(To be published in Arabic for Arabi21)
We have all had the experience of going into a shop and having the shop owner quote us a ridiculously high price for the item we want to buy. He usually has no expectation of us actually agreeing to this price. He expects us to bargain; he is simply trying to skew the bargaining in his favor so that we will ultimately agree to a price which still ensures him an acceptable profit margin.
Obviously, if we do not bargain, and immediately accept the inflated price he quotes, he will be happier; but he will be satisfied with any price above his own costs.
On a larger scale, and in more complex way, this is essentially what is going on with multinational corporations.
For the sake of profitability, they are demanding macroeconomic reforms, de-regulation, lower wages, lay-offs, outsourcing, and market liberalization to enable them to overpower smaller domestic enterprises, privatization of state industries, so on and so forth.
They are trying to reconfigure government and social policy so that their primary function is to contribute to corporate profitability. They are, like a greedy shop owner, making utterly unreasonable demands to maximize their profits. And, like a shop owner, they will be satisfied with any profit above their costs and expenditures; but you can’t blame them for trying to get more.
The problem is, we are not bargaining.
Just like a shop owner who has dozens of reasons why he is charging so much for an item (it is rare, it is the last piece available, it is hand-made, another customer asked him to reserve it for them, his shipping costs are high, etc, etc), so corporations have a multitude of justifications for why our enslavement and the subjugation of sovereign government are necessary. It stimulates economic growth, it creates jobs, it fosters innovation, it improves the quality of our lives, it reduces poverty, etc, etc.
And, they have a complex system for promoting these rationales; like the IMF and the World Bank, expert economists, paid politicians, and corporate-owned media outlets. And, yes, like the shop owner, these are all obvious and easily refutable lies.
No developed economy in the West achieved its development by implementing the policies now being advocated for the developing world; quite the opposite, in fact.
The United States is the most powerful economy in human history precisely because it completely rejected the policies it now wants other countries to follow.
Now that the Western countries have reached the pinnacle of economic power through protectionism and trade barriers, they have become aggressive advocates of free trade and market liberalization for the weaker, developing economies of the world, exactly so that they can dominate them and shackle their growth, thereby increasing the profitability of their own corporations.
Again, you can’t blame them for trying. The internal logic of corporations makes them inherently predatory. They are not altruistic, social welfare organizations. They exist to make profit. They will always try for the maximum, and if they get it, like the greedy shop owner, they will not feel guilty about it.
Just as when you go into a shop you have to be prepared to bargain, so too, we have to be prepared to challenge the wild aspirations of multinationals.
Where democratic mechanisms do not exist (and I do not know where they do exist without being dominated by corporate influence), our negotiation with corporate power must necessarily take the form of disruption.