Capitalism In Crisis: Globalisation and World Politics Today
By Fidel Castro
Ocean Books
Melbourne, 2000
292pp., $29.95 (pb)
REVIEW BY SHANE HOPKINSON
There is no shortage of talk about globalisation these days. Cuban leader Fidel Castro paints a clear picture of the real meaning of capitalist globalisation, a picture that denies the superficial media hype that claims the world is becoming a much better place because of it.
Capitalism in Crisis is a collection of speeches by Castro from May 1998 to April. They were delivered in forums ranging from meetings of the World Trade Organisation to the South African parliament and in various Latin American cities.
Castro's perspective is not just that of the Third World, but reflects the trenchant fight waged by the Cuban people to preserve their national sovereignty under the conditions imposed by the criminal US economic blockade. Cuba is attempting to provide leadership to all the victims of imperialist globalisation — which is most of us.
The great strength of the book is that it is not taken up with abstract theories. It explains "globalisation" for what it is — the latest form taken by imperialism. This book outlines concrete measures for fighting it, taken not out of text books, but from the struggle of the Cuban people to "globalise" human solidarity and socialism.
That said, there is no shortage of analysis. Castro outlines the genesis of the current global economic crisis, NATO's war against Serbia and the negative effects of the "McDonaldsisation" of global culture. With falling literacy, people know less about their own history and more about Donald Duck; if you have a TV in Africa then you will most likely be watching MTV or CNN.
Castro provides stark details of the effects of neoliberal globalisation: "In over 100 countries, per capita income is lower than 15 years ago, 1.6 billion people are worse off than the start of the 1980s. Over 820 million people are undernourished and 790 million of them live in the Third World, it is estimated that 507 million people living in the South today will not live until their fortieth birthday."
The Cuban president vividly describes the US domination of the global financial system. The US controls the World Bank, which means that a few Washington bureaucrats can set a global policy that is massively profitable for the few and massively destructive for the rest. They are accountable to no one.
Castro rightly describes global capitalism as a "casino", pointing out that each day speculative transactions are carried out to the value of US$1.5 trillion!
The whole system needs to undergo a radical democratisation, Castro argues. Just as working people fought for and won the right to vote more than a century ago, similar battles will have to be fought to ensure planetary survival.
Rational social organisation
Due to the failure of the capitalist system to provide a decent life for all but a few and given that the technology is available to make the world a better place for the vast majority surely we can do better than this? Fidel asks candidly, "Why not seek other formulas and admit that humankind is able to organise itself in a more rational and humane manner?".
Faced with the nightmare of imperialist neoliberalism, the Cuban people do not simply oppose globalisation as something one can be for or against. Without pretending to have all the answers, they have gone on the offensive, not shirking the responsibility of proposing an alternative.
As the great Cuban national leader Jose Marti once said: "Trenches of ideas are worth more than trenches of stone."
To this end they have developed a list concrete proposals:
* abolish the International Monetary Fund — replace it with an international finance-regulating body operated on a democratic basis with no one country having the right of veto, as the US currently does;
* impose a 1% tax on speculative financial transactions — the extent of unrestrained speculation is madness; such a tax could be used to create a fund which would receive a trillion dollars per year. This fund should also be under democratic control to fund sustainable development in the Third World;
* cancel the Third World debt — the Third World's massive external debt and the social costs imposed by demands to repay are unjust. The amount borrowed has already has already been repaid many times over;
* increase cooperation between countries of the Third World — Castro calls for special "South-South" trade agreements on basic commodities, especially oil, so that countries can trade with each other on favourable terms; and
* end the Western monopoly on key technologies — while neoliberals talk about liberalisation, this is selective. Crucial food crops and key technologies are protected by the West for their own profits while they demand concessions from poor countries.
Democratisation
The only criticism of the book is what it excludes. Originally, a summary of these proposals (and others) was set out as a series of appendices to the books' final speech but this has been dropped, no doubt for reasons of space. Their inclusion here would have provided a handy summary and a more detailed elaboration of the Cuban's ideas. Luckily, they have been reprinted, along with the final speech in the Resistance Books' pamphlet Neoliberal Globalisation and the Third World.
It is clear that it is time for a radical democratisation of the world order so that it can be run in the interests of the majority of the world's peoples. This democratisation requires the radical transformation of the system; it requires that neoliberal globalisation be replaced by a socialist globalisation.
Of course, the fight may be a long one, the Cubans know this better than most, but it requires the reformulation of a vision of the future without injustice and exploitation, and for the abolition of the obscene wealth of global few.
The Cuban's proposals, as well as their revolutionary, example serve as a signpost for the way forward.