The international economic depression caused by the internal contradictions of the capitalist system has hit Spain particularly hard. Unemployment in that country has reached 25%; 22% of Spanish households live under the poverty line and an additional 30% are living on the edge of poverty (NYT, 10/26; MercoPress, 2/24).
The growing poverty has led to a rapid increase in homelessness and stressed the traditional aid to the poor networks run by the Catholic Church. Julio Beamonte, the director of Spain’s largest Catholic charity Caritas, commented in June that poverty in Spain now rivals the poverty that Europe experienced in the aftermath and rubble of World War II (Catholic News Agency, 6/6).
A secretary for Caritas summed up the situation, “There are more poor people than last year, and they are poorer. After four years of financial hardship, poverty is more widespread, more intense and it is creating a polarized society in which the difference between rich and poor is growing” (MercoPress).
A recent report on National Public Radio’s (NPR) All Things Considered discussed the new mass phenomenon of “dumpster diving” in Spanish cities. This practice, common in the United States, involves the mining of urban waste sites (dumpster, trashcans, and dumps) for food and sellable goods, particularly metals that can be sold as scrap. One such dumpster diver told the reporter, “I used to build new houses, do renovations and refurbish old historic homes.” Now he digs in the trash for food.
A Moroccan immigrant searching dumpsters in Barcelona told the reporter, “Now it seems so much of humanity is without work or anything. So this is better than robbery, you know? Collecting scrap metal. You can even jump down into the dumpster, no problem.” He then went head first into the dumpster with a friend holding his feet (NPR, 11/11).
In the midst of this growing poverty the capitalist class is finding new ways to profit from this poverty. Restaurants in Spain have begun to offer to reheat cash-strapped workers’ food while renting them cutlery and plates (Reuters blog, 9/24). After noting that “poverty is returning to Europe” British mega-company Unilever has shifted its business strategy in Europe to profit from the world’s poorest countries. They now offer consumers laundry detergent in five-wash packets, shampoo in individual packs, and single-serving packs of foods like mashed potatoes (Telegraph, 8/27). These individual portions are more wasteful and more expensive in the long run, but are all that workers living on the edge of poverty can afford.
Workers in Spain are not content to simply bear the crisis on their backs. Mass street protests have forced Spanish rulers to pass a new two-year moratorium on evictions of poor families who can’t pay their mortgage. Yet the temporary nature of these reforms was immediately apparent. As Business Week notes, this moratorium is no gift to the working class: “Spain is trying to balance the threat of social unrest with protecting banks.” Deutsche Bank goon Bernd Volk re-assured, “It [the moratorium] seems clearly meant for extreme cases and is supposed to not overly dilute the rights of the banks” (BW, 11/16).
The new Spanish law demonstrates both the importance of active resistance and the limits of reform under capitalism. These workers have won a temporary victory in housing through struggle in the streets, but it will take the destruction of the capitalist system in order to fully and permanently meet the needs of the working class.
This growing extreme poverty is prevalent not only in Spain, but also around the world. The imperialist countries may disagree over some issues like how to divide the spoils of empire, but they are united in their belief that the working class should shoulder 100% of the burden of the current capitalist crisis.