A workers' world is possible
Why WEF billionaires won't be welcome in New York
By Leslie Feinberg
New York City
A battalion of billionaire brigands is set to roll into this
city in sleek, long, chauffeured limousines for the annual
World Economic Forum. And already the political climate is
charged with electricity: Activists are coming from far and
wide to confront this criminal class.
How dare these bankers and barons converge on this
metropolis, whose populace is still reeling from the grief of
Sept. 11 and reverberating from the economic recession? Will
the arrival of these magnates mean fewer people living on the
sidewalks? A proliferation of good-paying jobs? Health care
within reach?
Listen for the clink of crystal champagne flutes at this
black-tie business gathering inside the swank Waldorf-Astoria.
They will toast the gifts of massive tax cuts and corporate
welfare from their cronies in the White House and Congress, the
lucrative profits to be made from the Pentagon war-without-end
in the Middle East and Central Asia, the penetration of their
finance capital into every nook and cranny of the world's
economy they've been able to crack.
Not many of those who do the work of the world or the poor
of the planet would raise a glass to this perspective. As a
result, for the last 30 years the rich and powerful had to trek
to a remote mountaintop in the Swiss Alps to hold their
unpopular dialogue with each other and their political and
academic followers. But their retreat to Davos could not stop
protesters from scaling the peak by hook or by crook every year
to voice defiant dissent.
So this year the tycoons are holding their summit on an
island. They are expressing solidarity with Wall Street, the
capital of capital, after the Sept. 11 attacks. And they hope
the specter of protest that haunted them on the slopes of the
Alps will be scattered and driven out.
But the forces they most fear--those who have the least to
lose and the most to gain from overturning this cruelly unjust
economic system--are already securing the transportation,
housing, food and permits they need to gather like a tempest in
front of the Waldorf-Astoria on Feb. 2.
Who will protesters "meet and greet" there? The hundreds of
very rich men, and handful of well-heeled women, who schmooze
at this annual capitalist think tank are not the celebrity
glitterati that turn up on "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous."
Software mogul Bill Gates aside, their surnames don't ring a
bell. But they hold dominion over industries and banks whose
names are as recognizable as a one-dollar bill.
American Airlines, Boeing, Coca-Cola, Deutsche Bank, Goldman
Sachs, IBM, Lehman Brothers, Mastercard International, Merck,
Merrill Lynch, Microsoft, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Morgan
Stanley, Nestle, New York Stock Exchange, PepsiCo, Pfizer,
Reuters, Sara Lee, Siemens, Uni lever, Volkswagen and others
from the "Who's Who of the Fortune 500."
Is it hyperbolic to characterize the owners of these
big-business behemoths as a criminal class? Read on.
Mug shots of corporate criminals
Coca-Cola isn't hated just for marketing liquid candy to
little fans of Harry Potter. It's despised as a virtual emblem
of Yankee imperialism. Last year the United Steelworkers sued
the soft-drink giant for reportedly hiring paramilitary death
squads to terrorize workers at its Colombian bottling plant.
Unionists also charge the company buys from suppliers that
exploit child labor in Brazil. Coke was targeted for boycott
because of its widespread investments in apartheid South
Africa.
Coca-Cola had to fork over $192.5 million in 2001 to settle
a federal lawsuit charging racist discrimination filed by its
African American employees. And Florida farm workers organizing
for better wages and working conditions have battled the
anti-union goliath for years.
But nobody doesn't like Sara Lee, right? Actually, the pound
cake and underwear conglomerate made the Multinational
Monitor's "Top 10 Worst Corporations of 2001" list. Deadly
bacteria in its Ball Park Franks and other meats killed at
least 21 consumers and seriously injured 100 last July. Feel
relieved that the courts took care of the matter? Sara Lee CEOs
got away with two misdemeanor convictions and a $200,000
fine.
Sara Lee was also forced to recall millions of pounds of
meat in December 1998--one month after the company chose to
stop testing for long-present microorganisms. But Sara Lee had
friends in high places. It had a big Department of Defense
contract. In an astonishing joint press release, federal
prosecutors and Sara Lee execs announced a plea agreement that
made no mention of Ball Park Franks.
British Petroleum--where to start? In one year--2000--BP
Amoco had to pay criminal fines or civil penalties for failing
to report illegal dumping of hazardous waste on Alaska's North
Slope, underpaying royalties for oil produced on Native lands
and violating the Clean Air Act. The year before, the company
reportedly spent more on its eco-friendly logo than on
renewable energy. But after a salvo of lobbying in Congress to
wrench open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to offshore oil
drilling, BP executives must be relieved to have a sympathetic
ear in the Oval Office.
Last March, Unilever bosses in southern India were exposed
for dumping tons of poisonous mercury waste in open or torn
sacks in the densely populated tourist resort of Kodaikanal and
the surrounding protected nature reserve of Pambar Shola.
(Greenpeace, March 7) When management tried to ignore demands
to inspect their health records and attempted to relocate,
workers occupied the thermometer factory for three days.
Feel nostalgic about hot Nestle's cocoa? Protests by
landless peasants and small farmers flooded dozens of cities in
Brazil and around the world last April on the International Day
of Farmers' Struggle. Nestle was a target of their rage. The
company pays just 15 cents on the dollar for every liter of
milk produced in South America, compared to 48 cents per liter
to European farmers. Yet prices are almost the same on
supermarket shelves everywhere.
Boeing deals in pork--the kind that comes in congressional
barrels. With an open-ended Pentagon war in full swing,
Congress wants to discreetly hand the company two unprecedented
military contracts that amount to a $10-billion bailout. One
allows the Pentagon to purchase 60 C-17 cargo aircraft without
any financial oversight. The other permits the company to sell
the brass at least 100 Boeing 767 tankers at nearly $7 billion
more than if the aircraft were bought outright. (Counter Punch,
Nov. 26)
Appealing to Pentagon state capitalism, Boeing executives
argued to key congressional figures that the deal would help
the hard-hit airline industry soar by "creating a multibillion
military market for the company's popular civilian
aircraft."
Flight attendants and pilots from United and American
Airlines lost their lives on Sept. 11. But afterwards, bosses
at both United and American slashed 20,000 jobs, received a
government bailout of $807 million, and claimed over $1 billion
in "business interruption" insurance. Not one penny was
reported spent to save jobs or help victims' families.
Merck was one of the more than three dozen pharmaceuticals
that sued the South African government to try to bar it from
importing or producing generic versions of drugs to treat AIDS,
all to keep profits elevated.
Deutsche Bank, Siemens and Volkswagen wrung mega-profits
from the sweat and blood of slave labor during the Nazi
era.
Today Boeing, Microsoft and IBM are just three of the
Fortune 500 that use prison labor to out-sell their
competition. In addition, Goldman Sachs & Co. and Merrill
Lynch are among the Wall Street firms investing billions in the
thriving prison-industrial complex.
Prisoners--disproportionately people of color--are paid far
less than minimum wage. So the rip-off of their labor hikes
profits, boosts stock prices and drives down the wages of all
workers.
Workers are right to be furious about this
super-exploitation of prisoners. And it's not a new problem.
The 1891 Coal Creek Rebellion demonstrated a bold solution to
the prison "lease" system. When the Tennessee Coal, Iron &
Railroad Co. locked out its union workers and replaced them
with prisoners, the union miners broke their brothers' shackles
and freed them.
Today, as so many transnational corporations squeeze profits
from low-paid workers and peasants around the world, that's the
spirit of solidarity that could turn the tide.
Is there a way out?
The young anti-globalization movement that rose up in
Seattle against Robo-cop repression has challenged some of the
most grave offenses committed by colossus banks and
transnational corporations against the people and the
planet.
But ultimately, is there hope for a genuine economic
solution?
Some call for action against companies that "exploit their
workers." But what company doesn't? Exploitation is the
wellspring of profit. Profit is the difference between the
money paid in wages and the value workers produce. Capital
lives off this unpaid labor.
Socially responsible capitalism is an oxymoron. Bosses are
compelled to speed up assembly lines, evict communities, poison
the air and water, defoliate the land and wage warfare in their
neck-and-neck rivalry for super-profits. That's what free
enterprise, free trade and the free market are all about:
cut-throat competition on a world scale for the wealth that
labor creates. If any individuals are unwilling to harden their
hearts, they are gobbled up like so much Ben & Jerry ice
cream by the competition.
Flip the channels and you hear political pundits explain the
current world crisis as a conflict among countries, or between
the underdeveloped countries and the West.
But it's a worldwide battle between two major economic
classes. Imperialism is a social relationship. It's the
worldwide exploitation of one class by another. It's the
monopoly of one class over another.
In the modern era the banks and industry have merged to
become giant marauding global conglomerates. These are the
class forces behind the IMF, the World Bank and the WEF think
tank.
Shopkeepers and small-scale entrepreneurs in particular may
hope that anti-trust legislation will break up the logjam of
the monopolies and stimulate laissez-faire competition. But
that's as realistic as breaking up the Challenger space shuttle
into hang gliders. Anti-trust laws and regulations have not
stunted the growth of monopolies or defused their power.
The tendency towards monopoly in the capitalist economic
system is hardwired because it leads to economies of scale and
greater social weight. Competition becomes transformed into
monopoly. Bigger companies get credit more easily and at a
lower rate. So competition and credit become the centrifugal
force of centralization.
A capitalist owner will steamroll over anyone or anything to
secure the market in which the rate of profit is highest. The
race to turn a bigger buck drives them to invest in new
technology rather than labor. But even as the new equipment
produces more goods, fewer workers are needed to run it. And
only human labor creates new wealth. So the rate of profit
slides, creating an obstacle to investment.
Burgeoning production bumps up against the ceiling of
consumption. As more and more products are spewed out, prices
drop and not all can be sold at a profit. All of this leads to
the surreal catastrophe of an abundance that spreads pink
slips, hunger, homelessness and misery around the globe.
Globalize revolution!
The profit motive is a millstone dragging down human
progress. Monopoly capitalism has made the rate of exploitation
unbearable. It distorts technology and science, bending them to
the interests of its bottom line. Humanity's ability to meet
its human needs and desires has never been greater, yet the
yawning chasm between wealth and poverty has never been
wider.
The root of the problem is not the cartels; it's a crisis of
ownership. Working people produce the vast wealth of society,
but they are not the owners of all they produce. This treasure
created by collective human labor is claimed by an
ever-narrowing few, as though it was personal wealth.
This maturing contradiction between socialized production
and private ownership of the means of production expresses
itself as the fierce conflict between the two major contending
class forces in modern society. And this class struggle is the
driving force of human development
But the imperialist owning class--particularly U.S. finance
capital--has bought domestic class peace with economic
globalization and warfare. It got a new lease on life, after
the collapse of the Soviet Union, by expanding into the former
workers' state and into technologically underdeveloped
countries that had been protected to a degree by existence of
the socialist camp.
But the Pentagon war against Afghan istan is not staving off
economic crisis or reviving production. The underlying laws of
their own economy are catching up with the capitalists. And
this deepening crisis has the potential to reawaken the class
struggle here in the citadel of U.S. imperialism.
The creation of monopolies has brought the world's working
class into a new era of cooperation. It has created the
productive platform for a new stage of human history.
Monopolization has ironed out some of the chaos of
laissez-faire competition. The scientific-technological
revolution could be employed to wipe out poverty and raise the
living standards of all.
The working class, which built the mighty tools of
production, banking and commerce but does not own or control
them, would of course like the transfer from monopoly
capitalism to be peaceful. But no wealthy ruling class in
history has ever stepped down based on appeals to reason or
election tallies. This one resists even the mildest social
reforms with bared fangs.
Nor can a socialist system gradually grow up within
capitalism, as capitalism did within feudalism. A socialist
system requires overall planning of production and distribution
to meet the wants of every member of society--something the
imperialist powers constantly try to sabotage, from Korea to
Cuba.
The revolutionary task before the globalized workforce and
oppressed peoples of the world is formidable. But awake and
roused, the billions can topple the billionaires.
The leaders of the ruthless class that stands in the way of
the next stage in human history are coming to Manhattan to plot
their plunder. Be there!
For more information about the protests see
www.InternationalANSWER.org.
Reprinted from the Jan. 24, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
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