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Bu-lat-lat (boo-lat-lat) verb: to search, probe, investigate, inquire; to unearth facts Issue No. 39 November 11 - 17, 2001 Quezon City, Philippines |
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Bu-lat-lat (boo-lat-lat) verb: to search, probe, investigate, inquire; to unearth facts Issue No. 39 November 11 - 17, 2001 Quezon City, Philippines |
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Fix
It or Nix It? What went wrong? Once touted as the economic nirvana for both rich and poor countries, globalization has generated worldwide resistance as a result of the economic destruction, plunder and untold poverty it wrought on peoples particularly workers, farmers and other marginal classes. This three-part series, taken from the author’s long analysis of globalization written last week for the Kilusang Mayo Uno (May 1st Movement), takes the reader to the roots of the world capitalist system and how its crisis is leading into a collision with peoples across so many countries today. BY
PAUL QUINTOS Third
of Three Parts After the Great Depression of the 1930s, the unprecedented devastation of productive forces wrought by the last world war cleared the stage for around two decades of relatively stable and sustained growth in the industrialized countries. From 1950 to 1973, economic growth averaged 4.9% per annum for the advanced capitalist countries; exports grew 8.9% annually; and profit rates were in excess of 15%. (Harvey, 1989) State-interventionist economic management figured prominently during this growth period. The industrialized countries adopted various shades of Keynesian economics to manage the effects of capitalist crisis, and to safeguard the stability of profits: from the New Deal Government of Roosevelt in the US, to the Labor Government in the U.K., to the Social-Democratic or “welfare states” of the Scandinavian countries. State resources were used to compensate for rising unemployment, contracting markets, and falling effective demand through pump-priming or public spending on infrastructure and utilities, scientific research, military build-up, and even white elephant projects. Unemployment and the falling incomes of the working people were countered with “safety nets,” unemployment benefits, welfare spending, social services and so on. This served to artificially buttress effective demand for overproduced commodities, thus, ensuring sustained profits for corporate capital. To be sure, welfare measures along with state recognition of workers rights and core labor standards were rightly won through the agitation of a vigorous trade union movement (Price, 1999). On the other hand, these measures had the palliative effect of temporarily alleviating poverty, containing social unrest and holding class struggle at bay. In a putative “social contract,” rising living standards for large sections of labor in the industrialized countries - mostly white, male workers in unionized large-scale capital-intensive industries - won through wage bargaining was accommodated to the extent afforded by real productivity gains and rising profits obtaining at the time, in exchange for binding the workers’ movement to economism and reformism. Indeed, social democracy succeeded in seducing many quarters in the advanced capitalist countries into dropping the revolutionary socialist agenda. At the same time, the militant section of the working class was held in check by fascist decrees against radical elements in the trade unions and class collaboration between the labor aristocracy, big business and their state (Harvey, 1989). State interventionism State-interventionism in the economy was also an integral part of anti-communist containment strategy, particularly in areas where the “spectre of communism” loomed large. Thus we had welfare statism in Europe, authoritarianism and dirigism in Taiwan and South Korea. Correspondingly, the multilateral institutions – specifically the World Bank – were still “development-oriented” during this period. The WB provided loans for large infrastructure projects in the Third World in support of TNC operations, resource-extractive industries and raw materials exports. Yet by the late 1960s, Keynesian economic management could no longer contain the crisis symptoms. With the accumulation and centralization of capital, mass unemployment continued to rise entailing ever greater public spending to boost effective demand for surplus production. But together with the falling rate of profit fell the share of the state in surplus value which it needed for public spending. As public deficits ballooned, governments resorted to looser fiscal and monetary policy (including the printing of money), precipitating inflation, which, combined with low growth and high unemployment, produced the phenomenon of stagflation that was the bane of the industrialized countries well into the late 1970s. Inflation, falling productivity, and the growing trade deficit incurred by the US also placed increasing stress on the dollar-peg in place at the time (which had replaced the gold standard), prompting the US Treasury to devalue the dollar, break the dollar-peg and usher in a new era of international monetary instability. It also foreshadowed the blight of unbounded financial speculation that preys on this instability, giving rise to today’s financial turmoils. (Price, 1999) An attempt to put a brake on inflation in the early 1970s by tightening monetary policy precipitated a crash in the property markets in 1973. This ushered in a severe bout of deflation and recession in the industrialized countries, which was exacerbated by the oil price shock in the same year. From 1973 to 1979, growth rates in these countries fell to 2.6% per annum; export growth dropped to 5.6% annually; and profit rates sank to around 10%. (Harvey, 1989) By the 1980s, Keynesian state-interventionist economic doctrine was relegated to the background as the governments of the industrialized countries – led by Reagan in the US and Thatcher in the UK -- embraced Monetarism and Neo-liberalism. Fix
it or nix it? The unholy trinity of the IMF-WB-WTO -- which today champion neo-liberalism in the interest of global capital -- are rightly the target of people’s anger and condemnation. But it is clear from the above discussion that the current world disorder is generated by the inherent logic of capital – to expand and accumulate in the hands of the few while severely impoverishing the many, to “externalize” social and environmental costs and ravage the commons, to spiral into crisis, to spawn social unrest, and to undermine human rights and democratic participation. Changing the nature of monopoly capitalist globalization therefore does not turn merely on the fate of these multilateral institutions nor their particular programs and policies. As an anti-globalization critic puts it, “Can we really say that the IMF can be reformed to bring about global financial stability, the World Bank to reduce poverty, and the WTO to bring about fair trade? Can we truly say that these institutions can be reengineered to handle the multiple problems that have been thrown up by the process of corporate-led globalization?” The answer is no! Indeed, in seeking immediate and concrete measures to address the many problems engendered by imperialist globalization, we must be wary of reforms that merely fortify imperialism’s hegemony rather than exposing and dismantling this unjust system. TNC codes of conduct, global compacts, international labor rights and environmental standards, multilateral treaties and conventions, national or local laws and regulations, and other ostensibly “progressive” instruments paint a legitimizing gloss that can mislead people into thinking that globalization’s wrongs are thereby set right and thus deflect criticism and opposition to imperialism itself. . The urgent task is to strengthen people’s organizations, resistance and collective action towards exposing and opposing imperialist machinations; to build people’s power not to lend corporate power a pleasant mask. We must strive to attain tactical gains that contribute to strategic goals. This means strengthening and expanding our movements, struggling to circumscribe the powers and influence of transnational corporations, the multilateral institutions and the monopoly capitalists that they represent, as we endeavor towards the long-run transformation of relations of production, of social and political structures at the national and global levels that breed the impoverishment and oppression of workers and other poor sectors everywhere. Workers’ struggle At the labor front, the offense of corporate power is most concretely and directly experienced by workers in terms of sinking wages, intensifying work, worsening job insecurity and the violation of workers’ rights. Therefore, the most immediate challenge for the progressive labor movement remains the need to organize, strengthen and mobilize our unions and other workers’ organizations in struggles for higher wages, secure jobs, better working conditions and in defense of trade union and democratic rights. This is a major battleground in resisting globalization and circumscribing monopoly capital’s power. Each local economic struggle in itself contributes to a process of upward-levelling of standards (at the national and global levels) and resists or retards the race to the bottom that is a feature of imperialist globalization. International Solidarity While corporate power today is virtually unhindered by national borders or national regulations, it can be misleading to over-emphasize the strategic place of “transnational” initiatives in contesting globalization. After all, the most sophisticated top-level structures and bargaining tactics are worth little without a strong, broad and active mass movement at the grassroots. Global-level or regional initiatives must build on and complement labor movements based in different countries. But they cannot make up for labor movements where they are weak or non-existent. Nevertheless, more than ever, there is a need and a basis for stronger international solidarity and cross-border concerted action among transnational social movements and advocacy networks. The globalization of production has undermined wages, labor standards and workers’ rights but it has also exposed weak points in the system. The internet, relatively cheaper mobile and cross-border communications, and other technological advances that have facilitated the decentralization of production (and the centralization of TNC control) have also facilitated exchanges and closer coordination among workers, unions as well as other social movements across borders. TNCs which rely on their brand-names are especially vulnerable to adverse international publicity. Unions, human rights groups, environmental groups and consumer associations can link-up with each other and coordinate campaigns that seek to expose and publicize the highly exploitative, inhumane and destructive practices of TNCs. People’s advocacy networks can target the profit centers of these TNCs for public action. Solidarity can take the form of solidarity messages, solidarity action, international days for coordinated events or full-blown coordinated campaigns all the way to formal organizational formations such as issue-based coalitions. We must build and strengthen anti-imperialist unity among workers and other democratic and progressive forces in our respective countries and across national borders in the spirit of true proletarian internationalism. Ultimately, the new world disorder challenges and requires the working class and the rest of the people to wage political struggle against imperialism for national liberation, democracy and socialism. Bulatlat.com References
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