IMF,
World
Bank,
WTO...
and us?
THE big demonstration in Seattle In late November/early December marked a turning point in the social situation. Capitalist neoliberal globalization appeared irresistible until this demonstration which set up the bases of a new internationalism. NICOLAS BENIES
HE economic context of crisis had favored this mobilization. It involved significant movements in both the developed countries and the coun tries of the third world. Revolts against neoliberal globalization existed, as shown in the victorious struggle against the MAI,! but they had no international character. Henceforth these mobilizations are international.
Is the world being led? And by who? This question is being asked in every country, in all the mobilizations. A conspiracy theory dominates, based on a simplistic explanation of the laws of functioning of the capitalist mode of production. Nation states have disappeared and the multinationals impose their law. It simply isn't true. Not that the power of the transnationals is non-existent, but nation-states still possess weapons. The governments are responsible for this globalization.
They have decided to deregulate, to privatize. They cannot shelter behind globalization itself to justify it. To attack neoliberalism is also to attack the laws of the economic system itself.
Susan George, in her book The Lugano - in other words, the past is not a tabula
Report describes the decision-making process driving this absurd world. On the basis of existing reports - by the IMF, the World Bank, the WTO, the OECD she exposes a neoliberal logic that makes the flesh crawl.
Other solutions are possible, which take account of citizens' demands. On the condition that neoliberalism is broken with. This rupture is even more necessary in that the policies of neoliberal inspiration - whether austerity policies or structural adjustment - lead to a strengthening of inequalities and a dispossession of the (weak) power of citizens. In a recent edition of Business Week3 two thirds of Americans surveyed (August 31, 2000) believed that prosperity owed a lot to the companies and that the big companies make good products and are competitive in the world economy. However, nearly three out of four thought that business had too much power over very many aspects of their life.
Al Gore understood this sentiment when he said at the Democratic convention that Americans should say no to "Big Tobacco, Big Oil, the big polluters, the pharmaceutical companies.."4 adopting thus a more populist discourse. Undoubtedly one of the effects of the recent mobilizations. And 74% of those questioned agree with him! Again, 66% thought that higher profits are more important for the big companies than developing security or concern with the quality of products for the consumer. No doubt this is one of the explanations for the success of the recent book and film by Michael Moore, who denounces the policies of US transnationals and their responsibility for mass unemployment and the degradation of working conditions and jobs.S
Setbacks for neoliberalism
Neoliberalism is so omnipresent that its setbacks can pass unperceived. All the more so because often sociologists confuse economy and neoliberalism. In fact economic science - insofar as it can be defined - is first and foremost political. It includes the conscious intervention of states, of citizens. No determinism. On the contrary, the field of possibilities is largely open. One of the big lessons Marx taught is to take into account the liberty of human beings. People make their own history but not in circumstances of their own choosing rasa, but at the same time it is possible to change the course of history.
Neoliberal policies have been catastrophic in every area. It is impossible to emerge from poverty through structural adjustment policies. It would be necessary rather to begin by canceling the debt to allow countries - sub-Saharan Africa in particular - to begin to develop in an autonomous manner, while implementing a protectionism which could be regional, to avoid submission to the law of the world market and the movements of capital.
The losers are still the same, the weakest. Christa Wichterich, in her survey on the place of women in the world, demonstrates that it is women who are the first victims of poverty and cuts in the social budgets - because they are the first beneficiaries of social aid, but also because poor public services mean, for them, more free domestic work - bad conditions of work, unemployment, and overexploitation. She cites the example of workers in shoe enterprises - like Nike or others - who begin work very young and are worn out prematurely, thrown out by the boss who employs new recruits, without redundancy pay or social security.
Everywhere women suffer most from the denial of rights. They are the first to be dismissed, they represent the majority of part-time and temporary workers. The workers' movement, whether trade union or political, has not taken up the defence of the rights of women and has thus permitted the enlargement of the flexibility of work and the degradation of the conditions of work for all. The defense and enlargement
Globalization * of womens' rights is an integral part of the mobilizations against poverty and violence.
Neoliberalism has suffered defeat again in terms of the conditions of economic upturn. That which has taken place in France is of the Keynesian type? and growth is based principally on the increase in consumption of households. The same is true of US growth.
Suddenly, the IMF and the World Bank are interested - just like the WTO - in the social sphere. They now wish to be defenders of social rights, while conserving their neoliberal orientation on the economic level. Their discourse is transformed as a result both of the setbacks outlined above and the mobilizations. The IMF is under fire. Its interventions during the financial crises are contested everywhere.
The financial crisis of 1997-98
The financial and economic crisis in the countries of northern and eastern Asia, like that in Russia, had shown the perverse consequences of pell-mell "liberalization", whether in relation to commodities, services or financial markets. The emphasis on exports had destroyed the indigenous food producing cultures leaving the semi-industrialized countries in the situation of importing basic foodstuffs. The internationalization of the financial markets, the total liberty allowed to capital movements have fragilised the accumulation and growth of the economies of the countries of the so-called Third World, in different forms in the countries of Asia and those of central and Latin America. A crisis of profitability for Thailand and South Korea leading to a lower rate of increase of exports, a crisis of indebtment for Mexico, Brazil and Argentina. The growth of GDP in these latter countries was dependent on inflows of capital, obliging them to raise still higher the rate of surplus-values to ensure a sufficient return to this speculative capital. Their currencies are anchored to the dollar, provoking the accentuation of austerity policies.
Increased poverty is accompanied by the growth of inequality and the widening of flexibility. The regimes of accumulation - the particular modalities of creation of wealth - have shown their fragility in the crisis. The crisis itself is translated by industrial and banking restructurings. One can only subscribe to the conclusion of Pierre Salama, 1° "financial crises are
International Viewpoint #325 November 2000 9
* Globalization inscribed in the logic of a brutal and uncontrolled liberalization of the semiindustrialized economies affecting not only financial investors. [They] have recessionary effects on production and exchange. Financial crises have a high social cost."
The crises that the capitalist world has just lived through are the evidence of it. The governments, contrary to received wisdom, are not powerless. They could determine the conditions of a different regime of accumulation, ethically more just and economically more efficient.
We should note a return to ethical concerns." Social justice cannot be ignored. It forms part of the dimensions of the economy. The neoliberal economists - so-called neo-classical - forget a little too easily that the market does not exist without the state. Not only because the state structures the law of supply and demand12 but also because it is intrinsically linked to the accumulation of Capital. Capitalism cannot function without the state. The crisis of the Russian Federation in August 1998 has shown it. At the same time we must rehabilitate politics. The capacity to take decisions which affect the future of all, informing citizens so they can participate in collective choices.
The fall of the Euro (in September 2000) results both from the rise of the dollar, the only real international and reserve currency, and from the absence of credibility and legitimacy from European construction. It does not exist: there is a lack of supra-national institutions, a lack of coherence and coordination. All the discussions on the institutions have foundered on the resurgence of national interests. There is a lack also of a capacity to define a common project based on the construction of a social Europe.
The lessons of the crisis
One of the lessons drawn from this crisis by the international institutions is the necessity of the state, and a discourse on social justice. Alan Greenspan, president of the US Fed, has said that this financial and economic crisis was the most important experienced by the capitalist world since the end of the Second World War. Catastrophe was avoided by floods of credit and the direct intervention of the US in favour of the Russian Federation and countries like Mexico, Brazil or Argentina. At the end of 1998, around 40% of the 10 International Viewpoint #325 November 2000
CENA PEOPLE L PROFTiSE INITIONAL SOAL Sound BE VE C: TEED world's countries were mired in recession. As is customary, the dominant country, in the event the United States, benefited from this crisis. Speculative capital chose security and flooded to the United States. This allowed them to finance a record trade deficit to feed growth and the accumulation of capital.
This allows us to understand the pursuit of the cycle of growth without needing any reference to the "New economy", ideological moonshine serving to justify the policies of neoliberal inspiration. The kernel of truth is found in the definition of new fields of activity for the commodity on the one hand - the commodification of all activities, including education - and on the other a beginning of the enlargement of the third industrial revolution (that of computing and electronics) to the interior of companies.
For the moment, no revolution in the organization of work is on the horizon. Taylorism remains the model of reference. 13 It allows increased productivity of labour through increasing the intensity of labour. This is why the "old" and "new" economy differentiation has no meaning.
The IMF had been totally bypassed by this crisis which it was unable to analyze or predict. 14 This catastrophic balance sheet is the only common point shared by neoliberals and those opposed to capitalist globalization. Suddenly, there are proposals to reform the institution created at Bretton-Woods in July 1944. Michel Agliettal proposes that the IMF should become the world central bank. It would thus become lender of last resort, playing the same role as national central banks but on an international level.
Nobody believes that the financial cri-
HUMAN
NEED
NOT
CURFURATE
sis of 1997/98 is the last. Most forecasters expect a stock market crash; nobody risks predicting the date but it appears unavoidable. The solution they advocate is illusory enough. The US must agree to share their power! They are neither wise enough nor foolish enough. It would be necessary for Europe, speaking with a single voice, to impose its will... and we are a long way from that.
Globalization: the winners
The transnational firms have gained enormously from the liberalization of the markets, whether of commodities, services or capital. They have experienced a growth of their power.l6 In an apparently concomitant manner, the nation states have seen their capacity to regulate the economy diminish, but they continue to exist and structure both the accumulation of capital and the market, allowing the expression of the capitalist class. The crisis of the nation state is a reality, as is that of the social state. It amounts to the destruction of a form of state born after the Second World War as a result both of the conditions of the Liberation and the social struggles which followed
Today, in accord with the imperative of the maximal valorization of capital, these social gains must disappear. This attack stems from political choices made by all the governments. Deregulation has taken place on all terrains, first and foremost in the areas of the right to work and social security - a challenge to the indirect, socialized wage - and in the financial sphere, to leave the field free to market "liberalizations', whether commodities, services or capital. Capitalist and neoliberal globalization seems to proceed without
Globalization *
Declaration of the Fourth International
Friday October 6, 2000
ON the evening of October 5th, our comrade Alfredo Castro was shot dead by a hired killer in the town of Barranquilla. He received a bullet in the head restraint. These firms implement their international strategy, without taking account of general interests, believing that what is good for them is good for the country and the world economy. The logic of the firm imposes itself.
while out walking with his companion and daughter.
The imperative of "competitivity"
Initially a militant of the Comandos Camilistas, he joined the Revolutionary becomes a categorical imperative, involving the lowering of the cost of labour to
Socialist Party (then the Colombian section of the Fourth International), then lower the price of sale. Thus productivity the A Luchar front and the Citizens' Civic Movement of Barranquilla.
gains are monopolized by profits. In the
In 1997, he had to flee to Cuba following death threats from the paramili-
United States, the state continues to play taries who had already assassinated our comrades Carlos Alvarez its role as strategist and organizer for the
Castellanos and Roberto McLean.
whole national capitalist class, as well as
In 1998, he returned to Colombia to resume his university and trade union capital that finds refuge there, to ensure the activities. He continued the struggle for the organization of social movements triumph of US imperialism over the rest of and a popular and democratic organization.
the world.
His death is an irreparable loss for the democratic and revolutionary move-
The monetary consequence of this domination is found in the role of the dolment and has brought immense sadness to all those who knew Alfredo, his lar, henceforth currency of reference for an profound humanity and his unconditional engagement in every struggle.
international monetary system still in crisis
This new crime, added to the interminable list of violations of human rights, and lacking an understanding between the is the direct consequence of a strategy of counter-insurrection, of the systembig developed capitalist countries. The atic and planned destruction of the popular movement, the movements of
"dollarisation" of Ecuador demonstrates armed struggle and every kind of civil resistance.
this new given. The dollar has dethroned
The responsibility for this policy of extermination falls fully on the the sucre, the national currency. The cen-
Colombian state, the neoliberal government of Andrès Pastrana and its appatral bank of Ecuador can disappear, it ratus of repression acting in full complicity with the paramilitary groups.
serves no purpose. Monetary policy will be
As US imperialism deepens its war strategy under the cover of Plan decided by the US Federal Reserve Bank.
Colombia, as the massacres perpetrated by the army and the paramilitaries
Inequality and poverty can only worsen.
worsen, it is urgent to develop a campaign of solidarity with the struggle of
Deciding our future the Colombian people and its legitimate aspiration to sovereignty, democracy
Mobilizations against the policies of and peace.
"liberalization" continue. At each IMF,
We address to our comrades in Colombia and in particular to the companion
WTO and World Bank meeting demonstraand daughter of Alfredo all our affection and our total internationalist tions involving participants from all over solidarity.
the world take place. They throw up the
Hasta la victoria! * bases of a new international movement.
The transnational firms have not yet grasped the dimensions of it, despite the warnings of Business Week. International trade union coordinations are needed. The stakes are vital. Our future is being sketched out here. To leave the transnationals as masters of the world is to take inconsidered risks with every aspect of our lives. Nothing is fatal nor ineluctable.
A militant new generation is becoming conscious of the necessity of action. We can give it the memory to enrich the struggles today. *
* Nicolas Benies is an economist.
I. The Multilateral Accord on Investment, discussed in great secrecy inside the OECD, an organization comprising the 29 richest states in the world.
2. Fayard, 2000, 120 francs.
3. International edition, September 2000.
4. Quoted by Business Week.
5. See his book "Downsize this!", a necessary antidote to all the nonsense we can read everywhere about the US miracle that we must follow at any price. The film, "The Big One"
tells of Moore's tour to promote his book.
6. 'La femme mondialisee, Solin/Actes Sud, 1999, 139 francs. 7. The upturn in France is due to increased consumption by households, itself fed by the creation of jobs and by the increase in wage mass, even if young people and women are still massively victims of temporary work and the wage increases granted are largely productivity related. 8. For Marx, this is the rate of exploitation of the workers (ratio surplus-value/variable capital). Total surplus value is equal to total profit. It is of two kinds. Relative surplus value when it depends on the implementation of a new technique or technology, absolute surplus value when it depends on the intensification of labour in all its forms. This last form essentially accounts for the recent increase in the profits of the big companies. 9. See the contribution of Pierre Salama in "Les pieges de la finance internationale", Syros, 2000, 98 francs, "Amerique latine et Asie: une meme logique de crise, mais des responsabilites nationales specifiques". 10. Op cit, page 156. 11. See *15 of the " Revue du Mauss " (first quarter 2000), "Ethique et Economie: L'impossible (re)mariage ?". See also "Ethique economique et sociale", by Christian Arnsperger et Philippe Van Parijs, Collection Reperes, La Decouverte, Paris, 2000, 49 francs.
12. As Pierre Bourdieu has shown, once again, in Les structures sociales de l'economie, collection Liber, Le Seuil, Paris, 2000. 130 francs. 13. Guillaume Duval in L'entreprise efficace a l'heure de Swatch et de McDonald's, Syros, nouvelle edition 2000, 89 francs, rehearses this demonstration in a concrete and convincing manner. 14. George Soros put his confidence in the IMF and lost a lot of money in the fall of the rouble in August 1999. 15. In "Le FMI, de l'ordre monetaire aux desordres financiers", in collaboration with Sandra Moatti, Economica, 2000, 98 francs. The interest of this book lies in its summary of the specific conditions which allowed the Bretton-Woods accords. An imperialism in decline - that of Britain - met a rising imperialism, that of the US, following prior discussions during the war. The authors think that these conditions will no longer be met and that it is not then possible to create another international monetary system to take over from that of Bretton-Woods. Perhaps. But their desire to make the Euro a direct competitor to the dollar belongs to a fantasy world. For the Euro to take this role, it would first be necessary for the EU to take on a much more concrete existence. 16. See the balance sheet by Pierre Conso, "Les strategies des firmes multinationales" in "Les mutations de l'economie mondiale", ed. Christian de Boissieu, Economica.
International Viewpoint #325 November 2000 11
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