Capitalism taking over planet

Horn is a third-year environmental studies student.

By Greg Horn

During the weekend of April 21, political demonstrations were
held in Quebec, at the United States-Mexican border and as far
south as Argentina in order to protest the newest piece of
free-trade legislation: the Free Trade Area of the Americas.

Though the FTAA is part of a larger framework of
government-sponsored corporate action which erodes the democratic
freedoms we claim to have in this country, we need to understand
the actions of corporate-driven entities such as the World Trade
Organization.

At the same time, we also need to understand the significance of
student involvement in the general fight against corporate
dominance in the lives of the world’s people.

Illustration by JASON CHEN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff The WTO and
our corporate government carry out very secret meetings where
agreements are made that negatively affect millions of people
without the consent of those people.

Even when the site of the meeting is known, as was the case when
the WTO met in Seattle and Prague and at the International Monetary
Fund’s meetings in Washington D.C., discussions are carried
out by powerful people who have no sense of responsibility to the
mass of people they affect.

Corporations claim that they are fostering progress this way in
our society. Amartya Sen, a recent Nobel Peace Prize-winner in
economics has a different paradigm for progress than the
corporations that run our media. He says that the development of a
country must be looked at in terms of the freedoms it brings to its
people.

In the United States we are told that we live in one of the
most, if not the most, developed nations in the world, yet I am
constantly presented with the inability to make the following
choice: do I clothe myself and support sweatshops, or do I walk
around naked?

Since I need to wear some form of clothing, I am forced to
contribute to sweatshop labor: this provides me with no choice at
all (except perhaps with respect to which country the sweatshop
comes from). This lack of choice is pitting me against my brothers
and sisters around the world who work in the most inhumane
conditions everyday.

This represents a conspiracy against the humanity within us. I
refuse to believe that the monsters the leaders of corporations
have become is naturally within me; I still have that choice.

We need to realize that corporations and the global economy have
not always existed in the forms they do now. Agreements like the
North American Free Trade Agreement don’t just happen; people
who are willing to exploit other people have to make them happen.
The WTO decision that a corporation, which is definitely not a
person, can sue a government if that government impedes upon its
“right” to make a profit (even at the expense of
democratically approved environmental and labor standards) is not a
natural idea.

It is, once again, a creation made by people willing to exploit
other people and the earth. The neoliberal, laissez-faire approach
to the economy where governments have less power than corporations
is the end result of ideas begun in the 1950s, which were first
really acted upon in the early 1970s.

Political scientist Jeanne Kirkpatrick, one of Ronald
Reagan’s most influential cabinet members, attracted Reagan
with a paper that reignited cold-war rhetoric and consequently
cold-war action, action which continues to this day and allows for
those of us who criticize the corporate structure of society to be
dismissed as idealists and nothing more.

The thesis of her paper was essentially that in the face of
rising actions that “threatened American interests”
(specifically the revolutionary movements that were occurring in
Central America at the time), the United States government need not
sit idly by and accept the flow toward communism, which she
criticized the Carter administration of doing.

To put it simply, the paper meant that if the United
States/corporate state needed to defend its interests, it needed to
do so at any cost. This amounted to the aiding of Central American
governments, mostly through CIA assistance, to repress democratic
movements in the states of Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua.

Conversely, those of us who want to see all human beings living
decent lives do not need to accept the progression toward a
completely corporate-dominated world. If this means that we must
“oppress” corporations and fight the conspiracy against
our humanity, then so be it.

The alternative that stands before us is to take action against
corporations and demand that they treat their workers as human
beings and allow them to live lives as people, not as producers and
consumers only.

The work of the Korean Immigrant Workers Advocates has recently
resulted in the payment of back pay for immigrant workers in
Koreatown who were working in a restaurant sweatshop. They were
also able to set provisions that will make sure the workers are
being treated more fairly.

The Fair Trade Coffee campaign on our campus has resulted in
Associated Students UCLA adopting a fair trade brew on our campus,
as well as the UCLA Medical Center completely switching all of
their coffee to fair trade. The work of the United Students Against
Sweatshops, in conjunction with other progressively-minded media
and nongovernmental organizations, has recently helped workers in
the Kukdong factory in Mexico to organize a union, which had been
severely repressed by the management.

The feeling that we as individuals can do nothing toward a
greater good is a fundamentally flawed argument. We live in
societies and our actions are collective. If the collective action
of us all is simply inaction towards the oppression that exists,
then indeed, nothing will get done.

It’s true that there are pressures against us. Our
“education” has been structured to make us hate
learning. This must not stand. The next time it seems like a
“hassle” to learn about the injustices of this world
and what can be done about them, think about why you believe there
is “no time” to do so.

Think about why being a “productive member of
society” does not necessarily mean making it a more beautiful
place, but relies upon exploiting human beings who have dreams and
children.

Tackling these questions allows one to realize the lack of
freedom that exists in the contradiction of a “capitalistic
democracy.” Begin the process of freeing yourself
individually through these criticisms, and collectively we will be
more ready to make change as a society that is long lasting.

The week of April 30-May 4 is International Workers Week. A
coalition of student groups has come together to expose issues of
labor exploitation from as close as our campus, to Mexico, to as
far away as India and connections that exist between all three
institutions.

Please join the rally for our campus workers today as they
renegotiate their contract, and fight for more control over the
jobs that control their lives. Meet at the Bear at 3:15 p.m. and
join the march to the Medical Center.