Barcelona Declaration

THE BARCELONA DECLARATION

We declare that:

The proposals being advanced for the Eurozone rely on wage suppression, erosion of labour rights and welfare, and fiscal austerity on the pretext of improving competitiveness, controlling inflation, and reducing public debt. But in reality, these proposals are a direct and aggressive class attack on the living conditions of the majority of women, men and children.

We reject both the current mainstream explanations of the global crisis and the proposals for resolving it.

We reject economic strategies that continue to skew income and wealth distribution in favour of finance and large capital while depriving people of necessary care and the means for a sustainable life.

We reject an economic system that exploits women’s unpaid care work to keep the economic system going, relying on them to absorb the dramatic costs of crisis.

We believe that the solution to the current crisis requires immediate action to control financial markets, restore and expand social spending in order to secure living conditions, progressive taxation, and non-deflationary monetary policy.

Equally urgently, we need that the care of the environment and the care of people becomes a common and public responsibility.

We believe that the current crisis is the result of structural conflicts in production, distribution and social reproduction. The challenge is to address these conflicts in a deeply transformative way so that the economy is not at the service of profit holders and financial renters but directed to the service of a sustainable and good life for everyone.

Barcelona, June 28th, 2012