WORKERS SOLIDARITY STUDY SERIES:
STEALING FROM THE POOR-"FREE MARKET" POLICIES = BOSSES' TOOL
Internationally, there is a massive shift in the form of capitalism
towards the so-called "free market". In South Africa, we have the
government's new "GEAR" policy and capitalist "industrial
restructuring" (see earlier article).
STATE AND MARKET
Before the 1970s, the key trend in capitalism was towards
expanding the role of the State in the economy. This was done through
governments nationalising industries, providing social services, and
setting prices through boards. The most extreme example of this
process was Russia, where the economy was nationalised and run by a
State-capitalist ruling class. But the same processes took place
throughout the Western countries and the Third World. This was not
socialism, but a specific form of capitalism.
From the mid-1970s, however, the world-wide trend has been towards
so-called "free market" policies. In other words, a trend towards the
withdrawal of the State from direct involvement in the economy, and
an attempt to regulate the economy through the "free" operations of
buyers and sellers in the market. The idea here is that the State
cannot run the economy properly. This set of policies goes by many
different names: "neo-liberalism", "monetarism", "Thatcherism",
"economic rationalism", "structural adjustment" etc.
FREE MARKET POLICIES
In concrete terms, these "free market" policies involve:
Privatisation of State corporations. Removal of State control
over prices and money (the removal of subsidies on basic goods).
Cut backs and freezes on social spending as the government tries
to minimise its costs. "Labour market flexibility". This is
bosses' talk for: (1) sub-contracting out jobs, (2) taking on casual
workers rather than permanents workers with rights and benefits;(3)
undermining trade union rights; (4) undermining existing working
conditions Promoting competitiveness. This includes: (1) reducing
tariff barriers that restrict the import of foreign goods; (2)
reducing taxes on companies and bosses. "Industrial
restructuring" ( making bosses more competitive with the bosses from
other countries) means: (1) Increases in productivity (2)
"downsizing" (retrenching as many workers as possible); (3) so-called
"co-operative" work arrangements that try to get workers to help
manage capitalism and increase productivity.
HELL FOR US
The effects of these policies on workers and the poor are
overwhelmingly negative.
Cut backs in government spending and
privatisation means: (1) large scale retrenchment; (2) reduced access
to social services such as health and education; (3) increased costs
of social services, such as transport, due to new commercial and
"profitable" rates. Higher prices on basic goods like food and
petrol due to the removal of subsidies and an increased reliance on
sales tax (Vat) instead of corporate tax. Attack on workers
rights and conditions, undermining of trade unions by promoting
"co-operative" work arrangements, expansion of low-wage and
unorganised casual and sub-contracting workers. Unemployment.
CAUSES OF FREE-MARKET POLICIES
Why are these policies being applied across the world? These are
the main reasons:
Capitalist crisis. Capitalist entered a crises
in the early 1970s, as "growth" slowed and profits fell. The bosses
response was to try maintain and increase profit by undermining union
rights and workers wages, and by reducing taxes on themselves.
Crisis of State-capitalism. The collapse of the State-capitalist
systems of East Europe and Russia has undermined the idea that the
State can run the economy. In the West and Third World, state
intervention is blamed for the onset of the economic crisis in the
1970s. Multi-national corporations. The giant international
companies that emerged after World War Two want cheap labour,
policies that allow the easy international movement of money, and the
chance to buy up State corporations International Monetary Fund
and World Bank. These imperialist institutions promote free market
policies by demanding that countries which use their loan facilities
implement free market policies.
WHAT WE SAY
There is no such thing as a "free market". The economy is
dominated by huge companies that own the means of life. We own
nothing, and so have to work for the bosses for wages. No money means
no food.
We are also exploited by the bosses who only pay us part of the
actual value we produce (e.g. worker helps builds 50 Mercedes a
month, gets R1,500). Their gain is our loss.
Free market policies are just an extension of this basic principle
of capitalism. The bosses are trying to maintain and increase their
profits by cutting our wages, services and jobs. They want us to pay
for their crisis and themselves to keep living as fat cats.
GIVE THEM HELL
The only way forward for the working class is to resist all
attacks on its existing conditions, and to fight for better
conditions. We do not support this or that form of capitalism. We
realise that capitalism with strong state intervention is still
capitalism and therefore exploit workers and the poor. We must resist
ALL forms of capitalism..
We must organise in our unions to force the bosses and the
politicians to stop their attacks on us. We must also resist and kick
out the "sell-out union bureaucrats" who support capitalism and the
state by arguing for "restructuring" and privatisation. Trade
unionism is the way forward to fight the bosses here and now, and,
one day, to destroy their rotten racist system for once and for all.
We must fight for real worker control of the economy through our
trade unions. Massive fight backs against the "free market" in other
countries who us we can win if we stand together, we workers and poor
people.
WE CALL FOR:
Mass actions and strikes against privatisation.
Workplace occupations and strike action by workers threatened by
job cuts. This must be backed up by maximum solidarity from other
unions. Fight attempts to erode, privatise or cut off services.
Defend worker and union rights