Capitalist crisis

Neo-liberalism is the political and economic ideology of choice for one of history’s most brutal and exploitative ruling classes, the elites in the imperialist countries who dominate the globe today. Its brutality is only matched by its brazenness — it has the hide to clothe itself in words of freedom, democracy, and liberalism.

But it’s freedom for the rich and democracy for the few. The mass of the world’s people are politically and economically enslaved.

Neo-liberal capitalism is predatory and vicious.

Billions live in poverty, lacking adequate food, clean water, or housing. Millions more have been thrust into destitution in Asia with this latest capitalist crisis. The gap between rich and poor is growing, within countries, and globally.

Wars continue to rage; Washington threatens massive annihilation, including the use of nuclear weapons, against any state that defies its dictates, such as Iraq.

Environmental degradation in search of quick profits threatens whole peoples, and the planet. Indigenous populations are robbed, dispossessed of their land, and scorned.

Old style imperialism is returning, in the guise of humanitarian intervention''; the white man's burden is back in vogue. {{Neo-liberal capitalism is utterly hypocritical and cynical.}} Neo-liberalism's line is: Get the state out, let the natural operation of the free market run everything. But that's not its actual practice. The inability offree market’’ British capitalism — home of neo-liberal spear-carrier Thatcher — to reduce state expenditure as a fraction of GDP below 40 percent exposes the hypocrisy.

In the US, the military industrial complex is a huge chunk of the US economy; billion dollar subsidies go to agribusiness and big companies.

In Japan, the so-called Big Bang'' that's supposed to forestall an even worse Japanese economic crisis, still includes huge handouts to construction companies and banks. The IMF bailouts of former Asian tigers are bailouts of big banks and firms that made bad gambles and lost. The public is buying the bad debts. Neo-liberals' privatisations are public handouts to big business. Capitalism survives not through the free market but through price-fixing, tax credits and other subsidies to business. Neo-liberalism's only vehemently opposed to state subsidies to workers, the poor. The state is there, stronger than ever in spite of some globalisation theorists, to back and strengthen the capitalist ruling class. In no way is it a neutral body; it's there to beat back, to hold down, the workers and oppressed. {{Neo-liberal capitalism is internally flawed and unstable.}} The state has expanded because all governmnts found that market forces by themselves could not guarantee growth. The capitalists' rate of profit is declining, and there'sexcess capital’’ sloshing around the world unable to find profitable investment. They’re desperately looking for new markets (greedily eying China and India). Internationalisation, globalisation'', are attempts by capital to deal with the slump and inherent problems at home. Excess capital, over capacity, over production, sparked the Asian economic crisis, making this conference even more relevant and timely, and shattering the false hope of a capitalist,free market’’ road out of poverty for the people of the Third World.

But that excess capital quickly returns to feast on the carcases, picking up bargains in Asia!

From the side of the workers, the poor, the oppressed what madness this must seem.

Excess capital'', what an absurd concept, in face of the world's billions of omeless and starving.Over capacity’’, how ridiculous, in face of the planet’s desperate needs of environmental repair and rescue.

 The class divide

All of us here are here because we know there are enormous problems, inequalities, repression, contradictions in the world, and in the region. Unfortunately in Australia today we’re a minority — in this free'' society the methods and means of mass manipulation are in the hands of the few with the billions. But although we all can agree on the problems, we're not united about the solutions, or at least the road towards a solution. However, we should all be in agreement on what is the enemy we face. By our presence here we've signalled what side we are on. We're in opposition to neo-liberalism, imperialism, their local lackeys and our own ruling classes. Their strengths and resources include their control of state power, armies and police forces, most mass media, and enormous wealth. We're on the side of the workers, the peasants, the oppressed, the poor. Our strengths are our numbers, the moral and historical justice of our cause, and our potential for organisation. But those strengths are only potential. Mostly the ruling classes are able to retain their hold on power through our dis-organisation, our lack of unity and clarity about how to organise and fight. It's not just our mistakes; imperialism is flexible and inventive, and has many ways to undermine our struggle. The workers movement has an unfortunate history. For example, all too often, its representatives, once in parliament, find the soft seats very much to their liking; they adapt to the ruling class lifestyles and ways of thinking. They get bought off, forget that fundamental class divide, start thinking in terms ofthe national interest.’’

 NGOs — becoming part of the problem

Thus we have to remember the lessons of past experiences of our movement, and develop strategies based on that experience.

We know it’s better to fight united, rather than as individuals who can be isolated and picked off. We know we need to build campaigns and organisations.

We know that lobbying the rulers and the rich, politely asking for relief, is not as good a tactic as building mass movements, in the streets, the fields, the factories.

We know that we have to use their courts, their agencies, their parliaments, but that we should have no illusions in these bodies.

And in recent decades we’ve increasingly recognised the use that imperialism has made of aid'', Aid as Imperialism, as the important book by Teresa Hayter put it. But even from their own mouths. US President John F Kennedy in 1961 stated that,Foreign aid is a method by which the United States maintains a position of influence and control around the world, and sustains a good many countries which would definitely collapse, or pass into the Communist bloc’’.

President Richard Nixon was even blunter in 1968: Let us remember that the main purpose of American aid is not to help other nations but to help ourselves''. Aid is increasingly a method of extending the social and political control of the imperialist ruling classes. It's used to prop up the local elites and puppets. And it usually doesn't even cost them anything. Apart from being factored in as a cost of doing business, the money's spent on their products, their surplus goods. It's a method of further enriching the wealthy elites in the First World. In most cases the biggest chunk is militaryaid’’. The hypocrisy of Australian government aid is blatant — food aid gets sent only when unrest is threatened.

The role of NGOs is becoming clearer too. There are many well-intentioned individuals, and some useful work is done by some NGOs. And the revolutionary left can sometimes use NGOs for their own purposes. But reliance on NGOs as a strategy is a deadend.

They’re increasingly becoming part of the problem, not part of the solution.

James Petras’ incisive article in Links No 9 related the ideological justification of NGOs as a strategy to the retreat from Marxism of a significant section of the left.

By the early 1980s'', he wrote,the more perceptive sectors of the neo-liberal ruling classes realised that their policies were polarising the society and provoking large-scale social discontent. Neo-liberal politicians began to finance and promote a parallel strategy of from below', the promotion ofgrassroots’ organisation with an anti-statist' ideology to intervene among potentially conflicting classes, to create asocial cushion.’ These organisations were financially dependent on neo-liberal sources and were directly involved in competing with socio-political movements for the allegiance of local leaders and activist communities.’’

The core of the article was also carried in the independent US socialist magazine Monthly Review, and gave specific examples of the depoliticising roles of NGOs in Bolivia, Chile, Brazil and El Salvador.

Green Left Weekly, two weeks ago, also carried an excellent article on the role of NGOs in Palestine.

There are now more than 1000 NGOs in the West Bank, the majority of which were formed in the early 1990s. Many of these advocate strengthening democracy and building civil society. In practice this has led to the depoliticisation of Palestinian society, replacing the role of mass struggle ... to advocate rather than mobilise.'' The article points out that much of the leadership of NGOs were previously activists in the left, but thelarge influx of foreign funds following the signing of the Oslo Accords in September 1993 created the material basis for a social layer whose interests were no longer identified with the left’’. They now have more comfortable lifestyles, stability in their personal lives.

Instead of an active participant in the struggle, the Palestinian population is treated as a passive `constituency' by the NGO movement. Information dissemination replaces the active mobilisation of people ...'' NGOs seem to be playing a similar role in the rest of the Third World. In the Philippines, for example, as Ana Maria Nemenzo pointed out. In Indonesia also the role of NGOs has been quite clear, a brake on the struggle, as a leader of the PRD described in the last issue of Links — NGOswhich proffered petty bourgeois do-gooding and begged for economic and political reforms from the dictatorship and the corrupt elite’’.

And in India, for example, the CPI (ML) Document on Tactics adopted at its Congress last year warned of the currently proliferating phenomenon'' of NGOs,funded by the government or foreign funding agencies ... serving as effective vehicles of reformism and depoliticisation.’’

The approved tactics shift to lobbying and letter writing, vs mobilisation of the people. We see the reflection here, with the conservative forces in the funding agencies promoting their counterparts in NGOs in the Third World, while slandering and blacklisting the militants.

In recent years NGOs and many well-meaning individual activists have placed much emphasis on participation'',self-empowerment’’, etc. Empowerment and participation are important, but they’re not ends in themselves. What’s the aim? You can also be lulled into participating in your own enslavement.

We should know by now, with more than a century and a half of experience to learn from, not to rely on the good grace of our oppressors for a solution. We have to rely on ourselves, and rely on the power of our numbers, with the mobilisation of the poor and oppressed, and their active participation in the struggle.

 Movements and parties

What’s needed is mass mobilisation and activity to bring about fundamental social change, to remove the cause of people’s misery and exploitation. It’s not enough just to have people feel better through doing something to address their problems (though that’s important, it does occur). We need mobilisations, and actions, and wider participation, to challenge the rulers, their power, their state.

And though we demand and fight for reforms, large and small, along the way, they’re not enough. We should have no illusions in any kind of band-aid solutions.

It’s not enough, just to take an aspirin. Even there, the label advises, If pain persists, see your doctor''. Well, the pain persists, and has for decades. More drastic remedies are needed! In good times, the wealthy rulers can afford to toss a few crumbs our way. We shouldn't be satisfied with crumbs anyway, but I don't think they'll be tossing many crumbs around for a while. That's the neo-liberal line — no crumbs! And there's no basis for a purelytrade-unionist’’ solution, especially while most trade unions in imperialist countries are tied to their own capitalist governments.

There’s also less basis or possibility today for a nationalist, non-aligned'' solution in the Third World, especially in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Trade union struggles, and campaigns and movements on all the other necessary issues, are important, but they're not sufficient. Especially today, with neo-liberalism rampant. The masses need to be mobilised to fight for their own interests and take control — in advanced capitalist countries, it's overwhelmingly the working class; in Third World countries, it's the working class leading and in alliance with the peasantry and urban poor. We need big mass movements, willing to go all the way in fighting for the interests of the oppressed, led by parties with revolutionary socialist perspectives, understanding the need for fundamental social change. Individual action, or movements, or trade unions by themselves, aren't enough. The non-party idea is a bourgeois idea, wrote Lenin. The bourgeoisie is very conscious of this. They actively promote anti-party sentiments, and encourage harmless organisational alternatives. We shouldn't bow to this pressure. Let's be open, confident about the role of parties. We shouldn't be defensive, but positively assert: parties are necessary in order to win, they're necessary even in order to defend ourselves. {{{What sort of party?}}} But there are parties and parties. What sort of party is needed? One that's suited to the goal. Not one committed to the preservation of this rotten system. Parties defending the status quo abound. Usually the rulers need two main ones, to maintain the illusion ofchoice’’ in this bourgeois democracy. And parties, like our Labor party, are bourgeois parties, intent on preserving the system, even though some of them might have labor, or worker, or even socialist, in their name.

The party we need needs to be a Marxist party, able to learn from the lessons of class struggles this century, especially the lessons of the victorious Russian Revolution.

The party we need also needs to function democratically. It needs to be democratic both in order to win, and also to be able to continue the liberating elan after winning, to really empower the working class. Any party for the future needs to learn from the terrible mistakes made in the Soviet Union that contributed to the eventual defeat of workers power there. We need a creative, non-dogmatic socialism, a socialism able to accurately analyse reality.

The party we need has to be non-sectarian, reaching out to the masses of people in struggle, and to those who will be drawn into struggle.

The party we need has to take up all the issues, all the struggles of all oppressed groups and classes — women, lesbians and gays, students and youth, the environment.

So we need not just better links and communication between those of us struggling for justice and freedom in the region. We need not just solidarity and support for all the vital campaigns and struggles we’re engaged in. We also need parties, and support and collaboration between the parties developing in each country.

 Next steps

What should be our next steps?

1. Firstly, we have to maintain and intensify our solidarity with struggles in the region, exposing and opposing the role of the Australian ruling class and its governments .

We have to oppose the austerity, deregulation, and privatisation demanded by imperialism and its agencies — the IMF, the World Bank, the WTO.
We have to demand that the imperialist bankers cancel the Third World debt. The First World governments must give massive and unconditional humanitarian aid to start to pay back the trillions of plunder.

We have to oppose colonialism and neo-colonialism, defending the right of self-determination of all oppressed nations, and oppose the imperialist blocs.

We have to build solidarity between the struggles of workers, peasants, and oppressed of the region.

Our special duty here is to win workers in imperialist countries like Australia away from trust in their own racist ruling class, and to really ally with the workers and peasants of the region.

We need both propaganda and actions, coordinated campaigns, of pickets and demonstrations and rallies. We need faster responses to acts of repression, more extensive solidarity.

Unfortunately there’s been only one left organisation in Australia that has been persisting in such solidarity activity, year after year, and that is the Democratic Socialist Party. Whether the issue has been up or down in the mainstream media, we’ve kept slogging away.

Our consistent solidarity activity with the struggles in the region, and the increasing contacts with parties and movements, is the only reason this conference is possible.

This conference will be urged to support the many important struggles in the region. It will be asked to give urgent solidarity with the struggle of the Indonesian people, against dictator Suharto’s escalating repression, and provide support to the People’s Democratic Party.

Proposals will be presented for Australia-wide days of action, and international days of action.

The conference will also be asked to endorse and help build the actions to counter the APEC summit in Auckland in September 1999.

2. Secondly, we have to increase the communication and discussion between the campaigns, the movements, and the parties in the region.

A very useful initiative here has been Links magazine, an international journal of socialist renewal and discussion that brings together socialists who come from many different traditions but who are united in their continuing commitment to the socialist project. (No 10, now out!)

Links itself has facilitated the contact among parties in the region, and has contributed considerably to the success of this conference.

In its own way also, Green Left Weekly, with its wide coverage of the issues and struggles in the region, has helped bring us closer together, and has certainly deepened the knowledge and understanding on the Australian left about the Asia Pacific region.

We can also make better use of the internet, email networks, link up our web pages. Setting up an alternative progressive news service for information, articles, photographs, discussion is now very feasible.

So we need solidarity, but we also need to build a network between the movements that can exchange experiences of struggles and discuss ways to build and coordinate the popular fightback.

We can organise further gatherings like this. There are several countries in the region where political conditions exist to allow it, and the local movement has a sufficient base to organise it. After the success of this conference, it would be a tragedy not to have further gatherings.

3. Thirdly, we need to step up the collaboration between parties in the region.

Given the retreats of some parties, and the conscious campaign by the ruling class to marginalise parties, to promote non-threatening alternatives, this collaboration is all the more vital.

But what sort of international collaboration? Nearing the end of the century, we have to frankly admit that there are a lot of defeats and mistakes to overcome. So we have to be clear that we can’t just proclaim parties as the leadership, the vanguard, and we can’t just declare a new international body uniting the parties. Those would be false starts, dead ends, and we’d end up with a myriad of little sects. Parties have to be built and tested in struggle, and relations have to be built step by step through collaboration on projects and discussions and real, useful exchanges.

Relations have to be based on the principle of non-interference; nobody needs big brothers or commissars. Contacts have to be multilateral, non-exclusive; we are swimming in many rivers.

Our movement does need political clarity, but we must recognise that those of us who are still carrying the banner come from many different traditions, out of the turbulent struggles of the workers movement this century. There’s been a shaking out. We’ve seen some parties with a revolutionary past and revolutionary credentials drop away. New parties have arisen rapidly. Some parties have reassessed their past, thrown off rigid habits. There will be a further shaking out ahead.

We must cooperate to build a stronger left and progressive movement in all countries, in an unselfish, non-sectarian manner.

The forces of exploitation and repression are well organised, well financed, and well armed. We’re up against the state forces of the dictatorships in the region, plus the vast military and economic might of imperialism. They’ve got their international organisations — the World Bank, the IMF, WTO, APEC — and their think tanks and research foundations. They have their weapons of ``aid’’, and control of the mass media.

At the moment the popular forces are pitifully weak. We have no armies or fleets or air forces, and very few economic resources. Potentially we are strong — the workers, the peasants, the poor are a big majority in each country. But our main potential weapon — organisation — we do not use well, neither in our local and national struggles, nor on a regional or global scale. Our opponents are vastly better organised at the moment.

But through conferences like this we can start to bridge the gap. Hopefully it will be a good step towards closer cooperation of the popular forces. Better exchange of experiences, ideas and analysis can lead to closer collaboration on projects of resistance and solidarity, and from there to active solidarity for each other’s struggles to win human rights, democracy, and real popular power in each country, and the freedom from the stranglehold of imperialist rule.

Without it, the lot of the vast majority of people in the region will be continuing impoverishment and exploitation, ongoing environmental degradation and disaster, and continuing repression, when the potential exists, with the existing abundant human and natural resources, to provide a life of comfort, dignity, and freedom for all.