Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! No. 118 April/May 1994
Capitalism at the height of its economic, political and military power offers humanity nothing. Neo-liberalism (deregulation, privatisation and open markets), far from being a triumphant resurgent capitalism, will be its final manifestation, as the capitalist system is devoured by its own inherent contradictions. These were the central themes of an important speech given by Fidel Castro to the 4th Latin American and Caribbean Meeting in Havana on 28 January 1994. Below DAVID REED summarises, with edited extracts, Fidel Castro’s critique of neo-liberalism, capitalism and imperialism. *
Poverty stricken Haitians
Fidel Castro began the main part of his speech by summarising, from the discussions throughout the meeting, the commonly agreed consequences of neo-liberalism, ‘this new manifestation of imperialism’, in Latin Am-erica and the Caribbean. ‘You see it every day, at all hours, in the growing unemployment, the increasing poverty, the lack of resources for education, … health care, the lack of resources to address social problems, … housing, … marginal neighbourhoods in all our countries’ cities.’
It is experienced with privatisation and the sale to private interests at miserable prices of often strategic industries that took a long time to become national industries. Large and important firms, even part of the nations’ capital stock, have been sold to foreign capital, after being valued at prices perhaps half or a third of their worth, sometimes to reduce the foreign debt that ‘we called uncollectable and unpayable.’ In fact the debt is now being paid in two different ways: ‘they are gaining more control than ever over the fundamental branches of our countries’ economies, and they are charging us more than ever for the debt.’
Teachers, doctors, representatives of the cultural sectors, unions, farmers or students say there are no resources. Yet the percentage of each Latin American country’s national budget that goes to paying the foreign debt is enormous, in some cases over 50 per cent of the national budget. While there is no budget for essential services for the population to solve any of its problems. This is what Latin American people are being taught about neo-liberalism — not from any textbook, but from ‘the school of life, … the school of reality.’ This is ‘what neo-liberalism really is when it is combined with the new world currents, with the unipolar hegemony of the United States and the creation of large economic and political power blocs.’ (p3)
Castro points out that it is not just Cuba which, as a result of very particular circumstances — the collapse of the socialist bloc and the tightening of the US blockade — is experiencing a special period, but also Latin America, the ex-socialist countries and the Third World. Except for ‘the super-privileged minorities that flaunt their power’, the whole world is experiencing a special period. Even in the developed capitalist countries like the US, sectors of the population of Hispanic origin are having a very hard time and the black population could be called, the ‘Third World within the United States’. (p4)
Latin America and neo-liberalism
Castro sees the impact of neo-liberalism as analogous to reconquest. Latin Americans are being conquered all over again and their future promises to be as terrible as the future once reserved for indigenous peoples. ‘Whereas before they were exterminated by disease, exploitation and the fiercest repression, we could say that they are now trying to starve (us) to death and if we don’t fight and we don’t defend ourselves, they will starve us to death in the end.’
Castro believes that the situation for Latin America is more difficult than any previous time in its history. At the time of the Cuban Revolution Latin America’s debt was hardly anything; today it owes almost $500 billion. Basic export products had a certain value on the world market but with the order imposed by imperialism these products have less purchasing power every year. Many of the products are being replaced by synthetic products as a result of technological advances in the developed capitalist countries. For example, cane sugar is being replaced in the United States, which previously imported large quantities of sugar, by isoglucose extracted from corn which has a higher sweetening power than cane sugar. The same has happened and will continue to happen with many more products. ‘Basic products on which the economy, life and development of many Third World countries depend are being edged out of the market.’ Imperialism has destroyed ‘virtually all international agreements for basic products.’ (p4)
Latin America’s major agricultural exports are not only losing purchasing power but also face agricultural subsidies in the developed capitalist countries which make the latter’s products more competitive to ‘the detriment of our economic interests.’
As for manufacturing goods, there was a time when they were protected in one way or another. Now the imperialist countries have a monopoly on advanced technology and scientific research, and on the possibility of automatising production. It is very difficult for a Third World country to industrialise to be able to compete with many of the products of the developed capitalist world. ‘Third World countries are left with the hope, perhaps, that polluting industries will be transferred to them or industries which need a great deal of manual labour, a great deal of cheap labour…’ (p4)
Economic globalisation, the opening up of economic frontiers and elimination of tariff barriers will put the Third World at the mercy of the transnationals and imperialism.
‘They would buy up everything, they would be the owners of the major industries, they would make us into even more of a colony than we are today.’
‘They invade our culture pitilessly, they invade us through their mass media, they make us see not what we are interested in seeing but what they want us to see, among other reasons to overwhelm us with their wealth and their consumer societies based on advertising, based on propaganda.
Fidel Castro summarises these points by arguing that the nominal independence that the Third world has left is ‘being snatched away bit by bit’. Such words as independence ‘are out of date in the new world order’s vocabulary.’ (p4)
Neo-liberalism, the final manifestation of capitalism and imperialism
Castro then returns to one of the central political themes of classical Marxism when he argues that capitalism is recreating globally the economic and political conditions for its own destruction.
The disastrous consequences of neo-liberalism’s policies are being experienced everywhere. Of particular significance is the impact on the former socialist countries. Europe’s former socialist countries are a ‘veritable disaster’. Their peoples are now realising that ‘the rushed and unbalanced implementation of the International Monetary Fund’s…and neo-liberalism’s formulas was a huge mistake. It was a mistake to put them into practice in such a brutal manner in countries whose economies were designed for another social system…’ (p5).
Political awareness turned into political action
‘It’s really painful, amazing, how the death rates in those countries have gone up where before at least everybody had a school … a hospital and more or less efficient services … Everyone had a job, they really weren’t familiar with unemployment. They were more or less efficient economies, we could say inefficient in many cases, although not everything was inefficient because we know only too well of their great achievements in the field of science, in the development sphere, huge achievements.’
Today, says Castro, even the imperialists are frightened by the consequences resulting from the absurd implementation of the neo-liberal schemes in the former socialist countries. Their economies have practically been destroyed and no one knows how to get them out of the resulting crisis. Their populations are in despair because of the situation they are experiencing. So the disastrous effects of neo-liberalism are not just a Latin American experience.
Capitalism and neo-liberalism can offer humanity nothing
‘Neo-liberalism is the final manifestation of capitalism and imperialism. To be anti-neoliberal is to be anti-imperialist. One could add that to be anti-neoliberal is to be anti-capitalist, although many people aren’t aware of that. But it’s that this hatred is hatred towards the manifestation of capitalism’s evolution and development. We are faced with an awful situation and with a system that is currently at the zenith of its power and of its political, economic and military might and which can offer humanity nothing.
‘Capitalism is destined to devour itself. First it created colonialism. and colonialism created the underdevelopment by virtue of which 80 per cent of humanity, more than four billion people, live today in a state of poverty. Although in many countries there are rich, very rich people. Nevertheless, four-fifths of humanity belong to this underdeveloped world, that is, to this Third World.’
Very serious problems and tremendous contradictions arise from the fact that capitalism is obliged to grow incessantly. ‘If growth stops, it means a catastrophe for the United States, for Japan, for Europe. Factories close, production and service industries go bankrupt, banks go bust, insurance companies go bust, the system goes bust when development is checked. A system which is obliged to develop continuously is, in present circumstances, a disaster for the world.'(p5)
Castro develops this theme. Growth above certain limits is absurd. ‘Look at what they are doing … in the world when there is more hunger and poverty than ever before. How did they solve the problems between Europe and the United States over agricultural questions? They agreed to slaughter millions of cows in Europe … Slaughtering millions of cows when there are hundreds of millions of children who don’t have milk to drink is a crime … Before they subsidised output, now they are going to subsidise land that lies fallow. Subsidies for not using land with all the misery we have been talking about, with all the disasters that we know of, is a terrible crime.’
There are perhaps even more serious problems. For Nature is being destroyed to sustain the high growth rate to support the very high standard of living in the imperialist countries — although there is great inequality in its distribution. ‘The atmosphere, the seas, the rivers and the lakes and underground water supplies are being poisoned.’ The anarchic, chaotic disorderly development of capitalism —the only possible kind — is ‘putting the conditions needed for humanity to survive at risk.’ (p5)
Confronted by such a prospect and after the disaster in the socialist bloc, many people have become disheartened. Fidel Castro, however, sees hope in the growing awareness of people of the destructive and genocidal character of neo-liberalism. ‘We can see around us many signs of hope, of struggle.’ It will be a hard job fine-tuning this unipolar world. ‘It’s going to become impossible for imperialism and neo-liberalism to govern because there’s a tremendous weapon which is the awareness of the peoples, especially when that awareness leads the peoples into action.’ (p6)
* Granma International, 6 February 1994 pp3-7
