Alan Woods on world perspectives 2008 – Part Two
By Alan Woods
www.marxist.com...
Monday, 28 January 2008
It is easy to have sterile discussions on economics, but the point for us is the effect this has on the class struggle. Yes, there's been an increase
in world trade and growth, but at the same time there has been a tremendous intensification of pressure on the working class. This has led to
explosions of class war, even during the best period from a capitalist point of view.
A formalist might ask why in places like Latin America, where the economy has grown so much, the living standards of the masses are not improving: the
answer is that the economies of Lain America grew precisely because the living standards have been stagnating!
The level of exploitation and merciless pressure on the workers is shown by Japan. There's a new term in Japanese: "karoshi" - death from overwork.
I recently read a report about a man in Japan who collapsed and died after working 80 hours in a row. Companies are even taken to court for this. In
1998 only 4% of karoshi cases were won. In 2005, 40% were accepted!
Lots of people in the Western countries are accumulating dozens of hours of overtime (often unpaid). 1,780 hours overtime per person per year is
Japan's average. In the USA it's 1,800, in Germany 1,400. The tendency toward casualisation and part-time work is very strong.
Now the economy is stalling. The Christmas sales in Britain were dismal. In Germany, growth is expected to fall from 2.6% to 2%, but some are
predicting even lower figures like 1.1% in 2008. In France, Sarkozy thinks he can attack the workers but they immediately reacted and his popularity
has already fallen by 17%. In Italy, there was the marvellous demonstration of half a million workers in Rome, in little Denmark there was a
demonstration of 100,000 against cuts, which is even bigger in proportion to the size of population. There was a general strike in Greece last month,
and even big strikes in Switzerland.
What is the reason for this? Even during a boom, the capitalists can't accept the maintenance of concessions made in past, let alone any new reforms.
In all countries, pensions are under attack, in Mexico for example, where we had a revolutionary situation just 18 months ago.
We alone understood the Mexican situation. Is the PRD a bourgeois party? Maybe, but 3 million workers and peasants marching for Lopez Obrador and
against the electoral fraud were not bourgeois! Mexico will be the country most affected by the US economic crisis. Entire areas in Mexico depend on
money sent back by immigrants who are also under attack, and are being deported.
It's difficult to build a Marxist group in the heat of a revolution. But in Pakistan and Mexico we had cadre organisations before the real start of
big events.
Future events will have a big effect on mass organisations. But there is a major problem. It is not a problem of the working class, but a problem of
leadership. The mass organisations created to transform society have now been transformed into monstrous obstacles. They put forward pro-bourgeois
policies. In the past, at least in words they stood for socialism and communism - at least on May Day. Now they are so degenerated that in Italy the
DS (the former Communist Party!) has fused with other bourgeois parties to form a bourgeois party.
Italy is the sick man of Europe. The reason why the bourgeoisie pushed Veltroni into forming this new party, the Democratic Party, is because they
have no party to rely upon. What are its chances? The bourgeois will launch a massive media campaign for the new party. That will have an effect.
Veltroni will be very popular in the beginning and the vote for Rifondazione Comunista will be sharply reduced, but the reason for the bourgeois to
have Veltroni in power is to have him implement a policy of deep cuts. This will ca
