The following Editorial was published in "The Guardian", newspaper of the Communist Party of Australia in its issue of Wednesday, July 17th, 2002. Contact address: 65 Campbell Street, Surry Hills. Sydney. 2010 Australia. Phone: (612) 9212 6855 Fax: (612) 9281 5795.
CPA Central Committee: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> "The Guardian": <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Webpage: http://www.cpa.org.au> Subscription rates on request. ****************************** Capitalism a monumental failure Two oil billionaires, currently under scrutiny for illegal business activities, are at the head of the biggest robber state in history. US President George W Bush and his Vice-President Dick Cheney are currently promoting a global terrorist war. But even as they are spilling blood in Afghanistan while bullying and threatening other nations, the system they are trying to shore up is breaking apart. The glossy façade of the system is falling away as the crisis deepens, revealing governments and corporations intertwined in an incestuous bond of corruption, lies and international financial cover-up. These things are a reflection of the monumental failure of capitalism, a system in such deep crisis that it sees war and domination as the only way out. WorldCom overstated pre-tax profit by $6.7 billion. Enron hid $2 billion in losses from 1998-2001. Its shares lost --$50 billion in value and the company then filed for bankruptcy protection. Its employees lost more than $1 billion in pension funds used for investment by the company. Xerox was forced to reclassify $12 billion in profits taken over five years. Bristol-Myers, the world's fifth largest drug maker is under investigation for inflating sales by $2 billion. The corrupt dealings of these companies constitute only the tip of the iceberg. The response from the managements of these corporations and from the Bush Government confirms that they have no intention of doing anything effective. They are bound by their class allegiances and commitments to not do anything to change course or to undermine their vested interests This was no more evident than in a speech by Bush in New York last week to a gathering of corporate heads following WorldCom's collapse. While regurgitating some puerile bunk about "business ethics", Bush inadvertently summed up the inner workings of capitalism itself. "We've learned of some business leaders obstructing justice and misleading clients, falsifying records -- business executives breaching the trust and abusing power", said Bush. "We've learned of CEOs earning tens of millions of dollars in bonuses just before their companies go bankrupt, leaving employees and retirees and investors to suffer." By the term "We've learned", Bush does not mean he has just become aware of the day-to-day practices of capitalism. No, the problem to him is that these corrupt and criminal practices have been exposed for all to see. "When abuses like this begin to surface, it is time to reaffirm the basic principles and rules that make capitalism work: truthful books and honest people", says Bush. "Truthful books and honest people"! Investor confidence must be restored. Credibility must be restored. Capitalism relies heavily on the retirement savings of workers to fund takeovers, snap up public assets and utilities, buy off governments, and to expand their investments around the globe. Investor confidence is critical to the capitalist casino economy. Daily in the media the voices of capital echo this sentiment. "The crisis in confidence about corporate accounts is depressing prices", warns Principal Investment Management. "Investor faith must be restored, and President Bush, in both word and deed, has clearly shown that this is of paramount importance", declares NY Stock Exchange chairman Dick Grasso. "We fully share the President's belief that free and fair capital markets demand renewed commitment to a higher corporate ethic", says Nasdaq chief executive Wick Simmons. As Henri de Castries, the head of the world's biggest insurance company, Axa, put it: "The last twenty years have been very happy for investors. There is a whole generation of people who were a little bit optimistic. They are now playing the game of learning what risk is." Bush "talks up" the economic situation, as do more and more analysts, think tank mouthpieces and stock market spin doctors. Listen closely and you will detect a note of suppressed panic. You will also notice that none of them want to actually take serious measures to reduce the risks. The few limited suggestions are aimed at restoring confidence, not preventing corruption and crashes. The corporate failures will continue. Bush and his henchmen will continue to push for more of the very deregulation and privatisation that fuelled the creation of Enron and WorldCom. They are committed to their disastrous course and are determined to make the world's people pay the price for it through unemployment, hardship, poverty and war. ************************************************************** -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archived at http://www.cat.org.au/lists/leftlink/ Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
