Saturated island or political incompetence?

December 18 2023 (16:21 WET)

I detest viral ideas, especially if they are mere ideological lucubrations that try or pretend to crystallize as incontestable truths. 

One of those ideas that is on everyone's lips these days is the idea that Lanzarote is saturated populationally and touristically and that therefore degrowth policies must be applied to prevent it from continuing to grow "without direction" and, with it, it seems, solve all the ills.

For large sections of the population and their political representatives, everything involves degrowth. Lack of employment? better to degrow. Lack of housing? degrow. Lack of water? Degrow. Lack of light? Degrow. Lack of whatever, of course, also involves degrowth. It is strange that with this new Balm of Fierabras they have not already promised the cure for cancer. 

Degrowth, in short, is nothing more than a neologism coined by neo-communists and their henchmen. After more than a century and after infinite evidence that strong control of the economy in the hands of the state does not work, now our ideological friends are back with a new concept. Something that, like communism in its day, sounds very good to the ears of 5-year-olds, but that gets along very badly with the reality of how things work. 

The worst thing about this idea is that there are people who not only defend it, but for them it is an unarguable axiom against which one cannot argue. 

They say, as if Moses were raising the tablets of the law, "the island is saturated because an report commissioned by the Cabildo says so," some guys called Gaia Consultores. From my own experience, where I spend the day seeing reports from multiple sources, a report is just a paid opinion, nothing more. You can commission other guys to say the opposite.

They say, "the water cuts are a clear indication of saturation" and they are so smug. Of course, if a tank holds 1,000 liters and there are 1,000 liters inside, the tank is full or "saturated." But nothing prevents making another 1,000-liter tank as has always been done when needs increased. In fact, if that is the definition of a saturated island, then Lanzarote has always been saturated, even before the explosion of the tourism volcano. 

They say, "inaccessible housing is another symptom of saturation." And then they bore me, because the only thing that Spain, the Canary Islands, and Lanzarote are saturated with is incompetent politicians who are not capable of working diligently and correctly planning the services that a society needs as it grows and evolves. 

Pedro Sánchez promised to improve access to housing and after spitting in the face of the owners with his laws, all that has happened is that housing is worse than it was 5 years ago. Who could have imagined it when you kick the supply side in the back?

Left-wing politicians hide behind degrowth to try to impose on us some version of the so many times failed communism. And many right-wing politicians on this island are happy to wrap themselves in the suit of saturation because it was always easier to blame something external than oneself. 

It can be debated, logically, what kind of island we want. But one must be aware that concepts such as "saturated island" and "degrowth" are nothing more than euphemisms for not calling a spade a spade or incompetence what is merely political incompetence. 

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