Inequality: The Unaccounted Surplus Value Women Produce

More burdens are put on women than men as exploiting women has been made easier in the present world system. The tricky arrangement, a make-belief “universal” fact, is part of status quo. Advanced capitalist economies fail to discard the arrangement as the surplus value women produce is a lot, at times and in lands it's trillions of dollars.

This leads one to the finding: Even, advanced capitalist economies, many of those are matured bourgeois democracies also, deprive women. This old fact has been confirmed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and others from mainstream. “[O]n average, in OECD countries, women earn 16% less than men, and female top-earners are paid 21% less than their male counterparts.” (OECD, Gender Equality in Education, Employment and Entrepreneurship: Final Report to the MCM(Meeting of the OECD Council at Ministerial Level) 2012 , May 2012) In Australia , women were among the worst affected as recent reports on poverty in the country found. In that continent-country, women were more likely to experience poverty than men – 14.7 percent compared to 13 percent in 2011-12. ( Poverty in Australia 2014 , Australian Council of Social Service) In backward countries, in societies without accountability and transparency, condition of women is can easily be assumed if women in the OECD-countries experience the deprivation.

However, deprivation of women doesn't deprive capital from getting service from women. “Companies”, the OECD found, “with a higher proportion of women in top management do better than others.” The fact stands as: You're paid less as you serve me better. It's the logic of capitalism!

The OECD report said: “[W]omen are doing more unpaid work than men, regardless of whether they have full-time jobs or not. Among couples where both partners work, women spend more than two hours per day extra in unpaid work, and even among female-earner couples men only do as much housework as women. The types of housework also differ: men tend to garden or engage in house maintenance, while women are more likely to cook and clean.” Unpaid work, whether it's in home or in agriculture field, goes to the account of surplus value an entire society produces and capital appropriates.

It thus stands: capital profits at the cost of women, and capital exploits not only in manufacturing plants, but in homes also. In Australia , women's higher possibility of experiencing poverty than men “is due to the fact that women tend to have lower employment outcomes and wages, and are more likely to be in unpaid caring roles, and have lower investment incomes in retirement”. ( Poverty in Australia 2014 ) The report cited She works hard for the money: Australian women and the gender divide by Rebecca Cassells, Riyana Miranti, Binod Nepal and Robert Tanton. (National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling, Canberra , 2009) What the women in the Third and Fourth Worlds (TFW) countries experience in terms of wage, etc.? Imperialism has made the TFW a sanctuary for its capital with the regimes it has installed and with the retrogressive economic forces it has befriended in these two worlds. These “contribute” to generating surplus value in immense amount.

Women earning less are equal to higher exploitation of women, and that means the more vulnerable the more exploited. Even, at the top level, women face the inequality. At the lower level, in factories and farms, at construction sites and the so-called informal sector, in the TFW-countries, the inequality is harsher. It appears a beast. The reality exposes capitalism's anti-women character.

Crisis in the world system aggravated the situation related to women. In the context of the recent financial and economic crisis, ILO found, “29 million net jobs lost during the global economic crisis have not been recovered.” ( Global Employment Trends for Women 2012 , ILO, Geneva , December 2012) The crisis was boosted by the Eurozone crisis and the “fiscal cliff” threat in the US . These were followed by austerity measures – the mechanism to put the burden of crisis on people, and to reap profit from the crisis – in 2011-12. The impact hit women hard.

“From 2002 to 2007, the gender gap in unemployment was constant at around 0.5 percentage points, with the female unemployment rate higher at 5.8 per cent, compared to male unemployment at 5.3 per cent (with 72 million women unemployed compared to their global employment of 1.2 billion in 2007 and 98 million men unemployed compared to their global employment of 1.8 billion). The crisis raised this gender gap to 0.7 percentage points for 2012 …” (ibid.) The crisis, the ILO found, eliminated 13 million jobs for women. Women were thus forced to join the reserve army of labor that capital uses to boost its profit and power. Joining the reserve army of labor weakens labor's bargaining power. Capital thus weakened women.

Moreover, the ILO report said “the crisis saw a reversal in the historically higher employment growth rates for women, lowering them below those for men by 0.1 percentage points …” (ibid.) Capitalist crisis increases inequality. There is nothing to get astonished as the system is really a bonafide exploiter from head to toe.

The entire system, not only the system's crisis, doesn't give up women from exploitation. It not only turns women into commodity, it pays women less also. The fact exposes capital's brute face as paying women less than men means paying women less for necessary labor, which means either considering women lesser than average human being or putting extra burden on women for sustaining her body and soul, which capital needs for its regeneration.

A broader “picture” makes the system's face more brute. All over the world, women's labor is underpaid and unpaid. Women's work at home is unpaid. For sustaining labor, an essential for capital, work at home – food preparation, rearing up children, etc. – is required, and that goes unpaid. So, the fact comes out as capital extracts from women at home.

“Women contribute substantially to economic welfare through large amounts of unpaid work, such as child-rearing and household tasks, which often remains unseen and unaccounted for in GDP.” (Katrin Elborgh-Woytek, Monique Newiak, Kalpana Kochhar, Stefania Fabrizio, Kangni Kpodar, Philippe Wingender, Benedict Clements & Gerd Schwartz, Women, Work, and the Economy: Macroeconomic Gains From Gender Equity , IMF staff discussion note, September 2013) It's actually theft as labor is used but unpaid.

Inequality women face turns stark if women's unwaged/under-waged work is considered. Citing the ILO Lena Graber and John Miller write: In 1990, women carried out two-thirds of the world's work for 5% of the income. (“Wages for housework: the movement & the numbers” in Amy Gluckman, John Miller, Bryan Snyder, and Chris Sturr (ed.), Readings in Macroeconomics , 28 th edition) In 1995, the UNDP's Human Development Report estimated that women's unpaid and underpaid labor was worth $11 trillion worldwide, and $1.4 trillion in the US . The share of the advanced economy is more than one-tenth. The amount tells capital's gains from women. Capital knows the secret: Wealth is in the hands of a goddess named Laxmi.

As example of hours spent by women in household work Lena and John refer to a set of data related to the issue: In Australia , 2 hours and 27 minutes were spent for child care per day in a household by a woman in 1997. In the UK in 2000, it was one hr. and 26 min. while in Nepal , in 1996, it was two minutes more than that of the UK . In Norway , it was 42 min. in 2000 while in Japan it was 24 min. in 1999. Time spent for food preparation was: Australia – 1 hr 29 min., Norway – 49 min., the UK – 1 hr. 8 min., Nepal – 5 hr. 30 min. Time spent for water and fuel collection in Nepal was 1 hr 10 min while in Norway it was 1 min. Time was also spent for cleaning and shopping. The total time spent was: Australia – 3 hr. 39 min., Japan – 3 hr. 34 min., Norway – 3 hr. 56 min., the UK – 4 hr. 55 min. (op. cit.)

What do these hours and minutes mean? Citing Rosemarie Tong's Feminist Thought: A More Comprehensive Introduction , (1989, Westview Press) Lisa Healy writes: “In essence, women's domestic labour is a vital contribution to the production of marketplace commodities, as it permits the capitalist to extract surplus value in the marketplace and can hence, be construed as unpaid labour ‘performed for the capitalist'.” (“Capitalism and the Transforming Family Unit: A Marxist Analysis”, Socheolas: Limerick Student Journal of Sociology , vol. 2(1), November 2009, University of Limerick ) Mariarosa Dalla Costa and Selma James claimed that women's work inside the home generates surplus value. (cited in Rosemarie)

Further facts render more startling picture: “Canadian women performed 65% of all unpaid work, shouldering an especially large share of household labor [….] In Great Britain […] unpaid labor hours are high for an industrialized country […], far greater relative to GDP. […W]hen valued using the opportunity cost method, unpaid work was 112% of Britain 's GDP in 1995! With the specialist-replacement method, British unpaid labor was still 56% of GDP — greater than the output of the United Kingdom 's entire manufacturing sector for the year. In Japan […] women perform over 80% of unpaid work […] The Japanese Economic Planning Agency calculated that counting unpaid work in 1996 would add between 15.2% (generalist-replacement method) and 23% (opportunity-cost method) to GDP. Even at those levels, the value of unpaid labor still equaled at least half of Japanese women's market wages.” (Lena & John, op. cit.)

With increased crisis, financial or ecological, the workload on women increases. In areas in Bangladesh , rural women's time spent for collecting fuel and firewood increased many fold due to degradation of their immediate ecology. (Farooque Chowdhury, “Scarce fuel: Growing scarcer” and “Notes from the field”, People's Report 2002-2003, Bangladesh Environment , vol. I, UNDP sponsored) Micro credit targeted at women at household level increases debtor women's workload and working hour/day to the level of inhuman cruelty. (Farooque Chowdhury, “Metamorphosis of the micro credit debtor”, Micro Credit: Myth Manufactured , 2007) It's almost impossible to find mainstream's study on the working hour of women debtors of micro credit, and a comparison between incomes by micro credit “enterprise” and other economic work. One has to depend on inquiry at personal level to get the answer regarding micro credit debtors. These, data and information provided by Lena and John, and the People's Report, and the argument related to women-debtors of micro credit, are a part of a picture that help comprehend the labor women are compelled to spend in the service of capital.

The data and argument above tell the huge amount of wealth women produce and the extent of deprivation they “earn”. What's the total work day women spent all over the world for years and for generations, and what's the total amount of wealth they produce? It's unimaginable. Is it less than the labor required for building the Taj Mahal or the pyramids? Nazrul Islam, the Rebel Poet of Bengal, said: Half of the world's great creations are made by women, men's contribution was not the whole. The world system appears illogical if one compares the amount of money the system wastes by manufacturing arms, waging wars and invasions, organizing assassinations and hatching conspiracies while it doesn't pay women's so much labor.

But, “[t]here is ample evidence that when women are able to develop their full labor market potential, there can be significant macroeconomic gains. … [R]aising the female labor force participation rate (FLFPR) to country-specific male levels would, for instance, raise GDP in the United States by 5 percent, in Japan by 9 percent, in the United Arab Emirates by 12 percent, and in Egypt by 34 percent. …In rapidly aging economies, higher FLFP can boost growth by mitigating the impact of a shrinking workforce. … Better opportunities for women to earn and control income could contribute to broader economic development in developing economies …. Equal access to inputs would raise the productivity of female-owned companies. … The employment of women on an equal basis would allow companies to make better use of the available talent pool, with potential growth implications. (Katrin Elborgh-Woytek, et al, op. cit.)

Questions obviously will follow the facts cited above: Why (1) women are not allowed to develop their full labor market potential? (2) FLFPR is not allowed to increase? (3) better opportunities for women to earn and control income are not allowed? (4) women are not allowed to have equal access to inputs? (5) employment of women on an equal basis is not allowed? And, what are the obstacles or the interests that create the obstacles?

The last question virtually questions, and exposes the status quo. The obstacles are in the interests that dominate entire societies, not only women. Other questions simultaneously expose the dominating system's tact and incapacity.

The status quo is incapable of developing full potential of all the productive forces in society. The crude act of the system that gets exposed is: the system tries to increase reserve army of labor by keeping women in a corner, by making them appear useless. Increasing reserve army of labor benefits capital.

Gender wage gap increases capital's power for bargaining with labor. The gap in the same occupation makes capital's power crudely exposed. The IMF staff discussion note finds “there is a significant wage gap associated with gender, even for the same occupations.” (op. cit.)

Self-employment, so-called informal sector, is the evidence of a system's incapacity to provide employment, discarding of responsibility regarding employment. It's a failure of the system. The system fails to use all its productive forces. At the same time, with this sector, the system increases the size of reserve army of labor. The gender gap doesn't leave even the sector. “The gender gap in earnings”, the IMF staff discussion note says, “is even higher in self-employment than in wage employment.” (op. cit.) Despite losses the system sustains gender gap in the labor market. GDP per capita losses attributable to gender gaps in the labor market have been estimated at up to 27 percent in regions. In regions it varied: 15 and 23 percent. (Cuberes, D & M Teignier, “Gender Gaps in the Labor Market and Aggregate Productivity,” Sheffield Economic Research Paper 2012017, June 14, 2012 version) The cruelty of the system – weaken labor to increase profit – thus gets exposed.

Despite potential with female labor force participation, the IMF staff discussion note finds: “Average FLFP remains low at around 50 percent, with levels and trends varying across regions. … Variations in the gender gap are significant even among OECD countries.” (op. cit.) Doesn't the system require a better FLFP? Is it the incapacity of even the OECD countries? The system reveals its anti-women position with its incapacity.

State is a machine in the system. States in the global system propagate their responsibility to ensure basic necessities and rights. But, the IMF staff discussion note says: “In many countries, the lack of basic necessities and rights inhibits women's potential to join the formal labor market or become entrepreneurs.” (op. cit.) How can one reject findings mentioned in an IMF staff discussion note? Doesn't the finding say: states don't care about women?

States' anti-women position is further exposed as the IMF staff discussion note says: “In many advanced economies, tax systems impose strong disincentives for FLFP through high tax wedges on secondary earners.” (op. cit.) And, tax system in any system serves dominating interests/elites.

Thus, the inequality that women face shows the world capitalist system's incapacity, crude trick to exploit women, and an “output” of the system's acts to increase the size of the reserve army of labor. The system hinders potential while tries to gain more strength to bargain with labor.

Inequality And Imperialism

Capitalism can't surmount inequality as the system itself creates the curse that humanity struggles to defeat. And, inequality, with imperial power and incapacities, affects societies in far flung areas distorting their economic-social-cultural-political development. Moreover, inequality with its political manifestations and ramifications threaten the system. But the system nourishes inequality. A seemingly strange, but inherent contradiction within the system!

Advanced capitalist economies, the economies that have fattened themselves by bleeding the poor in every corner of the planet, are bearing inequality in spheres of income, well-being, health care and education. It's not possible for the system to break down barriers to equality, the dream humanity nourishes in its heart. This takes away all logic for the existence of capitalism while connections of capitalist crisis are exposed.

200 years

The sharp rise in income inequality across the world is one of the most worrying developments of the past 200 years, said the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in a recent report. “It is hard not to notice the sharp increase in income inequality experienced by the vast majority of countries from the 1980s. There are very few exceptions to this”, said the report How Was Life? Global well-being since 1820 (van Zanden, J. L., et al. (eds.) (2014) OECD Publishing, doi: 10.1787/9789264214262-en)

“The enormous increase of income inequality”, the report said, “on a global scale is one of the most significant – and worrying – features of the development of the world economy in the past 200 years.” The report tracked wellbeing in eight world regions over two centuries.

About three years ago OECD Secretary-General informed: “Income inequality in OECD countries is at its highest level for the past half century.  The average income of the richest 10% of the population is about nine times that of the poorest 10%  across the OECD, up from seven times 25 years ago.” He was presenting Divided We Stand: Why Inequality Keeps Rising , an OECD study report, in December 2011. The Secretary-General said: Inequality increased further in the US , Germany , Denmark , Sweden , Israel . It has “fallen in Chile and Mexico , but in these two countries the incomes of the richest are still more than 25 times those of the poorest.”

The world capital blesses the rich: from seven times to nine times within 25 years, and more than 25 times of the poor!

Despite many countries' recovery from the Global Economic Crisis, the OECD finds, “the distribution of “market income” (gross earnings and capital income) kept widening … Measured by the Gini coefficient (which is 0 when everybody has the same income and 1 when one person has all the income), market income inequality rose by 1 percentage point or more in 20 OECD countries between 2007 and 2011/12.” (OECD (2014), " Income Inequality Update - June 2014 ”)

Inequality is behaving in an “amazing” way: Hardest the hit largest the increase. “The largest increases”, according to the OECD, “occurred in those countries hit hardest by the crisis: Spain , Ireland , Greece , Estonia and Iceland ”. France and Slovenia have the same experience. “In Spain and Greece , inequality of market income widened considerably in the aftermath of the crisis, and kept increasing more recently as the crisis persisted: compared to 2010, it increased by another 1.5 and 3 percentage points, respectively, in 2011. Market income inequality also increased by more than 1 percentage point in 2011 in Germany , Luxembourg and Portugal , compared to 2010.” (ibid.)

In Australia , poverty is on the rise. More than one million Australians are in severe poverty, with access to less than 30 percent of national median income. More than 2.5 million people, and one in six children, are struggling to fulfill their daily basic needs. More than 600,000 children, and one-third of children in single parent families, lived below the poverty line. A significant number of Australians remained in “deep and persistent” poverty for extended periods, often for more than five years. More than 40 percent of all people on social security benefits fell below the poverty line. More than 100,000 persons are homeless. Adult working-age Australians are more likely to be homeless than any other age group, constituting 44% of all homeless persons nationally. Children have the second largest representation among those classified as homeless, with more than 1 in 4 homeless, children. (Cassells, R., Dockery, M., and Duncan , A (2014), Falling through the cracks: Poverty and Disadvantage in Australia , Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre and Poverty in Australia 2014 , the Australian Council of Social Services)

The ACSS report cited the Australian Bureau of Statistics Household Income and Expenditure Survey that asked people about their actions because of a shortage of money. Actions taken by the respondents over the last year due to a shortage of money included “Pawned or sold something”, “Sought financial help from friends/family”, “Unable to heat home”, “Went without meals”, “Could not pay gas/electricity/telephone bill on time”. Do these sound “actions” by the poor in Third and Fourth Worlds (TFW)?

Australia , it was claimed during the Great Financial Crisis (GFC), was not facing the crisis. The economy was happily cashing on coal export. But the coal power, along with casino and prostitution, has powered poverty also.

Crisis not only generates inequality and poverty in capitalism. Crisis also aggravates inequality-situation although the system fattens with profit.

During the last 200 years, as the OECD compares, the world found capitalism gaining strength to strength, conquering heights after heights, plundering land after land, waging wars for loot, abusing science and technology for maximizing profit. Over the last 200 years capitalism has gradually and forcefully entrenched its world system. Two world wars ravaged the world during the last 200 years. The last World War and its aftermath put extra wealth and power in pocket of capitalism. The Korea and Vietnam Wars brought more money to capitalism. Multinational corporations made huge investments and made huge profit during the period. Capitalism's “golden age” was during the last 200 years.

Capitalism has ensured its control not only with its economic dictatorship, but has also imposed its political, information, cultural and ideological order, dictatorship, over the entire planet. It's imperialism. Post-revolutionary societies' efforts to reduce inequality set a few examples as the societies tried to break the chain of the imperialist world order. But those efforts faced disasters. A number of new examples are now emerging in a part of the planet. But still capitalism, the system owning enormous wealth, is the order of the day, and inequality dominates the capitalist system. Condition of the poor around the world is the evidence.

Poor: lost more gained less

Gains the poor made in the capitalist world disclose capitalism's capacity and incapacity, capacity to deprive many and benefit a few, and incapacity to initiate a fair distribution among many. “Lower income households”, the OECD finds, “either lost more during the crisis or benefited less from the recovery. Across the OECD countries, real household disposable income stagnated, and the income of the bottom 10% of the population declined from 2007 to 2011 by 1.6% per year (Figure 1). Focusing on the top and bottom 10% of the population in 2007 and in the latest year available shows that, on average across the OECD, the drop in income was twice as large for the bottom 10% compared with the top 10%. Out of the 33 countries where data are available, the top 10% has done better than the poorest 10% in 19 countries.” (ibid.)

Figure 1: Poorer households tended to lose more or gain less Annual percentage changes
in household disposable incomebetween 2007 and 2011, by income group

Source: OECD (2014), "Income Inequality Update - June 2014”. © OECD 2014

Note:

1. Data for 2007 refer to 2006 for Chile and Japan ; and 2008 for Australia , France , Germany , Israel , Mexico , Norway , New Zealand , Sweden , and the US . Data for 2011 refer to 2009 for Japan ; 2010 for Austria and Belgium ; and 2012 for Australia , Finland , Hungary , Korea , Mexico , the Netherlands and the US . For Hungary , Mexico and Turkey data on market income inequality are not available. There is a break in the series in 2011 for the UK , and results are not strictly comparable. 2011 data for Ireland and the UK are provisional.

2. The statistical data for Israel are supplied by and under the responsibility of the relevant Israeli authorities. The use of such data by the OECD is without prejudice to the status of the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem and Israeli settlements in the West Bank under the terms of international law.

3. ( ? ) in the legend relates to the variable for which countries are ranked from left to right in increasing order.

Disposable income also experienced inequality. Spain , France , Hungary , Slovak Republic had larger increases in disposable income inequality. Following a few years of stable inequality in disposable income Germany and the US , the two significant economies in the world capitalist system, found a significant increase in 2011 and 2012. In Finland , Korea , the Netherlands , Poland and Portugal , the slight decrease in disposable income inequality continued in 2011. (ibid.)

Most of the OECD-countries (Oc) are in the First and Second Worlds. What happens to the poor in non-OECD-countries, most of which are in the poor TFW? In most of the Oc, transparency and accountability in the ruling mechanism is better than the countries in the TFW. What the poor in the TFW face everyday in the present world order if the poor in the Oc benefited less and lost more?

The TFW-countries are not only home to backward economies; these countries are also (1) victims of the world capitalism that mercilessly exploits all the resources of these countries; (2) home to crude ruling elites that openly plunder the people and the nature in respective countries, ruthlessly dominate entire societies, and lumpenize political process; and (3) victims of imperialist intervention, which is carried out not only with armed forces, but also with other forces that include aid, finance, science and technology, and diplomacy and politics. This reality of invasion increases inequality in the TFW-countries.

Lumpenizing political process is a single example of many acts and processes that increase inequality. Functions lumpenized political process carries out include snatching away minimum rights based on which people can get mobilized, voice issues related to inequalities, infrastructure and essential services, demand wage rise, protest wage cut and destruction of nature, environment and ecology.

“With the tightening of class lines and the increasing severity of social conflict”, Sweezy writes, “parliament becomes more and more a battle ground for contending parties representing divergent class and group interests. … [P]arliament's capacity for positive action declines…” ( The Theory of Capitalist Development , MR Press, 1964) Sweezy's observation was on parliaments in capitalist economies.

In the periphery, the parliament-reality is different from those in the center. Moreover, the reality in the periphery is not only related to parliament. Its distortion/perversion is wider. “In the periphery … efforts to copy the bourgeois institutions of the center … either produced empty façades or were discarded by dominant classes … who saw in any concessions to the underlying population a dangerous threat to their continued rule.” ( Four Lectures on Marxism , MR Press, 1981) This reality of empty façade hurts people's efforts and struggles against inequality.

Now, it's an accepted fact that destruction of nature, environment and ecology hurts people, and the poor is hurt most. The world capitalism makes money by demolishing nature, environment and ecology while people get hurt – deprived – because of the demolition. And, today, imperialism is the army of the world capitalism that makes the onslaught on environment, etc.

Today's Iraq , Afghanistan , Libya , Syria are burning examples of increased inequality due to imperialist intervention. People in countries that turn into victim of imperialist intervention not only stand helpless in front of destruction and disruption of all arrangements and services essential for their survival; they also find institutions critical for survival either vanished or vacant or pseudo. In lands invaded by imperialists, mere daily survival with barest provisions turns out the only fact of life as the first and only concern of the peoples there in those lands is insecurity/security of life. Uncertainty compounds insecurity in the life of the people. All essential and basic provisions for sustaining life are hoarded in an imperial depot named dearth. Organizations required for voicing needs and waging struggle to attain essential provisions and services turn dysfunctional during and after invasion. The atmosphere that overwhelms an invaded land is hostile to people's organizations capable of organizing people's democratic struggle as only “good wishes” of victor, represented by an administrator or a commander or an ambassador, prevails there. The entire situation increases inequality.

Imposition of neo-liberal measures in countries is an example of imperialist intervention in the form of economy. The countries intervened are now not only the TFC, but countries in the Second World also. The regime change episode in Greece and Italy are examples.

The neo-liberal measures – selling out of public properties, utility services and infrastructure are only a few of those measures – increase inequality. Neo-liberal measures are imposed by imperialism. Its power and organizations impose it.

The recent bombardment with austerity measures in Greece and other countries is another example of imperialist intervention. These countries are examples of rising inequality that the measures generated.

Imperialism, thus, emerges as one of the main actors behind inequality and its rise. Mainstream's discussions on inequality don't take into account the issues of imperialism and the world order that the imperialist powers run. It's mainstream's altum silentium , profound silence.

Bangladesh Labor: Seized Machine, Hungry Garments And Bloodied Strawberry

Hunger strike and seizure of machines by garments workers in and near Dhaka, the Bangladesh capital, during the last part of July 2014 were part of Bangladesh labor action that is moving unabated through experiences of gains and failures. In distant Greece, labor from Bangladesh witnessed a court verdict that further bloodied already bloody strawberries. The incidents once again confirmed the dominating reality: dominance of capital. The incidents, on the opposite, also showed an emerging reality: labor’s increasing action.

Of seized machine

Eid, Moslems’ holy festival after a month of fasting and practicing restrains on aspects of life, was approaching. That was July. All salaried employees and wage laborers usually get festival bonus. It’s the rule, practice and tradition. The bonus provides a small opportunity to mend torn down life of the hard-pressed labor and low-salaried employees.

But alas! Workers in a garments factory were not going to have it. Their salaries for the months of June were not paid. Uncertain was the festival bonus. The aggrieved workers had to resort to action: demonstration. And, then, they had to resort to strike. The owner and his management cadres fled away. A few accounts officials were gheraoed, kept seized, for five days that led to a “resolution”: payment of all unpaid salaries and festival bonus by July 21, 2014. It was a written commitment from the factory management. The seizure was withdrawn.

The owner-committed time limit for payment of salary and bonus passed. Eid approached nearer. Darkness of uncertainty was coming closer to the workers. They frantically tried to contact the owner. But, to no avail! He was beyond reach.

The desperate situation and violation of commitment led workers to seize a part of machineries of the factory. They successfully found a buyer also. The machines were sold away. A sum of money came in. It was more than Taka, the Bangladesh currency, 1.7 million. [$1=Tk. more than 78] The sale proceed was distributed among the workers by the workers. The money distributed was treated as salary for the month of June. A police official confirmed the sale of machineries by the workers. [bdnews24.com (Baanglaa version), July 27, 2014, “Workers sale factory machinery to realize unpaid salaries”; name of the factory: Trade Mark Fashion Limited; place of occurrence: Gazipur, a few kilometers from Dhaka; period of occurrence: Last week of July] It was a labor action without adventurism that gave no scope for highhanded interference. And, it was an exposure, and a lesson, and an experience.

Of hungry garments

About 1,500 workers of five garments factories in Dhaka resorted to protests and about three hundred of them went on a hunger strike to realize their unpaid salaries for the months of May and June and festival bonus. The hunger strike continued for days, and it was during the Eid festival while millions of citizens were celebrating the festival and the entire country was in a festive mood. Scores of the workers were sent to hospital as they collapsed from hunger strike. The workers returned to the factory, place of the hunger strike, and joined their striking colleagues after recovering from hospital. Progressive Doctors’ Forum, an association of physicians connected to the Communist Party of Bangladesh, extended medical care to the striking workers.

Commitments for the payment of salaries and bonus were made thrice on behalf of the owners. But all the commitments remained unfulfilled. As the festival neared the workers began protest that later led them to resort to hunger strike. Initially, there was none to unknot the problem of non-payment. Later, the garments manufacturers’ association sought another week for a partial payment.

It was reported that the factories, owned by Tuba Group, produced garments amounting to Tk. 260 million during the recently concluded World Cup Football.

It should be mentioned that in 2012, Tazreen Fashions, a factory owned by the same company, burned down that killed hundreds of workers. The owner, Delwar Hossain, is now in jail for negligence causing deaths.

The workers’ series of protests for non-payment of salaries was going on for a long time. One leader of the garments manufacturers said: “We’re really sorry. They could not celebrate Eid and they’re on a hunger strike.” One of the garments manufacturers “urged the government to take charge of paying [the workers’] salaries at any cost.” One of the striking workers asked: We are fined for delay in work. But, who shall be fined now for delay in payment of salaries? [bdnews24.com, July 29, 30 and 31, 2014]

Thus it appears: The manufacturers are “sympathetic” to the workers as the workers had no Eid celebration but the manufacturers’ association could “not” arrange money; the manufacturers now need government help; government should take charge for paying salary, not for making profit.

It’s a “story” of trickery, and of indifference, and of cruelty, and of capitalizing workers’ distress.

Entrepreneurs’ organizations lobby for formulating policies favorable to them, influence national budget allocation, banking, financial, fiscal, export policies. But they can’t influence one entrepreneur in paying salaries and bonus. Entrepreneurs make profit, take full of it. But they ask government to take responsibility whenever they face problem they create. It’s the public that bears government expenses. So, it stands: “I make profit, you, the public, bear the cost.”

Of strawberry

On the jade end of July a Greek court in the western port city of Patras acquitted local farmers responsible for shooting 28 Bangladeshi strawberry pickers. The magistrates, guardians of “justice”, allowed two of the farmers including the owner of the farm who had also been accused of human trafficking, to walk free. Two others, accused of aggravated assault and for possessing illegal firearms, were handed prison sentences; 14 years and seven months to one, and 8 years and seven months to the other. But both were also freed pending appeal.

The Bangladeshis were shot at in April 2013 at a Peloponnese farm as they demanded six months of unpaid salary. It was the workers’ “sin”. Media investigations showed the migrant workers work in subhuman conditions without access to proper hygiene or basic sanitation. However, the farmers engaged senior criminal lawyers to defend them in the drama named Justice in Court.

In disbelief, scores of migrants, many sobbing, protested the verdict outside the court house. The verdict has sparked outrage in entire Greece. Politicians, unionists and anti-racist groups have condemned the verdict as a “black mark for justice” in a case that brought the spotlight on the migrant workers’ appalling working and living condition in Greece.

Moisis Karabeyidis, the victim’s lawyer, said after the ruling was delivered: “I feel shame as a Greek. This decision is an outrage and a disgrace. The court showed an appalling attitude toward the victims.” Politicians standing for labor rights said the verdict set an unwelcome example for other employers to follow. “It sends the message that a foreign worker can die like a dog in the orchard,” said Vassiliki Katrivanou, an MP with the main opposition radical-left Syriza party. “It leaves room for new victims by closing eyes to the brutal, inhuman and racist character of the exploitation suffered by workers on the land,” she said, pointing out that the ruling had been made on the World Day against Trafficking in Persons.

Anti-racism organizations denounced the judgment as scandalous, and said it raised questions about the impartiality of the Greek justice system. The organizations planned to step up protest action against the verdict. In a statement Petros Constantinou, coordinator of the Movement against Racism and the Fascist Threat, said: “We call upon unions and human rights movements to react against this unprecedented racist scandal. The hundreds of millions of profit made in the strawberry industry cannot come about by shooting laborers in strawberry fields.”

It’s an irony! The irony is of time. Greece, the country that organized the greatest game event on the planet, Olympic, with a lot of money a few years ago went down to the stage of the Third World poverty and desperation, experienced regime change without an armed intervention, bankers’ dictation that the Third World experiences almost everyday. Sometimes, it appeared, Bangladesh, once despised as simply a humanitarian case, was in a better position compared to the state of the poor in Greece. A part of the sick European economy has to rely on migrant labor to make profit. Then, it shoots and maims migrant labor and fans far-right, Nazi forces. The economy is sick, but its power to influence judiciary and to assault labor is not weak.

Of the stories

What do the “stories” tell?

It tells tales of capital’s character, and it tells tales of collaboration that capital crafts, and it tells tales of justice that capital delivers, and it tells tales of state that capital commands.

The Bangladesh workers, still politically unorganized, are passing a particular phase. It will gradually evolve. A quote from Marx and Engels is worthy to refer here:

“To begin with, the workers fight individually; then the workers in a single factory make common cause; then the workers at one trade combine throughout a whole locality against the particular bourgeois who exploits them. Their attacks are leveled not only against bourgeois conditions of production, but also against the actual instruments of production …

“At this stage the workers form a disunited mass, scattered throughout the country, and severed into fragments by mutual competition.” (The Manifesto)

The Bangladesh labor will pass this phase, where NGO-driven labor mobilization, politicization of de-politicization, plays a role.

A Militarily Resurging Russia

A militarily resurging Russia is now clearly visible.

And, a difficult US position is also seeable. The Syria case is not the latest development. Further developments follow it.

A recent comment by a responsible Russian official is the latest show of an assertive Russia.

Dmitry Rogozin, Russian deputy prime minister, warned on December 11, 2013 that Russia will use nuclear weapons if it comes under an attack. “One should keep in mind that if there is an attack against us, we will certainly resort to using nuclear weapons in certain situations to defend our territory and state interests”, said Rogozin at the State Duma. He said: “We have never diminished the importance of nuclear weapons – the weapon of requital – as the great balancer of chances.”

Rogozin, in charge of the armaments industry, went further: Russia’s Fund of Perspective Researches will develop a military response to the American Conventional Prompt Global Strike (PGS) strategy.

It is told that the PGS is the “main strategy” the Pentagon is nurturing. It will allow the US to strike targets anywhere on the world, with conventional weapons within an hour.

The Russian assertive tone is clear in Rogozin’s voice. It’s not without base.

Moscow’s military moves simply in one region – the Arctic – tells a lot.

The Arctic holding vast untapped oil and gas reserves is the new area of competition. The region is gradually turning into a center of disputes between Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia and the US. Intensity of disputes, it can be assumed, will increase there.

Russia has made claims on a number of Arctic shelf areas and is planning to defend its bid at the UN. To Russia, the Arctic is a region of significance.

In December 2012, Rogozin said Russia risks losing its sovereignty by the mid-21st century if it does not assert its national interests in the Arctic today. “If we don’t do that we will lose the battle for resources and therefore will lose the big battle for the right to have our own sovereignty and independence.” He warned that toward the mid-21st century the struggle for natural resources will begin to turn “utterly uncivilized forms”.

Russian military officials already have warned against the danger of NATO warships’ presence in the northern seas in proximity to Russian borders. The NATO warships, it has been reported, move through the Northern Sea Route.

Probably this prompted Putin to issue an order in early-December 2013 to boost military presence in the Arctic and complete the development of military infrastructure in the region. He said Russia should have all means for protection of its security and national interests in the region.

With Russian military ships including nuclear-powered guided-missile cruiser in the eastern part of the Laptev Sea, Russia now has a permanent military presence there. “We arrived there or – more accurately – we have returned there forever,” said Arkady Bakhin, Russia’s deputy defense minister.

Russian airborne assault forces and military transport aviation units have conducted an exercise in the Arctic.

Russia has already started deploying aerospace defense units and constructing an early missile warning radar system near Vorkuta, a far-northern town. The Temp military airfield on the New Siberian Islands is also being renovated.

Moscow plans to deploy a combined-arms force in the Arctic in 2014. Goal of this plan is to protect its political and economic interests in the Arctic.

The plan includes reopening of airfields and ports on the New Siberian Islands and the Franz Josef Land archipelago. At least seven military airfields on the continental part of the Arctic Circle will be restored. There is a plan to upgrade and open a round-the-year functioning military airfield on the Novossibirsk Islands. A number of Russia’s air units will start returning to abandoned Arctic airfields. Two arctic brigades in Murmansk or Arkhangelsk will be stationed by Russia.

Putin has also ordered the development of the navy, first of all, in the Far East and Arctic zones.

In other areas, the emerging scene also signals a militarily assertive Russia.

Russia is strengthening its integrated regional air defense network, part of the integrated air defense network of the Commonwealth of Independent States, with Belarus and has set up similar networks with Armenia and Kazakhstan. Moscow is assisting Yerevan to modernize and expand its air force.

The air defense networks “contributes to strengthening peace and stability in Eurasia”, said Putin.

Russia plans to set up regional air defense networks with members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a regional security bloc that also includes Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

The resurging military power is delivering S-300 surface-to-air missiles to Belarus. Earlier, Tor-M2 air defense batteries have been deployed in the country.

Within home, Russia’s defense and armament plans are vigorous also as the country is increasing its defense spending. By 2016, it will be increased by about two-thirds. Kremlin plans to increase annual spending on nuclear weapons by more than 50 percent in the next three years.

Moscow’s arms procurement plan for 2014 will find more than 40 of the newest ICBMs, 210 aircraft, and more than 250 armored vehicles. In 2014, Russia will continue deployment of the new ICBMs including 22 land-based ICBMs to the Strategic Missile Forces, tactical ballistic missile to the ground forces, and two new ballistic missile submarines.

Putin said the number of contract servicemen in the Russian armed forces should be annually increased by no less than 50,000 persons.

A comparison between this fact and the number of combat ready units of the superpower and the problem the UK is facing regarding manpower in its armed forces will help perceive a changing reality.

In October, the militarily resurging country successfully test-fired nuclear-capable ballistic missile RS-12M Topol. Moscow now houses 326 ICBMs with approximately 1,050 warheads.

One can easily perceive economic force as more powerful than the force of gun although there are experts, who only count aircraft carriers and canons.

Russia is organizing the Eurasian Customs Union (ECU), its own economic bloc with former Soviet states, a rival to the EU. Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia established ECU in 2010.

There is plan to expand the ECU as a Eurasian Union, an economic-political union of former USSR, which will include Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan. The Eurasian Union could also include Bulgaria, Cuba, Finland, Hungary, Mongolia, the Czech Republic, Venezuela and Vietnam.

Armenia has decided to join the ECU. The Caucasus country has also decided to engage in the Eurasian integration process instead of negotiating a free trade agreement with the EU.

Ukraine and Moldova cases are no less interesting if one looks at these in the perspective of this integration initiative.

The Middle East is witnessing increased Russian presence. There are signs showing increased Russian military presence in the region in future.

Reality in Moscow’s opposite pole is significant.

Washington is experiencing results of its “wise” policy regarding Egypt, which is not a happy one. In future, a Russian military presence in Egypt will not be surprising.

Washington’s Saudi ally is making moves troubling for.

Tel Aviv’s playing with Moscow card is also important.

One can imagine Washington’s gaining a bitter fruit in future from its Al Qaeda ally in Syria.

These will bolster Moscow’s position.

“Backyard” of the superpower is now a treasure of dramatic political events. The Chicago Boys failed to dream these as the Latin American people, like people in other continents, are not cowed down. Moreover, the Latin American people are building up their organizations through long bloody years and after. All of these organizations are not full of stupid, and all of these organizations are not for sale in market. The Latin American people are identifying leadership engaged in chattering, and teaching lessons to that leadership, and trying to get hold on leadership. This internal development reacts in the area of geopolitics.

It’s not now easy to reenact the Bay of Pigs or the Grenada invasion. United Latin America reaction to the Assange-Ecuador London embassy and the Evo-plane-European “civility”, or flagrant aggression, incidents are only two examples.

More powerful, fundamentally, is people, and winning over the Latin American people-mind is now a daydream for forces of status quo. Allies of superpower are having a difficult time there as they are getting exposed. Lackeys in all lands get exposed over time. Over the last decades, the Latin American people have gained experience and are getting organized.

Russian military plane recently made a journey to Venezuela. It was a long journey – from Russia. Venezuela-Russia military exercise is now a regular event. There are other military related growths in the region also.

Nixon’s playing of China card is now part of history as the two former Red countries are not engaged in immediate rivalry, are closer, are having huge amount of trade and initiating gigantic energy cooperation, have resolved border disputes, are united in common strategy, BRICS and Shanghai initiative, and are governed by common ideology – market ideology.

South Asia shows another picture.

In mid-December, Hamid Karzai, Afghan president, said in New Delhi he no longer “trusts” the US. “I don’t trust them”, said Karzai. He accused the Americans of saying one thing and doing another in the war-torn country.

Karzai’s other pronouncements were not also less dramatic. He warned against “intimidation” on security pact, the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA), related to US troops stay in the country. He said the US was indulging in brinkmanship over security deal. He told pact with the US would not be signed unless his demands were met.

Karzai’s utterances, no doubt, make the superpower angry. But, what can be done? Power has limits, and the limits are imposed by reality, and reality belies imagination. Who imagined Karzai’s tone of anguish about his protector while he was flown from Washington DC?

Within the broader society in Pakistan, especially within its enlightened part, significant developments are trying to gain ground.

On Afghan issue, the US now, in many extents, relies on India. It has to. In the entire south Asia region, from Myanmar to Afghanistan, the superpower needs India. The sole-superpower-days are waning. Its ally on the other side of the Atlantic is also not that much powerful. To many, the UK appears a bit less than a superpower. To some, the UK is the superpower of yesterday.

In the south Asia region, now it appears, brushing aside Indian position is not an easy job. Geopolitical developments in the region, and the present state of India – economy, military power, scientific and technological capacity, etc. – have created the condition.

The incident related to the Indian diplomat has shown the stand the Indian people takes. It’s difficult for the Indian establishment to not consider the public-factor. Washington has already shown its limits, breach within.

These developments will help Russia as parts of the south Asian societies will consider playing Russia card, go closer to BRICS, and the Shanghai initiative. South Asian countries may look for space based on these developments and may have plans in their pockets for ignoring bullying tact by the superpower.

We The People

People survive. People survive surmounting all obstacles, and people survive foiling all conspiracies hatched against them, and people survive defeating all aggressive powers.

It’s people who define their route of struggle, chart their road to victory, delimit their sovereign sphere, proclaim their sovereign rights, and restore their rights in sovereign space around life. People’s sovereign space and practice is a part of democracy, heart of politics.

But what happens when people find their “friends” are not their friends, their “leaders” are not their leaders, their “organizations” are not their organizations? What happens when people find their organizations are being sabotaged as part of a plan to defeat them, their organizations fail to foil sabotages activated against their organizations, their leaders fail to foresee, their organizations tail behind and fail to take initiative? What happens when people are demobilized and depoliticized?

These are crucial questions in the life of people. And, people’s life provides the answers to the questions.

Roman slaves found the answer: Spartacus. The Palestinian people found the answer: Arafat. The people of apartheid ruled South Africa had their answer: Mandela. The Venezuelan people organized the answer in their Bolivarian way: Chavez. The Cuban people created the answer: Fidel.

It’s not the persons, the individual leaders that created sovereign space of people. Its people that create sovereign space, and standing on this sovereign space people give legitimacy. A historic-socio-economic perspective produced and developed the leaders, the collective leadership, the movement the leadership developed and guided.

All these perspectives, the Roman society, the state of Palestinian people’s struggle prior to the emergence of Arafat, the Venezuelan society controlled by thuggish upper echelon drunk with oil money that overwhelmed the entire society with clientele culture, are completely different from one another. And, Spartacus comes from another historical era.

However, in all the cases, it was contradictions that developed the leadership and organizations casting off chattering, old style, etc. Mandela and his friends had to make an arduous effort to shape ANC, African National Congress. Arafat had to face series of bloody fights in Jordan and Syria, conspiracy, subversion and adventurism. Fidel’s charting of course was a lone effort having no help from traditional leadership.

In all the cases, the new leadership was farsighted, not less competent than their adversaries. Otherwise, they could not have organized their struggles.

In all the cases, moral standing was higher than their adversaries. These made them credible and acceptable to their constituencies. In reverse term, their adversaries lost credibility and acceptability. This gain-loss process is slow and long.

In all the cases, the emerging leadership stood for honor and dignity, and for love for life. Hatred was not guiding them. Serving, not dictating people was their motto.

With this leadership, people gained primary space – resurrecting sense of honor and dignity, visualizing goal, questioning around, getting organized in effective way, shedding practice and culture decadent social forces imposed and overwhelmed with, getting rid of clichés, initiating with realistic approach.

These facilitated claiming people’s sovereign space – struggle to shape a dignified, peaceful, prosperous life. Their passive attitude to their sovereign space moved to the stage of actively making claims to their sovereign space.

Despite intermissions of adventurism and missteps the entire approach of these peoples was constructive, positive. There was no place for hatred. Love for humanity, all life and nature led the initiatives.

These shook off clacking, promises without the tinniest grain of sincerity, proclamations entirely hollow, observations without scientific investigation, sweeping remarks, indiscipline, isolation from constituency, showmanship, theatrical heroism. Imagine an undisciplined slave army confronting a Roman army! Slave army defeated “valiant” Roman army in a number of battles. That slave army was disciplined, and all its members meant participation, meaningful participation.

Brutalized space

People lose ground in an opposite situation, where mainstream politics shamelessly throws away all its glittering clothes and denudes its heart: politics-commercialized, politics-terrorized. People’s inalienable rights and sovereign space get lost. Even their political opportunities, in most cases only tiny fragments, gradually begin to wither away. Their democratic rights to life, honor and prospects for prosperity are snatched away, which is manifested in indignity, engineered disunity, craftily promoted and fed illogic, dominance of hoodlum controlled organizations, ascendancy of backward ideas, and lost land, wage, security and peace. A decadent culture facilitating and strengthening dominance of backward concepts and practices occupies people’s cultural space.

In a brutalized situation, people feel betrayed and turn apathetic, and political participation gradually takes a diminishing downturn, a dangerous turn of time that provides dominating forces tighten its grip on people’s entire life, which includes their organizations also. It’s, the imposed condition, like treating people as animal, like considering them as sub-human, and the imposition is made by dominating forces, the consideration is made by forces monopolizing power.

To people, only sounds and no work by those claiming leadership then turns synonymous to betrayal as violence, in its many forms and manifestations, by all or part of forces of status quo ransack people’s life and peace. People then withdraw trust from the high-sounding leadership.

In such a situation, a situation brutalized and overwhelmed with inactivity, a blabbering leadership finds organizing people difficult, sometimes impossible, but it finds no time to search its soul and method. It’s shallow and incomplete if there is any soul searching.

Should it be capitalocracy?

Democracy isn’t universal. It’s either, in the present world system, capital’s democracy or people’s democracy.
Capital’s democracy, irrespective of, fashionably coined, liberal or illiberal, upholds interests of dominating capital. Its arbitrary character, its, where and when necessary, secretive working, its power to hide its workings out of citizens’ sight and supervision, its manipulation with the political system make it nothing but capitalocracy.

Recent developments in the advanced capitalist democracies provide evidences. The reality is crude and coarse if a serious search is made about capitalist democracies in the periphery of the world system. It’s an uncouth reign of capital. Contemporary examples are abundant there in the entire system, where elected government exercises its power trampling primary requirements of democracy, and doesn’t even hesitate to throw away bare minimum flimsy cover of civility, and mainstream politics takes away all of the sovereign space people possess.

Democracies are now considered by mainstream on a yardstick of illiberal and liberal despite all the facts that emerge from contemporary democratic reality in advanced capitalist economies.

And, the reality is:

“An illiberal democracy is a democracy by procedure only; the people elect the government, but they have little influence on government policy. The lack of influence means the government does not accord the full human rights necessary to achieve substantive democracy.” (Hallie Ludsin, “Returning Sovereignty to the People”, Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, vol. 46:97 2013)

“Liberal democracies”, Hallie Ludsin writes, “are associated with free and fair elections, protection for and promotion of the rule of law, protection for basic human rights, and neutrality toward the determination of the common good.” (ibid.)

Don’t contemporary developments, not only the Wikileaks, the Snowden syndrome and the Guardian experience in and Evo Morales hackling by the so-called liberal democracies show a face of liberal democracy? The engagement of spies to infiltrate organizations active in the area of environment in advanced capitalist democracies, the “role” they played, and the way their misdeed are being “treated” expose the no-space people “enjoy”. Now, there are near-innumerable press reports from advanced capitalist democracies that expose their inner-working, their non-accountability, their all encompassing surveillance, their way of misinforming people, their way of invading other societies.

Manipulation with study results, opinion polls, human rights, and organizations floated for these purposes expose the face of liberal democracies. In so-called liberal democracy, corporations are now treated as person that strengthens role of big money in politics. This puts money on a higher ground than citizens. The entire business of capitalist democracy is opaque, a “mysterious” business as capital strives to deny any limit.

These practices are now “trickling down” to backward societies, where dominating interests are trying to construct a façade of democracy. The donor-democracy designed for underdeveloped economies is now much exposed.

Sovereignty encroached

The question comes: Whether sovereignty of people or of capital?

“Sovereignty lies with the people, as proclaimed by most state constitutions and as protected by international law, including possibly customary international law. Sovereignty in the people means that the people are entitled to receive the benefits of sovereign rights, not the government.” (ibid.)

But, with an army of unemployed, with vandalized unions, with decline in share of wages, with people in debt bondage and having no mechanism to listen to their voice, with financial instability, with control over information and media, with control over culture and leisure time and entertainment, with legislature serving dominating economic interests, with an essentially inaccessible judiciary, with political power and politics shaped to serve dominating economic interests, people find their sovereignty is effectively lost. With capital encroaching people’s life and rights all of people’s sovereign space is encroached.

A reality of spiraling disparity finds millions of people both in matured capitalist and backward economies confronting destitution while the rich protect and expand their wealth. The reality doesn’t allow people to act as source of sovereignty of reigning power, and reigning power thus de-legitimizes itself.

To the people of today’s world, one of the fundamental questions is inequality, an old curse spread over the globe. Now, the issue is being recognized by a part of mainstream as a human rights issue. Doesn’t inequality take away people’s sovereign space?
This fact, the reigning system of creating and perpetuating poverty and equality, tells the state of people’s sovereignty: it’s decapitated.

The rich stash money in suitable bank accounts to avoid tax, The MNCs “innovate” ways and “discover” places, actually the ways were made and the places were created for them, where it is required to pay less or no tax. Corruption, theft of public money and banditry with natural resources go unquestioned in politics and the thieves and bandits go scot-free.

What do people find in this reality? People find their sovereignty lives in utopia.

Referring to the British and Dutch East India Companies, Adam Smith wrote: “Such exclusive companies, therefore, are nuisances in every respect; always more or less inconvenient to the countries in which they are established, and destructive to those which have the misfortune to fall under their government”. (The Wealth of Nations)

Today, don’t MNCs dwarf the “famous” East India Companies in terms of all the “good work” that Adam Smith referred? The task of dwarfing is not only in terms money power. It’s in terms of political power that is germinated by money power.

What about power of and dulcet deals by financial elites, joined together in companies organized with their democratic laws and rules, done with their transparency and accountability? Don’t findings from studies carried out by mainstream research organizations, reports of commissions/committees in a number of advanced capitalist democracies constituted after the Great Financial Crisis, and revelations in even bourgeois press confirm this? Where do they put people’s sovereignty? Does financialization allow people a sovereign space?

What happened with the, now known to public, Iraq lie – “Saddam’s WMD”? Has not been an entire society devastated? Did the Iraq lie upheld peoples’, of Iraq, and other countries including the countries involved, democratic rights, a sovereign space? What happens even in tiny and underdeveloped economies reigned by Lilliputian black maharajas?

Facts tell: People’s sovereignty takes a travel to oblivion. Developments in these societies retain no sovereign space of people. Even, space for organizing democratic struggle gets lost there.

With militarization and/or terrorization of society scope for claiming people’s sovereign space gets lost. No space for people’s sovereignty is left in a society when only war, devastation, death dominate the society. An invaded society turns its first victim while the invader’s society turns the next victim.

People’s sovereignty appears a blue moon as capital’s diabolic power impacts, disintegrates and distorts everything around, all aspects of people’s life, as arbitrary authority, in all forms, formal and informal, rules people’s lives.

This reality takes away people’s sovereign space, effectively a democratic space.

People are put in the eyes of all storms during political and economical crises. During periods of turbulence, political or economic, people are the first victim. They are made scapegoats whenever any crisis makes a “landfall”.

“Stupid, dolt”

The question comes: Who are the people?

“People” is one of the concepts most denigrated by mainstream, the privileged classes. The privileged persons consider people as stupid, dolt, onager, and all the sub-human characters the “sophisticated” taste and “deep” knowledge of the privileged provoke.

Prince Albert once said “the masses on which popular government rests only feel and do not think”. The prince followed James Harrington. About 300 years ago, Harrington perceived people as cannot see, but can feel. There were more or less similar other observers including Carlyle, Mill, Montesquieu, Burke. Disraeli once said: As a political expression, the people are ‘sheer nonsense’. To him people belonged to the realm of natural history than to that of politics. (Cecil S Emden, The People and the Constitution)

On the contrary, to Mao, people are the workers, peasantry, the poor, and all who oppose imperialism. “[M]asses”, Mao writes, “are the real heroes …” (“Preface and postscript to Rural Surveys”) He adds: “The people, and the people alone, are the motive force of world history.” (“On coalition government”)

Private persons turn people as they join together in collective acts and thoughts, in gaining experience and summarizing those, and in claiming and gaining spaces – sovereign space, democratic space.

And, as Alain Badiou, philosopher from France, tells: “An event is political if its material is collective, or if the event can only be attributed to a collective multiplicity.”

Thus people, in their collective interest, think politically, dream politically, and act politically.

People’s silence, seeming inactivity, tolerance, seeming apathy, temporary listless condition changes as quantity changes to quality; missteps are rectified as people gain experience; passive approach is replaced by active approach as reality pulls in burning questions of life; and passive sovereignty takes the shape of active sovereignty.

New leadership and initiatives emerge and hope is renewed. Societies, and times carry evidence of this qualitative change as contradictions can’t be resolved mechanically and through conspiracies, as false assertions can’t replace facts, as lie can’t subdue moral standing, as deceptions ultimately wear out, as “Man does not exist for the law, but the law exists for man”, and as people don’t die. History comes at juncture as people echo Cromwell: “You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately ... Depart, I say; and let us have done with you.” 

This article first appeared in New Age, Dhaka in its Victory Day issue on December 16, 2013. 

Mandela's Long Walk To Freedom

Mandela, the name, needs no annotation, no analysis, no explanation. It stands with its own dignity, own strength, own activity, own journey along the path of humanity. It was his, Nelson Mandela’s journey for humanity, his journey for humanity’s freedom, his Long Walk to Freedom.

Mandela invigorated and emboldened the walk to freedom that humanity cherishes and dreams, and tries hard to achieve. Mandela’s walk towards freedom will not cease. Mandela will live as humanity’s long walk to freedom

Mandela’s journey began at Mvezo, a South African village, as Rolihlahla, troublemaker, the name his father bestowed upon him. He encountered apartheid, a variety of supremacist ideology and practice, an injustice. His journey turned into an integral part of the black people’s fight against apartheid. The journey went through our world’s all hamlets and villages and slums and townships and towns and cities, wherever humanity faces injustice. The journey touched all hearts in the world that stood in the fight against apartheid and injustice. It was irrespective of color as toiling masses have no color, neither black nor white, neither in political fight nor in organizing union.

Mandela was not destined to work in gold mines, to spend entire life mining gold for the rich. His was a destiny to struggle for freedom. South African time politicized him as, Mandela writes, “To be an African in South Africa means that one is politicized from the moment of one’s birth, whether one acknowledges it or not.”

It’s the same with humanity in all lands ravaged by capital that imposes inequality – a variety of apartheid – which is not only on the basis of color of skin, but also on the basis of access to essentials of life, opportunity to flourish as human being, access to the political space essential to practice inalienable rights as human being. Commoners are thus politicized in all lands ruled by inequality. Thus Mandela was of the commoners.

Mandela’s walk to freedom takes him to Robben Island, as prisoner, in the Atlantic. Mandela, transgressing all ocean blue waters of imprisonment and banishment, was indomitable. His job as prisoner in the island was to crush stones. The rulers tried to crush him, bend him down, and subdue him down. But he refused to get crushed, refused to bend, refused to get subdued, and he won, as Mandela writes, “a thousand indignities and a thousand unremembered moments produced in me an anger, a rebelliousness, a desire to fight the system that imprisoned my people”. It’s a dream and desire and defiance of the entire humanity, but capital, but exploiters, but racists. Thus Mandela upholds the spirit of humanity. And, this gave birth to defeat of the supremacists, fascists. It was a defeat beyond the imagination of the supremacists!

The declaration that Freedom Charter, adopted in the Congress of the People on June 25-26, 1955, made was also Mandela’s declaration as he is part of his people:

We, the people of South Africa, declare …:

That South Africa belongs to all who live in it … and that no governance can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of the people;

That our people have been robbed of their birthright to land, liberty and peace by a form of government founded on injustice and inequality;

That our country will never be prosperous or free until all our people live in brotherhood, enjoying equal rights and opportunities;

That only a democratic state, based on the will of the people, can secure to all their birthright without distinction of colour, race, sex or belief;

Mandela’s walk went on. It was a walk for decades. In the annals of humanity, it’s a walk for centuries. The system of apartheid made a retreat as Mandela and his comrades and his people refused “to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt.” The apartheid system was formally dismantled as “the whirlwinds of revolt” continued “to shake the foundations of” the apartheid rulers.

But scourges and strings of apartheid are difficult to eliminate. Miners, farm workers, the industrial labor, the poor, the unemployed, the fighting youth in South Africa face the difficulty. Whips of capital lash them. Exploitation appropriates them. Inequality in distribution presses them down to the state of inhumanity. Humanity struggles in the dense, dark poverty. They face appeasements by a section. Poverty, exploitation, discrimination, the rich-poor divide persist. It’s a long path with risky turnings. So, Mandela’s spirit illuminates. So, Mandela bestows hope to all fighting spirits.

So, there is urgency; there is the need, as Nkrumah suggests: “act at once, with resolution and in unity.” Mandela united his people. The act of resolutely marching forward still is there.

Mandela dreamed an economically happy people. To be economically free, Nkrumah suggests, there is need to be united politically. For complete “liquidation and collapse of imperialism”, Nkrumah suggests, people’s political unity is needed. The path is long. The path is long in South Africa, in Africa, in all the continents.

So, Mandela concludes autobiography, his Long Walk to Freedom:

I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back to the distance I have come. But I can rest only for a moment, for with freedom come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk has yet not ended.

As Mandela’s long walk has not yet ended there is still the call over all of South Africa, over all of Africa to, as Martin Luther King called, let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops …Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains …. Let freedom ring from every hill and mole hill… From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

“To die”, Mao wrote, “for the people is heavier than Mount Tai, but to work for the fascists and die for the exploiters and oppressors is lighter than a feather.” Mandela was for people. Mandela’s struggle is for people.

Leaf Through A Few Old Pages On Bangladesh Politics

A charged Bangladesh mainstream politics now finds flowing blood everyday as the politics is delivering deaths daily. Common persons – public transport drivers, day laborers, low salaried employees, and similar “insignificant” citizens – are being burned to death. The acts reaffirm mainstream’s monopolization of violence.

Deaths of children, young and middle aged persons, mainly burned to death, now overwhelm mass psyche today. Dhaka press carries the numbers daily. It’s a mainstream politics that now finds violence as the main form of political struggle! It’s a mainstream political struggle that hurts the common persons, their life and their bread! Liberty, as it appears, is a pipe dream to the commoners now. Should one despise? Should one lament? Future bears the answer.

None claims responsibility of this sort of political action – spraying of petrol on humans and setting them on fire, and similar acts – and the actors are mysteriously cloaked. The common people don’t know the real political actors as they go unexposed. And, the mainstream’s common people-killing-political struggle, a variety of lynching, roars on.

It’s a politics, and the politics is of the mainstream as no contending class is now wrestling political power. The contending classes have been effectively demobilized and depoliticized long ago. Instead, the ruling elites with all its factions are engaged with itself. It’s a scrap within the same segment that dominates the society.

Its acts create controversy within its system and question the system. The controversy ranges from legislative assembly to court of law to administration, and contravenes all limits of humanity as the deaths declare.

One can leaf through a few old pages to have a hunch of today’s mainstream politics.

An article in Aneek, a Bangla monthly from India, said in June 2001: It will not be strange if the caretaker government system [a poll-time arrangement] turns controversial. Factions of the ruling segments are resorting to violence and blaming each other. Another general election will complicate the situation instead of improving it. (Sadek Rashid, “Bangladesh: the perspective of election”)

Another article in the same monthly said in August 2001: Accusation of election rigging shall not cease as efforts for unity of the ruling factions will fail until a force is used. (Sadek Rashid, “Bangladesh election”)

This reality has not changed since the statements were made about 12 years ago. So, Bangladesh people find them in a despicable and savage situation.

The controversy

Controversy with the form of poll-time government is not only alive; it has compounded with fundamental questions coming to the fore. Now, the debate is: whether a non-party caretaker government or an all-party government will preside over the poll-period? Other issues have joined the debate. From both ends, credibility is at stake. Ultimately, it’s the credibility of organs of a ruling machine, and of the factions of the ruling segment.

In the last days of 1990, immediately after the fall of Ershad regime, the controversy on the issue of caretaker form of government was not in the imagination of the mainstream politics although seeds of the controversy were there.

Now, not only the form of poll time government, but also institutions of the state and principles of governance are pulled into the controversy that constantly questions credibility of a number of instruments of the ruling machine, which in turn also questions acceptability of these. It’s not the classes opposed to the mainstream, but the competing factions of the ruling elites that are raising the controversy and questions, and thus eroding acceptability of institutions and organs of the state. A “strange” act!

It’s a political fight. It’s quite natural. One should not expect an overnight resolution of all political questions as the issue is control over resources.

But the form the political fight takes harms the class rule as institutions of the state are being questioned and ignored by none other than the same class interests, which fail to find a common forum and peaceful form instead of resorting to force, an antagonistic approach, and a political practice that ultimately hurts the common people, and thus sows reasons for alienating the common people. It’s a limitation of the ruling elites irrespective of factions.

Politics of the dominating segment imposes the limitation. Inviting and accommodating of and relying on external interference with variance in level and form are a manifestation of this limitation.

Interference

Moving back to another old page again:

An article in Sanskriti, a Bangla monthly from Dhaka, said in September 1991: The Bangladesh ruling elites shall increasingly rely on external masters with the exposure of their incapacities and incompetence and decline in their credibility.

The observation was made more than 20 years ago.

Now, the reliance has increased as has increased the interference. Sometimes, it’s in a crude and vulgar appearance. Sometimes, it goes to the limit of hurting dignity and honor of a people.

But changes are appearing in the broader society that even factions of the dominating segment can’t ignore. Contradictions are bringing in the changes.

Now

The last few weeks have found articles in Dhaka dailies and online news daily, at least three in number, discussing US role in Bangladesh politics. Tone of these discussions was critical. A few observations and comments were not soft. To some readers, a few of the comments may sound caustic. These came out from mainstream pens.

The articles, in Bangla, discussed working of lobby in US political system, and media, and the style of influencing and manipulating in the system. At least one of the articles discussed, in brief, the working of committees and sub-committees of the US Congress. At least two of the articles discussed a recent hearing on Bangladesh in a sub-committee. There are information, and a tone of criticism in these articles.

At least one of the articles pointed out a Congress member, who recently visited Bangladesh, and identified him as a lobbyist. The tone was not soft.

At least one article mentioned, with not a sweet tone, the US ambassador in Dhaka. A responsible discussant belonging to a mainstream political party made satirical comment, in a panel discussion/dialogue sponsored by an international news outlet, with a foreign diplomat. In the mainstream, this was unimaginable only a few months ago. It’s not a regular experience in this region also.

One report in a Bangla online daily mentioned the ambassador was trying for a long time to have audience with the prime minister. This, a long wait to have the PM’s audience by the ambassador, if factual, is a new development in Bangladesh political scene.

In the mainstream, this tone was absent in the 1980s and ’90s. Now, a critical tone is being heard. All political visitors, mediators or lobbyists, now don’t have an easy ride in Bangladesh. Lobby, committee, etc., and their functioning are now discussed. The information is reaching a section of readers, a part of the people.

Marketing of everything political is not now an easy job in Bangladesh society. Shall this diminish? Or, shall it spread more? The information already presented by a section of the mainstream will reach wider Bangladesh society as conflicting interests will widen its spread. This carries impact.

Further exposure by a part of the mainstream will not be an act of astonishment. Circumstance in future may push a part of the mainstream to expose names of lobbyists, contracts, the amount of money involved, techniques of manipulation with information and presentation of facts, propaganda style. The exposure, if it happens, can be cited as a gift from the mainstream to the political forces outside the mainstream.

This is part of political education of people that helps people understand everything is not black and white and all are not holy souls and many deals are driven by petty interests and many personalities and pronouncements are not as sacred as they appear and the sound they make. Elites like to ignore this process. An exercise with elitist politico-historical “blindness”!

Not a cycle

This controversy and conflict shall continue as the contradictions within the dominating sphere still go unresolved. These are getting intensified, and the intensification is manifested in the form and style of political struggle the competing ruling interests/factions carry on. There are, no doubt, causes, material, which not only keep these unresolved, but also escalate these.

But the factional fight among the elites shall not move in a cyclic form, election-boycott-election or violence-temporary tranquility-violence, as changes entering the scene with further developments in the society will push for new equation between the dominating interests. A politically aware people, a people mobilized politically, a people with its own leadership shall shatter silence of death and change the entire political scene soaked with blood of common persons.