The dominance of finance capital and corruption (Part 3)

by Harpal Brar

The influence, the power, the dominance of gigantic monopolies frightens 
even some bourgeois intellectuals, who are otherwise committed body and 
soul to defend capitalism.

One such person is Michael Pinto-Duschinsky. Writing in The 
Times of May 12, 1999, this is what he has to say on the sinister 
influence of mega-monopolies: "I have, recently, come to realise an 
uncomfortable truth: it is not necessary to be paranoid or Marxist to be 
deeply suspicious of big banks and industrial behemoths. In fact, it is the 
urgent duty of democrats to recognise that monopolists and multinationals 
are now a [great] threat to our freedom..."

Mr Pinto-Duschinsky complains that these "... leviathans do not work by the 
rules of the free market. They are imperial. And they are almost beyond 
democratic control ... voters remain in the dark about the challenges they 
pose."

He makes his points by reference to Germany, to the Deutsche Bank in 
particular. In this he is motivated by some considerations that are not 
relevant to our argument. That, however, in no way detracts from the 
validity of his general argument.

"Such giants [Deutsche Bank and similar monopolies] ... prevail upon any 
government by simply threatening to move their investments and their 
factories to other countries. Such a threat was sufficient to ensure the 
ousting of Oskar Lafontaine as Germany's Finance Minister.

"Institutions such as Deutsche have further sources of subtler influence. 
Their salaries and directorships are a magnet for former politicians and 
civil servants. A hint to a minister or mandarin about possible future 
employment can do wonders in securing co-operation."

And this is from someone who claims Marxism-Leninism is dead!

There is no going back to the old free competition capitalism, after which 
the petty-bourgeois critics of imperialism are forever hankering in the 
most reactionary manner.

Humanity can only go forward, through proletarian revolution and the 
overthrow of imperialism, on the basis of the technical achievements and 
the concentration and socialisation of production achieved in the era of 
imperialism.

Third World debt

It would be worth our while in this context to say a few words about the 
Third World debt.

From being $70 billion in 1971, the Third World debt has grown to the 
gargantuan sum of US$2.3 trillion. The third world pays US$233 billion a 
year to service this debt, while receiving $55 billion a year in 
development aid.

Some of the poorest countries in the world have literally to take food out 
of the mouths of their children and let them starve to death in order to be 
able to service this debt. Typical of these countries is Uganda, which in 
1995 spent only US$2.60 per person on health but US$30 per person on debt 
service.

Thirteen million children in the developing countries die each year of 
preventable and malnutrition-related diseases, which is more than twice the 
number of deaths in the whole notorious Nazi holocaust "each year".

All this, however, does not prevent the hired servants of the bourgeoisie 
from claiming that "... a dynamic market economy ... is the only possible 
basis for human advance" (Martin Wolf, Financial Times, 15/9/1999).

The monopoly stage of capitalism brings on the scene a handful of usurer 
countries, which export capital to, and exploit, the whole of the rest of 
the world.

This process, while accelerating the development of capitalism in the 
countries to which capital is exported, and thus as Lenin said, "expanding 
and deepening the further development of capitalism throughout the world", 
is nonetheless accompanied by increasing inequality between the imperialist 
and the oppressed countries on the one hand, and between the rich and the 
poor in both the imperialist and the oppressed countries on the other hand.

The ratio in living standards between the very richest and poorest 
countries, reported in uman Development Report, Summer 1999, (HDR) 
in 1820 was 3:1; 1913 — 11:1; 1950 — 35:1; 1973 — 44:1; and finally in 
1997 — 72:1.

There are scores of countries with a GDP of a mere US$300 a year per 
capita, and a tiny group of imperialist countries with US$25,000!

Although global GDP, having increased nine-fold during the last 50 years, 
today stands at US$30 trillion, the GDP of the Group of Seven countries, 
with a population of only 685 million, adds up to US$20 trillion.

In other words, a mere 12 per cent of the world's population, living in the 
richest seven imperialist countries, consumes two-thirds of global income, 
whereas 181 countries, with a combined population of over five billion, 
have a combined income of just US$10 trillion.

If the richest 20 per cent of the world's population living in the richest 
countries accounts for 86 per cent of global income, the poorest 20 per 
cent, living in the poorest and oppressed nations, account for an 
insignificant 1.3 per cent.

1.3 billion people, inhabitants almost entirely of poor countries, live in 
absolute poverty on less than US$1 a day, and another three billion people 
live on less than US$2 a day.

Of the 4.4 billion people living in the so-called Third World (i.e., former 
colonies and oppressed nations), three-quarters (3.3 billion) don't have 
their basic needs satisfied; a quarter (1.1 billion) have no access to safe 
drinking water; a quarter have inadequate housing; nearly a fifth are 
illiterate; and nearly a fifth (900 million) go hungry each day.

And the solutions?

These are the "solutions" put forward by the best brains among bourgeois 
journalism, at the height of imperialism's decadence:

1. a United Nations foreign legion;

2. improved governance, with donors paying for, and recruiting, judges, 
officials, soldiers, police, medical personnel and teachers "such 
operations could be mounted under UN auspices, in some kind of 
protectorate" (M Wolf, "Financial Times", 14 July 1999);

3. more liberal trade, openness to FDI and more privatisations;

4. and if this means some sacrifice of independence — so be it.

In other words, back to colonialism.

Capitalist restoration in the eastern bloc

It had been the constant refrain of the bourgeoisie that socialism in the 
former USSR and other East European countries had deprived the peoples of 
these countries of their freedom and shackled their economic development. 
And, therefore, only a return to (bourgeois) democracy and the "free 
market" could guarantee them unprecedented prosperity.

The result of this restoration? Take the former USSR: production, as well 
as per capita income, has more than halved; there has been a precipitous 
fall in living standards; male life expectancy fell by a spectacular six 
years (from 64 to 58) between 1990 and 1994; a free health service, the 
education system, with its proliferation of creches, kindergartens and 
holiday camps, which were a source of legitimate pride to the Soviet 
people, have all but disappeared.

From being the second largest, the Russian economy has been reduced to the 
size of the economy of the tiny Netherlands. Unemployment, which had not 
been seen in the USSR since 1932, is rampant, with an estimated 40 million 
unemployed in the territory of the former USSR.

The wealth produced by the honest toil of the Soviet working class has been 
stolen by a handful of kleptocrats and mafiosi, while the mass of people 
are reduced to penury; fraternal harmony and friendship have given way to 
fratricidal warfare; prostitution, alcoholism, drug abuse and drug 
traffiicking, organised and violent street crime, homelessness and such 
other concomitants of the"free market" have assumed epidemic proportions.

In summary, a once great and mighty socialist USSR has been reduced to a 
third-rate capitalist country, burdened with a foreign debt to the tune of 
nearly US$200 billion on the one hand, and bleeding white through capital 
flight of approximately US$300 billion over the last 10 years, on the other 
hand.

And Russia's experience since the restoration of capitalism is repeated in 
all the countries of Eastern Europe, with women and children being the 
worst sufferers.

According to a UNICEF report, released in November 1999, about 20 per cent 
of the 150 million children from east Europe and the former USSR have 
become homeless.

And, according to the 1999 HDR, sexual slavery has returned to these 
countries with a vengeance.

Says the Report: "An estimated 500,000 women are trafficked each year from 
Eastern Europe and the CIS (former republics of the Soviet Union) to 
Western Europe. An estimated 15,000 Russians and East Europeans work in 
Germany's red light districts. In the Netherlands 57 per cent of the 
trafficked women are under 21".

So much, then, for the wonderful freedom and prosperity which were supposed 
to have been delivered by the restoration of capitalism. Today the peoples 
of these countries, in particular those of the former USSR, who have 
witnessed, taken part in, and benefited from, the glorious achievements of 
socialism, are justly seething with anger.

It is only a question of time before they overthrow the rule of their 
kleptocracies, which lack all legitimacy, and wipe off the shame of 
capitalist restoration and misery from the face of their societies. Thus 
the contradiction between the thieving fraternity who rule these countries 
and the masses of people is becoming more acute by the day.

* * *

To be concluded: Part 4: Poverty in rich countries