WORLD WORLDWIDE FRANCE News Journal Update - (en) France, OCL CA #334 - After the coup in Chile, the neoliberal wave (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 

50 years after the military coup which ended the government of Salvador
Allende, commemorations took place. Most focused on the repression
suffered by the population, highlighting human rights and obscuring
another aspect of this coup: the establishment of a new form of
capitalist exploitation: neoliberalism. ---- The leading figure of this
economic movement is Milton Friedman. This theorist campaigns for
freedom of prices and wages. Thus, the functions of the State must be
limited to its sovereign functions. This translates into total freedom
for capitalists, exploitation and repression for workers, destruction of
public services, etc.
Friedman held a teaching position at the University of Chicago for
several decades. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for economics in 1976.
He trained a number of students, notably Chileans, at the Chicago School
- hence their nickname "Chicago Boys" - then at the Pontifical Catholic
University. of Santiago. They are essentially the ones who will write
the neoliberal program implemented by Pinochet's government. The
principle is to consider that the economy is no longer a matter of human
and political choices, but is naturalized and must be treated like any
natural science. Consequently, we must let economic mechanisms act
without any intervention, particularly from the State: free functioning
of markets, freedom of prices and wages... The strongest win every time;
the others manage in a totally unbalanced balance of power for the
benefit of the capitalists.
This program was implemented very quickly in Chile: privatization of
state companies, authorization of new forms of speculative finance,
opening of borders to goods, 10% reduction in state spending (except for
the army), end of price control (even for basic foodstuffs).
In 1974, inflation rose to 375% (twice as much as under Allende); and
unemployment is also on the rise (by 20% after a year of Pinochet
government), due to competition from imported products over those from
Chile. The main beneficiaries of these political choices are foreign
companies, which are not subject to any constraints, and speculators,
nicknamed "piranhas".
But the Chicago Boys are campaigning to continue and amplify this
neoliberal policy in order to curb the "50 years of state intervention":
public spending will be reduced by 27% in 1975, and by half compared to
those under Allende in 1980. .
The consequences for the Chilean population are dramatic. From 1973 to
1983, the industrial sector lost 177,000 jobs. The country is plunged
into a great recession which is sharply increasing poverty.
Several public services are in turmoil. The school system is reformed:
public schools are replaced by charter schools giving access to "study
vouchers". In health, we impose the idea of the user paying.
Kindergartens and cemeteries are privatized...
In 1982, the Chilean economy was on the ground, the public debt was
exploding, inflation continued to rise, 30% of the working population
was unemployed - and the "piranhas" had accumulated a debt of 14 billion
dollars vis-à-vis towards Chile.
In 1988, 45% of Chileans lived below the poverty line, while the richest
10% saw their income increase by 83%. In 2007, Chile is one of the most
unequal countries in the world.

This neoliberal policy does not remain confined to Chile. In the 1980s,
the bourgeoisie adopted it elsewhere.
Thus, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher worked to implement it in Great
Britain. In 1984, a miners' strike broke out who fought, among other
things, against the closure of the pits. It lasts one year. The miners
get nothing. One of the issues concerned the evolution of capitalism.
With this defeat, Thatcher has free rein to implement the policy
advocated by her friend Friedman. Great Britain is experiencing its
share of privatizations, but also of state disengagement, the
liberalization of the circulation of capital by the end of exchange
controls, the limitation of the right to strike, the repression of
workers, etc. Living and working conditions are deteriorating sharply. A
significant part of the population is impoverished. "There is no
alternative" became one of the most famous slogans of the "Iron Lady".
It enjoys worldwide success with rulers and the bourgeoisie.

The same is true in the United States. Shortly after arriving at the
White House in 1980, Ronald Reagan faced a strike by air traffic
controllers - he managed to break it. Thus, Friedman's ideas are once
again implemented. It is always the workers who suffer the consequences,
with the tightening of conditions of exploitation, both in terms of work
and life in general. We are witnessing a growing impoverishment of part
of the American population, and the income gap between the rich and the
workers continues to grow.
The neoliberal wave is sweeping the planet. In France, the governments
of the left, alternating with those of the right, fit into this mold
without the slightest resistance: it will be who can privatize the best,
break public services, reduce workers' rights always in order to toughen
the conditions of employment. exploitation for the benefit of
capitalists. Precariousness and flexibility are widely developed; the
retirement age is increasing; Social Security is increasingly
state-controlled, with the corollary of its weakening in favor of
private insurers. Public services are sold piecemeal - health, PTT, then
France Telecom. The unemployment rate is increasing at the same time as
benefits are falling and the conditions for qualifying for them are
tightening. The creation of the RMI, then the RSA, will establish the
idea that we can no longer really stem unemployment. We give a few
crumbs to maintain almost unbearable living conditions.
The icing on the cake is that some will now have to work for free to
receive RSA benefits. The living conditions of undocumented immigrants
are increasingly harsh in order to force them to accept totally degraded
jobs (being in an illegal situation, it is very difficult for them to
assert rights recognized by the Labor Code; let's not talk about wages,
working hours, etc.). These jobs are essential in agriculture,
construction or catering, so that they are profitable: these are the
famous "sectors in tension" (new formula to designate a situation that
has existed for decades).
All this has a logic. By raising the retirement age, we force people who
lose their job to accept another one in poor conditions to finish their
career. By reducing unemployment benefits and tightening the conditions
for qualifying for them, we are forcing people to accept any job. And
the same for undocumented immigrants. Thus we exploit different segments
of the population (to use technocratic vocabulary) so that they put
pressure, in spite of themselves, on the labor market to intensify
exploitation by lowering wages and degrading working conditions.
The bourgeoisie is lucid: it wants to limit the risks regarding the
maintenance of its hegemony and profit rates. It must protect itself
against mobilizations against poverty, the deterioration of living
conditions and the environmental crisis. This is why a repressive and
population control apparatus is developed by gradually hardening,
whatever the color of successive governments.
African countries are also suffering the consequences. The social
situation of each of them is catastrophic. Imperialist relations are
increasingly exacerbated, leading millions of people to poverty, even
death through famine, war, disease... The imposition of neoliberal
policies has greatly worsened the situation in many countries, Africa in
particular: the harassment orchestrated by Western states, the IMF and
the World Bank against them to repay their debts has largely contributed
to the destruction of their public services as well as the
impoverishment of entire sections of their populations .

It's a real wave that has been breaking for half a century. It is clear
that, for the moment, we have not found the tools to oppose it. The
defeat of the movement against the increase in the retirement age in
2023 is yet another demonstration of this.
Fortunately, movements continue to emerge around the world, although
Covid has put a temporary halt to them. It is by developing convergences
of class interests that new power relationships can be built. They will
be able to ask the question of breaking with capitalism, putting an end
to productivism, building societies which will be ecologically viable,
based on social equality, solidarity, the return to human - local -
dimensions in order to extract from these large groups which can only be
managed by States and require infrastructures that destroy the planet.

J. Christophe

http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article3985
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca