From: Green Left Parramatta <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: GLW: DSP congress: globalising resistance to capitalism To: "AAAA: Misc.progressive.activism" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The following article appears in the current issue of Green Left Weekly (http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2001/432) DSP congress: globalising resistance to capitalism BY SUE BOLAND It is just a little over 12 months since the protests against the World Trade Organisation (WTO) meeting in Seattle awoke the world to the gathering strength of a new anti-corporate movement against neo-liberal globalisation. It's not that there hadn't been protests against the WTO, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank before. There had been. Throughout the Third World for decades the workers, peasants, and urban poor have been rebelling against poverty and repression, plunder by the multinational corporations and the enforcing of neo-liberal policies by institutions such as the IMF and World Bank. What was significant about the Seattle protests was their size, the determination of the protesters and the participation of trade unions, albeit on a nationalist program of defending American jobs against workers from other countries. The Seattle protests were also significant because they indicated the existence of growing opposition within the rich imperialist countries to attempts to spread neo-liberal policies across the globe. As the year 2000 progressed, the ³Seattle effect² spread. First it was Washington, then the wave of protests spread through Melbourne, Prague, Seoul, and finally Nice. A key task of the Democratic Socialist Party's 19th congress, held January 3-7 near Sydney and attended by 287 delegates and observers, was to assess the significance of this movement in world and Australian politics, and to vote on proposals to help develop this movement. In the congress report on The international political situation: austerity and war, Green Left Weekly editor and DSP national executive member Doug Lorimer noted five features of this global anti-corporate movement: 1) The new movement reflects a growing crisis of popular legitimacy for the imperialist ruling class's drive to globalise their neo-liberal policy agenda of rolling back all the economic concessions made to working people in the developed capitalist countries during the long ³boom² from the late 1940s to the early 1970s. 2) Large numbers of people, especially young people, in the imperialist countries are deeply concerned at the deepening of poverty in the underdeveloped countries which has resulted from neo-liberal globalisation. 3) The crisis of legitimacy for neo-liberal globalisation is most immediately focused on the imperialist-dominated international economic institutions that are seen as the key vehicles for promoting and imposing neo-liberalism around the world � the WTO, IMF, World Bank and World Economic Forum 1(WEF). 4) The movement is objectively anti-capitalist in its dynamics because opposition to the drive to globalise neo-liberal policies runs counter to the interests of the capitalist rulers in the rich imperialist countries of North America, western Europe, Japan and Australia. 5) This social movement, like every other, is broadly divided between two trends � a spontaneously class-struggle trend centred around the radical, consciously anti-capitalist forces and a consciously class collaborationist trend headed by the trade union bureaucracy. The congress made the assessment that this new movement presented revolutionary Marxists with the opportunity to win large numbers of working people in the imperialist countries to an anti-capitalist, internationalist consciousness. Australian activists got a taste of this new anti-corporate movement at the S11 protests against the WEF in Melbourne last September. As DSP national executive member Peter Boyle noted in his report on The Australian political situation and our perspectives after S11, ³Last September thousands of activists from the mass social movements of the last three decades joined up with younger activists at the three-day S11 blockade of the World Economic Forum² and it ³revitalised the faith in `peoples' power' in the hearts and minds of hundreds of thousands more². The 20,000-strong S11 protests indicated that an important radical constituency exists in Australia. This constituency is primarily young but also includes veterans from the social movements of a decade or more ago and a significant number of politically advanced workers and unionists. A common feature is that these people are concerned about more than a single issue and have drawn the conclusion that the heart of all these issues is the increasingly unrestrained pursuit of corporate profits. Congress delegates made the assessment that the S11 protests represented a significant break from traditional ALP control of the social movements, and that the revolutionary left parties, in particular the DSP, played a decisive leadership role. One of the most significant victories at S11 was the break from traditional Labor control of the mass movements. Regardless of whether the Labor Party is in ³opposition² or is the governing party, it has consistently scuttled campaigns against the neo-liberal policies which are being implemented in Australia. If the anti-corporate movement remains free of the shackles of ALP domination, there will be a potential to build mass resistance to neo-liberal attacks on working people's living standards in this country. However, the ALP is desperately working to add this movement to its list of muzzled protest movements. Another important feature of the S11 protests was the emergence of an internationalist leadership for the blockade. This leadership argued that international solidarity between workers in different countries, combined with militant action in this country, is a more certain way of protecting jobs than calling on the pro-capitalist governments, whether headed by Labor or Liberal politicians, to impose protectionist tariffs on exports from the Third World. The assessment was made that after Seattle, Washington, Melbourne, Seoul, Prague and Nice, we can be confident that this anti-corporate movement will remain alive. One reason for this is that the gains of Seattle, the postponement of the WTO round of trade talks, has not yet been undone, giving activists a feeling of confidence. After the success of the S11 protests in Melbourne, the radical left in Australia had a choice. It could bask in the success of the protests and move on to other campaigns, or, it could seek to develop the movement against neo-liberal globalisation by initiating further actions. The congress delegates voted to keep this movement alive and moving forward by initiating further actions. In his report, Lorimer made the point that ³if the movement is to build on its successes in de-legitimising² the world economic institutions, ³it needs to demonstrate to the rest of the population that these institutions' newly found concern for Third World poverty is nothing more than hollow rhetoric². To do this, ³the movement needs to retain its public visibility by staging mass street protests that disrupt the normal functioning of corporate capitalism's most publicly visible institutions². To maintain momentum, Lorimer argued that the movement will also need begin raising demands on the corporate rulers to immediately implement measures which could lessen Third World poverty. Such demands could include: * Immediate and unconditional cancellation of the entire debt owed by all Third World countries to the imperialist countries. * Abolition of the IMF, World Bank and the WTO. * Abolition of the wall of non-tariff barriers imposed by the imperialist countries on the agricultural and manufactured exports of the Third World. * Restoration of the Basic Commodities Agreements and other defence schemes designed to compensate poor countries from unequal exchange. * Abolition of all restrictions, including patent and intellectual property fees, for Third World countries' importation of advanced technology from the imperialist countries. As it is unusual for meetings of the world economic institutions to be held in Australia, the delegates decided that we can't wait for such meetings to occur here in order to organise demonstrations. Instead, a proposal was endorsed that the next major focus of the movement against corporate tyranny in Australia would be an anti-corporate strike and blockade of all stock exchanges on May 1, 2001. In arguing for the proposal, Boyle said ³To get the mass anti-corporate constituency on the streets again, we need the appropriate sort of action � one that would capture the imagination of the wide range of people who oppose corporate tyranny and are prepared to do something radical about it. Just another march and rally would not do. Many of the people who turned out at S11 would not have bothered if it was just another rally addressed by trade union officials or ALP politicians who are not interested in changing society. This proposal expresses the strong desire in this movement to break out from the `normal channels' of dissent. ³A successful mass civil disobedience depends on the principle `When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty'. A blockade of the stock exchanges will force the corporate ruling class and its governments to try and defend the morally indefensible. They simply could not defend the WTO at Seattle, the IMF and the World Bank at Washington and Prague, and the WEF in Melbourne because these institutions had been widely exposed as instruments of corporate exploitation.² Certainly, the stock exchange is symbolic of exploitation under capitalism. Don't get fooled by US President Bill Clinton's or Prime Minister John Howard's claims that we live in a ³shareholder democracy². The top 5% of stockholders in the US hold 94.5% of all publicly traded stock and they are raking in the money. The share of after-tax corporate profits paid out to their rentier owners as dividends has increased from an average of 44% between the end of the 1960s to 70% in the period 1990-1997. Considering that company profits have also increased significantly, the rentier owners' snouts are well and truly in the trough. ³The prospect of disrupting `normal business' in the heart of the business districts of major cities around the world on May 1 is the kind of militant action that can convince individual workers and students, regardless of what their union officials or student representative councils say, to strike against corporate tyranny on that day in order to join a mass reclaiming of a part of the city that the corporate elite consider their own², said Boyle. Melbourne's S11 Alliance supports this project and has renamed itself the M1 Alliance. M1 coalitions have also been established in Sydney, Adelaide, Hobart and Perth. In addition to strikes by workers and university students, the socialist youth organisation Resistance is planning to call a high school walk-out on the day However, this focus on the global movement against neo-liberal policies does not mean that the DSP is dropping its other campaigns. The reports and proposals adopted by the congress reaffirmed that the DSP will maintain its current campaign perspectives to build a militant current in defence of workers rights in the trade union movement, rebuild an activist student movement, build a campaign for refugees to be released from detention and granted permanent residency and maintain involvement in the women's liberation movement. However, these movements and campaigns should not be isolated from each other or from the anti-corporate movement. The other major area of work involving DSP members is its long-term international solidarity work with struggles in Indonesia, East Timor, Latin America and Palestine. As was pointed out in a report on political developments in Indonesia by DSP national executive member and ASIET (Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor) national chairperson Max Lane: ³It is vital that revolutionary activists in Australia continue to expose Australia's imperialist policies in the Asia and Pacific regions. Maintaining our solidarity with the comrades in the People's Democratic Party in Indonesia and the Socialist Party of Timor is one way in which we can do this.² Delegates endorsed a proposal in Lane's report for a day of action on February 21 against the Australian government's attempt to retain control of oil reserves in the Timor Sea which rightfully belong to East Timor. Other highlights of the DSP congress included the adoption of a resolution outlining Australia's imperialist role in the Asia-Pacific region and a new resolution on the Cuban Revolution. Visit the Democratic Socialist Party's web site at http://www.dsp.org.au. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- -- Knowledge is Power! Elimination of the exploitation of man by man http://www.egroups.com/group/pttp/ POWER TO THE PEOPLE! Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Change Delivery Options: http://www.egroups.com/mygroups _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki Phone +358-40-7177941 Fax +358-9-7591081 http://www.kominf.pp.fi General class struggle news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Geopolitical news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________
