Editorial note: If you have not yet read our mission statement above, please do so in order that you can put our blogs in context. 

8 January 2013

EUROPE EXACERBATES THE PAIN IN SPAIN

“The position of Andalucía’s 200,000 agricultural workers on the land who face nine months’ unemployment each year and depend on patronage from the great landowners for work during the other three remains unresolved, despite the PSOE [Partido Socialista Obrero Español: Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party] government having introduced a minimal unemployment benefit scheme in the 1980s. Vastly increased land improvement grants from the European Union have further enriched the landowners, enabling them to mechanize their farms, whilst the braceros or landless day-labourers get nothing and have fewer job opportunities as a result. Industries such as fishing have also been affected by EU regulations limiting the size of catches to conserve dwindling fish stocks, with the consequent rise in unemployment in port towns throughout Andalucía.”

Extract from page 630 of the Fourth Edition of “The Rough Guide to Andalucía” by Geoff Garvey and Mark Ellingham, published in June 2003.

Antigone1984: It’s hard to imagine that much will have improved down on the hacienda in the years since, given the Spanish banking crisis and the fiscal austerity now being imposed on the recession-hit peripheral countries of the EU (such as Spain). Figures just published for November 2012 show Spain with an unemployment rate of 26.6 % – the highest for any of the 27 member states of the European Union. The rate for the EU as a whole was 10.7 %.

——–

 You might perhaps care to view some of our earlier posts.  For instance:

1. Why? or How? That is the question (3 Jan 2012)

2. Partitocracy v. Democracy (20 July 2012)

3. The shoddiest possible goods at the highest possible prices (2 Feb 2012)

4. Capitalism in practice  (4 July 2012) 

5.Ladder  (21 June 2012)

 6. A tale of two cities (1)  (6 June 2012)

 7. A tale of two cities (2)  (7 June 2012)

 8. Where’s the beef? Ontology and tinned meat (31 Jan 2012)

Every so often we shall change this sample of previously published posts.

——-