International Courier
An IWL-FI Publication New Epoch Number 138
April 2008
IWL-FI STATEMENT FOR THE FIRST OF MAY
Capitalism in its decadence drives us to poverty and
famine
Let us respond to the “food crisis” with
struggles of the toiling masses
Every First of May, we, the workers
commemorate the “Chicago martyrs”, the
battles for an eight-hour labour day and we render honours to all those who
fell in the many battles the toiling masses fought against capitalist
exploitation and oppression. It is also part of the tradition to pose the need
for a socialist revolution as a way of overcoming to overcome the evils of
capitalism and finally to voice a summons to support and extend the struggles
that, with different claims, are being carried out all over the world. This
deep meaning of the First of May is more valid today than ever before.
In the course of the last few weeks, we
have witnessed a number off revolts and uprisings breaking out in many
countries against the increase in the price of food. This increase had already
been taking place, but in these last weeks it soared so high that it made the
situation of the most impoverished masses unbearable. Robert Zoelik, director
of the World Bank, defined this situation as “one of the most serious food
crises in the history of this planet” originated in a 48% general increase of
the prices of the food in one year but here the climb has been even steeper
with such products as rice (75%)[1]
United Nations and different media reported
facts of this type in Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Egypt, Guinea, Guinea Bissau,
Haiti, Indonesia, Morocco, Mauritania and Senegal. The World Bank warned that
“33 countries are facing potential social conflicts due to the steep climb of
the prices of food.”[2]
These countries are part of the poorest
nations on this planet and that is where the impoverished masses have risen.
This is a genuine “rebellion of the hungry of the world”. According to data
provided by specialised bodies of the United Nations, about 800 million people
are starving in this world as their nourishment is beneath the minimum needs of
a human being. As far as they are concerned, this increase in prices is not
just eat a little less or food of lower quality. It means starvation. That
spells a veritable genocide committed by the capitalist imperialist system in
the XXI century. The “revolt of the hungry” represents, therefore, a real
battle for life or death.
Outstanding among these uprisings is that
of the Haitian people who are also up against the occupation of the “blue
helmets” of the UN and Egypt; thousands of textile workers from Al Mahala are
at the head of this rebellion. Also in Senegal and Burkina Faso, the working
class is taking the lead. These countries are showing us the way and the urgent
need for the working class of the entire world to give a conclusive response of
struggle against capitalism for their own physical survival.
Even if it affects essentially the poorest
countries, “the crisis of food” is expressed all over the world. In Venezuela,
rich in oil but dependant on imported food, shortage and undersupply increasingly
erode workers’ wages. Mexico, once a traditional farming producer, has lost its
“feeding sovereignty” and has become an importer after some years of NAFTA. At
present, the popular corn omelette has become a luxury.
In Brazil, the great producer and exporter
of food, the price of feijao (a kind of black bean) and rice, main components
of popular nourishment, has increased respectively 207% in a year and 21% in
the last month alone. Even Argentina, historic granary of the world, whose
production is sufficient to feed ten times the size of their population, the
toiling masses suffer lack of provisions and constant increase in the price of
fundamental products. Nor do the imperialist countries get away with it. Italy
and France experienced the increase in the price of pasta and butter; USA was
affected by an average increase of 4% in 2007, the highest rate since 1990.[3]
The increase in prices is not due to
shortage or a slide down in the production. Quite to the contrary, technologic
advance and super exploitation of the land make farming and food raw materials
grow more and more, faster than the growth of the world population. At the same
time, fewer and fewer people can afford to buy them. This was admitted by
Josette Sheeran, executive director of World Alimentary Plan of the UN, “We
stand in front of a new phase of hunger: in spite of the fact that there is
food in the shops, fewer and fewer people can afford to buy it.”[4]
Specialists foresee no fast solution and
things may go on like this for years, a terrible perspective for hundreds of
millions of hungry people in the world and a greater menace for all the toiling
masses.
Why do price of food go up if production is
increasing? The answer to that question clearly indicates the absolutely
inhuman and irrational character of the capitalist system in its decadence: the
increasing concentration of markets which means that just a few corporations
can control the entire world trade of food and think only of their profit; the
concentration by agribusiness on just a few products of high international
price without taking into account the nourishing necessities of the world
population; the driving of millions of peasants off of their lands; the
dedication of nourishing raw materials to the production of fuels; and the
transformation of food markets into “gambling casinos” by speculative and
parasitical capital.
The
economic crisis makes things worse
IWL-FI declares that the increase of price
and the “crisis of food” are the outcome of the deepest structural trends of
the capitalist system and that this structural root is aggravated to extremes
by the world economic crisis that is just beginning.
The governments of the capitalist countries
have so far spent over $600 billion dollars trying to stop or to lessen the world
financial crisis that started with the end of the “speculative bubble” on the
real estate market in the USA and other countries. They are prepared to do
whatever may be necessary in order to save the banks and corporations involved
in this speculation but not to solve the problem of the hunger of the world.
Actually, the increase in the price of the food is a way of making us, the
workers, pay for this economic crisis.
At the same time, the world food market,
with the system of “futures contracts” increasingly resembles a “gambling
casino.” It is a casino that has just been joined by new “gamblers”: a part of
the capital that used to speculate on the real estate market has now switched
to commodities, especially oil, minerals and cereals, creating a new
“speculative bubble” and increasing artificially the demand and consequently
the price.
Simultaneously, the great oil companies and
also the speculators, take advantage of the instability in the Middle East
resulting from the failure of the Bush policies in the area, to push the price
of oil to above $100 a barrel and this affects directly or indirectly on the
price of the food. As usual, evils accumulate for workers.
Capitalism
cannot solve the hunger of the world
The first reaction to the “hunger revolts”
has been a vicious repression exerted by governments of the countries where
they took place. It is true that, at the same time, international organisations
such as the IMF and the World Bank and even the very governments of imperialist
countries have expressed their “deep concern” and the need to discuss and adopt
measures.
These are crocodile tears from those who
defend the interest of the corporations that profit from the crisis or from
organisations that imposed economical policies that spawned this crisis. They
also express the fear that the “revolt of the hungry” may spread and threaten
to shake the world from its foundations.
In the best of cases, their proposals are
restricted to increasing “humanitarian aid” to the affected countries, something
that for decades now has proved totally unable to solve the problem of hunger
in the world for it does not and does not intend to modify the deep causes that
spawn the trouble. The total impotence of the actions and statements of such
organisations as the FAO (an organisation of the UN for farming and feeding)
has proved to be pathetic.
In the XIX century, Karl Marx said that the
functioning of the capitalist system inevitably led to “increasing poverty” of
more and more numerous masses. Today this statement emerges before us in its
worst prospect: increasing hunger affecting hundred of millions of inhabitants
of the planet,
In the 1990s, after the fall of the USSR
and the restoration of capitalism in the former workers’ states, capitalism
declared itself to be historically “triumphant” and the only way to improve the
living standards of mankind. A few years after that “triumph”, the crisis of
food and the revolt of the hungry reveal the extremes of degradation to which
imperialist capitalism can take us. It is a system unable to guarantee the most
elementary of the human rights (food for all the inhabitants of the planet) and
condemns hundreds of millions to starvation.
As long as the production and the
commercialisation of food are controlled by the great international groups of speculators
it will not be possible to change this situation. The alternative is clear:
either the craving for profit of these groups or the needs and life of hundreds
of thousands of people. Faced with such an alternative, the IWL-FI takes the
side of poor of the world against the “owners of food”.
Only a system with a centrally planned
economy, which will use the existing resources and organise them in the service
of the satisfaction of the basic needs of the workers and the peoples of the
world, can put a definite end to hunger in the world. In order to achieve this,
it is necessary to expropriate the great corporations that dominate over the
world economy. That is why assert of conviction that there is an urgent need
for international socialist revolution to destroy the imperialist capitalist
system
While we are fighting for this future, we
are aware of the fact that the hungry of the world need immediate answers to
alleviate the anguish they live in and so those workers who envisage hunger and
poverty as an encroaching danger. The working class and the toiling masses of
the world cannot wait passively: they have to fight for their physical
survival. It is absolutely necessary for the working class to take the lead of
all the impoverished masses and lead the battle.
That is why, on this First of May, the IWL-FI calls on all the
organisations of workers, popular, trade unions and social groupings to
organise and give an impulse to this struggle against the hunger. The IWL-FI commits
all our strength in the service of this task and proposes the following
programme of action. Obviously, it is a programme that requires concrete
adaptations specific to the reality of each country.
·
Price control
by organisations of the toiling masses
·
Wage increases in accordance to the increase of
the price of food
·
For a minimum
salary covering the basic needs of a family (food, health, education and
housing)
·
Workers’
control over the great food corporations. We demand that workers should have
access to corporate accounting records
·
Stop
profiteering on peoples’ hunger. Expropriation without paying any indemnity to
the great farming and industrial corporations producing food
·
Nourishment
is a social right, the same as health and education. We demand that the State
and the governments guarantee it for the entire population
·
Emergency
economic plans to satisfy the basic needs of the population, especially food
·
For workers’
and popular governments to apply such measures
Sao Paulo, 22 April 2008
International
Secretariat
International
Workers’ League – IV International