozapaden region, while in Estonia the loss
is 16.4%, in Latvia 25.6% and in Lithuania 21%, so it can be said with heavy irony,
that there is a real ... territorial homogeneity. It is appropriate to ask what kind of
European integration is being made when, after a few years of implementation
(Baltic countries since 2004 and Bulgaria after 2007), a significant proportion of
those people are forced to emigrate and reduce their reproduction levels?

 Conversely, Cyprus, Malta and Luxembourg show a progressive increase of

population, even taking into account their small territorial extension and the insular
and the peripheral character of the first two countries. Cyprus substantially reduced
its population growth in the last five years, compared to the previous ones, but – and
despite the intervention of the troika – its population increased 3.4% in 2010/15,
much above that of Portugal in any the five five-year periods since 1990.

 Belgium and Slovenia, in this century, no longer have within their territories
regions in demographic regression, contrary to what happens with Denmark, Ireland,
the Netherlands, and Slovakia; or even in Greece, in the area for which there is data.
Also notable are the cases of Italy, Britain and also of Sweden or Finland, where the
population in areas of regression is reduced.

 The cases of large growth of parts of the population pertaining to territories in

demographic regression are found in Germany, in the aforementioned Greece,
Spain, Croatia and Portugal, where the regression is announced in this century, long
before the troika intervention; it is also the situation in the Czech Republic, following
the progress achieved in the period 2005/10.

 The German case deserves particular emphasis because in contradiction to the

economic power of Germany, its capabilities in technology and exports that afford it
huge trade surpluses, there is a set of demographically depressed regions, home to
two-thirds of the population. And that goes well beyond the problems of integration of
the regions belonging to the defunct GDR. Germany is a clear case of the
inequalities immanent in capitalism, even if there are transfers of public funds to fill
them and despite the influx of capital accumulated in the country.

 More generally, the EU is a space of inequalities, as are the vast majority of

nation-states, of any size or global level of well-being. And all the measures coming
from the Brussels bureaucracy in articulation with the national political classes, only
generate any reduction of inequalities if that is convenient for the multinationals and

GRAZIA.TANTA@GMAIL.COM 18/04/2016 10
 the business of the financial system, which determine the actions of those
bureaucracies .

The map of Europe below presents a clear image of those inequalities:

 which are all around them, and which signify a huge range of territories to the
East, which runs from the Gulf of Finland to the Aegean and where demographic
regression is evident (no data being available for the whole of the Greek territory it is
considered very plausible that it should be displayed in red);
 a large part of Germany where, essentially, only the southern regions are
excluded;
 most of the territory of the Iberian Peninsula;
 the most extensive region with strong or reasonable population growth develops
from the Bay of Biscay to southern Germany and from there to the south up to
Rome;
 there are also other areas of equal demographic dynamism in southern
Scandinavia, England, and Belgium;
 In many countries the areas of the respective capitals - Great Britain, Portugal
and Spain, all the Scandinavian countries, Belgium, Germany, Czech Republic,
Austria, Hungary, Romania, and Italy stand out as areas of relative population
attraction. These realities are the other side of the coin of population decline
desertification situations, phenomena of inequalities exacerbation.

GRAZIA.TANTA@GMAIL.COM 18/04/2016 11
5 – Notes for a solution

Any solution to the well-being of the people must include:

 priority given to the satisfaction of peoples' needs and not to an unhealthy

fixation on an abstract GDP growth, with the evident contempt for the
sustainability of use of the planet’s resources;

 satisfaction of these needs as a social objective, which excludes the logic of the
private surplus and the enslavement by the work, releasing the humans to the
activities more suitable to each one, mainly, in the scope of leisure, culture, sport
and for the management of the affections

 organization and democratic decision-making by the people, from the

grassroots up, with the application of the principle of subsidiarity, in successive

GRAZIA.TANTA@GMAIL.COM 18/04/2016 12
 spheres of population according to the critical mass necessary to satisfaction of
the needs3;

 abolition of the political classes while catalyzers and monopoly holders of the
decision power over the collective interest, and their replacement by direct
democracy processes, with responsibilities determined through (direct)
democratic choice in a transient and always (at any time) revocable way;

 elimination of the competition of everybody against everybody primacy and its

replacement by solidarity, helping each other and being complementary amongst
the human population;

 elimination of nation-states as elements of segregation, imposition and

discrimination, on the internal level, and exclusion regarding the outside, without
any harm to the cultural differences between peoples.

To be continued

This and other texts at:

http://grazia-tanta.blogspot.com/

http://www.slideshare.net/durgarrai/documents

https://pt.scribd.com/uploads

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http://www.slideshare.net/durgarrai/para-um-novo-paradigma-poltico-a-re-criao-da-democracia
http://www.slideshare.net/durgarrai/sobre-a-democracia-a-democracia-ea-sua-usurpao-1a-parte
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