Gorbachev and the G-7 conference: Lots of promises, but little cash

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The leaders of the capitalist world meeting in London in mid-July again failed to come up with much more than vigorous encouragement to Gorbachev's efforts to restore capitalism in the Soviet Union. They essentially told him that he still has a long way to go before they will risk investing their capital on any significant scale.

Meantime, only token amounts of cash were provided amid promises of "technical assistance" to help Gorbachev and his bureaucratic soul-mates find their way to instituting the market conditions without which capitalism cannot flower.

The Group of Seven-Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United States-are understandably reluctant to pour the kind of cash into the floundering Soviet economy that is needed to keep it from sinking even further into a black hole.

All sides seem to agree, moreover, that the collapsing economies of Eastern Europe can precipitate a catastrophic social explosion. It is also widely feared that its consequences can have unpredictably farranging destructive economic and political effects on the world's bureaucrats and capitalists.

But so far, world capitalism seems paralyzed by growing doubts that the East European economies can be restored to capitalism.

After all, it took thousands of years of development of markets and private ownership of the means of production before capitalism was possible. But, so far, after some six years of tinkering, the Soviet leadership has made very little progress, and every measure instituted for the return to capitalism has constituted another reduction in living standards for the workers.

No historical precedent It is clear, therefore, that what is meant by "social explosion" is an uprising of the workers, who will then be impelled to take the economic system and society as a whole into their own hands.

Besides, there is no historic precedent for turning the clock of history backward. There are no examples to learn from to help find the way back to the system of production driven by profits. And every effort so far made to recreate the preconditions for capitalism has disrupted the planned economies further. Thus, capitalists and bureaucrats alike have good reason to be pessimistic.

Meanwhile, the workers in all these countries look with outrage at the antics of would-be capitalists who are (without capital) attempting to rip-off a piece of state property for themselves. Reports indicate that most workers are greatly resentful of these legions of entrepreneurs-with the Stalinist bureaucrats leading the pack-enriching themselves at everyone else's expense.

Many workers probably would tolerate re-privatization if new capital were being introduced, which could modernize the existing outworn and outmoded industrial facilities—that is, if they could see the objective conditions for a better life looming in the not too distant future.

But the additional capital necessary for modernizing existing plants and building new up-to-date factories does not exist within these countries. In the past, the traditional source of new capital had come from the surpluses created by state-owned industry. Now, with the planned economy disrupted by market mechanisms (which don't work), new financing of industrial facilities could only come from outside—from the imperialist countries.

This is the dilemma for both bosses and bureaucrats:

I DONT KNOW HOW TO SWIM!

I'M DROWNING!

VERY GOOD.

NOW SAY "I WAS FOOLISH AND I'VE LEARNED MY LESSON!"

'This is the dilemma for both bosses and bureaucrats: The The imperialists won't invest until market forces are in place, and the attempt to introduce market forces disrupts the existing system without putting a profit-driven economy in its place.

Meanwhile, the crippled planned economies sink further down. Last year alone, throughout Eastern Europe, they contracted by 11 percent:

Inter-imperialist competition intensifies And this is not all. A main problem the Group of Seven met to try to resolve is the developing stagnation of the global economy as a whole. The United Nations has just released its World Economic Survey for 1991. It shows that global economic growth slowed to one percent last year and is falling to zero this year. And since world population is growing by 1.8 percent a year, living standards are deteriorating for most of the world's 5.3 billion people.

There appears to be no evidence that the heads of world imperialism have come up with anything more than girding themselves for increased economic competition. That's the meaning of the increasing line-up of economic alliances in three sectors of the imperialist world: Europe around its famed Common Market, Japan around the market it dominates in Asia, and now the so-called American free-trade zone.

Furthermore, a division seems to be opening up among Miahl ABORTION, Woman's Right Choose European imperialism. Germany came to the London summit agitating for more imperialist loans and investments, especially in the Soviet Union, as necessary to help Gorbachev make a successful transition to capitalism before East Europe blows up in all their faces.

Germany, however, has special incentives for coming to Gorbachev's aid. This is partly because the German capitalists had agreed to pour scores of billions of dollars BY TOLES FOR THE BUFFALO NEWS in grants and loans to the Soviets in exchange for facilitating the unification of Germany and for removing Soviet troops from its own soil and from the rest of Eastern Europe. But another motive impelling German capitalism to assist Gorbachev and Co. is the potential opportunity to strengthen their economic position vis-a-vis American and Japanese imperialism.

The Germans have so far placed themselves in a most advantageous position for gaining the most from Gorbachev's pro-capitalist orientation, providing they can pull off a successtul transition to capitalism in the new eastern part of a united Germany.

But this goal-even with the obvious advantage of being the only Western nation to have incorporated one of the "socialist countries" within its boundaries—is proving far more difficult than anyone expected And while the cost of bringing the highways, railroads, telephone system, and other basic elements of the infrastructure up to West German standards is as heavy as expected, the economic collapse of all of former East Germany's old trading partners in Eastern Europe unexpectedly adds mightily to its difficulties and threatens to trigger worse problems yet.

On the other hand, imperialist Germany stands to gain the most if there is an economic revival in the East, especially in the Soviet Union. This is because the economies of Germany and Russia have been historically related.

The stakes are very high Thus, for all the above reasons, German capitalism appears to be more open to gambling on an economic partnership with a Soviet Union that takes more time in introducing market mechanisms than other imperialists are prepared to accept. Such an economic bloc could sweep all of Eastern and even most of Western Europe into Germany's economic orbit. Such a combination could rival American imperialism for world economic domination. The stakes are very high.

This potential seems to be a more important motive for Germany's, France's, and Italy's urging of the Group of Seven to be more generous in providing Gorbachev with increased economic assistance. It is even more important than the feared avalanche of refugees that would flood these three countries if there were a social explosion in the East.

What has been played down, moreover, is that those fleeing social and economic chaos in the East will contribute further to the developing economic crisis in all of Europe.

Both Gorbachev and Bush, each for his own reasons, timed their agreement on a nuclear arms treaty with the opening of the Group of Seven summit in London. It was scheduled to be formally concluded at the summit meeting held in Moscow at the end of July between the two powers.

Despite sharp denials by President Bush, suspicions are reported to have sprouted among delegations at the London summit that the purpose of announcing the Soviet/American nuclear agreement was to focus world attention on, and to reinforce the central role of American imperialism in Bush's new world order.

Unreported are what deals, if any, have been struck by the members of the Group of Seven to deal with the mounting problems of world capitalism. What seems to have surfaced so far has essentially been a jockeying for position by all the competing imperialist powers at this critical juncture in world history.

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the 1,926 delegates after his nomination for president. TDU-supported candidate Ron Carey speaks to West/Imran TDU had long campaigned for) were added to the IBT constitution.

With both bureaucratic slates trying to outbid each other as born-again reformers, the convention voted unanimously to sell the union hierarchy's private jet fleet, and to hold future conventions in union facilities.

Over the objections of the Durham faction, the convention twice voted to stop inviting employers to the convention. The chairman, Secretary-Treasurer Weldon Mathis, however, refused to recognize the vote—one of his many violations of convention democracy (not surprising from a man convicted of stealing the election in his former home local).

Nevertheless, on most votes the bureaucracy managed to unite to defend their privileges. For example, they voted down an amendment to end multiple salaries for officials and voted to never again have this type of open convention by ending direct election of delegates to the convention.

This latter amendment is in defiance of the 1989 consent agreement, which will mean continuing the union's expensive

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imperialists won't invest until market forces are in place, and the attempt to introduce market forces disrupts the existing system without putting a profit-driven economy in its place.'