The World At Risk

The world is at risk. “The world is in no position to face major, new shocks. The financial crisis has reduced global economic resilience,” and is increasing geopolitical tension and social concerns. “[G]governments and societies are less able than ever to cope with global challenges.” (Global Risks 2011, January 2011, World Economic Forum)

The mainstream is now admitting the reality its heart and head – capital – has created. The report mentions 37 selected global risks perceived by members of the Forum’s Global Agenda Councils and supported by a survey of 580 leaders and decision-makers around the world. It has found the “21st century paradox: as the world grows together, it is also growing apart.” The benefits of globalization, it said, are “unevenly spread – a minority is seen to have harvested a disproportionate amount of the fruits.” The so-called globalization worship, a vogue among a section of enlightened minds only a few years back, is now finding neither a deity nor alms. A brilliant crude propaganda only reigns there in the temple of capitalist globalization. Those minds cannot dare to ignore sermon from the Forum.

Interconnected two risks, the report said, are especially significant: economic disparity and global governance failures. These two influence other global risks. Economic disparity within countries is growing. Politically, there are signs of resurgent nationalism and populism as well as social fragmentation.

“Resurgent nationalism”, in mainstreamspeak, is asserting self interest by a number of countries in sectors of economy, especially in the area of hydrocarbon while “populism” is immediate essential steps by a number of countries for widening bare minimum living space of the people especially the wretched. The world capital is in trouble with these two.

The report expressed concern with the increasing economic disparity within advanced capitalist countries and emerging economies. Real income growth of the top income quintiles of the populations in Finland, Sweden, the UK, Germany, Italy, and the USA was twice as large as that of the bottom quintiles between the mid-1980s to mid-2000s. Similar facts have been cited in a number of ILO reports.

Economic disparity, according to the Global Risks Survey, is one of the most important risks in the coming decade. It is “tightly interconnected with corruption, demographic challenges, fragile states, global imbalances and asset-price collapse” and is influenced by global governance failures. It influences chronic and infectious diseases, illicit trade, migration, food insecurity, terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. The report does not tell that the present global governance and its failure are the products of the present world order, in essence the dominating capital.

In the present world, the report said, economic risks include macroeconomic imbalances and currency volatility, fiscal crises and asset price collapse, tension between the increasing wealth and influence of emerging economies and high levels of debt in advanced capitalist countries. The “macroeconomic imbalances nexus” is within countries and between countries. Internal imbalances are produced by factors that include government policies and private sector behavior. Global governance and regulatory failures, corruption and economic disparity are interconnected. These “create and exacerbate systemic global risks”, said the report.

Failure in global governance is the output of dominating capital’s incapacity while regulatory failure is that capital’s dominating power to unchain itself. Economic disparity is its product of inherent incapacity while corruption is its part of business.

The report’s “illegal economy” nexus examines risks that include state fragility, illicit trade, organized crime and corruption. It said: “A networked world, governance failures and economic disparity” boost illegal activities. In 2009, the value of illicit trade around the globe was estimated at US $1.3 trillion. These risks create high costs for legitimate economic activities while weaken states, threaten development opportunities, undermining the rule of law and keep countries trapped in cycles of poverty and instability.

Capital weakens states to smoothen its journey to the palace of maximizing profit although it needs state. An irreconcilable contradiction it generates. It engages with “illegal economy”, the economy that competes with, and hurts its “real” economy. A limitation it lives within. Illegal economy is its one of the modes to overflow its bags with profit. It circumvents legality while it creates legality to secure its appropriation and loot. It fights crime to secure its property created through crime while it invests in organized crime. A world dominated by jokers and hypocrites.

Illicit trades, now 7-10% of the global economy, corruption and organized crime, the report said, are fuelled by economic disparity. Advanced and emerging economies are experiencing these. Incomes from these “reinforce the power of the privileged” and increase inequalities within and between countries. These increase the costs of doing legitimate business.

Citing unsustainable pressures on resources the report said: Economic disparities undermine long-term sustainability. Demand for water, food and energy is expected to rise by 30-50% in the next two decades. “Shortages could cause social and political instability, geopolitical conflict and irreparable environmental damage.”

But, capital will stick to its economy that gulps water, that devours soil, that breathes in energy, that speculates with food, and that produces hunger. That is the way for its ever-expansion, and it cannot live without expanding all the time. It will die if its expansion ceases.

The report mentioned “five risks to watch”: Cyber-security issues (cyber theft, all-out cyber warfare, etc.), demographic challenges creating fiscal pressures in advanced capitalist economies and severe risks to social stability in emerging economies, resource security causing extreme volatility and sustained increases in energy and commodity prices, retrenchment from globalization, and weapons of mass destruction and the possibility of nuclear proliferation.

While it owns WMD it asks others to turn Lord Buddha, to follow the ahimsa mantra. That is, me the lord you the subject. A section of its subjects that it created to fight a foe turn naughty and make it harassed.

The report said: The US National Intelligence Council and the EU’s Institute for Security Studies recently concluded that “current governance frameworks will be unable to keep pace with looming global challenges unless extensive reforms are implemented. Increasingly, emerging economies feel that unfairly they have insufficient influence in international institutions… Yet there is uncertainty over the ability and willingness of rising powers to shoulder a greater share of global responsibilities, as well as reluctance on the part of established powers to recognize the limits of their own power.” The conclusion reflects contradiction between competing capitals that carry all the seeds to turn hostile, and hostilities between capitals turn hot engagements at times.

Crises the present world order has generated are pushing the entire world into uncertain and unsafe future. Our posterity will step in a volatile and unsafe world if the present world order is not changed. The mainstream’s analysis cannot ignore the reality.
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This article was published at countercurrents.org , on 19^th January, 2011

Manufactured Democracy: Seeds Of Crisis

The questions manufactured democracy doesn’t answer signify only a few of the fundamental questions related to a ruling system. Political processes, arrangements, and institutions are not static till their demise. These are not also contradiction-neutral.

Factors within and around these processes, arrangements, etc. act and react in a complex way. This lively character comes up because of its relationship with society and mode of production, and the relationship is relative, and antagonistic to some and non-antagonistic to others. The reason behind is: these are not production relation-neutral. Rather, the class content of these determines their actions, responses, etc. Failures to articulate the class content make these obsolete. These are rejected, not always instantly, but through relatively long process, and sometimes within a very short span of time, at historical moments and junctures, by the emerging social forces, are sent to the archives, and replaced by new ones with the domination of emerged social political force. The democracy now being handed over in the periphery as commodity contains no property that can act according to the needs of the people; rather, it has been designed to act according to the desire of the centre of the world system. This contradiction carries the seeds of crisis of the system.

Political systems claiming to serve majority are incompatible with inequality. Utility of the system gets lost when it fails to redress inequality. It is now difficult to find a single relevant literature of the mainstream that does not tell about inequality, does not warn about increasing inequality. Superstructure based on appropriation breeds inequality. The present global phenomenon of rapidly increasingly inequality is the product of, in very general term, the present world system.

More than a decade ago Brown and others found: “Worldwide, the richest fifth of the population now receives 60 times the income of the poorest fifth, up from 30 times in 1960. In the UK, the ratio between the top and bottom 20 percent went from 4:1 in 1977 to 7:1 in 1991. In the US, it went from 4:1 in 1970 to 13:1 in 1993” (State of the World 1997). Citing Edward N Wolff (“Changes in Household Wealth in the 1980s and 1990s in the U S” May, 2004) and New York Times (March 1, 2007) John Bellamy Foster and Fred Magdoff write: “The gap between the top and the bottom of society in financial wealth and income has now reached astronomical proportions. In the United States in 2001 the top 1 percent holders of financial wealth … owned more than four times as much as the bottom 80 percent of the population. The nation’s richest 1 percent of the population holds $1.9 trillion in stocks, about equal to that of the other 99 percent. The income gap in the United States has widened so much in recent decades that Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben S Bernanke … stated ‘the share of after-tax income garnered by the households in the top 1 percent of the income distribution increased from 8 percent in 1979 to 14 percent in 2004.’ In September 2006 the richest 60 Americans owned an estimated $630 billion worth of wealth, up almost 10 percent from the year before.”

What has happened in the “age of globalization” in the peripheral societies dominated by plunderocracy and lumpenocracy and dictated by MNCs and donors? Reports by the World Bank, UNDP, and ILO carry the evidence: increasing inequality and dispossession. Many of these societies are controlled by lumpens and coteries isolated from production process and many of these societies do not hesitate for a single moment to show the face of despotism by taking down the mask of petty democracy. In many of these societies workers have been demobilized, unions have been usurped by lumpens, criminalization has overwhelmed political institutions, media is controlled by local variety of mafia, and donors have purchased the dominant section of the academia. In many of these societies NGOs are increasingly filling in vacuums created by weaknesses of political parties and by lack of political forces that signify the weakness of social classes. But, it is only the social classes that can develop political process, institutions, etc.

The political scenario in many of the advanced capitalist countries is not hopeful: election dispute and reaching to its apex through the counting of type of perforated holes on the ballot paper, failings of the political institutions in resolving contradictions within the dominant class, exposure of responsible operative by top political leadership in retaliation of dissenting view, lies by top political leadership, and failure of the famous “check and balance” mechanism to identify manipulation before a blunder is committed, and blame game are a few of the signs of decay and of sharpening of unresolved contradictions in the body-politic. Signs of Nazism and racism, and signs of curtailing democratic rights are getting bolder on the political canvas in many advanced capitalist societies. These are the signs of decadence of democracy the dominant classes have established and nourished over centuries and these tell the historical limitations of the political system the world order has built up.

These signify nothing but crisis that, on the contrary, symbolize signals for change.

[This is a modified version of a part of a chapter from The Age of Crisis, Dhaka, 2009.]

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This article was published at countercurrents.org , on February 3, 2011

Unrequited Questions In Manufactured “Democracy”

Grand goal of manufactured “democracy” does not attend to one fundamental aspect of democracy: the economic question. It efficiently deceives people by silver-tongued slogans while ignores the essential part of democracy-equation: people’s interest and role in economy.

Political system of any age in any society develops from the economic base the society stands on at that time. Dominating political system is a necessity of dominating classes, even of dominating segments. Political organizations, organs, forms, etc. take shape on the basis of the needs and levels of the classes/ segments. These can not survive if they fail to serve the purposes of the classes/segments they belong to and these cannot outlive once the needs are fulfilled. Democracy thus developed.

Slave owners had full democracy in their society and slaves could not dream of having the rights enshrined in the “democratic charters” of those societies without making revolt against the system and succeeding. It was the political responsibility and duty of slave owners to develop and safeguard the political system that could serve their interests, not of slaves. Slaves’ duty was not the same. Even they were incapable to develop or to take part in developing the system that could serve the interest of slave owners. Those were the historic limitations of both the classes standing opposed to each other and the limitations could not be crossed by none of the classes because of the relations the owners had with property. So, the political system of slave owners failed to accommodate political, economic, etc. aspirations and demands of slaves. Whatever was “given” to slaves was for the sake of ensuring the safety of slave owners’ property, was under pressure from slaves, at some historic moments signifying cracks in the stone walls of the system and contradictions within the slave owning class. It was even not possible for the slave owning class to design a political system that could articulate the interests of the dominating class in a future feudal society or a system that could open door for slaves to become masters of the political system. All other societies and all other classes in all other societies have/had the same limitations imposed by the relations to property. Democracy follows the same flight without turning unfaithful to its masters, the dominating classes. That is because of economy, the economy controlled by dominating classes, as “the economic side … is more fundamental in history than the political” and as “all political power is originally based on an economic and social function…” (Engels, Anti-Duhring).

Then, who, to be specific, which class shall own, control and dictate the democratic mechanism, with its economic and political content, being build under the aegis of the donors and banks? Will it be possible to accommodate and safeguard all the competing, contending, and conflicting interests of the opposing classes in the mechanism? But, “no democracy in the world can eliminate class struggle and the omnipotence of money” (Lenin, collected works, vol.18). How shall the antagonistic contradictions generated by antagonistic classes be resolved in the political machine owned by a class that strives by all means, including political arrangements, deceptive sweet words, and violence to keep its economic interests? In that case, shall not the political edifice the donors are building breakdown? Where shall the political machine, the machine to apply force, stand when workers’ aspirations will stand opposed to the greed of factory owners, debtors’ to creditors, people’s aspiration to control their resources to the attempts by MNC and donors to exploit the resources? Shall the legislative body debate all the secret agreements? Will the judiciary act against the propertied class when the interests of the class will stand against the interest of the people? Whom shall education, the ideological subservient part of the political machine, serve? Should anyone imagine of a democracy void of ideology? And, ideology is not free from class. Then, what ideology shall the democracy designed in the centre of the world system carry? How shall the dialectical relation between oppression of majority by minority and aspiration of majority for liberation from the clutches of profit be resolved in the democracy machine being constructed? With these unanswered questions the democracy building project carries a hopeless future.

The questions, however, are not undecided. Rather, these have been decided long ago: serve the dominant interests, local, within state boundary, and globally. Abstractly posing the question of democracy is the way the ruling interests follow: “An abstract or formal posing of the problem of equality in general and national equality in particular is in the very nature of bourgeois democracy” (Lenin, CW, vol.31).

If Lenin is cast aside as he challenges status quo and asks to demolish it Jefferson can be heard: “Equal and exact justice to all men …” (First Inaugural Address, 1801). Although the “equal and exact justice to all men” ultimately turns equal justice to the dominant section of the democracy donors are trying to impose is not even that bourgeois democracy, the democracy dreamed by Jefferson, by any standard. In essence, it is a democracy of the donors’ and their compradors’ interests; even, in most cases, it turns worse than that as the classes/segments upon whom the job to operate the political arrangement under the guise of democracy is entrusted are, because of historic reasons, and because of the nature of the economic interests they are entangled with, worse than the bourgeois class, and as segment, they are incapable and immature.

Their immaturity sometimes goes to that extent where they fail to identify their own interests, and to act according to their interests, where their infighting endangers their own class/segment, where they cover their hands with blood of their class/segment brothers, where they expose the funny face of their ruling machine and perform a partial job of making the machine void of credibility and acceptability. On this class/segment base “democracy” machine being built up can not withstand the shocks and pulls of the following historical processes.

Manufactured “democracy” thus goes to its sterile possibility and fulfils its farce.

[This is a modified version of a part of a chapter from The Age of Crisis, 2009]

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This article was published at countercurrents.org , on 1^th February, 2011

EGYPT ERUPTION: DILEMMA FOR DEMOCRACY

Limits of US power will be exposed if Mubarak now appears the central character in Egypt, and in the Middle East. People’s quest for democracy in Egypt has torn away the façade of legitimacy Mubarak was covered with, and has thrown him onto the heap of the despised. His, the once-ablest representative of the Egyptian ruling elites, destiny was decided long ago as it turned that the regime was breeding discontent that could endanger the ruling machine and strategic alliance.

Two factors are now defining the character and extent of democracy with opposing goals in Egypt: the people and the external king makers. Both of the factors are maneuvering within respective limits and with respective strengths, and array of political forces are changing fast. The moves by both the factors show respective limits of strength and weakness.

The elated Egyptian people challenged state power, kept it perplexed for days, made cracks in the wall of authority, but offered it opportunity to reassert its power of authority. While a section of the ruling elites appeared appeasing the revolting people the other, stupid thieves, relied on thugs to quell people’s rising. People’s political initiative faced hard days and significant sacrifice: at least three hundred citizens died for democracy. One journalist has virtually been murdered.

The king makers from an Empire afar used all diplomatic tact and powers including public diplomacy to manipulate the boiling situation. People gradually retreated to the backyard of uncertainty with their unfulfilled desire for democracy as jockeying for leadership overwhelmed people’s political actions and people were used as weight in emerging balance of political forces. First scene of first act of contemporary Egyptian politics has virtually come to an end.

Two weeks of demonstration by people, and clash, arson, loot by Mubarak hirelings sent the dictator to his disgraced political demise. His days were numbered a few years back by his external master, friend and guide as reports emerged from Washington DC. His friend turned foe was pulling strings to ensure his down fall.

Unemployment, rising food price, poverty, inequality, corruption and autocracy in all its forms in Egypt galvanized the protest. People there along the Bahr al-Nil, the Nile, and near coast had energy and courage to challenge autocracy patronized by Empire. The force people power showed was not astonishing to Egypt observers as it is the normal expression of people deprived, subdued and silenced for decades. Only autocrats, appearing wise but ignorant in essence, fail to fathom depth of hatred and anguish they germinate. They live happily as they feel assured with force and intrigue.

Two powers stood face to face in Cairo, Alexandria, Suez: an old, over-stretched autocracy overburdened with its corruption and non-responsiveness inherent in its body and soul, and a new political action unorganized, uncertain, appearing undefined, almost spontaneous and dependent on other internal and external political actors. Days of protests entered into static action in a city square for days with a broader demand and without specific political course, and with all possibilities of getting steamed out. Initiatives were handed over to parties to autocracy as autocracy was allowed to regroup as well. Swinging days kept door open for status quo. Those were the days of bold, fearless action and of unaware inaction.

People’s courageous days witnessed historic moments: fled away tools of repression, public fraternizing soldiers, unarmed peaceful mass demobilizing tanks. Montgomery’s and Rommel’s tanks had no such experience; Gamal Abdel Nasser’s The Philosophy of Revolution has not mentioned similar mobilization. Equations of powers and ruling factions, stalemates and tensions within ruling camp got mirrored in these fleeing acts, accommodating fraternization and getting demobilized. The Cairo political panorama was of revolt, not of revolution, ready to get cheated influenced by euphoria of a section of scholars.

And, the game was concluded long ago. Only a mass was kept aimlessly active to ensure an “orderly transition”, so that strategic alliance does not face uncertain future. At least two major Egyptian actors were in Washington during the initial days of protest, and they returned home in the midst of Mubarak meltdown. By then, on January 29, demonstrators started celebrating atop tanks in Tahrir Square and sharing food with soldiers sent to restore order. Egypt's defense minister spoke by phone to Robert Gates, the US defense secretary, the US vice-president spoke to the newly appointed Egyptian vice-president, Admiral Mullen, the US chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff talked to the Egyptian army chief. The US secretary of state unswervingly continued pulling levers of public diplomacy. The US president was not negligent to his duty. Mail from EU to Cairo carried the same message: exit of Mubarak was the call of the hour as the old friend has now turned a liability. The World Security Conference in Munich also made the same conclusion. Mubarak’s fate was sealed by his masters. They were utilizing mounting pressure from streets.

The political upheaval that sent shudders through the Middle East and among global investors turned dependent on military for a democracy that will usurp the seat of power riding tank. Financial markets as well as Israel can only depend on the Egyptian army as speculators and Israel have limits. All, the Muslim Brotherhood and ElBaradei, showed the same limit. The Egyptian army with the prowess to ensure stability and continuity of strategic arrangement tolerated the protesters that showed sign of rift within the ruling machine.

The other aspect was also revealed. In absence of people’s democratic leadership the army appeared as the only institution in the society that could make and unmake political deals in Egypt. The ruling elites have efficiently obstructed development of institutions that could have nurtured democratic practices, and have developed institutions that are in alliance with army, a politicized institution that claim to be apolitical. It, in essence, confirmed its position as a tool for manipulation by masters. Limits of strength of the imported section of leadership in protest also got exposed. ElBaradei, a non-leader turned leader to a movement that lacks a leader, appealed to Obama while he was among the protesting people in Tahrir Square, to time on Mubarak: “Obama is the last one to say to President Mubarak, ‘It’s time for you to go”. The Empire’s tribune indeed!

Mubarak meddling is not the dictator’s crisis. It shows inefficiency, corruption, etc., and the dwindling power of the Egyptian ruling elites to keep people subdued. It is a crisis of those ruling elites. Its thievery has devoured its credibility, an almost universal process among ruling elites in the periphery. Its tools of torture have now turned blunt with the only hope of sharpening it with new face. Now, it is inching back with a hope of making a master stroke to reclaim its lost ground. The people of Egypt will experience new pharaohs in unstable political period.

Relying on youth and “wise men” will not ensure victory for the people. A democracy that can spell the end for tyranny is still a far cry. People, however, can win a breathing space, which can also be snatched away if people’s initiative loss thrust. But the political experience they will gather will be valuable: a pseudo victory will visit without people’s organization and leadership, and with static political actions that rely upon external powers to unseat a tyrant.

Taking help of part of the establishment, the military, and of the Empire for dumping away the dictator and establishing democracy is the dilemma the people are facing. The reality of the dilemma is the product of the society, not any individual’s or groups of individuals’ choice. People’s movement failed to conserve, develop and master strength that could have allowed it to take lead and foil deals. It has to partner with forces that stand for status quo, the unloved reality of deprivation and inequality in economy and politics.

Democracy: Yearning of People

The great divide, the Wall Street and the Main Street, is becoming stark everyday. This affects democracy, which is not class-neutral.

There is now not a gulf, but ocean of difference between the CEOs’ bonuses and the farm workers’ wages: “Even CEOs think CEOs are overpaid” (Reuters, Dec. 19, 2008), and: “Fatal Sunshine: The Plight of California's Farm Workers” (Time, early- August, 2009). Geyer and Rihani observe: “Western democratic systems have not reached a state of perfection …the danger signs are steadily mounting.” (“Complexity Theory and the Fundamental Challenges to Democracy in the 21st Century”, April 10-13, 2000)

Democracy of the dominant classes is in crisis both in the centre and in the periphery giving rise to the fear of being toppled down. This reality has pushed the centre to embark on campaign for democracy in the peripheral societies and in the newly won turf in east and central Europe and in central Asia. “A democracy campaign should become an increasingly important and highly cost-effective component of … the defense effort of the United States” (Raymond D Gastil, “Aspects of a U.S. Campaign for Democracy”, in Ralph M Goldman and William A Douglas (eds.), Promoting Democracy: Issues and Opportunities, Praeger, 1988). So, “[t]he cold warriors gave way to the political operatives of the ‘democracy network’, who launched their global ‘democracy offensive’” (William I Robinson, A Faustian Bargain, Westview Press, 1992).

But the seeds of contradiction refuse to die down in the societies divided along class interests that carry the seeds of crisis. The seeds of contradiction are embedded in the economic interests, in the appropriation of entire society by the dominant few. Exposed cases of manipulating state machine by interest groups confirm Lenin: “[F]inance capital, in its drive to expand, can ‘freely’ buy or bribe the freest democratic or republican government and the elective officials of any, even an ‘independent country’” (vol. 22, p.144). Other crises, especially the financial crisis, when, in the words of Franklin D Roosevelt, “Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion” (First Inaugural Address, 1933), have worsened the situation and have sharpened the line of conflict.

Despite the manipulations with the slogan of democracy, with the slogan of a political system which is accountable and transparent, and despite efforts to hide the interest of the globalizing capital under the cloak of democracy the efforts provide breathing space, at times and in relative terms, for people under absolute autocratic rule and create scope for maneuver for people’s movement, depending on maturity of the movement. A wide environment allows space, through legislation of democratic, human, labor, ethnic, gender rights, etc., and/or possibilities for creating space by the dominated for broader, open and conscious debates, initiatives and struggles. This is the importance of the political arrangement for facilitating “democracy”.

Practices with democratic norms and rules including accountability and transparency engenders democratic aspirations among the masses, create institutions conducive to democracy; but at certain point of development the striving for democracy by the masses and the denial of it by the dominant interests will intensify conflict along economic interest line.

Whatever the geostrategic game and its needs for satellites under the umbrella of imposed democracy the yearnings of people around the world for a democratic system do not get lost. The onslaught of capital, yesterday wearing the mask of neo-liberalism, today of the public-private partnership, and tomorrow, most possibly, going back to the neo-cons, to the private sector, is consistently increasing as its crises are compelling it to intensify the offensive in search of a recourse to its problems. Thirst for accumulation is driving capital to reckless game and thus bringing imperil in the lives of the people. Thus, it tries to distort peoples’ efforts for a democratic life by manipulating and misguiding peoples’ aspirations, with its vast resources. This creates the biggest crisis in the arena of democracy for the people. The spirit of democracy gets lost by capital’s grip over the entire globe. Other crises created by the dominant capital have made people’s struggle for democracy difficult, have created threat to people’s initiatives to organize democratic system.

Capital cannot tolerate people’s democratic life as it is opposed to the interests of capital. The overwhelming power of capital spread over the globe in collaboration with its compradors is the biggest obstacle to people’s initiatives, to their striving for democracy.

People at the same time are facing other crises. In many places the physical existence of people are facing threat either due to climate change, the extreme weather, loss of habitat and crop land, forests, washing away of infrastructure built up with people’s money, or due to ethnic, and other clashes fanned by capital in its quest for strategic resources. This situation obscures the fundamental question of democracy: “of the people, by the people, for the people”, the hope Lincoln expressed in his Gettysburg address, the rule of the majority, not the aggrandizing absolute minority. The near-complete globalization by capital has thus created the crisis of democracy. But, Whitman’s Song resonates:

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good as
belongs to you.

(Song of Myself)

[This is the concluding part, slightly modified, of a chapter from The Age of Crisis, 2009.]

Manufacturing “Democracy”

Democracy remains unfulfilled aspiration of people living in most of the peripheral societies as the ruling classes/segments, accomplices/compradors of the dominating capital, are historically incapable of delivering the political form. The ruling classes’/segments’ incapability generates contradictions, between people’s aspiration and rulers’ interests, the rulers fail to resolve. The failure is also historical. But the reaction that comes up threatens ruling system, and turns dangerous to strategic needs of the world masters. So, they step in with their design for “democracy”.

So, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IIDEA), and others “play an instrumental role” (annual report, 2008). Fundamentally the same views the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the wing of the USAID, owns. So, partners are organized.

But does democracy thus instrumented work? Andrew J Enterline and J Michael Greig of the University of North Texas provide a partial answer in their paper “Historical Trends in Imposed Democracy & the Future of Iraq & Afghanistan” (Jan., 2007). They examined 40 “imposed democratic” regimes, from 1800 to 1994.

“[I]mposed democracy,” they said, “is a phenomenon occurring primarily during the twentieth century.” They identified three cases occurring in the nineteenth century (Yugoslavia in 1838, New Zealand in 1857, and Canada in 1867) and the remainder of the sample occurred in the twentieth century. “Lebanon and the Philippines, that are ultimately failures” persist for long durations (50 and 38 years, respectively). These are exceptional cases. Several cases of imposed democratic regimes failed rapidly (Yugoslavia, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and Nigeria). These bear similar characteristics to the contemporary cases of Iraq and Afghanistan. Not only do nearly 60 percent of the 40 imposed democratic regimes fail during their period of observation, but the mean durability of this group of imposed democratic regimes is approximately 16 years. The principal conclusions they draw are: (1) Half of the imposed democracies fail by their 30th year of persistence. (2) Half of the institutionally weak imposed democracies fail by their 15th year, and 70% of these regimes fail by their 33rd year. Conversely, 37% of the institutionally strong imposed democracies fail by their 15th year, with no failures thereafter. (3) Weak imposed democracies rarely become more democratic, and 53% of the 40 imposed democracies experience a weakening in democratic institutions.(4) The failure of imposed democracies reduces the likelihood that a host state will experience democracy subsequently, as well as reducing the durability of democracy if it does return.

Dr. Robert Geyer and Dr. Samir Rihani in their paper “Complexity Theory and the Fundamental Challenges to Democracy in the 21st Century” (presented at the 2000 PSA Conference at the London School of Economics, April 10-13, 2000) said: “As the 20th century came to an end, Western style liberal democracy and free market economics appeared to be completely triumphant. Developing countries, possibly in response to pressure from the IMF/World Bank, international opinion, and international forces, were becoming increasingly … free market oriented. The academic zenith of this position can be found in Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History and The Last Man.” They argue that the claims of triumph “are actually troubling indicators of increasingly stultifying rigidities in the democratic and economic processes of advanced industrial countries” and these models when imposed upon the weak and impoverished countries of the Third World, yield highly uncertain results at best and growing economic impoverishment and social and political disintegration at worst.” They continue: “linear systems … thrive on … distinct hierarchical structures” and the systems cannot handle the “problems, solutions, opportunities, and challenges in the social science arena, and hence in democracy … a concept … neither simple nor clear. It is made even more obscure because it has been adopted … as a marketing slogan…” To them a Newtonian foundation is there in the core structure of Western liberal democracy.

Thus, they questioned the Western democratic system, a section of which is trying to impose its democratic design on other countries, especially in the periphery. To Geyer and Rihani the “more serious threats to democracy … include: (1) the continuing belief in and pursuit of an ‘end’ state for democracy based on Western experience, (2) economic globalization and associated inequalities, and (3) the internationalisation and imposition of preconceived models of democracy. Reduction of choices and variety are the biggest dangers in view of the dynamic nature of the process involved in the emergence and development of democracy.” As example they cited the “Third Way, advocated by Bill Clinton and Blair and articulated by Anthony Giddens…” (The Third Way, 1998 and Beyond Left and Right, 1994.) According to them the “Third Way” is “patently attractive and deceptively innocent” that uses “a fundamentally linear logic.” Their next argument is: “The growth of market based economic forces” is a “major challenge” to democracy. They said: “At both the national and global levels, economic developments based on superiority of market forces and free trade across boundaries are themselves powerful challenges to democracy…. [T]heorists of democracy cannot ignore the economic context within which democracy is nestled … It is still unclear … whether the cherished right to criticize a prime minister or a president … without fear of persecution by the state is more or less valuable than other rights relating to jobs, food, health, education, old age, and incomes…. [I]f the political parties offer almost identical policies, elections become irrelevant in practice. They would simply result in rotation between a group of people intent on retaining the status quo…. The unwillingness, and in fact inability, of governments to ‘intervene’ in business and the virtual impossibility of having an effective global trade union movement leaves the field clear for the economy to triumph over all other considerations.”

They identified “the internationalization of linear models of democracy” as another major challenge to democracy. They said: “[T]he dominance of certain leading economic and political powers and their wish to impose precise models of democracy … on other nations is equally alarming. There are suggestions that the leading powers are simply promoting their particular interests.” As examples they cited Nigeria, Algeria, Chile, Afghanistan and Pakistan. There are other countries also.

They concluded: “policies and actions grounded into a top-down command-and-control style of management … are seen as potent threats to democracy….[D]evelopment of lasting democratic beliefs and practices is a complex process that requires time as well as helpful global and local conditions. External influences are immaterial at best and harmful at worst. Such efforts have not succeeded in the past and could not succeed in future because they ignore, intentionally or otherwise, the true nature of the processes involved.” Collier also argued that monopolizing rewards by a small group of persons bring damaging conflicts (The Political Economy of Ethnicity, 1998). He also argued that democracy and personal incomes are important factors in determining the possibility of conflict.

The ruling regimes or regimes installed by world capital cannot take away seeds of conflict and deliver functionally responsive, transparent, accountable, and non-repressive political system. They have been/will be installed to make appeasement, sell out people’s interests and cheap labor, and facilitate loot of natural resources. They have to repress people as people stand for common interests.

[This is a modified version of a part of a chapter from The Age of Crisis, 2009]

Turmoil in Tunisia: Rebellion Challenges Neoliberalism

Curfew covered Tunis, deployed troops, reported death of at least 66 protesters, demonstrators setting fire on government offices, mass protests, sacking of ministers have unmasked neoliberalism and its limits of power in seemingly politically stagnant Tunisia. Five suicides protesting unemployment and poverty have unplugged mass anger pent for decades against President Zine el Abindine’s corruption-ridden iron rule for over two decades.

The protests and demonstrations against the repressive regime spread out all over the country, from Kasserine, a remote farming area, to Gafsa, Regueb, El-Kef, to the city of Thala, to the capital city of Tunis, turned to a mass revolt against the repressive regime indulging with neoliberalism. As the demonstrations spread to the Mediterranean resort of Hammamet demonstrators smashed up a police station and holiday villas there, a town popular with the country's ruling class and Europeans. A villa owned by a member of the president’s inner circle was destroyed, with graffiti scrawled on a wall: “Death to Ben Ali” [the Tunisian president]. Vehicles and buildings were set alight. The dictatorship tried to desist journalists covering the protests. Demonstrations by thousands of workers were attacked in Tunis. Police also tried to stop a demonstration by workers.

Artists’ demonstration in the capital condemning excessive use of force was dispersed by police.
Security forces beat two actresses. Sana Daoud, one of them, shouted: “Shame on you!” Another was shoved to the ground. Jalila Baccar, actress, protested: “It’s our right to demonstrate.” Protesting bloggers hacking and blocking government websites were arrested. Government interfered with internet. Cyber warriors managed to shut down the government’s website, the national stock exchange site, and other sites. Their other steps include ensuring citizens’ scope to connect each other anonymously to the Internet and access information that the government restricts.

The protests began in Sidi Bouzid town, last December, after Mohamed Bouazizi, a young unemployed graduate, committed suicide on December 17. His protest triggered the country-wide protests and clashes with the police, touched off a wave of unrest rattling the government. Thousands of people vowing revenge attended the funeral of Bouazizi in Sidi Bouzid. Bouazizi has become the symbol of the rejection and contempt. The funeral marchers chanted: “Farewell. We weep for you today, we will make those who caused your death weep.”

Despite his education Bouazizi found no employment. He used to sell fruits and vegetables on the street in the Sidi Bouzid to earn a living. Police confiscated his produce as he did not have a permit. As a protest he set fire to himself. To Bouazizi, it appeared that “there was no future for him or his family.” He found all paths blocked. Bouazizi died in hospital last week. Another suicide was reported in the same area: Allaa Hidouri, unemployed university student, climbed up an electricity pylon and electrocuted himself saying “No unemployment, no misery”. It was second of five suicides linked to the protests.

The suicides unequivocally tell the deep sense of frustration, desperation and anger, the hatred against the corrupt ruling elite that has amassed huge wealth. The US that supports the dictatorship described the family of President Zine el Abindine, according to a Wikileaks released cable, a “quasi mafia” and the Tunisian regime as a “police state”. The demonstrations were initially against the increasing unemployment, with the unemployment rate currently standing at around 15%, but rising food prices and frustrations with the ruling elite have since become major issues.

Students, workers, teachers, lawyers, artists, actors, hospital workers, journalists and other professional groups joined the unemployed, the demonstrating masses. Violent protests spread to the capital city after sweeping towns and villages. Thousands of people took to the streets, torched the local headquarters of the National Guard. The Guards’ gunshots killed an 18-year-old protestor.

The demonstrations spread to the suburbs of the capital city. For the first time troops have been deployed in the capital since unrest broke out in the south of the country in mid-December, 2010. Armored vehicles rumbled through the capital streets. All schools and universities have been closed for indefinite period.

Students have called for mass protests. The Tunisian Bar Association has called for a “general strike” to protest police brutalities. A call has been made for a protest demonstration in Tunis on January 26 and for solidarity protests in front of Tunisian embassies.

The demonstrations and wave of violent and unrest, almost rare in 23 years, have rocked Zine al-Abidine’s rule. Showing clear signs of retreat and compromise the shaken regime, “pledged” to create 300,000 new jobs on top of 50,000 already “pledged”. But the regime has already lost credibility after engineered elections over the years that produced the believe-it-or-not-votes: 97-99%. A number of ministers and the regional governors of Sidi Bouzid and of other regions have been sacked. But the president branded the demonstrating masses “gangs of thugs”. The world witnessed that a president actually tried to make comprise with the “thugs” by making new promises of jobs, etc.

The percentage of unemployed graduates is about double of the unemployed percentage. An estimated 55% of the population is under the age of 25. With Internet and Facebook, the Tunisian young generation today is more aware of the state of the society: increasing unemployment, ruthless privatization, withdrawal of subsidies for food.

Vigorous drive to liberalize the economy was a mark of the mid-’80s. More than 150 state enterprises were, fully or partially, sold out. Privatization has taken its social costs; unemployment and poverty levels rose. Despite the promising diverse economy with agriculture, mining, tourism, and manufacturing sectors poverty in Tunisia overwhelmed people as all the benefits accumulated in the pockets of a handful of elites.

Neoliberalism has been imposed by an alliance of army, business and civilian politicians that benefits the rich, part of the dominant pattern in this world system. Its politics is despotism and economy is the rich-poor great divide, and the two have produced an absolute failure in the society. The poor, farmers and workers pass days in poverty. In the “Tunisian Miracle”, as with other miracles, the masses dwell in well-designed impoverishment while the absolute minority – the rich – live in small islands named indulgence with theft and luxury. The wealthy minority with their links to the president and his family form a class-network that survives on loot, and gets patronization from their western friends, especially France, Italy and Spain. A significant portion of the youth’s only path to survival is the opposite shore of the Mediterranean. They make their journey by the so-called “death boats”.

Tunisians were dictated to forget political freedom in the sterile dead-democracy. Liberals, leftists, nationalists, all political dissidents, student activists, civil society were either put behind bars or dissolved. Organizations of all forms, even cultural and sports associations have been turned constituents of the rulers. Journalists were one of the worst victims of the rule. No other Arab country has imprisoned more journalists since 2000 than Tunisia. The Committee for the Protection of Journalists has declared the regime as one of the world’s 10 worst enemies of the press. Media rights watchdog Reporters without Borders ranks Tunisia 164th out of 178 countries in its press freedom index.

But high unemployment, rising food prices, high inflation, decreasing public sector, debt, social marginalization, hard-pressed middle class, outrageous level of censorship, restrictions on civil liberties, lack of transparency, particularly in the judicial system, and poverty have produced power that has pushed the masses to democratic actions in the country propagated as “an economic success story”. The dead stability has been made unstable by the masses demanding job, bread, better living conditions and a living democracy. Demonstrating masses are calling for radical reforms.

The clash is now with labor, students, youth, the unemployed. The government, a reliable US ally, is not now getting overt US support. Washington, as Hillary Clinton said, has not taken any side. It has called for a peaceful solution and expressed its deep concern at “the use of excessive force by the government of Tunisia.” The European Union, France and the UN have called for restraint.

The tyranny has finally produced nothing but an apparent political vacuum and a corrupt economy on the one hand, and seeds of turmoil on the other, a normal process of dead-democracy. The situation in the distort-democracy with narrowed down space for public participation and encroached public space is full with factors of explosion as the regime is losing control.

With a matured leadership this can usher in a new age of democracy for the people. An absence of matured leadership can produce chaos, and then, there will be a flow of old wine with new brand names. A matured leadership, not only rebellious acts and students’ role as vanguard, can challenge the ruling rich and bring significant change in the socioeconomy of Tunisia. Even, absence of a matured leadership and well developed organization will not make the rebellion a total failure. The flame of rebellion will light the future path, teach people, and will be remembered as the harbinger of transformation in the region.

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This article was published at countercurrents.org , on 14^th January, 2011

Toilers’ Torturous Time: A Glimpse Only

Part 1

Labor, symbolized by the Chilean miners, stood as ever unvanquished in the days just left behind. Labor also paid high prices during the period, symbolized by the Bangladesh garments workers, who died in a fire incident. Labor the world over is passing days with declining wage in actual terms, facing persecution for demanding implementation of rights essential for its survival.

Wages, a converted form of the value of labor power, actually decreased in many countries. The Great Financial Crisis has cut the growth of workers’ salaries by one half. Workers’ purchasing power has declined steadily. In actual terms, it is not also good news for capital.

Declining Wage

Global Wage Report 2010/2011-Wage policies in times of crisis, recently released by the International Labour Organisation, said: “the overall short-term impact of the crisis on wages should be looked at within the context of a long-term decline in the share of wages in total income, a growing disconnect between productivity growth and wages, as well as widespread and growing wage inequality.” “The largest part of this increase in inequality is due to top earners ‘flying away’, but another part was due to the ‘collapsing bottom’, where the gap between median and low-paid [defined as less than two-thirds of median wages] workers increased.” Data for the report was gathered from around 115 countries that represent 94% of the estimated 1.4 billion wage earners worldwide.

Global wage growth, the report said, slowed from 2.2% in 2007 to only 0.8% in 2008 and 0.7 percent in 2009. While Germany, Japan, Korea, the UK and other large economies have been experiencing significant decline in actual wage growth it is striking in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. In Latin America and the Caribbean, wages are beginning to rise.

Declining real wages is a part of class war that capital is waging against labor for long. Maximizing profit is the motive behind this onslaught by capital.

A pilot survey in China found that annual average wage growth in the private sector was 6.6% in 2009. China’s private sector workers earned lower wages and experienced slower wage growth compared to state sector employees. The state sector workers earned an average annual income of US$4,000 in 2009 while the private sector workers made US$2,800. About 30% of China’s urban workers and more than 60% of migrant workers remained low-income. In the new economic power, income has been declining against its GDP, and the gap between wages and productivity has continued to widen.

“Growth in average monthly real wages in Asia fell from 7.2 percent in 2007 to 7.1 percent in 2008,” the ILO report said. Japan’s real wages fell nearly 2% in both 2008 and 2009 while it fell by 4% in 2008 in Malaysia. In Thailand, it fell by almost 2% in 2009. In the Philippines, workers’ wages suffered one of the biggest cuts in Asia, with a 4% decline in real wages. This indicates a widening of the gap between workers’ productivity and their wages. In the last 15 years, low-wage employment has increased in many countries. These include Australia, China (among non-migrant workers), Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand and the Philippines. In Korea, 25% of full-time workers were in low wage employment and in the Philippines it was 15 percent.

Uneven Employment Recovery

Jobs Recovery: A Global Overview of Employment Trends and Working Conditions by Economic Activity, another ILO report, shows that employment was recovering unevenly across sectors in the first half of 2010. It said: while construction and manufacturing lost more than 5 million jobs in the first quarter of 2010 (compared to 2009), the health sector added almost 2.8 million jobs during the same period, compared to 2008. The report tracked 13 job sectors in 51 developed and developing countries.

Capital’s recovery path is uneven. This adds additional pressure on competing capitals, and capital, in turn, tries to transfer this pressure on labor.

Working Women: Hard Hit

Global Employment Trends for Women, ILO’s report in March, said that the financial crisis could be harder on working women than their counterparts as unemployment rates among women in marginalized and vulnerable jobs was increasing. Women’s employment rate is lower, their control over property and resources is weaker, they are concentrated in informal and vulnerable sectors, their earnings are lower and they have less social protection. These put women in a weaker position than men. To cop with the deteriorating situation women are engaging in longer working hours and taking multiple low-income jobs.

Women in Labour Markets: Measuring Progress and Identifying Challenges, an ILO report, found a continuing gender disparity in terms of both opportunities and quality of employment. In general, the circumstances of female employment, i.e., the sectors women work, the types of their work, the relationship between women and job, their wages, bring fewer gains to women than are brought to the typical working male. In almost all regions the rate of increase in female participation has slowed in recent years.

At the Women’s International Democratic Federation’s panel discussion on “The Economic Crisis and Women’s Access to Work” at the UN on March 10, 2010 it was informed that Filipino women are migrant workers in 145 countries, most often as low-paid domestic servants with no rights.

Working women, the weakest of the weak, always are bearing the hardest and heaviest burden: a sharp contradiction “mercifully” created by capital. Declining real wages force them to work longer hours. They sacrifice most in households also.

[Part 2]

Capital does not spare children in its drive for profit. Widespread poverty fuels the machine that exploits child labor. The time that passed witnessed exploitation of child labor that even establishment failed to ignore.

Child Labor: Increased Exploitation

The crisis has increased the exploitation of child labor. Around 215 million child laborers are there in factories, on farms, in households.

The US Labor Department identified 128 goods from 70 countries, from coffee grown in El Salvador to sapphires mined in Madagascar, where child labor, forced labor or both are used. Other countries include Angola, Central African Republic, Chad, China, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Pakistan, Rwanda, Tonga, Uzbekistan, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and many others. India employs the highest number of child laborers, followed by China. Smaller countries in sub-Saharan Africa have a much higher proportion of child worker: up to one-third of children under 14 work instead of attending to schools.

Child labor or forced labor produced products include diamonds, gold, coffee, sugar cane, coal, cotton, tobacco, bricks, and many more. In Uzbekistan, officials require children to pick cotton. In Myanmar, forced child labor helps produce everything, from sugar to teak to rubber to rubies. The US was not free from the “contribution” of child labor. Last year children, even 6 year old, were found working on blueberry farms in Michigan. Eight farms were fined.

Child labor is cheaper and easier to subdue that in turn makes profit making easier. Many luxury commodities carry toils of these tender hands.

Agricultural Workers

In Promotion of Rural Employment for Poverty Reduction, report (2008) ILO estimated that more than one billion people were employed in agriculture. Asia had the largest share, about 70% of the total, followed by sub-Saharan Africa with about 20%. In many countries agriculture still employs more women than any other sector.

Agriculture, along with mining and construction, is one of the most dangerous industries. Agriculture workers, Sue Longley wrote in Agricultural Workers Still Struggle for Their Rights, with wages below poverty line fail to ensure food security of their families and often live in very precarious conditions. The hazards they face include: dangerous machinery, livestock, extremes of temperature and inclement weather, dehydration due to lack of access to potable water, and exposure to biological hazards arising from pesticides and other agro-chemicals. The number of fatal accidents is not less in the industry, the single biggest user of child labor: 70% of all child workers. About 130 million girls and boys under 15 work in agriculture. With work for long hours their health, safety and education are at risk.

Dedicating songs of affection to the persons engaged with agriculture turns out an act of deception if a brutal arrangement of dangerous agriculture is kept intact.

Migrant Workers

Tales of migrant workers, in overwhelming ratio, go closer to those of slaves. Amnesty International has focused on migrant rights in Malaysia and Thailand, the two main receiving countries of migrant workers in Southeast Asia. Migrant workers suffer from a wide range of abuses in both countries, from their employers, recruiting agents, and the security forces. In Thailand, more than 2 million registered migrant workers make up about 5-10% of the workforce. In Malaysia, the figure is about 2.2 million or about 20% of the workforce. In both countries, they live in poor conditions and work for long hours. Conditions in detention centers in a Southeast Asian country remain very poor, with reports of extreme overcrowding and lack of regular access to clean water, medical care and sufficient food. (Donna Guest, “Migrant Workers and Human Rights in Southeast Asia”, Oct. 14, 2010)

Migrant workers, broadly, have similar experience in other parts of world, irrespective of political system. Whether it is a modern, capitalist democracy or a medieval clan system, migrant workers’ experiences fundamentally changes to nothing. Over 100 migrant farm workers from Mexico, Jamaica, Trinidad and Barbados employed at an Ontario plant had to stage a wildcat strike in November, 2010 to realize thousands of dollars in unpaid wages. Most of them were deported. Their living condition was deplorable.

In an oil-rich country, it was reported, “migrant workers continue to commit suicide at an alarming rate …, as a close examination of [newspapers of that country] for the month of April 2010 shows. During [the] period, there [were] 12 reported cases of suicide and suicide attempt by migrant workers … [D]uring 35 surveyed days in late February-March, a migrant worker committed suicide every two days there. Workers are often driven to suicide by harsh living and working conditions, abuse and non-payment of wages. During the same month, the local police uncovered several cases of rape, torture and human trafficking of migrant domestic workers.” On April 4, a Jordanian man “fell” from the fourth floor of a building. On April 6, a Bangladeshi ended his life by hanging himself off a tree. On the next day an Asian maid jumped to her death from the 3rd floor of a building and an Asian maid attempted suicide by slitting her wrists. On the next day, an Egyptian worker was admitted to the hospital after drinking insecticide in a bid to end his life. On April 12, an Indian shepherd killed himself by hanging outside his sponsor’s tent. On the next day, an Indian worker “fell” from the roof of a building and sustained injuries and an Egyptian worker fell to his death. On the next day, an Asian man hanged himself to death in a labor camp. On April 25, a Nepalese maid committed suicide. On the next day another Nepalese maid hung herself to death and a Sri Lankan man attempted to end his life by drinking a cleaning liquid. On April 10, a local newspaper reported about the kidnapping and rape of an Indonesian maid by policemen. On April 15, a housemaid reported to police for beating by her sponsor after she refused to sleep with him. On April 27, an Asian couple was arrested for forcing six runaway maids into prostitution. The report said: The local press, “like most regional papers, mention suicides by workers in just a few sentences, never bothering to find out the names of the victims, sometimes mentioning the nationality. The reports are hidden in the least-read pages and often hint that the cause of suicide was mental illness of the victim ...” (Migrant rights)

Annual Survey of Violations of Trade Union Rights 2010 (ASVUR), the report by International Trade Union Confederation, informed: In Saudi Arabia, 23 Chinese workers were arrested and repatriated after a strike to protest against low salaries. In Kuwait, there were 13 cases of suicide or attempted suicide in November alone.

The situation led one to write the following comment:

The people who really built the city [city of an oil-rich state was named] can be seen in long chain-gangs by the side of the road, or toiling all day at the top of the tallest buildings in the world, in heat that Westerners are told not to stay in for more than 10 minutes.

When they [migrant workers] arrive, their passports are taken from them, and they are told their wages are a tenth of the rate they were promised.

They end up working in extremely dangerous conditions for years, just to pay back their initial debt. They are ringed-off in filthy tent-cities outside [the city], where they sleep in weeping heat, next to open sewage. They have no way to go home. And if they try to strike for better conditions, they are beaten by the police.

I met so many men in this position I stopped counting, just as the embassies were told to stop counting how many workers die in these conditions every year after they figured it topped more than 1,000 among the [nationals of a south Asian country was named] alone. (Johann Hari, “A morally bankrupt dictatorship built by slave labour” The Independent, Nov. 27, 2009)

[Part 3]

Truck Drivers and Hunger Strikers

Lands of dream, present and past, are full of inconsistencies between pronouncements and realities. The following reports fail to hide the fact:

The Big Rig: Poverty, Pollution, and the Misclassification of Truck Drivers at America’s Ports, a report examining working conditions and employment status of 110,000 US port truckers, found: Thousands of the truck drivers are being denied basic civil and human rights due to companies illegally hiring them as “independent contractors” rather than employees.

The above news is mentioned here only as a symbol that highlights the state of labor in the US and tactics capital resorts to. Even white collar employees in the US stood in protest lines.

In October 2009, workers along with homeowners, renters, farmers and retirees joined together in protest in Chicago at the American Bankers’ Association’s annual meeting. Thousands of people joined the protest named “Showdown in Chicago.” The protesters entered the lobby of the hotel where the ABA delegates gathered.

A press report said: In August 2010, around 10 workers in Kirov, a Russia city, went on a hunger strike. Their demand was to cut the price of utilities to the city average, to take over the privately owned dormitory, privatized in the 1990s, by the municipal authorities and installation of an elevator and mains hot water. The average price of a room in the dormitory was 2-3 times higher than average rent in the city. The head of the city administration and the regional governor declined to get involved in the dispute between a private company and residents.

In the US and Russia, incidents of strikes by labor are many. Labor had to resort to strike finding no other alternative. Europe witnessed strikes and demonstrations by labor. In Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy, France labor’s protests and strikes took at times near-unprecedented appearance. In many poor countries labor stood in the same way. Burden of crisis was put on labor in the name of austerity burden.

Deaths and Killings

Capital resorts to brutal ways as its capacity to absorb contradictions dwindles. Annihilating elements asking for only a breathing space is one of those ways. Trade Unionists, vocal for labor, are part of those elements.

The number of trade unionists murdered in 2009 increased to 101, 10 attempted murders and 35 serious death threats, ASVUR mentioned. Killings of trade unionists increased by 30% compared to the previous year. The deadliest country was Colombia: 22 trade union leaders and five women were killed. The climate of extreme violence took the lives of 89 trade unionists including at least seven women. This again made the Americas the deadliest continent in the world. Colombia, Guatemala and Honduras had the high tolls, 48, 16 and 12 labor activists killed respectively. Mexico had similar six deaths, Brazil had four and the Dominican Republic had three.

In last spring, 29 workers died in a mine in West Virginia, operated by Massey Energy. It was the worst US mining disaster in 40 years. Miners’ and other workers’ death the world over is another long chapter in labor’s life, unprecedented by any account.

Deaths faced by labor the world over are actually innumerable. Hunger and poverty take toll from labor. In industrial plants, in mines, in construction sites, on farms, in transport sector death is virtually the closest neighbor of labor. Miners in New Zealand, China, in Africa and Latin America had to face death while they were engaged to produce wealth for the rich.

Part IV

Rights Denied Rights Restricted

About half of the world’s economically active population is not covered by the ILO Convention on the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining, 1949. About 50% of the global workforce has to get engaged in vulnerable work. This affected workers in export processing zones, especially in South Asia and Central America. Expansion of informal sector and “atypical” forms of employment has put labor into a harsh reality.

Workers in informal sector, ASVUR said, are prevented from joining trade unions (TU). Latin American brands of anti-union tactics include Solidarismo (practiced in Costa Rica, Ecuador and Panama), protection contracts (Mexico) and direct arrangements with non-unionized workers. In export processing zones (EPZ), particularly in Central America, workers have the same experience. EPZs elsewhere are no exception. Subcontracting workers via third companies is a major obstacle to organizing and collective bargaining.

Working for Scrooge: Worst Companies of 2010 for the Right to Associate, the International Labor Rights Forum’s annual report, names multi-national corporations that violated workers’ right in the previous year. The companies include Chiquita, Dole, Del Monte, and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. From the Philippines to Colombia to the US, these companies have adopted many tactics to prevent workers from realizing their rights. Companies including Del Monte and Chiquita have engaged subcontractors and other management schemes to weaken unions. Dole has been involved in forming company-friendly organizations in the Philippines to undermine democratic unions and has been accused of using violence against workers in Colombia. R. J. Reynolds has refused to improve the difficult working conditions of the US tobacco workers.

Nice face of capital’s “social” responsibility cannot hide scrooge faces.

The Middle East, ASVUR said, is one of the parts of the world where union rights are least protected. In Iran, workers celebrating May Day were met with reprisals. About 150 arrests were made and police and plain-clothes intelligence officers beat, abused and fired tear gas at the workers. Teachers were frequently harassed, with some being assaulted, beaten and arrested while observing National Teachers Day. In Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Syria and Yemen, TU is monopoly. In Iran, workers may only elect Islamic Labour Councils or guild societies while labor law in the UAE permits workers to organize only in associations. In Saudi Arabia, TUs and striking are banned. The collective bargaining right is not recognized in Bahrain, Jordan and the UAE. The right to strike also remains limited in Oman, Qatar, Syria and Yemen, and is not extended to the public sector in the UAE, Iran, Kuwait and Qatar.

In Europe, the report said, employers used tactics to obstruct TU activities and retaliate against workers. Dismissals were fairly common in a number of countries including Croatia, Switzerland, Poland and Ukraine. In Russia, 60 unionists were dismissed in 2009. Other anti-union strategies frequently used include transfer, demotion and wage cuts, harassment and manipulation of workers. The right to strike is restricted in numerous European countries. In Serbia, if a strike is declared illegal, the participants and the union calling the strike face extensive penalties. In the Czech Republic, Latvia, Portugal and Turkey, laws leave little scope for bargaining on employment conditions. In Georgia and Croatia, courts either do not apply the laws prohibiting anti-union discrimination or legal proceedings are too long or enforcement is ineffective. More than 700 Balkan workers turned victims of trafficking in Azerbaijan.

Denials of TU rights and brutal abuse took place in the Americas in 2009, the report said. Murders, death threats, disappearances and harassment occurred throughout the region. The government of Costa Rica used the political crisis as a pretext to further weaken workers’ and TU rights. The obstacles to the exercise of TU rights in North America remain numerous, albeit less violent. In numerous cases, police and security forces are even party to violations. Many laws are too restrictive or fail adequately to protect TU rights. In Trinidad and Tobago, employers resisted negotiating collective agreements.

Even, Freedom House, informed readers are aware of its position, in its report The Global State of Workers’ Rights: Free Labor in a Hostile World said: workers have suffered worse violations than in years past. About one-fourth of all countries assessed in the report had, according to the report’s definition, “repressive” or “very repressive” labor rights. The report released in September, 2010 found that the rights of working people and TUs were under serious duress throughout much of the world. The report said: the US did not receive top marks because its overall political environment was “hostile” to unions and labor protests. In China, thousands of workers die each year in factory and mining accidents. Forced or coerced labor is a matter of government policy in a number of repressive societies including Myanmar.

Many trade unionists remained in prison and were joined by around hundred others in 2009. Many others were arrested in Iran, Honduras, Pakistan, South Korea, Turkey and Zimbabwe. The general TU rights’ situation has continued to deteriorate in a number of countries, including Egypt, Russia, South Korea and Turkey, said ASVUR.

It said: “Public authorities and companies have continued to use the [financial] crisis as a pretext to weaken and undermine trade union rights.” Many violations, the report said, go unreported, “as working women and men are deprived of the means to have their voices heard, or fear to speak out due to the consequences to their jobs or even to their physical safety.”

Labor, according to the report, faced massacres, abduction, kidnapping, disappearances, beatings, arrest, detention, dispersed demonstrations, assassination attempts, strike-breaking, violent repression of striking workers, order to leave unions, harassment, police raid in union leader’s home, violations of human and trade union rights, dishonored collective bargaining agreement, denial of TU registration, employers’ refusal to recognize TUs, organizing yellow unions by employers, hiring of thugs, mass dismissal, long prison sentences and false charges. Harsh working condition is labor’s integral part of life. These happened, to different extent and forms, in countries after countries that include Algeria, Benin, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Fiji, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Japan, Kenya, Lebanon, Liberia, Morocco, Nepal, Nigeria, the Philippines, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania and many more. Underpaid workers and workers forced to work very long hours turned reality in many countries. In China, while the increasing number of strikes has caused local authorities to adopt a less hostile stance towards unions, striking workers still face harassment and police repression.

European workers, the report said, carrying out TU activities continued to be targeted. “In countries with long traditions of industrial relations, anti-union discrimination and repression took place.” The continent now has thousands of laid off workers. In Russia, a complaint was filed with the ILO “concerning the continuous attacks on TU leaders and anti-union harassment, government interference, the refusal to register and recognize TU and an overall lack of effort in investigating violations of TU rights”. In Belgium, TUs lodged a complaint before the European Committee of Social Rights for “violations of the right to strike.” In Turkey, the number of lawsuits aimed at curtailing union rights increased while Georgia and Ukraine witnessed more than hundred lawsuits filed against TUs and their leaders. In Belarus, TU rights situation deteriorated. In Albania, the government stripped the TUs of their assets. Thus TUs were deprived of the possibility of normal functioning. There was also an alarming trend of targeting union leaders’ family members with dismissals. In the UK, a major blacklisting operation was uncovered.

Public Servants

Millions of workers including public servants in the US, Mexico and Ecuador are deprived of their fundamental rights, said ASVUR. In Bulgaria, Estonia, Greece, Germany, Turkey, Ukraine, laws prohibit civil servants from engaging in collective action.

The brief description above is not a happy one. Capital is increasingly adopting sophisticated techniques to subjugate labor as the economic crisis crashes down the impoverished and narrows down labor’s space for rights. Labor is increasingly facing animosity and violence. In the long-term, grinding poverty and the environment of animosity will increase inequality and class hostility with prospect of shaking status quo. 

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This article was published at countercurrents.org , on 1^th January, 2011

Death Of Those Garments Workers

Thirty-one workers died of fire and smoke in a garments factory near Savar, a few km from Dhaka, as parts of the factory gutted on Dec. 14, 2010.

What’s her name? And, his? His? Her?

What’s the use value with their names? They had names. But those names are useless now. They are nameless. Or, they could be identified with any name. Shefalee, Halima, Rafiqul, Kabirul, Shohaagee. Below-ordinary guys they were. The names were below-ordinary. Humbled and shackled life bears no name. At terminal point, they just turn into number.

They were faceless. Do faceless souls bear any name? No. Even, names with faceless souls carry no name-value. Put on any face on there. Any face will fit in appropriately.

Yes. Those faceless faces smiled. Those faceless faces bore lines of pain, overflowing pains. And, at moments, silent signs of anger played on corners of those faces. But all those, pains, anger and smiles slipped into oblivion at regular intervals, into unknown unconscious universe.

They just embodied labor, a source of resource. They embodied labor-power. They were wage-slaves. And, also were sellers. They sold whatever they had. They had only that labor to sell. No commodity could be produced without their labor-power, and no profit could be pocketed without appropriating their labor. But they had no control on their labor-power.

They had liberty. They had no liberty. They were at liberty not to go to labor market and not to sale their labor. But as hunger was their companion, as uncertainty was their associate, as fear was their yokefellow, as there were dependents on them back at home, they had to turn slave to wage, they had to mortgage their liberty, they had to forget the opportunities liberty offered.

What the fears they carried in their brains?

The same fears all wage-slaves carry. A sense of “perpetual insecurity…. Fear of losing a job. Fear of not finding a job. …Fear of boss’s wrath.” (Michael D. Yates “Class: A Personal Story”) The fear of, as Sweezy wrote, losing face if turned unemployed. Those were ordinary, simple, petty fears, the fears petty guys nourish: the Lilliputian fear of going hungry, going uncared and untreated if turned sick, the petty fear of eviction from rented home, the trivial fear of failure to maintain family of insignificant dependents. Those fears carry neither use value nor exchange value in markets that sale incensed candles and diamond ornaments and skin whitening cream.

Had they no dream?

Probably, they had. Probably, there was no space for dream. Only hunger, only empty stomach, only thirst for survival, only the desire to squelch an antagonistic time overwhelmed their dream. Or, probably, that thirst, that desire to squelch was their dream. Time worked like a wrench on their life, and pulled out whatever dream they had. Or, probably, needles, threads, buttons and hooks, constantly circling smaller wheels, sharp blades cutting cloth, or, bright lights over head, panes separating them from sunlight, or, railroad stripe, sunny side, true blue, winter wheat, sunset pink, pitch black, white, yellow, green and sky blue colors overwhelmed their dreams. Probably, their dream fleeted away towards an absent crimson red. It turned fugitive. Fugitive dreams those were.

What the thoughts they had in their last moments?

What can they think of? The near-to-illiterate or semi-literate folks, almost a nuisance in an honestly crook world, don’t think. They just produce, just consume, they just consume only to produce. A sub-human life bears no power to think of anything. How can a guy think if the guy goes down to the level of machine, if the fellow befriends machine and turns into part of machine? Machine’s rhythm is their rhythm of life. How can a folk think if he sells out all his time to a merchant named mere survival? They join production line, come back to their dingy dens, consume vulgarly and sleep haphazardly only to turn fit for next day’s production. They were miser enough not to allocate any space for reflection. Or, they were not masters of their time that could allow them to think or perceive or reflect. Their last moments probably failed to get separated from that time in cage.

Or, probably, they recollected some hopeless faces waiting for them. Probably, those were the hapless faces of their mothers, of fathers or wives, or of innocent faces of their children, minor, absolutely unaware of powerful tentacles of cruel reality. Probably, they thought of their fate abandoned even by fractions of fortune.

Or, probably, they had no intellectual capacity to think at all. That capacity probably has been forfeited long ago.

How many are they, those perished into flames and smokes in the garments factory there near Savar, Dhaka in mid-December?

The number, one or thirty-one, does not matter. Insignificant persons create no number. They have no power to generate that arithmetical articulation. Number-game doesn’t take them into account. Their produce is calculated only. And, to ensure that produce their consumption is monitored. Their consumption creates markets. That is carefully calculated. They will fail to produce if they don’t consume. Capital cannot be generated if they fail to consume. That consumption-failure will bring in failure in production, in productivity and consequently, in regeneration of capital. Their consumption up to a level is good news.

And, the perished-numbers there in a gutted garments factory near Savar is a mere single incident or accident, a simple addition to the numbers over the years. Taking into account will simply over-burden a sympathetic mind. It is better to forget those numbers. There is nothing to worry as long as there is a huge reserve army of labor in waiting. New numbers will join in the ranks behind machines. Perished-numbers are always gone with memories. Chariots of commodities will circle trade centers. Is not it better to forget those perished despite their strivings to survive? There are lots of Natha, the burned to death fall guy of Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan’s Peepli Live. Forget them. Are not they forgotten? Doesn’t it bring peace to a sound mind if they are forgotten?

But shall they be forgotten?

Difficult question to answer. Probably. Probably, they will not be. The perished are not necessary-numbers. There is a burgeoning reserve army of labor. Rather, some tricky accounting method will find out an extra niche for extra profit with the perish- puzzle.

A thin possibility of have-not-forgotten-you may reside in the fading memories of an old mother, an ailing father, a young widow with unfriendly world around, a sister, a brother, a daughter or a son. But the grieved will not be allowed to shed tears as a very powerful force will push them out from the grave of grief. It is the force of hunger, the force of poverty, a major force that shapes lives of millions, that shapes politics. The certainty of uncertainty will pull them out and will not allow them to keep the memories of the perished-numbers for long. The grieved below-ordinary near ones have to dry down tears as soon as possible as the whip of survival will dictate that way and they have to run and rush for finding out food, for finding shelter. It is like luxury to them to sit idle and shed tears. The competing forces in market economy cannot afford that inefficient use of body-power that creates tears.

But time will tick. Probably, someday somewhere someone will dig out facts of perished garments workers’ last sleep from the pages of newspapers and from online-news sites and calculate the cost labor paid in search of a decent life.

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This article was published at countercurrents.org , on 15^th December, 2010

A Loud London Day

Student activism and politics in the United Kingdom, both at national level, have shown their close connection. Both, moored in economy, are acting with each other, and pronouncing aloud old questions related to politics, citizens’ rights, state’s role, and education.

Consequently, political problems are raising heads seeds of which were sowed by the orthodox politics of perpetuating disparity and disregarding principles of equity. London tiptoed these problems followed by a day of protest, and a stray incident of anger ventilation. This reflects the mood in general: ready to reject and protest austerity the ruling class is imposing.

Hundreds of coach loads of students and lecturers from across England joined together on November 10, 2010 to protest plans to treble tuition fees and cut university funding in England. A section of the protesters, in the words of the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Stephenson, to the “embarrassment for London”, hurled eggs and bottles, and took over Tory headquarters after pushing back outnumbered, and virtually baffled policemen there. Banners set on fire added heat to the scene while a few other acts told intensity of anger. The London police later regained control of the building with smashed windows and protest flags flown from the roof after “moving the crowd back … a meter every minute”. Demonstrators also gathered outside the Liberal Democrat headquarters as the LibDems were wearing a mask of hypocrisy.

The National Union of Students has threatened to try to unseat LibDem MPs who go back on pre-election pledges they made to oppose any rise in tuition fees. All the LibDem MPs including the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and Business Secretary Vince Cable signed pre-election promises to oppose any increase in fees. In June, Nick said the coalition would bring in a right for voters to re-call their MP and force a by-election if the MP was found to have been engaged in “serious wrong-doing”. Now, students’ first target is Nick. Nick is now also repentant for his election-pledge to oppose increase in tuition fees. But still now there is no law to make “re-call” possible. That may assure the pledge-bound MPs.

While the massive protest march of more than 50 thousand students was passing off peacefully the Question Time in the Commons witnessed a fiery exchange between the Nick and Labour Party's Harriet Harman over fees. On the London streets, the protesting students shouted: “No ifs, no buts, no education cuts”. Students from many higher seats of education including Oxford, Birmingham and Ulster Universities joined the peaceful protest march. David Barclay, Oxford University Student Union president, said: “This is the day a generation of politicians learns that though they might forget their promises, students won’t.” But, protests do not always help politicians learn. They wait, in most cases, till defeat pushes them down from the stage of politics. But, defeat does not act all the time. Sections of politicians know the trick.

The protesters in the Tory headquarters building released a statement that opposed all cuts, marketization of education, and “the system of helping the rich and attacking the poor”. They stood “in solidarity with public sector workers, and all poor, disabled, elderly and working people”, and called “for direct action to oppose these cuts.” It said: “This is only the beginning of the resistance to the destruction of our education system and public services.” The statement seems universal as education has been and being marketed in most of the countries, as poor, disabled, elderly and working people are suffering in most of the countries.

Protesting students raised the question of disparity. One of the student leaders said: “Politicians don’t seem to care. They should be taking money from people who earn seven-figure salaries, not from students who don’t have any money.” Similarly, the issue of actually making a market with university fees has also been raised. Sections of politicians really do not care; never do they have any intention to put their hands in the pockets of the rich to finance poor men’s welfare program.

A boom for private universities is being apprehended by students. They see the plan as the abandonment of the key principle of state funding for teaching, withdrawal of funding for subjects other than science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and privatization of university teaching. Politics for status quo will not like philosophy, literature and history as these do not ensure profit.

Organized by the National Union of Students and the University and College Union, the march was the biggest student demonstration in generations that told: “We’re in the fight of our lives ... we face an unprecedented attack on our future before it has even begun. They’re proposing barbaric cuts that would brutalize our colleges and universities. This is just the beginning ... the resistance begins here.” Brutalization of educational institutions in many countries has been initiated many years ago as corporate capital made those serve corporate interests, as sections of educational institutions were made part of military-industrial complex. One of the student leaders said that the “miserable vision” would be resisted, and students would take their protests to their constituencies. Probably, this November will witness more student protests.

The government plan, an incomplete compromise, has failed to mask its pro-rich face in a reality of disparity. According to the NUS, “The number of black students applying to go to university has fallen by 10 per cent since 1997 and the number of applications from men from working-class backgrounds fell by 7 per cent in the same period”. The NUS said that proposals for “top-up fees” – extra tuition charges of up to £5,000 suggested by Vice-Chancellors at some of the top universities – threatened to turn the higher-education system into one based on financial muscle, rather than academic. In many countries, education solely relies on financial muscle; the poor lack that muscle.

Even a section of LibDems protested their party’s position. Students in Northern Ireland apprehended that the same fees increase would be imposed on them. This led them to protests at Stormont.

The flare at the Tory HQ is an indicator of a country ready to rise in protest against pro-rich steps, against job cuts, against making education commodity and making it a domain of the financially powerful. It may be, as an NUS leader claimed, the “beginning of a campaign to run until the General Election to persuade political parties to rule out top up fees.” Goldsmiths students recently took over Deptford Town Hall. There were a few more incidents of student protest in the UK this year. The London student protest carries deeper message, a message against making education mere investment for profit, a message for establishing “link between education and the broader social good.”

There is a possibility that workers under the sword of job cut will also rise in protest. Thousands of council job losses at Sandwell council, Derbyshire County Council, Leeds City Council and Stoke on Trent City Council are waiting for the working persons. The student protest may add encouragement.

The London student march is now part of politics, an initiative by students to safeguard their space, an initiative that requires interacting with politics, an initiative that feels compelled to pull out issues related to politics. The London student march shows, a lesson for many in many countries, student activism should not ignore student problems in the name of getting engaged with lofty-sounding slogans.

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This article was published in www.countercurrents.org, an alternative news site,  November 12, 2010