by JeyakumarDevaraj (PSM Member of Parliament for Sg Siput), 25th October 2014
The United Nation Declaration
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 10 December 1948 by a vote of 48 in favor, 0 against and eight abstentions. 1 Among the 30 articles in this Declaration are
- Article 3: Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
- Article 23 (1): (1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
- Article 25 (1): Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care.
The Reality
It is now 65 years since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the community of nations. However the Right to Livelihood, which derives from Articles 3, 23(1), and 25(1) quoted above, remains merely a hope and not a reality for millions of people all over the world.Let’s review that reality –
1.In the underdeveloped countries2 with per capita incomes in the range ofUSD 500 to USD 3000, millions of peasant are forced to be share croppers because they do not have sufficient land of their own to work on. Millions of other peasants have been evicted by Agro-businesses which have somehow obtained the “legal rights” to the land that these peasants have been cultivating for decades. Millions of peasants face desertification and salinization of the lands that they are dependent on for their livelihood.
As a result of this, millions have migrated to urban areas to seek a livelihood. Unfortunately for them, there aren’t sufficient opportunities for work in the urban sectors of these underdeveloped countries. Millions of urban migrants eke a living in the non-
formal sectors, some as scavengers and others as street vendors selling individual strips of chewing gum to motorists waiting at traffic lights. Many among them are forced to migrate to countries with more vibrant economies to where they work in low paying and sometimes dangerous jobs, live in cramped and unhygienic conditions and are often subject to bullying by their employers. Malaysia itself has 2.6 million legally registered migrant workers at this point in time, and perhaps another 1.3 million unregistered migrants workers who have even less protection3.
2. In the developing countries4with middle range per capita incomes such as Malaysia, jobs are available but there are strong pressures to keep wages low. A survey by the Government revealed that about a third of workers in the country were receiving wages that were below the official poverty line of RM 720 per month. In the course of the debate of the level at which to set the Minimum Wage, the PSM was pushing for a wage level of RM 1500 per month based on the Right to Livelihood principle. Our assessment was that a family would need a minimum of RM 3000 per month to be able to afford the basic needs of a family in urban Malaysia (65% of our population is now urban).
However the Government Planners argued that a minimum wage rate of above RM 900 per month would adversely affect the economy of the country by
– leading to out-migration of manufacturing industries to other lower wage economies in the region such as Thailand, Vietnam and China;
– reducing the competitiveness of Malaysia’s exports of agricultural and manufacturing goods which would then lose market share to goods from lower wage countries;
– reducing the market share of locally produced consumer goods.
To be fair to the government planners, these are valid anxieties given the low tariff trading regime that we are operating in.
3. The developed countries in Europe and North America were among those which made significant progress in the attainment of the goal of the Right to Livelihood. Reasonable wages, unemployment benefits, good access to health care, housing and education and old age pension were among the benefits enjoyed by the majority of the population in Western Europe. In many of these countries, the Trade Union movement worked through Social-Democratic Parties to enact legislation pertaining to wages and social protection. However the past 30 years has witnessed the gradual withdrawal of many of the benefits accorded at an earlier stage – the withdrawal of subsidy for higher education in the UK and the raising of the pensionable age in France are the examples that come to mind. The governments in these countries cite the need to curtail a growing budget deficit brought about by out migration of jobs and corporations and a lowering of corporate taxes. Europe has been undergoing recession for the past few years. Currently, in Southern Europe, the unemployment rate is in excess of 25% for the 20 to 30 year age group.
So it appears that across the world, the solemn commitment made 65 years ago to create the socio-economic conditions that enable people to find work at just and favourable conditions (article 23:1) so that they are able to ensure theirown well-being and that of their families (article 25:1) still remains an ideal to be attained.
Why is this so?
This is a crucial question, for only if we identify the causes of the failure of the economic system to provide for the economic needs of the population of the world, can we take meaningful measures to address this failure.
The full elucidation of the causes of this failure will require several volumes, but I hope to sketch out the main causes briefly in the remainder of this paper. Among the main causes are –
1.An inequitable system of international trade in which the prices of the agricultural and mining products of Third World countries did not increase at the same rate as the manufactured products from the advanced countries. Under-developed countries could not generate enough of a surplus domestically to meet the costs of modernizing their economies. As a consequence they became debtors to the advanced countries, and remain so till today.
2.The evolution of an economic system where the interests of the large corporations (known as the 1%) have become the most important priority. Economic policy in many countries is now formulated with the goal of attracting private investment. Malaysia for example, is competing with other countries in the Asia Pacific to attract Foreign Direct Investment. To attain this target, Malaysia has over the past few years
– allowed the entrance of millions of migrant workers so as to keep the wage rate depressed;
– altered the labour law to limit the cash compensation that employers have to pay for retrenching unionists;
– passed laws formalizing the contractualizing of labour;
– reduced corporate tax from 40% in 1988 to 26% currently. The government now is in the process of formulating a Goods and Services Tax so as to (and this is being openly said) to further lower corporate tax because corporate tax is 19% in Singapore and Thailand.
– theTPPA!
During the financial crisis in America and the US recently, huge amounts of public funds were spent to prevent the bankruptcy of large financial corporations that were deemed “too large to fail”. They had to be propped up because it was felt that their collapse would lead to massive unemployment and plunge the country into a deep recession. However this largesse on the part of the government led to a deterioration of the government’s financial balances, rachetting up government debt, and leading to a paring down of the social security net.
3. The widely held perception that there is no alternative to economic development apart from the path of unbridled expansion of the activities of the large corporations. “There is no alternative”, decried Margaret Thatcher in the 1980’s when she went about smashing the labour unions in the UK. Economic growth, according to the neo-liberal theorists, has to be led by the private sector. This perception is bolstered by the argument that corporate led globalization (known euphemistically as the “Free Market” system) is the best guarantor of political freedom and democratic rights for the population.
These misperceptions and the associated arguments are tied strongly to the perception that the alternative system as attempted by the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc was a total and horrendous failure – and that any attempt to restrain monopoly capital by bringing these monopolies under the control of the people, must necessarily lead to a repressive and authoritarian political apparatus, and to an undermining of human rights, liberty and democracy.
4. Erosion of Aggregate Demand and the Financialization of the Economy
There has been a reduction in the percentage of the national income accruing to the lower 75% of the population in the advanced countries. This is due to the translocation of heavy industries to the newly industrializing countries like Korea, China and Brazil. Out-sourcing of work and contractualization/ casualization of labour are other causes of the decrease in the share of national income going to the pockets of the poorer 75% of the population.
The consequences of this trend are
– an increase in the profits earned by the corporations and the richest 5% of the population;
– a lack of investment opportunities in manufacturing as there isn’t enough effective demand given the fact that the income of most of the population has remained stagnant or even gone down;
– an increasing tendency for owners of surplus profits to invest in property or in financial products such as shares, commodity futures, foreign currencies and in derivatives as these hold the promise of increasing the value of one’s investments;
– sky-rocketing property prices (including house prices) and the creation of multiple “bubbles” and the attendant risk of these popping. These contribute to the severity of a recession if one too many bubbles pop at the same time!
5. The declawing of the labour movement.
The labour movement has been “domesticated”. In the case of Malaysia there is a huge difference between the Pan Malayan Federation of Trade Unions of the late 1940’s and the current MTUC (Malaysian Trade Union Congress). The PMFTU was talking about Independence for the country and restructuring the economy. It was a party to the Peoples’ Constitution of 1947 and the Hartal of that year5.
The unions of today accept the role prescribed to them by the government as confined to negotiating collective agreements and to handling shop-floor disputes. Unions in Malaysia today do not take a stand on the larger issues affecting workers in Malaysia such as the privatization of health care or of tertiary education. They do not mobilise people to campaign against the proposed Goods and Services Tax or the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement that the Government is trying to conclude by the end of the year.
The labour movement no longer challenges the corporate class as to the direction society is taking. On the whole, it does not hold out a different vision for society. At the ideological level the labour movement has been defeated. It too accepts the existing reality as the only possible configuration for society in these times.This is why we witness numerous occasions where social democratic parties that are elected to power in Europe continue the neo-liberal agenda of reducing welfare benefits and partake in the process of dismantling the welfare state that their own predecessors set up barely 5 decades ago.
The way forward
Theoretically, it should be possible to address the problem of inadequate aggregate demand and the resultant channeling of surplus capital to the financial sector. Basically that would require a massive redistribution of wealth to the workers (through better wages) as well as to the government (higher taxes). These two measures would boost aggregate demand for goods and services while at the same time reducing the amount of surplus capital in the hands of the 1%. The over-heating of the financial sector can thus be curbed.Capitalism can therefore be saved from its own excesses!
However, even if we could build the necessary peoples’ movement to force the 1% who own most of the surplus capital to accept the changes outlined above to save the capitalist economy and return it to a trajectory of steady growth, that is still not the solution that our situation requires. We will still be far from fulfilling the right of people to a decent livelihood because a steady rate of growth of the world’s GDP cannot be sustained indefinitely because we have reached the environmental limits of the planet. Greenhouse emissions, global warming and climate change are realities that we must take into cognizance when we try to imagine the economy that we need to put in place over the next 50 years. When one factors in ecological considerations the following scenario emerges –
– we need to reduce the burning of fossil fuels. Our consumption patterns have to be less wasteful. Private transport has to be replaced by public transport. We need to develop sustainable sources of renewable energy.
– We need to imagine a scenario where nations with a per capita GDP of over USD 15,000 stop increasing their greenhouse emissions so as to allow those nations which have lagged behind (for a variety of historical reasons) to grow their economies so that they can provide the basic needs of their people.
– given the ever increasing productivity of the human race, it is clear that we would be producing far too much goods if everyone wants an 8-hour working day with 2 hours of overtime daily. Too much goods, too much strain on our natural resources and too much CO2 emission!We need to imagine an economy where people only need to work 6 hours a day6 – so that everyone has an opportunity to find employment. But in that 6 hours we should be able to earn enough to sustain ourselves and our families.
– we need a new culture to go with this new economic paradigm. For most of the last century the dominant economic system has taught us to be wasteful consumers. We have been taught that you are what you own, what you wear, the car you drive – what you consume. We have become addicted to the newest fashion in gadgets – the laptop, the smart phone, the GPS device, etc. We are desperate to own devices that even a year before we couldn’t even imagine. But once they are on the market, we feel “incomplete” if we do not have one for ourselves! This madness must stop! We need a cultural revolution – a new culture which values “being” and not just “consuming”, that places a premium on relationships, on leisure activities, the arts, on-going education for its own sake, and simply being more – a fully actualized human being.
The first step.
I do not have to tell you that there are many obstacles in the path to the new society that I am asking you to join me in imagining. The biggest obstacle is the resigned acceptance of the present system as the only conceivable system for mankind. This breeds despair and cynicism in equal measure!
The first step to break the chains that keep us in inactivity is to realize that a better world is really possible. That this better world requires that the economy serves the needs of the majority and not the other way around. That people must come before profits. That monopolies have to be brought under the democratic control of the people through the formation of Public Trusts that are democratically constituted and transparently run –not the highly centralized, opaque bureaucracies that characterized the USSR.7 That we have to deepen the democratization of society and make it much more participatory if we wish to avoid the pitfalls of the 20th Century’s attempts at building an alternative to Capitalism.
Men are not angels! There is selfishness in us. But that is not the entire story. There is also altruism and the capacity for empathy, for sacrifice, for love. Can a rejuvenated Trade Union movement play a role in providing the vision of the better world that is still within our reach? Can the Union movement play a role in the struggle that draws upon the innate human capacity for altruism and empathy to build a society based on solidarity?
This, brothers and sisters in the trade union movement, is the question I’d like to leave you with. The consequences of failing to build a future based on human solidarity and ecological sustainability are just too terrible to even contemplate!
JeyakumarDevaraj
PSM Member of Parliament for SgSiput
25th October 2014
Notes.
1. The abstentions were by the Soviet Union, Ukrainian SSR, Byelorussian SSR, People’s Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, People’s Republic of Poland, Union of South Africa, Czechoslovakia and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.Source: Wikipedia
2. A sample of such countries are marked * in Table One.
3. See Table Two for statistics pertaining to “legal” migrant workers in Malaysia in 2013.
4. Examples of countries in this category are marked # in Table One.
5. British Rule and the Struggle for Independence in Malaya. 1945 – 1957. Khong Kim Hoong.
6. This is not a novel idea. John Maynard Keynes called it “technological unemployment”.
7. I believe that ordinary people all the world are indebted to the USSR for the sacrifices it made to stop Nazi Germany, for its support for anti-colonial struggles and for frightening the advanced countries into creating the welfare states of Western Europe. However that does not mean we have to gloss over or deny the shortcomings in the organisation of their society. The best way to honour the sacrifices of the people of the USSR is to learn from their experiences and do it better this time!
Table 1: Per Capita Income and Under Five Mortality in Selected Countries
| Country |
Per capita income (PPP), 2012, in USD |
Under 5 mortality, 2010 |
| Singapore |
61 803 |
3 |
| Hongkong |
51 946 |
0 |
| Australia |
44 598 |
5 |
| Japan |
35 178 |
3 |
| South Korea |
30 801 |
4 |
| Chile |
22 352 |
9 |
| Malaysia# |
17 143 |
9 |
| Venezuela |
13 485 |
15 |
| Thailand# |
9 820 |
13 |
| China |
9 233 |
14 |
| Bolivia |
5 276 |
41 |
| Indonesia# |
4 956 |
31 |
| Philippines# |
4 410 |
30 |
| India |
3 876 |
56 |
| Vietnam |
3 635 |
23 |
| Papua New Guinea |
2 890 |
63 |
| Nigeria* |
2 661 |
124 |
| Ghana* |
2 047 |
72 |
| Bangladesh* |
1 883 |
41 |
| Kenya* |
1 766 |
73 |
| Timor Leste |
1 709 |
57 |
| Uganda* |
1 352 |
69 |
| Mozambique* |
1 024 |
90 |
Source: World Bank
Table 2A: Documented Migrant Workers in Malaysia
as at 30. 6. 2013
|
Sending Country |
No. of workers |
| 1. |
Indonesia |
935, 058 |
| 2. |
Nepal |
359, 023 |
| 3. |
Bangladesh |
319, 822 |
| 4. |
Myanmar |
174, 477 |
| 5. |
India |
117, 697 |
| 6. |
Other countries |
250, 921 |
Source: Answer in Parliament by Minister of Home Affairs on 21. 10. 2013
Table 2B: Employment of Migrant Workers in Malaysia
as at 30. 6. 2013
|
Sector |
No. of workers |
| 1. |
Manufacturing |
733, 200 |
| 2. |
Construction |
425, 532 |
| 3. |
Plantation |
347, 149 |
| 4. |
Services |
251, 373 |
| 5. |
Domestic work |
180, 370 |
| 6. |
Agriculture |
179, 374 |
| |
Total |
2, 156, 998 |
Source: Answer in Parliament by Minister of Home Affairs on 21. 10. 2013
Anti-TPPA protestors rallying against US Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit to Kuala Lumpur, October 11, 2013. — Picture by Saw Siow FengKUALA LUMPUR, Nov 27 — Critics of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) allege the secretive deal will cause drug prices to rise in Malaysia, but one lawmaker today said prices were already sky-rocketing as a result of a free-for-all in medicine retail.
Anjung Kiri 