The analysis and demands expressed by progressive peasant associations are worth listening to. They stress the possibility of a convergence of different targets of a world agricultural policy: those of the Third World against poverty, for more distribution of good land to small peasants and against the destruction of traditional capacities of production in food-crops as the main answers against starving and bad-nutrition: which means opposing the domination of agriculture by the two super-powers (European and American) and by their agro-industrial firms, opposing the wrong idea that market can solve starvation and bad nutrition or that "aid" have positive effects.
The priority is therefore to be given to new "green" revolutions in third world contries with all rights to protect them against destructive imports; a regulation of agricultural trade subordinated to ethical, ecological and socio-economical criteria; and the necessity to control the productivist logic so destructive of health and environment and supporting small producers efficient not only for certain type of small-size and high quality production, but also for rural and regional development, or protection of environment.
The CAP still has to be reformed. But the choice must not to be reduced to a false alternative of either defending the CAP (as it was or in its reformed version) or accepting the American concept of a free market in agriculture. *
Against the
The Maastricht Treaty solemnly proclaims that it will pursue "enduring social and economic progress for the developing countries" of the Southern hemisphere, "ongoing and peaceful integration of developing countries into the global economy", and "a struggle against poverty in the developing countries." The Treaty even states that its "general objective" is "the development and consolidation of democracy and the rule of law... to ensure respect for human rights and basic liberties." The distance between words and actions is vast. Europe, the birthplace of capitalism, is also the cradle of what is called the "Third World". Starting in the late fifteenth century, many European powers set out to conquer the rest of the planet. The conquest and pillaging of what Europeans called America led to the death of almost 70% of the indigenous population. The slave trade emptied the African continent of its labour force and dislocated its societies: 40 million men, women, and children were kidnapped, and many other millions were killed. 13 million children were taken in slavery to the Americas. This mass extermination was accompanied by a generalised attempt to wipe out the history and the identities of
In 1800, Western Europe and its American extensions controlled a third of the planet. The second wave of colonisation, beginning in the 1870s, brought this ratio to four-fifths of the planet by the eve of the First World War. This ferocious process of exploitation concentrated enormous riches in the North. It made possible the take-off of industrial capitalism. From then on, there was a centre and a periphery, dominant states, and states which were dominated. The Third World had been born. Two steps forward...
Viewed as a reserve of raw materials, of cheap labour, and of markets for finished goods, in the last quarter of the nineteenth century the "Third World" was invaded by
Northern capitalists' surplus capital. These direct investments required military protection. which became the foundation of a new and terrible phase of colonisation.
Beginning in the 1930s, it also gave rise to a rebirth of the peoples on three continents, in Latin America, Asia, and Africa, who
south
undertook the long march to independence and national liberation in the 1960s and '70s. Some of the most advanced of these nations sought non-aligned status and tried to evade imperialism's direct domination. Others, like China, Vietnam and Cuba, broke completely from international capitalism. ...and one step back
Today, the new stage in the internationalisation of the global economy is provoking social regression across the board, and total disaster in the South. This globalisation is characterised by: • Strengthened domination by the multinationals, which now employ over 73 million workers. The top one hundred of these companies, outside the banking sector, control assets worth $340 billion dollars, or nearly a sixth of the estimated value of all assets in the global economy.
The two hundred largest multinationals
(only four of which are headquartered in the Third World) control business assets equivalent to more than one quarter of the
Gross World Product.
• In this conglomeration, financial capital, a sector for which the driving logic is more and more that of short-term profits, has acquired the dominant position. The
Big Three governments have knowingly prioritised this development, imposing free trade and the unrestricted free circulation of capital across the globe. • The creation of international quasi-state bodies through the enlargement of the powers of the International Monetary
Fund, the World Bank, the World Trade
Organisation (successor to GATT), and the Bank of International Settlements. All supervised and guided by periodic meetings of the G-7, the global super• This globalised capitalism has developed in the absence of any economic expansion, because it is based on the generalisation of wage austerity (in the North, as well as the South, and the East). The cyclical upturn has not gathered strength because there has been no interest in massive investment in the productive sector: Instead, enormous profits (moneycapital are used to speculate in the market, on rates of exchange, on raw materials and on commodity futures... Triad rule
In the ferocious competition of the Big Three, the United States has consolidated its dominant position in terms of military strength, finance capital, a strong economy, and a strong currency. The USA still leads in political terms.
European multinationals operate under a double handicap: much less efficient state apparatuses, since the EU is not the equivalent of either the Japanese or the American governments; and a much stronger workers" movement which is still resisting the capitalist offensive and which has succeeded in putting the brakes on neo-liberal adjustments. Privileged relationships
This context determines a large part of the "foreign and defence policy" of the EU. The EU and its member countries maintain privileged relationships with the authoritarian regimes on their immediate Southern periphery, particularly the dictatorships in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. They also have good relations with the Turkish authorities, who oppress their Kurdish minority. At the same time, European borders are being closed against North African and Turkish immigrants. These regimes have for years now guaranteed an end to the flow of immigration from their countries to Europe.
In March, 1997, the EU granted the Moroccan dictatorship a non-repayable package of economic aid worth 120 million Ecus (£174 m./$136 m.) to help King Hassan's regime implement the IMF and World Bank's structural adjustment plan. For Morocco, this involves removing its tariff protections against (mainly EU) exporters. This will entail the closing of Moroccan companies, and massive growth in unemp-
The South is held in the iron fist of an unholy alliance: IMF, WB, and WTO. This global capitalism has relieved the Third World of the two "comparative advantages" with which it is often credited: low wages and protected agriculture and raw material
Low wages in the Third World have not led to a massive flood of investment, despite the mobility of production). The core of investments are still in the heart of the Big Three countries, and between them. These markets are larger, more profitable, nearer, more stable, and better protected. Labour in the centre is more skilled, more highly trained, and is able to adapt to new technologies more quickly.
Combined with a high level of labour productivity, these advantages outweigh the attractions of low wages in the Third World. The main exception to this trend is the globalisation of some branches of the textile industry, and their relocation from the advanced industrial countries to areas with extremely low wages. Penetrating the south
The large multinational blocs are also attacking the Third World on its own terrain. They have succeeded in driving down the price of raw materials by producing commodities using synthetic substitutions. And the spectacular growth of agricultural produc tivity in the North has meant that now the Third World is a net importer of foodstuffs!
The struggle against protectionism has been reversed. The barriers against products coming from the South remain proportionally higher than those of Northern exports into the Third World. The total annual cost to Southern economies is around $500 billion, according to the UNDP annual report on human development. The duties on products manufactured in the South are five times higher than those on their raw materials.
The export policies of the South, imposed by the IMF and the WTO, have not created jobs in the South. On the contrary, they destroy them. Competition forces a lowering of already very low wages across the Southern countries.
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Internal markets can't develop. Instead, imports rise. The "elites" prefer the "more elaborate" goods of the North. The spread of a market economy (with the junking of subsidies for basic necessities, privatisation, etc.) and the abandonment of protectionism in the South destroys local production and ignites a vicious race to the bottom.
To take just one example: the EU wants to authorise the replacement of cocoa butter (produced in the South) in chocolate products with EU fat, up to a limit of 5% of the total weight not produced there. Result: a drop in cocoa exports to Europe, a drop in the price of cocoa on the world market, and a drop in cumulative revenues for the South.
Pitting zones with extremely unequal levels of productivity against one another in competition has led to economic stagnation everywhere, to a levelling downward, and to growing, virulent social inequality. In the North, the rise in productivity has allowed a decrease in workers through modern technology. In the South, the destruction of one part of the economy has increased unemployment, and further stimulated the exodus from the countryside to urban areas: undermining the very basis of these societies.
This is not simply the result of the "free play of market forces" but the result of blackmail and the pressures of international institutions, acting in the interests of the northern
We must fight the policies of the IMFWB-WTO. These institutions are expressly designed to defend the interests of the multinationals. It is impossible to reform or democratise them. They must be dismantled. The debt must be cancelled.
Structural Adjustment Plans are the iron shackles for the continued subjection of the Third World. The enormous debt of the Third World countries made this subjugation possible. Debt exploded from $77 bn. in 1970 to $567 bn. in 1980. The deteriorating economic situation in the south, and years of high interest rates, made it simply impossible for many countries to repay in full. And yet, between 1980 and 1992, $1,672 bn. was paid to the rich countries. In other words, three times the debt in 1980!
Despite this massive transfer from the south to the north, by the end of 1995 total Third World Debt was an incredible $1,921 bn. Interest rates have been lower, but trade and balance of payments deficits have made it impossible for many countries to keep up.
Neo-liberal logic is being applied ruthlessly by the imperialist governments and their specialised bodies like the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and World Trade Organisation.
Repayment of the debt has been imposed as an absolute priority, alongside the struggle against budget deficits. Three universal solutions have been applied indiscriminately: ending government subsidies, particularly those on essential items, reorganising the towards exportation, privatisation. The multinationals have snapped up the best bits of the Third World economies, at rock-bottom prices. 34 International Viewpoint #290
We are witnessing a process of recolonisation, with aggravated exploitation, reinforced domination, and an absolute (not just relative) degradation of the living conditions of hundreds of millions of people. Health care and education are disintegrating, and many women face additional burdens, in survival-conditions. Even slavery is on the increase again. Including the slavery of
We must demand that our governments unconditionally cancel Third World debt. We should show solidarity to those groups in the Third World which struggle in the same direction, in this particular aspect of the anti-imperialist struggle. In doing so, we should naturally respect the tactical choice of progressive and revolutionary organisations in the third world, in the particular way they integrate this demand into their overall strategy for national and social liberation. No social clauses...
No to the social clauses imposed by the World Trade Organisation and the EU! Impose international social rights through the international struggle of working people!
Social clauses, as they are proposed and applied today, are a part of international commercial strategy. Northern institutions and governments assume the right to impose minimum social rights, using cuts in aid, tarift barriers and import quota restrictions, and "carrots" lie increased access to northern markets for those who
Since 1971, the EU has renewed its import tariff system every five years. The current Generalised Preference System was approved by the Council of Ministers in 1994, and is in force until the end of 1998. It sets the conditions under which manufactured and semi-manufactured goods, and raw materials, can enter the single European market at zero or reduced tariffs.
Article 7 establishes a special regime of subsidies on the basis of social and environmental criteria, which will enter into application in 1998. Under this provision, countries will receive preferential treatment for their exports to the EU if they prove that they effectively implement International Labour Office (ILO) norms on trade union rights (Convention #87), the right to collective negotiations (#98) and minimum age of workers (#138).
In general, these "social clauses" directly benefit the multinationals. They are a form of hidden protectionism against the countries and workers of the third world.
They make it easier to push northern workers into conflict with southern workers and, in the north, to create an alliance between workers and employers, which can only be against the interests of the workers. To make matters worse, this policy is being applied under the supervision of the secretive, anti-democratic and uncontrollable World Trade Organisation. ...but social progress
Opposition to this type of "social clauses" does not mean automatic rejection of any legal measures, "on principle." We could for example impose on the multinationals, in the country where they have their mother-company, a legal code of conduct which would oblige them to respect the ILO conventions in all their plants and sub-divisions. EU leaders talk a lot about the European "social model," but they have shown no signs of wanting to go this way.
The real solution to the unequal social conditions of workers in different counties will be found through solidarity between working classes, north and south. And, in particular, by the strengthening of the trade union movement in the dependent countries.
Solidarity to this end should not be limited to material and organisational "aid" although these are indeed important. It'is important to support the struggle of unionists in the third world to achieve elementary social and trade union rights. This would open the door to a rapid improvement of working conditions progressively eliminated factors of "unfair competition" within the world of work. Proletarian unity
As part of the workers movement, we don't ignore the social contradictions which exist inside the countries of the south. This gives us a particular duty to extend solidarity to the very difficult struggles of workers and the poor in these countries for their immediate social demands (wages, employment, social protection, health care, and environ-
Despite the difficulties, our perspective remains that of the necessary and possible union between proletarians of the north and the south. Yes, there are great differences in living standards and working conditions. And this does not make it easy to build "borderless" solidarity. But the fact remains that workers in the north and the south do not have different, separate interests to defend.
Their struggles are parallel. They face the same enemy. The third world is not the cause of unemployment in the third world, and the relatively high living standard of the workers in the north is not the cause of poverty in the
Low paid workers in the south are not responsible for "dumping" attacks on salaries in the north. "High" salaries in the north are not the cause of the non-development of
In fact, the growth of mass unemployment in the north has occurred in parallel to the increase in poverty in the south. North and south, the standard of living of the exploited classes is falling, relative to that of the capitalist class.
We are witnessing a massive redistribution of wealth, which is making the rich richer, north and south, and the "poor" poorer, north and south. Reducing wages in the north will not reduce misery in the South.
We need a globalisation of solidarity to match the globalisation of world capitalism. And an anti-capitalist strategy for the labour and social movements, to match the antisocial strategy of the multinationals and their