What Strategy to Fight Global Capitalism?
Contribution to the OWC discussion by Ralph Schoenman, author, past executor director of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation and member of the coordinating committee of the International Committee Against Repression (ICAR)
[Note: Ralph Schoenman, a longstanding fighter for trade union and democratic rights, was a panelist in the OWC's workshop on the "Struggle Against Racism and Oppression and in Defense of Democratic Rights." He submitted the article below as a contribution to the OWC report-back discussion, not having had the opportunity to deliver a presentation to the plenary session because of time constraints.]
[Note: I believe this was associated with the Open World Conference in Defense of Trade Union Independence & Democratic Rights, which met at least on 13 February ????—KAR]
By RALPH SCHOENMAN
The Open World Conference in Defense of
Trade Union Independence and Democratic Rights (OWC) aims at building an
international fightback by workers and their unions against the onslaught of
global capital.
We all know how powerful are the
multinational corporations who operate in every country. What we must keep in
mind as we raise our voices in defense of working people—the vast and
overwhelming majority of the inhabitants of our planet—is that the great
corporate conglomerates have captured the state in each and every one of our
respective countries.
Whatever the forms of nominal governance,
the real power is hidden and concentrated in the hands of a tiny oligarchy of
the ruling rich. This is true whether our countries are run by a family
dictatorship, as in Indonesia or Nigeria, or whether there are nominal forms of
representation, as in the United States.
Regardless of the façade, in each and
every one of our countries, the real power remains in the hands of the few.
In the United States, the New York Times
estimated recently that one- half of one percent of the population in the United
States owns more than the rest of the population combined. The top executives of
eight companies, reported the Times on February 15, 1998, own personally $15
billion of their companies' equity.
No matter what yardstick we use, the
powerful few run the show. The government administers the state and the rich
purchase it. The state itself is their private instrument used to police the
planet and to subsidize control over planetary resources and cheap labor by the
corporations and the banks.
"Rich Control More of U.S. Wealth As
Debts Grow for Poor," reads one headline in the New York Times. The article
reports an in-depth study prepared by the University of Michigan which shows
that wealth has become more concentrated than ever before since 1990.
Features of capitalism
Unionists and activists are mobilizing
internationally against the sweatshops and starvation wages, which are the main
feature of conditions of work in the global economy.
For every worker laboring from dawn to
dusk in a condition of near slavery, there are vast numbers who have no work at
all. These conditions are the result of political and economic policies. They
are not natural phenomena. They are the inexorable workings of a capitalist
economy in which profits depend upon a perpetual war on the earnings of the
workers whose labor produces all wealth.
Thousands upon thousands mobilized on this
International Day of Action because we want an end to the misery and
exploitation which define the waking hours of billions of human beings.
We attribute this to the "trade"
policies of global corporations, and while we are right to decry the results, it
is important to examine what passes for trade in the global economy.
The notion of "trade"
presupposes co-equals sitting down together to exchange things of value. It
would be far more accurate to say that the policies of the global corporations
who run the economies of our countries involve theft: theft of natural resources
and theft of the labor of working people.
The global corporations design policies
which they call "trade agreements"—such as NAFTA, Maastricht or the
MAI. These are not trade agreements. These are strategic assaults upon the
resources of the planet and the living standards of its inhabitants.
Take NAFTA. Since its imposition, the
global corporations centered in the United States eliminated nearly a half
million jobs. The wages of Mexican workers in the manufacturing sector have
fallen 40 percent within Mexico and are one-eleventh of what had been paid for
equivalent work to workers in the U.S.
Much work, however, has been concentrated
along the border where U.S. companies produce goods for the U.S. market. At the
Zenith plant in Reynosa, workers are paid 69 cents per hour.
Not only wages have been under siege.
Social services have been assailed. Healthcare has deteriorated drastically. The
cost of food and clothing has soared. The housing stock has dwindled to a
fraction of its previous meager supply.
Are social clauses a solution?
Some contend that the introduction of
social clauses—that is, environmental and labor clauses—into such pacts as
NAFTA, Maastricht and the MAI would soften the impact of these agreements by
providing protections for workers and the environment.
There is no evidence that such protections
are feasible or that corporate rulers would agree to them. The essence of NAFTA,
Maastricht and the MAI is the restructuring of work so that work becomes
precarious and workers wholly vulnerable to corporate dictate. Job security, a
living wage, social benefits, safe working conditions, and eight-hour day and
independent union representation are precisely those gains of the workers'
movement which these pacts target for elimination.
Even if some palliative passages were
incorporated into these strategic corporate plans, NAFTA, Maastricht and the MAI
were designed to dislocate and atomize workers. Such presumed protective clauses
would be subject to the interpretation and implementation of the corporations
themselves.
Moreover, whether the labor and
environmental clauses are in the form of side agreements or whether they are
within the body of the agreements themselves, there is no mechanism of
enforcement on which the workers can rely.
Workers are being removed systematically
from secure employment under NAFTA. Manufacturing jobs are offered on the basis
of reduced wages and increased hours and, in large measure, are being replaced
by sweatshop pass-through work. It should be clear, therefore, to all worker
activists that such protective social clauses are incompatible with the entire
dynamic of global capitalism today. Reliance on the bosses to implement
protective language will prove to be an exercise in futility.
We cannot defend our interests by
supplicating corporate rulers to be "good citizens" or to be nice and
refrain from exploiting working people. Our demand must be for the right to
independent trade unions and the protection of worker rights so that the power
of global capital can be confronted by workers on an international scale.
The agreements are not about trade. They
are designed to render workers disposable, replaceable and without the capacity
to organize collectively in their own interests.
Corporate capital is driven to this course
because capitalism cannot sustain profits in the present era without deepening
exploitation to levels not seen since the onset of the industrial revolution.
This cannot be achieved without dislocating and fragmenting the organization of
workers and undermining them as a cohesive class. Wherever workers have wrested
gains, these gains and the organization of working people are under siege.
One-sided class warfare
NAFTA—as President Clinton has repeated
ad nauseam—is the model which is to be imposed on the entire continent.
Does this super-exploitation translate
into benefits for workers in the United States? Quite the opposite. Full-time
work is being eliminated in the United States and replaced with part-time,
precarious work precisely so the corporations can pay wages of 69 cents an hour.
Is this a "trade" measure or a
form of warfare—class warfare against the workers of Mexico and the United
States?
Can we attribute this solely to
"trade" agreements such as NAFTA or to the MAI? While these schemes
are part of the arsenal of class warfare, it is essential for us to keep in mind
that they are weapons in a brutal conflict and we must never lose sight of the
war and who wages it.
Today we speak of the global corporations.
A few years ago we called them multinationals and a few years before that we
spoke and wrote about the Tri-Lateral Commission instead of about NAFTA and the
MAI.
Yet, no matter the instrument through
which exploitation is both managed and planned, it is the control of the state
by concentrated capital which makes it possible.
Nor does it matter which of the two
political parties financed by capital holds office. It is office without power
because the two parties are the one big property party with separate names.
True face of imperialism
Woodrow Wilson spoke of "making the
world safe for democracy," but when addressing the manufacturers of the
United States, his message was clear:
"If," Wilson stated, "we do
not impose our enterprise abroad, we cannot have any liberty at all in this
country, for it will be a luxury which we cannot afford. Our industry is at the
point where it collapses unless it finds control of a world market because our
home market is no longer sufficient. We must have foreign domination."
(cited in Against the Crime of Silence: Proceedings of the International
Tribunal on U.S. War Crimes in Indochina, Editor John Duffett, New York, 1968)
Herbert Hoover expressed the core policy
of the rule of capital in parallel terms:
"Foreign control is more important for us to ensure the stable and normal functioning of our capitalist economy. It assumes a greater importance than home consumption." (Ibid.)
These were the identical preoccupations of Franklin Roosevelt and of the New Deal. Roosevelt's President of the National Industrial Conference Board, Virgil Jordan, put it like this on December 10, 1940:
"Whatever the outcome of the war, we have taken the road of imperialism on an economic plane as on all other planes of life. Yes, some fear this word imperialism so well known and, to some, menacing. Most people prefer to mask this under the more vague expression, 'defense of the Western Hemisphere;' but we are destined by our need, by our capacity by the exigencies of rule in our own society to follow this road.
"We have no choice but to continue as we have during the past century which began with the seizure of the continent and proceeded to the annexation of Cuba and the Philippines. This empire must see its possibilities throughout the southern part of this hemisphere and west of the Pacific. The scepter must fall in the hands of the United States." (Ibid.)
Those who voted for Franklin Roosevelt did not give their knowing
sanction to the seizure of countries and the imposition of empire. The CIO in
that day was opposed to such things, even as the AFL-CIO today opposes NAFTA and
the MAI.
The imperialism celebrated by Virgil
Jordan was only possible because the support by organized labor for the
Democratic Party demobilized working people and prevented them from forging
their own political party to defend our interests. The "no-strike"
pledges exacted by the Roosevelt administration permitted these policies to be
carried out unopposed.
The gap widens
Today, as the U.S. Census Bureau Report
confirms, "the gap between the affluent few and everyone else is wider than
it has been since the end of World War Two." As the New York Times
(6/19/96) commented, "each indicator has shown a pronounced increase in the
gap between the incomes of the wealthy and those of the poor and the working
class."
We suffer from greater poverty and
deprivation than we did in this country a half century ago.
The U.S. Census Bureau Report reveals that
during the first two years of the Clinton administration, the share of national
income claimed by the top 5% grew at a faster rate than in the previous eight
years of the Reagan administration combined.
The Census Bureau Report concluded that
"the widening disparity in the fortunes of American workers is becoming an
entrenched fixture of the country's economy."
How does this work? Forbes reveals that
the top corporate rulers control $3.2 trillion in business assets alone. They
own 50% of all common stock in America and 45% of all fixed non-residential
private capital in the United States.
The conservative Cato Institute calculates
that in every sector of our economy the giant corporations are subsidized by the
Federal Government. Congress finances 125 subsidy programs for the largest
corporations at a net cost of $85 billion per year, not including tax breaks.
The top 17 corporations paid no federal income tax for a period of ten years.
When we add in the tax breaks, that is a subsidy of over $100 billion—half the
Federal deficit.
In agriculture, agro-conglomerates receive
$31.3 billion in government subsidies and $2.9 billion in tax rebates. Energy
corporations are subsidized to the tune of $15.3 billion. Transportation
conglomerates receive $30.6 billion. Aerospace and high tech get $16.7 billion
in subsidy. In construction, the major corporations receive $17.4 billion.
Financial services—banks, brokerage houses and the great centers of stock and
bond speculation—receive $42.3 billion, with tax breaks of $60.4 billion.
Commodity credit subsidies are $9.81 billion.
These are not government programs. These
are handouts to the corporate oligarchy which owns the government and finances
both political parties with the proceeds.
This is why 60 cents of every tax dollar
go to the Pentagon and less than a dime to health care. This is how 3 cents get
allocated to housing and much of that housing for the affluent. This is why 2
cents go to education and most of that channeled to the schools of the affluent.
This is what permits 1 cent to be allocated to generate employment.
While they do this, a child dies of
poverty every 50 minutes in the United States. Hundreds of thousands of children
are homeless each night. One in every five children goes to bed hungry and cold,
without heat, running water and electricity in the rat-infested cages which pass
for shelter in our inner cities.
The policies which transfer jobs to the
global sweatshops have precise and measurable consequences, described by CNN on
March 20. Ten million children will die each year from contaminated water in the
countries from which the greatest profits are generated. One-fifth of the
world's population lacks potable water. The World Health Organization estimates
that over the next two decades, 70 million people will die from a form of
tuberculosis which is curable by a simple administration of an antibiotic, and
one billion people will be infected.
While the health of the workers of the
world is in crisis mode, what of the compensation reaped by the health
conglomerates and their corporate controllers?
Richard L. Scott of Columbia HCA received
$265.5 million in one year. Peter Nicholson of Boston Scientific Corporation got
$231.1 million. David Jones of Humana, Inc. obtained $194.4 million. Leon C.
Hirsch of U.S. Surgical Company was paid $105.8 million.
This was just the salary. Leonard Abramson
of U.S. Health Care received stock options of $11.4 million, but outright stock
holdings of $783.9 million His total compensation package was $805,122,045. The
total federal spending on AIDS was $1.4 billion—half of the value of the
stockholdings of the top ten health industry executives.
These payments are across the board among
corporate conglomerates, as documented in the Special Report in Business Week
(April 20, 1998).
Working class independence
The power of global capital can only be
challenged by a fightback on a global scale. Unless we organize ourselves in the
workplace and politically in every country and build an international party of
working people, we shall never escape the control of global capital.
We need organization and political parties
independent of capital if we are to devise our own programs and fight for the
power to implement them.
To achieve independent class organization,
we must build labor parties that can break the capitalist monopoly over the
political process. Without this, working people will be led repeatedly into an
impasse, helpless and passive tools of the political instruments of their class
enemy.
Let us join together in discussing how we
can break with the political parties of capital
in every country: with the Democrats no less than the Republicans in the United
States, with the parties administering the policies of the IMF everywhere.
Let us join together in building that
party of working people. As the anthem of the workers' movement proclaims, it is
the final battle and, for humanity's sake, we must wage it to win.