Behind the 'coup syndrome'Behind the 'coup syndrome'
By Reihana Mohideen
The crisis facing the Chan regime in PNG has the capitalist media bewailing the "coup syndrome". The political instability of several Third World regimes, including PNG, Zaire and Pakistan, has capitalism worried. It pretends that this is the result of cultural, ethnic or purely conjunctural factors (such as violation of the constitution).
However, the main underlying cause is economic instability. The crisis of legitimacy facing Third World regimes is a product of the widening gap between rich and poor nations. In a world where the combined income of the poorest 2.3 billion people equals the wealth of the 358 richest, political stability is becoming harder to achieve. The result is revolts, coups and civil wars in the impoverished countries.
Despite the claims of capitalist ideologues, there is no level playing field. Instead we have, throughout this century, a structural division of the world into rich and poor nations. Third World countries are locked into the poverty trap of underdevelopment.
Since the second world war there has been a massive increase in human productivity through automation. But this development is concentrated in the rich industrialised countries. Here lies one of the main reasons for the inequalities between rich and poor nations — the vast difference in the productivity of labour.
The huge gap in labour productivity secures the industrialised countries an enormous advantage over the underdeveloped countries, ensuring through ruthless competition on the world market that the industrialisation of the latter cannot take off on a large scale.
The domination of the world market by the major capitalist powers did not take place by economic means alone. Historically, military might and political pressure played a decisive role in the colonial subjugation of nations. To develop industrially, western Europe and the United States required cheap raw materials and new colonial markets. These were forcibly obtained, in part to ensure that the colonies didn't become competitors.
The Indian cotton industry is one example. From being a net exporter of cotton products, India's cotton industry (once a competitor with British industry) was smashed and the country transformed from a producer of manufactured goods into a producer of agricultural raw materials, thus serving the needs of Britain's economy.
Although the colonial countries were integrated into the capitalist world market and partially industrialised, they were always economically subordinated to the major powers. This ensured lower levels of industrialisation for most Third World countries and a permanent gap in labour productivity, a gap which is growing wider, resulting in worsening terms of trade.
The winning of formal political independence did not end the national oppression of the former colonies. Instead it heightened the need to struggle against their economic oppression by the imperialist powers.
With a handful of transnational companies dominating the world economy, these contradictions have sharpened. Most Third World regimes are even more vulnerable economically. Unable to increase their markets, they sink deeper into debt and come under increased pressure to reduce the majority of people's already miserable standards of living in order to protect imperialist banks.
These are the conditions with give rise to mass unrest, or, as some put it, the "coup syndrome".
[Reihana Mohideen is a member of the national executive of the Democratic Socialist Party.]