CHAPTER XVII.
EXPORT OR PERISH.
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Towards the end of the Middle-Ages, at the very early stage of capitalism, production was slow and most of the manpower and capital of a country was employed in producing the essential commodities required for home consumption. Generally speaking, little was left for export. Almost the total potential of capital and labour was expended within the country.
With the advance in technology, the productivity of capital and labour started to increase: production was becoming capital intensive, machinery were replacing people.
Given the nature of the capitalist system, if only a part of the workforce is needed to produce the country's total requirements, it means that the rest would be out of work and, consequently, would not receive any wages or salaries.
Without any income, they would be reduced to poverty and, most important of all, for capitalist economy, they would not be able to buy any of the commodities produced by that part of the workforce still employed. Therefore, another percentage of labour and capital would become redundant, and more people would have to join those out of work. In theory, and also in practice, the result would be that capitalist economy would gradually shrink and eventually collapse.
This is the problem of overproduction in capitalist economy, a problem which would seem absurd when there are still a lot of poor people in the society. It is caused by the continuous competition amongst the capitalists to increase the productivity of capital and labour. Therefore, to maintain the essential growth in investment and to prevent stagnation, the surplus capital and labour in the industrial countries was channeled towards export. But today, as more and more countries are becoming industrialised and are in a similar situation, they have all become involved in an absurd trade war in the saturated world markets. This war has become a question of life and death for many countries in the world, hence the cry: "export or perish!"
A country lacking in natural resources must by necessity import a lot of raw materials and in return export manufactured goods. Its life and growth naturally depend on the success of this trade. Such a country normally would have just a small primary industry, barely sufficient for its own consumption. For such a country the cry "export or perish" is real and natural enough in the context of capitalist economic production.
Such country would be a traditional importer of raw materials and exporter of manufactured goods. But for a nation with a wealth of natural resources and with a fully developed manufacturing industry, a situation in which it must export at all costs to be able to maintain its economic growth and full employment, must be very complex and full of problems.
The ideal would be to be able to export without having to import anything that can be produced at home. But, in fact, the payments for exports are not only in money but also in commodities from abroad. If it exports farm produce and raw materials, it will have to import machinery and manufactured goods, some of which will be competing in the home market against the goods produced by the local manufacturing industry.
This situation may suit the exporting companies and corporations in the primary industries. It may also suit the merchants and traders whose profits are not determined by the origin or the nationality of the commodities they trade with, but by their cheapness and quality. Evidently this is not favourable to those that are involved in the manufacturing industries having to compete against cheaper goods from abroad.
Therefore, we find one section of business clamouring to lower the national trade barriers to let more imports in so as to be able to export more, while another section is clamouring to raise national barriers with tariffs and other controls on imports to protect their home market from an invasion of cheaper foreign goods.
The logical capitalist answer to this problem is to urge the manufacturing industry to become more competitive in the already extremely competitive and saturated local and world markets. Local business are urged to lower the cost of production and raise the productivity of labour as much as possible, “....but the productive power of labour is raised, above all, by a greater division of labour, by a more universal introduction and continual improvement of machinery..." The most likely result will be an increase in the number of the unemployed.
To this effect, the industrialists, while pestering the government for tariff protection, export bounties and lower taxes, they urge their work force and society at large to work harder and accept a lower standard of living in order to produce cheaper goods in competition against countries which are natural and traditional manufacturing exporters, or countries where the wages of labour are several times lower than at home. They urge that we must sell in a saturated world market where the number of competing countries, more or less in the same situation of having to export or perish, is growing every year. These exhortations often come from the same business and corporations that have controlling interests and investments in the manufacturing industries of the foreign countries against which their workforce has to compete.
If patriotism is not enough to induce the worker to work harder, there is always the prospect of unemployment plus the competition of imported immigrant labour, for whom any pay and conditions are better than those in their home countries. No need to say that the main promoters and beneficiaries of such immigration of cheap labour in time of unemployment are no one else than our 'patriotic' national and international capitalists.
From the smaller underdeveloped countries to the biggest and more technologically advanced, some to pay their debts, some because they have no natural wealth but have a developed technology, some because they have too much of both, some for any combination of these reasons, they all must export or perish.
As they all are trying to export more or less the same commodities, and, as their number is growing in the world markets, a senseless trade war has developed between Nations. We witness the absurd spectacle of the rich people and the rich countries of the world trying to flog to each other goods and services of which they all have too much already. At the same time, the majority of their countrymen who are producing all those goods and services must go without, and often must accept cuts in public health, education and old age security. Why? Because, once we have subjected ourselves to the capitalist law of the merchant, we are not allowed to produce anything unless it is to be sold for a profit: if we can sell we live, if we cannot sell we die.
The intensifying of the trade war is one of the symptoms of the capitalist sickness. The outcome of this war is that the rich are still getting richer and the poor are still getting poorer. It is a silly and tragic contest among Nations to throw each other out of work.
Now, to complete the picture of this world wide trade war, over this messy sketch of over one hundred countries involved in this pseudo nationalistic fight for survival in which the majority must be losers, we must superimpose the important element of the 'transnational' corporations.
As they are themselves engaged in the trade war against each other and against any of the other nationalist participants, the resulting picture must confuse the mind. Because they involve with their ramifications and connections most industries in most countries of the world, the supposedly nationalistic nature of the trade war becomes confused and unreal, one cannot say any more with certainty whom one is working or making sacrifices for: whether it is for one's own country, for the opposition or for the transnationals; of one thing one can be sure, that, if one has a poorly paid job or one is not working, he is not sacrificing for himself.
The transnational corporations hover everywhere over the world wide theatre of war, picking, choosing and generally taking advantage of every situation. Therefore, besides being transnational they have become 'super national'. They may lose in one place but they may win in another. They can win in a country where the people are losing, and, in balance, they are probably the only winners in this senseless trade war.
This trend has been growing for over fifty years; it is called Globalisation it is an attempt to create a Worldwide market without national barriers and with universal commercial regulations that advance the vested interests of business and corporations; possibly under the dominance of the United States and NATO as its enforcer in case of trouble.
Such, in my opinion, is one of the confusing aspects in the present unnatural stage of capitalist economic evolution. Since the thirties, Capitalism has developed in an irrational way; every new device to keep the economy from stagnating could only have a temporary and limited success. The trade war is one of the results of overproduction and market saturation in relation to the effective demand; a situation which is threatening capitalist economy and is twisting and corrupting capitalist society.