Athens Meeting 19-20 June 2003, Contribution by CP of India

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From: SolidNet
http://www.cpofindia.org , mailto:cpi@vsnl.com
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by D. RAJA

THE ALTERNATIVE TO THE IMPERIALIST GLOBALIZATION

No self-respecting independent country can succumb to
imperialist pressures to mortgage its country's economic,
social and democratic interests to a superpower, that
flouts international law, the sentiments of the comity of
nations, and even the wishes of its own people.
Particularly when its own people live in poverty and
squalour and eke out a sub-human living. No citizen of a
country can allow his fellow citizens die for no fault of
theirs to make profits for the war industry of imperialist
powers. No citizen of a country can be a mute spectator to
the loot by the multi-national companies based in the
North. No citizen can condition himself or herself to live
caged under the perennial threat and diktats of another
country or coalition, however mighty it might be.

The history of the world is replete with many examples of
such countries and USA stands as a sore thumb in the modern
history. The collapse of Soviet Union and socialist system
has emboldened that country to declare itself as the sole
superpower seeking to build a "unipolar world" seeking to
impose its hegemony on all other countries. This
self-imposed world policeman takes for granted that that it
is destined to discipline the "errant" nations, movements
or groups, by imposing its own rules. In its dictionary the
same word has several meanings suiting its interests. When
it suits terrorists become freedom fighters and freedom
fighters terrorists. All those who resist its hegemonic
moves become anti-democratic, and while US-hired
mercenaries, traitors and hardened criminals are dubbed
crusaders of liberation.

The US like any imperialist power has needed the presence
of "enemies" and perceived threats to justify its
militarist policies and the funds and resources directed
towards the military industrial complex. The end of the
Second Cold War and the disintegration of the Soviet Union
and the diminution of the socialist bloc deprived it of its
post-World War II "other": the communists. A new threat had
to be identified. This became "terrorism" especially
so-called Islamic fundamentalism. Imperialist propagandists
and ideologues like Samuel Huntington and Bernard Lewis had
already launched an orchestrated campaign linking terror
with Islam and calling it a clash of civilizations. The
September 11, 2001 attack on the US created the political
atmosphere for President George W. Bush to declare a global
war against terror. Language of the Christian Right was
used. While earlier President Ronald Reagan had demonized
the Soviet Union as the "evil empire," President George W.
Bush targeted the "axis of evil" bracketing Iraq, Iran and
North Korea.

September 11 was quickly followed by the new US National
Security Doctrine that legitimized "preemptive strikes"
against whichever State the US perceived to be a threat.
Even earlier the "son of Star Wars" programme was launched
with the US moving to set up a National Missile Defence
(NMD) and Theatre Missile Defences (TMDs) in violation of
the ABM treaty, reversing the earlier trends under the SALT
and START treaties towards gradual disarmament by sharply
reducing nuclear weapons stockpiles. The NMD/TMDs
programmes are not defensive but hegemonic. The intention
is to use the US advantage in military technology connected
to the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) and its
superior economic resources, to neutralize the nuclear
deterrent of potential adversaries like China and Russia.

As journalists and analysts have pointed out, the US itself
was party to the creation of Al Qaeda and the rise of Osama
Bin Laden who were allies in the US-sponsored struggle
against Soviet-backed regimes in Afghanistan. Without any
conclusive evidence against Al Qaeda, or evidence that the
Taliban was aware of Bin Laden's plans, Bush ordered a
devastating attack on Afghanistan and its people. He
promised his people that America would win the war and
overcome the US economic recession. Osama Bin Laden
vanished into thin air. A pro-American political
lightweight Hamid Karzai was installed as the new Afghan
ruler. In the course of the Afghan war, the US has built
bases in Central Asia, having strategic access to oil
deposits around Caspian Sea, and providing much closer
striking capabilities against China and Russia. Thus the
Afghan War was not just about defending the US from
terrorism and the Al Qaeda but, more importantly, a
continuation of the Bush administration's neo-conservative
drive for world hegemony.

Later, Bush declared war on Iraq as part of the "axis of
evil." The imperialist nature of the war was flagrant.
President Saddam Hussein's regime had been funded and armed
by the US and its allies during the Iran-Iraq war. This
continued even after the Iraqi gas attack against Kurds in
Halabja. Despite the later damage inflicted on Iraq during
the First Gulf War and crushing, inhuman sanctions that
caused the death of half a million children, the weakened
Iraqi regime was dubbed a major threat. UN inspections that
were complied with were forcibly terminated by the US-led
`coalition of the willing' and an illegal war in defiance
of the UN was unleashed on the Iraqi people. Almost two
months after the attack the world found no trace of weapons
of mass destruction in recolonized and shattered country.
The main aims were to capture the oil wealth of Iraq,
remove a potential threat to the Zionist Israeli regime,
thus making the US-Israeli alliance hegemonic in the Middle
East.

The first restoration work attempted by the US has been in
the oil industry, which has been put firmly under US
control. This was one of its major objectives.
Reconstruction in other sectors has been parceled out among
US Multi National Companies (MNCs), especially those
corporates which are close to important players in the Bush
administration like Vice President Dick Cheney and
Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld. Despite UNSC
resolution 1483, Iraq remains under US and its allies
control. UN inspectors were let in for a very limited
purpose, and that too under close supervision. Democratic
forces the world over must strive for the immediate
withdrawal of the occupying forces, and the replacement of
the US-led coalition's control by the effective control of
the UN. The mounting demonstrations and the armed
resistance to the occupation are clear evidence that the
Iraqi people want the US and its allies out and an early
transition to genuine Iraqi self rule.

As part of its hegemonic project for world domination, the
US has been making bellicose noises against Iran, Syria,
North Korea after its Iraq conquest. It is significant of
the US' discriminatory and motivated policies that though
it accuses Iran of pursuing a nuclear weapons programme, it
has consistently covered up and remained silent about the
massive Israeli nuclear programme and weapons arsenal. It
has included Cuba in its list of countries sponsoring
terrorism without a shred of proof. Whereas in Iraq it
imposed "regime change", in Palestine, it along with its
long term ally Israel, has imposed a `leadership change' by
refusing to recognize Chairman Yasser Arafat, instead
negotiating solely with new Prime Minister "Abu Mazen". The
US "road map" for the region is already in doldrums with
the unilateral Israeli airstrikes against militants in
Palestinian territories that have led to major loss of
life.

The UN remains an almost helpless spectator and its
authority is totally undermined by US imperialism and its
allies. But people all over the world continue to resist
the might of US imperialists. It is more than clear that
USA emerged as a common enemy to the democratic world and
the entire humanity. In such an emerging situation, the
questions related to war and peace, neo-liberalism and
imperialist globalization assume great importance and
urgency in theory as well as practice of Communist Parties
and working class organizations the world over. There is an
urgent need to exchange experiences of the struggles and
evolve a suitable strategy to unite and coordinate the
movement against imperialism at national and global levels.

The political, neo-colonial aggression of imperialist
globalization is accompanied by its politico-economic
assault on the working people in the North and the peoples
of the South. The earlier "structural adjustment
programmes" and `fiscal stabilization policies' advocated
by the World Bank, IMF and G-7 are now encapsulated in a
more intrusive form in the ideological theory of
neo-liberal globalization. There is nothing liberal about
neo-liberal economics. It is a misnomer. Neo-liberalism is
actually neo-conservative, and represents the triumph of
the neo-cons in the economic policy sphere, just as they
have triumphed in the political sphere as the dominant
advisors of President George W. Bush. This has led to an
unprecedented assault on the working people and broad
masses the world over.

People in the South, as well as the poor, working people
and middle strata in advanced capitalist countries, suffer
from the devastating effects of imperialist globalization
such as increasingly unequal income distribution; worsening
working conditions; massive unemployment and
underemployment; mass poverty; under-utilization of immense
productive capacity; transfer of wealth from South to
North, and from the working people to the big capitalists;
growing indebtedness of developing countries; deteriorating
terms of trade; growing economic and political power in the
hands of Multi National Companies (MNCs); domination of the
financial oligarchies including the new speculative finance
capital; degradation of environment and subordination of
developing countries for the interests of developed
countries, etc..

Capitalism has always strived for the unfettered
accumulation of wealth and ruthless exploitation of working
people, as Marx established in "Capital". Capitalism in
this process has grown into monopoly capitalism that is
imperialism. While analyzing the features of imperialism,
Lenin explained, " the non-economic super structure which
grows up on the basis of finance capital, its politics and
its ideology, stimulates the striving for colonial
conquest". Lenin further explained the monstrous rule of
finance capital, which has literally spread its net over
all countries of the world. "Finance capital does not want
liberty, it wants domination". The immense growth and power
of finance capital is qualitatively a new feature of
globalization, which is imperialism today. The old finance
capital which was a merger of industrial and banking
capital has been supplanted by a new speculative,
"footloose" finance capital manipulating the ballooning
money markets. Between the mid-seventies to the early
1990s, according to UNCTAD, the daily turnover of the
foreign exchange markets climbed from $1 billion to $1.2
trillion a day, close to twenty times the value of daily
trade in goods and services. According to one estimate less
than 5% of circulating capital has any productive function
whatsoever. Joel Kurtzman, editor of the Harvard Business
Review, for every $1 circulating in the real economy,
$25-50 circulates in the world of pure finance. Therefore,
globalization is a particularly aggressive, speculative and
anti-productive form of imperialism.

The new form of imperialistic economic aggression,
globlization, has attempted to come out as an economic
order, wherein most of the countries in Asia, Africa and
South America would revert back to their colonial status of
raw material suppliers or of simple manufactured goods for
North-based Multi National Companies (MNCs), thus
effectively nullifying any tangible social achievement and
depriving them of their economic and political sovereignty.
Globalization, while demanding free and unrestricted
movement of capital, goods and services, restricts free
movement of labour power, thereby exposing its self-serving
contradictions. Economies, which have followed unbridled
marketization, euphemistically called structural adjustment
programmes (SAP), have been ravaged. SAP was a
crisis-driven adoption, rather than a strategic phenomenon.
As Marx said that the capitalist economy is a crisis-ridden
economy. Globalization is considered to be a response to
the prevailing global recession in the capitalist economy.
Globalization, neo-globalization etc. are the imperialist
answers to the crisis that is, a restructuring of their
economies in order to face the crisis.

The IMF-WB duo, in their apparent obsession with good
governance, effective budget control and fiscal prudence,
have triggered unemployment, poverty and ruination in
Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia
and India. In countries of the South, the share of labour
in national income has been drastically reduced since the
1980sfrom 48% to 38% in Chile, 41% to 25% in Argentina, and
38% to 27% in Mexico. According to UNCTAD, upto 120 million
workers are now officially unemployed with 35 million in
the EU alone, and another 700 million, accounting for over
50% of the South's labour force are seriously underemployed
eking out a bare existence in the informal sector.

The globalization is both an imperialist and class
phenomenon. The proponents of globalization, both now and
in the past, are always from the ascending countries within
the world economy. Globalization can be seen as a code word
for the ascendancy of US imperialism. Henry Kissinger once
admitted in one of his lectures "globalization, in other
words, is US hegemony". Harry Magdoff has listed out the
modern features of imperialism as
The shift of the main emphasis from rivalry in carving up
the world to the struggle against the contraction of the
imperialist system;
The new role of united states as organiser and leader of
the world imperialist system; and
The rise of technology, which is international in
character.

The IMF and WB have been playing an active role in
promoting market- corporate capitalisms in developing
countries through the imposition of SAP as a precondition
for their aid and assistance to get out of difficult
economic situation. But the real objective of these
imperialist masters is to bring all developing countries
under the domination of American economy and into the
vicious grip of Multi National Companies (MNCs). The real
agenda of SAP is deregulation of private enterprises,
privatization of public sector undertakings, reducing the
role of state in the conduct of management of economic
affairs, reduction of public expenditure on health,
education and other social sectors and dismantling of
economic planning and controls. With the marginalization of
the state in the direction and regulation of the economy,
North-based Multi National Companies (MNCs) will gain
control diminishing if not supplanting the economic control
by the state of the host country. This will have obvious
political consequences leading to the consolidation of
neo-colonial, usually US, hegemony.

The World Bank, IMF and WTO are therefore nothing but the
instruments of imperialist forces like USA to tie the
developing countries to the apron strings of world economy
dominated by them. Since 1960s the US administration has
systematically tried to reorient the working of these
institutions so as to expand its hegemony over the
developing countries. This is nothing but new economic
imperialism. According to renowned political economist
Samir Amir " Globalization and imperialism are nothing new.
The history of capitalism since very beginning has been the
history of imperialist expansion. The colanization of India
was globalization. The building of America since the 16th
century was globalization. The slave trade, which played a
crucial role in building of the Americas was globalization.
Later colonalism was globalization. And globalization has
always been imperialist globalization." This is why the UN
General Assembly resolution of 1973 calling for a New
International Economic Order (NIEO) which involved the
democratic restructuring of the multilateral financial
institutions, has been ignored by the dominant countries of
the North.

The privatization is the important and drastic objective of
the imperialist globalization of an economy. The
privatization is associated with the denationalization.
Today it must be understood as part of a global strategy,
which has its roots in an attack on civil society and
democratic politics, in military interventions and in the
use of arbitrary executive decrees aimed at increasing and
consolidating imperialist hegemony, especially of the US.

According to a recent survey reported in the "Financial
Times" of the World's biggest companies, among the 500
biggest companies in the world the USA accounts for 280.
Critically situated profitable companies of the developing
countries have been taken over by US Multi National
Companies (MNCs). The leading economic sectors in the world
like banking, insurance, communications, pharmaceuticals
and computer software are in the hands of imperialist
forces like USA and UK. The US predominates in both types
of finance capital and high technology.

The imperialist powers have expanded their economic
hegemony by aligning with right wing parties, fascist
forces and dictatorial rulers in the developing countries.
The US agencies like DIA and CIA have been playing a
notorious role in mobilising public opinions and rallying
counter revolutionary forces in favour of globalization. In
the past and present, the USA has always supported the
dictators and right-wingers like Marcos in Philippines,
Mobutu in Zaire, Pinochet in Chile, and Zionists in Israel.
In 1996 the right wing Cardoso regime in Brazil got direct
support from USA to crush the peasants. The general strikes
and movements in Argentina and Peru against globalization
were suppressed by the respective regimes with the
connivance of CIA. Fujimori of Peru, a stooge of CIA,
killed thousands of Communists who challenged the pro- US
policies of Fujimori. Now a CIA-engineered campaign is on
to destabilize President Hugo Chavez in Venezuala.

The general consequence of capitalist globalization is the
increase in poverty and unemployment. The gulf between rich
and poor has widened within the nation and among the
nations. The UNDP has shown how between 1960 and 1989, the
countries of the North with the richest 20% of the world's
population saw their share of world income increase from
70.2% to 82.7% while the share of those in the South with
the poorest 20% shrank from 2.3% to 1.4%. Unemployment and
insecurity has led to decline in health standards, return
of epidemics like cholera and malaria, increase in crimes
and detriment of environment. Globalization has also
impacted negatively on working people in the North. Around
one million people lost jobs in USA in 2001 with bursting
of dot.com bubble, majority of them being from Asian
countries. The per capita income in Asia and Africa is much
worse then what it was in 1960s. The collapse of Asia is
much worse than what it was in 1960s. The collapse of Asian
tigers -- South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia --
was the direct result of globalization policies. The
economic crash of Mexico in 1994-95 has forced Mexican
government to mortgage the oil resources to the US treasury
department.

Today the economic condition of India is very vulnerable.
According to economist Walden Bello the acceptance of SAP
by India in 1991 was as significant an event as the
collapse of the socialist economy and the disintegration of
Soviet Union. With the acceptance of SAP and privatization
polices India abandoned all its policies of economic
self-reliance and the policy of non-alignment followed
since 1947. In India small enterprises are getting closed
and big enterprises are resorting to retrenchment. The
entry of Multi National Companies (MNCs) like Enron has put
financially strong states like Maharastra in dire straits.
Public sector undertaking (PSUs) are being dismantled and
sold to foreign and domestic big business houses. Due to
removal of QRs, reduction in investments, cut in subsidies
and failure to implement land reforms Indian agriculture is
ruined. Farmers are committing suicide in droves all over
the country. The policies pursued by the government of
India are disastrous. Only a determined counter offensive
by workers and peasants can stop it in its tracks. The
conditions in many countries of the South is similar.

The pessimistic approach of the progressive forces and left
in Europe in the fight against imperialism has led to the
aggressive awakening of capital bourgeoisies in the world
economy. However, it is absurd to believe that the collapse
of Soviet Union has crippled the leftist movements all over
the world. The re-emergence of mass peoples struggles
throughout the world against capitalist globalization at
the commencement of new millennium has put to rest the
notion that the triumph of EuroAmerica imperialism is
irrepressible and unquestioned. The major adversaries of
globalization have been the peasant movements, particularly
in Latin America and Asia. Workers in France, Germany,
South Korea, Brazil, Argentina, South Africa and many other
countries are engaged in general strikes against the pro-
liberalization policies.

In Latin America the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia
(FARC), Rural Landless Workers Movement (MST) in Brazil,
cocoa farmers of Chapre, Bolivia, the mass workers strike
in France and the brief seizure of power by peasants and
junior officers are high points in the resurgence of
anti-imperialist left movement. We are optimistic that the
ongoing movements and anti-imperialist struggles across the
world will increase in the coming days.

In India, the Communists and other left parties are waging
movements against the imperialistic globalization. Since
1990, left parties and trade unions have launched
remarkable movements and strikes against privatization and
liberalization. The Indian government headed by a
pro-imperialist, Hindu right wing party called Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP) is trying to privatise universities and
colleges as per the diktats of IMF and WB. The student
unions headed by left parties have vehemently opposed
privatization of education in spite of brutal punishments
and harassments by police and university authorities.

The hidden agenda of the imperialist globalization is to
recolonise third world countries politically and
economically. Iraq is but the latest and most blatant
example. The USA for the last one decade has embarked upon
an unbridled quest for global domination. The new strategy
of imperialist forces like USA is to consolidate the total
domination over the world in the name of "fight against
terrorism". The US military machine attacked Yugoslavia,
Iraq and Afghanistan without any justifiable cause in order
to extend imperialist, political and military hegemony over
the World. The invasion of Iraq will be the second war in
this era waged by the United States, the first being on
Afghanistan. For the past 12 years Iraq has been subjected
to brutal repression by the imperialist forces in all
spheres physically, economically, politically and
psychologically. According to an estimate made by UNICEF in
1999, half a million infants died in Iraq due to
malnutrition, lack of medicines and baby foods due to
inhuman US-imposed sanctions.

The long-standing interest in Afghanistan had always been
connected with the vast resources in Caspian sea basin and
not with Taliban with whom USA has a cozy relations for
several years. According to the eminent scholar Aijaz
Ahmed "we are in fact living in perhaps the most dangerous
time in imperial history. Never in history has there been
an imperial power without a rival some where or the other,
the US military superiority is so overwhelming that its
military budget is larger than the combined military budget
of the rest 25 countries."

However, the massive wave of anti-war protests across the
world have given cause for optimism that the unity of
peace-loving people of the world will succeed in fighting
both the imperialistic onslaught as well as forces of
fundamentalism and terrorism. Millions of people marched in
Europe, Latein America, Asia and Africa against the
imperialist hegemony of USA. It is noteworthy to highlight
that about half a million people gathered against the
fascist attitude of US administration in New York.
According to scholars recent anti-war movements highlight
the convergence of global movements against capitalist
globalization and imperialist war. It is estimated that
around 80 million people have demonstrated all over the
world between December 2002 and February 2003 against the
war. In India the anti-war movements were under the active
leadership of left and other democratic forces. Thousands
of workers, students, and peasants registered their protest
against the imperialist war.

To conclude, the alternative to the imperialist
globalization is reconstruction of socialist perspectives
in different parts of the world. Today socialism is proving
to be the only alternative to imperialistic onslaught. The
construction of a socialist alternative requires a long and
hard struggle, concerted collective action of the most
diverse groups in society and mobilization of progressive
forces against tyranny. The new upcoming socialism will not
be unilinear. There will not be any one model. Socialist
perspectives will reflect the specificities of the
respective societies and their national imperatives. Such a
pluralist socialism will be more powerful and effective as
it learnt from the hardships of capitalism and the mistakes
of old socialism.

The world no longer ready to be a puppet in the hands of a
few imperialist bullies and the invasion of Iraq and
protest action all over the world have shown that people
are no longer afraid of the big black US wolf and the
combined determination of the people of the world
transcending the borders is ready to stand as one. The
transgression of the imperialist powers is no longer
tolerated meekly. Movements like World Social Forum might
be a tiny spot in the map of anti-imperialist struggle. But
whereas the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2003
attracted a few hundred CEOs, the anti-neo-liberal
globalization World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil
around the same time attracted a 100,000 activists and
scholars. Next year, in January 2004, the World Social
Forum, for the first time will be held outside Brazil, in
Mumbai, India. The Indian Left is playing an active part in
its organization. Events such as these are part of the
avalanche of people's movements and their aspirations to
lead a free life sans shackles that will sweep away the
imperialist terrorists who are seeking to enslave
humankind.