Down with the WTO!
Monday, 5 December 2005.
End poverty and war - Fight for a socialist world
The Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI) salutes the anti-WTO demonstrators in Hong Kong. A wave of mass protests against capitalist globalisation, militarism and environmental destruction has shaken governments and corporate bosses everywhere, limiting their room for manoeuvre at the WTO talks. Multinational capitalist bodies like the WTO, European Union (EU) and APEC are in crisis. This was evident when 50,000 demonstrated to ”bury” the neo-liberal Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) during president Bush’s recent visit to Argentina.
Any WTO deal in Hong Kong will be a threat to workers and poor farmers the world over. The WTO, rather than an impartial forum for trade talks, is a tool of imperialism. This means the most powerful capitalist economies invading poorer countries – by economic or military means – to gain control of markets, raw materials and labour.
No to Doha
The misnamed Doha Development Agenda will, if approved, mean a new wave of privatisation, deregulation, casualisation and outsourcing aimed at boosting the profits of the transnationals. These companies already control two-thirds of world trade and spend billions of dollars on lobbying and buying political influence. Wal-Mart’s share of world trade is greater than that of Bulgaria or Bangladesh. At WTO meetings such as in Hong Kong, the votes of the poorer countries are bought by the major trading powers, sometimes in return for concessions, but more often as a result of threats – to cancel debt relief or cut aid for example.
The Cancun meeting two years ago saw the emergence of the G20, including China, India, Brazil, Egypt and South Africa, which presented itself as a united front of ’developing’ economies. In reality, this is a fractious coalition that may shatter in Hong Kong. These governments, which serve the interests of their own capitalists, are capable of siding with the main imperialist powers at the expense of the least developed countries in areas where they hope to make gains – in India’s case services, and in China’s case reduced tariffs on industrial goods.
The real resistance to imperialism and capitalist globalisation comes from below. In India in October, 50 million workers staged a general strike against privatisation of banks and airports. Inspired by revolutionary struggle in Venezuela and revolts against neo-liberal policies in Bolivia and Ecuador, South America has seen a revival of mass interest in socialist ideas.
In Europe, the capitalists’ attempt to build a bloc against the US and Asia, and against ”the enemy within” of the European working class, is foundering after the crushing ”no” votes in France and Holland (to the EU constitution) and nationwide strikes against neo-liberal pension ’reforms’ (smaller pension, more work), most recently in Belgium, France and Italy.
Can the WTO be reformed?
Some WTO critics seek its ’reform’ and argue the Doha Round can be influenced to protect poor countries. The majority of protestors in Hong Kong, like us, oppose any WTO deal. The CWI rejects the idea that trade can ever be ’fair’ in a capitalist world. Monopolies, cartels and powerful economic blocs manipulate trade to their own advantage:
• 6 big automakers control 70% of global sales compared to 25 companies in the 1980s.
• 3 mobile phone companies control 65% of global sales, and so on...
While national economies are today interlinked to an unprecedented degree – around a quarter of China’s exports, for example, are produced by US-owned factories – the capitalists can’t reconcile the contradictory interests between the different nation states upon which their power rests. Periodic agreements inevitably give way to new conflicts of an economic, political and sometimes military character.
The movement against the WTO, IMF, EU etc. cannot succeed as a national struggle, for the rights of one state against another, but must be a socialist struggle, to sweep away these undemocratic capitalist institutions and the oppressive system they rest upon.
No to militarism and nationalism
A year after re-election, Bush’s popularity has sunk to the level of Nixon during the Watergate scandal. The US war machine has, as the CWI predicted, suffered defeat in Iraq. Rather than stability, the US ”neocons” have created an ethnic-religious civil war that may engulf the whole Middle East. Capitalist governments in France and Britain are also in crisis, and Germany has been without a government for months. As their system becomes more unpopular, capitalist parties everywhere are attempting to divert attention from their own failings by whipping up nationalism, racism and religious chauvinism. Asia is now experiencing the biggest arms race of any continent. Bush is pushing Japan to become the ”Britain of the Far East” – i.e. a proxy army of US imperialism. Bogged down in Iraq, the US needs to share the ”policing” of Asia and sees Japan as a big new market for US arms. Their main aim is the containment of China, which US spokesmen accuse of having an ”outsized” military, although it spends less than one-tenth of what the US spends on arms. Even this is an insane waste of money for China, which spends a lower share of GDP (3.4%) on education than India (4.1%). The CWI opposes the warmongering of US imperialism, but also the military build-up underway in Europe, Japan, China, India and other regional powers. Everywhere the capitalist politicians sing the same tune: less money for schools, hospitals and affordable housing, more for ”defence” (meaning defence of the capitalists’ interests).
China: a model for the poor?
China is held up as a neo-liberal model. The world’s richest man Bill Gates praised China’s nominally ”communist” leaders for inventing ”a new type of capitalism”: without health insurance, pension rights and other costs that cut into profits.
Yet some critics of globalisation also point to China as an alternative – both sides can’t be right! Of the top 500 global corporations, 450 have investments in China. This is because China offers foreign capitalists a unique combination of a vast pool of cheap labour, a modern production base and brutal repression against any attempts by Chinese workers to get organised. The Indian government uses China as its model when it attacks trade union rights, bans strikes, scraps limits on foreign investment and opens special economic zones.
The CWI rejects the idea that China represents an alternative development model for the masses in the neocolonial world. Its massive state-led investment has not been used to protect the interests of workers and the poor, but to create a strong capitalist sector. These are the facts:
The CWI supports the call for:
Are there other alternatives?
Capitalism is a brake on all development in the neo-colonial world. This has been shown in Brazil where in 2003 the masses had high hopes in the new president, Lula da Silva, only to see his government cut pensions, halt crucial land reform, and sink into corruption. This is what happens, regardless of good intentions, with any government not prepared to carry out real socialist policies i.e. taking over the major companies and banks under democratic workers’ control, reversing privatisation, expelling the World Bank and IMF, and appealing to workers and poor farmers internationally to take similar action.
The idea that you can first establish some kind of ”authentic” democracy and economic stability and only then move towards a socialist alternative is an illusion. Nor should any idea of alliances or coalitions with capitalist parties be seen as a short cut – this only gives the capitalists a ”veto” over real change, which invariably leads to demoralisation and defeat.
Today, the old workers’ parties – from Blair’s Labour Party to West Bengal’s communists – have embraced capitalist policies and become part of the capitalist establishment. Internationally there is a need to build new parties of the working class based on class struggle, full internal democracy, socialist policies and an understanding of why the old parties degenerated. This goes hand-in-hand with the struggle for fighting, democratic trade unions.
What went wrong in Soviet Russia?
As Marxists, the CWI regards the Russian Revolution in 1917 as the most important event in world history. Workers took power and abolished capitalism, gave land to 100m peasants, stopped the First World War and gave small nations like Finland their independence. But Russia was isolated when other revolutions failed (Germany, Hungary, Italy, China) which led to the rise of a conservative bureaucracy under Stalin. Even though the regime retained a planned economy, this was not socialism. All elements of workers’ democracy – management and control by elected representatives – were crushed.
The Marxist and co-leader with Lenin of the Russian Revolution, Leon Trotsky, had already in the 1930s insisted that a genuine socialist regime must establish workers’ democracy, without any privileges for the functionaries, and must be international or it would not succeed.
Rebuilding the workers’ movement
It has become fashionable in recent years to deride the idea of political parties and promote the role of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and single-issue campaigns. While NGOs can play a certain role especially as sources of information, they are incapable of waging a struggle against the system of capitalism and sometimes openly oppose strike struggles and political campaigns. Imperialist agencies like the WTO and World Bank have been actively courting the leaders of NGOs, offering them a seat at the table as a means to blunt their criticisms. The Hong Kong government boasts it has invited 1,000 NGOs to observe the WTO meeting, ”ten times” the number invited in Singapore ten years ago.
The CWI is an international organisation with members in 40 countries. We campaign for the rights of workers and poor farmers, of women, immigrants and national minorities, stressing the need for unity in action. As part of rebuilding the working class movement we have contested and won elections to parliament in Ireland, and city councils in Australia, Britain, Germany, Ireland and Sweden. In several countries (Brazil, Germany and Scotland for example) the CWI has played a key role in the important first steps being taken to build new, mass, left or socialist parties. We actively build these parties while also arguing the case for a clear socialist programme as an alternative to the privatisations and neo-liberal ”reforms” that capitalism offers everywhere. Armed with a Marxist leadership and a socialist programme, mass workers’ parties can lead a struggle to abolish capitalism worldwide and establish a truly socialist society.
The Committee for a Workers’ International combines Marxist analysis with bold initiatives and support for workers’ struggles:
The Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI) salutes the anti-WTO demonstrators in Hong Kong. A wave of mass protests against capitalist globalisation, militarism and environmental destruction has shaken governments and corporate bosses everywhere, limiting their room for manoeuvre at the WTO talks. Multinational capitalist bodies like the WTO, European Union (EU) and APEC are in crisis. This was evident when 50,000 demonstrated to ”bury” the neo-liberal Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) during president Bush’s recent visit to Argentina.
Any WTO deal in Hong Kong will be a threat to workers and poor farmers the world over. The WTO, rather than an impartial forum for trade talks, is a tool of imperialism. This means the most powerful capitalist economies invading poorer countries – by economic or military means – to gain control of markets, raw materials and labour.
No to Doha
The misnamed Doha Development Agenda will, if approved, mean a new wave of privatisation, deregulation, casualisation and outsourcing aimed at boosting the profits of the transnationals. These companies already control two-thirds of world trade and spend billions of dollars on lobbying and buying political influence. Wal-Mart’s share of world trade is greater than that of Bulgaria or Bangladesh. At WTO meetings such as in Hong Kong, the votes of the poorer countries are bought by the major trading powers, sometimes in return for concessions, but more often as a result of threats – to cancel debt relief or cut aid for example.
The Cancun meeting two years ago saw the emergence of the G20, including China, India, Brazil, Egypt and South Africa, which presented itself as a united front of ’developing’ economies. In reality, this is a fractious coalition that may shatter in Hong Kong. These governments, which serve the interests of their own capitalists, are capable of siding with the main imperialist powers at the expense of the least developed countries in areas where they hope to make gains – in India’s case services, and in China’s case reduced tariffs on industrial goods.
The real resistance to imperialism and capitalist globalisation comes from below. In India in October, 50 million workers staged a general strike against privatisation of banks and airports. Inspired by revolutionary struggle in Venezuela and revolts against neo-liberal policies in Bolivia and Ecuador, South America has seen a revival of mass interest in socialist ideas.
In Europe, the capitalists’ attempt to build a bloc against the US and Asia, and against ”the enemy within” of the European working class, is foundering after the crushing ”no” votes in France and Holland (to the EU constitution) and nationwide strikes against neo-liberal pension ’reforms’ (smaller pension, more work), most recently in Belgium, France and Italy.
Can the WTO be reformed?
Some WTO critics seek its ’reform’ and argue the Doha Round can be influenced to protect poor countries. The majority of protestors in Hong Kong, like us, oppose any WTO deal. The CWI rejects the idea that trade can ever be ’fair’ in a capitalist world. Monopolies, cartels and powerful economic blocs manipulate trade to their own advantage:
• 6 big automakers control 70% of global sales compared to 25 companies in the 1980s.
• 3 mobile phone companies control 65% of global sales, and so on...
While national economies are today interlinked to an unprecedented degree – around a quarter of China’s exports, for example, are produced by US-owned factories – the capitalists can’t reconcile the contradictory interests between the different nation states upon which their power rests. Periodic agreements inevitably give way to new conflicts of an economic, political and sometimes military character.
The movement against the WTO, IMF, EU etc. cannot succeed as a national struggle, for the rights of one state against another, but must be a socialist struggle, to sweep away these undemocratic capitalist institutions and the oppressive system they rest upon.
No to militarism and nationalism
A year after re-election, Bush’s popularity has sunk to the level of Nixon during the Watergate scandal. The US war machine has, as the CWI predicted, suffered defeat in Iraq. Rather than stability, the US ”neocons” have created an ethnic-religious civil war that may engulf the whole Middle East. Capitalist governments in France and Britain are also in crisis, and Germany has been without a government for months. As their system becomes more unpopular, capitalist parties everywhere are attempting to divert attention from their own failings by whipping up nationalism, racism and religious chauvinism. Asia is now experiencing the biggest arms race of any continent. Bush is pushing Japan to become the ”Britain of the Far East” – i.e. a proxy army of US imperialism. Bogged down in Iraq, the US needs to share the ”policing” of Asia and sees Japan as a big new market for US arms. Their main aim is the containment of China, which US spokesmen accuse of having an ”outsized” military, although it spends less than one-tenth of what the US spends on arms. Even this is an insane waste of money for China, which spends a lower share of GDP (3.4%) on education than India (4.1%). The CWI opposes the warmongering of US imperialism, but also the military build-up underway in Europe, Japan, China, India and other regional powers. Everywhere the capitalist politicians sing the same tune: less money for schools, hospitals and affordable housing, more for ”defence” (meaning defence of the capitalists’ interests).
China: a model for the poor?
China is held up as a neo-liberal model. The world’s richest man Bill Gates praised China’s nominally ”communist” leaders for inventing ”a new type of capitalism”: without health insurance, pension rights and other costs that cut into profits.
Yet some critics of globalisation also point to China as an alternative – both sides can’t be right! Of the top 500 global corporations, 450 have investments in China. This is because China offers foreign capitalists a unique combination of a vast pool of cheap labour, a modern production base and brutal repression against any attempts by Chinese workers to get organised. The Indian government uses China as its model when it attacks trade union rights, bans strikes, scraps limits on foreign investment and opens special economic zones.
The CWI rejects the idea that China represents an alternative development model for the masses in the neocolonial world. Its massive state-led investment has not been used to protect the interests of workers and the poor, but to create a strong capitalist sector. These are the facts:
- China’s 100 richest capitalists saw their personal income grow by 48% last year.
- Since China joined the WTO, the average income for rural households fell by 1 percent and for the poorest section, it fell 6 percent.
- The shift taking place from a bureaucratically planned economy (Stalinism) to capitalism has seen the Chinese state withdraw from vital sectors such as education and healthcare. China came 4th from the bottom of 151 countries in the World Health Organisation’s rankings over ”access to healthcare”.
The CWI supports the call for:
- Independent trade unions in China.
- An immediate end to privatisation.
- For the renationalisation of industry, with control and management decision-making in the hands of directly elected representatives of working people.
- Freedom of assembly and the right to form political parties, as part of the struggle against the bureaucrats and capitalists and for democratic socialism.
Are there other alternatives?
Capitalism is a brake on all development in the neo-colonial world. This has been shown in Brazil where in 2003 the masses had high hopes in the new president, Lula da Silva, only to see his government cut pensions, halt crucial land reform, and sink into corruption. This is what happens, regardless of good intentions, with any government not prepared to carry out real socialist policies i.e. taking over the major companies and banks under democratic workers’ control, reversing privatisation, expelling the World Bank and IMF, and appealing to workers and poor farmers internationally to take similar action.
The idea that you can first establish some kind of ”authentic” democracy and economic stability and only then move towards a socialist alternative is an illusion. Nor should any idea of alliances or coalitions with capitalist parties be seen as a short cut – this only gives the capitalists a ”veto” over real change, which invariably leads to demoralisation and defeat.
Today, the old workers’ parties – from Blair’s Labour Party to West Bengal’s communists – have embraced capitalist policies and become part of the capitalist establishment. Internationally there is a need to build new parties of the working class based on class struggle, full internal democracy, socialist policies and an understanding of why the old parties degenerated. This goes hand-in-hand with the struggle for fighting, democratic trade unions.
What went wrong in Soviet Russia?
As Marxists, the CWI regards the Russian Revolution in 1917 as the most important event in world history. Workers took power and abolished capitalism, gave land to 100m peasants, stopped the First World War and gave small nations like Finland their independence. But Russia was isolated when other revolutions failed (Germany, Hungary, Italy, China) which led to the rise of a conservative bureaucracy under Stalin. Even though the regime retained a planned economy, this was not socialism. All elements of workers’ democracy – management and control by elected representatives – were crushed.
The Marxist and co-leader with Lenin of the Russian Revolution, Leon Trotsky, had already in the 1930s insisted that a genuine socialist regime must establish workers’ democracy, without any privileges for the functionaries, and must be international or it would not succeed.
Rebuilding the workers’ movement
It has become fashionable in recent years to deride the idea of political parties and promote the role of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and single-issue campaigns. While NGOs can play a certain role especially as sources of information, they are incapable of waging a struggle against the system of capitalism and sometimes openly oppose strike struggles and political campaigns. Imperialist agencies like the WTO and World Bank have been actively courting the leaders of NGOs, offering them a seat at the table as a means to blunt their criticisms. The Hong Kong government boasts it has invited 1,000 NGOs to observe the WTO meeting, ”ten times” the number invited in Singapore ten years ago.
The CWI is an international organisation with members in 40 countries. We campaign for the rights of workers and poor farmers, of women, immigrants and national minorities, stressing the need for unity in action. As part of rebuilding the working class movement we have contested and won elections to parliament in Ireland, and city councils in Australia, Britain, Germany, Ireland and Sweden. In several countries (Brazil, Germany and Scotland for example) the CWI has played a key role in the important first steps being taken to build new, mass, left or socialist parties. We actively build these parties while also arguing the case for a clear socialist programme as an alternative to the privatisations and neo-liberal ”reforms” that capitalism offers everywhere. Armed with a Marxist leadership and a socialist programme, mass workers’ parties can lead a struggle to abolish capitalism worldwide and establish a truly socialist society.
The Committee for a Workers’ International combines Marxist analysis with bold initiatives and support for workers’ struggles:
- Socialist Movement, Pakistan (CWI in Pakistan) played a central role in the struggle by 60,000 workers against telecom privatisation, which saw over 300 striking workers arrested and military control imposed over the industry. The Trade Union Rights Campaign in Pakistan and Kashmir is now conducting crucial work in the in the earthquakeaffected areas.
- In Ireland the CWI waged a struggle in support of more than 2,000 Turkish migrant construction workers, which exposed massive management fraud and helped these workers win millions of euros in unpaid wages. Our member of parliament, Joe Higgins lives on a worker’s wage.
- The Socialist Party (CWI) in Australia has been to the fore in the anti-Labour Law reform demonstrations, which saw over half a million workers strike and demonstrate against Howard’s government on 15 November.
- In Nigeria the Democratic Socialist Movement (CWI) is a major force on the left and played a key role in five general strikes against fuel price rises during the last five years.
- In Sri Lanka, the United Socialist Party (CWI) launched a newspaper ”Tsunami People’s Voice” to organise victims of the catastrophe that killed over 40,000 and left a million homeless. We champion the rights of the Tamil-speaking people to self-determination and in the presidential elections on 17 November, which we contested for the first time, the USP came third (of seven) standing on a clear socialist platform.
- On the anniversary of Bush’s election, 2 November, CWI members mobilised thousands of students in a dozen cities in the United States against the conflict in Iraq and against US military recruitment in schools.
- The CWI in India has been involved in numerous campaigns against government attacks on workers’ rights and living standards and, unlike the ‘communist’ parties, argues for a socialist alternative to poverty and chauvinism.
- The CWI in Brazil helped found the new Party of Socialism and Liberty (P-SOL) in response to the betrayals of the Lula government. P-SOL was registered in September having collected more than 600,000 signatures.
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