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Susan George Interview
What
would you do if you wanted to make sure capitalism
maintained its dominant position in the world_ How
about calling together a working party made up of
experts across a range of fields, finding them
somewhere nice and quiet to work - say a pretty
little Swiss lakeside town - and asking them to find
a solution to the system's problems. Author Susan
George imagined just such a scenario and then
proceeded to put herself in the place of the men
chosen to form the Working Party. The result is a
book, The Lugano Report: On Preserving Capitalism in
the Twenty-first Century which is at the same time
darkly humorous and chillingly logical. Below,
Spectre interviews Susan George about her book, its
message, and how we can stop an imagined if
plausible scenario from becoming a deadly reality.
SPECTRE:
You say of the Lugano Report that it is neither
sensationalist, nor satire, nor science fiction, nor
0ther kind of fiction. It is, nevertheless, a work
of your imagination. Are there people of influence
willing to advocate the Report's conclusions_
I
don't think anyone would advocate these solutions in
public, but it's already happening in private and in
some quarters where onemight not expect it, for
example within environmentalist organisations such
as the Sierra Club in the United States, which has
now really come out for population control and
reduction. As the rich consume more and more, they
are clearly not going to want to downgrade their own
status and they are going to find themselves and the
planet on which they depend threatened. And I think
their solution will be exactly the one in the book:
to say that there are a lot of people who don't
contribute anything to consumption and production.
We, the rich, do. We are the people who keep things
running and organised, and we must be allowed to
continue to do that. So I don't think it's so much a
matter of asking whether this is being advocated
now, more of finding out whether this logic is going
to prevail. In the book I was trying to get into a
logical stream and ask whether if premises A, B and
C were true. then did conclusions X. Y and Z not
necessarily follow_
SPECTRE:
This is the logic of trade liberalisation, isn't
it_ Or, at least, trade liberalisation is a big part
of it. Since Seattle I've noticed that papers like
the Financial Times and the New York Times have been
really hammering the argument that trade
liberalisation benefits everyone. Clearly you don't
agree.
No.
It really is -very amusing that suddenly The
Economist puts this winsome picture of an Indian
child on its front cover with the caption that this
is the real loser from Seattle, and then goes into a
song and dance about how the opposition to the WTO
is against the poor. I am very touched that The
Economist should show this sudden concern for the
poor. There's overwhelming evidence that the gap
between the rich and poor has grown much larger,
both within and between countries. The gap in wealth
between the richer countries of the North and the
poorer countries of the South was 30:1 at the
beginning of the twentieth century - by 1960 it had
risen to 60:1. Now it's 74:1. In other words, there
are a lot of people who are not in the stream. Trade
is not going to help them. Why_ Because trade is
carried out for two-thirds by Transnational
Corporations (TNCs. TNCs do not provide employment.
They have increased their sales by 20% whilst
slightly reducing employment - some, like the car
industry, have really downsized in a very big way.
Much ot what is called inv estment is actually
nothing more than mergers and acquisitions, and of
course mergers and acquisitions are generally
accompanied by downsizing. I don't see how anyone
can say that these TNCs, which largely control world
trade, are going to benefit the poor in any way. In
no country except possibly Singapore and Hong Kong
do Transnationals provide more than 2% ot
employment. What you need if you want jobs are small
and medium sized enterprises, local initiatives,
labour intensive work, community development,
service providers and the like.
SPECTRE:
Your Working Party the purported author of the
Report, recognises that prosperous people have fewer
children, and that those who can rely on a welfare
state have fewer reasons to have large families. Why
don 't they consider how prosperity might be more
evenly distributed_
They wouldn't consider it because it would imply
diverting resources from immediately profitable
pursuits. And what's immediatels profitable is the
only kind of logic that capitalism understands.
Redistribution of wealth would require enormous
amounts of investment. The only time an elite has
accepted this has been during crises, such as in
America in the 1930s under Roosevelt. There may be
some understanding of what's needed, but the logic
of the system imposes short-termism and precludes
any sort of international Keynesianism
SPECTRE:
So is the 21st Century going to offer a choice of
authoritarianisms_
No. I have never subscribed to authoritarianism, and
I think if the twenty-first century is going to be
authoritarian then we're all done for. On the
contrary, I think it has to be much more democratic.
Everything has to be done to build some sort of
international democracy. We've seen only the tiniest
beginnings of that, but that's why Seattle was so
important. The Working Party bases its approach on
Malthusianism, the idea, in a nutshell, that
population will grow geometrically while food
production grows arithmetically. Isn't this argument
demonstrably unsound_ Food production has grown
sufficiently to keep pace with population growth.
Can't it contunue to do so_ Why doesn't the Working
Party turn its mind to how this could be achieved in
a way which would be advantageous to capitalism_ I
used to work a lot on food issues and every time
somebody predicted that production would be
inadequate they got egg on their face a year or two
later. However there is now a trend which is
apparently downward, or at least stationary, because
of a physical backlash to the Green Revolution.
There's been a huge urbanisation and building over
of decent farmland, so there's not that much good
land left to exploit. Only around 2% of the earth's
surface is cultivatable land. The land tenure
changes that could have enhanced production in
places like Mexico have not taken place or have been
reversed. There are already a lot of factors
militating against increased food production, and if
we get anything resembling what the World Trade
Organisation (WTO) wants then we're going to kill
off an awful lot of small farmers. So I think there
will be a decline as population grows and that
people will have less and less control over their
food supply. Many people realise this and there are
places where resistance is growing as a result. I
think there's a good chance, however, that there
will be decreased production but also increased use
of what grain there is to feed rich people. The
question is not only what is grown but what it's
used for. There's not going to be a mass
transformation of dietary habits in rich countries -
on the contrary the first thing people do when they
become more prosperous is to buy more meat.
SPECTRE
So you do see overpopulation as a genuine
problem_
Oh,
I don't call it overpopulation. I always say, over
in relation to what_ I think that this pressure is
going to create such a box for the rich that they'll
be inclined to Lugano type solutions. Looked at from
the point of view of this class, what are their
alternatives_ The alternative solution, real
development, was the original rationale of the World
Bank, but now the Bank is the biggest culprit in the
debt crisis. And the debt has wiped out a lot of
what was previously achieved - it's the biggest and
best method of neo-colonialisrn. There is no degree
of human suffering which in and of itself is going
to bring about change. Only organisation can change
things. Lugano envisages a process which begins with
the re-education of western opinion and philosophy
through what you call "ideological opinion
moulding, ethical transformation and the creation of
a new cultural hegemony." Are we already
witnessing the beginnings of this_ We've been in it
for 25 years. I've done some work on how this
neo-liberal ideology has been shaped. After the war
there was none of this about. Even right wing
Republicans like Barry Goldwater in the l960s did
not promote such ideas. Everybody was some sort of
Social or Christian Democrat. There has been a
brilliant ideological offensive, foundations have
spent hundreds of millions of dollars, created
university chairs, financed magazines, and pumped
out propaganda about privatisation. This has been
very strong in America but also moved to the other
Anglo-Saxon countries and on from there. They
finance professors. PR people, thinktanks that make
proposals and know how to get them through,
lobbyists, columnist sindicated to hundreds of
newspapers. The left has failed to combat this, and
a hegemony has been established 'which can hardly be
questioned. Now we nave seen fashioned the idea that
people are dispensable, and the potential is there
for this to be given philosophical respectability -
you could build up an ethical systern which begins
by pointing out that the idea that every individual
is sacred is really recent, an 18th century idea.
SPECTRE:
Is what you call 'identity politics' part of this_
I
don't know if it was ever consciously part of this
offensive - all I know is that if I were trying to
lay the ground to implement the Lugano programme
then I would invest a great deal in supporting
everyone who had a grievance - you can always find a
grievance, and you'd better base a grievance against
people on much the same level as yourself, then
we'll let you fight it out. This is an endless
question - with identity politics you can never be
satisfied.
SPECTRE:
The Report suggests that food aid can be used to
increase hunger. How does this work, and has it
already been used in this way_
Oh
yes. You arrive with the aid just after the harvest,
ruining small farmers so that there are fewer around
to produce food the following year. You create a
taste for foods which cannot be produced locally
making the eating of bread a status symbol, for
example, in places where wheat cannot be grown. Well
if having enough to eat, being able to educate your
children, have reasonably stable employment, and
being able to live in a society which isn't
collapsing around you is what you want then, yes.
All of these things, which have been generally
eroded, become possible again, for the winners.
through Lugano. This erosion of the middle class is
happening all over the place. The opening of a wider
gap between rich and poor is always accompanied by
such a process, but Lugano might make it possible to
reverse this, to leave a populatIon which on average
would be more employable, less likely to need
welfare.
SPECTRE
The question you say that you are always asked
is, What can we do._ I'm afraid - because Spectre is
above all a magine for activists - that I going to
have to pose it again. You mention a number of ideas
in the annexe and afterword of the Report: the
development of imaginative transnational alliances;
a Tobin tax; an alternative, cooperative
globalisation involving people working together
across frontiers and cultures. Most of our readers
live in the UK, Scandinavia, the Netherlands and
North America - in, in other words, the world's
richest countries. What practically can people In
these countries do to try to stop the Lugano Report
from becoming a reality_
The
most important thing right now is the construction
of the bases of international democracy. If you
believe, as I do, that globalisation is led and
driven by TNCs, then you have to deal with what they
want and don't want: they don't want to govern by
themselves, because they don't want to be bothered
with the messy world of politics - but they want
freedom of investment, freedom of circulation of
capital. goods and services. The message is 'Don't
bug us, I want to get on with it. I want to be able
to produce as much as 1 want of what I want where I
want and for as long as I want and I don't want any
backtalk from the rest of you'. In order to get
governments TNCs need international institutions
such as the WTO, the World Bank, the International
Monetary Fund [IMF] - that's why there's been such
an enormous hue and cry about the setback to the WTO.
Combating the WTO is the most urgent thing - expose
what the TNCS are doing, who they are, what they
are. It's not what they produce or whatever that's
the problem - it's what they are. We must not let
them get the rules that they want. For example, we
should never talk about deregulation - things are
not being deregulated but reregulated in the
interests of the TNCs. Get into a movement - the
World Development Movement, to take just one
example, is doing good work. Some political parties
are, too - don't have anything to do with the Third
Way! How do we get democracy at the international
level when we haven't even begun to do that_ That's
our problem. and it's essentially the same problem
people faced in the 18th C when they tried to get
democracy nationally. Now w need it internationally.
SPECTRE
Spectre, and most of our readers, would add the
European Union to your list of international
institutions which must be combated_ Do you agree
with this view_
Absolutely!
Though I am not against 'Europe', just this Europe.
There are no existing institutions that do not serve
the interests of the TNCs, apart from toothless ones
such as the International Labour Organisation or the
European Parliament.
SPECTRE
What, then, can we do about the clear erosion of
democracy at the level of the nation state_
The
state is currently giving up power voluntarily. in
The Communist Manifesto, the nation state is
described as the executive committee of the
bourgeoisie. Now, it's fulfilling that role by
managing affairs for the TNCs. So we have to force
governments to stop giving up so much. If we push,
we can do this. We made it too hot for France to
stay in the Multilateral Agreement on Investments. A
lot of legislators have to be elected, they want to
keep their jobs, and they won't get elected because
they support the WTO, but they niight just get
elected because they don't. Parliamentarians can do
a lot to help, putting pressure on governments -
they have a terrible, almost impossible job. For
example, French parliamentarians got the WTO text in
1994 on a Friday evening, it's hundreds of pages
long, and they had to vote Tuesday morning. This is
part of the smashing through of new laws.
SPECTRE
The Working Party says that it is no part of it's
brief to speculate on alternative systems . It is,
however, implicit in what you have written that such
alternatives can and must be created. What would a
just world be like_
In
his book. The Great Transfornation -Karl Polanyi,
looking at the industrial revolution, shows that if
the economy becomes disembodied from society it can
only lead to disaster. Every society in the past has
made the economy subservient to its ends. Of course,
those ends can be horrible. But now we are flying
off into outer space, there is no clear curb on what
can be done in the name of the economy. There is a
need to re-embed the economy within the society, to
ask ourselves what the economy is for. There needs
to be a focus on inclusion. The Welfare State was a
good template. The problem is becoming more urgent,
because of ecological considerations. One thing the
Lugano working party was right about was that - we
can't go on like this. I have no definite programme.
I am only sure that we can't go on as we are doing.
When the French Revolution began they had no
blueprint. Susan George doesn't have all the answers
- that's why we're all needed, why we need
democracy, why we all need to he subjected to
democratic procedures.
Susan
George has written widely on development issues and
international affairs. She is Associate Director of
the Transnational Institute and the author of a long
list of books including How the Other Half Dies, A
Fate Worse than Debt, The Debt Boomerang and Faith
and Credit: The World Bank's Secular Empire. A
selection of shorter works, as well as further
information on her books and other activities, is
available on her website
Susan
George was speaking to Steve McGiffen and Marjorie
Tonge.
The Lugano Report is
published by Pluto Press, London and is available at
££9.99/ US$14.99. To order online - click here
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