Capitalism: A curse, not a cure [ SOUTH AFRICA]
by: David Masondo
The 1976 June uprising in South Africa opened the floodgates for popular struggles, which ultimately made racial capitalism unprofitable. In response to this, Zac de Beer, the then-director of the Anglo American company, said: “We all understand how years of apartheid have caused many blacks to reject the economic and political system ... We dare not allow the baby of free enterprise to be thrown out with the bath water of apartheid.�
De Beer’s response was a call for reform and defense of capitalism as a system run by capitalists or entrepreneurs who, like parasites, prey on the working class. His vision was of a post-apartheid rainbow parasitism in which the race, gender, and age of parasites must be reformed. From this perspective, the process of “transformation� is meant to incorporate women and black people in the capitalist structures of production, distribution and consumption.
Indeed, the post-apartheid South Africa has thrown away the bath water of apartheid and retained the baby of capitalism, resulting in the current high levels of poverty, which adversely affect young people.
Amid this abject poverty, a clarion call has been made for young people to be entrepreneurs (read capitalists) and embrace the spirit of entrepreneurship (read capitalist ideology) as an integral part of the “transformation� process under the rubric of black economic empowerment. This bolsters capitalism as a system driven by profit as opposed to people’s needs.
Capitalists needs capital and labor in order to make profit. The lower the cost of these, the greater the profit.
In our country, the emergence of young entrepreneurs depends on the state and white monopoly capital.
State institutions/funds, such as the National Empowerment Fund, Micro Agricultural Finance Scheme, and Ntsika and Umsobomvu Youth Fundhave been created to provide money for youth to buy resources in order to exploit labor. The Department of Trade and Industry website is full of tips on how to be a good parasite. It says nothing on youth co-ops!
Since capitalism is based on competition over access to capital or resources, there is also a battle among young capitalists over the control of state institutions that control state capital. It is not accidental that the fight for the Umsobomvu fund and other youth entrepreneurial agencies is mainly about class struggle among young capitalists. This may even take the form of graft where the entrepreneurs corrupt state officials in order to access “tender capital.�
There exists an entrepreneurship myth that everyone can be a capitalist under capitalism. By its nature the capitalist system can only have a few capitalists, and other people must provide labor as the source of their livelihood. This labor must also be cheap. In the recent past there has been a call for deregulation of the labor markets so that buying of labor by capitalists can be cheap in order to grow the small capitalists.
There is also a myth that it is only through capitalism that we can create jobs. But capitalists stole the means of work through the 1843 vagrancy law, the 1857 Kaffir Act, and 1913 Land Act, and black people were left with no economic resources except their labor power to sell to capitalists. If the working class could reclaim the means of work, they could work for themselves. It is not the aim of capitalists to create jobs. If it were possible to make profits without creating jobs, capitalists would do it.
Working class youth cannot live on a diet of Marxist theory. For this reason, they must struggle for anti-capitalist transitional reforms to meet their basic needs. The immediate task of the working class youth is not to build capitalists, but to build cooperatives as a basis for a socialist future. State and private capital must be used to fund this.
Capitalism is a like a poison—it kills. It preys on death and the poverty of the working class. The clarion call for the building of young capitalists is tantamount to a call for the creation of more poverty.
If the future is the youth, and the youth are capitalists, then our future will be that of the majority getting poorer and the rich getting richer.
David Masondo is national chairperson of the Young Communist League of South Africa
Asking for justice: The Legacy of Agent Orange [ VIET NAM ]
By Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union of Vietnam
The two wars in Viet Nam passed, and with them passed the obsessions with weaponry, smoke, and fire. Although the memory of death has blurred in the memory of many veterans, another tragedy remains as a consequence of the US’ war crimes. Many innocent children suffer the injustice of growing up abnormally because of the effects of Agent Orange.
This chemical, which was used by the US as a jungle defoliant during its invasion of Viet Nam, continues to cause many deformities all over the country. On April 30, 2005, many veterans went back to Viet Nam to mark the 30th anniversary of the end of the war. While in central Viet Nam, they visited Quang Tri, the land of the firebomb. The parents cried for the children, while the veterans sneakily wiped their tears. Certain people’s fates brought tears to not only Vietnamese people, but to many American veterans as well.
Mr. Diu, who used to be a soldier in the ASau, A Luoi battlefield (Thua Thien Hue), has suffered from the destructive effects of being infected by Agent Orange. His wife suffered miscarriages through fourteen of her pregnancies. She was able to give birth to two daughters. The elder daughter is 15 years old, mentally ill, and has been operated on four times for the disease of narrow spinal cord. The younger daughter is paralyzed. They are among thousands of others who face similar plights.
Sympathizing with the victims’ suffering, veterans have established Friendship Village, where dioxin victims are taken care of. Disabled children are treated, trained, apprenticed, and studied by volunteers. 30 years have passed since the day that the US Army stopped spreading toxic chemicals in Vietnam, but many continue to become casualties of war. Mrs. Loc, 90 years old, living in Phuong An hamlet, Cam Nghia commune, says: "Those years, the US Army spread toxic chemicals all over the area. After some days, forests and trees were totally burnt. I did not know that it was a toxic chemical.�
Mrs. Binh, president of Cam Nghia Commune, said that there were 108 children suffering from dioxin in the commune. There were deaths among them every year. The Commune‘s Women Association has advocated that couples who have had dioxin-affected children should not try to conceive. Nevertheless, the hope of having a healthy child has caused them to give birth to more disabled children.
During the first International Conference on the consequences of Agent Orange held in Viet Nam in 1983, scientists gave data that alarmed the world community: From 1961 to April 1971, the US Army spread 72 million liters of dioxin on a wide area from the south of Ben Hai River to the Southern Central part, the Eastern Central part, Tay Nguyen and Ca Mau peninsula. It was spread in a high concentration, as evidenced by the statistics of those affected.
The Vietnamese people are collectively suing the American chemical companies responsible. After a US court dismissed the petition of Vietnamese Agent Orange victims, a wave of indignation quickly spread not only in America, but also in other countries all over the world. International journalists have come to Vietnam to gather evidence to show the public the American chemical companies’ undeniable responsibility for the consequences of Agent Orange.
Medical Doctor Nguyen Thi Phi Phi, a victim of Agent Orange, gave statistics to a foreign journalist delegation at the Center Medical Laboratory. It was she who took American chemical companies to court. When asked “Why did you take them to court?� she answered “Simple! Were millions of innocent Vietnamese people subjected to nearly 100 million liters of Agent Orange? Yes! At first, the only symptoms [the victims] felt were hotness and sneezing. But when the war ended, and they gave birth, they found many cases of miscarriage, infant mortality, ovarian pregnancy, and deformity. After the American veterans were compensated by the American chemical companies, Vietnamese Agent Orange victims felt like they were being discriminated against. International and national laws all forbid companies to manufacture dioxin chemicals. Therefore, is there no reason for us to ask for justice?�
This is the question for which today’s young generation is seeking an answer. It is time for justice for the victims of Agent Orange!
The struggle for a new university [ PUERTO RICO ] By Iván J. Broida
The recent 33% tuition hike at the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) cannot be analyzed as an isolated or spontaneous event. The hike came at a historic and economic moment in which the costs for all the services in our country are going up. The decision was made, unanimously and unilaterally, by a Board of Trustees that has almost no ties to the university (only one student and two professors out of thirteen) and without consultation with those most affected – the students.
The student opposition to the raise in tuition (a 33% raise) was, at first, a reaction to the administrative measure. The student body had no option but to go on strike. However, our actions went beyond opposing this single tuition hike, and raised questions about many aspects of our university:
For example, why a raise now, after no raise in 14 years? Why is there a Board of Trustees and why are they making decisions for students, professors and workers? Why does the university need an Office of the President? Why is the student representation in the decision making bodies of the university almost null? What university model does the State want, and what model do the members of the university community want? Are they compatible?
We had many reasons to oppose the raise. First of all, almost everyone was opposed to the way the decision was made. These types of decisions should be made by all members of the community. The Board of Trustees announced the raise only a month and a half before the end of the semester and no studies were presented to justify the need for a raise. It is not surprising that the Trustees were called “dictators� by a majority of the community.
The Presidency of the UPR alleges that the raise will alleviate a deficit of $23.7 million. The student body, which has no power over the way the institution’s budget is spent, is asked to be economically responsible when the finances are badly administered. Why are the finances of a public institution kept in closed books? Why can’t the student body study the finances and be a part the committee that makes the final decisions on the budget?
A more fundamental question; what kind of university do we want? Will we look towards the model of the North, where the poor and working class students are deep in debt when they finish their studies (if they even have access to higher education)? Or will we look towards the South, where universities are free and more accessible to the people? It has been said that the UPR is ‘between two worlds.’ Its style is based in the technical colleges of the United States, but the relevance of the university, in Puerto Rico, is like universities in Latin America. What happens in the university is a reflection of society as a whole.
Finally, a tuition hike should be inconceivable when there are allegations of corruption, frivolous spending by the President, and a bad administration of the resources, among many other problems facing the university.
The strike
After the announcement of the tuition hike, an Assembly of the student body called for the resignation of the student trustee on the Board, the resignation of the University President, and for the elimination of the raise in tuition. On April 13, when these demands had not been met, the student Assembly ratified the indefinite strike. It’s true that many students who voted for a strike saw it as a tactic to be used later in the process. Still, the Assembly decided to apply the strike tactic immediately and indefinitely.
Many of the “huelguistas� (strikers) would have liked a process of dialogues before the strike, but dialogue, in the neoliberal university model towards which we are headed, does not exist. The Board imposed the hike without dialogue. After administrative decisions have already been made, only concessions are possible, and not real negotiations. Every process happens as a struggle between the different forces in the community.
The Assembly formed a Strike Committee, which later became the University Committee Against the Raise (CUCA). During the strike process, around 300 CUCA members helped guarantee the closing of gates and limited access to the campus. Very few people know how CUCA worked during the strike, and it was partly our mistake not to have publicized our method of working. CUCA was, and is, highly democratic, composed of committees from every university department. Issues are ultimately decided in an assembly of the committees.
The huelguistas were accused of being vandals, anti-intellectuals, and of causing disturbances and riots by professors, administrators, and the media. The press and the anti-huelguistas ignored our efforts to seek negotiations, our efforts at building solidarity with unions, and the investigation we launched of the university administration’s finances and ethics.
Strikes are a just means of achieving an end or reaching a satisfying solution to some problems. Strikes are a right won by the struggle of workers and students, and remain a viable tactic. The major victory won through this spring’s strike process was opening up a public debate on the tuition hike and on the representation of the community in the decision-making bodies of the university. The birth of a new militant student group, CUCA, which is dedicated to continuing the struggle for more accessible and better universities, is also a big step forward for student rights.
Iván J. Broida is a 2nd or 3rd year French student at the UPR and a member of the Humanities Department Committee of CUCA
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