(en) France, Alternative Libertair AL 11th Congress - Against free trade: productive autonomy (fr)

Since the global economic crisis began in late 2007, the criticism of free trade is now in 
vogue in Europe and in France. During the 2012 presidential campaign, there has been, the 
FN PCF, a revival of the idea of ??"protectionism". -- If only FN defends protectionism 
French borders, all government parties - UMP, Modem, PS, PG, PCF, EELV - defend 
protectionism European borders, using various formulas such as "economic patriotism", the 
"fair trade" or "de-globalization". ---- This idea is also supported by a number of 
intellectuals in the social right as Emmanuel Todd, antisocial as Jean-Luc Gr?au, or left 
as Jacques Sapir, the movement of MPEP and Le Monde Diplomatique . ---- To enable this 
protectionism is mentioned most often the implementation of social and environmental 
standards that penalize manufacturing in emerging countries, but also tools like Buy 
European Act , which the U.S. model would reserve procurement companies occurring in the 
European territory.

It is also not just a speech, but a fact. Since 2008, protectionist measures are growing 
around the world, while the process of deregulation of markets, orchestrated by the World 
Trade Organization since 1994, has stalled.

The return of protectionism in the world
Manipulation of exchange rates, subsidies, non-respect of intellectual property, taxation 
of social and environmental standards ... the current trend in the world is to 
protectionist measures.

Observatory Global Trade Alert, London, has recorded a steady increase in these measures - 
total 1200 2008 to early 2012 - in the countries acceding to the WTO. Taxes and customs 
duties strictly represent only a minority share (16%) [ 1 ]. China, Russia, India and the 
Mercosur (Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay) are at the forefront of this protectionist 
movement [ 2 ].

Thus, in 2011, Brazil has decided to tax 30% manufactured vehicles with less than 65% of 
parts from the Mercosur area. Shortly after, Argentina has banned the sale of smartphones 
manufactured abroad, forcing manufacturers LG, Samsung and Nokia to locate their assembly 
on its territory [ 3 ]. End of 2011, the Mercosur is imposing 30% tax on imports. By March 
2011, Russia banned the import of certain foodstuffs to support local production in June, 
she took measures to safeguard its automobile industry. In December 2011, India suspended 
plans to open the retail sector to foreign multinationals like Wal-Mart, Carrefour and 
Tesco. In March 2012, the U.S. Senate authorized the Department of Commerce to apply 
countervailing duties on Chinese imports to punish considered unfair competition, the 
Chinese government subsidizing massively companies.

The double discourse of capitalist
Powerful countries take when it suits them, liberties with the rules of free trade they 
gradually imposed on the world. Even say that it is unfortunate whenever they need to make 
an official statement, as in the G20 in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012!

Poor countries dependent on imperialist domination or direct control, however, are 
condemned to remain "open markets" for the benefit of Western and Asian multinationals.

This silent return of protectionism worldwide brand he a pause, not assumed, in the 
process of free trade, or the beginning of a regression of one? It is not for us to say. 
This will depend on the situation, both protectionism and free trade are two strategies 
that capitalists handle alternately, according to economic sectors, times interest.

Two fractions of the same bourgeoisie may also disagree about it. "Unfair competition" is 
always the other. The capitalist type is readily ultraliberal others. It may, on the one 
hand, vilifying "interventionism" and the other to accept the intervention of the State in 
its favor. It calls for the removal of trade barriers in the markets it wants to enter, 
and at the same time that he willingly accepts book captive markets. Should not seek 
ideological coherence. The only capitalist dogma, it is the private ownership of the means 
of production and distribution. Everything else is adaptable to circumstances.

The ravages of free trade
Presented as a condition of "development", free trade is the official ideology of large 
organizations created by rich countries to dominate the world economy, the International 
Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, G20. Their credo: the removal 
of barriers and the international division of labor will be prosperity for all. In each 
country to specialize in the economic sector in which it has the greatest assets, and 
abandon others.

For fifteen years, the neoliberals have sharpened their rhetoric on this "new 
international division of labor" formerly the South provided raw materials, and the North 
manufactures. Today, Western capitalism always assigned to the southern supply raw 
materials to China and emerging countries to host the polluting factories and West high 
technology and brainpower. This presentation is the fantasy of a high-tech country, 
stripped of its factories and its workers. But it is undermined by the reality that the 
so-called "emerging" are eg producers of intellectual services and high-tech India for IT, 
China industrial design and electronics.

The big winners of the international division of labor are not the workers from any 
country whatsoever, but multinationals that control the entire game real consequences of 
free trade, it is social dumping , fiscal dumping, relocations, mergers, monocultures, 
mono-industries, the ratio of transit time of goods, increasing pollution, the market for 
"pollution rights" ... and monstrous profits for the capitalists North, South and emerging 
countries.

Free trade therefore leads to a triple disaster: a disaster social worker 
deindustrialization and unemployment in the West forced industrialization and working 
poverty in developing countries, farmers dispossessed and hungry in the South; ecological 
disaster: the relocation of production leads lengthening disproportionate economic cycles 
and the scaling of transport and pollution, with an impact on global climate catastrophe 
democratic a country deprived of all or part of its productive apparatus loses its 
economic autonomy, and sees reduced by all the leeway in its political and social. This 
considerably weakens the revolutionary perspective of socialization of the means of 
production and a collective choice on consumption patterns.




The two sides of the same coin
In the controversy that pits rising protectionism to free trade, many arguments are 
invoked in bad faith, which can fool the social movement, forced to choose between two 
"camps" none of which are his. A as Both are warmongers . If the protectionist policies of 
imperialist tensions can lead to control a captive market - what were the colonial empires 
of the past - the did not cancel this dynamic, as shown by the Iraq war. Tomorrow, more 
than the control of markets, it is the struggle for control of natural resources which can 
be a factor of geopolitical tensions. A Both his misery mongers . Protectionist policies 
may lead to higher prices and lower purchasing power of workers and workers in the North 
and the South. But free trade is organizing it, social dumping rampant, unemployment 
worker and peasant ruin. Both An organized competition between workers . If free trade is 
the fierce competition at the global level, protectionism is competition within a limited 
economic space: the European Union, for example, putting in competition 27 different 
social legislation. A Both are interclassist . Both try to believe that the proletariat 
must tighten their belts and agree with employers on behalf of the "national interest" or 
competitiveness in the global market. Neither one nor the other is anti- statist . They 
are in a multinational free trade, or monopolies in a protectionist, big companies need 
the device diplomatic, military and police power of a so-called public to defend their 
interests. Neither the other are not the "self-sufficiency" . This is exactly what the 
free traders blame most commonly protectionists while historically, this has never been 
made, even in the most protectionist phases of capitalism.







Three options to the crisis in the euro area
This false opposition between liberalism and protectionism is found in advanced solutions 
in response to the crisis in the euro zone in which the German economy occupies a key 
position.

However, it is easy to see by the dominant role played it, our commentators most often 
fail to specify the conditions under which exports were boosted by a strong social decline 
(decline in wages of 4.5% average between 2000 and 2009, insecurity and impoverishment of 
a large part of the proletariat).

Faced with this, few options are present in perspective: the supporters of free trade, 
mainly in France represented by the PS, UMP employers and their satellites, we propose to 
catch up on Germany and organize a "clash of competitiveness" through a renewed austerity: 
lower wages, lower social rights, breaking utilities, massive public subsidies to 
employers, etc.. , the most reactionary right, but also a part of the left more open to 
the sirens of protectionism offer for them to abolish the euro and return to national 
currencies in order to have other levers that the lowest social and wages to regain 
competitiveness. However, this would merely change the rules of competition in the 
capitalist market, contrary to the vision that opposes them countries like Germany to 
Greece, anti-capitalists should focus on the community of interest between working classes 
of all countries in the euro area. This is why we can only find ourselves on the goals of 
regaining lost social rights in Germany and elsewhere, to fight against the decline in the 
countries of the euro area as a whole, in a logic of international solidarity between workers.




The alternative: productive autonomy
For nearly twenty years, environmental organizations, workers and peasants of the North 
and the South - Alternative libertarian among them - have fought and are fighting against 
free trade and deregulation of markets. But now that protectionist rhetoric back in force, 
it must be clear that it is not under the flag as we continue the fight.

It should nevertheless be heard from workers' threatened by redundancy plans and 
relocations, and lend an ear to bourgeois politicians when they claim protectionism.

It is therefore crucial that the social movements, to avoid the risk of being led astray 
by the protectionist rhetoric that is a false choice, clearly state, with their own words, 
that the alternative to free trade, is the autonomy productive.

The international Via Campesina peasant said this way since 1996, defining the concept of 
"food sovereignty": each region must be able to feed itself without placing itself under 
the control of the multinationals of the agribusiness. So not to export agriculture, GMOs, 
to land grabbing, monocultures, imperialism, yes local production under the control of 
farmers and the population. International trade should be confined to so-called exotic. 
Anything that can be produced locally can not be imported from the other side of the 
world. The libertarians have accused the concept of "food sovereignty" aggravate hunger in 
the world and be protectionist. Instead, it was the internationalist cement peasant 
struggles in the South as in the North.

Due to the triple disaster social, ecological and democratic which leads free trade, we 
say that social movements in the West, Asia or Africa can now converge in the sense of 
"autonomy productive" every region of the world. This autonomy is productive in the 
interest of the people threatened by social dumping and relocations, whether in the West 
or in Asia, and in the interest of the people that free trade was sentenced to economic 
dependence, particularly in Africa . Relocation of production is a necessity. This does 
not mean spooky "autarky", but short circuits of exchange, and limiting long exchanges 
that can not be produced locally.

Productive autonomy involves reducing production to the needs of the people and to break 
with productivism. This reduction leads to a second: that of working time. And then a 
third: that of profits.

This is why the autonomy of each productive region of the world hinders the interests of 
capitalists. It can only come against them, under the pressure of the people and under the 
control of Workers.

The fight against free trade and productive autonomy must be part of a broader struggle 
for socialism against imperialism and ecology. It can match with claims that may be 
brought by social movements in the North and the South and in emerging countries against 
the fiscal and social dumping, against export subsidies for production indexed to the 
needs of populations, to break with the WTO, the abolition of public debt in both North 
and South.



Relocation of industry claimed by the current protectionist n?ok?n?sien are only 
marginally possible against the logic of the global market. However they are a nationalist 
discourse as opposed to building solidarity. Relocations we defend is only possible in a 
movement to break with the market economy and can wear internationalist activism 
advocating social equality, ecological and democratic global scale.

[ 1 ] The World Economy March 27, 2012.

[ 2 ] "From China to Russia, protectionist measures are growing," Echoes of 8 March 2012.

[ 3 ] The Expansion of March 2012.