Introduction

This is the part of the book where we try and tie things together in an effort to be optimistic about how we can improve the current situation for people who arrive in Valdemingómez. It would normally start with a deep methodological reflection about how we have advanced knowledge before discussing how innovative our methods were. We would then discuss the main findings of the book in relation to the theory outlined, before making some comments on policy improvements and recommendations so we can avoid such situations of desperate poverty and fatalistic drug use, thereafter arriving at some conclusion. Perhaps lots of academics do this to feel good about their work, or maybe it is more about closure. Or maybe it is more that they feel obliged to write something that will, in fact, change nothing – like, for example, that we need to make more investment in harm reduction. Aside from being really obvious, given the current political and economic climate, this is unlikely to happen. Even a significant budget increase to the harm reduction team would at best be tokenistic, and in any case, such gestures would obfuscate the real and meaningful change that needs to take place so that Valdemingómez and the people in that space do not end up destroying themselves.

This is because the problems we describe in this book cannot and will not be totally fixed by the introduction of new bespoke social policies. The Spanish economy is contracting and, because Spain is bound to the Euro, it can't devalue its currency in the hope of encouraging the forms of productive labour that might allow its poorest to move into stable and reasonably remunerative jobs. Social housing is disappearing, and the benefit system is collapsing. The Spanish state is debt-ridden. It is corrupt. The state has capitulated and the market has won, which is why the political will to intervene in the hope of setting things straight appears nowhere. At best, all politicians can hope to do is to tamper with what already exists, and castigate anyone who proposes disrupting the smooth rhythm of capital accumulation, even though the majority of Spaniards have been getting poorer, year on year, for 20 years or so.