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| The 31st Gleneagles G-8 Summit as a Summit of World Capitalism: Is this the Solution? |
 PRINTABLE VERSION |
The terms of the trade continue to move against the poor countries. This results in Inter alia, the collapse in the prices of the things they sell to the advanced capitalist countries. Five grams of tea sell in the west for £ 2. This means a kilo costs £ 400. Nestle and the other big processors buy that bag for just £70. Just 0.2% of the price of a cup of coffee bought in London goes to the growers. The WTO is the third institution the advanced capitalist countries use as a means of impoverishing the third world. It imposes "free trade" on poor countries. It forces them to open up their markets.
Haiti, for example, was forced to allow US grains to be imported into it. The grain that poured in from the USA was exported by agribusiness heavily subsidized by the American taxpayer. The result was that thousands of peasant farmers in that country lost their livelihoods. Farming is subsidized in the west to the tune of $ 1 billion a day. $ 1 billion is shelled out to 25,000 cotton farmers – that's $ 160,000 each, which is more than their crop is worth. This has a negative impact on the competitive strength of the poorer farmers from the poorer countries. Moreover, Europe's common agricultural policy not only keeps out third world produce but also subsidizes European producers. The forthcoming Gleneagles summit is not expected to take into account these things, which have a lot to do with the attempt to ensure that the poorer countries become free from the problem of poverty.
The forthcoming Gleneagles summit will discuss third world debt relief, among other things. According to Oxfam, if things continue to go on as they are now in Africa, by 2015, 45 million more children will die; 247 million more people will be living on $ 1 per day or less; 97 million more children will not be in school; 53 million people will be without proper sanitation. It is impossible to prevent such things from happening if the advanced capitalist countries force the poorer countries to swallow what Mick Brooks calls "nasty IMF medicine."
Whether the forthcoming summit will help the African countries plagued with abject poverty get rid of it or not, depends upon to some extent, whether it will decide to not force them to swallow the nasty IMF medicine, which has essentially taken them to their present pitiable condition. But, unfortunately, the forthcoming 31st Gleneagles summit will be "essentially" no more than an opportunity to further develop and strengthen world capitalism, which serves only the interests of the advanced capitalist countries.
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Ajit Rai
I take a deep interest in development and underdevelopment as well as in politics, especially in its relation to economics. Currently, I am undertaking systematic research, and intend to theorize about Nepalese development and underdevelopment from a socio-philosophical approach.
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