UNICEF report indicts capitalism for world hunger, deaths of children

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Two-thirds of these children will die from fe common diseases inexpensively prevented or cured oral rehydration, and antibiotics.' East Coast Educational Conference ATU Local 1205 (Greyhound) Need tor a Revolutionary Party Boylston Hall Audit., Harvard Yard, Boston SOCIALIST ACTION MAY 1990 3 The State of the World's Children 1990. By James P. Grant, Executive Direc or of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). Oxford University Press, 1990. 102 pp. $8.50. Available free from UNICEF, 3 UN Plaza, New York, N.Y. 10017.

Although that is not at all its intention, this official UNICEF report is a devastating indictment of the world capitalist system.

Unless there is a complete reversal of direction, the report points out, 100 million children under five in the Third World will die in the next 10 years of illness and malnutrition. Two-thirds of these children will die from five common diseases that could be easily and inexpensively prevented or cured with low-cost vaccines, oral rehydration therapy, and antibiotics.

The world pays little attention to this although the preventable fatalities exceed those of World War II. Yet all that is needed is the political will and the expenditure of between $2 billion and $3 billion each year.

This sum is "as much as U.S. companies have been spending each year to advertise cigarettes.... It is as much as the developing world is paying every week to service its debts. It is as much as the world as a whole spends on the military every day."

In addition, the report asserts, birth spacing is a most important factor for the health of both mothers and children, and "evidence from the World Fertility Survey suggests that if women who do not want to become pregnant were empowered to exercise that choice, the rate of population growth in the developing world would fall by approximately 30%."

It may also be pointed out that lower childhood mortality rates and adequate welfare measures would further reduce the drive of poor peasants to have large families in order to benefit from the labor of children and to gain some assurance of being taken care of in old age. The heartbreak and misery of childhood death and malnutrition are unnecessary and an affront to the world's moral conscience.

Children pay IMF with health But it is not merely that unnecessary suffering and death exist on a huge scale. In the last 10 years things have gotten considerably worse. This is primarily due to payments on the debt owed to advanced capitalist countries and to military spending, which together account for half of the Third World's total annual expenditures.

The UNICEF report quotes approvingly the statement by President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, "Few scourges in human history can claim as many victims as today's debt crisis." It characterizes the past decade as "the developing world's worst recession since the 1930s" and asserts that "the chilling injustice of what is happening is escaping our attention."

Those who are most affected by this scourge are those who are most vulnerablethe poor, and above all the children of the poor. In most of Latin America and in sub-Saharan Africa, where average incomes have fallen sharply, the children of the poor are paying the Third World's debt with their health.

The report states, "Over the last few years, a decline in health spending per person has been documented in more than three quarters of the nations of Africa and Latin America, and the decline is almost certainly more widespread than these figures suggest."

Another way in which the children of the poor pay the Third World's debt with their health is through their governments' withdrawal of subsidies on food. The real value of food subsidies in Brazil, Colombia, Jamaica, Mexico, Peru, and many other countries has declined in the 1980s.

The poor, who spend three-quarters of their incomes on food, suffer most from this. Moreover, so poorly are the food subsidies targeted—or so indifferent are the governments to the poor-that more than 50% of the subsidized food is bought by the middle and upper classes.

What the report calls the economic adjustment programs instituted by the International Monetary fund (IMF) also work against the poor. As it says succinctly and with considerable restraint, "The problem is that education, health, birth-planning services and natural resource protection all involve government spending, a habit which most adjustment programs are seeking to discourage."

with low-cost vaccines, It is not, however, only those countries that have fallen into the debt trap that are suffering from poverty, malnutrition, and preventable disease. Asia, except for Indonesia, Myanmar (Burma), and the Philippines, has managed to escape the trap, but "45% of the children who are malnourished, 35% of those who are not in school, and over 50% of those who live in absolute poverty, are to be found in just three countries-India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh."

Nor is it just a matter of the huge populations of these countries. "The percentage of children who are malnourished is still significantly higher in South Asia than in any other region of the world—including sub-Saharan Africa."

Not just poor countries Finally, the report makes clear that poverty, malnutrition, and preventable disease are not confined to the poor countries. They have grown also in the last 10 years in the rich countries.

"In both the United States and the United Kingdom, for example, 10 years of steady economic growth has been accompanied by a doubling of the number of homeless families. And while the safety nets of social services have slowly frayed, the number of children living in poverty in the United States has risen by more than 3 million (from 11% of the child population in 1979 to over 15% today).

"Today, approximately one third of Hispanic Americans and one half of AfricanAmericans are living below the accepted poverty line, as are 40% of the children of that could be easily and New York, the financial capital of the world."

In the face of its grim statistics the report is determinedly upbeat. Its purpose is not to condemn the governments of the world but to exhort them to give "first call" to children. To this end it seizes upon every declaration by a head of government that serves as evidence of new emerging priorities.

It thus quotes as recognition of "the rights of the child" George Bush's statement that "our national character can be measured by how we care for our children." It says nothing, however, of the fact that the Bush administration's budget is not at all guided by this noble sentiment and does not show the political commitment UNICEF says is necessary for helping the children of the poor.

Although the Gross National Product per capita of the United States—a statistical 'Labor's Turning Point' -Film and panel Friday, May 4, 7: 30 p.m.

Speakers:

Domenic Bozzotto, Pres. & Bus. Mgr., Local 26 H.E.R.E.; Linda Harrison, Bus. Agt., Local 2222 IBEW (NYNEX); Jake Cooper, Socialist Action; David Walsh, member TCU Local 1089; Roy Nutter, Pres.. average which hides vast differences in wealth among different sectors of the population-is exceeded only by that of Switzerland, 21 countries have lower mortality rates among children under five. UNICEF explains that this statistic is the most important indicator of the state of a country's children.

"Capitalism with a human face"

UNICEF looks to "enterprise systems and market mechanisms" to stimulate development, but it warns against allowing the unrestricted law of the market to prevail. In essence it calls for capitalism with a human face, pointing to the rise in poverty despite economic growth "in several industrialized nations" (primarily, Thatcher's Great Britain and Reagan's America).

It also points to such contradictions in the Third World as the poor's use of ineffective and expensive anti-diarrhea drugs for childhood illnesses that governmental use of lowcost and low-profit methods would make unnecessary. This is because many times poor people are persuaded by commercial companies' advertisements to use high-cost artificial substitutes for low-cost and much more healthful breast milk.

What UNICEF ignores is a ruling class's drive under capitalism to accumulate capital for investment in order to maintain its social position. The logic of capitalist society militates against the "humanization" of capitalism.

On the other hand, UNICEF's own statistics show how the countries that have had proletarian revolutions since World War II have made remarkable progress in child health care and education.

Cuba points way forward Cuba now has the lowest mortality rate among children under five of all the countries in South and Central America and the Caribbean. Comparing it with the Philippines, which became a client state of the United States at about the same time as Cuba, but, unlike Cuba, did not liberate itself from the U.S.'s dominance, we find that the Philippines have 73 deaths per 1,000 children under five as against Cuba's 18 (the United States has 13).

Similarly, China, which los a Gross National Product per capite of $290 as against India's $300, has only 43 under-five deaths per 1000 as against India's 149. This reflects the fact that, as the report says, China is "the country which has done more than any other to pioneer primary heath care."

However, the report adds without giving an explanation that China has "largely dismantled its barefoot doctor system." Could this have something to do with the Chinese bureaucracy's growing campaign to institute "market mechanisms?"

While Stalinism has failed, this should not be confused with the superior health care provided to workers and peasants by a planned economy.

On the other hand—as the UNICEF report clearly demonstrates-capitalism itself has not only failed, it has also exacerbated the plight of hundreds of millions of children in the Third World.

Only through an international socialist order can what UNICEF calls "doing the obvious" be achieved: bending every energy to attain the entirely feasible goal of saving the lives of some 60 million children and protecting the normal growth of many millions more.

'The Struggle for Socialism' Saturday, May 5 10:15-12:00 - Prof. Chris Nteta: The Struggle in South Africa Today 1:30-3:15 - Prof. John Edmond: The Economic Crisis of Capitalism 3:30-5:00 - Jake Cooper & Malik Miah: 'Socialist Politics and the Sponsored by Socialist Action

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