Athens Meeting 18-20 November 2005, Contribution of CP of
Slovakia
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From: SolidNet, Tuesday, November 29, 2005
http://www.kss.sk , mailto:zahr@kss.sk
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International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties
"Current Trends In Capitalism: Economic, Social And
Political Impact. The Communists' Alternative"
Athens, 18-20 November, 2005

The Contribution of vice-chairman of Central Committee of
Communist Party of Slovakia (KSS) Jozef KRIKO

Dear Comrades,

First of all, I would like to appreciate the effort of
Communist Party of Greece (KKE) to provide again the
international conference. I would like to send them the
cordial fraternal thanks for their work on behalf of the
Communist Party of Slovakia. We deeply realize that this is
the true international attitude to the problems of the
world-wide character and just by these international
methods of the work we can cooperate to each other and
organise our activity in a world-wide and European area. I
think nobody doubts that such activities are needy in the
time of the boom of U.S. military aggressiveness, in the
time of growing callous economic globalisation, in the time
of unworthy ideology of neoliberalism capturing the minds
of people in the world.

As we can see, the social justice and the interests of
popular masses in Europe and in the world today are
seriously threatened. The spreading of the idea of free
market and extreme liberalization of economy as the
consequence of the economic globalization and unlimited
mobility of the capital enables multinational companies to
the growing their gains by three forms: They can remove
their production to the countries and regions with low
prices of working power. They can sell their products in
the countries with high purchasing power. And finally, they
can pay their taxes in the countries with the lowest taxes.
What does it mean for popular masses and the social
justice? The unlimited mobility of the capital enables the
big corporation to leave the country with high taxes and
forward social system and to go to the countries which make
for capital the best conditions regardless the social
benefits of their citizens. It seems that the governments
have no choice of economic policy. Since they want to
allure the foreign investments, they must lower the taxes
to the rich people and corporations and so they must cut
the social system. That is the process of dying of welfare
state. The solidarity and social justice became "dangerous"
for the governments in current global economy and the
redistributive policy is the spectre for the economic
growth.

I think there are two answers to this sinister neoliberal
process: one is the reformist one that is based on the
effort to save the welfare state and to fight for the
equilibrium between welfarism and global market economy.
This is the way of left social democrats, though the
majority of the social democrats shifted to the right-wing
policy. Many communist are prepared to defend this way of
saving the welfare state in Europe. I am convicted, that
the saving of the welfare state is the necessary condition
for the future transition to socialism. However, the
transition to socialism must be understood as the primary
goal in any political situation. Hence, I would like to
speak about the second way how to answer the neoliberal
process of globalisation. This answer is based on the
presumption that the capitalist economy is in essential
contradiction with any adequate effort to maintain the
social condition of popular masses and the welfare state
cannot be a long-term solution. Only the socialist economy
can solve the problems of popular masses. Only the radical
transformation of capitalist economy and its revolutionary
change to socialism is the answer for the future. The
defending of welfare state and social justice under the
conditions of capitalism is only the defensive tactics
which should be fundamentally added by the very project of
socialism. This should be the answer of communist movement.

However, in the period of neoliberalism boom we should very
patiently repeat almost banal truths about the character of
capitalism and we should do it also in the connection with
the first front of our political fight (i.e. the defending
of welfare state). Hence, we should ever repeat that the
market fetishism of current neoliberals is really
dangerous. Let�s mention the popular analogy of neoliberal
intellectual Friedrich von Hayek. One of his reasons for
rejecting the idea of intervention to market process from
the site of welfare programs is the argument or rather
analogy of the market mechanism and the game. Hayek asserts
that intervention to the game rules during the match is
unjust. According to him, if we understand the market as a
game which has the given rules, we cannot intervene to
these rules during the game with the objective to remove
the burden from one player and to make the game more
difficult to another player.

However, we can object to Hayek that the market is not the
voluntary game which was freely chosen by its players. Man
or woman enters the ordinary game when he or she likes it
or if he or she is prepared for it or if he or she has the
competencies for the game etc. But we are born to be a part
of the market jungle and we are condemned to play this game
regardless our wishes and desires. If we boycott this game,
we risk the starvation or minimally the loss of the
material means for our human dignity. This basic lack of
liberty in the "ideology of liberty" discredits other
liberal assumptions about the liberty and freedom on the
market mechanism. If people don�t voluntarily choose the
market game, it is correct to intervene to this game with
the objective to help the less prepared players. Since the
market is not the appropriate game for everybody. As well
as we cannot expect that the excellent ice-hockey player
will be awarded in the football match, we cannot expect
that the man or woman who doesn�t have the endowments for
the market game will be successful in the fight for life in
the market mechanism conditions. The market is specific
game which prefers some competencies before different ones.
Because this game is not voluntary, the interventions to
this game are not only relevant but even needy.

The problems concerning the social justice in nowadays
Europe rise also with the issue of precarity of the work
and the unemployment. The solidarity, as one of the basic
modern value, becomes the expression of government
unresponsibility from the point of view of neoliberal
dictate of opening the economics. It is said, that it
becomes the threat for the concurrence ability of the
country. Hence, the free movement of capital brings the
destruction of the solidarity and the welfare state and the
revival of the social Darwinism which is the cultural
accompanied feature of the globalised economy. Next
negative feature belongs to this process the flexibility
and precarity of the work. It means, that instead of the
standard labour contracts there are preferred the partial
and half-time contracts to the limited working time and
also there is a growing tendency to move from the classical
employment relationship to much more fluid and free
relationships between the companies and the formally
independent suppliers and sub-suppliers of the particular
acts, products and services. The consequence is
catastrophic mainly for the employees, because the growing
part of the market incertitude removes from the firm to the
employees and workers. Though the flexibilization and
precariousness of the work optically lessen the rate of the
unemployment, it is done only for the price of the growing
the low paid jobs. Consequently, there is a growing risk
that the wage of the worker is on the edge of the poorness
and very narrowly over there. We should very responsibly
fight against this process. We should offer the realistic
alternatives and attractive vision. We already know the
name of this vision socialism.

I will mention one more notice: Let�s consider very
important point of our Marxist theory which is noteworthy
and very alternative to the attitudes of both social
liberals and social democrats which are considered the main
political players on the current stage of defending the
remains of welfare state. I would like to emphasize he
class attitude to the case of justice and to the case of
society in general. Many communist in present time are
forgetting the class basement of Marxism. I would like to
stress this phenomenon in the communist theory, because it
belongs to raison d��tre of our ideology. We cannot fall to
the idealistic universalism of social democrats. The
Marxists ever refuse to speak about the society as a unity,
about its goals and values, about the ideal of universal
justice and about the overlapping concept of well-ordered
society. The liberal theories with their attempts of
modelling the timeless and universal idea of justice are
interpreted by Marxists as the narrowly bourgeois. Namely,
the goal is only the bourgeois equality of opportunities
which is the interest of the class of capitalists and which
concerns only the destroying of the non-market class
privileges. The proletarian equality which is the goal of
Marxist proceeds to destroy all the classes. In this case
Marxism doesn�t fake anything. It doesn�t speak about the
classless universal interests or the hypothetical
constructions of the bourgeois idealists. Marxism doesn�t
rely on that the class of the rich after reading the books
of Liberal and Social Democratic idealists and on the
behalf of the idea of eternal justice will altruistically
help the class of the exploited and the poor. According to
Marx the idealistic philanthropy cannot solve anything. The
class of the exploited should help themselves and this is
possible only by understanding and maintaining their
interests. According to Marxism the justice is about the
class interest as well as the politics in general. The
relevant political attitude should include the political
interests and the political fight. We should be aware of
false idealism.

The struggle of capital for new markets, for the cheap
labour, for cheap oil and other stocks is immanent to the
capitalist mode of production. The period of the
uncompromising globalisation strengthen the negatives of
capitalistic laws and compel a lot of people to live like
poor and hungry men to live like the slaves of foreign
capital. However, they are not only hungry they are angry,
too! And this is the next law of the process which I am
talking about the pauperisation and globalisation
generates the power of refusal around the world the
revolutionary power of the change! Without our effort the
latent refusal of the exploited will not become
revolutionary. That is one of the reasons to talk about the
strategy of our struggle in the international measure. Long
live the socialism!

Thank you for your attention, Comrades.