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Any criticism of
the current world order, the "booming" U.S.
economy, and American consumerism is usually met
with an argument along the lines of, "People are
happy with the way things are, so what's the
problem? Are you going to tell people what they
should like?" The mass media are filled with
stories about how great things are in the United
States, the "new" and "prosperous" economy, and how
everyone should be thankful they're better off than
they were before.
However, there's
the obvious question of whether the 13-year-old
sweatshop workers, or the millions of homeless
people, or the millions of prisoners, or those
trapped in ghettoes, or those without basic
sanitation, are happy with the prosperous American
economy. And perhaps less obvious is the question
of the happiness of the middle-class office worker,
trapped in a job where he's subservient to
bureaucratic management just to support a lifestyle
of a nice house, nice cars, nice material things,
and a huge debt -- none of which make him happy.
There's also the question of whether the average
person is happy with a system where he's powerless
against gigantic corporations that not only control
the government, but their everyday
workplaces.
In this column,
I'll list a number of indicators that perhaps many
people aren't happy with the way things are and the
way corporations control our lives. Next week, I'll
write about why many of the consumer-based and
election-based movements to reform the current
system (such as some of the movements listed below)
just cannot accomplish what they hope to
accomplish.
Here are a few
indicators of dissatisfaction with the new world
order:
* Polls of
Americans show that people are happy with their
lives and jobs, but they also show that this
happiness is due to lowered expectations on the
part of most Americans. This second fact is less
widely reported. The lowered expectations of many
Americans is not surprising, given the next couple
of items.
* Real wages of many
workers
(adjusted for inflation) has actually been dropping
over the last couple of decades, while fewer
workers are insured and while workers are working
longer hours. The top fifth of Americans are
earning 43 percent more than in 1977. The bottom
fifth are earning nine percent less. The richest
one percent of workers is earning 115 percent more.
Because of inflation, workers earning minimum wage
have 20 percent less buying power they had 20 years
ago. If average worker pay had risen at the same
rate as CEO pay in the last ten years, worker pay
would be $110,399. Instead, it is $29,267.
* Both the
income gap and the wealth
gap between
the upper class and the lower class have been
growing during the "booming" and "prosperous" new
economy. Working households in the middle of the
economic scale have lost 11 percent of their net
worth since 1983. In the same period,
lower-middle-class and poor families -- the 40
percent at the bottom of the economic scale -- lost
80 percent of their net worth. The top one percent
increased their net worth by 17 percent. At the
same time, the rich have grown wealthier: The
richest one percent of households now control 40
percent of the nation's assets, twice what they had
20 years ago.
* Two million
people are in jail in America (by far the largest
percentage of any country's population in jail),
which along with police brutality, prison slave labor, and
the death penalty, has drawn large civil
rights and human rights protests and
campaigns.
* Millions of
people have voluntarily simplified their lives,
rejecting consumerism and American materialism in
favor of a less-hectic, less-costly lifestyle. This
very visible trend of the 1990s spread like
wildfire when people realized that they have been
unwittingly making trade-offs of wage slavery and
unhappiness in return for material goods and
consumer entertainment that haven't brought
happiness. I highly recommend the books "Living the
Simple Life" by Elaine St. James and "Your Money or
Your Life" by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin.
* Anti-globalism
and anti-capitalism protests have been waged
against the World Trade Organization, World Bank,
International Monetary Fund, and World Economic
Forum in Seattle last year, and in Washington D.C.,
Sydney, and Prague this year. Protesters call for either
reform or elimination of the powerful system of
global corporate dominance that hurts all workers
(in the U.S. and worldwide) and the
environment.
* Protests have
been launched this year against the Democratic
National Party and the Republic National Party
conventions in Los Angeles and Philadephia,
respectively, and the corporate wealth that has
bought out the major parties. Protesters point out
that there isn't any major difference between the
two major parties or their candidates -- they both
represent (and are funded by) the rich and the
corporations.
* Ralph Nader, the Green Party, and many
people are campaigning against the corporate power
that controls the government and our lives at the
expense of poor people, education, health care, and
the general public interest.
* The Global Anti-McDonald's
Campaign
and the 16th Annual World Anti-McDonald's Day on
October 16, 2000, target the symbol of American
capitalism and consumerism. The Anti-McDonald's Day
is a "protest against the promotion of junk food,
the unethical targeting of children, exploitation
of workers, animal cruelty, damage to the
environment and the global domination of
corporations over our lives."
* Buy Nothing Day, on the day after
Thanksgiving (Nov. 24, 2000), "forces us to think
about the "shop-till-you-drop" imperative and its
effects on the rest of the world. On Buy Nothing
Day enjoy a break from the shopping frenzy. Relish
your power as a consumer to change the economic
environment."
* Car Free Day, which was on September 21,
2000 and is held annually, aims to "tell the
drivers, the road construction companies, the oil
companies, the car manufacturers, the world's
governments and ministries, and banking
institutions that enough is enough!" (See also:
carfree.com.)
* Movies such as
"American Beauty", "Fight Club", and "the Matrix"
(some of the better movies in the last decade) have
attacked supposedly ideal American values and
society and have shown the underlying unhappiness
with the system that is in many people's
lives.
* Turn Off The TV
Week from
April 22-28, "to encourage more people to create
their own brand of entertainment -- a powerful
gesture of consumer sovereignty. The broader goal
is to draw attention to the fact that a handful of
megacorporations now control the global information
superstructure and routinely censor opinions that
challenge their interests and
profitability."
* Movements to limit the
out-of-control corporate power in California, Colorado,
Pennsylvania, Oregon, and a coalition of nine
Midwestern U.S. states. Such movements include
efforts to revoke corporate charters if they commit
three regulation violations or to force
corporations to justify their charters every 10
years.
Rejection of
corporate and capitalist dominance is
international, too
Indications of
dissatisfaction with the New World Order and the
dominance of corporations over everyday people can
be seen all over the world. I can think of a few
examples just off the top of my head, but there are
many more.
* Wealth gap: The
world's 225 richest people have a combined wealth
equal to the combined annual income of the world's
2.5 billion poorest people. A 4 percent levy on
their wealth would provide adequate food, safe
water and sanitation, basic education, basic health
care and reproductive health care for all those in
the developing countries.
* Basic needs:
According to the United Nations, 2.6 billion people
have no access to sanitation, 2 billion have no
electricity and 100 million are homeless.
* Bolivia: More
than 300,000 trade unionists and environmentalists
held a general strike to protest IMF imposed
structural adjustment and World Bank water
privatization policies that have given public
resources away to corporations. Recently, too,
we've seen revolting workers, including coca
growers, teachers and rural agriculturists in
Bolivia.
* Indonesia:
Indigenous people of the annexed West Papua have
been defending themselves against the Indonesian
army and the country's exploitation and ecological
destruction of their land and people. The Free West
Papua movement's statements mirror many other
peoples across the globe:
"The struggle to
free W. Papua is not to take away one government
and replace it with a new government. We do not
want to administer ourselves the capitalist 'profit
making'. It is the struggle between modern society
and tribal people. We have our common enemy, and we
need to work together, throughout the world to make
it disappear from this planet earth. We can only
make it happen if we are united. The unity of all
people in this world will make it happen. Yi Wa
O!"
About 300,000
Papuans have lost their lives because of Indonesian
invasion and occupation since 1963.
* Korea: Nearly two
hundred people's organisations, social movements,
and civil society organisations in Korea, Asia and
Europe are organizing actions on Oct. 20, 2000
against the Asia Europe Summit Meeting, a meeting
of the heads of states of 15 European nations and
10 Asian countries. The counter-globalization
organizations are putting together a conference
with the theme of "People's Action and Solidarity
Challenging Globalisation".
* Greece: Thousands
of people have recently waged several protests
against war, educational reform, police brutality
and authoritarianism.
* France: In 1995,
millions of French workers
rejected
the brand of American corporate-controlled
government that has been forced on many countries
globally. Government and private-sector employees
went on strikes that crippled the government and
forced at least minimal concessions to their
demands. The workers were protesting the
conservative government's "reforms" to the social
security system, cutting aid to poor families,
reducing benefits to government workers, and
imposing new taxes in order to attract foreign
capital and rejuvenate the economy.
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