What Obligation Should Be Carried Out before the Goods?

"I was one of many who came for work in time, worked honesty and served to "Delfi" to last. We deserve something better than this. Who can adapt to the salary decrease 14 $ per hour and how can one support a family on this money?" Tony Pip, the worker of "Delfi", 30 years of working experience, Kive Krik, Arizona, the USA, one of 12 000 workers lost work as a result of bankruptcy of company Delfi.

"Full ignoring of labour and social factors is characteric of not only the policy of liberalization of textile and sewing branches but also the politicy of ITO as a whole. I distribute the grip on more and more sectors of national economies at the same time focusing only on aspect of a market deregulation in the interests of the private capital, ITO throws out on a roadside of economy people involved in agriculture, industry and minerals industry. For ten years of existence ITO has proved to be, despite of democratic, at first sight structure, the tool in hands of the powerful industrial countries, acting entirely and completely in the interests of transnational corporations. For the world textile industry it means unimaginable increase of influence rendered by large brands and trading corporations which today are free to define geography and standards of manufacture at their own discretion. Their continuous search of opportunities to increase sales and profit volume resulted in reproduction of the goods of short-term fashion in the Southern regions of the world at the time when the whole continents and areas fail to satisfy the needs in cloths”. Press-release:

No accident – no problem?

The policy of liberalization of ITO puts millions workers of textile and clothing industry worldwide on favour of "free market".  

Economical Network/SЭdwind Institute. 7^thofDecember, 2005

"A modern worker doesn’t rise alongside with the progress of industry but falls lower conditions of existence of his own class. The worker becomes pauper and pauperism grows quicker than the population and luxury”.

The communistic Manifest. K.Marx, F.Engels.

Lumpenisation of proletariat as a direct consequence of a deregulation of national economies – is a strategy of the capital for maintenance of demands of developing manufacture with slavishly obedient labour.

Theoretically the capital would like to achieve such a state of affairs when the alive goods would be bought and sold at a stock exchange as oil or grain at the lowest price and without any obligations. What obligations should be carried out before the goods?

Actually such situation already exists in the most deprived of civil rights countries of the third world where millions people are ready to go for any work, even for a day-work to earn on day time livelihood.

Means of the multinational corporation for maintenance of transformation of labour into goods with its maximal price reduction are known and universal worldwide: liberalization of local economies, policy of double standards in connection with the "developing" and uncultivated countries apparent in protectionism with own markets and producers at the maximum accessibility of indugenous markets. The conductors of this ITO policy - IMF, the World Bank have realized and have been continuing to realize it worldwide and it is possible to say that this “revolution of transnational capital” has captured the whole world.

Not captured territories such as Iran, Northern Korea and Mongoliaare written down in the list of enemies of democratic community and are doomed to blockade or direct military intervention. Russia hasn’t yet enjoyed the bitter fruits of globalization to the degree as the countries of the third world only owing to the heritage of the USSR (its true allies always were the army and fleet) and to rich resources (it is possible now to be engaged in more scale robbery than exploitation of the poor population in sudorific workshops).

However, we all see that process has come to us and soon Russians will feel fully bitterness of fruits of global integration into world economy where a role of a cheap service material.

Double standards of the multinational corporation: minimum responsibility before the hired labour "... so that it will be possible to oppress any class, it is necessary to provide conditions in which it could at least drag the slavish existence." The communistic Manifest. K. Marx. Responsibility of the capital before the hired labour is a conclusive element of the social agreement in "civilized" society, in the Europe in a greater degree than in the USAthough here "status quo" is supported by determination of working-class movement to protect their rights by way of strikes and political struggle. Conditions fixed in laws and tariff contracts oblige private businessmen and corporations to give certain guarantees of employment and to provide a comprehensible level of work for hired workers.

In conditions of globalization the capital seems to be released from this necessity. The free market appoints not national governments but multinational corporation - the real owners and governors of the world free from obligations before their "citizens" whom the multinational corporations consider no more than the goods, one of resources in the industrial chain. On the one hand, the capital is provided in every way (and also military not in the last turn) by liberal regimes on the attractive markets being at the same time compeletly dependent on them as a matter of fact buying local elite, permissing them to the explotation of national natural and human resources, on the other hand – it abstracts completely from protective functions of the government, protecting only one right - the right to receive profits from explotation.

Nevertheless questions of a social infrastructure of those being explotated remain on conscience of native elites and lay for the new world order not only out of a legal plane but also and out of a plane of morals. That is being occured "there" in reservation, ghetto is meaningly taken out of frameworks of information field by means of the serving to multinational corporations "free" mass-media and if it becomes known to the public it is represented as merely internal problems of natives, the responsibility for which is beared by their “democratic” government.

Such are thirty "silvers" of local elites for the admission to a piece of a pie on which however always will be a lot of wishing. The fear of the capital before the slightest opportunity of not even expropriation but mere restriction in free exploitation of world resources with the purpose of getting profits causes to life and feeds the military cordons which protect "civilized society" from driven to a despair and thus dangerous inhabitants of the extending together with borders of free market world "ghetto".

It is traced at all levels: from a modern megacity where the invisible but not less real precipice divides "Manhattan" and "Harlem", middle class suburb and reservations up to a world scale where free moving proclaimed as integral personal freedom in a democratic society in practice is possible only "from the top to the bottom" (i.e. citizens of a civilized society can if they wish to go freely to the "wild" countries of the third world, the movement of the “non-civilized” in the opposite direction is possible only in illegal manner at nights through the barbed wire as in Mexica or in containers with furniture and holds of pirates, the number of the stifled is calculated in hundreds).

This fear, not political and national contradictions between the states is a motive power of race of arms especially in the developed countries, only military budgets of which frequently in tens times exceed the state budgets of their slaves - countries of the "third" world.

To wait for the rooster or prepare beforehand?

Until recently in mass consciousness of Russians enough idealized image prevailed connected with work at the foreign enterprise. When in 2002 there was an enrolment of workers to the joint venture GM Autovaz competition was as in the prestigious high school.

Now - the workshop is constantly understaffed, 20 people is lacking in a change. Workers run to work in VAZ where at the same or even bigger salary there are at least some social programs (hostel, privileges for good kindergartens, permits, etc.). Where at retiring from work one time sum was made up of the five-place sum of roubles and VAZ’s maternity benefit, if being introduced everywhere, could lessencially ower a demographic problem in the Russian Federation.

Certainly, now these privileges are also exposed to attacks of the power oligarches who have come to a management of the factory but on the appraised western enterprises one can’t find even such conditions. If to speak about the organization of manufacture on, for example, car assembly shops which mass construction is declared to be a sign event in the Russian economy, then this sign - is a fat minus.

The matter is that borrowed from Japanese campaigns and applied in the assembly factories worldwide the standardized step-by-step processes of assembly (in fact namely assembly enterprises are under construction) do the functions of the worker so primitive that there is no saying about the development of his qualification or transfer of technologies. It is heavy, intensive, dull and poorly-paid labour.

You won’t meet any worker older than 23-25 years old on conveyor of GM Autovaz, the majority is about 20 years. What will be with them in 5, 15, 20 years? It is possible to tell with the big share of confidence that on the conveyor will again be young but different people. Have you ever seen the elderly seller behind a counter of "McDonald's"?  

In the multinational corporation the worker drops out from under mechanisms of protection habitual not only for the Soviet but also the Russian man. His relations with the employer are adjusted by the contract, frequently temporal, that gives practically unlimited power to the employer and minimizes his responsibility. It essentially weakens positions of trade unions and often makes their organization and functioning practically impracticable mission (the trade union on joint venture GM Autovaz hasn’t been created during the 4-years existance). And though development of the multinational corporation in Russiaat a present vector of its development is a natural process, it puts many questions as before the state and the society to which social functions are being shifted - earlier though partially carried out by employers, as well as before the workers. As to the last, they need to be as much as possible pragmatic and organized not to allow to be reduced to a level of slaves working for a soup.

It is time to recollect about the dignity and to prepare for a struggle as there is time for it so that not to repeat the destiny of unfortunate peoples already enjoed bitter fruits of globalization.

Tolyatti, Russia