set of circumstances which have masked the underlying limitations of the economy. If those circumstances have now evanorated. then these limitations come sharply into focus.
While US companies were notably successful in a number of areas in the 1990s they face continuing challenges in the future. In the motor industry for example, Ford and General Motors have been increasthreatened by compennon from European companies. In telecommunications, European and Japanese companies continue to dominate in mobile phones, while US giants like AT&T lurch from crisis to crisis. The strength derived by American capital from the restructuring undergone in the decade after 1979 cannot be expected to last forever. The USA faces not just a recession but also deeper questions about the nature and limitations of growth over the last 20 years.
The implications of a US slump for capitalism elsewhere could also be dramatic. The USA has accounted, directly or indirectly, for about half the increase in world demand over the last few years. A collapse in the value of the dollar could easily choke off any recovery in Japan or Western Europe as the yen and euro rise in venue. Japanese and European companies which have invested in the US could also see their profits fall if there is an American recession. Stagnation in the US will have a much more direct effect on global capital than the slow growth in Japan over the last decade, given the relatively low level of exports to Japan and of foreign investment there before the slump. It is not clear how sharp the downturn in the US economy will be, or to what extent the Federal Reserve can hold it off by reducing interest rates and trying to stimulate demand. But what is clear is that the bubble of the last five years has burst, and that from now on American capital will have to grapple with its real problems without the aid of the financial hysteria we have seen recently. The ideological effects of this for socialists worldwide cannot be overstated. The supposed success of the 'new economy' based in the USA has been crucial in providing a basis for neoliberal thought and for the strategies of the WTO and IMF The explosion of this myth will provide important opportunities for arguing against such ideas and for putting forward the view that the problems demonstrated in the USA cannot be solved by capitalism but require a renewed struggle for an alternative economic system. brink of collapse.
Foreign and domestic shwestnenT has dried up. country. The rupiah fell 40% between September and November last veni And although the annual growth rate was 4% this was almost entirely driven by consumption as poor people sold their assets to meet basic needs. has faced pressure on all sides and now in crisis with President Abdurrahman Wahid impeached UlL corruption charges.
His personal authority has steadily diminished and he has completely failed to bring the military (TNI) under the control of society, the most crucial reform demanded by the mass •vec which toppled Suharto.
Several things highlight the government's weakness in its dealings with the TNI. Changes to the Constitution have bolstered it. The TNI and police will retain their unelected seats
Outlook Susan Moore M uch of the agenda protestors so vigorously opposed at the WTO talks in Seattle, and in the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), steadily making its way onto the international rulebook through a largely unheard of aziccucul A massive expansion of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) is the next phase in the global liberalisation project.
The World Development Movement has been running since last autumn to highlight the dangers of the discussions on GATS currently taking place in Geneva which will culminate in March of this year.
The was launched at an impressive rally in London November 9 attended by over 1000 people and addressed by veterans of the anti-globalisation movement Naomi Klein and George Monbiot.
Klein argued that "Public services are the public tangible manifestation and expression of our shared valcitizens. How we choose to heal our sick, teach our kids, protect our water, the connect oner another through transport and communication are expressions of our collective vision for society.
"This idea is an extremely threatening one to the free market, which is what the attempts to extend the World Trade Organisation's reach into services is really all about. In market terms services are not an expression of our will citizens, but opportunities for foreign investment untapped TWO-TOITeS activity resources" countries.
Monbiot, who has written about GATS in the press, pointed out that:
"Big business wants a single, harmonised global market in which it can trade NICHES. under precisely the same conditions everywhere, with as few barriers to its operations - in the form of regulation, public ownership or organised labour - as possible. And this is precisely what it has been getting.
"Big business has to get The bigger because the market it has engineered is growing to place embrace the whole world. As harmonısation manne that only the very biggest companies will win, each one is trying to get bigger than any other"
GATS was originally even rules. agreed at the World Trade Organisation discussion in 1994. The aim of this agreecountries ment is remove any restrictions and internal government regulations in the area of service delivery that are considered to be barriers to trade.
Capitalism? snow way! Protestors defy the weather and the forces of globalisation in Davos As the WDM briefing In whose service makes clear:
demise the to lose out. Multilateral Agreement on Investment in 1998, and collapse of trade talks in Seattle in 1999, now see GATS as their golden opportunity. As a result, all kinds of agendas are being pursued in the continuing negotiations around this agreement, which now extends beyond any reasonable definition of either trade est people. or services".
The service industry is big covering about once economic in industrialised The powerful companies want to operate freely within the service sector, but much of it is owned being and regulated by governFreeing up the trade whether in services will should be regulated. benefit and the GATS is designed do this. Unsurprisingly, corporations have been the driving force behind the agreement.
negotiations taking in Geneva aim to extend the 1994 agreement. tries often make. Governments are under pressure to drastically reorganise the ownership and delivery of services within their countries, and subject them to tighter trade' Abugre of At the same time, negotia- Network argues tors from the world's richest are pushing for this liberalisation process to be speeded up.
The GATS liberalisation agenda threatens basic ser- rules on Africa." vice delivery. If multinationals are seeking to make a imbalance to allow countries profit out of water, health pay and education, those without Northern purchasing power are likely insisted debtor nations integrate even further into the Recent water privatisation unequal global market, leavin Puerto Rico has meant ing them even that poor communities have debt. gone without water while US military bases and tourist P or resorts enjoy an unlimited supply. A system governed market' by people's ability to pay will not bring desperately needed services to the world's poor- the North, debt or Moreover, the irreversibil- trade, ity of GATS will ensure that International governments have Fund or the World Trade opened up particular service Organisation. sectors to WTO rules, there The WDM have is no going back. The deci- lighted the fact that resission of how to organise ser- tance to globalisation in the vice delivery is effectively south gets very little coverremoved from the age in the media here. political arena. In future, cit- Seattle, Prague izens will no longer have the were inspiring on our TV democratic right to decide screens, it would also give a HOL services fuller picture of the scope of the fightback that exists if we One of the strengths of the saw the protests that have WDM is that unlike cam- taken place across paigns such as Jubilee 2000 it America, Africa and Asia to has consistently pointed out policies that squeeze people that trade and debt can't be even harder there. dealt with separately This is Many of Bolivia's poorest a mistake that campaigners families received water bills in advanced capitalist coun totalling a third of their income when the If industrialised countries ment sold the public water had not stacked the terms of system trade so heavily in their own Water (of London) taking a favour, Southern countries major share. The would not have fallen so that the company imposed deeply into debt As Charles were so crippling that they Third World sparked mass protest. many low-income families "Debt and trade are inextri- water cost more than food. cably linked. Unfair trade Even collecting rainwater in rules left Africa in debt and rooftop tanks became illegal debt has allowed creditors to without a permit. impose further unfair trade Hundreds of took to the Instead of rectifying this Cochabamba city in April 2000. Soldiers sent in their debts, quell the protests killed six governments and injured hundreds of others. The governor of the state resigned saying he did not want to be responsible for deeper in the 'bloodbath' that would follow the Bolivian government's refusal to reverse the Southern privatisation. activists, the 'free simply the end, transfers resources protestors won from the South to International whether it's Was kicked out Bolivia and the govthe ernment accepted Monetary protestors' demands to put control of water in local high- If current negotiations at the World Organisation (WTO) continue, it would be difficult, if While not impossible for and Nice Bolivian government to go back on its privatisation decision. Despite these important strengths, the WDM campaign has one crucial weakLatin ness - one it shares with many other similar organisations. Its focus research, education and the lobbying of politicians. But the lessons of the struggles it talks about , whether govern- in the south or the north, are that only mass action will with International defeat the neo-liberal steamroller. charges Socialists and trade unionists must find ways to act on these issues urgently before For global capital takes more of our services, livelihoods and lives. • For further information on GATS contact WDM 25 Beehive Place thousands London SW9 7QR streets of 0207 737 6215 www.wdm.org.uk The following statement has been signed by Tony Benn, George Monbiot, former political prisoner in Burma Rachael Godwin, Chris Harman, editor of Socialist Worker and Greg Tucker, secretary of the LSA and member of the International Socialist Group.
A planning meeting has been called in London on Tuesday February 20 at Conway Hall at 7pm to begin to organise for Genoa. Similar meetings will be taking place in your area. For further information contact: [email protected] or www.gn.apc.org/gloabliseresistance "Across the world, a thousand and one new forces are emerging" This was the word from the World Social Forum in Porto Allegre Brazil where 10,000 activists gathered last week to discuss the fight against the corporate globalisers. The main slogan was simple: "another world is possible".
Last week in Davos Switzerland thousands gathered to demonstrate against the world's bosses at the World Economic Forum, and then to discuss and organise opposition at a huge counter summit.
In Britain tube workers are striking against privatisation. Health workers in Dudley have just voted for another 3-week strike against the Private Finance the Initiative in their hospital. Car workers are balloting Water for action against closures. of Across the country tenants are fighting and winning the against private landlords trying to get their hands on our homes.
Attempts have been made by politicians, the Trade police and college authorities to stop the Globalise Resistance tour. The the authorities in Switzerland turned Davos into an armed camp. Police in Brazil arrested and attempted to deport Jose Bove a leading speaker at the Porto Allegre forum. But this attempted clampdown only shows the authorities are worried by a on movement that is rising across the world. Our response must be to make the movement grow everywhere.
The next planned European mobilisation against corporate power is the protest at the G8 summit in Genoa Italy on July 22. Tens of thousands travaway elled to Prague last September and Nice in December. Genoa is set to be the biggest protest yet.
"We need less realism, then we might be more realistic about the potential of the movement to insist that a truly different and better world is possible*
Outlook
"Those intent on pursuing liberalisation, frustrated by