On 1/30/2021 4:57 PM, Louis Proyect wrote:
Part two.
https://www.borderlines-cssaame.org/posts/2021/1/18/part-ii-where-is-the-working-class-its-all-over-the-world-today
Banaji:
From a Marxist point of view, the international firms are more
progressive than all other sectors of capital, simply because they
organize the international economy. This needs to be said. If [Marx]
were alive, he wouldn't be reacting with horror to the existence of
international firms that straddle numerous countries. It's just
natural that this is the form modern capitalism takes. But the left
goes for the softest targets in India today.
I don't know how that debate unfolds in India but in South Africa, it's
absolutely relevant to critique accumulation (and class politics
practiced) by Transnational Corporations as agents of underdevelopment
(or more precisely uneven and combined development), since
* we have such an extreme balance of payments deficit due to the
offshoring of profits and dividends, with the main SA companies
having moved their financial headquarters to London, Amsterdam and
Melbourne;
* annual Illicit Financial Flows continue unabated even though the
Treasury admits they represent 3-7% of national income;
* international banks regularly manipulatie the currency;
* FDI in SA is not productive greenfield investment, but instead
mainly takes the form of intra-company loans in search of
arbitraging profits, because we suffer one of the world's highest
interest rates (only Turkey and Pakistan are higher among major
economies);
* in the extractive sector, the uncompensated depletion of
non-renewable resources - minerals - represents the worst form of
unequal ecological exchange;
* the 'unpatriotic' character of the local white bourgeoisie - via is
an additional feature, but the black elite - including the current
president - are also very familiar with offshore tax havens;
* TNCs are much worse when it comes to corrupting local politicians,
including the big international accountancy firms (all of which have
been implicated recently);
* TNCs deindustrialised local manufacturing;
* TNCs promote fiscal austerity, especially those in the financial
sector, such as the credit ratings agencies; and
* TNCs are even more willing to take advantage of lax pollution
regulation, the gender-oppressing migrant labour system, and violence.
Samir Amin's general analysis of the merits of countries like South
Africa delinking from international capitalist circuits - or at minimum
imposing the kind of exchange controls we had here from 1985-95, to lock
in those TNC profits and force their local reinvestment through
prescribed assets - is very attractive. Samir was terribly disgusted
with the African National Congress, for not having a clue about any of
this, and for continuing to promote FDI-attraction at any cost.
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