The
global neoliberal dictatorship imposes policies without taking
account people
An
interesting story by Yanis Varoufakis*
"Terra
Nullius" is a law term of Anglo-Saxon origin. Its roots go back
to the philosophy of John Locke who developed the relation between
human work with the right in land ownership.
Locke put
the following question: When does someone has a true right on a piece
of land? To answer this philosophically, he asks us to imagine a
hypothetical case where some people discover a desert island where no
man has gone until now, it's not even on the map. The people land on
the island and declare that it belongs to them. Do they have the
right to do that? Locke asks. Yes, he answers, under one condition:
This land, not only should be empty of people - “Terra Nullius” -
which means that no one else should have rights upon it, but also,
the people who just arrived should work on this land, producing
goods. Then, the part of this land that they will cultivate, will
belong to them and no one - individuals or states- will have a right
to take it from them.
In a sense,
this was the beginning of the political economy which much later
developed by Marx. It's not accidental that Marx starts, as Locke,
with the hypothesis that everything resulting from human toil, that
the value of things result from the work they contain. It's a
hypothesis upon which Marx built his economic theories, the three
volumes of "Capital", for example.
When the
British arrived in Australia in 1788 as colonists, they were
determined to declare it as their property. But how could that stand
in the English law concerning property rights, as this was based on
John Locke? The only way to persuade themselves that, in the end,
they had rights on the Australian land, was to consider it as “Terra
Nullius”, cultivate it and thus declare that rightfully belongs to
them.
There was a
"small problem" of course. The "Terra" was not
"Nullius". It was already inhabitable by five million
Aboriginals. How did they solve this problem? Simply, they supported
that Aboriginals were not one hundred percent humans! They
characterized this way Australia as "Terra Nullius"
concerning people. The result is known: The wiping of Aboriginals
who, today, questionably reach 150 thousands. This vulgar
classification of pre-1788 Australia as "Terra Nullius",
was abolished in 1988 by the Australian Supreme Court, that is 200
years later.
This story
concerns not only Australia. It concerns all the cases of
colonialism, of the systematic suppression of a people by another.
Greece may not be considered officially-legally as "Terra
Nullius" by the Troika, but Greeks, Spaniards, Portuguese,
Irish, German poor, ghetto inhabitants around the Paris suburbs, were
ultimately treated as less than one hundred percent humans. These
countries and regions are considered institutionally empty, with no
populations who have the right to shape their future. Any memorandums
would not be written as they are written today, if their writers
would not had a dose of "Terra Nullius" in their way of
thinking.
* From
the premiere of the radio broadcast "Terra Nullius" with
Yanis Varoufakis at the Greek radio station "Sto Kokkino"
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In such an environment everyone
will be left alone to survive. Human life will totally lose value.
This is the return to perfect barbarism. Many still believe in the
myth of the free market. They have an ideal situation in mind
where everyone will be free from the state suppression and the
free market will drive societies and individuals to balance and
prosperity. It's just an illusion because in reality the game is
more rigged than ever. We are not talking about capitalism, not
even neoliberalism. We are talking about the new global, brutal
feudalism!
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