Misguided American policies may have set the stage for China to win the geopolitical sweepstakes
The more I think about it, the more I feel
that the risk of the US losing its global dominance in many
areas—economics, finance, capital markets, education and culture—has
risen substantially in recent times. Specifically, I am now prepared to
contemplate the possibility that China might get the better of America
by 2030. American society, macro policy and capital markets have all
decayed and remain decadent. The simultaneous bubbles in multiple asset
classes (and some of them are not assets at all) is a tell-tale sign of a
society that has lost its bearings, perhaps beyond redemption. Whether
it’s crypto currencies, technology stocks, electric vehicles and homes,
or shares peddled in chat rooms, non-fungible tokens and blank-cheque
companies, its lack of concern for the disconnect between value and
price (and for potential losses) is reflective of a culture that has
debased hard work and thrift, and of a policy framework that has debased
money.
America
is still sending stimulus cheques. Its labour market is recovering
spontaneously. Small businesses are hiring. There is no need for a pork-
barrel fiscal stimulus. But, that is what’s coming. Just two examples.
Steven Rattner, who served the Barack Obama administration, thinks (‘Too
Many Smart People Are Being Too Dismissive of Inflation’, New York
Times, 5 March 2021) that the stimulus package would put $422 billion
into the pockets of millions of Americans who were unaffected by the
crisis. Second, the $510 billion now on offer to states and localities
could be pared down to as low as $86 billion. Stimulus cheques are
likely to be diverted for speculation in stock markets.
Monetary policy is craving inflation so that the US debt burden
can be reduced through rising prices and higher nominal gross domestic
product growth. In August 1987, a new chairman who was appointed to the
Federal Reserve faced a stock-market crash within two months of his
appointment. Then, from May 1988 to March 1989, he raised the Federal
funds rate and inverted the yield curve. A recession followed, aided by
other factors, including a doubling of the price of crude oil. A crisis
in thrift institutions (savings and loans) followed. The Federal funds
rate came down to 3% and stayed there for a couple of years. The real
interest rate dropped to zero, which put off the bond market. Despite
the US inflation rate staying stable at around 3%, its 10-year Treasury
yield rose by 200 basis points. The bond market calmed down only after
the Federal funds rate climbed to 5.5% from 3% over the course of 1994. A
rise in real yields was needed to convince bond investors that their
real returns won’t be eroded by inflation.
Today, the Fed is not prepared to offer that assurance. If
anything, the US central bank’s reassurance is the opposite of what the
bond market seeks. The outcome will be an erosion of the credibility of
American monetary authorities and confidence in the US currency. This
drama has started and its climax is a few years away. The Fed is also
dismissive of financial stability concerns. But asset bubbles will
burst. The Fed will double down again with loose policies that will only
accelerate the arrival of the above outcome. Macroeconomic policy, both
fiscal and monetary, is thus dysfunctional in America. The
Japanification of the American economy without the protection of
Japanese social cohesion and social stability is a likely prospect.
Finally, there is corruption. Whether it is academia, government
or the financial industry or corporate sector, in general, all are
compromised to varying degrees in their pursuit of various narrow
agendas—internally or externally—to the detriment of the nation. This is
not just confined to America, but applies to many Western nations. That
is what The Hidden Hand by Clive Hamilton and Mareike Ohlberg has
painstakingly documented. Lastly, though this space is too short to
elaborate, there is the tyranny of ‘woke’ conformity that’s sweeping
America.
Geopolitically, Europe is far more willing to put commercial
considerations ahead of other value-based concerns in its dealings with
China. Large swathes of Asia and Africa, too, feel that they have no
choice but to be vassal states of China.
In contrast with the West’s, China’s current monetary and fiscal
policies are prudent. For now, its authorities appear to have learnt the
lessons of their response to the 2008 global economic crisis. China had
panicked and ordered banks to lend to create capacity in infrastructure
and other sectors that was far in excess of what was needed. Today,
China is not splurging in response to the covid crisis. Its stimulus is
calibrated and measured this time round. The International Monetary Fund
calculates that the Chinese general government fiscal deficit will
remain high well into 2025 and hence its government debt ratio will be
rising. But the case with many Western nations is the same, and they are
still doubling down. China, on the other hand, is de-leveraging. Of all
the major central banks in the world, only one is seeing its balance
sheet shrink. That is China’s.
China is emerging as the dominant state and our freedom is at stake if we do not reclaim what we gave up in an emergency.
By STAN GRANT
An
almost-empty Brish Airways flight. China’s President Xi Jinping boasts
that his style of government is superior to that of the West; You can
imagine him asking: where is your freedom now?
I
first saw something stirring on the ground; a mound of bird feathers
suddenly rustled and the vague outline of a creature began to form. At
first I wasn’t sure what I was seeing, but slowly it shook itself down
and became more visible. What appeared was a medium-sized dog.
Something, though, was not right – the animal was unsteady on its feet,
and what was left of its fur was matted and dirty. I could see red raw
skin and weeping sores. It seemed to fix me in its sight and began to
move closer; my cameraman started filming.
As
the dog drew nearer, I could see its eyes were bright red and swollen,
pus oozing from an infection. It was the sickest and sorriest animal I
had ever seen alive; in fact, it was barely clinging to life. The most
humane thing to do would be to put it down. The dog didn’t make it all
the way to me – it didn’t have the energy. After a few weak steps it
slumped again to the ground.
This was
my introduction to a Chinese animal market in Guangdong Province, in
southern China. A virus had broken out from a market just like this one –
a lethal virus unseen before that was striking down anyone who came in
contact with it. The first symptoms were intense muscle pain, lethargy,
fever, a cough and a sore throat. For every 10 people who came down with
the virus, one would die. It spread rapidly throughout the population,
shutting down some businesses and keeping people indoors. Those who
ventured out usually wore masks to reduce the risk of infection. Public
health warnings told people to avoid crowded spaces and reduce contact
with others. Riding on an escalator or entering a lift might be enough
to put your health or even life at risk.
At
the time, I was living in Hong Kong with my family and working for CNN.
We were on the frontline of the outbreak of what became known as severe
acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS. The first case was reported in
November 2002, when a farmer in Guangdong fell sick and died. It took
several months for the world to become aware of the seriousness of SARS.
The Chinese government had been secretive and slow to act. By the time
the World Health Organisation raised the alarm, several thousand people
were infected worldwide, and hundreds had died.
The
outbreak of SARS brought China front and centre into the lives of
people everywhere. What happened in an animal market in a far-flung
province could kill people thousands of kilometres away. It wasn’t just
the threat of SARS that put the world at risk, but the secrecy of the
Chinese Communist Party. China is a nation built on fear and top-down
control: provincial leaders would rather hide the truth than confess any
failing to the centralised party powerbrokers. The SARS crisis came and
went. The spread of the virus was limited, and a wider disaster was
averted. But the world now confronted just how vulnerable it was to this
enormous, increasingly powerful but still, in so many ways,
impenetrable country. China had opened up to the world, and become the
world’s factory. At the time of the SARS outbreak, it was in the midst
of an economic revolution transforming the lives of hundreds of millions
of ordinary Chinese. Now they could buy homes and send their children
to school. Chinese tourists were travelling the globe, while at home
they watched Hollywood movies and danced in nightclubs to Western music.
You could be fooled into thinking China was becoming like us.
Fools
we were. The Chinese Communist Party had its eyes set far ahead: it
would return China to global dominance. It would beat the West at its
own game. The Party would embrace capitalism but never relinquish its
power.
SARS gave us a taste of what was
to come, how another illness would emerge from China and up-end the
world, killing millions and infecting millions more, and driving our
economies to the wall. In the years after SARS, Western countries would
be mired in war, crippled by financial crises and beset by political
turmoil. In the battle between democracy and authoritarianism, the
Chinese Communist Party would claim the upper hand.
On course for conflict
We
find ourselves now at a hinge point of history. Thirty years after the
end of the Cold War, there is talk of Cold War 2.0. The US is staring
down a new rival: China. We are witnessing a return of “great power
rivalry”, yet China is economically more powerful today than the Soviet
Union was then, and the US is unquestionably diminished. America is
politically fractured, and deeply divided along racial and class lines.
It is in the grip of an opioid epidemic and a frenzy of gun violence,
and of course it has been devastated by the coronavirus. Alarmingly,
life expectancy in the country is decreasing.
So
damaged and polarised is the US that The Atlantic magazine in December
2019 entitled its edition How to Stop a Civil War. In 2019 talk of civil
war may have seemed exaggerated, until 2021 when Donald Trump incited
his followers to storm the Capitol building. Trump refused to accept
that he had lost the election; America would not have a peaceful
handover of power. What the world witnessed was an insurrection in the
so-called heart of democracy. What it revealed was that democracy itself
is rotten.
America is an exhausted
nation. It has been beset by crises for decades: the
al-Qa’ida-orchestrated terrorist attacks of September 2001, the wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq, the banking collapse and global financial crisis
of 2007-08.
It is today a nation worn down and poorer; it is less sure of itself, and the world is less sure of American leadership.
A
decade ago, the journalist and political commentator Fareed Zakaria
coined the phrase “the post-American world”: he saw a world in which the
US was still powerful but no longer dominant. Others had caught up. Is
this now the post-American world?
China
is on track to become the biggest economy in the world, and it is
building a military that it says will fight and win any war. The two
nations have been on a collision course. In 2017 the US declared China a
strategic competitor, and in 2019 the two powers waged a trade war that
damaged both nations.
There are
serious concerns that China and the US could be on course to an even
greater conflict. Any clash between the nations would likely be
catastrophic, but as much as we may try to wish it away, military
strategists in Beijing and Washington are right now preparing for such
an eventuality.
Freedom is precious
The
year 2020 was unlike any other in our recent memories. A horrible year.
We have experienced fear and vulnerability; some have lost loved ones,
others have fallen ill; too many have lost their livelihoods, and we
have all lost a little of our freedom. The great strength of liberal
democracy – freedom – has not been enough to defeat COVID-19.
For
a decade I lived in, worked in or visited China, covering the story of
this emerging authoritarian superpower. I felt what it was like to live
in a country where the state controls information and movement – where
the Communist Party reaches into every aspect of life. In 2020-21, all
of us have felt a little of what life is like in China: monitored,
suspicious of each other, with our liberty curtailed.
To
defeat the virus, we have had to surrender what is most precious to us.
China’s President Xi Jinping boasts that his style of government is
superior to that of the West; I can imagine him asking: where is your
freedom now?
While democracy can be the
best vaccine against tyranny, it carries within its own tyranny. To
many people – the poor and oppressed – democracy is a sham: a game
played by and for the elites. When the threat of coronavirus passes,
will we reclaim our liberty? What we have set aside in an emergency we
must not allow to be normalised. We must push back against attempts at
greater surveillance or control of our lives. Democracies united around
common purpose made the world a better place after World War II. The
world will need that collaboration, that commitment to a common future,
to ensure we defeat the tyrannies of our time.
Thirty
years ago we declared the end of history, but history does not so
easily end. The West was guilty of hubris and triumphalism: of thinking
that countries like China would bend to our will. Now we are at a deep
inflection point of history and the world we have known is no longer
assured. We have felt the loss of freedom – surely now we know precious
it is.
With the Falling of the Dusk by Stan Grant, published by HarperCollins on Monday.
Russia and Asian countries should create a vast economic space,
said President Vladimir Putin, speaking at the 20th St. Petersburg
International Economic Forum (SPIEF).
"With our partners we believe the Eurasian Economic Union may be one of the centers of a broader integration [with Asia]," said Putin on Friday.
The
EEU is a trade bloc established in 2015 on the basis of the Customs
Union of Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus. It currently has five members:
Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, while Tajikistan is a
prospective member.
"We are suggesting the creation of a
larger Eurasian partnership involving the Eurasian Economic Union and
countries with which we have already had a close relationship: China,
India, Pakistan, Iran,” he added.
According to the Russian leader, the countries could start with
industrial and investment cooperation as well as making customs
clearance easier and protecting intellectual property rights.
Kazakh
President Nursultan Nazarbayev, speaking at the SPIEF, said Brussels
should cooperate with the EEU and not try to isolate it.
"The
disintegration and economic isolationism will not solve any internal
problems; it will be only a self-deception. The Eurasian Economic Union
is interested in an efficient and stable European Union, which wants to
cooperate closely. Similarly, it’s advantageous for the United Europe to
cooperate with our union," he said.
Nazarbayev added that
the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) will soon be joined by India
and Pakistan, while Iran could join, as well.
“Thus, this
organization that will unite three billion people is becoming very
powerful. Isn’t it profitable to anyone to cooperate with such an
organization?” he said.
SCO includes China, Russia,
Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan. Other countries holding observer
status with the organization include India, Iran, Belarus, Pakistan,
Afghanistan and Belarus.
The US has agreed to withdraw its remaining combat forces from
Iraq, at a date to be determined in talks with Baghdad, and remain in
the country solely in an advisory and support role against terrorists.
“US forces are in Iraq
at the invitation of Iraqi Government to support the Iraqi Security
Forces (ISF) in their fight against ISIS,” said a joint statement following the “strategic dialogue” between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his Iraqi counterpart Fuad Hussein on Wednesday.
“Based
on the increasing capacity of the ISF, the parties confirmed that the
mission of U.S. and Coalition forces has now transitioned to one focused
on training and advisory tasks, thereby allowing for the redeployment
of any remaining combat forces from Iraq, with the timing to be
established in upcoming technical talks,” the statement added.
Joint statement on the U.S.-Iraq strategic dialogue. security section 3rd pic pic.twitter.com/4i0pGFD0XQ
Hussein and Blinken agreed to “continue bilateral security coordination and cooperation” between the US and Iraq and emphasized in the joint statement that “the
bases on which US and Coalition personnel are present are Iraqi bases
and their presence is solely in support of Iraq's effort in the fight
against ISIS.”
Islamic State (IS, also known as ISIS) claimed
a large portion of Iraq and Syria in 2014, prompting the US to send
troops back into Iraq as part of Operation Inherent Resolve. Even though
the last territory claimed by the IS “caliphate” was liberated in March
2019 by US-backed militia in Syria, Washington has kept combat troops
in the region citing fears of a “resurgence.”
On Sunday, two rockets were fired on the Balad air base near
Baghdad, which hosts US contractors in addition to Iraqi troops. They
missed the base and hit a nearby village instead. There were no
casualties. This follows a March 15 attack on the base with five
rockets. While no group has claimed responsibility, the US has blamed
Shia militias – which Washington says are backed by neighboring Iran –
for the attacks.
The militias have demanded the departure of some
2,500 US troops currently stationed in Iraq, calling their presence an
occupation. The US had invaded and occupied Iraq in March 2003, and did
not withdraw until December 2011.
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The UK likes to lecture other countries on how to behave, but it
doesn’t fare well in the Amnesty International annual report on human
rights, with its growing disregard for individual freedoms causing
serious concern.
There is a sense of relief upon reaching Page 378 of the Amnesty International Annual Report
for 2020/21, as you read the organisation's findings about the United
Kingdom’s record on human rights. That relief soon vanishes.
Before
that point, you would have encountered the evil the usual global basket
cases have demonstrated over the past year. Those classic human rights
infringements are there by the bucketload: the extrajudicial killings,
arbitrary arrests, detention and torture, egregious displays of
discrimination against women, children, ethnic minorities, and lesbian,
gay and transexual populations, denial of food, water, sanitation,
education, and freedom of expression.
In some countries, citizens
just vanish off the face of the Earth and are never seen again. Like
magic, but tragic. Not just in those ‘we-do-what-we-want’ parts of the
world like China, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Turkmenistan, and Nigeria.
People are disappearing in places where many carefree Western tourists
choose to take their holidays, like Argentina, Mexico, Egypt, Kenya,
Brazil, and Thailand. Pad Thai, anyone?
Away from the eyes of sunburnt Brits enjoying the golden sands,
infinity pools, cocktails and exotic dishes, domestic security forces
hunt their prey with impunity, unbound by the constraints of human
rights or interfering Amnesty International investigators.
And
while to ‘tut-tut’ and shake our heads in disapproval is almost an
instinctive reflex to the tales of horror, violence and inhumanity found
in the 408-page report, before stroking your chin and bemoaning how
uncivilised civilization is elsewhere, know one thing: Britain does not
come out smelling of roses.
The more you read of the annual
report, the more you begin to feel that, while state-sponsored torture,
the mistreatment of entire populations, and cruelty to fellow human
beings are clear breaches of universal human rights, there are more
subtle and insidious contraventions that are just as effective.
In
these instances, ruling authorities are encroaching upon freedoms not
with guns and black hoods over the head, but with undemocratic
decisions, unchallenged legislation, delays to inquiries, and a slow
tightening of laws related to social freedoms – all with the compliance
of the people they govern.
Like the UK, for example, where
Amnesty International considers the incompetence that reigned in dealing
with the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic – which has seen the country
experience one of the highest death rates in Europe – tantamount to a
breach of the right to health for elderly residents in care homes, along
with black and Asian health workers. Many died, in disproportionate
numbers to the rest of the population.
Not only that, but the inquiry which more than 70 organisations
demanded from the government into the handling of the pandemic has been
fobbed off, until some as-yet-to-be-determined date in the future.
It’s hard to understand why there is not a massive outcry over this. Have we Brits truly become that docile?
The
report also expresses concerns over how the UK addresses
discrimination, about freedom of assembly and how police deal with
demonstrations, about the right to housing and the way we treat women,
refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants, and the rights of lesbian, gay,
bisexual and transgender people. Pretty much everyone.
There are
worries about allowing counter-terrorism forces and British soldiers
serving abroad impunity for their actions. The same sort of impunity
enjoyed by those police and in-the-shadows types whose job it is to
‘disappear’ troublemakers in far-off places, in which we’re glad we
don’t live for that very reason.
Elsewhere, we are signing arms deals
worth billions with authoritarian regimes like Saudi Arabia and selling
rubber bullets to American police which they can fire at Black Lives
Matter protesters. But that’s just business.
Something seems
skewed on our moral compass, which is strange because our leaders often
find themselves lecturing to the world about a better way, about
compromise and fairness, when in fact, they are endorsing aberrant
behaviour.
As Amnesty International’s UK director Kate Allen warned
five years ago, “There’s no doubt that the downgrading of human rights
by this government is a gift to dictators the world over and fatally
undermines our ability to call on other countries to uphold rights and
laws.”
She was right, and things have not improved in the five
years since then. So when we huff and puff about extrajudicial killings
in the Democratic Republic of Congo, or upbraid Kyrgyzstan when police
choose to disperse a peaceful march on International Women’s Day, or
even insist that Serbia comes clean about who ordered the removal of the
bodies of 900 Kosovo-Albanians from Kosovo to Serbia in a 1999 cover-up
of slaughter, we should not be surprised when they ignore us.
The
problem is that when you play free and easy with human rights, the
moral high ground is no longer yours, and that news travels fast. The
Amnesty International annual report will make sure of that.
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The
statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely
those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
«Se
ti pieghi anche tu alle menzogne della Nato, degli Usa, dei francesi,
degli inglesi senza mostrare un briciolo di sovranità perderai il mio
voto e quello di tutti gli altri», è l'avvertimento lanciato da un
militante, Giuseppe, sulla pagina social del Movimento cinque stelle.
Messaggio diretto a Luigi Di Maio.
La
base ribolle sotto le giravolte di un movimento anti europeista e anti
atlantista che esattamente un anno fa, era il 17 aprile, faceva votare
agli iscritti su Rousseau il «programma estero». Il cui punto cardine
era un «ripensamento» totale della Nato a partire dalle basi Usa sul
territorio italiano. Un'ostilità all'alleanza atlantica insita nel dna
del grillismo, che il deputato Manlio Di Stefano sintetizzava così per
tutti: «La Nato gioca con le nostre vite. Il M5s si oppone da sempre a
questa immonda strategia della tensione e chiede la partecipazione
dell'Italia sia ridiscussa e sottoposta al giudizio degli italiani». Era
uno dei referendum ipotizzati, insieme a quello dell'uscita dall'euro.
Ora
quella stessa forza politica anti Nato ed euroscettica ha un capo
politico, Di Maio, che si presenta al Quirinale col volto rassicurante
di chi vuole guidare il Paese ed esprime sostegno a ciò che è sempre
stato demonizzato: «Restiamo a fianco dei nostri alleati». E che esorta
l'Unione europea a «farsi vedere compatta e unita». Una doccia fredda
sulla base dura e pura. Il riposizionamento, tanto gradito al Colle, ha
l'effetto di un capogiro per i militanti delle origini: «Luigi scusa se
te lo dico, ma dovevi dire ciò che ha detto Salvini», gli rimprovera
Giancarlo. «M5s sta con i criminali della Nato? Alle prossime elezioni
sparirete». «Spero vivamente che non siano parole di Di Maio queste, a
fianco degli alleati, mentre assaltano un paese sovrano». Ecco, la
sovranità: è il primo dei punti del manifesto della politica estera
grillina, che ripudia «ogni forma di colonialismo, neocolonialismo e
ingerenza straniera», e che indirettamente sostiene la legittimazione di
Bashar Al Assad. Parole che ora riecheggiano nella base che grida,
programma alla mano, «giù le mani dalla Siria!». Nell'elenco delle
promesse a cinque stelle c'era infatti anche un atto d'accusa che
racchiudeva tutto lo spirito anti atlantico che scorre tra i
pentastellati: «I nostri governi hanno distrutto intere popolazioni,
come quella siriana, seguendo l'interventismo occidentale della Nato,
cui l'Italia ha colpevolmente prestato il fianco rompendo le relazioni
diplomatiche con Damasco».
Un anno fa lo stesso Di Maio,
commentava così il raid missilistico degli Stati Uniti contro la base
militare di Shayrat, deciso dal presidente Trump: «Tenete presente che i
missili lanciati dagli Stati Uniti ci costano circa 60 milioni di
dollari. Se avessero sganciato 60 milioni di dollari in banconote verso
le popolazioni in difficoltà, non le avrebbero aiutate di più?». Acqua
passata. Oggi il candidato premier «parla come Gentiloni», gli scrive un
militante. Metamorfosi compiuta.
Difesa: due bombardieri B-1 Usa sorvolano le acque del Mar Egeo
Bruxelles, 07 apr 15:02 - (Agenzia Nova)
- Due bombardieri pesanti supersonici statunitensi hanno effettuato
missioni di sorvolo nel Mar Egeo, nei pressi delle coste greche. Lo ha
riferito il Comando europeo degli Stati Uniti (Eucom). "Come parte dei
continui sforzi del Comando europeo degli Stati Uniti per dimostrare le
capacità di vasta portata dei bombardieri strategici statunitensi, due
bombardieri B-1 Lancer di stanza alla base aerea di Ellsworth nel Dakota
del Sud hanno condotto oggi missioni di sorvolo nel Mar Egeo", ha
riferito Eucom in un comunicato. Il comando ha detto che la missione ha
dimostrato il fermo "impegno degli Stati Uniti per la sicurezza
europea". L'Eucom ha anche riportato che i bombardieri erano scortati da
due caccia F-16 statunitensi con sede ad Aviano, in Italia, quando sono
arrivati in Europa prima di sorvolare il Mar Egeo. (Beb)
Mercoledì
se ne parlerà in un nuovo incontro con Cgil, Cisl e Uil, che non
escludono scioperi se il blocco non sarà mantenuto. Si pensa di limitare
lo stop ai licenziamenti collettivi o di permettere quelli individuali
solo a fronte di servizi di politiche attive e outplacement
Alberto PIZZOLI / AFP
Sul
prolungamento del blocco dei licenziamenti le parti sono già schierate:
i sindacati chiedono di prorogarlo, Confindustria vorrebbe liberarsene
il prima possibile. Ora tocca al governo scegliere e mediare. E anche
all’interno della stessa maggioranza c’è chi si schiera da una parte o
dall’altra. Mercoledì alle 17 se ne parlerà in un nuovo incontro con
Cgil, Cisl e Uil, che non escludono scioperi e mobilitazioni se il
divieto di licenziare non sarà mantenuto.
Sono
ore di trattative. «C’è stato un calo dell’occupazione contenuto, sotto
il 2%, a fronte del calo del Pil del 9%, grazie alle misure del governo
che hanno salvato milioni di posti di lavoro», ha detto il ministro
dell’Economia Roberto Gualtieri, presentando la manovra in conferenza
stampa. Ora bisognerà capire «come collegare la cassa Covid al regime
sui licenziamenti. Noi abbiamo introdotto il divieto, adesso con
l’estensione della cassa lo proroghiamo fino alla fine dell’anno». È
chiaro che tutte imprese che usufruiscono della cassa Covid «non
potranno licenziare». Ma il grande punto di domanda sono tutte le altre.
Su «come modulare formule aggiuntive ci sarà l’incontro con i
sindacati», ha detto il ministro. Il governo è aperto al confronto.
Ma
se per la Cgil, una volta tolto il tappo ai licenziamenti si rischiano 1
milione di posti di lavoro, per le imprese la misura eccezionale
rischia di essere invece un blocco alle nuove assunzioni.
Lo
stop ai licenziamenti finora si è mosso di pari passo con la cassa
integrazione Covid. Il divieto generalizzato è stato introdotto il 17
marzo, in piena emergenza, con il decreto Cura Italia. Con la proroga
contenuta nel decreto agosto, poi, è stata varata una prima
“liberalizzazione”, dando la possibilità di licenziare in caso di
accordi con i sindacati sugli incentivi all’esodo, fallimento o
cessazione delle attività. E il divieto è stato collegato all’utilizzo
della cassa: chi accede agli ammortizzatori Covid fino a fine anno non
può licenziare.
Il
che significa che dal mese prossimo, quando per molti scadrà la cig, le
aziende sarebbero libere di mandare a casa i dipendenti. La domanda è
come rimodulare il blocco ora che la cassa sta per essere rinnovata. Le
tappe sui nuovi ammortizzatori sociali saranno due. Dopo l’approvazione
del documento programmatico di bilancio, è atteso un “decreto novembre” –
come l’ha chiamato Gualtieri – per fornire un ulteriore sostegno alle
aziende che hanno già attinto alle 18 settimane di aggiunta di cassa
stanziate con il decreto agosto e che da metà novembre le avranno già
terminate. Nella manovra poi, con una dote di 5 miliardi, si finanzierà
la cassa probabilmente fino a marzo, seguendo ancora il criterio del
calo di fatturato: già dal dl agosto, le aziende che lamentano una
perdita di fatturato superiore al 20% hanno accesso gratuito alla cassa,
mentre sono previste compartecipazioni ai costi tra il 9 e 18% per
imprese che hanno perso meno del 20% e per quelle che non hanno subito
alcun effetto.
«Stiamo individuando gli strumenti per non far
licenziare, ma non per obbligarle a non licenziare», ha detto il
ministro dello Sviluppo economico Stefano Patuanelli, facendo scalpitare
i sindacati. A seguire la ministra del Lavoro Nunzia Catalfo: «Solo nel
caso che si utilizzi la cig Covid, ha un senso che ci sia un blocco dei
licenziamenti». Sul fronte opposto LeU, che vorrebbe invece la proroga tout court.
La
trattativa con Cgil, Cisl e Uil si muove anche sulle date. I sindacati
premono per portare il blocco fino a marzo. Il governo sarebbe più
orientato a fissare la scadenza a fine gennaio, quando dovrebbe finire
anche lo stato d’emergenza. Si ragiona sulle possibili mediazioni di
rimodulazione. Una possibilità sarebbe quella di vietare i licenziamenti
alle imprese che hanno effettivamente tirato le ore di cassa richieste.
Si parla anche di una distinzione tra licenziamenti individuali per
motivi economici e collettivi, con l’ipotesi di confermare il blocco
solo per i secondi. Tra le ipotesi, anche quella di ricorrere ai
licenziamenti individuali per ragioni economiche solo in presenza di
politiche attive o di servizi di outplacement.
Dai
metalmeccanici della Uil è arrivata la proposta a governo e
Confindustria di prorogare il blocco dei licenziamenti in cambio del
rinvio del rinnovo dei contratti con relativi aumenti retributivi. Ma
gli imprenditori hanno risposto picche, dando la disponibilità a pagarsi
la cassa da soli pur di liberarsi del divieto di licenziamento. «Non
vogliamo la cassa Covid, vorremmo piuttosto poter utilizzare la cassa
integrazione ordinaria ma non essere soggetti al divieto di
licenziamento», ha detto senza mezzi termini il vicepresidente di
Confindustria, Maurizio Stirpe.
I
sindacati agitano il pericolo della bomba sociale. «Si rischia di
infiammare il Paese», ha detto il segretario della Uil Pierpaolo
Bombardieri. La leader della Cisl Annamaria Furlan parla di «disastro».
«Inaccettabile» l’ipotesi dello sblocco, anche secondo il segretario
aggiunto Luigi Sbarra. «Bisogna impegnarsi a recuperare ogni posto di
lavoro, e non accendere altri focolai di disperazione».
Dopo
l’incontro di mercoledì, i sindacati «decideranno le eventuali
iniziative necessarie a sostegno delle proprie richieste», fanno sapere.
Al governo la patata bollente della mediazione. La soluzione sarà
probabilmente una uscita graduale, fermo restando che un’ulteriore
proroga generalizzata dello stop ai licenziamenti potrebbe aprire anche
la strada a ricorsi sulla incostituzionalità della misura.
L’Italia
è stato l’unico Paese in Europa ad aver adottato con il lockdown una
misura di questo tipo. Ma dall’Ocse alla Banca d’Italia, sette mesi
dopo, l’avvertimento è unanime: prolungare il blocco nella speranza che
“passi la nottata” sarebbe solo un modo per rinviare il problema della
disoccupazione, con il rischio di aggravarlo, favorendo i fallimenti
aziendali e finendo per scaricare – come accaduto finora – il costo
della crisi solo sui contratti a termine.
I licenziamenti, che
inevitabilmente arriveranno, «vanno invece affrontati con un
potenziamento delle politiche attive», commenta Cetti Galante, ad di
Intoo (società di Gi Group specializzata nelle transizioni di carriera),
«rinnovando ed estendendo l’assegno di ricollocazione a tutti i
disoccupati, prevedendo i servizi di accompagnamento al lavoro che
attualmente non sono compresi nella misura, aumentando l’integrazione
dei servizi pubblico-privati e accogliendo nel sistema anche le società
di outplacement». Tutte misure che, ad oggi, sono il tallone d’Achille italiano.
Il nostro giornale è gratuito e accessibile a tutti, ma
per mantenere l’indipendenza abbiamo anche bisogno dell’aiuto dei
lettori. Siamo sicuri che arriverà perché chi ci legge sa che
un giornale d’opinione è un ingrediente necessario per una società
adulta.
Se credi che Linkiesta e le altre testate che abbiamo lanciato, Europea, Gastronomika e la newsletter Corona Economy, così come i giornali di carta e la nuova rivista letteraria K, siano uno strumento utile, questo è il momento di darci una mano.
Entra nelClub degli amici de Linkiesta e grazie comunque.
Gopinath: “L’Italia si rilancia se farà riforme strutturali per favorire la produttività”
Intervista alla capo-economista del Fondo monetario
internazionale avverte il nostro Paese: "Ho fiducia in Draghi e nelle
sue azioni ma sarà importante un uso efficiente dei fondi della Ue"
ROMA - “Mario Draghi ha la rara qualità di essere un pensatore
profondo e al tempo stesso un uomo pragmatico, farà molto bene
all’Italia”. Gita Gopinath, capo economista dell’Fmi, scruta l’orizzonte
del pianeta, dai vaccini alle diseguaglianze, e posa il suo sguardo sul
nostro paese, in questa intervista con Repubblica, in occasione
dell’apertura degli Spring Meetings.
Signora Gopinath come immagina il mondo post-Covid? Torneremo al ve...
Incompetence, Cronyism, Repression: One Year On, What is the Covid State?
Analysis,
Last year, I wrote in this blog that the UK government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic crisis was one of ‘callous incompetence’.[1]
In hindsight, that was no surprise: their incompetence stemmed from the
deliberate underfunding and privatisation of public health services;
their callousness was baked-in to the structurally violent principles of
Tory ‘austerity’. That analysis has been bolstered by the state’s
successive mishandlings of the coronavirus crisis – instances of glaring
ineptitude have been frequent, and business interests have been
repeatedly and explicitly prioritised over the lives of elderly and
vulnerable people. The results of this callous incompetence are now
painfully clear, with the UK currently shamed by the fourth worst death
toll in the world per head of population.[2]
The Petri dish of business-motivated social mixing spawned the B117
‘British variant’ of Covid-19, which has a death rate that is up to 64%
higher,[3]
resulting in thousands upon thousands more deaths. The UK government
has blood on its hands, and Prime Minister Johnson himself is culpable
for ‘gross negligence manslaughter’.[4]
However, the UK government’s pandemic response has not been solely
characterised by this clusterfuckery – a jealous guarding of state
sovereignty has also been apparent in aspects of its Covid-19 response.
Anarchist thinkers have long identified the jealousy inherent to the
modern state; an exclusive sovereignty claimed against other nation
states, secessionists, non-state geopolitical actors, and especially
against independent organisation by the people themselves. Under
neo-liberalism, the centrality of the state has been eroded and much of
its productive capacity and governing power has been ceded to private
corporations and supranational bodies. In a sense, the state no longer
jealously guards its sovereignty, but hands it over willingly, acting as
a ‘broker’ for capital [5]
and intervening to shape society to suit market interests. The Covid-19
crisis appears to confirm this ‘unjealous’ ceding of productive
capacity, with the UK government handing out £24.4 billion to private
corporations to carry out core services and meet essential needs (up to
20th February 2021).[6]
But of course, any premise of neo-liberal market competition has been
absent during the crisis – this now-naked cronyism is only an augmented
version of business-as-normal, a further blurring of the supposed
distinction between state and capital. In fact, the crisis has enflamed
the state’s most fundamental inherent jealousies, evidenced in attempts
to co-opt and suppress the upwelling of community self-help initiatives
that have autonomously addressed peoples’ needs during the crisis, and
in its political policing of protest movements under draconian Covid
legislation.
‘I am the Lord thy God Government’
Bakunin identified a common jealousy in God’s demand for exclusive
worship of a single deity and the exclusive sovereignty demanded by the
modern state.[7]
Scathing anti-statism is to be expected from anarchists, but this
recognition of ‘the jealous state’ also extends into the, not usually anarchist, field of International Relations. In the ‘orthodox’ IR reckoning, the state’s exclusivity has three competitors:
other nation-states and secessionists, in a ‘claim to “ownership” of its citizenry’;[8]
‘nonstate actors in world politics’[9] such as world religions and internationalist ideologies; and
‘powerful financial and market interests’[10] including multinational corporations and supranational institutions.
The conspicuously absent fourth ‘competitor’ is the people’s own
capacity for independent organisation. Kropotkin wrote that emerging
early-modern nation-states, whether republican, parliamentary or
monarchist, were ‘agreed in asserting that no separate unions between
citizens must exist within the state … “No state within the state!”’[11]
The first two facets of state jealousy are abundantly evident in the
UK context: today’s ‘enemy’ nations include Russia and China; Scottish
nationalists are loathed secessionists; Islam is a feared global
spectre; and Brexiteers portray the European Union as a supranational
affront to British sovereignty. The third jealousy, against ‘financial
and market interests’, ought to be redundant under neo-liberal
globalisation, but the idea that the UK state simply cedes its power to
an extraneous private sector misunderstands the intertwinement between
state and capital, and, as noted, this cronyism has proliferated during
the pandemic crisis. The fourth jealousy, identified by anarchists like
Kropotkin but not by orthodox IR scholars, functions quite
differently. While jealousy of rival ‘geopolitical actors’ is framed as a
defence against outside threats, the state’s demand for exclusive
control over ‘its people’ is not understood as combating a threat, but
is presented as a benevolent intervention ‘oriented to achieving the
common good’.[12]
However, as James C. Scott [13] highlights, the results of state centralisation and control are ‘often disastrous’,[14] and so it has proved in the Covid state, with the toll in the UK by the end of February 2021 reaching 123,479 excess deaths.[15]
The crony Covid state
Neo-liberal ideology demands that the state ‘roll back’, offering up
production and services to the supposed efficiencies of free market
competition, and the UK government faithfully privatises any-and-all of
its functions as a priority. This has been augmented in the Covid-19
pandemic crisis, with unprecedented sums handed over to private
corporations. Indeed, the UK government no longer has the capacity to
meet basic social needs, even at a time of crisis – the state has
already outsourced itself to the point of incompetence.
So, UK Prime Minister Johnson was correct to say that ‘[i]t wasn’t the state that made the gloves and masks and ventilators that we needed at such speed’,[16]
but his subsequent vaunting of ‘the private sector, with its rational
interest in innovation and competition and market share’ as rising to
the demands of the crisis simply doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Under
emergency procurement measures since 18th March 2020, competition for government contracts has been suspended.[17] Up to the 20th February 2021, well over 3,000 contracts had been handed out with no tender process.[18] Millions of pounds have gone to companies that don’t have any employees or trading history.[19] Contracts worth £1bn have been awarded to Tory party ‘friends and donors’.[20]
More than 40 million items of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
supplied by these contractors has been found to be faulty or unusable.[21]
And those are just the figures that are available – in February 2021,
the UK government was found to have ‘acted unlawfully’ in its failure to
even publish the details of Covid-19-related contracts.[22]
The sheer enormity of these figures reveals the depths of
state/corporate profligacy and cronyism (and is a far cry from Johnson’s
celebrated ‘rational interest’ of the competitive market). Of course it
is not the case that the state has forgotten its jealousies
when it comes to the private sector, it’s just less and less possible to
distinguish one from the other. The state’s core jealousies are not
directed outwards, they are directed downwards.
‘No state within the Covid state!’
The state’s failure to meet people’s immediate needs in the pandemic
crisis was addressed by a blossoming of local-level mutual aid
initiatives. Thousands upon thousands of people joined together to
support vulnerable neighbours, produce PPE, deliver food and medicines,
and much more besides. The striking characteristic of these mutual aid
groups is their autonomous organisation, quite separate from established
charities, political parties, or indeed the state.[23] This vital self-help response has been celebrated on this blog,[24] by numerous anarchist writers,[25][26][27] and even in the mainstream media.[28]
It says something about the prominence of anarchist thinking within
contemporary social movements, and in the context of Covid-19 more
specifically, that even parliamentary socialists such as Jeremy Corbyn’s
‘Peace and Justice Project’ have co-opted the terminology of mutual aid
(albeit while watering down its anti-statist character).[29]
More subtly perhaps, Dean Spade’s practical guide to mutual aid on (the
New Left/Marxist) Verso Press details anarchistic organising principles
such as direct action, consensus decision-making, and flat hierarchies,
but couches the ‘solidarity not charity’ argument euphemistically
within a nebulous ‘left-wing’ politics.[30]
In the early stages of the crisis even the Trotskyist Socialist Workers
Party in the UK recognised that ‘[w]e need these sorts of [mutual aid]
initiatives more widely’ but appeared to completely misunderstood the
concept by continuing that, ‘they must be funded by councils and the
government’.[31]
However, this rush to stake a claim in the proliferation of mutual aid
initiatives has not been ubiquitous on the left, with some ‘democratic
socialists’ rejecting mutual aid because of its anarchist ramifications,[32]
and other Marxists arguing that mutual aid is merely an extension of
‘ethical consumerism’ and therefore does not ‘represent a threat to the
structures of global capitalism’.[33] But the key point here is that the state (the crony broker for global capitalism), has
recognised mutual aid initiatives as a threat, and has, via co-optation
and suppression, jealously squeezed out the space for these autonomous
expressions of community self-reliance.
Cover art by N.O. Bonzo for the forthcoming new edition of Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid (due September 2021, PM Press).
The UK government’s first response was to try to co-opt the surge of
mutual aid co-operation under a state-run volunteer scheme. The NHS
Volunteer Responders was rolled out in March 2020 – 750,000 people
signed up, but even during the first peak of virus infections, few
volunteers had been assigned any tasks, leaving many ‘disgruntled that
they [had] yet to be called upon’.[34]
People’s energy and desire to help one another was wasted, or, put
another way, successfully absorbed and directed away from autonomous
mutual aid initiatives.
The severe shortage of PPE for frontline healthcare workers was a
blatant symptom of the state’s abandonment of public service – Deloitte,
outsourced to manage PPE provision, sold off the UK’s stockpiles just
as the pandemic crisis was beginning to bite,[35] and the government then hurriedly spent (at least) £5bn to fill the subsequent shortfall.[36]
Autonomous initiatives such as Scrub Hub stepped up to produce PPE,
supplying healthcare workers directly. Other volunteer scrub production
schemes such as For the Love of Scrubs (FtLoS) were recruited into the
NHS Trusts’ procurement mechanisms. The co-optive and suppressive faces
of state jealousy emerge here, with the autonomous Scrub Hub producers
being threatened with prosecution for ‘circulating unregulated PPE’,[37] causing volunteers to leave groups for fear that they were doing something ‘illegal’,[38] while the founder of the officially compliant FtLoS was awarded an OBE.[39]
Otter Lieffe compares the state to ‘an abusive lover who grip[s] ever tighter the more it los[es] control’,[40]
and, indeed, this has been the result of the UK government’s
‘jealousies’ during the Covid-19 pandemic crisis. Not only have
autonomous self-help initiatives like Scrub Hub been concertedly
repressed, but the massive expansion of police powers under the
‘Coronavirus Act’ has been repeatedly used to prevent protest gatherings
that are critical of the government or the police. These Covid powers
have been used to disrupt protests by Black Lives Matter, Extinction
Rebellion, Stop HS2, trade union activists protesting against the measly
1% pay raise for NHS staff, asylum seekers protesting against abysmal
conditions at Napier barracks, and even against a trio of squatters in
an empty office building in Bristol.[41] The most recent instance of this political policing was against the Reclaim These Streets vigil on the 13th
March 2021 – social media users were quick to highlight that this
brutal police reaction differed markedly from the ‘light touch’ police
response to a mass gathering of football fans in Glasgow City Centre
less than a week earlier.[42]
Neil Middleton notes (in a forthcoming AnarchistStudies.Blog article)
that, while the police have benefited from this Covid-19 power grab, the
process of expanding police powers was already in train under the
auspices of the previous ‘crises’ of terrorism and anti-austerity
protest movements. And, as the Network for Police Monitoring highlights,
the UK government are using the cover of the current crisis to make
these protest-policing powers permanent.[43]
Another Covid-19 power grab takes the form of ‘vaccine passports’.
These are already in effect in China and other countries that ‘rank low
in global freedom indices’ such as Bahrain and Brunei,[44] and have been implemented in Israel,[45] are scheduled for deployment in Ireland,[46] and look very likely to be rolled out in the rest of the European Union [47] and the United States too.[48]
Trade unions such as the University and College Union have recognised
the scheme’s inherent risk of inequity and discrimination against
workers,[49]
but the most vocal opposition to vaccine passports has come from
vaccine refuseniks and right-wing ‘libertarians’ such as Big Brother
Watch [50] and spiked magazine.[51]
Despite the magnification of existing inequalities that vaccine
passports will herald, and despite the clear authoritarian implications
of an expanded surveillance state, anarchist commentators have been
almost silent on the issue – searches for ‘vaccine passport’ on popular
platforms such as Anarchist Agency, anarchistnews.org, libcom.org, crimethinc.com and Freedom News return no results at all (now at least one mention of vaccine passorts – ed).
Vaccine passports are an amped-up rehash of the New Labour government’s
attempt to impose compulsory identity cards under the guise of the ‘war
on terror’, and, no surprise, Tony Blair has piped-up as a cheerleader
for vaccine passports.[52] Perhaps there is some squeamishness about opposing authoritarian bio-surveillance because conspiracists and ‘gammons’[53]
have already seized upon the issue, but this was also the case with
some dodgy elements of the ‘NO2ID’ campaign of the mid-to-late 2000s.
Anarchists were instrumental in concurrent campaign groups such as
Defy-ID that helped to defeat that previous ID card scheme; the absence
of concern around this issue now is conspicuous.
The state requires its ‘subjects and resources [to] be assets, serving the imperatives of the state’.[54]
When people challenge those imperatives by organising independently to
meet their own needs, the state rushes to re-assert its sovereignty and
oppressive control. This is the jealousy at the core of the
state – not against geopolitical competitors and certainly not against
market interests, but against the people’s own ability to organise
themselves. We are the threat they really fear.
~ Jim Donaghey
This article was orginally published in Anarchist Studies here.
