How the pharmaceutical companies, Congress and the DEA made the opioid epidemic a billion-dollar industry

Genevieve Leigh

Previously undisclosed information from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), published last week, traces the path of every narcotic sold in America—from manufacturer to distributor—between 2006 and 2012. The information, analyzed in a comprehensive report by the Washington Post, casts additional light on the massive, profit-driven spread of opioids, abetted by the entire political establishment.

During the six-year period, drug manufacturers and distributors flooded the country with 76 billion prescription pain pills, fueling an opioid epidemic that now kills 50,000 people a year in the US.

Multibillion-dollar drug distributors such as McKesson Corp, Walgreens, Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen targeted in particular one of the poorest regions in the country, Appalachia, saturating former coal mining centers in Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia and Tennessee.

Norton, a small town of less than 4,000 residents in the southwest corner of Virginia, received 8,263,510 prescription pain pills, enough for 305 pills per person per year. One Walmart in the city alone received more than 3.5 million of the opioid pills.

In Mingo County, West Virginia, an economically depressed former coal mining county with a 29 percent poverty rate, 29,548,720 pills were flooded into the city, enough to provide each person with 203.5 pills a year. A pharmacy in Kermit, West Virginia, a town of just 392 people, ordered nine million hydrocodone pills in a two-year span.

The counties that had the most pills per person experienced more than three times the death rate from opioid overdose than the rest of the country. Thirteen of those counties had an opioid death rate more than eight times the national rate, and seven of them were in West Virginia alone.

In Norton, the per capita death rate from prescription opioid overdoses was 18 times the national average.

According to the analysis by the Post, the volume of pills distributed by the drug companies kept pace with the growing opioid epidemic, increasing 51 percent, from 8.4 billion in 2006 to 12.6 billion in 2012. The companies responded to the deadly opioid epidemic, fully aware that it was killing thousands of people a year, by pumping more pills into the hardest-hit regions, above all Appalachia.

During this period, opioid manufacturers spent $11,676 on marketing per every thousand residents living in the region.

The targeting of Appalachia has a particularly criminal character. The region was once the center of the coal industry, and its miners were among the most militant sections of the working class. In 1921, in what became known as the Battle of Blair Mountain, some 10,000 armed miners set out to free fellow miners who had been imprisoned in Mingo County under a martial law decree. The miners were eventually dispersed by means of an aerial bombardment by the US Air Force.

The militancy of miners continued into the 1960s and 1970s, including a mass strike in 1969 to force the passage of federal regulations recognizing black lung as an occupational illness and limiting exposure to coal dust, and a 111-day strike in 1977-1978 in defiance of United Mine Workers (UMW) President Arnold Miller and a Taft Hartley back-to-work order by President Jimmy Carter.

In the 1980s, the ruling class carried out a decade of union-busting and mass layoffs, abetted by the UMW under Richard Trumka, now president of the AFL-CIO, who isolated and betrayed a series of strikes and helped impose massive cuts in jobs, wages, benefits and safety conditions. This culminated in the betrayal and defeat of the 1989 Pittston strike in West Virginia, Virginia and Kentucky.

The unions and the Democratic Party oversaw the social devastation of the region. By the beginning of the current century, one-third of the 100 poorest counties in the United States were concentrated in the coalfields.

Capitalism, having profited from plunging the region into economic depression, found a way to profit once again by exploiting the social misery it had produced to addict the population on deadly drugs. Pharmaceutical corporations pumped towns full of opioids and took in billions of dollars.

Leaked email exchanges between drug manufacturers and distributors give a sense of the character of this operation and those who orchestrated it. In January 2009, Victor Borelli, a national account manager for drug maker Mallinckrodt, sent an email to Steve Cochrane, the vice president of sales for KeySource Medical, informing him that 1,200 bottles of oxycodone 30 mg tablets had been shipped.

“Keep ’em comin’!” Cochrane responded. “Flyin’ out of there. It’s like people are addicted to these things or something. Oh, wait, people are…”

Borelli replied: “Just like Doritos keep eating. We’ll make more.”

There is a sociopathic character to such comments, which express a horrific disregard for human life. However, it is a sociopathology rooted in a social system. The flooding of economically depressed areas with billions of opioids for years on end, amidst a national health crisis and despite multiple levels of government oversight, is not the product of “crony” capitalism or “corrupted” capitalism, as Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren like to proclaim. It is, rather, an expression of the brutally exploitative nature of the system itself.

As far back as 1916 Lenin identified the integration of gigantic corporations into the machinery of the state as “state-monopoly capitalism,” the characteristic form of capitalist rule in the epoch of imperialism. This process was still in its infancy when Lenin analyzed it. It has since metastasized many times over.

The Republicans and the Democrats are both culpable in a massive social crime against the population of the country. So incestuous are the relations between the corporations and the state that in 2016 a unanimous House of Representatives and a unanimous Senate, at the height of the Opioid epidemic, quietly passed a bill the main purpose of which was to stop the DEA’s Office of Diversion Control from halting drug shipments for unusually large and unexplained sales.

The bill, which was brought to the floor by Republican Tom Marino, was written by Linden Barber, a former DEA employee who left his job as associate chief counsel of the DEA and within a month joined a law firm that lobbies Congress on behalf of drug companies. He can be seen in TV advertisements touting his skills to potential drug distribution clients facing DEA scrutiny. During this period, the pharmaceutical industry and law firms that represent them hired at least 46 investigators, attorneys and supervisors directly out of the DEA.

Before passing the bill, Congress heard testimony from dozens of experts, including the then-head of the Office of Diversion Control for the Drug Enforcement Administration, who was subsequently pushed out of his position for his opposition to the rubber-stamping of the man-made epidemic.

The bill was signed into law by then-President Barack Obama, without the usual photo-op or press coverage.

The multibillion-dollar pharmaceutical companies will not be stopped by the bourgeois courts. Their owners must be expropriated, and the companies transformed into publicly owned utilities as part of a planned, internationally coordinated socialist medical system based on providing quality health care for all rather than generating profits for billionaire capitalists.

All of the social evils associated with addiction—unemployment, poverty, lack of education—can be eliminated only through a struggle to mobilize the working class against the entire political system, both parties of big business and all of their bribed politicians. To end drug addiction and stop the billionaire drug pushers, it is necessary to put an end to capitalism.

Fire at Japanese animation studio leaves nearly three dozen dead

Ben McGrath 

An arson attack at an animation studio in Kyoto, Japan last Thursday killed 34 people and injured 34 others. Many remained hospitalized, some in critical condition. Police issued an arrest warrant for the alleged attacker, Shinji Aoba, 41, who suffered burns during the attack and remains unconscious in hospital. It was the deadliest fire in Japan since a suspected arson attack in 2001 killed 44 people.

Kyoto Animation arson attack [credit: Wikipedia]

Aoba is alleged to have entered Kyoto Animation Thursday around 10:30 a.m. after purchasing two twenty-litre tanks filled with gasoline from a nearby gas station. He is then said to have dumped the gasoline on the ground and ignited it while shouting “Die!” There were 74 people in the studios at the time.

Kyoto Animation is known for manga and TV and movie anime, including The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Lucky Star and K-On!. Nobuyuki Tsugata, an animation historian in the Department of Cinema at Nihon University College of Art, called the studio “unique in the industry” for its use of colour.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe offered a perfunctory statement on Twitter, saying: “It’s so dreadful that I’m lost for words.” As is typical in responses from the ruling class in such cases, empty words of grief were offered, avoiding any connection between the tragedy and declining social and economic conditions.

The media described Aoba as a disturbed loner who got into confrontations with his neighbours, including an incident only days before the fire. He was convicted of robbing a convenience store in 2012 and sentenced to three and half years in jail. Aoba lived alone in Saitama city, near Tokyo and was receiving treatment for a mental illness.

Upon being detained by police, Aoba supposedly declared “I did it” and said the studio “ripped me off,” accusing it of stealing a novel he had written. A witness who saw him detained, stated: “He sounded like he had a grudge against society, and he was talking angrily to the policemen, too, though he was struggling with pain.”

Hideaki Hatta, the company president, said the studio had had no contact with Aoba before the attack, although the company had recently received anonymous death threats. “They were addressed to our office and sales department and told us to die,” Hatta stated.

Thursday’s fire spread rapidly through the relatively small, three-storey building located in Kyoto’s Fushimi Ward. Experts in architecture and fire safety pointed to the building’s structure as a contributing factor in the high death toll. According to authorities, only five people were killed by the flames themselves. Most died from carbon monoxide poisoning. Nineteen people were found in a stairwell leading from the third floor to the building’s roof.

“The structure of the building was that it had one spiral staircase penetrating through three floors acting as a chimney, the most effective way of starting a fire,” Momoko Higuchi, a Tokyo-based architect, said. “Because the fire was with petrol, the effect was like a bomb. Most died of smoke.”

One of those who escaped the blaze told Japan’s public broadcaster NHK: “A black mushroom cloud billowed up the stairs, perhaps within 15 seconds, then everything went black, like pouring black ink all over the place. I couldn’t see anything.”

Shinichi Sugawara, an expert in structural fire engineering and professor emeritus at Tokyo University, said a backdraft was possible—a situation in which heat from a blaze shatters windows, allowing outside air to rush into and fuel a fire, increasing its intensity.

Other factors pointed to a lack of fire safety. While the door to the roof was supposedly not locked, one employee said the door was “a rare type” with two metal levers that had to be moved at the same time. He said he was “not good at opening the door at first.” Given the high stress of the situation as well as the blinding conditions, it is probable that the door presented an unexpected barrier to the employees’ escape.

The building also lacked sprinklers and fire shutters in the stairwell. Due to the size of the building, it was apparently exempt from installing those safety measures. Professor Sugawara commented: “I personally think that all places like that should have shutters, and all buildings should have sprinklers, regardless of size.” Yet the Kyoto Animation studios passed a safety inspection last October.

As with similar tragedies, accidents happen, but their severity is too often the result of decaying capitalist society. Businesses are exempt from implementing life-saving measures in the name of cost savings, and individuals suffering mental ill-health under the highly exploitative corporate profit system have nowhere to turn for help.

Those suffering from mental health issues are at a particular disadvantage in Japan where stigma is still attached to those seeking help with a variety of conditions ranging from depression to dissociative identity disorder. Only about one in three people suffering from severe mental health issues receives treatment. While rates of suicide in Japan have fallen in recent years, it is still the leading cause of death for people between 10 and 39.

None of this absolves Aoba, but the standard response from the state to these types of tragedies is to vilify the accused, overlook or ignore safety violations or concerns, and use the attack as justification for building up the police force to be deployed against the working class and growing social discontent.

Russian Ford workers betrayed by union, left with meager compensation and without jobs

Clara Weiss

On June 20, the Ford factory in Vsevolozhsk, near the city of St. Petersburg, effectively shut down production. Of roughly 1,000 workers, only 50 are left to work there until December this year to complete the factory's closure. According to news reports, the other two factories that Ford announced would be closed in Russia—one in Naberezhnye Chelny, a city in the region of Tatarstan; and one in Yelaburg—were shut down in early June.

The closures are part of a major assault on autoworkers internationally which includes mass layoffs at Ford and GM in the Americas and Europe.

In the struggle against this assault, workers are confronted not only with the transnational companies, but also with the trade unions, which strangle the workers’ resistance. This was in stark display during the shutdown of the Russian factories.

The Russian auto union MPRA (Inter-Regional Trade Union Workers’ Alliance) played a central role in enabling Ford to close the plants without organized opposition by the workers. The almost 1,000 workers were effectively forced to sign agreements of “voluntary retirement” and given miserable severance packages. The workers are now facing the prospect of social destitution and long-term unemployment, amid conditions of growing poverty and economic crisis.

From the very beginning, the union did everything it could to keep workers in the dark about company plans. Its first statement did not appear until February 15, 2019, well over a month after news about the impending closure broke. The MPRA made it clear it would not do anything to defend workers‘ jobs. In mid-March, union officials suddenly announced they would fight for severance pay of 2 million rubles ($31,733) per worker, the equivalent of two years’ full wages, and would carry out “strikes and hunger strikes to win their demand.”

But this was nothing but a smokescreen for its collusion with Ford in the closure of the the factory. Beyond a small demonstration in April, which was mainly attended by pseudo-left and Stalinist groups, the union maintained a virtual wall of silence with the only information released coning from local news organizations. Behind the scenes, however, MPRA officials negotiated th the sellout of the workers and their layoffs based on terms dictated by Ford.

By May, Ford Sollers, the joint venture between Ford and Russian automaker Sollers, boasted that 97 percent of the workers had agreed to sign a “voluntary retirement” agreement. Instead of the 2 million rubles that the MPRA insisted it would fight for, workers received between 300,000 ($4,759) and 700,000 rubles ($11,106).

Workers, who reluctantly took the deal, said the union left them no choice. One worker who had been at the factory since 2001 said: “I agreed [to the conditions]. I have to live on something and it’s better to take what they give. Most of us are awaiting a dark future.” He warned that many laid off workers would be blacklisted because the Vsevolozhsk Ford workers were known for conducting some of the most militant strikes in Russia over the past two decades. “They will not want to hire you as soon as they will hear you are from Ford. They think that we are freedom-loving.”

Another worker pointed out that Ford workers had not received their full wages on a regular basis because the factory had been running below capacity for long time. They often received no more than 20 to 25,000 rubles ($317-396) a month, although the official wage at the factory averaged 55-58,000 rubles ($873-920). “People have forgotten what a full wage means. This played its role [in the workers agreeing to the conditions],” he said.

According to local news, 32 workers refused to sign the severance agreement. One newspaper reported that they were locked up in the factory’s cafeteria by management and only received two-thirds of their wages as punishment. The same report noted that these workers will continue to work until the end of August although most of the workforce (about 730 workers) would be laid off in June. Others took their packages and had already left in May.

The MPRA has published not a single statement on the closure of the plant. It has made it clear, however, that it hopes to get a “seat at the table” to negotiate a deal with a potentially new owner of the factory. The city government is reportedly already conducting negotations with car companies, with several indicating that Hyuandai might take over. The purpose of this demand is to guarantee that the same union officials who have served the interests of Ford will be able to retain their “piece of cake,” if a new car company takes over.

In carrying out this betrayal, the MPRA has been supported by the Stalinists and various middle class “left” organizations. The Russian Pabloite RSM, which has for years maintained close ties to the MPRA leader Alexei Etmanov, has not published a single piece on the layoffs.

The ROT-Front, a Stalinist outfit that maintains close ties to Darya Mitina's OKP and was co-founded by the MPRA Chairman Aleksei Etmanov, promoted the MPRA's line on the layoffs. After a nearly three-month long silence, in July the organization reprinted information acknowledged that Ford workers had suffered from a defeat and cynically added, “A negative experience is also an experience.”

The role of the MPRA in the liquidation of the Vsevolozhsk Ford factory contains important lessons for workers in Russia and internationally. The betrayal of the MPRA was not a matter simply of “bad leaders.” Under conditions of the globalization of production, the trade unions internationally have been transformed into organization that work on behalf of the companies and the state to suppress working class opposition and attract investment.

The MPRA was founded in 2006 in Vsevolozhsk and was presented as the model for a militant trade union. This was under conditions where workers deeply despised the official trade union FNPR (Federation of Independent Trade Union). The FNPR, which originated in the official Soviet trade unions, was hated because of its role in the restoration of capitalism and its work on behalf of the government and the companies.

However, contrary to what Pabloite organizations like the Russian Socialist Movement have claimed, the MPRA was not an organization representing the left-wing aspirations of workers. Rather, it was formed with the deliberate aim of preventing a serious challenge to the dominance of the FNPR and the development of a politically independent movement by the working class.

The MPRA represents the interests not of the workers, but of a thin layer of bureaucrats and middle class careerists, many of which are politically active in Stalinist, liberal and pseudo-left organizations. Upon is founding, it immediately affiliated with the Confederation of Labor of Russia (KTR), which has been competing since the 1990s with the FNPR for seats at negotation tables with the government and companies.

For workers, the way forward lies in a break from the pro-capitalist trade unions and the nationalist pseudo-left and Stalinist organizations that cover up for them. This break must be based on a political understanding of the necessity for a globally integrated strategy by the working class against transnational corporations like Ford and the fight for an international socialist program.

War danger in Middle East exacerbates political crisis in Britain

Robert Stevens

Tensions continue to mount over the stand-off with Iran over its seizure of a British oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz last Friday, posing the danger of a catastrophic military conflict in the Middle East.

The Stena Impero, a Swedish-owned ship sailing under a British flag, was seized by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards for what they said was a violation of international maritime rules and regulations.

The crisis-ridden British Conservative government—which carried out an act of piracy, seizing an Iranian oil tanker off Gibraltar it still holds after nearly three weeks—responded with a series of threats against Iran, warning of “serious consequences.” Several meetings of its Cobra emergency security council have been convened at which it was agreed to beef up Britain’s military presence in the region, including in the Straits of Hormuz, a crowded 21-mile wide sea lane through which a fifth of all global oil and a third of the world’s liquefied natural gas passes.

On Sunday, UK Defence Minister Tobias Ellwood said Britain was considering a “series of options,” including freezing all Iran’s assets, if the tanker was not released.

Already agreed, according to reports in the Sun, is that a “British Astute-class nuclear-powered submarine, believed to be at sea already, is expected to head to the region within days.”

The Sun reported that “[t]he Royal Marines … would be authorised to use heavy-calibre machine guns, snipers and light anti-tank missiles to deter Iranian forces.”

Also being deployed is HMS Duncan, a Type 45 air-defence destroyer, to back up another UK warship already in the region, HMS Montrose. A Royal Navy support ship, RFA Cardigan Bay, is based in Bahrain, with the newspaper reporting that “HMS Kent, another Type 23 anti-submarine frigate, is due to depart for the Gulf in five weeks.”

While the public position is that all options are on the table, the Daily Telegraph reported Saturday evening that “[t]he UK is believed to have asked its US ally to initially refrain from making inflammatory public statements about the seizure of the Stena Impero by Iran as they sought a diplomatic solution to the crisis.”

It said, “[Foreign Secretary] Jeremy Hunt … spoke with his counterpart [US] Mike Pompeo, who was in Argentina, on Friday night. British and US officials continued to speak through the night on Friday. White House officials did not push back on reports that the UK conveyed a message to the US that it wanted to try to de-escalate the situation.”

The Strait of Hormuz events have massively escalated the political crisis in Britain. Prime Minister Theresa May, who has been a lame duck for months—will almost certainly be replaced this week as Conservative party leader and prime minister by Hunt’s challenger—the pro-Brexit Boris Johnson.

May has been sidelined to such an extent that she reportedly did not attend Friday’s Cobra meeting, “not even by secure videolink” (according to Sky News), despite the fact that they are normally chaired by the prime minister.

Johnson, who resigned as May’s foreign secretary in July last year after less than a year in the position, is not a Cabinet minister and was not in attendance either. As the most prominent pro-Brexit Tory, Johnson advocates deepening ties with the US based on securing a post-Brexit free trade deal with the Trump administration. He has built up a close relationship with anti-European Union US president. Sky News reported Friday evening, “Boris Johnson had a secret call with Donald Trump yesterday…”

Given the vast geopolitical implications of Britain backing the Trump administration in any military action against Iran—with a population deeply hostile to any further imperialist plunder in the Middle East—Johnson and Hunt both felt the need to pledge that they would not back US military strikes against Iran in the Tory election hustings.

Several columnists in the nominally liberal and right-wing media have given voice to these qualms, opposing the UK becoming embroiled in another Middle East war for being against the “national interest.”

Simon Tisdall's Guardian column, “How Trump’s arch-hawk lured Britain into a dangerous trap to punish Iran,” argued that as a result of the seizure of Iran’s tanker, “Britain has been plunged into the middle of an international crisis it is ill-prepared to deal with. The timing could hardly be worse. An untested prime minister, presumably Boris Johnson, will enter Downing Street this week. Britain is on the brink of a disorderly exit from the EU, alienating its closest European partners. And its relationship with Trump’s America is uniquely strained.”

In the Financial Times, Gideon Rachman warned that Johnson, “[F]aces the prospect of having to deal with a major diplomatic crisis with Iran that could spiral into military conflict.”

Relations between the US, UK and European Union face meltdown as “A British decision to align its Iran policy with that of Washington, would probably finally kill off the EU’s efforts to keep the Iran nuclear accord alive.” Rachman added, “It would also represent the abandonment of a long-standing British foreign-policy position and might increase the chances of a military confrontation further down the road.”

Sections of the military and big business openly endorse the military build-up against Iran. Among those are Lord West, the former First Sea Lord and an ex-Labour government minister, who stated: “They [Iran] are the ones who escalated by attacking one of our merchant ships, so if they attack one of our merchant ships then they get their comeuppance.”

However, West also warned in a Guardian column Saturday, “A military response against Iran is not appropriate and, in any case, is beyond the capability of our armed forces acting alone.”

“But we should make it clear to the Iranians that, while up until now we have been trying to talk to Washington about easing sanctions, we will side with the US and strengthen sanctions unless Iran releases our ship and its crew.”

He warned, “Some powerful groups in Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United States want war and think a precision strike against key parts of Iran’s military capability would lead to regime change. They are wrong. It would lead to an open-ended war with catastrophic consequences across the region and the globe.”

West cautioned, “There are very real risks of a miscalculation or some foolhardy action leading to a war.” In comments aimed at Johnson and Hunt, he wrote, “despite what some people think, should a war start there is no way the UK could avoid being fully involved on the US side.”

The escalation of tensions over the last weeks demonstrates that the general tendency is towards military conflict. Every day Britain moves closer to the brink of war. The crisis is being seized on by those advocating a drastic increase in the UK’s military budget and the reversal of cuts to the Armed Forces.

The media of billionaire oligarch Report Murdoch has served as a long-time conduit for airing these positions. Deborah Haynes, the foreign affairs editor at Sky News and previously defence editor at Murdoch’s Times, has been exposed as part of the UK group of journalists who are members of the UK “cluster” of the Integrity Initiative (II). The II was set up by the London-based Institute of Statecraft to spread propaganda on behalf of British imperialism.

Haynes wrote in a Sky News editorial this weekend of the “reality that the Royal Navy no longer has sufficient warships to dedicate to escorting maritime traffic through the Gulf and at the same time maintain its other commitments around the world.”

Referring to the decrease in the size of the UK’s military arsenal, she bemoaned, “The degradation of the Royal Navy and the rest of the armed forces has been a political choice since the end of the Cold War.”

She continued, “Defence experts have warned for years that the moment when Britain finally acknowledges what some see as a self-inflicted act of national vandalism (in terms of cost-saving cuts to the military) will be when we suffer a defeat or catastrophic failure on the international stage.

“Could the seizure of the Stena Impero tanker be that wake-up call?”

“Longer term, let the limitations the Gulf crisis has exposed in Britain's defences prompt the next prime minister to invest sufficient money, strategic thought and innovation into rebuilding the armed forces so the UK is not caught short again.”

Haynes insisted, “More immediately, defence chiefs need to be empowered by their political leaders to adopt a stronger stance on Iran.”

The Bretton Woods Agreement 75 years on

Nick Beams

The 75th anniversary of the conclusion of the Bretton Woods conference, which played a key role in laying the foundations for the restabilisation of the world capitalist economy after the devastation of two world wars and the Great Depression of the 1930s, thereby opening the way for the post-war capitalist boom.

Three quarters of a century on, the world capitalist system faces an eruption of the very disasters that shook it to its foundations and gave rise to revolutionary struggles by the working class, beginning with the October 1917 revolution in Russia.

The participants at the conference, the representatives of the allied powers still engaged in the final stages of the war against Germany and Japan, were acutely conscious that what was at stake in their deliberations to establish a new world economic order was nothing less than the survival of their rule.

Speaking at the conclusion of the meeting, US Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau summed up its conclusions: “We have come to recognise that the wisest and most effective way to protect our national interest is through international cooperation—that is to say, through the united effort for the attainment of common goals.”

The fears driving this orientation were articulated in March 1945 in an address to Congress by US Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs William Clayton. Directing his remarks against the advocates of high tariffs, he warned that “world peace will always be gravely jeopardised by the kind of international economic warfare which was waged so bitterly between the two world wars,” and that “democracy and free enterprise will not survive another world war.”

That precisely describes the road on which the world is now headed—deepening economic conflict and war spearheaded by US imperialism under the presidency of Donald Trump.

In his inaugural address, Trump declared: “We must protect our borders from the ravages of other countries making our products, stealing our companies and destroying our jobs. Protection will lead to great prosperity and strength.” In the more than two years since, the US has carried out escalating economic warfare, hitting out at allies and rivals alike as it imposes tariffs or threatens them in the name of “national security.”

But no one should succumb to the illusion that the very policies the architects of the Bretton Woods agreement warned would lead to a catastrophe are simply the product of the Trump White House. In fact, the Democrats are even more bellicose. They have given their support to a resolution directed against the Chinese telecom giant Huawei that would prevent Trump, as part of any trade deal, lifting the crippling US sanctions imposed on it.

This bipartisan support points to the fact that the escalating trade war and the threat of world war are not the product of the psychology or mindset of a particular group of capitalist politicians that can be overcome by some kind of “course correction.” Rather, these processes are rooted in the deep-seated and intractable crisis of US imperialism, itself the product of the historical evolution of the world capitalist system in the three quarters of a century since Bretton Woods.

There were two key pillars of the Bretton Woods Agreement, one political and the other economic.

The political foundation, which made it possible for the leaders of world capitalism to come together to construct a new world economic order, was the betrayal by the Stalinist bureaucracy in the Soviet Union and the Stalinist Communist Parties around the world of the revolutionary struggles of the working class that had erupted in the 1920s and 1930s, and the renewed anti-capitalist struggles of workers throughout Europe and in much of Asia that were erupting as the war hurtled toward its bloody conclusion.

In the lead-up to the war, the Stalinist program of the popular front—an alliance with supposed democratic sections of the ruling classes—had led to the betrayal of the French working class in 1936 and the beheading of the Spanish working class in the civil war of 1936-39. The Stalinist bureaucracy, which had emerged as a result of defeats suffered by the European working class and the resulting isolation of the first workers’ state after the 1917 revolution, was now the chief prop of world imperialism.

In 1943, the Stalinist bureaucracy gave its guarantee to world imperialism of the role it would play in the post-war world when it dissolved the Communist International. This was underscored at the Yalta summit in February 1945 with British Prime Minister Churchill and US President Roosevelt. Stalin made it clear that the Soviet Union would support the return of capitalist governments in Western Europe after the war—a pledge that was honoured when the Stalinist parties entered bourgeois governments in France and Italy after the defeat of the Nazis and suppressed the drive of the working class for socialist revolution.

The economic foundation was the strength of US capitalism, whose industrial capacities had grown in the course of the war to such an extent that by 1945 it accounted for some 50 percent of world manufacturing.

Having secured the collaboration of the Stalinist parties, which enjoyed mass support in the working class because they were mistakenly seen as the continuators of the October Revolution and because of the pivotal role of the Red Army in defeating Nazi Germany, the US was able to use its economic strength to reconstruct world capitalism.

It did so, however, not out of altruism, but because the restabilization of capitalism in war-devastated Europe and Asia suited the interests of American imperialism. It was recognised in US ruling circles that if Europe and the rest of the world were returned to the conditions of the 1930s, the American economy, dependent on an expansion of the world market, would face disaster, and, notwithstanding the political role of Stalinism, the outcome would be the eruption of revolutionary struggles in Europe and the US itself.

From the outbreak of World War 1 in 1914, the Marxist movement had analysed that the eruption of global war was the outcome of the contradiction between the development of world economy and the division of the world into rival nation-states, which gave rise to ever more violent conflicts among the imperialist powers. Defending their own interests, involving centrally the struggle for markets, profits and resources, each of these powers sought to resolve the contradiction between world economy and the nation-state by establishing itself as the pre-eminent world power, leading to a war of each against all.

This contradiction found expression in the Bretton Woods monetary system, which was intended to minimize conflicts among the major capitalist powers. Defending the interests of British imperialism, economist John Maynard Keynes proposed the establishment of an international currency, the “bancor,” to finance global trade and investment transactions. The essence of the Keynes plan was to make the US subject to the same discipline as the other major powers, thereby lessening its dominance.

The “bancor” plan was flatly rejected and the US dollar was made the basis of a refashioned international monetary system. For all the rhetoric about the need for international collaboration, American hegemony was enshrined in the Bretton Woods agreement. The only constraint was that the dollar was to be exchangeable for gold at the rate of $35 per ounce.

The contradiction between world economy and the national system was not overcome, but only suppressed, under the Bretton Woods system. It would come to the surface again.

The Bretton Woods monetary agreement, together with other measures such as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and the reconstruction of the world economy through the use of more advanced American production technologies, gave rise to an economic expansion in all the major capitalist economies. During the ensuing post-war boom, the conventional wisdom was that capitalism had overcome the disasters of the previous half-century and the global economy could be successfully managed.

But the Bretton Woods monetary system contained an inherent contradiction. The more it promoted the expansion of the world market and the development of other capitalist economies—Germany, France, the UK and Japan—the more it undermined both the relative and absolute economic supremacy of the US on which the system was based.

This contradiction, which had already been identified by the early 1960s, exploded to the surface on August 15, 1971, when President Nixon, faced with a gold drain, unilaterally announced in a Sunday night television broadcast that henceforth the US would not redeem dollars for gold.

Nixon’s actions—which also included a wage freeze on US workers and a 10 percent surcharge on imports—were aimed at maintaining the dominance of American imperialism over the world economy and its financial system. But the decline of US economic supremacy, both relative and absolute, only accelerated in the ensuing years. The establishment of a fiat currency, freed from backing by gold, was one of the major factors in the rise and rise of finance capital over the past four decades.

The US pre-eminence in industrial production steadily eroded, to the extent that it now ranks behind both China and the European Union, and profit accumulation has become increasingly dependent on speculation and financial market operations.

The case of Huawei—one of the key targets of the Trump administration and the American military and intelligence establishment—is a graphic expression of this process. It has been targeted because it is on the front line of the development of 5G mobile phone technology, which will have a major impact on the development of industrial capacity via the internet.

Huawei is now deemed an existential threat to a country that pioneered vast advances in technology going back to the latter years of the 19th century, because there is no comparable US firm. The reason for this absence is that profit-making in the US has become increasingly dependent on short-term gains and financial manipulations at the expense investment and the development of the productive forces.

Three quarters of a century after the Bretton Woods Agreement, all the contradictions of the world capitalist system it sought to suppress have come bursting to the surface once again. They assume their most explosive form in the drive by US imperialism to reassert its hegemony by implementing the kind of tariff and protectionist measures that gave rise to the disasters of the 1930s, now augmented by technology bans, as well as by means of war.

The issue confronting the world working class is that set out by Leon Trotsky in the early years of the imperialist epoch, with the outbreak of World War 1. In 1915, he wrote that the perspective of world socialist revolution and the socialist organisation of economy had to become the practical program of the day guiding the struggles of the working class. That analysis is truer than ever as the contradictions of the capitalist system drive towards another world conflagration.

Concerns over Chinese Naval Base in Cambodia Simmer

Vijay Sakhuja 


Cambodia’s Prime Minister, Hun Sen’s, repeated assertion that his country’s constitution has no provision for accommodating foreign military bases on its soil and that there were no plans to bring about any amendments to the constitution to facilitate such projects has not cut ice with the US. Instead, a media blitzkrieg has been unleashed and the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published an article about a secret agreement between Cambodia and China under which the latter would have access to the Cambodian naval and military facility at the Ream Naval Base for 30 years and the lease would be renewed automatically every ten years. Furthermore, the WSJ article argues that the China-backed Dara Sakor project, about 40 miles from Ream, is part of Beijing’s plans to establish a foothold in Southeast Asia to “enforce territorial claims and economic interests in the South China Sea.” The Chinese built civil and military facilities in Cambodia would complicate matters for the US military should it decide to support Taiwan in any crisis as “some American forces would arrive via the Strait of Malacca or the outer reaches of the South China Sea,” the article adds.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Hun Sen has dismissed WSJ’s insinuation, labeling the report as “the worst distorted news,” and a Cambodian official termed the reportage as ‘Fake News’. Unlike Cambodia, the Spokesperson of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Geng Shuang, was not very specific in his response, and stated that the issue should not be “over interpreted.” Earlier in June, during the Shangri La Dialogue in Singapore, China’s Defense Minister, Gen Wei Fenghe, had denied that Beijing was setting up a military presence in Cambodia, and had dismissed the issue. 

Speculations regarding Chinese interest in accessing or building military related infrastructure in Cambodia have been around in the US and Asian strategic circles for quite some time. But the current suspicions began in June 2018 after Cambodia refused the US’s offer to restore a training facility and boat depot at the Ream Naval Base built by them, fueling rumors that Cambodia was under pressure from China, which wanted access to the facility for the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). Based on internal assessments relevant to this matter, US Vice President, Mike Pence, dispatched a letter to Prime Minister Hun Sen wherein the former expressed concerns over a possible Chinese naval base in Cambodia. 

If one is to go by the aerial photographs, graphics, and satellite images shared in the WSJ article and other reports relating to development projects, it is possible to conclude that China has swamped Cambodia and massive infrastructure is being developed in and around Sihanoukville, Koh Kong, including at Dara Sakor.

The Koh Kong port development project is spread over 45,000 hectares and can emerge as the Mecca of tourism in the future. In 2008, the Cambodian government had leased this prime real estate to the Union Development Group (UDG), a private property developer based in Tianjin, China, on a 99-year lease at a rent of “just US$1 million per year.” The property would be returned to Cambodia in 2108 after the lease expires. The project involves building casinos, golf courses and luxury resorts for leisure and entertainment, and the 20-kilometer long coastline would serve as a deep water port to service cruise liners that would arrive with Chinese tourists. The Koh Kong port is also linked to Dara Sakor airport, which is currently being constructed by the UDG. This airport would have a 3,400-meter long runway—longer than that of the international airport at Phnom Penh, and may possess some features suggesting that it could stage military aircraft too. 

There are a number of Chinese bankrolled entertainment destinations and infrastructure projects in Cambodia, including in Phnom Penh. In particular, Sihanoukville is the leading commercial hub and Chinese entities own 90 per cent of the businesses, ranging from hotels, casinos, restaurants and massage parlours. Roads and highways are under construction across the country with Chinese financial assistance, and dams are coming up on the Mekong River. To be fair, it merits acknowledgement that Cambodia is a maritime state and engages in international commerce through the Sihanoukville Autonomous Port on the Gulf of Siam. It is the only major deep sea port in the country and the Port of Phnom Penh on the Mekong River is a small container hub. The third port—Koh Kong—which is currently in the eye of the storm, would only help it to develop economically.

Finally, it is not extraordinary for countries to develop and build maritime and aviation infrastructure which are used for commercial as well as military purposes. Additionally, it is not unusual to see both commercial vessels and warships berthed in the same port, but they are generally separated by physical barricades or boundary walls. Likewise, there are several airports across the globe that service civil aviation requirements as well as for the militaries. Thus, it is important to tone down exaggerated geostrategic concerns over Koh Kong and Dara Sakor and their possible military use.

Netaji Subhas/ICAR International Fellowships 2019/2020 for Agriculture Scholars – India

Application Deadline: 30th August, 2019

Eligible Countries: International

To be taken at (country): Select Agriculture Universities in India and abroad

About the Award: The NS-ICARIFs are available for pursuing doctoral degree in agriculture and allied sciences, in the identified priority areas, to the (i) Indian candidates for study abroad in the identified overseas Universities/Institutions having strong research and teaching capabilities and (ii) to overseas candidates for study in the Indian Agricultural Universities (AUs) in the ICAR-AUs system.

Eligible Fields of Study: Crop Sciences, Horticulture, Biotechnology and nanotechnology, Animal Sciences, Natural Resource Management, Agricultural Engineering and Fisheries.

Type: Fellowship, PhD (Doctoral Degree in Agriculture and Allied Sciences)

Eligibility: 

• Master’s degree in agriculture/allied sciences with an Overall Grade Point Average (OGPA) 6.60 out of 10.0 or 65% marks or equivalent will be the eligibility requirement for the NS-ICAR IFs.
• The fresh candidates should not be more than 35 years of age on the last date prescribed for receipt of applications. The upper age limit for In-service candidates will be 40 years on the last date for receipt of applications.
• Age on the closing date for receipt of applications will be considered for eligibility. 
• Also, date of completion of qualifying degree will be the date of completion of both course and thesis work as declared by the university. Netaji Subhas- ICAR IF would be available for both, fresh and in-service candidates. However, the fresh candidates should have completed their qualifying degree not more than two years before the specified date in the year of admission. The in-service candidates from India should be employed in the ICAR-AU system.
• The Council will identify and announce the priority areas of research and the list of institutions for admission, one year in advance, for availing the Netaji Subhas- ICAR IFs.

Number of Awardees: Thirty(30) fellowships

Value of Scholarship: The fellow will be entitled to the following:

• To-and-fro, economy class air ticket for international travel, by the shortest route, from the airport, nearest to the residence/ work place of the candidate to the airport, nearest to the destination University in respect of both Indian and Overseas candidates (Air tickets to be provided by the Council).
• The fellows will be entitled for economy-class-travel cost reimbursement from port of arrival in India to the destination University in India and back.
• Indian Rupee 40,000 per month
• The fellowship amount for the first six months, as first installment, will be released by the Council to the fellow through government notified/ approved bank to be deposited in the bank account of the fellow on receiving his/ her acceptance for the fellowship and admission letter received from the host University.
• Thereafter, the amount of fellowship will be released to the fellow, every six months, after receiving the academic progress report from the fellow duly certified by the concerned advisor/ supervisor/ head of institution.
• The fellow will meet all other costs including medical insurance etc. from the above fellowship or from his/ her own resources.
• During the tenure of fellowship, an in-service fellow may continue to receive his/her salary, types of leave and benefits etc. from the parent organization as per rules.

Duration of Scholarship: Three (3) years

How to Apply: Application should be submitted (one hard copy by post and one soft copy by email) to the Assistant Director General (EQR), Education Division, ICAR, Krishi Anusandhan Bhavan II, Pusa, New Delhi-110012 (email: nsicarif@gmail.com).

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British Ecological Society (BES) Grants 2020 for Ecologists in Africa

Application Deadline: 9th September 2019 at 17:00 (BST).

Offered Annually? Twice in a Year

Eligible Countries: African countries

About the Award: This grant provides support for ecologists in Africa to carry out innovative ecological research. We recognise that ecologists in Africa face unique challenges in carrying out research; our grant is designed support you to develop your skills, experience and knowledge base as well as making connections with ecologists in the developed world. We support excellent ecological science in Africa by funding services and equipment.

Type: Grants

Eligibility: Applicants should:

• be a scientist and a citizen of a country in Africa or its associated islands, that is a ‘low-income economy’ or ‘lower-middle-income economy’ according to the World Bank categorisation
• have at least an MSc or equivalent degree
• be working for a university or research institution in Africa (including field centres, NGOs, museums etc.) that provides basic research facilities
• carry out the research in a country in Africa or its associated islands

Selection Criteria:

• The application will be judged by a panel of reviewers on the basis of your personal qualifications, the scientific excellence, novelty and feasibility of the proposal, and the academic and non-academic impact of the planned research.
• You should demonstrate that you have made connections with ecologists in a developed country that can provide advice during the proposed project. If international travel is part of the application, you should demonstrate close links with those they propose to visit.
• Funding is available for any area of ecological science excluding research focused solely on agriculture, forestry and bioprospecting. Please note that neither purely descriptive work nor studies that might be considered incremental will be funded.
• The proposed project could be part of an existing programme but the application should be for a clearly defined piece of research. Researchers must also show how their research will have a wider impact beyond academia.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: 

• The maximum value of a grant is £8,000 for research.
• An additional sum up to £2,000 may be requested to fund travel to help you develop connections with other ecologists outside your usual peer group.
• Travel funds are available to spend time working with ecologists in developed countries where facilities and experience will help you on return to your own institution.
• Successful applicants also receive two years of free BES membership and free online access to our journals.

Duration/Timeline of Program: The proposed work must be completed within 18 months.

Apply Online

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: British Ecological Society

Important Notes: Applicants are only able to submit one grant application per round, across all grant schemes.

Sustainable Development and Global Justice (SUSTJUSTICE) Postgraduate Scholarships 2020/2021 for Students from Developing Countries

Application Deadline: 30th September 2019

Eligible Countries: 

• VLIR-UOS Countries are eligible for scholarships. Self-funded applicants from other countries of the world may apply.
• Check the last updated eligible VLIR-UOS Countries here. 

To be Taken at (Country): Belgium

About the Award: SUSTJUSTICE is a comprehensive teaching programme based on the research lines of the Law and Development Research Group. It builds upon four editions (2016-2019) of the Sustainable Development and Human Rights Programme (SUSTLAW). SUSTJUSTICE is embedded into the English Master of Laws (LLM) taught at the Faculty of Law of the University of Antwerp. 
The programme combines it’s primary focus on law with a inter-disciplinary approachthat takes into account the complex nature of the topic. Additionally, it brings together the knowledge and exptertise of the Global South and the Global North for a unique educational experience. SUSTJUSTICE is comprised of four compulsory courses: International Law and Sustainable Development, Human Rights and Global Justice, Law in Developing Countries and External Actors in Aid, Trade and Investment. In a period of 11 intensive weeks, the teaching combines theoretical insights in the classroom with practical assignments such as role-plays, negotiations, moot-courts and writing assignments such as policy briefs and short academic papers. This methodology is aimed at preparing the participants to be change-catalysts in their professional life and in their communities.  

Type: Short course

Eligibility:

• SUSTJUSTICE is a post-graduate level programme and the completion of bachelor-level education is an entry requirement.
• Participants will be selected on the basis of their previous and current studies or practice(attesting to a basic knowledge of human rights and international law) as well as their demonstrated interest as attested by a personal statement of motivation addressing how they envisage the ITP to impact their professional life, career development as well as their current institution and the societies in which they live.
• The applicants will also be asked to provide a letter of recommendation from their current or former institution. Scholarship applicants should be employed at the time of selection and will be asked to provide a proof of employment and a letter from their current employer confirming re-integration in a professional context after the completion of the programme.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: A limited number of scholarships have been awarded to successful applicants from VLIR-UOS list of developing countries for previous editions of the programme. The scholarships cover the programme fees, travel expenses, visa costs, insurance and an allowance (that cover accommodation and daily expenses). The list of VLIR-UOS countries whose citizens are eligible to apply for a scholarship are listed below.

Duration of Award: 3 months

How to Apply: 

• Grant of scholarships for SUSTJUSTICE 2020 is subject to VLIR-UOS’s approval of the program. Confirmation of availability of scholarships can only be given after September 2019.
• The application form is available here.  

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UNHCR 100th International Refugee Law Course 2019 (Fully-funded)

Application Deadline: 6th September 2019

Eligible Countries: Countries in the Global South

To be Taken at (Country): France

About the Award: The Course will cover the principles, objectives and programme of action set by the GCR and will allow participants to strengthen their teaching skills and capacity to develop training modules through sessions devoted to instructional design and learning methodologies. During the week, the curricula will focus on the key elements of refugee protection, ranging from the legal framework to refugee participation and solutions. 
Thanks to the support of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the Institute is launching the 100th International Refugee Law Course – Special Edition, with a focus on the GCR.

Type: Short course

Eligibility: The 100th Course is tailored and dedicated to representatives of national governmental training institutions and academics from the Global South.

Number of Awards: 25

Value of Award: There are two types of scholarships granted by IIHL:

• A full scholarship which includes (1) return ticket in economy class from the nearest international airport in the country of residence to Nice (France); (2) shuttle Nice-Sanremo-Nice; (3) accommodation on a full board basis in Sanremo; (4) registration fees and documentation.
• A half scholarship which includes (1) shuttle Nice-Sanremo-Nice; (2) accommodation on a full board basis in Sanremo; (3) registration fees and documentation.

All other expenses will have to be borne by the participants.

Duration of Award: 21-26 October 2019

How to Apply: Government officials working in training national institutions and academics from the Global South, with experience on refugee issues, are invited to apply following this link!

• It is important to go through all application requirements in the Award Webpage (see Link below) before applying.

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Open Society Initiative for Eastern Africa (OSIEA) Grants 2019

Application Deadline: Ongoing

About the Award: OSIEA plays an active role in encouraging open, informed dialogue on issues of importance in Eastern Africa. Through a combination of grant making, advocacy and convening power, OSIEA is able to support and amplify the voices of pro-democracy organizations and individuals in the region and to strengthen their capacity to hold their governments accountable. This includes efforts to defend and support rights activists and pro-democracy advocates who come under attack for their work. 
OSIEA occupies a unique niche as a donor organization in Eastern Africa. We are both a donor and implementor working locally and internationally, which gives us an enormous flexibility in terms of reach and impact. We join processes that are consultative and participatory. Our ability to be flexible in our funding criteria allows us to respond quickly to changing situations. We add our own voice to debates and are not shy to take on rights issues that are deemed as politically sensitive or controversial. 
We support initiatives with a demonstrated capacity to positively transform society in innovative ways that embrace inclusiveness and diversity.

Type: Grants

Eligibility: OSIEA supports projects in the following programmatic areas:

• Democratic governance and rule of law
• Economic governance
• Health and rights
• Equality and non-discrimination

The Open Society Initiative for Eastern Africa does not fund travel to attend conferences, seminars or workshops.
It also does not provide scholarships for individual studies.

Number of Awards: Not specified

How to Apply: Please submit proposals to info@osiea.org.

• It is important to go through all application requirements in the Award Webpage (see Link below) before applying.

Visit Award Webpage for Details