cattle.
The quest of imperialist multinational corporations for increased profits through low wages and non-union labour have led to the transfer of labour-intensive and highly-polluting industries to newly-industrialising countries (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, China, Mexico, Brazil, Chile).
But this same process has led also to the collapse of manufacturing industry and of stable employment in the imperialist countries.
Each of these tendencies is reinforced by the latest GATT agreements signed earlier this year. Now the wheel is turning full circle, with more OECD countries following the British Tory example and looking to impose 'Third World'-style sweatshop conditions, to 'tackle unemployment by creating more low-paid, casualised jobs.
At the same time British Tories have led the way in imposing draconian IMF-style cuts in public spending targeted against the unemployed, the homeless and the low-paid.
The growing inequality between the developed 'northern' economies and the exploited countries of the 'south' has been intensified by the mushrooming of foreign debt.
The extension of massive loans, especially to Latin America and to some extent to Eastern Europe, was a device by the imperialist banks to utilise the billions of petrodollars generated by the oil price increases of the early 1970s. tina and elsewhere, the burden of interest payments mounted. By 1982, Mexico became the first to declare itself insolvent.
The IMF was called in to impose conditions and administer new loans designed to enable the exploited countries of the 'south' to repay their debts to the northern countries. In many cases governments took over responsibility for what had been private sector loans: these governments have found themselves under the cosh from the IMF, forced to devalue their currencies, cut spending on food subsidies, cut public services such The 1990s have seen much of Africa and Asia cynically further cast adrift as the eyes of the capitalist bankers as health and education, and cut wages as well as dropping trade quotas and tariffs to allow greater inroads from the northern countries.
In many cases these cutbacks have triggered revolts and crises, often in turn leading to police and military repression.
The gap between north and south widened in the 1980s. But the 1990s have seen much of Africa and Asia cynically further cast adrift as the eyes of the capitalist bankers focus on the possibilities of expansion into Eastern Europe and China.
Prices of raw materials and even oil have fallen sharply in real terms, keeping down the cost of living in the more prosperous 'north', while the economies of 'north'.
The fashionable expansion of tourism to a host of new exotic Third World locations, exploiting cheap labour and the relative strength of'northern' currencies, rams home the contrast between accumulating wealth in the hands of the elite in the 'north' and the vast majority of oppressed.
50 years of capitalist development on the Bretton Woods pattern has led to a disastrous plundering of the earth's resources and degradation of the environment.
Throughout the world forests are being levelled, fertile soil lost and erosion increased through intensive agriculture, water and the air are being contaminated by hazardous wastes, while billions of people suffer exploitation, ill-health and oppression.
In the driving seat of this system are the key capitalist countries, the Group of Seven. They are to meet in a new jobs summit' in Naples next month. a followon from the Detroit summit: the theme will again be use of deregulation to create more low-paid and part-time jobs.
Environmental and pacifist groups are already organising a counter-summit which will set out a very different approach to the development of new jobs. EXAMPLES of damaging projects financed by the World Bank include:
• The SARDAR SAROVAR dam project in india, invloving a 200 Kmlong reservoir and 460Km canal. The construction involves displacing a million people, and flooding 350,000 hectares of forest and 200,000 hectares of arable land.
Local people are being uprooted through state repression and violence.
• The PANGUE dam in Chile, which will flood the Bio Bio River valley, displacing a thousand Pehuenche indians.
• The BALBINA dam in Brazil, which flooded 240,000 hectares of unfelled forest, creating a perfect breeding ground for mosquitos. Pollution from the reservoir has killed thousands of fish and affected rivers within a radius of 300 Km.
• Brazil's GRANDE CARAJAS project in the Amazon, designed to provide Japanese, European and US markets with cheap raw materials. The project affects 900, 000 square kilometres, and will supply 35 million tons of iron per year, as well as 25m cubic metres of charcoal, 700,000 tons of aluminium, and supplies of mangnese, copper, gold, nickel, and tin.
SOCIALIST OUTLOOK No. 65, 25 June 1994, Page 10