[TLDR (too long didn’t read): If you are reading this, chances are you care about HR. This Reader is about several falsehoods propelled far and wide about who wins and who loses in the era of globalization. For a quick overview, just read the bolded text]. Traducir/traduire los/les Readers; usar/utiliser deepl.com
‘The right to property is the right to the protection of items that are of value to all humans’: false!
–Property is a euphemism for the accumulation of capital primarily derived from the property over the means of production. (Koldo Casla)
1. Many groups have historically been discriminated against and prevented from accessing property. This includes ethnic and national minorities, indigenous communities, colonized people, women, and people with disabilities. The recognition of property was originally considered a progressive achievement for many who were and are denied the opportunity to be more autonomous and to have greater control over their lives. It was thought to provide protection as a matter of human rights (HR), but only to the level of ‘private-property-that-meets-the-essential-needs-of-decent-living and helps to maintain the dignity of the individual and of the home’; not more.
‘With inflation there are no winners’: false! There are clear winners: Capitalists
2. A class war is being waged in the name of fighting inflation. All too many central bankers are raising interest rates at the expense of working people’s families, supposedly “to keep price increases for them in check…”. But raising interest rates only reduces spending and economic activity precisely hurting working people and a host of their rights without mitigating ‘imported’ inflation that, for example, comes from rising food and fuel prices in international markets. Recessions can be expected that will further disrupt supplies, aggravating inflation in an unending vicious circle. (Anis Chowdhury, Jomo Sundaram)
‘In the reign of free markets everybody is a winner’: false!
3. There are too many narratives and beliefs around markets rather than about the obligations of governments delivering solutions for HR issues. We see a constant tussle between superficial market reforms that maintain power imbalances and systemic problems instead of increasing the fiscal space of governments to realize HR and protect the planet. (CESR) Therefore, HR problems in the prevailing financial system never arise in the grand picture of things; if at all, they are kept in most guarded places. (The Economist)
4. In their need to survive, the neoliberal system proponents of the ‘free market’, are not only capable of breaking, but do break any law …and get away with it.*. In doing so, they threaten the jobs of those who defend their right to a decent employment.
*: “Aqui estamos presos los que robamos poco” (Here are imprisoned those who steal little). (Graffiti in a prison in Chile)
‘With free trade agreements (FTAs) there are only winners’: false! Only the rich counties in such deals are the clear winners
5. But maybe you did not know: Free trade agreements are on the way out and being born is a new colonialism targeting raw materials. I mean, quite recently, countries rendered rich are demanding those rendered poor replace existing FTAs by a new instrument of domination that is beginning to be used, namely something called ‘Memoranda of Understanding for Strategic Partnerships on Commodities‘ that give preferential treatment to rich foreign country buyers. (Roberto Pizarro)
6. Up to now, the centers of the developed (dominant) countries have largely had their own way in running the affairs of the world** —in cooperation (collusion?) with the bourgeoisies of the underdeveloped (dominated) countries. Basically, those-in-the-Left-that-have-‘accommodated‘ prefer to look the other way while the (dominated) bourgeoisie continues to tolerate structural disparities that aggravate HR violations. (Fernando Luengo)
**: Corporate governance is a type of Neanderthalism that has clearly outlived its utility. (Upendra Baxi) Why? Because of the Golden Rule: He who has the gold makes the rules.
‘In war there are no winners’: false! In war there are clear winners: Capitalism (Alejandro Marcó del Pont)
–In short: Capitalism is Capitalism, no matter where: Capital has no homeland. (Daniel Kersffeld)
7. In the words of Bernard Maris, the capitalist economy (ruled by conventional economics*** and by recurring war mongering to sustain the defense industry****), is the Gregorian Chant of the submission of men; it is the theory of the dominant order.
***: Accuracy and economics are like oil and vinegar. Conventional economists consider a variety of data, but their final decision is subjective (Louis Casado) These economists are driving the planetary vehicle, but they should be sitting in the back seat, John Maynard Keynes said. John Mauldin called these mainstream economists ‘economic meteorologists’ given the inaccuracy of the prediction of their models.
****: The growth of military budgets in almost all countries is a more than worrying sign that the fragmentation of the world and the resulting instability will have violence and war as its main response. Peace will be the scarcest commodity after water. (Boaventura de Sousa Santos)
Ahh! And then there is artificial intelligence…
Maybe we should start thinking about automating CEOs instead of workers (Zachary Crockett)
–The results of doing do so may be far better. We maybe can even stop chief executive officers (CEOs) shifting their profits to tax havens… (In 2019 TNCs transferred one trillion USD to tax havens).
8. There has been a lot of buzz about how AI might eventually replace lower-rank workers. But, ask yourself, why not start with the highest-paid corporate executives? After all, the incentives for workplace automation are largely financial. So why not start by replacing the highest-paid employee of them all —the CEO?*****
*****: At ‘Fortune 500’ firms, the average CEO pay is now ~$16m per year. Over the past 45 years, the average CEO pay has gone up 1,460%; the average worker pay has only gone up 18%. As a result, today’s average CEO in the US is paid the equivalent of 399 median workers.
9. Even die-hard free market capitalists have had trouble justifying these pay packages.****** One reason for this is that executive pay structures incentivize CEOs to chase short-term profits rather than meaningful long-term growth —wither HR considerations. Anyway, for the short-term, executives are already increasingly relying on help from algorithms and machine learning to improve profit ratios. (Z. Crockett) This is only a step away from AI…)
******: Mind you: The broader workforce is not entirely opposed to getting rid of their bosses…
Bottom line
10. If past experience is any guide, the current state of affairs will only aggravate and perpetuate HR violations including preventable poverty, deaths, ill-health and hunger. The response?: Hope lies in the number and the strength of links that can be forged between ‘ordinary people’ and the pressures that these claim holders can bring to bear on their governments and on the (so terribly ill-defined) ‘international community’. An end to all these preventable violations depends on how many of us refuse to tolerate the intolerable. (Susan George)
11. It is a pity that Capitalism does not self-destruct, because its contradictions and frequent destructive internal crises murder people and nature. That is, it is a pity that the class and power relations that we call Capitalism do not evolve to numbering the days of Capitalism and that the future is left to be pure possibility or defeat, but never an irremediable and predetermined end as we have now. For that same truth, for that same uncertainty, we have no choice but to unite to change the course of life and to undertake massive protests against the incessant wars, alienation, non-freedoms, injustice, HR violations, selfishness and loneliness and against the blood spilled in streets and fields (of poor people always and of rebels almost always).
12. Apparently, we have no other alternative. Unless someone (you?) considers that everything is already lost, that it is not worth risking our skins again, that it is enough to be content with being a functional minority, parked in a corner while this dreadful anticipated failure rolls-on –being just veritably voyeurs in the middle of this ongoing crime scene. (Andres Figueroa C.)
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City
Your comments are welcome at schuftan@gmail.com