Capitalism.
> Hold on, Comrade. Caterpillar is not a South African company. Are you
for
> or against global trade?
Mainly against, under current arrangements. Most things that are traded long distances shouldn't be. The most balanced (as well as most rapid) epoch of growth in this part of the world came when global trade had fizzled, during the 1930s and early 1940s.
> Should South Africa throw its hat into the heavy
> equipment ring against the Japanese and Koreans when Cat can't make money?
Yes. If Cat can't make money because of the global overaccumulation of capital, there are lots of us who think that part of the solution in a future Southern Africa is socialism, and that would include, probably, re-industrialising in all sorts of heavy-industrial (and light-industrial) activities that were chopped because of liberalisation.
> I agree that local currencies are "leaching" out of the third world, but
> isn't that on the savings/accumulation side rather than the trade side?
Both. The declining terms of trade problem is a monster. Exporting raw materials to fit the Wash Con model has been a main source of Africa's decline.
> Thus, the IMF focus on making third world currencies stable vehicles to
save
> with.
First they force financial and trade liberalisation, and the currency crashes; then they jack up interest rates so there's a local depression; then there's "stability." Thanks.
> So you get rid of import tariffs while your currency can buy a lot and
> imports become super-competitive. Okay, doesn't that mean the currency
was
> overpriced to begin with?
In bourgeois economic terms, sure. But what's the "value" of anything? The outcome of international price mechanisms? Have you read even Soros on those mechanisms?
> On this inevitable de-industrialization, Zimbabwe
> may have de-industrialized but China certainly hasn't. Why?
They didn't follow the Wash Con, did they?
> I don't believe that the luxury goods market could possibly have that kind
> of effect on the currency of South Africa. The numbers don't add up.
Now,
> if you want to tell me that people don't save their money in the
> rand-denominated credit system, that I'll believe.
Sure, the luxury-import bill is relatively small, compared to raw materials for reprocessing. But in Zimbabwe and many other African countries, huge luxury imports have been a devastating problem, particularly in relation to the corrosive effect on society and culture. Robert Mugabe just imported one of the highest-cost Mercedes ever produced, replete with every imaginable luxury, for the price of literally thousands of working-class houses or jobs.
Translation for "people don't save their money in rand-denomination" is the following: Rich white people who looted the black society during apartheid are now taking all that money offshore. So yeah, there's a huge moral case, similar to the case that's led to getting some of Sani Abacha's money back from the rancid London and Swiss banks.
> I'm on your side, but not if you're attacking shiny cars while more
> important questions are out there.
Shiny cars are a symbol of the most important question, of course: whose side of the fight over class apartheid the passenger is on.
> So no commodification?
That's the programme, comrade: free lifeline water, electricity, housing, healthcare, education. A massive international campaign is moving on the latter front this week, by the way... Join us!
> Massive land reform so people can make no money producing corn and
soybeans
> into a world glut?
If their ruling elites follow the Wash Con, the producers would export it. If their society promoted a more coherent livelihoods and nutritional strategy, and moved to decommodify food, they'd reorient the countryside and cities simultaneously.
> Tell me what kind of yearly wage you expect a
> land-reformed peasant to make on 50 acres when a farmer in Washington
state
> can't make it on 500. Can you deny that in a world of combine harvesters
a
> person swinging a hoe or driving a plow behind a team of oxen is wasting
his
> time?
You haven't done any African travels, have you. A plow and oxen assure a small farmer in Zimbabwe (the only rural scene I know at all) both food for the family and a pretty good standard of living, if the land is hospitable. Of course for 90% of the peasants, the land is arid, overgrazed and without irrigation. When you smoke your next cig, you're probably part of the problem, because the best Zim land is used by a fraction of white farmers for tobacco. (They, by the way, have been disproportionately unaffected by the land occupations, because Mugabe needs the forex they bring. Not that I support the Mugabe land grab gimmick.)
> Clearly new industries need protection, but what they need more than that
> is capital comprised of real money, not Weimar Republic garbage.
Right but since Africa is a net exporter of capital, we're back to changing the global system. A week ago, one of Africa's best judges (Dumisa Ntsebeza) issued the International Debt Tribunal finding that the debt should be cancelled and the IMF/WB be closed. Check it out at http://www.worldbankboycott.org or similar sites...
> High interest rates and financial liberalization are meant to strengthen
> the currency. They haven't worked, but what's your answer?
Financial repression, including low interest rates and tough exchange controls. The systems that worked several decades ago.
> Very important, that last bit. Isn't the central question keeping maximum
> surplus in-country, leveraging it to the sustainable max and even bringing
> in foreign surplus if you can? In-country or out, how do you convince a
> saver (or capital supplier) of any stripe (including government) to risk
> real, valuable savings against future South African cash-flows? How do
you
> convince her that that future cash flow will be reliable and denominated
in
> a reliable currency?
You can't "convince" parasites of anything, can you. You have to put on exchange controls. Keynes knew this.
> You may, so long as you keep in mind that the Keynesian view informed the
> attitude that "sovereign nations don't default." We know that isn't true.
No, Walter Wriston tossing out overaccumulated financial capital to his dictator friends informed that attitude. Obviously, part of the global-justice game plan is to have social revolutions across the Third World, and then the mass defaults that have been kept on hold through restructurings the last 20 years. As you no doubt know, about a third of all countries defaulted on their debts in the 1830s, 1870s and 1930s. The IMF/WB role as bailout for NY/London/Frankfurt/Paris/Tokyo bankers, beginning in 1982, meant that instead of defaults we got "restructurings." But that's just another temporal displacement mechanism. As looted countries from Argentina to Zimbabwe demonstrate, repaying an illegitimate debt can't go on forever.
> The neo-liberals have objectively failed in the developing world, but the
> "industrial policy" bunch have failed in even stronger economies. Look at
> Japanese deflation and French unemployment. The trouble is that only
> neo-liberals are dealing with the question of currency/credit quality.
Not necessarily true. What are hundreds of IMF Riots about? Why are the Argentine masses tossing out presidents and IMF teams?
> They're talking to themselves. Serious thinkers and activists like you on
> the big-gov/big-NGO side aren't even talking their language.
Actually, yesterday when I addressed the SA trade union leadership in a panel debate with the trade minister, the president's economist and the main marxist intellectual in government, I made the above point: rich whites were allowed to loot the country solely because of the ANC regime's neoliberal orientation. I got the cheers.
> You can talk all the biodiversity you want, a subsistence farmer behind an
> ox team can't compete with a guy on a tractor. It's just that simple.
> Farming is a business of scale.
Capitalist farming, sure. But that's not the end of history, is it?
> I think the question is becoming whether or not a national capital is an
> anachronism. What would the deficit-laden US economy be worth if the
whole
> world didn't hold a lot of its savings in dollars?
Maybe we'll find that out if US parasites continue with huge trade and capital distortions and finally the dollar gets pricked, like it began to during the late 1970s.
> Why would countries with
> as comparatively vital and productive economies as those of the EU decide
to
> abandon the idea of a national capital?
I guess the point is, are the "countries" run by the people, or by their outward-oriented TNC elites?
> Aren't micro-lending, credit unions and asset-backed securities the same
> thing as "community rooting of capital"?
As Doug and Liza will tell you, micro-lending can be wonderful, but mainly it's a ruse for neoliberalism. And if you've seen Grammeen Bank's progress recently, you'd share the "alarm" of the entire microlending industry (to use the word in the scathing Wall St Journal article last November). That poster child for microlending has taken to ripping the tin roofs off women's houses if they're behind with their loan payments (according to the WSJ).
> Isn't it a question of having one
> system of trade for everyone, rather than having a master system (with
easy
> access to capital) and a subordinate system of trade (with no access to
> capital or only on punitive credit terms)?
No, dualism and lemon-localism isn't the goal. Socialism is, built from below.
> How many AIDS drugs have been developed in Africa?
Not enough. My university's researchers came out with an extremely innovative HIV blood test last week, which will save a huge amount on the testing and monitoring that we'll need to do when rolling out Aids drugs (called "ARVs") to millions of people here and across the continent.
> How many Africans will
> really have access to even the cheapest, patent-infringed AIDS drugs?
We've only just begun this process of stealing patents. Aside from South Africa, most of the region's countries are raring to go, looking for some good abandoned factories to start the generics production process under what we hope will be cutting-edge conditions of safety and quality. But where Big Pharma has been embarrassed into letting some countries (especially Botswana) have ARVs cheaply or for free, the roll out is looking good, and helping the vast majority of HIV+ people. The damn thing is that the Gates Foundation, which is organising lots of this, wants to set up a parallel delivery system because they don't want the Botswana government to take the necessary trouble to revitalise a once-working public health care system.
> Even
> patent-ignoring drug factories have to buy chemicals on the open market -
> with money. That means they have, at some point, to get money in return
for
> their product and that virtually excludes most of Africa's rural poor,
does
> it not? How many doses of AZT can a Ugandan sweet potato farmer with 50
> acres pay for with a year of hand and animal work? How about with 20
acres?
> 10 acres? 5?
We have a simple word in response: subsidise. It's based not on socialism, but on a simple human rights philosophy. Aside from the ANC government, South African business and George Soros (who recommended the genocide of several million South Africans last week on national tv), most people in the region believe that stealing patents so as to get cheap Aids drugs, in spite of the tiny adverse implications for the billion-dollar+-profiteering pharmacorps, is the right thing to do. Join us! (http://www.tac.org.za)
> So what do people globalize with?
Political solidarity!
> The law of combined and uneven development.
> ______________________________________________
>
> If it's a law, it can be amended.
Yup, by socialism. Join us, comrade!