Our way of life is based almost exclusively on the notion of productivity. Work lies at the heart of our societies, which, as soon as living conditions deteriorate, take on a new dimension and call our collective choices into question.
Thus, despite our scientific knowledge, the solemn promises of the past made in the wake of wars, or the proclamations of charlatans who demand the people’s trust in order to govern them, France, is undoubtedly not the only country to do so, treats the heatwave as an individual risk — drinking water, taking breaks, closing shutters (which are often non-existent) — rather than as a symptom of an economic model ill-suited to a climate that is spiralling towards ever-greater heat.
The 2003 heatwave in France, with its devastating consequences, was supposed to pave the way for new public policies.
The Covid health crisis was supposed to lead to new public policies.
Yet funding for adaptation is, quite clearly, woefully inadequate.
Children are currently experiencing this every day in their classrooms, where temperatures reach 35°.
Above all, workers die every summer in the construction and agricultural sectors, and sometimes even in offices.
The heatwave thus reveals a historical contradiction: work was supposed to improve living conditions; instead, it has contributed to the deterioration of the climate that makes that very work possible, and makes life a struggle.
Our social contract on work is becoming obsolete.
That is why the heatwave is not just another crisis, managed by emergency plans and forgotten by the time school starts again in September, or even at the first sign of cooler weather (from hot to mild this time).
It is the moment when what our economic system silently produces throughout the year becomes visible: a system that treats human beings as a renewable resource, capable of adapting indefinitely to conditions that the system itself makes increasingly difficult to endure. It is the infernal spiral of ‘ever more’, so well known and sought after by capitalist systems that are inherently destructive to life.
This is why, when physiological adaptation reaches its biological limits, the social contract of work does not ‘malfunction’. It reveals its true nature.
This is also why, when a head of state fails to recognise that the suffering of their fellow citizens is essentially the result of inaction, they are an impostor who must immediately step down.
Thanks to @lepsydutravail (FR) on Mastodon for their thoughts, which have contributed greatly to these lines.