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.
@ -8,38 +8,38 @@ Philippe Paraire began the work in his contribution. I will come back later on t
My task here is to try to define the new configuration of imperialism and the particular regime of accumulation that corresponds to it.
But first some political reminders are essential.
The freedom that both industrial and financial capital regains to deploy worldwide, as it had not been able to do since 1914, is of course due to the strength it has recovered by the very fact of the long phase of uninterrupted accumulation of the “glorious thirties” (one if not the longest in the history of capitalism).
However, capital could not have achieved its goals without the success of the "conservative revolution" of the late 1970s.
The triumph of the “market” could not have been achieved without the repeated political interventions of the political authorities of the most powerful capitalist states, relayed by the most important international capitalist organizations, the IMF and the GATT/WTO in the lead.
The freedom that both industrial and financial capital regains to deploy worldwide, as it had not been able to do since 1914, is of course due to the strength it has recovered by the very fact of the long phase of uninterrupted accumulation of the \enquote{glorious thirties} (one if not the longest in the history of capitalism).
However, capital could not have achieved its goals without the success of the \enquote{conservative revolution} of the late 1970s.
The triumph of the \enquote{market} could not have been achieved without the repeated political interventions of the political authorities of the most powerful capitalist states, relayed by the most important international capitalist organizations, the IMF and the GATT/WTO in the lead.
These interventions started long before 1989 or 1991. They begin ten years rather at the turn of the 1970s and 1980s.
This is where the most anti-working class political forces in OECD countries began the process of liberalization, deregulation and privatization. But the way has largely been prepared for them.
The anti-working class policies could never have succeeded in their enterprise if the Brejnévian counter-revolution had not previously crushed the Prague Spring and the movement of the Polish proletariat of the same period, if the leaderships of the communist parties of France and Italy in particular had not intervened from 1968 to 1978 to contain and repress the truly democratic potential, and therefore anti-capitalist, the great social movements - workers and students - that marked the decade 1968-1978 in Europe, as well as in the United States and Latin America.
On the other hand, the current victory of capitalism is all the more complete because even among those who fight its effects, there are many people who no longer use the term.
They call it “neo-liberalism” and they have to oppose it only the hope, which I believe chimerical\footnote{See the conclusion of Ellen Meiksing Woods' important book, \emph{Democracy against Capitalism}, Cambridge University Press, 1995.}, of a return to more humane forms of capitalist society.
Some would certainly be surprised, if not shocked, to be told that by retreating from the word capitalism, they are giving their support to all those who affirm – on the strength of the overwhelming balance sheet of “real socialism” that the collapse of the USSR has finally revealed – that “the victory of democracy and the market” signals “the end of history” or the “unsurpassable horizon” of variants of political and social organization based on private ownership of the means of production.
They call it \enquote{neo-liberalism} and they have to oppose it only the hope, which I believe chimerical\footnote{See the conclusion of Ellen Meiksing Woods' important book, \emph{Democracy against Capitalism}, Cambridge University Press, 1995.}, of a return to more humane forms of capitalist society.
Some would certainly be surprised, if not shocked, to be told that by retreating from the word capitalism, they are giving their support to all those who affirm – on the strength of the overwhelming balance sheet of \enquote{real socialism} that the collapse of the USSR has finally revealed – that \enquote{the victory of democracy and the market} signals \enquote{the end of history} or the \enquote{unsurpassable horizon} of variants of political and social organization based on private ownership of the means of production.
The use of the term neo-liberalism is often associated with the idea that it would still be possible to combat the effects of globalized capitalism without attacking its foundations.
This is not the case. A historical period is over. It is not only the one where, on a world scale, there reigned the illusion of a model of society rival to capitalism, socially superior to it, “coexisting peacefully” with it, while being able to counterbalance it militarily if necessary.
It is also the one where, in Western Europe in particular, capitalism seemed to have been “domesticated”, bordered by political relations between the constraining classes and irreversible institutions, all resulting from the great struggles constituting the contained, that is to say frustrated, revolution of the end of the Second World War.
This is not the case. A historical period is over. It is not only the one where, on a world scale, there reigned the illusion of a model of society rival to capitalism, socially superior to it, \enquote{coexisting peacefully} with it, while being able to counterbalance it militarily if necessary.
It is also the one where, in Western Europe in particular, capitalism seemed to have been \enquote{domesticated}, bordered by political relations between the constraining classes and irreversible institutions, all resulting from the great struggles constituting the contained, that is to say frustrated, revolution of the end of the Second World War.
In France, the terrain of the great struggles of 1936 and 1945, there have long been particularly strong illusions about the ability of these relations and institutions to provide the basis for a continuous improvement of the situation of the working class as well as of broad layers of society.
Pierre Bourdieu, for whom I also have the greatest respect, is wrong to dismiss the question of capitalism and its overcoming and to focus on neo-liberalism.
But he is far from being the only one on the left to mourn the death of a “civilization of public service” specific to our country, extended at most to a few countries in Europe.
But he is far from being the only one on the left to mourn the death of a \enquote{civilization of public service} specific to our country, extended at most to a few countries in Europe.
\section{The topicality of the notion of parasitism}
The title of Chapter VIII of \emph{Imperialism, the Supreme Stage of Capitalism}, “the parasitism and putrefaction of capitalism” has always greatly embarrassed the theoreticians of the Western communist parties.
That was true yesterday. At the time the “peaceful coexistence” with capitalism, as well as its various avatars, could hardly be based on the sole defense of the “socialist homeland”.
Even dominated by “American imperialism”, the system with which coexistence was defended had to have something, however limited, of “positive”;
The title of Chapter VIII of \emph{Imperialism, the Supreme Stage of Capitalism}, \enquote{the parasitism and putrefaction of capitalism} has always greatly embarrassed the theoreticians of the Western communist parties.
That was true yesterday. At the time the \enquote{peaceful coexistence} with capitalism, as well as its various avatars, could hardly be based on the sole defense of the \enquote{socialist homeland}.
Even dominated by \enquote{American imperialism}, the system with which coexistence was defended had to have something, however limited, of \enquote{positive};
that it still seems likely to offer the working class and its allied social strata some prospects for improving their material and moral conditions of existence.
The “embarrassing” nature of Lenin's analysis is obviously even more so today for what remains of these parties.
However, the historical segment corresponding to what is called “globalization”, or the “globalization of capital”, is most certainly the one where a set of tendencies analyzed by Lenin with the help of Hobson reaffirmed themselves on an even more gigantic scale than on the eve of the First World War.
The \enquote{embarrassing} nature of Lenin's analysis is obviously even more so today for what remains of these parties.
However, the historical segment corresponding to what is called \enquote{globalization}, or the \enquote{globalization of capital}, is most certainly the one where a set of tendencies analyzed by Lenin with the help of Hobson reaffirmed themselves on an even more gigantic scale than on the eve of the First World War.
For a time, in the 1950s and 1960s, industrial capital – the one that Marx specifies, in Chapter 1 of Book II of Capital, is “the only mode of existence of capital where its function consists not only in appropriation, but also in the creation of surplus value, in other words of surplus product” – seemed to dominate the advanced capitalist economies again.
The “layer of rentiers, that is to say, the people who live on the “mowing of coupons”, people whose idleness is the profession” (Lenin, chap. VIII) seemed to have disappeared, to have only a theoretical existence.
Similarly, placed under the aegis of industrial groups (transnational corporations), imperialist domination over neo-colonial or “dependent” countries seemed to be somewhat conducive to progress, since it was accompanied by an extension of capitalist relations of production and the formation of an indigenous working class.
Imperialism did not seem to be able to define itself in a pithy way as “an immense accumulation of capital-money in a small number of countries”, namely the countries identifiable as “rentier states” (ibid.).
For a time, in the 1950s and 1960s, industrial capital – the one that Marx specifies, in Chapter 1 of Book II of Capital, is \enquote{the only mode of existence of capital where its function consists not only in appropriation, but also in the creation of surplus value, in other words of surplus product} – seemed to dominate the advanced capitalist economies again.
The \enquote{layer of rentiers, that is to say, the people who live on the \enquote{mowing of coupons}, people whose idleness is the profession} (Lenin, chap. VIII) seemed to have disappeared, to have only a theoretical existence.
Similarly, placed under the aegis of industrial groups (transnational corporations), imperialist domination over neo-colonial or \enquote{dependent} countries seemed to be somewhat conducive to progress, since it was accompanied by an extension of capitalist relations of production and the formation of an indigenous working class.
Imperialism did not seem to be able to define itself in a pithy way as \enquote{an immense accumulation of capital-money in a small number of countries}, namely the countries identifiable as \enquote{rentier states} (ibid.).
Production seemed to prevail over appropriation, industry over finance, profit (largely reinvested) over financial rent.
Focusing largely on the existence of the figure of the rentier, Chapter VIII of Lenin's pamphlet was among those on which it was possible to pass very quickly.
@ -47,37 +47,39 @@ Today, from this point of view, things are even worse: there is obviously no pos
Unfortunately, this is not the case. At the end of the twentieth century, world society is once again placed under the rule of a capitalism dominated by rentier layers and traits, a capitalism whose greed and ferocity in exploitation are all the stronger because it is parasitic.
It is both in the sense of Lenin, that is to say organized around institutions (the financial markets) and states (the United States and the United Kingdom in the first place) whose only possible characterization is that of rentier, and in that of Marx, that is to say marked by forms of accumulation that are oriented more towards appropriation than towards the creation of surplus value.
A little later in the same chapter of Book II, Marx indeed writes something whose scope has gone virtually unnoticed until today:
“It is because the silver aspect of value is its independent and tangible form that form A ... A', whose starting point and end point are real money, expresses in the most tangible way the idea of “making money”, the main engine of capitalist production.
\enquote{It is because the silver aspect of value is its independent and tangible form that form A ... A', whose starting point and end point are real money, expresses in the most tangible way the idea of \enquote{making money}, the main engine of capitalist production.
The process of capitalist production appears only as an inevitable intermediary, an evil necessary to make money.
This is why all nations devoted to the capitalist mode of production are periodically taken by the vertigo of wanting to make money without the intermediary of the process of production.”
This is why all nations devoted to the capitalist mode of production are periodically taken by the vertigo of wanting to make money without the intermediary of the process of production.}
Today, the big capitalist states have done more than give in to this vertigo.
By putting the “markets” in control, they have put the world economy, that of their own countries as well as that of the entire globe, in the hands of people whose vision of the world is precisely this.
By putting the \enquote{markets} in control, they have put the world economy, that of their own countries as well as that of the entire globe, in the hands of people whose vision of the world is precisely this.
\section{An accumulation corresponding to the priorities of money-capital}
\section[Accumulation, the priorities of money-capital]{An accumulation corresponding to the priorities of money-capital}
In its present configuration, the movement of the world capital system is commanded above all by the reconstitution of powerful and new forms of concentration of money-capital (the
large savings and financial investment funds), as well as through the transfer to the financial markets in central countries of important income distribution functions and essential economic regulations long controlled by States.
Large industrial groups have a leading role, but they are not the ones who control the movement of accumulation as a whole.
This is ordered from the gigantic transfers of value and surplus value made to the benefit of the living silver capital of dividends and interest on loans\footnote{I would like to refer to the second structured and amplified edition of my book, \emph{La Mondialisation du Capital}[The globalization of Capital], Éditions Syros, Paris, 1997.}.
The promotion of the financial sphere to the rank of “autonomous force” on the part of people who know nothing about the “shortened” cycle of capital (A-A') as well as the analysis of the fetish character of finance, has had the function of obscuring the role played by the states themselves in the genesis of “the tyranny of markets”.
This is ordered from the gigantic transfers of value and surplus value made to the benefit of the living silver capital of dividends and interest on loans\footnote{I would like to refer to the second structured and amplified edition of my book, \emph{La Mondialisation du Capital} (The globalization of Capital), Éditions Syros, Paris, 1997.}.
The promotion of the financial sphere to the rank of \enquote{autonomous force} on the part of people who know nothing about the \enquote{shortened} cycle of capital (A-A') as well as the analysis of the fetish character of finance, has had the function of obscuring the role played by the states themselves in the genesis of \enquote{the tyranny of markets}.
It makes it possible to veil the mechanisms through which the financial sphere, before being able to set up closed circuits of internal distribution of purely financial gains and losses, feeds on quite concrete transfers of wealth.
Capital that develops itself in the financial sphere was born - and continues to be born - in the productive sector.
The development, or “fruiting”, of most of the real resources captured by financial institutions takes the form of investments in bonds and shares, i.e. debt securities on future economic activity.
The development, or \enquote{fruiting}, of most of the real resources captured by financial institutions takes the form of investments in bonds and shares, i.e. debt securities on future economic activity.
These securities, known as financial assets, have a fictitious double dimension.
They have a life of their own in secondary securities markets, where they experience processes of increases in value that are only valid as long as valuations or agreements between financial operators relating to this value persist.
Their stock market value can therefore collapse and then have little more value than "paper rags".
Their stock market value can therefore collapse and then have little more value than \enquote{paper rags}.
As the experience of the 1930s has shown, claims on future activity may, overnight, be worthless.
But as long as accumulation is not interrupted by serious crises simultaneously shaking production, trade and financial markets, or as long as major political events leading to a moratorium or even repudiation of state debts do not take place, capital belonging to the category of "loan money capital" or "financial capital" benefits from a flow of income nourished by “real” drains on primary incomes constituted in production. of new values and wealth.
But as long as accumulation is not interrupted by serious crises simultaneously shaking production, trade and financial markets, or as long as major political events leading to a moratorium or even repudiation of state debts do not take place, capital belonging to the category of \enquote{loan money capital} or \enquote{financial capital} benefits from a flow of income nourished by \enquote{real} drains on primary incomes constituted in production. of new values and wealth.
Two traits inherently characterize money-capital.
The first is the conviction, which it is imbued with, that the funds it invests in the form of assets tradable on the financial markets, that is, it invests financially, have the “natural property” of “producing returns”.
It is the one whose owners Marx once said that for its holders, assets had to produce income (dividends and interest in the first place) “with the same regularity as the pear tree produces pears” (Capital, III, Chapter XXIV).
The second trait, intimately linked to the first, is that of being the bearer of what is called in current jargon a “patrimonial approach”\footnote{See Georges Maarek, \emph{L'économie de l'enlisement : intérêt, change, emploi dans les années quatre-vingt-dix}[The stalemate economy: interest, change, employment in the nineties], Economica, Paris, 1997.} which develops in any holder of financial assets the propensity to maintain a stock of wealth rather than taking risks to increase it.
Regardless of the “speculative” operations to which it may engage, the characteristic of this capital is to be located in places and to have distinct horizons of valorization and very far from where the activities of investment, production and marketing take place (these ensuring the indispensable closure of the cycle of development of productive capital).
The first is the conviction, which it is imbued with, that the funds it invests in the form of assets tradable on the financial markets, that is, it invests financially, have the \enquote{natural property} of \enquote{producing returns}.
It is the one whose owners Marx once said that for its holders, assets had to produce income (dividends and interest in the first place) \enquote{with the same regularity as the pear tree produces pears} (Capital, III, Chapter XXIV).
The second trait, intimately linked to the first, is that of being the bearer of what is called in current jargon a \enquote{patrimonial approach}\footnote{See Georges Maarek, \emph{L'économie de l'enlisement : intérêt, change, emploi dans les années quatre-vingt-dix} (The stalemate economy: interest, change, employment in the nineties), Economica, Paris, 1997.} which develops in any holder of financial assets the propensity to maintain a stock of wealth rather than taking risks to increase it.
Regardless of the \enquote{speculative} operations to which it may engage, the characteristic of this capital is to be located in places and to have distinct horizons of valorization and very far from where the activities of investment, production and marketing take place (these ensuring the indispensable closure of the cycle of development of productive capital).
Distance is not simply physical; it is ideal.
Lenin rightly speaks of the rentier layer as “people quite isolated from participation in any enterprise.”
This characterization remains accurate even when the representatives of the rentier money-capital sit on “audit committees” from where they exercise their “government over the company”.
Lenin rightly speaks of the rentier layer as \enquote{people quite isolated from participation in any enterprise.}
This characterization remains accurate even when the representatives of the rentier money-capital sit on \enquote{audit committees} from where they exercise their \enquote{government over the company}.
Institutions that operate in financial markets have their own representation of the world, starting with that of the economy.
They need regular income streams from their investments, safe returns at the lowest cost.
The maturity periods of the vast majority of productive investments are completely outside their horizon.
@ -87,53 +89,53 @@ But the dividends received as a drain on the profits of industrial groups have b
It is the level and regularity of dividend flows that audit committees are tasked with relentlessly monitoring.
\section{The original features of contemporary rentier money-capital}
\section[Features of contemporary rentier capital]{The original features of contemporary rentier money-capital}
In contemporary times, the unprecedented economic and social power acquired by this capital is inseparable from the place taken by private pension systems (or “pensions”)\footnote{See the article I published in \emph{Le Monde Diplomatique}, April 1997.}.
In contemporary times, the unprecedented economic and social power acquired by this capital is inseparable from the place taken by private pension systems (or \enquote{pensions})\footnote{See the article I published in \emph{Le Monde Diplomatique}, April 1997.}.
In the most central and financially powerful countries of the world-system of imperialism, they capture large employee savings for the benefit of the financial markets.
The category of capital defined as rentier by Marx, but also later by Keynes (the deep incompatibility of the rentier with an economy oriented towards investment and employment leads him to advocate its disappearance “by euthanasia” in the last chapter of the General Theory) has been qualitatively reinforced today by the formation and growth of these funds.
The category of capital defined as rentier by Marx, but also later by Keynes (the deep incompatibility of the rentier with an economy oriented towards investment and employment leads him to advocate its disappearance \enquote{by euthanasia} in the last chapter of the General Theory) has been qualitatively reinforced today by the formation and growth of these funds.
Already the payment of the pensions of tens of millions of people, corresponding to quite significant fractions of GDP, is taking place by means of common drains on the wealth created, of which the financial markets are the intermediaries.
The material existence of these pensioners depends on the health of the “markets”.
The material existence of these pensioners depends on the health of the \enquote{markets}.
For fifteen years now, the payment of pensions has been based in particular on the system of positive real interest rates.
However, these are the direct cause of the snowball growth of public debt, which is the spearhead of the destruction of public social protection systems and the dislocation of the economic capacity of States.
The second component of pension and investment fund resources are dividends deducted from profits.
Taken hostage by finance capital, former employees have therefore also become a social layer that is for the moment “"objectively interested” in ensuring that the rate of exploitation of employees at work is as high as possible.
Taken hostage by finance capital, former employees have therefore also become a social layer that is for the moment \enquote{objectively interested} in ensuring that the rate of exploitation of employees at work is as high as possible.
Lenin would say that rentier money-capital undertook and perhaps partially succeeded in attracting part of the working-class aristocracy to its side.
In some countries, employee representatives on the supervisory boards of the pension systems of large groups or corporations have begun to be concerned about how their savings serve as an economic, political and social firepower for the benefit of the financial markets. But their concern rarely extends beyond the borders of their own country.
It is rare to see them question the function of so-called “emerging” markets, that is to say countries or political territories that have a financial center where foreign capital can come to lay the foundations for resource flows to imperialist metropolises.
It is rare to see them question the function of so-called \enquote{emerging} markets, that is to say countries or political territories that have a financial center where foreign capital can come to lay the foundations for resource flows to imperialist metropolises.
The ecumenical propensities of the “plural left” in all its components are giving rise to a certain leniency towards funded pension systems.
Is it not the system of some of the “neighbors and partners of France” that would require our respect? This leniency is not appropriate.
The ecumenical propensities of the \enquote{plural left} in all its components are giving rise to a certain leniency towards funded pension systems.
Is it not the system of some of the \enquote{neighbors and partners of France} that would require our respect? This leniency is not appropriate.
Employee savings investment funds are associated with deeply pernicious wealth transfer mechanisms.
They are an integral part of the whole process leading to a low level of investment, the accelerated deterioration of labour market conditions and the wage ratio, as well as the global consolidation of rentier-type subordination relations between States.
The articles of the most prestigious financial press of the Anglo-Saxon countries have the great interest of being of an absolute frankness on all these issues.
This is the case with the Financial Times, from which I will quote a lengthy editorial of 6 March 1998. Under the title “Dr. Pangloss's Perspective on Globalization,” this editorial questions the long-term viability of a system under the command of money-capital.
It expresses its concern that there are “in the West financial investors who are high in the idea that they would be the risk-takers of last resort and that they would thus have a right of divine origin to the spoils in dividends of the results of companies of companies in the industrial sector”.
This is the case with the Financial Times, from which I will quote a lengthy editorial of 6 March 1998. Under the title \enquote{Dr. Pangloss's Perspective on Globalization,} this editorial questions the long-term viability of a system under the command of money-capital.
It expresses its concern that there are \enquote{in the West financial investors who are high in the idea that they would be the risk-takers of last resort and that they would thus have a right of divine origin to the spoils in dividends of the results of companies of companies in the industrial sector}.
Speaking of the mechanisms by rentier states to capture global resource flows, the editorial is also concerned that the Asian economic and financial crisis is not seen as a warning:
“Dr. Pangloss was an early proponent of globalization, with his claim that everything was going well in the best of all worlds.
\enquote{Dr. Pangloss was an early proponent of globalization, with his claim that everything was going well in the best of all worlds.
Yet the essence of Voltaire's tale, Candide, relates to the permanent violation of human and property rights.
It is possible, of course, that Western pensions will be paid on the basis of the labor of the Chinese masses.
But for now, all is certainly not well in the world of global capital. And the political risks of globalization are being speciously minimized.”
But for now, all is certainly not well in the world of global capital. And the political risks of globalization are being speciously minimized.}
\section{Industrial capital in a context of rentier-dominated accumulation}
\section[Industrial capital, rentier accumulation]{Industrial capital in a context of rentier-dominated accumulation}
Industrial groups have been the main beneficiaries of the liberalization of investment and trade so vaunted by the champions of globalized capitalism.
They have used it to pose to their employees both the threat and the effective implementation of relocation of production to countries where labour is cheap and employees have little or no protection.
They use trade liberalization both to establish supply and subcontracting networks where costs are lowest and to compete unevenly with lower-productivity firms in countries whose markets are being forced to open.
But the strength acquired by finance has also marked, ever more strongly, the strategies of industrial capital.
Since the transition from free competition capitalism to monopoly capitalism a century ago, the industrial group is without exception “a predominantly industrial financial group”.
Since the transition from free competition capitalism to monopoly capitalism a century ago, the industrial group is without exception \enquote{a predominantly industrial financial group}.
The German scenario that serves as an example to Hilferding and Lenin, in which bank capital establishes its dominion over industrial capital, has never been the only form of this interpenetration.
In the United States, the Carnegies and Rockefellers pioneered organizational forms in which the “industrialist”, to keep his autonomy against the “banker”, formed himself as a group (the “corporation”) and became as much financial as industrial.
In the United States, the Carnegies and Rockefellers pioneered organizational forms in which the \enquote{industrialist}, to keep his autonomy against the \enquote{banker}, formed himself as a group (the \enquote{corporation}) and became as much financial as industrial.
The resurgence of concentrated money-capital and its taking over of the levers of control of the world capitalist system have been accompanied by two developments that make Lenin's work both relevant and calling for a double actualization in terms of the forms of interpenetration that give rise to “finance capital.”
The first is the accentuation of the process referred to as the “increasing financialization of industrial groups”.
The expression does not have a strong conceptual value. Above all, it is a convenient way of expressing the fact that, in the context of financial globalization, the industrial group has considerably accentuated its traits as a financial group, if only because it has been subjected to both the imperative and the opportunities to make “pure” financial investments.
Whenever they can, industrial groups struggle to decide for themselves the strictly financial, and often downright speculative, employment of a fraction of the “uninvested profit”.
The resurgence of concentrated money-capital and its taking over of the levers of control of the world capitalist system have been accompanied by two developments that make Lenin's work both relevant and calling for a double actualization in terms of the forms of interpenetration that give rise to \enquote{finance capital.}
The first is the accentuation of the process referred to as the \enquote{increasing financialization of industrial groups}.
The expression does not have a strong conceptual value. Above all, it is a convenient way of expressing the fact that, in the context of financial globalization, the industrial group has considerably accentuated its traits as a financial group, if only because it has been subjected to both the imperative and the opportunities to make \enquote{pure} financial investments.
Whenever they can, industrial groups struggle to decide for themselves the strictly financial, and often downright speculative, employment of a fraction of the \enquote{uninvested profit}.
In a context of slow growth and industrial overaccumulation, they will have to focus on short-term investment operations.
We learn that Renault's return to “profitability” has been based on two pillars:
mass layoffs, flexibility and “wage discipline”, and large financial profits due to the “good health of the markets”.
We learn that Renault's return to \enquote{profitability} has been based on two pillars:
mass layoffs, flexibility and \enquote{wage discipline}, and large financial profits due to the \enquote{good health of the markets}.
The other major mechanism of new interpenetration is the entry of financial investment funds into the capital and management of groups.
They provide purely financial profitability criteria that further aggravate the exploitation of employees, but which also undermine long-term investment.
@ -142,33 +144,33 @@ Many other mechanisms are working in the same direction and their strength has a
Mergers and acquisitions are typical of a deflationary economy, of which they are the consequence at the same time as an aggravating factor.
They have the property that they do not aim at the extension of production by means of the creation of new capacities, but only at their restructuring with downsizing, as well as at the transfer to the acquiring group of the market shares of the merged groups or firms (this is one of the main objectives of the operations).
We are thus witnessing an increase in the profitability of capital, sometimes significant, in the context of economies that are nevertheless experiencing low or very low growth. But the effects don't stop there.
As a result of the increased concentration and centralization of capital resulting from these mergers, there has been a general and almost continuous increase in the “degree of monopoly”. This in turn is at the origin of a considerable increase in the “gross business result” of the groups, of the element “appropriation of fractions of value produced by smaller firms or weaker in their negotiating capacity”.
The emergence of the so-called “network firms” has gone hand in hand with a profound process of “blurring” the boundaries between “profit” and “rent” in the formation of the operating profit of groups, as well as the growing weight of operations that fall under the appropriation of values already created by means of drains on productive activity and the surplus of other enterprises.
The “paradoxical” growth of profits and self-financing capacities of industrial groups, in the midst of the quasi-stagnation of economies, is therefore also based on these mechanisms of capturing the emerging value of monopsony power in addition to those relating to the aggravation of the exploitation of labor by each industrial group taken separately.
As a result of the increased concentration and centralization of capital resulting from these mergers, there has been a general and almost continuous increase in the \enquote{degree of monopoly}. This in turn is at the origin of a considerable increase in the \enquote{gross business result} of the groups, of the element \enquote{appropriation of fractions of value produced by smaller firms or weaker in their negotiating capacity}.
The emergence of the so-called \enquote{network firms} has gone hand in hand with a profound process of \enquote{blurring} the boundaries between \enquote{profit} and \enquote{rent} in the formation of the operating profit of groups, as well as the growing weight of operations that fall under the appropriation of values already created by means of drains on productive activity and the surplus of other enterprises.
The \enquote{paradoxical} growth of profits and self-financing capacities of industrial groups, in the midst of the quasi-stagnation of economies, is therefore also based on these mechanisms of capturing the emerging value of monopsony power in addition to those relating to the aggravation of the exploitation of labor by each industrial group taken separately.
But it is based even more centrally on changes in the relationship between capital and labour or wage relations, a key aspect of globalisation born of liberalisation and deregulation\footnote{See Thomas Couterot's book, \emph{L'entreprise néo-libérale, nouvelle utopie capitaliste ?}[The neoliberal enterprise, new capitalist utopia?], Éditions La Découverte, Paris, 1998.}.
At rates and under conditions that have varied widely across OECD countries — as not all countries have implemented policies to liberalize and deregulate wages and employment conditions as quickly and sharply as the United States and the United Kingdom — industrial groups have taken advantage of rising unemployment and the reconstitution of the “industrial reserve army” to weigh on wages and hiring conditions, as well as exploiting new technologies to impose new labour standards in workshops and offices.
They were able to do so all the more easily as liberalization led to a form of constitution of the industrial reserve army as a “world army”.
But it is based even more centrally on changes in the relationship between capital and labour or wage relations, a key aspect of globalisation born of liberalisation and deregulation\footnote{See Thomas Couterot's book, \emph{L'entreprise néo-libérale, nouvelle utopie capitaliste?} (The neoliberal enterprise, new capitalist utopia?), Éditions La Découverte, Paris, 1998.}.
At rates and under conditions that have varied widely across OECD countries — as not all countries have implemented policies to liberalize and deregulate wages and employment conditions as quickly and sharply as the United States and the United Kingdom — industrial groups have taken advantage of rising unemployment and the reconstitution of the \enquote{industrial reserve army} to weigh on wages and hiring conditions, as well as exploiting new technologies to impose new labour standards in workshops and offices.
They were able to do so all the more easily as liberalization led to a form of constitution of the industrial reserve army as a \enquote{world army}.
Relocations, both in the form of direct investment and international subcontracting, allow industrial groups to draw on the world's reserves of diversely skilled workers, without having to emigrate them to metropolitan areas, but also using them to begin the process of internationally aligning wages with the lowest levels, with a given qualification.
\section{Countries under imperialist domination within a shrinking system}
\section[Countries under imperialist domination]{Countries under imperialist domination within a shrinking system}
On the basis of mainly political criteria, Lenin characterized imperialism as “reaction on the whole line.”
On the basis of mainly political criteria, Lenin characterized imperialism as \enquote{reaction on the whole line.}
He noted the presence of stagnation trends engendered by monopoly positions.
But at the time of writing he did not yet detect the dominance of tendencies in the direction of the contraction of the capitalist system.
Trotsky will be the first to identify behind the crisis of the 1930s, the existence of such tendencies.
But the theory of “neo-capitalism”, of which the Italian Communist Party was the main laboratory, was later opposed to it.
But the theory of \enquote{neo-capitalism}, of which the Italian Communist Party was the main laboratory, was later opposed to it.
During the long expansion phase of 1950-1974, capitalism seemed to have returned to expanded reproduction.
This ended with the recession of 1974-1975, which effectively saw the opening of what has been called “the crisis”, a term not precise enough, but not totally inappropriate either.
This ended with the recession of 1974-1975, which effectively saw the opening of what has been called \enquote{the crisis}, a term not precise enough, but not totally inappropriate either.
Today we are living in contradictory times. On the one hand, capitalism seems to triumph.
In the context of globalization, it is completing the subordination of the regions and activities that had eluded it.
But it is actually doing so in the context of a continuous slowdown over the long period of investment and growth;
in the context of a situation marked by the presence of indicators reflecting the trend contraction of accumulation rather than its enlargement.
Inspired by the classic distinction of the “Unpublished Chapter of Capital”, we can say that the subordination it imposes is a matter of mechanisms that recall formal submission rather than real submission.
The mechanisms of “siphoning” value trump creation. The choice of indicators to assess a trend is obviously not neutral.
Inspired by the classic distinction of the \enquote{Unpublished Chapter of Capital}, we can say that the subordination it imposes is a matter of mechanisms that recall formal submission rather than real submission.
The mechanisms of \enquote{siphoning} value trump creation. The choice of indicators to assess a trend is obviously not neutral.
It refers to theoretical and political postulates\footnote{See Chapters 1 and 12 of \emph{The Globalization of Capital}, op. cit.}.
If we take the indicator of growth of world product per capita, which is a serious indicator of the state of wealth production before the conditions of its distribution intervened, we see that this annual growth rate was around 4\% between i960 and 1973, then fell to 2.4\% between 1973 and 1980, it is only 1.2\% between 1980 and 1993.
Another indicator that many economists consider crucial is the level of private investment.
@ -178,7 +180,7 @@ The permanent creeping overproduction that turns into open overproduction with e
Let me insist. The total mass of value created is not based solely on the rate of surplus value, but also on the volume of capital set in motion in production. However, it is declining tendentially.
It is in the context of this tendential contraction of the capitalist system in its centre that we must examine the fate of the countries on the periphery.
The only countries interested in money capital are those with a financial centre sufficiently developed to aspire to the status of “emerging financial market”.
The only countries interested in money capital are those with a financial centre sufficiently developed to aspire to the status of \enquote{emerging financial market}.
Outside the OECD countries, there are less than twenty. And this interest is that of setting up mechanisms for siphoning resources to the central countries.
For their part, the industrial groups of the imperialist countries are only very selectively interested in external countries. They do so in three ways.
The first is as markets, under conditions where exports made by large industrial groups through their marketing subsidiaries have once again become the preferred option, direct investment in the strict sense being only a second-tier solution used in specific circumstances only.
@ -190,29 +192,29 @@ Their third function is to serve in basic labour-intensive industries for off-si
But here again, the number of countries that satisfies these conditions is all the more limited as the needs of capital are limited by the general weakness of accumulation.
It is in this context that the rise of hunger, pandemics and internal wars in many parts of the world is taking place.
Black Africa, whose system rejects a large part of the agricultural raw materials produced within the plantation economy previously set up at the expense of food production, and whose workforce does not meet the many “qualities” of that of Southeast Asian countries is in this case.
Black Africa, whose system rejects a large part of the agricultural raw materials produced within the plantation economy previously set up at the expense of food production, and whose workforce does not meet the many \enquote{qualities} of that of Southeast Asian countries is in this case.
What has been happening there for fifteen years is no coincidence. This is the direct result, mediated by the political corruption peculiar to the rump states of neo-colonialism, of the marginalization of the majority of the continent's countries in world trade.
The “contingent” translates the “necessity” of rotting capitalism. The UN has just recognized the Rwandan genocide as the third genocide of this century, after that of the Armenians and after the Holocaust.
The \enquote{contingent} translates the \enquote{necessity} of rotting capitalism. The UN has just recognized the Rwandan genocide as the third genocide of this century, after that of the Armenians and after the Holocaust.
But if the former can still be analyzed without recourse to the theory of imperialism, the Holocaust cannot be.
Even in a different way, the same is true for the Ruandan genocide. At the end of a meticulous work on Africa, Claude Meillassoux concludes that the law of the population of Malthus is reactivated by capitalism:
“The control of the demography of exploited peoples, by demographic means (birth control, sterilization, etc.) has failed.
A form of control through hunger, disease and death, more effective and cruel, is established under the pretext of “economic rationality” and “structural adjustment”:
the lesson of Malthus has been heard”\footnote{Claude Meillassoux, \emph{L'économie de la vie}[The economy of life], Cahiers Libres, Éditions Page 2, Lausanne, 1997.}.
\enquote{The control of the demography of exploited peoples, by demographic means (birth control, sterilization, etc.) has failed.
A form of control through hunger, disease and death, more effective and cruel, is established under the pretext of \enquote{economic rationality} and \enquote{structural adjustment}:
the lesson of Malthus has been heard}\footnote{Claude Meillassoux, \emph{L'économie de la vie} (The economy of life), Cahiers Libres, Éditions Page 2, Lausanne, 1997.}.
I will be told that these are typically “leftist” exaggerations. Maybe.
But let no one come and tell us later “that he was not informed”, that he had “not understood”. This time the massive death chambers of capital are public and are shown in the reports, just as it is in full view of the whole world that the Gulag is perpetuated in China.
But there are still few people who are ready to associate these facts with a serious characterization of this capitalism to which we are urgently invited to “adapt” since socialism would be at best a utopia, at worst the announcement of a new totalitarianism.
I will be told that these are typically \enquote{leftist} exaggerations. Maybe.
But let no one come and tell us later \enquote{that he was not informed}, that he had \enquote{not understood}. This time the massive death chambers of capital are public and are shown in the reports, just as it is in full view of the whole world that the Gulag is perpetuated in China.
But there are still few people who are ready to associate these facts with a serious characterization of this capitalism to which we are urgently invited to \enquote{adapt} since socialism would be at best a utopia, at worst the announcement of a new totalitarianism.
\section{To conclude}
It is more necessary than ever to continue to update the black book of capitalism, begun since the Americas fell under the double control of merchant capitalism and the Church.
But this task cannot absolve us of responding to the formidable problems posed by the bankruptcy of “real socialism” and the extent of the rubble left after almost seventy years of undivided Stalinist domination over the country where the October Revolution took place.
But this task cannot absolve us of responding to the formidable problems posed by the bankruptcy of \enquote{real socialism} and the extent of the rubble left after almost seventy years of undivided Stalinist domination over the country where the October Revolution took place.
It also implies shedding light on the current configuration of rotting capitalism.
Few people have yet come to contradict the apologists of the “new world order” under American domination since they declared, after the collapse of the USSR, that “the victory of democracy and the market” signaled “the end of history” or the “unsurpassable horizo” of private ownership of the means of production.
Few people have yet come to contradict the apologists of the \enquote{new world order} under American domination since they declared, after the collapse of the USSR, that \enquote{the victory of democracy and the market} signaled \enquote{the end of history} or the \enquote{unsurpassable horizo} of private ownership of the means of production.
Class struggle has indisputably already begun to give them a formal denial in many countries, but this denial of “praxis” will only be complete if it advances head-on with immense theoretical work.
Class struggle has indisputably already begun to give them a formal denial in many countries, but this denial of \enquote{praxis} will only be complete if it advances head-on with immense theoretical work.
This work presupposes that the work of the working class and the oppressed draw the balance sheet of the rise of Stalinism and its victory, as well as the lies, crimes and slanders carried out in its name outside the USSR and in France in particular.
But it also requires to be nourished by analyses that do not erase the putrefaction of capitalism and that explain how a period is closed:
one where capitalism had anything to offer humanity. This is the meaning of my participation in this welcome collection.
@ -24,11 +24,12 @@ Both benefit from the recognized competence, expert assistance and effective com
Here are examples referring to an analysis period of just over ten years.
\section{1. Filipinos}
\section{Filipinos}
In 1986, Ferdinand Edralin Marcos again rigged the national elections. One too many times... The popular insurrection sweeps Manila.
At dawn on February 25, the American protector ordered to flee: helicopters of the United States Air Force landed on the grass of Malacanang Palace.
They evacuated Imelda, Ferdinand and eighty-three of their parents and associates to the American base of Subie Bay Ferdinand Marcos died on Thursday, September 28, 1989 in a US military hospital in Hawaii.
The Asian despot has been, throughout his life, an almost ideal customer for the Swiss emirs: he is immensely rich, he is inhabited by a real mania for hoarding.
The evacuation of the treasury poses no problem: the kleptocrat is himself in power.
In addition, the man constantly plays a double game with his American and Japanese protectors.
@ -38,13 +39,15 @@ Ferdinand Edralin Marcos was born in 1917 in a modest environment, at the extrem
Its main activity: smuggling with Taiwan and Hong Kong. The three names of the child indicate the drama of his birth:
Ferdinand Chua, a wealthy Chinese merchant, fell in love with the very young Josefa Edralin. Josefa is beautiful, cheerful, intelligent, but poor. In addition, she is Filipino.
The Chua clan vetoes marriage (Ferdinand Chua will marry a Chinese heiress of Fukien). It's the break. But Josefa is pregnant.
His family belongs to the traditional Catholic milieu of the North, a bigoted, cruel milieu that does not forgive the “illegitimate” birth.
His family belongs to the traditional Catholic milieu of the North, a bigoted, cruel milieu that does not forgive the \enquote{illegitimate} birth.
She is desperately looking for a husband for the sinner... and a father for the child who will be born. A schoolboy from the village, poor like Job, aged fourteen, will do the trick: Mariano Marcos.
The teenager is violent, cunning, ambitious. He will be the social model of the child who will grow up at his side.
The young Ferdinand and the one he will take a long time for his father belong almost to the same generation: an intense solidarity binds them. 1935: Mariano is a candidate for the deputation.
He loses the election. The opposing candidate, a well-to-do merchant and smuggler of the place, humiliates his family: he even dares to walk a coffin under his windows.
A few days later, the new MP for Ilocos Norte will be found on the side of a road, a bullet in the head. Ferdinand, eighteen, is arrested, charged, convicted of murder.
A few days later, the new MP for Ilocos Norte will be found on the side of a road, a bullet in the head.
Ferdinand, eighteen, is arrested, charged, convicted of murder.
Mariano had him released three years later: one of his friends, José Laurel, had meanwhile become a judge of the Court of Appeal. Laurel is himself a former defendant.
@ -54,14 +57,16 @@ Around his twentieth year, Ferdinand discovers the secret of his birth and makes
His alliance with the powerful Chinese community of the archipelago opened a dazzling political career for him: deputy, senator, president of the Senate, then, in 1965, head of state.
Two episodes in Marcos' life deserve special attention. During the Japanese occupation, he led a group of outside the Japanese occupation.
law called “Maharlika”. The group practices anti-Japanese resistance, smuggling and arms trafficking.
law called \enquote{Maharlika}. The group practices anti-Japanese resistance, smuggling and arms trafficking.
But Marcos is too clever to put all his eggs in one basket: As a Japanese agent, he betrays many of his fellow resistance fighters.
Upon release, he was tried by the American authorities, escaped the execution pole... and becomes the protégé of the new occupying Power.
Second episode: in 1954, the young mp meets Imelda Romualdez. Imelda is an actress, singer and beauty queen.
Granddaughter of a Catholic priest, she experienced a childhood and adolescence of humiliation and misery. His thirst for revenge is considerable.
However, since the victory of American troops over the Spanish colonizer in 1898, an indigenous oligarchy of sugar cane planters, financiers and great merchants has ruled the archipelago.
Ferdinand shares Imelda's hatred for the oligarchy. Imelda and Ferdinand are a formidable couple: gifted orator, incendiary and demagogue, Marcos is adored by the crowds.
Ferdinand shares Imelda's hatred for the oligarchy.
Imelda and Ferdinand are a formidable couple: gifted orator, incendiary and demagogue, Marcos is adored by the crowds.
The poor love Imelda, who distributes rice and clothes in the slums. Until 1972, Marcos was re-elected without problems. Then things go wrong: the hatred of the oligarchy blinds the couple.
His passion for palaces, jewelry, money is unlimited, and the couple literally plunders the country. Marcos, slowly, turns into an Asian despot; Imelda, as Lady Macbeth.
Marcos loves women; he is generous: Carmen Ortega and her three children — one of Marcos' many parallel families — are now among the wealthiest clans in Manila.
@ -83,6 +88,7 @@ For President Reagan, there is no reason for the American taxpayer to pay these
But, as we have said, against the emirs, the government of the Confederation can do nothing. He is more helpless than a newborn.
Banks are impenetrable fortresses. No law allows the State, its government, its Parliament to obtain even information on the identity of the creditor, the amount of the deposit, the origin of the capital that feeds the numbered accounts.
The pressure from President Reagan, the FBI, the US Secretary of the Treasury is getting stronger and stronger.
The Federal Council is trying to procrastinate, to explain its singular impotence: in recent years, the American authorities have shown great brutality towards Switzerland...
The Reagan administration does not let itself be told and demands in an imperative way, threats of trade sanctions in support, the blocking, then the restitution of the billions stolen by the kleptocrat of Manila.
@ -100,17 +106,18 @@ Earthquake: this is the first time in the country's centuries-old history that s
As for the stunned public, it will be officially informed by a press release on Wednesday, March 26.
The legal basis for this reckless decision? Simply the Federal Constitution. In its preamble, it invokes God, the supreme authority:
“In the name of Almighty God, the Swiss Confederation wanting to strengthen the confederate alliance, maintain and increase the unity, strength and honor of the Swiss nation,” etc.
Article 102, paragraph 8, obliges the Federal Council to “look after the interests of the Confederation outside”;
in particular, it must assume “the observation of its international relations”; it is "“generally responsible for external relations”.
\enquote{In the name of Almighty God, the Swiss Confederation wanting to strengthen the confederate alliance, maintain and increase the unity, strength and honor of the Swiss nation,} etc.
Article 102, paragraph 8, obliges the Federal Council to \enquote{look after the interests of the Confederation outside};
in particular, it must assume \enquote{the observation of its international relations}; it is \enquote{generally responsible for external relations}.
Forced to choose between interests “from the outside” and those “from within”, the Federal Council, in a fit of lucidity, opted in favour of the former.
Forced to choose between interests \enquote{from the outside} and those \enquote{from within}, the Federal Council, in a fit of lucidity, opted in favour of the former.
Ferdinand Marcos reigned twenty-three years in his palace in Malacanang.
From 1973, it governed by the repression of trade unions, the Church, peasant organizations; by the systematic assassination of major opponents;
by methodical torture, the frequent “disappearance” of men, women and teenagers challenging his megalomania, his despotism, his unfathomable corruption.
by methodical torture, the frequent \enquote{disappearance} of men, women and teenagers challenging his megalomania, his despotism, his unfathomable corruption.
Here is how the kleptocrat organized the plundering of his people:
Every year, Marcos took sums equivalent to several million dollars from the coffers of the Central Bank and from funds intended for the secret services.
Within two decades, Japan, a former occupying Power, had paid the Manila government hundreds of millions of dollars in war reparations.
@ -135,14 +142,14 @@ The camouflage of the booty of Marcos and his family obeyed a complex strategy.
The emir who had been seconded to Manila and his staff were engaged almost full-time (since 1968) in the valuation and recycling of money.
They managed to maintain daily contact with the kleptocrat, including when he was (from March 1986) interned at the AMERICAN air base at Hickham, Honolulu.
Initially, these rivers of dirty money were directed to multiple numbered accounts at Credit Suisse in Zurich. First wash.
Then the loot was transferred to the fiduciary company “Fides”, where the stash changed its identity a second time.
Then the loot was transferred to the fiduciary company \enquote{Fides}, where the stash changed its identity a second time.
Fides belongs to the Empire of Credit Suisse. Finally, third wash: Fides opened its locks, the muddy rivers left, this time to Liechtenstein.
There, they rushed into carefully prepared structures, the famous Anstalten (untranslatable term, specific to Liechtenstein, meaning approximately: establishment).
At the present stage of the proceedings, eleven have been discovered. They all have poetic names: “Aurora”, “Charis”, “Avertina”, “Wintrop”, etc.
At the present stage of the proceedings, eleven have been discovered. They all have poetic names: \enquote{Aurora}, \enquote{Charis}, \enquote{Avertina}, \enquote{Wintrop}, etc.
Picturesque detail: in 1978, in order to rationalize the transfer of capital, Marcos appointed Consul General of the Philippines in Zurich a director of Credit Suisse!
In his correspondence with the emirs, the code name used by Marcos is (as early as 1968) “William Sanders”; that of his wife, “Jane Ryan”.
In his correspondence with the emirs, the code name used by Marcos is (as early as 1968) \enquote{William Sanders}; that of his wife, \enquote{Jane Ryan}.
Swiss bankers will create dozens of investment companies in Liechtenstein, Panama, buy hundreds of properties in Paris, Geneva, Manhattan, Tokyo, process hundreds of thousands of stock market transactions on behalf of the mysterious Sanders-Ryan couple.
Despite the proverbial skill of the Swiss emirs, Sanders-Ryan's American empire will only partially withstand the fall of the satrap. New York judges indict Ryan-Imelda.
@ -162,10 +169,11 @@ Guy Fontanet, from Geneva, former State Councillor and National Councillor of th
National Councillor Sergio Salvioni of Locarno, a member of the Radical Party. These honest and experienced men are now exhausted.
Because the tax advisors, the conveyor networks of the Swiss banking consortium have done an admirable job of camouflage.
Manila is the Asian capital of child prostitution (13')[A typo that was supposed to be a footnote, but I did not find any foonote?]. Millions of sugarcane cutters live in complete destitution.
Manila is the Asian capital of child prostitution (13')\rfootnote{A typo that was supposed to be a footnote, but I did not find any foonote?}. Millions of sugarcane cutters live in complete destitution.
Their children are trying to survive as best they can. Undernourishment, endemic diseases due to hunger ravage hundreds of thousands of families on the islands of Luzon, Mindanao, Vebu.
In 1997 the gross national product amounted to just over \$40 billion. (It's about \$133 billion in Switzerland.)
Two-thirds of the 58 million Filipinos live in what the World Bank modestly calls “absolute poverty.”
Two-thirds of the 58 million Filipinos live in what the World Bank modestly calls \enquote{absolute poverty}.
Do these martyred children, women and men have the slightest chance of seeing the billions of dollars stolen by Marcos and his gang return to the country? Honestly, I don't think so.
Regiments of capable and brilliant lawyers were mobilized in the service of Marcos and twenty-nine other holders of escrow accounts:
they appeal after appeal against the least of the procedural decisions of the most modest of the cantonal judges (usually overwhelmed by the stakes of the battle).
@ -173,10 +181,10 @@ they appeal after appeal against the least of the procedural decisions of the mo
In the spring of 1998, only a small fraction of the loot returned to the Philippines.
\section{2. Haitians}
\section{Haitians}
Spring 1986: Another dictator falls. “Baby Doc” Duvalier is kicked out of his palace in Port-au-Prince like trash.
Spring 1986: Another dictator falls. \enquote{Baby Doc} Duvalier is kicked out of his palace in Port-au-Prince like trash.
The same scenario is repeated: Haiti's North American guardian seizes a large number of documents from the fugitive's luggage. He passed them on to the new satraps of Haiti.
Duvalier, his family, his in-laws had drawn on the foreign exchange reserves of the National Bank, looted state-owned enterprises, sold import licenses for their benefit, etc.
@ -189,18 +197,18 @@ Multinational banking empires — the Union of Swiss Banks, the Swiss Bank Corpo
Zurich attracts funds from Asia and the Middle East; Geneva, countries in Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America.
The miserable people of the island of Haiti have, like the Filipino people, very little chance of returning to their possessions.
Thanks to the fierce resistance of the banks — this is called “defending one's client by all means” — none of the multiple proceedings brought against Duvalier and his family is on track to succeed.
Meanwhile, “Baby Doc” and his clan sink a sumptuous retreat on the mild heights of Grasse. In 1998 they moved to Jura.
Thanks to the fierce resistance of the banks — this is called \enquote{defending one's client by all means} — none of the multiple proceedings brought against Duvalier and his family is on track to succeed.
Meanwhile, \enquote{Baby Doc} and his clan sink a sumptuous retreat on the mild heights of Grasse. In 1998 they moved to Jura.
In 1998, the Duvaliers' fortune, the result of a fierce looting of several decades, still rests on the numbered accounts of major Swiss banks.
\section{3. The Zairians, now Congolese}
\section{The Zairians, now Congolese}
The Zairian people are beggars sitting on a pile of gold. The Zairian subcontinent, 2.3 million square kilometers large, is full of wealth.
Multinational mining, banking and foreign commercial companies, in perfect collaboration with the local oligarchy, conscientiously plunder the country.
In Kinshasa (more than 3 million inhabitants), Kisangani, Lubumbashi even, the families of civil servants eat only once a day.
At the end of 1997, the external debt amounted to more than \$9 billion.
In his native village of Gbadolite, on the high river, in the deep forest that, from the “Cuvette”[Basin] (Zaire), extends across the Bateke plains to Gabon and the Atlantic, Marshal Mobutu built a real Versailles of the jungle.
In his native village of Gbadolite, on the high river, in the deep forest that, from the \enquote{Cuvette} (Basin) (Zaire), extends across the Bateke plains to Gabon and the Atlantic, Marshal Mobutu built a real Versailles of the jungle.
37,000 inhabitants, huts made of cob, clay... and boulevards illuminated day and night, a myriad of palaces, guest villas, swimming pools, a Coca-Cola factory, a gigantic hydroelectric dam (located 15 kilometers from the village, in Mobayi, on the Oubangui), a cathedral where Jesuit fathers teach Gregorian chant to the little geniuses of the tribe, an ultramodern airport where a Boeing 737 landing every day directly from Kinshasa.
The U.S. State Department estimated in 1997 that Mobutu invested \$5 billion in personal wealth abroad.
@ -211,13 +219,13 @@ it is reduced to the promise of new suffering, repeated humiliation, despair.
Mobutu, a former informer of the Belgian colonial police, was one of the most complex, cunning heads of state that the tumultuous history of decolonization has produced.
He enjoyed strong foreign protections, and was willing to pay the price. He was an outstanding negotiator.
Example: during one of his many “private” visits to Washington (February 1987), Mobutu concluded an agreement with the Pentagon by which he ceded to the United States, by a long-term lease, the Kamina military and air base in Shaba;
Example: during one of his many \enquote{private} visits to Washington (February 1987), Mobutu concluded an agreement with the Pentagon by which he ceded to the United States, by a long-term lease, the Kamina military and air base in Shaba;
it is now from Kamina that the Americans organize their logistical support to the Angolan UNITA.
In return (in addition to foreign currency payments as rent), the Zairian regime obtained, in May of the same year, a new rescheduling of its external debt.
While the laxity of its economic policy is universally recognized, the regime snatches from the IMF, in 1987, a credit of 370 million dollars.
The so-called “internal security” system is formidable:
the paracommando units trained by Israelis and French who guard Mobutu, his government, his family, are almost all from the “Cuvette”, of the former province of Equateur.
The so-called \enquote{internal security} system is formidable:
the paracommando units trained by Israelis and French who guard Mobutu, his government, his family, are almost all from the \enquote{Cuvette}, of the former province of Equateur.
With several presidential palaces, a sumptuous yacht, rest homes, etc., Mobutu prefers to sleep among his own:
his place of work and ordinary stay is located in the heart of the camp of the paratrooper units of Kalina (western district of Kinshasa).
@ -230,7 +238,7 @@ It just has to wait, remain docile and show a minimum of adherence to the regime
Sometimes a little unexpected happens. Example: a Zairean protest student living in Europe, Nguzà Karl-i-Bond, is recruited as an ambassador and sent to Washington.
Nguzà Karl-i-Bond became Prime Minister in 1977. Then he was deposed.
As he could not stand his disgrace, he went into exile in Brussels, where he published an incendiary book against the “tyrant”, made contact with anti-imperialist European intellectuals, pretended to negotiate with the United States the constitution of a government in exile.
As he could not stand his disgrace, he went into exile in Brussels, where he published an incendiary book against the \enquote{tyrant}, made contact with anti-imperialist European intellectuals, pretended to negotiate with the United States the constitution of a government in exile.
At that time, he sent me a letter full of revolt, asking for an urgent appointment in Geneva and my help in denouncing the regime.
A few months later, the fierce opponent decided to return to Kinshasa.
A few wads of dollars brought by discreet emissaries, the prospect of soon driving again in an air-conditioned Mercedes, occupying a luxurious office villa and making a fortune have overcome his determination.
@ -241,13 +249,14 @@ Red carpet, honeyed words of Swiss officials at the foot of the footbridge.
Wearing his leopard hat (suggesting filiation with the Mwami Kongo), dressed in a black vareuse of North Korean inspiration (reviewed and corrected by the expensive genius of Parisian couturiers), the fold of the impeccable pants, the marshal walks, followed by his courtiers with a creamy smile, towards the central hall, then towards the exit.
His bodyguards jostle the annoyed Geneva gendarmes.
The Column of Mercedes, several of which are armored, starts in the light of the spring afternoon. Head to the Noga-Hilton Hotel, Quai Wilson.
Mobutu, his sister, his guards, his wives are on a private visit.
Mobutu, his sister, his guards, his wives are on a private visit.
Two of his children studied at the University of Geneva. The marshal will stay a few nights at the Noga-Hilton, with his friend, the real estate developer, broker in African oil and cotton, Nessim Gaon.
Then he will go to join, for a stay of “rest”, his property of Savigny, huge stately home on the heights of Lausanne. But, for now, Mobutu receives his Geneva bankers.
Then he will go to join, for a stay of \enquote{rest}, his property of Savigny, huge stately home on the heights of Lausanne. But, for now, Mobutu receives his Geneva bankers.
Meanwhile, his ministers, friends, officers and women rob the luxury boutiques of the rue de Rhône, the jewellery shops on the Quai des Bergues, paying for the rivers of pearls, diamond brooches, Rolex watches and gold rings with wads of 1,000 Swiss franc notes that the bank clerks have just slipped to their bodyguards.
In front of the hotel, leaning against the balustrade of the quay, a few dozen Zairian exiles hold signs clumsily painted with worn slogans:
“Freedom for political prisoners”, “Down with tyranny!”, “No to the torture of our comrades”.
\enquote{Freedom for political prisoners}, \enquote{Down with tyranny!}, \enquote{No to the torture of our comrades}.
The Swiss walkers of this beautiful afternoon make a detour to avoid the cluster of exiles. Suddenly, from the entrance of the hotel, dozens of armed Zairean gorillas appear.
They rush to the students. They are real professionals: young people try to flee, but the malabars catch up with them, one after the other.
In teams of three, they surround them, throw them on the ground, trample them. The violence is such that a member of the hotel's security service, revolted, calls the Geneva police.
@ -255,26 +264,28 @@ Two gendarmes arrive. They do not intervene. Clinging to the trees on the dock,
The action of the marshal's bodyguards is completely illegal: the students were demonstrating peacefully on the public road.
Several students later went to the police station on Rue Pécolat and filed a complaint for assault and battery.
None of these complaints will succeed. As one passer-by said: “Negroes have beaten Negroes... ”
None of these complaints will succeed. As one passer-by said: \enquote{Negroes have beaten Negroes... }
Mobutu was at the time one of the richest men on earth: his immense country contained considerable deposits of diamonds, manganese, cobalt, uranium and copper.
Since much of his fortune was in the basements of Swiss banks, the local emirs received juicy commissions annually from the treasury of the Zairian head of state.
In short: the federal authorities have nothing to deny the respected customer of the big banks. A few days later, some of these opponents will be pushed into a Swissair plane, handcuffed to the wrists throughout the flight.
Direction: Ndjili Airport, Kinshasa. The Zairian secret police will receive the exiles when they get off the plane. Mobutu Sese Seko's vacation really started at that time.
When he left Switzerland three weeks later, the admiring newspapers told me that the marshal had had to rent a large truck in order to transport to his private Boeing the mountain of “gifts”, purchases of all kinds, which his companions had accumulated during their stay on the shores of Lake Geneva.
When he left Switzerland three weeks later, the admiring newspapers told me that the marshal had had to rent a large truck in order to transport to his private Boeing the mountain of \enquote{gifts}, purchases of all kinds, which his companions had accumulated during their stay on the shores of Lake Geneva.
In June 1997 the revolutionary forces of Laurent Kabila's AFDL (Alliance of Democratic Forces for Liberation) entered Kinshasa.
Mobutu and his family fled to Gabon and then to Morocco. The kleptocrat died shortly afterwards of cancer in Tangier.
The new government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is asking the Swiss government to sequester Mobutu's property, his immediate relatives and his main accomplices.
Accounts are blocked in Switzerland. But only those who bear the name of Mobutu (and his own).
Ridiculous operation: because the financial empire of the kleptocrat, which for 38 years (reminder: Mobutu came to power in November 1965) benefited from the expert assistance of the best Swiss bankers, consists of 99\% offshore companies, Anstalten of Liechtenstein, fiduciary accounts - in short:
assets, only a tiny part of which are under the name of Mobutu. Switzerland is therefore only blocking \$6 million.
The rest of the \$11 billion officially sought by the Kinshasa government's “Bureau des biens mal acquis”[Office of badly acquired goods] (official title) remain supposedly untraceable.
The rest of the \$11 billion officially sought by the Kinshasa government's \enquote{Bureau des biens mal acquis} (Office of badly acquired goods) (official title) remain supposedly untraceable.
Let us conclude: In his Research on the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith wrote in 1776: “Wealth like health is taken from nobody.”
Let us conclude: In his Research on the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith wrote in 1776: \enquote{Wealth like health is taken from nobody}.
Error! The hundreds of billions of dollars from the Congo, the Philippines, Haiti and many other Third World countries, which sleep under the pavement of Zurich's Bahnhofstrasse, Lugano's Corso Helvetico or Geneva's Corraterie, or transit through fiat accounts before joining the stock markets of the West, are the blood, the misery of the peoples of the three continents.
While in Africa, Latin America and Asia children prostitute themselves, die of hunger, families break up, men and women search in vain for shelter or work, the billions of corruption, tax evasion and looting held by the ruling \enquote{elites} of these countries are accumulating in Switzerland.
While in Africa, Latin America and Asia children prostitute themselves, die of hunger, families break up, men and women search in vain for shelter or work, the billions of corruption, tax evasion and looting held by the ruling “elites” of these countries are accumulating in Switzerland.
Chapter XVIII of the Book of the Levites (French edition of the Jerusalem Bible) mentions the strange and terrifying story of this Middle Eastern deity called Moloch.
The Canaanites regularly sacrificed to him children taken from the imprisoned tribes, from the poorest families. In front of the huge and impassive bronze statue erected on a mountain in the middle of the desert, a fire burned day and night.
Every thirteenth moon, columns of children trembling with fear, miserable, hungry were brought before the monster; they had their throats slit, and then their butchered bodies were thrown into his mouth wide open.
@ -284,5 +295,6 @@ Like Moloch, the Swiss multinational banking oligarchy feeds on the flesh, the b
\rauthor{Jean Ziegler}
Jean Ziegler is a Member of Parliament for Geneva in the Parliament of the Swiss Confederation; Professor of Sociology at the University of Geneva.
He has just published: \emph{Les Seigneurs du Crime, les nouvelles mafias contre la démocratie}[The Crime Lords, new mafias against democracy], Éditions du Seuil 1998, 308 pages.
He has just published: \emph{Les Seigneurs du Crime, les nouvelles mafias contre la démocratie} (The Crime Lords, new mafias against democracy), Éditions du Seuil 1998, 308 pages.
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