The term “free trade” is a lie, since it implies that it is only about buying and selling (trade) without hindrance (free). Actually, free trade agreements (FTAs) are a mask to cover exploitative relationships imposed by the more powerful economies on the less powerful — i.e., imperialism. Take, for example, the “United States–Dominican Republic–Central America Free Trade Agreement” (CAFTA-DR). This treaty, like other FTAs, contains malignant elements that are hidden under the benign-sounding title.
CAFTA-DR prohibits any Central American country from opposing an attempt by a U.S. business to set up a subsidiary within its borders, so long as the business meets certain requirements. And if a member country objects that those requirements have not, in fact, been met, that country can be sued by the U.S. business at the World Bank. In 1965 the World Bank set up its International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) for just that purpose, with the participation of almost 150 countries from around the world.
Thus Pacific Rim, a mining company, has staked a claim in El Salvador to extract gold. The company claims that its plan will preserve the environment, including the nearby river Rio Lempa. Rio Lempa is the source of livelihood for many Salvadorans, through farming and fishing. The workers in these industries have been fighting against Pacific Rim for some time now, knowing full well that the many poisonous chemicals used in mining will pollute and destroy their river. Indeed the workers have formed organizations and put so much pressure on the Salvadoran government that so far it has refused Pacific Rim’s permit to mine the gold. As a result of their resistance, a number of workers in these organizations have been threatened with death or actually murdered.
Under capitalism the laws are designed to protect the bosses and their system. Thus, Pacific Rim and the U.S.-based Commerce Group are suing the El Salvadoran government in the ICSID for lost profit.
Commerce Group has already polluted the San Sebastian River with aluminum, zinc, iron, manganese, and nickel, among other toxic metals. One study found that these toxic elements produce weakness, fatigue, rashes, and mental confusion in 60% of the local population, with women and children most affected.
But Pacific Rim and Commerce Group are not in business to care about the health of the local working classes. Rather they are in business for one thing only — profit — and health problems are not their concern.
Furthermore the rules of the ICSID do not even permit it to consider environmental or health problems, but rather only narrowly defined investment issues. It is likely therefore that it will grant Pacific Rim and Commerce Group the $100 million they each seek from the Salvadoran government, as compensation for their lost profits. Thus does imperialism illustrate the power of the strong over the weak, but only when the weak fight by themselves, separated from the rest of the world’s working class. When workers around the world unite in one powerful force under the leadership of PLP, such struggles can not only be won, but can be transformed into revolution by putting a complete end to capitalism and its current manifestation of imperialism. Join us.
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France Moving to Open Fascism: Police State Technology
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- 04 October 2012 76 hits
PARIS, September 16 — As in most Western “democracies,” French capitalists are using new technologies to reinforce the state’s police powers. The latest step is the organization of a Justice Ministry “national platform for court-ordered wiretaps,” to become operational this fall.
This 42-million-euro (53 million USD) centralized computer system will collect, manage and store massive amounts of information: who owns which cell phone, calls made and received, SMSes and e-mails, Internet pages that have been visited, on-line purchases and GPS information. Presently this information is scattered among 350 different police and gendarme stations and is managed by five or six different private companies.
Work on the new centralized system began in 2006 in utter secrecy. It has been classified “Top Secret — Defense.” The National Commission on IT and Liberty — which normally must be consulted whenever such a system is created — has been shut out. No watchdog agency (even though such things are just window-dressing) has been set up.
The computer programs used to spy on the French will be the same ones that the Amesys company sold to dictator Muammar Khadafy to spy on Libyans. The computers will be housed on the premises of the Thales company, which won the contract to manage the system.
The bosses are establishing this creeping police state to enable them to move swiftly to crush any rebellion against future imperialist wars or against massive unemployment (see adjoining article).
PARIS, September 28 — The phony expression “anti-white racism” has been getting endless media play in France following its use by Jean-François Copé, the general secretary of the right-wing UMP party. Copé is a candidate in the November election to choose a new president for the party. His rival, former Prime Minister François Fillon, hastened to say that anti-white racism is “a reality.”
By using an expression first circulated by Marine Le Pen, the leader of the fascist National Front party, both Copé and Fillon are currying favor with the far-right element in their party. But this is more than just a ploy in an internal party dogfight. First, it shows that the UMP is moving closer to an alliance with the National Front, making an openly fascist government here a real possibility.
Secondly, Socialist Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault has chimed in, saying that “anti-white racism could exist” but that Copé should have been more careful using the expression. Ever since, the media has “debated” whether discussion of “anti-white racism” is politically correct.
The sterility of the media debate contrasts sharply with a comment posted by Mohamed on the Nouvel Observateur magazine website. Does “anti-white racism,” he asks, “lead to discrimination at school, unmotivated police ID checks and a hard time finding a job?” Mohamed says, “Copé is trying to advance racial solidarity (of ‘whites’) to attempt to overshadow class solidarity (of people on the minimum wage) who, in my humble opinion, are more and more aware that they are in the same boat, no matter what color their skin is.”
To understand why the bosses’ politicians and media are whipping up racism, check out the French unemployment figures: over 5 million people are jobless (counting part-timers who want to work full-time) — 16.8% of the active population.
In addition, the Socialist-Green Party governing coalition is about to push approval of the European Budget Pact through the French Parliament, imposing “the golden rule” of no government budget deficit. This will lead to more austerity: higher taxes and fewer government services. It will force the working class to pay for the capitalist economic crisis.
To head off an explosion of class struggle against that oppression, the bosses need to persuade “whites” that their enemies are people of Arab and Middle-Eastern origin (10.2% of the population) and black people from Africa and the Caribbean (3.6%). But communists point to racism as the bosses’ trump card, to reap super-profits from the resulting lower wages and to divide the working class, weakening its ability to fight the bosses’ exploitation.
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Thousands Cry ‘‘Resistance!’’ in March Against Bosses’ Austerity
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- 04 October 2012 77 hits
PARIS, September 30 — Up to 80,000 demonstrators from across France marched here today, shouting “Resistance!” as they protested the European budget treaty forcing the French government to impose austerity measures.
Workers were outraged at the attacks on their class. Many of the demonstrators were activists from trade unions, associations and political organizations. “Hollande [Socialist Party president] promised to renegotiate the Merkozy treaty but not a comma has been changed,” said Jordi, a 26-year-old computer technician. [“Merkozy” is a combination of German Chancellor Merkel and former French president Sarkozy, the politicians who drafted the treaty]. The treaty is likely to “anchor austerity in all the countries of Europe,” he added.
Jean-Claude, a 70-year-old retired food processing worker, said “this treaty is going to make people into paupers.”
Christine, a 58-year-old high school teacher, said, “With the adoption of the golden rule, austerity budgets are going to be voted year after year…. France is going to wind up resembling Spain or Greece.”
Many women marched behind a banner reading, “Women in struggle against austerity, for steady jobs and for solidarity in Europe.”
About 50 workers from the Fralib factory near Marseilles marched. “We are here above all to demonstrate against the European treaty, to say that we don’t agree with this treaty invented by Sarkozy and Merkel,” said the union secretary of the company works council. [See CHALLENGE, 2/2/2011, page 5, for the Fralib workers’ struggle].
The austerity falls most heavily on the Arab and black North African immigrant workers who, because of racism, suffer the lowest wages, highest unemployment and worst working conditions.
The demonstration was called by the Front de Gauche, mainly an alliance of the Left Party and the phony “Communist” Party. Nearly 60 other organizations also supported it but the governing Socialist Party and its junior partner Green Party did not.
The Front de Gauche presidential candidate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, insisted the demonstration was against austerity policies but not against the Socialist Party and the Greens. Although the leadership of the CGT trade union confederation did not call for participation in the action, many rank-and-file CGT members participated.
The governing Socialist Party, which paraded as the “opposition” to right-winger Sarkozy, is no opponent of the French ruling class but is in opposition to the class interests of the working class. Workers needs a real communist party to oppose all wings of the ruling class, and have the goal of a communist revolution, the only solution to the austerity-driven poverty and exploitation built into capitalism.
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Imperialists’ Rivalry for Declining Resources Headed for War
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- 04 October 2012 74 hits
In Michael Klare’s latest book, The Race for What’s Left, he discusses the intense investment and competition to find and exploit the world’s diminishing supply of oil, gas, minerals, rare earth metals and elements. Just as the international appetite for fuel and materials needed for technological development is bounding ahead, the easily recoverable supplies are rapidly being exhausted.
It is estimated that 13 percent of the undiscovered oil and 30 percent of the gas left on earth is above the Arctic Circle. Five countries have claims to the sea and land of this area: Russia, Canada, the U.S., Norway, Denmark, and Greenland (which is dependent on Denmark).
Because this territory was formerly not thought to be very valuable, precise international boundaries were never drawn. In fact, when the Russians planted their flag beneath the North Pole in 2007, it was less an act of national pride than an attempt to claim that the continental shelf extending north from Russia belongs to them. All the major oil companies-Shell, BP, Exon, Conoco Phillips, Imperial oil of Canada and Russian state companies are investing billions to explore for oil in this region.
Military capabilities are being increased by all the involved countries as conflicts over boundaries intensify. The hurdles, in terms of cold, violent storms, and icebergs, are huge. The extreme conditions also will make it impossible to rush rescue or leak-stopping equipment to the site of a spill. Ironically, global warming will extend the drilling period by two months each year and make arctic development easier.
Other new sources of gas and oil are in very deep offshore waters, where drilling techniques have not yet proved feasible or safe. One hundred billion barrels of oil are thought to lie under 1.5 miles (2.41 km) of water and 2.5 miles (4.02 km) of salt off the coast of Brazil. Other very deep oil beds exist off the Atlantic coast of northern Canada, far into the Gulf of Mexico, off the coasts of Venezuela, western Africa and in the South China Sea. The latter is disputed by China, Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam and is a growing source of conflict.
Lastly, oil is being sought in “unconventional” sites, buried in tar sands, shale, or in an “extra heavy” state. Canadian tar sands are estimated to contain 170 trillion barrels of oil, but it is thick and frozen. Its recovery requires open pit mining, which not only destroys the land but contaminates downstream water. It can also be recovered by injecting large amounts of steam, but this uses huge amounts of water and is powered by natural gas, thus causing a great release of greenhouse carbon dioxide. The percentage of unconventional oil is predicted to rise from 3 percent in 2009 to 9 percent in 2035.
Most of the world’s mines for such important substances as copper, tin, titanium, and bauxite date from World War II and are on the decline. New reserves are in the arctic and in potentially rebellious areas of Africa and Asia. Afghanistan may contain some of the biggest mineral resources in the world. The biggest uranium deposits are in Niger. Russia and China are fighting over large deposits in Mongolia. Both governments of developed countries and mining corporations are angling to control new mines in these unstable areas.
Seventeen rare earth elements, such as lithium, are necessary for new “green” technologies like electric car batteries, because they are light, magnetic, and strong. Ironically, obtaining them is becoming more difficult and energy intensive. In fact, China had been allowed to almost monopolize production because they did not care about environmental contamination or worker protection, but the West is now hesitant to allow China’s dominance to continue. Utah and Australia will probably become the sites of new mines, at huge monetary and environmental cost.
In addition to trying to guarantee their access to oil and minerals, the wealthy nations are also exploiting the poor to guarantee themselves food. Saudi Arabia has acquired 750,000 acres in Ethiopia; the United Arab Emirates (UAE) controls 700,000 acres of farmland in Sudan. India and China are buying up huge chunks of land in various African countries. Not only is arable land being sought to feed the populations of these wealthy nations, but it is being promoted as a good investment for rich individuals and corporations. About two thirds of all the land being purchased for food is in sub-Saharan Africa. A 2010 World Bank report concluded that most of these projects leave the local population worse off than before.
Finally, Klare discusses the consequences of this competition for resources. Among the oil and mining companies, only the largest will survive as the costs of exploration and exploitation mount. Government-controlled operations will become ever more important, especially in Russia and China. Military means will be used to protect and secure resources, as with the presence of U.S. troops in Nigeria, the Persian Gulf, and Southeast Asia; Chinese forces in Sudan and Zimbabwe; and Russian troops in central Asia.
Although Klare understands that competition for resources has caused wars for centuries and that we are headed for even bigger conflicts, he holds out hope that humanity can avoid catastrophe by competing to adapt to shortages rather than control the shrinking pie. He hopes that the realization of the depletion of non-renewable resources will spur a focus on new technologies and efficiency by governments and private enterprises.
What we as Marxist analyzers of history know, however, is that capitalist competition demands that profits drive investment and war. As do most liberal societal critics, Klare hopes that common sense and decency will change the economic laws that propel the actions of the capitalist ruling class. He must hope this because he cannot conceive of a mass movement of workers building a better world. He hopes that the magnitude of the resource problem will force the ruling class to dispense with the laws of capitalist competition and exploitation.
Although some puny efforts may be made to develop green technology, no capitalist country can forego its immediate need to produce and sell more than its rivals and control its sources of raw materials and markets. Moreover, the capitalist class is willing to sacrifice the lives of millions of workers, including citizen workers, in order to maintain economic and military superiority.
Only an international communist society — an egalitarian society based on maximizing workers’ quality of life, would enable the long-term planning for adaptation to shrinking resources and the development of new modes of production. To create that communist society we must build a mass international movement to destroy the capitalist rulers who, if allowed to survive, will lead us all to a debacle of death and destruction. Be part of that movement by joining and building the Progressive Labor Party around the world.
