JUS SEMPER NEWSLETTER in Pursuit of the People and Planet Paradigm

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JUS SEMPER NEWSLETTER In Pursuit of the People and Planet Paradigm

Our Latest Publications on Building the New Paradigm of People and Planet HIGHLIGHTS JUS SEMPER Newsletter – Winter-Spring 2021

C O V I D - 1 9 a n d E t h n i c - P e a s a n t (Un)witting Servitude Capitalism Has Failed Back to Production: D e m o c r a c y , C a t a s t r o p h e Resistance in South a n d M i n d s — What Next? (John An Analysis of the Condorcetism and Capitalism — (John America and Meso- Manipulation Bellamy Foster) A Imperialist Global Popular Participation Bellamy Foster and america to the 4.0 ( A l e j a n d r o powerful narrative that Economy (Intan (Andrea Surbone) An Intan Suwandi) — A A g r i c u l t u r e o f Teitelbaum) Wi t h explains Capitalism, its Suwandi) Enlightening innovative institutional true eye opener about C a t a s t r o p h e a l m o s t a b s o l u t e most devastating form e s s a y o n h o w structure to replace h o w t h e c u r r e n t Capitalism (Nubia control of the means of Neoliberalism, and imperialism extracts the current system to p a n d e m i c i s a n Barrera Silva) of production and the mainsprings of wealth from the global build a new society. inherent element of T h e A m a z o n i s communication and h u m a n a c t i o n i n South and keeps it Page 4 the dominant system becoming wiped out an unlimited capacity pursuit of freedom and impoverished to enrich that it is driving the due to the production to manipulate minds, sustainability. t h e i m p e r i a l world and humanity to o f i n d u s t r i a l l y the dominant system is Page 4 metropolises of the the brink of extinction processed foods for winning the battle. global North. Page 4 unless we organise to humans and animals Page 3 replace it. Page 2 Page 3

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Imperialism in the Anthropocene (John Bellamy The Preemptive Counterrevolution and the Rise The Propaganda Model Revisited (Edward S. Foster) P. 5 of the Far Right in Brazil (Ricardo Antunes) P. 8 Herman) P. 10

The Commonplaces of Environmental Marx’s Open-ended Critique (John Bellamy A Labour Code for the 21st Century (Alain Scepticism (Richard Douglas) P. 5 Foster) P. 8 Supiot) P. 11

Work and Unionism in Mexico (Enrique de la A Tale of Two Utopias: Work in a Post-Growth After Industrialism: Reviving Nature in the 21st Garza Toledo and Gerardo Otero) P. 6 World (Simon Mair et al) P. 9 Century (Reinhard Olschanski) P. 11

The Pharmaceutical Industry in Contemporary Wellbeing Matters — Tackling growth Capitalism (Joel Lexchin) P. 6 California's Migrant Workers (Bruce dependency (Tim Jackson) P. 9 Neuburger) P. 11 Facing the Anthropocene (Ian Angus) P. 7 The Contagion of Capital (John Bellamy Foster et al) P. 10 The Case for a Basic Income (Guy Standing) P. When Did the Anthropocene Begin… and Why 12 Does It Matter? (Ian Angus) P. 7 The Post-Growth Challenge (Tim Jackson) P. 10 Beyond Consumer Capitalism Class? (Tim Jackson) P. 7 19/03/21 1 of 16 JUS SEMPER NEWSLETTER

REPORTS FROM THE OBSERVATORY OF 2020 Report: Living-wage assessment – New Table T5: 1996 - 2018 Real Living-Wage Gaps L I V I N G W A G E S — J U S S E M P E R – assessment of Mexico's wage rate gap for Brazil, Mexico and Argentina, vis-à-vis the UNIVERSIDAD LA SALLE, MEXICO CITY 1996-2018. P. 14 US for All Employed in Manufacturing P. 15

2020 Report: Living-wage assessment – New Table T5: 1996 - 2017 Real Living-Wage Gaps assessment of Spain's wage rate gap 1996-2018 for Asia & Oceania economies, vis-à-vis the US 2020 Report: Living-wage assessment – PPP P. 14 for All Employed in Manufacturing P. 15 Wage rate gaps for selected "developed and emerging" economies for all employed in Aequus Index. Living Wages equalisation in manufacturing workers (1996 up to 2018) P. manufacturing, exposing the size of the gap in 12 41 countries P. 15 A Final Thought………………..…… P. 16 2020 Report: Living-wage assessment – New Table T5: 1996 - 2018 Real Living-Wage Gaps assessment of Argentina's wage rate gap for 14 Economies, vis-à-vis the US for All 1996-2018 P. 13 Employed in Manufacturing P. 15

2020 Report: Living-wage assessment – New Table T5: 1996 - 2018 Real Living-Wage Gaps assessment of Brazil's wage rate gap for European Economies, vis-à-vis the US for 1996-2018 P. 13 All Employed in Manufacturing P. 15

C O V I D - 1 9 A N D C ATA S T R O P H E multinational corporations, connecting various development. Chains of global exploitation and CAPITALISM — John Bellamy Foster and production zones, primarily in the Global expropriation have destabilized not only South,with the apex of world consumption, ecologies but the relations between species, Intan Suwandi fnance, andaccumulation primarily in the creating a toxic brew of pathogens. All of this Global North. These commodity chains make can be seen as arising from the introduction of up the main material circuits of capital globally agribusiness with its genetic monocultures; that constitute the phenomenon of late massive ecosystem destruction involving the imperialism identifed with the rise of uncontrolled mixture of species; and a system generalised monopoly-fnance capital. In this of global valorization based on treating land, system, exorbitant imperial rents from the bodies, species, and ecosystems as so many control of global production are obtained not “free gifts” to be expropriated, irrespective of only from the global labour arbitrage, through natural and social limits. which multinational corporations with their Nor are new viruses the only emerging global headquarters in the centre of the system health problem. The overuse of antibiotics overexploit industrial labour in the periphery, within agribusiness as well as modern medicine but also increasingly through the global land has led to the dangerous growth of bacterial arbitrage, in which agribusiness multinationals superbugs generating increasing numbers of expropriate cheap land (and labour) in the deaths, which by mid–century could surpass Global South so as to produce export crops annual cancer deaths, and inducing the World mainly for sale in the Global North. Health Organization to declare a “global health The circuits of capital of late imperialism have emergency.” Since communicable diseases, due taken these tendencies to their fullest extent, to the unequal conditions of capitalist class generating a rapidly developing planetary society, fall heaviest on the working class and ecological crisis that threatens to engulf human the poor, and on populations in the periphery, civilization as we know it; a perfect storm of the system that generates such diseases in the catastrophe. This comes on top of a system of pursuit of quantitative wealth can be charged, accumulation that is divorced from any rational as Engels and the Chartists did in the nineteenth ordering of needs for the population century, with social murder. As the independent of the cash nexus. Accumulation revolutionary developments in epidemiology and the amassing of wealth in general are represented by One Health and Structural One increasingly dependent on the proliferation of Health have suggested, the etiology of the new COVID-19 has accentuated as never waste of all kinds. In the midst of this disaster, a pandemics can be traced to the overall problem b e f o r e t h e i n t e r l i n k e d e c o l o g i c a l , New Cold War and a growing likelihood of of ecological destruction brought on by epidemiological, and economic vulnerabilities thermonuclear destruction have emerged, with capitalism. imposed by capitalism. As the world enters the an increasingly unstable and aggressive United Here, the necessity of a “revolutionary third decade of the twenty-frst century, we are States at the forefront. This has led the Bulletin reconstitution of society at large” rears its head seeing the emergence of catastrophe capitalism of Atomic Scientists to move its famous once again, as it has so many times in the past. as the structural crisis of the system takes on doomsday clock to 100 seconds to midnight, The logic of contemporary historical planetary dimensions. generations and all the closest to midnight since the clock started in development points to the need for a more living things. 1947. communal-commons-based system of social Since the late twentieth century, capitalist The COVID-19 pandemic and the threat of metabolic reproduction, one in which the globalisation has increasingly adopted the form increasing and more deadly pandemics is a associated producers rationally regulate their of interlinked commodity chains controlled by product of this same late-imperialist social metabolism with nature, so as to promote 2 of 16 19/03/21 JUS SEMPER NEWSLETTER free development of each as the basis of the free of Mother Earth is omnipresent in the ethnic instruments and means of production and development of all, while conserving energy worldviews shared by the peasantry. communication, the latter with a practically and the environment. The future of humanity in unlimited capacity for the manipulation of the twenty-frst century lies not in the direction The worldview of simple life belongs to the minds, the dominant system is winning the of increased economic and ecological natural economy, it embodies a compelling battle. We hope that, sooner rather than later, exploitation/expropriation, imperialism, and reason from the ethnic-peasant mentality, which this balance of power, which is disastrous for war. Rather, what Marx called “freedom in sustains and strengthens peasant struggles the future of humanity, will radically change. general” and the preservation of a viable without time of rest in defence of their ÿ “planetary metabolism” are the most pressing territories inherited from their parents. This necessities today in determining the human conception from the tribal community present and future, and even human survival. engenders fear and respect for nature. The property of the small ethnic-peasant farmer Download the full document here! offers him a roof of his own with a wide horizon towards infnite nature and the land to sow, harvest, exchange seeds between neighbours, sell the surpluses in the local ETHNIC-PEASANT RESISTANCE IN market for the beneft of other social, cultural SOUTH AMERICA AND MESOAMERICA and subjective satisfers that give meaning to the existence and to the communities where they T O T H E 4 . 0 AG R I C U LT U R E O F live. Indeed, the “work of food sovereignty as a CATASTROPHE CAPITALISM – Nubia political dimension is essential in agroecology, Barrera Silva as is the Agrarian Reform. When landless, we have to fght for Agrarian Reform, and without agroecology, we cannot conceive of healthy food production for the people”. ÿ The concrete actions of struggle and resistance of the International Movement Via Campesina, its leaders and women leaders gain the strength from the same land that they defend with their own lives. Differential income, food sovereignty, the protection and conservation of biodiversity and natural resources are built around the peasant economy, key to climate resilience. It carries in its essence the ÿ foundations of ecological socialism. The spiral of change does not wait. The SA-MA Region is The ideas of the ruling class are the dominant in an explosive situation. The new generations ideas in every epoch; or the class which are taking to the streets in defence of inclusive exercises the dominant material power in public budgets, the end of corruption of society is at the same time its dominant spiritual professional politicians, the provision of social power. The class which has at its disposal the services, the end of police repression and so on. means of material production has at the same Faced with the imminent collapse, turbulent time at its disposal the means of spiritual winds are coming with an opening to another production, so the ideas of those who lack the economic system different from capitalism. The means of spiritual production are at the same most in line with food agroecology is ecological time, on the average, subjected to it. (Marx and socialism. Engels, German Ideology, 1846. On the Download the full document here! Production of Consciousness). This was frst described by the Roman poet and writer Juvenal 2000 years ago in his Satires when he coined the expression “Bread and The ethno-peasant economy extended to Circus”, where he attributes the apathy of the indigenous peoples in voluntary self-isolation (UN)WITTING SERVITUDE AND MINDS Roman people in the face of the abuses of leads to the concept of Mother Earth. This is MANIPULATION — Alejandro Teitelbaum power to the fact that power hands out food incompatible with agriculture 4.0 of the Global and organises grandiose spectacles. As long as North in South America and Mesoamerica (SA- the people have enough to eat (from time to espite the profound crisis of the capitalist MA) in areas of territorial expansion towards the D time) and have fun, power can do what it Pan-Amazon Region made up of nine countries: system, which is now more evident than ever in pleases. Juvenal’s vision of the relationship Brazil, Venezuela, French Guyana, English all aspects of social and individual life, there is between power and people has strengthened a Guyana, Suriname, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru no organised anti-establishment reaction from lot since then: the means used by power to and Bolivia. These peoples have full respect for the majorities nor a rigorous and coherent manipulate minds are now very sophisticated. and dependence on land, water, air and forests discourse. A messenger, without populist or And the “bread” that the people receive today— as sources of life. Unlike the concept of opportunistic concessions of a revolutionary relative to the exponential growth of different Western economic growth with its linear and ideal, is conspicuously absent. The collapse of basic needs (food, health, housing, education, fragmented approach, the integral vision of the real socialism and the fctitious and corrupt healthy environment, etc.)—is proportionally natural economy, as Karl Marx said, is about “socialism of the 21st century” have also less today than in the time of the Roman "living well" and is on the opposite side from contributed to a conditioned rejection of the Empire. the passions and feelings of greed that have idea of a socialist transformation of society. emerged from the unlimited accumulation of With this combination of circumstances, and on Download the full document here! transnational landowning capital. The concept the basis of the almost absolute control of the

19/03/21 3 of 16 JUS SEMPER NEWSLETTER CAPITALISM HAS FAILED — WHAT BACK TO PRODUCTION: AN ANALYSIS in countries where “state capitalism” thrives. NEXT? — John Bellamy Foster O F T H E I M P E R I A L I S T G L O B A L These examples can illustrate the never-ending quest for profteering by global North capital in ECONOMY — Intan Suwandi the capitalist world economy, by navigating their way to invest – either directly or indirectly Flipping through the pages of Harvard Business – in the global South. This shows that, despite their relentless attention to the market, the focus Review in the last few years, there seems to be lies on global capital’s effort to export capital some worries expressed by the cheerleaders of through various means, including by capital regarding the future of globalisation. In outsourcing their production to the global their eyes, there are obvious threats to global South. Thus, if we want to critically evaluate market capitalism. For example, the increasing “globalization,” we cannot merely see the trend of what they call “state capitalism” – as transactions that happen in the marketplace. shown by the rising power of “emerging Instead, we have to go to where commodities markets” like China, Russia, and Brazil – is are produced, or – as Marx famously said – to deemed to provide serious obstacles to the the hidden abode of production. welfare of Western multinational corporations. What is interesting is that these perspectives Download the full document here! acknowledge the growing income and wealth inequalities – a phenomenon that, they are afraid, “makes a mockery of the idea that economic growth benefts all.” But what they are really afraid of is actually how these DEMOCRACY, CONDORCETISM AND growing inequalities can lead to “populist POPULAR PARTICIPATION — Andrea politics” that would result in “harmful Surbone government interventions” including the “overregulations of market transactions, confscation of property, and other abrogations of property rights”.

Less than two decades into the twenty-frst century, it is evident that capitalism has failed as a social system. The world is mired in economic stagnation, fnancialisation, and the most extreme inequality in human history, accompanied by mass unemployment and underemployment, precariousness, poverty, hunger, wasted output and lives, and what at this point can only be called a planetary ecological “death spiral.” The digital revolution, the greatest technological advance of our time, has rapidly mutated from a promise of free communication and liberated production into new means of surveillance, control, and displacement of the working population. The institutions of liberal democracy are at the point of collapse, while fascism, the rear guard of the capitalist system, is again on the march, along with patriarchy, racism, imperialism, and war. The rightful preamble is that since I am Italian To say that capitalism is a failed system is not, and a simple observer of the surrounding reality, of course, to suggest that its breakdown and this short essay on democracy takes up and disintegration is imminent. It does, however, integrates a text conceived and written in 2016 mean that it has passed from being a historically for Italy, to which it also refers. However, I believe that democracy is a universal concept: necessary and creative system at its inception to being a historically unnecessary and destructive although the context is Italian, the proposal one in the present century. Today, more than transcends its boundaries. And the one outlined ever, the world is faced with the epochal choice Debating whether or not this “guarded here is an operational proposal. In this sense, between “the revolutionary reconstitution of globalisation,” as Ian Bremmer calls it, is really with due correlation, it may contain universally society at large and the common ruin of the happening is beyond the scope of this paper. valid ideas. It can certainly be the blueprint for contending classes.” But the worries are clear: capital wants to make the institutional set-up of a new society. For me, sure that multinational corporations can engage therefore, it is the institutional set-up to go with in capital accumulation without signifcant the new philoponic society.1 disruptions. Several suggestions are given, Download the full document here! ranging from the need for businesses to engage A great political legacy runs through the history in collective action and become leaders in of humankind: democracy. From the ancestral defending the market, to the strategic move of nucleus of the Indo-Europeans and through “holding hands” with local partners to ensure Pericles’ Athens, which became its hallmark, the success of foreign investments – especially democracy appears as a founding concept of

4 of 16 19/03/21 JUS SEMPER NEWSLETTER society. But what is democracy? Or rather, what by the International Commission on Stratigraphy class exploitation and conforming to laws of democracy? in the next several years. motion enforced by market competition, recognises no limits to its own self-expansion. The two great contenders today are the There is no amount of proft, no amount of concepts of representative democracy and wealth, and no amount of consumption that is direct democracy.2 And it is important to “enough” or “too much.” In this system, the discuss highly technical aspects such as the planetary environment is not viewed as a place form of democracy because the shift to the with inherent boundaries within which human Anthropocene has a new form of society as its beings must live, together with Earth’s other only way out. And while the discussion about species, but rather as a realm to be exploited in the new society involves mainly social, a process of growing economic expansion in environmental and economic aspects, the the interest of unlimited acquisitive gain, most political aspect is also important. of which ends up in the hands of a very few. Parting from the fact that the Anthropocene has Businesses, according to the inner logic of pushed us beyond the limits of Mother Earth’s capital, must either grow or die—as must the resilience, it is urgent to impose strict rules in system itself. order to curb the overfowing anthropic impact Capitalism thus promotes a “madness of that is leading us towards an unknown that economic reason” that can be seen as appears, alas, sadly known to us. undermining the healthy human metabolic It is in this context—the imposition of relation to the environment. The mere critique insuperable limits—that politics becomes of capitalism as an abstract economic system, fundamental. At frst glance, the most however, is insuffcient in addressing today’s appropriate political form to impose strict rules environmental problems. Rather, it is necessary is certainly not a democracy; any form that also to examine the structure of accumulation allows for a more centralised power - from the on a world scale, coupled with the division of direct election of the ‘leader’ to dictatorship, the world into competing nation-states. Our and the various other attributes of ‘-cracy’ - is planetary problems cannot realistically be easier than true democracy proper. addressed without tackling the imperialist world My conviction, however, is that the new society system, or globalised capitalism, organised on must be established by deliberation, not by A strong international scientifc consensus is the basis of classes and nation-states, and imposition. In this sense, it is democracy that thus emerging with respect to the designation of divided into center and periphery. Today, this these pages will deal with; trying also to the new geological epoch of the Anthropocene necessarily raises the question of imperialism in overcome the dispute between representative —a term often said to have been “coined” by the Anthropocene. and direct democracy. I advocate for the Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer in 2000, Download the full document here! proportional system,3 considering it the though it frst appeared in English decades maximum representation of elective democracy. earlier in “The Anthropogenic System (Period)” in The Great Soviet Encyclopedia. The Anthropocene, in the scientifc worldview, Download the full document here! stands for both a quantitative and qualitative T H E C O M M O N P L A C E S O F Download the full document in Italian here! break with all previous geological epochs. Changes on a scale that can be seen as dividing ENVIRONMENTAL — Richard Douglas major geological epochs, previously occurring over millions of years, are now taking place over decades or at most centuries due to human action. In this respect, the Anthropocene IMPERIALISM IN THE ANTHROPOCENE represents a sharp break from the relatively — John Bellamy Foster stable Holocene epoch of the last 11.000– 12.000 years, the onset of which marked the On 21 May 2019, the Anthropocene Working end of the last ice age. Group, established by the Subcommision on In the view of the Anthropocene Working Quaternary Stratigraphy of the International Group and today’s Earth System scientists more Commission on Stratigraphy, voted by more generally, the advent of the Anthropocene than the necessary 60 percent to recognise the epoch is the product of a Great Acceleration of existence of the Anthropocene epoch in economically driven change in the mid– geological time, beginning around 1950. It twentieth century, associated with what is defned this new “chronostratigraphic” epoch as sometimes called by economists the “golden “the period of Earth’s history during which age” of capitalist growth after the Second World humans have a decisive infuence on the state, War. This led to the crossing of numerous dynamics, and future of the Earth System.” planetary boundaries, generating various Anthropogenic change, beginning in the mid– “anthropogenic rifts. ÿ twentieth century, was designated as the ÿ principal force in the accelerated evolution of Today there can be no doubt about the main the entire Earth System. The Anthropocene force behind this planetary emergency—the WorkingGroup will proceed next to the exponential growth of the capitalist world designation of a specifc “golden spike,” or economy, particularly in the decades since the stratigraphic location, standing for the mid–twentieth century. Capital itself can be Anthropocene in the geological record, with the described as a social relation of self-expanding aim of getting the new epoch offcially adopted economic (commodity) value. Capitalism, or the system of capital accumulation based in 19/03/21 5 of 16 JUS SEMPER NEWSLETTER necessitated violent means for power ascension: In the nearly fve decades since its publication, THE PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY IN the 1821 revolution of independence from CONTEMPORARY CAPITALISM — Joel the Club of Rome’s Limits to Growth report has Spain, the liberal reform expressed in the 1857 failed to secure a decisive victory in political Constitution and, fnally, the Mexican Lexchin debate, despite being based on the seemingly Revolution that yielded the 1917 Constitution. common sensical proposition that infnite The vast contrast of the 4T pledged by AMLO growth is impossible on a fnite planet. To and MORENA is that these actors reached investigate why the ‘limits to growth’ has not power through an overwhelming, legal and led to decisive political action, this paper legitimate electoral triumph with over 53% of examines the thought of its most explicit critics the vote for the presidency and absolute in debate, defned here as ‘environmental majority control of both chambers of Congress. sceptics’. While many studies of this discourse have examined the economic interests and political motivations of its speakers, this paper (while also drawing on the theories of Dryzek, and of Boltanski) employs Wayne Booth’s ‘Listening Rhetoric’, used to understand opposing discourses on their own terms. In this context, this means performing an attentive reading of the rhetorical commonplaces—the taken-for-granted truths and values a speaker would expect to be shared with their audience —drawn on by environmentally sceptic speakers, in order to ‘read off’ the positive values and vision of the world that they are keen to defend. The paper performs a close reading of a range of texts, which, while produced over four decades up to the present day, embody a coherent corpus of thought. It fnds in the commonplaces on display a defence of individualism, practical reason, humanism, The pharmaceutical industry has remained material power, an unbounded sense of destiny, near or at the top of the list for proftability for and the fundamental benevolence of our world. many decades. The myth is that its profts come In this sense, it argues that the discourse of from producing and selling the many environmental scepticism could be viewed as therapeutic advances that industry research has defending an overarching world-view of generated, but the reality is far different. In the modernity against an attack on its foundations frst place, after tax deductions only about 1.3 implied by the ‘limits to growth’ thesis. In the percent of the money that the industry spends extent to which this is true, it suggests that the In this national-level election, MORENA won in actually goes into basic research, the type of challenge posed by the ‘limits to growth’ runs all but one of the states in the federation of 32 research that leads to new medications. Second, beyond the level of ordinary political debate, states, although it did not win majorities in a most of the new medicines that come from the pointing to a crisis of philosophical few state legislatures. The 4T government thus pharmaceutical corporations offer little to anthropology: who are we, and how should we unleashes both strong fears and hopes depending on the point of view. In this article nothing in the way of new therapeutic options.ÿ live, if we now believe that progress will not ÿ continue forever? we will only discuss the prospects for workers The industry also justifes its high level of profts and unions. We start, frst, by discussing the with the claim Image that drug development is labour insurgency and strikes in the frst few inherently risky. To this end, the pharmaceutical Download the full document here! months of 2019 and their results. Next we corporations maintain that only one in every briefy discuss the principal changes to the 10,000 molecules actually results in a new labour legislation approved, meaningfully, on 1s drug. Though this may be true, most of the of May of the same year. Finally, we offer a molecules that fall by the wayside do so in the WORK AND UNIONISM IN MEXICO — preliminary assessment of real wages and very early stages of development when costs are labour conditions in Mexico during the frst six- minimal. The $2.6 billion fgure that is now Enrique de la Garza Toledo and Gerardo to-nine months of 2019 compared with earlier Otero cited as the cost to bring a new drug to market years. We then outline some questions for comes from data that are confdential, and the future research, highlight the absence of an calculations are based on a set of assumptions Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s (AMLO) explicit labour policy of the 4T government and that have been widely challenged. Were drug outline some challenges for the labour development such a risky proposition, then one landslide electoral triumph as Mexico’s movement. president in 2018 has provoked wrathful would expect that from time to time the criticisms by the groups and classes that see Download the full document here! fortunes of corporations would vary. On the their privileges in danger. On the other hand, contrary, since 1980, all the large corporations this win by AMLO and his Movement for have done well fnancially.ÿ ÿ National Regeneration (MORENA) party has Despite the continuing impressive level of raised huge expectations for the left about his proft, the industry is undergoing a crisis. But promised fourth historical transformation (4T) of the industry is able to manipulate knowledge Mexico. AMLO compares such transformation about the value of pharmaceuticals not only to with the three great historical transformations the detriment of what doctors know, but more that have taken place in Mexico, each of which important, to the detriment of people’s health. 6 of 16 19/03/21 JUS SEMPER NEWSLETTER At the same time as the industry is developing WHEN DID THE ANTHROPOCENE A no-analogue state. Planetary terra incognita. ways of coping with its internal crisis, a crisis BEGIN… AND WHY DOES IT MATTER? Unprecedented and unsustainable. These that is inherent in the capitalist organisation of phrases are not used lightly: the earth has pharmaceutical production, there are also — Ian Angus entered a new epoch, one that is likely to serious proposals to curb its power and to continue changing in unpredictable and ensure that drugs are developed and priced to dangerous ways. ÿ meet real health needs and not the need for ÿ This radical transformation was frst extensively ever larger profts. described by the IGBP in 2004, in Global

Change and the Earth System, a broad synthesis Download the full document here! of scientifc knowledge about the state of our planet that remains the most authoritative book on the Anthropocene. Since then, a great deal of scientifc discussion has focused on a question that book did not answer: When did FACING THE ANTHROPOCENE — AN the Anthropocene begin? Of course this has UPDATE — Ian Angus involved technical discussions among experts in various disciplines, but it is not just a technical question. Technical studies can determine when an asteroid hit our planet or when an ice age ended, but a discussion of when human society pushed the Earth system into a no-analogue state must address social, economic, and political issues. There is a reciprocal process here. Examining social, economic, and political developments can help identify social changes that might have changed the Earth system, and determining when radical physical changes in the Earth system happened provides a basis for determining which human activities were responsible, and thus what measures humans The term Anthropocene…suggests that the might take to prevent the change from reaching catastrophic proportions. In this article I offer an Earth has now left its natural geological epoch, overview of the issues and stakes in the “when the present interglacial state called the it happened debate. Holocene. Human activities have become so pervasive and profound that they rival the great forces of Nature and are pushing the Earth into Download the full document here! planetary terra incognita. The Earth is rapidly moving into a less biologically diverse, less forested, much warmer, and probably wetter and stormier state. BEYOND CONSUMER CAPITALISM —Tim In 1995, Paul Crutzen, then vice-chair of the Jackson International Geosphere-Biosphere Program (IGBP), received a Nobel Prize for showing that The I wrote Facing the Anthropocene to help widely used chemicals were destroying the Consumer capitalism is unsustainable in bridge the gap between Earth System science ozone layer in earth’s upper atmosphere, with environmental, social and even in fnancial and ecosocialism—to show socialists why they potentially catastrophic effects for all life on terms. This paper explores the ramifcations of must understand the Anthropocene, and to Earth. In his Nobel acceptance speech, he said the combined crises now faced by the show Earth System scientists why they must that his research on ozone had convinced him prevailing growth-based model of economics. It understand ecological Marxism. that the balance of forces on Earth had changed traces briefy the evolution of western notions of When Facing the Anthropocene was published dramatically. It was now “utterly clear,” he said, progress and in particular it critiques the yen/ in 2016, it refected, to the best of my ability, “that human activities had grown so much that narrow view of human nature on which these the state of scientifc knowledge and debate at they could compete and interfere with natural notions were built. A wider and more realistic the time. But the world does not stand still, so it processes.”3 Over the next fve years that view of human nature allows us to recover may be helpful to outline some important insight developed until, at an IGBP meeting in more robust meanings of prosperity and to recent developments in Anthropocene science 2000, he argued that human activity had driven establish the foundations for a different kind of in the two main felds involved: geology, which the earth into a new geological epoch, which economy. The paper explores these foundations. has mainly been concerned with formally he proposed to call the Anthropocene. It pays a particular attention to the nature of defning the new epoch; and Earth System Earth is currently operating in a no-analogue enterprise, the quality of work, the structure of science, which studies the global biological, state. In terms of key environmental parameters, investment and the role of money. It develops chemical, and physical changes that are the Earth System has recently moved well the conceptual basis for social innovation in reshaping the conditions of life on this planet. outside the range of natural variability exhibited each of these areas, and provides empirical over at least the last half million years. The examples of such i nnovat ions. T he aimis to n a t u r e o f c h a n g e s n o w o c c u r r i n g demonstrate that the transition from an Download the full document here! simultaneously in the Earth System, their unsustainable consumerism to a sustainable magnitudes and rates of change are prosperity is a precise, meaningful, defnable unprecedented and unsustainable. and pragmatic task.

19/03/21 7 of 16 JUS SEMPER NEWSLETTER In the 1990s, Brazil lived through a process I the United Kingdom, neo-Nazism in Germany, have called neoliberal desertifcation. Its state- Viktor Orbán in Hungary, and Matteo Salvini, owned productive sectors were heavily the all-powerful neofascist minister, in Italy. The privatised, workers’ rights legislation was list of aberrations perpetuated by the right gradually deregulated, and the fnancial sector around the world is extensive. We are then was monopolised, enormously expanding the entering a new cycle of counterrevolution that hegemony of Cardoso’s government in the refuses any form of conciliation. As a metaphor, steering of economic policies. Not only was it can be said that platform capitalism, the a n t i c a p i t a l i s t o p p o s i t i o n g r a d u a l l y capitalism of the digital, information, and deconstructed, but so was reformism (which fnancial era, has some similarities with early had emerged especially during João Goulart’s forms of capitalism. There seems to be government between 1961 and 1964), which something in common between the capitalism had been defending agricultural, urban, and tax of the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, and reforms that were eliminated, little by little, the capitalism of the twenty-frst century. from the Brazilian political scene. In this way, Will the left be capable of radically altering the neoliberalism was consolidated in Cardoso’s political course it is currently on, which is two terms. mostly relegated to institutions and elections? If, throughout the twentieth century, the epicentre of the left’s actions was institutional and parliamentary action, the biggest challenge in this period will be found elsewhere, somewhere different from that which has dominated and exhausted the left until now. It is imperative to reforge the organic ties between the labor and social movements, with their mosaic of multiple tools and without previous hierarchical structures, taking as a starting point the concrete actions of the working class. If we are on the Download the full document here! side of reason and revolution,an indispensable beginning is to ascertain, in a Lukácsian way, what are the vital questions of our time if we want to walk together, in solidarity, toward a new, emancipated way of life. T H E P R E E M P T I V E C O U N T E R - REVOLUTION AND THE RISE OF THE Download the full document here! FAR RIGHT IN BRAZIL — Ricardo #

Antunes

MARX’S OPEN-ENDED CRITIQUE —John In 1964, after a period of intense capitalist Bellamy Foster development that signifcantly expanded the process of industrialisation, Brazil suffered a In 2002, all signs pointed toward Brazil lasting political trauma. Politically unable to changing its path. But when the Workers’ Party ensure their interests within the demarcations of (PT) won the presidency in 2002, electing its bourgeois democracy, the ruling class turned to main metalworker-union leader Luiz Inácio Lula manu militari. A military coup was set and the da Silva (“Lula”), it was no longer the party it dictatorship lasted until 1985. had once been. Transformism, a concept richly In 1989, the frst direct presidential election developed by Antonio Gramsci in The Prison took place since the end of the dictatorship. At Notebooks, had already hit what had been the the beginning of the 1990s, neoliberalism strongest feature of the party: its popular and effectively began to be introduced in Brazil with working-class social origins This complex the electoral victory of Collor de Mello (1990– mutation was the founding cause of the policies 92), a sort of unqualifed civilian semi- developed by the PT during the governments of bonaparte. Its main consequences—which, it Lula (2003–11) and Dilma Rousseff, known should be noted, occur in all countries in which simply as Dilma (2011–16). But at their root, this nefarious pragmatic ideology is installed— their actions were characterised much more by were: the increased hegemony of fnancial continuation, rather than rupture, with capital, the rise in profts and gains for capital, neoliberalism. the signifcant expansion of privatisation of Almost thirty years later, Jair Bolsonaro took on state-owned companies, and the near total the role of supposed underdog and, in the face dismantling of workers’ rights and regulations. of the collapse of the other center and right- All of this resulted in a signifcant increase in wing bourgeois candidates, became the only the concentration of wealth in the country, one capable of countering the risk of the “PT especially during the presidency of Fernando and the reds’ victory. His bid for the presidency Henrique Cardoso (1994–2002), since Collor found its ideal moment in the international was impeached in 1992. scenery: Trump in the United States, Brexit in 8 of 16 19/03/21 JUS SEMPER NEWSLETTER

Two hundred years after Karl Marx’s birth, the A TALE OF TWO UTOPIAS: WELLBEING MATTERS — TACKLING infuence of his critique of capital is now as WORK IN A POST-GROWTH WORLD GROWTH DEPENDENCY — Tim Jackson great as ever, in the context of what has been — Simon Mair, Angela Druckman and Tim called the “Marx revival.” For those who Jackson believed that Marxism had simply died out with the fall of the Berlin Wall, a casualty of what Francis Fukuyama pronounced “the end of history,” this is no doubt a startling development. In 1942, during what he dubbed the “Marxian revival” of his own day, the great conservative economist Joseph Schumpeter wrote that Most of the creations of the intellect or fancy pass away for good after a time that varies between an after-dinner hour and a generation. Some, however, do not. They suffer eclipses but they come back again, and they come back not as unrecognisable elements of a cultural inheritance, but in their individual garb and with their personal scars which people may see and touch. These we may well call the great ones—it is no disadvantage of this defnition that it links greatness to vitality. Taken in this sense, this is undoubtedly the word to apply to the message of Marx.

I will argue that the “greatness” and “vitality” of Marxian social science that Schumpeter notes derives primarily from its inner logic as a form of open-ended scientifc inquiry. Against attempts in the dominant ideology to Economists have known for more than eighty characterise Marx as a rigid, dogmatic, years that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is deterministic, and closed thinker, it is precisely In this paper, we aim to contribute to the not a good measure of social progress. the open-endedness of his “ruthless criticism of literature on post-growth futures. Modern Numerous attempts have been made to all that exists”—an open-endedness inherently imaginings of the future are constrained by the establish alternative indicators of progress. denied to liberal theory itself—that accounts for assumptions of growth-based capitalism. To Recently, there have been several policy historical materialism’s staying power. This escape these assumptions we turn to utopian initiatives to articulate a different kind of openness can be seen in the Marxism’s ability fction. We explore depictions of work in economy in which the pursuit of wellbeing constantly to reinvent itself by expanding its Cokaygne, a utopian tradition dating back to the takes precedence over the pursuit of growth in empirical as well as theoretical content, so as to 12th century, and William Morris's 19th century GDP. embrace ever larger aspects of historical reality News from Nowhere. Cokaygne is a land of in an increasingly interconnected world. For the most part, UK policy still proceeds as excessive consumption without work, while in though growth in GDP is the most important This open-endedness of historical materialism News from Nowhere work is the route to the determinant of political and economic success. has long been understood by the most critical good life. These competing notions provide In the context of declining growth rates across thinkers—Marxists and non-Marxists alike—and inspiration for a post-growth vision of work. We the advanced economies and the need to tackle has been the basis for extensions of its argue that biophysical and social dynamics urgent challenges such as climate change, dialectical vision made by such revolutionary mean that in a post-growth economy we are biodiversity lossand social inequality, this thinkers as V. I. Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg, likely to have to be less productive and work strategy is at best short-sighted and at worst Antonio Gramsci, and Che Guevara. However, more. But, this can be a utopian vision. By disastrous both for societal wellbeing and for in the last few decades, the work of the Marx- breaking the link between work and long-term sustainability. Engels-Gesamtausgabe (MEGA) project, consumption at the level of the individual, we dedicated to publishing Marx and Frederick can remove some of the coercion in work. This This policy briefng highlights some alternatives Engels’s complete manuscripts, has further would free us to do jobs that contribute to the to the conventional approach. It presents a impressed on scholars the lack of any fnal social good, rather than generate exchange three-fold strategy for moving beyond GDP by: closure in Marx’s thought. The MEGA initiative value, and empower us to fght for good work. changing the way we measure success; building has highlighted as never before the inherent Finally, we draw on eco-feminist analyses of a consistent policy framework for a ‘wellbeing incompleteness of Marx’s critique of political capitalism to argue that by challenging labour economy’; and addressing the ‘growth economy—a result not only of the inability of productivity growth we can also challenge dependency’ of the economy. any single person to bring such a vast project to wider forces of oppression. completion, but also of the project’s materialist- These strategies are exemplifed through various scientifc character, which required unending Download the full document here! initiatives from around the world which are historical and empirical research that could not described in the briefng. The APPG on Limits to be foreshortened by the imposition of Growth seeks to bring these developments o the suprahistorical abstractions. attention of Parliament and to encourage similar initiatives for the UK. In particular, this briefng Download the full document here! recommends:

19/03/21 9 of 16 JUS SEMPER NEWSLETTER ➡ a determined effort to develop new measures bottom of society: one of prosperity, the other of growth and unpacks the close relationships of societal wellbeing and sustainable prosperity; precariousness. At the level of production, between productivity growth, the wage rate and ➡ the full integration of these measures into economic stagnation is diminishing the life social inequality. It also points to the historical central and local government decision-making expectations of the vast majority. At the same congruence (and potential causal links) processes; time, fnancialisation is accelerating the between declining productivity growth and ➡ the alignment of regulatory, fscal and consolidation of wealth by a very few. Although resource bottlenecks. Contrary to some monetary policy with the aims of achieving a the current crisis of production associated with mainstream views, this paper fnds no sustainable and inclusive wellbeing economy; the COVID-19 pandemic has sharpened these inevitability in the rising inequality that has ➡ the establishment of a formal inquiry into disparities, the overall problem is much longer haunted advanced economies in recent reducing the ‘growth dependency’ of the UK and more deep-seated, a manifestation of the decades, suggesting instead that it lies in the economy; inner contradictions of monopoly-fnance pursuit of growth at all costs, even in the face of ➡t h e d e v e l o p m e n t o f a l o n g - t e r m , capital. Comprehending the basic parameters of challenging fundamentals. This strategy has precautionary ‘post-growth’ strategy for the today’s fnancialised capitalist system is the key hindered technological innovation, reinforced UK. to understanding the contemporary contagion inequality and exacerbated fnancial instability. of capital, a corrupting and corrosive cash At the very least, this paper argues, it is now In this briefng note, we propose three strategies nexus that is spreading to all corners of the U.S. time for policy to consider seriously the in response to this dilemma. The frst is to economy, the globe, and every aspect of human possibility that low growth rates might be ‘the integrate better indicators of prosperity into existence. new normal’ and to address carefully the ‘post- policy. The second is to use these new measures growth challenge’ this poses. to move society away from an economy defned Download the full document here!# by the limitations of GDP and towards a # Download the full document here! ‘wellbeing economy’. The third is to address and reduce the ‘growth dependency’ of the economy. The aim of this briefng is to describe these three strategies in more detail. THE POST-GROWTH CHALLENGE — Tim THE PROPAGANDA MODEL REVISITED Download the full document here! Jackson —Edward S. Herman

According In Manufacturing Consent: The THE CONTAGION OF CAPITAL — Political Economy of the Mass Media (Pantheon, John Bellamy Foster 1988) Noam Chomsky and I put forward a “propaganda model” as a framework for analysing and understanding how the mainstream U.S. media work and why they perform as they do. We had long been impressed with the regularity with which the media operate within restricted assumptions, depend heavily and uncritically on elite information sources, and participate in propaganda campaigns helpful to elite interests. In trying to explain why they do this we looked for structural factors as the only possible root of systematic behaviour and performance patterns.

Critics have long questioned the feasibility (and desirability) of exponential growth on a fnite planet. More recently, mainstream economists have begun to suggest some ‘secular’ limits to ÿ growth. Sluggish recovery in the wake of the The U.S. economy and society at the start of fnancial crisis has revived discussion of a 2021 is more polarised than it has been at any ‘secular stagnation’ in advanced economies, in point since the Civil War. The wealthy are particular. Declining growth rates have in their awash in a food of riches, marked by a turn been identifed as instrumental in increased booming stock market, while the underlying inequality and the rise of political populism. population exists in a state of relative, and in This paper explores these emerging arguments some cases even absolute, misery and decline. paying a particular attention to the dynamics of The result is two national economies as secular stagnation. It explores the underlying perceived, respectively, by the top and the phenomenon of declining labour productivity 10 of 16 19/03/21 JUS SEMPER NEWSLETTER The propaganda model was and is in distinct At an international level, we should fully that sees everything as dominated by the contrast to the prevailing mainstream acknowledge what is stated in the preamble to kinematic principles of machines. Humanity too explanations—both liberal and conservative—of the ILO’s constitution: “The failure of any nation became a kind of machine, with the media behaviour and performance. These to adopt humane conditions of labour is an relationship between the mind and the brain approaches downplay structural factors, obstacle in the way of other nations which resembling that of bile and the gall bladder. The generally presupposing their unimportance or desire to improve the conditions in their own human spirit was banished, separated from the positive impact because of the multiplicity of countries.” And we should take account of the material world, which was subject to human agents and thus competition and diversity.ÿ fact that the international division of labour and control as a subordinate or yet to be ÿ our environmental impact on the planet are subordinated space. One consequence of the In this article I will describe the propaganda inseparable. Social and environmental naturalisation of human existence, or perhaps model, address some of the criticism that has standards must therefore be given the same its banishment from nature, was the forgetting been levelled against it, and discuss how the legal force as those governing international of the body. model holds up nearly a decade after its trade. This would require the creation of an publication. I will also provide some examples international dispute settlement body with the of how the propagan power to authorise countries complying with # these standards to close their markets to Download the full document here! products made under conditions that do not. The European Union could regain political legitimacy by championing such a reform, thus renewing the commitment enshrined in EU A LABOUR CODE FOR THE 21ST treaties to “improved living and working CENTURY — Alain Supiot conditions, so as to make possible their harmonisation while the improvement is being maintained”, rather than encouraging a social and fscal race to the bottom between Member States, as its Court of Justice does. Ambitious reform of labour law should also include unpaid work, such as raising children and caring for elderly parents, which is as vital for society as it is ignored by economic indicators. Ever since artifcial lighting made working 24 hours a day possible, labour law has provided a spatial and temporal framework compatible with our biological clock and the (human) right to respect for private and family life. This framework is now threatened by neoliberalism and information technology, which together extend paid work to any place and any time. The price, particularly in terms of f a m i l y l i f e , i s e x o r b i t a n t b u t n e ve r acknowledged by those obsessed with Sunday and night working, which are destroying the last Download the full document here! vestiges of social time to have escaped the commodifcation of human life.

Download the full document here! CALIFORNIA'S MIGRANT WORKERS — Bruce Neuburger

Today’s labour laws were designed for a world In the era of Trump and his anti-immigrant of work that no longer exists. The pressures of AFTER INDUSTRIALISM: REVIVING fascist mongering, California stands out as a neoliberalism on the individual and society NATURE IN THE 21ST CENTURY — kind of fortress of tolerance—after all, it is a require labour laws that go beyond defending Reinhard Olschanski sanctuary state. This was not always the case. or destroying past certainties and that instead California was at one time, arguably, the most give workers power over the quality, overtly racist state in the United States outside organisation, and purpose of their work. Ecologism as a school of thought emerges as a of the former slave states—ground zero for the You would have to be blind to deny the need critique of industrialism, the ideology that binds Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, Operation for fundamental reform of labour laws. liberalism, conservativism, and socialism. It Wetback in 1954, and Proposition 187 in the Throughout history, technological advances develops these three dominant political mid–1990s. Something changed—partly have always led to a restructuring of institutions. traditions by recognising nature as the basis for demographically, partly due to persistent This was the case in past industrial revolutions the human’s existence and development. Two struggle, and partly because of the country’s which, after overturning the old order by decades into a 21st century already defned by dependence on the very people Trump and his opening the foodgates to proletarianisation, the crisis of the human in nature, the kind like to bash. ecologisation of human society is an urgent colonisation, and the Dual Perspective (2006) But if we should become too taken by the signs imperative. industrialisation of war and killing, resulted in of progress in California toward embracing the rebuilding of international institutions and Hardly anything escaped the titanic forces of diversity and opposing overt white supremacy, the invention of the welfare state. industrial modernity. It ploughed up the world Chasing the Harvest will help bring us, literally, and created it anew. It shaped a way of thinking 19/03/21 11 of 16 JUS SEMPER NEWSLETTER back down to earth. It is not a sweeping THE CASE FOR BASIC INCOME — Guy reimagining of work and economic security in analysis of exploitation nor does it seek to Standing our crisis-ridden world. As resolutely against unearth the mainsprings of that exploitation. But old-style “labouristist” social democracy as it does give a compelling and powerful picture against neoliberal capitalism, it will foster of what exploitation and oppression—indeed, greater freedom while helping us tackle the what an apartheid labour system—looks like up worsening crises of inequality, climate change, close. It brings us face to face with the fact that and authoritarian populism. this is a society that cannot sustain itself, cannot feed itself, without a labour system that Download the full document here! ensnares hundreds of thousands in a web of extremely oppressive social relations; a system that is, in all but in name, a caste system enforced by state power.

REPORTS FROM THE OBSERVATORY OF LIVING WAGES — JUS SEMPER – UNIVERSIDAD LA SALLE, MEXICO CITY

2 0 2 0 R E P O R T : L I V I N G - W A G E The COVID-19 pandemic has brought into ASSESSMENT – PPP WAGE RATE GAPS sharp relief the irretrievable breakdown of the FOR SELECTED "DEVELOPED AND post-war income distribution system in the West EMERGING" ECONOMIES FOR ALL that essentially ties income and benefts to employment. The past four decades have seen EMPLOYED IN MANUFACTURING i n c o m e , w e a l t h , a n d p ow e r f ow i n g WORKERS (1996 UP TO 2018) increasingly to rentiers—owners of physical, fnancial, and so-called intellectual property— while the ranks of the global precariat swell, consigning workers to unstable jobs, low and The interviews in Chasing the Harvest fesh out erratic incomes, and insecure lives. But the a part of this picture—an important part. And pandemic may prove the undoing of that they are an important beginning for grappling system, as paying people to stay home—indeed, with this history and this current reality. to not do paid work—has become essential to These narratives are meant to be used also as survival. material for school curriculum, so that students As long as income depends on jobs, workers can engage with experiences that are both little will feel a need to return to unsafe conditions. known and intimately connected to our lives And as long as economic power remains and well-being. They offer the possibility that concentrated at the top, companies will have these windows to the world of farmworkers will every incentive to make workers come back. inspire students to seek out causes of injustice Even if we manage to weather the current and to uncover the system that has produced pandemic, our system lacks the resilience to be Our 2018 assessment reports divergent them. They are a starting point for challenging ready for the next one—let alone other crises. outcomes among selected economies that were that which needs to be upended, for this The glimmer of hope amidst the tragedy is that predominantly the result of a meaningful oppressive and life-crushing farm labour system the economic recession triggered by the increase of hourly wages in local currency (or cannot be allowed to stand. pandemic is a potentially transformative crisis. lack of it), exchange rates and changes in their Many on the left were puzzled by the reversion PPP cost of living. Six economies improved Download the full document here! to the neoliberal status quo following the their position, four lost ground and four did not 2007/2008 fnancial crash. However, a change. France, Germany, Italy, South Korea, hegemonic paradigm will only be displaced if it Singapore and Australia improved their cannot answer the questions that preoccupy equalisation index (Eq-Idx). Canada, United people and if an alternative paradigm is ready. Kingdom, Spain and Turkey lost ground For too long, that second condition has been compared to their 2017 position, whilst Brazil, missing. Mexico, Japan and South Africa experienced no change. Fortunately, an alternative economic vision has been emerging, and a basic income system is Among the six economies that improved their an essential component of it. A basic income is living-wage equalisation position, the main not a panacea, merely a necessary pillar of the factors were the substantial increase of their 12 of 16 19/03/21 JUS SEMPER NEWSLETTER hourly rates in local currency combined with a drop dramatically, from 50 in 2017 to low to 2 0 2 0 R E P O R T : L I V I N G - W A G E revaluation of their currency or a decrease in mid 30s, which is tantamount to the levels ASSESSMENT – NEW ASSESSMENT OF their cost of living in PPP terms for private prevalent during the 1996 - 2000 period. consumption. In the case of the three euro-area BRAZIL'S WAGE RATE GAP 1996-2018 After the staunchly neoliberal Macri countries (France, Germany and Italy), it was government left Argentina’s socio-economic specifically the combination of the increase of conditions in dire shambles, the new Fernández their hourly wage rates with a revaluation of the government is doing its best to recover the gains euro. This allowed France, Italy and Germany to for the common citizen of the preceding increase their equalisation Eq-Idx. This Kirchner-Fernández governments, which will be combination served to offset their increase of a rather daunting task, given the recurring crises their PPP cost of living, and increased their since the start of this century. For now, living advantage over the increase of the US hourly wage equalisation in the manufacturing sector rates in real terms. A similar behaviour took vis-à-vis equivalent US wages has collapsed and place in the case of Singapore and South Korea. is destined to drop to levels reminiscent of the In this way, they clearly outperformed the 2002 crisis before it begins to recover. increase of the US hourly rate in manufacturing and thus increased their equalisation Eq-Idx In The new government of Alberto Fernandez fact, Singapore’s Eq-Idx is its best recorded immediately implemented a countercyclical since 1996. Australia, in contrast, devalued its package to return to demand-side policies currency, but it achieved the highest aimed at reducing as much as possible Macri’s Temer’s supply-side economic policies that improvement of its equalisation Eq-Idx among neoliberal ethos and his economic policy continues with Bolsonaro’s government, have all 41 economies in our reports, which is equal errors. Some of these are tax hikes on foreign stopped any effort to improve the labour’s share to its best position previously achieved in 2014. currency purchases, agricultural exports, of income and clearly reflect a policy of This was the result of a strong increase of its wealth, and car sales as well as labour d e l i b e ra t e wa g e c o n t e n t i o n . Te m e r ’s hourly rate in local currency and a currency protections to increase compensation for government passed a new law (PEC 55) that devaluation, which contributed to a drop of its unjustified work dismissals. Also, as it freezes all public spending for 20 years, which PPP cost of living. happened at the start of the century, Argentina implies that constitutionally-protected was forced to default on its foreign debt, and government expenditures in the areas of health, Download the full document here! has just reached an agreement with vulture education and other social sectors would funds and other foreign creditors that, for the remain stunted until 2036. This has ended

most part, fulfils their demands and not those of Brazil’s commitment to sustain its minimum Argentinians. Moreover, Argentina is once again wage appreciation policy, after the minimum 2 0 2 0 R E P O R T : L I V I N G - W A G E under negotiations with the IMF to reduce its wage had more than doubled in real terms never ending sovereign foreign debt. since 1996. As for manufacturing wages, they ASSESSMENT – NEW ASSESSMENT OF Furthermore, the economic crisis has been A R G E N T I NA ' S WAG E R AT E G A P actually lost ground since 1996, which partially convoluted by the COVID-19 pandemic, which recovered from the recession at the start of the 1996-2018 will clearly exacerbate Argentina’s deep century, until the minimum wage appreciation recession. So far, inflation appears to be policy had a positive influence from 2010 substantially lower in 2020 than in 2019, at onwards that is now receding once again. Yet, 13,5% for the first six months, but expected to with a renewed recession during the 2014-2016 hover at 30% by the end of the year, despite the period, that only began to subside in 2017 and effect of the pandemic on an already depressed will fall back into a deep recession due to the demand. As with the rest of the world, GDP will ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and the fall drastically, at least 11% and then gradually staunchly neoliberal and predatory supply-side recover, more as a technical rebound rather approach followed by Bolsonaro’s government, than as true growth in 2021. All of these factors Brazil will not resume any gains in real terms will make it difficult for Argentina to recover from a domestic perspective nor will it resume real wages in manufacturing and gradually the closing of its Eq-Idx, from a global bring them to their previous equalisation perspective, for the foreseeable future. In fact, it position relative to the 2002 crisis. is likely to actually increase its equalisation gap

Parting from this rather negative context, the with comparative wages in the US in the socio-economic picture for Argentina looks a coming years.ÿ lot like a loss of two decades. This would entail ÿ ur analysis of Argentina’s living wages in the For the entire 24-year period (1996-2018), O a colossal hardship particularly for the lower manufacturing sector from a global perspective living wage equalisation of manufacturing ranks of society. One of the greatest benefits of hourly wages have not made any improvement (purchasing power parities) no longer assumes the appreciation of real wages of any country – that Argentina’s government will continue to whatsoever, and they are slightly lower than in in the context of a living wage ethos in a market 1996. The hourly rates recovered gradually after regard the appreciation of real wages as a society– is the direct impact on the eradication fundamental element of its economic policy. As the turn of the century recession but by 2018 of the conditions of inequality and exclusion; their equalisation with equivalent US wages are expected, the Macri government did everything conditions that have prevailed in Argentina for possible to resume the old centre-periphery down to a 32 index relative to the 34 index of many decades and were only reduced 1996. Our estimate for 2019, indicates that relationship that applies a neocolonial ethos to substantially between 2004 and 2015. It Argentina’s economic policies. Unfortunately, their Eq-Idx would drop to 31 as the result of a remains to be seen if the new government is meagre increase estimate in local currency, the his economic policies have proven disastrous, capable of performing a successful balancing and in his four years, inflation and devaluation actual erosion of the BRL and an increase of the act between the different variables in an PPP cost of living in local currency. The have exploded, the country fell into default of extremely complex scenario. its sovereign debt, real wages collapsed and compounding effect of Bolsonaro’s government predatory economic policy that is clearly anti- poverty increased very meaningfully. One clear Download the full document here! direct consequence is that the equalisation labour and the COVID-19 pandemic, make any indices for at least the 2018 - 2020 period will change for the better rather unlikely for the 19/03/21 13 of 16 JUS SEMPER NEWSLETTER foreseeable future. Hence, the prospect for Between 2015 and 2018 the manufacturing of the euro for the most part, since consumer living wage equalisation appears grim. ÿ hourly rate in local currency increased 43,6%, prices increased less than two percent.ÿ ÿ and by 18,3% in US dollars after accounting for ÿ Parting from the implications carried by the shift an erosion of the peso, which allowed the PPP Since Spain joined the €uro area, hourly from demand-side to supply-side economic conversion factor for private consumption to manufacturing wage rates generally performed policy in Brazil’s current government, it appears drop. The combination of these components better than the minimum wage, with rates to be unlikely that any meaningful progress will allowed the Eq-Idx to gain five points in 2016 consistently moving above CPI inflation, whilst be achieved in increasing manufacturing wages and then remain at this level in 2017 and 2018. ÿ the minimum wage increased at lower rates and and wage rates for the entire economy in real ÿ lost value in real terms between 2001 and terms. In the best case scenario, wages will After two years, it remains to be seen if the 2004. It was only until 2017 and 2018 that the keep their current value. All of this is further government follows this path or resumes minimum wage outperformed manufacturing complicated by the deep recession triggered by abiding by supply-side criteria. Mexico has the wages in real terms relative to CPI inflation, the pandemic. worst wages in Iberian America. We have ending 16% above the CPI versus only 9% for observed 36 years of a deliberate policy of the manufacturing hourly rate. Undoubtedly, Download the full document here! wage pauperisation that has forced a huge Spain’s minimum wage will greatly outperform population to join the ranks of the precariat. manufacturing wages in 2019 and 2020. We While minimum wage policy appears to be will see to what extent manufacturing wages are moving on the right track, there are many influenced by the pressure exerted by the instances of public matter with the government 2 0 2 0 R E P O R T : L I V I N G - W A G E increases to the minimum wage when the clearly siding with the interest of capital and not hourly manufacturing rates become available. ASSESSMENT – NEW ASSESSMENT OF with the people. If, at the end, the labour’s The government has pledged to push for MEXICO'S WAGE RATE GAP 1996-2018 share of income does not improve steadily and powerful increases to the minimum wage in the shows a marked increase by the end of 2024, next three years for a total increase of 26% by we would have to conclude that the only goal 2023. Yet mounting opposition from employers of the government was to mitigate the worst already forced them to increase the rate in 2020 characteristics of exploitation and not to change at half of what they pretended. According to the the structures that sustain them.ÿ ÿ government, the 2019 minimum wage of Spain On the other hand, if the government complies was still below the average for the rest of with its campaign promises, it will take decades Europe at 80,6%. For now, inflation has not to both achieve a living-wage ethos and to close b e e n i m p a c t e d w h a t s o e v e r b y t h e the gap with equivalent wages in the unprecedented minimum wage increase. As for manufacturing sector, under the equal pay unemployment, it continued to drop in 2019, principle. At the very least, it will take five six- from 26% in 2013 to 13,8% by the end of year terms to fulfil this expectation under the 2019. But, as could be expected, by second presumption that the current government sets quarter 2020, it has climbed to 15,3% as a the path and materialises the progress that can result of the COVID-19 pandemic. be achieved by 2024, as illustrated in our The staunchly predatory, corrupt and projections. Download the full document here! fraudulent governments of Mexico, imposed a policy of wage erosion and containment at an Download the full document here! extremely precarious level in manufacturing and all economic sectors, as one of the pillars of their economic policy for nearly 36 years. With the current government, this appears to be 2 0 2 0 R E P O R T : L I V I N G - W A G E changing. ÿ ÿ ASSESSMENT – NEW ASSESSMENT OF Mexico’s track record since 1996 exposed a SPAIN'S WAGE RATE GAP 1996-2018 deliberate state policy of maintaining modern- slave-work real wages between 1996 and 2015. However, their wage policy appears to have changed in 2017 after the execution of consistent supply-side policies over more than three decades. For the first time the federal minimum wage was increased above inflation in 2017 and 2018. Through a so-called “Independent Recovery Amount”, the minimum wage for 2017 was increased arbitrarily by 9,6%, including 3,9% to offset the estimated CPI inflation rate. The same criterion was applied for 2018, for a total minimum wage increase of 10,4%, including a 3,9% increase to offset CPI inflation. In 2019, Mexico’s new government, vowing to implement a strong In 2018 Spain widened the gap of its minimum wage recovery policy, increased the equalisation index (Eq-Idx) after a meaningful minimum wage by 16,2%, including a 5% four-point gain in 2017. The increase in its gap increase to offset inflation and by 20% in 2020, was largely the result of the combined effect of including 5% to account for inflation. This a drop of its hourly rate in euros and a changes appear to have a direct positive impact meaningful increase of its cost of living in on manufacturing wages in real terms and on its purchasing power parity terms, with the latter equalisation with comparative US wages. being in turn a consequence of the revaluation

14 of 16 19/03/21 JUS SEMPER NEWSLETTER AEQUUS INDEX — LIVING WAGE LIVING-WAGE ASSESSMENT (1996-2018) EQUALISATION INDEX FOR ALL – THE FOUR LARGEST ECONOMIES IN EMPLOYED IN THE MANUFACTURING THE AMERICAS (CANADA, BRAZIL, SETOR 1996-2018 (41 COUNTRIES) MEXICO AND ARGENTINA)

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LIVING-WAGE ASSESSMENT – TABLE T5: LIVING-WAGE ASSESSMENT (1996-2018) 1996-2018 REAL WAGE-GAP RATES FOR – E I G H T A S I A A N D O C E A N I A FOURTEEN SELECTED ECONOMIES, IN ECONOMIES PURCHASING POWER PARITY (PPP) TERMS, FOR ALL EMPLOYED IN MANUFACTURING. *(THE BASE TABLE USED FOR ALL PPP REAL-WAGE GAP ANALYSIS)

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LIVING-WAGE ASSESSMENT (1996-2018) – T W E N T Y- E I G H T E U R O P E A N ECONOMIES

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19/03/21 15 of 16 JUS SEMPER NEWSLETTER If you do not wish to continue receiving our newsletter, just e-mail us, writing in the subject line "unsubscribe" [email protected] A final thought

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Mexico City policeman chains himself to the main doors of the City Assembly in protest because his salary does not make a living wage (19 December 2006).

A living wage is, universally, the most important element in the achievement of everyone´s right to a dignifed life and the eradication of poverty. Relative to the social responsibility of business, a corporation or organisational entity employing people, regardless of size or trade, public or private, cannot be considered to behave in a socially responsible manner if it does not pay a living wage, regardless of how responsibly it behaves in all other areas of activity.

Just as the International Labour Organisation’s Decent Work Agenda states, the decent work concept has led to an international consensus that productive employment and decent work are key elements to achieving poverty reduction. Yet, everything remains in the realm of rhetoric and hypocrisy, and the system, imbued in the most perverse human instincts, remains.

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