RACE, GENDER, AND MIGRATION
EDITED BY
GILBERT 6. GONZALEZ. RAUL FERNANDEZ, _
VIVIAN PRICE, DAVID SMITH, AND LINDA TRINH VO
First published 2004 by
Routledge
Published 2017 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
Copyright © 2004 Taylor & Francis
The Open Access version of this book, available at www.tandfebooks.com, has
been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No
Derivatives 4.0 license.
Library of Congress Cataloging-In-Publication data:
Labor versus empire : race, gender, and migration / edited by Gilbert Gonzalez with
Raul Fernandez ... [et al.].
p.cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-415-94814-2 (hardcover: acid-free paper)-ISBN 0-415-94815-0
(pbk.: acid-free paper) 1. Imperialism-Social aspects-Congresses.
2. Working class-Congresses.
I. Gonzalez,GilbertG., 1941JC359.L26 2004
306.3'6-dc22
2003025504
ISBN 9780415948142 (hbk)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface
Introduction
Globalization: Masking Imperialism and the Struggles from Below
Raul Fernandez, Gilbert G. Gonzalez, Vivian Price, David Smith, and
Linda Trinh Vo University of California, Irvine
I.
ix
xn
Empire: Global Capitalism and Domination
New Times and New Identities: Solidarities of Sameness and Dynamics of
Difference
3
George Lipsitz
Department of American Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz
Labor, Race, and Empire: Transport Workers and Transnational Empires of
Trade, Production, and Finance
17
Thomas Ehrlich Reifer
Department of Sociology, University of California, Riverside
Latin America and the Empire of Global Capital
William I. Robinson
Department of Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara
37
Empire and Labor: U.S. and Latin America
James Petras
Department of Sociology, State University of New York -Binghamton
55
Sexuality in the Marketplace
71
Bernardo Useche, School of Public Health, University of Texas, Houston
and
Amalia Cabezas
Department of Women's Studies, University of California, Riverside
II.
States: Immigration and Citizenship
Class, Space, and the State in India: A Comparative Perspective on the Politics
of Empire
89
Leela Fernandes
Department of Political Science, Rutgers University-New Brunswick
V
vi • Table of Contents
Race, Labor, and the State: The Quasi-Citizenship of Migrant Filipina Domestic
Workers
105
Rhacel Salazar Parrefias
Asian American Studies, University of California, Davis
On the Border of Love and Money: Sex and Tourism in Cuba and the Dominican
Republic
121
Amalia Lucia Cabezas
Department of Women's Studies, University of California, Riverside
Work, Immigrant Marginality, and 'Integration' in New Countries of
Immigration: Deja Vu All Over Again?
133
Kitty Calavita
Criminology, Law and Society, University of California, Irvine
Culture, Power, and Oil: The Experience of Venezuelan Oil Camps and the
Construction of Citizenship
143
Miguel Tinker Salas
Department of History, Pomona College
III. Workers: Solidarity and Resistance
Empire, Strategies of Resistance, and the Shanghai Labor Movement, 1925-1927
Wai Kit Choi
165
Sociology Department, University of California, Irvine
Crossing the Borders: Labor, Community, and Colonialism in the Jaffa-Tel-Aviv
Region during the Mandate Period
183
Mark Le Vine
History Department, University of California, Irvine
Flexible Production and Industrial Restructuring in Hong Kong: From Boom
to Bust?
199
Stephen W.K. Chiu
Department of Sociology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong,
and
Alvin Y. So
Division of Social Science, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
From the Third World to the "Third World Within": Asian Women Workers
Fighting Globalization
217
Grace Chang
Women's Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara
Table of Contents • vii
Can U.S. Workers Embrace Anti-Imperialism?
Bill Fletcher, Jr.
TransAfrica Forum
235
Why the Mexican Rural Sector Can't Take It Anymore
Victor Quintana
Frente Democratico Campesino, Chihuahua, Mexico
249
Index
263
PREFACE
This anthology mirrors several years of collegial effort by the faculty and graduate students at the University of California, Irvine. In spring 1996, a number of
us who researched working class themes gathered informally to consider organizing a labor studies research unit that evolved into a formal organization
known as the Focused Research Program in Labor Studies.
Over the years, participants have come from various programs and departments on campus, including Art History, Asian American Studies, Chicano Latino Studies, Education, History, Political Science, Sociology, and
Women's Studies. Our collective efforts provided us with a critical interdisciplinary and comparative vision of working peoples and shaped our research around themes such as migration, musicology, gender, offshore
production, racism, the state, unionization, working class communities,
and films about the shared interests of working peoples across cultural and
ethnic borders.
We could not escape the political reality of the time and the increasing
popularity of the ideologies of globalization that rapidly emerged as favorite
mantras of political leaders in advanced countries. Long before we were
granted formal status as a Focused Research Program, a discourse critical of
globalization matured within the group. Rather than study labor from a perspective that revolved around globalization, we engaged in theoretical interpretations that more adequately explained the political and economic
realities of the contemporary world. It is apparent that the struggle for domination across the world pursued by economically advanced nations and led
by the U.S. hid beneath the cover offered by globalization. It is our contention that the important questions facing labor today cannot be illuminated through recourse to globalization because it fails to explain the factors
leading to the economic relations between nations and the social relations
within nations. Rather, our frame of analysis is empire-which provides a
theoretical foundation for examining the condition of the working class and
more appropriately sets the stage for the struggles of working peoples for
justice and democracy.
When the time came to plan our 2003 conference, we chose the title
"Labor, Race, and Empire" to reflect the growing interest of the group in imperialism, particularly U.S. imperialism. Because gender and migration figured significantly into the conference presentations and writings, we titled
this book Labor versus Empire: Race, Gender, and Migration. As co-editors, we
worked together to plan the conference, gather the chapters, and write the
ix
x • Preface
introduction. Along the way, we engaged in lively debates that continually
reshaped this project-it has been a truly collaborative process.
As with any undertaking of this nature, many people and organizations
contributed to the success of the conference and the production of this
book. Members of the program staff assisted significantly with logistical aspects of the conference, and special thanks are due to Leslie Bunnage,
Roberto Gonzales, Matt Mahutga, and Rosaura Sanchez Tafoya, all graduate
students in the Department of Sociology. They and Tryon Woods, a graduate of the Social Ecology program, also chaired panels at the conference.
Raul Fernandez, Gilbert G. Gonzalez, John Liu, David Smith, and Linda
Trinh Vo served as panel members. We also thank Dana Frank, David Kyle,
Edna Bonacich, and Chris Chase-Dunn, whose research projects also contributed to the panels.
Over the years the program benefited from the cooperation of the Department of Asian American Studies, the Women's Studies Program, and the
African American Studies Program in the School of Humanities and the Department of Sociology in the School of Social Sciences. The Chicano Latino
Studies Program provided space for our program meetings. Anna Gonzalez,
Director of the Cross-Cultural Center, offered generous assistance whenever
requested. We are grateful to the School of Social Sciences for providing funds
for luncheons as well as for the 1999 graduate conference and the successful
all-UC conference hosted in spring 2001. In addition, we appreciate the financial assistance allocated by the University of California at lrvine's Office of Research, which granted us funding that made possible the various endeavors of
the program including seed grants, seminars, conferences, and guest speakers.
We are also indebted for the timely financial support from the Office of Student Affairs that aided our conferences.
We wish to express our deep appreciation to the University of California Institute of Labor and Employment for providing the funding over the past
2 years that made the conference and this book possible. Our special thanks
are extended to Ruth Milkman, Director of the Institute, for her unflagging
support for our endeavors. Finally, we owe a special debt to Gillian Kumm,
Barbara Abell, and Stella Ginez, of the University of California School of Social
Sciences at Irvine, for their assistance. We particulary wish to express our
appreciation to Dorothy Fujita-Rony, Asian American Studies, for her many
contributions to this work.
We wish to thank Karen Wolny, Editor, and Jaclyn Bergeron, Assistant to the
Editor, at Routledge. They expressed enthusiasm about this book project when
we were still organizing the conference and gave us the autonomy to develop
our vision for it as well. In short, working with Routledge has been a pleasure.
Special appreciation is also due to the exceptional contributors to this volume.
The quality and merits of the book are due largely to their labor and we thank
them for making this endeavor possible.
Preface • xi
One person who figured prominently in the early phase of establishing the
Labor Studies Program, Jeff Garcilazo, professor of History and Chicano
Latino Studies, passed away tragically before he could finish his life's work. His
commitment to the program and to working people inspired his colleagues
and all who worked with him. In Jeff's honor, the editors will allocate all royalties from the sale of this book to the Jeff Garcilazo Fellowship/Scholarship
Fund administered by Chicano Latino Studies at the University of California,
Irvine.
INTRODUCTION
Globalization: Masking Imperialism
and the Struggles from Below
Raul Fernandez, Gilbert Gonzalez, Vivian Price,
David Smith, and Linda Trinh Vo
Background
In recent years, dramatic changes in economic processes have deepened the
disparities between the rich and the poor on a worldwide basis and have undercut the power of working people everywhere. An imperialist agenda hidden
under the aegis of globalization undergirds these widening rifts. The economic
elite and political leadership of the U.S. pilot this process of polarization as the
country continues its historic role of expansionism and domination on a
greater scale than ever.
For the rest of the world, imperialism and militarism, mostly emanating
from the U.S., are omnipresent realities and daily challenges. In the name of
freedom and democracy, we are witnessing the increasing erosion of civil rights
and economic justice for the working class at home and abroad along with inequities surrounding national origin, gender, race, class, and sexuality. No less
constant and no less important are everyday struggles for basic necessitiesearning a living wage, keeping one's family intact, providing for one's children,
and living a life free of violence and discrimination. In the face of all these challenges, what is labor to do?
This question is at the very core of this anthology. Our title, Labor versus
Empire, demonstrates our insistence on addressing the strategies of the working class, particularly in relation to imperialism and its accompanying systems
of political, economic, and social domination. Our aim is to examine how the
imposition of empire from above is resisted by the struggles for democracy
from below, highlighting the ways that workers contest and shape the world
around them. In doing so, we not only address the centrality of labor in the
policies and economic debates that too often marginalize them, but also examine how workers in many areas of production affect the processes of empire,
from peasant challenges against free-trade agreements to industrial workers'
challenges of regulations in transnational corporations; from popular protests
against the policies of nation-states to the organization of alliances by immigrant healthcare workers.
Our collective interests steered us toward analyzing the recent transformation popularly titled globalization (more accurately described as neoliberal
economics on a world scale) and its relation to working peoples. Recent interest in globalization in both popular and official discourse spawned renewed
interest in topics such as free trade, global economics, global assembly lines,
xii
Introduction • xiii
global trade, global cities, global information, and global capital. Popular
media repeat the official chant of globalization and the core of the neoliberal
creed: free trade lifts all boats, globalization assures democracy, and globalization is inevitable; all nations must sign on or be left behind. This message was
repeated endlessly by affluent nations, particularly by the U.S., the bastion of
international financial agencies such as the International Monetary Fund
(IMF), World Bank, and World Trade Organization (WTO). This unholy triumvirate controlled by the U.S. and other rich nations manages global "free"
trade, negotiates debt regimes, oversees adjustment policies in poor countries,
and performs other monetary functions.
Some scholars and pundits now declare that the nation-state is fading into
oblivion because of large world political and economic shifts, as free trade
overwhelms old national structures and previous state controls. However,
despite its popularity in some quarters, under close scrutiny this "decline of
the state" thesis does not hold up (Smith, Solinger, and Topik, 1999). In fact,
the state did not wither away; on the contrary, some states emerged stronger
than ever. This is particularly true of the U.S. government. Free trade in the
U.S. under WTO auspices is merely old-fashioned protectionism in disguise.
Steel and agriculture, both major large-scale industries, were accorded
government largesse for decades in the form of stiff tariffs and sumptuous
subsidies. In the geopolitical sphere, the most powerful of nations and unparalleled promoter of neoliberalism-the U.S.-constructed the most dominant and war-ready military machinery in history, all under the guidance of
the highly centralized state.
Ideologies of Globalization
Globalization is a popular term today. Unfortunately, it obfuscates more than
it illuminates, particularly in masking the processes of imperialism in the
global arena. Wide-ranging discussions of globalization emerged in the late
1990s, and the concept soon became a mantra of political leaders throughout
the world. Globalization became a familiar buzzword to anyone attuned to the
global media, with proponents claiming that major transformations of the
global system occurred in the past two or three decades. Major worldwide
transformations occurred and many of them, including dramatic increases in
indices of global inequality, are clearly not changes for the better. Globalization
is left, perhaps conveniently, undefined.
Rising above the din of the debates about globalization are at least two
basic insights. First is the notion that a basic feature of the current global
economy is an increasing time-space compression (Mittleman, 1996; Arrighi, 1999). This involves a dramatic geometric surge in the sheer velocities
of various types of global exchanges. The "global gambling casino" dynamics
of today's international banking and finance system became especially
xiv • Introduction
transparent and quite alarming with the East Asian crisis of the late 1990s
(Wade and Veneroso, 1998). Transformations happen very fast and the pace
is constantly increasing. Even people as unlikely as transnational financier
George Soros equate the contemporary global economy to a runaway train
(Soros, 1997). The lords and high priests of capitalism, like Alan Greenspan
and his contemporaries at the World Bank and IMF, may have trouble controlling and braking this locomotive, increasing the likelihood of a planetary
train wreck.
Second, and perhaps even more critically, we must understand that current
images of globalization are saturated with ideology. Epitomized by Margaret
Thatcher's proclamation of TINA (there is no alternative) to global neoliberalism, the ideology emanates from the capitalist core nations and is relentlessly
promoted by western conservative theorists, large corporations, and wealthy
individuals and foundations (Cox, 1996; Gill, 1996). They claim that forces
like deregulation and marketization are inevitable and in the long run beneficial. Such uses of the globalization term are ideological in the sense that they
enshrine the values of free-market liberalism and legitimize the global domination of corporate capitalism.
Advocates of this global neoliberalism believe it is necessary to subordinate
states and politics to the requirements of capital accumulation. Although this
view rose to prominence in the early 1980s during Margaret Thatcher's and
Ronald Reagan's time on the international stage, it has become widely shared
among political and economic elites around the world. Invocation of the freemarket mantra is de rigueur for western heads of state at G-8 summit meetings,
and the ideology is now publicly embraced by leaders of many underdeveloped
or Third World countries, too.
Globalization is an all-purpose elixir, offered with assurances that acceptance of the neoliberal prescription will not only cure economic problems
(like the ''Asian Flu" of "crony capitalism" in the years following the East Asian
crisis) but will also ineluctably lead to democracy, human rights, improving
the status of women, etc. It all sounds wonderful, particularly given the emphasis on free trade, opening markets, liberalizing states, etc. Like the tonics
peddled at old-fashioned medicine shows that sounded too good to be true,
globalization is another situation where the buyer should beware.
Globalization Masking Imperialism
On close inspection, it is clear that touted globalization schemes actually promote increasing disparity within nations, between labor and capital, and between poor and rich nations. Such schemes represent little more than new
manifestations of imperialism. The contemporary U.S. is an imperialist power,
an empire intent on domination of poor countries and economic and military
supremacy across the globe.
Introduction • xv
A clarion call of this volume is the need to reformulate language. Imperialism must be moved from the margins to the center, and we must discard innocuous-sounding and romanticized labels such as globalization and global
markets. Our reasoning parallels the cogent summary on the schemes of free
traders offered by William Finnegan (2003) in the pages of Harper's Magazine:
"[T] heirs is not an ideology of freedom or democracy. It is a system of control.
It is an economics of empire." Elevating imperialism, particularly U.S. imperialism, to its central place leads to consideration of recent, triumphalist, neoconservative discourse on the topic.
A growing, cynical, and disturbing consensus among neo-conservatives celebrates the U.S. as an imperialist power. Although this may seem like a strikingly unconventional perspective, it is a chic topic among pundits today who
find the facts self-evident. For instance, Robert D. Kaplan in a 2003 Atlantic
Monthly article titled "Supremacy by Stealth: Ten Rules for Managing the
World," contends that "It is a cliche these days to observe that the United States
possesses a global empire-different from Britain's and Rome's but an empire
nonetheless. It is time to move beyond a statement of the obvious .... So how
should we operate on a tactical level to manage an unruly world?"
Kaplan's unapologetic view of a world dominated by the U.S. is not unique.
In the Washington Post, nationally syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer (2002) noted the popularity of this view. Differing somewhat with Kaplan, he suggested "People are now coming out of the closet on the word
empire .... We dominate every field of human endeavor from fashion to film to
finance. We rule the world culturally, economically, diplomatically and militarily as no one since the Roman Empire." In case empire and imperialism
sound a bit over the top, other neo-conservative pundits add qualifiers.
William Kristal, William Rusher, Max Boot, and a host of others make the case
for the U.S. as the first "benign" humanitarian imperialist power in history,
unlike any previous empire. Max Boot (2001) writing in the pages of the neoconservative Weekly Standard, argues that the U.S. differs from empires of the
past because it is liberal and humanitarian.
In appropriating the term, neo-conservatives deliberately sanitize the
meaning of imperialism by arguing that the U.S. simply wishes to extend the
virtues of democracy and capitalism, thereby modernizing backward regions
and lifting intermediate nations to higher levels. They concede, when necessary, that the U.S. will overthrow those governments (democratically elected
or not) that close their borders to foreign capital and thereby oppose democracy through a process known as regime change. Unfortunately, those on the
political right who currently monopolize this discourse on empire and imperialism applaud maintaining, if not expanding, an imperial reach that has
already reached historically unmatched proportions. It is time for us to develop
critical interpretations of empire and imperialism that are not squeamish
about calling them what they truly are.
xvi • Introduction
American Exceptionalism
Despite a barrage of news articles and television interviews applauding U.S.
imperialism and calling for more of it, Americans remain uneasy about the use
of the term. Most accept the mainstream myth that the U.S. relates to all nations on the basis of equality and reciprocity. This view is integral to an older
version of''American Exceptionalism" that sees the country as anti-imperialist.
The neo-conservative view of humanitarian or benign imperialism proposes a
newer version of American Exceptionalism, contending that the U.S. empire is
different from empires of the past. Generally, Americans are unwilling to see
their nation as imperialist. It is becoming increasingly clear, though, that the
identification of the U.S. as an imperialist power is generally accepted as a
given throughout most of the world. Ironically, the residents of the main imperial power seem to be the last to fully grasp that sentiment.
Emily Eakins (2003) writes in the New York Times that "Americans are used
to being told-typically by resentful foreigners-that they are imperialists.
But lately some of the nation's own eminent thinkers are embracing the idea.
More astonishing, they are using the term with approval. From the isolationist
right to the imperialist-bashing left, a growing number of experts are issuing
stirring paeans to American empire." The vast majority of Americans, many in
academia, and most of the news media have found it difficult to incorporate
U.S. imperialism into their political consciousness, research, and news reporting, respectively.
The rightward shift in national politics in recent years affected higher education. Conservative ideologues and corporate influence and funding succeeded in reconstructing large parts of U.S. academia into a bulwark of
research governed by neo-liberal principles. Despite occasional neo-conservative
rants about leftist bias in U.S. universities (often in tandem with an imagined
liberal bias in mainstream media), plenty of evidence indicates this shift to the
right on campuses motivated by perpetual searches for world-class standing,
emphasis on commercially viable research, attacks upon tenure, hiring of parttime lecturers as major components of the teaching corps, various efforts to
bust unions, etc. Despite this trend, a number of scholars in the humanities
and social sciences continue to formulate research that incorporates a critical
view of imperialism at its center. However, an appreciation of contemporary
politics and economics dominated by imperialist policies remains beyond the
scope of the vast majority of university research and instruction.
Similarly, serious discussions of these issues are absent from the narrow debates that pass for American political discourse. Our two main political parties, both infused with heavy doses of neo-liberalism and frequently offering
voters a choice between Tweedledum and Tweedledee, shun the "I" word. They
are willing to cite imperialism only when discussing foreign powers, particularly those in serious contention with the U.S., for example, the former Soviet
Union. One rarely hears even the suggestion of American imperialism. Perhaps
Introduction • xvii
the mainstream politicos feel that the public cannot handle the harsh truth
about U.S. foreign policy and corporate behavior overseas. We should probably thank the neo-conservative minions of the far right for resurrecting a crucial debate about the nature of empire.
This neo-conservative "outing" and celebration of U.S. imperialism, firmly
grounded on a political bedrock for neo-liberal economic orthodoxy, threatens to
pervert the meaning of the term. In this right-wing interpretation, imperialism
comes to mean the triumph of good over everything evil. American troops and
capital are seen as benign forces intervening around the world, and the U.S. is the
standard bearer for the whole world. It is as if the "white man's burden" of 19th
century colonialism has been transformed into a 21st century American empire.
The lack of significant attention to U.S. imperialism in academic study, as Amy
Kaplan ( 1993) convincingly demonstrated, and in political discourse and popular
literature (certainly the case in labor studies), makes it imperative that U.S. imperialism-not the imperialism defined by Boot, Rusher, and Kaplan or the uncritical paeans to globalization-be placed on the national agenda.
The authors in this book, who hail from a variety of academic disciplines
and activist approaches and whose studies differ in style and content, have no
problem identifying the U.S. as an empire. Moreover, based on the arguments
and evidence presented in the various chapters, imperialism is alive and far
from benign. The argument that the U.S. is a humanitarian power interested
only in spreading freedom, wealth, and health over the globe is thoroughly
debunked. The authors discuss a number of substantive topics and historical
periods and present an array of evidence ranging from personal narratives to
detailed statistics that present a far different picture of the role of the U.S.
across the world. Their studies counter the contention that the U.S. spreads in
a disinterested manner the benefits that its own peoples enjoy. Indeed, the
chapters in this book persuasively link the inequality, deprivation, and disempowerment of people in far-flung parts of the globe with growing poverty, unemployment, and disenfranchisement here in the U.S. where nearly 35 million
people live in poverty (U.S. Census Bureau, 2000) and 3.5 million are homeless
(Clementson, 2003; Gosselin, 2003; Johnston, 2003; Shulman, 2003).
This book should also challenge readers, forcing them to consider alternative understandings of the U.S. that move beyond both the official denial of
imperialism and the emerging neo-conservative consensus about its humanitarian nature. In order to address the contemporary dilemmas of labor and
working people, we must understand the concepts of world domination and
global inequality.
Theory and the Imperial State
A vast literature in various fields discusses the theoretical natures of imperialism
and globalization (Lenin, 1970; Moore, 1979; Marx and Engels, 1998). Here
we need distinguish only three generic views. One contends that imperialism
xviii • Introduction
and globalization are consequences of policy choices and they can be fundamentally altered, reformed, pulled back, or dismissed by political and economic elites without altering the nation's capitalist system.
This view analytically separates the political from the economic and considers the possibility that they operate independently. In this version of historical events, the militaristic supremacy of the U.S. and its search for economic
domination are influenced by various policy choices. Thus, for example, the
military aggression against Iraq and Afghanistan expresses behavior by politically powerful groups in the U.S., but it is conceivable that different elites
might have made different choices. This U.S. policy was neither preordained
nor determined by the nature of American political economy. Consequently,
another group of policy makers, part of a new Democratic administration, for
example, might enter the policymaking arena and alter the imperial course.
The second approach argues that imperialism, in both its militaristic and
economic expressions, is ultimately a manifestation of the capitalist order and
therefore originates from the logical functioning of monopoly capitalism. In
this perspective, the largest capitalist entities-agricultural, manufacturing,
banking, and financial institutions-dominate the U.S. economy and, in so
doing, direct the political agenda as well. This view of the state accords politics
and politicians less weight in choosing policies. Historical change in the long
run is driven by economic imperatives with little latitude for political influence independent of economics in general.
A third view, critical of the two earlier approaches, holds that the previous
theories are useful but incomplete. On the one hand, imperialism certainly
cannot be limited to the subjective choices made by political leaders without
understanding how economic forces drive politics in most societies. To paraphrase Marx, people make their own history but not entirely as they please, and
this applies to both heads of state and captains of industry. Because the U.S.
economy is based on monopoly capitalism, it is inconceivable that an American president could make key policy choices that were fundamentally opposed
by the corporate elite for an extended period, even if the electorate supported
them. Such a scenario would quickly expose the limits of democracy.
Proponents of this third perspective also see limitations in the second approach that argues that imperialism expresses the interests of the largest capitalist entities, multi-national corporations (MNCs), and banks that set
parameters for political action and therefore the agendas of political leaders
acting as intermediaries rather than as policy makers. Taken to its logical conclusion, this suggests that the state is nothing more than an executive committee of the bourgeoisie and the politicians are the tools of capitalists;
imperialism is not a choice and is an imperative to action to maintain the control over resources, cheap labor, and trade.
In such a context, the war against Iraq secures petroleum reserves and denies them to others. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and
Introduction • xix
the Free Trade of the Americas Agreement expand investment opportunities
and promote cheap labor while keeping European and Japanese capital out of
the area. The third perspective emphasizes the need to recognize that capitalists, by their very nature, have a very difficult time agreeing about what is in
their collective interest. As a result, while huge oil companies and defense firms
may push for one Middle East imperialist policy, MNCs that sell consumer
goods to Europe and international banks capitalized by Saudi sheiks may favor
different strategies (Block, 1977). Despite their differences, all three perspectives maintain that the nation-state has not lost its previous interventionist
role and continues as the main instrument for implementing imperialist
objectives. States remain key players to advance the interests of capital.
Whatever the theoretical distinctions, there is unanimity that imperialism
operating as neo-liberal globalization is a veritable festival of speculation for
financial capitalists. Fast-moving financial capital retains no loyalty to any
nation except possibly its home base, with drastic consequences for receiving
nations. Throughout the 1990s, much of the finance capital that flowed into
emerging economies later dried up after generating huge profits via currency
speculation, extraction of cheap labor, and legal pillage of natural resources.
This pattern precipitated financial crises in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and,
most dramatically, several East Asian countries in the late 1990s. The results
were increased poverty and inequality, record levels of unemployment,
declines in basic quality-of-life indicators, rising infant mortality, etc. Given a
continuing worldwide economic recession in subsequent years, we have little
reason to expect that the widespread ruin and havoc experienced by many
underdeveloped nations will soon be reversed. The global casino dynamics of
contemporary capitalism based on short-term profits, if not sheer speculation,
is clearly immensely profitable for high rollers and big-time players. However,
it seems to offer little impetus to genuine economic growth at the peripheries
or centers of today's imperial capitalism.
Imperialism and the Working Class
The human costs of today's neo-liberal globalization are felt within the core of
the empire, the U.S. Since 1979, 5 million manufacturing jobs disappeared
overseas-a condition disastrous for labor (Friedman, 2003). NAFTA alone
reportedly relocated 766,000 jobs, primarily in manufacturing, to assembly
plants in Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean (Scott, 2001). In the
U.S., the service industry absorbed the slack, and since 1989 almost 99% of
new jobs in the U.S. appeared in the service sector, which on average pays
wages nearly 25% below those of manufacturing (Mishel, Bernstein, and
Schmidt, 2001). Concurrently, the class divides widened. The annual incomes
of the top 400 wealthiest taxpayers quadrupled between 1992 and 2000, from
$46.8 million to $174 million, while their taxes declined from 26.4 to 22.3%.
Federal Reserve Board data show that 75% of new wealth created between
xx • Introduction
1989 and 1998 went to the top 10% of the nation's households. The income of
the top 5% of households climbed nearly three times faster than the incomes
of the remaining 95% (Browning, 2003; Friedman, 2003).
Those at the top do well even through scandal and business failure. Corporate bankruptcies, some caused by massive corruption and malfeasance like
the famous Enron scandal of 200 l, barely affect the wealthy. Indeed, more than
2 years after that wave of corporate fraud, few CEOs have been prosecuted. The
costs of these scandals and bankruptcies were enormous for ordinary laboring
people: 35,000 people lost their jobs because of the corruption, $1 billion in
pension funds went up in smoke, and shareholders and workers claimed $29
billion in losses (Rovella, 2003). Compounding the grim outcomes (never presaged by the globalization gurus), the stock market stepped onto the proverbial slippery slope. Inevitably, unemployment rose above 6% and remains at
that level. What makes this recession so unusual, however, is that nearly 20% of
the unemployed are of the professional sector, the heart of the fabled American
Dream, the middle class.
California provides an excellent example of the effects of globalization on the
average U.S. worker. Since the mid- l 980s the state's manufacturing jobs declined
from 2 million to 1.8 million and service industry jobs doubled from 2.3 million
to 4.6 million. Wages dropped accordingly. The average manufacturing job paid
$55,000 annually. The average for service work stands at $30,000 (Skelton, 2003).
Further manufacturing-job losses and service-industry growth in California and
across the country are guaranteed if the proposed Free Trade Agreement of the
Americas is implemented.
The export of jobs, sometimes given the bloodless label of capital flight, depends on efficient transportation. Products formerly produced in the U.S. and
now made at far lower cost overseas must still find their ways to relatively
affluent consumers in places like the U.S. In Chapters 1 and 2 of this volume,
George Lipsitz and Thomas Reifer describe how technological developmentslike supertankers that cross the Pacific in a few days, containerization of shipping, and computerized inventory control and logistics-affect California's
economic geography, employment prospects at the ports and inland, and
opportunities for labor organizing. Lipsitz offers a compendium of changes
attendant on the global reorganization of production, including large new
streams of labor migration, inequality in the U.S. and elsewhere, radical
changes in the marketing of consumer goods, and new transnational identities
and social movements. His coverage of a range of impacts of global neoliberalism and the new forms of imperialism makes his work an ideal introductory chapter. Reifer's essay provides a finer-grained analysis of the emerging
logistic sector in the U.S., with special focus on the massive Long Beach-Los
Angeles port complex, the Alameda transportation corridor, and the rise of a
huge concentration of distribution warehouses in the "Inland Empire" of southern
California.
Introduction • xxi
One lesson that emerges through this analysis is the value of developing
labor-organizing strategies that directly interrogate and challenge the expansive
but locality-specific processes of globalization. Reifer contends that transnational production, supply, and distribution networks create potential arenas for
alliances for the workers who dominate such industries, including people of
color, immigrants, and women. Analyzing the Mexico-China-Southern California triangle, he points out that ports such as those in Los Angeles and Long
Beach and warehouses in Ontario could be strategic places for workers to exercise these options and become "a potential Achilles Heel of the giant retail firms
and the global production networks of which they are an integral part:'
Identifying new alliances and possibilities produced from globalization can
take place in more localized arenas as well. Lipsitz's discussion of the organization by the Labor/Community Strategy Center (LCSC) of the Bus Riders'
Union in Los Angeles identifies a strategic local space for organizing and
building broad coalitions. He notes that the LCSC identified bus riding as a
pivotal organizing situation for developing a multi-national membership that
both crossed and connected different experiences. This group understood
"that its members were also valuable 'witnesses to empire' and veterans of
trade union and anti-imperialist struggles around the world;' enabling workers to use their transnational networks to mobilize.
William Robinson and James Petras contribute chapters that illustrate the
larger structural dynamics of contemporary imperialism in terms of their impacts on Latin America. Robinson describes the massive changes in the global
arena in the latter half of the 20th century. He claims that the crises of the 1970s
"led to a new mode of global capital accumulation now known as neoliberalism;'
resulting in a fundamental economic restructuring of Latin America through
transnational processes. This transnational activity profoundly reorganized political relations and hierarchies beyond individual nation-states and promoted the
transfers of capital and products within one consolidated world arena.
Integration in the global economy during this period, however, resulted not
in growth but in stagnation in many parts of the world, with Latin America becoming more dependent on commodity exports and global capital markets.
The accompanying national debts accumulated by Latin American countries
only deepened their relationships to unequal transnational networks while
promoting the rise of an "emergent transnational power bloc in the region:'
Similarly, James Petras identifies neo-colonialism of Latin America led by the
U.S, MNCs, and banks and supported by political leaders like George W. Bush.
Petras discusses the deleterious effects on labor in this region through military
rule, privatization, massive debt, and trade agreements favoring outside
countries.
Neo-liberal pressure to delegitimize states and governments around the globe
undermines gains made over decades by"welfare states" and removes crucial political levers exercised in the past by workers, unions, and even middle-class citizens.
xxii • Introduction
Petras argues, "Empire building is essentially a form of class warfare from
above:' The unfulfilled promise of so-called free trade has meant the loss of
jobs, the elimination of social support systems, the gradual demise of small
agriculturalists, the increasing inequality between the top income tier and the
working peoples, and descent from the heralded middle class. The price for
this progress, as William Robinson comments regarding Latin America, is paid
by the poor and the working class whose exploited cheap labor becomes an
asset for attracting outside investment. He notes succinctly, "The poor have to
run faster just to remain in the same place."
Processes of globalization are far reaching, not only dramatically transforming the economic policies that bind nations and economies, but also
reconfiguring social and political dynamics in other arenas, even in areas
typically considered private and intimate, such as sexuality. Useche and
Cabezas argue that issues as seemingly diverse as international tourism, the
pharmaceutical industry, and the spread of HIV/AIDs have all become
stages for the unequal relations produced by and consolidated through neoliberal economic policies. One common consequence of these larger policies is that men and women who need work turn to employment in the
international sex trade. Witness, for instance, the Mexican women who are
unable to cross the border into the U.S. and find sex work as a primary labor
option in border cities like Tijuana where the industry is mainly frequented
by U.S. tourists.
Imperialism, Migration, and Citizenship
Supporters of free-trade reforms argue that the reforms will bring an end to
underdevelopment; however, the reforms worsened the conditions of poverty
and drove people from their homes and communities. For example, the free
entry of agricultural products from the First World into Third World markets
has a devastating impact on small farmers and producers. After the imports
saturate the marketplaces in less-developed countries, prices for the commodities fall, causing a decrease in the demand for domestic products and
driving small producers and farmers out of business. In other cases, multinational agribusinesses take advantage of neo-liberal policies by buying large
swaths of the countryside, then convert peasant plots that once raised subsistence crops into large-scale plantations for export crops. Victor Quintana's
Chapter 16 explains how this process worked in Mexico over the past two
decades and its devastating impacts on the agricultural sector and rural populations.
Ironically, while the rise of large-scale corporate monoproduction of crops
like coffee for western markets may make economic sense (and profits) in a neoliberal world economy, the dramatic reduction in small-holder subsistence
agriculture frequently worsens food shortages and leads to more hunger
in poor countries. Small peasant farmers are driven from the land, and
Introduction • xxiii
once thriving countryside commumt1es become deserted villages. Older
generations are left behind and younger generations are uprooted. Many seek
employment in urban areas where they face inadequate housing, lack of basic
public health facilities, and fierce competition for employment. Some find seasonal work as street vendors or in the service, construction, manufacturing,
and tourism industries (Smith, 1996).
Swelling cities of the Indian subcontinent are frequently offered as quintessential examples of Third World squalor, deprivation, and desperation. Leela
Fernandes's chapter on class, space, and the state in India zeroes in on Mumbai
(Bombay). This sprawling metropolis is largely the product of massive cityward migration of the rural poor who often end up as members of an urban
underclass of squatters, beggars, hawkers, and vendors. Recent neo-liberal reforms also created a new Indian middle class that is more affluent and oriented
toward western-style consumerism. Economic liberalization programs (and
the dismantling of vestiges of state socialism) led to a collaboration of the state
and the private sectors, producing exclusionary forms of citizenship based on
neo-colonial hierarchies of class, ethnicity, and religion. The result is further
segregation of the working classes and the emerging middle class in the workplace, in consumption patterns, and in the privatization of public space.
Concurrent with such segregation is a rise in racialized and exclusionary
Hindu nationalist political activities targeting Muslim immigrant workers.
Fernandes reminds us that the dynamics of empire are far reaching, extending
beyond countries at the center of global capitalism and those leading the war
on terrorism. The economic and military-political dimensions of empire
building are extremely salient. Liberalization policies do not weaken the role of
the militarized state; rather, they reorganize and strengthen it, often under
cover of the war on terror.
This free entry of finance capital and surplus commodities creates an internal migratory process and fosters conditions for immigration to other countries and continents. Hoping to find more promising economic opportunities,
the displaced citizens immigrate as documented and undocumented workers
to Australia, the U.S., Canada, and Europe-countries that have demands for
cheap labor. The laborers face immense pressures because they are expected to
support families left behind in the villages who depend on them for survival.
Thus, in this era of neo-liberal models of economic restructuring, immigration is not an act of free choice but is constrained by powerful market
forces that regulate labor costs in rich and poor countries vis-a-vis state-tostate agreements between sending and receiving countries. This international
marketplace of cheap and flexible labor is geared to exporting labor in the
service ofMNCs and nation-states.
Active state policies produce an international gender division of labor, for
example, with preferences for men in agricultural and construction work and
women in domestic or factory work. In some cases, both sexes are recruited to
xxiv • Introduction
provide segmented labor needs, with the assumption that the presence of family members will pacify the male workforce. Women are recruited to fill positions as domestics, nannies, nurses, and home-care workers abroad. A vast
inexpensive female labor pool from the Third World services the needs of the
young and old in the First World.
Rhacel Parrefias's Chapter 7 analyzes the predicaments of domestic workers
who relocate from underdeveloped countries to richer nations and focuses on
women from the Philippines. State policies in the wealthy countries limit the incorporation of these temporary or guest workers, forbid them from bringing
family members with them, and grant them only partial citizenship rights. These
restrictions disrupt family life and force relatives and friends left behind in the
sending communities to care for the children of these transnational laborers. An
enormous emotional cost is also paid by members of these transnational
families. Their cheap labor benefits employers and the economies of the receiving states that do not have to pay family reproduction costs. Furthermore, the states are free to deport the workers when their labor is no longer
in demand.
Neo-liberal policies have also forced women to turn to the informal labor
sector by doing sex work in tourist enclaves or militarized zones to escape
rural poverty and support themselves and their families. Although coercive
trafficking of women who are brutally kidnapped, sold, or lured into sexual
slavery certainly occurs, other situations are more complex (Kempadoo and
Doezema, 1998). In many cases, women may have much greater agency and
control over their sexual labor.
In Chapter 5, Amalia Cabezas examines the impact of globalization on the
informal economy of sex tourism in Cuba and the Dominican Republic and
contends that the economy is not automatically exploitative. She argues that
although a racial hierarchy exists, the boundaries between labor practices and
romantic relationships are blurred because some women see sex work as a way
to augment their meager wages and spend leisure time. Some even expect to
find love, friendship, and even marriage with foreigners. Although some
women choose to participate in these intimate relations to improve their
socioeconomic status, others and even children are coerced into lives of sexual
exploitation. It is not a coincidence that many of the women and men who
are sexualized in these situations come from developing countries in Asia and
Latin America, and it is not accidental that minority women are especially
vulnerable in those countries.
A connection exists between imperialism and immigration patterns, particularly the subordination of a racialized labor force. Displaced persons migrate from Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, and, to a lesser extent,
Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Immigrants and refugees who go to
wealthy countries are accused of undermining wages, misappropriating
services, increasing crime rates, and weakening national cultural values. High
Introduction •
XXV
immigration rates and economic instability correlate with heightened levels of
anti-immigrant sentiments and racial violence.
Kitty Calavita, in Chapter 9, describes the marginalization of immigrant laborers in Italy and Spain, most of whom are from the underdeveloped world,
most notably northern Africa. Although the European states promote a discourse of tolerance, they practice a policy of economic marginalization of immigrants. They systematically and legally exclude immigrants, denying them
opportunities for full integration into civil society. Calavita's study strengthens
the concerns of critics who argue that global inequalities and post colonial relations reproduce empires within nations, particularly where pre-Fordist and
post-Fordist systems of production exist. Destabilization brought on by global
neo-liberalism, including policies of structural adjustment in poor countries
and dismantling of welfare states and antilabor policies in rich ones, continues
to produce massive global labor migrations.
The billions of dollars in remittances global workers send home support
their families. The funds also subsidize the economies of the sending states
and help them resolve balance-of-payment issues and reduce their national
debts. Third World governments, encouraged by international lenders,
actively persuade migrants to funnel remittances into government-sponsored
projects supposedly aimed at helping develop the villages. Ironically, these
types of programs created the crises that originally forced people off their
lands and out of their homelands. These policies amount to little more than
the privatization of welfare programs-having the poor subsidize the poor
in the face of increasing cutbacks in social services and government farm
subsidies. Again, the division between labor-supplying nations and laborutilizing nations replicates a colonial pattern embedded within global neoliberal policies.
Although migration from Third World nations is restricted, foreign investors, assembly-plant managers, retirees, tourists, and others enter such
countries freely. Miguel Tinker Salas, in Chapter 10, analyzes the social and cultural impact of multi-national petroleum companies in Venezuela. He is interested not only in the effects on workers in the oil camps (campos petroleros),
but also how MNCs transformed Venezuelan society as a whole. Promoting
the notion of corporate citizenship through the work culture, they restructured family arrangements, female labor participation, relations with foreigners,
and class mobility. The big oil firms represented themselves as agents of modernization to be emulated; however, Venezuela is now experiencing a major
economic crisis that created social havoc as a result of the struggle to control
oil revenues.
Salas's work speaks to conditions facing developing nations that desire to
attract foreign capital to boost national economies. These nations adopt
contradictory economic policies of privatization and state control, often leading to internal power struggles, mismanagement, and corruption. Old power
xxvi • Introduction
relationships are difficult to change, and former neo-colonial masters and corporate power structures retain a great deal of control. This can lead to a loss of
national sovereignty-in some cases through foreign intervention and even
occupation.
Resistance to Global Imperialism
The predicament that laborers face in the contemporary period parallels the
conditions they faced over a century ago. On a global scale, at one level, the gap
is between the First and the Third World nations; however, we cannot ignore
the widening disparities between the wealthy and the poor within national
boundaries. Work conditions are deteriorating not only for manufacturing
and service-industry jobs, but also for those in the high-paying technology
and biotechnology industries.
First World countries that formerly hired domestic workers and imported
highly skilled workers from the Third World on temporary or even permanent
visas can now, with technological advances, hire workers who remain overseas
at a fraction of the wages. This practice is known as global sourcing. Increasingly footloose capital demands flexible workers and flexible production locations. Global sourcing improves competitiveness but is detrimental for
workers worldwide. The conditions facing laborers counter the arguments by
neo-liberal advocates that unencumbered movement of capital, goods, and
services is advantageous for all.
Broad coalitions of different types of workers in various parts of the world are
beginning to resist. This is evident in the large-scale antiglobalization protests
(reactions against what we described as imperialism), particularly against the
WTO and massive mobilizations against state policies that attack unions, deteriorate working conditions, and eliminate employment opportunities. Laborers,
even those with the most precarious immigration and citizenship status, have
challenged state and multi-national corporate power, using their social agency to
mobilize for improved and humane working and living conditions.
Although financial and other corporate entities use their powerful national
states to act as advance guards, agents, and negotiators for their interests, opposition from within to those same polities is rising around the globe. As
William Robinson notes in Chapter 3, instabilities in Latin America provide
openings for further resistance against and challenges to political structures,
even if increased oppression is another result. This reveals the potential of
massive movements that transcends nation-state and regional boundaries.
Indeed, since the epochal "Battle for Seattle" in 1999, rallies, large and
small, have dared to protest globalization policies sponsored by the dominant
nations and administered by their governments. Popular movements demand,
among other things, that their respective states rescind deleterious economic
policies, particularly privatization and austerity measures, and that governments
serve their nations and place national sovereignty above foreign interests.
Introduction • xxvii
Consequently, there is a great deal of contestation over nation-states in the
underdeveloped world.
The Third World state has become something of a sanctuary of last resort
for workers and peasants to resist the devastation wrought by policies designed at the headquarters of MNCs. Workers in Argentina and peasants in
Mexico, for example, protest that the state does not serve the people and propose the state create alternative policies at odds with the international lenders
and MNCs. On the other hand, lenders and MNCs search for ways to weaken
the poor countries to guarantee business as usual. It is evident from the articles
in this volume that the struggles by opponents of neo-liberalism use the state
as a means of defense against free-trade agreements and policies of similar ilk.
The state is a sort of"disputed territory;' not merely among the peoples of various nations but between the peoples of nations, foreign governments, and the
corporations they serve.
How has recent global imperialism changed the way scholars, labor organizations, and other activists think about resistance; about who is likely to
protest; what forms this protest will take; and what kind of leadership is
emerging? Issues motivating protest involve racist, sexist, homophobic, and
anti-immigrant public policy; the exploitation of children in foreign assembly
plants; the wanton murders of nearly 400 young women maquila workers in
Juarez, Mexico; the liberal importation of products that compete with small
producers; the curtailing of pensions; privatization of water supplies; raising
university fees; and, of course, mortgaging entire economies to international
lending agencies.
Resistance covers many activities and is broadly defined, ranging from
consumer boycotts of products; student takeovers of university buildings;
united front marches; worker factory occupations; community-wide shutdowns; street vendor demonstrations; peasant marches on national capitals;
teachers shutting down main thoroughfares; imported domestics organizing
unions; and open rebellion against U.S. military presence in Korea,
Afghanistan, and Iraq.
In the 21st century, women, immigrants, sexual minorities, rural people,
and other marginalized groups are increasingly moving to the forefront of
global struggles. Combating racial, gender, and heterosexist privilege and antiimmigrant attitudes and promoting an analysis of imperialism that engages
everyday experiences are critical challenges facing the emerging global antiimperialist movements.
Debates among neo-Marxist and postmodern scholars often center on the
place of the proletariat in these struggles. Wai Kit Cho i's Chapter 11 reflects on
Hardt and Negri's (2000) argument that the current regime of flexible production ushers in a period in which workers are highly differentiated and their
stratification makes identification with one another unlikely. Choi's case study
of Shanghai labor uprisings in the 1920s shows that historical proletarian-based
xxviii • Introduction
struggles were much more contingent than is generally thought; that the
workers constituted a heterogeneous group; and that only through left leadership did a diverse coalition of workers, gangsters, bourgeoisie, and assorted
nationalists sustain a unified general strike.
Choi's emphasis on the importance of the ability of the communist organizers in early 20th century Shanghai to overcome the obstacles faced by the
stratified groups of protesters suggests that organized resistance to 21st century global capitalism uniting varied types of workers and ordinary citizens
may be more feasible than many think. This raises questions about the
prospects of transnational coalitions in the current phase of fragmented production. Will workers be likely to support one another across national boundaries or even across racial groups, especially if the dominant thinking places
blame on workers who accept lower wages and conditions?
Ideology and leadership are critical elements in the forging of solidarity
and transnational coalitions, and a number of chapters in this volume comment on transnational and interethnic labor organizations. Mark Le Vine's
Chapter 12 is also an historical case study, examining the significance of interactions of Zionist and Palestinian workers during the mandate period. His evidence suggests that the two groups cooperated sufficiently on occasion, to the
extent that elites considered their labor solidarity a threat until the dominating
influence of settler colonialism overshadowed attempts to create class unity.
The Zionist colonization project brought Jewish workers to Palestine and
marshaled them to the cause of taking over Arab territory. Arab workers, on
the other hand, were employed to meet nascent Israeli society's labor needs,
then displaced by immigrant workers recruited from Asia, Africa, and Europe.
Israel, like other newly industrialized countries and like Europe and the U.S.,
has become a magnet for labor migration. People from poorer countries, impoverished by structural adjustment, rural displacement, and other globalizing forces come to such countries to work for very low pay.
Labor movements and anti-imperialist organizations increasingly face the
problem of how to campaign against the "race to the bottom" dynamic-a
problem not restricted to rich industrialized countries. In Chapter 13,
Stephen Chiu and Alvin So recount the "boom and bust" nature of the rise of
flexible production in Hong Kong. Workers initially reaped the benefits of
flexible work arrangements, and many women held jobs with small and
medium-sized manufacturers. In what workers called the golden years of the
late 1970s, pay and benefits were liberal and businesses vigorously competed
for workers despite lack of strong union organizing and strong state-business
links. However, rapid growth of export-oriented manufacturing led to labor
shortages; by the mid-1990s, economic restructuring shifted manufacturing
facilities to nearby provinces in the People's Republic of China (PRC). After
the formal handover of the colony to China in 1997, economic situation
rapidly deteriorated for most working people, with particularly devastating
Introduction • xxix
impacts on women workers who were reduced to the status of itinerant casual
workers.
Undocumented immigrants from Southeast Asia flooded in to fill low-wage
domestic and service-sector jobs. Chiu and So argue that the vitality of the
labor movement may shift to Thai, Nepalese, and Filipina women service
workers who are mobilizing to protest the free-market policies that undermined the positions of all workers in Hong Kong. Massive demonstrations
against the neo-liberal policies of the PRC-appointed Hong Kong government
spark hopes of a new labor insurgency, but signs also indicate that worker frustrations may be displaced by conflicts within the working classes. Immigrant
and gender issues are the most divisive, producing chauvinistic responses, particularly from the old-line male-dominated labor movement. Bridging the
gender divides and schisms between native and new immigrant labor is crucial
to successful challenges to global neo-liberalism.
Immigrant-worker activism has also brought a resurgence of energy to the
labor movements in the U.S. and Canada. The Justice for Janitors' actions, the
homecare workers' massive union victory, the hotel workers' innovative strategies, the Immigrant Workers' Freedom Ride, and the emergence of cross-ethnic
coalitions offer visions of a re-invigorated labor movement (Milkman, 2000;
Wong 2001). Many immigrants are in the informal sector or are governed by
complex webs of contractors and employers; their struggles are unconventional and their triumphs may be short lived.
Workers in the informal sector in many parts of the Third World are using
creative means to improve their status. Learning more about how female construction workers in India, for example, are challenging gender hierarchies
while engaging in a common struggle with their male counterparts for transformation of exploitative conditions can be useful for imagining new ways of
struggle (Ramakrishnan, 1996). Chang's Chapter 14 looks at the way racism,
structural adjustment, and privatization of health care support the continued
exploitation of Filipina caregivers in the U.S. and Canada and the forms by
which nurses and domestic workers are resisting. In addition to documenting
the insidious exploitation of these migrant women in North American care
work and exposing the complicity of state policies in both countries, Chang
highlights a participatory action project for Filipina nurses in Canada.
Chang also discusses the work of an interethnic coalition of Domestic
Workers United and Andolan, a South Asian group that is pushing for legislation and organizing demonstrations in New York City. This group organizes to
help domestic workers overcome their isolation and fight the abuse and exploitation they regularly encounter by raising public awareness of their plight,
offering social support, and putting political pressure on city government to
pass ordinances to regulate employer conduct.
The main labor organizations in the U.S. and Canada recently committed
resources and energy to organizing immigrants and communities of color, and
xxx • Introduction
they have made other progressive moves such as creating constituency groups
for major ethnic groups and for gays and lesbians (Pride at Work). Yet, the
history of organized labor, particularly in the U.S., makes it difficult for the
movement to change from the old "bread and butter unionism" linked to unwavering support for the Democratic party and acceptance of the American
myth of a social contract between labor and business that creates equal treatment for all. This means that U.S. workers uncritically internalized chauvinistic support for inequality on many fronts, including gender and racial
privilege and support of imperialism wars.
Bill Fletcher's Chapter 15 explores this history and what must be done by the
working class movement in the U.S. to embrace an anti-imperialist, antiracist
ideology and participate in a true international labor solidarity movement. He
argues that left leadership must develop and convince workers to organize on the
principle that it is in their material interest to fight for a democratic U.S. foreign
policy, for massive social and economic transformations, including reparations
for slavery, assistance to the Global AIDS Fund, and global wealth redistribution.
He also contends that an anti-imperialist movement must disengage strategies
for security from military ones that create states of permanent war and fear.
Additionally, the billions spent on military domination were diverted from resolving domestic social and economic issues, and the results were shut-downs
of hospitals and schools. Protesters in Okinawa and East Asia already point the
way toward this vision, holding international delegations, art festivals, and
using popular and institutional methods to spread counter-hegemonic ideas
about what real security means (Fukomura and Matsuoka, 2002).
Certainly, opponents of neo-liberalism have reason to rebel. The so-called
industrialization of the Third World has not led to genuine national development. If anything, the establishment of foreign-owned assembly plants is nothing more than a reflection of a country's cheap wages and does nothing to
stimulate local economic growth and dynamism. Under present conditions, the
underdeveloped world receives only assembly plants and increased poverty.
Mexico and the Philippines are prime examples of massive construction of
export factories that employ millions. The factories are ringed by appalling
shantytowns and squatter settlements that often lack basic services. In Mexico,
for example, the 3000 or so maquiladoras are the nation's largest employers of
labor, numbering over a million, for the production of goods consumed in the
U.S.; however, the workers, the majority of them women, are guaranteed
poverty and places among the 60% of the Mexican population that lives below
the poverty line by Mexico's standards (McConnell, 1991; Kraul, 2000;
Warnock, 2001).
The record is replete with widespread opposition to neo-liberal free-trade
policies-the imperialism of the late 20th century that drives the politics of
the 21st Century. Workers have had to develop new strategies and organizations
such as more use of direct-action tactics. Chapter 4 by James Petras discusses the
Introduction • xxxi
changing locus of organizing from the workplace to the neighborhood in
Latin America and growing movements in the countryside to protest U.S.
imperialism. The widening gap between rich and poor countries portends
increasing discontent, protest, and rebellion. 1 Internal contradictions and rivalry
among the imperial nations are accompanied by threats from below. Fractures
among the imperial countries dominate the globalization agenda from Seattle
to Doha to the recent meeting in Cancun.
Trade relations between the European Union (EU) and the U.S., often in the
form of charges and counter-charges of unfair trade policies, are marked on
both sides by protectionist tariffs trumping lowered trade barriers. Simmering
tensions in the WTO underscored in the confrontation at the United Nations
between "Old Europe" and the "coalition of the willing" over the Iraq invasion
and occupation reveal increasing open hostility among traditional allies. It
comes as no surprise that the economic reconstruction program designed by
the Bush administration for Iraq is nothing more than a repeat of classic
global imperialist schemes of the past; in fact, officials have spoken of a freetrade agreement with Iraq. 2 In doing so, the EU, Russia, and China are effectively kept at bay and out of their once-busy trading relationships with Iraq. 3
Imperial hostility, however, is often at its strongest in controlling lucrative
Third World markets and free-trade agreements serve that purpose. The Free
Trade Agreement of the Americas, for example, championed by the current
Bush administration (and earlier by the Clinton administration), has little to
do with trade and more to do with keeping the door open to finance capital,
the utilization of cheap labor, and export of subsidized agricultural goods
from the U.S. Meanwhile, foreign competitors are kept out of the huge U.S.
market under rules of origin at the heart of free-trade agreements that prevent
competitive assembly-plant development. In Chapter 16, Victor Quintana
documents the impoverishment of Mexican peasants in the name of development and the displacement of millions of rural people.
Rural Mexico provided the basis for Mexico's rapid economic growth,
writes Quintana, until government policies undermined prices of agricultural
products and reduced agricultural subsidies that were then further diminished
by NAFTA in the name of free trade. 4 The same economic measures that promote poverty also propel internal and international migrations. Nonetheless,
while macroeconomic structures and policies drive this mass uprooting, the
peasantry is not passive in the face of exploitation and poverty. Quintana's
chapter captures movements such as El Campo no Aguanta Mas (the countryside cannot take it any more), El Barz6n (representing indebted peasants), the
Confederacion Nacional Campesina, and the Consejo Agrario Permanente. These
organizations mobilized in response to the policies that continue to impoverish
the peasantry and drive their migration to Mexican cities and to the U.S. They
are examples of the ways in which rural communities and indigenous people
are forging effective movements against imperialism.
xxxii • Biblography
Over the long term, imperialism is unsustainable. In the face of greater
competition by the imperial nations for profitable ventures and cheap labor,
the Third World will be eventually drained of its resources and the neo-liberal
adversaries will be forced to turn against each other and inward to plunder
rival nations and peoples as well as their own. Inevitably, the cost of empire
weighs increasingly upon workers far beyond the Third World to include inhabitants of the imperial nations. If history teaches any lesson, it is that as living and working conditions for people around the world worsen, discontent
and oppositional politics will advance proportionately. Ultimately, labor and
all those opposed to imperial domination will shape the politics and societies
of the coming century.
Bibliography
Arrighi, G., "Globalization, State Sovereignty, and the 'Endless' Accumulation of Capital," In
Smith, D.A., D.J. Solinger, and S.C. Topik, Eds., States and Sovereignty in the Global
Economy, Routledge, London, 1999, p. 53.
Block, F., "The Ruling Class Does Not Rule: Notes on a Marxist Theory of the State;' Socialist
Revolution 33: 6, 1977.
Boot, M., "The Case for the American Empire," Weekly Standard, October 15, 2001.
Browning, L., "U.S. Income Gap Widening, Study Says;' New York Times, September 25, 2003.
Cox, R., ''A Perspective on Globalization;' In Mittelman, J., Ed., Globalization: Critical Reflections,
Lynne Rienner Publishers, Boulder, CO, 1996, p. 21.
Eakins, E., "It Takes an Empire, Say Several U.S. thinkers;' New York Times, April 2, 2003.
Escobar, A., Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World, Princeton
University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1995.
Finnegan, W., "The Economics of Empire: Notes on the Washington Consensus;' Harper's
Magazine, May 2003.
Friedman, D., "White Collar Blues;' Los Angeles Times, August 3, 2003.
Fukomura, Y. and M. Matsuoka, "Redefining Security: Okinawa Women's Resistance to U.S.
Militarism," In Naples, N. and M. Desai, Eds., Women's Activism and Globalization: Linking
Local Struggles and Transnational Politics, Routledge, New York, 2002, p. 239.
Gosselin, P.O., "Middle, Lower Classes Feel Pinch;' Los Angeles Times, September 23, 2003.
Johnston, D.C., "Wealthiest See Share of All U.S. Income Grow;' Orange County Register, June 26, 2003.
Kaplan, A., "'Left Alone With America': The Absence of Empire in the Study of American Culture;'
in Amy Kaplan and Donald Pease, Eds., Cultures of United States Imperialism, Durham,
NC: Duke University Press, 1993.
Kaplan, R.D., "Supremacy by Stealth: Ten Rules for Managing the World," Atlantic Monthly,
July-August 2003.
Kempadoo, K. and J. Doezema, Eds., Global Sex Workers: Rights, Resistance, and Redefinition,
Routledge, New York, 1998.
Kraul, C., "Growing Troubles in Mexico," Los Angeles Times, January 17, 2000.
Gill, S., "Globalization, Democratization, and the Politics of Indifference," In Mittelman, J., Ed.,
Globalization: Critical Reflections, Lynne Reinner Publishers, Boulder, CO, 1996, p. 205.
Hardt, M. and A. Negri, Empire, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2000.
Krauthammer, C., "Who Needs Gold Medals," Washington Post, February 20, 2002.
Lenin, V., Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism, Moscow Foreign Language Press, 1970.
McConnell, P., "Maquilas Offer Work But Not Prosperity," Los Angeles Times, June 17, 1991.
Marx, K. and F. Engels, The Communist Manifesto, McLellen, D., Ed., Oxford University Press, New
York, 1998.
Milkman, R., Organizing Immigrants: The Challenges for Unions in Contemporary California, ILR
Press, Ithaca, NY, 2000.
Mishel, L., J. Bernstein, and J. Schmidt, State of Working America: 2000-2001, ILR Press, Ithaca, NY,
2001, p. 169.
Mittelman, J.H., Globalization: Critical Reflections, Lynne Reinner Publishers, Boulder, CO, 1996.
End Notes • xxxiii
Moore, S.W., The Critique of Capitalist Democracy: An Introduction to the Theory of the State in
Marx, Engels, and Lenin, A. Kelley, New York, 1979.
Ramakrishnan, G., ''A Struggle Within A Struggle: The Unionization of Women in the Informal
Sector in Tamil Nadu:' In Carr, M., M. Chen, and R. Jhabyala, Eds., Speaking Out: Women's
Economic Empowerment in South Asia, IT Publications, London, 1996, p. 167.
Rovella, D., "Three in Charge Not Charged;' Orange County Register,August 14, 2003.
Scott, R.E., "NAFTA's Hidden Costs:' Economic Policy Institute, Washington, D.C., 2001.
Shulman, B., "Four Myths, Thirty Million Potential Voters;' Alameda Times-Star, August 24, 2003.
Skelton, G., "Squeeze on Business Puts Strain on State's Declining Middle Class," Los Angeles
Times,April 14, 2003.
Smith, D.A., Third World Cities in Global Perspective, Westview, Boulder, CO, 1996.
Smith, DA., D.J. Solinger, and S.C. Topik, States and Sovereignty in the Global Economy, Routledge,
New York, 1999.
Soros, G., "The Capitalist Threat;' The Atlantic Monthly, 279: 45, 1997.
U.S. Census Bureau, http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty.html. 2000.
Wade, R. and F. Veneroso, "The Gathering World Slump and the Battle over Capital Controls;' New
Left Review, 231: 13, 1998.
Warnock, J.W., "Who Benefits from the Free Trade Agreement;' Regina Leader Post, April 18, 2001.
Wong, K., Voices for Justice, Asian Pacific American Organizers and the New Labor Movement,
Center for Labor Research, University of California, Los Angeles, 2001.
1 1999 Human Development Report, United Nations Development Programme. See also
Ramonet, I., "The Politics of Hunger;' Le Monde Diplomatique, November 1998.
2 Andrews, E.L., "Import Invaders Besiege Iraqi Businesses:' New York Times, June 1, 2003.
Andrews noted that Iraq "suddenly faces the full fury of globalization and international
competition;' and that U.S. officials "speak grandly about a free-trade agreement between
Iraq and the United States."
3 See Sanders, L., "Reaping the Spoils of War: Ousting Saddam Could Put U.S. Oil Giants in
'Driver's Seat:'' CBS.MarketWatch.com, January 31, 2003; Crutsinger, M., "Billions Pledged
to Rebuild Iraq:' Orange County Register, April 11, 2003. Crutsinger writes, "IMF and World
Bank first plan to study an economy buried for decades;' intending to "help provide billions
of dollars to rebuild Iraq:'
4 Arturo Escobar ( 1995) and others note that sustainable development is a term usurped
by international financial institutions; the goal of ecologically informed economies that
benefit indigenous and rural people remains an integral demand of an anti-imperialist
movement.
I
Empire: Global Capitalism
and Domination
1
New Times and New Identities:
Solidarities of Sameness and
Dynamics of Difference
GEORGE LIPSITZ
We live in a time of tremendous transformation and change. New patterns and
practices permeate virtually every aspect of production and politics, technology
and trade, communication and consumption. New social institutions and new
social relations radically reconfigure economic activities, changing the scale
and scope of production, the significance of time and place, and the salience of
longstanding social identities. Containerization in shipping, computergenerated automation, outsourcing of production, Internet commerce,
fiberoptic telecommunications, and satellite technologies seem to have terminated the isomorphism (the congruence or one-to-one relationship) between
culture and place. Traditional social movement strategies to secure concessions from capital seem confounded by these new realities. It seems more and
more difficult to "trap" capital in any one place long enough to regulate its
practices or tax its profits, much less bargain collectively with it on an equal
footing. In the process of losing dominion over place, ordinary workers, consumers, and citizens seem to lose the leverage they need to exert influence on
the key decisions that affect their lives.
The new realities of our time have enacted a fundamental rupture in the
relationships linking place, politics, and culture. For example, one of the most
important container ports on the west coast today is not actually on the west
coast at all. It sits 4400 feet above sea level in the high desert country of northern Nevada, some 233 miles from the Pacific Ocean. No ocean-going ships
ever dock in the "port" of Sparks and Reno, but cargo from ocean-going ships
is unloaded, stored, assembled, and dispatched from there every day. Shoreside
cranes in Tacoma, Oakland, San Pedro, and other west-coast ports unload
huge containers from ships and place them on road and rail conveyances that
take them to distribution centers inland.
The container revolution of the 1950s made it possible for high desert railroad switching centers like Sparks to become ocean ports. The use of automated cranes and interchangeable containers by the shipping industry created
3
4 • George Lipsitz
a totally integrated freight transport system built upon transfers from ships to
trucks and trains. Metal boxes 40 feet long, 8 feet high, and 8 feet wide quickly
became the universal mechanisms for cargo shipments. The interchangeability
and flexibility that they facilitated bolstered the profits of manufacturers and
shipping lines alike, but they also transformed dramatically the practices
and processes of production, distribution, and consumption for people all
over the globe.
Before the advent of containerization, longshore workers assembled at
places like Pier 39 in San Francisco to unload bulk products like coffee. Today,
longshore workers no longer gather at Pier 39. The pier has been turned into
a "festival mall:' a renovated historic site with a splendid view of the San
Francisco harbor. Pier 39 houses 11 full-service restaurants with ocean views
and hosts more than 100 specialty stores that sell products to tourists and
upscale consumers. Workers no longer handle bulk containers of.coffee at the
pier, but crowds of tourists and downtown office workers stream to coffeehouses
there every day to purchase elaborate concoctions at premium prices.
The transformation of a high desert city into a busy ocean port and the
evolution of a coffee loading dock into a coffeehouse provide vivid examples
of the ways in which new technologies, business practices, and social relations
are transforming the spaces we inhabit as workers and consumers. The same
technologies and business practices that produce new sites for the production
and distribution of products also produce new physical spaces devoted to consumption. Festival malls like Pier 39 turn abandoned factories, train stations,
and waterfronts into upscale shopping centers. Gigantic super stores rely on
new technologies to bring standardized low-cost products to previously
under-served and isolated rural locations. Digital capitalists develop new
forms of marketing and new points of sale for traditional products on the
Internet while at the same time generating needs for completely new products
like Internet modems, servers, and security systems.
The new spatial and social relations we encounter through new forms of
production and consumption help mold us into new kinds of social subjects.
Disturbances in work practices and consumption patterns change our relationships to other people, to public and private space. Containerization is an
automated technology primarily designed to give management control over
production and productivity in the longshore industry. Yet once it was implemented on a large scale, it became clear that containerization also entailed a
larger cultural logic about the integration and interlocking of products,
consumers, and communities.
A product of the era of Fordist mass production, containerization has become the core concept guiding commodity production and distribution in the
present post industrial post-Fordist era. The linkage of production to modular
forms of distribution achieved during the late industrial period provides the
basic model for the full integration of consumption through linked modular
New Times and New Identities • 5
units. In the emerging era of digital capitalism, integrated computer networks
make it possible to rationalize and maximize the profitability of consumption
in much the same way that containerization transformed the social relations
of production, distribution, and reception in the previous era. Sometimes it
seems as if production and consumption have changed places-and that the
real work of society is consuming rather than producing.
The leverage lost by labor with the implementation of flexible accumulation
and "on time" production has been disastrous for society. Deprived of the
power to paralyze production, unable to trap capital long enough to bargain
with it successfully, and no longer able to rely on commitments to locality
and nation that capital assumed in the era when fixed investments in plant
and equipment gave it a stake in social peace, the labor movement has been
unable to stop declines in real wages, the evisceration of the welfare state,
and the disintegration of the social fabric that flows from pervasive inequality
and injustice.
The commercial culture of containerization and digital capitalism follows
the well-worn pattern produced in previous periods of capitalist growth and
technological transformation. Confronted with declining rates of profit and
resistance at the point of production by workers, business leaders seek access
to new markets and new ways of reducing labor costs. They pressure governments to develop new technologies to be appropriated for private purposes.
Containerization and digital capitalism enable entrepreneurs to transcend
political, cultural, and commercial boundaries, secure new markets, create
new points of sale, turn previously noncommercial social activities into forprofit transactions, and force others to pay the social costs and suffer the social
consequences of the disruptions caused by the new economy. 1
New financial network technologies produce capital flows with sufficient
speed and volume to overwhelm the monetary policy mechanisms of even the
most powerful nation states. 2 As a result, a few dozen corporations hold
approximately one third of private sector assets in the world. Corporations
now surpass entire countries in riches and power. Wal-Mart is wealthier than
Greece; the assets of Philip Morris exceed the gross national product of Chile.
The Chrysler Corporation's holdings equal the economy of Pakistan, and the
Hungarian economy is the same size as the holdings of Nestle. 3 The money
that Domino's derives from the sale of pizzas every year exceeds the annual
collective expenditures of the governments of Senegal, Uganda, Bolivia, and
Iceland. 4 Around the globe, more than 30,000 children under 5 years of age die
every day from starvation or completely curable diseases-some 10 million a
year or a child every 3 seconds. 5 The percentage of global income earned by the
poorest fifth of the world's population has been cut in half since 1960. The
poorest fifth accesses less than 1% of the world's wealth whereas the richest
fifth controls more than 85%. 6 In Mexico, the 24 wealthiest families have more
money than the 24 million poorest Mexicans. 7
6 • George Lipsitz
Inequalities within and across national boundaries compel workers to
migrate from low-wage to high-wage countries. The subsistence wage for fulltime workers in the U.S. in 1980 was four times the wage that prevailed in the
Dominican Republic. It grew to six times the Dominican wage by 1987 and
thirteen times higher by 1991. 8 More than 125 million people live outside their
countries of birth or citizenship, and another 2 million to 4 million join their
ranks every year. 9 Remittances sent home by overseas workers have become
crucial components of the national economies of many countries in Asia,
Africa, and Latin America. The exploitation and indignities suffered by immigrant low-wage workers in Europe and North America subsidize the standards
ofliving enjoyed by educated urban professionals on those continents by providing them with low-cost goods and personal services. The remittances immigrant workers send home then subsidize the interests of transnational
corporations by softening the impact of the devastation engendered by the low
wages and low taxes that those firms enjoy in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
Ten percent of the population of the Dominican Republic lives in the U.S.
and an equal number of Dominicans live in Europe. Eighty percent of the
merchant seamen in the world are Filipinos. New York City is the largest
Caribbean city, even though it is not located on the Caribbean. Its immigrant
population from that region exceeds the combined populations of Kingston,
San Juan, and Port of Spain. 10 Forty-five percent of Los Angeles County residents speak a language other than English at home, and students who attend
classes in the Los Angeles Unified School District include native speakers of
more than 120 different languages and dialects. 11 Remittances sent home by
overseas workers contribute more to the economies of the Dominican Republic
and the Philippines than any single other export item.
Although some people find themselves forced to move, others discover that
their immobility creates profit-making opportunities for transnational corporations. Because the Dominican Republic became the chief apparel-exporting
nation in the Caribbean by 1990, real hourly wages fell to only 62.3% of what
they had been in 1984. 12 Sixty percent of the 4.4 billion people in the poorest
countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America lack basic sanitation facilities. One
billion do not have access to safe and uncontaminated water and 828 million
people throughout the world are chronically undernourished. Nearly a third
of them will die before their fortieth birthdays 13 Meanwhile, African countries spend four times as much on debt payments to financial institutions in
Europe and North America than they spend on the health and education
needs of Africans. 14
The rising pattern of inequality in the world affects rich nations as well as
poor nations. Since 1980, the wealthiest fifth of the U.S. population has enjoyed
a 21 % growth in its income whereas those in the poorest three fifths have seen
their wages, working conditions, and living standards stagnate or fall. 15 Nearly
85% of the $3 trillion increase in stock market valuation between 1989 and
New Times and New Identities • 7
1997 went to the richest 10% of U.S. families. 16 Nearly half of the nation's income now goes to the wealthiest fifth of households. 17 The wealthiest 10% of
families in the U.S. own 94% of the business assets, 90% of the bonds, 89% of
the corporate stock, and 78% of the nation's real estate. 18 U.S. consumers enjoy
lower prices because of the exploitation of workers in the rest of the world.
The export of production to low-wage countries overseas has a decided
impact on wages and working conditions in the U.S. as well. Structural adjustment policies imposed on people in Asia, Africa, and Latin America by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank exacerbate inequalities on
those continents and provoke people to migrate to higher-wage countries like
the U.S. Asian American women, many of them recent immigrants, make up
more than 50% of the entire labor force in the U.S. textile and apparel industries. They work for low wages in largely unregulated small shops and contract
respiratory illnesses at high rates because of repeated exposure to fiber particles, dyes, formaldehydes, and arsenic. On the assembly lines in California's
Silicon Valley, the production of high-tech computers depends on the lowwage labor of Latin and Asian American workers. Forty-three percent of these
workers are Asian Americans. Asian and Latina women who work on hightech production lines experience illness approximately three times as often as
workers in general manufacturing-illnesses that often entail damage to
reproductive and central nervous systems. 19
Economic, political, technological, and social changes extend beyond the
conditions and rewards of work. They bring us a new sense of time as well.
Corporate researchers study ways to make perfectly serviceable old products
obsolete while imbuing new ones with the purely symbolic value that comes
from fashion and novelty. Thirty percent of the Toshiba products sold in 1987
had been introduced within the previous 3 years. Managers at the Gillette
Corporation seek to secure 40% of sales from products less than 5 years old.
Manufacturers introduced 17,572 new products to consumers in 1993. 20
These new times require new strategies, new tactics, new ideas, and identities, although our old identities have not disappeared. We still speak about
race, class, gender, nation, and sexuality, but in different ways. Identities never
exist in isolation; they are always intersectional, relational, and mutually constitutive. New times do not so much create new identities as much as they give
new accents to old intersections, resulting in new associations, affinities, and
equations of power. In our age of containerization and flexible accumulation,
new social movements have emerged to reposition old identity categories.
Class becomes resignified away from work sites and outside the parameters of
labor-management agreements, and gender takes on new import outside the
family, away from the job, and outside the purview of mass media. Purely
place-based local and national forms of labor solidarity no longer suffice as
ways to secure significant concessions from capital. Anticolonialist struggles
for national liberation created new nations, but none of them can resist the
8 • George Lipsitz
imperatives of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, or the
World Trade Organization in isolation. Race-based movements for social
justice continue to serve as sites of organic solidarity, yet the global economy's
ability to create seemingly endless new forms of difference and differentiation
between, among, and within identity groups requires a more fluid and flexible
formulation of identity as a basis for oppositional activity and struggle.
Nothing from the past ever disappears completely; the present is ghosted,
shadowed, and shaped by the accumulated legacies of past events, ideas, and
actions. However, nothing from the past stays the same. The many parts of
the past that permeate the present become reaccented, rearticulated, and
reworked every day. Within social movements, solidarities still stem from unified
subjectivities, from the consensual illusions of sameness that social movements
nurture and sustain. Yet any invocation of sameness immediately exposes the
dynamics of difference. There is never one way to be a worker or a woman, a
raced subject or a citizen, a consumer or community member. Moreover, the
very sense of sameness that succeeds in building organic solidarity can cut
off aggrieved groups from one another, occlude the systemic origins of their
problems, and pit them against one another by connecting inclusion for some
to exclusion of others. New social movements today navigate the dialectical
tensions between the solidarities of sameness and the dynamics of difference by
fashioning collective identities that are recombinant and reticulated, flexible
and fluid.
New meanings of race that might form the basis for a new social warrant
are emerging from social movement struggles that do not at first glance seem
to be about race at all. Campaigns for affordable dwellings or against environmental pollution, for improvements in the lives of immigrants, or for saving
lives threatened by AIDS find themselves forced to confront the racial dimensions of these problems and the racial divisions within the movements' own
ranks. Mobilizations against police brutality, against violence against women,
against the growth of prison systems, and against the consequences of educational reforms such as high stakes testing and vouchers reflect the particularly
damaging effects of those policies on communities of color. Because those
effects are uneven and nonequivocal, they cannot be confronted from any one
static or fixed racial subjectivity or standpoint.
Contemporary movements for environmental justice in the U.S. represent one
site where a battle is being waged for a new social warrant and for rethinking of
the meaning of race. Environmental injuries in the U.S. are almost always
racial injuries as well because they exert a disproportionate impact on communities of color. As a result, race-based movements for social justice have
emerged as some of the most militant and active participants in the fight
against environmental pollution. 21
Although mainstream environmental advocacy groups still number few
people of color among their members and although they acknowledge only
New Times and New Identities • 9
infrequently the disparate racial effects of environmental degradation on
communities of color, grassroots activists from aggrieved populations have
played important roles in exposing and contesting public and private policies
that poison air, water, and food, locate toxic waste dumps near residential populations, and permeate workplaces with pollutants that damage the lives and
well-being of workers. They do so as a matter of self-defense, out of the recognition that race has both spatial and environmental dimensions. They see that
any universal struggle to save the environment and support sustainable development must acknowledge the particular problem that environmental racism
poses for working class communities of color.
At the same time, environmental justice activists recognize that the solutions to the particular problems confronting people of color must entail
systemic changes in relations among different groups of humans and between
humans and the environment. One important part of this struggle is to recontextualize the meaning of race, to give it an expressly political identity through
the organizational learning that accompanies collective mobilization. These
movements attempt to do for race what the 1934 west-coast waterfront strike
did for class, i.e., win a new social warrant that transforms social relations and
social identities. They recognize the importance of embodied identities without succumbing to essentialist exclusions; they build affiliations, affinities, and
alliances that bring together people with different embodied identities into a
unified struggle against racism without losing sight of the unique optics and
epistemologies that emerge from embodied experience. Perhaps most important, by devising unexpected links of racism, environmental destruction, and
capitalism, they reveal the structures, practices, and institutions behind identities
often understood as purely cultural.
Struggles for clean air and water, health, housing, transportation, and education generally aim to win concrete material improvements in people's lives
at the expense of entrenched and powerful state institutions and private corporations. They fight for better health and health care; cleaner and safer air,
water, and food; and efficient and nonpolluting forms of public transportation;
but these pragmatic, material, and local goals are parts of a bigger process. As
organizations led by people of color and calling attention to the expressly
racialized dimensions of environmental pollution, they are overtly and emphatically antiracist. As mass movements insisting on popular participation in
decisions about planning, production, and profits, they are doggedly democratic. As popular mobilizations rooted in open challenges to decisions made by
trained technical experts, they resist the social division of labor and power that
deploys specialized knowledge as a form of exclusionary power.
New social movements produce communities of struggle that contest the
terms of existing social identities. As Michel Foucault argues in his unconventional analysis of new social movements, the question of"Who are we?" does
not have to be an atomized inquiry into identity isolated from considerations of
10 • George Lipsitz
social structure, power, and history. He explains how self-activity intrinsic to the
assertion of new identities often challenges the abstract identities imposed on
people by economic, political, cultural, and scientific institutions. "They are an
opposition to the effects of power:' Foucault writes, "which are linked with
knowledge, competence, and qualification: struggles against the privileges of
knowledge. But they are also an opposition against secrecy, deformation, and
mystifying representations imposed on people." 22
These movements help unite members within and across different aggrieved
racial groups by focusing attention on some of the concrete ways in which race
takes on significance in daily life-residential segregation, neighborhood
exposure to pollutants, and occupational safety hazards. The movement goes
beyond discourses of exclusion rooted in liberal individualism and challenging
isolated acts of discrimination aimed at individuals to expose the collective
practices and patterns that produce inequality and that keep whole collectivities subordinate to others. In this way, the environmental justice movement
switches attention away from minority victimization and toward white privilege, revealing members of aggrieved minority groups to be not so much disadvantaged as taken advantage of by white supremacy.
The Labor Community Strategy Center (LCSC) in Los Angeles encourages
the cultivation of fluid, flexible, multiple, and shifting identities. It presents a
class-based analysis of social inequalities but does not organize at the point of
production. It opposes imperialism, militarism, and neo-liberalism all over
the world but does so from a distinctly local perspective. It is an expressly
antiracist organization but does not admit or organize members on the basis
of their individual embodied identities. It makes demands on the state but not
from the standpoint of citizenship. It fights for clean air but not from a conservationist perspective. Perhaps most important, the LCSC involves its diverse
membership in deliberative talk, face-to-face decision making, and direct action
protests that enact the social relations and social processes that they envision.
The LCSC combines grass roots organization and mobilization with farsighted proposals for sustainable development. It specializes in campaigns that
bring together workers, environmentalists, and members of aggrieved racialized communities to pursue goals that advance all their interests. In this way it
anticipates and precludes the usual divide-and-conquer strategy used by those
in power by telling the groups that they can make gains only at the expense of
each other.
The center started as an extra-union rank-and-file caucus within the United
Auto Workers' Union, organized to fight against the proposed (and eventually
successful) shutdown of the General Motors plant in Van Nuys. With no point
of production on which to focus, the group then concentrated on neighborhood-based anticorporate environmental justice campaigns against major
polluters in heavily black and Latino sections of Los Angeles. After the rebellion of 1992, the center issued a comprehensive plan for rebuilding the city on
New Times and New Identities • l l
the basis of socially responsible growth that would produce jobs for minority
workers and protect the environment by emphasizing the production of safe
and nonpolluting trains, automobiles, and buses. 23
The neighborhood-based anticorporate environment of LCSC led to the
formation of the Bus Riders' Union. Recognizing that the new economy of Los
Angeles involved a great increase in service jobs and a decrease in industrial
employment, the center reasoned that places where large masses of workers
could be found were on buses. They might be traveling to many different jobs
where they worked side by side with only a few others, but the cumulative total
of janitors, maids, child care personnel, food service workers, clerks, secretaries, and day laborers riding the buses of Los Angeles on any given day was
enormous. The center also noted that although inner-city bus riders provided
the metropolitan transit system with its largest profits, they received the worst
service-the oldest and most poorly maintained buses and worst-kept schedules. At the same time, although revenues from suburban train riders provided
the district with constant deficits, suburban routes received the best vehicles
and best services.
The center mobilized around these issues under the slogan "fight transit
racism." Organizers maintained that inner-city bus riders received poor service because they were people of color or because they were white people who
suffered from the neighborhood race effects of the poor services to minority
communities. They argued that the fight against racism required lower bus
fares, better services, and the adoption of nonpolluting vehicles. At the same
time, they insisted that the city could not have cleaner air or better bus services
unless it came to grips with the role of racism in legitimizing an unclean, unsafe, and inefficient transportation system.
The Bus Riders' Union struggled for lower fares, better service, and capital
investment in "clean" compressed natural gas-fueled buses. They galvanized a
mass constituency of low-income, transit-dependent workers (50% of whom
were Latino, 25% black, 20% white, and 5% Asian). The center recognized that
the segmentation of the labor market and the stratification of bus service in
Los Angeles gave new meanings to race and racism, creating a multi-racial bus
ridership with common grievances despite their racial, national, linguistic,
and gender differences. The Bus Riders' Union claims 35,000 self-identified
followers, 500 dues-paying members, and a core group of 85 extremely active
member activists. 24
Organizers for the Bus Riders' Union used the slow pace of the buses
through Los Angeles to their advantage by turning the buses into moving seminars on transit racism and sites for reaching, convincing, and signing up new
members. Their efforts drew a dynamic group of working class leaders whose
dazzling multilingual and intercultural skills reflected the diversity of the community brought together through membership in the union. Through mass
action and a civil rights suit in federal court, the bus union secured tremendous
12 • George Lipsitz
victories: a fare reduction that saved riders $25 million per year, a commitment to reduce crowding on inner-city bus routes by increasing service, and a
pledge by city officials to purchase 233 compressed natural-gas buses immediately and exercise options for an additional 55 more-an expenditure of $89
million. The LCSC stressed that its victory meant more than better air and
transportation; it entailed a transfer of wealth and resources from rich to poor,
from middle-management suburban commuters to inner-city low-wage workers,
and from subsidies for private auto dealers and suburban rail contractors to
direct expenditures for safe, efficient, and ecologically sound services for office
workers, janitors, teacher's aides, and other unskilled workers. 25
Although members of every racial group participated in the Bus Riders'
Union, the slogan of fighting transit racism and the politics behind it meant that
more than identity was at stake. The union's victory showed that direct appeals
to redress racial injuries can play a central role in community struggles while
winning victories for a coalitional constituency. By presenting antiracism as a
project involving fairness and better public services and by winning a victory
that actually improved people's daily lives, the LCSC demonstrated how the
organic solidarity that comes from race-based appeals need not inhibit the
development of connecting ideologies required for transformative social change.
Perhaps most important, the LCSC enacts what it envisions. Pamphlets
printed in English, Spanish, and Korean demonstrate a commitment to inclusiveness that is very conspicuous in a divided city like Los Angeles. When passengers on a bus see black and Anglo organizers who speak Spanish or Latino
organizers who can speak Korean, the group makes a powerful statement
about what life in Los Angeles could be. The organizers who emerged from the
rank and file of the Bus Riders' Union may be low-wage workers performing
menial tasks, people who are belittled and patronized at work; however, at
union meetings, press conferences, city government hearings, and demonstrations, the things they have learned as workers, immigrants, and community
members come into sharp relief as they design effective strategies in a shared
struggle for resources, opportunities, and human dignity. The organizational
learning that takes place in the course of struggle in an interethnic antiracist
group like the Bus Riders' Union not only advances the present struggle, but
also prepares participants for the future.
As protests against the World Trade Organization became focal points for
grass roots challenges to neo-liberalism, the LCSC drew on the expertise of its
multi-national membership to craft positions on global issues. The organization sent delegates to the World Congress against Racism in South Africa and
embraced the demands made there by diasporic Africans for reckoning with
slavery as a historical crime that requires contrition, repentance, and restitution before true reconciliation can occur. After September 11, 2001, the group
engaged in intensive discussions about hate crimes at home and the costs of
militarism around the world.
New Times and New Identities • 13
Bus Riders' Union members may look like dispossessed and desperate immigrants from the Third World to some, but the LCSC recognized that its
members were also valuable "witnesses to empire" and veterans of trade union
and anti-imperialist struggles around the world. At a time when all too many
U.S. organizations and institutions across the political spectrum continue to
view the world from narrow, parochial, and provincial national and (often)
nationalist perspectives, the LCSC recognized that it was composed of people
whose economic, social, and political survival depended on transnational
networks rooted in understandings of globalism from below. LCSC members
come from different countries and classes and represent diverse interests and
identity groups. They do not shed their differences when they join the organization, but rather they make productive use of them to generate multiple epistemologies and ontologies rooted in complex and sometimes contradictory
experiences, archives, and imaginaries. The LCSC provides a rare space for
political discussions that are not shaped by the national chauvinism of an
exclusive focus on the U.S.
For centuries, emancipatory projects have revolved around concepts like universality, equivalence, interchangeability, and equality. From this perspective,
difference is a problem to be overcome. Yet capital does not do its work by
making people more and more alike, as Marx predicted. Instead, contemporary capital exercises hegemony by creating endless new forms of difference,
inequality, and incommensurability. The very system that produces so many
differences and fragmentations confines us to a political language built on
simple binary oppositions and appeals to interchangeability and equivalence
as the only possible form of justice.
Confronted with systems of centralized power that generate seemingly endless
streams of new forms of difference, social movements grounded in differential
consciousness have the potential to produce a new democratic and egalitarian
social warrant. This is a dangerous and difficult process in which it is sometimes difficult to distinguish symptoms of dominant power from critiques of
it. Effective oppositional movements under these conditions can neither evade
nor embrace ostensibly "essentialist" identities. They cannot confine themselves to purely local, national, or global terrains and must move strategically
in and out of each level to produce new and perhaps unexpected affiliations,
alliances, and identifications. The renegotiation of relations among individuals
and groups must at some point also aspire to radical transformations in existing
social structures and power relations.
Differential consciousness constitutes a crucial weapon in this struggle. Chela
Sandoval identifies differential consciousness as a product of social movement
struggles by contemporary women-of-color feminists. The differential mode in
her formulation develops and mobilizes oppositional identities as tactical consensual illusions that entail oscillation among diverse subject positions. Instead of
seeking one overarching universal ideology or identity, differential consciousness
14 • George Lipsitz
relies on multiple and competing perspectives and practices, epistemologies, and
ontologies. Within this model, the sense of sameness that generates organic solidarity among workers performing the same job or among social subjects of
the same racial identity gives way to a dynamics of difference, aimed at making
the most of an available inventory of fluid, flexible, diverse, and dynamic subject
positions. 26
Since the successful strike in 1992 by undocumented immigrant drywall
workers in southern California, low-wage immigrants in service jobs, small
workshops, and even factories around the country have been fighting ferocious battles for recognition, dignity, freedom, liberty, and justice. Immigrant
labor has lowered the costs of goods and services for consumers while allowing
exploitative employers to violate minimum-wage laws, health and safety restrictions, and their obligations to pay social security and mandatory overtime. Wages in drywall work in Southern California went from $.09 per square
foot to $0.45 per square foot when drywall work was performed almost exclusively by immigrants. In some cases, the workers did not even receive their
wages. They were taunted by employers who confidently dared them to sue for
nonpayment, knowing that many of them lacked documentation and risked
deportation if they complained to authorities.
The drywall workers drew upon old and new forms of struggle from militant
roving picket lines and mutual self-help to intervention by allies connected to
the social justice agencies of the Catholic Church. As undocumented immigrants unaffiliated with any recognized union, the drywall workers were unable
to obtain protection from the National Labor Relations Board and other U.S.
government agencies. As expatriates, they could not secure aid from the
Mexican government, either. Employers and the press harped on the workers'
illegal status and portrayed them as greedy interlopers, not as hard workers who
created sources of value and profit for citizen consumers and entrepreneurs.
When the balance of power, physical repression, and legal advantages of
citizen employers over noncitizen workers threatened to defeat their movement, the drywall workers and their allies from the Catholic Church devised a
new strategy-they asked employers to open their books and prove that they
had obeyed the laws covering minimum wage, overtime, social security, and
worker health and safety. Confronted with demands by "illegal aliens" that
would expose construction firms as "illegals" in their own right, the firms
settled with the workers and handed them a great victory.
For the past decade, immigrant workers in the U.S. have waged struggles
similar to the drywall strike, struggles that require the creation of new identities and the forging of unexpected affiliations and alliances. When the largely
Latino workforce at the Los Angeles New Otani Hotel sought union representation from their employer, the Japanese-owned Kajima Corporation, activists
from the Asian American movement supported their efforts strongly. They
recruited support in Korea from workers with long-standing grudges against
New Times and New Identities • 15
the corporation for its role in benefiting from the coerced labor of Koreans
during the Japanese occupation between 1910 and 1945. The prominence of
Asian Americans and Koreans among the supporters of Latino workers prevented the New Otani strike from being seen as an anti-Asian battle and frustrated the assumptions of the Kajima Corporation that it could exploit Latino
workers in the U.S. with impunity.
The activists even brought taiko drums to the picket lines in a brilliant move
that enabled them to celebrate their ethnic heritages and traditions of struggle
while supporting the class-based struggle for justice by Latino workers. The
activists drew upon the organic solidarity that comes from a common ethnic
background and also built links to allies in other communities in pursuit of
common aims. Their struggle did not ignore race. It could not do so based on
the racial polarization of labor and management, but it built solidarity on the
bases of culture and commitments rather than on color. The New Otani campaign and many others like it encouraged participants to draw their identities
from their politics instead of basing their politics on their identities. More
recently, Korean Immigrant Worker Advocates in Los Angeles waged a successful organizing campaign in Korean-owned restaurants by building a workers'
center that joins Latino dishwashers, janitors, and table clearers from the
restaurants into a coalition with Korean and Korean American waiters and
waitresses to wage a common fight against their immigrant employers. 27
The new social movements of today echo the ideas that Aime Cesaire articulated in a letter to a friend in the 1940s. "I am not for a disembodied universalism;' he wrote, but neither could he support a parochial particularism.
Instead, Cesaire called for a universalism one that entailed the autonomy and
co-existence of all and the supremacy of none. The new social movements
rearticulating the meanings of race in our time fight ceaselessly for vitally
needed services and real security for themselves and others. Their victories
save lives and preserve hope for entire communities. In the long run, however,
their greatest achievement may lie in their success in reconfiguring ideas about
the solidarities of sameness and the dynamics of difference in such a way as to
make Cesaire's utopian vision a practical reality.
Notes
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Williams, R., The Politics of Modernism: Against the New Conformists, Verso, London, 1999,
p.122.
Schiller, D., Digital Capitalism: Networking the Global Market System, MIT Press, Cambridge,
MA,2000,p.14.
Brodkin, K., Global Capitalism: "What's Race Got to Do with It?" American Ethnologist, 27,
237,2000.
Barber, B., Jihad vs. Mc World, Ballantine, New York, 1995, p. 24.
Millen, J.V., A. Irwin, and J.Y. Kim, "Introduction: What is Growing? Who is Dying?"
in Dying for Growth: Global Inequality and the Health of the Poor, Kim, J.Y. et al., Eds.,
Common Courage Press, Monroe, ME, 2000, p. 5.
Gershman, J. and A. Irwin, "Getting a Grip on the Global Economy," in Dying for Growth:
Global Inequality and the Health of the Poor, Kim, J.Y. et al., Eds., Common Courage Press,
Monroe,ME,2000,p.5.
16 • George Lipsitz
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
Fuentes, C., A New Time for Mexico, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1997, p. xiii.
Pessar, P., A Visa for a Dream: Dominicans in the United States, Allyn & Bacon, Boston,
1995, p. 5.
Martin, P. and J. Widgren, "International Migration: A Global Challenge;' Population
Bulletin, 51, 2, 1996.
James, W. "Migration, Racism, and Identity: The Caribbean Experience in Britain;' New
Left Review, 193, 36, 1992.
Lopez, D.E., "Language: Diversity and Assimilation," in Ethnic Los Angeles, Waldinger,
R. and M. Bozorgmehr, Eds., Russell Sage Foundation, New York, 1996, p. 42.
Safa, H.I., "Export Manufacturing, State Policy, and Women Workers in the Dominican
Republic;' in Bonacich, E. et al., Eds., Global Production: The Apparel Industry in the Pacific
Rim, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1994, p. 225.
Schoepf, B.G., C. Schoepf, and J.V. Millen, "Theoretical Therapies, Remote Remedies: SAPs
and the Political Ecology of Poverty and Health in Africa;' in Dying for Growth: Global
Inequality and the Health of the Poor, Kim, J. Y. et al., Eds., Common Courage Press, Monroe,
ME, 2000, p. 120.
Gershman, J. and A. Irwin, "Getting a Grip on the Global Economy;' in Dying for Growth:
Global Inequality and the Health of the Poor, Kim, J.Y. et al., Eds., Common Courage Press,
Monroe, ME, 2000, pp. 13, 14, 25.
Tabb, W.K., The Amoral Elephant: Globalization and the Struggle for Social Justice in the
Twenty-First Century, Monthly Review Press, New York, 2001, p. 21.
Tabb, W.K., The Amoral Elephant: Globalization and the Struggle for Social Justice in the
Twenty-First Century, Monthly Review Press, New York, 200 l, p. 21.
Miller, J., "Economy Sets Records for Longevity and Inequality," Dollars and Sense, 229, 17,
18,2000.
Plotkin, S. and W.E. Scheurman, Private Interests, Public Spending: Balanced Budget Conservatism and the Fiscal Crisis, South End Press, Boston, 1994, p. 29.
Sze, J., "Expanding Environmental Justice: Asian American Feminists' Contribution;' in
Shah, S., Ed., Dragon Ladies: Asian American Feminists Breathe Fire, South End Press,
Boston, 1997, pp. 92.
Schiller, D., Digital Capitalism: Networking the Global Market System, MIT Press, Cambridge,
MA, 2000, pp. 123, 124.
Bullard, R.L., Confronting Environmental Racism: Voices from the Grassroots, South End
Press, Boston, 1993.
Foucault, M., ''Afterword: The Subject and Power;' in Dreyfus, H.L. and P. Rabinow, Eds.,
Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics, University of Chicago Press,
Chicago, 1983, p. 212. For an analysis that blends the work of Foucault with the theories of
Claus Offe, see Plotke, D., "What's So New about Social Movements?" in Lyman, S., Ed.,
Social Movements: Critiques, Concepts, Case Studies, New York University Press, New York,
1995, p. 113.
Mann, E., L.A.'s Lethal Air: New Strategies for Policy, Organizing and Action, Labor Community
Strategy Center, Los Angeles, 1991.
Labor Community Strategy Center, Los Angeles, News Analysis, October 19, 1997, p. 1.
Rabin, J.L. and R. Simon, "Court Order Spurs Plan to Buy 278 Buses;' Los Angeles Times,
September 26, 1997.
Sandoval, C., Methodology of the Oppressed, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis,
2000, pp. 41,144.
Cesaire, A. Letter to Maurice Thorez (Paris: Presence Africaine, 1957), pp. 14-15. Quoted in
Kelley, R. "A Poetics of Anticolonialism" Introduction to Cesaire, A. Discourse on Colonialism,
Monthly Review Press, New York, 2000 (pp. 25-26).
2
Labor, Race, and Empire: Transport
Workers and Transnational
Empires of Trade,
Production, and Finance
THOMAS EHRLICH REIFER 1
Introduction
The logistics sector-ports, railways, trucking, and warehousing-long a
critical area for global capital and labor, is an increasingly strategic component of globalized flexible production and distribution networks. A key obstacle to the ability of labor to meet the structural challenges posed by the
new flexibility is the racial segmentation of U.S. workers closely tied with the
history of militarized U.S. state-corporate overseas expansion through
formal and informal empires. Historically, radical class conflict in the U.S.,
including in transportation, was curbed through the crushing of militant
union struggles. Simultaneously, elites sought to incorporate select groups of
primarily white workers as junior partners in overseas expansion, both to
minimize the radical potential of struggles for social reform at home and to
secure access to lucrative resources and dispose of surplus goods and capital
abroad (Davis, 1986; Mink, 1986; Forbath, 1991; Bergquist, 1996; StepanNorris and Zeitlin, 2003).
Today, low-wage workers of color who constitute an increasing number of
largely unorganized employees in transportation and in labor as a whole
may serve as a fertile social base for a new wave of unionism. The changing
demographics of labor in the transportation sector and the U.S. and global
economy as a whole may be creating structural opportunities for inter-racial
alliances across lines of race and ethnicity critical to a labor upsurge, similar to
conditions during the 1930s. Transportation networks are important here as
they form a key nexus of transnational networks of states and corporations,
with their empires of global trade and production crucial to working class
formation and related forms of racial, ethnic, national, and gender identities
(Saxton, 1971; Kanter, 1977; Rosswurm, 1992; Schneer, 1999, chap. 3; Nelson,
2001; Silver, 2003).
17
18 • Thomas Ehrlich Reifer
In recent decades, rising global trade and flexible production networks
developing in tandem with the ascent of the Pacific Rim saw this region sweep
past the North Atlantic as the principal U.S. trading partner-an epochal shift
becoming increasingly obvious today (Davis, 1986, p. 251). In sharp contrast
to the Fordist-based transatlantic economy where increases in military spending and wages stimulated aggregate demand, the transpacific one is based on
huge inflows of foreign capital recycled into the U.S., which serves as a
consumer oflast resort (Wal-Mart is the single largest importer), as evidenced
by massive U.S. trade and current account deficits (Davis, 1986, chap. 6; Davis
and Sawhney, 2002; Journal of Commerce, April 29, 2002). 2
The logistics sector of the Pacific Rim is an increasingly important strategic
site for global capital and labor, linking up overseas production from China,
Mexico, and other locations to the huge markets of Southern California, the
Sunbelt, and the entire U.S. Changes in the structure of investment, production, distribution, and consumption in the Pacific Rim triangle of Mexico,
China, and Southern California represent a microcosm of the changing landscape ofU.S.-led neo-liberal globalization today.
Mexico and China have become leading recipients of foreign direct
investment and major centers of global manufacturing via arm's length flexible
contracting relationships (UNCTAD, 2002, chap. 5). Under the North American
Free Trade Agreement, U.S. transnational firms use Mexico to counter growing
Asian production. Now, with China's accession into the World Trade Organization, a new global pool of cheap sweatshop labor is promoting a worldwide race
to the bottom, with capital from the U.S., Asia, and Europe flowing into China.
In 2002, the manufacturing powerhouses of Mexico and China were the
second and third biggest suppliers of U.S. imports and the fourth and second
biggest suppliers of U.S. manufactured imports, each exporting well over $100
billion annually into this market. Indeed, increasingly, Mexico and a host of
other global investment and production centers are losing out to China. 3
Mexican exports are now growing at a slower pace than China's, yet wages are
falling in both countries (Ross and Chan, 2002; U.S. Government Accounting
Office, 2003, p. 26; Figure 2.1). Moreover, the recycling of China's financial
surpluses to finance U.S. consumption is helping sustain the Chinese boom
even after the end of the U.S. boom that came with the burst of the Wall Street
bubble (Wall Street Journal, August 5, 2003, p. 15; New York Times, August 28,
2003, p. C6). Between 2000 and 2003, China doubled its holdings of U.S. Treasury
securities to some $122 billion, second only to Japan's $429 billion. China now
has the largest trade surplus with the U.S.-$44 billion-topping even that of
Japan (Wall Street Journal, August 5, 2003, p. 15). This new empire of high
finance is crucial to U.S. power in the global system and the current configuration of transnational empires of trade and production.
China and Mexico have strong links to Southern California, a port of entryindeed, a gateway-to the U.S. market. Moreover, increasing inflows of immigrant
Labor, Race, and Empire • 19
U.S. dollars in milllions
140,000
130,000
120,000
110,000
············
100,000
..·
...·······/··············
90,000
80,000
.... •· .•··
.... •················
70,000
.... ·······
60,000
.... .... ·····
.. -·
40,000
II
o__________________________
1999
2000
2001
2002
1995
1996
1997
1998
__ Mexico
......... China
Source: U.S. International Trade Commission; GAO, 2003
workers from Mexico and China into Southern California (not to mention
investment flows from China) compete with and at times complement the
import regime (Sassen, 1988a and b).A sizeable number of U.S. exports to these
areas are inputs for goods that are reprocessed and returned to the U.S. (Kramer
and Coral, 2003).
The labor forces from all three countries are thus increasingly intertwined,
and developments within and between them will likely reverberate throughout
global labor. Given the increasing centrality of logistics in the Pacific Rim
triangle and the global economy, transborder organizing among workers here,
despite serious obstacles, offers great potential. Although these low-wage
workers provide global capital with great flexibility, global restructuring is
forcing labor to look toward new alliances and strategies at home and abroad,
even as older practices of nationalistic business unionism retain their traditional appeal (Arrighi, 1990; Silver andArrighi, 2000; Bacon, 2004).
Producer Services: Transnational Empires of Trade, Production,
and Finance and the New Landscape of Corporate Power
Much is made of sweatshops in the garment and other industries (Bonacich
and Appelbaum, 2000) but few are addressing the dramatic changes in the
20 • Thomas Ehrlich Reifer
landscape of transnational corporate power, in which retail firms with their
massive logistics empires and flexible production networks hold increasing
sway. These changes are embodied by the rise of giant multinational retailers
such as Wal-Mart, the largest employer in 21 U.S. states, the U.S., and the
world as a whole. Wal-Mart employs 1 of every 123 U.S. workers and is
now the top firm in the Fortune 500 ( USA Today, January 29, 2003; Fortune
Magazine, March 3, 2003 and April 14, 2003).
In 2002, Wal-Mart accounted for 2.3% of the U.S. economy in a growth trajectory that will soon eclipse U.S. Steel's record 2.8% in 1917 (Fortune Magazine,
March 3, 2003 and April 14, 2003). Given the centrality oflogistics in the success of
discount retailers such as Wal-Mart in global production and trade, it is no wonder
that major cost-cutting initiatives have been implemented against labor in transportation. Deregulation, related offensives against workers, and the rationalization
of production in logistics and transportation have substantially reduced overall
unit costs for business at great cost to labor (Peoples, 1998; Belzer, 2000).
From 1981 to 2002, logistics and transportation costs fell from some 16.2%
to 8.7% of GDP (Wall Street Journal, July 25, 2003, pp. Al, 16). From a record
high of $1,003 billion in 2000, costs dropped by $93 billion in 2002 (Wilson
and Delaney, 2003).
Logistics is, in fact, the invisible heart of the new geography of power in the
global economy. Saskia Sassen (2001) underscores the importance of global
cities as command, control, and communication centers for transnational
empires of trade, production, and speculative high finance and highlights the
rising importance of producer services. These "services are produced for organizations, whether private sector firms or governmental entities, rather than
for final consumers" (Sassen, 2001, p. 91 ). Sassen ( 1988a and b; 2001) also maps
the new class geography of salaried professionals and immigrant workers at the
cores of global cities as part of the new global mobility of capital and labor; the
emergence of postindustrial production sites; and the concomitant rise of
producer services in finance, business law, and accounting.
The growth of specialized logistics firms in the transportation sector must
be recognized as a critical aspect of this rise of producer services so integral
to the burgeoning transnational empires of trade, production, and finance
headquartered in global cities. A focus on these logistics firms and corporate
discount retail firms such as Wal-Mart that specialize in what today is called
supply chain management adds a previously unexplored and important new
dimension to Sassen's work (Bowersox, Closs, and Stank, 1999; Bowersox,
Closs, and Cooper, 2002; Armstrong & Associates, 2003 ).
The increased importance of logistics comes from connecting world supply
and demand in the global market, the critical nexus of which is the Pacific
Rim, as cheap commodities flow into the U.S. market, primarily through
west-coast ports. With the rise of export-oriented industrialization and
world trade promoted by U.S.-dominated institutions such as the World Bank,
Labor, Race, and Empire • 21
International Monetary Funds, and transnational firms, labor and capital are
confronted with new challenges and opportunities (Broad, 1988). Analysis of
recent trends in the reorganization of global production and logistics (including
transportation and warehousing) connecting China, the U.S. (especially
Southern California), and Mexico paints a revealing picture.
Individually, the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are by far the largest entry points for goods entering the U.S., primarily from Asia. Together
they constitute the third largest container port in the world, following only
Singapore and Hong Kong. In the vast upsurge of imports into the U.S. that
occurred in the 1970s, the predominance ofU.S.-based multi-nationals, especially giant discount retailers, is evident (Journal of Commerce, April 29, 2002
and July 8, 2002). U.S. waterborne foreign trade transported via container
ships in 2000 totalled more than 142 million metric tons, over 50% of which
came from the Far East and Southeast Asia. Nearly 50% of all waterborne
foreign trade enters the U.S. through west-coast ports while the percentage that
comes from the Far East and Southeast Asia stands at nearly 80% (Mongelluzzo,
2002; U.S. Department of Transportation, 2002).
Accompanying these commodity flows into west-coast ports are the influx
of goods via trucks from Mexico, particularly into California and Texas supplemented by railway shipments (Kramer and Coral, 2003). The contemporary dominance of the west coast, especially Southern California, as a node for
the flow of Asian commodities into the U.S. makes workers in the logistics sector
potential Achilles' heels of giant U.S. retail firms and the global empires of
production and trade of which they are integral parts. Without continuous
distribution of commodities to consumers, global production and trade
would stop. Moreover, labor struggles of logistics groups link different industries and locales in the global economy and are thus strategic sites for global
unionism and transborder labor organizing.
Transport Workers and Transnational Empires of Trade and Production
Efforts to spread trade unionism in transport and other sectors were crushed
during the rise of informal and formal overseas empires of the U.S. that began
in the late 19th century. The defeats created long-standing practices of business
unionism-notably the top-down union strategies of class collaboration at
home and support for U.S. militarized state-corporate expansion abroadthat remain structurally difficult for even the most progressive elements of the
labor movement to break out of today.
The experiences of workers in the railroad industry were particularly critical.
Railroad workers (a million strong by 1900) led the Great Rebellion of 1877 and
Eugene V. Debs' Pullman Rebellion of 1894. Before mass production led to massive concentrations of labor, railway workers alone had the numbers and organic
ability for national coordination (Davis, 1986, p. 30). The failure of whites to seize
the opportunity to ally with their black brethren during Reconstruction and
22 • Thomas Ehrlich Reifer
thereafter helped ensure the defeat of railroad workers in the Great Rebellion of
1877, the Pullman revolt of 1894, and other attempts to organize across lines of
race, class, and gender by the Knights of Labor and the Wobblies (Du Bois, 1935;
Arnesen, 2001, chap. I). This greatly contributed to the formation of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) by old-stock immigrants whose bargaining power
as skilled workers led them to form exclusivist male-dominated white racist craft
unions and eschew social legislation (Mink, 1986; Forbath, 1991; Voss, 1993).
This development ultimately sped the turn to overseas expansion by elites seeking
to escape class struggles at home, including by incorporating conservative, white
male-dominated business unions as junior partners in militarized state-corporate
expansion abroad (Du Bois, 1935; Mink, 1986; Bergquist, 1996, chap. 2; Goldfield,
1997,chap.4; Buhle, 1999;Arnesen, 2001, chap. I).
A close connection then existed between the struggles for open shops at
home and the open doors for U.S. state-corporate expansions abroad (Reifer,
2002, p. 6). The drive to impose Taylorism 4 and open shops through epic
battles like Homestead in 1892, when Andrew Carnegie successfully destroyed
the iron-and-steel workers' union, eliminated what Big Bill Haywood called the
"manager's brain under the workman's cap" whereby craft workers threatened
management control over production processes (Aitken, 1985; Montgomery,
1987; Krause, 1992; Misa, 1995). In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the
power of massive U.S. transnational firms that allowed them to crush union
opposition and manipulate race, class, and gender divisions among workers
were "both consequence and cause of the imperial condition;' the dominance
of the conservative U.S. labor bureaucracy, and corporate managerial strata
thereafter "without doubt connected to the creation of empire" (Gordon,
Edwards, and Reich, 1982; Bergquist, 1996; Gordon, 1996; Buhle, 1999, p. 15).
In this developing system of U.S. militarized state-corporate capitalism,
there was a close connection between the transportation webs of U.S. transnational firms and the demands of military logistics underlying the expansion of
the U.S. formal and informal empires. In World War I, Julius Rosenwald, the
CEO of Sears, Roebuck, the largest U.S. retailer for most of the American Century
(sales later represented I to 2% of the U.S. gross national product for almost
50 years after World War II) headed logistics supply operations for the War
Industries Board. Rosenwald also helped found the Universal Military Training
League as part of the corporate and upper class-led war preparedness movement. Participants and contributors included luminaries from numerous
corporate firms such as Procter & Gamble, Standard Oil, the house of Morgan,
and a veritable Who's Who of U.S. state-corporate power elites (Wood,
1913-1918; Chandler, 1977, p. 224 and 455; Chambers, 1987, p. 127).
AFL President Samuel Gompers (1917) joined the war preparedness
group, the National Security League, composed of state-corporate power
elites instrumental in the Open Shop drives at home and the pursuit of Open
Door policies abroad. Gompers also joined the National War Labor Board,
Labor, Race, and Empire • 23
as the AFL became a junior partner in the war effort (Buhle, 1999, p. 73;
Reifer, 2002).
Just as activities in the corporate sector were transferred to the military, so did
the military-led rationalization of industrial production reshape corporations
and the working class. The military supported Taylorist and Fordist transformations of the labor process that undermined the bargaining power of labor ironically provided for its renewal on newly enlarged social foundations with the birth
of industrial unionism and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (ClO), based
on the power of second-generation immigrant workers (Hounshell, 1984; Aitken,
1985; Smith, 1985; Davis, 1986; Montgomery, 1987; Misa, 1995). 1934 was a key
year in this mass upsurge, as a series of successful strikes in Toledo, Minneapolis,
and San Francisco rocked the country. In Minneapolis and San Francisco, the
Teamsters and the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union
(ILWU) played decisive roles in establishing strong bases of class power among
transport and port workers for half a century or more (Preis, 1964, chap. 4).
Yet the postwar ejection ofleft-led unions from the CIO and labor's incorporation as a junior partner in U.S. overseas expansion during the Cold War
doomed domestic and international labor solidarity. It also reinforced sexism,
racism, narrow nationalism, and related forms of craft exclusivism and labor
market segmentation (Davis, 1986; Rosswurm, 1992; Zeitlin and Weyer, 2001;
Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin, 2003). Despite these massive defeats oflabor unity
that set definite limits on the postwar potential, organized labor in transport
and the U.S. as a whole nevertheless managed for a time to win impressive
gains. Progressive longshore workers were particularly successful, as were
truckers-some 60% of whom were unionized by 1980-with wages among
the highest in manufacturing (Belzer, 2000, p. 21 and 26).
Transnational Empires of Flexible Just-in-Time (JIT)
Production and Warfare
This social power of labor expressed in the rising gains of transport workers
and labor worldwide in the mid-20th century is being undermined through
flexible production and distribution systems that are critical aspects of contemporary globalization (Harvey, 1989; Sassen, 2001, p. 32). Increased capital
mobility intersects with the historic segmentation of workers to undermine
labor's bargaining power in the U.S. and other advanced capitalist states while
capital turns toward cheap, largely unorganized women, persons of color, and
immigrants at home. The result is the decline of the social power of organized
labor in the case and the rising influence of these growing sectors of the workforce in the U.S. and abroad (Davis, 1986; Arrighi, 1990).
Fundamental to all this is a revolution in the way goods are produced and
distributed, from standardized mass production and consumption to more
flexible and differentiated modes. Here it is important to underscore the
centrality of the U.S. military and innovations in high technology coming
24 • Thomas Ehrlich Reifer
from the militarized sector of the U.S. economy. They are changing the strategies and structures of global corporate capital and dramatically shaping the
terrain for labor. Military-related technological developments and associated
institutional innovations in corporate networks are crucially important in the
decentralization of production networks and moves to small batch production
responsive to increasingly differentiated consumer tastes. These developments
are undermining the historic power of concentrated mass-production workers
(Harvey, 1989, chap. 9). 5 Thus, understanding these changes is critical for analyzing the possibilities for transnational class organization.
A crucial example of military-stimulated organizational change is the role
of the U.S. Army during the occupation of Japan. The U.S. trained Japanese
workers and engineers in standardization and interchangeability of parts,
continuous improvement, intensified time-motion studies, and quality control
to meet U.S. specifications and inventory requirements (Spencer, 1967, p. 33, 40).
These techniques were later diffused through the global economy. Japanese
wartime innovations, revived and refined through offshore U.S. military procurements for the Korean War, combined the advantages oflarger firms with a
host of dependent subcontractors and subsidiaries. These "just in time" (JIT)
production and delivery systems reduced overhead costs and served as the
basis for the organization revolution in the strategies and structures of world
capitalism sweeping the globe today (Reifer, 1995, Parts III and IV).
Crucial factors in this organizational revolution are control over and access
to information necessary to monitor geographically dispersed production and
logistics empires of flexible specialization (Harvey, 1989, p. 159; Bonacich,
2003, p. 42). At the heart of these transformations marking the passage from
Fordism to flexible specialization and JIT production are computer, satellite,
and telecommunications networks made possible through the system of industrial planning developed by the Pentagon (Alberts, Garstka, and Stein,
1999, p. 27; Reifer, 2004). 6 Information technology is used now to collect
point-of-sale information about customer purchases and instantly relay it
through electronic networks (satellites, etc.) to provide almost instantaneous
replenishment of stocks through JIT production and distribution. With a
computer network rivaling that of the Pentagon, Wal-Mart now claims ownership of the largest private satellite communications network in the U.S. ( USA
Today, January 29, 2003).
Integral to Wal-Mart's competitive superiority is its radical reduction of distribution costs-some 3% of sales versus the 4½ to 5% for its competitorsincluding inventory and overhead. With the emergence of the very small
aperture terminal industry and the installation of a 2500-site network in 1987,
Wal-Mart point-of-sale scanners collect information on an average 90 million
transactions a week. The information is shared directly with suppliers (who
can tap into company computers to track sales) and stored in data warehouses
using "sophisticated data mining algorithms to extract trend data" (Fike, 1998,
Labor, Race, and Empire • 25
p. 3;Alberts, Garstka, and Stein, 1999, p. 46; USA Today, January 29, 2003). The
system puts a premium on JIT production and distribution through dependent suppliers and their contingent workforces of flexible labor, all competing
against each other for access to markets monopolized by core firms (Cerna,
Marshall, and Valdez, 2003, p. 38).
Another key aspect of this logistics revolution at the heart of contemporary
globalization and offshore production networks is containerization. In
essence, containers are trucks without wheels that can be stacked on ships by
the thousands, double stacked on railroad cars, and then converted into trucks
by adding wheels and a chassis. Such technical innovations allow goods to
be moved interchangeably through a variety of transportation modes from
production-road, rail, sea-to final destination without unloading between
transport modes. The process is known as intermodalism. A landmark in the
development of intermodalism was the "Mechanization and Modernization
Plan" agreed upon by the Pacific Maritime Association and the ILWU in 1960.
The Pentagon worked with industry to increase efficiencies in cargo handling
to improve logistical support for the projection of U.S. military power overseas
and underseas. The military and industry pushed containerization ahead in a
transition speeded up by "the demands of the Vietnam War" (Noble, 1985,
p. 338). Again, the dynamics driving forward U.S.-led state-corporate globalization lay at the intersection of military and corporate interests.
Today, sped along by transport deregulation and the associated wave of
competition and consolidation facilitating intermodalism, containers account
for 60% of global trade, and this figure is expected to increase to 70% by 2010.
A single dockworker can now do what it took an army to accomplish in the
past (Coulter, 2002, p. 134). Steamship companies that now use "flags of
convenience" to register in countries with minimum standards play important
roles by selling their ship transport services to exporters and importers. These
firms often employ trucking and railroad firms in the process, with devastating
consequences for seafaring unions, today almost entirely composed of men of
color who are largely from the South (Bonacich, 2003, p. 43).
During the period of trucking deregulation, while the number of workers
in this sector dramatically increased from 1,111,000 to 1,907,000 between
1978 and 1996, an equally dramatic offensive against labor occurred. The
number of unionized workers decreased from about 60% in 1980 to under
25% at present. Wages plummeted about 30% from 1977 to 1995; trucks have
become what Belzer (2000, p. 21) calls sweatshops on wheels.
"Here, the near destruction of the National Master Freight Agreement is perhaps
most significant since it provided wage leadership for a constellation of
distributive, processing, and wholesale industries linked to truck transport.
Moreover, the decline of the Teamsters' ability to control the movement of highway-transported goods weakened the strike powers of myriad other spatially
localized unions" (Davis, 1986, p. 137; Belzer, 2000, p. 110).
26 • Thomas Ehrlich Reifer
Although the Teamsters remain strong in small-package transport firms
such as United Parcel Service (UPS), membership was virtually eliminated
among west-coast port truckers. The new nonunionized port truck drivers in
the Los Angeles and Long Beach area are largely immigrants from Mexico and
Central America. Whereas firms formerly paid for gas, pensions, and health
insurance benefits, immigrant workers are now considered by employers and
the National Labor Relations Board to be independent owner-operators, akin
to contingent workers.
Working in terrible conditions at bare minimum wages, these workers are
legally barred from unionizing. An antitrust law that makes organizing illegal
grants limited antitrust immunity to large steamship firms (Early, 1998, p. 95;
Bonacich, 2003, p. 45). Despite such obstacles, workers in the Los Angeles and
Long Beach area staged numerous work stoppages and massive protests in
1984, 1988, 1993, and 1996. This upsurge has been likened to the great wave of
immigration and labor organization in the U.S. in the late 19th and early 20th
centuries that culminated in the rise of industrial unionism and the CIO
(Early, 1998, p. 95; Davis, 2000, chap.15).As trucking firms forced the Teamsters
to accept two-tiered settlements, with much better benefits for mostly senior
white workers, the growing numbers of workers of color risk being locked into
permanent low-wage jobs institutionalized with racism in union contracts
(Hill, 1977, chap.9). 7
Railroads present a different picture. Although the number of rail workers
plummeted from 587,000 to 282,000 between 1973 and 1996 and unionization
decreased, weekly wages dropped only from 79 to 74% ($491 to $470, with a
1983 high of $507 measured in 1983/1984 dollars) during the wave of deregulation from 1978 through 1996 (Peoples, 1998, p. 112). Although the share of
freight shipped by rail made small gains in the 1980s, the greater flexibility of
trucking allowed it to garner 73% of the $423 billion worth of intercity freight
shipments in 2002, compared with only 8. 7% handled by the railroad industry
(Wall Street Journal, July 25, 2003, p. A16).
Other integral parts of the global logistics supply chain are warehouses or
distribution centers (DCs). With the rise of retail discount merchandising,
firms such as Wal-Mart sought to overcome the difficulties serving their
primarily rural markets by inventing the DC in 1970. The system allowed them
to buy goods in bulk while using information technology to track consumer
purchases and transmit the information to DCs and suppliers (Cerna, Marshall,
and Valdez, 2003, p. 4). One key area for DCs is east of Los Angeles, in Southern
California's Inland Empire (Riverside and San Bernardino Counties) centered
around Ontario. The population of roughly 3.2 million people in 2000 is
predicted to exceed 6 million by 2025 (Bonacich, 2003, p. 46; Davis, 2003a;
Figure 2.2). While the national workforce of the wholesale industry consists
primarily of young white males between 18 and 40, the Southern California
workforce consists primarily of temporary workers and appears to be staffed
Labor, Race, and Empire • 27
ALAMEDA CORRIDOR - EAST PROJECT
SAN GABRIEL VALLEY
I
N
A
!
BURBANK
••-
/
ALAMEDA
·······•-Confdor
POltT~
LONG BEACH
Fonner_,._
--~
- - IMionf>Kltlt:R-
&
dng lntermodlll
r--.
Figure 2.2. This map shows the Alameda Corrodor-East Project San Gabriel Valley. Copyright©
ACE Construction Authority, 2001.
largely by young workers of color, especially Latinos (Bonacich, 2003, p. 46; cf.
Cerna, Marshall, and Valdez, 2003, p. 22).
The primarily white, black, and Chicano west-coast Longshore workers
(whose numbers fell from 28,000 to 10,500 between 1960 and 2003) are faced
with an offensive from employers, as evidenced by the lockout of the ILWU on
the west coast starting in September 2002. The Pacific Maritime Association
(PMA), an association of employers that negotiates contracts with Longshore
workers, and the West Coast Waterfront Coalition (WCWC), an organization
of PMA's largest customers (notably giant retailing firms such as Wal-Mart,
Home Depot, and Payless Shoes), geared up for a confrontation and imposed
the lockout after accusing the ILWU of a slowdown. The employer strategy was
to have the WCWC (renamed the Waterfront Coalition) demand "injunctive
relief against the lockout and then press for severe economic and criminal
sanctions against the ILWU under the provisions of the 80-day cooling off
period" prescribed under the Taft-Hartley Act. President George W. Bush
enjoined the lockout, opened the ports, and refused to move against the ILWU
for violating the injunction, thus paving the way for a settlement. Longshore
workers, less amenable to the rise of nonunion competitors as in trucking,
have thus maintained a strong bargaining position, yet it is likely to be
undermined unless workers organize throughout the cargo supply chain
(Olney, 2003).
28 • Thomas Ehrlich Reifer
Another development in the transportation field is the rise of third party
logistics firms. These firms are specialized intermediaries that move goods
from point of production to place of distribution. Ranging from warehousing
operations to package delivery services such as UPS or Federal Express these
firms and their mostly low-wage workforces are bound to change the landscape of supply chain management today and provide possibilities for a new
union upsurge in the 21st century (Armstrong & Associates, 2003).
Global Logistics in a "Sole Superpower"World
The late 20th and early 21st centuries offer further evidence of the intersection
between U.S. military and corporate power projection capabilities in logistics.
In 1993, Gus Pagonis (1994), a three-star U.S. Army general who masterminded the logistics of the U.S. Gulf War victory, was recruited as executive
vice president of logistics for Sears, Roebuck and Co., where he continues to
head all logistics operations. Just as flexible JIT production and logistics are at
the heart of the transformations in the global corporate structure today, an integral part of the revolution in military affairs (RMA) discussed by those in
charge of the Pentagon is network centric warfare (NCW) inspired by the
corporate revolution in supply chain management.
These new revolutionaries, in comparing the Pentagon to firms of the old
corporate economy, see Wal-Mart as the model for the transformation of
U.S. global military power (Davis, 2003b). A group of military intellectuals
centered around the legendary Andrew Marshall and his Office of Net Assessment in the Pentagon see
"Wal-Mart as the essence of a 'self-synchronized distribution network with real-time
transactional awareness' ... through 'horizontal' networks rather than through a traditional head office hierarchy. We're trying to do the equivalent in the military; wrote
the authors of Network Centric Waifare, the 1998 manifesto of the RMNNCW camp
that footnotes Wal-Mart annual reports in its bibliography. In 'battlespace; mobile
military actors (ranging from computer hackers to stealth-bomber pilots) would
serve as the counterparts of Wal-Mart's intelligent salespoints" (Davis, 2003b ).
Although claims that such innovations will overcome the fog of war leading
to total battlespace dominance are rightly criticized, there is a clear turn to
what is called flexible or JIT warfare by RMA/NCW enthusiasts. Just as the decentralization of global corporate networks is seen as undermining the
strength of concentrated workers, so Pentagon officials hope that JIT warfare
and superior power projection capability through logistics will help overcome
opposition to permanent U.S. military bases and intervention worldwide,
most recently expressed in the unprecedented global mobilization against the
Anglo-American invasion oflraq (Hazlett, 1995).
The centrality of logistics in U.S. postwar hegemony reflects the unique form
of the supranational expansion of U.S. transnational capital and state power, in
Labor, Race, and Empire • 29
radical contrast to the old formal territorial empires of the European past. U.S.led state-corporate globalization is largely based on expanding informal
empires, through neo-colonial relationships, networks of global alliances, proxy
or client states, and transnational firms. A key aspect of U.S. hegemony and the
related dynamics of contemporary U.S.-led globalization is the way the U.S.
provides for both the expansion of its own multinational firms and also, in select
areas, for the firms of its key regional allies in Europe and Asia, who are also,
of course, politico-economic competitors. Superior politico-economic and
military power ensure the continuous innovations in logistics that today are
arguably key sources of competitive advantage in the war for global supremacy
on the military and corporate battlefields, as the rising power of Wal-Mart in
the global corporate power structure and the U.S. in the global military power
structure reveals. Indeed, as Fortune Magazine (March 3, 2003) argues:
"Wal-Mart in 2003 is, in short, a lot like America in 2003: a sole superpower ....
As with Uncle Sam, everyone's position in the world will largely be defined in
relation to Mr. Sam. Is your company a 'strategic competitor' like China or 'a partner like Britain'? Is it a client state like Israel or a supplier to the opposition? ...
Hegemony, it would seem, doesn't get any more complete:'
Flexible Specialization and the Challenges Facing Labor and
the Global Peace and Social Justice Movements
The move toward flexible systems of production, distribution, and warfare
today ensures that the logistics connecting labor and global production are of
growing importance as strategic sites for labor and capital-and the global
peace and social justice movements. Additionally, the shift of production toward women, persons of color, and immigrants in the advanced capitalist states
along with its movement into the South potentially increases the social power
of these rising sectors of labor, raising new challenges and opportunities
to build more inclusive forms of national and international labor solidarity
(Arrighi, 1990; Silver andArrighi, 2000; Silver, 2003).
As Edna Bonacich (2003, p. 46) argues, today ports, most especially Long
Beach and Los Angeles, "are vital nodes in the system of production/distribution, dependent on JIT deliveries and the cutting back of inventory:' The westcoast port lockout revealed that if the logistics systems that are "choke-points"
for global commodity flows "are shut down, the result can be chaotic for
capital" (Bonacich, 2003, p. 46). This gives port truckers, rail workers, or those
in the Ontario DCs potential strategic leverage (Leyshorn, 2000; Bonacich,
2003, 47). Logistics workers are crucial local factors in global production and
delivery systems that form integral parts of transnational empires of trade,
production, and finance; they "cannot be moved offshore" (Bonacich, 2003).
Moreover, the growing racial and ethnic diversity of low-wage logistic workers
provides the combination of oppression by class and race and ethnicity that
30 • Thomas Ehrlich Reifer
historically led to more inclusive democratic visions of militant social movement unionism.
Today, the demographics of California, the U.S., and global labor as a whole
are rapidly changing. Women, persons of color, and immigrants now make
up the bulk of the U.S. working class. Furthermore, increasing numbers of
commodities produced by low-wage workers in Asia, China, and Mexico are
imported into the U.S. through Southern California. As these work forces
becoming increasingly intertwined, initiatives for more militant and inclusive
forms of labor solidarity within and across borders could gain growing support,
providing new strategic openings for labor and the global peace and social justice
movements to organize across racial, ethnic, gender, and national divides
(Davis, 1990, 1993, and 2000).
Production and transportation workers in Asia, Latin America, and North
America are all parts of a single global system. Organizing throughout the
global logistics supply chain, linking workers in transportation, production,
and retail, could be a source of strategic power, paving the way for a new global
unionism in coordination with the global peace and social justice movements.
Yet in the U.S. today, transportation, the public sector, and good-producing
industries are weakly represented by unions, whereas the retail, service, and
related white-collar sectors are largely open shops (Davis, 1986, p. 146). Although there has been a focus on global sweatshops, the same cannot be said of
global logistics, even though it seems ready made for alliances across industries, national borders, and lines of race, ethnicity, class, and nationality.
The changing demographic composition of labor is of crucial importance. Today, Latinos are rapidly growing in the rank and file and leadership
of the U.S. trade union movement, notably in Los Angeles, where the Mexican and Central American working class boasts some 1.5 million service
workers and 500,000 factory workers (Davis, 2000, p. 144). These developments undoubtedly helped the AFL-CIO pass a landmark resolution calling
for amnesty for undocumented workers-a crucial item for a labor-Latino
alliance. Despite their stated desire to organize workers of color and immigrants, unions representing and headed by Latinos often remain trapped in
the practices of business unionism, particularly through reliance on a rightmoving Democratic Party. Even the historically progressive ILWU, as Peter
Olney (2003) argues, risks becoming a declining craft union unless it can
organize growing numbers of low-wage workers, often of color, throughout
the cargo supply chain.
The strait jacket of business unionism is the product of a long history of intense class conflict in the U.S., in which labor was corralled into small- to
medium-sized islands of organized labor in a growing ocean of unorganized
workers (Davis, 1986, p. 210; Mink, 1986; Forbath, 1991; Voss, 1993). Starting
in the late 19th century, continuing throughout the heyday of the Cold War,
and right up to the present, the incorporation of crucial parts of the U.S. labor
Labor, Race, and Empire • 3 I
movement as junior partners in U.S. overseas expansion and the related
military-corporate complex played a major role in limiting the transformative potential of the labor movement (Davis, 1986; Fraser, 1991; Lichtenstein,
1995; Bergquist, 1996). Only through a confrontation with the historical legacies shaping these institutional logics of business unionism from above and
below is there a chance of a new upsurge of labor in the 21 st century.
Consider the possibilities of a broad-based social movement with roots in
labor supporting union drives at Wal-Mart (where women comprise over
72% of workers and only 33% of managers)-with the backlog of cases
against it for violation of labor law in various organizing attempts ( New York
Times, November 8, 2002, p. A28; Public Broadcasting Service, November 8,
2002; Cerna, Marshall, and Valdez, 2003, p. 3). The movement could be combined with complementary transnational efforts to organize throughout the
global supply chain, focusing on inter-racial alliances uniting workers of
color with white workers in more progressive and inclusive visions of social
movement unionism. Such multi-pronged initiatives could strengthen the
mass movement around the global sweatshop (Bonancich and Appelbaum,
2000).
Recent strikes reveal the power of labor in the age of flexible specialization.
In 1996, a 17-day strike at a United Auto Workers' brake plant in Ohio shut
down nearly all of General Motors. A mass strike at UPS took on the air of a
social movement (Coulter, 2002, p. 136). Recent port strikes and solidarity
actions in support of the strikes across the globe also demonstrate the potential
vulnerability of capital to the organization of labor in the global supply chain
(Lipsitz, 2001, p. 262).
Labor must forge an increasingly militant social movement unionism
across lines of race, gender, and nationality if it is to capitalize on changes in
the composition of world labor and the changing geography and organization
of labor and capital in the global economy. The centrality of logistics and labor
in the Pacific Rim triangle presents a major opportunity, given the racial and
ethnic diversity of the workforce and the organic relationship of workers in
this area with overseas trade, production, transportation, and retail distribution. Ironically, even as we move into the 21st century, the growing deconcentration of labor in much of the core (though not necessarily in places like
China) increases the centrality of logistics labor (see Silver, 2003: 97-103).
Scholars and activists would do well to take account of this key development,
as it signals a potential vulnerable area in the structure of global state-corporate
capitalism today. This weakness could be capitalized on by organizing in
strategic fashion, with an eye toward a new generation of labor struggles that
are more inclusive, internationalist, and radical in vision and organization.
Ultimately, such struggles, in the face of a U.S. superpower being reconstituted
on increasingly narrow and militarized social foundations, could target the logistical heart of U.S. and global corporate and military power as a key strategic
32 • Thomas Ehrlich Reifer
site for the labor movement and the larger struggle for global peace and social
justice of which it is an integral part.
Bibliography
Aitken, H.G.J., Scientific Management in Action: Taylorism at Watertown Arsenal, 1908-1915,
Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1985 (originally published in 1960).
Alberts, D.S., J.J. Garstka, and F.P. Stein, Network Centric Warfare: Developing and Leveraging
Information Superiority, 2nd ed., rev., Cooperative Research Program, U.S. Department of
Defense, Washington, DC, 2000.
Armstrong & Associates, Who's Who in Logistics? Armstrong's Guide to Global Supply Chain
Management, 11th ed., Stoughton, WI, 2003.
Arnesen, E., Brotherhoods of Colar: Black Railroad Workers and the Struggle for Equality, Harvard
University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2001.
Arrighi, G., "Marxist Century, American Century: The Making and Remaking of the World
Labour Movement," New Left Review, January/February 1990, p. 29-64.
Bacon, D., The Children of NAFTA: Labor War on the U.S./Mexico Border, University of California
Press, Berkeley, 2004.
Belzer, M.H., Sweatshops on Wheels: Winners and Losers in Trucking Deregulation, Oxford
University Press, New York, 2000.
Bergquist, C., Labor and the Course of American Democracy: U.S. History in Latin American
Perspective, Verso, New York, 1996.
Bonacich, E., "Pulling the Plug: Labor and the Global Supply Chain," New Labor Forum 12, 2003,
41-48.
Bonacich, E. and R. Appelbaum, Behind the Label: Inequality in the Los Angeles Apparel Industry,
University of California Press, Berkeley, 2000.
Bowersox, D.J., D.J. Closs, and M.B. Cooper, Supply Chain Logistics Management, McGraw Hill,
Boston, 2002.
Bowersox, D.J., D.J. Closs, and T.P. Stank, 21st Century Logistics: Making Supply Chain Integration a
Reality, Council of Logistics Management, Oak Brook, IL 1999.
Broad, R., Unequal Alliance: The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the Philippines,
University of California Press, Berkeley, 1988.
Buhle, P., Taking Care of Business: Samuel Gompers, George Meany, Lane Kirkland, and the Tragedy
ofAmerican Labor, Monthly Review Press, New York, 1999.
Cebrowski, A.K., and J.J. Garska, Network Centric Warfare: Its Origins and Future, 1998,
http://www.usni.org/Proceedings/ Articles98/PROcebrowski.htm.
Cerna, A., J. Marshall, and R. Valdez, The Growing Role of Distribution Centers and Warehouses in
the Retail Supply Chain, University of California School of Public Policy and Social
Research, Los Angeles, 2003.
Chambers, J.W., II, To Raise An Army: The Draft Comes to Modern America, Free Press, New York,
1987.
Chandler, AD., Jr., The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business, Belknap
Press, Cambridge, MA, 1977.
Cohen, L, A Consumers' Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America, Alfred A.
Knopf, New York, 2003.
Coulter, D. Y., "Globalization of Maritime Commerce: The Rise of Hub Ports," in Tangred, S.J., Ed.,
Globalization and Maritime Power, National Defense University Press, Washington, DC,
2002, p. 133.
Davis, M., Prisoners of the American Dream: Politics and Economy in the History of the US Working
Class, Verso, New York, 1986.
Davis, M., City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles, Verso, New York, 1990.
Davis, M., "Who Killed LA: The War Against the Cities;' Crossroads, June 1993, p. 2.
Davis, M., Magical Urbanism: Latinos Reinvent the U.S. Big City, Verso, New York, 2000.
Davis, M., "Inland Empire;' The Nation,April 7, 2003a, p. 15.
Davis, M., "Slouching toward Baghdad;' February 28, 2003b, http://www.tjm.org/articles/
msg00037.html.
Davis, M. and D.N. Sawhney, "Sanbhashana;' in Sawhney, D.N., Ed., Unmasking L.A.: Third World
and the City, Palgrave, New York, 2002, p. 21.
Labor, Race, and Empire • 33
Du Bois, W.E.B., Black Reconstruction in America: An Essay toward a History of the Part Which Black
Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860-1880, Atheneum,
New York, 1969 (originally published in 1935).
Early, S., "Membership-Based Organizing;' in Mantsios, G., Ed., A New Labor Movement for the
New Century, Monthly Review Press, New York, 1998, p. 82-103.
Fajnzylber, F., Unavoidable Industrial Restructuring in Latin America, Duke University Press,
Durham, NC, 1990a.
Fajnzylber, F., "The United States and Japan as Models of Industrialization;' in Gereffi, G. and D.L.
Wyman, Eds., Manufacturing Miracles: Paths of Industrialization in Latin America and East
Asia, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1990b, p. 323-352.
Fike, B., "VSATs: Industry Changes and Growth from 1988 though 1998;' http://ucsu.colorado.edu/
- fikeb/prof/vsat.PDF.
Forbath, W.E., Law and the Shaping of the American Labor Movement, Harvard University Press,
Cambridge, MA, 1991.
Fortune Magazine, "One Nation Under Wal-Mart," March 3, 2003, p. 65-78.
Fortune Magazine, "America's Largest Corporations;' April 14, 2003.
Fraser, S., Labor Will Rule: Sidney Hillman and the Rise of American Labor, Cornell University
Press, Ithaca, NY, 1991.
Goldfield, M., The Color of Politics: Race and the Mainsprings ofAmerican Politics, New Press, New
York, 1997.
Gompers, Samuel, address to National Security League, Chicago, September 14, 1917.
Gordon, D.M., Fat and Mean: The Corporate Squeeze of Working Americans and the Myth of
Managerial "Downsizing," Free Press, New York, 1996.
Gordon, D.M., R. Edwards, and M. Reich, Segmented Work, Divided Workers: The Historical
Transformation of Labor in the United States, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,
England, 1982.
Harvey, D., The Condition of Postmodernity, Blackwell, Cambridge, MA, 1989.
Hazlett, J., "Just-in-Time Warfare;' in Johnson, S.E. and Libicki, M.C., Eds., Dominant Battlespace
Knowledge: The Winning Edge, National Defense University Press, Washington, DC, 1995,
p. 133-148.
Hill, H., Black Labor and the American Legal System: Race, Work, and the Law, Bureau of National
Affairs, Washington, DC, 1977.
Hounshell, D.A., From the American System to Mass Production, 1800-1932: The Development of
Manufacturing Technology in the United States, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore,
1984.
Journal of Commerce, various issues.
Kanter, R.M., Men and Women of the Corporation, Basic Books, New York, 1977.
Kramer, W. and L. Coral, Cross Border Trucking: U.S.-Mexico Logistics Chain, University of
California Labor Center, Los Angeles, 2003.
Krause, P., The Battle for Homestead, 1880-1892: Politics, Culture, and Steel, Pittsburgh: University
of Pittsburgh Press, 1992.
Leyshon, H., Port Drivers Organizing, unpublished manuscript, 2000.
Lichtenstein, N., The Most Dangerous Man in Detroit: Walter Reuther and the Fate of American
Labor, Basic Books, New York, 1995.
Lipsitz, G., American Studies in a Moment of Danger, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis,
2001.
Mink, G., Old Labor and New Immigrants in American Political Development: Union, Party, and
State, 1875-1920, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 1986.
Misa, T., A Nation of Steel: The Making of Modern America, 1865-1925, Johns Hopkins University
Press, Baltimore, 1995.
Mongelluzzo, B., "Hasbro Bolts to S. California: Move Underscores Long Term Shift in Handling
of Asian Imports;' Journal of Commerce, June 17, 2002, p. 28-30.
Montgomery, D., The Fall of the House of Labor: The Workplace, the State, and American Labor
Activism, 1865-1925, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, 1987.
Nelson, B., Divided We Stand: American Workers and the Struggle for Black Equality, Princeton
University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2001.
New York Times, "Trying to Overcome Embarrassment, Labor Launches Drive to Organize WalMart;' November 8, 2002, p. A28.
New York Times, "China's Growth Creates a Boom for Cargo Ships;' August 28, 2003, p. Al, C6.
34 • Thomas Ehrlich Reifer
Noble, D.F., "Command Performance: A Perspective on Military Enterprise and Technological
Change;' in Smith, M.R., Ed., Military Enterprise and Technological Change: Perspectives on
the American Experience, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1985, p. 329-346.
Olney, P., "On the Waterfront: Analysis ofILWU Lockout;' New Labor Forum, Summer 2003, p. 33-40.
Pagonis, G., Moving Mountains: Lessons in Leadership and Logistics from the Gulf War, Harvard
Business School Press, Cambridge, MA, 1994.
Peoples, J., "Deregulation and the Labor Market," Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 12,
Summer 1998,p.111-130.
Preis, A., Labor's Giant Step: Twenty Years of the CIO, Pioneer, New York, 1964.
Public Broadcasting Service, Now With Bill Moyers, November 8, 2002. http://www.pbs.org/
now/transcript/transcriptl42_full.html.
Reifer, T., "The Japanese Phoenix and the Transformation of East Asia: World-Economy,
Geopolitics, and Asian Regionalism in the Long Twentieth Century;' presented at the 36th
annual meeting of the International Studies Association, Chicago, February 21-25, 1995.
Reifer, T., "Globalization and the National Security State Corporate Complex (NSSCC) in the Long
Twentieth Century;' in Grosfoguel, R. and M. Rodriguez, Eds., The Modern/Colonial/Capitalist
World System in the Twentieth Century, Greenwood Press, Westport, CT, 2002, p. 3-70.
Reifer, T., "Satellites;' in Carlisle, R.B., Ed., Encyclopedia of Intelligence and Counterintelligence,
M.E. Sharpe, in press, 2004.
Ross, R.J.S. and A. Chan, "From North-South to South-South: The True Face of Global
Competition;' Foreign Affairs, September/October 2002, p. 8- 13.
Rosswurm, S., Ed., The CIO's Left-Led Unions, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ, 1992.
Sassen, S., The Mobility of Labor and Capital: A Study in International Investment and Labor Flow,
Cambridge University Press, New York, 1988a.
Sassen, S., "Capital Mobility and Labor Migration," in Cherry, R. et al., Eds., The Imperiled
Economy, Book II, Union for Radical Political Economics, New York, 1988b, p. 57-68.
Sassen, S., The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo, 2nd ed., rev., Princeton University Press,
Princeton, NJ., 2001.
Saxton, A., The Indispensable Enemy: Labor and the Anti-Chinese Movement in California,
University of California Press, Berkeley, 1971.
Schneer, J., London 1900: The Imperial Metropolis, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 1999.
Silver, B.J. and G. Arrighi, "Workers North & South," in Panitch, L. and C. Leys, Eds., Socialist
Register, 2001, Merlin Press, London, 2000, p. 53-76.
Silver, B.J., Forces of Labor: Workers' Movements and Globalization since 1870, Cambridge
University Press, New York, 2003.
Smith, M.R., Ed., Military Enterprise and Technological Change: Perspectives on the American
Experience, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1985.
Spencer, D.L., Military Transfer: International Techno-Economic Transfers via Military ByProducts and Initiative Based on Cases from Japan and Other Pacific Countries, Defense
Technical Information Center, Defense Logistics Agency, Washington, DC, AD660537,
March 1967.
Stepan-Norris, J. and M. Zeitlin, Left Out: Reds and America's Industrial Unions, Cambridge
University Press, New York, 2003.
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), World Investment Report,
various issues. New York and Geneva, 2002.
U.S. Department of Transportation, Maritime Trade & Transportation, 2002, p. 11,
http:/ /www.bts.gov/products/maritime_trade_and_transportation/2002/pdf/entire.pdf.
U.S. Government Accounting Office, International Trade: Mexico's Maquiladora Decline Affects
U.S.-Mexico Border Communities and Trade, Washington, DC, July 2003.
USA Today, "Wal-Mart's Influence Grows;' January 29, 2003, http://www.usatoday.com/money/
industries/retail/2003-01-28-walmartnation_x.htm.
Voss, K., The Making ofAmerican Exceptionalism: The Knights of Labor and Class Formation in the
Nineteenth Century, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 1993.
Wall Street Journal, "China's Overcapacity Crimps Neighbors: Glut Swamps Southeast Asia's
Exports, Roiling Currency," July 14, 1997, p. AlO.
Wall Street Journa~ "Battling Trucks, Trains Gain Steam By Watching Clock," July 25, 2003, p. Al, Al 4.
Wall Street Journal," Despite U.S. Bond Selloff, Asia Keeps Buying;' August 5, 2003, p. Cl, Cl 5.
Wilson, R. and R. V. Delaney, 14th Annual "State of Logistics Report," The Case for Reconfiguration,
2003 . jttp:/ /www.cassinfo.com/state_of_logsitics_2003 _final.PD F.
Labor, Race, and Empire • 35
Wood, L., Diaries, 1913-1918, Library of Congress Archives, Washington, DC.
Zeitlin, M. and L.F. Weyer, "Black and White, Unite and Fight: Interracial Working-Class Solidarity
and Racial Employment Equality;' American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 107, September 2001,
p.430-467.
Notes
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
I especially want to thank Edna Bonacich and Christopher Chase-Dunn for their critical
comments, insights, and critiques that were instrumental in the writing of this chapter,
which is part of a larger study funded by the Institute for Labor and Employment of the
University of California. Thanks also to Dave Smith for editorial assistance.
For the contrast between models of production and consumption in the U.S., Latin
America, and East Asia, see Fajnzylber, 1990a and b; Cohen, 2003.
The tremendous rise of cheap Chinese exports was implicated in the East Asian crisis
because it hurt the exports of rival producers and thereby helped make their currencies
vulnerable to speculation-a fact with potentially ominous implications for the future
(Wall Street Journal, July 14, 1997, p. Al0).
Although rarely mentioned, Frederick Taylor did much of his key work in the naval shipyards of the military-corporate complex, producing battleships for the expansion of the
U.S. formal and informal empires abroad (Smith, 1985; Misa, 1995).
The social-spatial shift to small industrial factors in the more union-free Sunbelt and rural
Midwest areas of the U.S. was a critical mechanism of exit from New Deal social relations
(Davis, 1986, p. 121).
For information on the development of satellites via the Pentagon system of industrial
planning and the origins of a commercial satellite sector via the privatization of publicly
created technologies, see Reifer, in press, 2004.
Talks with Teamsters officials, Labor Notes Conference, September 2003.
3
Latin America and
the Empire of Global Capital
WILLIAM I. ROBINSON
Introduction: Globalization, Crisis, and the Restructuring
of World Capitalism
The downturn in the world economy that began in the closing years of the
20th century heralded a crisis that, in my view, was more than merely cyclical.
The turn-of-century turmoil may turn out to be the opening scenes to Act II
of a deeper restructuring crisis that began nearly three decades earlier.
Mainstream business-cycle theories are keen to identify periodic swings from
expansion to recession in the market economy, but world-system and other
Marxist-inspired theories have long pointed to deeper cycles of expansion
and contraction in world capitalism. Cyclical crises eventually usher in periods
of restructuring. These restructuring crises, as scholars from the French regulation, the U.S. social structure of accumulation, the world-system, and critical
Marxist schools have shown, result in novel forms that replace historical
patterns of capital accumulation and the institutional arrangements that
facilitated them. 1
The post-World War II expansion-the so-called Golden Age of Capitalismexperienced a crisis in the 1970s that precipitated a period of restructuring
and transformation that led to a new mode of global capital accumulation
now known as neo-liberalism. The Reagan and Thatcher regimes of the 1980s
catapulted neo-liberalism to the center stage of world capitalism and the international financial institutes imposed the model on much of the Third World
in the 1980s and 1990s through structural adjustment programs in what came
to be known as the "Washington consensus." 2
I have been researching and writing about globalization and crisis since the
early 1990s. The conclusions of my earlier work can be summarized as follows:
The crisis that began in the 1970s could not have been resolved within the
framework of the post-World War II Keynesian social structure of accumulation. Capital responded to the constraints on accumulation imposed by this
earlier model of nation-state redistributional projects by "going global:' What
had been international capital in the preceding epoch metamorphosed
into transnational capital that became the hegemonic fraction of capital on a
37
38 • William I. Robinson
world scale in the 1980s. Transnationalized fractions of capitalist classes and
bureaucratic elites captured state power in most countries during the 1980s and
1990s and utilized that power to undertake a massive neo-liberal restructuring.
Free-trade policies, integration processes, and neo-liberal reforms (including the gamut of deregulation, privatization, and fiscal, monetary and austerity measures) opened the world in new ways to transnational capital. For
instance, deregulation made available new zones to resource exploitation;
privatization opened public and community spheres ranging from health care
and education to police and prison systems to profit making. New information
technology and novel forms of organization also contributed to renewed accumulation. The correlation of social forces worldwide changed in the 1980s
and early 1990s against popular classes and in favor of transnational capital.
The latter used the newfound structural leverage that global mobility and
financial control provided to impose a new capital-labor relation based on
diverse categories of "contingent" or deregulated employment (casualized and
informalized labor). Income shifted from working and poor people to capital and
to new high-consumption middle, professional, and bureaucratic strata that provided a global market segment fueling growth in new areas. All this reversedtemporarily-the crisis of stagnation and declining profits of the 1970s.
The restructuring crisis that began in the 1970s signaled the transition to a
new transnational stage of world capitalism. Globalization as a new epoch in
world capitalism is marked by a number of fundamental shifts in the capitalist
system. One of these is the rise of truly transnational capital. National circuits
of accumulation have increasingly been reorganized and integrated into new
transnational circuits. The concepts of flexible accumulation and network
structure capture the organizational form of these globalized circuits. Another
feature of global capitalism is the rise of a transnational capitalist class (TCC), a
fraction grounded in global markets and circuits of accumulation over national
markets and circuits. 3
Transnational class formation also entails the rise of a global proletariat.
Capital and labor increasingly confront each other as global classes. A third
feature is a transnational state apparatus-a loose but increasingly coherent network composed of supranational political and economic institutions and national state apparatuses that have been penetrated and transformed by
transnational forces. In contrast to the predominant story line of a resurgent
U.S. empire, I suggest that we are witnesses to the rising hegemony of a global
capitalist bloc. There is an underlying class relation between the TCC and the
U.S. national state. This ascendant empire of global capital is headquartered in
Washington, but the beneficiaries of U.S. military action around the world are
transnational, not U.S. capitalist groups.
This empire of global capital has barely emerged and already faces twin structural and subjective crises: one of overaccumulation and the other oflegitimacy.
Globalization resolved some problems for capital, but the underlying laws of
Latin America and the Empire of Global Capital • 39
capitalism remain in place and continually assert themselves. The breakdown of
nation-state based redistributive projects may have restored growth and
profitability, but it also aggravated the tendencies inherent in capitalism toward
overaccumulation by further polarizing income and heightening inequalities
worldwide. Overcapacity underpinned the Asian crisis of 1997 to 1998, and
overaccumulation caused the world recession of the early 21 st century. The neoliberal model barely triumphed in the 1980s and 1990s when it began to appear
moribund. I suggest here that neo-liberalism may prove to be a parenthesis
between old nation-state accumulation models and a new global social structure
of accumulation whose contours are not yet clear.
These propositions are broadly discussed and debated in my previous work
on globalization and more generally in the interdisciplinary literature on the
global political economy. 4 The ambition of this chapter is to examine the experience of one particular region, Latin America, in the crisis and restructuring of
world capitalism in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The empirical and analytical core of the essay examines Latin America's experience in the world capitalist crisis, with particular emphasis on the neo-liberal model, tum-of-century
social conflicts that engulfed the region, and the rise of a new resistance politics.
I will return, by way of conclusion, to the broader issues of crisis and restructuring in world capitalism raised above.
Latin America Faces a Global Crisis
Latin America has been deeply implicated in the restructuring crisis of world
capitalism. The mass movements, revolutionary struggles, and nationalist and
populist projects of the 1960s and 1970s were beaten back by local and international elites in the last decades of the 20th century in the face of the global
economic downturn, the debt crisis, state repression, U.S. intervention, the collapse
of a socialist alternative, and the rise of the neo-liberal model. The diverse popular
projects and movements had their own internal contradictions as well. Economically, Latin American countries experienced a thorough restructuring and integration into the global economy under the neo-liberal model. Politically, the fragile
polyarchic systems installed through the so-called transitions to democracy of the
1980s were increasingly unable to contain the social conflicts and political tensions
generated by the polarizing and pauperizing effects of the neo-liberal model.
The restructuring of world capitalism, its new transnational logic and institutionality; the polarization of the rich and the poor; and the escalation of
inequalities, marginalization, and deprivation taking place under globalization
have profoundly changed the terrain under which social struggle and change
will take place in Latin American in the 21 st century.
Neo-liberalism and Stagnation in Latin America
As transnational capital integrates the world into new globalized circuits of
accumulation, it has broken down national and regional autonomies, including
40 • William I. Robinson
the earlier preglobalization models of capitalist development and the social
forces that sustained these models. Local productive apparatuses and social
structures in each region have been transformed, and different regions
acquired new profiles in the emerging global division of labor. Economic
integration processes and neo-liberal structural adjustment programs are
driven by transnational capital's campaign to open every country to its activities, tear down all barriers to the movement of goods and capital, and
create a single unified field in which global capital can operate unhindered
across all national borders. 5
In Latin America, the preglobalization model of accumulation based on domestic market expansion, populism, and import substitution industrialization
corresponded to the earlier nation-state phase of capitalism. Surpluses were appropriated by national elites and transnational corporations and redistributed
through diverse populist programs ranging from packets of social wages (social
service spending, subsidized consumption, etc.) to expanding employment opportunities and rising real wages. The model became exhausted, and its breakdown starting in the late 1970s paved the way for the neo-liberal model based on
liberalization and integration to the global economy, a laissez faire state, and
what the current development discourse terms export-led development. 6 Table
3.1 provides one indicator of this process of increasing outward orientation of
Latin American countries in the final decade of the 20th century.
The dismantling of the preglobalization model and its replacement by the
neo-liberal model threw Latin American popular classes into a social crisis
Table 3.1 Trade in Goods as Percentage of Gross Domestic Product for Select Countries in Latin
America and Caribbean
Latin America and Caribbean
Argentina
Brazil
Chile
Colombia
Costa Rica
Dominican Republic
Ecuador
Guatemala
Honduras
Mexico
Peru
Venezuela
1989
1999
10.2
5.1
6.3
24.0
6.7
19.9
21.4
15.5
11.5
18.4
14.1
7.5
22.6
18.2
10.9
8.4
23.7
9.3
40.6
29.0
20.1
16.6
26.9
35.6
12.2
26.6
Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators 2001, p. 322.
Latin America and the Empire of Global Capital • 41
that hit hard in the 1980s, Latin America's "lost decade," and continues in the
21st century. During the 1980s, other regions, particularly East Asia, North
America, and Europe, became the most attractive outlets for accumulated
capital stocks. Latin America stagnated in absolute terms and experienced
backward movement when seen in relation to other regions in the world economy. The region experienced a contraction of income and economic activity.
Its share of world trade dropped by half (from about 6% to about 3%)
between 1980 and 1990. 7 In the 1980s, Latin America became the region with
the slowest growth in per capita income, behind other Third World regions
and behind the world as a whole, indicating its troubled integration into the
emergent global economy.
What accounted for this apparent stagnation and marginalization? In fact,
the data indicate that Latin America did not stop producing wealth for the
world capitalist system as it integrated into the global economy. To the contrary,
the volume of Latin American exports to the world increased significantly
throughout the 1980s and 1990s. As Table 3.2 shows, the volume of the region's exports rose by an annual average of IS.I% whereas the value of these
same exports actually decreased by an annual average of 0.1 % between 1983
and 2000. In other words, Latin Americans worked harder and harder to
increase the wealth they produced for the global economy while the income
they received from that work decreased as they became more impoverished
and exploited.
This steady deterioration of the terms of trade is a consequence of Latin
America's continued overall dependence on commodity exports. Venezuela and
Ecuador depend almost entirely on oil exports, Chile remains dependent on
copper, Brazil and Argentina on a variety of low-tech and basic agricultural
Table 3.2 Volumes and Units of Value of Latin American Exports (Average Annual Percent Growth
in Batch Years)
1983-1985
1986-1988
1989-1991
1992-1994
1995-1997
1998-2000
1983-2000·
Volume
Unit Value
16.2
17.7
13.7
22.3
11.5
8.9
15.1
-9.9
-5.9
5.2
3.3
8.4
-0.7
0.1
•Average annual change.
Source: Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC),
Economic Survey of Latin America and the Caribbean, 1983-1999, United Nations,
Santiago, Chile.
42 • William I. Robinson
exports, Peru on its mining sector, Central America on traditional agro-exports,
and so on. This situation has been aggravated by neo-liberal adjustment that shifted
resources toward the external sector linked to the global economy and by the region's extreme dependence on global capital markets to sustain economic growth.
This continued dependence on commodity exports is a structural asymmetry that underscores a worsening of the development (or social) crisis for
the poor majorities in Latin America and should not be confused with the region's contribution to global capital accumulation. The region has remained
a net exporter of capital to the world market, a supplier of surplus for the
world, and an engine of growth of the global economy. Table 3.3 shows that
Latin America was a net exporter of $219 billion in capital surplus to the
world economy during the "lost decade" from 1982 to 1990, then became a
net importer from 1991 through 1998. In 1999, the region once again became
an exporter of capital.
What transpired was a massive influx of transnational capital into the region in the 1990s. This, combined with the renewal of growth for much of the
decade, led transnational functionaries from the supranational economic
planning agencies (World Bank, International Monetary Fund [IMF], etc.)
and local elites to argue that Latin America's development crisis came to an
end. However, the vast majority of the inflow of capital was a consequence not
of direct investment in new productive infrastructure as much as it arose from
diverse portfolio and financial ventures such as new loans, the purchases of
stock in privatized companies, and speculative investments in financial services such as equities, mutual funds, pensions, and insurance.
Table 3.3 Net Capital Flows, Net Payment on Profits and Interest, and Net Resource Transfer
(Billions of Dollars)
Net Capital Flows
1982-1990
1991-1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
Net Payments Profit/Interest
99/318
266/174
65/43
81/48
78/51
47/52
53/53
50/55
13/53
Net Transfer
-219
92
22
33
27
-5
0
-5
-40
Source: Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC),
Preliminary Overview of the Economies of Latin America and the Caribbean, 2000, p.
104; Economic Survey for Latin America and the Caribbean, 200-2001, p. 80; Preliminary
Overview of the Economies of Latin America and the Caribbean, 2002, p. 122.
Latin America and the Empire of Global Capital • 43
This type of foreign capital penetration resulted in the transnationalization
of the production and service infrastructure built through the previous development model. It reflected the hegemony of transnational finance capital in
the age of globalization and its frenzied "casino capitalism" activity in recent
years and gave an illusion of "recovery" in Latin America-an illusion shattered by the Argentine crisis that exploded in December 2001. Before the
Argentine upheaval, the transnational elite believed it had resolved the debt
crisis in the 1980s by making the debt serviceable and removing the issue from
the political agenda. However, the continued hemorrhage of wealth from the
region, combined with liberalization and deeper external integration, meant
the external debt had in fact continued to grow throughout the late 1980s and
1990s from $230 billion in 1980 to $533 billion in 1994, more than $714 billion
in 1997, and almost $800 billion in 1999, and its rate of growth again increased
in the 1990s.8
Amortization of the debt exacted an ever-rising tribute from Latin American
popular classes to transnational capital. However, when debt-repayment pressures reach the point where default becomes a possibility or a government can
no longer meet even minimal social obligations, the spiral of crisis begins. Local
states are caught between the withdrawal of transnational investors and the
mounting unrest from poor majorities who can no longer bear further austerity.
The slide into crisis began at the turn of the century when the net outflow of
resources once again came to surpass the net inflow. In Argentina, among other
countries, the government could keep the economy buoyed so long as it
had state assets to sell off. Once no quick money can be made, capital flight
can-and has-plunged countries into overnight recession. As Table 3.4 indicates, Latin America began a downturn in 1998. Although the region as a whole
showed positive growth in 2000, this is accounted for by high growth rates
in a handful of countries although most of them stagnated and experienced
negative growth.
Most notable about Table 3.4 is that GDP per capita declined in the lost
decade by 0.9% from 1980 to 1990, then barely recovered in the growth
years of the 1990s, growing by 1.5% from 1991 through 2000. If we separate
1998 through 2000 from the rest of the 1990s, we find that many countries
experienced renewed declines in GDP per capita over the 3-year period
from 1998 to 2000. It dropped in aggregate by 3.3% in Argentina, 6.2% in
Colombia, 10.5% in Ecuador, 3.3% in Honduras, 6.1% in Paraguay, 0.1% in
Peru, 8.1 % in Uruguay, and 8.3% in Venezuela. In other countries, aggregate
growth in GDP per capita for this period slowed to a negligible amount,
such as 0.9% in Brazil. 9
This debt produced deleterious effects on the living conditions of popular
classes and placed Latin America in ever-increasing "hock" to transnational
finance capital. Argentina's debt climbed from $27 billion in 1980 to $63
billion in 1990 and moved steadily upward to $144 billion by 1998. In the same
44 • William I. Robinson
Table 3.4 Latin America: Annual Growth Rates, GDP, and GDP per Capita by Region and Selected
Countries
Latin America
1980-1990
1991-2000
Argentina
1981-1990
1991-2000
1998-2000
Brazil
1981-1990
1991-2000
1998-2000
Colombia
1981-1990
1991-2000
1998-2000
Ecuador
1981-1990
1991-2000
1998-2000
Mexico
1981-1990
1991-2000
1998-2000
Venezuela
1981-1990
1991-2000
1998-2000
GDP
Per Capita GDP
1.2
3.3
-0.9
1.5
-0.7
4.2
0.2
-2.1
2.9
-1.1
1.6
2.6
1.7
-0.4
1.2
0.4
3.7
2.6
-0.3
1.6
0.6
-2.1
1.7
1.7
-1.6
0.9
-0.4
-3.5
1.9
3.5
5.2
-0.2
1.7
3.6
-0.7
2.0
-0.8
-3.2
-0.2
-2.8
Source: Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, Preliminary
Overview of the Economies of Latin America and the Caribbean, 2000, p. 85.
period, Brazil's debt climbed from $71 billion to $232 billion, and Mexico's increased from $57 billion to $160 billion. Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela,
and the Central American republics were also heavily indebted relative to their
economic size. For Argentina, payment on the interest alone ate up 35.4% of export earnings in 1998. For Brazil, the figure was 26.7%; for Colombia, 19.7%; for
Ecuador, 21.2%; for Nicaragua, 19.3%; for Peru, 23.7%; and for Venezuela,
15.3%.10
The debt also facilitated internal adjustment and a deeper integration into
the global economy and cemented the power of the emergent transnational
Latin America and the Empire of Global Capital • 45
power bloc in the region. As Table 3.3 shows, Latin America continued to
export annually between 1992 and 2002 an average of $30 billion in profits and
interests. "Growth;' therefore, simply represents the continued and increased
creation of tribute to transnational finance capital.
In the wake of the Asian meltdown of 1997 and 1998, Latin American countries began the slide toward renewed stagnation. This continuous drainage of
surplus from Latin America helps explain the region's stagnation, declining income, and plummeting living standards. The poor have to run faster just to remain in the same place. The social crisis in Latin America thus is not as much a
crisis of production as it is of distribution. Inequality is a social relation of unequal power between the dominant and the subordinate, we should recall and,
more specifically, the power of the rich locally and globally to dispose of the
social product.
Globalization eliminated the domestic market as a factor strategic to accumulation strategies. This has important implications for class relations and social movements. By removing the domestic market and popular class
consumption from the accumulation imperative, restructuring involves the
demise of the populist class alliances between broad majorities and nationally
based ruling classes that characterized the preglobalization model of accumulation. Globalization involves a change in the correlation of class forces
worldwide away from nationally organized popular classes and toward the
transnational capitalist class and local economic and political elites tied to
transnational capital. As the logic of national accumulation is subordinated to
that of global accumulation, transnationalized fractions of local dominant
groups in Latin America gained control over states and capitalist institutions
in their respective countries. These groups, in-country agents of global
capitalism, become integrated organically as local contingents into the
transnational elite. This is part of the broader process under globalization of
transnational class formation.
Neo-liberal states sought to create the best internal conditions to attract
mobile transnational capital, including the provision of cheap labor, depressed
and lax working conditions, the elimination of state regulations such as environmental controls, little or no taxation, no insistence on transnational corporate accountability or responsibility to local populations, and so on. In the
logic of global capitalism, the cheapening of labor and its social disenfranchisement by the neo-liberal state became conditions for development. The
very drive by local elites to create conditions to attract transnational capital is
what thrusts Latin American majorities into poverty and inequality. A new
capital-labor relation is born out of the very logic of regional accumulation
based on the provision to the global economy of cheap labor as the region's
comparative advantage. In the new capital-labor relation in Latin America
(and worldwide), capital abandons reciprocal obligations to labor in the
employment contract at the same time as states, with their transmutation
46 • William I. Robinson
from developmentalist to neo-liberal, all but abandon public obligations to
poor and working majorities.
New Dimensions of Inequality
Globalization brought about a dramatic sharpening of social inequalities,
increased polarization, and the persistence of widespread poverty in Latin
America, reflecting the broader pattern of global social polarization. Between
1980 and 1990, average per capital income dropped by an unprecedented 11 %,
so that most of the region's inhabitants found that their incomes had reverted
to 1976 levels by 1990. 11 Poverty levels also increased throughout the 1980s
and 1990s. Between 1980 and 1992, some 60 million new people joined the
ranks of the poor. The number of people living in poverty went from 136 million
in 1980, to 196 million in 1992, and then to 230 million in 1995-an increase
from 41 % to 44%, then to 48%, respectively, of the total population. 12
There has been an explosion in Latin America of the informal sector that has
been the only avenue of survival for millions of people thrown out of work by
contraction of formal sector employment, austerity, the revising of labor laws
directed at making labor "flexible;' and the uprooting of remaining peasant
communities by the incursion of capitalist agriculture. Informalization of
work, moreover, is part of the transition from Fordist to flexible employment
relations, whereby subcontracted and outsourced labor is organized informally and constitutes an increasing portion of the workforce. 13 National and
international data-collection agencies report those in the informal sector
as "employed;' despite the highly irregular and unregulated nature of the informal sector characterized by low levels of productivity, below-poverty (and
below legal minimum wage) earnings, and instability, usually amounting to
underemployment. Four of every five new jobs in Latin America are in the informal sector. 14
Inequality in Latin America, although high historically, increased throughout
the 1980s and 1990s, as Table 3.5 shows. World Bank data for 18 Latin American
countries indicates that the Gini coefficient measuring income inequality
(0 = perfect equality; 1 = perfect inequality) rose from 0.45 in 1980 to 0.50 in
1989. 11 However, income inequality is only one dimension, and often not the
most important, of social inequality. Added to income polarization in the
1980s and 1990s is the dramatic deterioration in social conditions as a result of
austerity measures that drastically reduced and privatized health, education,
and other social programs. Popular classes whose social reproduction is dependent on a social wage (public sector) face a social crisis, whereas privileged
middle and upper classes become exclusive consumers of social services channeled through private networks.
The escalation of deprivation indicators in Brazil and Mexico, which together account for over half of Latin America's 465 million inhabitants, reveals
the process of immiseration that most Latin Americans have experienced
Latin America and the Empire of Global Capital • 47
Table 3.5 Per Capita Household Income Distribution in Selected Countries
Argentina
Brazil
Chile
Colombia
Guatemala (1987)
Mexico (1984)
Peru (1986)
Venezuela (1981)
1980
20%Bottom
20%Top
46.6
5.3
64.0
2.6
2.5
2.7
4.1
6.2
5.0
63.0
62.0 (1989)
55.9
49.7
47.3
1989
20%Bottom
20%Top
4.1
52.6
2.1
67.5
3.7
62.9
3.4
58.3
2.1
63.0
3.2
59.3
5.6
50.4
4.8
49.5
Source: World Bank, Poverty and Income Distribution in Latin America: The Story of
the 1980s, Washington, DC, 1997.
under global capitalism. Between 1985 and 1990, the rate of child malnutrition in Brazil, where nearly 48% of the country's 160 million people lived in
poverty in 1990, 15 increased from 12. 7% to 30. 7% of all children. 16
In Mexico, where over 50% of the country's 90 million people were in
poverty, the purchasing power of the minimum wage dropped 66% between
1982 and 1991. In the mid- l 990s it took 4.8 minimum wages for a family of four
to meet essential needs, yet 80% of households earned 2.5 minimum wages or
less. As a result, malnutrition spread among the urban and rural poor. 17
In Argentina, meanwhile, unemployment rose steadily in the 1980s and
1990s from 3% in 1980 to 20% in 2001, the number of people in extreme
poverty escalated from 200,000 to 5 million, and the number in poverty increased from 1 million to 14 million. Illiteracy increased from 2% to 12% and
functional illiteracy from 5% to 32% during this period. 18 In fact, the United
Nations Development Program's Human Development Index an aggregate
measure of well-being based on life expectancy at birth, educational attainment, and GDP per capita, actually decreased for many Latin American countries in the 1990s. 19
From Social Explosions to Institutional Crises: The Fragility of Polyarchy
By the late 1970s, authoritarianism as the predominant mode of social control
in Latin America faced an intractable crisis. 20 On the one hand, authoritarian
regimes were besieged by mass popular movements for democracy, human
rights, and social justice that threatened to bring down the whole elite-based
social order along with the dictatorships, which happened in Nicaragua in
1979. This threat from below, combined with the inability of the authoritarian
regimes to manage the dislocations and adjustments of globalization, generated intraelite conflicts that unravelled the ruling power blocs. This crisis of
48 • William I. Robinson
elite rule was resolved through transitions to polyarchy that took place in
almost every country in the region during the 1980s and early 1990s.
Polyarchy is a system in which a small group actually rules on behalf of
capital, and participation in decision making by the majority is confined to
choosing among competing elites in tightly controlled electoral processes.
Emergent transnationalized fractions of local elites in Latin America, with the
structural power of the global economy behind them, as well as the direct
political and military intervention of the U.S., were able to gain hegemony
over democratization movements and steer the breakup of authoritarianism
into polyarchic outcomes.
It is not at all clear in the early 21st century whether these fragile polyarchic
political systems will be able to absorb the tensions of economic and social
crisis without collapsing. Most Latin American countries experienced waves of
spontaneous uprisings generally triggered by austerity measures, the formation in the shantytowns of urban poor movements of political protest, and a
resurgence of peasant movements and land invasions, all outside the formal
institutions of the political system and generally involving violent clashes of
states, paramilitary forces, and protesters. 21
The social and economic crisis has given way to expanding institutional
quandaries, the breakdown of social control mechanisms, and transnational
political-military conflict. The revolt in Argentina; the struggle of the landless
in Brazil; peasant insurrections in Bolivia; indigenous uprisings in Ecuador;
spreading civil war in Colombia; attempted coups d'etat in Haiti; and aborted
coups, business strikes, and street conflict in Venezuela-such incidents
became the orders of the day in the first few years of the 21 st century. 22
The region seems poised for a new round of U.S. political and military intervention under the guise of wars on terrorism and drugs. U.S. hostility to the
populist government of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and the political alliance
between Washington and the displaced business class promoting his ouster are
of particular significance, because Chavez may well represent a new brand of
populism that could take hold as desperate elites attempt to regain legitimacy.
Remilitarization under heavy U.S. sponsorship was already well underway
by the turn of the century, from the $2 billion Plan Colombia to the sale by
Washington of advanced fighter jets to Chile's military, the installation of a
U.S. military base in Ecuador, the large-scale provision of arms, counterinsurgency equipment, and antiterrorism training programs to Mexico, new multilateral intervention mechanisms, and a new round throughout the hemisphere
of joint U.S.-Latin American military exercises and training programs. 23
It is worth noting that one or another of the hemisphere's governments have
labeled as terrorists the Landless Workers' Movement of Brazil, the Zapatistas of
Mexico, the FARC and the ELN guerrilla movements of Colombia, the indigenous movement in Ecuador, the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front in
Latin America and the Empire of Global Capital • 49
El Salvador, the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, and other legitimate resistance
movements. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency identified in 2002 as "a new
challenge to internal security" the indigenous movement that, 510 years after
the Conquest began, spread throughout the hemisphere and has often been
at the forefront of popular mobilization. 23 Colombia may be the most likely
epicenter of direct U.S. intervention and a region wide counterinsurgency war
in South America.
This panorama suggests that the state structures that are set up (and continuously modified) to protect dominant interests are now decomposing, possibly
beyond repair. A long period of political decay and institutional instability is
likely. We should not lose sight of the structural underpinnings of expanding
institutional crises and should recall the fundamental incompatibility of democracy and global capitalism.
The model of capitalist development by insertion into new global circuits of
accumulation does not require an inclusionary social base. Socioeconomic exclusion is immanent to the model because accumulation does not depend on
a domestic market or internal social reproduction. A structural contradiction
between the globalization model of accumulation and the effort to maintain
polyarchic political systems requires the hegemonic incorporation of a social
base. The neo-liberal model generates social conditions and political tensionsinequality, polarization, impoverishment, and marginality-conducive to a
breakdown of polyarchy. This constitutes a fundamental contradiction between
the class function of the neo-liberal states and their legitimation function.
Resistance to Globalization in Latin America
As old corporatist structures crack, new oppositional forces and forms of
resistance have spread-social movements of workers, women, environmentalists, students, peasants, indigenous, racial and ethnic minorities, and community associations of the urban poor. These popular forces helped protagonize a
new progressive electoral politics in the early 21st century, including the election of Luis Ignacio da Silva (Lula) and the Workers Party (PT) in Brazil (2002);
Lucio Gutierrez in Ecuador (2003) with the backing of that country's indigenous movement; the near victory at the polls of Evo Morales, an indigenous
leader and socialist in Bolivia (2002); and the resilience in office in the face of
elite destabilization campaigns of the government of Hugo Chavez, elected in
1999 in Venezuela. These developments suggest that new political space has
opened up in Latin America and that the neo-liberal elite has lost legitimacy.
These popular electoral victories symbolized the end of the reigning neoliberal order and also the limits of parliamentary changes in the era of global
capitalism. The case of Brazil is indicative. Lula, denied the presidency in three
previous electoral contests and victorious in 2002, took the vote only after his
wing of the PT moved sharply toward the political center. He forged a social
50 • William I. Robinson
base among middle class voters and won over centrist and even conservative
political forces that did not endorse a left-wing program but were unwilling to
tolerate further neo-liberal fallout.
The real power here was that of transnational finance capital. Lula promised
not to default on the country's foreign debt and to maintain the previous government's adjustment policies. His 2003 budget slashed health and educational programs in order to comply with IMF dictates that the government maintain a fiscal
surplus. 24 What may have been emerging was an elected left populist bloc in the
region committed to mild redistributive programs respectful of prevailing property relations and unwilling to challenge the global capitalist order. Many leftist
parties, even when they sustain an anti-neoliberal discourse, have in their practice
abdicated earlier programs of fundamental structural change in the social order.
If transnational capital is able to emasculate radical programs through
structural pressures exerted by the global economy, the popular electoral victories involved as well the mobilization of new collective subjects and mass social
movements, will be unlikely to be cowed by the transnational elite. The demise
of neo-liberal hegemony unleashes social forces that neither the established
order nor left electoral regimes can contain.
Events in Venezuela from Chavez's election in 1999 through 2003 may
presage a pattern in which the electoral victories of popular candidates spark
heightened political mobilization and social struggles that may move events in
unforeseen directions. The question might not be how much local populism
can accomplish in the age of globalization but how local populism may be
converted into transborder globalization from below.
The dominant groups in Latin America reconstituted and consolidated
their control over political society in the late 20th century, but the new round of
popular class mobilization in the 1990s and early 21 st century, pointed to their
inability to sustain hegemony in civil society. The renewal of protagonism
demonstrated by subordinate groups at the grassroots level has been outside
state structures and largely independent of organized left parties. Grassroots
social movements have flourished in civil society at a time when the organized left
operating in political society has been unable to articulate a counter-hegemonic
alternative despite its continued vitality. The failure of the left to protagonize a
process of structural change from political society helps shift the locus of conflict
more fully to civil society.
Latin America seemed to move in the 1990s to a "war of position" between contending social forces in light of subordinate groups' failure to win
a "war of maneuver" through revolutionary upheaval and the limits to power
from above. As crises of legitimacy, perpetual instability, and the impending
breakdown of state institutions spread rapidly throughout Latin America in
the early 21st century, conditions seemed to be opening up for a renovated
war of maneuver under the novel circumstances of the global economy and
society.
Latin America and the Empire of Global Capital • 51
Conclusion: Whither the Empire of Global Capital?
Globalization acted at first as a centripetal force for transnationally oriented
elites and as a centrifugal force for popular classes around the world. Working
classes were fragmented by restructuring. Intense competition forced on these
classes in each nation debilitated collective action. Subprocesses such as
transnational migration and the diffusion of consumer culture provided
escape valves that relieved pressure on the system. The mass social dislocation,
evaporating social protection measures, declining real opportunities, and
spiraling poverty that neo-liberalism generated sparked widespread yet often
spontaneous and unorganized resistance in the 1980s and 1990s, as epitomized in 'IMF food riots'. 25 Table 3.6 shows the steep rise in global inequalities
in the neo-liberal age.
Organized resistance movements arose everywhere, ranging from the Zapatistas in Mexico to the Assembly of the Poor in Thailand, Brazil's Landless
People's Movement, India's National Alliance of People's Movements, the
Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, and the National Confederation of
Indigenous Organizations of Ecuador. At a certain point in the 1990s, popular
resistance forces formed a critical mass, coalescing around an agenda for social
justice or antiglobalization. By the turn of the century, the transnational elite
had been placed on the defensive and a crisis of the system's legitimacy began
to develop, as symbolized by the creation of the World Social Forum in Porto
Alegre, Brazil, under the banner "Another world is possible."
From the viewpoint of capital, neo-liberalism resolved a series of problems in
the accumulation process that built up in the epoch of Keynesian capitalism but
fueled new crises of overaccumulation and legitimacy. The model is not sustainable socially or politically. Its coming demise may well turn out to be the end of
Act I and the opening of Act II in the restructuring crisis that began in the 1970s.
As in all historic processes, this act is unscripted. The next step may be a reassertion of productive over financial capital in the global economy and a global
redistributive project, just as it may be the rise of a global fascism founded on
Table 3.6 Shares of World Income 1965-1990
Percentage of Total World Income
Population
Poorest20%
Second20%
Third20%
Fourth20%
Richest 20%
1965
2.3
2.9
4.2
21.2
69.5
1970
2.2
2.8
3.9
21.3
70.0
1980
1.7
2.2
3.5
18.3
75.4
1990
1.4
1.8
2.1
11.3
83.4
Source: Korzeniewicz, R.P. and T.P. Moran, "World Economic Trends in Distribution of
Income, 1965-1992;' American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 102, January 1997.
52 • William I. Robinson
military spending and wars to contain the downtrodden and the unrepentant.
Historical outcomes are always open ended, subject to contingencies and to being
pushed in new and unforeseen directions. The crisis in no way guarantees, the
ascendancy of popular oppositional forces. It would be foolish to predict with any
conviction the outcome of the looming crisis of global capitalism.
The Washington consensus, it is broadly recognized, had cracked by the turn
of the century. 26 What may replace the neo-liberal order in Latin America and in
global society depends on the struggle to oppose the neo-liberal order and also,
inseparable from the struggle, on developing a viable alternative and imposing
that alternative. Precisely because the neo-liberal phase of global capitalism may
be coming to a close, resistance must move beyond the critique of neoliberalism.
The problem of the particular neo-liberal model is in the end symptomatic of
the systemic problem of global capitalism. It is not clear, however, how effective
national alternatives can be in transforming social structures, given the ability
of transnational capital to utilize its structural power to impose its project even
over states that are captured by forces adverse to that project. Neither 'Socialism
in one country' nor 'Keynesianism in one country' can any longer be sustained.
The rise of a global justice movement is the clearest example that popular and
oppositional forces began to transnationalize in the 1990s, moving to create
alliances, networks, and organizations that transcend national and even
regional borders. The prospects for counter-hegemonic social change in the age
of globalization is a globalization-from-below movement that seeks to challenge
the power of the global elite by accumulating counter-hegemonic forces
beyond national and regional borders.
Notes
1.
2.
3.
4.
See interaliaAglietta, M., "A Theory of Capitalist Regulation;' in Kotz, D.M., T.M. McDonough,
and M. Reich, Eds., Social Structures of Accumulation: The Political Economy of Growth
and Crisis, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England 1994; Arrighi, G., The Long
Twentieth Century, Verso, London, 1994; Harvey, D., The Limits to Capital, University of
Chicago Press, Chicago, 1982.
See Williamson, J., "Democracy and the 'Washington Consensus~' World Development,
Vol. 21, 1993, p. 1329; Williamson, J., Ed., Latin American Adjustment: How Much Has
Happened?Institute for International Economics, Washington, DC, 1990.
The notion of a TCC is certainly not new nor exclusively my own. See Sklair, L., The
Transnational Capitalist Class, Blackwell, London, 2002. See Robinson, W.I., A Theory of
Global Capitalism: Transnational Production, Transnational Classes, and the Rise of a
Transnational State, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2004, chap. 2 for a review
of the literature on the transnationalization of capitalists.
The literature on globalization and global political economy is too vast to reference here.
For a collection surveying recent theoretical directions, see Palan, R., Ed., Global Political
Economy: Contemporary Theories, Routledge, London, 2000. On my theoretical propositions and empirical studies on globalization, see inter alia Robinson, W.I., A Theory of
Global Capitalism: Production, Class, and State in a Transnational World, Johns Hopkins
University Press, , Baltimore, 2004; Transnational Conflicts: Central America, Social Change
and Globalization, Verson, London, 2004; Promoting Polyarchy: Globalization, U.S. Intervention, and Hegemony, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England 1996; "Globalisation: Nine Theses of Our Epoch," Race and Class, Vol. 18, 1996, p. 13; "Social Theory and
Globalization: The Rise of a Transnational State;' Theory and Society, Vol. 30, 2001, p. 157;
Latin America and the Empire of Global Capital • 53
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
"The Transnational Capitalist Class and the Transnational State," in Dunaway, W.A., Ed.,
New Theoretical Directions for the 21st Century World System, Greenwood Press,
Portsmouth, NH, 2003.
Neo-liberalism is the specific mechanism that adjusts national and regional economies to the
global economy by creating the conditions, including an appropriate macroeconomic and
policy environment, the legal framework, and so on, for internal productive reorganization
and insertion into the global economy. These themes are analyzed in Robinson, W.I., "Social
Theory and Globalization: The Rise of a Transnational State;' Theory and Society, Vol. 30,
2001, p. 157; and Robinson, W.I., A Theory of Global Capitalism: Production, Class, and State
in a Transnational World, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2004. For analysis of
neo-liberal adjustment in Latin America, see also Green, D., Silent Revolutions: The Rise of
Market Economics in Latin America, Cassell, London, 1995. See also Chossudovsky, M., The
Globalization of Poverty: Impacts ofIMP and World Bank Reforms, Zed, London, 1997.
See Green, Silent Revolutions; Robinson, W.I., "Latin America in the Age of Inequality:
Confronting the New Utopia;' International Studies Review, Vol. 1, 1999, p. 41.
See Wilkie, J.A., Ed., Statistical Abstracts for Latin America (SALA), Vol. 31, University of
California, Los Angeles, 1995.
World Bank, Country Tables, 1998-2000, p. 36; Economic Commission for Latin America
and the Caribbean (ECLAC), reports, 1985 and 1994-1995.
Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Economic Survey of
Latin America and the Caribbean, 1998-1999, p. 114.
World Bank, Poverty and Income Distribution in Latin America: The Story of the 1980s,
Washington, DC, 1997.
See various reports of the Comision Economica para America Latina (CEPAL), Panorama
Social de America Latina, Santiago, Chile.
Ibid.
For detailed discussion of the informalization of work in Central America, see Robinson,
W.i., Transnational Conflicts: Central America, Social Change and Globalization.
"Great Reforms, Nice Growth, but Where Are the Jobs?" The Economist, 21, March 1998, p. 37.
World Bank, Poverty and Income Distribution in Latin America: The Story of the 1980s,
Washington, DC, 1997.
United Nations Development Program (UNDP ), Human Development Report 1995, Oxford
University Press, New York, 1995.
See Barkin, D., I. Ortiz, and F. Rosen, "Globalization and Resistance: The Remaking of Mexico;'
NACLA Report on the Americas, Vol. XXX, January/February 1997, p. 14.
See Gabetta, C., "Argentina: IMF Show State Revolts," Le Monde Diplomatique, January 12,
2002, www.mondediplo.com/2002/0l/l2argentina.
See United Nations Development Program (UNDP ), Human Development Report 1995,
Oxford University Press, New York, 1995, p. 7.
For detailed discussion of the issues raised in this section, see Robinson, W.I., Promoting
Polyarchy: Globalization, U.S. Intervention, and Hegemony; Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, England 1996; Robinson, W.I., "Promoting Capitalist Polyarchy: The Case of
Latin America," in Cox, M., G.J. Ikenberry, and T. Inoguchi, Eds., American Democracy Promotion: Impulses, Strategies, and Impacts, Oxford University Press, New York, 2000.
See Green, Silent Revolutions; Robinson, W.I., "Latin America in the Age of Inequality:
Confronting the New Utopia;' International Studies Review, Vol. 1, 1999, p. 41.; Walton,
). and D. Seddon, Free Markets and Food Riots: The Politics of Global Adjustment, Blackwell,
Oxford, 1994.
See inter alia various contributions in NACLA Report on the Americas, Vol. XXXVI,
July/ August 2002.
For discussion, see Habel, J. "U.S. Demands a Secure, Compliant Hemisphere," Le Monde
Diplomatique, January 16, 2002, english@monde-diplomatique.fr.
See "Make or Break: A Survey of Brazil," The Economist, February 22, 2003, special section
following p. 54.
Walton, ). and D. Seddon, Free Markets and Food Riots: The Politics of Global Adjustment,
Blackwell, Oxford, 1994.
See, e.g., Broad, R. and R. Cavanagh, "The Death of the Washington Consensus?" in Broad,
R., Ed., Global Backlash: Citizen Initiatives for a Just World Economy, Rowman & Littlefield,
Lanham MD, 2003.
4
Empire and Labor: U.S. and
Latin America
JAMES PETRAS
Introduction
Different kinds of empire building exert different impacts on the labor force,
class politics, and anti-imperialist movements. A corollary to this is that the
diverse structures of labor and their socio-political expressions have significantly different impacts on the process of empire building.
Labor formation in diverse regions cannot be deduced from abstract global
economic categories, even less so can the diverse forms of social and political
action. This paper will focus on the "new imperialism" emerging from the U.S.
in the post-Vietnam, post-Soviet period and its evolving class composition,
modus operandi, and impact on labor both in the U.S. and in Latin America.
Secondly we will examine the changing nature of the labor force in Latin
America and the new forms of social organization emerging to challenge the
new imperialism.
The New Imperialism
Imperialism in its various expressions and configurations has been with us for
a long time. In recent times, at least since World War II, imperialism has been
associated with the U.S. drive to undermine the previous European colonial
system and to replace it with a new set of regimes that are "formally independent" but are actually client states of Washington. This imperial system has
been described as neo-colonialism because the local leaders are seen as administering their states at the service of U.S. multi-national corporations (MNCs)
and banks.
The U.S. informal empire was built and sustained by a number of inter-related
pillars: (1) wars and military interventions, (2) covert intelligence operations,
(3) market forces, and (4) the financial clout of multilateral financial institutions (International Monetary Fund, World Bank) and the economic agencies
of the imperial state (Department of the Treasury, Department of Commerce,
Export-Import Bank, etc.). The driving forces of U.S. empire building from
1950 through 1973 were its MNCs and its military. From the early 1970s to the
55
56 • James Petras
early 1980s, U.S. imperial expansion was largely fueled by MNCs; banks; surrogate
military forces in Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Angola, Guinea Bissau, and
Mozambique; and the military regimes throughout Latin America. More significantly, important political collaborators in the U.S.S.R. and Eastern
Europe, nurtured and financed by state and private agencies, converted the
former collectivist economies into U.S. vassal states, integrated and subordinated to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and run by predator regimes
closely linked to international crime syndicates allied with the U.S. empire.
The collapse of the collectivist regimes in the Eastern Europe and Central
Asia and their subsequent conquest via collaborative predators gave a big
boost to U.S. imperial drive, widening its scope to the world conquest envisioned by George H. Bush's "New World Order" after the Gulf War, the colonization of Iraqi airspace, and division of its territory.
The empire received further impetus from Bill Clinton's Balkan Wars, his
nuclear brinkmanship with North Korea, and the worldwide spread of the
neo-liberal doctrine. Yeltsin's Russia became a quasidependency of the U.S.
and an arc of client associates from the Baltic Sea area (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia),
Central Europe (Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary), the Balkans (Macedonia,
Montenegro, Kosovo, Albania), and Central Asia (Georgia) defined the new
frontiers of Clinton's empire.
A new imperialism took shape around U.S. military outposts; Wall Street's
financial speculators; client predator capitalists in the "host countries"; and
neo-liberal collaborators in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. The end of the
Cold War served as the beginning of a new virulent strain of imperialism
built around a sense of impunity-a unipolar power configuration in which
Washington saw itself as the center of the universe.
The public policy of the new empire operates through economic directives
to the client states, political blackmail, economic threats to European and
Asian allies, and military and covert actions against recalcitrant independent
states. The "new imperialism" took a different form and substance with the ascendancy of the George W. Bush Administration and demise of Wall Street's speculative bubble. The driving forces backing the imperial presidency shifted from
Wall Street investment bankers to the energy-petroleum and military-industrial complexes. A cabinet dominated by ultraright militarist ideologues replaced the conservative free marketeers of the Clinton imperial era. Empire
building through the economic components of the imperial state were
replaced by the ideologues of permanent war, military conquests, and colony(nation-) building.
The new imperialist became self-consciously imperialist. Some spokespeople
and publicists openly embraced the designation of imperial power, even as
they continued to attribute to it a humanitarian mission. The new imperialism
in its militarist variant looks toward strategies of war, military logistics, the
elaboration of a vast military and security apparatus, and major increases in
Empire and Labor: U.S. and Latin America • 57
military spending. Economic costs and deteriorating economic conditions are
given short shrift. The domestic and Euro-Japanese economic recessions are
ignored. Only war and terrorism matter. A sequence of planned imperial wars
targeted Afghanistan, Iraq, and other countries-the imperially designated
"axes of evil" largely composed of states independent of the U.S.
The relative autonomy of the military component of the imperial state in relation to the capitalist class, particularly its industrial and financial sectors, exerts significant impact on the labor forces in the U.S. and elsewhere. The Bush
regime is primarily linked to the petroleum-energy and military-industrial
sectors of the economy and secures the support of most of the rest of the capitalist class via bailouts, subsidies, massive tax reductions, and interventions on
behalf of business in labor disputes.
The cohesive bloc of capitalists around the Bush regime's militarist-imperialist
agenda is strengthened by big-business support for the neo-liberal policies
promoted overseas. These policies provide unhindered access to markets; buyouts oflucrative privatized mines, industries; and banks; and favorable labor legislation that decreases social costs and raises profits. However, just as German
business prospered at the start of Nazi imperial expansion only to run a cropper
through its overextended military operations and declining economic base, U.S.
imperialism has also accumulated trade imbalances, ballooning budget deficits,
and a stagnant domestic industrial base heavily dependent on protection, subsidies, and quotas on imports. The empire grows but the republic declines, and with
it, the social conditions of salaried and wage-earning labor.
Imperialism and Class War in Latin America
Warfare takes many political forms, and policymakers frequently combine
them. In Latin America, the U.S. empire was built through surrogate military
generals, one-party authoritarians, and international financial institutions.
From the mid-1970s onward, a series of military coups physically annihilated
anti-imperialist, independent regimes, and class forces and put in place the
military clients and socio-economic institutions that allowed imperial banks
and MN Cs to conquer the Latin American economies. After the initial military
regimes and the takeover of strategic economic positions by public and private
collaborators, the empire supported the transition to civilian client regimes
that deepened and extended the process of indirect empire building.
Empire building has a major negative impact on labor: Military rule was
sustained through state terror and led to the physical elimination of all autonomous trade unions; mental and physical trauma; and the exiles of hundreds
of thousands of skilled technical, professional, and research workers. This
eliminated autonomous sources of research and development and guaranteed
the imperial monopoly of these strategic areas of the economy. Privatization
led to the weakening or disappearance of trade unions, massive displacement
of skilled and unskilled workers, creation of ghost towns, and the pillage and
58 • James Petras
asset stripping of many privatized firms. Workers lost many social benefits via
corporate restructuring that included the proliferation of short-term labor contracts and a rotating labor force. The results were massive growth of structural
unemployment, declines in living standards, and the weakening of labor
unions and contracts. The new private-foreign and domestic-owners were
able to take advantage of new business-friendly labor legislation to further
weaken trade unions and increase the income polarization between executives
and foreign shareholders on the one hand and salaried and wage workers
on the other. Workers lost as producers (wages, job security, social benefits)
and as consumers (higher public utility, transport, health, education, and
pension costs).
Extortionate debt payments led to mass transfer of public resources upward and out of the country, depleting the state of public capital for financing infrastructures, public works, improved economic competitiveness,
research, and social welfare. The result was that employment in construction
declined, shares of world markets shrank, and the productive economy
became subordinated to the financial sector that thrived under the new
deregulated economy.
Trade liberalization based on indiscriminant and nonreciprocal trade agreements eliminated trade barriers in Latin America, which led to the invasion of
subsidized imports form the U.S. and the European Union, the loss of markets
by domestic producers, and large-scale bankruptcies of peasant and small and
medium agricultural producers. In the urban sector, small- and medium-sized
industries failed, leading to the growth of a burgeoning informal sector and
unregulated sweatshops.
The virtual collapse of the neo-liberal model led to massive unemployment, the disintegration of the industrial and productive fabric of the
provinces, widespread malnutrition, the expansion of urban slums, and
emigration overseas to low-paying dirty jobs in the U.S. and Western Europe.
Empire building inverts the income pyramid: Massive transfers of income
and wealth move upward to the top 5% while the lowest 80% below suffer
significant losses of income.
Empire building is essentially a form of class warfare from above. Military
dictatorships and neo-liberal regimes are the principle vehicles for enhancing the
benefits for empire-based MNCs, banks, and powerful local financial groups.
The social groups physically excluded from decision making and suffering the
greatest socio-economic losses are the working class, peasantry, unemployed,
salaried employees, women, indigenous peoples, and the young.
Pillage and Exploitation
Traditional theories of imperialism describe several stages in which initial
pillage is followed by mercantilist trade, then by an unequal international division of labor between finished-goods producers and raw-material exporters.
Empire and Labor: U.S. and Latin America • 59
The final stage consists of exchanges between low-end countries with cheap
manufacturing industries and the high-tech service economies of the imperial
states. This schema is basically flawed. To understand the nature of U.S. empire
building, certain essential dimensions not taken into account by the traditional
stage theory must be considered:
1. The transfer of tens of billions of dollars of ill-gotten funds from Latin
America through U.S. banks to the U.S. is a form of plunder reminiscent of the first stage of empire building and plays a vital role in sustaining the otherwise unsustainable U.S. trade deficit, the strength of
the dollar, and, in the final analysis, the U.S. economy. The transfer of
billions of dollars of illegally secured fortunes is accomplished
through U.S., Canadian, and European banks (and in many cases by
Euro-North American banks). The scope and depth of financial fraud
and the appropriation of funds from millions of middle-class savers are
of systemic proportions.
In Mexico from the early 1990s to the end of the decade, over $100
billion in state loans to private firms were "unaccountable" (pilfered).
The government intervened to bail out the banks at the taxpayers' expense and at the cost of social expenditures. In the same period,
Ecuador experienced a $40 billion dollar financial swindle that led to
massive losses for savers and again a state bailout of the banks. A $60
billion dollar banking swindle in Argentina impoverished millions of
middle- and lower-middle-class depositors through losses of their
savings and pensions.
These cases of massive fraud and transfer of funds had a profound
impact on the financial system, state budgets, and class formation. In
the larger financial setting, the prime losers are the markets because retail investors lost confidence in the system and small-scale borrowers
were squeezed out of the credit market by new high interest rates
designed to entice overseas speculators. The state bailouts led to a
restructuring of the budget, eliminating vital social programs and
reducing financing for productive sectors.
Most significantly, fraud led to the mass impoverishment of the
middle class in a direct and visible manner. The effect was the proletarianization of social and living conditions of the middle class, reducing its size and radicalizing its outlook. The middle class turned to
militant public protest and social alliances with the poor. This is most
graphically illustrated in Argentina where neighborhood assemblies
of the middle class and pensioners have joined with unemployed
picketers in mass protests and a popular uprising.
2. The neo-liberal strategy of empire building has deindustrialized a
significant number of countries in Latin America and led them
60 • James Petras
toward greater dependence on a limited array of agro-mineral products. The reversion to an earlier international division of labor in some
countries created an immense pool of unemployed former industrial
workers who subsist at the margins of the productive economy. The new
export enclaves have introduced new labor-saving technologies that facilitate greater integration via subordination to the imperial, commercial, and financial circuits. Theoretically this reversion to an earlier form
of the international division of labor calls into question linear concepts
of history that exclude the role of class relations and class struggle.
3. The U.S.'s increase in subsidies for agricultural exports and protective
tariffs on agricultural and industrial products while pursuing free
trade in Latin America suggests that the inter-American trading
regime more closely resembles a mercantilist rather than a free-trade
empire-in other words, a reversion to stage two of the traditional
schema. The U.S. empire's electoral politics requires political and
social stability at home in order to recruit imperial soldiers, mobilize
political support, and divert resources to conquest. This requires that
noncompetitive sectors of the economy that include constituents influential in national or regional politics (cotton, sugar, and citrus
farmers; textile, steel, and other manufacturers) be satisfied. Hence,
the new imperialism combines free trade that benefits its competitive
sectors with protectionism for its noncompetitive but politically important economic sectors. The net result ties sectors of the U.S. trade
unions to the imperial state (in pursuit of protectionism) and weakens
trade unions in Latin America via unemployment or alliances with
export elites that demand greater access to U.S. markets.
4. Washington's drive to impose the Latin American Area of Free Trade
(ALCA is the Spanish acronym) involves the establishment of a trade and
investment commission to oversee compliance with the treaty. This
commission will be dominated and, most likely, located in the U.S.
(Miami?), thus eliminating Latin American sovereignty.
Neo-liberal policies have created a core group of supporters in Latin
America for ALCA-style recolonization. The high-profile role of International
Financial Institutions in Latin American economic decision making has already
laid the groundwork and promoted the core leaders for implementing ALCA.
The key theoretical point is that ALCA provides the de jure as well as de facto
setting for the effective recolonization of Latin America, reversing the process
of the last three stages of imperialism.
The recolonization process means that labor struggles are increasingly
politicized and directed against ALCA as an instrument of domination. Massive
peasants' and workers' demonstrations against ALCA are visible and are the
best indicators of the rise oflabor-based anti-imperialism. ALCA is understood
Empire and Labor: U.S. and Latin America • 61
by many labor and peasant activists as an extension and deepening of the neoliberal policies that produced catastrophic impacts on living standards and
working conditions.
These heterodox features of U.S. empire building in Latin America require
a rethinking of historical processes and a more nuanced understanding of the
complexities of the relation of empire building to class structure and the labor
force in Latin America.
Combined and Uneven Development
Despite these historical structural reversions in form and substance of
contemporary empire building, the retrograde relations are combined with
the introduction of modern forms of production and social relations. Hightech industries-extremely deflated and in some cases marginalized-coexist
or interpenetrate with the growth of a huge barter economy among the
impoverished millions.
Landless workers and bankrupt subsistence peasants serve as temporary
laborers on agro-export corporate farms that apply the latest in genetically modified seeds and computerized marketing. The most modern stylish clothing retailers import goods from subcontractors that employ young women workers in
sweatshops and pay them poverty wages. Organized international crime gangs
who reinvest in modern real estate, treasury notes, and shopping malls in the
U.S., Europe, and Latin America exploit sex slaves, including children.
The highly privatized economies continue in tension and warfare with powerful enclaves of state enterprises defended by militant trade unions operating in
a sea of nonunionized labor. Strategic economic sectors in electricity (Mexico,
Ecuador) and petroleum (Mexico, Brazil, Ecuador, Venezuela) remain mostly
public in a sea of privatized corporations.
Uneven and combined development also is evident in the class alliances
and class relations among the labor force. Workers employed in some countries in strategic, highly productive, and high-profit economic enclaves have
allied themselves with mass rural movements, particularly indigenous groups.
In Mexico, highly paid unionized electrical workers support the Zapatistas,
and petroleum workers in Ecuador ally with militant Indians and unemployed
workers' movements. In contrast, Venezuelan sectors of the petrol workers
have joined forces with the U.S.-supported right-wing business elite seeking to
overthrow an elected nationalist, populist regime. In Argentina, impoverished
or unemployed middle-class sectors have joined with the unemployed, and the
traditional trade union confederation of metal and manufacturing workers is
allied with the neo-liberal regime.
The combined and uneven development of the economy is evident in the
over-developed high-tech financial-speculative sectors and the deindustrialized
and impoverished productive economy, modern shopping malls and vast barter
economy systems, the computerized high-tech elite and the barrio residents
62 • James Petras
living in poverty, the super-rich, and the indigent. U.S. empire building in Latin
America combines the modem and retrograde in deeply class-polarized societies.
The increasingly heterogeneous nature of labor is a product of the uneven
and combined development resulting from contemporary empire building.
The new imperialism does not create a growing modem industrial proletariat
and its subjects are not uniform in ethnic, racial, or gender composition. What
does unite the disparate sectors of labor are declining living standards, physical
and occupational displacement, downward mobility, the political intervention
of new social leaders, new organizational structures, and increasing reliance on
direct-action tactics. The older established trade unions (manufacturing in
Argentina and petroleum in Venezuela) that persist in defending their narrow,
relatively privileged positions have come into direct conflict with the new
socio-political labor movements.
Impact of Combined and Uneven Development on Class Formation
Understanding socio-economic processes is crucial to interpreting class
formation under the U.S. empire. These include massive downward mobility,
large-scale long-term out migration, class conversion across the social spectrum, and, most importantly the emergence of an extremely polarized class
structure in which the upper 0.1 % of multibillionaires control assets that
exceed those of the lowest 50%.
The key to solving the problems of poverty or extreme poverty is elimination
of extreme wealth and the transfer of financial resources upward and outward
through international financial circuits and networks of correspondent banks of
the top ten banks in the U.S. Neo-liberal policies; state intervention; U.S. military missions; and new regulatory regimes composed of U.S.-trained economists, local financial representatives, and officials of U.S. banks, The World
Bank, and the International Monetary Fund created a new class structure in
Latin America and set in motion the social dynamics within the structure.
The New Ruling Class
At the top of the class structure are the billionaire owners of a diversified
array of big enterprises, banks, and trading companies that represent, at
most, 1% of the population. Their ascendancy was not attained through the
normal operation of market forces. Most had their business beginnings as
recipients of government contracts-usually via political connections. The
second step in upward mobility was accomplished under the military dictatorships and the subsequent neo-liberal privatization process. Once again,
through close working relations with the military ties to the neo-liberal
economic and financial ministries, the billionaires were able to secure
monopolistic control over lucrative public enterprises.
The third step usually involved entry into the speculative-pension
fund-banking and financial fraud circuits. Billions were made via overseas
Empire and Labor: U.S. and Latin America • 63
borrowing and currency speculation, differential interest rates (between
overseas and domestic lending), the privatization of pension funds (where
management fees almost always ran to double digits), and billion-dollar bank
frauds.
The key to the ascendancy of this new ruling class was deregulation of the
economy and its dual linkages-the ease with which it moves capital in and
out of a country and in and out of economic sectors. State power is central
to the ascendancy and consolidation of this new ruling class, and the class is
assured that it will retain its position by having its representatives hold key
government positions, for example, in the central bank and the ministries of
economy and finance. The new ruling class constitutes a hybrid of owners and
directors of foreign-owned enterprises as well nationals. Both groups govern
through local political (the presidency) and international financial institutions (IFI, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund). The formation of the new ruling class is a result of the economic opportunities opened
by political institutional power. Members of the ruling class are not self-made
and the ascents were not the results of market forces.
What is theoretically important for class formation is the process of class conversion. At the level of the ruling class, the conversion is from entrepreneurial to
financial and speculative activity resulting in large-scale overseas transfers. This
change in class configuration led to dramatic changes affecting the rest of the
class structure. Equally significant, this change led to the establishment of a core
group favoring ALCA and the recolonization of Latin America.
The Middle Class: The New Divisions
The upwardly mobile middle classes include elite groups of politicians, consultants, economists, stock brokers, investment bankers, publicists, and political go-betweens who serve the ruling class directly. They are accompanied by
private service providers such as doctors, corporate and labor lawyers, private
security agencies, politicians, generals, police chiefs, procurers, high-end prostitutes, and others who tend to the economic interests, security, welfare, and
whims of the ruling class. This upwardly mobile segment of the middle class
grew wealthy through the privatization process. Its members constitute a
visible, accessible, and noisy stratum that attracts the attention of political
scientists studying "democratic politics."
The bulk of the middle class is made up of public- and private-sector employees, including medical and educational professionals, medium- and smallbusiness people, farmers, and manufacturers. This sector of the middle class
has suffered from three simultaneously negative processes: downward social
mobility (both in status and income), loss of employment, and lack of representation in the political process.
The result has been a new process of forced class conversion from middle
class to unemployed and from underemployed to working class. Throughout
64 • James Petras
Latin America, the middle class has shrunk; its quality of life has sharply
deteriorated; and it has become active in the streets and ballot box by allying
itself with diametrically opposing political movements, depending on the
country.
In Argentina, the middle class was swindled out of billions of dollars in
savings under the Menem and de la Rua regimes. Between the recession in
1999 and the depression and devaluation of 2001 through 2002, middle-class
living standards plunged 60%, unemployment rose to over 25%, and the bulk
of the middle class became impoverished. They worked as self-employed
street vendors, middle-aged prostitutes, and taxi drivers and engaged in the
barter economy. The Argentine experience is important because it raises
important questions about the impact of neo-liberal politics on the middle
class. Before 1998, the biggest and most affluent middle class in Latin America
was found in Argentina-the country that went furthest in applying neo-liberal prescriptions.
The regressive impact of the neo-liberal policies on the vast majority of the
middle class gives lie to the claims of pro-empire ideologues and economists
that free-market policies lead to increasing prosperity and a larger and more
affluent middle class. The mass impoverishment and downward mobility of
the majority of the middle class has been a determining factor in their turn
toward anti-ALCA and anti-imperialist politics.
The internal polarization of the middle class is highly skewed, with the
close-knit minority clamoring in favor of ALCA whereas the impoverished
majority opposes it.
The responses of the disenchanted and downwardly mobile middle class in
Latin America are extremely varied. In Argentina, the middle class, especially
the public employee and pensioner sectors, turned to the left by organizing in
popular neighborhood assemblies, participating in the overthrow of the de la
Rua regime, joining the unemployed workers in marches and road blocks,
and providing support to workers who occupy factories. In Brazil, most activists, cadres, and delegates to the Workers' Party congresses are public employees, although the bulk of voters are workers and the urban and rural
poor. The moderate reformist promises of the Lula presidency reflect the
changing composition of the party and its leadership-its becoming a de
facto party of the middle class. In Bolivia and Ecuador, support for leftist Evo
Morales and populist Lucio Gutierrez came from sectors of the downwardly
mobile middle class.
In contrast, in Venezuela and Mexico, the middle class turned toward the
right. The downwardly mobile middle class in Venezuela aligned itself with
the pro-coup U.S.-backed far right, engaging in sustained street demonstrations, blaming the regime for the loss of purchasing power, and deeply resenting the rising influence of the predominantly poor black Chavez supporters.
The case of Mexico is more complex as the downward mobility of the middle
Empire and Labor: U.S. and Latin America • 65
class first led to a move to the left in the late 1980s and early 1990s and then a
shift to the free-market right supporting President Fox in 2000. Downward
mobility, class conversion, and loss of social status of the middle classes in
Latin America led to divergent political expression, depending on the political context, based on who is in power and who can be identified as the source
of their malaise. There is no intrinsic factor predisposing the downwardly
mobile middle class in one direction or another.
Working Class and Empire
Empire building based on neo-liberal policies and military intervention has
had a profoundly negative effect on the working class, labor legislation, and
trade union organization. First and foremost, the economic policies implemented by client regimes led to the massive conversion of workers into unemployed, underemployed, and low-paid self-employed street vendors and
itinerant laborers. In Argentina, where more than 35% of the labor force was
employed in manufacturing 30 years ago, manufacturing labor represents only
17% of the work force. The unemployment rate hovers around 20% to 25%
and exceeds 50% in working class neighborhoods.
Bolivia has experienced massive losses of manufacturing and mining jobs
and the growth of an informal sector that constitutes about 80% of the labor
force. Similar patterns occurred in Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia. In Brazil,
unemployment and underemployment total over 40% of the labor force, and
the informal sector is growing. The maquiladora sector in Mexico is declining
as many assembly plants move to China, resulting in the loss of hundreds of
thousands of poorly paid jobs.
The social consequences include the fragmentation and dispersion of employment, declines in trade union membership, and radical changes in labor
legislation. What employers and orthodox economists call labor reform legislation provides employers with greater power to fire workers at lower costs in
terms of severance pay and gives them greater control over workplaces and
working conditions. The result for workers frequently is longer hours without
overtime pay. Equally important, employers evade payments to social insurance programs and pension plans and increasingly delay wage payments.
Many employers have withheld wage payments for several months and then
closed their factories, removing the machinery and refusing to compensate
workers; wages have been arbitrarily reduced frequently.
The negative impact of empire building covers most but not all sectors of the
working class. Highly organized workers in strategic sectors in some countries
have been able to resist the general employer offensive and the empire's push to
privatize strategic sectors. In Ecuador and Mexico, electrical and petroleum
workers have successfully defended their living standards via militant action and
disciplined organization. In some countries, these militant well-paid sectors
have developed ties with other popular urban movements to resist neo-liberal
66 • James Petras
measures and regimes, for example, in Ecuador. In other countries, trade union
officials have become closely allied with privileged, corrupt senior executives
and have taken action against positive legislation favoring the urban poor, as is
the case of petroleum workers in Venezuela.
In Argentina, after privatization, many petroleum-processing centers were
closed, leading to massive unemployment and the organization of militant unemployed workers' movements, such as in Neuquen Province.
In Colombia, U.S. military intervention via Plan Colombia led to murderous assaults, killings, and torture of hundreds of trade union leaders, activists,
and members. In some cases employers contracted with paramilitary groups
to eliminate labor leaders-as was the case in the Coca Cola plant.
The process of empire building includes the direct appropriation of strategic
industries, the elimination of trade barriers, and the dismantling oflabor legislation, all which increase the rates of profit for MN Cs. The effects on the working
class include a profound decline in organization and living and working conditions. As a consequence, factory workers and miners in many parts of Latin
America have lost the central role in the popular struggles for social transformation and reform. Trade unions have been able to protect living and working conditions only through alliances with more-dynamic urban and rural groups.
In Argentina, unionized public employees were able to force the resignation
of the de la Rua regime after he imposed a 13% wage cut. The popular assemblies
of the middle class and the road blockages of the unemployed workers toppled
his regime through mass protest.
In Bolivia, pensioners and urban workers' salary requirements were included in a list of ten demands put forth by the militant coca farmers' confederations that organized major highway blockages which overthrew the
Sanchez de Losada regime. The peasant confederations are the most effective
mass-opposition political organizations. The theoretical point is that new
sectors of the peasantry, working class, and impoverished salary workers have
emerged to provide leadership, organization, and spirit to the class as a whole.
The unemployed workers' movement in Argentina has been at the forefront
of mass road blockages accompanied by demands for jobs, food, and housing.
Urban neighborhood assemblies of downwardly mobile middle class citizens
have joined militant urban protests and road blockages in Argentina, Peru, and
Bolivia. Urban coalitions involving a broad array of urban social forces have
been at the forefront of general strikes in Cochabamba, Bolivia (protesting the
privatization of public utilities and water); Arequipa Peru; Quito, Ecuador;
Santo Domingo; and Bogota, Colombia.
The organization of movements has shifted from the workplace to the
neighborhood. Tactics have shifted from factory-based strikes to blockages of
transportation networks. In many cases, urban workers' movements have been
successful in defeating the implementation of privatization measures and in
securing immediate concessions.
Empire and Labor: U.S. and Latin America • 67
Theoretically, what is significant is the capacity of unemployed industrial
workers to organize cohesive movements outside the factories-in neighborhoods-and bring to bear new tactics affecting the circulation of commodities
and the realization of profits. The declines of trade unionism and factory
employment have been offset by the growth of mass urban movements peopled
by the downwardly mobile working and middle classes that have been
displaced, exploited, and impoverished.
Rural Labor
Probably the most devastating impact of empire building has been on the
rural labor force, particularly peasants, small farmers, subsistence farmers,
rural laborers, and indigenous communities. The massive entree of subsidized
agricultural products from the U.S. and European Union has ruined small
producers and bankrupted rural cooperatives. In Mexico, over 2 million peasant families-mostly small farmers and Indians-have been forced off the
land since the North America Free Trade Agreement was implemented. In
Brazil, under President Cardoso's neo-liberal regime (1995 through 2002),
over 1.5 million peasant and family farmers were forced off the land. About a
third of small farmers and peasants in Ecuador, the majority of whom are
Indians, have been forced off the land in the past decade.
The neo-liberal regimes have financed agro-export sectors, starved smallscale food producers of credit and technical assistance, and opened the floodgates to cheap subsidized food imports. The results are fourfold: ( 1) large-scale
out migration to urban slums, swelling the unemployed and informal labor
sectors and emigration overseas; (2) the growth of alternative crops such as
coca that provide livable incomes (Bolivia, Colombia, Peru); (3) the growth of a
rural landless labor force; and (4) the re-emergence of radical peasant-Indian
socio-political movements.
The conversion of peasants to urban informal activity is a result of the
deindustrializing effects of neo-liberal policies. Industry cannot absorb rural
migrants. To defuse the potential for urban uprising, the World Bank financed
more than 10,000 nongovernment organizations (NGOs) to establish socalled local empowerment activities such as antipoverty and self-help projects
to prevent the emergence of mass socio-political movements challenging the
empire and its client state. In Ecuador, Bolivia, and Peru, NGO-based organizations have attached themselves to communities and in some cases to Indian
movements, turning them in more-conservative directions. A few poorly
funded NGOs have attempted to defend the human rights of social movement
activists subject to torture, imprisonment, and state and paramilitary violence.
Rural-to-urban migration is no longer a vehicle for upward mobility
because the migrants must compete with the growing number of urban
unemployed for the poorest-paying temporary jobs. In some cases, the rural
migrants have become active in burgeoning urban movements.
68 • James Petras
The subjective response of peasant and rural workers is resorting to rudimentary exchanges to sustain a subsistence existence based on traditional reciprocal
relations. The extended family and community ties help pool scarce resources for
survival. These survival strategies, however, are perceived to be inadequate.
Not infrequently, family resources allow family members to emigrate overseas
to find employment and then remit portions of their income to sustain their
impoverished rural families.
More fundamentally, powerful rural movements based on economic and
ethnic demands have emerged throughout Latin America. The most significant include the Landless Workers' Movement (MST) in Brazil; CONAIE,
FENOCIN, and other groups in Ecuador; the Cocaleros of Chapare and
several other peasant federations in Bolivia; and the National Peasant Federation in Paraguay. These movements have had major impacts on changing land
tenure. The MST has occupied land and settled 350,000 families in less than 20
years. In Ecuador, the peasant-Indian movements overthrew two corrupt
neo-liberal regimes. Throughout Latin America, such movements have
become major forces in the anti-ALCA and anti-imperialist movements.
The conversion of peasants into landless or subsistence farmers produced a
radicalizing impact throughout Latin America. In Bolivia, the closing of the
tin mines and the conversion of miners into coca farmers has radicalized the
rural movements. The displacement and appropriation of peasant lands in
Colombia by military and narco-paramilitary forces increased the ranks of the
two guerrilla movements in Colombia.
The result of conversion and social organization is that the principal radical
opposition to U.S. empire building in many Latin American countries has
moved to the countryside. This is clearly the case with the Zapatista Movement
in Mexico that launched its uprising in Chiapas on January 1, 1994, the day
NAFTA was inaugurated. In 2003, the major opposition to the full implementation of NAFTA has been a nationwide rural protest that included blocking
major highways, hunger strikes, and threats to destabilize commercial traffic
between the U.S. and Mexico. Important urban trade unions pledged support
to peasant-led demands for NAFTA revision. No other social force in Mexico
demonstrates the same capacity as rural labor to mobilize and take direct
action to confront empire-building commercial treaties.
Uneven and combined development in Latin America is rooted in the
concentration of investment, control, and extraction of wealth in the imperial
financial, agro-mineral, and labor-intensive assembly enclaves. This has
resulted in the regression and impoverishment of the rural sector. The imperial offensive and take-over of export earnings and budget surpluses as debt
payments has led to the abandonment of the countryside. The result is that
the geography of the empire is built around enclaves of wealth (urban
banks, mining and energy installations, ports, agro-businesses, plantations,
Empire and Labor: U.S. and Latin America • 69
transport and commercial networks, and assembly plants) and military and police
apparatuses that repress the surrounding populations and excluded classes.
Conclusion
The particular nature of U.S. empire-the relative strength of the military,
petroleum, and energy sectors-and the impact of neo-liberal policies have
led to a radical transformation of the Latin American labor force. New labor
activists, tactics, and strategies have emerged to combat the empire. The
weakest links in the empire are found precisely among its principal collaborators: the client neo-liberal states. The weakness of the client states arises from
their draconian economic measures that have destroyed the livelihoods of
millions across the social spectrum.
The empire has not developed or expanded the industrial, service, and
commercial economies of Latin America. It has created pockets or enclaves of
export growth and affluence in a sea of empty factories, abandoned fields, and
crowded slums. It has devastated and reversed a half century of social and
economic development and produced class, racial, and gender casualties. In
the process of constructing a neo-mercantilist empire of free trade and protectionism, Washington has transformed a stable urban working class into an
impoverished army of unemployed and underemployed masses. The empire
has uprooted and displaced millions of peasants through unequal trade, state
violence, and agro-business expansion.
The first consequence of the heterogeneous nature of the empire's victims was
social fragmentation leading to sporadic localized struggles and organization.
Overseas ideologues with no knowledge of movement dynamics concocted
theories of "anti-power." They argued that the emergence of local struggles
and limited demands were substitutes for taking state power. Today, as the
struggles intensify, a rich mosaic of organized socio-political labor movements
is challenging the client collaborators of the U.S. empire.
Each movement develops a particular base of organization. Ethnically
based movements are rooted in Indian communities, unemployed workers
based in the barrios are organizing, factory-based movements are linked to the
occupation of bankrupt firms, and unionized workers in strategic industries
are resisting privatization. The key to the advance of these movements is their
resort to direct mass action, blocking the transport of goods and services and
paralyzing government activities. Insofar as the movements have been
deflected into electoral politics as the primary political vehicle for action, they
have have lost momentum and political direction.
Anti-imperialist ideology is rapidly gaining adherents within these new
labor-peasant movements replacing the antiglobalization rhetoric of the
NGOs and their academic advocates. In 2003, anti-imperialism entered into
the programmatic struggles against ALCA, Plan Colombia, the U.S. effort to
70 • James Petras
overthrow the Chavez government, and the day-to-day struggles of farmers in
Mexico to defeat NAFTA.
The weakness of the empire is found in the loss of hegemony of its neomercantilist economic strategy of pillage, deindustrialization, and export specialization. The U.S. empire does not exercise hegemony outside government
circles and among social liberal intellectual elites. Among the activist, antiimperialist movements identified with opposition to U.S. plunder, the U.S. is
resorting to military interventions, covert actions, and economic reprisals.
The clash between the empire and the Latin American working class, unemployed masses, displaced rural classes, and downwardly mobile middle classes is
visible throughout Latin America. In socially polarized Venezuela, in the massagrarian anti-NAFTA movement in Mexico, in the civil war in Colombia, in the
struggles of the Bolivian cocaleros, among the mass unemployed workers and
popular assemblies of the middle class in Argentina, the left is striking back.
When the excluded cry out "Que se vayan todos!" (politician, get out!), they
include U.S. generals, bankers, and coup makers.
5
Sexuality in the Marketplace
BERNARDO USECHE AND AMALIA CABEZAS
Introduction
The volume of research and number of publications on human sexuality have
expanded considerably during the past decades. This renewed academic interest in
sexuality springs from the present social problems associated with sexuality, of
which AIDS is the most visible and dramatic issue, and from the social movements
since the 1960s that have sought to strengthen the visibility, empowerment, and
rights of sexual minorities. Sexuality debates are today more complicated and controversial than ever because of the complex role that sexual reproduction and
eroticism play in our contemporary market society, where sexuality is not only
another commodity to trade but also the arena of decisive ideological struggles.
Sexological knowledge has advanced as a result of studies done from different
theoretical perspectives and disciplines. However, most studies focus primarily
on sexual behavior, the physiological or psychosocial aspects of sexuality, and
postmodern discourses that exclude or limit the analysis of the socioeconomic
context of sexuality to a few local factors. Although some researchers limit themselves to studying basic or isolated aspects of human sexuality, other scientists,
scholars, and activists investigate and engage in the field of sexual politics. Thes<:
pioneers are contributing to a basic understanding of the relationship between
sexuality and political economy in this era of globalization.
This chapter integrates some of the contributions of these studies with the view
that neo-liberalism constitutes a macro social context of sexuality. We argue that
global sexual trends are directly connected to the socioeconomic conditions created by the application of neo-liberal policies. After briefly discussing the concepts
of neo-liberalism and sexuality, we maintain that the expansion of old and new
forms of the commercialization of sex, the medicalization of sexual pleasure, and
the globalization of the HN/AIDS epidemic cannot be fully understood without
an analysis of the social context created by the application of neo-liberal economic
principles. We conclude by suggesting that students of empire need to examine the
centrality of gender and sexuality to political economy and empire building.
Sex in the Neo-liberal World: Free Trade?
Neo-liberalism is the current conception and practice of monopolistic capitalism. Monopoly capital needs global expansion and control of world markets to
71
72 • Bernardo Useche and Amalia Cabezas
survive. After the collapse of the Soviet empire, a new reorganization of world
politics has emerged, with a First World circumscribed by the U.S.; a Second
World consisting of Europe and other highly industrialized countries including
China, Japan, and Russia; and an extremely poor Third World. 1 Neo-liberalism
expresses corporate interests and supports the global reign of a market
economy where everything is subject to a supposedly "free trade" that benefits
the U.S.
Based on neo-classical economic thought, neo-liberalism proposes that the
state should be "leaner and meaner;' thus reducing civil service jobs and also
state services and support in the areas of health, education, nutrition, and
housing. Since the 1970s, the political agenda of the U.S., its donor agencies,
and international regulatory institutions such as the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund have pushed economic policies that posit the
market as the universal remedy for all social problems.
Neo-liberal ideology found its perfect application in the structural adjustment programs that devastated Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean
during the past two decades. Characterized by privatization, fiscal austerity,
deregulation, trade liberalization, and government retrenchment, these
programs increased unemployment and poverty and gave rise to labor migrations,
informal labor arrangements, and extreme polarization of income throughout
the world.
The U.S. and Europe have not been spared the neo-liberal revolution.
Beginning with Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, the market has been
made the focal point for economic and social policy in the developed world as
well. With its emphasis on individual competition and market-oriented
responses to issues plaguing the populations and failing economies of postindustrial cities in the global North, collective solutions to public concerns and
redistributive justice have taken a secondary role in economic and social
development.
The change from an economy based on industrial manufacturing and a
strong welfare state to an economy based on the interests of monopoly capital
and financial speculation has been fueled by technology, information,
automation, and a large service sector of poorly paid temporary workers. The
change has exerted devastating effects on poor people all over the world. For
example, during the past 30 years, U.S. workers have experienced higher rates of
unemployment, declining real wages, higher costs of living, and longer work
weeks. The erosion oflabor market security, although taking different forms in
different countries, can be found across all European Union countries, Japan,
and the U.S. (Standing, 1999).
The neo-liberal economy has diversified, expanded, and consolidated a multibillion dollar sex industry that profits from the bodies of millions of people who
are pushed out of the labor force, must supplement their low wages with extra
earnings, and are attracted by the promise of higher wages and flexible
Sexuality in the Marketplace • 73
schedules. 2 In this context, sexual pleasure is a commodity subject to the laws
of the free-market economy. 3 The commercialization of sex has never been so
extensive and diverse and never been as integrated into the political economy as
it is in the current historical period. 4
Technological advances have made possible the permeation of sexual commerce into previously private spaces such as the home and workplace. No longer
relegated to the seedy side of town, red-light district, or regulated zone for prostitution, the sex industry has penetrated the strip malls of middle-class suburbs
under the disguise of the new"gentlemen's club:' It is not happenstance that Playboy and Playgirl magazines featured women and men who were laid off by Enron
in 2002 (Playboy, 2002; Zipp and Derasmo, 2002). Their pictorials exemplify the
values of the marketplace: if you are jobless, you still have your body to sell and a
corporation can still profit from it.
Commercial sexual transactions have divergent social meanings, depending on
the historical and cultural specificity of the exchange. Certainly, the Burmese and
Nepali girls sold into prostitution in Southeast Asia or the desperate women who
cross the border between Mexico and the U.S. daily to engage in prostitution
because they do not find jobs in the maquilas are not the equivalents of the Greek
hetaerae. The commercialization of sex is not new, but global economic polices that
favor multinational corporations, weaken national economies in the Third World,
and increase the Third World debt burden condemn a significant percentage of
poor men and women to trading sex in order to survive or advance economically.
Although men are increasingly engaged in performing sexual services for pay,
women are still the predominant providers in global sexual commerce.
Sex Tourism in the Global Economy
The World Bank and other international agencies have spent decades promoting
tourism as an alternative strategy for economic development in the Third World
(Truong, 1990; Bishop and Robinson, 1998; Cabezas, 1999). The emphasis on
such a development approach for impoverished countries will persist as long as
the World Bank's structural adjustment programs and the current free-trade
agreements promoted by the U.S. continue ruining the national agriculture,
industry, and commerce of countries everywhere (Sparr, 1994).
Sex is marketed subliminally or openly by multi-national conglomerates
promoting an industry that ultimately benefits airlines, hotels, casinos, and
other multi-national corporations. This phenomenon occurs with its particularities all around the world, including Southeast Asia (Truong, 1990), the
Caribbean (Cabezas, 1999; Kempadoo, 1999), and Latin America (Schifter,
2001). The connection between market politics and prostitution is epitomized
in the sexual markets and trafficking in women conducted in the former countries of the Soviet Bloc (Aral et al., 2003).
Bishop and Robinson (1998), in their study of the Thai sex industry, show
that sexuality is not, as many scholars believe, only a cultural or superstructural
74 • Bernardo Useche and Amalia Cabezas
issue. In these neo-liberal times, sex tourism is one way in which sexuality is
incorporated into the economic bases of Third World societies and represents
a tacit strategy of the international agencies to replace real national economic
growth. As Bishop and Robinson ironically point out, "Thailand's miracle
economic recovery was built on the backs of women working on their backs"
(1998, p. 251).
When traveling for pleasure involves visitors with disposable income and
extremely poor hosts with little to sell except their bodies, new and old forms
of prostitution flourish. As a segment of the tourism market (segmentation is
one of the favorite neo-liberal marketing strategies), the sex tourism business
offers to calm the alienated and unsatisfied erotic needs of male and female
citizens of developed countries with leases of cheap bodies, erotic adventure,
and companionship. The young people, primarily women, who migrate to
tourist resorts to fulfill the demand for sexual services are routinely harassed,
criminalized, and incarcerated by the police (Cabezas, 2002). It is a win-win
proposition for multi-national conglomerates in the tourism business-now
the largest global industry-because it profits from the low wages of tourism
workers and from the many enticements that Third World states create to
attract foreign investments, for example, tax holidays, repatriation of profits,
and infrastructure development. Third World states, along with local and international businesses, middlemen, and entertainment establishments, all
profit directly or indirectly from the sale of sex.
Sex tourism also sustains the economies of major global cities (Wonders
and Michalowski, 2001). In the developed world, sex tourism plays a primary
role as an attraction of the entertainment centers of cities such as Amsterdam,
Barcelona, Frankfurt, Las Vegas, New York, Rome, San Francisco, and Tokyo.
In many of these destinations, sex workers are migrants from Asia, Africa,
Latin America, the Caribbean, and Eastern Europe.
Immigration is another factor contributing to the expansion and diversification of sex commerce. Ayala, Carrier, and Magana ( 1996) have described the
particular modalities of sex work performed by many Latinas who migrate to
the U.S. from the rural zones of Mexico and Central America, areas devastated
by the North American Free Trade Agreement (Lara and Rich, 1993). After
crossing the border aided by "coyotes" (brokers who help undocumented
immigrants evade immigration check points), their only opportunity to work is
often in cantinas (beer joints). Because of the militarization of the U.S.-Mexican
border, many women who migrate from the interior of Mexico and fail to
cross the border end up as sex workers in the border cities of Juarez, Nuevo
Laredo, and Tijuana, serving a clientele of tourists predominantly from the
U.S. (Valdez et al., 2001).
Women from Africa, Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, and
Southeast Asia also travel to Western Europe and the U.S. to work in the sex
Sexuality in the Marketplace • 75
trade. A study conducted by the European Network for HIV/STD Prevention
in Prostitution estimates that between 40% and 80% of the female sex workers in Western Europe are from these regions (as quoted in Bernstein, 2001).
Some studies indicate that most women are well informed about the kind of
work available to them before they start on their journeys. However, they are
unprepared for the unfavorable working conditions of the sex and entertainment establishments and the xenophobic policies of the receiving countries
(Wijers, 1998).
Many women are deceived, coerced, forced, and enslaved in brothels
and other sex-industry businesses. Some enter into the marriage tradeand contract paper marriages that give them access to work and residency
permits, rendering them vulnerable to sexual, psychological, and economic
exploitation because their immigration status is dependent on their marriage. For these women, leaving an abusive marriage means foregoing legal
residency and facing immediate deportation. The legislation of receiving
countries criminalizes women who are victims of trafficking and deports them,
rendering them more vulnerable and dependent on pimps and traffickers
(Konig, 1996, p. 117).
The internationalization of the sex industry, as manifested in sex
tourism, is also related to the globalization of sexually transmissible infections, as has been documented in the case of Haiti. Contrary to the common belief that Haiti was one of the original point sources and exporters of
AIDS to the U.S., epidemiological research demonstrates that gay-sex
tourism originating in North America and Haiti's rampant poverty were
factors responsible for the initial spread of AIDS in the country (Farmer,
1992; Hertzman, 2001).
Although males take part in the sex trade, women are particularly vulnerable to exploitation. Extreme economic inequality, poverty, unemployment,
elimination of social welfare, and war are consequences of the present neoliberal globalization, and all these reinforce gender and sexual discrimination.
On the basis of the premise that women bring to the marketplace natural talents that differentiate them from men, Fischer ( 1999) optimistically predicts a
splendid future for women in the neo-liberal world. However, along with
scholars such as Jagger (2001) and Chang (2000), we argue that globalization
exacerbates inequality for Third World women by undercutting social forms
of subsistence and support and providing limited prospects for earning income outside domestic work, export processing, and sex work. Women's
financial independence and sexual agency are severely truncated in the
landscape of neo-liberal culture.
The commercialization of sexuality that is titillated by the anonymity and
adventure implied in tourist marketing is only one of the areas where capital
benefits from the excitement of erotic desire. Another is the medicalization of
76 • Bernardo Useche and Amalia Cabezas
sexuality-the creation of sexual dysfunction and the promise of pharmaceuticals to heal the pathologies that they have defined as such.
Medicalization of Sexuality: The Case of Female Sexual Dysfunction
The regulation of pleasurable sex has been a constant in class societies and a
major component of governing ideology since antiquity, when the Roman
Empire finally conquered the Christians through a combination of military
campaigns and the preaching of a new sexual morality founded on Augustine's
reinterpretation of the book of Genesis (Pagels, 1989). Augustine contended
that the only normal sexual behavior was heterosexual coitus intended for
procreation between spouses and that sexual desire was an evil force. Thomas
Aquinas later developed this concept during the Middle Ages to strengthen the
forms of endogamy that supported the feudal economy, and the philosophers
of the French Revolution reinterpreted it in the context of the emergent
bourgeoisie.
In the 18th century, Rousseau conceived the state as a great family that, in
order to "maintain itself;' demands the submission of women to their husbands
as the only way "to preserve and increase the patrimony of the father;' ascertain
paternity, and guarantee the family government. Although the family and the
state are different institutions and use different methods of control, men concentrate on governing their families and state governors concentrate on ruling
society; both fathers and governors, as well as families and states work "to secure
individual property" through male dominance (cited in Agonito, 1977, p. 118).
Rousseau, Voltaire, Diderot, and the other French encyclopedists opened
the door to the modern medicalization of sexuality. Controlling masturbation
became a necessity because this behavior could endanger marriages and
threaten the families and social interactions the new bourgeois economy
required. Capitalism is based on individualism, but the solitary act of masturbation is perceived as an extreme and, by the same token, dangerous behavior that
could put the individual beyond the reach of the state (Laqueur, 1990 and 2003 ).
At a time when the consolidation of monopoly capital was taking place in
Europe and the U.S., medicine became responsible for redefining sexual pleasure as pathological. Krafft-Ebing, Freud, and other medical doctors rejected
eroticism as a normal expression of sexuality (Zwang, 1994). Krafft-Ebing
(1965, p. 1) phrased this eloquently in his masterwork Psychopathia Sexualis:
"Man puts himself at once on a level with the beast if he seeks to gratify lust
alone." The creator of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, while studying
"hysteric" women, recognized the harmful psychological effects of sexual
repression and considered perverse every sexual activity that differed from the
vaginal coitus intended for procreation. He justified women's sexual inferiority by the lack of a penis and argued for the necessity of abandoning the pursuit of orgasms by clitoral stimulation in order for women to reach "sexual
maturity."
Sexuality in the Marketplace • 77
Freud, unable to accept the erotic as a healthy human realm, proposed
sublimating the libido instead of satisfying sexual desire. He claimed that men
and women must channel erotic energy to socially accepted activities such as
work, religion, or the arts. This explains why, after the initial furious rejection
of his theories, Freud received the joyous support of the European and
American bourgeoisie. Freudian doctrine facilitated the classification of common and healthy erotic expressions as pathological. Masturbation, women's
expression of sexual desire (nymphomania), and homosexuality were medically
stigmatized, and psychoanalysis was added to the list of treatments for these
illnesses. Sublimation provided monopoly capital with a psychological theory
that justified the substitution of sexual desire by the desire to consume in a
market economy.
In sum, and as Foucault (1979) argued in his History of Sexuality, the
psychiatrization of eroticism-the control of the sexual body-was a way of
using specific knowledge about sexuality to exercise power and regulate the
individual. It is in this way that the medicalization term is currently understood. For Riessman (1983), for example, medicalization was the definition of
a condition or behavior as an illness in order to control or suppress it.
The current stage of globalization implies a drastic change in clinical sexology
and sex therapy. The contemporary medicalization of sexuality maintains the
hetero-normative emphasis on "normal" sexuality based on vaginal intercourse.
At the same time, however, it is favorably inclined toward the erotic as a commodity which makes it vulnerable to the voracity of pharmaceutical corporations.
The novel aspect of the medicalization of sexuality in this neo-liberal era
consists of the pathologization of the erotic to create an immense lucrative
market of sexual dysfunction and profit-making from selling cures. Whereas
members of the old bourgeoisie were to be punished, repressed, or sublimated
for erections, vaginal secretions, and orgasms, and perverts (everyone according to the Freudian definition) who could afford to do so were to lie down on
psychiatric divans, the solutions for neo-liberal entrepreneurs are very expensive pills, gels, and medical procedures. 5
Male phallocratic sexuality was easily conquered by the pharmaceutical industry with the launch of Viagra in May 1998. Millions of men everywhere
(those who can afford it) take the blue pills. Many of them take Viagra as a
recreational drug to enhance the excitatory and orgasmic experience (Kim,
Kent, and Klausner, 2002). Its enormous commercial success has motivated
drug companies to seek equivalent mega blockbuster medications, procedures,
and devices aimed at enhancing sexual experiences for women.
Reproductive sexuality is already under the control of the business world in
consonance with the privatization of health research and services. Today it
is possible to talk about the contraceptive business, the fertility and birth
delivery business, and the menopause business along with the reproductive
technology and the cloning businesses!
78 • Bernardo Useche and Amalia Cabezas
A similar and equally serious issue is the medicalization of eroticism as promoted by the commercial interests of private corporations. It is undeniable
that sexual problems do exist and that any and all components of the pleasurable function of sexuality can be affected: libido, the relationship of sexual
partners, stimulation, arousal, and orgasm. What is important is to determine
whether such problems can be solved with sex education, counseling, and
therapy or must be treated medically. 6 The answer depends, of course, on
whether the causes of those sexual problems or dysfunctions are physiological,
sociocultural, psychological, or mixed and whether the dysfunction is due to a
medical condition or a relational problem with a sex partner. As Alzate (1987)
notes, most sexual problems are minor or pseudoproblems generated by sexual
ignorance, erotophobia, relational conflicts, poor conditions oflife, lack of experience, or lack of sexual opportunity. Only a minority of sexual complaints are
major problems that require specialized sex therapy or medical intervention.
Tiefer (2000), who has closely chronicled the medicalization of women's
sexuality, stated that the recent deregulation of the pharmaceutical industry,
favorable marketing opportunities, and an auspicious political environment
have facilitated conditions for a campaign to create a new market for the
commercial exploitation of women's erotic lives. Tiefer is critical of the sexologists who, in a Faustian bargain, collaborate with medical corporations seeking to expand their commercial ventures. In the middle of the debate
concerning the role of pharmaceutical companies in the medicalization of
sexual problems (Moynihan, 2003), some scientists have defended the rationale that little basic sexual research can be done without money from drug
corporations (Basson and Leiblum, 2003). This view implies an unfortunate
acceptance of the state's disavowal of historical responsibility in the funding
of biomedical research and an affirmative endorsement of the notion of
science for profit.
Following the neo-liberal recipe of creating norms that pave the road for
business, the drug companies financially supported several academic meetings
that ended with a conference of experts producing a report defining and classifying female sexual dysfunction (Basson et al., 2001). The report focuses on a few
modifications of the existent classification of female sexual disorders included in
the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders of the American
Psychiatric Association (2000) and emphasizes the inclusion of sexual dysfunctions that originate in biological and physiological problems that can be medically treated. It also outlines the research needs and priorities for the field and
describes the steps in the clinical trials required for federal approval of medical
products. Hall (2001, p. 150) elucidates the financial and political stakes: "I can
only hope that some women suffering from desire disorders are also Pfizer
stockholders. That is the only way they will benefit from this report:'
According to Tiefer (2000), once companies obtain approvals for their
products, they can advertise directly to the public and popularize their
Sexuality in the Marketplace • 79
medications, devices, and treatments that will be used to cure the diseases they
invented. This access to the population through the media also implies ideological manipulation because sexual problems are presented in isolation from
their socioeconomic context and without identifying the social causes of
dysfunction. For this reason, Tiefer and a group of scholars have started working on an alternative model for sex therapy founded on a socio-cultural
approach (Tiefer, 2001; Kaschak and Tiefer, 2002). 6
Medical science and technology are certainly helpful in treating some cases of
major sexual problems, but Tiefer suggests that, through their marketing strategy,
drug corporations are putting new labels on old discriminatory conceptions of
women's sexuality. In the neo-liberal context, female sexual dysfunctionpresently afflicting 43% of American women according to its promoters
(Laumann, Paik, and Rosen, 1999)-means that almost one of two women
suffers a contemporary version of frigidity. This is merely a sophisticated version
of the Freudian aphorism that "anatomy is destiny" intended to recycle the idea
that women are erotically inferior to men. The difference in this case is that the
victims of"penis envy" must pay in cash to remedy their problems.
Research conducted by John Bancroft (2002) shows that, given the participation of brain centers and neuromechanisms during sexual excitation, it is
perfectly possible that factors such as marked tiredness, stress, or a partner's
negative behavior invoke sexual inhibition in women. These kinds of adaptive
responses and the sexual politics that privilege male sexual pleasure can explain
many of the female orgasmic and arousal problems but "should not be regarded
as a dysfunction" (p. 455). 7 Specific sex information, counseling, and erotic
exploration generally solve these problems. However, the urge for profit does
not allow sex-business entrepreneurs to promote this approach.
AIDS, the World Bank, and the Bush Administration
Sexuality and neo-liberal globalization converge in the AIDS epidemic, intensifying systems of disparity connected with race, class, and gender. HIV/AIDS
is considered a sexually transmitted infection,7 and unprotected anal and
vaginal intercourse are regarded as high-risk sexual behaviors (Ross and NilssonSchonneson, 2000.) The Bush administration and other conservative groups
have made sexual abstinence and strict monogamy the core strategies for cornbatting the pandemic worldwide.
The United Nations and The World Health Organization calculate that
around 40 million people were living with HIV/AIDS at the end of 2003.
According to the most recent studies, AIDS primarily affects the poorest nations of the world and the marginalized populations of industrial countries
(UNAIDS/ World Health Organization, 2003). These studies support previous
findings showing that the distribution of HIV/AIDS infection is in concordance with the present world socioeconomic order and that the expectancies of
better health are higher in countries with relatively low income inequality.
80 • Bernardo Useche and Amalia Cabezas
Even in the developed world, health indicators such as life expectancy at
birth are superior in Sweden, where income inequality is lower, than in the
U.S., where inequity in income is higher (Hertzman, 2001) and 46 million
citizens lack health insurance. Health expectancies are associated with income levels and especially with social inequity. Good health status is linked to
quality of life, including environment, water, nutrition, housing, education,
work, and psycho-social conditions. Favorable psycho-social conditions for
health are unique products of social progress and more egalitarian societies.
Social well-being and less stressful environments facilitate human development throughout life (Hertzman, 2001). During the past two decades, the
extreme socio-economic polarization among countries and social classes has
created a social context in which HIV/ AIDS is spreading primarily among the
planet's poor.
Famine and AIDS go together in Africa. Steven Lewis, a United Nations
envoy, explained the situation: "Everybody now understands that when the body
has no food to consume, the virus consumes the body. And what, of course, is
happening is that in the absence of food the immune systems are weakening, the
progression of the disease is so much more rapid, and people are dying sooner"
(National Public Radio, 2003a). In several African countries, more than 30% of
the adult population is infected with HIV (UNAIDS/World Health Organization,
2002). In Zimbabwe, 2500 people die of AIDS weekly; in the 20years since AIDS
emerged, life expectancy there dropped from 55 to 38 years.
Confronted with a health crisis of such dramatic proportions, the White
House and the World Bank designed their own strategy to combat the AIDS
epidemic. Not surprisingly, the bank and the U.S. government emphasize AIDS
as a cause of poverty rather than the other way around. "It is still not clear
whether poverty increases the likelihood of HIV infection. However, there is
strong evidence that HIV/AIDS causes and worsens poverty" (World Bank,
2003a). U.S. Secretary of Health Thompson (HRSA Press Office, 2003, p. 1)
states, "Poverty, unfortunately, is a common symptom of AIDS:' Nevertheless,
the fact is that more than 95% of people with HIV/AIDS live in developing
countries, most of them nations that suffered the structural adjustments
ordered by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
A central component of responses by the World Bank and the Bush administration is a program of AIDS antiretroviral medications. President Bush
announced his plan in the 2003 State of the Union speech. He stated that the
objective was to "provide antiretroviral drugs for 2 million HIV-infected
people" in twelve African and two Caribbean countries, Haiti and Guyana. At
first glance this appears to be a generous humanitarian gesture. However, such
a strategy is a response to the obstacles encountered by drug companies when
they attempted to sell anti-AIDS treatments at exorbitant rates-a measure
intended to alleviate the pressure from the rising global protests organized
by AIDS activists and a deliberate intent to use the projected assistance as an
Sexuality in the Marketplace • 81
instrument to promote U.S. economic and political interests in countries most
affected by the epidemic.
In a country like South Africa, less than 1% of people who need antiretroviral
therapy receive it because almost no one can afford it (National Public Radio,
2003b ). In the case of AIDS medications, neo-liberalism has exacerbated the
basic contradictions of a capitalist system to the maximum, creating a huge potential market with almost no buyers.
During a week-long trip through Africa in July 2003, President Bush reiterated his pledge and promoted his 5-year, $15 billion initiative to fight
HIV/AIDS. The monies promised would not go to the United Nations' Global
Fund, set up in 2001 as a multilateral effort to combat AIDS. Rather, they
would constitute a unilateral effort run by three U.S. entities: the Agency for
International Development, the State Department, and the Department of
Health and Human Services (Engardio, 2003).
This explains why South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel highlighted the risks posed by the proposed fund. Expressing fears that the money
would go directly to the bank accounts of the AIDS drug industry, Manuel
remarked that the greater part of the $15 billion cited by Bush will end up in
the coffers of U.S. pharmaceutical companies (World Bank, 2003b).
Indeed, the Bush AIDS initiative is a sort of subsidy for the pharmeceutical
industry that allows the federal government to buy drugs that the companies
cannot sell directly to the impoverished African and Caribbean countries.
Pharmaceutical giants such as Bristol-Myers Squibb and Abbott Laboratories,
seeking to promote their AIDS medications to African nations with the help of
the Bush administration, are competing to promote their products and win a
slice of the $15 billion fund. Encouraged by the Bush administration, pharmaceutical companies and other multi-national corporations such as General
Electric, Coca Cola, and Texaco joined Republican lobbying efforts to pass
Bush's AIDS initiative in Congress, having paid as much as $40,000 each to
lobbying groups in an effort to win congressional backing for the initiative
(VandeHei, 2003).
It is clear that in the neo-liberal epoch, the state does not disappear as the
radical advocates of the free-market system proclaim. The state simply serves
the economic interests of monopoly capital. In the case of AIDS medications, in
addition to buying billions of dollars worth of drugs, the state provides financial support to the biomedical companies by entitling them to acquire at rebate
prices the patents for medications developed through research conducted in
state-funded laboratories and universities.
Since 1995, the costs of medications have basically depended on the traderelated aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPS) established by the
World Trade Organization (Velasquez and Boulet, 1999). TRIPS are the
instruments through which patents guarantee pharmaceutical corporations
the monopoly of the market and permit them to maintain high prices. As
82 • Bernardo Useche and Amalia Cabezas
usual in the imposition of market rules intended to introduce overpriced
products, World Trade Organization policy makers initially allowed certain
regulations that give member countries the rights to produce generic drugs for
a number of years. Countries like South Africa, Brazil, and India took advantage of this policy and produced generic versions of AIDS drugs, thus demonstrating that government-run industries can reduce or eliminate prices, make
a profit, save health service costs, and prolong lives.
Drug companies and the U.S. government soon started to push for total
international acceptance of patent monopolies. In 2000, 39 drug companies took
the South African government to court to challenge the legislation (Velasquez,
2003). Mass public protests took place in South Africa, and similar public outcries
occurred during the XIV International AIDS Conference in Barcelona 2002
where Secretary Thompson was confronted by the protesters. In a preventative
move intended to appease the protests of African and other Third World countries
during meetings scheduled by the World Trade Organization in September 2003
in Cancun, Mexico, the Bush administration and the pharmaceutical industry
agreed on August 30, 2003, to allow poor countries to continue buying generic
drugs temporarily. However, the agreement established the commitment of all
countries to buy patented brand-name medications from pharmaceutical corporations in the near future.
At the same time that it promotes its commercial interests through the World
Trade Organization, the U.S. continues to negotiate bilateral and regional agreements that impede the production and importation of generic drugs (Love,
2003). This is one reason why, nearly 10 years after antiretroviral medicines were
made available, they have not yet reached the most AIDS-plagued populations of
the world.
Finally, the White House-proposed AIDS plan would allow the Bush administration to better control the spending and "make it easier to steer funds to
favored African governments, such as those backing the U.S. war on terrorism,
and to accommodate domestic interests such as the pharmaceutical industry
and 'faith-based' groups pushing sexual abstinence (rather than distribution of
condoms) as the best way to prevent AIDS transmission" (Engardio, 2003, p.1).
It is not a coincidence that Bush named Randall Tobias, a major contributor to
the Republican political party and former chief executive officer of Eli Lilly, a
leading pharmaceutical firm, to head the U.S. effort in Africa. The appointment
raised concerns because Tobias lacks experience working in Africa and with
AIDS organizations and is seen as vulnerable to conflicts of interest.
The AIDS actions undertaken by the White House are not free of ideological
content. They pretend to universalize HIV/ AIDS prevention plans that address
sexual abstinence and monogamy-only messages already at the core of sex
education in the United States. Cogan (2003), an HIV/AIDS educator who
has taught healthcare workers in 11 African countries, criticized the fact that
abstinence programs will receive one third of the money appropriated by the
Sexuality in the Marketplace • 83
Bush administration to fight the epidemic in Africa and the Caribbean. She
states, "It is not appropriate for the United States to attempt to set the standards
by which the entire world should live. Shouldn't other countries, cultures, and
societies have their own standards, rules, mores, taboos, and lifestyles?"
The emphasis on chastity persists despite innumerable studies indicating that
celibate or monogamous relationships are difficult to maintain and that anal intercourse is a common practice even in large segments of the heterosexual population (Rodriguez, 2003). HIV/AIDS prevention programs that promote sexual
abstinence are not very effective among adolescents. "The weight of the evidence
indicates that these abstinence programs do not delay the onset of intercourse"
(Kirby, 2000, p. 87). In addition, this moralistic approach reinforces discrimination toward people because of their sexual orientations or erotic preferences and
justifies a new crusade that complements the recolonization of the globe. 8
Conclusion
Current global sexual changes emanate from socio-economic conditions created by the application of predominant neo-liberal policies. The expansion of
old and new forms of sexual commercialization, the medicalization of sexual
pleasure, and the globalization of the HIV/AIDS epidemic cannot be fully understood without an analysis of the social context originating in the application of neo-liberal economic principles. Although sexuality is not "the
primary motivating factor in the course of human history;' as Hugh Hefner
believes (Petersen, 1999), eroticism and human sexual reproduction are so
central to people's lives that the state early in history learned the utility of regulating sex to exercise its power. The control of sexuality continues to be instrumental for the consolidation and functioning of the state.
References
Agonito, R., History of Ideas on Women, Perigee Books, New York, 1977.
Alzate, H., "Vaginal Erogeneity and Female Orgasm: A Current Appraisal," Journal of Sex and
Marital Therapy, 11,271, 1985.
Alzate, H., Sexualidad Humana, 2nd ed., Temis, Bogota, Columbia, 1987.
Alzate, H., "Travaux recents sur l'orgasme femenin," communicatin presentee au XXVe seminaire
de perfectionnement en sexology clinique, Toulouse, France, March 17 and 18, 1995.
Alzate, H., B. Useche, and M. Villegas, "Heart Rate Change as Evidence for Vaginally Elicited
Orgasm and Intensity;' Annals of Sexual Research, 2,345, 1989.
American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th ed.,
Washington, DC, 2000.
Arai S.O., St. Lawrence, J.S., Tikhonova, L., Safarova, E., Parker, K.A., Shakarishvili, A., Ryan, C.A.
The social organization of commercial sex work in Moscow, Russia. Sex Transm Dis. 2003
Jan; 30(1): 39-45.
Ayala, A., J. Carrier, et al. ( 1996). The underground world of Latina sex workers in cantinas. In: Mishra
SI, Conner RF and Magana JR (Eds.) AIDS Crossing Borders: The Spread ofHIV Among Migrant
Latinos. New York, Westview Press: 95-112.
Ayala, A., J. Carrier, and R. Magana, "The Underground World of Latina Sex Workers in Cantinas;'
in AIDS Crossing Borders: The Spread of HIV among Migrant Latinos, Westview Press,
Boulder, CO, 1996, p. 95.
Bancroft, J., "The Medicalization of Female Sexual Dysfunction: The Need for Caution;' Archives
of Sexual Behavior, 31, 451, 2002.
84 • Bernardo Useche and Amalia Cabezas
Basson, R., and Leiblum, S. Without funding little new research will be possible. BMJ 2003;
326:658 22 March.
Basson, R. et al., "Report of the International Consensus Development Conference on Female
Sexual Dysfunction: Definitions and Classification," Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy,
27, 83, 2001.
Bernstein, E., Economies of Desire: Sexual Commerce and Post-Industrial Culture, Ph.D.
dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 2001.
Bishop, R. and L. Robinson, Night Market: Sexual Cultures and the Thai Economic Miracle,
Routledge, New York, 1998.
Cabezas, A.L., "Women's Work is Never Done, Sex Tourism in Sosua, the Dominican Republic," in
Kempadoo, K., Ed., Sun, Sex and Gold: Tourism and Sex Work in the Caribbean, Rowman &
Littlefield, Boulder, CO, 1999.
Cabezas, A.L., "Globalization, Sex Work and Women's Rights;' in Globalization and Human Rights:
Transnational Problems, Transnational Solutions, Brush, A., Ed., University of California,
Press, Berkeley, 2002.
Chang, G., Disposable Domestics: Immigrant Women Workers in the Global Economy, South End
Press, Cambridge, MA, 2000.
Cogan, L., "Let Experts Decide Usafe in HIV/AIDS Funding Fight," Houston Chronicle, May 10,
2003, p. 41A.
Duesberg, P., C. Koehnlein, and D. Rasnick, "The Chemical Bases of the Various AIDS Epidemics:
Recreational Drugs, Anti-Viral Chemotherapy and Malnutrition;' Journal of Bioscience, 28,
412, 2003.
Duesberg, P.H., Inventing the AIDS Virus, Regnery Publishing, Washington, DC, 1996.
Engardio, P., "Who Should Lead the War on AIDS?" Business Week, July 15, 2003.
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/jul2003/nf20030715 7728 db039.htm.
Epstein, S., Impure Science: AIDS, Activism, and the Politics of Knowledge, University of California
Press, Berkeley,' 1996.
Farmer, P., AIDS and Accusation: Haiti and the Geography of Blame, University of California Press,
Berkeley, 1992.
Fischer, H., The First Sex: The Natural Talents of Women and How They Are Changing the World,
Random House, New York, 1999.
Foucault, M., The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1, Allen Lane, London, 1979.
Gorney, C., "Designing Women: Scientists and Capitalists Dream of Finding a Drug that Could
Boost Female Sexuality;' Washington Post, June 30, 2002, p. W08.
Hall, M., Small Print and Conspicuous Omissions: Commentary on the 'FSD' Classification
Report," Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy, 27, 149, 2001.
Hertzman, C., "Health and Human Society," American Scientist, 89, November-December
2001.
HRSA Press Office, "HHS Awards $1 Billion to Help States Provide Health Care, Services and
Prescription Drugs for People with HIV/ AIDS," Washington, DC, April 10, 2003.
Jagger, A., "Is Globalization Good for Women?" Comparative Literature, 53,298, 2000.
Kaschak, E. and L. Tiefer, Eds., A New View ofWomen's Sexual Problems, Haworth Press, Binghamton,
NY,2002.
Kempadoo, K., "Continuities and Change: Five Centuries of Prostitution in the Caribbean;' in
Kempadoo, K., Ed., Sun, Sex, and Gold: Tourism and Sex Work in the Caribbean, Rowman &
Littlefield, Boulder, Co., 1999.
Kim, A., C. Kent, and J. Klausner, "Increased risk of HIV and sexually transmitted disease
transmission among gay or bisexual men who use Viagra, San Francisco 2000-2001 ;' AIDS.
2002 Jui 5; 16(10): 1425-8.
Kirby, D., "School-Based Interventions to Prevent Unprotected Sex and HIV among Adolescents;' in
Handbook ofHIV Prevention, Peterson, J. and R. DiClemente, Eds. Kluwer Academic/Plenum,
New York, 2000.
Konig, I., Ed., Traffic in Women, Lateinamerikanische Emigrierte Frauen in Osterreich, Vienna,
Austria, 1996.
Kraft-Ebing, R., Psychopathia Sexualis, Arcade Publishing, New York, 1965.
Laqueur, T., Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud, Harvard University Press,
Cambridge, MA, 1990.
Laqueur, T., Solitary Sex: A Cultural History of Masturbation, Zone Books, New York, 2003.
Laumann, E., A. Paik, and R. Rosen, "Sexual Dysfunction in the United States: Prevalence and
Predictors;' Journal of the American Medical Association, 281,537, 1999.
Sexuality in the Marketplace • 85
Levin, R., "The Physiology of Sexual Arousal in the Human Female: A Recreational and
Procreational Synthesis:' Archives of Sexual Behavior, 31, 405, 2002.
Love, J. Prescription for pain WTO reneges on drugs patents. Le Monde Diplomatique. March 2003.
http:/ /mondediplo.com/2003/03/12 generio.
National Public Radio, "Profile: Malnutrition Accelerating AIDS Epidemic in Zimbabwe;'
February 19, 2003a.
National Public Radio, "Commentary: Getting Medicines to South Africa for HIV and AIDS
Patients;' February 19, 2003b.
Pagels, E., Adam, Eve, and the Serpent. New York: Random House. 1989.
Petersen, J., Ed., The Century of Sex: Playboy's History of the Sexual Revolution, 1900-1999, Grove
Press,NewYork, 1999.
Playboy Magazine, "Women of Enron," August 2002, p. 119.
Riessman, C., "Women and Medicalization: A New Perspective:' Social Policy, 14, 4, 1983.
Rodriguez, J., Queer Latinidad: Identity, Practices, Discursive Spaces, New York University Press,
New York, 2003.
Ross, M. and L. Nilsson-Schonneson, "HIV/AIDS and SexualitY:' in Szuchman, L. and F.
Muscarella, Eds., Psychological Perspectives on Human Sexuality, John Wiley & Sons, New
York,2000.
Schifter, J., Latino Truck Driver Sex: Sex and HIV in Central America, Haworth, New York, 2001.
Sparr, P., Mortgaging Women's Lives: Feminist Critiques of Structural Adjustment, Zed, London, 1994.
Standing, G., Global Labour Flexibility, St. Martin's Press, New York, 1999.
Tiefer, L., "Sexology and the Pharmaceutical Industry: the Threat of Co-Optation," Journal of Sex
Research, 37,273, 2000.
Tiefer, L., "A New View of Women's Sexual Problems: Why New? Why Now?" Journal of Sex
Research, 38, 89, 2001.
Tiefer, L., "Beyond the Medical Model of Women's Sexual Problems: A Campaign to Resist the
Promotion of'Female Sexual Dysfunction';' Sexual and Relationship Therapy, 17,127, 2002.
Truong, T.D., Sex, Money, and Morality: Tourism in South East Asia, Zed, London, 1990.
UNAIDS/WHO 2003. Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and World Health
Organization (WHO). Aids Epidemic Update December 2003. http://www.unaids.org/
Unaids/EN/Resources/Publications/Corporate+publications/AIDS+epidemic+update+-+
December+2003.asp
Useche, B., "El Examen Sexol6gico en !as Disfunciones Excitatorias y Orgasmicas Femeninas:
Revista Terapia Sexual:' Clinica Pesquisa e Aspects Psicossocialis, 4, 115, 2001.
Valdez et al., "Sex Work, High-Risk Sexual Behavior and Injecting Drug Use on the U.S.-Mexico
Border: Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas;' Center for Drug and Social Policy Research, University
of Texas, San Antonio, 2001.
VandeHei, J., "Drug Firms Boost Bush's AIDS Plan: GOP Lobbying for Support of Africa
Initiative:' Washington Post, May 1, 2003, p. A25.
Velazquez, G., "Unhealthy Profiles: Drugs Should Be a Common Good;' Le Monde Diplomatique,
July 2003, http://mondediplo.com/2003/07 /l0velasquez.
Velasquez, G. and P. Boulet, Globalization and Access to Drugs: Perspectives on the WTO/TRIPS
Agreement, World Health Organization, Geneva, 1999.
Wax, E., "Ugandans Say Facts, Not Abstinence, Will Win AIDS War: Bush Likely to Hear Dissent
on Policy," Washington Post Foreign Service, July 9, 2003, p. Al 8.
Wijers, M., Women, Labor, and Migration: The position of trafficked women and strategies for
support in Kempadoo, K., and Doeuma J. Eds. Global Sex Workers; Rights, Resistance, and
Redefinition 69-78, New York and London: Routledge 1998.
Wonders, N.A. and R. Michalowski, "Bodies, Borders, and Sex Tourism in A Globalized World: A
Tale of Two Cities, Amsterdam and Havana;' Social Problems, 48, 545, 2001.
World Bank, "HIV/AIDS at a Glance: Lessons Learned;' http://wbln00l8.worldbank.org/HDNet/
hddocs.nsf/ c840b59b982d24985 256 70c004def60/0560436b 70e56de385 256a4800524119?
OpenDocument#section9, Washington, 2003a.
World Bank, "World Ban Says AIDS Worst Economic Evil: Private Sector Responds to the
Epidemic;' Washington, June 4, 2003b, http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/
NEWS/0,,date:04-04-2003-menuPK:3446 l ~pagePK:34392-piPK:3442 7~theSitePK:4607,
00.html#Story3.
Zipp, M. and A. Derasmo, "The Rise of Enron;' Playgirl Magazine, October 2002, p. 18.
Zwang, G., Histoire des Peines de Sexe: Les Malheurs Erotiques, Leurs Causes et Leurs Remedes a
Travers les Ages, Editions Maloine, Paris, 1994.
86 • Bernardo Useche and Amalia Cabezas
Notes
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
We see this new configuration of global politics as the result of the strategy implemented by
the U.S. to consolidate and expand its economic, political, and military power; the alliances
generated between the empire and other industrial countries; and the extreme pauperization of the world caused by the imposition of neo-liberal reforms.
The expansion and diversification of the sex industry that can be found across international contexts that comprise (but are not limited to) the vast array of new and old forms of
sexual commerce such as street prostitution, brothels, massage parlors, telephone and
Internet sex, international sex tourism, sex clubs, escort agencies, pornography in its various manifestations, and freelance call girls and other types of sex workers.
Sexual pleasure or eroticism is the primary function of human sexuality. All the components of the erotic function such as sexual desire, pursuit of a sexual partner, sexual stimulation, sexual arousal, and orgasm are determined by cultural and socioeconomic factors.
In the neo-liberal era, all these components have become objects of market laws as
evidenced by the diverse forms of the sex trade and the medicalization of sexuality.
We are discussing the political economy of the present conditions of commercialization of
sex, not the morality of exchanging sex for money per se.
The UroMetrics Corporation already markets clitoral devices such as EROS-CTD for $359,
available by prescription only. Other corporations are announcing gels with testosterone to
boost desire and are promoting brain implants that provide neural stimulation by remote
control to the centers of the brain that trigger orgasms. In an interview with Cynthia
Gorney (2000), a pharmaceutical company executive expressed his enthusiasm for a stillin-development gel from which the corporation expects to generate $837 million in 2004.
"That is why we are interested in the product;' he recognized.
There is some scientific evidence that women can have difficulty reaching excitation levels
that trigger orgasm during vaginal sex simply because the stimulation provided by the male
sexual organ on the vaginal walls is not strong and long enough (Alzate, 1985, 1987, and
1995, Alzate, Useche, and Villegas, 1989; Useche, 2001) and because the elevation of the
vaginal wall during female sexual arousal "may reduce the frictional stimulation of the vaginal wall on the glans of the penis, leading to a loss of sensation during coital thrusting"
(Levin, 2002, p. 402).
A small group of researchers considered dissidents by the AIDS establishment argues that
AIDS is a collection of chemical epidemics caused by malnutrition and the use of recreational and anti-HIV drugs. See Duesberg, 1996; Epstein, 1996; and Duesberg, Koehnlein,
and Rasnick, 2003.
Working to reduce the spread of the HIV virus, Uganda created national educational programs that promote abstinence and safer sex practices. Uganda's AIDS education program
is praised for its achievements regarding AIDS/HIV infection rates that plummeted from
30% to 5% in slightly more than a decade (Wax, 2003).
II
States: Immigration
and Citizenship
6
Class, Space, and the State in India:
A Comparative Perspective
on the Politics of Empire
LEELA FERNANDES
Introduction
In the contemporary moment, the politics of empire lies at the conjunction of
two central transnational processes. In the U.S. war on terrorism, the current
politics of empire is shaped by conventional dynamics of state strategies of military intervention and colonialism in ways that echo older historical patterns. 1
The most visible signs of this have been situations of overt military intervention
in countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq. In the meantime, processes of
economic globalization in the form of neo-liberal models of economic restructuring are reproducing and intensifying socio-economic hierarchies within
nation-states.
These processes appear to place contradictory pressures on the positions
and roles of modern nation-states in the contemporary world order. On the
one hand, the transnational dynamics of economic globalization and the corresponding power of transnational corporations appeared to have weakened
the nation-states (Appadurai, 1996; Strange, 1996; Habermas, 1998), particularly in newly liberalizing countries. On the other hand, the war on terrorism
has underlined the significance of state apparatuses in line with an intensified
emphasis on national security in comparative contexts. A central question that
arises in the midst of these global processes is what is the role of the
nation-state in the contemporary politics of empire? In this chapter, which
draws on a study of contemporary politics in India, I argue that in contrast to
theories of globalization that predicted the demise of the modern
nation-state, the effects of empire can be better understood in terms of a
restructuring of the state. 2
India provides a case that enables an examination of the intersections of the
economic and military-political dimensions of empire. In the early 1990s, the
Indian government launched a program of economic liberalization that began to
substantially dismantle state controls that had managed the economy since independence. 3 Meanwhile, contemporary Indian politics has also been significantly
89
90 • Leela Fernandes
shaped by contemporary discourses on the war on terrorism since the state
deployed the language of global terrorism in relation to the regional conflict in
Kashmir. This deployment of the language of terrorism further coincided with
Hindu nationalist discourses that portray Muslim communities in India as
aliens' threat to a pure Hindu Indian nation. 4 These cross-cutting processes
make India a unique case for an understanding of the complex ways in which
the politics of empire interacts with and reconstitutes local and national politics beyond the boundaries of the U.S. nation-state and areas under overt U.S.
intervention.
A key effect of this conjuncture between economic globalization and the war
on terrorism is the restructuring of the Indian nation-state. As I will argue, this
restructuring centers on the production of an exclusionary form of citizenship
constituted by hierarchies of class, religion, and ethnicity. 5 I focus on the ways
in which citizenship is produced through local spatial practices that involve
the state, labor, and an increasingly politically assertive urban middle class.
As Evelyn Nakano Glenn has argued, the "kinds of localized, often face-to-face
practices . . . determine whether people have or don't have substantive as
opposed to purely formal rights of citizens" (2002, p. 2).
Building on such an approach, I examine the emergence of a privatized
form of citizenship, that is, a form of citizenship constructed as a private right
of the urban middle classes that must be protected from the demands of
subordinated groups such as workers and Muslims. I begin by analyzing the
political emergence of an assertive urban middle class in the context oflndia's
new economic policies ofliberalization initiated since the early 1990s. Drawing on field research conducted in Mumbai (Bombay), I examine the ways in
which this middle class has begun to produce an exclusionary form of citizenship
through spatial practices that have brought it into political confrontations with
workers such as street hawkers. I specifically examine the role of the state in
facilitating the emergence of this form of citizenship and the ways such
dynamics converge with contemporary discourses on terrorism and new state
strategies that target undocumented Muslim workers from Bangladesh. Finally,
I conclude with a discussion of the comparisons and connections between
India and the U.S. Such a comparative perspective underlines the importance
of conceptualizing the current politics of empire in relation to the subtle ways
in which both economic globalization and the global war on terrorism converge with and reconstitute local and national politics in comparative contexts
that may not at first seem implicated in the politics of military conflict and
occupation that serve as visible markers of the U.S. empire.
Economic Liberalization and the "New" Indian Middle Class
India's new economic policies of liberalization have been accompanied by
important shifts in the visible signs and symbols that embody the dominant
national political culture. Such shifts have centered on the roles of the urban
Class, Space, and the State in India • 91
middle classes and images of new consumption practices and wealth generated
by the liberalization of the economy. The result has been the emergence of a new
discursive political category, the "new" Indian middle class. The newness of this
middle class is not founded on a social change; that is, it does not signify a form
of upward mobility in which segments from lower socio-economic brackets
have been able to gain entry into the middle classes. 6 Rather, the newness of
the middle class is an ideological construction that represents the class as the
cultural and political symbol of a liberalizing Indian nation that is finally leaving
behind the restrictions of state socialism.
A cornerstone of this construction is the association between the new middle class and the attitudes, lifestyles, and consumption practices associated with
newly available commodities in the context of India's shift toward a liberalizing
economy. Such consumption practices, in effect, signify the potential benefits of
liberalization and parallel the construction of the "new rich" (Robison and
Goodman, 1996; Beng-Huat, 2000) as a social group that serves as the prime
beneficiary of globalization in contemporary Asia. The construction of such a
category, in effect, marks the potential benefits of globalization for emerging
market-oriented contexts in Asia in general and in India in particular.
Such shifts are evident in a wide array of public cultural discourses ranging
from advertising images to media representations in film, television, and newspapers to public political rhetoric that has debated the social and political implications of the new Indian middle class.7 Whereas in the early years of independence,
large dams and mass-based factories were the national symbols of progress and
development (Khilnani, 1997), cell phones, washing machines, and color televisions now serve as the symbols of the liberalizing Indian nation. For the urban
middle classes, the availability of such commodities and new opportunities for
consumer choices of brands serve as signs of the benefits ofliberalization. Before
liberalization, such goods were accessible only to the upper classes and individuals who had relatives living or working abroad.
Consider, for example, the symbolic politics of the automobile industry. In
the initial decades of independence, the automobile industry offered consumers only one model-the Ambassador. 8 The Ambassador is continually invoked by proponents of liberalization whom I interviewed as a national symbol
of the deprivation of middle-class consumers before to the 1990s. The availability
of commodities such as cars has become associated with a sense of national
pride, consolidating the linkages between middle-class desires for consumption
and the image of the new liberalizing India. Thus, the new middle class
becomes the idealized standard for this newly imagined Indian nation.
This emergence of the new Indian middle class is a discursive political phenomenon rather than a socio-economic one. The question that arises then is
whether the actual economic effects of liberalization conform to the idealized
images of the new Indian middle class. Although research in comparative
contexts has demonstrated that policies of economic restructuring produced
92 • Leela Fernandes
negative effects for the working classes and rural poor (Evans, 2002; Gills and
Piper, 2002), scholars have paid less attention to the effects on the urban middle classes. In practice, liberalization has had contradictory effects for the
urban middle classes. 9 On the one hand, the upper layers of this social group
have benefited from expanded employment opportunities and rising salaries
as Indian and multinational corporations have competed for managers with
MBAs. On the other hand, large segments of the urban middle classes have
faced a labor market that has been restructured in ways that have paralleled the
working-class labor markets. This has been particularly the case for lower-tier
white-collar private sector workers.
As with the working class labor market, the restructuring of the middle-class
labor market has centered on three central trends: workplace reorganization, retrenchment, and the casualization of work. Workplace reorganization has, for
instance, restructured the time, space, and movement of employees in lowertier white-collar managerial work in ways that mirror factory-based models of
discipline. An example of this process is the case of workers classified as executive
assistants. They are lower-tier managerial workers who perform activities
ranging from traditional secretarial duties to managerial tasks that may
include contacting clients, organizing conferences, and handling public relations duties. Although these workers often perform managerial duties, their
everyday work experiences include strict forms of discipline including recording their work hours on time cards, accounting for phone calls made on the
job, and adhering to high levels of productivity. 10
Such forms of employment have in many cases shifted away from permanent to
contract-based temporary situations reflecting the broader economic processes
of the casualization of work that have shaped economic globalization. These
jobs, in fact, constitute a significant component of the expanding service sector
in the major urban metropolitan cities-a "new economy" sector most visibly
associated with processes of liberalization. Thus, in many ways these patterns of
employment are typical characteristics of the vast segment of the new Indian
middle class; they represent the work experiences of those segments of the middle class who cannot afford the costs of a professional MBA degree but aspire to
the idealized image of the new Indian middle class and thus attempt to negotiate
their way through the lower tiers of the private-sector labor market.
However, such parallels between the organization of middle-class and the
working-class labor markets have not translated into political alliances
between these social groups. The politics of the new middle classes has, in fact,
centered on a politics of distinction in which the middle classes have sought to
distinguish themselves from the working classes.
Public middle-class discourses construct the poor and working classes as
threats to the social order. This sense of threat is compounded by a middle-class
expression of anger based on a perception that the state caters to the poor
and working classes at the expense of middle-class interests. Thomas Hansen
Class, Space, and the State in India • 93
describes this in terms of an emerging middle-class perception of a "plebianization
of the political field" where democratization has enabled peasant and lower caste
groups to gain access to political power.11 Middle-class political identity is thus
increasingly shaped by a resistance to what members perceive as a political field
that caters to peasants, workers, and low caste groups.
Such middle-class resistance to the inclusionary political possibilities of
democracy has provided the basis for a wider generalized perception of social
order and political corruption. In particular, it has led to the emergence of a
new middle-class conception of cultural citizenship that attempts to redraw
the boundaries of citizenship in ways that reconstitute older social hierarchies
that threaten to break down the socio-economic space between the middle
classes and the poor and working classes. Thus, whereas policies of economic
liberalization have restructured segments of the labor market in ways that parallel the working class labor market, the political response of the middle classes
is to engage in social and political practices that seek to distinguish them from
the working classes. Such practices result in the production of an exclusionary
form of cultural citizenship that rests on the political emergence of a consumer identity associated with public images of the new Indian middle classes.
State Strategies, the Middle Class, and the Politics of Privatized Citizenship
Local spatial politics in metropolitan cities in India provide important arenas for
an analysis of the dynamics of middle-class consumer-based forms of cultural
citizenship that emerge in the context of economic liberalization. Consider,
for example, the ways in which cultural practices of consumption and lifestyle
are linked to broader processes of the restructuring of urban space associated
with centers such as Mumbai. The production of middle-class identity in this
context is linked to a politics of"spatial purification" (Sibley, 1995) that centers on middle-class claims over public spaces and a corresponding movement
to cleanse such spaces of the poor and working classes. 12
Such local spatial politics embody an exclusionary form of cultural citizenship
in which the urban Indian middle classes are seen as the new consumer citizens in
liberalizing India. As I will argue in this section, the politics of spatial purification
reconstitutes historical hierarchies of class inequality and produces new alliances
of the new Indian middle class, the state, and capital. The production of this new
form of cultural citizenship is linked to the changing relationship between state
and capital, and more specifically in relation to the restructuring of the state in
the context of economic liberalization.
The politics of contemporary Mumbai provides a paradigmatic case for
spatialized politics of citizenship. Consider some of the broader patterns
involving the restructuring of urban space. At one level, such patterns echo
familiar patterns of gentrification that have been analyzed in comparative contexts (Smith, 1996). Escalating real-estate prices in the South Mumbai heart of
the city have pushed middle-class individuals into suburban areas. The result
94 • Leela Fernandes
is the creation of new and distinctive forms of suburban cultural and social
communities. In what are now considered upscale suburbs, neighborhoods in
areas such as Bandra and other western suburbs 13 have witnessed the growth of
upscale restaurants, shopping enterprises, and movie theaters. These spatial
trends have reproduced new cultural forms of older class distinctions. For example, new upscale movie theaters in the suburbs depart from the traditional fee
structures of regular theaters. Whereas regular theaters scaled prices from expensive balcony seats to cheaper seats at the bottom level, upscale theaters offer only
flat high prices for all seating. The pricing system effectively keeps out poorer
working class and even lower middle-class individuals. Such wealthy suburbs
have also witnessed the growth of a new culture of"upmarket" clubs. 14 These developments point to the ways in which the images of the new liberalizing Indian
middle classes are materialized through new forms of socio-spatial segregation.
The production of such socio-cultural spaces for the new lifestyles of the
middle classes in liberalizing India rests on the production of a new urban
aesthetics of class purity. Historically, in contrast to modern cities in advanced
industrialized countries, metropolitan cities in India did not develop into
strict class-segregated spaces. Although cities like Mumbai, Delhi, and Calcutta have certainly reproduced spatial distinctions among wealthier, middle
class, and working class neighborhoods, such distinctions have historically
been disrupted by the presence of squatters, pavement dwellers, and street entrepreneurs such as tailors, shoe repairmen, and hawkers (street vendors).
Such street entrepreneurs and pavement dwellers located to these neighborhoods to provide services to their middle- and upper-class residents. Given the
high level of poverty and the dependence of middle-class families on working
class labor for household work including dhobis (laundry workers), sweepers,
and cooks, the class-based management of urban space in contemporary India
developed in patterns distinctive from those of advanced industrialized countries (Katznelson, 1981; Seabrook, 1996; Kaviraj, 1997).
In the context of liberalization, the invention of a new middle-class lifestyle
is increasingly interwoven with the creation of an urban aesthetics based on the
middle-class desire for the management of urban space based on strict classbased separation. This desire for socio-spatial segregation is not an outcome
that is purely a result of policies of liberalization in the 1990s. 15 However, although
notions of spatial purity were contingent on older historical processes (Kaviraj,
1997), what is significant in this context is the way in which the imposition of
such spatial class-based norms have been transformed by the discourses of the
new middle class in the context of liberalization in the 1990s.
A significant expression of this transformation has taken the form of beautification projects undertaken by resident associations and civic organizations
in various neighborhoods in Mumbai. Such projects have begun to constitute
a new civic culture for the middle classes in liberalizing India. This drive to
clean up the city has been constructed around class-based discourses and, in
Class, Space, and the State in India • 95
effect, becomes inextricably linked with attempts to purge the city of the poor
(Seabrook, 1996). Such practices point to the aesthetic of the civic culture of
the middle classes in liberalizing India-one that attempts to manifest the
image of the new Indian middle class by cleansing the urban city of any sign of
the poor or poverty. The boundaries of this new civic culture thus rest on the
attempt to produce a new form of class-based socio-spatial segregation.
Such spatialized practices do not merely represent the outcome of individualized middle-class desires. Rather, they are part of a broader set of strategies of
state-led development in the context of liberalization. Liberalization, in other
words, does not lead to the decline of state intervention as is often assumed
in the neo-liberal model of economic development but to a shift in the nature
of the exercise of state power and the emergence of new forms of collaboration
between the state and the private sector. For instance, beautification projects
have also been carried out by the local government in cities like Mumbai, often
in conjunction with financial support from the corporate sector.
In Mumbai, for example, the beautification drive represents the official policy
of the local government's Cultural Affairs Ministry. This drive is intended to
clean up public spaces such as beaches, promenades, maidans (public grounds
and open recreational areas), and other facilities. Although such plans appear
to be part of a broader public drive for sanitation involving a cross section of
l0cal areas across the city, 16 they rest on the politics of class and involve driving
out beggars, hutments (small huts constructed by squatters and laborers), fisherfolk, and squatters from public areas such as beaches (Sharma, 1998).
The pattern characterizes state strategies deployed in the management of
urban space. The state restructures spaces in ways that cater to the wealthier
segments of Mumbai and to the lifestyles of the new Indian middle classes, for
example, by transforming spaces to cater to joggers. Proposed plans to restructure public parks and maidans have involved the drawing of clear social
boundaries by constructing gates to control access to what were once accessible public spaces. Local residents and organizations opposed to such state-led
projects of urban restructuring have often resisted such proposals. However,
such proposals reveal the ways in which the lifestyle of the new Indian middleclass is not merely a symptom of the responses of individuals to advertising
and media images; they signify a broader political process of class formation
that involves the interests of both the state and the capital.
The convergence of such state strategies and middle-class conceptions of civic
culture demonstrate the way in which citizenship is restructured in the context of
economic liberalization. Middle-class conceptions are invested in creating a privatized form of citizenship, one that seeks to redraw public boundaries through the
politics of class. Thus, processes of privatization associated with policies of economic liberalization also result in an attempted privatization in the political field.
Privatization, in effect, represents a form of "elite revolt" (Corbridge and Harris,
2000) in the face of middle-class perceptions of the "plebianization" of democracy.
96 • Leela Fernandes
Such local dynamics point to larger implications for an understanding of
the political dimensions of economic globalization. In particular, they demonstrate that the class-based politics produced by globalization do not simply reside at the point of production in more conventional sites such as factories and
well-studied embodiments of global capital such as transnational corporations. A conceptual focus that limits an understanding of globalization to
transnational corporations and export-processing zones misses a broader
range of class conflict that shapes political responses to globalization and the
significance of the role of the state in responding to such conflicts. In the Indian context, for instance, analyses that have focused only on the responses of
traditional labor unions in the organized sector have tended to underestimate
the significance of class politics and have identified resistance to liberalization
mainly in terms of public-sector workers' resistance to privatization.
Consider one example of such class-based spatial political contestation: Middleclass claims on urban space have produced new conflicts with street vendors and
led to increasing state-led crackdowns and the rise of working class protests as
hawkers' unions have attempted to resist such crackdowns (Bhowmick, 2002b ). As
with the beautification programs, middle-class civic organizations and media discourses have largely portrayed hawkers as threats to the civic culture of the middle
classes (Bhowmick, 2002a). Such discourses focused on the "hawker menace" as a
threat to a wide array of middle-class interests, including inconvenience, sanitation,
fears of social disorder, and threats of declining real-estate prices for residential
areas marked for relocating hawkers. In the process, discourses of citizenship and
public interest again converge with the interests of the middle classes. The paradox
that lies at the heart of this construction is that a large segment of hawkers includes
former factory workers who lost jobs in the context of economic restructuring.
However, middle-class-based definitions of the service industry have served to
construct hawking as a threat to the social order rather than as an integral consequence of processes of restructuring unfolding in liberalizing India.
This is most evident in the case of the textile industry, one of India's oldest
manufacturing industries that had been based in Bombay. In the context of
economic globalization, rising real-estate prices and the decline of traditional
organized sector industries such as textiles have made it more financially lucrative for mill owners to sell land used for textile mills rather than to try to
revive sick mills in the face of strong international competition. 17 Unemployed
mill workers are thus often forced to turn to alternative forms of employment
such as hawking in order to support themselves (Devidayal, 1998) .18
In contrast to the hutment dwellers and beggars who were driven away
from public spaces such beaches and maidans, Mumbai's hawkers have formally organized into unions and thus have been able to wield more political
clout in the contest over public spaces. 19 Such political clout has placed the
local state agency responsible for managing public space (Brihanmumbai
Municipal Corporation, or BMC) in a conflicted position. In addition, the
Class, Space, and the State in India • 97
BMC has used an official system of daily charges and an unofficial system of
bribes for unlicensed hawking as financial sources. Thus, the local government
has had to negotiate with the hawkers' union and mediate between the union
and the middle-class organizations that filed legal petitions to relocate the
hawkers. Such political conflicts represent structural effects of the politics of
economic liberalization. In other words, the effects of liberalization unfold
through the spatial reorganization of social relations (Massey, 1994). Such
spatialized politics constitute a central site for the emergence of class-based
resistance. Forms of resistance by groups such as the hawkers' union, in effect,
disrupt the hegemonic construction of the liberalizing Indian nation through
idealized images of the new Indian middle class.
I have thus far analyzed the ways in which broader processes of economic
globalization reconstitute and are shaped by local and national politics. Such
dynamics underline the significance of moving beyond analyses that promote
deterritorialized understandings of globalization and transnationalism
(Appadurai, 1996). Globalization is a deeply territorial process both in terms of
the ways in which it restructures the modern nation-state and the ways it unfolds
through a spatialized form of class politics. This territorialization inherent in processes of globalization distinguishes the contemporary politics of empire from
older forms. In the current moment, the politics of empire unfolds in conjunction with the modern nation-state. The historical roots of this relationship
between nation and empire are, of course, present in earlier imperial formations.
As Benedict Anderson ( 1983) has noted, the European colonial powers in the
18th and 19th centuries regarded themselves as both nations and empires.
What is distinctive in the emergence of the 21st century empire is that this
conjuncture between empire and nation has moved beyond the dominant
colonial powers to include emerging postcolonial nation-states. The most
visible instances of such processes include the rhetoric of nation building that
currently constitutes U.S. military occupation in countries such as Iraq and
Afghanistan. However, I am arguing that this convergence between nation and
empire occurs through more subtle processes in less-visible spaces, for
instance, in terms of the politics of globalization and the economic dimensions of empire. In the context of liberalizing India, the proponents of
economic globalization are not simply the visible agents of global corporations; they are segments of the urban middle classes attempting to produce a
vision of a new liberalizing India. The means for the production of this vision
is an exclusionary form of cultural citizenship that invokes rather than undermines the power of the state. The modern nation-state and associated claims
of citizenship are thus integral parts of the contemporary politics of empire.
Nation-State, Citizenship, and the Politics of Empire
Consider the ways in which the relationship of nation-state, citizenship, and
empire unfolds in relation to broader political processes in contemporary
98 • Leela Fernandes
India. The production of an exclusionary form of citizenship draws on hierarchies of religion and ethnicity in addition to the politics of class. Such dynamics have centered on the rise of Hindu nationalism in recent decades.
Racialized xenophobic discourses threatening "Muslim invaders" produce a
form of purified Hindu citizenship that converges with the dynamics of spatial
purification I have been analyzing.
Examples of such dynamics are recent political discourses on the threat from
illegal immigrants who cross the border from Bangladesh. At the beginning of
2003, India's Union Home Minister, L.K. Advani, a leading figure in the Hindu
nationalist Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), signaled that illegal immigration would
be a central political issue for the government and party. As one news report
stated, the minister "asked states to identify the estimated 15 million Bangladeshi
illegal immigrants and 'throw them out"' (Chengappa, 2003, p. 41).
The announcement, in effect, consolidated the continued political significance of an issue that began to surface at a local level in the 1990s. As Sujata
Ramachandran (2002) argued in her analysis of the dynamics of Operation
Pushback, a 1990s government campaign designed to forcibly return alleged
illegal immigrants to Bangladesh, the state characterized such immigrants,
most of whom were slum dwellers in Delhi, as threatening "infiltrators" invading the Indian nation-state. Such state strategies designed to cleanse the
Indian nation of unwanted immigrants from Bangladesh present striking parallels to the class-based processes of spatial purification associated with the
politics of economic restructuring. Constructions of class impurity have converged with xenophobic depictions of "illegal" Muslim immigrants in the discourses of Hindu nationalist organizations.
More recently, these state strategies of purification have been intensified
and transformed in light of the U.S.-declared global war on terrorism. The
BJP-led government has deployed the U.S.-declared agenda in conjunction
with its own Hindu nationalist project of treating Indian Muslims as alien
threats to the Hindu Indian nation. 2°Consider, for instance, the ways in which
state and media representations have constructed the question of Bangladeshi
immigrant workers through the rhetoric of terrorism. They depict such workers as threats to national security and define immigration flows produced by
poverty in terms of the threat of cross-border terrorism from Islamic nations
such as Bangladesh and Pakistan. This construction is succinctly captured in
the analysis of one mainstream media report:
The fear that Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence and Al-Qaida-linked terrorists may also be crossing India's borders along with innocuous economic
refugees is all too real. Internal security concerns are now inextricably linked
with the "Bangladeshi problem." According to terrorism and underworld
tracker, JCP Neeraj Kumar of Delhi, "Pakistan is increasingly using Bangladesh
as a base for its nefarious activities in India:' The police are investigating
Bangladeshi crime syndicates in the national capital. Fourteen Bangladeshi
Class, Space, and the State in India • 99
citizens arrested in Delhi last year have confessed to a series of robberies.
(Chakravarty, 2003, p. 20).
This discursive construction presents a series of associations involving
Bangladeshi immigrants, the Pakistani government, Al-Qaida terrorism, and
urban crime. Immigrant workers become the embodiments of both the threat
of global terrorism and of internal social disorder associated with crime.
Chakravarty's news report is captioned "The Immigrants: Banglo-Indians"
and states, "The Bangladeshi immigrants are everywhere. They even have
crime syndicates in Delhi:' This association of Muslim (Pakistan sponsored)
immigrants, terrorism, and crime is particularly significant as it attempts to
link the external security of the nation-state with middle-class discourses on
crime and social disorder.
The politicization of the Bangladeshi immigrant worker enables a convergence of three central political processes: the construction of a middle-class definition of citizenship that has been intensified in the context of liberalization,
the Hindu nationalist agenda of producing a purified Hindu citizenship, and the
global war on terrorism. In effect, such dynamics provide an important example
of a case where the exclusionary political project of a Hindu nationalist state
converges with the global economic and political dimensions of empire. 21
The implications of this convergence are significant in shaping contemporary politics in India. At the local level, political parties have attempted to use
the "threat" of Bangladeshi immigrant workers to engage in political agendas
that reinforce exclusions of religion and ethnicity. In Delhi, for instance, local
officials have attempted to remove Muslim voters from electoral lists by alleging that they are illegal Bangladeshi workers rather than Indian Muslims from
the state of West Bengal. Because individuals from poor and working class
communities often do not have official documentation proving citizenship,
this tactic has enabled local Hindu nationalist officials to engage in strategies
of disenfranchisement. Citizenship in this case is a category of exclusion
whose boundaries rest on religious identity. Meanwhile, in another example,
the Shiv Sena, the politically dominant local right-wing party in Bombay, has
used the political rhetoric on Bangladeshi immigrants to further its long-term
antimigrant and anti-Muslim agenda. 22 This campaign based on the racialized
politics of religion and ethnicity has merged with local state strategies that target working-class squatters. Thus, the local state agency, the BMC, has now
begun to deploy the rhetoric of the threat of Bangladeshi immigrants in conjunction with its project of evicting squatters from public lands. 23
The case of contemporary politics in India demonstrates the ways in which
the economic and political dimensions of empire reconstitute and intersect
with local politics. I have sought to demonstrate that this intersection shows
how the modern (and in the case of India, postcolonial) nation-state and the
exclusionary politics of citizenship are integral to the conditions of empire.
Such processes, however, are not limited or unique to the internal political
100 • Leela Fernandes
dynamics of India. Rather, this analysis can contribute to a broader comparative understanding of the politics of empire.
Comparative Reflections on the Politics of Empire
The analysis of Indian politics presented here can contribute in a number of
ways to a broader understanding of the politics of empire, particularly in relation to the U.S. nation-state-the center of empire in the 21st century. At one
level, the political dynamics in India hold a number of parallels to political
processes that have been unfolding in the U.S. For example, processes of spatial purification in the context of economic restructuring in India clearly parallel racialized and class-based processes of spatial restructuring and
gentrification in cities in the U.S. (Smith, 1996; Gilmore, 1998; Sanjek, 1998). 24
Meanwhile, the portrayal of Muslim immigrants as potential terrorists and
stringent methods of state surveillance of Arabs and Muslims in the U.S. since
the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks present obvious parallels to Indian
state constructions of Indian Muslims as potential terrorists and Pakistani
agents. Finally, racialized constructions of Muslims have converged with the
politics of anti-immigrant sentiment; in both India and the U.S., undocumented workers have become economic and security threats to the sanctity of
the territorial boundaries of the nation-state and are transformed into central
targets of the global war on terrorism. Citizenship is produced by everyday
social and state exclusionary practices (Glenn, 2002) that rest at the intersection of race, religion, and class. In this process, citizenship functions as a
central mechanism for the exercise of state power and consequently for the
state's political and ideological project of empire building.
At a second level, a focus on India, a site that may appear relatively removed
from the more visible areas of global conflict and U.S. intervention, points to
the significance of moving away from a bipolar center-periphery model in
an understanding of the current politics of empire. 25 Consider, for instance,
implications of the political conflicts concerning Bangladeshi immigration.
The politicization of this issue points to the deeper ways in which regional
political dynamics have been substantially transformed by U.S. discourses and
responses to global terrorism. Thus, the Indian government has been able to
invoke the new U.S. discourses on terror in its regional dealings with countries
such as Pakistan and Bangladesh and has mirrored U.S. strategies by passing
its own stringent antiterrorism legislation. In the Kashmir conflict, both the
state and the public media representations in India have sought to invoke the
U.S. war on terrorism in conjunction with the Indian war on terrorism in
Kashmir. 26 Such examples point to the ways in which regional specificities are
central to understanding the effects of the dynamics of empire, as they are played
out in the U.S.-led war on terrorism. However, such regional dynamics cannot
simply be understood as effects; they also serve as critical factors in the execution
and consolidation of empire.
Class, Space, and the State in India • 101
In the South Asian context, this has been most visible in the Pakistan
government's acquiescence to U.S. intervention in Afghanistan. However, lessvisible linkages exist with increased military and political cooperation between
India and the U.S., a form of cooperation supported by shared dominant national
preoccupations with Islamic terrorism. In this process, the convergence of the U.S.
war on Islamic terrorism and the Hindu nationalist anti-Muslim agenda in India
stands to potentially serve as a critical factor in global politics in the 21st century.
Conclusion
This chapter examines the ways in which the politics of economic globalization
and the U.S. war on terrorism have interacted with and reconstituted local and
national politics in contemporary India. The economic, political, and military
dimensions of contemporary empire converge in a set of processes that restructure both nation and state in ways that consolidate the exclusionary boundaries
of citizenship. This hegemonic form of citizenship that rests at the intersection
of social hierarchies of class, religion, and ethnicity thus represents a means to
reproduce the dynamics of empire within the nation-state.
This calls into question the assumption that the citizenship and the
nation-state represent neutral categories that can be called upon as means to
resist global processes of empire. This is not to suggest that such possibilities do
not exist. Subaltern groups have historically been able to subvert and deploy languages of citizenship to press for rights. Meanwhile, questions of national and
state sovereignty are particularly critical in times of empire and cannot be evaded
by romanticized understandings of transnationalism. My intent in this analysis
has been to explore some of the dominant political processes of the current global
order and to reflect on the subtle and often invisible ways in which empire works
through and in relation to the postcolonial nation-state. The result is a perspective that calls attention to a politics of empire that both produces and is constituted by local, national, and regional specificities that simultaneously rest on and
move us beyond the heart of empire-the contemporary U.S. nation-state.
References
Anderson, B., Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism,
Verso, New York, 1983.
Appadurai, A., Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, University of
Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1996.
Beng-Huat, C., Consumption in Asia: Lifestyles and Identities, Routledge, New York, 2000.
Bhowmick, S., "Mumbai: 'Citizens' versus the Urban Poor;' In One India One People, 2002a.
Bhowmick, S., Hawkers and the Urban Informal Sector: A Study of Street Vending in Seven Cities,
report prepared for National Alliance of Street Vendors in India, 2002b.
Chakravarty, S., "The Immigrants: Banglo-Indians;' India Today International, February 17,
2003.
Chengappa, R., "A Neighbourhood of Trouble," India Today International, February 10, 2003.
Corbridge, S. and ). Harris, Reinventing India: Liberalization, Hindu Nationalism and Popular
Democracy, Polity Press, Cambridge, U.K., 2000.
Devidayal, N., "From Handloom to Hafta;' Times of India, September 26, 1998.
Dixit, R., "BMC's Anti-Hawker Drive Hinges on New Agreement;' Times of India, August 24, 1998.
102 • Leela Fernandes
Evans, P., Ed., Liveable Cities: Urban Struggles for Livelihood and Sustainability, University of
California Press, Berkeley, 2002.
Fernandes, L., "Nationalizing 'the Global': Media Images, Economic Reform and the Middle Class
in India;' Media, Culture and Society, 22, 611, 2000a.
Fernandes, L., "Restructuring the New Middle Class in Liberalizing India;' Comparative Studies of
South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 20, 88, 2000b.
Fernandes, L., "Rethinking Globalization: Gender and the Nation in India;' in Feminist Locations:
Global/Local/Theory/Practice in the Twenty-First Century, de Koven, M., Rutgers University
Press, New Brunswick, 2001.
Fernandes, L., "The Politics of Forgetting: Class Politics and The Restructuring of Urban Space in
India;' presented at the National University of Singapore Conference on Globalization and
Forgotten Spaces, July 2002.
Gills, D.S. and N. Piper, Eds., Women and Work in Globalising Asia, Routledge, New York, 2002.
Gilmore, R.W., "Globalization and U.S. Prison Growth," Race and Class, 40,171, 1998.
Glenn, E.N., Unequal Freedom: How Race and Gender Shaped American Citizenship and Labor,
Harvard University Press, Boston, 2002.
Habermas, J., "The European Nation-State: On the Past and Future of Citizenship and
Sovereignty," Public Culture, 10, 397, 1998.
Hansen, T., The Saffron Wave, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1999.
Jenkins, R., Democratic Politics and Economic Reform in India, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, U.K., 1999.
Katznelson, I., City Trenches: Urban Politics and the Patterning of Class in the United States,
Pantheon Books, New York, 1981.
Kaviraj, S., "Filth and the Public Sphere: Concepts and Practices about Space in Calcutta;' Public
Culture, 10, 83, 1997.
Khilnani, S., The Idea of India, Farrar Straus & Giroux, New York, 1997.
Kothari, R., Growing Amnesia: An Essay on Poverty and Human Consciousness, Viking, New
Delhi, 1993.
Massey, D., Space, Place and Gender, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1994.
Ragunath, P., "Sena Steps up Campaign against Mumbai Migrants," Gulf News, May 6, 2003.
Ramachandran, S., "Operation Pushback: The Sangh Parivar, State, Slums and Surreptitious
Bangladeshis in New Delhi," Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 23, 311, 2002.
Robison, R. and D. Goodman, Eds., The New Rich in Asia: Mobile Phones, McDonalds and
Middle-Class Revolution, Routledge, New York, 1996.
Sanjek, R., The Future of Us All: Race and Neighborhood Politics in New York City, Cornell
University Press, Ithaca, NY, 1998.
Saran, R., "Dressed to Kill," India Today International, September 11, 2000.
Seabrook, J., In the Cities of the South: Scenes from a Developing World, Verso, London, 1996.
Sharma, A., "Clean and Beautiful: That's Chowpatty;' Bombay Times, October 1, 1998.
Sheth, D.L. "Secularisation of Caste and Making of New Middle Class," Economic and Political
Weekly,August 21, 1999.
Sibley, D., Geographies of Exclusion: Society and Difference in the West, Routledge, New York 1995.
Smith, N., The New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revanchist City, Routledge, New York, 1996.
Strange, S., The Retreat of the State: The Diffusion of Power in the World Economy, Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, U.K., 1996.
Varma, P., The Great Indian Middle Class, Viking, New Delhi, 1998.
Wallerstein, I., The Modern World System, Academic Press, New York, 1974.
Notes
1.
2.
Throughout this chapter, I refer to this dimension of empire when I speak of the global or
U.S. war on terrorism; I am referring here to the ways in which state responses to the
September 11, 200 l, attacks have been transformed into an interventionist policy of
"preemptive action."
Field research in India was funded by an American Council of Learned Societies/Social
Science Research Council fellowship and by a Rutgers University Research Council grant. This
chapter has benefitted from audiences and discussions at the workshop on "Globalization and
Forgotten Places" held at the National University of Singapore and the Center for Race and
Gender of the University of California at Berkeley and the workshop on "Race, Labor and
Empire;' University of California, Irvine.
Class, Space, and the State in India • 103
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
ll.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
See Jenkins ( 1999) for a discussion of the political dynamics surrounding the economic reforms.
For a discussion of the rise of Hindu nationalism, see Hansen (1999).
My argument is not that this is the only major trend within contemporary Indian politics nor
that there are no forms of democratic grassroots opposition to such exclusionary practices.
Rather, I am concerned with analyzing one overarching dominant trend unfolding in the
context of global processes of economic neo-liberalism and political empire.
For important research that deals with the question of upward mobility into the middle
classes, see Sheth (1999).
For examples, see Varma (1998) and Kothari (1993). I analyze the dynamics of such cultural representations in greater depth in Fernandes (2000a and 2001).
In an initial limited phase of reforms, this was expanded to include a second brand, the
Maruti, that soon became a symbol of young urban professional culture.
I present a detailed analysis of these findings in Fernandes (2000b ).
These processes of restructuring also are connected to the international division of labor.
See, for example, the "virtual" subcontracting (outsourcing) of U.S. jobs in fields such as
the computer industry and customer services. Such jobs can be performed by middle-class
workers in India both at lower costs and without having to open up immigration avenues
by requiring Indian workers to migrate to the U.S.
Hansen, for example, discusses the ways in which middle-class politicians have been increasingly replaced by peasants and lower-caste individuals. He suggests that differences of
"style, language, and social practices" of these new politicians are viewed by the middle
classes as "plebian" and as corruptions of politics and democracy. See Hansen ( 1999 ), p. 56.
This section draws on research and analysis of the spatial dynamics of economic restructuring that I analyzed at greater length in "The Politics of Forgetting: Class Politics and the
Restructuring of Urban Space in India" (Fernandes, 2002).
The western sides of the suburbs (Andheri West or Santa Cruz West) tend to be considered
upscale whereas the eastern sides tend to house working and lower middle-class neighborhoods (Andheri East or Santa Cruz East).
This club culture is, of course, not new to the city and, in fact, stems back to colonial times
when private clubs were introduced by the British. In the post independence period, these
clubs became the preserves of upper-class and upper middle-class Indians. What is new,
then, is not the presence of exclusive membership-based clubs for the reproduction of
class distinction but the expansion of such social spaces and sharp increases in membership fees.
Such processes were foreshadowed earlier in the postcolonial period, for example, through
events such as the coercive demolitions of squatter settlements associated with Sanjay
Gandhi in the 1970s.
"BMC Gets Serious about Clean Mumbai;' Bombay Times, September 18, 1998.
According to one estimate, employment in the textile industry dropped from 250,000 in
1980 to 57,000 in 2000. See Saran (2000).
Note that textile production was reorganized and shifted to informal sector production
units outside Mumbai in rural areas in Maharashtra and neighboring states.
Bombay Hawkers' Union is estimated to represent 120,000 workers. See Dixit ( 1998).
According to Hindu nationalist ideologies, Muslims and Christians are alien communities
because their religions draw on traditions that emerged outside the territorial boundaries
of the Indian nation-state. By this definition, Hinduism is associated with Indian national
culture because it emerged within India; religions such as Sikhism, Buddhism, and
Jainism are also defined as Indian but are classified within the rubric as offshoots of
Hinduism.
This does not imply that no national conflicts of interest exist. A recent U.S. request that
India deploy troops in Iraq was met by the Indian government's attempt to further
its own national interests by gaining access to oil rights. The Indian government eventually
refused the request, indicating that it needed official U.N. sponsorship of any deployment.
The Shiv Sena's original agenda, when it emerged in the 1960s, focused on a nativist agenda
that campaigned for the exclusion of migrants, particularly South Indians from Bombay. It
later shifted toward an anti-Muslim-Hindu nationality agenda. The current attacks on
alleged Bangladeshi immigrants join both forms of exclusion because they are based on
both ethnicity and religion.
104 • Leela Fernandes
23.
24.
25.
26.
See Raghunath (2003). Although the Shiv Sena is not currently in power in the state government, it dominates the BMC and wields considerable power in local communities
through grassroots political networks and via coercive methods.
This is not to imply that the contexts are the same. Clearly, differing positions of global
power are significant; in economic terms for instance, the standard of living of a large
section of middle-class Indians is comparable with working-class communities in the U.S.
Moreover, such differences translate into substantial differences in the availability of basic
resources and economic infrastructure. Nevertheless, it is important to examine the implications of similarities in political responses to internal social hierarchies.
Wallerstein (1974) discusses this in economic terms in relation to his theoretical discussion
of the capitalist system by introducing the category of the semi-periphery.
Such invocations have also led to criticism of the U.S. alliance with Pakistan-a nation
India classifies as a sponsor of terrorism.
7
Race, Labor, and the State:
The Quasi-Citizenship of Migrant
Filipina Domestic Workers 1
RHACELSALAZARPARRENAS
Introduction
Women are relocating across nation-states and entering the global labor market in full force. They are responding to high demands for low-wage domestic
workers in richer nations. As a result of this demand, a south-to-north flow of
domestic workers has caused women from Mexico and Central America to
move into the households of working families in the United States (HondagneuSotelo, 2001), Indonesian women to richer nations in Asia and the Middle East
(Chin, 1998), Sri Lankan women to Greece and the Middle East (Gamburd,
2000), Polish women to Western Europe, and Caribbean women to the U.S.
and Canada (Colen, 1995). On a much wider scale, women from the Philippines likewise respond to the demand for migrant domestic workers. Providing services in more than 187 countries and destinations, Filipino women are
the domestic workers par excellence of globalization (Parrefias, 2001).
A fairly large number of Filipino women work in private households of
middle- to upper-income families in Great Britain, France, the Netherlands,
Italy, Spain, and Greece. In Asia, they work in the newly industrialized economies of Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. Additionally, they provide domestic services in the oil-rich Persian Gulf nations, including Kuwait,
Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Finally, they can also be found in
middle- and upper-income households in Canada and the United States.
The emergence of a Filipino "domestic diaspora" poses an irony in globalization: the displacement of a large group of women from their homes and
simultaneous entrapment in the homes of others. Economic currents forcibly
disperse Filipino women from their homeland not only to a number of
I.
This essay benefits from comments shared by David Smith. Portions of this chapter are
reprinted from Rhacel Salazar Parrefias, Servants of Globalization: Women, Migration, and
Domestic Work, Stanford University Press, 2001 Stanford, CA, and Rhacel Salazar Parrefias
and Cerissa Salazar Parrefias, "Workers without Families: The Unintended Consequences"
Asian Law Journal 10, 101, 2003.
105
106 • Rhacel Salazar Parrenas
countries, but more accurately to a multitude of domestic spheres in various
geographical niches.
In this chapter, I look at the consequences of state policies for the family
lives of migrant domestic workers that limit their integration into their host
societies. I focus on their families to show that their displacement from their
homes extends to include their forced separations from the families they must
often leave behind in their country of origin. This is primarily due to their
quasi-citizenship status in various host societies that often bar or deter the
migration of their families.
The quasi-citizenship of migrant Filipina domestic workers and the
transnational family life that results from this status remind us that
nation-states do not always reward the economic contributions of migrant
laborers with full membership. As guest workers, the temporary memberships
of migrant Filipina domestic workers are usually contingent upon restrictive
legal measures that stunt their political, civil, and social incorporation into
host societies. Moreover, their status remains conditional to the sponsorship
of employers. In such cases, relationships of unequal dependency between
migrant domestic workers and their sponsoring employers define their integration into host societies. This leaves them more vulnerable to substandard
conditions of employment. All these below-par conditions deter family migration and promote the formation of transnational families.
The imposition of quasi-citizenship on migrant domestic workers supports
the growing trend of the "renationalization of politics" -increasing sentiments of nationalism in globalization. As Saskia Sassen (1996) observes, economic global restructuring encourages the macro-process of the "opposite
turns of nationalism." This means globalization leads to the "denationalization
of economies" as it simultaneously takes a turn toward renationalization of
politics. To partially explain the renationalization at work in globalization,
sudden surges of nationalism in the global cultural landscape represent the
struggles of nations to assert distinct identities against the threats imposed by
rapid economic transformations and a global mixture of cultural images and
practices. The exclusion of those seen as culturally or racially unassimilable is
one way receiving nations assert their distinctions. However, the denationalization of economies depends somewhat on the renationalization of politics
because the limited integration of migrants secures a pool of low-wage workers for receiving nations.
There is now an economic bloc of receiving national states that maximizes
the benefits of the low wages of migrant workers from developing nations in
the global economy by limiting their membership into host polities. In globalization, receiving nations curb the integration of migrants so as to guarantee their economies a secure source of cheap labor. By containing the costs of
reproduction in sending countries, wages of migrant workers can be kept to a
Race, Labor, and the State • 107
mm1mum; i.e., migrants do not have the burden of having to afford the
greater costs of reproducing their families in host societies. Moreover, by
restricting the incorporation of migrants, receiving nations can secure a
supply oflow-wage workers who could easily be repatriated if the economy is
depressed.
Not surprisingly, the experience of stunted integration is not exclusive
to migrant Filipina domestic workers; it is part of a wider, growing trend.
Addressing the rise in global diasporas, migration scholar Robin Cohen
(1997) observes that contract labor-based migration is one of the rising
trends in globalization as temporary settlements and intermittent staysabroad define the incorporation of a growing number of labor migrations.
Because Cohen's discussion concentrates on the increasing number of
transnational professionals and businessmen in globalization, he suggests
that migrants. In other words, individual and community choices and not
exclusionary laws per se influence migrants to not exclusively adopt the
citizenship of a destination country but rather to keep "a foot in two or more
locations" (Cohen, 1997, p. 165).
However, it is important to note the class-based selective incorporation of
migrants in globalization. Those who fill low-skill employment situations,
like migrant Filipina domestic workers, for instance, are more likely to be
considered undesirable and therefore unassimilable migrants. Consequently,
they are more likely to confront restricted forms of citizenship. This selective
inclusion of migrants reminds us of the growing split of the world based not
on race or nation, but instead on skills and privilege. Indeed, as scholars Gustavo Esteva and Madhu Suri Prakash claim, the world is increasingly divided
into one-third social minorities who are more likely to have the cultural,
human, and social capital needed to seek more flexible citizenship and the
two-thirds social majority who have fewer choices of citizenship (cited in
Mohanty, 2003).
Some scholars argue that the designation of migrants as guest workers does
not predictably restrict their integration into nation-states. In Limits of
Citizenship: Migrants and Postnational Membership in Europe, Yasemin Soysal
(1994) argues that guest workers are accorded: Migrants and postnational
membership in Europe, on the basis of rights and protections grounded in the
principles of human rights that supersedes the territorial dimensions of
national citizenship. More specifically, she argues that migrants in Europe have
realized their rightful membership in the host polity because of their experience of"a shared public social space; a set of abstract principles and responsibilities (such as human rights, respect for justice ... and a 'productive life');
and the rationalized organization and routine of everyday praxis" (p. 166).
Thus, the limited national rights of guest workers are made irrelevant by
the influence of universal human rights. States lose from the pressures
108 • Rhacel Salazar Parreiias
imposed by transnational bodies. As Soysal asserts, "While states reinforce
more and more strict boundaries, at the same time, transnational pressures toward a more expansive membership and individual rights penetrate the same
national boundaries and profoundly transform the nature of citizenship"
(1996, p. 22). Indeed, permanent residents of various host polities are entitled
to full civil rights and have access to various social services, including public
education, health benefits, and free access to labor markets.
To a certain extent, the arguments of Soysal hold true for various migrant
workers, including Turkish guest workers who enjoy the rights and privileges
of the German state. They also apply to former bracero agricultural workers in
the U.S. whose descendants have achieved the rights to permanent membership. We should not, however, lose sight of how race, class, and gender inequalities still prevent the full incorporation of many migrants and result in the
segmentation of particular groups of migrants into domestic work and other
low-wage employment. Contrary to claims of the universality of the greater
inclusion of migrants, I argue that continued social inequalities imposed by
the state may still stunt their full membership into host societies. This is the
case with migrant Filipina domestic workers.
My overview of the incorporation of migrant Filipina domestic workers
illustrates their status as quasi-citizens or partial citizens because the state still
determines and, more specifically, reduces their feelings of membership in various host societies. I make this point by noting the growing norm of transnational families in the domestic diaspora of Filipino workers. It is estimated that
25% of the Filipino youth population-9 million children-are growing up in
transnational households. Indeed, transnational households represent a growing
norm among migrant families the world over, especially among domestic workers
whose occupational conditions are not conducive to child rearing.
Despite that, the growing literature on transmigration pays relatively scant attention to transnational families (Portes, 1996). This may be because of the lesser
attention paid to women in the transnationalism literature, coupled with the assumption that the family is a female sphere. It is said that women identify less as
transmigrants than do men because of their greater preference for permanent settlement (Hondagneu-Sotelo, 1994). As scholars of migration assert, transnationalism is a male-gendered process, and I should note that this is the perception
from above and below (Smith and Guamizo, 1998). For instance, male businessmen ("above") circle the globe with their financial transactions, and displaced
male migrants ("below") reclaim their lost status through transnational activities.
In other words, emasculated male migrants amend their decline in social status in
the receiving community by increasing their social status in the sending community (Jones-Correa, 1998). They do this by getting involved in hometown associations and spearheading drives that raise funds to build churches, secure irrigation
and water systems, ensure scholarship programs, and promote other such activities in their hometowns (Jones-Correa, 1998; Smith and Guamizo, 1998).
Race, Labor, and the State • 109
The lesser attention given to transnational families may also be due to the
assumption that children of migrants are unlike their parents because they
keep both feet in the host society instead of keeping "a foot in two or more
locations" (Orozco-Suarez and Orozco-Suarez, 2000).
As this discussion shows, studies of the children of migrants make this assertion without consideration of the "overlooked second generation" -children
of immigrant workers who are unable to follow their parents in the host
society.' Finally, the few studies on transnational families, including one I
conducted on migrant Filipina domestic workers in Rome and Los Angeles,
overlook the perspectives of children (Parrefias, 2001). This chapter looks at
transnational families and puts emphasis on the experiences of children in
order to call attention to the continued presence of exclusionary measures
imposed by host societies on migrants. Indeed, transnational households, because their formation suggests that migrant parents often cannot raise their
children or are deterred from doing so in the host society, represent the exclusion encountered by migrant Filipina domestic workers in various host societies.
In my discussion, I establish the partial citizenship of migrant Filipina domestic workers by explicitly defining two kinds of participants in the diaspora:
permanent and transitional guest workers. Permanent guest workers are usually (but not exclusively) employed in nations with illiberal migration policies
(e.g., Taiwan). Nations that prohibit the permanent membership of migrant
domestic workers include countries as diverse as Singapore, Taiwan, and the
Netherlands. In contrast, other countries incorporate migrant domestic workers as transitional guest workers; their permanent membership into the nation-state is usually contingent upon their completion of contractual
employment with a sponsoring family. These are countries with liberal migration policies (e.g., Canada) shaped by democratic principles of citizenship.
Thus, extending the discussion of Soysal, migrants in nations with liberal policies do benefit from the transnational pressures of universal human rights as
they hold the advantage of eligibility for permanent membership. However,
this privilege does not come without difficulties; it usually follows a period of
conditional membership and vulnerability for transitional guest workers.
Partial Citizenship of Migrant Filipina Domestic Workers
Diasporas are usually contingent upon the partial citizenship of migrants.
Without the imposition of partial citizenship, migrants could violate the
boundaries of citizenship by developing a greater sense of entitlement in the
receiving country. In other words, they would no longer be displaced from
their old homeland but instead would be fully incorporated into their new
one. This is true for a great number of migrants. For the most part, however,
migrant Filipina domestic workers still struggle to feel welcome in the social
bodies of various nation-states. Inasmuch as racial inequalities prevent their
incorporation, so do state restrictions of their status as partial citizens.
110 • Rhacel Salazar Parreftas
The incorporation of migrant Filipina domestic workers in state regimes, as
observed by Abigail Bakan and Daiva Stasiulis (1997), entails a paradoxical
position of risking civil rights for the sake of economic gains. They state, "For
the Third World non-citizen in search of First World citizenship, gaining
access to social rights-particularly'the right to a modicum of economic welfare and security' -commonly supersedes entry to civil and political rights."
For the most part, economic gains achieved in migration entail the loss of civil
and political rights, first from the nation of citizenship (in this case, the
Philippines), which loses juridical-legislation rights, and second from the
host nation-state, which relegates unequal rights to migrants along the lines
of race, class, and gender (Lowe, 1996). The process oflabor migration consequently imposes upon migrant Filipina domestic workers social and political
barriers that limit their ability to develop a sense of full membership in their
host societies. In other words, they are partial citizens of the host state. As I
noted, this encourages the formation of transnational households in the domestic diaspora at the cost of relations between migrants and their children.
As a partial citizen, the duration of stay for migrant Filipina domestic
workers is usually limited to the length of their labor contract. More often than
not, such contracts bind them to stay with their sponsoring employers regardless of working conditions. In the Netherlands, for instance, domestic workers
frequently enter through the au pair program. Under this system, a worker
must be between 18 and 26 years old and can work for a maximum of 1 year.
This system is similar to those in other countries that guarantee the social exclusion of migrant Filipina domestic workers by limiting the duration of their
tenure. In Taiwan, domestic workers can stay for a maximum of 3 years. In
Greece, foreign domestic workers must renew their work permits annually for
a maximum of 5 years (Anderson, 2000).
By limiting the duration of their tenure, receiving nations deny the full incorporation of migrant domestic workers and thereby discourage them from
gaining a greater sense of entitlement to their rights. Generally, labor laws do
not protect migrant Filipina domestic workers from the exploitation of employers through sexual harassment and abuse, excessive work hours with no
overtime pay, and substandard living conditions. For example, women who
were confined in the homes of their employers are commonly found in shelters for abused migrant Filipina domestic workers in various countries in the
Middle East and Asia (Parreftas, 2001). Hong Kong offers another extreme
example: Domestic workers who flee abusive employers automatically face
deportation proceedings because of the stringent legislation imposed against
foreign domestic workers in 1987 (Constable, 1997).
Additionally, in countries where they are only temporary members, migrant Filipina domestic workers also face restrictive reproduction laws. Often,
they cannot sponsor the migrations of their families, including their own children. This is the case in Middle East and Asian receiving nations that are much
Race, Labor, and the State • 111
more stringent than other countries. State policies in Taiwan deny entry to the
spouses and children of migrant workers (Lan, 1999). Singapore even prohibits migrant workers from marrying or cohabiting with native citizens
(Bakan and Stasiulis, 1997). Surprisingly, this is also the case in certain
European and North American countries. Domestic workers employed under
the Live- In Caregivers' Program in Canada do not qualify for family reunification. Likewise, domestic workers employed under the au pair system in the
Netherlands are ineligible to marry.
Even if migrant Filipina domestic workers were able to sponsor the migration of their families under liberal state regimes such as those of Italy or the
U.S., labor conditions still discourage them from doing so. In addition to low
pay, contracts of guest workers usually bind them to stay with their sponsoring
employers, and this makes them incredibly vulnerable to poor labor standards.
This is especially true of domestic workers because their isolation in private
homes aggravates the vulnerability engendered by their legal dependency on
their sponsoring employers.
Taking into account the nuances engendered by differences in domestic
policies among the receiving nations of migrant Filipina domestic workers,
partial citizenship comes in distinct degrees and levels of exclusion. Migrant
Filipina domestic workers face different provisions of conditional membership. In some countries (e.g., Hong Kong), domestic workers do not have the
flexibility to change sponsoring employers; they can do so in other countries
(e.g., Italy). Moreover, some countries (e.g., Italy) allow family reunification;
others (e.g., Taiwan) do not. Regardless of whether migrant domestic workers
have the flexibility to choose employers or sponsor their families, full membership is still not an option. Instead, they confront racial exclusionary measures that stunt their feelings of membership in receiving countries.
Family reunification remains a challenge to many immigrants in Europe.
They confront heightened anti-immigrant sentiments and political platforms
from conservative parties such as the National Front in France and the Lega in
Northern Italy. As a result, even if eligible to do so, most migrant Filipina
workers in Europe prefer not to petition for entry of the children left behind in
the Philippines (Parrefias, 2001). In Germany, children under 16 years old are
required to obtain visas to visit their legally resident parents. In the United
Kingdom, entry conditions for family visits have become stricter with the rising suspicion that family members intend to remain indefinitely (Koffman
et al., 2000), although the presence of the second generation in some countries
offers greater options for their integration into receiving societies.
One such country is Italy, despite the fact that a great number of migrants
there still choose to leave their children in the Philippines. In contrast to most
receiving nations in Asia and the Middle East, Italy allows guest workers to stay
as long as 7 years. Short-term contracts of2 years apply in jurisdictions such as
Hong Kong. Moreover, permits to stay in Italy limit employment to domestic
112 • Rhacel Salazar Parrefias
work but do not restrict Filipina migrants to a single sponsoring employer.
Finally, temporary residents have been eligible for family reunification in Italy
since 1990. Despite that, migrant Filipina domestic workers are still restricted to
the status of guest workers in Italy, but because Italy has more inclusive migrant
policies than do other destinations of the diaspora, it remains one of the more
coveted destinations among prospective migrants from the Philippines.
However, migrants in Italy remain restricted to the status of permanent guest
workers. Other nations such as Canada, Spain, and the U.S. offer migrant
Filipina domestic workers the possibility of gaining full membership after a few
years as guest workers. In these countries, migrant Filipina domestic workers are
considered transitional guest workers. They can eventually gain full citizenship
and the right to participate in the host polity, which is not the case in most other
destinations of the diaspora. In Canada and Spain, migrant Filipina domestic
workers are eligible for full citizenship after 2 years of legal settlement. Despite
the seemingly more liberal and inclusive policies in these nations, political and
social inequalities, as Bakan and Stasiulis (1997) indicate using the case of
Canada, still mar the incorporation of migrant Filipina domestic workers.
The Canadian Live-In Caregivers' Program requires an initial 2 years of livein service by foreign domestic workers before they can become eligible for
landed immigrant status. During the 2 years, they are restricted to the status of
temporary visitors, are denied family life, and are more prone to face abusive
working conditions, including long hours and inadequate pay. Without the
protection oflabor laws granted to Canadian workers, migrant domestic workers-most of whom are Filipinos-have fewer rights than do full citizens.
Filipina domestic workers in the U.S. experience the same vulnerability.
U.S. immigration laws have similarly produced the effects of extreme susceptibility for domestic workers who wish to legalize their stays via Alien Employment Certification. According to a handbook written for domestic workers by
the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund and National Employment Law Project (2001), obtaining a green card via employer sponsorship in
the U.S. can take as long as 10 to 15 years, during which domestic workers are
unable to seek other employment and are consequently more susceptible to
work under indenture-like conditions.
Without doubt, the imposition of partial citizenship on migrant domestic
workers benefits employers. The guest worker status, legal dependency on the
native employer, ineligibility for family reunification, and the labor market
segmentation of foreign women to domestic work guarantee host societies a
secure and affordable pool of care workers. At the same time these factors
maximize the labor provided by these workers and constrain their abilities to
care for their own families, particularly their own children. This works to the
benefit of the employing family because migrant care workers can provide the
best possible care when they are free of caregiving responsibilities to their own
families.
Race, Labor, and the State • 113
The experience of partial citizenship for migrant domestic workers
points to a central irony in globalization. Migrant domestic workers care for
rich families in the global north while they are burdened with social, economic, and legal restrictions that deny them the rights to nurture their own
families. Undeniably, the limited citizenship granted migrant Filipina domestic workers comes at high costs to their human rights and quality of
family life. Thus, the elimination of these restrictive measures would at the
very least grant foreign domestic workers the basic human rights of caring
for their own families.
Transnational Family Life: The Painful Consequence of Partial Citizenship
Constituting one of the largest groups of migrant laborers in the new global
economy, an estimated 7.38 million Filipinos work and reside in 187 countries
and destinations. 2 Regardless of official status, a significant number of
migrant Filipinos are parents who migrated to provide for their children
economically and had to leave their children in the Philippines in the process.
Their quasi-citizenship status encourages the formation of transnational
families. The fact that host economies deny Filipina migrant workers the right
to family reunification raises questions about the quality of family life at both
ends of the migration spectrum.
Looking at the receiving end, numerous studies show the emotional difficulties and added pressures undergone by transnational mothers who raise
their children from a geographic distance (Hondagneu-Sotelo and Avila, 1997;
Parrefias, 2001). With limited choices in the Philippines, many women migrate
to help sustain their families economically, but this often occurs at the cost of
the pain of family separation. Migrant mothers who work as nannies often
face the painful prospect of caring for other people's children while they are
unable to tend to their own. One such mother in Rome, Rosemarie Samaniego,
describes this situation:
When the girl that I take care of calls her mother "Mama;' my heart jumps all the
time because my children also call me "Mama:' I feel the gap caused by our physical
separation especially in the morning, when I pack (her) lunch, because that's what I
used to do for my children .... I used to do that very same thing for them. I begin
thinking that at this hour I should be taking care of my very own children and not
someone else's, someone who is not related to me in any way, shape, or form ....
The work that I do here is done for my family, but the problem is they are not close
to me but are far away in the Philippines. Sometimes you feel the separation and
you start to cry. Some days, I just start crying while I am sweeping the floor because
I am thinking about my children in the Philippines. Sometimes, when I receive a letter from my children telling me that they are sick, I look out the window and ask the
Lord to look after them and make sure they get better even without me around to
care after them [starts crying]. If I had wings, I would fly home to my children. Just
for a moment, to see my children and take care of their needs, help them, then fly
back over here to continue my work.
114 • Rhacel Salazar Parreiias
At the sending end of the migration spectrum, it is not easy to grow up
without one's parents. Between 2000 and 2002, I spent 18 noncontinuous
months in the Philippines where I conducted 69 in-depth interviews with
children of migrant workers. Such children suffer incalculable losses when
their parents disappear overseas, but they do understand that the limited
financial options for families in the Philippines cause their losses. According
to Jason Halili whose mother has worked in the U.S. as an elderly care provider for more than a decade," [T]here are no opportunities for people unless
you are filthy rich .... So people have no option but to go outside the country
if they want to progress .... So it was the hardest route to take, but ... the best
route to take:'
As scholars of Filipino family migration argue, children struggle with feelings of emotional insecurity including loneliness, unfamiliarity, the loss of
quality time spent with their families, and abandonment (Scalabrini Migration Center, 2000; Parrefias, 2001). Denied the authority of their parents, the
children also feel that they are more likely to suffer from growing up without
sufficient guidance and discipline (Parrefias, 2001 ). Extended lengths of separation further aggravate these feelings.
Ellen Seneriches describes her loneliness related to her physical distance
from her mother. It entails the constant denial of wanting to "call her, speak to
her, cry to her" and the dissatisfaction of having to rely on email as their primary form of communication. Children such as Ellen, who was only 10 years
old when her mother left for New York, often repress their longings to reunite
with their mothers. Knowing that their families have few financial options,
they are left with no choice but to put their emotional needs aside and often do
so knowing that their mothers' care and attention are diverted to other children. Children of domestic workers such as Ellen often have to confront the
jealousy caused by imagining the diversion of care and attention by their
mothers to other children. Consequently, they experience the emotional stress
of jealousy when they grow up in transnational households.
This does not suggest that migrant mothers do not attempt to sustain ties with
their children. In fact they do, and their children often recognize and appreciate
these efforts. Many children with whom I spoke in the Philippines actually receive
a reconstituted form of the double day from their mothers across great distances.
For instance, some children report that their mothers send text messages via cellular phones to check whether they ate breakfast in the morning, applied lotion
before they left for school, and did their homework at night.
One such child who benefits from acts of"intensive mothering" from a distance is Ellen Seneriches (Hays, 1996). Despite the 12-year-long separation
from her mother, they maintain a very close relationship because of their frequent communication. Ellen even credits her mother for her success in school.
Now a second-year medical school student, Ellen graduated at the top of her
Race, Labor, and the State • 115
classes in both high school and college. According to her, the key to her success
was the open communication she maintained with her migrant mother. In
fact, Ellen and her mother email one another at least two or three times a week.
Moreover, Ellen could always turn to her mother about her problems and, in
fact, felt more inclined to do that than seek the advice of her father.
The good fortune of having a "super-morn" is not universal, but it does
raise questions about how children withstand such geographical strains,
whether and how they maintain solid ties with their distant parents, and what
circumstances lead some children to feel that those ties have weakened or disappeared. Generally, surrogate parental figures and frequent communication
with the migrant parent, along with the knowledge of the migrant parent's income contribution to the family, ease many of the emotional insecurities that
arise from transnational household arrangements. Children who lack these resources have greater difficulty adjusting. Those who feel that their parents did
not provide sufficient care from a distance were more likely to feel abandoned.
This group includes Jeek Pereno, whose life has been defined by longings
arising from feelings of abandonment. At 25, he is a merchandiser for a large
department store in the Philippines. His mother provided for her children and
managed with her meager wages, first as a domestic worker and then as a
nurse's aide, to send them $200 a month. Not satisfied with his mother's financial support, Jeek wishes she offered him more guidance, concern, and
emotional care.
Jeek was 8 years old when his parents relocated to New York and left him
and his three brothers in the care of an aunt. Eight years later, Jeek's father
passed away, and two brothers (the oldest and youngest) joined their mother
in New York. Visa complications prevented Jeek and his remaining brother
from going and their mother has not once returned to visit them in the Philippines. According to Jeek, she said, "It will cost too much."
Years of separation breed unfamiliarity among family members. Jeek does
not have the emotional security of knowing that his mother genuinely tried to
lessen that estrangement. Only a visit could shore up Jeek's security after
17 years of separation. His mother's weekly phone calls do not suffice. Because
he experiences his mother's absence as indifference, he does not feel comfortable communicating with her openly about his unmet needs.
Jeek feels that his mother not only abandoned him but also failed to leave
him with an adequate surrogate. His aunt had a family and children of her
own, Jeek recalls, "While I do know that my aunt loves me and she took care of
us to the best of her ability, I am not convinced that it was enough ... because
we were not disciplined enough. She let us do whatever we wanted to do." Jeek
feels that his education suffered from this lack of discipline, and he greatly regrets not concentrating on his studies. Having completed only a 2-year vocational program in electronics, he doubts his competency to pursue a college
116 • Rhacel Salazar Parrefias
degree. At 25, he feels his only option is turning from one low-paying job
to another.
Although extended kin can provide sufficient amounts of guidance and
discipline and tend to do so if not taxed by other familial responsibilities, one
cannot assume that they do so openly and willingly. The uncle of Gailanie
Tejada-a college student too old to qualify for immediate reunification with
her parents-saw his responsibility as an unwanted burden:
I never really chose to be anyone's guardian. Just that, you know, this responsibility had to fall on my lap because I was here most of the time. And it was like, hey,
you know, they are my nieces. I just feel responsible ... but it wasn't really my responsibility because I was not their parent ... But being the brother of one of the
parents, I felt it was my responsibility because they weren't there. And my
mother was too old to deal with them.
Expressed in tears, the statement of Gailanie's uncle, Guillermo Tremafia,
suggests that guardians do sometimes resent the unwanted responsibility that
falls on them when parents migrate without their children. It also suggests that
children left behind are susceptible to receiving inadequate care.
The case of Norbert Silvedirio, a 21-year-old college dropout whose mother
and father have worked in New York City as domestic workers for more than
13 years, is no exception. Norbert also feels that his schooling suffered from
the lack of guidance brought about by parental absence:
I remember that I was in Grade 2 [when my parents left for the U.S.]. I was
just left on my own. I was the one who looked after myself. [My older siblings]
would just hand me my allowance and it was up to me to budget it .... I
would go to school everyday but in high school, I would only go to class once
in a while. I was always at the billiard hall. [Laughs] .... I think it would have
been better if I grew up with them around. There was no one around to guide
me. I just did what I wanted to do. I would go to school if I felt like it. My
[older brother] would try to tell me to go to school, but I never really listened
to him.
Without the option of following their parents to the U.S., children like
Norbert, Jeek, and Gailanie have to rely on extensive efforts from kin. As in the
case of Gailanie's uncle, we cannot assume that extended family members are
always willing to extend their help with open arms. Similarly, migrant parents
have to double their efforts of caregiving, as the monetary support that they
provide from a distance cannot alone quell the emotional insecurities facing
children in transnational families.
Migrant mothers such as Rosemarie Samaniego have to, in essence, work a
double day from thousands of miles away to allay the insecurities of their
children. They call their children frequently and perform various acts of
mothering from a distance. These struggles indicate that transnational family
life presents added challenges to the maintenance of strong intergenerational
ties. Surely, they are challenges that would be eased by geographical proximity
Race, Labor, and the State • 117
of the family. However, this option is not available to families in the domestic
worker diaspora-families such as those of Norbert, Jeek, Ellen, and Gailanie,
who, by default, also confront the stringent restrictions imposed by the quasicitizenship status of their migrant parents in host societies.
Conclusion
This chapter addresses the quasi-citizenship confronted by migrant Filipina
domestic workers in various nation-states. The relegation of their status to
quasi-citizenship is not restricted to illiberal nations and includes countries in
Europe and America that have liberal state regimes. The restriction of the incorporation of migrant domestic workers into the nation-state works to the
benefit of receiving economies that we can picture as an economic bloc of
nation-states that maximizes the labor of migrants through the imposition of
partial citizenship. The partial citizenship status of guest workers-whether
permanent or transitional-discourages the development of feelings of rightful membership in various host societies.
Consequently, migrant domestic workers are less inclined to demand labor
rights commensurate with those of native-born citizens. In this way the wages
of migrant domestic workers can be kept to a minimum. The partial citizenship status of migrant domestic workers also facilitates the formation of
transnational households. This means the receiving nation-states contain the
costs of reproduction of migrant workers in sending countries and consequently minimize the wage demands of the migrant workforce. The minimization of the wage demands of migrant domestic workers often comes at the cost
of denying family intimacy.
As a consequence of partial citizenship, transnational households represent the flexibility of family forms in the Filipino diaspora. However, they
should not be considered celebratory symbols of family diversity. Transnational families represent the continued racial exclusion of migrants in the age
of globalization that emerges from the partial citizenship imposed on migrant workers. The formation of transnational families must be seen as enforcement of border control against migrant workers and their families.
Transnational households signify the segregation of migrant workers from
the host polities of various receiving national states through globalization.
The growing number of such households in the domestic diaspora of the
Philippines tells of the continued impact of the juridical and territorial
boundaries imposed by nation-states on the incorporation of migrant workers
in globalization.
Acknowledgments
This chapter benefits from comments shared by David Smith. Portions of this
chapter are reprinted from Parreftas, R.S., Servants of Globalization: Women,
Migration, and Domestic Work, Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA, 2001;
118 • Rhacel Salazar Parrefias
and Parrefias, R.S. and C.S. Parrefias, "Workers without Families: The
Unintended Consequences;' Asian Law Journal, 10, 101, 2003.
References
Anderson, B., Doing the Dirty Work? The Global Politics ofDomestic Labor, Zed, London, 2000.
Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund and National Employment Law Project, 2001
Rights Begin at Home: Protecting Yourself as a Domestic Worker, New York: Asian American
Legal Defense and Education Fund and National Employment Law Project, p. 22.
Bakan, A. and D. Stasiulis, "Introduction;' In Not One of the Family: Foreign Domestic Workers in
Canada, in Bakan, A. and D. Stasiulus, Eds., University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1997.
Chin, C., In Service and Servitude: Foreign Female Domestic Workers and the Malaysian
"Modernity" Project, Columbia University Press, New York, 1998.
Cohen, R., Global Diasporas: An Introduction, University of Washington Press, Seattle, 1997.
Colen, S., "Like a Mother to Them: Stratified Reproduction and West Indian Childcare
Workers and Employers in New York," in Ginsburg, F. and R. Rapp, Eds., Conceiving the
New World Order: The Global Politics of Reproduction, University of California Press,
Berkeley, 1995.
Constable, N., Maid to Order in Hong Kong: Stories of Filipina Workers, Cornell University Press,
Ithaca, NY, 1997.
Gamburd, M., The Kitchen Spoon's Handle, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 2000.
Hays, S., The Cultural Contradictions ofMothering, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 1996.
Hondagneu-Sotelo, P., Gendered Transitions: Mexican Experiences of Migration, University of
California Press, Berkeley, 1994.
Hondagneu-Sotelo, P. and E. Avila, "I'm Here But I'm There: The Meanings of Latina
Transnational Motherhood;' Gender and Society, 5, 1997.
Hondagneu-Sotelo, P., Domestica, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2001.
Jones-Correa, M., "Different Paths: Gender, Immigration, and Political Participation;'
International Migration Review, 32, 1998.
Koffman, E., A. Phizacklea, P. Raghuram, and R. Sales, Gender and International Migration in
Europe: Employment, Welfare and Politics, Routledge, New York, 2000.
Lan, P.C., "Bounded Commodity in a Global Market: Migrant Workers in Taiwan;' presented at
the 1999 Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of Social Problems, Chicago, August
6-8, 1999.
Lowe, L., Immigrant Acts, Duke University Press, Durham, NC, 1996.
Mohanty, C., Feminism without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity, Duke
University Press, Durham, NC, 2003.
Orozco-Suarez, M. and C. Orozco-Suarez, The Children of Immigrants, Harvard University Press,
Cambridge, 2000.
Parrefias, R.S., Servants of Globalization: Women, Migration, and Domestic Work, Stanford
University Press, Stanford, CA, 200 l.
Parrefias, R.S. and C.S. Parrefias, "Workers without Families: The Unintended Consequences"
Asian Law Journal, 10, 2003.
Portes, A., "Transnational Communities: Their Emergence and Significance in the Contemporary
World System;' in Korzeniewicz, P. and W.C. Smith, Eds., Latin America and the World
Economy, Praeger, Westport, CT, 1996.
Portes, A. and R. Rumbaut, Legacies: The Story of the Immigrant Second Generation, University of
California Press, Berkeley, 200 l.
Sassen, S., Losing Control? Sovereignty in an Age of Globalization, Columbia University Press, New
York, 1996.
Scalabrini Migration Center, Impact of Labor Migration on the Children Left Behind, Quezon City,
Philippines, 2000.
Smith, M.P. and L.E. Guarnizo, Eds., Transnationalism from Below, Transaction Publishers, New
Brunswick, NJ, 1998.
Soysal, Y., Limits of Citizenship: Migrants and Postnational Membership in Europe, University of
Chicago Press, Chicago, 1994.
Soysal, Y., "Changing Citizenship in Europe: Remarks on Postnational Membership and the
National State;' in Cesarini, D. and M. Fulbrook, Eds., Citizenship, Nationality, and
Migration in Europe, Routledge, New York, 1996.
Race, Labor, and the State • 119
Notes
1.
2.
My discussion of the overlooked second generation bears significance to the new direction
in immigration studies as I bring attention to the children of immigrants who are not
within the territorial boundaries of the U.S. A growing interest in the lives of the children of
immigrants or "immigrant second generation;' as they are referred to, dominates contemporary immigration studies. Researchers believe that the case of the immigrant second generation warrants focus because it would show how far-reaching are the integration and
acceptance of racialized minorities in the U.S. population. See Portes and Rumbaut {2001).
Information obtained from meetings with officers at the Commisson for Filipinos Overseas on August 30, 2001.
8
On the Border of Love and Money:
Sex and Tourism in Cuba and
the Dominican Republic
AMALIA LUCIA CABEZAS
Introduction
The tourism industry is the primary economic development strategy for both
Cuba and the Dominican Republic, creating local direct employment and producing a number of multiplier effects within the countries. Both tourism and
remittances represent the major earnings for the state, signifying a continual
reliance on former colonial powers and outside forces for economic stability
(Jimenez, 1999; Mesa-Lago and Perez-Lopez, 1999; Wiarda, 1999; World Bank,
2001; Orozco, 2002). This chapter will examine the Cuban and Dominican
sexual markets connected to the travel and tourism industry.
Drawing on field work with sex-trade participants, hospitality workers, and
other informal sector workers, I examine some of the manifestations of flexible
labor and sexual identities. Although these two Caribbean nations have many
differences, this chapter concentrates primarily on commonalities. Nevertheless,
a few comments are in order to highlight some features of both countries. Certainly the most glaring and profound differences are Cuba's adherence to a
centrally planned government that espouses socialist principles and its diplomatic break with the most powerful empire in the world today.
At the beginning of the 20th century, both Cuba and the Dominican Republic were under U.S. hegemonic control characterized by periodic military
intervention and occupation, loss of national autonomy, and the bolstering of
brutal political regimes. In 1959, Cuba broke away and became the first socialist country in the Western Hemisphere. This challenge to U.S. capital and
strategic interests was to influence the growth of the Dominican tourist industry and prompt the assassination of its "butcher" dictator Rafael Trujillo
(Atkins and Wilson, 1998). 1
The Dominican economy for the past 20 years has increasingly moved
toward the implementation of neo-liberal, free-market reforms. After it was
ravaged in the 1980s by the implementation of structural adjustment programs imposed by the International Monetary Fund, mismanagement, and
121
122 • Amalia Lucia Cabezas
corruption, its economy showed high rates of growth during the 1990s
(Wiarda, 1999). However, most of the population continues to live in extreme
poverty (World Bank, 2000). A World Bank report comments that the
Dominican Republic is notable in Latin America as the country that allocates the lowest share of its public capital to education, health, and public
safety (2000). 2
At the end of the 1980s, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the socialist
trading bloc obliged Cuba to move quickly from state-controlled central planning to a mixed-market economy that emphasizes social welfare. As with its
neo-liberal Dominican neighbor, the Cuban state has implemented neo-classical
economic reforms, including the general retrenchment of the state, a move
toward export-oriented zones, implementation of incentives to attract foreign
capital, privatization of utilities, and labor restructuring (Susman, 1998).
Notwithstanding these radical and contradictory changes, the state has
continued to support an infrastructure that stresses social well-being and acts
as a safety net for the most vulnerable segments of society. As Paul Susman
asserts, "What makes the Cuban response to crisis conditions so interesting is
that it appears to accept many capitalist economic practices, but with restrictions aimed at maintaining its commitment to socialism" (1998, p. 185).
Despite a tightening of the U.S. embargo that has caused resource scarcities,
epidemics, and shortages of food and medicine, Cuba has held fast to its health
and educational programs, continuing to make them universally available,
although they are continuously ravaged by scarcities.
According to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the
Caribbean, "Social indicators for Cuba continue to be outstanding in comparison to the regional average, despite the economic difficulties the country has
been experiencing since 1989."3 The rapid move to a mixed-market system
during the past 10 years coupled with the "dollarization" of the economy produced the emergence of new social classes, resulting in an inverted social pyramid that privileges workers in the tourist industries and those who receive
remittances over professionals in all other economic sectors.
Despite these and other important differences, my aim is to demonstrate
similar economic and social outcomes that stem from the adoption of international tourism-or the four Ss, as they are known in the literature: sun, sea,
sand, and sex-to create economic growth. First, I argue that the link between
tourism and the sex trade points to the flexible reorganization of the labor
process, through the creation of seasonal work, the proliferation of informal
market arrangements, and the erosion of boundaries between the formal and
the informal sectors of the economy (Portes, Castells, and Benton, 1989; Portes
and Schauffler, 1993; Sassen, 1998; Freeman, 2000). These changes are related
not only to the reorganization of labor but also to new patterns in the social
organization of personal romance. Second, I argue that workers consequently
inform, shape, and challenge the labor process through their use of intimacy
On the Border of Love and Money • 123
and sexuality and that they contest and defy uncomplicated categorizations of sex
tourism as sex work. Finally, I offer some preliminary thoughts on an alternative
to the prevalent paradigm that characterizes all sex tourism as sex work.
Most sex-tourism studies have focused primarily on relationships that are
spatially discernable and public (Pruitt and LaFont, 1995; O'Connell-Davidson,
1996; Brennan, 1998; de Albuquerque, 1998; Cabezas, 1999; Kempadoo, 1999;
Sanchez-Taylor, 2001). These encounters attract attention because they are
highly public and involve participants from different racial, ethnic, and class
backgrounds. Most studies have examined relations between otherwise unemployed "freelance workers" or beach boys in tourist centers (Pruitt and LaFont,
1995; de Albuquerque, 1998; Oppermann, 1999; Ryan, 2000; Herold, Garcia, and
De Moya, 2001; Sanchez-Taylor, 2001) and overlook on-the-job tourism workers as participants in the sex trade. These workers are accessible and in constant
and intimate contact with tourists. Furthermore, most studies assumed they
knew in advance who was a sex worker and what counted as sex work.
Although the literature has begun to challenge studies that narrowly define
sex tourism as solely involving monetary exchange, the category of sex worker
has remained unexamined and immutable within the field of sex tourism. If
we account for spatial factors and assumptions based on race, sexuality, and
class, the sex-worker category loses its stable meaning. This study proposes a
more complicated approach that accounts for the provisional practices and
identities that constitute sexual markets and envelops understandings oflabor
and sex more as matters of continua than as hard and fast definitions.
Tourism and New Patterns of Sexual Labor
The lack of viable work and the dependence on foreign exchange drive young
men and women to migrate to the tourist areas to earn their livings. Sex with
tourists is one of a broad spectrum of services and activities in which people
engage to procure earnings.
Sex tourism is not only about sex and money; it concerns other kinds of
opportunities as well. Liaisons with tourists provide the means to get by and get
ahead. Such liaisons supplement low wages and also allow participants to procure
opportunities for recreation, consumption, travel, migration, and marriage.
Because of these opportunities, any liaison, sexual or not, is perceived as a potential boon for a local participant. Therefore, sex tourism is more than an illicit
activity; it involves socially acceptable behaviors and values. It is a contingent and
open-ended activity whose blurred boundaries are intertwined with elements of
romance, leisure, consumption, travel, and marriage. Although many of the participants in the sexual economy trade sexual services for cash, others do not.
Patterns of flexible labor with decentralized networks of production and distribution are common within tourist economies (Poon, 1990; Mullings, 1999).
Those who have no formal employment in tourist enterprises hustle at various
activities connected to tourists. In Cuba, these hustlers are known as jineteros and
124 • Amalia Lucia Cabezas
jineteras. A jinete, according to the Oxford Spanish Dictionary (1996, p. 362 ), is a
horseman or horsewoman and jinetear is to ride and break a horse.
In Cuba, jineterismo is a colloquial term that refers to the broad range of
activities and behaviors associated with hustling, including, but not limited to,
sex for cash. Jineteros trade in the margins of the tourist economy; they are
often seen in the streets of Havana, peddling everything from cigars and rum
to sexual services. They act as tourist guides, escorts, brokers of sexual services,
and romantic companions.
Jineterismo is also a gendered term and is applied to both men and women,
with Jineteras perceived as providing primarily commodified sexual services and
companionship to foreigners. When applied to women, the term jinetera conjures
images of a woman riding the tourist, alluding to the sexual and power relationship of a woman on top and in charge (Fernandez, 1999).4 The term jinetera
emerged in the early 1990s with the sudden growth and expansion of international mass tourism after the collapse of the socialist trading bloc. Initially, little
stigma was attached to the identity. Even Fidel Castro said that jineteras worked
for pleasure and not for money. The new term signified a distance from the
stigma associated with prostitution and also separated the activities of jineteras
from the commercial practices of prostitution in Cuba before the revolution. 5
Another sexual identity to emerge with the Cuban tourist economy in the
1990s is pinguero, derived from pinga, a slang term for penis, which is used to
categorize men who provide commodified sexual practices within the tourist
sector. 6 Although some pingueros identify themselves as straight, they tend to
provide sexual services mainly to gay tourists because male-to-male sexual
practices are more lucrative than straight sex.
In the Dominican Republic, men who work in the informal economy of the
tourist sector are known as sanky pankys (a word play on hanky panky). Sanky
pankys or beach boys are gigolos who cater exclusively to foreign tourists and
provide sexual services and companionship to both men and women, straight
and gay. The more-successful beach boys tend to be friendly and nonthreatening
in their pursuit of female tourists, using heavy doses of flattery in an overall
seduction plan that involves a wide array of social activities and experiences,
such as sightseeing, dining, and dancing (Herold, Garcia, and De Moya, 2001).
The more-professional gigolos do not consider it appropriate to exploit
women by engaging in "one night stands" (Herold, Garcia, and De Moya,
2001). It is more productive to cultivate a relationship that could provide substantial rewards, such as the possibility of a long-lasting romance that brings
return visits and perhaps even marriage and migration.
The Labor of Romance
In a tourist setting, it is difficult to discern who is a prostitute and what counts
as prostitution. Instead of socialized and institutionalized spaces for sex work,
as found in Southeast Asia, Western Europe, and the U.S., where forms of
On the Border of Love and Money • 125
contract or indentured labor operate, the new patterns of sexual commerce in
Cuba and the Dominican Republic are opportunistic, fluid, and ambiguous.
They are different from the brothels in the Dominican Republic that cater to a
domestic clientele and were prevalent in Cuba in the 1950s. A sexual economy
operates within the heavily guarded resort compounds where hospitality
workers provide sexual services and in the streets where young men and
women seduce foreigners. The transactions that take place are difficult to recognize and categorize as a form of labor; instead, the landscape of tourism
lends itself more to interpretations of adventure and romance.
As with most of the Caribbean, mass tourism in Cuba and the Dominican
Republic has moved to the all-inclusive model of resort development. At an
all-inclusive resort, a tourist's expenses, including airplane travel, accommodations, meals, transfers, entertainment, recreation, tips, and drinks, are paid
for in the country of destination, usually with a credit card. Typified by the
French conglomerate Club Med that opened in Cuba in 1996, most resorts in
the Caribbean have now adopted some form of the all-inclusive model. These
enclaves strive to cater to all tourists' needs, keeping them virtually locked into
the confined space of the resort and segregated from the local population.
Guests must wear color-coded plastic bracelets that allow "uniformed security
personnel to better control their movements" (Stanley, 2000, p. 68).
The change to the all-inclusive model of tourism produced devastating
effects for workers who depend on the tourism economy and affected neighboring areas. Many hospitality workers who formerly counted on gratuities to
complement their meager wages and earn foreign exchange are now pushed
into the sex sector to replace lost earnings. For example, hotel workers participate in the sex trade by allowing tourists to take their "dates" back to their
rooms or by facilitating sexual liaisons between tourists and locals. Along with
room service and extra towels, many hospitality workers also provide sexual
services to guests.
Maira, a chambermaid in Varadero, Cuba's premier beach resort, recounts
her initiation into providing sexual services with a Spanish tourist: "I fell in his
good graces. He would always be looking at me. He always left me a gift. As
he said, he was buying me. He was always looking at me, my movements, my
gestures, my way of being, and things like that, until one day he approached
me [about having sexual relations]." This marked the beginning of Maira's
extra-docket activities at the hotel. Carefully and discreetly, she was able to
earn extra cash and received two marriage proposals from hotel guests.
The transition into the sexual economy can be smooth for hospitality
workers for a number of reasons. First, sex and romance, whether offered by
the host or requested by the guest, constitute parts of an organizational
dynamic structured by the industry. Second, hospitality workers, educated to
please their guests, must contend with a clientele's high expectancy of servility.
Third, the highly militarized compounds with their round-the-dock security
126 • Amalia Lucia Cabezas
details effectively keep the local population out and the guests in. Finally, the
constant police aggravation and incarceration of women in the neighboring
areas make hotel workers easy targets for sexual propositions and harassment.
Hotel guests turn to resort workers who are often more than eager to procure extra earnings while on the job. Therefore, sex tourism operates within
the tourist enclaves to subsidize the low wages of formal sector workers and redistributes the wealth of tourists more directly to hospitality workers. A
tourism worker in Varadero sums up this new contingency: "Camareras
[chambermaids] are the legitimate and official jineteras."
From tourism advertising and marketing to the organizational structure
of the workforce, travel for pleasure and leisure to Third World countries is
exceedingly dependent on gendered and racialized sexual constructions. Most
hotel workers in Varadero are trained at the local tourism training center, the
Jose Smith Comas Institute of Hotel and Tourism Services. The school has
strict regulations covering physical appearance and imposes weight, age, and
height requirements. Trainees must be young, attractive, and in good physical
shape. Not only are youth and aesthetics premium considerations, but so is
race. The training and distribution of work are organized according to racial,
sexual, and gender considerations, resulting in occupational segregation.
Whereas most of the front desk workers are lighter skinned Cubans, entertainment workers and back-kitchen help are mainly black.
Entertainment workers, also known as animadores (animators), are
young, scantly clad, dark-skinned young men and women who instruct the
guests in dancing, games, and other forms of recreation. Their work is mainly
physical and sensual and often involves suggestive and sexualized contact
with guests. Black performers are also predominantly employed in hotels
that feature live shows. The organization of work is, therefore, a circuitous
interplay of international tourism's rigidly formalistic prescription of inclusion and exclusion of workers based on racial and sexual occupational
categories.
The racial and sexual ordering reflects the consequences and legacy of colonialism as they play out on this current stage of global capitalism. Writing
about the representation of the mulata body in Cuban touristic culture, critic
Alicia Arriz6n notes that the racialized performativity encompasses "all the
complexities and unstable processes about how race, gender, and sexuality
enact the power relations within colonial, neocolonial, and postcolonial
discourses" (2002, p. 137).
Studies conducted in the Dominican Republic also revealed the prevalence of sexual relations between tourists and workers in food and beverage services, maintenance, administration, entertainment, and reception.
One study reports that almost 20% of resort workers admitted to having had sexual relations with tourists (CEPROSH, 1997). Another study
On the Border of Love and Money • 127
confirms that 38% of male sex workers had regular jobs in hotels as waiters,
porters, and security guards (CESDEM, 1996). This was confirmed by a
recent study of sanky pankys who regularly worked as tour guides, waiters,
or bartenders or rented beach and sports equipment (Herold, Garcia, and
De Moya, 2001).
Many of these young men and women hope their liaisons with foreigners
will lead to marriage and migration. Studies confirm that most pingueros,
jineteras/os, and sanky pankys prefer to accept gifts of clothing, jewelry,
and meals from tourists rather than negotiate money for sex because direct
commercial transactions foreclose other possibilities. Furthermore, direct commercial transactions would identify them as prostitutes-an identification they
do not desire. Self-identified sanky pankys in the Dominican Republic, for example, reveal that they never ask for payment directly. Some even offer to pay
for drinks or admissions to discos. They use covert strategies to procure
financial gains.
After establishing a more intimate connection with a tourist, a sanky panky
will talk about being poor, having a sick relative, wanting to continue his
education or start a small business, and his inability to do so because of
poverty (Herold, Garcia, and De Moya, 2001). Sanky pankys often maintain
and continue to cultivate romantic relationships after the tourists leave the
island. Letters, telephone calls, faxes, and return visits keep the fires burning. A
few receive money and plane tickets for travel to Europe or Canada.
Studies also indicate that many beach boy-tourist relationships are focused
on companionship and that love and sex do not enter the picture. Some
liaisons are based on affection, intimacy, or friendship as opposed to sexual
behavior. In both situations, the general tendency is to back away from overtly
commodifying sexual relations by carefully navigating the borders of love and
money. As a 21-year-old native of Havana explained, "It's better to act as if this
is your first time and not to discuss the money. That way they'll think that you
are not doing it just for the money, that you really love them." It is a preferable
strategy for participants to distance themselves from commercial sexual
exchanges in order to attain a more stable and lucrative social role such as that
of a girlfriend or wife.
Women I interviewed referred to their tourist acquaintances as amigos,
or friends, indicating an unwillingness to characterize them as customers
or paying clients. This reluctance to characterize the relationships as strictly
commercial endeavors allows them to create and expand on multiple possibilities for their relationships. Gifts are seen as expressions of love and not as
payments for services rendered; they are used to blur the dichotomy between
love and money. Emotional labor is used to break down the boundaries of
commercial exchanges or at least distort the lines between intimacy and labor
and preserve the dignity of the local participant. This liminal space is marked
128 • Amalia Lucia Cabezas
by fluidity, ambiguity, and heterogeneity and provides opportunities that
direct commercial transactions cannot.
Beyond Sex and Romance
Notwithstanding all this flexibility in social and economic arrangements,
some individuals become stigmatized as sex workers. Who meets the criteria?
What counts as sex work under these circumstances? The social location and
characteristics of the participants (more than a particular type of behavior)
often determine what counts as sex work. I maintain that race, class, and
gender create and delimit the playing field.
For example, a mulata from Santiago living in Havana, seen in the company
of foreigners, is automatically categorized as a sex worker. A pale-skinned university student who dates only foreigners and eventually marries a Frenchman
is not considered a sex worker. A graduate student from California who walks
the streets of Havana with a black Cuban man is readily perceived as a sex
tourist. An office worker in the Dominican Republic who visits a hotel casino
with the hopes of attracting a foreign boyfriend is not considered a sex worker,
but a Dominican woman with dark skin exiting a disco alone in a tourist area
runs the risk of incarceration during a mass arrest of prostitutes.
Identity as a prostitute or sex worker applies to specific situations. It is not
ambiguous and is contingent on the social location and perceived characteristics of the participants. In most situations, the permeable boundaries between
leisure and labor, paid work and unpaid work, and private and public are
difficult to discern, thus making it possible to resist categorization as a
"worker:' The category of"sex worker" has its own disciplinary functions and
tends to signify the participation of a subordinate racial, gender, and class.
The sex worker concept presents an either-or view of relationships and sexual practices. It creates a dichotomy between commercial transactions devoid
of affectional attributes and vilified as racial fetishism and normative relations
not based on material gain and racial desire. Put another way, desire and affection are defined as "lighter" pursuits and prostitution as "darker;' effectively
racializing the entire process. This binary opposition presumes relations not
tainted by economic dependence, speculation, motivation, and interest take
place between individuals of the same racial, national, and class background.
Separating sex work and sex tourism from the homosexual and heterosexual relationships that take place in tourist-sending societies creates artificial
boundaries between human relationships that cannot pass close scrutiny. To
place sex tourism and sex work as something that happens "over there" avoids
"the challenges and insights" into our society that such an examination can
provide (Ryan, 2000, p. 36).
The concept of sex work is also difficult to apply to the new forms of flexible labor and to same-sex desire within tourist economies. Consequently, I
make a case against portraying all practices and social relations within tourist
On the Border of Love and Money • 129
economies as sex work and subsuming significantly different forms of sexuality under the category of"sex worker." The sex worker is presupposed to have a
fixed identity that creates and freezes differences and subjects. The identity
may be fixed where institutions like brothels or pimps control the conditions
of women's sexual activities but it is not fixed in less-constrained situations.
Although "sex worker" is the prevalent term applied to participants of sex
tourism in the Caribbean, I argue that the prevalent socio-labor realities underscore the need for a more complex analytical framework that accounts for
the fluid arrangements and complex relationships that do not easily lend
themselves to collective identification and action. Pruitt and Lafont (1995,
p. 423) found with "rent-a-dreads" in Jamaica that although such a relationship may appear to outsiders to involve prostitute (the Jamaican man) and
client (the European or American woman), both partners perceive the relationship as courtship. In other words, in tourism and romance, the motivations that people attribute to actions cannot be specified in advance. "Sex
worker" is an empowering term only in situations where the woman or man
has no substantial control over the disposition of sexual activities because it
marks those activities as labor and therefore as entailing worker rights. There
is no justification for imposing the sex-worker title on people who do not
identify themselves as such. In this context, the term imposes an arbitrarily
derogatory and racist label. If we consider other possibilities, we can just as
easily understand the activity as the typically gendered, raced, and classed disciplines of romance. I propose that we closely examine sex tourism not as an
either-or proposition but as a landscape for a multiplicity of gradations of
erotic, affectional, and even spiritual practices and as a landscape with some
institutions and practices that mark sexual activities as labor.
Gayle Rubin contends that, whereas "'good' sex acts are imbued with emotional complexity and reciprocity, sex acts 'on the bad side' of the line are considered utterly repulsive and devoid of all emotional nuance" (quoted in Hubbard,
1999, p. 44). I suggest that we examine our notions and separation of love,
romance, and money. The refusal to commodify all sexual relations with
foreigners, the insistence on procuring gifts instead of cash payment, and the creation of flexible identities for themselves and their tourist amigos challenge our
notions of love devoid of economic interests and of work devoid of sexuality.
Conclusion
International mass tourism in the Caribbean has eroded the boundaries between labor practices and romantic relationships. Greater economic informality makes it difficult to clearly define all the new social and economic ventures
as labor. Cubans and Dominicans challenge and shape their conditions of subordination within the global economy by eroding and confusing the lines between love and money, romance and work. They navigate the interstices of the
racialized, gendered, and sexualized structures imposed by the transnational
130 • Amalia Lucia Cabezas
tourism industry and the state. Mass tourism offers them the possibility of escaping brutal poverty through love, friendship, companionship, or sex.
The implementation of neo-liberal reforms and promarket forces and the
exigencies of globalization are some factors driving the growth of sex tourism.
A broader framework than the one used to examine sex tourism is needed; it
should account for the provisional practices and identities that constitute sexual markets and envelop notions of labor and sex as liminal. We need morecomplicated approaches that enhance our understanding of erotic behaviors
and place sexual agency and citizenship at the core of the analysis of labor.
References
Arriz6n, A., "Race-ing Performativity through Transculturation, Taste, and the Mulata Body;'
Theater Research International, 27, 136, 2002.
Atkins, G.P. and L. Wilson, The Dominican Republic and the United States: From Imperialism to
Transnationalism, University of Georgia Press, Athens, 1998.
Barry, T., B. Wood, and D. Preusch, The Other Side of Paradise, Grove Press, New York, 1984.
Brennan, D.E., "Everything Is for Sale Here: Sex Tourism in Sosua, the Dominican Republic" Ph.D.
dissertation, Yale University, New Haven, CT, 1998.
Cabezas, A.L., "Women's Work Is Never Done: Sex Tourism in Sosua, the Dominican Republic;' in
Kempadoo, D., Ed., Sun, Sex, and Gold: Tourism and Sex Work in the Caribbean, Rowman &
Littlefield, Boulder, CO, 1999, p. 93.
CEPROSH (Centro de Promoci6n y Solidaridad Humana), Proyecto Hotelero. Puerto Plata, 1997.
CESDEM (Centro de Estudios Sociales y Demograficos), "Encuesta sobre conocimientos,
creencias, actitudes, y practicas acerca de! SIDA/ETS en trabajadoras sexuales y hombres
involucrados en la industria de! sexo en !as localidades de Puerto Plata, Sosua, y Monte
Llano;' Mimeo, Puerto Plata, COVICOSIDA, 1996.
de Albuquerque, K., "Sex, Beach Boys, and Female Tourists in the Caribbean," Sexuality and
Culture, 2, 87, 1998.
de! Olmo, R., "The Cuban Revolution and the Struggle against Prostitution," Crime and Social
Justice, 12, 34, 1979.
Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, Economic Survey of Latin America
and the Caribbean 1998-1999, United Nations, Santiago, Chile, 1999.
Fernandez, N., "Back to the Future? Women, Race, and Tourism in Cuba;' in Kempadoo, D., Ed.,
Sun, Sex, and Gold: Tourism and Sex Work in the Caribbean, Rowman & Littlefield, Boulder,
co, 1999,p.81.
Freeman, C., High Tech and High Heels in the Global Economy, Duke University Press, Durham,
NC,2000.
Herold, E., R. Garcia, and T. De Moya, "Female Tourists and Beach Boys: Romance or Sex
Tourism?" Annals of Tourism Research, 28,978,2001.
Hubbard, P., Sex and the City: Geographies of Prostitution in the Urban West. Hants: Ashgate, 1999.
Hubbard, P., "Sex Zones: Intimacy, Citizenship and Public Space," Sexualities, 4, 51, 2001.
Jimenez, F., El Turismo en la Economia Dominicana, Secretaria de Estado de Turismo, Santo
Domingo, Chile, 1999.
Kempadoo, K., Ed., Sun, Sex, and Gold: Tourism and Sex Work in the Caribbean, Rowman &
Littlefield, Boulder, CO, 1999.
Llad6, J., "El Plan Nacional de Desarrollo Turistico," presented at Convenci6n Nacional y
Exposici6n Comercial X, Santo Domingo, Chile, September 25-28, 1996.
Mesa-Lago, C. and J. Perez-Lopez, "Cuba's Economy: Twilight of an Era," Transition Newsletter,
World Bank Group, Washington, DC, 1999.
Miolan, A., Turismo: Nuestra industria sin Chimeneas, Editorial Letras de Quisqueya, Santo
Domingo, Chile, 1994.
Mullings, B., "Globalization, Tourism, and the International Sex Trade;' in Kempadoo, K., Ed., Sun, Sex,
and Gold: Tourism and Sex Work in the Caribbean, Rowman & Littlefield, Boulder, CO, 1999.
O'Connell-Davidson, J., "Sex Tourism in Cuba;' Race and Class, 38, 39, 1996.
Oppermann, M., "Sex Tourism," Annals of Tourism Research, 26,251, 1999.
Orozco, M., "Attracting Remittances: Market, Money, and Reduced Costs;' Multilateral Investment
Fund of the Inter-American Development Bank, Washington, DC, January 28, 2002.
On the Border of Love and Money •
131
Oxford Spanish Dictionary, Oxford University Press, Oxford, U.K., 1996.
Poon, A., "Flexible Specialization and Small Size: The Case of Caribbean Tourism;' World
Development, 18, 109, 1990.
Portes, A., and R. Schauffler. 1993. "Competing Perspectives on Latin American Informal Sector."
Population and Development Review 19, ( l, March):33-60.
Portes, A., M. Castells, and L.A. Benton, Eds., The Informal Economy: Studies in Advanced and Less
Developed Countries, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1989.
Pruitt, Deborah, and Suzanne LaFont. 1995. "Love and Money: Romance Tourism in Jamaica."
Annals of Tourism Research 22(2):422-40.
Ryan, C., 2000. "Sex Tourism: Paradigms of Confusion?" in Clift, S. and S. Carter, Eds., Tourism
and Sex: Culture, Commerce, and Coercion, Cassell, London, 2000, p. 23.
Sanchez-Taylor, J., "Dollars Are a Girl's Best Friend? Female Tourists' Sexual Behavior in the
Caribbean," Sociology, 35,749, 2001.
Sassen, S., Globalization and Its Discontents, New York University Press, New York, 1998.
Schwartz, R., Pleasure Island: Tourism and Temptation in Cuba, University of Nebraska Press,
Lincoln, 1997.
Stanley, D., Lonely Planet: Cuba. Lonely Planet Publications, Sydney, Australia, 2000.
Susman, P., "Cuban Socialism in Crisis: A Neoliberal Solution?" in Klak, T., Ed., Globalization and
Neoliberalism: The Caribbean Context, Rowman & Littlefield, Boulder, CO, 1998.
Wiarda, H., 1999. "Leading the World from the Caribbean: The Dominican Republic," Hemisphere
2000, 7, 4, 1999, http:/ /www.csis.org/americas/pubs/hemvii4.html.
World Bank, Dominican Republic Social and Structural Policy Review, Vol. I, Report 20192,
Washington, DC, March 23, 2000, http:/ /inwebl8.worldbank.org/External/lac/lac.nsf/ ebaf58f.
World Bank, World Development Indicators, Washington, DC, 2001.
World Tourism Organization (WTO). "International Tourism Arrivals and Tourism Receipts by
Country of Destination;' 2000, http://www.world-tourism.org.
Notes
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Tourism development is seldom a "voluntary" development option; rather, it is structurally
linked to the stipulations of international capital. The United Nations Educational, Scientific,
and Cultural Organization, the World Bank, and the Organization of American States pressured the Dominican Republic to build its tourist infrastructure after the U.S. lost access to
Cuba's tourist industry (Barry, Wood, and Preusch, 1984; Miolan, 1994; Llad6, 1996).
Loans, technical guidance, and development packages were arranged for the Dominican
Republic to transform the structure of its economy to capture the surplus income and investments of developed nations. The number of tourists arriving in the Dominican Republic grew from 63,000 in 1970 to 2.6 million in 1999 (World Trade Organization, 2000).
The World Bank notes that high levels of unemployment, illiteracy, child labor, malnutrition,
and unsafe drinking water are ordinary aspects of the lives of the poorest segments of
Dominican society (World Bank, 2000).
Approximately 52% of the national budget goes toward basic services (Economic Commission
for Latin America and the Caribbean, 1999).
Cuba was a major tourist destination for U.S. travelers from the 1920s to the late 1950s. Billed
as a pleasure-oriented playland with a vibrant nightlife of music, dancing, restaurants, worldfamous nightclubs, shows, and Mafia-controlled gambling casinos, Cuba's tourism industry
practically ceased to exist with the ascent of the revolutionary government. In the early 1960s,
the U.S. ended diplomatic and trade relations with Cuba and forbade its citizens from traveling
to Cuba (Schwartz, 1997, p. 203). Schwartz attests, however, that sex work in Cuba today has little in common with the prerevolutionary era of "institutionalized sex shows and brothels"
when Havana had more than 10,000 prostitutes (p. 122). Rosa de! Olmo ( 1979, p. 36) indicates
that by 1961 Havana had 150,000 prostitutes and 3,000 pimps.
The connubiality of the suffix era to pinga creates the designation pinguero to describe someone
whose essential quality, as in activity or profession, has to do with his pinga, or male erotic organ.
Herold, Garcia, and De Moya (2001) indicate that not all female tourists provide money at
the end of their visits. In some cases, the men receive only free meals and drinks. Generally,
the men reported receiving $100 to $500 from each woman, although some received more.
Some of the women also bought them gifts such as motorcycles or expensive clothes. Sanky
pankys are very successful financially and earn substantially more than typical males in the
Dominican Republic. For example, some reported earning about $1,000 a month or more.
In comparison, the average wage is $60 a month.
9
Work, Immigrant Marginality,
and 'Integration' in New
Countries of Immigration:
Deja Vu All Over Again?
KITTY CALAVITA
Introduction
On February 5, 2000, a group of men in the southern Spain province of
Almeria set up barricades across the roads leading into the town of El Ejido.
They then stormed into the neighborhoods of North African farm workers,
burned tires, turned over cars, and ransacked a Muslim butcher shop. The
rampage continued for several days, as locals armed with knives, crowbars,
and baseball bats set fire to immigrants' homes and stores and went on what
they called a "caza del moro" (Arab hunt). More than 70 people were badly injured and hundreds were left homeless (Foro Civico Europeo, 2000; S.O.S.
Racismo, 2001). A year later, in the southern Italian town of Salandra, angry
locals attacked an orphanage where 31 Albanian children were staying. Crying
"Lynch the Albanians!" and carrying rocks and clubs, the mob of 500 people
became outraged because Albanian boys "had looked at" local girls during a
neighborhood get-together (Bisso, 2000, p. 16).
I begin with these two episodes not because they are particularly unique or
represent the attitudes of most Spaniards and Italians. They serve as emblems of
something both more subtle and more consequential-the real and perceived
status of immigrants as marginalized and different"others." Ghassan Hage (2000,
p. 15) introduces his book about racialization in Australia with the insight that
there is a "structural affinity ... between what is characterized as 'racist' and the
discourse of the dominant culture;' even when that discourse calls for tolerance.
These outbursts of anti-immigrant racism in Spain and Italy are the violent
cousins of more civilized folk like "suspicion;' "economic marginalization,"
and even "tolerance." The affinity is "structural" because underlying both are
the common perceptions of immigrants as different and the structural location of immigrants as Third World laborers in First World economies that, in
fact, make them different.
133
134 • Kitty Calavita
Immigration from so-called Third World countries' to Spain and Italy has
increased dramatically in the past 10 to 15 years. In the face of this influx,
immigration policies, even those of the right-wing Aznar and Berlusconi
governments currently in power, ostensibly place a priority on immigrant
integration. In fact, integration has become a mantra on the lips of government officials, opposition party members, and immigrant advocates alike.
Despite all the rhetoric and policies aimed at facilitating integration, immigrants remain a class of pariahs, vulnerable to the kinds of attacks I just
described and vulnerable, too, to the everyday experiences of exclusion that
derive from and signify their marginality.
This chapter is part of a larger project that explores what that marginality
and exclusion consist of and how they are constructed and reconstructed in
daily practices in the operating procedures of local institutions, through the
economy, and through the law. That project also tries to make sense of the
paradox that although the law and the rhetoric of policy makers stress the urgency of immigrant integration, not only are they obviously failing in this endeavor, but the law plays an important role in that failure. For purposes of this
chapter, I will address briefly the legal and economic sources of immigrant
marginality and then touch on the similarities and differences between immigrant exclusion in today's post-Fordist and global economy and exclusion of
immigrants to the U.S. in the industrializing era. It will help first to fill in the
contexts of the new immigration to Italy and Spain.
Overview of New European Immigration
Spain and Italy have long been countries oflabor emigration, sending millions
of working men, women, and children to virtually every corner of the globe
beginning in the late 1800s. In the decades after World War II, Spaniards and
Italians found labor opportunities closer to home, shuttling back and forth to
north and central Europe where they supplied the backbone of the industrial
labor force for the postwar economic boom (King and Rybaczuk, 1993).
By the late 1970s and early 1980s, this migrant stream began to reverse.
Many emigrants returned home, and Spain and Italy attracted large numbers
of immigrants. The initial influx occurred at precisely the moment when
northern European countries were closing their doors to Third World workers.
To some extent, Spain and Italy became the "back doors" for immigrants intent
on reaching the rest of Europe; they also became alternative destinations.
Italy experienced its own economic miracle in the post-World War II
decades, and by the mid-1970s the gap between Italy and its northern European neighbors had narrowed. The increased employment opportunities and
higher wage levels associated with this transformation attracted immigrants
from Africa, Asia, and Latin America, much as in earlier years Italians migrated
north to better jobs. By 2001, approximately 1.7 million foreigners legally
resided in Italy. The vast majority came from countries outside the European
Work, Immigrant Marginality, and 'Integration' • 135
Union (EU), and a third of them came from Africa. The majority of non-EU
immigrants work in low-wage sectors of the economy such as domestic
service, tourism, construction, hotels, and agriculture (Ambrosini, 1999;
Caputo, 2000; Gruppo Abele, 2001).
Spain's economy traversed quite a different course and has been shaped by a
unique set of historical circumstances, most notably the Francoist regime.
Since Franco's death in 1975, the economy has grown by spurts and starts,
undergoing unprecedented levels of expansion from 1986 to 1990, when over
2 million new jobs were created-more than in any other European country
(Maxwell and Spiegel, 1994, p. 89).
Spain's economy has continued to expand, with the number of jobs growing 24.2% from 1996 to 2001 (El Pais, July 16, 2002, p. 7). Although still lagging
slightly behind Italy in terms of real wages and standard of living, Spain, too,
has gone far in narrowing the gap with the rest of the EU. As in Italy, Spain's
social protections have expanded rapidly, and its welfare state is now almost
comparable with those of other western European democracies.
Since the mid-1980s, Spain has experienced net immigration for the first time
in modern history. By 2002, over 1.2 million foreigners legally resided in Spain.
Two thirds came from countries outside the EU, and most of them came from the
Third World (Ministerio del Interior, cited in Generalitat de Catalunya, 2002).
Even more concentrated in certain niches than in Italy and less likely to
be found in manufacturing, most immigrants in Spain work in agriculture,
domestic service, tourism, construction, and other low-paying and underground sectors of the economy (Colectivo IOE, 1999, p. 70; Ministerio de
Trabajo y Asuntos Sociales, 2002). As in Italy, immigrant labor is lauded for the
flexibility it provides the economy. The former Director General of Migration
pointed out that a high unemployment rate and the need for immigrant workers
are not mutually contradictory, noting that the Spanish labor market "contains certain rigidities" that Third World labor helps counteract (quoted in
Mercado, February 24, 1992, p. 27).
Despite much talk of coordinating policies at the EU level, most European
immigration laws remain localized within the nation-states. Borders between
EU countries have come down, summits have been held, and pacts determining
how to manage external migration have been signed. Nonetheless, by the time
of the European Council summit in Seville, Spain, in June 2002, virtually none
of the many policy proposals for common immigration and refugee laws had
been ratified. Despite considerable posturing by the new president of the
European Council, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, the Seville summit
produced mostly squabbling and dissension, with the conservative Spanish
and Italian governments "locking horns" with more progressive states, notably
France and Sweden (Papitto, 2002, p. 2).
Spain and Italy passed their first comprehensive immigration laws in 1985
and 1986, respectively, and subsequently enacted amendments, revisions, and
136 • Kitty Calavita
regulatory changes with dizzying frequency. Despite what seems like constant
tinkering, several themes continue to characterize these laws. Above all, they
are oriented toward immigration as a labor supply and contain few provisions
for permanent legal residency or naturalization. Regularization or legalization
programs are implemented every few years, with applications reaching several
hundred thousand individuals (Borras, 1995; Izquierdo, 1996; Pugliese, 2000).
Those who are legalized, however, generally attain only temporary legal status
and must demonstrate continued formal employment and navigate a maze of
government bureaucracies to renew their permits.
Along with their emphasis on immigrants as workers, these policies stress
the importance of immigrant integration. I use this admittedly vague term deliberately, as it is used by policy makers and in the laws. Judging from the rhetoric and
the programs devised in its name, the integration term refers generally to social
and cultural inclusion and is contrasted to segregation, exclusion, and rejection. The vagueness of the term is compounded by the varied strategies devised
to enhance it, ranging from language courses and socialization classes designed
to assimilate, to-conversely-tolerance campaigns that pitch the benefits of
cultural difference and multiculturalism.
The Construction of Marginality
Despite these efforts at integration, immigrants continue to be marginalized
economically, working in jobs and under conditions that locals shun.
Hothouse agriculture around El Ejido, where the riots described above took
place, is a good example. The arid and sparsely populated province of Almeda
began developing its signature hothouse agriculture (bajo plastico, or "under
plastic") in the late 1960s. Four decades later, Almeda, with a population of
only 500,000, generated $1.5 billion from this labor-intensive industry.
Much of this growth began in the early 1990s when a massive increase
in the intensification of cultivation occurred and Moroccan workers began to
arrive in large numbers to work bajo plastico. Almeda now officially has one of
the largest ratios of foreigners to local residents in Spain. The legal immigrant
population more than doubled in 5 years, from 11,255 in 1995 to over 25,000
in 1999. Most of the increase in legal immigration came through the quota
worker program. Indeed, the Spanish government favors this region in its
allotments of quota workers (contingentes). The small province of Almeda
received 9% of Spain's total annual contingent of foreign workers. If the
estimated 70% of undocumented immigrant workers in Almeda are included,
the total size of the immigrant population approaches 100,000 (Foro Civico
Europeo, 2000; S.O.S. Racismo, 2001).
The town of El Ejido emerged only recently. It is a creature of the new hothouse industry and was officially incorporated in 1987. Boasting some
of the highest productivity levels in hothouse agriculture, the El Ejido area
contains over 6500 hothouse farms-one for every six inhabitants. The vast
Work, Immigrant Marginality, and 'Integration' • 137
immigrant workforce is almost entirely Moroccan, most of whom are undocumented. According to the report released by S.O.S. Racismo after the riots of
February 2000, immigrant workers have become "one of the prerequisites
of the hothouse production system that requires the ability to enhance
substantially the size of the available workforce at a moment's notice during
periods of intense activity" (2001, p. 16). Contrary to what might be assumed
about agricultural production in southern Spain, it is not based on age-old
techniques but "is a paradigmatic example of the workings of late capitalism"
(S.O.S. Racismo, 2001, p. 19).
It is the agricultural equivalent of post-Fordist manufacturing in northeastern
Italy. The farms are small-scale production units with intense levels of productivity and heavy investments in technology and equipment. As described by
S.O.S. Racismo (2001), this sector:
is inserted into a globalized economy. Product prices are fixed in Perpignan, France.
The speed at which crops mature can be artificially increased by modifying temperatures and ventilation in the hothouses and this requires that a supplemental labor
force be permanently available-that of illegal immigrant workers. Intense [global
and local] competition requires a reduction in labor costs, especially wages, with a
cheap and docile workforce, and increases in the pace of production (p. 19).
Much of the work is irregular. Three harvests a year are forced from the
overworked soil, each requiring 40,000 workers for 1 to 3 weeks at a time. With
only 12,000 jobs officially registered, the remaining laborers work underground, or sumergido. Seemingly immune to labor inspections from the federal
government, these hothouses depend on itinerant undocumented workers to
provide the supplemental workforce, the temporary status of which is a fixture
of this system of production.
The typical workday lasts 10 hours. Temperatures can reach 113°F with
90% humidity inside the hothouses. In some cases, workers sleep under
the plastic structures or in nearby shacks and are expected to provide roundthe-clock security, a role that effectively extends their workdays to 24 hours.
Owners often deduct money from workers' wages to pay for these hot, humid
accommodations where air is heavy with toxic pesticides. A 45-year-old
Moroccan farmworker in El Ejido described living conditions this way: "We
live eight in one room without running water or electricity. We live together,
eat together, cook together. But, at the moment only two of us are working,
the others either aren't working or work only one or two days a week" (Chattou,
2000, p. 216). What contracts exist are oral. Wages even for legal immigrants,
at about $18 to $24 a day, are lower than those established for agricultural
work in this region (which has the lowest wage rates in Spain). Undocumented
immigrants who are often hired for short periods of time follow the harvest
from town to town and earn even less. In this context, notes the S.O.S.
Racismo report (2001, p. 22), "[L]ack of protection against exploitation is
absolute."
138 • Kitty Calavita
These workers across Spain and Italy are the "new untouchables" (Harris,
1995)-a class of outcasts whose utility is precisely their marginality, whose
exclusion is their passport. It has long been recognized that vulnerable immigrants "work scared and hard" (Marshall, 1978, p. 169). Ari Zolberg (1987) and
others (Ambrosini, 2001) have already exposed the contradictions, if not the
hypocrisy, of policies that ostensibly embrace integration for immigrants
whose primary virtue is their otherness. But marginality is not simply a characteristic that immigrants bring with them like a Third World passport that
gains them admission and ushers them onto the fringes of the economy, nor is
it solely constructed through legal systems that deny them permanent legal
residence and work permits.
Legal and economic marginality are mutually constituted-with the
fragility of legal status in Spain and Italy contributing to immigrants' disempowerment vis-a-vis employers, and their concentration in the underground
economy jeopardizing their ability to legalize, which is usually dependent on a
legal work contract. We can take this one step further because the immigrants'
locations in the host economy reproduce their otherness, as their economic
marginalization as an underclass of workers earning substandard wages sets
them apart from the local population. This marginality effectively closes access
to housing, health care, and education, impedes full membership in the
national community, and invites backlash of the sort seen in El Ejido. In
other words, it is not just that long-standing global inequalities among nations produce postcolonial subjects who provide cheap labor to First World
powers; those inequalities-and those postcolonial subjects-are reproduced
from within.
We might ask, is there anything new here, or is history simply repeating itself? The conditions in El Ejido agriculture sound like the conditions that
braceros in the southwestern U.S. encountered 50 years ago (Calavita, 1992),
that Chinese and Japanese farm workers endured over a century ago (Chu, 1963;
Lyman, 1977; Chan, 1991), and that European immigrants to New York and
Boston experienced in their urban form (Higham, 1955).
U.S. Immigration in the Industrial Era: "Men, like Cows ..."
In the 1880s, Andrew Carnegie (1886, p. 34) referred to immigrants as
"that golden stream that flows into the country each year" and valued each
immigrant at $1500 because "in former days an efficient slave sold for that
sum." A few years later, the New York Journal of Commerce (1892, p. 2)
declared, "Men, like cows, are expensive to raise and a gift of either should
be gladly received. And a man can be put to more valuable use than a cow."
The U.S. Congress (1901, p. 313) praised the combined effects of mechanization and immigrant labor: "The fact that machinery and the division
of labor open up a place for the unskilled immigrants makes it possible not
only to get the advantages of machinery, but also to get the advantages of
cheap labor."
Work, Immigrant Marginality, and 'Integration' • 139
These immigrants did not simply contribute labor power to the industrialization of the U.S.; they provided the cheap labor power unique to marginal populations. In the 1890s, the marginalization was racially explicit. An ad for workers
in a New York newspaper in 1895 (quoted in Gambino, 1975, p. 77) included the
following daily wage rates:
Common labor, white: $1.30 to $1.50
Common labor, colored: $1.25 to $1.40
Common labor, Italian: $1.15 to $1.25
It was within this context that ''Americanization" programs were launched.
The Americanization movement gathered momentum in the early years of the
20th century as the new immigrants from southern and eastern Europe were
declared racially inferior. Frederick Taylor (quoted in Roberts, 1912, p. 73)
once advised employers that "the best kind of man to do certain kinds of work
should be [sic] so stupid and so phlegmatic that he more nearly resembles the
ox than any other type-a type to whom you can talk as you would not dare
talk to white men." Education of a certain type was thought beneficial. Classes
in English, civics, loyalty, and industrial techniques were taught by local
governments and by employers. Henry Ford's English School was a pioneer.
The first words taught were "I am a good American." Higham (1955, p. 248)
describes the later stages of Ford's program:
The students acted out a pantomime which ... symbolized the spirit of the
enterprise. In this performance a great melting pot (labeled as such) occupied
the middle of the stage. A long column of immigrant students descended into
the pot from backstage, clad in outlandish garb and flaunting signs proclaiming
their fatherlands. Simultaneously from either side of the pot another stream of
men emerged, each prosperously dressed in identical suits of clothes and each
carrying a little American flag.
The emphasis on cultural assimilation in these Americanization programs
bears some resemblance to the integration efforts underway in Italy and Spain
today, although the earlier programs were more oriented toward patriotic loyalty
and anti-communism, particularly in the post-World War I period. More importantly, however, these current and former efforts at assimilation have collided
head-on with economic realities that both produce and benefit from marginality.
Doing Empire from Within
The marginalization of immigrants in the new global economy is at the same
time more subtle and more pronounced than the marginalization experienced
in industrializing America. It is more subtle because we no longer explicitly
categorize workers according to race. But, marginalization is also more pronounced. If we look carefully at policies and practices in new countries of immigration, we see a couple of patterns that should give us pause. Both patterns
are related to this era of global post-Fordism and the empire-building practices associated with it that I call "doing empire from within."
140 • Kitty Calavita
One such practice is embedded in the immigration laws of Spain and Italy
where legal status is almost always temporary and contingent. As a result, a
category of vulnerable, differentiated, "disintegrated" workers is built into the
legal system. The other pattern is revealed in the fact that immigration began
to increase in these countries at the same time their economies slowed down
after the post-World War II "economic miracle." In the industrial era,
immigration flows to America always slowed during downturns in the economy, and net migration was sometimes even negative as immigrants returned
home. Instead, the new immigration to Italy and Spain continues despite
unemployment rates in the double digits.
Italian sociologist Maurizio Ambrosini (2001, p. 58) claims that no real
contradiction exists between high unemployment rates and high rates of
immigrant employment. Both conditions are parts of the same phenomenon
of a late capitalism consisting of pre-Fordist and post-Fordist work and little
in between. The three most significant areas of immigrant employment are
small- and medium-sized manufacturing shops (especially in northern Italy),
domestic service, and agriculture. Despite the obvious variations in the types
of work involved, what these sectors have in common is their embeddedness in
the global post-Fordist economy, the retention of essentially pre-Fordist labor
relations, and rejection by local workers.
Domestic service and agriculture are in some ways pre-Fordist economic sectors
that have leapfrogged the period of collective bargaining and government regula
tions associated with industrial employment in the mid-20th century, and today
they constitute an amalgam of pre-Fordist employment relations and postFordist globalization. The environments and contours of domestic service have
changed dramatically, but quasi-feudal employment relations remain the norm.
Agricultural employment, too-as exemplified by the El Ejido hothouses-with
intense periods of productivity, short-term hiring, and global markets, price
structures, and labor force, is a hybrid of pre- and post-Fordist labor relations and
employment structure. The small manufacturing shops in northern Italy are similar hybrids.
The effect of this combination of pre- and post-Fordist work in modern
capitalism helps explain the paradox of high local unemployment and high
immigrant employment: too few good jobs and too many bad ones. As
Ambrosini (2001, p. 174) points out, "From a strictly economic point of view,
the best immigrant is one who has just arrived, is ... willing to work hard, [and
is) undemanding in terms of health and other social services; in other words,
the immigrant who is not integrated ...."
Conclusion
The El Ejido and Salandra incidents described at the beginning of this chapter
served a literary purpose as dramatic symbols of the failure of so-called
integration efforts, but my use of them may have been misleading. This chapter
Work, Immigrant Marginality, and 'Integration' • 141
is not a "look-at-the-racists freak show" (Hage, 2000, p. 20). On the contrary, it is
a view of something far freakier by virtue of its ordinariness: the largely routine
and systematic practices and structures that comprise exclusion and create and
recreate Empire from within.
Sociologist Georg Simmel (1950), in his now-classic treatise on "the
stranger," suggested that immigrants are prototypical strangers-physically
present in a community but not parts of it. By virtue of their distinction literally as outsiders, immigrants and all other strangers are to varying degrees not
perceived as full members in and participants of the social and cultural life of a
community. Pierre Bourdieu (1991, p. 9) described the immigrant as "atopos;'
displaced or without place, and as a "bastard" between a citizen and a real outsider. Rogers Brubaker ( 1992, p. 47) talks about "the modern figure of the foreigner-not only as a legal category but as a political epithet ... condensing
around itself pure outsiderhood."
But, in the new economic and social order of 21st century globalization, the
issue is more complicated than the dichotomy of immigrant-citizen or
stranger-member implies. In the cases of Spain and Italy, the community has
extended beyond the nation-state to include the EU. Thus, not all foreigners
come from "outside the community;' and not all foreigners are "strangers"
or "others." As the forces of globalization have effectively brought together
affluent members of First World countries into one economic club of consumers, the category of immigrant-stranger is increasingly reserved for outsiders from the so-called Third World. As I argued here, their outsider status is,
in part, the product oflong-standing global inequalities associated with the old
colonialisms and imperialisms, but these postcolonial subjects are reproduced
from within through law and the economic marginality it helps constitute.
References
Ambrosini, M., Utili Invasori: L'inserimento degli Immigrati nel Mercato del Lavoro, FrancoAngeli,
Milan, 1999.
Ambrosini, M., La Fatica di Integrarsi: Immigrati e Lavoro in Italia, II Mulino, Bologna, 2001.
Bisso, M., "Linciamo gli Albanesi:' La Repubblica, January 14, 2000, p. 16.
Borras,A., Ed., Diez Anos de la Ley de Extranjeria: Balance y Perspectivas, Fondaci6n Paulino Torras
Domenech, Barcelona, 1995.
Bourdieu, P., "Preface:' in Abdelmalek, S., Ed., L'immigration: Ou les Paradoxes de l'alterite, De
Boeck-Wesmeal, Brussels, 1991.
Brubaker, R., Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany, Harvard University Press,
Cambridge, MA, 1992.
Calavita, K., Inside the State: The Bracero Program, Immigration, and the I.N.S., Routledge,
New York, 1992.
Caputo, G.O., "Salari di Fatto dei Lavoratori Immigrati in Italia;' in Pugliese, E., Ed., Rapporto
Immigrazione: Lavoro, Sindacato, Societa, Ediesse, Rome, 2000, p. 88.
Carnegie, A., Triumphant Democracy, or Fifty Years' March of the Republic, Charles Scribner's Sons,
New York, 1886.
Chan, S., Ed., Entry Denied: Exclusion and the Chinese Community in America, 1882-1943, Temple
University Press, Philadelphia, 1991.
Chattou, Z., "Los Trabajadores Agricolas Marroquies de El Ejido: de la Invisibilidad a la Toma de
Conciencia de Si Mismos;' Migraciones, 8, 203, 2000.
Chu, P., Chinese Labor in California, 1850-1880, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, 1963.
142 • Kitty Calavita
Colectivo JOE, Inmigraci6n y Trabajo en Espana, Secretaria General de Asuntos Sociales, Madrid,
1999.
El Pais, "El Empleo ha Crecido en Cataluiia el 22.1 o/o en Cinco Afios, por Debajo de! 24.2% de la
Media Espaiiola;' July 16, 2002, p. 7.
Poro Civico Europeo, El Ejido: Tierra sin Ley, Libros Solidarios, Bale/Limans, 2000.
Gambino, R., Blood of my Blood: The Dilemma of the Italian-American, Doubleday, New York, 1975.
Generalitat de Catalunya, Dades de la Immigraci6 a Catalunya, Generalitat de Catalunya,
Barcelona, 2002.
Gruppo Abele, Annuario Sociale 2001, Feltrinelli, Milan, 2001.
Hage, G., White Nation: Fantasies of White Supremacy in a Multcultural Society, Routledge,
New York, 2000.
Hardt, M. and A. Negri, Empire, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2000.
Harris, N., The New Untouchables: Immigration and the New World Worker, St. Martin's Press,
London, 1995.
Higham, J., Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925, Rutgers University
Press, New Brunswick, NJ, 1955.
Izquierdo, A., La Inmigraci6n Inesperada, Editorial Trotta, Madrid, 1996.
King, R. and K. Rybaczuk, "Southern Europe and the International Division of Labour: From
Emigration to Immigration," in King, R., Ed., The New Geography of European Migrations,
Belhaven Press, London, 1993, p. 175.
Lyman, S.M., The Asian in North America, ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara, CA, 1977.
Marshall, P.R., "Economic Factors Influencing the International Migration of Workers;' in Ross,
S., Ed., Views Across the Border, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1978.
Maxwell, K. and S. Spiegel, The New Spain: From Isolation to Influence, Council on Foreign
Relations Press, New York, 1994.
Mercado, "Miedo a lo Desconocido," February 24, 1992, p. 27.
Ministerio de Trabajo y Asuntos Sociales, Estadistica de Empleo, January 2002, Table 13.6, www.inem.es.
New York Journal of Commerce, December 13, 1892, p. 2.
Papitto, F., "Immigrati, Salta l'accordo UE; Lite tra Ministri, Francia e Svezia: Niente Tolleranza
Zero," La Repubblica, June 18, 2002, p. 2.
Pugliese, E., Rapporto Immigrazione: Lavoro, Sindacato, Societa, Ediesse, Rome, 2000.
Roberts, P., The New Immigration, Macmillan, New York, 1912.
Simmel, G., The Sociology of Georg Simmel, translated and edited by Kurt H. Wolff, Free Press,
New York, 1950.
S.O.S. Racismo, El Ejido: Racismo y Explotaci6n Laboral, Icaria, Barcelona, 2001.
U.S. Congress, Reports of the House Industrial Commission, 57th Congress, First Session, House
Document 184, Vol. 14, 1901.
Zolberg, A., "Wanted but Not Welcome: Alien Labor in Western Development;' in Alonso, W.A.,
Ed., Population in an Interacting World, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1987.
Note
1.
The term "Third World countries" is awkward in this context, especially after I cited
the presence of "Third World laborers in First World economies;' calling attention to the
interpenetration of supposedly distinct worlds. As Hardt and Negri (2000, p. xiii) said,
"[T]he spatial divisions of the three worlds (First, Second, and Third) have been scrambled
so that we continually find the First World in the Third, the Third in the First, and the
Second almost nowhere at all." Although the world's populations may have been "scrambled;'
the mixing is by no means complete and in any case does not obliterate the broad-brush
distinctions among the economies of this now-globalizing world.
10
Culture, Power, and Oil:
The Experience of Venezuelan Oil
Camps and the Construction
of Citizenship
MIGUEL TINKER SALAS
Introduction
During most of the 20th century, Venezuela has been identified with its principal export, oil. Despite extensive scholarly production on the Venezuelan oil
industry, the existing U.S. and Venezuelan literature fails to fully examine how
this enterprise reshaped the lives of those it employed or how this process
influenced social relationships and the construction of citizenship in
Venezuela. The prevailing scholarship tends to ignore the cultural or power
dynamics engendered by the oil industry, the contentious racial conditions
that initially framed labor relations, and the ways in which this process shaped
political participation.
To address this lacuna, this work begins by analyzing the roles that multinational oil companies played in promoting class aspirations, models of citizenship, and the social structures that influenced organised Venezuelan society
after the discovery of oil in 1922. The study also provides the opportunity to
consider Fordist and post-Fordist models of social reproduction and the debate over imperialism, globalization, and the pervasive influence it generated
in Latin America. Control over oil revenues and policy and the public discourse over how citizenship is defined inform much of the current struggle between the administration of president Hugo Chavez and the opposition forces
in Venezuela. Although this work predates the current crisis, it nonetheless offers a historical perspective from which to understand the class and racial polarization that has gripped the country since the election of Chavez.
The oil industry transformed the rural Venezuelan countryside, displaced
older population centers, and created new communities. These new oil camps,
or campos petroleros as they became known in Venezuela, represent the principal
nexus of interaction among Venezuelans of various regions and social classes
and foreigners employed in the oil industry. The camps served an important
143
144 • Miguel Tinker Salas
role in recasting regional differences, introducing distinct lifestyles, reformulating the use of public and private space, notions of work and time, and promoting new consumer patterns.
Aware of the dislocation that employment in the oil industry implied for an
entire generation of Venezuelans, the multi-national companies sought to
incorporate the family into this process while simultaneously redefining the
roles of working and middle-class women. The oil enclaves and their neighboring communities constitute a social laboratory where the foreign oil companies promoted a model of citizenship and social and political participation
that had long-term implications for the entire nation.
The possibility of work in the oil industry also expanded opportunities for
an emerging and ambitious middle class. After the 1940s, corporate practices
coincided with interests of certain middle-class political leaders who viewed
the foreign oil companies as allies that could undermine the power of the old
political order. This sector accepted the premise that the foreign enterprises
represented agents of change that permitted Venezuela to break from its purported "backward past" and enter a new modern age. 1 The lifestyles associated
with the oil camps and the social stature they conveyed became prototypes for
broad segments of Venezuelan society. Over time, these sectors found common ground with the oil companies and actively cooperated in the formulation of a national social and cultural project that aligned the interests of the
foreign oil companies with those of the nation.
This study breaks with the traditional schema that has characterized foreign economic enclaves in Latin America as self-contained units that interacted principally with the international economy and produced few or no
repercussions on the cultural or political norms of the host countries. Admittedly, the number of people actually employed in the oil industry never
accounted for a significant portion of the Venezuelan labor force. In 1941, the
number of people engaged in all the oil companies represented 1.55% of labor
force; by 1948, it peaked at 4.5%. This general pattern continued throughout
the 1950s and the 1960s. 2 The impact generated by the oil industry therefore
cannot be considered solely in relation to the number of people it employed.
Instead, the Venezuelan oil industry must be measured by its strategic position
in the world economy, its association with an emerging class structure, and the
influence it exerted on the social and cultural norms of the country. From the
perspective of the Venezuelan experience, the foreign enclaves cannot simply
be considered extractive industries connected to international markets. Rather,
they represent the focal points of a dramatic experimentation that, over time,
recast social norms and political attitudes for a significant portion of the
Venezuelan population. 3
Most oil companies that arrived in Venezuela during the first decades of the
20th century previously operated in Mexico, where they encountered thorny
labor problems and an emerging nationalism that blamed foreigners for
Culture, Power, and Oil • 145
despoiling the nation's wealth. El Farol, a publication of the Creole Petroleum
Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Standard Oil Company of New Jersey,
summarized this experience indicating that nationalism was destructive: "We
can cite the case of Mexico ... where it produced noticeable consequences for
the country, originating from the expropriation of the foreign enterprises:' 4
Their experiences in Mexico, including the nationalization of oil in 1938,
proved a decisive factor for U.S. petroleum interests. Avoiding "another
Mexico" in Venezuela framed the policy concerns of the U.S. oil companies
throughout the 1940s and 1950s.
The politics of the Cold War, characterized by an exaggerated fear of
communism, became the other critical factor that influenced relations
between the U.S. government, the foreign oil companies, and the Venezuelan
state. By the late 1950s, the issue of avoiding another Mexico had become conflated by the obsessive fear posed by a purported communist takeover of
Latin America. These broader geopolitical concerns determined the policies
U.S. oil companies implemented in Venezuela. According to a U.S. business
publication, their actions provided "strong insulation against communism and
political instability." 5
Confronted by political turmoil in Mexico and declining production,
British and, subsequently, U.S. companies turned their attention to promising
oil deposits in Venezuela. 6 The U.S. firms feared that their British competitors
would emerge as dominant forces in the region. To initiate operations, the
foreign enterprises needed thousands oflaborers to cut down tropical growth,
build ports, construct new roads, begin drilling, and eventually erect new settlements to house their employees.7 The search for oil along the shores of Lake
Maracaibo attracted thousands of formerly rural Venezuelan laborers from the
nearby states of Merida, Trujillo, Tachira, Lara, and Falcon and from the
distant states of Nueva Esparta and Sucre. 8 The existence of these campos
petroleros eroded regional barriers, creating the possibility of a new national
identity and generating new forms of political organization. These settlements
also set in motion profound personal exchanges between Venezuelans and foreigners from the U.S., the Caribbean, the Middle East, and Asia. 9 This dramatic movement of people produced a host of social and racial tensions that
Venezuelan politicians and U.S. corporate officials manipulated to their
advantage. 10
Initially, the settlements established by the foreign companies resembled a
makeshift society in which all regional groups and nationalities sought to
recreate their own social norms and local cultural traditions against the backdrop of an emerging corporate culture. As oil became an important source of
employment and attracted hundreds of former agricultural laborers, the industry undermined the political and economic powers of the traditional
landed elite." It also restructured the nature of political relations and civic
participation, as the national government and myriad state and local entities
146 • Miguel Tinker Salas
attempted to negotiate different political arrangements and incorporate new
political actors. 12
During this chaotic period, the oil companies faced labor protests, disputes
with local municipalities, and the increasing resentment of an established
landed oligarchy. Seeking to avoid another Mexico, they gradually elaborated a
vision of corporate citizenship that attempted to allay nationalist concerns
over the roles of foreign corporations operating in Venezuela. As part of this
approach they developed a sophisticated social project that sought to incorporate their labor forces into an all-inclusive corporate culture.
The oil camps that arose in Venezuela after 1930 represent adaptations of
the Fordist model in which the foreign company organized production and
also attempted to influence the social and cultural lives of its workers. The
Venezuelan oil camps provided important spaces in which to analyze the ways
the oil industry altered the lives ofVenezuelans and foreigners it generated complex levels of cultural interaction, and, it permits us to examine the construction
of a distinct model of political participation and a concept of citizenship that
favored the interests of the foreign oil industry.
Los Campos Petroleros (Oil Camps)
Marked by visible social and racial distinctions, a pattern of segregated housing arrangements, its organization of public and private space, and the promotion of defined consumer patterns, the oil camps exerted significant influence
over the people who resided within their boundaries. 13 Creole Petroleum's
publications highlighted how the composition of the camps affected the use of
public spaces and also contributed to the social organization of life for those
who worked in the industry. According to El Farol: "When you visit our camps,
the most impressive feature that you observe is the strict order that pervades in
the settlement; this order permits everything to function .... Everything operates in concert with each other." 14 The camps embodied established housing
arrangements and also represented an organizational structure-a model of
class, social, racial, and occupational hierarchy the companies wanted to reproduce among their workers and their families. As a result, camp life both determined work habits and broadly influenced family, gender, and lifestyle
patterns.
Consisting of a series of immediately adjacent residences of relatively uniform size, shape, and color, housing in the oil camps disarticulated the
Venezuelan workers and their families from their previous agricultural activities. For those accustomed to a rural existence where different constructions of
space and time prevailed, the new housing arrangements required remarkable
adaptations. The living quarters and spaces they provided accentuated dramatic changes the workers and their families now experienced. The interior
space of a house usually contained two small rooms: a kitchen and a living
room. This arrangement tended to undermine the traditional extended-family
Culture, Power, and Oil • 147
networks that pervaded typical Venezuelan society. 15 By eroding the basis of
the extended family with multiples levels of authority, it also promoted the
traditional patriarchal family overseen by the male figure. Among oil workers,
especially those newly employed, complaints about the size of the housing
arrangement proved quite common. In some cases, employees creatively altered their living spaces whereas others opted to live in adjacent communities
that formed outside the gates of the formal oil camps in order to preserve their
traditional family arrangements. 16
Life in the oil camps reconstituted familiar relations, emphasized the role
of the nuclear family, and exalted the male parental figure as the primary
breadwinner. Formed, in many cases, by groups of individuals with no established familial bonds, the camps forced people to develop new social contacts
within environments in which the foreign oil companies exerted ever-present
influence. Conscious of the fragility of these new associations, the companies
promoted the notion of a broader corporate family to which the workers and
their families belonged and on which they could rely for social support. Company publications announced marriages, births, baptism, graduations, and
other events that transpired in the camps. These practices sought to create the
sense of an extended corporate family while promoting social practices and
norms the company found constructive. 17 The fact that the oil workers represented a highly mobile labor force subject to constant transfers among camps
increased the need to establish broad levels of solidarity among company employees. As part of this project and to assure the diffusion of their ideals, the
corporations promoted the concept of the nuclear family. According to a Creole
publication:
The spiritual level of the family determines the spiritual level of the community
and the nation. When we mention spiritual we refer to a complete set of social
practices, habits, beliefs and ideals that influence an individual's character. The
home is the central place where these spiritual qualities take shape. 18
In keeping with these objectives, life in the camp revolved around a daily routine involving the worker and incorporating the entire family in activities that
included sports, social functions, night classes, and even religious instruction.
In some cases, even priests received subsidies from oil companies.
Sports and Corporate Culture
The foreign oil corporations paid particular attention to the social lives of
their workers because employees who had few or no recreational alternatives
regularly frequented the bars and brothels that sprung up outside the gates of
the oil camps in the initial phases of operations. To avoid practices that usually
generated social disorder, companies such as Lago, Caribbean, Venezuelan Oil
Concessions, and later Creole sought to integrate workers into what they considered "clean" forms of entertainment.
148 • Miguel Tinker Salas
One 1940 publication entitled the Muscle, published by Sport Caripitense,
pointed out that "sports is the way that individuals in modern society establish
bonds of solidarity." 19 With this frame of reference, the transnational oil companies gradually established a sports directorate in every camp whose
responsibility was to involve workers and their families in athletic events.
These sporting activities initially developed at the local and regional levels.
Eventually they evolved into a sophisticated network of intercamp rivalries
that culminated in a national Olympics-style competition that pitted various
production centers in Venezuela against each other. These activities involved
men, women, and children.
Players who demonstrated athletic prowess received special treatment and
could aspire to become members of professional teams sponsored by the companies. Some sports directors believed that they should involve workers in activities that would enforce their moral character and assure their loyalty to the
company. Many workers complained that opportunities for economic
advancement were tied to their participation in company-sponsored activities.
One critic of the oil companies, Rodolfo Quintero, believed that the foreign oil
companies sought to "create a new oil culture" in which workers and their
family would be completely absorbed by company-sponsored activities. 20
These organized sports teams also reveal the presence of a multi-national
labor force. For example, in Campo Rojo, the Lagunillas cricket team composed of Trinidadian workers defeated the team from Maracaibo, and the
Trinidadians were crowned champions of the Lake Maracaibo region. 21 U.S.
citizens also engaged in a wide assortment of sporting activities. One of the
more unusual events involving U.S. employees was "burro baseball:' Players
mounted the four-legged animals, batted balls, fielded, and ran bases. 21 At Tia
Juana on the eastern shore of Lake Maracaibo, a game between married and
single men attracted large crowds of expatriates. As one U.S. resident said, the
activities were "silly things, but there was nothing else to do." 22
Women
Corporate projects involved both men and women. Although the roles of
women in the oil industry were traditionally overlooked, they proved central
to understanding life in the oil camps and the social relations that this experience engendered. The companies initially hired employees without concern
for their marital status but later gave preference to married individuals. The
presence of women, according to the company, increased the social commitments of the male workers and, as a result, favored labor peace. In this context,
the nuclear family and its associated responsibilities mitigated the problems
that arose from employing single men who had no social obligations.
The oil industry redefined the role of the family, accentuating the roles that
women played in the social structures of the families and in the social activities
that stamped life in the camps. Class position determined the different sets of
Culture, Power, and Oil • 149
social, cultural, and familial obligations expected of women. In addition to
camp committees, social clubs, and a variety of sports programs, companies
such as Creole Petroleum also developed educational programs for women. 23
In 1948, to cite one example, the company established "home economics
schools in Las Salinas, Lagunillas, and Tia Juana. Almost 100 wives are currently enrolled in these classes:' 24 They received instruction on homemaking
and social skills, fashion, and other matters considered important to life in the
camps. The courses also proved important in promoting new consumer
patterns and even fashion trends.
Middle-class women were entrusted with a different set of social obligations
that included a host of interminable welcoming parties, retirements, birthdays,
weddings, and the inevitable arrivals and departure of camp superintendents
and other company officials.25 Instead of formal classes, the semi-obligatory
social events proved as important in establishing norms to which this social
sector aspired. The relative isolation of some camps, their physical dimensions, the close proximity of the residences, and the small sizes of their populations invariably compelled people to attend social functions. Company
publications advised women how to select the appropriate attire to suit
specific activities. For example, one suggestion was that a "decorative hat and a
black dress provide great decoration for cocktails and an early dinner." 26 The
presence of a large U.S. population, especially considering the social hierarchy
that functioned in the camps, proved to be an important factor influencing
consumer patterns, fashions, and the social calendars in most camps. 27
The oil companies recognized the new social functions that they expected
women to fulfill. On more than one occasion, their publications addressed not
only women's position within the family, but also the role they played in the oil
industry. As early as the 1930s, the opportunity of employment in the oil companies modified traditional gender relations and recast women's employment
patterns. In 1940, Creole employed only 111 women in different capacities,
and by 1949 that number had increased to over 1500.28 In most cases, women
found themselves limited to traditional occupations, such as nurses, teachers,
and clerical positions. As the number of women in the industry increased, the
oil companies were forced to address their role in the labor force.
Since the 1930s, women's issues were discussed at various Pan-American
conferences. In fact, elite Latin American women participated in conferences
promoting the causes of universal suffrage and childcare at meetings held in
Cuba and Mexico. This campaign was covered in the pages of publications
such as the Pan-American Union and the Inter-American Monthly. 29 By the
1940s, El Farol joined the debate with an article titled "Lucha por la Liberaci6n
de la Mujer en Venezuela" (the struggle for the liberation of women in
Venezuela), in which it promoted the idea that the "modern woman works,
thinks, and struggles in peace and in war because she is just as capable as any
man. That is why women in the U.S. refuse to blindly follow men:'30 Beyond its
150 • Miguel Tinker Salas
wartime context, the publication sought to link its version of women's liberation with notions of modernity and progress derived by emulating developments in the U.S. 31
Beyond these general values and as part of a broad campaign, the oil companies promoted their version of a model female worker. In an interview, Ana
Victoria, who worked in the laundry department at the Amuay refinery, said
she saw "no contradiction between working in an all-male environment [sic]
since she knew that the company appreciated her services." The article further
affirmed that even though Ana Victoria and women like her worked, they had
not forsaken their traditional tasks in the home. 32
Thus it became clear that the multi-national corporations promoted acertain model of "women's liberation." Within this scenario, women's participation in the labor force did not undermine male patriarchy; rather, their role
was framed within the discourse of modernization. In the end, women's participation accomplished the feminization of a certain sector of the labor force
that would eventually be identified as women's work within the oil industry.
Participation in the industry, even in this initially limited arena, nonetheless
created new public spaces for women.
Office Boys, Junior Staff, and the Formation of the Middle Class
By the 1940s, Creole and Shell, the two largest oil companies operating in
Venezuela, had established influential public relations departments. 33 These
were new enterprises for multi-national corporations, and their creation
attests to the complex social and political conditions they confronted in the
postwar period. These new departments served multiple functions: Internally
they sought to instill in their employees personal practices deemed useful.
Outside the plants they served as the public faces of multi-national corporations in Venezuelan society. These tasks were not mutually exclusive because
both Venezuelan and U.S. employees served as company "ambassadors:'
Through this newly formed enterprise, the oil companies promoted their own
concepts of exemplary workers and model Venezuela citizens.
In its publications, Creole promoted its view of an ideal worker who arrived
early every day, returned home to help with domestic duties, and participated
in functions at the camp's social club or attended baseball games at night. The
work ethic became a central characteristic of the model worker:
Punctuality, loyalty, efficiency, and interest in work are at the heart of the
covenant between the worker and the employer. These are the things the worker
gives up for his weekly paycheck. Under these conditions work ceases to be a dull
routine and becomes an ultimate goal. 34
In addition to a set of accepted personal and social practices, the company
frowned upon certain unacceptable practices, including joining unions, participating in political activities, and publicly criticizing company policies. 35
Culture, Power, and Oil • 151
The model employee sought to advance his career through individual initiative and sacrifice and never through collective action. According to Creole,
"Individuals build themselves:' 36 The promotion of U.S. individualism
("pulling yourself up by your own boot straps") served to counter all efforts at
collective social action.
Creole and other companies regularly promoted individuals who relied on
personal inventiveness to overcome adversity. Company policy actually
encouraged individual initiative, offering employees training programs and
scholarships and publicly promoting workers who succeeded in these endeavors. Under the auspices of a good investment, Creole publicized the case of an
individual who, "when others dedicated themselves to baseball ... was at home
studying for his night classes at the Chavez school in Cabimas." According to
the Creole publication, "at 18 years of age, Moreno had moved from the
anonymous post of apprentice 'E' earning 5 bolivares a day to that of assistant
and later first technician in the laboratory where he performed work that
others had required years of training." 37
Undoubtedly, this individual's efforts to improve his standing appeared admirable, but it is also clear that by promoting his achievements, the company
sought to establish a prototype or model employee that would benefit it and
the country. The company endorsed the concept of a social contract with its
employees. By adhering to this contract, the employee achieved a level of compensation and benefits unmatched in the Venezuelan private sector. In addition, the purported social contract also involved an element of nationalism.
The company repeatedly associated its role in Venezuela as an agent of modernization for the nation. Thus within this broader context, the worker,
through his loyalty to the company, also contributed to the advancement of
the nation.
Although Venezuelans held the majority of the entry-level positions, their
presence in the hierarchy of the oil companies remained limited. During the
initial phase, along with U.S. citizens, foreign oil companies recruited significant numbers of West Indians from islands such as Trinidad, still under British
colonial rule, to fill administrative posts in Venezuela. By doing so, they hoped
to acquire loyal employees who had experience with European customs, spoke
English, and would not easily develop bonds with Venezuelan workers. 38
The multi-national firms insisted that Venezuelans lacked the skills to perform these operations. During the first decades of operation, the employment
of West Indians in positions that Venezuelans could have performed caused
tensions among the foreign companies, incipient labor organizations, the
nascent middle class, and the government of Andean strongman Juan Vicente
G6mez (1908-1935). Confronting a wave of protest and the presence of an
organized labor movement that demanded better conditions and wages, the
multi-national corporations modified their policies and slowly began hiring
Venezuelans into administrative posts. 39
152 • Miguel Tinker Salas
Beyond the entry-level laborer category, Venezuelans could aspire to two
other general job categories within the social and racial hierarchies of the oil
companies where U.S. and West Indian males predominated. The English language classifications of "office boy" and "junior staff" used in Venezuela underscored the asymmetry that pervaded employment in the oil industry. To a
certain extent, the categories also socially and racially distinguished senior
staff employees, usually white U.S. or British males at the top, white or mixedrace Venezuelans who attained employment as junior staff in the middle, and
mixed-race Venezuelans who initially filled the ranks of the office boys at the
bottom of the administrative hierarchy.
The relationship between senior staff and Venezuelan junior staff or office
boys also embodied the distinction between foreign experts and Venezuelan
neophytes expected to implement policies decided by the upper echelons of
the firm. After the oil industry was nationalized in 1976, the mantle of expertise became the domain of the Venezuelan professional sector. They manipulated their newly acquired positions and constituted the only group who could
supposedly address the complex issues associated with the oil industry. Common workers appeared incapable of understanding the complex issues that
confronted the industry and therefore became marginalized from national debates related to oil. 40
Distinctions between foreigners and Venezuelans also found expression in
salaries, benefits, the selection of housing, and the construction of the use of
public and private spaces in the oil camps. The larger oil camps had separate
sectors for senior staff employees, junior staff, and other employees. The staff
and junior staff usually lived in protected, gated communities surrounded by
fences and watched over by guards known as guachimanes, or watchmen. 41
Each camp also had separate social clubs for senior and junior staff and another club for obreros, or laborers. This social and, even at times, racial stratification acquired importance both in the camps and also in the larger
Venezuelan society where it tended to reinforce prevailing views on race.
The position of office boy, despite its paternalistic connotations, became
one of the most important entry-level positions open to people with basic
elementary educations. The office boy was usually assigned as a helper or secretarial assistant in a certain department. Because such entry-level or temporary positions were usually filled by younger persons in Venezuela, they
became the principal sources of training and administrative employment for
many adults. Creole Petroleum regularly published information about
employment opportunities for office boys. The first issue of its in-house magazine titled Nosotros (us) publicized the case of Braulio Rodriguez, who had
begun as an office boy and became "director of his department and oversaw
the work of 18 other office boys." 42
This article and a host of others promoted the belief that office boys could
easily advance beyond their initial training positions and attain high rank. 43 In
Culture, Power, and Oil • 153
addition to acquiring important practical experience, the position of office
boy also exposed individuals to the value system embedded in the corporate
culture. One of the principal lessons many former office boys from this period
recalled was the idea of superaci6n personal (culture of personal improvement)
the company extolled. If they expected to advance, office boys had to demonstrate inventiveness, resourcefulness, and loyalty to the enterprise. As one individual recalled, "I arrived early, left late, and sought to learn from the
professional staff." 44 The position also proved important in the development
of client-patron relations that became essential for the promotion of the individual office boy and were intended to endure throughout a career in the oil
industry. Although the company promoted the notion of meritocracy,
client-patron relations proved to critical to an individual's ascent in the company. Moreover, despite that many individuals managed to climb the social
ladder, the companies simply did not have enough positions to accommodate
all those aspiring to employment.
The lack of university degree programs in fields related to the oil industry
limited the number of Venezuelans who could attain positions as petroleum
engineers or geologists. Nonetheless, Venezuelans with university or professional titles eagerly sought general administrative or junior staff ranks within
the oil companies. As noted earlier, many of these jobs were previously
reserved for foreigners. One exception was in legal departments where the oil
companies invariably had to hire Venezuelans because foreigners could not
appear in court to argue cases on behalf of multi-national corporations, but
even in these cases, the upper echelons of legal departments tended to be
occupied by foreigners.
In response to pressures received, the foreign companies gradually established scholarship programs for individuals who demonstrated loyalty and
particular skills within the enterprises. Again, previous experience and loyalty
to the company appeared to be decisive factors in the scholarship selection
process. The companies preferred to hire and promote within their own ranks,
thus assuring loyalty from employees. During the 1940s and 1950s, El Farol
regularly publicized cases of Venezuelans who, after having proven themselves
at the company, received scholarships to continue postgraduate education in
the U.S. 45 In addition to formal scholarship programs, the companies and the
government oversaw the expansions of university departments associated with
the petroleum industry.
Under relentless pressure from the emerging middle and the working
classes, the oil companies began to hire more Venezuelans. They employed
Venezuelans as lawyers, bookkeepers, accountants, and engineers, and the
Venezuelans became powerful allies of the foreign companies and the primary
interfaces between the transnational enterprises and the population at large.
The success of the Venezuelan middle class depended in large measure on the
maintenance of the export model promoted by the foreign oil companies.
154 • Miguel Tinker Salas
Junior staff members seen as the professional sectors of the industry formed
important social and political networks that found expression in the middleclass parties and professional associations that dominated the Venezuelan
political scene before the rise of Hugo Chavez.
Among the professional sectors, the corporate culture promoted a middleclass lifestyle that paralleled its U.S. counterpart. The company model for junior
staff encouraged a U.S. middle-class lifestyle that found expression in consumer
patterns, housing arrangements, fashion, food, and even lifestyle choices. 46
In addition to postgraduate scholarships for skilled employees, Creole and
Shell also fostered the arts by subsidizing the works of artists, musicians, and
other cultural elements most closely associated with an emerging middle-class
lifestyle. An important element of this effort was the creation of consumer patterns most closely identified with an emerging middle class. Company commissaries stocked with U.S. products "functioned as modern supermarkets" in
which consumer patterns would gradually take hold and eventually influence
broad segments of the population. 47
These new consumer patterns influenced the middle-class standard of living, aspirations, fashions, and recreational activities. The middle class served
as an important link between the U.S. culture that functioned in the oil camps
and the Venezuelan society of which they were a part. This did not require coercive actions on the parts of the companies. Rather, they encountered a convergence of interest between an emerging middle stratum and the interest of a
foreign multi-national enterprise that managed to present itself as the principal agent of modernization in Venezuela.
Harvesting Oil ( Sembrando el Petr6leo)
The programs sponsored by the foreign multi-national corporations in
Venezuela expanded opportunities for an emerging middle class who saw its
future tied to the success of foreign oil companies. By adopting policies that
favored this group, the companies addressed several interrelated issues. They
amassed support among an important social group that they viewed as longterm factors in social and political stability. They also managed to establish
clear connections between these sectors and their own economic objectives.
Creole, in particular, often reiterated that there existed no contradictions
between its objectives in Venezuela and the well-being of the nation and its
various social classes. Company-sponsored publications reasoned that by the
1950s, strikes had become things of the past because work stoppages would
affect the company, deprive the state of needed revenues, and negatively affect
the well-being of the middle class. 48
The publicity campaigns promoted by these multi-national corporations
revolved around the idea of sembrar el petr6leo, or harvesting the benefits of oil
production. Corporate and even the state discourses presented oil as an agent
of modernization, of progress, and as an essential element of civilization. Of
Culture, Power, and Oil • 155
course, progress under this scheme depended on an acceptance of the social
hierarchy that developed in oil camps throughout Venezuela. Likewise, any
critique of this new social order quickly became categorized as "ignorant" or
worse, "retrograde;' and therefore harmful to the nation. Thus, the national
discourse on development and modernization was framed by acceptance of
the role foreign oil companies played in the economy.
Central to the preservation of this image was the campaign associated
with the notion of "sowing;' or harvesting Venezuelan oil to benefit the
nation. The notion of Venezuela's sowing its petroleum found expression in
corporate and government publications. One such example is a report dedicated exclusively to Creole Petroleum Corporation and published by the
National Planning Association with the apparent support of the company.
Titled Venezuela Sows its Petroleum, the publication described how Creole
helped modernize Venezuela. Walter Dupouy, a Creole spokesperson and
often-cited news source, echoed these sentiments in 1949. He noted that just
as the Spanish colony "had depended on the Guipuzcoana Company (the
Caracas Company) to modernize, in our epoch the modernization of the
country is the result of the stimulus of the powerful oil industry. Thanks to
their efforts we have achieved or are trying to achieve the progress that
stamps our century." 49 The ideal embodied in the "sow our petroleum"
slogan became the point of consensus between the foreign multi-national
corporations and a generation ofVenezuelans who believed that oil revenues
would transform their nation.
The oil companies, especially Creole, appropriated this concept and projected their role in helping Venezuela achieve this goal. In an article titled "The
Company and the Nation," published in 1964, Harry Jarvis, then president of
Creole, concluded that "our 45 years of experience ... give us the hope for a
future of sustained prosperity for the nation and the company:' 50 The link
between the progress of the nation and the multi-national corporations
appeared firmly embedded not only in the politics of the Creole Petroleum
Corporation, but also in the minds of middle-class Venezuelans who directly
or indirectly depended on the industry for employment and social standing.
Civil Society
The oil companies did not simply concern themselves with the conditions of
their employees in relatively isolated rural oil camps. Their strategy of
promoting constructive social and personal practices went beyond their own
employees and involved Venezuelan society at large. Increasingly, the oil camp
embodied the model of personal behavior and citizenship, and the experiences
gained there could be generalized throughout Venezuela society. To accomplish this task, the foreign oil companies supported an entire arsenal of
modern public relations tools that sought to influence broad sectors of
Venezuelan society.
156 • Miguel Tinker Salas
The two largest companies, Creole and Shell, sponsored their own radio
shows, published cultural magazines and educational literature, subsidized
university departments, and staffed offices of "experts" who were regularly
cited in the Venezuelan media. After 1953, they also maintained their own
television shows that included "Farol TV" and a highly respected nightly
news program known as the Observador Creole (Creole observer). 51 Every oil
camp also had its own local bulletin, for example, the Caripito Mail and the
Amuay Pelican.
The companies' public relations departments took the values transmitted to
oil-camp residents and disseminated them throughout Venezuelan society.
Central to this perspective remained the need to remake the Venezuelan character; promote Western concepts of time, labor, and management; and purge
Venezuelans of purported negative traits stereotypically associated with Latin
American culture. The practical issue of time was central to the companies.
Western ideas of punctuality and efficiency were promoted. In 1944, a national
publication Creole Petroleum promoted this ideal for all ofVenezuelan society:
"Today! This word is the paramount symbol of men who triumph in life.
'Mafiana' is the word that condemns men to an existence of lamentable sterility
[sic]. Ifwe become accustomed to saying, 'Mafiana I will do this; mafiana I will
begin this or that thing,' we will soon reach old age without having accomplished
anything of importance for ourselves, or for our nation or for humanity:' 52
Besides affirming work, punctuality, efficiency, individualism, and respect
for authority, the multi-nationals also promoted morality, religion, and ways of
organizing politics and union activities. These themes acquired new importance after the nationalization of Mexican oil in 1938. After the Mexican
nationalization, Venezuela became one of the few countries in Latin America
that welcomed foreign oil companies. After 1938, the need to promote models
of citizenship and political participation that favored the extraction of oil by
U.S. enterprises acquired a new urgency. Increasingly, Creole Petroleum sought
to associate itself with the very existence of the nation. In this setting, Creole
and Venezuela represent the same set of interests. The country depended on
Creole, and likewise the company depended on the goodwill of the nation.
From the perspective of the foreign oil companies, their most important
policy concern in Venezuela remained the preservation of their investments
in the nation's oil production. Venezuela's acceptance of the roles of foreign
companies in the extraction and refining of its petroleum proved to be the
cornerstone of this arrangement. Over the long term, the companies appeared less concerned with the form of government that operated in
Venezuela. They proved quite adept at working with dictatorships, military
strongmen, and even purported nationalist middle-class governments. Of
course, they objected to any changes that might alter the revenue arrangements they established with the government. Venezuela became an important
Culture, Power, and Oil • 157
symbol in Latin American for the benefits of the free-enterprise system. In
fact, according to Fortune Magazine, "If there had been no perfect illustration
of what U.S. technical and capital resources could do for the world's 'underdeveloped areas; it would have been necessary to invent the Republic of
Venezuela." 53 The preservation of that system became paramount to the oil
companies' relations elsewhere in the region and even in the Middle East.
El Farol served as one of the principal tools of Creole's public relations apparatus. The other large oil companies also sponsored national publications.
Shell published Revista Shell, and Mene Grande, a subsidiary of Gulf Oil,
produced Circulo Anaranjado (orange sphere). From its inception, El Farol
proposed to "give preference to everything Venezuelan, to promote our traditions, our folklore whether in literature, art, science or history." 54
The use of"our" is not coincidental because Creole purported to represent
Venezuela and its culture. With a staff of highly acclaimed Venezuelan intellectuals, the political undertaking initially promoted by El Farol paralleled developments in other countries of the region. In Mexico, Central America, and the
Caribbean, similar projects had been initiated during the 1930s and 1940s by
intellectuals associated with indigenismo (negritude). In Venezuela, after
almost 30 years of one-man rule, the state and its cultural institutions
remained relatively weak. The foreign oil companies stepped into this void and
portrayed themselves as promoters of national culture. To fulfill its cultural
and social function, El Farol published articles about the indigenous presence
in Venezuela, the role of Afro-Venezuelan culture, the origins of carnival, and
numerous recipes for making hallacas (a Christmas dish similar to tamales)
and arepas (corn cakes). They also dedicated significant coverage to the
various regional manifestations of Venezuelan culture.
On the surface, it seems ironic that a publication sponsored by a subsidiary
of a U.S. oil company would be instructing Venezuelans on their heritage and
on how to make national dishes such as hallacas or arepas. Yet, through these
and other publications, the experiences of the llaneros (cowboys), the way of
life of the Andinos (Andeans), and the cultural traditions of the orientals
(easterners) ceased being simply manifestations of isolated regional cultures
and became central components of a broader Venezuelan national culture.
This process appears closely tied to the forging of a Venezuelan identity, real or
invented, whereby cultural practices, dietary patterns, fashions, and even
notions of identity are homogenized. This venture developed in close association with important groups of Venezuelan intellectuals who viewed the oil
companies' magazines as Venezuelan cultural enterprises. 55
During the 1940s and 1950s, the pages of Creole's magazine created new
public spaces for Venezuelan writers and essayists who, by and large, opposed
the government of strongman Marcos Perez Jimenez (1948-1958). The magazine also provided these authors access to a readership (oil workers) they normally would not have been able to reach. The presence of these intellectuals in
158 • Miguel Tinker Salas
the magazine implied a balancing act and a degree of self-regulation between
their political views and their largely literary or cultural functions. They usually remained free to write about diverse topics as long as they refrained from
directly addressing political issues that the company or the government may
have found sensitive. As one former magazine editor acknowledged, they knew
the range within which they could operate, and seldom did they violate this
space. 56 Although the Venezuelan authors refrained from addressing political
issues, the magazine editors faced no such limitations. The publications
openly attacked the left and the roles of labor unions whereas they lauded capitalism, the free-market system, and other policies favored by the company.
The pages of El Farol during the 1940s and 1950s contained articles or
works by notables such as Mariano Picon Salas, Arturo Uslar Pietri, Juan Pablo
Sojo, Ramon Diaz Sanchez, Miguel Acosta Saignes, Armando Reveron, and
Hector Poleo. 57 The topics addressed by these writers included essays by Sojo
titled "Los Abuelos de Color" (our grandparents of color) and "El Negro y la
Brujeria en Venezuela" (blacks and Venezuelan magic). Saignes, a renowned
anthropologist, wrote about the Timoto Cuica, an indigenous group that
inhabited the Venezuelan Andes before the arrival of the Spaniards. Salas
described the origins of Venezuela's national food, the arepa. 58 Even Mene, the
highly acclaimed novel by Diaz Sanchez that criticized the exclusionary and
racist actions of U.S. oilmen, found its ways in serialized fashion onto the
pages of El Farol. Although the Venezuelan intellectuals refrained from
addressing politics, their presence in this corporate publication represented a
broader political project. Such a distinguished group ofVenezuelan intellectuals lent a certain aura of credibility to the activities of the company in the
country and facilitated its identification with the nation's economic and
cultural progress.
Paramount to the multi-national corporations and their activities in
Venezuela were the association with modernity and progress and the role of
foreign capital in the extraction of Venezuelan oil. 59 By the 1960s, the character
of the magazine changed dramatically. Gradually, its cultural and social functions became the domain of the new democratic state and various sectors of
civil society. The magazine continued to be the mouthpiece of the company
but lost its cultural and social elegance.
Conclusions
Beyond its economic function, oil fundamentally transformed the Venezuelan
social and cultural landscape. Venezuelans employed in the industry
confronted different notions of time and work, as well as new social and
cultural expectations driven in large part by U.S. culture. This does not imply
that they simply became passive recipients of a U.S. way of life. Venezuelans
from diverse social classes responded in multiple ways, including resistance,
adaptation, and even accommodation. The oil camps also provided the basis
Culture, Power, and Oil •
159
for a new level of social interaction between people of diverse social status who
previously functioned primarily within discrete regions in Venezuela. They
also altered the relations of power between these regions and the central
government while establishing the basis for a centralized political apparatus
and a national economy.
The camp experience reconfigured regional identities, introduced a new
lifestyle, and recast the use of public and private spaces, time management,
and the establishment of new consumer patterns. It also reformulated the role
of the Venezuelan family and accentuated the positions of the nuclear family
and male patriarchy. Aware of the fundamental changes underway in the oil
camps, the multi-nationals incorporated families within their structures and
paid attention to the role of women as agents of change in this new process of
socialization. Without the participation of women, it is doubtful that this
process would have succeeded.
Oil exploration increased employment opportunities for thousands of previously rural laborers. Although Venezuelans remained relegated to the lower
socio-economic strata, constant pressure by labor and a nascent middle class
eventually provided them access to administrative employment opportunities
with oil companies. Such employment expanded the economic base of the
middle class. Despite these new sources of employment, their positions in the
multi-national firms continued to be marked by asymmetrical power relations
that accentuated differences between Venezuelans and foreigners.
This chapter underscores the role that multi-national oil companies
played in the promotion of social and citizen participation that developed in
the oil camps ofVenezuela. Political conditions allowed these multi-nationals
to find willing allies among some middle-class political groups and intellectuals who accepted the foreign oil companies as important agents of change.
The experiences acquired in the oil camps eventually found their way into
various sectors of Venezuelan society. This process shaped several generations
of Venezuelans who lived in the oil camps or functioned within this broader
society and, after 1960, assumed the reigns of power in the country. The
model of the nation they promoted remained rooted in the earlier experiences of the oil camps and the notions of citizenship and political participation that they generated.
Bibliography and Notes
1.
2.
3.
These terms continue to influence the Venezuelan public discourse on the role of the oil
industry and its role in the country.
Dupouy, W. "Consideraciones sobre algunos efectos econ6micos y sociales de la industria de!
petr6leo en Venezuela;' El Faro~ (Julio, 1949 ), p. 8.
Other works that also follow this approach include Finn, J. Tracing Veins, of Copper, Culture
and Community from Butte to Chuquicamata, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1988.
Klubock, T.M., Contested Communities, Class, Gender and Politics in Chile' El Teniente Copper Mine, Duke University Press, Durham, 1998. Chomsky, A. and Santiago, A.L. Identity,
and the Struggle at the Margins of the Nation State, the Laboring people of Central America
and the Hispanic Caribbean, Duke University Press, Durham, 1998 and Putman, L. The
160 • Miguel Tinker Salas
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
Company they Kept, Migrants and the Politics of Gender in Caribbean Costa Rica 1870-1960,
University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 2002.
Editorial, El Faro/, Noviembre, 1940, # 18 Afio II p. l.
Taylor, W.C. and Lindeman J. Venezuela Sows its Petroleum, National Planning Association,
Washington, 1955. p. 3.
"Biggest Oil Well Yet;' New York Times, March 18, 1923 p. 13.
Salazar, P.G. Aporte para la historia del movimiento zuliano, Maracaibo: Autor 1982, Prieto
Soto, J. Luchas obreras por nuestro petr6leo, Litografia Lorenzo, Maracaibo, 1970 y Quintero,
R. La Cultura del Petr6leo, Universidad Central de Venezuela, Caracas, 1985. Croes, H. El
movimiento obrero venezolano, Ediciones Movimiento Obrero, Caracas, 1972.
Briceno Parilli, A.J. Las migraciones internas y los municipios petroleros, Caracas 1947, p. 34.
See Tinker Salas, M. "Relaciones de poder, cultura y raza en los campos petroleros venezolanos 1920-1940," in Asuntos, PDVSA, (Caracas) Afio 5, N. 10, Noviembre 2001, pp.
77-104.
See Ellner, S. El Sindicalismo en Venezuela, en el contexto democratico, Fon do Editorial
Tropykos, Caracas, 1995, Tennassee, P.N. Venezuela, Los Obreros Petroleros y la lucha por la
democracia, Editorial Popular, Caracas 1979, and Bergquist, C. Labor in Latin America,
Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1986.
Castillo D'Imperio, 0. Los afios del buld6zer ideologia y polftica 1948-1958. Fondo Tropykos,
Caracas, 1990, p. 13
Boletin de! Archivo Hist6rico de Miraflores, #70 (enero/febrero, 1972) Afio XVIII.,
Memorando, #11 Perez Soto a G6mez. Memorial 26 Junio 1926 p. 319-346. Also Linder,
P. "Coerced Labor in Venezuela, 1880-1936;' The Historian, #57 1994, p. 43-58.
"El caso de los comisariatos," El Faro4 N.129,Afio XI 1950,Also Nosotros, Noviembre 1947.
"Lineas directrices," El Faro4 Febrero, 1945 #69 Afio VI p. l 0.
Study of Operations, Temblador district, Petroleum Engineer Department, Standard Oil
Company of Venezuela. October/November 1942.
Interview with Jose Omar Colmenares, July 2003, a former Shell employee who recalled the
creative steps families took to overcome the crowded space they inhabited.
El Faro/, Maracaibo, Suplemento de Occidente, Mayo,1943 p. 3.
"La responsabilidad de! hogar;' El Faro/ Noviembre 1944 p. 3.
"El Musculo" citado en El Faro/. Enero, 1940 #8 Afio II p.30 Semanario "El Musculo" publicado por Centro Deportivo Caripito, Sport Caripitense.
Quintero, R, La Cultura del Petr6leo, Universidad Central de Venezuela, Caracas, 1985, p. 51.
El Faro4 June 1942, p. 29
The Caracas Journa4 March 24, 1954.
El Faro4 Suplemento de Oriente, Caripito Febrero, 1945, p. 3
EIFaro4AnoX 1949
"Cocktail de despedida." Diario de Occidente. Maracaibo, 2 Octubre 1951, p.l; also several
interviews of women who lived in the oil camps.
"Oltimos dictados de moda." El Faro!. (Enero, 1942) #32 Afio III. p. 26.
Venezuelans in the camps were exposed to U.S. holidays such as 4th of July, Thanksgiving
and the Germanic version of Christmas.
"Las Mujeres en la Creole," El Faro/, Marzo, 1949.
"Inter American Commission of Women;' Inter Americana Monthly, December, 1942 p. 29.
"La lucha por la liberaci6n femenina;' El Faro4 Noviembre 1945. p. 9
Ibid.
"Las mujeres en la Creole;' El Faro/ Marzo 1949.
See "Our Legacy in Public Relations;' in Coordinating Committee of the Jersey Company,
Agenda for Seaview Conference Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, May 16, 1944,
Seaview (NJ) Country Club.
El Faro/. Febrero 1940. p. 15.
"En Buena Compafiia" El Faro/, Afio X N. 125 1949. "Elba Porras, trabaja y Suefia, El Faro/
N.133,AfioXI 1951 y"DeAyeryHoy;' Nosotros,Agosto, 1955.
"El ingeniero que se construyo a si mismo;' El Faro/, N.134,Afio XI, 1951.
"Una Buena Inversi6n;' El Faro4 Febrero de 1949, afio 10 p. 2.
Tinker Salas, "Relaciones de poder, cultura y raza en los campos petroleros venezolanos
1920-1940;'
Ibid.
Culture, Power, and Oil • 161
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
54.
55.
56.
57.
58.
59.
For a development of this perspective, see Carlos Luis Villalobos, "Las representaciones sodales de la tecnocracia petrolera y !as transformaciones de la politica petrolera," Presented
at "La Visi6n de Venezuela," Secci6n venezolana of LASA, Maracaibo, June 13-14, 2002.
Bracho Montiel, G. Guachimanes, (Watchmen) Doce aguafuertes para ilustrar la novela de!
petr6leo, Francisco Javier, Santiago, 1954.
Revista inicial de Nosotros, Afto 1 Numero 1 Agosto 1946 De Office Boy a la Jefatura de la
Secci6n
"De Office Boy a Secretario:' Nosotros, (mayo, 1947) p. 12.
Interview, July 10, 2003, Merida, Venezuela. Jose Omar Colmenares. Mr. Colmenares
worked as an office boy in Mene Grande during the 1930s.
El Faro/, "El ingeniero que se construyo a si mismo," #CXXXIV, 1951 p. 26. (During this
period El Faro/ no longer indicated its month of publication.)
El Faro~ Ano X 1949
El Faro/, "El caso de !as Casas de Abasto:' Ano XI 1950.
Taylor, W.C. and Lindeman, J. Venezuela Sows its Petroleum, Washington: National Planning Association, 1955, p. 62.
Dupouy, W. "Consideraciones sobre algunos efectos econ6micos y sociales de la industria
de! petr6leo en Venezuela:' El Faro!, (Julio, 1949), p. 2.
Jarvis, H. "Empresa y Naci6n:' El Faro!, (Abril, Mayo, Junio 1964.)
This new program continues today but is simply known as "El Observador:'
El Faro~ "Editorial:' Febrero de 1944. p. 1.
Fortune, "It's Hot in Venezuela:' (May 1949) vol. 39 p. 101.
ElFarolFebrero 1946.
"Una empresa de Cultura Venezolana," Guillermo Meneses, El Faro!, (abril, mayo, junio
1964.) p. 28,
Personal conversation with former Shell magazine editor, June 2002. Maracaibo, Venezuela.
Uslar Pietri A. "La Maravillosa Jornada de Alejandro Humboldt;' El Faro~ Marzo Abril
1959, y Acosta Saignes M. "Los Timoto-Cuicas, un pueblo previsivo, El Faro~ Setiembre,
Octubre 1958.
Sojo, J.P. "Los abuelos de color:' El Faro!, June 1946. Salas Pic6n M. "Pequefta historia de la
arepa:' El Faro~ Abril 1953.
El Faro!, "Necesitamos Capital Extranjero:' mayo l, 1942
III
Workers: Solidarity and Resistance
11
Empire, Strategies of Resistance, and
the Shanghai Labor Movement,
1925-1927
WAI KIT CHOI
Introduction
Suppose that capitalism develops through different stages, and that by empire
we mean the current stage of global capitalist expansion. How then should
we conceptualize the relationship between the periodization of capitalist
development and the strategies of resistance? Should we, in other words, periodize or historicize our strategies in the same way we periodize the dynamics
of capitalist development so as to identify a strategy of resistance that is adequate to this particular stage of capitalist development? 1
A large number of new social movements that promote and defend the
rights of women, people of color, gays, and lesbians emerged since the 1960s.
Some theorists point out that these new forms of social movements as well as
the concomitant socioeconomic and cultural changes in the most advanced
industrial societies reveal the limitations of traditional social theories
(Lyotard, 1984, p. 11; Best and Kellner, 1991, p. ix; Laclau and Mouffe, 2001,
p. 2). For example, there is skepticism about the traditional Marxist approach
that sees the industrial proletariat as the agent of resistance, aiming to subvert
capitalism through mobilization of the industrial working class.
A totalizing theory,2 as the postmodern critics understand it, is unidimensional and tries to capture the dynamics of social change by means of a "grand
narrative" that suppresses important differences among social categories
(Ritzer, 1997, p. 12). A Marxist view that privileges the industrial working
class is seen as an example of this problem because it is blind to the multidimensionality of social interaction. Analysts of the new social movements
in the past three decades claim that multiple points of conflicts are present in
capitalist societies and that all these conflicts cannot be reduced to a "fundamental" contradiction between capitalists and the proletariat.
By the mid-1990s, as Harvey notes, the tide of opinion shifted (1999,
p. xvii). Theorists who previously played important roles in the upsurge
of postmodern theories now argue for the continued relevance of Marx's
165
166 • Wai Kit Choi
writings (Derrida, 1995; Rorty 1997; Butler, 1998). Hardt and Negri (2000)
published Empire, a book described as a rewriting of the Communist Manifesto
for the era of globalization. The ensuing debates in both the academic and the
wider public arenas illustrate a resurgent interest in the relevance of Marx to
contemporary social and economic developments.
Although it is criticized in the writings of the postmodern theorists, the
traditional Marxist strategy of resistance is likewise deemed antiquated by
Neo-Marxists such as Hardt and Negri. They argued that the "internationalist
proletarian subject" (by "subject" they mean an active agent) was seen as the
purveyor of revolutionary change in the earlier era of capitalist accumulation
(2000, pp. 52-53). That was the era of mass production when great numbers
of workers were concentrated in large factories. In the current stage of global
capitalist expansion referred to as the empire, the economy is dominated by
flexible production (see Chiu and So, Chapter 13, this volume).
Production processes are now broken up and performed in different parts
of the world; workers are no longer amassed in single locations. As a result, it is
no longer fruitful to try to organize the proletariat by constructing a common
language and common enemy. We should accept that resistance in the present
era has become isolated and fragmented. Hardt and Negri assume that the way
capitalist production is structured at present makes it impossible to organize
industrial proletariat into a unified agent of resistance. Laclau and Mouffe,
(2001), who modified Marxism from a postmodern perspective in the mid1980s, make a similar argument regarding the formation of a unified revolutionary agent in colonial and advanced capitalist societies. It although their
recommendation of the new strategy is different from Hardt and Negri's.
I will question both neo-Marxist and postmodern arguments in this
chapter, illustrating my theoretical arguments with a case study of the labor
movement in Shanghai from 1925 through 1927. I have reasons for focusing
on Shanghai. It became a treaty port in the mid-1800s, and, until the Japanese
occupation in 1941, it played an important role in the global capitalist system
because it served as a nodal point to facilitate trade between the periphery and
the empires.
By the early 20th century, Shanghai became the indisputable center o£China's
modern industry (Lu, 1999, p. 58), and in the 1920s the city already had a radical,
mass-based, and sustainable labor movement, the culmination of which was a
worker revolution in 1927. I will show that it is an oversimplification to attribute
the formation of a unified proletarian revolutionary subject in an earlier era to
the structural features of capitalist development that existed then. As is true
today, the proletariat of the past was also composed of diverse elements, and
many points of conflict existed among the different social groups participating in
popular movements.
The revolutionary subject that existed in Shanghai in the 1920s was a contingent construction resulting from a fusion of different and even contradictory
Empire, Strategies of Resistance • 167
social groups into an ad hoe alliance based on political finesse. Whether this
coalition would collapse or be sustained over a long period depended on
changes in the external political and economic circumstance as well as the skills
of the actors involved in holding it together. This revolutionary proletarian
subject did not result automatically from the macro political and economic
conditions of the time; its formation was not an historical necessity peculiar to
that stage of capitalist development.
Although important differences between the past and the present can be
noted, we should not be blind to crucial similarities. If as much diversity and
heterogeneity existed among the proletariat or people in the past as exists
today and it were still possible to build broad-based and sustainable movements to coalesce in the earlier period, then we should not resign ourselves to
the view that these forms of resistance are impossible today.
Historical Background I: An Overview
Although China was nominally an independent republic after the overthrow
of the Manchu dynasty in 1911, its vulnerability and subjugation to the military, political, and economic domination of the Western powers since the 19th
century reduced the country to what many writers designated a "semi-colony:'
Hong Kong was ceded to Great Britain in 1842 after the Manchu empire's defeat in the Opium War (Bianco, 1971, p. 2), and Taiwan was given to Japan in
the late 1800s. In certain coastal cities, the Western Powers-Great Britain,
France, Italy, Belgium, Germany, Austria-Hungry, and Japan-had their own
jurisdictions or concessions, their own police forces, and rights to levy taxes.
The most important concession was the International Settlement of
Shanghai. It was formed in 1863 when the areas occupied by the U.S. and the
British merged and created a single elected governing body, the Shanghai
Municipal Council. Chinese people living in the International Settlement were
required to pay municipal taxes, but unlike the Western "ratepayers:' the
Chinese had no right to vote. The French occupied an area south of the settlement and the French concession in Shanghai maintained its own governing
structure (Honig, 1986, pp. 13-14).
Another example illustrating the loss of China's autonomy in that period
was the economic domination exercised by the Western Powers and Japan. In
addition to the cession of Hong Kong to Great Britain, the Nanjing Treaty of
1842 placed a 5% cap on customs duties that could be levied by the Manchu
Empire. After the Taiping Rebellion (1851-1864), the Western Powers seized
greater control over Chinese customs. A General Inspectorate of Customs
was created and the chief inspector and other high officials were all foreigners. Indemnities were imposed on China by the Western Powers and Japan
after its repeated defeats in battles against them. When the Chinese
government was unable to pay its indemnities, it borrowed from these Powers and also contracted other loans to meet its general expenditures. After the
168 • Wai Kit Choi
overthrow of the Manchu dynasty in 1911, the Powers designed a system that
required customs inspectors to transfer the revenues they collected to designated banks-the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (a British
bank established to facilitate colonial trade, now among the world's top 10
banks), the Yokohama Specie Bank, the Banque de l'Indochine, and othersand use that revenue to pay off interest on the various loans that the Chinese
government owed them. The Chinese government was allowed to keep only
the remainder and only with the consent of Western diplomats in Beijing. The
same system was extended to collection of the revenue from the Chinese salt
tax after the government lost control of it in 1913 (Chesneaux, 1968, p. 6).
A parallel exists between the domination that the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) exert over many developing nations today and
the way China ceded control of its finances to the Western Powers. The parallel
suggests that the contemporary global capitalist expansion that we call globalization today is not an historically unprecedented phenomenon. Much of the
developing world, as in the case of China, is re-experiencing global capitalist
domination today.
When examining the impacts of global capitalist expansion in the 21st
century, it would be wise to understand how global capitalism unfolded in
these areas in an earlier historical period. More importantly, familiarity with
the anti-imperialist movements organized by Chinese workers and
revolutionaries in the 1920s should inform present discussion about the strategies of resistance against global capitalism in the 21st century. Shanghai is
especially relevant in this connection. After the city became a treaty port in the
19th century, it was China's most important economic center. In 1922, the revenue collected by Shanghai customs constituted 37% of the total revenue
collected for the entire country; by 1931, Shanghai's share increased to 51 % ( The
Maritime Customs, 1933, p. 9). To understand Shanghai worker resistance
against global capital, the period from 1925 through 1927 is crucial. In 1925, a
general strike was held in support of the May Thirtieth Movement. Three general strikes were held in the city in 1927 during workers' uprisings against the
warlord regime of Sun Chuanfang (The Maritime Customs, 1933, p. 21).
Historical Background II: The Story of Li Qihan
Li Qihan, also known as Li Sen, was among the first to join the Chinese
Communist Party (CCP) immediately after it was founded in 1921 and was assigned the task of organizing the nascent Chinese urban proletariat. Although
he was not a top-rank leader in the CCP, Chesneaux's classic work on the Chinese labor movement ( 1968) contains enough references about Li to assemble
a series of snap shots ofLi's life as a communist revolutionary.
Li Qihan was a student from the Hunan province, the home province of
Mao Zedong. By 1921, even before the official founding of the CCP, Li had
already become an ardent communist and was organizing an evening school for
Empire, Strategies of Resistance • 169
workers living in the cotton-mill district in Shanghai (Chesneaux, 1968, p. 171).
Through a woman worker who attended his school, Li was accepted into the
Green Gang, one of the two major secret societies in Shanghai. Membership in
the gang allowed him to establish contacts with workers in the tobacco and silk
factories located in the Pootung and Chapei districts of Shanghai.
Later that year, in July 1921, delegates from seven of the eight small existing
Communist groups, along with a representative from the Comintern known
as Maring, held a meeting in Shanghai and declared the founding of the CCP.
Li was immediately appointed as the assistant to Zhang Guotao, the leader of
the newly formed Chinese Labor Organization Secretariat of the CCP.
In January 1922, Li held a meeting commemorating the deaths of Rosa
Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. It was held in the Labor Secretariat office
at 19 Chengtu Road in the International Settlement of Shanghai. The Hong
Kong seamen's strike began around the same time, and Li headed the Shanghai
Labor Secretariat committee formed in support of the strike. In June 1922, Li
was arrested by the British police in the International Settlement for his labor
activities. He was then handed over to a Chinese warlord and remained in
prison until 1924, after which he was sent to Guangdong by the CCP and again
became a union activist under the name of Li Sen.
At the end of the 20th century, as Western multi-national corporations
extended or re-extended their reach into different corners of the world, the global
expansion of capitalism produced a global pastiche. As a result, we see monks in
Tibetan Buddhist monasteries drinking Coca-Cola and Vietnamese soldiers
wearing fake Nike sneakers. Although these examples may seem trite, the globalization of capitalism in the present era represents a world where McDonald's
meets Jihad and where one desires both a Lexus and olive trees (Barber, 1995;
Friedman, 1999).
However, it is not only the process of global capitalist expansion that is
eclectic. The resistance against global capitalism also takes on a contradictory
character. In this connection, Li Qihan and the early experiences of the CCP
become relevant to contemporary debates on strategies of resistance against
globalization. The important question that needs an answer is how was a unified proletariat constructed despite the fragmentation that existed among the
Chinese urban workers at the time, fissures produced by regional linguistic
differences, differences in skill levels, differences among industrial sectors, and
differences in age and gender?
Theory: Hardt and Negri's Strategies of Resistance
In the writings of Hardt and Negri, contemporary globalization is seen as a
rupture from the previous historical periods that involved global capitalist
expansion; it is different from the era of imperialism. The term empire is
introduced to capture the articulation of global power and economic production that is peculiar to the present juncture. Unlike the era of imperialism,
170 • Wai Kit Choi
global domination today is exercised by a deterritorialized supranational body
composed of both nation-states and transnational organizations, not by rival
colonial nations. Another difference is that economic processes are no longer
dominated by manufacturing. Economic processes are dominated by service
and information sectors distributed throughout the world.
On the basis of these changes, Hardt and Negri argue that the strategies of
resistance used during the era of imperialism are outdated. They propose that
in the earlier period, the single social group that played a central role in resistance against global capitalist expansion was the industrial proletariat. In the
"previous era, the category of the proletariat centered on and was at times effectively subsumed under the industrial working class, whose paradigmatic
figure was the male mass factory worker ... [the) industrial working class was
often accorded the leading role over other figures oflabor (such as peasant labor
and reproductive labor) in both economic analyses and political movements"
(2000, pp. 52-53).
However, for these authors, the subject of resistance to the empire is no
longer a unified industrial proletariat but a highly differentiated and heterogeneous class of immaterial laborers. "Traditional forms of resistance ... lost
their power ... a new type of resistance has to be invented" (p. 308). Central to
this new form of struggle against global capitalism is the idea of "immaterial
labor" (pp. 53, 209, 289-294). They argue that services and information are
the dominant sectors of the economy today, and that the workers in those sectors constitute immaterial labor. Unlike the industrial proletariat, immaterial
labor is characterized by stratification and heterogeneity and includes workers
involved in knowledge-based laboring processes such as programming and
those who hold poorly paid low-skill service jobs.
This argument implies that strategies of resistance against global capitalism
are dependent on periodization or labor segment. Capitalism develops over
different stages and has transformed from a manufacturing-based economy to
one based on services and information. The organization of production is also
different throughout the distinct stages. The early stage was characterized by
mass production in which workers became concentrated in a factory or industrial town. The later stage is flexible production (see Chiu and So, Chapter 13,
this volume); workers involved in the production process no longer work
together in the same locale. Although the unified industrial worker class characterizing the earlier stage could have carried out resistance, it cannot happen
at a later stage. Resistance against capitalism in the present stage inevitably became fragmented because the proletariat is much more diversified, and the old
strategy of organizing them into one big union or party will not work. A strategy adequate for resisting capitalism during one stage of capitalist development may not be adequate for a later stage.
This method of periodizing strategies of resistance is not uncommon.
Laclau and Mouffe (2001) expressed a similar view in their influential Hegemony
Empire, Strategies of Resistance • 171
and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. In Third World
countries, "imperialist exploitation and the predominance of brutal and centralized forms of domination tend from the beginning to endow the popular
struggle with a centre, with a single and clearly defined enemy. Here the division
of the political space into two fields is present from the outset, but the diversity
of democratic struggles is more reduced" (p. 131). Thus, in these settings, we see
the emergence of two clearly defined antagonistic camps in society, with the
masses opposed to imperialist and capitalist domination (p. 131).
Although the contrast cited by Laclau and Mouffe is between advanced industrial and Third World countries rather than between manufacturing-based
and flexible production-based capitalism, the underlying logic of their position is the same as that of Hardt and Negri. In the less advanced stage of capitalist development, whether it is a manufacturing stage or colonial capitalism,
social conditions are more clearly defined, the points of conflict are less heterogeneous, and the strategy of unification is feasible because the proletariat
and other social classes can come together as a unified agent or subject of resistance. In the more advanced stage, multiple points of conflict arise, more
diversity exists among the proletariat and other social classes, and resistance
inevitably becomes splintered.
Critique
Problems arise with the ways Laclau and Mouffe and Hardt and Negri think
about the strategies of resistance. These authors oversimplify the complicated
process by which a unified rebellion arose in the earlier period when they suggest that the rebellion was made possible simply by the "structural" conditions
of that stage of capitalist development. What if just as much diversity and heterogeneity among the masses and just as many multiple points of conflict existed earlier? In that case, a unified subject of resistance cannot be seen as
something produced by the structure of capitalism in that period. Instead, it
may be the result of an arduous construction in which all the differences
among a diversified populace were bridged and reconciled.
To illustrate my objections to these authors, I focus on the labor movement
in Shanghai from 1925 through 1927. Numerous general strikes and other
strikes occurred then. The labor movement was very large and powerful in
Shanghai and constituted what we could call a unified proletariat. However, a
great deal of heterogeneity and stratification was present among the Shanghai
proletariat, as Perry's (1993) pioneering work on the Shanghai labor movements demonstrates. Therefore, labor unity could not simply be the result of
the "structure" of colonial capitalist development.
Following Perry's lead, I will focus on those historically and socially specific
features of the Chinese proletariat. Labor unity emerged because these features
were overcome and manipulated; the pre-existing characteristics did not
generate labor unity. The general point is that if a unified Shanghai proletariat
172 • Wai Kit Choi
developed, it was through a contingent process that succeeded in bridging all
the differences within a heterogeneous working class. This suggests that the
diversity and stratification of immaterial labor today do not automatically
justify a politics of fragmentation and should not preclude organizing a unified
movement against present-day imperialism.
Shanghai Labor Movement, 1925-1927
The CCP campaign to organize Shanghai workers entered a new stage in 1925
with the eruption of the May Thirtieth Movement. It began on May 15, when
seven Chinese workers were shot by a Japanese foreman during a scuffle at a
Japanese-owned cotton mill. One worker was killed (Shanghai Municipal
Council Annual Report, 1925, pp. 61-62). On May 30, several thousand people
took part in a demonstration to condemn the killing. As the protesters
marched along Nanjing Road in the International Settlement, British police,
attempting to disperse the crowd, arrested students who were distributing
leaflets. Some of the protesters, however, followed the police and the arrested
students to the Louza Police Station (Minguo Ribao, May 31, 1925).
Edward William Everson, the British Police Inspector in charge, gave an
order to shoot the protesters outside the station (North China Daily News,
July 3, 1925). Four protesters died at the scene, and at least 12 were seriously
wounded (Minguo Ribao, May 31, 1925). A mass meeting was held the next
day; among the participants were representatives from the Student Federation,
the CCP, and various shopkeepers' associations. An agreement was reached
to conduct a general strike with participation from workers, students, and
businessmen and boycott foreign banks by withdrawing money they had on
deposit. On the same day, a new organization called the Shanghai General
Labor Union (SGLU) was organized to oversee strikes. The SGLU was directly
linked to the CCP; its top leaders, Li Lisan and Liu Shaoqi, were members of
the party.
By June 4th, the movement had 74,000 strikers; it had approximately
200,000 by June 20 (Minguo Ribao, June 22, 1925). As Chesneaux observes,
"[T]he enterprises primarily affected were the Japanese and British firms and
the municipal services. The ships in the docks were immobilized and the
goods left standing; the telephones ceased to function and foreign newspapers
ceased publication; there was nothing but a skeleton staff left at the power
station in the International Settlement, and there were even quite a number of
defections among the Sikhs of the Muncipal Police" (1968, p. 264). Economic
activities in the city basically came to a halt. A list of demands was presented
during a demonstration on June 13. In addition to the rights to strike and
organize unions, the group demanded the right to vote for Chinese ratepayers
in the International Settlement, the abolition of extraterritoriality, the withdrawal of foreign troops, and other political measures aimed at eliminating
the privileges ofJapan and the Western Powers.
Empire, Strategies of Resistance • 173
The ramifications of the May Thirtieth Movement went beyond Shanghai,
as shown by the Guangdong-Hong Kong strike. On June 19, sailors, telegraphers, newspaper workers, and workers in foreign firms in Hong Kong went
on strike to show solidarity with the workers in Shanghai. In nearby Guangdong, a demonstration was held on June 23. As the marchers approached
Shameen where the Western concessions were located, British and French
soldiers fired on the crowd, killing 52 and wounding more than 100. A
general strike on the British colony immediately went into effect. By the end
of June, over 50,000 workers from different sectors left Hong Kong and went
to Canton, and by the end of July, over 80,000 workers departed the colony.
The strike lasted 16 months, ending in October 1926. During that time, the
economy of the British colony was completely immobilized (Chesneaux,
1968, pp. 291-292).
Interpreting the May Thirtieth Movement
The May Thirtieth Movement was a popular action that struck at Western and
Japanese capital and at their colonial rule in China. Shanghai workers were key
players in the movement, and CCP labor organizations played a central role in
providing direction to the workers and dealing with the logistics of the strike.
However, it would be wrong to conclude that the CCP succeeded in mobilizing
the Shanghai proletariat simply because the industrial working class concentrated in large factories and that made labor organizing easier. They were not
concentrated, and it is also not true that the unity and cohesion achieved
during the strike resulted from the homogeneity of Shanghai proletariat.
The colonial policies of the Western Powers in Shanghai directly fomented
a broad coalition of Chinese workers, students, and bourgeoisie. However, the
emergence of this coalition was not inevitable, nor was it easily sustained in
the long run. There were also other basic "structural" contradictions among
the "people;' for example, between the Chinese workers and the bourgeoisie.
The coalition was formed for a very specific purpose under very specific
circumstances. The Western Powers had many options to break up the coalition, and toward the end of the movement, fissures did indeed appear. We
should not assume that imperialist domination automatically leads to the formation of a popular movement. Instead, we must examine the specific political
and economic circumstances under which the multiple points of conflict were
put aside and also how broad coalitions can and often do collapse.
Although the strike in Shanghai lasted more than 3 months (June to midSeptember) and the workers clearly constituted a "unified subject of resistance;'
the unity was not based on homogeneity among the workers. Rather, the
Shanghai proletariat consisted of heterogeneous groups affiliated with different
regional cultural traditions and organizations. The broad social coalition was
composed of different classes, but it was a fragile alliance, as a more detailed
analysis of the different actors involved will show.
174 • Wai Kit Choi
Heterogeneity of the Shanghai Proletariat I: The Gangster Connection
Writing about the May Thirtieth Movement, Perry observed that "[g] angster
support was the sine qua non of a large-scale strike in Shanghai" (1993, p. 82).
Chen Duxiu, one of the founders of the CCP, confirmed the power of the gangs:
What type of people are most powerful in Shanghai? A superficial look shows
that major political and economic power is in the hands of the Westerners, but
the internal social institution is quite different. The majority of factory laborers,
all of the transport workers, and virtually all of the police are under the control
of the Green Gang. The great strike at the time of last year's student movement
[i.e., May 4) already revealed their authority. The commands of gang leaders are
more effective than those of the Municipal Council. The only way of eliminating
them is to publicly establish legal unions in each industry. Whether Shanghai
unions are developed is thus not only an urgent matter for labor but is also a
matter for Shanghai social order (Chen, quoted in Perry, 1993, p. 73).
To explain why the gangs had such power over Shanghai labor, we need to
understand a unique feature of China proletarianization-the pao-kung, or contract labor system. Factory owners and capitalists did not hire workers directly;
they recruited them through intermediaries. Wages and arrangements regarding
working conditions were negotiated by these intermediaries, most of whom were
gang members, rather than with workers directly. For example, in the cotton-mill
industry, labor contractors would go to villages to recruit young girls. The contractors would pay parents about $30 for 3 years' work by a daughter. After the girl
arrived in the city, the contractor kept all her wages. Her 3 years of labor were
worth about $254. After deducting the costs of recruitment and room and board,
a contractor could earn about $204 for one girl (Honig, 1986, pp.111-112).
The contract labor system was used widely by British and Japanese companies to hire sailors, dockers, and coolies in the big ports and laborers in the
mining industry and many other fields of transport and industry (Chesneaux,
1968, pp. 57-59). This system gave the gangsters a powerful influence over
Shanghai labor. Even establishing legal unions did not end the influence of the
gangsters. After the right wing of the Guomindang, as represented by Chiang
Kai-shek, decimated the CCP and gained control over Shanghai, Du Yuesheng,
a gang leader and opium magnate who financed Chiang's army through his
operations, maintained control over Shanghai labor through "yellow unions."
Such unions were approved by the government and dominated by officials
with close ties to the gangs and typically included semiskilled workers such as
"[m]ail carriers at the Shanghai Post Office, drivers and conductors at the
French Tramway Company, and cigarette rolling machine operators at the
British American Tobacco Company" (Perry, 1993, p.102).
Gangster power explained why communist activists such as Li Qihan became involved in gang activities. The gang connection was especially crucial
for his organizing efforts among workers in the cotton and tobacco industries
(Perry, p. 74). Even Li Lisan, a top communist and one of the leaders of the
Empire, Strategies of Resistance • 175
SGLU, was invited to become a disciple of one of the Green Gang bosses during the May Thirtieth Movement, and with the approval of the party he joined
the gang (p. 81). The cooperation of the gangs in Shanghai was one of the factors accounting for CCP's success in organizing the general strike, but the
gangsters were fickle allies, as events in 1927 show.
Heterogeneity of the Shanghai Proletariat II: The Right-Wing Unions
The United Front of the CCP and GMD was established in 1924 (Skocpol,
1979, pp. 243-246). After Sun Yat-Sen's death in 1925, the split between the
left and the right wings of the GMD became conspicuous. The left wingers
remained cooperative with the CCP whereas the right wingers were hostile and
opposed the expansion of a radical labor movement. The right wingers' concern led to their direct participation in labor organizing. In 1924, the Shanghai
Federation of Labor (SFL) was formed, and it brought together 32 conservative
labor groups. It also maintained close ties to the right wing of GMD.
The problems they presented to the CCP-organized labor movement became
obvious through the May Thirtieth Movement. By early August, 1925, the
strike had continued for more than 2 months, and many workers were weary.
The right-wing SFL seized the opportunity to attack the SGLU and accused its
leadership of unnecessarily prolonging the strike for personal gain. On August 22,
about 50 men entered the offices of SGLU, destroyed documents and office
equipment, and wounded at least eight union officials (Shanghai Municipal
Council Annual Report, 1925, p. 50). The SFL was quickly identified as the culprit behind the attack (Chesneaux, 1968, p. 269; Perry, 1993, p. 82).
Fragile Alliance of Workers and Capitalists
Chinese capitalists also played a role in the May Thirtieth Movement. A large
fund was needed to maintain the subsistence of workers who were on strike,
and the Chinese business people of Shanghai contributed a large part of
the fund. Patriotism was one the factors accounting for the Chinese business
circle's action. However, the changing dynamics of competition between the
Chinese and the Western capitalists became an equal if not more important
factor in explaining the Chinese bourgeoisie's initial alliance and eventual
break with the CCP-organized labor movement.
Patriotism made economic sense for Chinese capitalists who competed
with Western and Japanese business rivals on an unfair basis because of the
political and economic privileges the foreigners enjoyed in China. Chinese
businesses had to pay a likin tax imposed on the domestic circulation of goods.
Western and Japanese products were exempt from this tax because of the
unequal treaties signed with the Manchu Empire in the 19th century. The
treaty of Nanjing stipulated that the tariff rate the Chinese government could
impose on Western goods could not be more than 5%, and this made protectionist policies to nourish the growth of Chinese industries impossible.
176 • Wai Kit Choi
Because of the political status of Shanghai, the Chinese bourgeoisie there
experienced additional disadvantages in competition with Western capitalists.
Representatives in the Shanghai Municipal Council were elected by foreign
ratepayers who owned land worth at least 500 taels (about U.S. $365) and paid
assessment fees or by foreigners who paid assessed rental fees. Although the
Chinese paid a higher proportion of the rate, they still had no rights to vote in
council elections.
In the spring of 1925, the relationship between the Shanghai Municipal
Council and the Shanghai Chinese bourgeoisie further deteriorated when the
council attempted to implement new fees and regulations that disadvantaged
Chinese businesses (Shanghai Municipal Council Annual Report, 1925, p. 65).
When the anti-imperialist May Thirtieth Movement erupted, the Chinese
bourgeoisie were receptive to it, but their participation in the movement did
not last long. The merchants' strike organized by the Chinese bourgeoisie terminated on June 26 (Minguo Ribao, June 26, 1925). This decision was made
after the Western authorities agreed to the possibility of"returning the Mixed
Court to the Chinese, admitting wealthy Chinese to the Municipal Council,
and reopening the negotiations on customs control provided for in the
Washington Treaty in 1922" (Chesneaux, 1968, p. 267). On July 2, the Electricity
Department of the International Settlement issued an open letter to the public
announcing that power would be discontinued unless strikes ended and normal conditions were restored (North China Daily News, July 2, 1925). The editor of the North China Daily News, the leading English newspaper in Shanghai
representing British interests, pointed out that the strike targeted mainly
British and Japanese businesses, and Chinese cotton-mill owners were not affected by it. However, by terminating power supplies, "not only would the
Chinese mill owners lose on their produce, but they would naturally be called
on to do something towards the support of their wrkpeople [sic]" (North
China Daily News, July 2,1925).
The Shanghai Municipal Council cut off power supplies on July 6 (Shanghai
Municipal Council Annual Report, 1925, p. 72). The Chinese General
Chamber of Commerce disbanded the Committee for Aid and Peace
established to collect funds for the strikers shortly afterward (Chesneaux,
1968, p. 268).
Just as the unity of the Shanghai proletariat was partly based on an ad hoe
coalition of the CCP-led unions and the Green Gang, the class alliance between the Shanghai workers and the Chinese bourgeoisie involved in the May
Thirtieth Movement was no less fragile. Imperialist domination and patriotism played roles in the formation of a "unified subject of resistance:' but calculation of political and economic gains peculiar to a social group or class also
shaped the decisions of the Chinese bourgeoisie and the gang leaders. When
external circumstances changed so that their political and economic interests no longer benefited from an alliance with the CCP-organized labor
Empire, Strategies of Resistance • 177
movement, the unified revolutionary group faltered, as the events of the 1927
insurrection will show.
Shanghai Insurrection of 1927
On July 7, 1926, the GMD government that was still in cooperation with the
CCP announced the departure of the Northern Expedition from its base in
Guangdong. The purpose of this military campaign was to unify China by eliminating the unruly warlords who controlled the northern provinces. The CCP
supported this campaign despite the appointment of Chiang Kai-shek from the
GMD right wing as the commander of the northern expeditionary troops.
Outside the International Settlement and the French Concession, Shanghai
was under the control of a warlord named Sun Chuanfang. As the expeditionary
troops won several battles and began to head toward Shanghai, the CCP-run
SGLU decided to join the campaign. The first uprising involving armed workers
occurred in October 1926 but was crushed by Sun's forces. In February 1927, a
second uprising was launched. On February 19, the SGLU declared a general
strike, demanded the overthrow of Sun, and expressed its solidarity with the
northern expeditionary troops.
Workers in business firms, public transport facilities, city services, cotton
mills, silk-reeling factories, and longshoremen all stopped work, and Shanghai's
economy was paralyzed. About 350,000 workers were involved in the strike
(Perry, 1993, p. 85). Sun immediately tried to break the strike by force. The day
after the strike started, 20 strikers were publicly executed, and in the next few
days, 300 workers were arrested (Chesneaux, 1968, p. 355). Only after work
resumed did the SGLU give the order for an armed uprising involving several
thousand workers on February 22, but it was again suppressed by Sun.
With the approval of Zhou Enlai, who had been sent to Shanghai earlier to
direct the CCP struggle, a third uprising was attempted on March 21. The
northern expeditionary troops of Chiang Kai-shek were at the outskirts of the
city and decided not to interfere, perhaps in the hope that the CCP forces would
expend themselves in a battle against Sun. A general strike and an armed uprising were launched simultaneously on March 21. The strike started at 1 p.m.
(North China Daily News, March 22, 1927), and within 3 hours, about 800,000
workers from different industries stopped working, again immobilizing the city
(Shenbao, March 22, 1927).
Worker militias targeted different key parts of the city-train stations,
police stations, and arsenals. Numerous workers even fought bare-handed
against Sun's soldiers ( Shenbao, March 26, 1927). In a neighborhood in northern Shanghai where the heaviest battles occurred, about 1500 houses were
burnt down (North China Daily News, March 24, 1927). After all the fighting
ended on March 22, Shanghai was held by the SGLU and its allies who formed
the Provisional Municipal Government of Shanghai, ruled by a committee of
Chinese capitalists and representatives of the CCP.
178 • Wai Kit Choi
However, just as CCP appeared to expand its control of Shanghai, the balance
of power began to shift and the United Front started to falter. Although the
Northern Expedition was financed in large part by Chinese capitalists, they became increasingly threatened by the growth of union activities. Workers were
making demands in Chinese and foreign factories. Many members of the GMD
right wing were from gentry families and were hostile to the growth of peasant
unions organized by CCP (Chesneaux, 1968, p. 349).
Events in 1927 led the Chinese bourgeoisie in Shanghai to question their
alliance with the popular labor movement. The British began to approach the
GMD as it became obvious that the northern expeditionary troops would rout
out the warlords. In January 1927, the British announced their intention to
gradually abandon their privileges in Shanghai once the political chaos ended,
and the Americans made a similar declaration (Chesneaux, 1968, p. 350). At
the end of 1926, the colonial administration agreed to accept Chinese members into Shanghai Municipal Council, and the Mixed Court was restored to
the Chinese government in January 1927. The tension between the Chinese
bourgeoisie and the Western Powers was reduced by 1927-a more pressing
problem for local businesses was the growing power of the workers and CCP.
Chiang Kai-shek arrived in Shanghai in March, after the formation of the CCPbacked Provisional Municipal Government of Shanghai. As early as March 24, reports circulated about Chiang's potential collaboration with a warlord to eliminate
the CCP (North China Daily News, March 24, 1927). When he arrived, the Federation of Commerce and Industry, whose members included Chinese bankers,
cotton-mill owners, compradors, etc., sent a delegation to Chiang, "who received it
very cordially, and apparently they not only discussed a large loan, but actually
negotiated one for the expenses of the April 12 coup" (Chesneaux, 1968, p. 363).
The gangs of Shanghai also decided to collaborate with Chiang. During the
CCP's third armed uprising inl927, gang leaders such as Huang Jinrong and
Du Yuesheng pledged their cooperation to the CCP in exchange for the continuation of their opium operations (Perry, 1993, p. 86). However, by the end
of March 1927, Huang, Du and Zhang Xiaolin, another Green Gang leader,
met with Chiang's representative. They formed an organization called the Mutual Advancement Society. A confidential report of the British police asserted
that this group was designed to "oppose the Shanghai General Labor Union
and radical elements among the workers. This movement has the full and
energetic support of Chiang Kai-shek" (Perry, 1993, p. 91).
Early on April 12, more than 1000 armed GMD men wearing blue laborers'
uniforms and arm bands decorated with the Chinese character for labor
attacked SGLU offices in different parts of the city (North China Daily News,
April 13, 1927). Chiang's soldiers from the 27th Army immediately arrived on
the scene and, under the pretense of mediating between the two groups,
demanded that the SGLU workers disarm. Chiang's troops started shooting
when the workers refused to disarm, and some labor leaders, including Wang
Empire, Strategies of Resistance • 179
Shouhua, the president of SGLU, were abducted ( Shenbao, April 13, 1927). The
SGLU called for a general strike and organized marches in different parts of
the city to demand the return of their weapons, but soldiers from the 26th
Army fired into the crowds (Shenbao, April 14, 1927), leaving at least 100 dead
and several hundred wounded in addition to the 300 who died in the attack a
day earlier (Chesneaux, 1968, p. 370). With the support of the Green Gangs,
the Chinese bourgeoisie, and the Western Powers, the right wing of GMD
represented by Chiang destroyed the CCP-organized labor movement. The
ensuing period in Shanghai is known as the White Terror. 3
On April 15, 1927, only 3 days after Chiang's coup in Shanghai, the right
wing of GMD in Guangdong began its own bloody repression against the CCP
there. Martial law was declared in the city of Guangzhou ( Guangzhou Minguo
Ribao, April 16, 1927). At least 2000 trade unionists, communists, students,
and peasant leaders were arrested in Guangdong, and about 100 activists were
killed. Li Qihan, who was sent there after his release from prison in Shanghai,
was among the victims (Chesneaux, 1968, p. 371).
In recent major protests against the World Trade Organization, World Bank,
and IMF, protesters from different or even opposed ideological campsenvironmentalists, anarchists, liberal human-rights activists, communists,
farmers, union members, lobbyists, etc.-came together. However, as Li Qihan's
experience in the early 20th century shows, resistance against global capitalism
and imperialism required the coalescence of unlikely or contradictory classes
and social groups in earlier times and places. The Green Gangs, the Chinese
Communist Party, Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, the British police, and
Chinese peasants transformed into urban proletariats all ultimately played
roles in Li's story. Although the Shanghai cotton mills might have exemplified
modernity in the 1920s, premodern social relations also came into play via the
powerful influences of the gangs and secret societies. A variety of diverse
groups and influences, some seemingly diametrically opposed, converged in
the truncated revolutionary career of Li Qihan, who committed his life to
resisting Western and Japanese imperialism.
Conclusion
Shanghai's labor movement in the 1920s was among the most organized, popular, and revolutionary labor movements in the world then. However, my
analysis shows that even in this case the revolutionary proletarian popular
movement did not automatically result from the macro political and economic conditions of that time and place. The proletariat in Shanghai was composed of diverse elements, and the unity that was forged required an alliance
between the CCP-led unions and the Green Gangs. The general strikes that the
SGLU organized required financial support, and the Chinese bourgeoisie's
conflicts with the colonial authorities played an important role in motivating
it to initially fund the strikers.
180 • Wai Kit Choi
The revolutionary subject and collective action that existed in the 1920s was
constructed by stitching together all the heterogeneous and contradictory groups
into a coalition, and as the sustained general strikes show, this coalition was able
to sustain itself for a long time. This example shows the great heterogeneity
among workers and socially marginalized individuals in historic Shanghai, but
they organized a broad-based movement. It suggests that disparate groups of
working people-fragmented and disorganized as they may be under "flexible
accumulation" -may still successfully oppose empires and capitalist imperialism today. We have no need to resign ourselves to complacency because of putative structural impediments. Rather, we should develop strategies for creative
alliance building in an era of enormous global inequality.
Of course, one might question whether a strategy of building popular
movements by establishing coalitions of diverse social groups and classes
guarantees success. In the Shanghai of the late 1920s the alliance faltered, and
the radical labor movement was decimated after Chiang's coup in 1927. This
illustrates a key point: There is no guarantee that this strategy will lead to
success. Changes in political and economic conditions can break movements
apart, and success also depends on social actors who are deft at the sorts of
political maneuvers that maintain the broad alliances. Sometimes it fails, but
this strategy does not always lead to disaster. In fact, even after the CCP's
retreat to the countryside, building a United Front continued to be an important part of its revolutionary strategy that ultimately succeeded. The field of
resistance is open and fluid. It is important not to prioritize or reject a priori a
strategy by claiming that the structural features of current global capitalist
expansion render it inappropriate or obsolete.
Primary Sources
Official Publications
The Maritime Customs, Decennial Reports, 1922-1931, Vol. II, Southern and Frontier Ports:
Shanghai, Statistical Department of the Inspector General of Customs, 1933.
Shanghai Municipal Council Report for the Year 1925 and Budget for the Year 1926, F. & C. Walsh,
Shanghai.
Shanghai Municipal Council Report for the Year 1928 and Budget for the Year 1929, F. & C. Walsh,
Shanghai.
Newspapers
Guangzhou Minguo Ribao ( Guangzhou Republican Daily News), 1927.
Minguo Ribao (Republican Daily News), 1925.
North China Daily News, 1925 and 1927.
Shenbao (Shanghai Daily), 1927.
References
Barber, B. ( 1995), Jihad vs. Mc World: How Globalism and Tribalism are Reshaping the World, Times
Books, New York.
Best, S. and D. Kellner (1991}, Postmodern Theory: Critical Investigations, Guilford Press, New York.
Bianco, L. (1971), Origins of the Chinese Revolution, 1915-1949, Bell, M., translator, Stanford
University Press, Palo Alto, CA.
Empire, Strategies of Resistance • 181
Butler, J. ( 1998 ), "Merely Cultural," New Left Review, 227, 33.
Chesneaux, J. (1968), The Chinese Labor Movement 1919-1927, Wright, H.M., translator, Stanford
University Press, Palo Alto, CA.
Derrida, J. (1994), Specters of Marx, the State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning, and the New
International, Kamuf, P., translator, Routledge, New York.
Friedman, T. ( 1999), The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Farrar, Straus, Giroux, New York.
Geras, N. (1987 ), "Post-Marxism?" New Left Review, No.163.
Geras, N. ( 1988 ), "Ex-Marxism without Substance: Being a Real Reply to Laclau and Mouffe," New
Left Review, No. 169.
Hardt, M. and A. Negri ( 2000) Empire, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
Harvey, D. (1999), The Limits to Capital, Verso Press, London.
Honig, E. (1986), Sisters and Strangers: Women in the Shanghai Cotton Mills, 1919-1949, Stanford
University Press, Palo Alto, CA.
Jameson, F. ( 1991 ), Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, Duke University Press,
Durham,NC.
Laclau, E. and C. Mouffe (1987), "Post-Marxism without Apologies," New Left Review, No. 166.
Laclau, E. and C. Mouffe (2001), Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic
Po/ties, 2nd ed., Verso, London.
Lu, H. (1999), Beyond the Neon Lights: Everyday Shanghai in the Early Twentieth Century,
University of California Press, Berkeley.
Lyotard, J.P. (1984), The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Bennington, G. and B.
Massumi, translators, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.
Perry, E. (1993), Shanghai on Strike: The Politics of Chinese Labor, Stanford University Press, Palo
Alto,CA.
Ritzer, G. ( 1997), Postmodern Social Theory, McGraw Hill, New York.
Rorty, R. (1997), "Back to Class Politics," Dissent, Winter, p. 31.
Skocpol, T. (1979), States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia and
China, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K.
Notes
1.
2.
3.
I must thank Raul Fernandez for suggesting my participation in the writing of this book. I
also thank Gilbert Gonzalez for his patience with my delay in submitting this chapter, the
editorial collective for valuable suggestions on the initial draft, and David Smith for his
helpful comments on subsequent drafts of this chapter.
For criticisms ofLaclau and Mouffe, see Geras, 1987; Laclau and Mouffe's rejoinder, 1987;
and Geras's response, 1988.
For a description of the decline in CCP activities see Shanghai Municipal Council Annual
Report, 1928, p. 59.
12
Crossing the Borders: Labor,
Community, and Colonialism in the
Jaffa-Tel Aviv Region during the
Mandate Period
MARKLE VINE
Introduction: Land, Labor, and the Dynamics of
Empire in Palestine/Israel
With the unparalleled military and economic power of the U.S. in the
post-Cold War era of globalization, the relationship between imperialism and
capitalism that has long been of concern to both scholars and activists has
come under renewed scrutiny. Indeed, Lenin argued that imperialism was inseparably bound to capitalism and, in fact, was capitalism's highest stage, today
scholars recognize imperialism as more than merely a stage of capitalism. As
the contributors to a recent issue of the Monthly Review argue, imperialism has
been inherent to the history of capitalism from the start. 1
The dynamics of the Zionist-Palestinian conflict bear witness to relationship
between capitalism and imperialism in a manner that challenges a two-directional
and -dimensional calculus and points to the need to expand the relationship in
two ways. The first is an examination of how European imperialism intersects
with capitalism through both settler colonialism and colonial nationalism-a
much more complex set of actors than Lenin imagined or most contemporary
critics are engaging. A broader approach is to understand that imperialism and
capitalism are two components of a larger four-fold matrix of discourses that
includes modernity and nationalism as equally important factors. 2
This chapter takes this reality as the starting point for an exploration of the
role of labor in the struggles for control of the territories, resources, and larger
political economies of the sister cities of Jaffa and Tel Aviv, the economic and
cultural capitals of Palestinian Arab and Jewish Palestine. Specifically, it argues
that an analysis of the conflict and cooperation between workers of the two
communities reveals the appearance of two simultaneous phenomena. First,
in attempting to create labor solidarity, workers challenged the hegemonic,
exclusivist nationalist discourses of their elites; second, at the same time,
183
184 • MarkLeVine
however, such activities served ultimately to further the ends of the Zionist
labor movement by facilitating the "conquest" of the economy and territory of
the country and of the Jaffa-Tel Aviv region in particular.
This ambivalent function of labor discourses in the larger nationalist pre1948 politics suggests that Palestine is a unique case study of the relationship
of the four discourses comprising what I term the modernity matrix. What this
matrix reveals is that we cannot examine imperialism in a direct relationship
to labor. Rather, their interaction must be studied in the context of other contemporaneous discourses and nodes of power: The evidence in Palestine suggests strongly that the specific dynamics of capitalism development in the
country, the militant nationalisms it helped produce, colonialism in which
both were imbedded, and the modernist ideologies that supported the other
three components, were all deeply implicated with imperialism in a synergistic
(and thus extremely powerful) manner.
To address only the specific intersection of empire and labor is to view a
three-dimensional image imposed onto a two-dimensional plane. Significant
depth and motion are easily overlooked, and that hinders our ability to understand exactly how imperialism works. The research presented below argues
that imperialism in Palestine worked precisely to the degree it was inflected by
and inflected the discourses of nationalism, capitalism, and modernity at
large. Together they produced a profound impact on the way labor evolved in
the country and point to the fact that, in confronting imperialism, labor has
always had to engage a more complex set of parameters than a one-to-one
correspondence of workers confronting empire and its various agents. 3
This dynamic was particularly important in Palestine because British rule
was not based on typical imperial considerations. Palestine generated no real
economic benefit to the home country and, in fact, constantly threatened to be
a drain on the treasury (and thus British taxpayers).4 The relative lack of
economic and exploitative rationales for ruling the country meant that the
British were often content to let the Zionists take the lead in setting or implementing economic policies, especially when the influx of Jewish money meant
fewer British tax pounds spent on Palestine. Because of this dynamic, the
British often supported Zionist policies even when they contravened Britain's
stated obligation toward the "natives." Via this contradictory process, the
average Palestinian or Jewish worker interfaced with the empire.
Finally, it is important to recall that Zionism was itself an imperialist and
colonial discourse. The Jewish workers' conquest of Palestinian Arab jobs was
part of an imperial-colonial discourse in its own right, regardless of whether
an activity was sanctioned by the British. One can even say that the British
were not the primary vehicles of imperialism in Palestine, but rather played
more of a supporting role vis-a-vis Zionism, doing whatever was necessary to
maintain the status quo and in so doing keep Egypt and India, the jewels in the
British Empire's crown, secure.
Crossing the Borders • 185
The roots of imperialism in Palestine run even deeper than the interface of
Zionism and British empire and date from the late Ottoman period. We need
to see the 40 years from 1880 to 1920 as a transition from one great imperial
system to another-a transition that witnessed continuities and changes between the Ottoman-Islamic and British legal, political, and social systems that
had important consequences for workers in both communities. More specifically, by the 1880s, the Ottoman state had been modernizing economically and
politically for decades; it even dreamed of joining the ranks of European imperial and colonial powers by finding new lands to conquer in Africa. Nevertheless, the empire was also gradually losing its hold over outlying districts such
as Palestine. At the same time, the Jaffa region saw rapidly increasing prosperity, thanks largely to citrus exports and increased tourism and pilgrimages
through its port.
Although this ambivalent situation created space for a local cosmopolitan
Mediterranean modernity to emerge in Jaffa, one that largely avoided a direct
conflict with imperial discourses, this system could not last after it encountered an exclusivist colonial modernity that arrived with Zionism and attained
hegemony under British rule. What is important about the dynamic of this period is that Zionism, with its open allegiance to modern European imperial
and capitalist discourses-even if the labor movement was ideologically socialist-was an enterprise based on the expansion of capitalism to the "slumbering East." Zionism found sympathy with an Ottoman state that increasingly
had its own European-style imperial, ethno-national (Turkish), and capitalistic preoccupations. 5 This coincidence of interests, cemented by the fact that
the Ottoman state desperately needed tax revenues at the very moment that
Zionist land purchases could supply them, helped Zionism implant itself in
the soil of Palestine, and in Jaffa specifically, even though many Zionist
activities were forbidden by law.
Although Ottoman imperialism, capitalism, and nationalism helped facilitate the early development of Zionism in Palestine,6 there can be no doubt that
the ideological alignment of Zionism and British imperialism was much
stronger. Both shared what I term a "discourse of development" that viewed
Palestine as a backward, stagnant country whose indigenous population was
essentially incapable of developing or modernizing on its own, and for which
the only solution was European-that is, Zionist led, British superviseddevelopment.7 Thus the relationship between the Zionists and the British
affected the dynamics of labor in Palestine in important ways, in most instances worsening an already difficult situation. On the one hand, the indigenous Palestinian working class, like its counterparts in European colonies (and
in Europe too), was viewed as a threat to the social, political, and economic
order. Their demands were incompatible with the efficient and economical
administration of and profit from Palestine. This was reflected particularly in
the debate over the "absorptive capacity" of the country that began in the late
186 • MarkLeVine
1920s as escalating Jewish land purchases drove poorer Palestinian Arabs off
their lands, proletarianizing them at a time when the government had neither
the will nor the finances to deal with the problem. 8
To counter claims of dispossession, the Zionist leadership argued that
"modern" techniques of intensive agriculture were the keys to developing the
country, specifically because they greatly enhanced its absorptive capacity by
allowing Palestinian peasants to produce greater yields on less land. In the
Jaffa-Tel Aviv region, this discourse was reflected in the successful arguments
of municipal and national Zionist leadership that claimed that the rural areas
of the six surrounding Arab villages had acquired an "urban value." 9 This
meant they were ripe for annexation into and urbanization through Tel Aviv.
In both cases, the result was the same. Increasing numbers of Palestinians lost
their lands at a time when the country's divided economy (as the British and
Zionist leadership imagined it, and vis-a-vis which Palestinian society was
considered by both the British and the Zionists as fundamentally separate and
developing autonomously from European Jewish Zionist society) greatly
limited their ability to find jobs in the cities, especially in "modern, exclusively
Jewish" Tel Aviv.
On the other hand, the Jewish working class and especially the labor movement were viewed with suspicion by the British government in London and
Jerusalem because of their originally Bolshevik leanings and seeming willingness (when not reined in by Zionist leaders) to put class interests, and thus solidarity with Palestinian Arab workers, ahead of national Jewish and European
imperial interests. 10 Both the workers and the leaders of the Jewish labor
movement in Palestine (whose factions included nonsocialist unionists and
hard-core anti-Zionist communists) felt a historic sense of obligation to liberate Palestinian Arabs at the same time as Jews from the bondage of feudalism
or the exploitation of the Arab and Jewish bourgeoisies. Nevertheless, the solidarity emerging from such sentiments was usually short lived; on the whole,
competition over jobs between Eastern European Jewish immigrants and
Palestinian Arabs helped transform the socialist Labor movement into a "militant nationalist movement" by the first decade of the 20th century, which saw
the exclusion of Palestinian Arabs from (or at best their marginalized incorporation through a split labor market) an incipient Zionist Jewish economy as
the only means to secure jobs for a rapidly increasing Jewish population. 11
The means for securing such closure were found through the conquests of
labor and, ultimately, land. The conquest of labor ( kibush ha-'avoda) sought
the successful entry of Jews into various occupations that had previously been
largely Arab, either by lowering the standard of living of the Jewish immigrants or raising it for Palestinians. In either case, Jews would be in a better
position to demand jobs from the Jewish bourgeoisie who controlled the
burgeoning Zionist economy of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. When
this strategy failed to produce the intended results by the end of the 1900s, the
Crossing the Borders • 187
labor movement developed the conquest of land (kibush ha-karka'a) as an
alternative strategy (one that correlated with the Ottoman state's need for
revenue). This conquest was based on acquisition ofland upon which Jewish
settlements would be established, as epitomized by kibbutzes or collective
farms. These exclusively Jewish spaces fostered a Jewish economy in which
Palestinian Arabs were, by virtue of their absence, unable to compete for jobs.
Whereas the kibbutz is the best known symbol of this process, a similar dynamic was followed in the urban sector. The suburb-turned-metropolis of Tel
Aviv founded in 1909 (the same year the first kibbutz, Degania, was established)
epitomized the creation of exclusively Jewish urban spaces within which bourgeois and working class counterparts to agricultural Zionism could be accommodated. Indeed, at almost every turn, the founders and leaders of Tel Aviv
attempted to control greater portions of the land, resources, and economy of
the Jaffa region. Even before the town's establishment, Zionist leaders succeeded
in establishing "a state within a state in Jaffa." Within 4 years of the creation of
Tel Aviv, its leaders expressed the desire to "conquer Jaffa economically." 12
Jewish and Palestinian Arab Workers in the
Jaffa-Tel Aviv Region during the Mandate Period (1920-1948)
During the mandate period, (the years 1920-1948, when Great Britain
ruled the country under a "mandate" of the League of Nations) league of both
Jaffa and Tel Aviv developed at extraordinary rates. Jaffa almost quadrupled its
population and economy, whereas Tel Aviv's increased more than 10-fold. The
working classes of the two communities played crucial roles in this transformation. Although Tel Aviv was established by 60 bourgeois families from Jaffa,
working class Jews and Palestinian Arabs were also important presences in the
neighborhood-turned-city from the start. It could not have been otherwise
because of the centrality of the Jaffa-Tel Aviv region as an export zone, port,
and destination for Jewish immigrants and capital.
Although Jewish workers and their leaders sought to conquer Palestinian
Arab jobs from the start of Zionist colonization, they concomitantly attempted to develop ties with Arab workers. These two contradictory tendencies point to a fundamental ambivalence in the Zionist project that reveals
how hegemonic national and imperialist discourses are challenged by exigencies and requirements of everyday life and the struggle for decent working
conditions and wages. Indeed, the contradictions were reflected in Zionist
propaganda and policies alike.
Arabic-language newspapers published by the labor movement sought to
convince Arab workers that Jews were their comrades instead of their enemies. 13 In so doing, they followed the standard Orientalist line of calling Arab
workers and fellahin (peasants) to "awake from your slumber" of hundreds of
years and work with the labor movement and Jewish Tel Aviv (and specifically
not Arab Jaffa). The Arab workers constituted the only group protecting the
188 • MarkLeVine
rights of workers in the city, whereas the fellahin represented "Zionism
help[ing] the East to recover its former glory." 14
Beyond mere propaganda, the local and national Zionist leadership devoted
significant energy throughout the mandate period to developing ties with
Palestinian Arab workers. The records of their successes and failures provide
the best, and often the only, documentation of labor conditions in Arab Jaffa. In
1921, for example, Jewish woodworkers sought, with varying degrees of success, to develop ties with Arab carpenters, bakers, government (railway, postal,
and telegraph) workers, and camel drivers. The shared goal for camel drivers
was to get rid of the Bedouin drivers (nicknamed the "fifth aliyah" the word
used to describe Jewish immigration) and prevent their continued immigration.
Normally rival communities to expand the boundaries of their competing
identities to face a perceived common threat to their economic interests. 15
Such cooperation waxed and waned. Palestinians generally sought help
from the Histadrut (the national federation of Zionist trade unions in Palestine) largely when their interests were not served by their own leadership. The
Histadrut's leadership felt such cooperation would make it possible to see the
day when "we will be the rulers ... and will be able to do great things there,
both politically and economically:' 16 In fact, the success of the Zionist efforts
prompted the newspaper Falastin to issue a public call in 1934 for the creation
of an Arab union, which led to the establishment of the Arab Workers' Society
in Jaffa in October 1934. 17
The vociferous resistance by Arab employers and religious and nationalist
leaders to any attempt at cooperative work by the Histadrut clearly indicated
that Jaffa's Palestinian Arab elite was-to say the least-suspicious of these activities. However, it is also clear that not all leaders opposed the Histadrut for
reasons of solidarity with workers. Indeed, even the Histadrut's limited successes
in organizing Arab workers led one Arab worker to ask, "Who is responsible for
this comedy?" 18 The Arab press, specifically Falastin, al-Difa', and al-Jami'a
al-Islamiyyah, attempted to convince workers not to join the Zionist labor
unions, but Palestinian Arab workers continued to approach the Histadrut until
the early part of 1936-right before the outbreak of the Palestinian revolt. 19
Indeed, Palestinian Arab trade unionists resolved to beat the Histadrut at its
own game by setting up pickets against Jewish workers in Jaffa. This action
mirrored the Jewish union's actions against Arab workers in Tel Aviv, 20 a tactic
that clearly succeeded when all the port workers in Jaffa quickly joined the
strike declared on April 19, 1936. 21 Although the outbreak of the strike and revolt in 1936 temporarily severed connections between the Histadrut and Arab
workers, the latter once again contacted the Histadrut regarding even worse
conditions at the port after it reopened in October of 1936. 22
Improved relations lasted until 1948, at least in part because the Zionist
union filled a void by endeavoring to fight for the rights of Palestinian Arab
workers in situations where no one on the Arab side would. 23 As one worker
Crossing the Borders • 189
tearfully explained in an article in al-Difa', 700 of his comrades who joined
the Histadrut did so because they were angry and exasperated. Unable to "escape the oppression of our bosses ... and unable to feed our children, [the
workers] entered the arms of the Histadrut because they despaired of ever
getting justice from their bosses," who summered in the orchards around
Jaffa or in Beirut. 24
The Palestine Labor League (or PLL; the Arab union created by the
Histadrut in 1932) even signed a labor agreement with the Jaffa municipality
in 1944 to increase basic wages and provide clothing and shoes for workers.
More interesting than the terms of the agreement were the comments of the
Deputy Mayor of Jaffa to PLL representatives: "Why do you bother us and
meddle every day in the interests of the workers?" he asked. The PLL representative replied: "Times change, there is democracy, there is freedom to organize,
justly and honestly." The Deputy Mayor did not appreciate this line of reasoning, answering: "What democracy? We don't have democracy; we scorn democracy .... We only understand one thing: the worker that [sic] puts forth
demands to us is a worker that wants to be lord over us and this we will not
suffer." 25 Another official entered the room and the conversation, declaring
that the PLL only wanted to "upset our order" by getting involved with workers, which would hurt the unity of the Arabs and make it harder to maintain a
united front against the Zionist movement as a whole. 26
This exchange clearly reveals the contradictory position of the PLL-Histadrut relationship within the larger arena of Palestinian Arab labor politics in
Jaffa. Whatever its role in securing the overall "conquest of Hebrew labor" in
Jaffa, its aims and activities were in many cases closer to the interests of Jaffa's
Palestinian Arab workers than those of the national leadership that was riven
by factionalism and often put its own economic interests ahead of national
considerations by secretly serving as a significant source of land sales to Jews.
However, as Palestinian Arab trade unions became better organized in the
mid- l 940s, Arab workers had less reason to turn to the PLL, and its fortunes
quickly began to wane. In fact, in Jaffa we can pinpoint this turnaround to May
of 1944, when protests by Palestinian Arab residents of Manshiyyeh against
residents who joined the PLL, coupled with the storming of a PLL May Day
celebration by Palestinian Arab workers, forced the union to move its office
across the border to Tel Aviv. 27
Palestinian Arab Labor in Tel Aviv
Although Tel Aviv was conceived of and portrayed as a purely Jewish city, the
reality was that Palestinian Arab workers maintained a small but significant
and visible presence in the city in the years after its establishment. Palestinian
Arabs continued to work in Tel Aviv after it was granted municipal autonomy
in 1921, and as the Tel Avivan economy grew, so did the "problem" of Arab
labor and even residency in the town. 28
190 • Mark LeVine
From the beginning of the mandate period (and probably earlier), the Tel
Aviv municipality hired Palestinian Arabs to work at the post office and other
public institutions in the city during the Sabbath. 29 The town boasted its own
club for Palestinian Arab railway workers; the club had 25 members by 1931.30
Even during the 1936-1939 revolt, the PLL sought to bring Palestinian Arabs
into Tel Aviv and tried to find Arabic-speaking Jews to give 3-month courses in
Tel Aviv on such issues as the Arab Community in Eretz Israel and the question
of Jewish Arab cooperation and joint organization. 31
In addition to the officially sanctioned presence of Arabs in the Jewish city,
a much larger, unofficial, and officially unwelcome presence existed. As early as
1921, a Yemenite contractor wrote a letter to Falastin complaining about pressure from Russian Jewish workers to fire a Palestinian Arab in his employ. 32
The situation was so tense that the governor of the Jaffa district asked Mayor
Meir Dizengofff to ensure that the municipality would enforce a guarantee
from the Histadrut not to interfere with Arab contractors or workers. 33 In another situation, the United Rabbinical Council of Jaffa appealed to the Tel Aviv
municipality and the government to prevent the desecration of the Sabbath in
Tel Aviv by non-Jewish mongers and traders. 34 Jewish shop owners similarly
complained about numerous Arabs who set up shop in front of their stores
daily without permission. 35
By the mid-1920s Arabs in Tel Aviv were selling market wares at prices so
low that Jewish merchants were forced to reduce their prices drastically to
compete. Despite its best efforts, the municipality realized that it was "impossible to get rid of them so we have to force them to register so we can regulate
them and charge taxes and control situation." 36 In essence, Palestinian Arabs
could not be kept out of Tel Aviv; at best they could be regulated, like their Jewish counterparts. Even this proved difficult, as many Palestinian Arabs worked
in unregistered, illegal, or unofficial factories and restaurants located in the
homes and apartments ofJewish residents in Tel Aviv. 37
By the early 1930s, the problem of Arab labor prompted renewed discussions between the local Histadrut affiliate, Mifieget po' elei tel aviv-yafo
(MPTAY), and the Tel Aviv municipality aimed at combating the problem. 38
Ultimately, the Histadrut was forced to admit that ''Arab labor has encroached
upon the first Jewish city;' whether in the commercial center, poorer Jewish
neighborhoods, or outskirts of the city (where supervision was difficult).
Hundreds and ultimately thousands of Palestinian Arab workers were employed by Jews as construction workers and porters, with a significant increase
in the years preceding the 1936 revolt. 39
In response to this situation, the Histadrut's executive committee and
MPTAY decided in 1935 to take measures including the commencement of a
public war to force contractors to use only Jewish labor in order to decrease
the number of Palestinian Arab construction workers in Tel Aviv. The alliance
renewed efforts of the Tel Aviv municipality and citizens' groups to fight for
Crossing the Borders • 191
Jewish labor. 40 Because of this increased pressure, Jewish businessmen seeking
to continue the employment of cheap Palestinian Arab labor began to "smuggle factories into the Palestinian Arab village (Summel), thus freeing themselves from the obligation to employ Jewish labor." 41 This may be one reason
the municipality became so interested in annexing the lands of Summel and
other villages adjoining Tel Aviv in the ensuing years. It demonstrates the
increasing importance of administrative borders for policing the porous
national boundaries intended to separate the Arab and Jewish communities
and economies in the Jaffa-Tel Aviv region.
Jewish Labor in Jaffa Port
The increasing nationalization of land in the Jaffa-Tel Aviv region during
the mandate period also affected the way the two communities viewed Jaffa
Port. As the "Gateway to Palestine" and the country's primary port until the
Haifa Port opened in 1934, Zionists developed plans to develop Jaffa since
the first days of the movement's activities. By the end of the Ottoman
period, Jewish presence and influence in Jaffa Port were increasing. This
led Palestinian Arabs to define the port more and more as an exclusively
Arab space. 42
By 1920, Jews were working on Jewish boats such as the Halutz and the
Pioneer, and the Jewish press wrote about the importance of Jewish workers in
Jaffa Port in light of increased immigration. 43 At the same time, Tel Aviv's leadership sought to build a new port in which Jews would have greater presence,
influence, or even control. 44 In 1922, Mayor Dizengoff wrote to British officials
to advocate the construction of a new port closer to Tel Aviv, arguing "If today
it is allowed to hope that in a very near future the town of Jaffa will witness the
beginning of the construction of a modern harbor, this is to be thanked solely
and exclusively to the initiative and energy of Jewish citizens of Tel Aviv." This
letter reflecting the shared discourse of development mentioned earlier bore
fruit after violence and the closure of Jaffa Port in April 1936 presented a new
opportunity to press for a new port in Tel Aviv.
Until such a port could be built, Jewish workers, on their own initiative and
with the help of the Histadrut, periodically attempted to obtain significant levels of employment at Jaffa Port, despite the extremely difficult conditions that
led to designating them "pioneers" for their efforts. One group known as the
Hebrew Coachman's Group was established in 1922. 45 Although vigorous hatred (often expressed in violence) was the response of Palestinian Arab coachmen to the arrival of the Jewish pioneers, the young Jews persevered and
eventually performed all levels of work in the port. The penetration of Jews
into the port was, like every important conquest, the fruit of the pressure of
immigration and the need to absorb immigrants. "The Arabs reconciled themselves to our presence in the port and got used to us; peace prevailed between
them and us, and now there are friendships between us." 46
192 • Mark LeVine
A similar group was formed in 1933, as the Histadrut increasingly became
interested in expanding the conquest of Hebrew labor in Jaffa Port.47 By the
1935-1936 financial year, Jews comprised roughly 7% of the port workforce. 48
If we consider that the majority of the port's workforce was composed not of
residents of Jaffa or its vicinity-who numbered only 400 or so-but rather of
about 3000 Syrians and Egyptians, 49 it becomes clear that although Jews comprised only a small percentage of the overall workforce, their numbers were
substantial vis-a-vis the local Palestinian Arab population.
Whatever the limited success of Jews in gaining employment at Jaffa Port,
the desire to move the port closer to the area of Tel Aviv and the resistance of
Palestinian Arabs to that demand remained constant. Palestinian Arab leaders
argued that the Zionists wanted to move the port to Tel Aviv "in order to kill
Jaffa." 50 As we have seen, conquest, as opposed to murder, is a better description of the goal of Zionist leadership. The perception that Jews wanted to build
a new port rather than rebuild the old one was not inaccurate. Even when
Dizengoff wrote the government to press for the establishment of a new port
in Jaffa to handle the increased traffic generated by the booming citrus trade,
he presented many reasons why such an enterprise would, in fact, be almost
impossible at the port's then location. He suggested the mouth of the
Cauja/Yarkon River, which he termed "the natural boundary of Tel Aviv and
Jaffa," as a good alternative location. 51
The government by and large supported Zionist interests, whether by
allowing the creation of a Jewish port in Tel Aviv or permitting Jews to obtain
the majority of the jobs at the Haifa port, the largest in the country when it was
opened in 1934. The combination of a lack of will to remove low-priced foreign competition, the sometimes stringent antilabor positions of the port administration and other government facilities such as the railway system, and
the ideological sympathy with the Zionist leadership in economic matters
(contrasted with general hostility toward the Palestinian Arab leadership) all
contributed to the ability of the Zionist movement to gain increasing control
of and redirect the activities of the country's ports to its benefit.
The issue of officially sanctioned Jewish workers at Jaffa Port was threatening enough to the local Palestinian population that the high commissioner
presciently asked the newly formed Jewish Lighterage Company to delay introducing Jewish workers only days before the outbreak of the 1936 revolt and
strike. 52 However, the outbreak of the strike and closure of the port on April 19
rendered the debate about Jewish workers largely moot because of the creation
of a port in Tel Aviv. It should be noted, however, that Yemenites continued to
work as porters at Jaffa Port53 even as labor leaders argued that the prohibition
of Jewish workers was "tantamount to creating an economic pale for Jews in
Palestine and placing Jaffa Port outside it." 54
The ethnic politics oflabor in the Jaffa and Tel Aviv ports reflects the larger
conflict between the two national communities and the role of the British
Crossing the Borders • 193
government as a mediator of that conflict. Jaffa Port became in the wake of the
strike and revolt a synecdoche for the larger sentiment that Palestine was lost
to the Jews; the normal state of the port was understood to be one in which the
"life of the port is Arab and needs to remain Arab:' 55 As the al-Difa newspaper
noted 2 months before the revolt:
This is a pure Arab port .... We here repeat and state over and over again, that
this Port has been Arab since time immemorial and that it will keep its Arab
feature until the end of time, and if Government continues to insist to let the
Zionist hands toy with this Port, then Government alone will bear the responsibilities of the consequences of such action, consequences that the Government
itself does not wish for. 56
This sentiment was, of course, the mirror image of the Jewish vision for Tel
Aviv and its hoped-for port, and the strike and closure of Jaffa's port allowed
Tel Aviv's leadership to achieve its long-held goal of the creation of an independent Jewish port within its borders, one whose national significance and
symbolism were matched by its importance as a source of jobs for the rapidly
increasing Jewish population of the region. It is not surprising, then, that the
eruption of the revolt led local and national Zionist groups and their British
supporters to unite in the belief that Jaffa and its port were no longer safe for
Jews and that never again could Tel Aviv and its surrounding districts be "at the
mercy of the Arab lightermen" of Jaffa. 57 Thus, Jews had no choice but to build
their own independent port. 58
Perhaps the clearest description of the Zionist understanding of the role
and function of Tel Aviv Port comes from an article from Hapo' el Hatza' ir, the
labor newspaper. The editors asserted that:
The conquest of the port in Tel Aviv is one of the biggest settlement activities of
our movement .... We must see that this activity [the opening of the port] was
much more than an answer to the disturbances of Jaffa. It is today one of the
main links in the chain of our activities in opening up the country. 59 Tel Aviv is
not mentioned in the article, but clearly its role was understood more in terms of
its national than local significance.
Moreover, because of the way in which the leaders of Tel Aviv and the larger
Zionist movement were able to frame the port to the British in a combination
of security and development discourses, the government-unlike the local
Palestinian Arab population-did not understand the larger significance of
the creation of Tel Aviv's port. The article concludes that "the debate is not
about sharing ports but [about] the vision of our port as a great settlement enterprise. The question is, if we go also here in the same way that we went in
agricultural colonization ... only someone who doesn't see the port as a settlement enterprise would give up on its independence." In other words, as I noted
elsewhere with regard to Jaffa's Jewish neighborhoods, 60 the goal of settlement
was to take spaces that were inhabited or used by both communities and transform them into exclusively Jewish territory.
194 • Mark LeVine
The port was not the only water resource to become the site of a conflict involving workers. During the 1936 strike, workers at the Tel Aviv Port evicted licensed Palestinian Arab fishermen who attempted to moor their boats
between the mouth of the Cauja/Yarkon River and the port. al-Jami'a al-Islamiyyah indignantly asked "Has the Cauja River become Jewish and consequently Arabs are not allowed to fish there?" 61 The Jewish port workers
complained that "the foreshore was a Jewish foreshore and was not to be trodden by Arab feet," and that they "could not work any longer seeing the Arabs
gradually come nearer and nearer." More interesting was the reply of the leader
of the fishermen, who answered that "the strike was off, and that half of the
Moslems were in Tel Aviv and half the Jews in Jaffa, and therefore he too came
to fish." 62
Spaces that were nationalized within exclusivist and bounded notions of
identity during times of trouble (when boundaries are always most clearly
drawn) were experienced by many Arab residents of the Jaffa-Tel Aviv region
as having reverted to the more open (yet vis-a-vis the hegemonic nationalist
discourses, more clandestine) reading of space "as lived by its inhabitants," as
Henri Lefebvre described it. However, for the Zionist leadership and Jews
committed to maintaining a rigid separation from the galut, or Diaspora
(non-Eretz Israel) environment, once the space was nationalized there was no
turning back. As a result of this incident, an official prohibition against Arabs
fishing in that area was enacted, 63 and a river that served all the residents of the
Jaffa-Tel Aviv region for generations took one step closer to becoming an exclusively Jewish space.
Conclusion
Evidence presented here demonstrates that however ambivalent the relations
of Jewish and Palestinian Arab workers and the two labor movements, the
working classes of both communities maintained enough interaction and
interest in cooperation to be considered significant threats to elites on both
sides. Yet on the whole, and particularly when solidarity was most needed (as
in times of intercommunal strife), the four components of the modernity
matrix meant that nationalist, capitalist, colonial, and modernist considerations combined to demand an exclusivist, hierarchized, and confrontational
labor politics in the Jaffa-Tel Aviv region and Palestine as a whole.
The depth and political implications of this threat are clear from the words
of Tel Aviv mayor Israel Rokach at a meeting with Zionist leaders to discuss the
fate of several Jewish neighborhoods on the Jaffa side of the border region
between the two towns:
I will tell you what it was. This morning the new District Commissioner told me
"We received confirmation for a new market in Kerem Hateimanim, the plan
will be executed by Jews from Kerem Hateimanim that want to establish a modern market in their neighborhood." I said: "If I could I would blow it up with
Crossing the Borders • 195
bombs." The District Commissioner told me that the plan to establish the
market was approved, and he is a goy [gentile], so he doesn't understand anything ... [and] said, "Isn't this market designed for Tel Aviv[?]" [But] it's clear
that it will be a cancer for Tel Aviv .... The clear intention is to ruin our economy .... Already today this part is a cancer on the Jewish economy, and what
will happen if they built a big modern market? And this in the borders of Jaffa
Municipality? You see that I can't stand there with a guard making sure no one
goes to this new market. This is also the situation in the south [ofTelAviv] ....64
If a working class market could generate such antipathy, it is not surprising
that the Tel Aviv municipality took great pains to prevent collaboration between Jewish and Palestinian Arab fishermen and port workers after Tel Aviv's
port was established in the wake of the 1936 strike and revolt. In fact, Jewish
workers often initiated conflicts with Palestinian Arab workers, particularly
during times of heightened conflict. Ultimately, despite the best efforts of Tel
Aviv's leaders, municipal borders were never the ultimate arbiters of sovereignty or political, economic, or security control over lands in Jaffa and Tel
Aviv. It took the war of 1948 and the massive dislocation it produced-what
one Israeli architect watching events unfold in the neighboring village of
Salama called the "erasure" of the Palestinian Arab presence in the region-to
achieve the desired security and hegemony. Today, however, Israel's "world
city" is home to tens of thousands of mostly illegal workers from Europe, Asia,
Africa, and even surrounding Arab countries such as Egypt and Jordan. This
latest unsanctioned aliyah is profoundly reshaping the Israeli polity despite
the best efforts of the municipality and state to prevent the illegal workers
from becoming a permanent presence in the city and country at large.
Although the state may have found a way, through long-term closures and
destruction of the peace process, to remove the noncitizen Palestinian presence
from Tel Aviv, the city's economy, like those of all global cities, demands a large,
unskilled, cheap, and malleable migrant population to fill the innumerable service, construction, textile, and other menial jobs without which world cities and
the globalizing discourses they represent could not function. Thus, although
two generations ago Tel Aviv's leaders succeeding in conquering Palestinian
jobs and land around the city, her present administration is face to face with a
far more powerful and relentless force: the neo-liberal global economy.
Although Tel Aviv had to contend with Bedouins who refused to obey its
respatialization of the region via a modern, stratified, and hierarchized set of
discourses 100 years ago, it remains to be seen how the more-or-less permanent
implantation of globalization's "Bedouin hordes" will transform the identities
of Tel Aviv and of Israel as well. Although Palestinians in the West Bank and
Gaza-tens of thousands of whom are "sons of Jaffa" -are now permanently
barred from working in the Jaffa-Tel Aviv region (a central location for Palestinian labor after the conquest of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967),65 the Thais,
Romanians, Nigerians, Jordanians, and Egyptians who made their ways into global
196 • Mark LeVine
fortress Israel to find work made redundant by their countries' International
Monetary Fund/World Trade Organization-inspired reforms are ultimately
challenging the existence of both Tel Aviv and the state of Israel as exclusively
Jewish entities.
Indeed, a strong argument can be made, on both the macro (national) and
micro (urban) levels, that the economic dynamics of the now-dead Oslo process so crucially tied to neo-liberal globalization doomed any chances of
peace. We are thus forced to consider a new landscape, one built around Israeli
domination of the Palestinian market and economy, the permanent removal
of Palestinians from work in Israel, their replacement by more manageable
and (ostensibly) less threatening or ideologically problematic foreign workers,
and new threats to a hegemonic Israeli identity presented by the new workers.
It is far from certain whether the tens of thousands of Israeli Jews who suffer
from the neo-liberal policies of a generation oflsraeli governments-particularly Middle Eastern or Mizrahi/Sephardic Jews who tend to be associated with
conservative parties such as Shas-will have more success putting class solidarity ahead of ethnic identification in this new environment. The ideologies
motivating and protecting Zionism are extremely formidable. What is certain,
however, is that now, as during the Ottoman and British periods, the relations
of workers and capital will be at the root of the struggles for justice and peace in
Israel Palestine for the foreseeable future.
Notes
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
See Amin, S. and E. Wallerstein, "Imperialism Now;' Monthly Review, July-August 2003,
Vol. 55, No. 3.
For a more detailed discussion of the four-fold matrix, see Levine, M., "'Overthrowing Geography; (Mis)Reading Modernities: Jaffa, Tel Aviv and the Struggle for Palestine's History,
1880-1948;' Journal ofMediterranean Studies, 12, 81, 2002.
This is a lesson with continuing relevance when we consider how contemporary American
imperialism is built upon a deification-cum-glorification of the nation, coupled with an
ideology of hypermodernization and market capitalism that is uncritically accepted even
by liberal critics within the metropole.
We can describe the three reasons Britain was in Palestine as ( 1) the prestige and power associated with ruling the holiest sites in Christendom; ( 2) the geostrategic importance of
Palestine vis-a-vis the Suez canal, the land and sea routes to India, and the Hejaz oil
pipeline (whose terminus was Haifa Port); and (3) the promises made to Zionists during
World War I when the British needed Jewish support that coalesced with Christian Zionism
growing in Britain at the time.
This should not imply that the Ottoman state blindly imitated or followed the lead of
Europe. Indeed, the modernization policies of the Porte (as the state bureaucracy was
known) in many ways began earlier than in most European countries aside from France
and Great Britain.
Not surprisingly, it strengthened the already-burgeoning Palestinian nationalist sentiments; Palestinian leaders understood that the Ottoman state was unable or unwilling to
fight against Zionism.
For a detailed analysis of the discourse of development and the intersection of the various
modernities described here, see LeVine, M., "The Discourses of Development in Mandate
Palestine;' Arab Studies Quarterly, Winter, 1995; LeVine, M., Overthrowing Geography: Jaffa,
Tel Aviv and the Struggle for Palestine, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2004.
Cf. LeVine, "The Discourses of Development;' op cit.
Tel Aviv Municipal Archive (TAMA), Minutes of Meeting, July 13, 1937, 4/2667b.
Crossing the Borders • 197
10.
ll.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
For a detailed discussion of the complex relationships of Jewish and Palestinian Arab
workers in Palestine, see Lockman, Z., Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in
Palestine, 1906-48, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1996.
Shafir, G., Land, Labor, and the Origins of the Israeli- Palestinian Conflict, 1882-1914, Cambridge University Press, New York, 1989, p. 89.
As Tel Aviv's first mayor, Meir Dizengoff, and Zionist leader, Arthur Ruppin, respectively,
described the situation. For a discussion, see LeVine, M., Overthrowing Geography,
chaps.1-3.
Cf. Lockman, Comrades and Enemies, op cit.
Ittihad al-'Ummal, Inaugura!Issue, April 1925, p. 1; June 19, 1925; November 10, 1925; January 2, 1926; Haqiqatal-Amr, May 19, 1937,p. 1.
Lockman, Comrades and Enemies, pp. 74, 129, 155.
Central Zionist Archive (CZA), S/25/2961, letter from Zaslani to Hoz, October 14, 1934
(emphasis in original), quoted in Lockman, Comrades and Enemies, p. 219.
Falastin, September 19, 1934, p. 2; September 21, 1934, p. 3; September 23, 1934, p. 7.
Labor Archive of the Zionist movement (LA), IV/208/l/3348a, "A General Proclamation."
For example, help was sought in securing promised (but undelivered) wage increases from
a member of one of the most prominent nationalist families in the city, Azmi Bey
Nashashibi. LA, IV/208/1/4495, Arabic list of workers with Hebrew notes.
Soon the "first Arab Garrison in Jaffa" was formed, whose 100 members tried to "prevent
Jews from working in the middle of this Arab city;' particularly on three new schools in
Jaffa. The construction of the schools was originally contracted by the government to a
Jewish company that did not employ Arabs. Falastin, February 21, 1936, p. 5; Lockman,
Comrades and Enemies, p. 236.
This is in contrast to Haifa, where more pro-Zionist municipal and port leadership made it
much harder for Arabs to support the strike. All the port workers quickly joined the strike
in Jaffa. Lockman, Comrades and Enemies, p. 241.
LA, Oral Memoir of Eliyahu Agassi, February 22, 1972.
Lockman, Comrades and Enemies, p. 227.
LA, IV/104/143/30, Agassi file; clipping from al-Difa', January 18, 1935.
LA, IV/219/239, May 23, 1944, protocol of Arab Secretariat.
Ibid. The harsh treatment and illegal wages received by his 160-odd workers led a group of
them to contact the PLL for assistance.
HA, 105/205, Intelligence Report, 1944.
Cf. TAMA, 2/38b, February 1, 1922, letter; Shchori, 1990, p. 324. For the similar situation in
Jaffa, see TAMA, 8/57, Report of the Va'ad Ha'ir Leyehudei Yafo, 1925.
TAMA, 2/68a, October 9, 1923, letter from Dizengoff to the Chief Rabbi of Jaffa-Tel Aviv;
CZA, S25.4618, quoted from February 12, 1935, issue.
LA, IV/208/32a, March 31 report by the Arab Secretariat of the Histadrut.
LA, IV/208/1/1287, November 11, 1936, meeting of Arab Secretariat of Histadrut.
LA, S/EC/H, December 8, 1921 meeting.
TAMA, 2/38b, December 7, 1921, letter (emphasis in original).
Ibid., January 22, 1922, letter to Governor of Jaffa District.
TAMA, 4/334a, July 14, 1927, Apel, B., letter to Tel Aviv Municipality. Like the United Rabbinical Council, he, too, asked the municipality to order the Tel Aviv police to expel the
Arabs.
TAMA, August 11, 1924, Protocol of Town Council. The Tel Aviv Council voted to revoke
all permissions to traders and hand out only temporary ones.
Problems also arose with Arab traders who brought zifzif to the streets of Tel Aviv, where
Jewish carters purchased and resold it to building sites in the city. LA, IV/250/72/1/2594,
Report of the Secretariat of the MPY, 1923-1924. The MPY asked the Jewish carters to
make arrangements with the Jewish Cameldrivers' Committee, and they agreed if the MPY
would stop the Arab zifzif trade in the streets of Tel Aviv.
Including the increase in the number of guards against Arab workers at Jewish businesses and
building sites. LA, IV/208/1/642, protocol ofJune 18, 1934, meeting ofVa'ad Hapo' el of MPTAY.
These included many unlicensed Bedouins, Houranis from Syria, and Egyptians, who together "reined [sic] almost supreme" in the porterage, construction and zifzif trades. CZA,
S25/4618, clipping from Ha'aretz, September 19, 1934; LA, IV/208/1/642, May 14, 1934,
meeting of MPTAY and EC/H.
198 • Mark LeVine
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
54.
55.
56.
57.
58.
59.
60.
61.
62.
63.
64.
65.
LA, IV/208/1/642, May 14, 1934, meeting ofMPTAY and EC/H.
CZA, S25/4618, clipping from Davar, March 26, 1935.
al-Difa', January 13, 1936, p. 4; Falastin, October 8, 1945, p. 3. Jaffa was an "Arab" port after
its reconquest by Salahaddin's brother (who was in fact a Kurd) at the end of the 12th
century.
HA, 40.00023, Oral History of Elchas Steinberg; Hapo' el Hatza' ir, February 13, 1920.
Not surprisingly, this was also when Fa/astin began warning its readers about the Jewish desire to move the port near or to Tel Aviv. TAMA, 20/20, clipping of Ha'aretz, October 6,
1920; Falastin, September 14, 1921, p. 1.
Ibid.
LA, IV/250/72/1/2468, "Hebrew Coachmen's Group in Jaffa Port;' Passover Eve, 1927. Most
Jewish businesses importing through the port and even some non-Jewish businesses used
the the Hebrew group.
LA, IV/208/1/642, July 8, 1934 memo titled "A Suggestion for the Establishment of a Partnership for Work in Jaffa Port"; LA, IV/208/1/642, June 2, 1934, meeting of MPTAY.
CZA, S25/4618, "Employment of Casual Labor;' cited 17,388 man-days of casual labor by
Jews versus 244,634 by non-Jews.
CZA, S25/4618, Memo, Non-Jewish Immigration from Neighbouring Countries; clipping
from Davar, January 22, 1935.
Falastin, June 20, 1924, p. 1.
TAMA, 3/102, Memorandum to Palmer.
CZA, S25/4618, April 9, 1936, letter from Chief Secretary to Jewish Agency.
LA, IV/250/72/1/1834, Minute Book ofYemenite Workers Club, 1936-1937, February 3,
1937, meeting.
CZA, S25/4618, "Evidence on the Jewish Share in Public Works, 1936;' p. 6.
Falastin, October 8, 1945, p. 3.
al-Difa', February 2, 1936. The Government was annoyed at the constant attempts of the
Palestinian Arab press to give nationalist interpretations to petty incidents that were parts
of the normal, daily quarrels between lightermen and porters. (Israel State Archive [ISA],
untagged file, report dated October 2, 1936). Cf. ISA, untagged file, leaflet dated November
29, 1936, concerning Palestine Communist Party's opposition to the construction of a port
in Tel Aviv.
Public Records Office [PRO], CO733/362/10.
A note in the margins by a Colonial Office official noted "Yes, but in their own interest and
therefore at their own risk." PRO, CO733/362/10 (emphasis in original). Cf. PRO,
C0733/298/8, July 17, 1936, telegram from High Commissioner to Secretary of State for
the Colonies.
Hapo'e/Hatza'ir, July 5, 1937, p. 9.
See LeVine, Overthrowing Geography, chap. 4.
al-Jami'a a/-Islamiyyah, October 14, 1936.
ISA, M3C/995/1951, October 15, 1936, letter to Jaffa Port Manager.
Ibid.
CZA S25/5936, May 16, 1940, meeting, p.15.
For a discussion of the geography of Palestinian labor within Israel after 1967 and especially in the Jaffa-Tel Aviv region, see Portugali, Y., Implicate Relations: Society and Space in
the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Kluwer Academic, Boston, 1993.
13
Flexible Production and Industrial
Restructuring in Hong Kong:
From Boom to Bust? 1
STEPHEN W.K. CHIU AND ALVIN Y. SO
There is no such thing as long-term job in this kind of work. When he (the boss)
wants to dismiss you, he dismisses you.
Remark of worker cited in Chiu and Lee ( 1997, p.18)
Introduction
"The 1970s;' as Immanuel Wallerstein (2003, p. 4) points out, "was the era
when the United Nations proclaimed the decade of development. Developmentalism was the name of the game from the 1950s through the 1970s.
Everybody proclaimed that countries could develop-if only a state was organized properly .... Development was to be achieved by some kind of control
over what went on within sovereign national states."
Many states, however, have done more than simply pursue developmental goals in the post-World War II era. In Polanyian terms, some states have
also strived for "re-embedding the market" in society or in the state so as to
minimize the harm done by unrestrained market forces. In the global north,
the "Keynesian Welfare National States" (Jessop, 2002, p. 59) promoted full
employment, welfare rights, collective consumption, and antisexism and antiracism laws and developed a social contract with labor within their national boundaries. In the global south, the developmental states set up
regulations to prevent the domination of their domestic markets by foreign
capital.
By the 1980s, however, these state-led developmental projects were challenged by the neo-liberal globalization project in the U.S. and Great Britain.
Wallerstein (2003, p. 5) argues that "globalization simply meant opening up all
1.
We would like to thank the participants of the March 2003 "Labor, Race, and Empire"
Conference held at University of California, Irvine, especially David Smith and Gil Gonzalez,
for their useful comments and suggestions. We would also like to acknowledge financial support from the HKSAR Research Grants Council through the project on "Flexible Employment
and Social Life in Hong Kong: Tracing the Impact of Globalization" (HKUST6054/02H).
199
200 • Stephen W.K. Chiu and Alvin Y. So
the frontiers, breaking down all the barriers for: (a) the movement of goods;
and more importantly (b) capital; but not (c) labor. And the United States set
out to impose this on the world."
The neo-liberals accused the state-led developmental projects of erecting
national barriers in production and trade, leading to inefficiency, decreasing
productivity, and declining corporate profit. They argued that these national
barriers must be removed so the market could be de-embedded from society
and the state could regain its competitiveness in the global market.
In this respect, globalization can be taken as a neo-liberal counter-offensive
against state-led developmental projects at three levels: (1) to reduce wages
worldwide; (2) to reduce costs and end ecological constraints on corporations,
permitting total externalization and socialization of such costs; and (3) to reduce
taxation that subsidizes social welfare (that is to say it subsidizes education,
health care, and lifelong guarantees of income).
To dismantle the fetters of production caused by the state-led developmental
projects, the new globalization project (Jessop, 2002, p. 139) advocates:
• Deregulation: changing the regulatory framework to facilitate labormarket flexibility and mobility within national economic space
• Liberalization of foreign exchange movements with the effect of internalizing and accelerating capital flows
• De-territorialization: Modifying institutional frameworks to enhance
international trade and foreign direct investment; promoting appropriate conditions for the global spread of national and regional capitalism
Through deregulation, liberalization, and deterritorialization, the globalization project has exerted a profound impact on production relations, labor markets, and working class politics, leading to the emergence of a new flexible
accumulation regime by the late 1980s (Harvey, 1989). The focus of this chapter
is the examination of the emergence and transformation of flexible employment
in the context of Hong Kong society and economy over the past four decades.
When we look back at the 20th century, it was generally expected that fulltime work would continue indefinitely and was performed at the employer's
place of business under the employer's direction. This standard work arrangement was the basis of the framework within which labor law, collective
bargaining, and social security systems developed. At the turn of the 20th
century, however, this standard employment relationship began to unravel
(Kalleberg, 2000).
In the era of globalization, flexible employment relations (part-time work,
temporary employment, contract work, and home work) have become increasingly prominent ways of organizing work. Various labels, such as alternative
work arrangements (Polivka, 1996), disposable work (Gordon, 1996), contingent work (Polivka and Nardone, 1989), time-based flexible manufacturing
Flexible Production and Industrial Restructuring in Hong Kong • 201
(Alasoini, 1993), and lean production (Womack et al., 1990), are used to characterize these new forms of employment relationships.
The management literature argues that the flexible employment practices
enrich both employers and employees. From a business viewpoint, flexible
means being able to adjust quickly to changing economic conditions: expanding, contracting, or relocating labor supply as needed and improving service in
order to become more competitive by increasing productivity and decreasing
costs. Human resource professionals report certain positive outcomes of flexible employment: increased productivity, improved morale, and better recruitment and retention (Avery and Zabel, 2001). From the workers' viewpoint,
flexibility is seen as the ability to adjust work time or work pace when personal
needs are in conflict with their work current schedules. They can alter starting
and quitting times occasionally; reduce paid work time for a while so they can
return to school, start families, or recover from burn-out; or attend family activities (such as parent-teacher conferences and taking children to medical or
dental appointments) without penalty. Management literature reports that
flexibility is associated with employees' greater job satisfaction, reduced work
and family stress, increased job enrichment and autonomy, reduced tardiness
and absenteeism, and improved productivity (Scandura and Lankau, 1997).
Hong Kong seems to be an ideal case to test the validity of this enrichment thesis because Hong Kong has been known for its flexibility in the manufacturing
industry for decades.
This chapter has two aims. The first is to examine the changing patterns of
flexible work in Hong Kong over the past 40 years, i.e., from the 1960s to
2000s. In particular, we will highlight the critical differences between flexible
production in the boom days and those in the bust period. The second aim is
to show how this changing pattern of flexible work has shaped working
conditions, working lives, and labor insurgency in the contemporary era.
Instead of enrichment, this paper argues that globalization and economic
restructuring over the past two decades totally altered the meaning of flexible
work in Hong Kong, leading to misery for the working class and new patterns
of labor insurgency.
Flexible Production during Economic Expansion: The Boom Days
Flexible production was said to be the hallmark of Hong Kong's manufacturing
industry and purported to have laid the foundations of Hong Kong's rapid
economic development between the 1950s and the 1990s. Unlike Korea's state-led
and chaebol-led industrialization, Hong Kong's industrialization was propelled
by small and medium (S&M) firms.
Because they are smaller and less bureaucratic, S&M firms can make
prompt decisions when something unforeseen occurs and respond quickly to
the ever-changing nature of the global market. For example, the order-to-delivery cycle time is only 14 days for small garment firms and 17.5 days for small
202 • Stephen W.K. Chiu and Alvin Y. So
knitwear firms (Lee, 1997, p. 189). The S&M firms bid for as many orders as
possible and then subcontract the parts that exceed their capacities. As a result,
a dense subcontracting network emerged among S&M firms, forming an integrated production process to capture new market niches in the global commodity chains of the garment, knitwear, toys, and electronics industries
(Gereffi et al., 1994).
In addition, Hong Kong's state-business relationships contributed to the
formation and consolidation of flexible production in Hong Kong. Coming
from a laissez-faire heritage and developing a strong alliance with big
businesses, the colonial state preferred not to intervene directly in the
economy but let businesses have as much freedom as they wanted. In industrial relations, the colonial state adhered to the voluntarist framework by
not introducing statutes compelling employers to recognize labor unions as
bargaining partners. Even if collective agreements between employers and
unions were concluded, they did not carry legal significance and were, in
effect, "gentlemen's agreements." Thus, the authority of business to hire
and fire was unchallenged and business unilaterally determined terms of
employment.
Under such state-capital hegemony, Hong Kong's labor had little power, as
shown by the movement fragmentation between the pro-mainland leftist
unions (Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions) and the pro-Taiwan unions
(Hong Kong and Kowloon Trade Union Council). Hong Kong unions were
generally politically oriented, i.e., more interested in participating in Chinese
mainland affairs than in local economic matters. A second factor showing the
weakness of Hong Kong's labor was the low density of trade-union membership (only 16% ). In order to recruit more members, Hong Kong unions tended
to be welfare oriented, i.e., they focused on how to provide more welfare services by running canteens, workers' cooperatives, recreation centers, and mainland China tours.
With weak labor unions, collective bargaining was rare as a method for protecting labor interests. Bargaining at the enterprise level was typically in
the form of unilateral determination of conditions of employment by the
employer. Labor unions played almost no role in collective bargaining or in
waging strikes and protests to protect the workers. In short, flexible production, strong state-business links, lack of collective bargaining, and weak labor
unions made Hong Kong a capitalist paradise in the minds of neo-classical
economists.
However, the case of Hong Kong is unique because workers could reap benefits from flexible production. Hong Kong workers' wages rose both absolutely
(in terms of real wages above inflation) and relatively (compared with wages in
mainland China, Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore). During interviews
with former manufacturing workers, Chiu and Lee ( 1997, p. 30) found that the
Flexible Production and Industrial Restructuring in Hong Kong • 203
workers were nostalgic for the days when they worked in the factories. They
expressed occupational pride in their jobs and incomes. For example, female
manufacturing workers remarked:
The golden years were 1976 to 1978 .... Even in 1989, I was earning more than
HK$300 a day .... This was one third more than my husband's clerical job.
I was earning HK$10,000 a month [in 1990]. Because we were in production,
with overtime, we could double our income. If, say, we worked an extra 4 hours a
day, we could have up to HK$15,000 .... [In the 2000s, a college graduate's
starting salary was only HK$8,000 a month.]
In spite of weak labor unions and the lack of collective bargaining, Hong
Kong manufacturing workers had strong bargaining power because of their
peculiar market situation. During the 1960s through the 1980s, Hong Kong's
economy expanded so quickly it created a labor shortage and a worker's bargaining power was his threat to quit. Because workers could easily find better
jobs the next day or the next week, a very high degree of job mobility existed.
In order to keep workers, small manufacturing firms competed to offer
higher wages and benefits and better working conditions, for example,
having a company bus transport workers to and from work, having air conditioning in the office, and offering double pay for overtime work. True to
the neo-classical assertion, sheer market supply and demand-not class
power and collective bargaining-drove up wages and benefits in the manufacturing sector in Hong Kong during its export boom in the 1960s
through the 1980s.
However, flexible labor appeared in the S&M firms of the manufacturing
sector only. To compete for workers and to retain them, large firms in the
private sector (such as electric, gas, water, phone, and transportation companies) had to provide generous wage and salary packages. They tolerated joint
consultation committees and were willing to work with labor on terms of
employment, although these arrangements still failed to allow unions formal
representation and participatory roles in collective bargaining (Levin and
Chiu, 1997).
Although similar in some ways to the large private sector firms, the employment system of the Hong Kong civil service differed from the former in three
aspects. First, the civil service offered permanent employment until retirement
age for most staff. Second, the service had a highly structured internal labor
market with well-defined points of entry, career paths, and seniority pay
scales linked to occupation and rank. Unionization subsequently spread,
especially among white-collar civil servants who were prompted by dissatisfaction with their occupational pay scales and promotion prospects (Levin
and Chiu, 1997, p. 145). Third, the civil service saw the spread of a dense
network of joint consultation bodies after the late 1970s. Civil service management was more tolerant of union representation and participation in such
204 • Stephen W.K. Chiu and Alvin Y. So
committees than were large private sector firms with similar bodies (Levin and
Chiu, 1997).
The Transition Period: From the Mid-1980s to the Mid-1990s
Business organizations tolerated rising wages and benefits only because of the
tight labor market and the rapid economic development of Hong Kong during
the 1960s and 1970s. By the l 980s, Hong Kong's manufacturing industries faced
a variety of problems, including rising land rent, protectionism, and keen competition from neighboring Asian countries. As a result, to find a large pool of
docile, cheap labor, they quickly relocated their plants across the border in the
densely populated Pearl River Delta of the People's Republic of China (PRC).
This industrial relocation started in the mid-1980s. In only 10 years, almost
all the manufacturing relocated out of the territory and Hong Kong's old
industrial towns were left with empty factories. The number of Hong Kong
manufacturing workers was drastically reduced from 892,140 in 1980 to
375,766 in 1995-a loss of more than half a million jobs. Subsequently, the
proportion of the Hong Kong labor force that worked in manufacturing
dropped from 47% in 1971 to only 14% in 1996.
By the mid-1990s, this disappearance of manufacturing jobs remained
largely hidden from the public because of the rapid expansion of service-sector
jobs at the same time. Hong Kong's service sector grew at a yearly average of
14% from 1980 to 1999; the number of service workers expanded from
789,454 in 1980 to 2,648,600 in 1999 (Yeung, 1997, p. 251).
Also, a tight labor situation remained in place throughout this transition
period. Immigration from mainland China was tightly controlled; the limit
was set at 105 a day and eventually increased to 150 a day after July 1, 1995.
Additionally, a massive out-migration of Hong Kong residents to the U.S.,
Canada, and Australia because of the political uncertainty of 1997 averaged
60,000 workers per year from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s. The estimated
population of Hong Kong residents who emigrated then was around 500,000.
The rapid expansion of the service sector and the massive out-migration of
workers pushed the wages of professional and managerial employees to even
higher levels than in the 1970s because of a shortage of such people (Ngo and
Lau, 1996).
Until 1997, the year of the transfer of sovereignty, Hong Kong still had a
very tight labor market. The unemployment rate was below 2%. Workers who
were removed from the manufacturing sector during the process of deindustrialization were quickly absorbed by the expanding service economy. During
this transition period, some labor unionists wanted to push for a bill in the legislature to establish the right to collective bargaining. The Employee's Rights to
Representation, Consultation and Collective Bargaining Ordinance was
passed by the Legislative Council (LegCo) on June 30, 1997, the very last day of
colonial rule. Had this bill remained in effect, it would have introduced a
Flexible Production and Industrial Restructuring in Hong Kong • 205
major change to the voluntaristic system of industrial relations by providing a
legal mechanism whereby trade unions represented workers in wage bargaining. It could have potentially affected 900,000 employees working in enterprises with 50 or more employees. However, the pre handover LegCo was
immediately replaced by a Provisional LegCo that excluded those from the
democratic camp. In a few months, the Provisional body quickly had the
collective bargaining ordinance repealed ( South China Morning Post, August
16, 1997; October l, 1997).
Flexible Production during Economic Decline: The Bust Days
The year 1997 was a turning point of Hong Kong's history. Hong Kong ended
its colonial era and became a special administration region (SAR) of the PRC
in 1997. It also experienced the trauma of the Asian financial crisis that compelled Asia to follow the globalization agenda of opening some of its national economic barriers. When all its previously hidden problems suddenly came to light,
Hong Kong experienced a prolonged and drastic economic decline after 1997.
Real-estate prices dropped 60%, the stock market was in a slump, the
SAR state carried a serious budget deficit, and the unemployment rate hit a
record of 7.8% in 2002. The number of unemployed rose drastically from
71,200 in 1997 to a record-high 275,800 in July 2002. In the garment industries, for instance, the number of factories was halved from 3,000 in 1997 to
only 1,500 in 2002 (Hong Kong Catholic Commission for Labour Affairs,
2003, p. 6).
Instead of out-migration, Hong Kong experienced a massive influx of
workers in the mid-1990s. Labor importation schemes brought in approximately 23,000 foreign workers to work on the construction of the massive
new airport and other big infrastructure projects in 1995 (Ngo and Lau,
1996). Anticipating that they would be eligible to become Hong Kong citizens
after the handover, many wives and children of Hong Kong residents arrived
legally and illegally in Hong Kong around 1997. Additionally, because the
handover was relatively smooth and the mainland government did not directly
intervene in Hong Kong's affairs, many overseas Hong Kong residents
returned to the territory to find work. The most conservative estimate of the
government held that 10% to 12% of the emigrants returned to the city after
they secured citizenship in Canada, Australia, and the U.S. Other estimates of
return migrants range from 100,000 to 250,000 (Skeldon, 1997, p. 269;
hknews@ahkcus.org, July 29, 1999).
By the late 1990s, Hong Kong also lost a large number of service jobs to the
Pearl River Delta. Every weekend and during long holidays, millions of Hong
Kong residents went across the border to shop, eat, and participate in recreation. Many lived across the border and commuted to work. These cross-border flows led to significant declines of Hong Kong's retail, trade, real estate,
restaurant, and entertainment industries. Taxi drivers complained about
206 • Stephen W.K. Chiu and Alvin Y. So
reduced business during weekends and holidays. By the late 1990s, many
Hong Kong banks, credit card companies, and airlines followed the manufacturing sector's footsteps by out-sourcing their service and office jobs
across the border.
Because of these significant transformations, flexible production in the late
1990s was fundamentally different. Gone were the expanding economy
and labor shortage. Instead, Hong Kong's workers faced the disappearance of
manufacturing jobs, economic recession, contraction of the service sector,
oversupply of workers in the labor market, and record-high unemployment.
This unfavorable situation hit middle-aged female workers hardest; this group
served as the backbone of the manufacturing industry in the 1960s and 1970s.
These "working daughters" usually started working around age 15 or 16, without finishing their secondary education, then remained in the manufacturing
sector all their working lives. By the 2000s, they had become working mothers
with families to raise (Lang et al., 2001).
During this period of economic recession, a new pattern of flexible labor
with certain characteristics gradually replaced the old system. Job security
became a thing of the past. Workers could no longer take their jobs for
granted; they constantly had to worry about the risks of losing their jobs, that
their posts could be abolished, that existing contracts might not be renewed,
and, most importantly, that they might not find other full-time jobs if their
present ones disappeared.
A second factor was that more workers were engaged in contingent or
casual jobs-defined as hire on a day-to-day basis or for a fixed period ofless
than 60 days. A 2001 survey (Census and Statistics Department, 2001) found
93,800 persons (3.3% of those employed) had casual employment.
Third, as services and production jobs were increasingly out-sourced, many
workers were induced to become self-employed or work as independent contractors. For example, insurance brokers are now increasingly engaged as independent contractors rather than employees. They earn commissions on
policies sold rather than salaries.
A fourth factor is that flexibility extends to pay and benefits. A number of incentive pay schemes such as performance bonuses and flexible benefit schemes
were devised. During the boom days in the 1980s, Hong Kong workers expected
raises every year. The only issue was the percentage of the raise over the wage
for the previous year. By the early 2000s, workers faced across-the-board salary
freezes and even pay cuts and reductions in fringe benefits.
Finally, work organization was restructured and work qualifications were
upgraded. Workers were expected to work harder, constantly upgrade their
skills, and become more functionally flexible. A government survey (Census
and Statistics Department, 2000) indicated that 27% of all employed persons
reported that they experienced more flexible and longer working hours; 20%
reported higher intensity of work.
Flexible Production and Industrial Restructuring in Hong Kong • 207
A significant difference between the pre-1997 period and the post-1997
period is that flexible work was no longer confined to small firms in the
manufacturing sector. In the post-1997 era, flexible work penetrated into large
firms in the private sector and into the civil service. It affected manual workers, technicians, white-collar clerks, and middle-class professionals. In order to
regain competitiveness in the global market, corporate restructuring, streamlining, consolidation, utilization of high-tech machines and equipment, and
downsizing appeared in full force among Hong Kong's large firms, leading
to massive layoffs, short-term contracts, and part-time hiring. In 2001, for
example, layoffs occurred at QPL International Holdings/ASAT Limited (600
technicians, craft workers, and clerks in March), Triumph International (400
craft workers in July), a bus company (500 drivers in July), KK Supermarkets
(525 staff in June), The Bank of China (450 clerks and elementary workers in
September), ASAT Ltd (about 600 in July), and PCCW (506 from senior to
elementary occupations in December). Major redundancies were announced
in the first 3 months of 2002 by Phoenix TV (over 400 in January), Motorola
Semiconductor (700 to 800 engineers and employees from production and
business development in January), and PCCW (858 in March).
The Hong Kong government quickly followed suit and implemented publicsector reform to trim the numbers, reduce the costs, and increase the productivities of civil servants. The growing budget deficit in the early 2000s provided the
SAR government a strong rationale to carry out such reforms as restructuring,
consolidation, subcontracting, and privatization, especially under the slogan of
enhancing the competitiveness of the Hong Kong state and economy in the
global market.
Increasing Misery of the Working Class
Lang et al. (2001), Chiu and Lee (1997), and Ho (2001) point to the increasing
misery of the working class as a result of deindustrialization and flexible production. The first generation of female workers let go by the manufacturing
sector had difficulty finding full-time, relatively high-paying employment. In
Ho's (2001) study, Choi-Lin, who worked her way up from the lowest level on
the production line when she was 15 to the craftsperson level in the garment
industry, still sounded bitter when she recalled her job-seeking experiences
after her factory closed in 1994:
They [bosses] used to treat you like a treasure when they wanted you to work for
them .... Now they acted as if you were grass. A few of them gave me the cold
shoulder when I approached them for a full-time job after the factory closed,
others told me to go home and take care of my children .... People in the service
sector were worse .... Someone told me my skills were of no use to them and
sent me home. Others just asked me to go home and wait once they learnt of my
age, or that I am divorced. Of course they never called back. What made me feel
bad was their attitude, they made you feel so useless, that I am old and useless
208 • Stephen W.K. Chiu and Alvin Y. So
and sort of good for nothing. It is their attitude; they just ignore you, just want to
brush you off.
Because they know the difficulties of finding jobs, workers are very worried
about the instability of their employment conditions. They fear the possibility
of losing their jobs at any time and believe their future job prospects are
gloomy. One respondent sounded very disturbed:
Well they can always tell me that I do not need to go back [to work] in the morning. They can do this to me, and anything .... This is only a part-time job. We
do not need to sign any contract .... I don't think the job would last. They [the
bosses] are already talking about moving out of Hong Kong ... to where, I don't
know, maybe China, most probably to China .... You know, I do not even know
what will happen to me next (Ho, 2001, p. 125).
Female workers increasingly ended up in the flexible and casual work categories.
Such jobs are characterized by instability, low pay, poor working conditions, and
lack of benefits. Feelings of insecurity cause a lot of stress for casual workers:
Usually the time of my work is not fixed; they [factory owners] just call me when
they want me, sometimes they might call me tonight and need me to work the
next day. Sometimes they won't call me at all for weeks .... I was very anxious
those days, waiting for the phone to ring, hoping that they would hire me; [I]
didn't even want to go anywhere in case I might miss the calls .... They pay me
by the hour when they have work for me. The hourly pay is not fixed also, it
depends on the kind of work they want me to do, sometimes it's cheaper, sometimes a little more, it all depends on the kind of work they want me to perform
each time (Ho, 2001, p. 126).
Workers ultimately lost their self-confidence and felt confused and demoralized. A female worker's perception echoed the feelings of other workers:
At that time [the boom phase] I never had to worry about my income .... Changing jobs was as easy as borrowing a light .... I was pleased with my own work, so
were all the bosses I have worked for .... Who is to know that all this [working]
experience is useless in helping me to find a job now? Do you know what they told
me? "You are too old" ... and I was only 42 at that time. Maybe it's true; maybe I
have really fallen behind, not up to date anymore .... The skills I developed are
no longer needed; there is no place for us any more (Ho, 2001, p. 128).
Displaced workers who are single mothers of nonworking children face the
greatest difficulties. The case in Lang et al. (2001, p. 121) is illustrative:
One 42-year-old woman in our sample joined a metal products factory in 1970, at
the age of 15, and then moved to a toy factory. But she lost that job in 1985 when
the plant was moved to the Mainland. Next, she worked as a machine operator in a
chemical products factory, but this plant was also moved to the Mainland in 1987.
She then found work in a metal product factory, but again lost her job when production was moved to the Mainland in 1991. She tried working in a restaurant as a
dim-sum worker, but found that her health was not adequate for the job, and since
Flexible Production and Industrial Restructuring in Hong Kong • 209
then she had been unemployed for 6 years. Divorced with two children at home,
she had to rely on public assistance for three years. She would prefer a half-day job
(since she still had an 11-year-old child at home), but was unable to find one.
Despite facing age and gender discrimination along with all the misery,
frustration, and insecurity, Hong Kong manufacturing workers seldom exhibited an insurgent attitude or engaged in strikes and protests. Instead, they
tended to adopt a resigned attitude, retreated involuntarily to the domestic
sphere, and renewed their dependency on their husbands. This forced withdrawal from work is not a pleasant experience, a worker compared staying at
home to "becoming disabled":
I have had a working life for more than 20 years and suddenly there is no more
work to do, it's like becoming an idiot, because there is too much dead time .... It
feels like you're going to explode. Even if I don't get paid, I'd like people to give me
something to work on, to make use of my time (Chiu and Lee, 1997, p. 40).
I am now at home all the time and I feel so uncomfortable. There is pain here
and there. When I was working, I was like an "iron woman." Staying home all
day, getting bored and stuck, makes me feel sick (Chiu and Lee, 1997, p. 41).
It is interesting to note that deindustrialization in Hong Kong has not provoked the kinds of pressure on the state that appeared in other countries. Most
Hong Kong factories relocated offshore are small and nonunionized; most
workers are women who benefited from the favorable flexible labor market in
the 1970s. Deindustrialization occurred concomitantly with expansion of the
service sector during an economic boom. Subsequently, although Hong
Kong's deindustrialization was completed with amazing speed, the process was
quiet and produced few labor protests, little worry from the working class, and
scant pressure on the colonial government to help the workers.
Labor Insurgency in the Old Sectors
Compared with the female workers in the manufacturing industries, workers
in large firms in the private sector tried to put up a modest fight to protect
their working conditions, wages, and benefits. In 1998, when Hong Kong Telecom (probably the largest private employer at that time) announced it would
cut wages for its 13,800 staff and workers by 10% for 1 year and those who
refused to accept the cut would be sacked, the union organized strikes and
public demonstrations and initiated a public campaign against the company.
The union pointed out that the company was sitting on HK$15 million (about
US$2 million) in cash and had just received HK$6.7 billion in compensation
from the government for the surrender of its monopoly on international calls.
After a prolonged struggle, the union eventually induced the company to withdraw its proposed wage cut.
The company returned with a new proposal to lay off workers the following
year. On November 19, 2002, PCCW announced that workers would face pay
2IO • Stephen W.K. Chiu and Alvin Y. So
cuts of at least 10% in the latest move by the telecom giant to reduce costs. The
plan was outlined to 3,000 staff members after the announcement that a new
subsidiary would be formed the following year to take over support and management work. Under the plan, 75% of workers would have to take pay cuts of
at least 10% if they wanted to join the new company, Cascade Limited. Unionists claimed that cuts of 20% would be implemented for some workers. Those
who rejected the proposal were to be laid off in January ( South China Morning
Post, November 20, 2002, p. 2).
A day later, PCCW suddenly made another announcement that it would fire 529
staff, concluding a massive lay-off program that cost almost 1,900 jobs over a 12month period. "We are shocked;' said Terry Ip, PCCW staff association chairman.
"Just yesterday they found a new company and promised a good future, but today
they slashed 500-plus staff" (South China Morning Post, November 21, 2002, p. 1).
Similarly, the civil workers' union tried hard to prevent the government from
implementing salary cuts, privatization, and changing working conditions. The
large government deficit meant that pressure mounted to privatize government
activities. One example is the estate maintenance and management of the housing authority that affected some 9,000 caretakers, managers, and technicians
working at the 165 public rental estates. In August 1999, the Alliance of Housing
Department Staff Unions threatened a week-long strike when it was excluded
from a working group studying privatization and a task force that would approve
changes. Perhaps in response to this union protest, the chief executive, in his policy address in October 1999, tried to assure civil servants that the administration
would attempt to avoid redundancies while pushing ahead with civil-service
reforms and cost-cutting targets through interdepartmental redeployment,
secondment, and employee retraining (South China Morning Post, 1999a and b).
In March 1999, the Civil Service Bureau published a consultation document proposing a major restructuring of employment practices that would
make the civil service operate more flexibly. In June 2000, the government introduced a new entry system of terms of appointment for recruits in line with
its aim of increasing the flexibility of the hiring system. Under the new system,
most recruits were appointed on probationary terms for a specified period
before being considered for appointment on prevailing permanent terms.
Departmental and grade management staff would be responsible for monitoring and managing probationers and agreement officers. In July 2000, the
government introduced a voluntary retirement scheme to enable existing staff
at 59 grades and surplus (or anticipated surplus) staff to retire voluntarily with
pension benefits and compensation.
On salary issues, moves to cut pay by 2% to 4% without an agreement in
2002 prompted 30,000 civil servants take to the streets in protest. In February
2003, the government made an agreement with the unions that civil servants' pay
would be effectively frozen until the end of the year. Additionally, salaries would
then be restored to 1997 levels within 2 years, i.e., the result was a 6% cut (South
Flexible Production and Industrial Restructuring in Hong Kong • 211
China Morning Post, February 22, 2003). Although civil servants were willing
to accept the 6% pay cut over 2 years, business organizations had yet to agree
to accept a 1%-to-2% raise in profit taxes based on the fact that the civil servants' pay cut was not deep enough to solve the government budget deficit of
HK$70 billion (US$9.8 billion).
New Labor Insurgency
The new round of government budget cutting led to new patterns of labor insurgency. On February 23, 2003, at least 10,000 foreign domestic helpers
joined a march against the government's proposal to impose a HK$400
(US$50) levy on their wages. It was the biggest protest ever held by migrant
workers in Hong Kong. Wearing red T-shirts, workers from the Philippines,
Indonesia, Thailand, and Nepal waved flags, danced, and chanted "No to wage
levy, no to wage cuts" in English and Cantonese as they made their way from
Victoria Park.
Hong Kong employs about 237,000 foreign domestic helpers, of whom
148,000 are from the Philippines. The domestic helpers were against the proposal to cut HK$400 from their minimum monthly wage, bringing it down to
HK$3,270 (US$417). Bishop Joseph Sen complained to the public that Hong
Kong citizens should have shown foreign workers more gratitude because their
services were much needed ( South China Morning Post, February 24, 2003, p. 5).
On the same day, a coalition of 90 groups criticized the government for
its plan to slash welfare payments by 11.1 %; they accused the government
of exploiting the poorest people in society. Dressed in black and sitting in
front of crossed-out giant Chinese signs that read "Caring and Justice;'
dozens of representatives from social, labor, and religious groups protested
against the decision to lower comprehensive social security assistance for
about 260,000 families.
Chong Chan-Yau, Oxfam Hong Kong's executive director, said the government pledged to create a harmonious and caring society, but its actions violated
its promises. He said the welfare cut would exacerbate class differences and
deepen class conflicts (South China Morning Post, February 24, 2003, p. 3).
Two weeks earlier, 80 temporary workers held a public demonstration to
protest the government's failure to renew their contracts. The workers were mostly
middle-aged women who did cleaning work in public hospitals. They complained
that the government would rather subcontract their cleaning jobs rather than rehire them. They also argued that if they worked for the new subcontractors, their
wages would further decrease from HK$6,000 (US$769) to HK$4,000 (US$513) a
month to do the same jobs (Ming Pao, February 10, 2003, p. A2 ).
This case illustrates the common problem facing outsourcing. In the Hong
Kong Women Workers' Association's survey of 150 cleaners working in public
estates (1999), the majority were middle-aged women and many were new immigrants from mainland China. The monthly average wage of those working
212 • Stephen W.K. Chiu and Alvin Y. So
full time was only HK$3,6 l 3 (US$463). Most did not receive statutory benefits
in the forms of holidays, paid annual and sick leave, and compensation for occupational injuries.
After the 1970s male-dominated labor movement in the manufacturing
sector during the heyday of export-industrialization. In the early 2000s, the
key actors in Hong Kong's labor movement shifted. In a new group: foreign
flexible female workers in the service sector. Very often, instead of being
led by the old, established labor unions, labor insurgency is now organized
by independent unions and nongovernment organizations, or NGOs (groups
of social workers, students, and religious leaders). Instead of large-scale
labor protests, the new pattern takes the form of small-scale, scattered, and
discontinuous protests.
The recent burst oflabor struggles is a function of both the fermentation of
discontent in the labor market and the efforts by the labor movement to mobilize hitherto marginal groups of workers. The presence of over 220,000 foreign
domestic helpers, largely from the Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand, led to
the development of dense interpersonal and organizational networks among
migrant workers, contributing to a sustained struggle protect their rights and
against policy changes like the levy. As for women workers, although the majority remained unorganized, the rise of new forms of flexible employment
gave rise to new attempts at organization. The labor movement attempted
to organize the cleaning service and domestic workers, for example. The
government's half-hearted attempts to retrain workers through funding
union and NGO-organized retraining programs also inadvertently facilitated
organizing endeavors.
There are, however, signs that workers' grievances against capital are sometimes displaced to become conflicts within the working class. A prime example
is anti-immigration protest. Believing that the new immigrants stole their
jobs, Hong Kong workers established various stereotypes of working-class immigrants from mainland China, labeling them lazy and uncultured and accusing them of burdening the Hong Kong welfare system. Mainland migrants
were said to be likely to commit crimes and their children were prone to dropping out of school. The Hong Kong workers felt that the SAR state should have
applied the brakes to the immigration of mainlanders to the territory.
Although the Basic Law (mini-constitution) of Hong Kong granted citizenship to mainland Chinese for reasons of family reunification, the SAR
state appealed to the National People's Congress to repeal the provision, leading to a protracted battle with the "pro-right of abode" activists. The SAR
state argued that an influx of 1.6 million mainland peasants and workers to
Hong Kong for family reunions would ruin Hong Hong's economy. The state
even took the drastic measures of arresting and sending overstaying family
members back to the mainland in 2002. In 2003, the state further proposed
Flexible Production and Industrial Restructuring in Hong Kong • 213
that mainland immigrants had to stay in Hong Kong at least 3 years before
they were eligible to apply for welfare, housing, and medical benefits (Ming
Pao, January 27, 2003).
Most labor groups tried their best to foster more inclusive struggles against
capital and are critical of the conservative counter-mobilization that scapegoats new immigrants. Interviews of local part-time domestic workers organized by the trade union federation, for example, suggest a surprisingly
open-minded attitude toward the foreign domestic helpers who are often
portrayed in the mainstream media as competing against local workers. Local
domestic workers now perceive themselves as serving a very different niche
from foreign workers (Chiu, Fung, and Choi, 2003). Although labor groups
have been unable to forge solidarities across the two groups of workers, they
have at least alleviated a possible schism. Other groups, notably some traditional trade unions and conservative political parties, are willing to profit from
the anti-immigrant sentiments and campaigns against foreign workers.
Whether the nascent labor insurgency degenerates into in-fighting between
the working classes depends on how progressive labor groups devise strategies
to forge a more inclusive movement.
Conclusion and Discussion
This chapter examines the changing patterns of flexible work in Hong Kong over
the past four decades. We would like to highlight four points for discussion.
First, this paper shows that although Hong Kong workers may have benefited
historically from flexible work because of a tight labor market in a booming
economy, they have suffered immensely and were demoralized when Hong
Kong's economy declined.
The situation in the 2000s is particularly unfavorable to Hong Kong's labor
because of the historical legacy of strong state-business bonds, the lack of collective bargaining, and the weak labor unions inherited from British colonialism. The Hong Kong case shows that labor's bargaining power cannot rely
solely upon favorable market conditions during boom days; workers need to
build up their class power by strengthening unions and labor legislation and
engaging in social movements and party politics.
Flexible work has greatly changed the composition and nature of labor
activism. In the pre flexible era, Hong Kong labor activists were usually male
workers in the manufacturing sector. Since the spread of flexible employment,
nonlocal female workers in the service industry have become active in labor
protests.
A third factor is that flexible employment intensified sexism and gender inequalities in Hong Kong. Instead of promoting worker enrichment as claimed
in the management literature, flexible employment puts women in a much
more disadvantaged position in the labor market than they occupied earlier,
214 • Stephen W.K. Chiu and Alvin Y. So
our study shows. They are discriminated against from finding or holding good
jobs; they are the first to be laid off and have been sent home to become
full-time housewives.
Fourth, flexible work has drastically transformed the pattern of labor insurgency. On the one hand, flexible employment undermined labor insurgency because workers' commitments to strike were minimal. As flexible workers, they
worked only part time and filled temporary positions. In addition, flexible workers may find it difficult to determine who the boss to struggle against is because he
is often hidden behind layers of subcontractors. On the other hand, flexible
employment provided new impetus to labor insurgency because flexible production broadened the composition of the working class to include nonlocal women.
In the era of flexible production, gender, ethnicity, and nationality have
emerged as new sources of worker solidarity and militancy, opening up a new
terrain of flexible labor protest in the 21st century that differs from the trade
union politics practiced earlier.
In sum, this chapter shows that after globalization opened national frontiers for
industrial restructuring and relocation and flexible employment spread from the
manufacturing sector to the state sector, Hong Kong workers were in a much
worse situation in the 1990s than they were earlier. Middle-aged female workers in
particular were hit hardest in the new era of globalization and flexible employment.
However, despite weak unions and the lack of collective bargaining power,
Hong Kong workers still joined protests against this assault by unrestrained
market forces. Hong Kong workers in the state sector protested against cuts of
their wages and benefits and the subcontracting of their work to the private
sector. Domestic workers protested against cuts of HK$400 from their minimum wage. Many other small-scale protests related to work issues have been
conducted over the past few years. However, SAR government never took these
workers' protests seriously, either because of its close ties to big business or because of its proglobalization stand that views global-market competitiveness
as paramount. Finally, the accumulation of conflict reached such a height
that over 500,000 Hong Kong residents came out to protest against the SAR
government on July 1, 2003.
The July 1 protest can be seen as a societal backlash against the assaults of
globalization's unrestrained market forces. The protesters wanted to tame the
market forces and to bring them under control, i.e., "re-embed" the market in
society and in the state. The protesters demanded that the SAR government
not cut so many jobs in the state sector and not over-cut its expenditures on
welfare and social services. They also demanded that businesses not lay off
workers when they earned big profits.
Hong Kong is not alone. Other states in Asia, such as South Korea, Taiwan,
and mainland China, are also developing policies and programs to re-embed
unrestrained market forces after they experienced societal protests. Because
these attempts to tame unrestrained market forces have only started, it will be
Flexible Production and Industrial Restructuring in Hong Kong • 215
difficult to predict whether they will succeed. One thing is certain: As antiglobalization forces grow, globalization and flexible employment projects are increasingly put on the defensive. At the advent of the 21 st century, it seems that
the neo-liberalists are unwilling to back off their globalization agenda. Instead,
they are trying their best to regain hegemony through any means, including
using state terrorism and wars to reinvent empires!
References
Alasoini, T., 1993, "Transformation of Work Organization in Time-Based Production
Management," International Journal of Human Factors in Manufacturing, 3: 319.
Avery, C. and D. Zabel, 2001, The Flexible Work Place, Quorum, Westport, CT.
Census and Statistics Department, 2000, Thematic Household Survey Report 1, Employment
Concerns and Training Needs, Government Printing Department Hong Kong.
Census and Statistics Department, 2001, Special Topics Report 30, Social Data Collected via the
General Household Survey, Government Printing Department, Hong Kong.
Census and Statistics Department, 2002, Special Topics Report 31, Social Data Collected via the
General Household Survey, Government Printing Department, Hong Kong.
Chiu, S.W.K. and C.K. Lee, 1997, Withering Away of the Hong Kong Dream? Women Workers under
Industrial Restructuring. Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, Hong Kong.
Chiu, S.W.K., H.I. Fung, and F. Choi, 2003, Disconnected Youth, Disgruntled Adults: Social Exclusion and
Social Cohesion in a Life-Course Perspective, Social and Economic Policy Institute, Hong Kong.
Gereffi, G., M. Korzeniewicz, and R.P. Korzeniewicz, 1994, "Introduction: Global Commodity
Chains;' in Gereffi, G. and M. Korzeniewicz, Eds., Commodity Chains and Global
Capitalism, Praeger, Westport, CT, p. 1.
Gordon. D.M., 1996, Fat and Mean: The Corporate Squeeze of Working Americans and the Myth of
Managerial Downsizing, Free Press, New York.
Harvey, D., 1989, The Condition of Postmodernity: An Inquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change,
Blackwell, Cambridge, MA.
Ho, C.K., 2001, "Of Flesh and Blood: The Human Consequences of Economic Restructuring on
Women Workers in Hong Kong," in So, A.Y. et al., Eds., The Chinese Triangle of Mainland
China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, Greenwood, Westport, CT, p. 117.
Hong Kong Catholic Commission for Labour Affairs, 2003, Community Economic Development: A
Way Out for the Unemployed and Marginal Workers? Hong Kong.
hknews@ahkcus.org
Jessop, B., 2002, The Future of the Capitalist State, Polity Press, Cambridge, U.K.
Kalleberg, A., 2000, "Non-standard Employment Relations: Part-time, Temporary and Contract
Work." Annual Review of Sociology, 26: 341.
Lang, G., C. Chiu, and M. Pang, 2001, "Impact of Plant Relocation to China on Manufacturing
Workers in Hong Kong;' in Lee, P.T., Ed., Hong Kong Reintegrating With China: Political,
Cultural and Social Dimensions, Hong Kong University Press, Hong Kong, p. 109.
Lee, K.M., 1997, "The Flexibility of the Hong Kong Manufacturing Sector;' China Information, 12: 189.
Levin, DA. and S.W.K. Chiu, 1997, "Empowering Labour? The Origins and Practice of Joint
Consultation in Hong Kong," in Markey, R. and J. Monat, Eds., Innovation and Employee
Participation through Works Councils: International Case Studies, Avebury, Aldershot, U.K.,
p. 280.
Ming Pao
Ngo, H.Y. and Lau, C.M., 1996, "Labor and Employment," in Nyaw, M.K. and S.M. Li, Eds., The
Other Hong Kong Report 1996, Chinese University Press, Hong Kong, p. 259.
Polivka, A. E., 1996, "Contingent and Alternative Work Arrangements Defined," Monthly Labor
Review, 119: 3.
Polivka, A.E. and T. Nardone, 1989, "On the Definition of 'Contingent Work';' Monthly Labor
Review, 112: 9.
Scandura, T.A. and M.J. Lankau, 1997, "Relationships of Gender, Family Responsibility and
Flexible Work Hours to Organizational Commitment and Job Satisfaction," Journal of
Organizational Behavior, 18: 377.
216 • Stephen W.K. Chiu and Alvin Y. So
Skeldon, R., 1997, "Hong Kong: Colonial City to Global City to Provincial City?" Cities, 14: 265.
So, A.Y., "Hong Kong's Pathways to Global City: A Regional Analysis;' in Gugler, J., Ed., World City
in Poor Countries, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, in press.
South China Morning Post
Wallerstein, I., 2003, "U.S. Weakness and the Struggle for Hegemony;' Monthly Review, July-August,
p. l. Available at http://www.monthlyreview.org/0703 wallerstein.htm (accessed July 29, 2003).
Womack, J. P. et al., 1990, The Machine that Changed the World, Rawson Associates, New York.
Wong, H. and K.M. Lee, 2001, Predicaments, Exclusion and the Way Ahead: A Qualitative Study of
Marginal Workers in Hong Kong, Oxfam, Hong Kong.
Yeung, Y.M., 1997, "Planning for Pearl City: Hong Kong's Future, 1997 and Beyond;' Cities, 14: 249.
14
From the Third World to the
((Third World Within":
Asian Women Workers
Fighting Globalization
GRACE CHANG
The present form of globalization has not produced enough jobs for all those
who seek them or in the places where they are most needed. This is probably its
biggest failure.
Juan Somavia
Director-General, International Labor Organization 1
I want to begin to dispel the myths. It's not about mail-order brides. Hello, this is
a global world .... We are a global population.
Mike Krosky
Owner, Cherry Blossoms2
Introduction
These observations on globalization probably could not have come from more
distant corners. Juan Somavia's comment, addressed to representatives from
175 International Labor Organization member countries was intended to be
sobering. He warned that the failure of globalization to create new jobs in developing countries has fueled and will continue to fuel massive migration
worldwide. He estimated that about 500 million jobs will have to be created
over the next decade just to accommodate the young people and women now
entering the labor market.
In contrast, Mike Krosky's comment from an interview about his Cherry
Blossoms business is positively celebratory. Krosky's business lists over 6000
women available for order through print catalogs and a web site, half of whom
are Filipina. The next largest group is Indonesian, and the group showing the
greatest increase comes from Eastern European countries. Krosky celebrates
globalization not only because of huge business profits, but also for his personal
217
218 • Grace Chang
satisfaction as the happy husband of a Filipina more than 18 years his junior,
whom he met through his own service.
Both these comments speak directly or otherwise to an important but often
neglected aspect of globalization: migrations of Third World people from
their homes as a result of the destruction wrought by globalization on their
abilities to survive at home.
I want to address this dimension of globalization, particularly Third World
women's migrations, and, like Mike Krosky, I want to begin to dispel the
myths. I also want to address the reality that in today's globalized context, virtually all migration can be seen as coerced through economic means, through
the institutionalized underdevelopment and impoverishment of Third World
nations and people.
A few years ago I had the privilege of speaking on an International
Women's Day radio program with Ethel Long Scott of the Women's
Economic Agenda Project. Scott remarked that we must talk about globalization in its proper terms, as the globalization of poverty-that is, the
creation, perpetuation, and exacerbation of poverty worldwide. Scott
also cautioned listeners not to think that the ravages of globalization are
confined "over there" in the Third World but to examine its impacts in
our own communities of color. 3 Scott raised an important point missing
from many debates surrounding globalization-that those in the Third
World and those in the "Third World within" First World countries share these
conditions and thus are central to the struggles against this globalization
of poverty. 4
I will examine how women of color and migrant women in First World
host nations experience the impact of globalization on their lives and livelihoods daily and forge resistance to these impact daily. Specifically, I look
at the struggles of Filipina migrant workers in the U.S. and Canada-women
who suffer these impact on both ends of the global "trade route." I interviewed members of two migrant domestic worker organizations, one
in Vancouver, Canada, and the other in Bronx, New York, who provide important models for critical gender analyses of globalization and organized
resistance against it.
Many of us who attended the 1995 Non-Governmental Organizations
(NGO) Forum on Women as members of the U.S. women of color delegation
were humbled by our Third World sisters who danced circles around us in
their analyses and first-hand knowledge of global economic restructuring and
its impact. Poor women of color throughout the world suffer first and worst
under globalization. They experience so-called "development"" and "free
trade" as losses in status, freedom, safety, education, access to basic needs of
food, water, housing, and health care-indeed, as assaults on their very survival. As the first victims of globalization, poor women of color are also the
primary leaders in fighting back, in resisting the so-called "New World Order"
From the Third World to the "Third World Within" • 219
that they know is not new at all but a continuation of neo-imperialist activities
into the 21 st century.
Global Economic Restructuring
At the Fourth World NGO Forum on Women held in China in 1995, women
from Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia echoed the same truth
in their testimonies: Global economic restructuring embodied in Structural
Adjustment Programs (SAPs) strikes poor women of color around the world
the hardest, rendering them most vulnerable to exploitation both at home
and in the global labor market. Since the 1980s, the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and other international financial institutions
based in the First World have routinely prescribed structural adjustment policies to the governments of indebted countries as preconditions for loans.
These prescriptions included cutting government expenditures on social
programs, slashing wages, liberalizing imports, opening markets to foreign
investment, expanding exports, devaluing local currency, and privatizing
state enterprises.
Women have consistently reported increasing poverty and rapidly deteriorating nutrition, health, and work conditions as a direct result of SAPs. When
wages and food subsidies are cut, wives and mothers adjust household budgets
often at the expense of their own and their children's nutrition. As public
health care and education vanish, women suffer from lack of prenatal care and
become nurses to ill family members at home; girls are the first family members to leave school to help at home or go to work. When export-oriented agriculture is encouraged-indeed, coerced-peasant families are evicted from
their lands to make room for corporate farms, and women become seasonal
workers in the fields or in processing areas instead ofland-owning farmers.
Lands once used to raise staples like rice are used instead for raising shrimp,
oranges, and orchids-all for export, not for local consumption-or for golf
courses and luxury hotels for tourists. Essentially, SAPs lead to destruction of
both subsistence and social service systems in Third World nations so that
women have no viable options to sustain their families and leave them behind
to migrate in search of work. Usually women go from villages to cities within
their home countries first and then migrate to the First World to pursue service work, sex work, and manufacturing jobs. 5
Since the 1995 NGO Forum, women of color around the world have spoken in no uncertain terms to these continuing trends that globalization imposes on their lives. 6 They report the persistence of the most devastating
impact of globalization on their abilities to support their children and
families in the form of increased assaults on their reproductive rights.
In short, globalization threatens the very survival of people of color by hindering the ability of their women to reproduce and maintain their families
and communities.
220 • Grace Chang
In 1999, before the Seattle protests against the World Trade Organization
(WTO), the Northwest Labor and Employment Law Office (LELO), a multiracial community and labor organization, recognized the need for education
to build awareness of these issues and the linkages between workers' struggles
in the U.S. and abroad. LELO brought together several grassroots groups,
including the Seattle Young People's Project, Committee Against Repression in
Mexico, Community Coalition for Environmental Justice, and the Washington
Alliance for Immigrant and Refugee Justice to form the Workers'Voices Coalition. The coalition sponsored the participation of eight women labor-rights
organizers from Third World countries in the WTO protest activities and a
post-WTO conference.
Cenen Bagon, a participant, responded to comments by Michael Moore,
then WTO director-general, when he addressed the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions. Moore said, "There is also a darker side to the backlash against globalization. For some, the attacks on economic openness are
part of a broader assault on internationalism, on foreigners, immigration, a
more pluralistic and integrated world .... " Bagon, who works with Filipina
and other immigrant women workers in Canada through the Vancouver Committee for Domestic Workers and Caregivers Rights, countered sharply:
Moore and others like him, in his ideological dogma, forget to add, and I'm sure
it's quite intentional, that what we are against are the realities brought about by
trade authored by the backers of capitalist globalization .... And if these socalled leaders are really looking for indicators of whether their programs are
truly creating economic improvements, they should look beyond the country's
balance of payment and budget deficits and analyze how women are affected by
these programs .... Supporters of structural adjustment programs should visit
the night life in Japan, Hong Kong, and certain places in Canada and listen to the
stories of Filipino and other women who unknowingly left their countries as
entertainers and ended up being prostituted by their recruiters. They should also
listen to the stories of domestic workers who left not only their countries ... but
their families and their own children, as well, to care for other women's children
and households .... 7
Bagon calls for world leaders to view the migration of women forced to
leave their homelands and families because of the ravages of SAPs as true indicators of the impacts of global economic restructuring. Extending on this, the
experiences of immigrant women workers can serve not only as measures of
the effects, but as true indicators of the intentions of SAPs and other neo-liberal
economic policies. The sheer magnitude of women's migration urges us to examine this phenomenon and view it as both an effect of globalization and as a
calculated feature of global economic restructuring.
In other words, it is important to understand the economic interventions in
Third World nations embodied in SAPs and free-trade policies as deliberate.
They facilitate the extraction of resources, especially labor and people, from
From the Third World to the "Third World Within" • 221
the Third World and their importation into the First World. In effect, they
support trade in and traffic of migrant women workers and their exploitation
at both ends of the so-called trade route. This trade or forced migration is
orchestrated through economic interventions compelling migration from the
Third World coupled with welfare, labor, and immigration policies in the First
World that channel these women into service work at poverty wages in host or
receiving countries.
I have argued elsewhere that structural adjustment in the Third World and
welfare reform in the First World are inextricably linked; indeed, they are two
sides of the same coin. For example, in the U.S., domestic forms of structural
adjustment, including privatization and cutbacks in health care and the continued lack of subsidized child care, contribute to expanded demand among
dual-career middle-class households for child care, elder care, home health
care, and housekeeping workers. The slashing of benefits and social services
under "welfare reform" helps guarantee that this demand is met by a pool of
migrant women readily available to serve as cheap labor. The dismantling of
public support in the U.S. in general and the denial of benefits and services to
immigrants in particular act in tandem with structural adjustment in the
Third World to force migrant women into low-wage service work in the U.S. 8
Migrant women workers from indebted nations are kept pliable by both the
dependence of their families on remittances sent home and by the severe restrictions on immigrant access to almost all forms of assistance in the U.S.
Their vulnerability is further reinforced by First World immigration policies
explicitly designed to recruit migrant women as contract or temporary workers
yet deny them the protections and rights afforded citizens. This phenomenon
is readily apparent in the cases of both U.S. and Canadian immigration policies structured to ensure a ready supply of women workers available for nursing aide, home care, domestic care, child care, and elder care work at low wages
and under conditions most citizens would not accept.
"Filipinos for the World"
The massive migration of women from the Philippines to all corners of the
First World illustrates clearly how structural adjustments imposed on the
Philippines and welfare and immigration policies in First World receiving
countries combine to make the global traffic in Filipinas an explicit government practice and highly profitable industry on both ends of the trade route.
Every day, an average of 2700 people are estimated to leave the Philippines in
search of work. Currently, more than 8 million Filipino migrant workers live in
over 186 countries, and an estimated 65% are women. 9 Although the Philippine
government denies that it has an official export policy now, an agency called
the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) was established
in the 1970s to promote migrant labor with the stated goals of ( 1) earning foreign
currency and (2) easing the Philippines' unemployment rate. 10
222 • Grace Chang
Confining the analysis for the moment only to the benefits of this trade to
the Philippine government and capital, the numbers are staggering. One
woman migrating to Canada reported paying 1900 pesos at the embassy in
the Philippines, 1500 pesos for a medical examination, and 5000 pesos to the
POEA according to the research by the Philippine Women's Centre.11 If we
multiply this total 8400 pesos ($181 US) for typical bureaucratic expenses paid
by one individual migrating from the Philippines by the average daily exodus
of 2700 people leaving the country, the Philippine government receives the
equivalent of almost half a million U.S. dollars in revenue daily for processing
exports of people. Moreover, the remittances sent home to families by Filipino
workers overseas infuse into the economy what amounts to the Philippines'
largest source of foreign currency-far more than income from sugar and
mineral exports.
Although the absolute numbers are remarkable, taken in context they are
particularly telling. For example, in the year 2000, remittances from overseas
workers were estimated at $6.23 billion officially, reported as channeled
through the Central Bank of the Philippines. This does not include funds received through informal channels. The $6.23 billion represented 5.2% of the
gross domestic product and exceeded the entire interest payment on the country's foreign debt that hovers around $5 billion a year. 12
Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo launched a program known
as "Filipinos for the World" to celebrate and further institutionalize this exportation of workers for profit. Arroyo (unaffectionately referred to as GMA) persists in glorifying these migrant workers, following a long line of Philippines
officials who once called women in particular the country's "modern heroes."
In even more crass economic terms, GMA now calls them "overseas Philippines investors" and "internationally shared resources." 13 She is promoting her
new labor export plan announced in June of 2002 as a push to have 100 million overseas Filipinos serving others across the globe. Arroyo's program will
certainly serve her interests well. As one observer remarked, "Arroyo seeks not
only the remittances from the migrant workers, but their absentee ballots to
keep her in office and bolster her unstable position. She wants not only the
dollars but the 8 million Filipinos abroad in her pocket at election time." 14
It is particularly useful to examine the experiences of Filipinas trained as
nurses who migrate to work in the U.S. and Canada. They provide cheap and
highly skilled labor and also serve to further the neo-liberal agenda of privatizing health care. In both countries, immigration policy is structured to keep
these trained workers underemployed and deskilled in exploitative situations
closely resembling indentured servitude and debt bondage. Nursing schools
graduating hundreds of thousands of registered nurses abound in the Philippines, but few graduates reside in their own country.
The Philippine Women Centre (PWC) of British Columbia, a group of
Filipino-Canadian women working to educate, organize, and mobilize Filipina
From the Third World to the "Third World Within" • 223
migrant workers in Canada, identifies this phenomenon as the "commodification of
the nursing profession in the Philippines:' The group observes that nursing training
is promoted as "a quick route to work abroad;' rather than as a means to serve the
needs of Filipinos. As a result Filipina nurses are seen as exportable commodities. 15
A survey of members of the group revealed that 77% of participants studied nursing
with the specific intention of going abroad, and 62% took entrance exams allowing
foreigners to practice nursing in the U.S. 16
Clearly, exclusion from both welfare benefits and workers' rights through
immigration policy makes immigrant women workers available for-indeed,
unable to refuse-low-wage service work in the U.S. In Canada, the connection between labor control and immigration policy is even more explicit because of the use of both immigration and nursing accreditation issues to
prevent foreign-trained nurses from being able to practice nursing for several
years after arrival in Canada. In tandem, the policies serve to exclude immigrant nurses from their professions and channel them into low-paid care work
as nannies, domestics, and home support workers.
The Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP) is the immigration policy through
which the vast majority of Filipina migrants enter Canada and become trapped in
low-wage care work. Established in 1992 to facilitate the importation of primarily
Filipino women, the program provides that a Canadian employer (individual or
employment agency) may apply through the Canadian Employment Office for a
prospective employee after showing that an attempt was made to find a Canadian
to do the job. A job applicant must have 2 years of post secondary education,
6 months of formal training or 12 months of experience in caregiving work, and
be in good health. Once matched with an employer, she must notify the Ministry
of Citizenship and Immigration if she wishes to change employers. After 2 years
oflive-in work, a nanny can apply for landed-immigrant status, but during those
2 years she is considered a temporary migrant. Three years after applying for
landed-immigrant status, she can become a Canadian citizen. 17
The PWC undertook a community-based participatory action research project, interviewing 30 Filipina nurses who entered Canada via the LCP and performed domestic work. According to Cecilia Diocson, founding chairperson of the
PWC, the interviews revealed that women with up to 15 years of nursing experience in operating rooms, cancer units, and other facilities were becoming deskilled
while working as nannies and home support workers. 18 Others were indeed using
their skills, working around the clock and performing nursing tasks, but they were
not recognized or compensated as such. Many of their tasks included heavy lifting;
transferring; personal care duties; administering medications; and tube feeding for
elderly, ill, and disabled clients. One nurse, Mary Jane reported:
Because of the LCP requirements, we become responsible for our employers 24
hours a day, but we are only paid for 8 hours, with no overtime pay. For some of
us, we accompany our employers to the hospital and even sleep at our employer's
bedside at the hospital. 19
224 • Grace Chang
Many of those interviewed did not realize when they migrated that they
would not be doing nursing work after they entered Canada through the LCP.
Many believed that they would perform nursing in private homes or care for
disabled children. Moreover, many did not know that working as a nanny
would mean so much labor demanded of them beyond caring for children. For
example, Pamela, a registered nurse in the Philippines who left three children
behind to seek work in Vancouver, said:
I thought being a nanny, as the dictionary says, is child's nurse. In the
Philippines, a yaya [Tagalog for nanny] works for the kids only, right? They don't
do other jobs in the house. They just change the kids, feed them and put them to
bed .... When I came here, I was shocked. I said, why is it a package? Three
children in a big house, 5 bedrooms, 1½baths, and 3 living rooms .... I feel like
I'm going to die. My female employer didn't work. She stays at home. Then, she
said that I'm not clean enough. I told her that I have to prioritize the work and I
asked her, what's more important, the kids or cleaning? .... It was so hard I quit. 20
After Pamela quit, her former employer refused to give her a reference,
nanny agencies would not accept her, and she decided to advertise for a job
caring for the elderly. Several prospective employers who answered her ad
sought caregivers willing to provide sexual services. After several such experiences and trying to work as a nanny for one more family, she found a job
caring for a single woman.
Pamela supports her husband, who is a student, and her three children in
the Philippines by sending a quarter of her wages home each month. She spoke
of the hardships of separation from her family and her doubts and fears about
reuniting:
I'm confused whether I should get my family or not. The separation is really
hard for me, but I also think if my family is here, my husband and I have to chip
in. I fear that communication will be through messages on the refrigerator. We
don't see each other any more. That's why sometimes I feel that maybe it's better
for them to stay in the Philippines because they write to me and there's an attachment still. Here, it seems that you're not really intact. 21
Mary Jane, another Filipina nurse working as a nanny, reflected on the pain
of separation from her children and the great financial hardship of maintaining contact:
My children are now 5 and 8. I spent so much money on the long distance because sometimes when I call, my child will say, "Mommy I still want to sing:'You
know, you didn't see your child for 4 years and she will tell you she wants to sing,
you cannot say no .... I said I will call everyday so that [her youngest child] will
not forget my voice. I only stopped calling because my phone bill is over $500.
For these women, the agony of separation from their own children is surely
not diminished by caring for their employers' children. For many of the
women interviewed, the hope of eventually being able to bring their families to
From the Third World to the "Third World Within" • 225
join them in Canada influenced them to stay in unhappy and often abusive
working situations in order to fulfill the 2-year live-in work requirement of the
LCP as quickly as possible. The policy prohibits them from earning any extra
income to supplement their low wages as caregivers and explicitly stipulates
that working for anyone other than the employer named on the employment
authorization is illegal, and unauthorized employment will not count toward
satisfying the 2-year employment requirement to apply for permanent residence. 22 Thus, women are effectively kept bonded to the employers named on
their original LCP employment authorizations at whatever wages and conditions the employer chooses to provide. As Pamela reports:
Filipinos are abused because they are pressured to stay with the 24-month requirement .... You stay because it's not that easy to find an employer. And you
get exploited and we are highly educated .... That's really racism.
In addition to these barriers that essentially lock trained nurses into nanny
and home support work for at least 2 years, migrant Filipinas face more hurdles in trying to gain accreditation to practice nursing even after serving the
2-year live-in requirement. Applicants must take English tests that are irrelevant and extremely costly, about US $410. According to Leah Diana, a registered nurse and volunteer with the Filipino Nurses Support Group (FNSG) in
Vancouver, Filipino nurses are usually educated in English, used English while
employed in the Philippines and elsewhere, and passed mandatory English interviews before arrival in Canada. Diana says, "The English tests required are
only based on the racist assumption that people of color can't speak English."
These barriers are particularly outrageous when viewed in the context of
Canada's recognized nursing shortage. A Canadian Nurses' Association study
showed an expected shortage of 59,000 to 113,000 registered nurses in Canada
by the year 2011. 19
Cecilia Diocson reports that the mainstream, predominantly white nursing
unions in Canada have not been good allies. They have not supported allowing
Filipina nurses to practice despite shortages. Diocson expressed outrage that
the president of a nursing union tried to pass this off as concern that "the
Philippines needs them:' She said:
We responded, "Don't give us that kind of rationalization. The nurses are already
here, and in crisis, and we are seeking solidarity. Is the real issue that we are nonwhite, from the Third World, and foreign-trained? Are you threatened by our
presence?" It's so clear that this is just racism. Otherwise, they would support
and struggle with us.
Beyond the presence of women of color born and trained in the Third
World, the existence of a surplus oflow-wage workers and ostensible competitors is perhaps most threatening. Migrant women workers are well aware that
the Canadian government can and does use their presence in the country and
their exclusion through the LCP from the nursing profession to render them
226 • Grace Chang
available to do other low-wage care and service work while keeping Canadian
citizen nurses wary of competition. As Gemma Gambito, a member of FNSG
who graduated from nursing school in the Philippines in 1993 and went to
Canada in 1997 under the LCP, says:
Our presence in Canada is used to drive down the wages of Canadian nurses and
health care workers. Once completing our temporary work contract and becoming landed immigrants, many become home support workers, nursing aides, or
continue to do domestic work for low wages. A pool of highly skilled yet low
paid health workers has been created by the Canadian government's LCP. 23
The LCP and its attendant racism facilitate the privatization of health care
and help ensure the lack of movement or alliance building for subsidized child
care, health care, and other staples of feminist and worker agendas. Dr. Lynn
Parrales, a co-chair of the PWC, observes that the LCP functions simply to
bring in women who are educated and trained nurses to do domestic work and
provide live-in child care and private home care for the disabled and elderly
for less than minimum wage. Parrales says:
Canada, a country without a national day care program and a health care system
moving towards increased privatization, has established in the LCP a means of
importing highly educated and skilled workers to fulfill the need for flexible and
cheap labor in the spheres of child care and health care. The economic and social
consequences of the LCP have been devastating for Filipino women. They are
highly exploited, oppressed, and de-skilled. Despite being highly educated, many
are trapped in minimum wage jobs after completion of the LCP, and are effectively legislated into poverty. 24
Moreover, Parrales notes that these negative consequences extend to the next
generation of Filipino youth as well, including the effects of years of separation of mothers and children and the systemic racism in Canadian institutions
that Filipino-Canadian youths encounter. Because Filipino youths drop out
of high school at high rates, they join their mothers working for low wages in
the service sector. Thus, the Canadian government achieves what Parrales calls
the "commodification of the migration of the entire family as a package deal of
cheap labor." 25 Meanwhile, ironically, with rapidly privatizing health care and
the continuing nursing shortage in the public sector, health care becomes inaccessible for working-class Canadians, including Filipina nurses and their families. Thus, the Canadian government provides middle- and upper-class
Canadian citizens with quality, low-cost, in-home child care and health care,
literally at the expense of Filipina women workers and their families, who cannot afford these services for themselves.
Filipina migrant workers understand all too well how the Philippine government benefits and profits from this trade in women and thus plays a calculated role in ensuring its smooth functioning. The following statement of the
From the Third World to the "Third World Within" • 227
PWC reflects this analysis of the past and current complicity of the Philippine
government in this trade:
The migration and commodification of Filipinos is sanctioned by official
Philippine government policy. Known as the Labour Export Policy (LEP), this
scheme of systematically exporting labour is part of the Structural Adjustment
Programs (SAPs) imposed by the IMF and World Bank as conditionalities for
borrowing. Ultimately, the LEP and SAPs are part of the neoliberal policies of the
globalization agenda. The LEP seeks to alleviate the continuing problems of massive
unemployment, trade deficits, foreign debt and social unrest .... The government relies upon the remittances of these migrants to prop up the economy and
pay off the massive foreign debt owed to the IMF and the World Bank. Instead of
selling coconuts and sugar, the Philippine government is now engaged in the sophisticated practice of selling its own people to industrialized countries. 26
This statement reflects these women's clear recognition that the official
Philippine government labor export policy is part and parcel of structural adjustment programs that wreak havoc on their lives and force them to migrate
in the first place. The LEP institutionalizes the exportation of Filipina women
to other countries for cheap labor and effectively guarantees that remittances
from these migrant women workers are used to pay off foreign debt.
Turning the "New World Order" Upside Down
Carol de Leon is now program director for the Women Workers Project at
CAAAV (formerly Committee Against Anti-Asian Violence): Organizing Asian
Communities in the Bronx, New York. She grew up in the Philippines, where she
was a youth activist until she left in 1987 to work abroad as a nanny. She recalls
that when she was in Hong Kong she applied to go to Canada, but it did not
materialize, and this was probably fortunate. In the mid-1980s, the Canadian
government was "very lenient, inviting people to come into the country, so at the
time it was so easy to find an employer and go to Canada:' In the 1990s, the
Canadian government instituted requirements such as educational background
checks for 2 to 3 years of college education. She comments:
It seems very appealing to go to Canada when you are in other countries ... for a
Third World woman to go there-but in reality that structure is not wellimplemented. When you go there, you'll end up working for a family for 2 or 3
years, and if you are being exploited, you can't leave while applying for a change
in status. So the employer has all of the control, because the worker will end up
staying anyway. 27
de Leon knows that she is lucky not to be speaking from the experience of
being trapped as a live-in caregiver in Canada. Although some aspects of her
initial experiences in the U.S. were very similar, she not only was able to escape
these exploitative situations, but is now organizing women like her to mobilize
against the common abuses they face.
228 • Grace Chang
de Leon says that although the U.S. has no program like the Canadian LCP,
it has a formal legal structure for au pairs who are usually young students from
Europe. She says employers can hire them through agencies and arrange for
them to have connections to church and school here. She also emphasizes that
these "young students are treated very well and respected for what they do,
compared to immigrant women who work as professional nannies." Third
World women working for corporate executives do not get working permits.
de Leon says, "You just get a visa that is tied to an employer." She had a contract
to work as a live-in nanny for a family; her working papers described her as a
"personal servant to American family." She added, "I really hated that because
it sounded like back in the days when women and men are being brought here
from Africa against their will and became enslaved. To me, servant means slave,
and I'm certainly not one." She started working a few months after arrival in
the New York City suburb of Ardsley. The people and weather appeared
strange. Her job conditions were "a nightmare-I did everything from waking
up the children, giving them breakfast, walking the dog, shoveling the snow,
and cleaning the house." She worked from 6:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. 6 days a week.
After a year, she asked for another day off after noting that others had 2 days
off. Her employer, who worked for Philip Morris Corporation, said that he had
seen that the common practice in Hong Kong was only one day off and refused
her request on that basis.
She took the initiative to call the labor department to find out about the
minimum wage and overtime pay and asked her employer to adjust her salary.
Again, her employer said that the contract they signed was based on earnings
in Hong Kong. de Leon pointed out that she could not support herself on
those wages. When she asked for overtime, saying she understood the law limited the workday to 8 hours, her employers demanded to know where she got
the information. After telling them that her source was the labor department,
they still refused, then gave her a $25 raise. de Leon calculated that her earnings after the raise amounted to $2 an hour when the minimum wage was $4.
After that, she decided that she wanted to leave, but met the typical tactics of
exploitative household employers:
When I told them that I'd rather leave, they said I couldn't break the contract. I
said that in a contract, either party can break the contract if you are not happy, so
I'm giving you 2 weeks' notice. They insisted that I couldn't do it, and tried to
manipulate me, asking where I was going, if I was going back to my country. To
me, that's an implication that I was going to starve! I told her that it's none of her
business.
Ultimately de Leon decided to stay because she signed a contract to work
for 2 years-"the reality is that I felt I was legally trafficked:' She remarks that
women who are brought here by executives or diplomats have no way to
network with others and no assistance from employers to find a community.
Instead, she observes, workers are discouraged from meeting others and
From the Third World to the "Third World Within" • 229
deliberately isolated in the suburbs, where they had no contact with other
nannies, not even in the park. She adds that, "Without other people giving me
support, I decided to stay and finish my contract and just survive;' recalling
that this also happened to her in Hong Kong. She was finally able to leave
and find a live-out job from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. that allowed her to start going to
the park:
That's when I realized that in this industry the majority of workers are women
from the Third World. I met other domestic workers from all over the Third
World. I realized that these conditions were widespread, whether you were from
Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Barbados, Guyana, Trinidad, most domestic
workers face long hours, low wages, and isolation, and lack of control of our living and working conditions. Labor laws are not enforced in this industry. And
labor laws simply do not protect our basic human rights to decent housing,
food, shelter, and livable wages. And many laws, like those protecting workers
against discrimination in the workplace, including sexual harassment and
racism, specifically exclude domestic workers.
de Leon recalls many accounts of women who were subject to abuse and exploitation, worked long hours even when they were sick, and were forced
to terminate pregnancies. After 7 years, she met people from CAAAV when
they were handing out fliers in the park. de Leon approached them, "they
took my number, and the next week I met with them and ended up going to
weekly meetings."
Now, de Leon leads the Women Workers Project, which holds monthly
meetings to improve working and living conditions among women in the domestic work industry. The project members began drafting standard guidelines and a pay scale to make recommendations for how much should be paid
per child, for housekeeping tasks, etc.:
We started looking at the industry, and realized that we had to be strategic
about it, doing outreach with women from other ethnicities, and women
really embraced it. We did a survey in 2000 in parks, indoor playgrounds,
train stations, to see the conditions of women-who gets minimum wage,
overtime pay, sick days, holidays. One woman who was being sponsored was
forced to work 6 days a week, over 65 hours. She wanted to have one day to go
to church. She started asking and showing papers from the labor department,
and her employers were furious. Employers will try all their ways to not follow the regulations.
de Leon remarks on the lack of regulation of the industry: "We're not even
protected from sexual harassment or any other abuses:' Moreover, she notes
that employers try many different tactics, including using race to divide household workers. For example, they make comparisons and say women from the
Philippines are "better than from other countries, to create tensions between
workers." They also "discriminate against us because of race, language, and
immigration status."
230 • Grace Chang
Domestic Workers United, a project sponsored by CAAAV and Andolan, a
South Asian workers' group, is pushing now for legislation that de Leon's
group drafted. Led by a steering committee composed mostly of women from
the Caribbean, the group used their research to design a standard contract and
approached the New York City Council to pass a new law regulating the industry.
Essentially, the law will regulate the Department of Consumer Affairs, the
agency that licenses employment agencies recruiting and placing domestic
workers. Seventy-five percent of domestic workers get their jobs through such
agencies. The agencies should serve to protect these workers' rights, yet, de
Leon says, when a worker has an abusive employer and calls her agency, "they
advise you to stay for at least 3 or 4 months because they want to receive their
fees from the employers." Otherwise, the agency will have to give the money
back to the employer or provide another employee without a fee. de Leon explains, "What we are asking for is a code of conduct, so that the agency provides a contract with your work conditions, including minimum wage,
2 weeks' paid vacation, etc. and the agency should enforce it." 28
The group introduced the bill in March 2002 and provided supporting testimony at a hearing in May with the chair of the committee on labor. Supporters like Councilwoman Gail Brewer said the bill should have been easy to pass
because it involved no cost to the city. The group staged a city-wide action on
October 5, 2002, starting with a rally at Washington Square Park, followed by a
march to City Hall. Participants wore yellow rubber gloves and aprons, just as
they did when they introduced the bill. Media coverage surpassed their expectations: although the turnout for the action was strong at 500, the press coverage put the numbers above 1000. 29
de Leon reflects on the Women Workers' Project and the demands of the
bill. She also describes the nature of her organization's work and, more
broadly, the movement she is helping build. The measure is in some ways
modest and yet revolutionary:
The bill is very basic-how we should be treated, working conditions, minimum
wage, overtime pay, legal holidays and sick days-but really, we want to turn the
industry upside down and change the notions that immigrant workers are lazy
and uneducated. Because it relates to history, because this country inherited this
industry through American slavery and ideas _that this is women's work, etc.
We're calling for respect and recognition for women in this industry.
de Leon says the group continues to wait patiently for a meeting on the bill
with the Department of Consumer Affairs but will stage another action if necessary. In the meantime, her project offers an immigrant rights law clinic
through New York University students working with CAAAV to provide advice
on negotiating with employers and maneuvering the healthcare system. The
project also provides courses for nannies on child care, psychology, and cardiopulmonary resuscitation training leading to Red Cross certification. 30
From the Third World to the "Third World Within" • 231
Similarly, while the PWC in Vancouver pursues its long-term campaign to
dismantle the LCP, its members work to build the movement for immigrant
workers' rights in Canada every day in myriad ways. For example, the PWC
has rented a house for use as a drop-in center for members who yearn for
camaraderie and some comforting elements of Philippine culture. Cecilia
Diocson, founding chairperson and director, describes how the center
serves as a place for women to congregate, eat, and talk with women in
similar situations:
The women started to educate each other, bringing their stories to discuss at the
center. We have had a lot of successes in making these women more assertive in
their employers' homes after gathering these stories over food. They report having to pay for their own room and board, sleeping in the garage without heat, and
being "shared" by two employers. They say, "It's like being in prison from Monday
through Friday." The majority work 14 to 16 hours and are underpaid. We found
out that they are getting underfed too. They want rice at least twice a day, but lots
of white employers don't eat rice, just pasta and potatoes. The regulars on Friday
afternoon would be rushing to the kitchen, saying "I'm so hungry. I haven't had
rice all week." They could hardly work because they were so hungry.
Clearly, the drop-in center provides more than a refuge for hungry workers.
It serves as a space for these women to build a community base from which to
organize. The effectiveness of the other work of the PWC is closely tied to this
base, as much of it evolves from participatory research and is advanced
through popular education including cultural events and political theater. The
center has been able to conduct longitudinal studies, following women
through 8- to 10-year time spans, to document the segregation and lack of
mobility Filipinas face in the labor market in Canada.
The most recent research relates to the way the increasing number of Filipinas who enter Canada via the LCP led to growth over the past 20 years of the
mail-order bride industry-"another category of slave," as Diocson says. The
PWC also plans to launch a women's studies program with guest lecturers at
the center for women who cannot afford to attend universities. 31
At a recent international women's conference, Diocson presented an analysis of global migration and particularly the cases of Filipina women forced to
migrate to Canada in the context of global capitalism. Her cogent analysis,
both as a trained nurse who migrated from the Philippines and as a radical political organizer, is one of the most well-articulated analyses I have encountered in a variety of contexts. She commented about the LCP:
Instead of instituting a universal day care system to address the needs of women
who are leaving the home to join the workplace, the Canadian state's response to
this economic restructuring is to import cheap but highly educated and relatively
skilled foreign domestic workers. This confers several advantages both to the
Canadian state and Canadians who can afford a foreign domestic worker ....
[T]he Canadian state earns revenue through the processing of migration
232 • Grace Chang
documents and taxation of these foreign domestic workers .... [F]oreign
domestic workers help provide a stable base of cheap "reserve army of labor" that
keeps wages down and ensures continuous accumulation of capital .... Thus, the
foreign domestic worker is functional to the maintenance of the existing capitalist
system in Canada. On the other side of the ledger, the sending country also
benefits much from its export of foreign domestic workers. 32
In my experience, Third World women migrant workers have always been
many steps ahead of us in formulating and articulating these analyses of globalization, perhaps because of its direct and dire impacts on the conditions of
these women's lives. They have much at stake to develop strategies to resist
these conditions effectively, and it is only fitting that those who have suffered
first and worst under globalization will lead the way out from under its
oppressive forces. The women of the Workers' Voices Coalition, the PWC,
Domestic Workers United, and many other grassroots organizations are doing
revolutionary work in the face of what they all know is surely not new under
globalization. They remind us through their fierce struggles and sharp analyses that they will revolutionize not only their work force and their adopted societies, but the antiglobalization movement itself.
Acknowledgments
Portion of this chapter are reprinted from Chang, G., "The Global Trade in Filipina
Workers;' in Dragon Ladies: Asian American Feminists Breathe Fire, south End
Press, Boston, 1997, p. 132; Chang, G., Disposable Domestics: Immigrant
Women Workers in the Global Economy, South End Press, Boston, 2000, p. 123.
Notes
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
"Globalization's Inability to Create Jobs Fuels Mass Migration: ILO Chief;' Tehran Times,
June 13, 2002.
Nishioka, J., "Marriage by Mail: The Internet Makes It Easier for Potential Mates to Connect across Seas," Asian Week, July 29, 1999. [Cherry Blossoms is identified by all but Krosky
as an international mail-order bride business.]
KPFA Radio, Morning Show with host Andrea Lewis, International Women's Day Program,
2001, guests: Grace Chang and Ethel Long Scott.
See "Third World Within" cited in CAAAV Voice, Special Issue on Women, Race and Work,
Vol. 10, Fall 2000, p. 17. Cindy Domingo, founder of the Workers' Voices Coalition, in her
call for seizing the moment after the Battle at Seattle, 1999, said: "We saw the profound deterioration in the conditions of immigrant and women workers worldwide as a direct result
of free trade policies, globalization and privatization. In the United States, immigrant
workers have become scapegoats for the failures of the global economy because U.S. workers don't see their interests as one and the same with workers in Latin America, Asia or
Africa. The WTO coming to our city gave us a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to draw links
between conditions faced by working people in developing countries and those faced by
immigrants and people of color in the United States;' cited by Joy, K. in "Gender, Immigration and the WTO;' Network News, Winter 2000, p. 12.
Testimony of representative of the International Organization of Prostitutes, Gabriela
Workshop, September 3, 1995.
See Sandrasagra, M.J., "Globalisation Heightening Gender Inequalities;' IPS, October 10, 2000;
Tauli-Corpuz, V., "Asia-Pacific Women Grapple with Financial Crisis and Globalisation;'
Roundtable Discussion on the Economic, Social, and Political Impacts of the Southeast Asian
From the Third World to the "Third World Within" • 233
7.
8.
Financial Crisis, Manila, April 12-14, 1998, and Rural and Indigenous Women Speak Out on
the Impact of Globalisation, Chiangmai, Thailand, May 22-25, 1998.
Testimony of Cenen Bagon, "Voices of Working Women," Proceedings of "Beyond the
WTO: conference on Women and Immigration the Global Economy" organized by Northwest Labor and Employment Law Office (LELO) and Workers' Voice Coalition. Seattle,
Washington, December 4, 1999. p. 16.
See Chang, G., "The Global Trade in Filipina Workers," in Dragon Ladies: Asian American
Feminists Breathe Fire, South End Press, Boston, 1997, p. 132; Chang, G., Disposable Domestics: Immigrant Women Workers in the Global Economy, South End Press, Boston, 2000, p.
123.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
Filipino Nurses Support Group, "Contextualizing the Presence of Filipino Nurses in BC," in
Advancing the Rights and Welfare of Non-Practicing Filipino and other Foreign-Trained
Nurses," proceedings of national consultation for Filipino and other foreign-trained
nurses, December 7-9, 2001. The Philippines Department of Labor and Employment estimates that about 2748 Filipinos leave the country daily.
This number does not include women who are trafficked, illegally recruited, or migrate for
marriage or students and tourists who eventually become undocumented workers. Data
compiled by Kanlungan Center Foundation from Philippine Overseas Employment Administration and Department of Labor and Employment statistics, 1995; Vincent, I.,
"Canada Beckons Cream of Nannies: Much-Sought Filipinas Prefer Work Conditions,"
Globe and Mail, January 20, 1996, p. Al. Other authors more extensively address trafficking
in women for the sex, entertainment, and mail-order bride industries. See Rosca, N., "The
Philippines' Shameful Export;' Nation, April 17, 1995, p. 523; Kim, E., "Sex Tourism in Asia:
A Reflection of Political and Economic Equality;' Critical Perspectives of Third World America, 2, Fall 1984, p. 215; Blitt, C., Producer, "Sisters and Daughters Betrayed: The Trafficking
of Women and Girls and the Fight to End It;'Video, Global Fund for Women.
Testimony of Pamela, "Filipino Nurses Doing Domestic work in Canada: A Stalled Development," Philippine Women Centre of British Columbia, March 2000, p. 20.
Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, 2000, bulatlat.com.
Presentation by Ethel Parrales, Filipino-Canadian Youth Alliance, Vancouver, "Link Arms,
Raise Fists: U.S. Out of the Philippines Now!" North American Conference, July 6-7, 2002.
Comments of youth member of Overseas Filipino Workers' Organization, Vancouver,
"Link Arms, Raise Fists: U.S. Out of the Philippines Now!" North American Conference,
San Francisco, July 6-7, 2002.
Philippine Women Centre of British Columbia, "Filipino Nurses Doing Domestic Work in
Canada: A Stalled Development,"Vancouver, March 2000, p. 10.
Ibid., p. 16.
Ibid., p. 11.
Diocson, C., Philippine Women Centre of British Columbia, Vancouver, Phone Interview,
August 2002.
Statement of Sheila Parrales, "The Use of Filipino Nurses in the Scheme to Privatize Health
Care;' Conference Proceedings: Advancing the Rights and Welfare of Non-Practicing Filipino and Other Foreign-Trained Nurses, Filipino Nurses' Support Group, Burnaby, British
Columbia, December 7-9, 2001, p. 51.
Testimony of Pamela, "Filipino Nurses Doing Domestic Work in Canada: A Stalled Development," Philippine Women Centre of British Columbia, March 2000, p. 19.
Ibid., p. 20.
Ibid., p. 29.
Statement of Gemma Gambito, ibid., p. 61.
Statement of Lynn Parrales, ibid., p. 42.
Ibid.
Philippine Women Centre of B.C., "Filipino Nurses Doing Domestic Work in Canada: A
Stalled Development;' March 2000, p. 7.
de Leon, C., Women workers Project, CAAAV, Bronx, NY, Phone interview, September
2002.
28.
29.
de Leon, C., Women Workers Project, CAAAV, Bronx, NY, Phone Interviews, September
2002 and February 2003.
Alapo, L., "Bill to Protect Domestic Workers;' Newsday, March 25, 2002; Greenhouse, S.,
"Wage Bill Would Protect Housekeepers and Nannies," New York Times, March 25, 2002;
234 • Grace Chang
30.
31.
32.
Richardson, L., "A Union Maid? Actually a Nanny, Organizing;' New York Times, April 4,
2002; Ginsberg, A., "Nannies March for Fair Pay, OT;' Daily News, October 6, 2002;
Ramirez, M., "Domestic Workers Seek Wage, Personal Protection;' Newsday, October 6,
2002; Geron, T., "All in a Day's Work;' Asian Week, July 11, 2002; Lee, C., "Revolt of the Nannies;' Village Voice, March 9, 2002.
de Leon, C., Women Workers Project, CAAAV, Bronx, NY, Phone Interview, September
2002.
Diocson, C., Philippine Women Centre of British Columbia, Phone Interview, August
2002.
Diocson, C., "Forced Migration: Perpetuation of Underdevelopment;' paper presented at
Ninth International Forum, Association for Women's Rights in Development, Guadalajara,
Mexico, October 3-6, 2002.
15
Can U.S. Workers Embrace
Anti-Imperialism?
BILL FLETCHER, JR.
Introduction
The period between September 11, 2001, and the invasion of Iraq raised many
questions about the psyche of the U.S. public in general and the U.S. working
class in particular. The ability of the Bush Administration to utilize fear and
patriotism to refocus attention away from pressing domestic issues has been
astounding. The Republican Congressional victories in November 2002 were
nearly unprecedented and most likely would not have happened had the focus
on Iraq not emerged during the preceding summer.
The widespread fear that resulted from the terror attacks on September 11
is understandable. The assault on civilians through the destruction of the
World Trade Center and the use of civilian aircraft as weapons were certainly
crimes against humanity. However, the ability of the Bush Administration to
link all sorts of real and perceived threats to the personality of Saddam Hussein
(and, before that, Osama Bin Laden), as well as to create what looks like a state of
permanent war, has resulted in a situation of perpetual anxiety. It has also
enhanced the foundation of a pro-imperial front, presumably representing the
U.S. people, against the rest of the world. This front has led many people, including those of good intention, into believing that any and all concerns and disagreements expressed overseas or at home about the objectives of U.S. foreign
policy are without foundation. Instead, it is argued, any and all methods to guarantee "our" security must be entertained, regardless of the cost.
For these reasons, the danger of a domestic police state has risen to levels
not seen since the Nixon Administration. Additional dangers of a cowboy foreign policy in the interests of strengthening a U.S.-dominated global capitalist
empire place the entire planet at risk and certainly do not increase security for
anyone. In this situation, a fundamental question emerges: Can a workingclass-based, anti-imperialist movement emerge that shifts U.S. foreign policy
and, in the long term, lays the foundation for the transformation of the U.S.
This chapter is published with permission from the Monthly Review Foundation. It appeared in
Monthly Review (July-August 2003).
235
236 • Bill Fletcher, Jr.
state? In order to answer this question, we must ask ourselves some difficult
questions about labor, race, and empire. It must be said at the outset that much
of our focus will be on the organized sector of the U.S. working class in order
to consider the strategic and tactical options for the creation of a new set of
politics through a transformation of organized labor.
The Crisis of Contemporary U.S. Labor
The defining ideological feature of the modern U.S. labor movement is the Gompersian notion of trade unionism. Samuel Gompers, founder and long-time
leader of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), rose out of the Cigarmakers'
Union in the latter decades of the 19th century. Responding to the crisis in the
Knights of Labor, a significant and more radically inclusive labor federation,
Gompers argued that workers could be organized effectively only on a craft basis.
Although he paid lip service to unskilled workers, Gompers' emphasis was on the
skilled crafts. In constructing the AFL, Gompers built a ruling bloc that supported
such a vision and soon surpassed the Knights of Labor in size and influence.
Gompers broke with the earlier U.S. tradition and that of Europeans in his
opposition to a labor party for the working class. This view flowed from his
belief that the role of the trade union was to fight in the interests of the workers in the workplace. Further, his philosophy dictated that the trade union
movement accept the existence of capitalism and take no steps in opposition
to it. Gompers' program came to be known as bread-and-butter trade unionism or job-conscious trade unionism, most notable for its claim to be pragmatic and not ideological. In the political realm, this meant that organized
labor would not, to paraphrase Gompers, have permanent friends or enemies
but permanent interests. At one level, that might sound quite class conscious,
but Gompers was not speaking about the entirety of the working classonly of its organized, craft-based sector. When it came to political action,
Gompers restricted the AFL to lobbying rather than political mobilization of
the working class. In other words, Gompers insisted that the AFL engage only
in traditional interest-group politics.
The roots of Gompers' philosophy of trade unionism were in his view of
class and the state, and, by implication, race, gender, and U.S. foreign policy.
Although once a socialist, he soon rejected any noncapitalist view of the
future. The role of trade unionism was to improve the lives of those fortunate
enough to belong to such unions. Gompers actually embraced a peculiar form
of trickle-down thinking; what was won by the trade unions might eventually
improve the lives of the unorganized sector, but the unorganized sector was
not Gompers' concern. If they wanted improvements, they should have joined
or formed unions.
Gompers' pragmatism reflected an exclusionary unionism, a view that the
objective of unionism was to narrow the relevant population to that which
could "cut the best deal" with capital. The AFL, from its beginning, excluded
Can U.S. Workers Embrace Anti-Imperialism • 237
the bulk of unskilled workers, workers of color, and female workers. This
"pragmatic" practice demonstrated the racism and sexism of the AFL.
Gompers also came to view the U.S. state as essentially an empty vessel that
could be filled by any type of political or economic influence. The job of the
trade union movement was to exert pressure on that state to benefit organized
labor and, through the trickle-down effect, the whole of the working class. It
was not necessary for the working class to challenge the capitalists for state
power. The state could be influenced either by organized labor or by capital. It
was up to organized labor to ensure the former.
The class character of the state was denied by Gompers. For him, the state
was a class-neutral entity-a view that holds sway within much of organized
labor even today. Gompers slowly and steadily abandoned concerns about
matters of race and gender. After the great 1892 general strike in New Orleans,
a strike that demonstrated the potential of a racially united labor movement,
the matter of race and its significance declined in importance for Gompers. By
the early 1900s, he had become an openly white supremacist.
It was a short step within Gompers' pragmatism from the repudiation of
class struggle and the fight for power to the open embrace of capitalism and
the government's efforts to strengthen U.S. business interests abroad. In other
words, Gompers saw a unity between labor and capital; both continually
sought a better economic climate.
In the realm of foreign policy, this view came to mean open, unconditional,
and even rabid support for whatever the U.S. government did abroad. An early
example of this was the AFL's embrace of the First World War and its support of
the suppression of opponents of the war, such as the Industrial Workers of the
World, a left-wing union that had considerable success organizing workers
ignored by the AFL. For Gompers, the interests of organized labor were allied to
a strengthening of capitalism and the success of U.S. foreign policy, regardless
of the impacts on workers in other countries. The flag of an imperialist patriotism was to be the banner of the AFL.
Alternative politics challenging Gompersian trade unionism emerged after
the founding of the AFL. The Industrial Workers of the World, organizations
allied with the Communist and Socialist parties, independent left and progressive currents, and caucus movements of oppressed nationalities all significantly influenced both the discourse and the practice of U.S. trade unionism.
Nevertheless, although this alternative politics was sometimes successful,
the Gompersian view (often aided by a repressive state) has remained hegemonic. The reluctance and frequent opposition to tackling racist oppression
(always with the excuse that this would create divisions); the tailing after
the Democratic Party and, worse, the crass currying of favors from both
major parties; and the consistent support of U.S. foreign policy in the name
of patriotism have continued and have, in fact, strangled the development of
the movement.
238 • Bill Fletcher, Jr.
The Patriotism of Organized Labor
To further explore the consequences of organized labor's pragmatism, we must
examine the notion of patriotism. According to the American Heritage Dictionary
of the English Language, patriotism is "love of and devotion to one's country;'
but this is not the operative definition in U.S. politics. The operative definition
is more akin to "support for the policies of one's government irrespective of
the social costs, if said policies are justified as being in the interests of the
nation-state:' In the United States, this operative definition has been used
primarily to suppress dissent.
Gompers wrapped organized labor in the operative definition. The AFL
and later the AFL-Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) used it to
crush opposition to its pro business, pro-imperialism policies. Most critically,
two decades after Gompers' death, the operational definition was critical when
the Cold War commenced and loyalty oaths were enacted into law. In the late
1940s, unions representing over one million workers were expelled from the
CIO for failing to sign affidavits mandated by the Taft-Hartley Act signifying
that their leaders were not communists. In order to justify and enforce these
expulsions, patriotism was an effective means of intimidating opponents.
Linked to this skewed view of patriotism was the notion promoted by the
political right that antiracist activity was a sign of communist influence. This
became the case within organized labor as well. The unions expelled from
the CIO were those that had the strongest positions against racism within the
labor movement.
The operative definition of patriotism, then, is a call for class collaboration
and a repudiation of genuine international working class solidarity. In the
realm of international affairs, for instance, the AFL and later the AFL-CIO
supported foreign policies that accepted U.S. world hegemony and overseas
trade union movements that opposed the political left. In other words, the
operative definition of patriotism supported the empire; what stood domestically in opposition to the empire was seen as unpatriotic.
Organized labor, seeking to justify its own existence and withstand attacks
from the capitalists, chose the expedient route of support for and advancement of the operative notion of patriotism. It supported policies that were
antithetical to working class interests but often seemed to be in labor's (and especially labor's leaders') short-term economic interests.
A Race-Neutral Social Contract: Does a Rising Tide Raise All Boats?
Established trade unionism embraces the notion of a social contract between labor and capital within the context of the capitalist system. In embracing this conception, however, the leaders and members of organized
labor put on blinders when it came to matters of race and gender. Not coincidentally, these blinders also inhibited their ability to see and understand
the empire.
Can U.S. Workers Embrace Anti-Imperialism • 239
It is once again important to clarify terms. The early usage of the term social
contract derives from the Enlightenment and the U.S. and French Revolutions
of the 18th century. The term referred to a myth elaborated by the intellectuals
at the service of the emerging bourgeoisie to the effect that a bond or contract
had been implicitly made in the early years of humanity to end prehistoric
barbarism. This social contract presumably recognized basic rights for all
sectors of society and protected people against arbitrary rule.
Although the nascent bourgeoisie used the myth of the social contract in its
struggle with absolute monarchies and feudalism, the term, in fact, justified
the existence of classes and the relative role for each of them. This was true
whether the social contract took the crude Hobbesian form or Rousseau's
more revolutionary and egalitarian form.
In the 20th century, however, the social contract took on a new meaning, particularly in the aftermath of the Great Depression and the Second World War. It
came to refer to the welfare state and the demand upon society to protect its
citizens. Again, a myth developed that all sectors of society basically accepted
the existence of a strong public sector, core social benefits for all, and trade
unionism. In reality, these precepts were never fully accepted, nor was there
ever consistent implementation of policies that would have made them a reality. What did exist, however, was a balance of forces in the class struggle that
gave this new meaning of the social contract some plausibility.
Organized labor has typically seen the terms of the social contract as narrowly economic. Under Gompers' reign, those who were fortunate enough to
be in AFL unions were seen as the beneficiaries of the social contract. The
fate of those outside official trade unionism was left to chance. Over time,
the views within organized labor changed and led to a greater concern for
the conditions and futures of unorganized workers. This took the form of
organizing the unorganized, particularly in the 1930s and 1940s, and later
within the public sector, during the 1960s and 1970s, as well as fighting for
progressive legislation.
Even during the New Deal, the social contract was never consistent. The
trade union movement could perpetuate the myth of this contract only by
its failure to address racial disparities in the working class and among the
oppressed more generally. For example, Roosevelt's agricultural and labor
programs overlooked black farmers and farm workers in the South and Asian
and Chicano farmers and farm workers in the Southwest. Little was done later,
during the "golden years" of U.S. capitalism (1945 through 1973) to address
the secondary (poorly paid and insecure) labor market situation facing the
majority of black and Latin workers.
The social-contract myth assumed that capitalism now had a human
face and would be forced to respect all sectors of society. It also assumed
that the conditions for the existing workforce would continually improve
so that the living standards of their children and grandchildren would always
240 • Bill Fletcher, Jr.
be better. This was a white myth. Racial differentials in jobs, housing, education, and health policies always militated against full implementation of
the social contract.
The existence of a relative privilege for whites over people of color created a
myopia that reinforced the social-contract myth. The ability to rise from the
poverty of the early years of immigration led many whites to believe that this
society was and remains equitable in its treatment of its citizens. The social
contract promised the continuance of this modus vivendi. Indeed, the racial
nature of the social contract permitted the transformation of Europeans into
white people.
In addition to its racial character, the social-contract myth also had an
imperial quality. The great wealth of the U.S. was not simply the result of domestic economic performance and ingenuity, but also arose from its global
power. By the end of the Second World War, the U.S. was the premier capitalist
and imperialist power, and the dollar was the de facto international currency.
The U.S. used its international power to export its debt, gaining badly
needed cash resources to sustain its economic stability. This imperial role,
therefore, had more than a psychological impact on U.S. workers (and not
only whites); it also exerted a positive material impact on the conditions of
most of the U.S. working class and petty bourgeoisie. Defending this status
quo became for many an essential component of the theories and practices of
their lives and their organizations.
The racial and imperial nature of the social-contract myth and the failure
of organized labor to challenge it undermined the ability of workers to
conceive of themselves as having legitimate and independent progressive class
interests. One of the most tragic examples of this took place after the Second
World War, when the trade union movement failed in its effort to conduct a
large-scale organization effort in the south (Operation Dixie) and subsequently failed to integrate itself into the emerging Civil Rights Movement. The
bulk of organized labor, although bloodied by the defeat of Operation Dixie
and the subsequent passage of the rabidly anti labor Taft-Hartley Act, believed
that it nevertheless had an established place in the tripartite relationship of
business, government, and organized labor-a place that dictated that labor
promote U.S. capitalism.
A second tragedy revolved around the open support of U.S. foreign policy,
even when that policy took direct aim at workers overseas. Examples range from
support for the crushing of French dockworkers in the late 1940s to military
coups in what was then British Guiana in 1964 and Chile in 1973. Despite the
known impacts of such actions on the working classes of these countries, most
organized labor members were prepared to serve as foot soldiers in the fight to
promote U.S. interests. In its anticommunist crusade, organized labor could
generally be counted upon to disrupt and attempt to destroy legitimate working
class organizations, including those in Brazil during the 1980s (Central Unica
Can U.S. Workers Embrace Anti-Imperialism • 241
dos Trabalhadores) and those in South Africa in the late 1980s and early 1990s
(Congress of South African Trade Unions).
The impact of the racial social-contract myth on labor has become particularly critical in the past 25 years, with the collapse of the welfare state-New
Deal consensus and its liberal conception of the social contract. Had the
collapse of the welfare state and social contract affected only people of color,
organized labor would still be facing a crisis, albeit one very different from what
it is currently experiencing. Majority acceptance of the equitable nature of the
U.S. imperial state would persist, at least to a degree. What is creating a larger crisis, however, is that the emergence of neo-liberal globalization guided by the U.S.
imperial state has challenged the earlier notions of a racial deal for white workers.
A Challenge Emerges: Right-Wing Populism
Key to the complicity of most of the white working class, and most significantly its organized fraction, with U.S. racism and imperialism was a
combination of two essential factors: ( 1) white racial privilege and the social
bloc that it created and (2) the promise of improving living standards. These
two factors, although related, must be distinguished. White racial privilege
is not necessarily tied to the economic strength of the U.S. state. The privilege
is fundamentally political and structural and refers to the enforced racial
differential that exists between whites and nonwhites in U.S. society. This
differential exists in both boom times and depressions, but it is enforced
through the practices of both the state and civil society. It can be seen in the
areas of employment, education, housing, health, and culture, as well as
in arenas that include a high preponderance of people of color, such as entertainment and sports.
Living standards, on the other hand, correlate with the overall economic picture, the racial differential, and the status of the U.S. as the dominant imperialist
power. Political decisions play a part in living standards, but the performance of
the economy is directly affected by larger forces. The stagnation of the U.S.
economy that began in the early 1970s was driven by economic and political
factors. Specific political and economic actions were taken to deal with this
stagnation and they affected the working class as a whole, usually with disproportionate suffering within communities of color.
The stagnating economy generated a significant drop in living standards for
the bulk of the U.S. working class, and this sent reverberations throughout the
entire society. At the same time, the victories of the social movements of people
of color and women and changes in immigration patterns changed the tapestry
of U.S. society. It took some time for people to grasp that living standards had
permanently declined, but certainly during the 1980s and 1990s this came to be
understood. By the 1990s, the established media paid heightened attention to
this phenomenon and its impact on social sectors that had typically thought of
themselves as impervious to economic decline.
242 • Bill Fletcher, Jr.
One consequence of declining working class standards has been the rise of
right-wing populism, not only in the U.S. but in most of the advanced capitalist
nations. Its rise in the U.S. must be understood in terms of the crisis to the
white racial bloc that unfolded at the same time neo-liberal globalization arose.
The challenge to the white racial bloc arose from both the victories in the
antiracist struggle and the changes in imperialism. The victories in the domestic
antiracist struggle created new and unprecedented roles for individuals of
color. The appointments of people like Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell
represented a fundamental change at the top levels of power. These are not the
traditional roles occupied by people of color in a Democratic or Republican
administration. In corporate America, the rise of black CEOs in key companies such as American Express is also significant. The problem created for
white America by these developments is summed up in the notorious questions of sports commentator "Jimmy the Greek" who bemoaned the future of
white players with the advent of black quarterbacks: What happens to the
hopes of the average white person? Does it pay to be white anymore?
The state and corporate onslaughts on labor that included the wholesale
destruction of much of U.S. manufacturing and the constitution of closer
intercapitalist and interimperialist alliances have meant that the U.S. workforce holds no special place for U.S. capital other than its role as consumer.
The threat of movement overseas, not to mention its actuality, presented a
major crisis of confidence in the status quo for the average worker. The loyalty
that workers were led to expect from their employers simply does not exist.
The loyalty is, as it always has been, to the almighty dollar.
The sense of betrayal goes to the core of contemporary right-wing populism.
Despite his poor showings in the 2000 election, political commentator Pat
Buchanan summed up the feelings of millions when he launched tirades at the
allegedly traitorous companies that had abandoned the American worker.
Buchanan's subtle anti-Semitism, racism, and nativism became the lens for his
anticorporate (but certainly not anticapitalist) polemic.
The racial deal is now in shambles. Key elements of the white racial bloc sense
betrayal, and white workers (as well as sections of the white petty bourgeoisie)
cannot count on improved lives for their children. Thus, a combination of the
objective economic decline in the living standards of the average worker and
the readjustment in the racial deal has fueled right-wing populism. The anger
this spawned, whether in the extreme form of the militia movements or in the
more acceptable form of a Pat Buchanan, has become a pulsating pressure
point within the U.S. social formation.
This right-wing populism is demanding a reinstatement of the white racial
deal. Even in its most militant anticorporatism, it is not challenging capitalism;
it is demanding a return to the mythical social contract. With regard to the international situation, at some moments this right-wing populism is isolationist
and protectionist, whereas at other moments it is expansionist and jingoist. In
Can U.S. Workers Embrace Anti-Imperialism • 243
both cases, however, protection of the U.S. state and its hegemonic role in the
world are key: the U.S. first, and within the U.S. so-called natives, and among
the so-called natives, whites. Patriotism, in its operative definition, then comes
to mean defense of the empire against any and all potential threats.
Within the U.S. left, there have at various points been assumptions that its
economic decline and specifically the decline in the conditions for its working
class would engender a militant if not radical response. The assumptions may
turn out to be true but not quite in the manner the left expected. Declining living standards do not automatically produce predictable responses. The left is
seldom an immediate beneficiary. Any politics predicated on this assumption
is a politics destined to destruction.
An additional complicating factor is the matter of the white racial bloc. The
declining living standards understood through the prism of white racism and
white racial privilege can easily be blamed on anyone and anything but the
capitalists and the capitalist system. As we have seen over the past 20 years, the
growing number of immigrants from the global South, whether documented or
not, can be the scapegoats for the unraveling of the American Dream. Politically
this has been in evidence in English-only and anti-immigrant initiatives.
One note should be added here. Right-wing populism does not find the
same level of resonance among people of color. Part of the reason for this is
obvious in that at the core of right-wing populism in the U.S. is white racism.
Additionally, people of color in the U.S. have had the "advantage" of seeing the
underside of the American Dream.
That said, two points are worth making. In the 1990s, with the rise of anti-immigrant sentiment and violence, populist sentiments arose among segments
of communities of color. In the anti-immigrant Proposition 187 campaign in
California in the mid-1990s, large numbers, although not a majority, within the
African American, Chicano, and Asian electorates supplemented white fervor in
favor of the reactionary proposition. In the competition for limited resources
under capitalism, the worst sentiments started to surface. Years later, in the aftermath of September 11, there were calls to variants of right-wing populism within
communities of color. In the name of patriotism, African Americans, for example, were called upon to march side-by-side with others in the so-called war
against terrorism. Many African Americans embraced this call in the hope that
they would finally be accepted as Americans. Things have not quite worked out
that way, however.
As already noted, right-wing populism can also serve the interests of imperial
expansion, as we have seen since September 11. Playing on both fear and the desire for revenge, right-wing populism merged with jingoism to support all sorts
of adventures in the name of patriotism, security, and ensuring U.S. hegemony.
The desire for revenge against al-Qaeda and all other groups and nations
allegedly threatening the U.S. way of life can play itself out politically as support
for war, militarism, and, indeed, political repression.
244 • Bill Fletcher, Jr.
A case in point is the alliance between the reactionary Bush regime and the
Teamsters Union under James Hoffa, Jr. The leadership of organized labor has
been relatively paralyzed in addressing the emergence of right-wing populism.
Trapped within the Gompersian paradigm, the bulk of organized labor has
been unable to respond credibly to the new populism. It has been unable to
address the sense of betrayal among many white workers, except rhetorically,
because of its lack of deep critique of neo-liberal globalization, lack of a frank
admission of the racial nature of the social contract, and lack of any coherent
analysis of U.S. foreign policy. The irony of the current situation is that as we
approached the invasion of Iraq, sections of the leadership of organized labor
wished to take a stand against the aggression and found that their views were
not necessarily mirrored by the membership. This gives new meaning to the
notion of reaping what one sows.
The Gompersian paradigm has not only restricted organized labor from
addressing race and gender, but it also has inhibited an ability to tackle the
picture of global capitalism. Insofar as organized labor saw its role as helping
promote a more humane, pro-U.S. global capitalism, it has found itself hamstrung in opposing U.S. foreign policy. Demands for organized labor to face up
to its brutal history of support for U.S. imperialism have met with silence
because there is no consensus on this history and whether it was correct to collaborate in these various atrocities. In the aftermath of September 11, it
was nearly impossible to engage in a discussion of U.S. foreign policy and the
simmering hatred engendered by the role the U.S. has played in the global
South. The repression in the name of patriotism that spread nationally had its
counterpart within the ranks of organized labor when it came to serious
attempts to understand the tragedy of September 11.
Can Organized Labor Be Won to Anti-Imperialism?
This question has no clear answer. There are good reasons to believe that segments
of the working class, including organized segments, can in the short run be won to
a variant of anti-imperialist politics. In the long term, however, anti-imperialism
must become the dominant view within the U.S. working class if any form of
progressive, transformative politics such as socialism is to become hegemonic.
The Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano made the observation that in order
for the global South to achieve the level of development of the global North, the
solar system would need 10 more planets. This is a dramatic illustration of the
skewed manner in which resources are distributed and used internationally.
According to the United Nations, the richest fifth of the world's population
consumes 86% of all goods and services whereas the poorest fifth consumes
only 1.3%; wealth is polarized dramatically. Again, according to the United
Nations, in 2002 the world's 225 richest individuals, 60 of whom are from the
U.S., have a combined wealth of over $1 trillion-equal to the annual income
of the poorest 47% of the world's population.
Can U.S. Workers Embrace Anti-Imperialism • 245
The imbalance in resources and wealth, a direct result of imperialism, is not
referenced here to make a moral appeal or as an advertisement for the poor
starving masses and the charity they need. Rather, in order for the U.S. working class to advance, and specifically in order for the trade union movement to
transform itself, an appreciation of this imbalance must become part of the
new politics it embraces, for these facts point to what for many people is an
unsettling proposition: the need for global wealth redistribution.
In order to defeat right-wing populism within the working class and other
sectors of U.S. society, a multi-pronged assault will have to be mounted against
points of division. Cracking the white racial bloc and cracking imperial
consciousness will be key to that assault. To the extent that segments of the
U.S. working class see themselves as victims of the rest of the world rather than
both pawns and victims in an imperialist game, right-wing populism can be
counted on to gain strength.
In this context, the struggle for reparations-both domestically for African
Americans and internationally for Africans-has an objectively anti-imperialist
character. The demand for reparations begins the discussion about global (and
domestic) wealth redistribution. This is not a demand that white people, or in
the international context citizens of the global North, give up their toothbrushes and cars. It is a demand, however, that will necessitate changing the
manner in which we live our lives in the global North. It is a demand that will
need to be directed at governments, multi-national corporations, banks, and
the real-estate industry for compensation for past atrocities and, in more
general terms, reconstruction assistance to place peoples ripped out of history
back onto a path of self-determined development.
Again, this is not charity. It is compensation for crimes committed. It is also
a recognition that the global North generally, and the people of the U.S. in
particular, cannot be trusted as long as they turn a blind eye to the wealth (and
people) stolen from the rest of the world. This may sound moralistic, but it can
be put in terms targeted to self-interest: There will be no security for anyone as
long as wealth, resources, and power are distributed so unjustly.
Within the organized section of the working class, the struggle for reparations and global wealth redistribution should move from a demand of wellintentioned leftists to a political demand of the movement. Such a demand can
take many forms; one is the struggle for a democratic foreign policy. In light of
the Bush Administration's codification of the "New World Order" through the
release of the new U.S. security strategy in the fall of 2002, the entire pretense
of a peaceful, humane, and harmless U.S. foreign policy has been stripped
away. The new doctrine proclaims for all the world to hear and see that the U.S.
heads the global capitalist empire, that no other power will be allowed to
contend with U.S. military might, and that the U.S. reserves the "right" to take
preemptive military action against any nation or force it deems a threat to
its interests.
246 • Bill Fletcher, Jr.
Although the U.S. has historically engaged in much of what the new doctrine
advocates, what is different is the blatant nature of the proclamation. What is
also different is the flagrant disregard of the opinions and actions of key imperialist allies of the U.S. A case in point is the heated international debate surrounding Iraq. Although the Bush Administration succeeded like few before it in
isolating the country internationally, what is striking is the arrogant denial of the
importance of this isolation.
Developing anti-imperialism as a mass current within the working class,
therefore, involves a fight for a democratic U.S. foreign policy. Of course, as
long as the U.S. remains an imperialist power, its ability to have a democratic
foreign policy will always have objective limits. Nevertheless, it is the fight that
is critical in changing the consciousness of the U.S. working class regarding the
role of the U.S. on the world stage. Such a struggle could include demands for
reparations and reconstruction assistance; massive assistance to the Global
AIDS Fund; renunciation of the national security strategy; withdrawal of military assistance from dictatorial regimes; removal of agricultural subsidies
from U.S. agribusinesses; full repayment of dues to the United Nations;
replacement of the World Trade Organization (WTO) with a democratic,
multi-lateral trade institution; and other measures. In sum, this is a fight for
altering the U.S. role within the international arena.
The fight for a democratic foreign policy has another side. For the working
class to engage in this struggle represents a strike against the Gompersian
dependence on one of the two established capitalist parties. Such a struggle brings
to the fore the notion of an independent working-class view of the world rather
than tailing after whoever happens to be the "best" Democrat. Trade union policy
during the Clinton era demonstrated the bankruptcy of failing to have an independent stand. Even when the unions disagreed with Clinton regarding foreign
policy (or domestic policy, such as with welfare reform), they had a deep fear of
establishing independent terrain. This made it exceedingly difficult for the union
movement to conduct a consistent struggle against Clinton's pro-globalization
policies (with the exception of the WTO demonstrations).
Another challenge to the U.S. working class is protectionism. Protectionism
can sometimes appear anticorporate, if not anti-imperialist, but it is actually
neither. Although the working class is justified in its anger at the loss of jobs,
rather than a protectionist response, the response must strike at capital and
support workers overseas. As Jesse Jackson so eloquently demanded during his
1988 run for the presidency, we must have accountability-which could be
described equally as a form of repair or reparation-on the part of capital
when it vacates a neighborhood, community, city, or state.
This matter goes to another issue that extends beyond the scope of this
chapter. With the loss of many value-producing jobs because of technological
changes or moves offshore, the productivity gains by corporations must be
shared. We cannot assume that high-paying jobs will return in the future.
Can U.S. Workers Embrace Anti-Imperialism • 247
Thus, to borrow from the ideas of the late Tony Mazzocchi, founder of the
Labor Party in the U.S., there must be a redefinition of work along with a
massive unionization effort to transform existing low-wage jobs into higher-wage
employment.
A second response to the specific issue of the shifting of jobs overseas is true
international labor solidarity. The growth ofleft-led trade union movements in
places such as South Africa, Nigeria, Brazil, and South Korea represents a major
development in the fight for global justice. Not only has it meant improvements
in the living standards of workers, but it also has made it far more complicated
for the capitalists to place workers in what has come to be known as a race to the
bottom. The AFL-CIO under John Sweeney brought about considerable improvements in the international arena regarding to labor solidarity, but even
here activity is inconsistent, with remnants of Cold War trade unionism continuing to sneak through. The choice for organized labor in the U.S. seems all too
often to be one between the desire for respectability in bourgeois circles, with the
accompanying fantasy of a return to the good old days of the New Deal's social
contract, and genuine solidarity with foreign labor and other social movements.
One final arena implicit in the above is opposition to U.S. wars of adventure.
Although it is conceivable that a scenario analogous to the Second World War
may reemerge at some point, nothing like that appears on the horizon. Instead,
and in line with the new national security doctrine, we are now witnessing the
further militarization of the U.S. justified in the most cynical manner by alleged
concerns about human rights, terrorism, and so-called rogue states. Liberal and
progressive forces are constantly placed on the defensive when the political
right demands that actions be taken against this or that state. Instead, we must
"flip the script," so to speak, and ask the difficult questions about the objectives
of U.S. policies and military actions. In order to do this, particularly in the postSeptember 11 environment, fear must be addressed directly. As long as fear of
alleged and real threats dominates the national discourse, anti-imperialism will
be suppressed.
The fear that most people experience today is the uncertainty of further terrorist attacks. This fear has been played upon by the Bush administration and
the political right in order to increase militarization and domestic repression
and to discourage popular examination of the deteriorating U.S. and global
economies. This can and will be broken to the extent to which people come to
understand the political nature of the terrorists (both clerical fascists and state
terrorists) and the actions of the U.S. that have laid the basis for the sympathy
that many of these terrorists receive.
Concluding Thoughts
The challenge to the U.S. working class and to organized labor cannot be
addressed without some formal left presence. The emergence of anti-imperialism
as a current rather than as a set of politics elaborated by a few individuals
248 • Bill Fletcher, Jr.
requires engagement in various political struggles, both within the trade union
movement and more broadly. The movement against U.S. aggression in Iraq is
precisely the sort of mass social phenomenon that can lay the foundation for an
anti-imperialist movement. Even here, though, the measures will fail unless a
more organized left presence ties the various strands together.
Discussion of the reconstitution of such a left goes beyond the scope of
this chapter. Suffice it to say, however, that the development of genuine antiimperialism is actually tied to a vision of a different world. Anti-imperialism
in its best sense is not solely a reaction against the atrocities of the global
North, but it is the suggestion that the world can and should operate on a
fundamentally different basis. Creating and articulating such a vision should
be the task of a genuine left. In the absence of such a left and a new vision, we
will find ourselves facing and fighting endless resistance battles with little hope
of final victory.
16
Why the Mexican Rural Sector
Can't Take It Anymore
VICTOR QUINTANA
When Rural Areas Still Yielded Food Crops ... and Votes
The countryside was the foundation of Mexico's national development from
the mid-1930s to the mid-1960s. It produced cheap food for urban dwellers
and raw materials for the steadily expanding national industries. Although the
managed prices of agricultural products were kept low to the benefit of the industrial sector, Mexico's agriculture experienced the kinds of growth rates that
current President Fox might want to insert in his pie-in-the-sky speeches
about the future of Mexico.
By 1965, two factors led to the weakening of this positive pattern of economic development. One was the continued transfer of resources from the
agricultural sector to other areas of the economy by way of state-directed
underpricing of agricultural products; the other, was the political manipulation of the peasantry. To be sure, the rural sector produced the basic food
grains for the national diet, but it was also the source of votes in elections.
The Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) utilized the Confederacion
Nacional Campesina to manipulate the peasants as a mass they could use for
their own purposes and, through corruption and other methods of control,
succeeded in stunting the growth of any efforts to develop an independent
peasant organization.
The administrations of Luis Echeverria (1970-1976) and Miguel Lopez
Portillo (1976-1982) attempted to boost national agricultural production.
They injected large sums of money in the rural sector and succeeded in stimulating production and growth. However, everything the PRI and its corporate
agencies did on behalf of the rural sector was marred by the privileging of political dividends, corruption, and demagoguery on the backs of the peasants
and in detriment of agricultural production.
Conversations with Chihuahua peasants reveal that their last good year was
1981, not only because it rained, but also because 1981 was the last year of
government-supported prices and the national program of agricultural subsidies and supports.
249
250 • Victor Quintana
Stages of the War against Mexico's Agriculture
1982 represented a breaking point in the development of Mexico's agriculture.
In August, under cover of the declaration of Mexico's default on its foreign debt
by its Treasury Secretary Silva Herzog, the first set of structural adjustment
measures was enacted. The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and
the U.S. Treasury Department, a triad representing the "Washington consensus;'
imposed the adjustments on Mexico.
Bad news for the many was good news for the few. The structural adjustment
measures imposed by the nefarious triad were well received by a generation of
technocrats educated in U.S. universities precisely with the goal of employing
them in the imposition and administration of structural adjustment plans.
Thus, beginning in 1982, we witness the first generation of measures imposed
on Mexico's countryside, including the deregulation of price controls for agricultural inputs such as fertilizers, machinery, and fuels. Support prices were
reduced and the government began to cut back on investments and expenditures on research, extension, and agricultural support mechanisms. Shortly
thereafter, the national economy began to open up to imports of foodstuffs
after Mexico's joining of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (forerunner
of the World Trade Organization [WTO]).
A second generation of such measures began with the coming to power of
President Salinas de Gortari in 1988. One of Salinas's highest officials summarized the government posture toward the agricultural sector thus:
In the Mexican countryside there is an excess of millions of peasants, because their
contribution to the gross domestic product is out of proportion with its proportion of the total population. Therefore, we must reduce the rural population from
its current 25 million to about 5 million.
There is little one could add to a clear and self-explanatory statement about
what the central government had in mind for the peasants of Mexico.
Salinas continued the reduction of agricultural supports and reduced
guaranteed minimum prices as well as the number of products thus protected. His strategy toward the rural sector was built upon the dual goals of
privatizing agricultural landholding and negotiating a free-trade agreement
with the U.S. He achieved the first goal by enacting an agrarian counterreform in 1992 with the support of both PRI and PAN (Partido de Accion
Nacional) deputies in the national congress. Under the new laws, former ejido
(commonly held) lands could be bought and sold, and corporations could
purchase agricultural properties. Salinas's hope that this measure would
attract foreign investment in agriculture proved false. Today less than 1% of
foreign direct investment in Mexico is located in the rural sector.
Salinas's second goal became a reality with the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994. Eight years later, Secretary of
Agriculture Javier Usabiaga recognized that the treaty was "poorly negotiated"
Why the Mexican Rural Sector Can't Take It Anymore • 251
and that the rural sector was not adequately protected, but in the Salinas years
the first steps in the (limited) economic integration with the U.S. carried
a consensus of many who bought into the schemes of Salinas. Only independent peasant organizations, the Frente Democratico Campesino in
Chihuahua, and later the Zapatistas in Chiapas, stood in opposition to the
Salinas policies.
The administration of Zedillo, who followed Salinas, continued the
government's war against national agricultural activities. Zedillo eliminated
the support prices for the few products that remained, continued the policy
of importation of agricultural foodstuffs, looked the other way as imports surpassed officially established quotas, reduced the budget for agriculture,
and dissolved CONASUPO (Compafiia Nacional de Subsistencias Populares),
the major state-owned purchaser, distributor, and retailer of agricultural foodstuffs. Although claiming that the last measure was an effort at eliminating
corruption, in effect it signified the elimination of the last remaining mechanism that allowed protection against market-price fluctuations for agricultural producers.
Two figures summarize the story of the change of official policy toward the
countryside. Between 1982 and 2001, state investment in the rural sector was
reduced by 95.5% and public expenditures for the sector diminished by
73.3%. Second, the credit made available to rural producers dropped 64.4%
during the same period. 1
The Ignored Warnings
Beginning in 1991, when the first discussions about a free-trade pact with the
U.S. were initiated, serious warnings pointed to the perils of placing our rural
sector in competition with the most powerful agriculture in the world. The
figures in Table 16.1 show the clear asymmetries of the agricultural sectors of
the three country signatories of NAFTA.
Basic differences in the availability of natural resources and the asymmetries in government policies of agricultural development and support account
for the large differences in productivity. For example, in 2001, the subsidies
received by U.S. agriculture amounted to 47.2% of the total value of the
agricultural crop whereas subsidies in Mexico reached only 24.1 % of the value
of agricultural production. 2 U.S. government expenditures on agricultural
research reached 2.6% of the gross domestic agricultural product. For Mexico,
it was only 0.52%. 3
Those figures were cited over and over by specialists at CIESTAAM (Centro
de Investigaci6n y Estudios Superiores sobre las Transformaciones en el Agro
Mexicano), Jose Luis Calva at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico,
and also by peasant organizations such as the Frente Democratico de Chihuahua. The Frente organized demonstrations at border crossing points and
in 1993 invited a delegation of U.S. congressmen to learn first hand the view of
252 • Victor Quintana
Table 16.1 Comparative Available Natural Resources, Technologies, and Productivities of NAFTA
Signatories
Cultivated hectares per agricultural worker
Irrigated hectares per agricultural worker
Pasture hectares per agricultural worker
Forest hectares per agricultural worker
Tractors per agricultural worker
Kilograms of fertilizer per agricultural worker
Corn (tons per hectare)
Bananas (tons per hectare)
Rice (tons per hectare)
2001 value of agricultural productivity per worker
U.S.
59.1
7.4
79.0
58.5
1.6
6,114
8.4
1.8
6.8
$67,871
Canada
117.2
1.9
74.4
116.8
1.8
6,352
7.3
1.8
$54,816
Mexico
3.1
0.7
9.2
2.8
0.02
209.6
2.4
0.6
4.4
$3,758
Note: 1 hectare= 2.47 acres.
Source: Calva, J.L., "Brechas de Competitividad Agricola," El Universal, Noviembre
22, 2002. With permission.
Mexican farmers of the proposed treaty. Later, the Frente sent two of its leaders
to Washington to make their views known to the U.S. House of Representatives.
Negotiation of NAFTA
NAFTA was negotiated in an undemocratic manner. Those who would be
most affected were not involved in negotiations. Only a few representatives of
large agribusiness concerns that stood to gain from the treaty, such as Bachoco,
were consulted. The treaty was not discussed in the Mexican House of
Representatives. It was ratified by Mexico's Senate, then controlled by Salinas's
PRI party.
According to CIESTAAM a number fundamental deficiencies characterized
Mexico's handling of treaty negotiations:
1. Mexico did not review the experience and problems arising from the
treaty signed by the U.S. and Canada in 1989. If it had, it would have
concluded that NAFTA Chapters 19 and 20 designed for problem resolution would be insufficient to resolve trade disputes and conflicts.
2. Mexico did not exclude any agricultural products from the scope of
the treaty; Canada managed to exclude its dairy and poultry sectors.
Mexico accepted high import quotas without tariffs for a large
number of agricultural items without introducing into the treaty
any provisions for suspensions, revisions, moratoria, or other instruments of protection.
3. An important juridical asymmetry was involved. While the U.S. negotiated an agreement, Mexico signed a treaty that had legal status
Why the Mexican Rural Sector Can't Take It Anymore • 253
almost at the level of the national constitution and allowed little
political "wiggle" room for modifications.
4. The U.S. was and still is in the strongest position to negotiate and
evaluate the effects of NAFTA and, on that basis, to make beneficial
revisions and adjustments. 4
Agricultural Policies in Early Years of NAFTA
The agricultural segments of NAFTA set out a system of quotas, tariffs,
quota-and-tariff combinations, and the progressive elimination of all barriers
to agricultural products. NAFTA included a timetable whereby tariffs would
begin to decrease and the quantities of items imported free of tariffs would
increase simultaneously beginning the first year of the agreement. By 2003,
all agricultural products, with the exception of corn, beans, powdered milk,
and sugar cane, were to have been imported without restrictions of any kind.
The four exceptions were to be freely imported by 2008 (the 15th year of
the treaty).
Thus, Mexico had at least 9 years to put into practice an aggressive policy of
agricultural development. It could have designed and applied public policy
measures that would have allowed its farmers to reach higher levels of
competitiveness and be ready or at least prepared to face the two phases of
complete barrier removals in 2003 and 2008. What did the Mexican government
do during that period? Did it use the time advantageously to strengthen Mexico's
agriculture?
The evidence is telling: In the 9 years after signing NAFTA, the Mexican
government cut back in real terms 65% of the budget for the agricultural
sector. As a percentage of total government expenditures, the rural sector
proportion decreased from 8.8% in 1994 to 3.5% in 2002. As a percentage of
Gross Domestic Product it fell from 1.5% to 0.6%.
During the same period, the governments of Salinas, Zedillo, and Fox reaffirmed the application of the orthodox neo-liberal adjustment measures against
the countryside. Minimum price supports disappeared, prices of fuels for irrigation shot up, and rural credit continued to shrink. At the same time, even though
the treaty allowed Mexico to continue to protect corn and bean producers by
way of quotas and tariffs, the government did not collect $2.8 billion in tariffs for
corn imports and $77 million for bean imports. It also allowed the importation
of 14 million tons of basic grains above the quota limits set by the treaty. 5
During the same period, the U.S. engaged in everything except free trade.
Contrary to its commitments to the WTO, it increased subsidies to its agricultural sector and flooded Mexico with low-quality products at prices below the
costs of production. This practice of dumping prohibited under free-trade
rules worked to the detriment of Mexican producers and applied to beef products, milk, dairy products, cotton, and apples.
254 • Victor Quintana
Subsidies to U.S. agriculture were significant, increasing from $5 billion
annually in 1994 to more than six times that amount, $32 billion, in 2000. 6 A
comparative review of subsidies in the U.S. and Mexico reveals that the U.S.
government provides support of $125 per hectare of land and, on average,
$21,000 per farmer. In Mexico, government support is limited to $45 per
hectare and $700 per agricultural producer. An additional comparison sheds
further light on the situation. In 2003, the U.S. agricultural budget reached
$118 billion compared with $4.5 billion in Mexico. In other words, the U.S.
agricultural budget is 26 times larger than Mexico's, although in terms of
absolute size, U.S. agriculture is only six times greater than Mexico's. 7
Impacts of NAFTA on Mexico's Agriculture
The first major consequence ofNAFTA was an increase in Mexico's dependence
on foreign sources for its basic food needs. For Mexico's countryside, NAFTA
has meant, first and foremost, the imports of foodstuffs. In the first 8 years of
NAFTA, imports of agricultural products increased by 80% from $2.9 billion
to $4.2 billion. 8 Additional figures indicate who benefited from NAFTA: From
1994 to 2001, Mexico's purchases of agricultural foodstuffs increased by 44%
whereas its exports of the same products increased by only 8%. At the same
time, U.S. sales to Mexico increased significantly-by 205% for fresh and
dried fruits and by 84% for seeds and oils. 9
The trend has accelerated over the period in question. In 2001, food
exports increased only by 4% in relation to 2000, while food imports grew
by 15.5%. In that year, the U.S. imported $5.2 billion worth of Mexican agriculture and sold $7.4 billion in products to Mexico. 10 Table 16.2 shows the
evolution of the aggregate trade in food products for the U.S. and Mexico
from 1995 to 2001.
A more detailed look reveals that of 10 basic staple foodstuffs (corn, beans,
wheat, soya, sorghum, barley, sesame, rice, and safflower), Mexico imported
8.7 million tons in 1990. By 2000, the amount imported reached 18.5 tons, an
increase of 112%, of which the U.S. supplied 90%. 11 Corn constitutes the basis
of Mexico's diet. Before NAFTA, the largest amount of corn ever imported into
Mexico reached 2.5 million tons annually. By 2000, imports more than
doubled and exceeded 5.2 million tons. In 2001, the figure increased by an
Table 16.2 Post-NAFTAAgricultural Commerce between U.S. and Mexico
Year
1995
2000
2001
Imports from U.S.
$3254 million
$6420 million
$7415 million
Source: El Financiero, Marzo 4, 2002. With permission.
Exports to U.S.
$3835 million
$5078 million
$5267 million
Why the Mexican Rural Sector Can't Take It Anyrnore • 255
additional 15% (more than 6 million tons). 12 This level of corn importation
also meant that Mexico used $3.6 billion in foreign exchange dollar reserves in
payment-ironically, an amount that nearly equals the entire government
budget for the rural sector. Additionally, the Mexican government gave, in
effect, a gift worth $1.9 billion to the giants in the import business by allowing
the entrance of tons of corn without the stipulated tariff payments. 13
Imports of beans also increased. In 1996, the U.S. exported 109,406 tons of
beans to Mexico, and in 1998 the amount increased 60% to 170,737 tons
which does not include large amounts of contraband that further threaten
national production. 14 Some estimates place the illegal contraband alone
around 200,000 tons annually-about three times the authorized nontariffed
quota for 2002 of 65,239 tons. 15
Of every 10 kg ofrice consumed in Mexico between 1980 and 1990, 1.7 kg
was imported; 1.2 kg of every 10 kg of wheat consumed was imported.
Between 1994 and 1998, the dependency on foreign food imports increased to
5.3 kg of every 10 kg for rice and to 3.5 kg of every 10 kg for wheat. 16
In actuality, the complete "liberalization" of trade in corn, beans, barley,
rice, sorghum, and soya began in 1996 and not in 2009 as stipulated in NAFTA.
During the first 5 years of NAFTA, Mexico imported on average 12 million
tons annually of these grains, an increase of 66.6% over the 9 years preceding
NAFTA. This again meant an outflow of $10.7 billion in foreign exchange
reserves; this was 10 times the Procampo (Programa de Apoyos al Campo)
budget and five times the SAGAR (Mexico's Agriculture Department) budget
for 1999.'7 Between 1995 and 2000, Mexico imported 50 million tons of basic
grains and became the top importer of basic grains in Latin America. This
figure does not include the open or "technical" contraband.
Meat products did not fare any better. Today Mexico consumes twice the
quantity of imported meats than it consumed before the signing of NAFTA. 18
During the first 6 years ofNAFTA, beef imports increased by 200%, pork products by 300%, and eggs by 55%, chicken imports by 130,000 tons. Imported
milk constituted 20% of national consumption. 19
Mexican cattle farmers face the dumping practices of U.S. exporters, the
tolerance of contraband by Mexican authorities, the disregard for quota limits,
and low input prices enjoyed by their U.S. competitors. Not surprisingly,
Mexico imported $1.03 billion worth of fresh and frozen red meats in 2001,
22.5% more than in 2000 and 442% more than in 1995. 20
Established import limits of chicken and turkey have been consistently surpassed. In 1994, imports of chicken reached 65,000 tons though the quota
limit was 25,000 tons. Imports in 2002 tripled the NAFTA-established quota of
30,700 tons. Excess turkey imports exceeded authorized amounts by two to
two and a half times. 21 Imports of pork products increased by 2.2 times from
1998 to 2000 and reached 208,573 tons. Beef and lamb imports increased 1.5
times since 1994 and met 60% of internal demand. 22
256 • Victor Quintana
It could be argued that producers of fruits and vegetables benefited from
NAFTA because exports to the U.S. increased by 76% for fruits and 26% for
vegetables. 23 However, between 1994 and 2000, imports of canned vegetables
and canned and dried fruits increased by 77% and 300%, respectively. This
means that Mexico exports fresh fruit and it returns in processed form. 24
Apples represent a special case. Apples are very important agricultural items in
states like Chihuahua. In 1997, imports amounted to 114,922 tons. By 2001,
imports increased by 94% to 221,269. A tariff of 101 % was supposed to go in
effect at the beginning of NAFTA; this was modified to authorize a minimum
price of $13.72 per imported box, somewhat above the wholesale price of
Mexican apples. U.S. exporters were allowed to provide cash rebates to Mexican
importers. In effect, this eliminated local producers from the competition and
ruined them. 25 Thus, Mexico, one of the historically great agricultural civilizations of the world, has placed its food supplies in foreign hands. It now
imports 95% of its edible oils; 40% of its beef, pork, and other meat products;
30% of its corn; and 50% of its rice. 26
The future does not look brighter. According to the U.S. Department
of Agriculture (USDA), Mexico will become a large importer of both raw
materials and foodstuffs. Mexican imports of grains (corn, sorghum, wheat,
and soy) were expected to grow by 31% from 18.3 million tons in 2000 and
2001 to 24 million tons by 2011 and 2012. 27 USDA predicts that imports of
beef, pork, and poultry will increase by 86% from 2000 to 2011. 28
The complete elimination of protection for 20 agricultural products beginning in 2003 is expected to double the agricultural trade deficit beginning that year, and the deficit will reach $10 billion. 29 Since NAFTA was
enacted, Mexico has paid $78 billion for food imports, a figure larger than
its national public debt. In 2002, Mexican food imports amounted to 78%
of its petroleum exports.
A second major consequence of NAFTA has been the disappearance of
profitability for national agricultural producers. As a consequence of unfair
competition from foreign imports, the value of Mexican agricultural products
plummeted. Between 1985 and 1999, in real terms, corn lost 64% of its value
and beans lost 46%. This in no way meant that retail prices dropped for
consumers. Between 1994 and 2000, the prices of staple consumer goods rose
by 257% while registering a much lower increase (185%) in prices paid to
agricultural producers. 30 As a result of plummeting profitability, producers
abandoned agricultural endeavors en masse. The production of basic grains
and edible oils that involved 14 million hectares or 70% of the country's cultivated area was the major loser under NAFTA. 31 Even the Consejo Nacional
Agropecuario, an organization oflarge agribusinessmen, recognized that basic
grain and livestock production were seriously affected by NAFTA. 32
During the first 8 years of NAFTA, 1.6 million previously cultivated
hectares used for corn, beans, wheat, soy, and cotton were abandoned. The loss
Why the Mexican Rural Sector Can't Take It Anymore • 257
of cultivated land was most pronounced in states with substantial numbers
of peasant producers such as Veracruz, Oaxaca, Guerrero, Morelos,
Michoacan, Queretaro, Puebla, and Guanajuato. In areas characterized by
more-modern agriculture such as the Yaqui and Mayo Valleys, peasants opted
to rent their parcels to large enterprises. The International Monetary Fund
expects that 10 million hectares of grain crops will be abandoned in the next
few years. 33
To truly appreciate the social impact of the situation, consider the case
of corn-a grain produced by 2.5 million peasants on parcels smaller than
5 hectares that yielded no more than 2 tons. These peasants formerly produced
75% of the country's total production of corn. 34 Not surprisingly, rural
poverty has shot up in the past few years. The Department of Social Development
acknowledged in the fall 2002 that, in terms of nutrition, poverty in the rural
areas rose significantly from 35.5% in 1992 to 52.4% in 2002. Poverty and
impacts on access to health and education grew during the same period from
41.8% to 50% of the population in the countryside. 35 Economist Julio
Boltvinik analyzed these official data and figures from other sources to conclude that 86.2% of rural inhabitants live under conditions of poverty in Mexico.36 Other comparisons also illustrate the dire situation of the rural sector,
for example, the wide income disparity between population groups that depend on agriculture and those that do not. In the nonrural population, 74.6%
of the people generate 94.3% of Mexico's total income; 25.4% of the total rural
population generates only 5. 7% of Mexico's aggregate income. 37
Twenty-five million people live in the countryside, and 15 million of
them face limited employment futures. Most of them no longer depend on
agriculture. They rely on other sources for support, for example, the sale of
their labor and handicrafts and other informal commercial activities. 38 In fact,
70% to 80% of the income of most small peasant families now originates in
nonagricultural activities.
Even the World Bank recognizes that the current index of extreme poverty
in the agrarian sector indicates a worsening of the situation in the past decade.
One of every two rural dwellers survives in situations of dire poverty "in the
midst of a vicious cycle in which the indiscriminate use of natural resources is
the only avenue for the poors' survival:'39
In 1998 and 1999, peasant families dropped their consumption of tortillas
by 20.4% because of lack of cash to purchase them. 40 The 11 states with the
highest proportions of rural inhabitants are threatened by insecurity of food supplies and malnutrition: Chiapas, Guerrero, Oaxaca, Puebla, Veracruz, Tlaxcala,
Hidalgo, Durango, San Luis Potosi, Yucatan, and Zacatecas. Of the 113,000
municipalities within those states, 706 face inability to feed their populations.
Other figures are equally dismal: Malnutrition affects approximately 44%
of native Indian children under 5 years of age-a rate equal to rates in the
poorest nations inAfrica. 41 The average daily wage in the rural areas is 15 pesos,
258 • Victor Quintana
less than half the national minimum wage. Of people in the primary sector,
30% earn no income whatsoever, 39% earn less than minimum wage, and only
5.2% earn more than the minimun wage. 42 In the communal lands of the
ejidos of Mexico, fewer than 50% of the houses have running water, only
16.5% are connected to sewers, and only 65% have access to electricity.43
Poverty, of course, is not merely malnutrition, lack of food, low income, or
absence of public services. Poverty is many sided and multi-dimensional. For the
Mexican farmers and peasants it also means forced migration-abandoning
one's land and family. According to Mexico's Secretary of Labor, 1.78 million
people have left the countryside since 1994. SEDESOL (Secretaria de Desarrollo
Social) estimates that on average 600 peasants migrate from the rural sectors
every day. 44 Migration means family disintegration, the forced separation
of its members. It represents the tearing apart of the social fabric, the social
networks that the rural communities constructed over a long time that somehow
offered a degree of protection from exploitation and abuse and access to a few
meager resources. Those networks become weak when only the elderly and
children remain in the rural towns. The average age of the Mexican rural
producer at present is 52 years. 45
Winners ofNAFTA's Onslaught on Mexican Agriculture
Although 3.3 million poor Mexican peasants suffer the impacts of NAFTA on
agriculture, NAFTA has produced large winners as well, albeit a few. The winners are mainly large multi-national corporations and a few Mexican agribusiness enterprises. The most prominent are as follows:
•
Grupo Bimbo: bread giant of Mexico. It benefits from subsidized
wheat imports. Annual sales of $3.5 billion.
• Grupo Modelo: number one exporter of beer. Annual sales: $3.5 billion.
• Nestle Mexico: a consortium producing diversified products including cereals, meats, coffee, chocolate, and milk and dairy. Annual sales:
$2.3 billion.
• Grupo Maseca (GRUMA): number-one producer of tortillas and corn
flour. Benefited immensely from 14 million tons of corn imported
above and beyond the limits established by NAFTA. Annual sales: $1.9
billion.
• KOF-Coca Cola-FEMSA: number-one producer of beverages in
Latin America. Produces and distributes beer, soft drinks, and containers. Operates the O:XXO chain of convenience stores. Benefits
from imports of fructose. Annual sales: $1.9 billion.
• Sabritas-Pepsico: number-one producer of chips and snacks in Mexico
and Central America.Annual sales in 2001: $1.8 billion.
Why the Mexican Rural Sector Can't Take It Anymore • 259
•
Unilever and subsidiaries: producer of a wide variety of prepared
food products such as soups, salsas, ice cream, condiments, and
juices. Annual sales: $1.2 billion.
• Grupo Lala: number-one producer and distributors of milk in Mexico. Benefited greatly from imports of grains and cattle feed. Annual
sales: $1.2 billion.
• Grupos Pulse y Savia: develops, produces, and markets seeds for
fruits and fresh vegetables. Annual sales: $1.2 billion.
• Bachoco: monopolizes large-scale production of poultry and eggs.
Benefits from imports of sorghum and corn. Annual sales: $1 billion.
• Pilgrim's Pride of Mexico: subsidiary of the Pilgrim's Pride International poultry giant. Annual sales in 2000: $280 million. 46
Another entity that could be added is Cargill, which receives a large share of
the Mexican government's supports for the marketing of corn internally.
Cargill is also one of the main exporters of U.S. corn to Mexico.
Renegotiation of NAFTA
Mexico has a possibility of establishing a moratorium and renegotiating the
agricultural aspects ofNAFTA in accordance with its Constitution, international
law, and even Chapter VIII ofNAFTA. The procedure would be as follows: In accordance with Articles 131, 39, and 73, Sections XXXIX A and E of Mexico's
Constitution, its Senate would declare a social, economic, and ecological emergency. Next, as permitted under Chapter VIII of NAFTA, a provisional 3-year
suspension of agricultural commitments would go into effect. The suspension
would affect food chains defined as basic and strategic for Mexico's food security
and sovereignty as per Chapter XVII of the Law of Sustainable Rural Development. The defined food chains include corn, beans, wheat, sugar cane, rice,
sorghum, coffee, poultry and eggs, milk, beef, pork, and fish.
At the same time, the national Congress would issue a decree instructing
the Executive Branch to begin renegotiation of the agricultural segments
of NAFTA. Mexico could also utilize Article 162 of the Vienna Convention
pertaining to international treaties. This article allows any agreement or treaty
to be subject to modification if conditions of signatory countries change significantly. It is the case that U.S. subsidies to its agriculture were significantly
less when NAFTA was signed than they are today and that Mexico's agriculture
budget was significantly higher than it is today. Mexico can demonstrate that
conditions have changed in a pronounced manner and insist that a revision
and renegotiation ofNAFTA is in order.
Negotiation Issues
The issue is not throwing NAFTA completely overboard or attempting to
achieve agricultural autarchy and suspend agricultural exchanges with the
260 • Victor Quintana
U.S. and other countries in toto. NAFTA has caused great harm to many
small producers in the U.S. and led to the displacement and migration of
hundreds of thousands of Mexican peasants and farmers. Therefore, it is in
the interests of both Mexico and the U.S. to seek renegotiation of a number
of aspects of NAFTA:
1. The exclusion of corn and beans, the basic staples of the Mexican
diet, from NAFTA's process of trade liberalization. This is fundamental to Mexican national security and the preservation of genetic
resources and because of the multi-functional impact of peasant
production of corn and beans.
2. The reintroduction of quotas and tariffs on the imports of products
that affect agricultural food chains classified under the law of Sustainable Rural Development as basic and strategic for Mexico's food
security and sovereignty. In addition to corn and beans, they include
sugar cane, rice, wheat, sorghum, coffee, poultry and eggs, milk, beef,
pork, and fish. Maximum volumes of imports without levies should
not exceed 5% to 20% of local production, depending on item, and
additional amounts should be subject to tariffs.
3. Enforce the application of health and sanitary rules that pertain to
imported foodstuffs. Enforce the identification of genetically modified foods.
4. Eliminate all unfair trade practices, such as internal U.S. subsidies
that allow dumping, that is, exporting below costs of production and
special subsidies to U.S. exporters.
5. Negotiate two additional agreements that parallel NAFTA. The first
would guarantee that Mexican migrants to the U.S. would be entitled
to all rights as workers and residents. The second would establish a special fund to compensate regions, products, productive chains, and individual and social producers that suffer from relative disadvantages. 47
Toward an Inclusive, Sustainable, Sovereign Agricultural Policy
Mexico needs more than simply protecting its rural sector and allowing it to
continue age-old bad agricultural habits. What we need is a complete structural
reform with the goal of developing a solid, prosperous, and economically and
ecologically sustainable agriculture. A restructured rural sector should be able
to produce healthy and accessible foods for all Mexicans, guarantee the nation's
food security, and treat our peasant brothers and sisters as priority agents in a
process of inclusive development.
Such restructuring requires long-term planning. The Campo No Aguanta
Mas (the countryside can't take it anymore) movement proposed a 20-year
project to be carried out by a central government commission that should
include representation from the executive and legislative branches, organizations
Why the Mexican Rural Sector Can't Take It Anymore • 261
of rural producers, peasants and indigenous groups, institutions of higher
learning, and research centers. A framework for the structural reforms is
already provided by the Law of Sustainable Rural Development.
According to Jose Luis Calva, five fundamental instruments for an aggregate policy of rural development to be put into practice are:
1. A policy of support prices for basic agriculture. This policy would provide certainty based on long-term profitability and expectations that
investment in agriculture would allow producers real possibilities for
accumulation, technical improvements, and credit availability.
2. A long-term program of support for research, agricultural and
animal extension programs, and technical husbandry that would
produce considerable impact on production and productivity.
3. Substantial increases in public resources devoted to infrastructure to
allow better utilization of natural resources, for example, increases in
irrigated acreage and better use of water supplies.
4. Provision of a fresh new supply of credit to agricultural areas, with
preferential interest rates granted to small producers of basic products,
along with resolution of the enormous indebtedness that has become
an enormous obstacle to continued agricultural production.
5. Maintenance of employment and income opportunities for the rural
sector; promotion of and support for small peasant proprietors. 1
All these points and more were incorporated into a major unity document
released on March 24, 2003 by the four large rural associations: Movimiento
El Campo No Aguanta Mas, El Barz6n (representing indebted peasants),
Confederacion Nacional Campesina, and the Consejo Agrario Permanente.
The document is titled "A proposal of a national agreement for the rural
sector: Towards the development of rural society and food sovereignty with
peasant men and women as the fundamental elements of a national project
in the 21st century." It resulted from peasant mobilizations arising from the
elimination of all entry restrictions on food imports within the NAFTA agreement in January 2003. It is to date the most complete, broad, strategic, and
united effort of Mexico's associations of agricultural producers. 48
Notes
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Calva, J.L., "Disyuntiva Agricola;' El Universal, November 8, 2002.
Calva, J.L., "Brechas de Competitividad Agricola;' El Universa~ November 22, 2002.
Cruz, M.A. and R. Schwentwisus, "Desastroso Impacto de! TLCAN en el Sector Agroalimentario," CIESTAAM, Mexico City, p. 3.
Ibid, p. 2.
Ibid.
Movimiento El Campo no Aguanta Mas, Comunicado de Suspension Provisional de !as
Disposiciones Mas Lesivas de! Apartado Agropecuario de! TLCAN a Partir de! lo, January
2003,p.2.
La Jornada, May 15, 2002.
La Jornada, July 8, 2002.
262 • Victor Quintana
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
Ibid.
El Financiero, March 4, 2002.
Verduzco, J.J.F., research cited in El Financiero, September 18, 2001.
Suarez, V., ANEC, data cited in El Financiero, September 11, 2001.
ANEC, La Jornada, September 12, 2001.
La Jornada, September 26, 2001.
El Financiero, March 4, 2002.
Flores, J.J., El Financiero, September 18, 2001.
Suarez, V., ANEC, In Proceso, July 15, 2001.
La Jornada, July 8, 2002.
Lafornada, September 20, 2001.
El Financiero, March 4, 2002.
La Jornada, July 9, 2002.
Ibid.
Lafornada, July 10, 2002.
Ibid.
Diario de Chihuahua, February 27, 2002.
La Jornada, August 16, 2000.
El Financiero, March 4, 2002.
Ibid.
Lafornada, February 15, 2002.
Cruz, M.A. and R. Schwentwisus, op.cit., p. 7.
El Financiero, September 18, 2001.
Lafornada, February 15, 2002.
La Jornada, July 8, 2002.
ANEC, LaJornada, July 18, 2001.
Reforma, October 16, 2002.
Boltvinik, J., "Economia Moral, El Campo No aguanta mas;' La Jornada, February 7, 2002.
El Financiero, September 27, 2001.
La Jornada, May 26, 2001.
La Jornada, July 28, 2002.
El Financiero, July 18, 2001.
La Jornada, February 20, 2002.
Milenio, April 8, 2002.
Ibid.
Reforma, October 16, 2002.
El Financiero, May 22, 2001.
Licona Ocafia, I., "Comercializaci6n y Distribuci6n, Pilas de los Gigantes;' Revista La Buena
Cepa, Febrero-Marzo 2003.
Suarez, V., "Que Renegociar en el Capitulo Agricola del Tratado?'; La Jornada, January 29, 2003.
Movimiento El Campo No Aguanta Mas, El Barron, Consejo Agrario Permanente, Confederaci6n Nacional Campesina, Propuesta de Acuerdo Nacional para el Campo: Por el Desarrollo
de la Sociedad Rural y la SoberaniaAlimentaria con Campesinos, como Elementos Fundamentales del Proyecto de Nacion de Mexico en el Siglo
(fotocopias), March 24, 2003, Mexico
City.
xxr:
Index
A
Abbott Laboratories, 81
Advani, L.K., 98
Afghanistan, 56, 101
African countries
debt payments, 6
HIV/AIDS epidemic in, 80-81
Agricultural subsidies, 254
AIDS, 79-83
and famine, 80
and sex tourism, 75
treatment of, 80-82
Alameda Corridor, 27
Albania,56
Almeria (Spain), riots in, 133, 136-138
American Exceptionalism, xvi-xvii
American Federation of Labor (AFL), 22,
236-237
Americanization movement, 139
Amigos, 127
Angola,56
Animadores, 126
Anti-imperialism, 244-247
Antiretroviral drugs, 80
Antitrust law, 26
Apparel industry
labor force, 7
sweatshops in, 19
Argentina; see also Latin America
activism of public employees in, 66
employment in, 66
financial crisis in, 43
financial fraud in, 59
GDP per capita, 44
household income distribution, 47
illiteracy in, 47
middle class, 64
trade in goods as percentage of GDP, 40
workers' movements in, 66
ASAT Limited, 207
Asian Americans, labor unions, 14-15
Asian American women, employment of, 7
Assembly of the Poor (Thailand), 51
au pair system, 110-111
Authoritarianism, 47
Aznar, Jose Maria, 135
B
Bachoco, 259
Balkan Wars, 56
Bangladeshi immigrants, 98-99
Bank of China, 207
Bankruptcies, xx
Bean trade, 255
Beef trade, 255
Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), 98
Bolivia
employment in, 65
workers' movements in, 66
Bracero agricultural workers, 108
Brazil; see also Latin America
employmentin,65
GDP per capita, 44
household income distribution, 47
trade in goods as percentage of GDP, 40
Bristol-Myers Squibb, 81
British Guiana, 240
Burro baseball, 148
Buses, 11-12
Bush, George H., 56
Bush, George W., 56
initiative to fight HIV/AIDS, 81-83
labor policy, 37
and new imperialism, 56
Bus Riders' Union, 11-13
C
California, job losses in, xx
California, Southern
flow of immigrant workers into, 18
labor force, 26-27
Campos petroleros, 143-147
Canada
caregiver program, 112, 223-226
negotiation ofNAFTA, 252-253
Capital flight, xx
263
264 • Index
Capital flow, 5
Caregivers, 112, 223-226
Caribbean
migrant population, 6
trade in goods as percentage of GDP, 40
Carnegie, Andrew, 22, 138
Cascade Unlimited, 210
Casino capitalism, 43
Casual employment, 38, 206
Catholic Church, 14
Cattle trade, 255
Central Europe, 56
Central Unica dos Trabalhadores, 240-241
Chaebols, 201
Chavez, Hugo, 48, 49
ChenDuxiu, 174
ChiangKai-shek, 174, 177-178
Chicken trade, 255
Children
death from starvation and diseases, 5
of Filipina domestic workers, 111-117
Chile,240
household income distribution, 47
trade in goods as percentage of GDP, 40
China, 167-168
accession into World Trade
Organization, 18
exports to United States, 19
foreign direct investments in, 18
holdings of U.S. Treasury securities, 18
immigrant workers from, 19
loss of autonomy, 167-168
ownership of US Treasury securities, 18
trade surplus, 18
Chinese Communist Party (CPP), 168-169
gangster connection, 174-175
role in Shanghai insurrection ( 1927),
177-179
and Shanghai labor movement, 172-173
Chrysler Corp., 5
Cigarmakers' Union, 236
Civil service, 203-204
Class formation, 62
Client states, 55
Clinton, Bill, 56
Club Med, 125
Cocaleros, 68
Coffee, transportation of, 4
Cold War
endof,56
influence on Venezuelan oil industry,
145
and US overseas expansion, 23
Colombia; see also Latin America
elimination of labor leaders in, 66
GDP per capita, 44
household income distribution, 47
trade in goods as percentage of GDP, 40
Commodity exports, 41-42
Compafiia Nacional de Subsistencias
(CONASUPO), 251
CONAIE,68
Confederacion Nacional Campesina, 249
Congress of Industrial Organizations
(CIO), 23,238
Containerization, 3-5
and digital capitalism, 5
in global logistics system, 25
and mass production, 4-5
Container ports, 21
Contingentes (quota workers), 135
Contract labor system, 174
Corn trade, 254-255, 257
Corporate bankruptcies, xx
Costa Rica, trade in goods as percentage of
GDP,40
Coups, 48, 240
Creole Petroleum, 145
employment in, 150-154
female workers, 148-150
oil camps, 146-147
publications, 156-158
public relations, 150, 154-155
sports and corporate culture in, 14 7-148
Cross-border terrorism, 98-99
Cuba, 121; see also Latin America
sex tourism in, 123-129
shift to mixed-market economy, 122
social indicators, 122
Czech Republic, 56
D
Data warehouses, 24
Debt payments, 6, 43, 58
Deregulation, 200
De-territorialization, 200
Digital capitalism, 4-5
Distribution centers (DCs), 26-27
Domestic workers, migrant, 105; see also
Migrant workers
in Hong Kong, 211
partial citizenship of, 109-113
status of, 227-232
transnational family life of, 113-117
in United States, 227-230
Domestic Workers United, 230
Index • 265
Dominican Republic, 121; see also Latin
America
economic growth, 121-122
immigrants from, 6
sex tourism in, 124-129
trade in goods as percentage of GDP, 40
wages,6
Domino's Pizza, 5
Drug trade, wars on, 48
Drywall workers, strike in 1992, 14
Flags of convenience, 25
Flexible employment, 200-201, 206-207
Food imports and exports, 254-258
Foreign trades, waterborne, 21
Foucault, Michael, 9-10
Free trade, 71-73, xiii
Freight transport system, 4
Frente Democratico Campesino, 251
Freud, Sigmund, 76-77
Fruit trade, 256
E
G
Eastern Europe, 56
Echevarria Alvarez, Luis, 249
Ecuador; see also Latin America
financial fraud in, 59
GDP per capita, 44
trade in goods as percentage of GDP, 40
El Ejido (Spain), riots in, 133, 136-138
EIFaro/(magazine), 157-158
ELN,48
Enron, 73
Environmental movements, 8-9
Eroticism, 76-78
Estonia, 56
European Union, immigration policy, 135
Gangsters
collaboration with Chiang Kai-shek,
178-179
and Shanghai labor movement, 174-175
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
(GATT),250
General Motors, shutdown of Van Nuys
plant, 10
Generic drugs, 81-82
Georgia,56
Germany, policy on domestic workers, 111
Gillette Corporation, 7
Global capital, 37-39
in Latin America, 42-46
overcapacity and legitimacy of, 38-39
resistance to, 169-171
rise of, 38
Globalization, 37-39; see also Imperialism;
Neo-liberalism
and creation of new jobs, 217
definition of, xii-xiii
and diaspora of Filipino domestic
workers, 105-109
ideologies of, xiii-xiv
as imperialism, xiv-xv
and inequalities, 46-47
and local politics, 97
and marginalization of immigrants,
139-140
vs. old formal territorial empires, 29
of poverty, 218
resistance to, 49-50, 169-171, xxvi-xxxii
and state-led developmental projects,
199-200
territorialization in, 97
and transnational capital, 45
Golden Age of Capitalism, 37
Gompers, Samuel, 22, 236-237
Government contracts, 62
Grain trade, 255-257
Great Rebellion of 1877, 21-22
F
Famine,80
Farabundo Marti National Liberation
Front, 48-49
Fellahin (peasants), 187
Female sexual dysfunction, 76-79
Female workers
in Hong Kong, 207-209
migration from the Philippines, 221-232
in sex tourism, 74-75, 124-129
in Silicon Valley's high-tech industry, 7
in Venezuela's oil industry, 148-150
FENOCIN,68
Festival malls, 4
Filipina domestic workers, 105-109; see also
Migrant workers
family reunification, 111
in Hong Kong, 211
partial citizenship of, 109-113
status of, 227-232
transnational family life of, 113-117
in United States, 227-230
Filipino Nurses Support Group (FNSG),
225-226
Financial fraud, 59, 62-63
First World, 72
266 • Index
Greece,5
foreign domestic workers in, 110
Green Gang, 174-175, 176, 178-179
Grupo Bimbo, 258
Grupo Lalac, 259
Grupo Maseca (GRUMA), 258
Grupo Modelo, 258
Grupos Pulse y Savia, 259
Guatemala
household income distribution, 47
trade in goods as percentage of GDP, 40
Guinea Bissau, 56
Guomindang, 174, 178-179
H
Haiti, spread of AIDS in, 75
Hebrew Coachman's Group, 191
High-wage countries, 6
Histradut, 188
HIV/AIDS infection, 79-83
Homosexuality, 77
Honduras, trade in goods as percentage of
GDP,40
Hong Kong; see also China
cession to Great Britain, 167
citizenship in, 212-213
civil service employment in, 203-204
emigration and immigration, 204
flexible employment in, 200-201,
206-207
flexible production during economic
decline, 205-207
flexible production during economic
expansion, 200-201
handover to China, 205
labor importation, 205
labor insurgency in, 209-213
labor market, 204-205
labor unions, 202-203
migration, 205
misery of working class, 207-209
outsourcing, 211-212
policy on domestic workers, 110-111,
211-212
ports, 21
service sector, 204, 205-206
small and medium (S&M) firms,
201-203
transition period from mid-l 980s to
mid-1990s, 204-205
Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking
Corporation, 168
Hong Kong Telecom, 209-213
Hothouse agriculture, 136-138
Household income
inequality in, 7
in Latin America, 47
Human Development Index, 47
Hungary,56
I
Identities, 7
Ill-gotten funds, 59
Illiteracy, 47
Immigrants
and globalization, 139-140
India's policy on, 98-99
undocumented, 14
and US industrialization, 138-139
Immigration
in Europe, 134-136
and sex commerce, 74-75
and terrorism, 98-99
Imperialism, 55-57; see also Globalization;
Neo-liberalism
anti-imperialism, 244-247
and class war in Latin America, 57-58
combined and uneven economic
development from, 61-62
globalization as, xiv-xv
impact on labor, 57-58
and marginalization of immigrants,
139-140
migration and citizenship, xxii-xxvi
military component of, 57
and neo-liberalism, 59-60
pillage and exploitation in, 58-61
resistance to, 169-171, xxvi-xxxii
ruling class, 62-63
and rural labor, 67-69
and social contract, 240
stages of, 59-60
theories, xvii-xix
and working class, 65-67, xix-xxii
Imports, 18, 254-256
Income
global, 51
in Latin America, 47
unequal distribution of, 5
India, 89-90
automobile industry, 91
Bangladeshi immigrants in, 98-99
citizenship in, 97-100
cross-border terrorism, 98-99
economic liberalization, 90-93
middle class, 90-93
Index • 267
Muslim communities in, 90
politics of empire in, 100-101
restructuring as nation-state, 90, 97-100
spatial politics, 93-97
textile industry, 96
working class in, 92-93
Indonesian domestic workers, 105
Industrial proletariat, 170
Industrial unionism, 23
Industrial Workers of the World, 23 7
Inequalities and globalization, 46-47
Informalized labor, 38
Inland Empire, 26
Inner-city buses, 11-12
Intellectual property rights, 81-82
Intermodalism, 25
International Longshoremen's and
Warehousemen's Union (ILWU), 23
International Monetary Fund, 7, 72
International Settlement of Shanghai, 167
Internet, and digital capitalism, 4-5
Israel
Jaffa-Tel Aviv region, 183-187
Jewish labor in, 187-189, 191-194
mandate period (1920-1948), 187-191
Palestinian Arab labor in, 187-191
Zionism in, 185-187
Italy
economic growth, 135
foreign domestic workers in, 111-112
immigrants from Third World countries,
134-135
immigration policy, 135-136, 140
J
Jaffa Port, 191-194
Jaffa-Tel Aviv region (Israel), 183-187
Jewish and Palestinian Arab workers in,
187-189
Jewish labor in Jaffa Port, 191-194
mandate period, 187-189
Palestinian Arab labor in Tel Aviv,
189-191
Japan, occupation of, 22
Jineterismo, 124-127
Just-in-time (JIT) system, 23-28
K
Kajima Corporation, 14-15
Kashmir, conflict in, 90, 100
Kibbutz, 187
KK Supermarkets, 207
Knights of Labor, 22
KOF-Coca Cola-FEMSA, 258
Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, 51
Korean Immigrant Worker Advocates, 15
Korean War, 22
Kosovo,56
L
Labor
demographic composition of, 30
deregulation of, 38
effect of production technologies on, 4-5
impact of imperialism on, 57-58
Labor and Employment Law Office
(LEL0),220
Labor Community Strategy Center (LCSC),
10-13
Labor movements, 236-237
and anti-imperialism, 244-247
effect of digital capitalism on, 5
in Hong Kong, 202-203
international solidarity of, 24 7
membership in, 30
patriotism of, 238
in Shanghai, China, 1925-1927, 165-180
social contract in, 238-241
Labor reforms, 65
Laka Maracaibo, Venezuela, 145
Lamb trade, 255
Landless People's Movements (Brazil), 51
Landless Workers' Movement (Brazil), 48, 68
Latin America
class war in, 57-58
combined and uneven development in,
61-62
debt payments, 43
dependence on commodity exports,
41-42
employment in, 65-66
export volume and value, 41
GDP per capita, 44
global crisis in, 39
inequalities in, 46-47
middle classes in, 64-65
neo-liberalism and stagnation in, 39-46
polyarchy in, 47-49
poverty levels, 46-47
remilitarization in, 48
resistance movements in, 48-49
resistance to globalization in, 49-50
ruralmovementsin,68
trade in goods as percentage of GDP, 40
transnational capital flow, 42-45
working class in, 65-66
268 • Index
Latin American Area of Free Trade, 60
Latvia, 56
Liberalization, 200
impacts of, 58
and invention of middle-class lifestyle,
94-95
Life expectancies, 80
Lithuania, 56
Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP), 223-226
Living standards, 241
Logistics sector, 17-19
and growth of transnational empires,
20-21
Longshore workers, 4
Lopez Portillio, Miguel, 249
Low-wage countries, 6
M
Macapagal-Arroyo, Gloria, 222
Macedonia, 56
Mail-order brides, 217-218
Manchu dynasty, 167-168
Maquiladora, 65
Marriage trade, 75
Marshall, Andrew, 28
Marxism, post-modern perspective of,
165-166
Mass production
and containerization, 4-5
effect on railway industry, 21
Masturbation, 76
May Thirtieth Movement, 172-173; see also
Labor movements
and colonial policies of Western Powers,
172
gangster connection, 174-175
role of capitalists in, 175-177
strikes, 168
Meat trade, 255
Mechanization and Modernization Plan, 25
Mene Grande, 157
Mexico; see also Latin America
agricultural policies, 250-254, 260-261
agricultural subsidies, 254
beneficiaries ofNAFTA in, 258-259
exports to United States, 19
financial fraud in, 59
food exports and imports, 254-258
foreign direct investments in, 18
GDP per capita, 44
household income distribution, 47
immigrant workers from, 19
maquiladora sector, 65
middle class, 64-65
negotiation ofNAFTA, 252-253
post-NAFTA agricultural trade with
United States, 254
poverty in, 258
renegotiation ofNAFTA, 259-260
rural areas, 249
rural development policy, 261
trade in goods as percentage of GDP, 40
unequal distribution of wealth in, 5
Middle class, 63-65; see also Working class
in India, 90-93
in Latin America, 64-65
mass impoverishment of, 59
and Venezuelan oil companies, 150-154
Migrant workers, 6
in Canada, 222-226
in El Ejido, Spain's hothouses, 136-138
partial citizenship of, 109-113, 223-225
remittances, 6
in Silicon Valley's high-tech industry, 7
transnational family life of, 113-117, 224
Military coups, 240
Modernity matrix, 184
Monopolistic capitalism, 71-72
Montenegro, 56
Morales, Evo, 49
Mozambique, 56
Mulata, 126, 128
Multinational corporations (MNCs), 5,
55-56
Muslim immigrants, 98-100
Mutual Advancement Society, 178
N
Nanjing Treaty of 1842, 167,175
National Confederation oflndigenous
Organization (Ecuador), 51
National Master Freight Agreement, 25
National Peasant Federation, 68
National Security League, 22
National War Labor Board, 23
Nation-state, breakdown of, 39
Neo-colonialism, 55
Neo-liberalism, 37; see also Globalization;
Imperialism
and agro-export sectors, 67
and global capitalism, 51-52
in Latin America, 39-46
opposition to, 12
opposition to state-led developmental
projects, 199-200
and sex industry, 71-73
Index • 269
Nestle Mexico, 258
Netherlands, au pair system in, 110-111
Network centric warfare (NCW), 28
New Deal, 239
New Otani Hotel, 14-15
New products, 7
New World Order, 56, 218, 245
New York City, immigrant population, 6
Nicaragua, 56
Nongovernment organizations (NGOs), 67
North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA), 18
impact of rural labor, 67-68
impacts on Mexico's agriculture,
254-258
negotiation of, 252-253
renegotiation of, 259-260
resources, technologies and
productivities of signatories, 252
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NAT0),56
North Korea, 56
Nurses as caregivers, 222-226
Nymphomania, 77
0
Office of Net Assessment, 28
Oil industry, Venezuelan, 143-146
and civil society, 155-158
employment in, 150-154
oil camps, 143-147
publications, 157-158
public relations, 150, 154-155
sports and corporate culture in, 147-148
women in, 148-150
Open Door policy, 22
Open shops, 22
Operation Dixie, 240
Operation Pushback (India), 98
Opium War, 167
Ottoman Empire, 185
Outsourcing, 211-212
Overseas workers, see Migrant workers
p
Pacific Maritime Association, 25, 27
Pacific Rim, 18
Pagonis, Gus, 28
Pakistan, 101
Palestine
under the British and Ottoman
empires, 185
capitalism and imperialism in, 183-187
Jewish labor in Jaffa Port, 191-194
mandate period (1920-1948), 187-189
Palestinian Arab labor in Tel Aviv, 189-191
Zionism in, 185-187
Palestine Labor League (PLL), 189
Palestinian Arab workers, 187-191
Pao-kung (contractlabor system), 174
Paramilitary groups, 66
Partido Revolucionario Institucional
(PRI),249
Patent monopolies, 81-82
Patriotism, of organized labor, 238
PCCW, 207, 209-210
Pearl River Delta, 204
Pentagon
cargo handling, 25
industrial planning system, 22-23
Peru
household income distribution, 47
trade in goods as percentage of GDP, 40
Pharmaceutical industry, 78-79, 81-82
Philip Morris, 5
Philippines
domestic workers from, 105-117
labor export policy, 222, 227
migrant women workers from, 221-232
remittances by migrant workers, 6, 222
Philippine Women Centre (PWC), 222-223
Phoenix TV, 207
Pier 39 (San Francisco, California), 4
Pilgrim's Pride of Mexico, 259
Pingueros, 124
Plan Colombia, 48, 66
Poland,56
Polish domestic workers, 105
Polyarchy, 4 7-49
Populism, right-wing, 241-244
Pork trade, 255
Port of Long Beach, 21
Port of Los Angeles, 21
Ports, 3-5
as nodes in production/distribution, 29
role in waterborne foreign trade, 21
Poverty, 46-47
globalization of, 218
in Mexico, 258
Powell, Collin, 242
Privatization, 61
Production, export of, 7, xx
Production workers, 30
Proletariat, 166, 170
Proposition 187,243
Prostitution, 73-75, 123-129
270 • Index
Protectionism, 246
Pullman Rebellion of 1894, 21-22
Q
QPL International Holdings, 207
R
Race-based movements, 8-9
Racism,241
Railroads, 26
labor force, 26
rebellions, 21-22
unionism in, 21-22
Reagan, Ronald, 72
Regime change, xv
Remilitarization, 48
Remittances, 6
Resistance movements, 51
and globalization, 169-171
in Latin America, 48-49
strategies of, 169-171
Revolution in military affairs (RMA), 28
Rice, Condoleezza, 242
Rice trade, 255
Right-wing populism, 241-244
Riots, 133
Riverside County, California, 26
Rosenwald, Julius, 22
Ruling class, 62-63
Rural labor, 67-69
Rural movements, 68
Rural-to-urban migration, 67
Russia,56
s
Sabritas, 258
Salandra (Italy), anti-immigrant racism in, 133
Salinas de Gortari, Carlos, 250-251
San Bernadino County, California, 26
Sandinistas, 49
Sanky pankys, 124-127
Sears, Roebuck, 22
Second World countries, 72
September 11 attacks, 235
Sex industry and tourism, 73-76, 123
in Cuba, 123-129
in Dominican Republic, 124-129
in global economy, 73-76
and neo-liberalism, 71-73
patterns oflabor in, 123-124
personal relationships in, 124-128
in Thailand, 73-74
Sexual dysfunction, 76-79
Sexuality, 71
medicalization of, 76-79
Sex workers, 123-129
Shanghai, China (1925-27), 168
historical background, 167-168
insurrection, 177-179
laborleaders, 168-169
labor movements, 172-173
strikes, 172-179
White Terror period, 179
Shanghai Federation of Labor, 175
Shanghai General Labor Union (SGLU),
172, 178-179
Shanghai Municipal Council, 176, 178
Shipping, 3, 25
Silicon Valley, low-wage labor in, 7
Silva, Luis Ignacio Lula da, 49-50
Singapore
foreign domestic workers in, 111
ports, 21
Small and medium (S&M) businesses,
201-203
Small-package transport firms, 26
Social contract, 238-241
Social movements, 7-8
effect of production technologies on, 3
emergence of, 165
resistance to globalization, 49-50
and unionism, 31
Spain
anti-immigrant racism in, 133
economic growth, 135
foreign domestic workers in, 112
immigrants from Third World
countries, 134
immigrant workers, 136-138
immigration policy, 135-136, 140
Spatial purification, 93
Sports in industry, 147-148
Sri Lankan domestic workers, 105
Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, 145
Starvation, 5
State-corporate capitalism, 22, 28-29
State-led developmental projects, 199-200
Steamship companies, 25
Strikes
of drywall workers in 1992, 14
of immigrant workers, 14-15
in Shanghai, China ( 1925-1727),
172-179
and social movements, 31
Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs),
219-220
Index • 271
Subsidies, 60, 254
Sun Chuanfang, 177
Super stores, 4
Supply chain management, 20
Sweatshops, 19
Sweden, health indicators in, 80
T
Taft-Harley Act, 27,238
Taiping Rebellion, 167-168
Taiwan
cession to Japan, 167
foreign domestic workers in, 110-111
Tariffs,60
Teamsters, 23
Tel Aviv, Israel, 189-191
Terrorism, wars on, 48-49
Texas, 21
Textile industry
effect of globalization on, 96
labor force, 7
Thailand, sex industry in, 73-74
Thatcher, Margaret, 72
Third-party logistics firms, 28
Third World countries, 72
domestic workers from, 105
migrants to Spain and Italy, 134
promotion of tourism in, 73
sex tourism in, 74
Toshiba, 7
Tourism industry
patterns of sexual labor in, 123-129
personal relationships in, 125-128
sex workers in, 128-129
in Third World countries, 73
Trade surplus, 18
Trade unions, 30, 236-237
Transit racism, 11
Transnational capital
in Latin America, 42-45
overcapacity and legitimacy of, 38-39
resistance to, 169-171
rise of, 38
Transnational capitalist class (TCC), 38
Transnational corporations, 6
just-in-time production (JIT) in, 23-28
logistics, 19-21
and transport workers, 21-23
Transpacific economies, 18
Transportation industry, 17
labor force, 25-27
third-party logistics firms, 28
wages, 25-26
Transportation workers, 30
increase in, 25
unions, 25-26
wages, 25-26
Treasury securities, 18
Trucking, 21
decline in number of workers, 25
deregulation of, 25-26
unionism in, 26
Trujillo, Rafael, 121
Turkey trade, 255
Turkish guest workers, 108
u
Undocumented immigrants, 14
Unilever, 259
Unionism, 236-237
United Auto Workers' Union, 10
strikes, 31
United Kingdom, policy on domestic
workers, 111
United Parcel Service (UPS)
strikes, 31
unionism, 25-26
United States
agricultural subsidies, 253-254
foreign policy, 235
immigration policy, 138-139
imperialism of, 55-56, 69-70
imports, 18
intervention in Afghanistan, 101
negotiation ofNAFTA, 252-253
policy on domestic workers, 112
post-NAFTA agricultural trade with
Mexico,254
Treasury securities owned by China, 18
wealth inequality in, 6-7
Universal Military Training League, 22
V
Vegetable trade, 256
Venezuela; see also Latin America
GDP per capita, 44
household income distribution, 47
middle class, 64
oil industry, 143-159
trade in goods as percentage of GDP, 40
Viagra, 77
w
Wages
inequalities in, 6
trucking, 25-26
272 • Index
Wal-Mart, 5
distribution network, 28
employment in, 20
logistics, 24-25
percentage of US economy, 20
satellite communications, 22
unionism, 31
Warehouses, 26-27
Washington consensus, 37, 52
Water, access to, 6
Waterborne foreign trades, 21
Waterfront Coalition, 27
Wealth
and resources, 244-245
unequal distribution of, 5, 6-7, 244
Welfare reform, 221
West Coast Waterfront Coalition (WCWC), 27
White racial privilege, 241
Wholesale industry, 26
Wobblies, 22
Women of color, 219
Women workers, see Female workers
Workers Party, 49
Working class; see also Middle class
in Hong Kong, 207-209
and imperialism, 65-67
in Latin America, 65-66
and protectionism, 246
World Bank, 7
financing of nongovernment
organizations (NGOs), 67
political agenda of, 72
World Congress Against Racism, 12
World Health Organization (WHO), 79-80
World Trade Organization, 81-82, 220
y
Yokohama Specie Bank, 168
z
Zapatistas, 48
support from labor movements, 61
uprising in Chiapas, 68
Zhou Enlai, 177
Zimbabwe, weekly deaths from AIDS, 80
Zionism, 185-187