1973 marked the divide between rise and fall of workers' real wages only
in the U.S.and in Chile, where Pinochet came to power. Worldwide, the
divide was 1991, when the Soviet Union was dissolved and its socialism
collapsed. Prior to that it was always necessary for capitalist
countries to be sure that measures against the working class did not
drive it into the hands of the Communists. Sweden, where Stalin's
feminist ambassador, Alexandra Kollontai, won broad admiration in the
1920s, was the classical example. It was normal practice for union
leadership to say to the government: if you won't make this concession,
the workers will go Red. That was the source of Sweden's famous "Third
Way."
William Mandel
Ron Jacobs wrote:
>
> WHY I HATE CAPITALIST GLOBALIZATION
>
> Capitalist globalization kills. The police murder on June 20, 2001
> of a young Italian protestor named Carlo Guliani made this only too clear.
> Unfortunately, Guliani's was but the latest in a round of killings of
> anti-capitalists by law enforcement types: four people were killed in Papua
> New Guinea and over thirty died in Brazil during anti-globalization
> protests in the past couple of months.
>
> These numbers do nothing to approach the less publicized yet
> more common deaths that occur daily around the world due to the effects of
> this latest stage of capitalism. Children die of hunger and lack of medical
> care while the G7 leaders wine and dine in luxury. Civilians die in wars
> whose causes relate directly back to the ravages of colonialism,
> imperialism, and its current successor-that which the capitalists and their
> media call globalization. AIDS and other diseases ravage the world's
> impoverished populations because the medical and pharmaceutical players on
> the global capitalist game board want healthy profits and poor people can't
> help them there. People die of waterborne diseases because they can't
> afford the price of water after their water systems have been privatized.
>
> The world's primary offender, the most felonious nation of
> them all-the United States-attacks countries and popular movements at will
> with its missiles, bombs, and chemical sprays when those countries and
> movements refuse to abide by the rules the US sets. Rules which are
> designed to benefit the world's wealthiest citizens and the businesses they
> own.
>
> According to the self-described leaders of the capitalist
> world, global capitalism is the only structure that the poor can ever hope
> to benefit from. They tell us with a straight face that the wealth created
> for the wealthy will trickle down to the rest of the world's citizens if
> the multinational corporations and their client governments were just left
> alone to do what they wanted. If this were so, why hasn't it happened? I'll
> tell you why. Because capitalism doesn't work that way. Under capitalism,
> wealth accumulates at the top and the more wealth those at the top
> accumulate, the more wealth heads upward. The system of capitalism is not
> designed to create equality, it is designed to create very rich people and
> their opposite-very poor people.
>
> The only time workers and the impoverished ever get a piece of
> the pie that they can live off of (much less their fair share) is when they
> fight for it. If one looks at world history since the capitalist
> globalization project began after World War Two they will see that this is
> the case. If one divides this postwar period into before and after 1973,
> they will notice something else, too. Before 1973 the rich nations
> encouraged state intervention in the economy to make people's lives a bit
> easier. Wages were reasonable for most northern white male workers and jobs
> were secure. Thanks to popular movements against racism and the ruling
> elites' need to prevent unrest, laws designed to end discrimination against
> people of color and women were passed, opening up more opportunities for
> members of these groups. In addition, social welfare systems were
> established to protect the poor and disenfranchised from the worst ravages
> of capitalism.
>
>
> Since 1973, however, such intervention became less common,
> which has led us to the reality of today where even the richest nations
> have substantial populations of citizens without medical care, decent
> education or even an income they can count on. In short, the third world is
> now globalized. If true globalization were to occur-where the poorest of
> the poor were as powerful as the richest of the rich, there would be no
> anti-globalization movement. Of course, that's not going to happen.
>
> Capitalists never want to give up any of their gold. They
> would rather kill. Even more graphically than Carlo Guliani's death, the
> wars of the past century prove this. If there was one common thread that
> held them all together, it was the drive for profits and control of
> resources and markets. If there is one common thread that holds the current
> phase of imperial capitalism together, it is the drive for profits and
> control of resources and markets. The G7 and their cronies as represented
> by the WTO and other organizations are not going to let us in. Indeed,
> their system demands that they keep the world's working and poor people
> out. They need us to do their work for them, whether it's slaving in a
> sweatshop in Asia or serving a McDonald's burger in suburban America. And
> they need us to buy their ridiculous brands, whether that be
> sneakers or the latest Hollywood cinematic nonsense.
>
> The movement against global capitalism is about telling the
> capitalists that the people of the world don't need them. Indeed, the
> capitalists are discovering they need us much more. That is why they
> pretend to care. They don't understand that we don't want our so-called
> leaders invited to their meetings, nor do we want their money thrown at the
> problems their system has created. We want their system to end, so we can
> replace it with one that puts the needs of humans before the needs of the
> bankers. Just as the Stalinist state capitalist regimes of theformer Soviet
> bloc collapsed (with a few good shoves from their peoples), so can the
> capitalist states of the western world. El pueblo unido, hermas sera vencido!
>
> -ron jacobs
>
> http://www.neravt.com/left/jacobs36.html
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