An essay I wrote: using Marxism to analysis the situation in the Philippines

[RHIZOMES]

I've seen some people post up Marxist essays they did for Uni before, so I thought "Hell why not". Thought comrades might be interested in this, I got an A+ on it.

Despite the exclamation of many right-wingers of Marxism’s “irrelevance” to modern day society, systematic exploitation of the masses by capitalism is still very much present. All over the globe there are things like the typical liberal rallying cries of famine, poverty, disease in the third world, to state and business clampdowns on union rights, to imperialist involvement and intervention in countries as diverse as Ireland to Afghanistan. One particular example I would like to focus on is the situation in the Philippines, and how it relates to classical Marxist conceptions of “the state” and the “labour theory of value”, and to the Marxist-Leninist theory of “imperialism”.

To start this off it is best to explain the Marxist “Labour theory of value”, which I consider to be one of the foundational concepts in Marxist theory. This theory asserts that the value of an object is solely a result of the labour expended to produce it. Let’s say a worker is working for 8 hours, to produce a product, which is worth $180. The worker is getting paid $10 an hour, thus he is being paid $80 for his work that day. The other $100 is defined as “surplus value”, which is extracted from the worker by the capitalists, who did not have any role in the production of the goods other than owning the factory in which it was made. This is the root of Marxism’s critique of the exploitative nature of capitalism, as it sees the main producers in society being heavily exploited despite their highly productive status. It is not something that can be “reformed” through parliamentarian means, as is the aim of left-Social Democrats, because it is an intrinsic part of how the capitalist system operates. As Frederick Engels says in the Principles of Communism:

“The worker will therefore get no more for his labour than is necessary for this purpose; the price of labour, or the wage, will, in other words, be the lowest, the minimum, required for the maintenance of life”

Without the contextual knowledge of this being written in 1847, someone could easily read that and think it was a quote about the modern-day practice of “sweatshops” in the third world, brought about by the processes of globalization and neo-liberalism. While exploitation of the working class exists in both the first and third worlds (A fact ignored by many), in the third world a state of hyper-exploitation exists, due to the first-world government and corporation impositions. I believe two theories best analyse this, Marx’s conception of “the state” and Lenin’s theory of “imperialism”. Marx argued that the state was the armed apparatus of the ruling class. (Lenin 1917) Lenin drew upon this theory of the state to develop his theory of imperialism. Best hypothesised in his 1916 treatise Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, Lenin theorized that, in the last stage of capitalism, in order to generate greater profits than the home market can offer, capital is exported. Thus European states colonize large parts of the world in the interests of their “local” businesses. This theory of “imperialism” is one of the most significant theories Lenin contributed to the Marxist canon.

While there is not “direct” imperialism as in the past, a good example of modern-day imperialism in practice is the Philippines. The Philippine government have a particularly strong relationship with first world multinationals and governments, seemingly following every demand made by organizations such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC). At the same time, there has been brutal persecution of trade unionists combined with increasing exploitation and poverty. During the early 1990s, foreign investment in the Philippines increased 136% from 1992 to 1995. (Lanzona 2001) Foreign investment has become so huge in the Philippines that as of 2006 the Philippines government was working on removing parts of the Constitution barring foreign interests owning 100% of land and other natural resources in the country. (Labog 2006) They have also been one of America’s biggest allies in the imperialist “war on terror”, allowing the US free reign to fight “terrorism” in the Muslim-dominated regions of the country. Many of the “terrorist” groups operating in the region are groups that are seeking autonomy from persecution from the Catholic government. (Strobel 2008) The Philippines state has allowed the foreign ruling classes to exploit and maim their populace as they please, in the interests of global capital.

The worst labour exploitation exists in the “Export Processing Zones”. These zones are areas of heightened neo-liberalism. One such project, the CALABARZON zones, was promised to “heighten employment” but was in reality a way for the government to tap into the massive Filipino labour reserve while at the same time keeping them cheap and docile. An example of the exploitation in these regions is in 2004, a 22-year old contractual worker was made to work for 36-hours continuously as production was rushed for a shipment to a Japanese car company. He was obliged to do this out of fear of losing his job and collapsed and died on the spot upon punching his time card. In another EPZ in the region, the Korean-owned company “Fashion House Garments” employs mostly low-paid women workers, often restricted from going to the toilet and are not allowed to go home or visit their families until certain production quotas are met. (Legaspi n.d.) The huge disparity between the profits these companies make, and the wages and work conditions of their employees, reflects quite succinctly the aforementioned Marxist conception of a “surplus value” being extracted from the workers by the capitalists.

In the face of such difficult working conditions, it would be expected there would be some sort of union activity. However, despite the pro-union, freedom of association laws in place in the Philippines, trade union activity is heavily suppressed. In 2004 a notorious massacre committed by state forces occurred, the Hacienda Luisita massacre. Twelve picketers and two children were killed and hundreds of workers badly injured as 1,000 police stormed a blockade of 6,000 striking workers. It was justified by the Labor Secretary of the time, stating the strike was “a threat to the national interest”. (Holt 2006) In the year 2006 alone, paramilitary death squads murdered a grand total of 31 prominent trade unionists, along with 38 abductions. (Labog 2006) Unionists have been described by the current Macapagal-Arroyo administration as “terrorists and economic saboteurs”. (Beltran n.d.) This reflects the Marxist conception of “the state”, as being the armed apparatus of the ruling class. Otherwise it is quite a funny coincidence that what is against the “national” interest also seems to be against the interests of the capitalists profit margins, as well.

In conclusion, I believe Marxist theory not only adequately explains the situation in the Philippines, but can be applied to most if not all situations in which struggles between different classes are present. However, as Marx once famously stated, in his work Theses on Feuerbach, “the philosophers have only interpreted the world, the point is to change it”.

Bibliography

Beltran, Rep. Crispin. The Struggle for Economic Justice and the Fight to End Political Repression. In Jobs and Justice: Globalization, Labor Rights and Workers' Resistance, edited by Antonio A. Tujan Jr. Cebu City: Asia Pacific Research Network.

Engels, Frederick. The Principles of Communism. Marxist Internet Archive [Website]. 1847. Accessed September 12, 2009 at: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx...1/prin-com.htm

Holt, Noel. A year after the Hacienda Luisita massacre in the Philippines—no one charged. January 18, 2006. World Socialist Website [Website]. Accessed September 12, 2009 at: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/ja...phil-j18.shtml

Labog, Elmer. Globalization, Resistance and Repression. In Jobs and Justice: Globalization, Labor Rights and Workers' Resistance, edited by Antonio A. Tujan Jr., 6. Cebu City: Asian Pacific Research Network, 2006.

Lanzona, Leonardo A. Social Development and Globalisation: The Philippine Case. In Globalisation and Social Development: European and Southeast Asian Evidence, by Ludo Cuyvers, 218. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, 2001.

Legaspi, Romeo. Organizing in the EPZs: The Southern Tagalog Experience. In Jobs and Justice: Globalization, Labor Rights and Workers' Resistance, edited by Antonio A. Tujan Jr., 102-103. Cebu City: Asian Pacific Research Network.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich. Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. Marxist Internet Archive. [Website] 1916. Accessed September 12, 2009 at: http://www.marxists.org/archive/leni...-hsc/index.htm

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich. The State and Revolution. Marxist Internet Archive. [Website] 1917. Accessed September 12, 2009 at: http://www.marxists.org/archive/leni...erev/index.htm

Marx, Karl. Theses On Feuerbach. Marxist Internet Archive. [Website] 1845. Accessed September 12, 2009 at: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx...eses/index.htm

Strobel, Warren P. The Philippines: America's other war on terrorism. McClatchy Newspapers [Website]. October 22, 2008. Accessed September 12, 2009 at: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/54611.html