This is a fact, and it is no longer even disputed by the proponents of the globalization of capitalism:
the worsening of lifestyle inequalities in rich and poor countries (called “social polarization”) and the adaptation of the entire planet to the free market (called "modernization") are the consequence of an economic and political organization that no longer recognizes as a basis
the worsening of lifestyle inequalities in rich and poor countries (called \enquote{social polarization}) and the adaptation of the entire planet to the free market (called \enquote{modernization}) are the consequence of an economic and political organization that no longer recognizes as a basis
moral than the values generated by the necessities of this globalization.
The economic and social damage therefore appears only as “dysfunctions” when in reality they are the product of a recolonization of the world by the dominant forces of the rich countries.
The economic and social damage therefore appears only as \enquote{dysfunctions} when in reality they are the product of a recolonization of the world by the dominant forces of the rich countries.
This process, which corresponds at the end of the twentieth century to a strategic victory of capitalism over the socialist and non-aligned camp, is based on a murderous utopia, globalization, the first applications of which reveal a negative balance sheet, in all areas, for the future of the planet.
Indeed, the ecological crisis itself is clearly analyzed as a social crisis and the product of a system where abundance cannot be shared.
@ -22,9 +22,9 @@ Because as we approach the year 2000, two billion men, women and children are ma
Half of them don't even know if she will be able to eat properly the next day.
\section{1. — 1945-1990: recolonization, a prelude to globalisation}
\section{1945-1990: recolonization, a prelude to globalisation}
The globalization of capital, defined empirically and progressively in the context of U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War, was one of the goals of the “Bretton Woods institutions.”
The globalization of capital, defined empirically and progressively in the context of U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War, was one of the goals of the \enquote{Bretton Woods institutions.}
The strategy of these aid and cooperation agencies quickly became aggressive. With some adjustments and a few squeaks, these agencies have become tools of American hegemony.
Although initially separate, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the GATT/WTO, now supplemented by the MAI (Set of World Trade Liberalization Agreements), have coordinated their overall policies with that of the G7.
Since the break-up of the Soviet bloc and the gradual transition of China to capitalism, these institutions have acquired a status that is more structural than conjunctural and have gradually constituted a kind of center of reflection, meetings and decisions operating for the benefit of dominant capitalism.
@ -33,42 +33,42 @@ The strategy of the WB/IMF/GATT Group has been evolving. We can distinguish four
initially, it set itself the goal of technical and financial dependence on poor decolonized countries through a systematic policy of development aid based on heavy equipment, urban concentration, major works and the industrialization of the countryside.
This first phase lasted from 1947 (first loans from the World Bank and the IMF) to 1968 (arrival of Robert McNamara, former US Secretary of Defense, at the head of the World Bank).
It has disrupted the initial fabric of production in poor countries in an authoritarian, rapid and irreversible manner. In many countries, this phase continues according to the same methods of interference.
Loans continue to focus on “heavy projects,” such as the 2,000 dams in India's Narmada Valley or China's Three Rivers Dam, without paying attention to the millions of people who will have to be displaced at the time of watering.
Systematic overruns make other loans indispensable, accentuating the country's financial dependence, which must then, each time a little more, give in to the blackmail of “conditionality”, a pretty technocratic word fraught with threats for the over-indebted poor countries and for the 110 economies of the South that are officially declared by the World Bank and the IMF in a situation of “structural adjustment”.
Loans continue to focus on \enquote{heavy projects,} such as the 2,000 dams in India's Narmada Valley or China's Three Rivers Dam, without paying attention to the millions of people who will have to be displaced at the time of watering.
Systematic overruns make other loans indispensable, accentuating the country's financial dependence, which must then, each time a little more, give in to the blackmail of \enquote{conditionality}, a pretty technocratic word fraught with threats for the over-indebted poor countries and for the 110 economies of the South that are officially declared by the World Bank and the IMF in a situation of \enquote{structural adjustment}.
This term refers to a set of binding measures accompanying a forced transition to a market economy through the dismantling of any regulatory function of the State.
After playing the comedy of financial and technical aid, the strategy then turned to the sending of debt, between 1968 and 1982, the year of the “great debt crisis” that followed the declaration of default of Mexico, the first debtor at that time.
From 1968 to 1971, McNamara increased loans and investments sixfold. The fashion was then officially for a “quantitative” approach to development aid to poor countries.
After playing the comedy of financial and technical aid, the strategy then turned to the sending of debt, between 1968 and 1982, the year of the \enquote{great debt crisis} that followed the declaration of default of Mexico, the first debtor at that time.
From 1968 to 1971, McNamara increased loans and investments sixfold. The fashion was then officially for a \enquote{quantitative} approach to development aid to poor countries.
In 1971, the end of the convertibility of the dollar decreed by President Nixon transformed the IMF into a recycler of floating money.
Monkey money, once loaned to the poor world, miraculously regained value: it became a debt to be paid.
Private investment in speculative dollars was further multiplied by the oil crises of 1973 and 1979.
At that time, the indebtedness of poor countries ended up reaching more than a thousand times that of the early 60s.
The World Bank and the IMF then played the dual roles of public lenders and private collectors:
the invention of “structural adjustment” in 1979 made it possible to provide private creditors in the event that the poor countries, which were recklessly indebted, showed a desire to stop paying, which was a foreseeable danger.
the invention of \enquote{structural adjustment} in 1979 made it possible to provide private creditors in the event that the poor countries, which were recklessly indebted, showed a desire to stop paying, which was a foreseeable danger.
This crisis took place in 1982, marking a third phase in the history of the Bretton Woods institutions.
The mining of the rear bases of the Soviet Union was set up by the forced “structural adjustment” (obtained by blackmail) of the Third World countries:
between 1982 and 1987, these macroeconomic programmes concocted by the G7 Group, the World Bank and the IMF brought the poor countries back to the market economy under strict contractual conditions, which caused them to leave the Soviet orbit “de facto”.
The mining of the rear bases of the Soviet Union was set up by the forced \enquote{structural adjustment} (obtained by blackmail) of the Third World countries:
between 1982 and 1987, these macroeconomic programmes concocted by the G7 Group, the World Bank and the IMF brought the poor countries back to the market economy under strict contractual conditions, which caused them to leave the Soviet orbit \enquote{de facto}.
McNamara resigned in 1981, the year after Ronald Reagan came to power; for American geostrategy immediately evolved:
from the concept of “containment” in vogue since the Truman Doctrine, perpetuated by the policies of peaceful coexistence - in confrontation - of Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Carter, we moved on to the strategic counterpart of the economic neoliberalism of the Reagan team:
henceforth the official doctrine was radicalized into “reconquest” (“ roll back ”).
During these years 82 to 92, “structural adjustment” became the key concept of an aggressive strategy that was the main exogenous factor in the political, economic, environmental and social collapse of the "adjusted" countries.
from the concept of \enquote{containment} in vogue since the Truman Doctrine, perpetuated by the policies of peaceful coexistence - in confrontation - of Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Carter, we moved on to the strategic counterpart of the economic neoliberalism of the Reagan team:
henceforth the official doctrine was radicalized into \enquote{reconquest} (\enquote{ roll back }).
During these years 82 to 92, \enquote{structural adjustment} became the key concept of an aggressive strategy that was the main exogenous factor in the political, economic, environmental and social collapse of the \enquote{adjusted} countries.
The IMF, the World Bank and the GATT, officially associated since 1988, have brought the poor world to its knees.
The Soviet Union, encircled and gradually deprived of allies, slowly dissolved into “glasnost” and “perestroika” and finally collapsed shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
Then, in a few years, the “structural adjustment” (already globalized by the Baker plan in Seoul in 1985), finished to bring the last recalcitrants to heel:
The Soviet Union, encircled and gradually deprived of allies, slowly dissolved into \enquote{glasnost} and \enquote{perestroika} and finally collapsed shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
Then, in a few years, the \enquote{structural adjustment} (already globalized by the Baker plan in Seoul in 1985), finished to bring the last recalcitrants to heel:
India ceded to the IMF in 1991, the new Russia did so the same year.
Cuba and Vietnam opened up to mass tourism and China restored the market economy in the “special economic zones”.
Cuba and Vietnam opened up to mass tourism and China restored the market economy in the \enquote{special economic zones}.
In early 1998, in the midst of the Asian crash, the Chinese state liberalized all prices except housing, health and transportation.
Today, in 1998, the 200 largest transnational corporations already control 80\% of the world's agricultural and industrial production as well as 70\% of the world's services and trade, more than two-thirds of the \$25 trillion in gross global product (barely \$1 trillion a hundred years ago).
Associated with the debates and decisions of the G8 summits, the “decision-makers” of the trusts (agri-food, oil or armaments) intervene directly on world affairs.
Associated with the debates and decisions of the G8 summits, the \enquote{decision-makers} of the trusts (agri-food, oil or armaments) intervene directly on world affairs.
In collaboration with the financial giants of global capital (pension funds, large transnational banks and institutionalized speculators), the agencies of the IMF and the WB elaborate their diktats, break economies, bring the recolonized states to heel.
All these “managers” and all these “presidents”, for the benefit of the “top one” (the richest 1\% in the world) organize the suffering of the “sixty bottom” (the poorest 60\%) ...
All these \enquote{managers} and all these \enquote{presidents}, for the benefit of the \enquote{top one} (the richest 1\% in the world) organize the suffering of the \enquote{sixty bottom} (the poorest 60\%) ...
Neoliberal ideology, radicalized by its strategic successes, also globalizes its targets:
Launched into the reconquest of the entire world market, it aims at the establishment of a “universal structural adjustment”, which must bring to heel the emerging rival powers (NPI and Japan in particular), but above all obtain the destruction of the welfare states of the developed countries, by the dismemberment of the social and contractual policies obtained in a century and a half of fierce struggles.
Launched into the reconquest of the entire world market, it aims at the establishment of a \enquote{universal structural adjustment}, which must bring to heel the emerging rival powers (NPI and Japan in particular), but above all obtain the destruction of the welfare states of the developed countries, by the dismemberment of the social and contractual policies obtained in a century and a half of fierce struggles.
Deregulation and privatization, even in rich countries, are the most decisive objectives of the liberal offensive.
A generalized decline in the rights of workers in developed countries following the impoverishment of those in the East and the enslavement of those in the poor world is the programmed goal of victorious capitalism.
Deindustrialization of the poorest countries, lasting stagnation for others, deruralization of the South, concerted underemployment everywhere, wage labour of small production and distribution throughout the planet, reorientation of investments towards non-job-creating growth where the biggest profits are made on markets rigged by unequal exchange and speculation.
@ -76,12 +76,12 @@ The deadly effects of this system of predation are so destructive, so profound a
\section{2. — Ecological crisis, private profit and forced rural exodus}
\section{Ecological crisis, private profit and forced rural exodus}
The ecological balance sheet of Europe's industrial development is well established: the old continent is showing definitive wounds:
mowed down by intensive agriculture, soiled by urbanization, tied up by its network of highways, traversed by cesspools that once bore the names of rivers, this disfigured land bears the traces of a thousand years' struggle.
But if North America has been cleared in a hundred years, the tropical forests of Brazil and Africa have left in thirty years, and soon there will be nothing left of the equatorial forests of Malaysia and Indonesia, which have only been exploited for twenty years.
This acceleration is linked to the extension of the “free market”.
This acceleration is linked to the extension of the \enquote{free market}.
It is a fact: the unequal organization of the world disturbs physical, chemical and biological balances. Perhaps for the first time, a more balanced distribution of resources among
Men is called not by the generous dreams of some philosophy of sharing, but by a global threat:
@ -93,45 +93,45 @@ The desert advances at the same time as poverty, the forest recedes at the same
By far, by far, the most polluting substance on the planet is inequality:
much more than the toxic releases of the packed industries of the North and the South, of which it is at the origin, much more than the forest fires, wars, famines it produces, inequality destroys the planet with slums, plundering the green capital of poor countries that can no longer do anything else, for lack of capital, than to pay their debt in kind.
After all, what is the record of nearly half a century of liberal approach to so-called “development aid”? It must be recognized that it is negative on all levels:
After all, what is the record of nearly half a century of liberal approach to so-called \enquote{development aid}? It must be recognized that it is negative on all levels:
not only is none of the economies of the poor world viable or independent, but economic dependence and ecological destruction are redoubled by an aggravated social differential:
the collaborating “elites” of the countries of the South brutally put down the riots of hunger, the underpaid and corrupt civil servants divert public money, the decision-makers will take their orders in the cabinets of their Western counterparts or in the boards of directors of transnational corporations.
the collaborating \enquote{elites} of the countries of the South brutally put down the riots of hunger, the underpaid and corrupt civil servants divert public money, the decision-makers will take their orders in the cabinets of their Western counterparts or in the boards of directors of transnational corporations.
Crushed by an unbearable external debt, poor countries literally finance rich countries (to the tune of more than one point of growth).
Thus the forced rural exodus fills the slums and red-light districts while misery feeds guerrillas who turn to simple banditry as in Liberia and Somalia or barbarism as in Algeria. The development of the “free market” was only an opportunity for a rationalized plundering of poor countries under the guise of technical assistance:
Thus the forced rural exodus fills the slums and red-light districts while misery feeds guerrillas who turn to simple banditry as in Liberia and Somalia or barbarism as in Algeria. The development of the \enquote{free market} was only an opportunity for a rationalized plundering of poor countries under the guise of technical assistance:
the UN agencies have only been the vector of parasitic settlements, those of the agri-food trusts that exhaust the soils of the poor world to export to the rich countries, those of the cannon merchants who manufacture the foreign policy of all countries, large and small, those of financiers eager for profitable investments, who manipulate international institutions.
After fifty years of “assistance”, the South is ruined: nearly half of the inhabitants live below the poverty line defined by the United Nations.
These countries are ecologically devastated, the populations of cities and countryside lead undignified lives. The famous “take-off” of Rostow did not take place:
After fifty years of \enquote{assistance}, the South is ruined: nearly half of the inhabitants live below the poverty line defined by the United Nations.
These countries are ecologically devastated, the populations of cities and countryside lead undignified lives. The famous \enquote{take-off} of Rostow did not take place:
the Third World plane, crowded and stinking, rusts at the end of the runway, without a pilot or fuel.
As for the famous ripple effect, the “trickle down”, which according to liberal economists was to enrich the poor after enriching the rich, it shows the limits of cynicism:
As for the famous ripple effect, the \enquote{trickle down}, which according to liberal economists was to enrich the poor after enriching the rich, it shows the limits of cynicism:
Artificially plastered on economies and societies mutilated by colonization, western-style development revenues have only organized more rationally, by modernizing them, the ancient forms of colonial transfer of capital and raw commodities.
Despite the cascading crashes (Thailand, Korea, Hong Kong and even Tokyo), our liberal economists persist in manipulating notions that mask the reality of the countries of the South:
Exhausted and polluted China sells one of its provinces, Guang Dong, to private investors, to prepare the ground for economic reforms aimed at restoring the market economy and anticipating opening up to large Japanese and American companies.
India is torn by gigantism and corruption, by intolerable social gaps, with its legions of beggars, its clusters of miserable children clinging to the arms of tourists, their hands outstretched, their eyes imploring.
Mexico, so polluted, so devastated, is so colonized that people shop in dollars, with the greenbacks of the big neighbor to the north.
Korea imitates Hong Kong, Singapore, where in the “sweat shops”, thirteen-year-old workers are deprived, thirteen hours a day, of the beauties of life, the joys of adolescence.
Thailand, the world's largest exporter of rice, is a country where one could therefore believe that everyone has enough to eat; but one can buy a little slave five hundred dollars and the rental of a “girlfriend”, does not cost more than three hundred dollars a week.
Indonesia, the Philippines, Brazil? Forests burned and ransacked, destructive industries; everywhere and always, with the “new industrialization”, the procession of the benefits of capitalist society:
Korea imitates Hong Kong, Singapore, where in the \enquote{sweat shops}, thirteen-year-old workers are deprived, thirteen hours a day, of the beauties of life, the joys of adolescence.
Thailand, the world's largest exporter of rice, is a country where one could therefore believe that everyone has enough to eat; but one can buy a little slave five hundred dollars and the rental of a \enquote{girlfriend}, does not cost more than three hundred dollars a week.
Indonesia, the Philippines, Brazil? Forests burned and ransacked, destructive industries; everywhere and always, with the \enquote{new industrialization}, the procession of the benefits of capitalist society:
red light districts, girls for rent, slums, drugs, smoke, Coca-Cola, automobiles, fast foods, neon, delinquency and... Phones.
This allows all liberal experts to explain that there is in India, for example, a new middle class, with 200 million consumers.
We forget, as if by chance, the remaining 700 million, two-thirds of which must survive on less than a dollar per person per day. This is probably the “Indian miracle”!
We forget, as if by chance, the remaining 700 million, two-thirds of which must survive on less than a dollar per person per day. This is probably the \enquote{Indian miracle}!
This is to forget all those whom “development”, as conceived by the agencies of the World Bank and the IMF (which serve as pilot fish for large private banks and giant trusts of heavy construction equipment and major works) has officially deported:
This is to forget all those whom \enquote{development}, as conceived by the agencies of the World Bank and the IMF (which serve as pilot fish for large private banks and giant trusts of heavy construction equipment and major works) has officially deported:
the Singrauli dams in India, which began in 1962, forcibly displaced more than 300,000 people initially. The construction of coal-fired power plants (11 in total) plans to drive out an additional 150,000 people.
Since 1970, India's energy program, funded two-thirds by the World Bank, has deported, in addition to the victims of the Singrauli project, more than 200,000 indigenous people, who lived in self-subsistence in forests still untouched.
The 2,000 megawatts of the new Dahanu power plant scared away more than 100,000 “adivasis” (the name given in India to indigenous peoples in little-explored areas) by draining the swamps and mangroves where they lived.
Fishermen on the coast have been ruined by hot water discharges and sulphides. Officially, the "compensation" programs concern more than 10,000 artisanal fishermen.
The 2,000 megawatts of the new Dahanu power plant scared away more than 100,000 \enquote{adivasis} (the name given in India to indigenous peoples in little-explored areas) by draining the swamps and mangroves where they lived.
Fishermen on the coast have been ruined by hot water discharges and sulphides. Officially, the \enquote{compensation} programs concern more than 10,000 artisanal fishermen.
Despite these repeated disasters, the loans continue to literally water this concerted looting: 250,000 people displaced by the Upper Krishna dam in 1978 do not prevent the financing of the second phase of the work ten years later.
The 120,000 deportees from Subernarekha did not raise eyebrows among World Bank experts, nor did the resistance of the Srisailam deportees, who nevertheless obtained through their struggle the resettlement of 64,000 people out of 150,000.
In China, the pharaonic Three Rivers Dam, which will be the largest reservoir in the world (on a seismic zone, let's not forget!) will only be built thanks to financial support provided by the World Bank and the IMF.
In the situation of complete non-transparency that characterizes the pro-capitalist regime of the current leaders of the People's Republic of China, it is estimated that more than two million people are being displaced off-site.
In addition, the potential danger will force the Chinese state to empty the downstream of the dam of any inhabitant for at least two hundred kilometers.
We arrive at three million deportees in all... Work has already begun. The revolts that took place were put down and camouflaged as “inter-ethnic incidents”!
We arrive at three million deportees in all... Work has already begun. The revolts that took place were put down and camouflaged as \enquote{inter-ethnic incidents}!
The full list of forced displacements due to “major works” is impossible to keep.
The full list of forced displacements due to \enquote{major works} is impossible to keep.
A large number of international organizations and local resistance groups have sought to alert world opinion to the plight of rural populations or ethnic groups around the world who have swelled the ranks of those excluded from the big cities for the sole benefit of the large lending organizations and trusts that finance and carry out all the major projects in the world.
The most astonishing thing about this case is that this enormous human waste, coupled with real ecological disasters, took place for nothing, in terms of result, even in the technical sense of the term:
@ -152,97 +152,96 @@ In the space of two generations, the destruction of rural or wild environments a
Now peasants are no longer in the majority in the poor world: some countries are rapidly moving towards proportions that define the situation in Europe or North America.
A world without peasants, a very high-yield agriculture on land empty of men and owned by trusts, this is the social and economic model imposed by modern capitalist agriculture.
In contrast to concepts such as “food self-sufficiency” and “self-centred development”, a system based on deruralization and underemployment is being set up, the objective of which is not to feed populations but to produce excessively to export to rich countries, regardless of the local human and ecological cost.
In contrast to concepts such as \enquote{food self-sufficiency} and \enquote{self-centred development}, a system based on deruralization and underemployment is being set up, the objective of which is not to feed populations but to produce excessively to export to rich countries, regardless of the local human and ecological cost.
In China every year since its implementation in 1990, the new policy has pushed 20 million poor peasants to the cities.
The state abandons the surveillance of the self-centered system of the “people's communes”, allows private profit to resettle to the depths of the countryside, thus disrupting local exchanges based on the barter of goods and services.
The state abandons the surveillance of the self-centered system of the \enquote{people's communes}, allows private profit to resettle to the depths of the countryside, thus disrupting local exchanges based on the barter of goods and services.
However, this process of exchange, regulated by the counters of the state, worked quite well for more than thirty years, preserving China from its annual famine, an old plague of the old feudal regime.
But the arrival of experts from the World Bank and the IMF, the invasion of the South by foreign speculators are producing the same effects as in India.
Peasant refugees in the cities work for less than half an hour and those who do not have jobs live on the streets:
with a million homeless people in the cities, ex-communist China is slowly sliding towards an “Indian-style” situation.
with a million homeless people in the cities, ex-communist China is slowly sliding towards an \enquote{Indian-style} situation.
The subcontinent, strongly deruralized in a generation, has seen more than ten million peasants flock to its big cities ruined per year during all the 70s, and nearly twenty million during the 80s and 90s.
Brazil, which now has only 35\% of rural people, and Mexico, which privatizes the “ejidos”, the collective farms of the Zapatista era, are very far from being able to manage the mass of development refugees.
Brazil, which now has only 35\% of rural people, and Mexico, which privatizes the \enquote{ejidos}, the collective farms of the Zapatista era, are very far from being able to manage the mass of development refugees.
Since 1950, how many peasants have been ruined by expropriations, the pollution of their waters and the diktat of the prices imposed by the London and Chicago Stock Exchanges, which set agricultural prices around the world?
The classic capitalist colonial scheme is therefore simply being resettled.
3. — “Structural adjustment” is waging war on the poor
\section{\enquote{Structural adjustment} is waging war on the poor}
In 1998, 45 countries around the world were officially declared food imbalances: the daily ration was between 73 and 95\% of the FAO standard (2,345 calories per day).
In Sahelian Africa after three decades of development aid and ten years of structural adjustment, the average daily food ration is 1,730 calories (exactly half the average in the United States!). India, with 2,200 calories, is barely approaching the proper ration.
However, given the social gaps, it can be seen that below 95\% of the FAO standard on a national average, almost a third of the population is malnourished.
85\% of them start “hunger riots” or civil wars. At 75\% appear episodic famines...
85\% of them start \enquote{hunger riots} or civil wars. At 75\% appear episodic famines...
Between 1965 and 1980, the average annual per capita income in the countries of the North (excluding Eastern countries) increased by more than \$900;
at the same time, the annual per capita enrichment of the countries of the South (excluding OPEC) did not exceed 3 dollars!
Rich countries, whose demography is controlled and economic instruments sharpened despite the crises, experienced a tremendous rise in living standards from 1950 to 1980.
The countries of the South, during the “glorious thirties”, experienced successively a decade of economically paralyzing political unrest, a decade of financial and technical invasion on the occasion of the “Green Revolution”, and a decade of stalemate in the external debt, with a sudden halt to all technical equipment and social progress.
The countries of the South, during the \enquote{glorious thirties}, experienced successively a decade of economically paralyzing political unrest, a decade of financial and technical invasion on the occasion of the \enquote{Green Revolution}, and a decade of stalemate in the external debt, with a sudden halt to all technical equipment and social progress.
The 90s finished subduing the recalcitrant, cancelling by blackmail to the debt of the sometimes hard-won independences.
Thus destructive interference in equipment and agriculture has turned the food selfishness of rich countries into an accepted morality and domination by hunger into a system of government on a global level.
Then structural adjustment dealt the final blow to economies plagued by the technical and financial dependence organized by the first phase of recolonization.
Its human cost is enormous, incalculable with precision; to satisfy the thirst for profit of a handful of decision-makers won over to the philosophy of ultraliberalism, millions of men died prematurely of malnutrition or diseases contracted because of the weakening due to lack of food.
A billion living dead, whose almost animal existence is directly attributable to the strategic choices of contemporary capitalism, add to the catastrophic toll of the globalization of capitalism.
Traditionally, a “structural adjustment” programme is accompanied by “high-conditionality” loans;
Traditionally, a \enquote{structural adjustment} programme is accompanied by \enquote{high-conditionality} loans;
this means that if the government concerned does not move fast enough in its reforms, supplementary loans are not granted.
India, Egypt, Côte d'Ivoire, Zambia and Algeria have suffered from this blackmail several times recently.
France itself was ordered by the IMF not to rescue the CFA franc or the Algerian dinar in 1994.
Prices have soared on the spot and poverty has taken a giant leap forward in the countries concerned...
The first principle of “structural adjustment” is the limitation of public expenditure.
The first principle of \enquote{structural adjustment} is the limitation of public expenditure.
In order to bring profitable public services into the competitive sector, the State must dismiss civil servants, limit its social, health and education expenditure, in order to provoke the emergence of new paying users of these services.
At the same time, the state must abandon all forms of direct control in agricultural and industrial production, as well as in high-tech services (telecommunications, television and radio).
Everything must be privatized.
More than 110 countries that are now officially in a situation of “structural adjustment” have put into practice the first principle, to which the World Bank and the IMF add a second:
general deregulation of prices and wages. The abolition of the “maximum price” of a few high-necessities throws millions of poor families into malnutrition.
The “minimum wage” is also disappearing, aggravating the phenomenon. Price and wage controls are presented by the World Bank and the IMF as an “anti-economic” tool, undermining “competitive dynamics”.
More than 110 countries that are now officially in a situation of \enquote{structural adjustment} have put into practice the first principle, to which the World Bank and the IMF add a second:
general deregulation of prices and wages. The abolition of the \enquote{maximum price} of a few high-necessities throws millions of poor families into malnutrition.
The \enquote{minimum wage} is also disappearing, aggravating the phenomenon. Price and wage controls are presented by the World Bank and the IMF as an \enquote{anti-economic} tool, undermining \enquote{competitive dynamics}.
In fact, the adjustment is only intended to call for relocations.
In order to generate a satisfactory mass of products not consumed locally because of their new high cost, the IMF has imagined finally forcing any adjusted country to an immediate devaluation of its currency and an increase in interest rates.
As domestic consumption soars due to rising prices, many commodities and products are reserved for export to rich countries.
Poverty thus finances the repayment of the debt. The circle is closed with this third measure.
Needless to say, this “shock treatment” (the official expression used by the drafters of the Baker Plan) applied to weakened postcolonial economies is in fact a disguised form of war against the poor.
Needless to say, this \enquote{shock treatment} (the official expression used by the drafters of the Baker Plan) applied to weakened postcolonial economies is in fact a disguised form of war against the poor.
The first “adaptation” loans granted by the World Bank and the IMF date back to the mid-70s.
The first \enquote{adaptation} loans granted by the World Bank and the IMF date back to the mid-70s.
The aim was to finance compensation premiums in countries where privatization of public services might be too unpopular.
Then the term “structural adjustment loans” began to describe heavier financing systems designed to accelerate the transition to the “free market”.
The first “structural adjustment programme”, consisting of a veritable package of successive measures, each accompanied by adequate loans, hit Turkey in 1980 and was supplemented by a special drawing right in IMF funds in 1981 and again in 1985 to the tune of one and a half billion dollars.
Then the term \enquote{structural adjustment loans} began to describe heavier financing systems designed to accelerate the transition to the \enquote{free market}.
The first \enquote{structural adjustment programme}, consisting of a veritable package of successive measures, each accompanied by adequate loans, hit Turkey in 1980 and was supplemented by a special drawing right in IMF funds in 1981 and again in 1985 to the tune of one and a half billion dollars.
Then the World Bank added another long-term loan in 1985, in view of the progress of the adjustment measures taken by the Turkish government.
Nearly 20 years later, where does Turkey stand? The rural exodus has destroyed subsistence agriculture, Istanbul has grown by 600\%, in conditions that are unsustainable in all respects.
The Turkish state has failed in its task of economic support (turning its back on Kemalism), and under the military dictatorship has made its liberal turn.
Successive devaluations caused catastrophic price increases while the minimum wage was abolished, as well as price controls.
Thrown into misery, overwhelmed by the dictatorship, the Turkish people have gradually allowed themselves to be caught up in fundamentalist propaganda, which constantly castigates businessism, social polarization and the decadence of morals.
Pretty much Iran's worst-case scenario, with the mullahs succeeding the Shah's “White Revolution,” who had applied to his country the shock treatment of rural modernization and unbridled urbanization.
Pretty much Iran's worst-case scenario, with the mullahs succeeding the Shah's \enquote{White Revolution,} who had applied to his country the shock treatment of rural modernization and unbridled urbanization.
Yet it was as a result of this serious Iranian failure that the thinkers of the World Bank and the IMF understood the need to provide financial support in poor countries for the destruction of social protection, the decline of labour rights and the destruction of public services, at the same time as the concentration of land and the displacement of populations.
After the Cancun Conference and the Baker Plan, which marked the transformation of “structural adjustment” programs into a real weapon of penetration of economies and states still escaping the free market, the 1980s were one of chaos for “adjusted” countries.
After the Cancun Conference and the Baker Plan, which marked the transformation of \enquote{structural adjustment} programs into a real weapon of penetration of economies and states still escaping the free market, the 1980s were one of chaos for \enquote{adjusted} countries.
For the brutality of privatization suddenly inflated the level of poverty, underemployment and malnutrition.
But no structural adjustment programme was ever carried out without funding for the renovation of equipment and the training of the law enforcement apparatus.
From the beginning of the 80s, structural adjustment provoked the “hunger riots” that local observers call “IMF riots”.
From the beginning of the 80s, structural adjustment provoked the \enquote{hunger riots} that local observers call \enquote{IMF riots}.
The level of protests against the adjustment to capitalism of the state-owned economies of the poor world has continued to grow even if it is true that the poorest workers and unemployed in these already poor countries could be tired of excessive bureaucratization and the many dysfunctions (for example, a shortage of tomato sauce in Algeria, this is unacceptable!) nationalized systems.
It is also certainly true that the announcement of the dismantling of states of directed capitalism, synonymous with frequently incompetent “national societies”, may have met for a time with popular approval.
It is also certainly true that the announcement of the dismantling of states of directed capitalism, synonymous with frequently incompetent \enquote{national societies}, may have met for a time with popular approval.
But it was a little quick to forget less palpable results, which the governments of poor countries had managed to achieve in just twenty years:
massive literacy, support for agricultural prices and distribution subsidies, reduction of health costs, control of drug prices, almost free transport.
From the first years of adjustment, the awakening was very hard: the abolition of all state support, imposed by adjustment programs in the name of the religion of price, productivity, competitiveness, economic efficiency, modernization, produced explosive social situations.
These have resulted in an upsurge in spontaneous urban violence (looting of supermarkets, attacks and looting of banks and office buildings) and more organized rural resistance:
revolutionary maquis like the “Shining Path” in Peru, peasant revolts in India, Mexico, persistence of maquis in the Philippines, Indonesia, Turkey, fundamentalist terrorism in Egypt, Algeria, separatist maquis in Senegal, not to mention the vertiginous growth of delinquency pure and simple.
revolutionary maquis like the \enquote{Shining Path} in Peru, peasant revolts in India, Mexico, persistence of maquis in the Philippines, Indonesia, Turkey, fundamentalist terrorism in Egypt, Algeria, separatist maquis in Senegal, not to mention the vertiginous growth of delinquency pure and simple.
More than a hundred states involved in structural adjustment programmes have been imposed these “high-conditional” loans.
More than a hundred states involved in structural adjustment programmes have been imposed these \enquote{high-conditional} loans.
Totally infiltrated by world bank and IMF experts, they have frequently used weapons to prevent an Iranian-style slippage.
It must be made clear: “structural adjustment” has been done, in any case, weapon in hand.
It must be made clear: \enquote{structural adjustment} has been done, in any case, weapon in hand.
The December 1983 riots in Tunisia marked the beginning of the Maghreb's resistance to the imposed adjustment.
The hundreds of arrests and disappearances that followed could not deter other rioters in Morocco from taking to the streets to protest the following month.
The army fired on the crowd and officially killed 400 people. In April 1984, rising prices in Santo Domingo pushed the demonstrators towards the beautiful neighborhoods.
Nearly 186 shot dead, 500 wounded, thousands of arrests of “looters”.
Nearly 186 shot dead, 500 wounded, thousands of arrests of \enquote{looters}.
Each year brings its share of structural adjustment deaths, to the point that a Democratic senator in 1985 raised the problem of the use of World Bank funds before the United States Congress.
But nothing changed: in Zambia, the army fired on the “hunger rioters” and officially killed 180 people, including many housewives who came to protest against the rise in food prices following the second wave of privatization.
That same year, in the violently "readjusted" Sudan, troops suppressed the invasion by the poor of the central districts of the capital. There are thousands of deaths.
But nothing changed: in Zambia, the army fired on the \enquote{hunger rioters} and officially killed 180 people, including many housewives who came to protest against the rise in food prices following the second wave of privatization.
That same year, in the violently \enquote{readjusted} Sudan, troops suppressed the invasion by the poor of the central districts of the capital. There are thousands of deaths.
In September 1988, the youth of Algiers took to the streets to protest against rising prices, unemployment and housing speculation.
A manhunt lasting several hours in bab el Oued occupied militarily ended with more than 300 young people murdered and nearly a hundred others completed in the alleys of the old medina.
In Venezuela, led by politicians who claim to be social democrats, but who have applied a very brutal structural adjustment, suburban workers are demonstrating with their families against a tripling of the price of public transport, and a shortage of food and medicine. The police shoot at the crowd: 500 dead, officially still.
@ -251,7 +250,7 @@ On the said day, the army attacks the hunger rioters, simultaneously, in the big
Police report 20 deaths and 500 arrests. March 1990: The rioters of Abidjan are severely repressed.
In Zambia, two months later, the army killed twenty demonstrators. In Zaire, each year brings its quota of killed rioters...
Throughout the 90s, the same scenario of bloodily repressed “hunger riots” was repeated a hundred times, from Kinshasa to Jakarta, from Chiapas to Pakistan and India, always with the same epilogue.
Throughout the 90s, the same scenario of bloodily repressed \enquote{hunger riots} was repeated a hundred times, from Kinshasa to Jakarta, from Chiapas to Pakistan and India, always with the same epilogue.
Generally speaking, one does not take to the streets in front of the machine guns of the police without reason. They must have been pushed to the limit by an intolerable situation.
@ -261,14 +260,14 @@ The movements in defence of pensions in Italy followed by the movements of Decem
But in poor countries, structural adjustment has pushed hundreds of millions of people into poverty. We are reaching a completely different dimension of the problem in quantitative and qualitative terms.
Two billion people today are officially malnourished, and another billion suffers episodically from starvation.
All experts (even those of the World Bank, who insist on the “temporary” aspect of the phenomenon) admit that poverty has increased in severity, proportion and absolute figures since 1985.
All experts (even those of the World Bank, who insist on the \enquote{temporary} aspect of the phenomenon) admit that poverty has increased in severity, proportion and absolute figures since 1985.
One of the clear signs of the savagery of adjustment is the fate of children in poor countries, including former Eastern European countries.
In Argentina, for example, perinatal mortality reaches 50 children out of a thousand, 1.5 times more than in 1980. In Zambia, malnutrition killed 13 per cent of children under three in 1980.
In 1998, the rate of 42\% was reached, i.e. approximately the figure of the twelfth century in France. In the adjusted countries of Africa, six out of every thousand women die in childbirth. In Asia, four, in Latin America, 2.5.
In the G8 countries, the rate is sixty times lower, but twice as high as in the early 80s.
The deregulation of economies is dragging down protective legislation:
at a time when young French students were protesting in the streets against Édouard Balladur's “SMIC jeunes”[A nickname given to a work contract for people under 26 at 80\% of the minimal wage], Indian children were taking to the streets to demand equal pay for equal work.
at a time when young French students were protesting in the streets against Édouard Balladur's \enquote{SMIC jeunes}\rfootnote{A nickname given to a work contract for people under 26 at 80\% of the minimal wage}, Indian children were taking to the streets to demand equal pay for equal work.
When the IMF suggested that the Rao government lower the minimum working age and repeal the minimum wage, the Indian state, working on behalf of ultraliberal experts from the IMF and the WB, imposed the plan and sent its police to break the strikes.
To date, no international convention has succeeded in concretely resolving the problem of the exponential increase in child labour, which amounts to slavery authorized by the States concerned.
@ -276,14 +275,14 @@ To date, no international convention has succeeded in concretely resolving the p
\section{Conclusion: Crime will not always pay}
An unknown number of deaths, killed by famine or the diseases of poverty; a worsening at the planetary level of the polarization of wealth;
nearly half a billion poor peasants driven from their land by speculation, major works, big landowners or the army. In the name of the dynamics of the “free market”.
nearly half a billion poor peasants driven from their land by speculation, major works, big landowners or the army. In the name of the dynamics of the \enquote{free market}.
At least 200 million children working for free in relocated factories, twenty million sex slaves worldwide.
Two billion men and women and children living below the poverty line that ultraliberal capitalism promises to eradicate!
In the midst of these destitute, a billion undernourished, and 20 million starving deaths in fifty years of development aid.
An unknown number of deaths among resistance fighters for forced adjustment. Since 1980, at least ten thousand people have been killed worldwide during the “hunger riots”.
An unknown number of deaths among resistance fighters for forced adjustment. Since 1980, at least ten thousand people have been killed worldwide during the \enquote{hunger riots}.
Pollution of continental and marine lands and waters to produce more and more, to repay more and more, to enrich the same ones. Unquantifiable.
@ -306,20 +305,20 @@ Ultraliberal capitalism does not create its own gravediggers. It digs its own gr
\rauthor{Philippe Paraire}
Philippe Paraire is the author of \emph{L'environnement expliqué aux enfants}[The environment explained to children], Hachette-Jeunesse, 1990, coll. “Réponses aux petits curieux”;
\emph{L'Utopie Verte, écologie des riches, écologie des pauvres}[Green Utopia, ecology of the rich, ecology of the poor], Hachette, 1993, coll. “Pluriel”; \emph{Le Village monde et son château, essai contre le FMI, l'OMC et la Banque Mondiale}[The World Village and its castle, an essay against the IMF, the WTO and the World Bank], Le Temps des Cerises, 1995.
Philippe Paraire is the author of \emph{L'environnement expliqué aux enfants} (The environment explained to children), Hachette-Jeunesse, 1990, coll. \enquote{Réponses aux petits curieux};
\emph{L'Utopie Verte, écologie des riches, écologie des pauvres} (Green Utopia, ecology of the rich, ecology of the poor), Hachette, 1993, coll. \enquote{Pluriel}; \emph{Le Village monde et son château, essai contre le FMI, l'OMC et la Banque Mondiale} (The World Village and its castle, an essay against the IMF, the WTO and the World Bank), Le Temps des Cerises, 1995.
\section{Bibliography}
François Chesnais, \emph{La mondialisation du capital}[Capital's globalization], Syros, 1994.
~~~\,François Chesnais, \emph{La mondialisation du capital} (Capital's globalization), Syros, 1994.
Susan George, \emph{crédits sans frontières}[Credits Without Borders], La Découverte, 1994.
Susan George, \emph{crédits sans frontières} (Credits Without Borders), La Découverte, 1994.
René Dumont, \emph{La croissance... de la famine!}[Growth...of starvation!], Seuil, 1975.
René Dumont, \emph{La croissance... de la famine!} (Growth...of starvation!), Seuil, 1975.
Eisa Assidon, \emph{Les théorie économiques du développement}[Economic theories of development], La Découverte, 1992.
Eisa Assidon, \emph{Les théorie économiques du développement} (Economic theories of development), La Découverte, 1992.
Pascal Arnaud, \emph{La dette du Tiers Monde}[The Third World's debt], La Découverte, 1984.
Pascal Arnaud, \emph{La dette du Tiers Monde} (The Third World's debt), La Découverte, 1984.
LaTeX Anon
1 year ago