It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
These are selected passages from an essay on the “Sociology of Imperialism” written by Schumpeter in 1919.
The analysis of that phenomenon by Schumpeter is in total antithesis with that of Lenin. Imperialism is not seen as the most advanced stage of capitalism but as the clear sign that pre-capitalistic (i.e. feudal) aspects survive in capitalism. This results from the subservience of the capitalists to state rulers from whom they ask for “protection against external and even domestic enemies. The bourgeoisie seeks to win over the state for itself, and in return serves the state and state interests that are different from its own.” Another consequence of this subservience is that “nationalism and militarism, while not creatures of capitalism, become ‘capitalized’ and in the end draw their best energies from capitalism.” In the end, it is this imperialistic, nationalistic, militaristic capitalism that would dominate large part of the XX century and, for clarity sake, it should be better to drop the term capitalism and define that period of history with the more appropriate name of statism.
Free Trade in the interest of the citizens
It may be stated as being beyond controversy that where free trade prevails no class has an interest in the forcible expansion as such. For in such a case the citizens and goods of every nation can move in foreign countries as freely as though those countries were politically their own – free trade implying far more than mere freedom from tariffs. In a genuine state of free trade, foreign raw materials and foodstuffs are as accessible to each nation as though they were within its own territory. Where the cultural backwardness of a region makes normal economic intercourse dependent on colonization, it does not matter, assuming free trade, which of the ‘civilized’ nations undertakes the task of colonization. Dominion of the seas, in such a case, means little more than a maritime traffic police. Similarly, it is a matter of indifference to a nation whether a railway concession in a foreign country is acquired by one of its own citizens or not – just so long as the railway is built and put into efficient operation. For citizens of any country may use the railway, just like the fellow countrymen of its builder – while in the event of war it will serve whoever controls it in the military sense, regardless of who built it. It is true, of course, that profits and wages flowing from its construction and operation will accrue, for the greater part, to the nation that built it. But capital and labour that go into the railway have to be taken from somewhere, and normally the other nations fill the gap. It is a fact that in a regime of free trade the essential advantages of international intercourse are clearly evident. The gain lies in the enlargement of the commodity supply by means of the division of labour among nations, rather than in the profits and wages of the export industry and the carrying trade. For these profits and wages would be reaped even if there were no export, in which case import, the necessary complement, would also vanish. Not even monopoly interests – if they existed – would be disposed toward imperialism in such a case. For under free trade only international cartels would be possible. Under a system of free trade there would be conflicts in economic interest neither among different nations nor among the corresponding classes of different nations. And since protectionism is not an essential characteristic of the capitalist economy – otherwise the English national economy would scarcely be capitalist – it is apparent that any economic interest in forcible expansion on the part of a people or a class is not necessarily a product of capitalism.
Protectionism as a weapon of the states
Protective tariffs alone Рand harassment of the alien and of foreign commodities Рdo not basically change this situation as it affects interests. True, such barriers move the nations economically farther apart, making it easier for imperialist tendencies to win the upper hand; they line up the entrepreneurs of the different countries in battle formation against one another, impeding the rise of peaceful interests; they also hinder the flow of raw materials and foodstuffs and thus the export of manufactures, or conversely, the import of manufactures and the export of raw materials and foodstuffs, possibly creating an interest in Рsometimes forcible Рexpansion of the customs area; they place entrepreneurs in a position of dependence on regulations of governments that may be serving imperialist interests, giving these governments occasion to pervert economic relations for purposes of sharpening economic conflicts, for adulterating the competitive struggle with diplomatic methods outside the field of economics, and, finally, for imposing on people the heavy sacrifices exacted by a policy of autarchy, thus accustoming them to the thought of war by constant preparation for war. Nevertheless, in this case the basic alignment of interests remains essentially what it was under free trade. We might reiterate our example of railway construction, though in the case of mining concessions, for example, the situation is somewhat different. Colonial possessions acquire more meaning in this case, but the exclusion from the colonies of aliens and foreign capital is not altogether good business since it slows down the development of the colonies. The same is true of the struggle for third markets. When, for example, France obtains more favourable tariff treatment from the Chinese government than England enjoys, this will avail only those French exporters who are in a position to export the same goods as their English confr̬res; the others are only harmed. It is true, of course, that protectionism adds another form of international capital movement to the kind that prevails under free trade Рor rather, a modification of it Рnamely, the movement of capital for the founding of enterprises inside the tariff wall, in order to save customs duties. But this capital movement too has no aggressive element; on the contrary, it tends toward the creation of peaceful interests. Thus an aggressive economic policy on the part of a country with a unified tariff Рwith preparedness for war always in the background Рserves the economy only seemingly rather than really. Actually, one might assert that the economy becomes a weapon in the political struggle, a means for unifying the nation, for severing it from the fabric of international interests, for placing it at the disposal of state power.
The alliance state rulers-national capitalists in favour of protectionism
This becomes especially clear when we consider which strata of the capitalist world are actually economically benefited by protective tariffs. They do harm to both workers and capitalists – in contrast to entrepreneurs – not only in their role as consumers, but also as producers. The damage to consumers is universal, that to producers almost so. As for entrepreneurs, they are benefited only by the tariff that happens to be levied on their own product. But this advantage is substantially reduced by the countermeasures adopted by other countries – universally except in the case of England – and by the effect of the tariff on the prices of other articles, especially those which they require for their own productive process. Why, then, are entrepreneurs so strongly in favour of protective tariffs? The answer is simple. Each industry hopes to score special gains in the struggle of political intrigue, thus enabling it to realize a net gain. Moreover, every decline in freight rates, every advance in production abroad, is likely to affect the economic balance, making it necessary for domestic enterprises to adapt themselves, indeed often to turn to other lines of endeavour. This is a difficult task to which not everyone is equal. Within the industrial organism of every nation there survive antiquated methods of doing business that would cause enterprises to succumb to foreign competition – because of poor management rather than lack of capital, for before 1914 the banks were almost forcing capital on the entrepreneurs. If, still, in most countries virtually all entrepreneurs are protectionists, this is owing to a reason which we shall presently discuss. Without that reason, their attitude would be different. The fact that all industries today demand tariff protection must not blind us to the fact that even the entrepreneur interest is not unequivocally protectionist. For this demand is only the consequence of a protectionism already in existence, of a protectionist spirit springing from the economic interests of relatively small entrepreneur groups and from non-capitalist elements – a spirit that ultimately carried along all groups, occasionally even the representatives of working-class interests. Today the protective tariff confers its full and immediate benefits – or come close to conferring them – only on the large landowners.
A protectionist policy, however, does facilitate the formation of cartels and trusts. And it is true that this circumstance thoroughly alters the alignment of interests.
The economic cartels and the fight amongst national capitalists
Union in a cartel or trust confers various benefits on the entrepreneur – a saving in costs, a stronger position as against the workers – but none of these compares with this one advantage: a monopolistic price policy, possible to any considerable degree only behind an adequate protective tariff.
Now the price that brings the maximum monopoly profit is generally far above the price that would be fixed by fluctuating competitive costs, and the volume that can be marketed at that maximum price is generally far below the output that would be technically and economically feasible. Under free competition that output would be produced and offered, but a trust cannot offer it, for it could be sold only at a competitive price. Yet the trust must produce it – or approximately as much – otherwise the advantages of large-scale enterprise remain unexploited and unit costs are likely to be uneconomically high. The trust thus faces a dilemma. Either it renounces the monopolistic policies that motivated its founding; or it fails to exploit and expand its plant, with resultant high costs. It extricates itself from this dilemma by producing the full output that is economically feasible, thus securing low costs, and offering in the protected domestic market only the quantity corresponding to the monopoly price – insofar as the tariff permits: while the rest is sold, or ‘dumped’ abroad at a lower price, sometimes (but not necessarily) below cost.
What happens when the entrepreneurs successfully pursue such a policy is something that did not occur in the cases discussed so far – a conflict of interests between nations that becomes so sharp that it cannot be overcome by the existing basic community of interests. Each of the two groups of entrepreneurs and each of the two states seeks to do something that is rendered illusory by a similar policy on the part of the other. In the case of protective tariffs without monopoly formation, an understanding is sometimes possible, for only a few would be destroyed, while many would stand to gain; but when monopoly rules it is very difficult to reach an agreement for it would require self-negation on the part of the new rulers. All that is left to do is to pursue the course once taken, to beat down the foreign industry wherever possible, forcing it to conclude a favourable ‘peace.’ This requires sacrifices. The excess product is dumped on the world market at steadily lower prices. Counterattacks that grow more and more desperate must be repulsed on the domestic scene. The atmosphere grows more and more heated. Workers and consumers grow more and more troublesome.
Monopoly capitalism out of the alliance of big banks with big business
Although the relation between capitalists and entrepreneurs is one of the typical and fundamental conflicts of the capitalist economy, monopoly capitalism has virtually fused the big banks and cartels into one. Leading bankers are often leaders of the national economy. Here capitalism has found a central organ that supplants its automatism by conscious decisions. In the second place, the interests of the big banks coincide with those of their depositors even less than do the interests of cartel leaders with those of the firms belonging to the cartel. The policies of high finance are based on control of a large proportion of the national capital, but they are in the actual interest of only a small proportion and, indeed, with respect to the alliance with big business, sometimes not even in the interest of capital as such at all. The ordinary ‘small’ capitalist foots the bill for a policy of forced exports, rather than enjoying its profits. He is a tool; his interests do not really matter. This possibility of laying all the sacrifices connected with a monopoly policy on one part of capital, while removing them from another, makes capital exports far more lucrative for the favoured part than they would otherwise be. Even capital that is independent of the banks is thus often forced abroad – forced into the role of a shock troop for the real leaders, because cartels successfully impede the founding of new enterprises. Thus the customs area of a trustified country generally pours a huge wave of capital into new countries. There it meets other, similar waves of capital, and a bitter, costly struggle begins but never ends.
In such a struggle among “dumped” products and capitals, it is no longer a matter of indifference who builds a given railroad, who owns a mine or a colony. Now that the law of costs is no longer operative, it becomes necessary to fight over such properties with desperate effort and with every available means, including those that are not economic in character, such as diplomacy. The concrete objects in question often become entirely subsidiary considerations; the anticipated profit may be trifling, because of the competitive struggle – a struggle that has very little to do with normal competition. What matters is to gain a foothold of some kind and then to exploit this foothold as a base for the conquest of new markets. This costs all the participants dear – often more than can be reasonably recovered, immediately or in the future. Fury lays hold of everyone concerned – and everyone sees to it that his fellow countrymen share his wrath. Each is constrained to resort to methods that he would regard as evidence of unprecedented moral depravity in the other.
Capitalism, concentration and protectionism
The character of capitalism leads to large-scale production, but with few exceptions large-scale production does not lead to the kind of unlimited concentration that would leave but one or only a few firms in each industry. On the contrary, any plant runs up against limits to its growth in a given location; and the growth of combinations, which would make sense under a system of free trade, encounters limits of organizational efficiency. Beyond these limits there is no tendency toward combination inherent in the competitive system. In particular, the rise of trusts and cartels – a phenomenon quite different from the trend to large-scale production with which it is often confused – can never be explained by the automatism of the competitive system. This follows from the very fact that trusts and cartels can attain their primary purpose – to pursue a monopoly policy – only behind protective tariffs, without which they would lose their essential significance. But protective tariffs do not automatically grow from the competitive system. They are the fruit of political action – a type of action that by no means reflects the objective interests of all those concerned but that, on the contrary, becomes impossible as soon as the majority of those whose consent is necessary realize their true interests. To some extent it is obvious, and for the rest it will be presently shown, that the interests of the minority, quite appropriately expressed in support of a protective tariff, do not stem from capitalism as such. It follows that it is a basic fallacy to describe imperialism as a necessary phase of capitalism, or even to speak of the development of capitalism into imperialism. We have seen before that the mode of life of the capitalist world does not favour imperialist attitudes. We now see that the alignment of interests in a capitalist economy – even the interests of its upper strata -by no means points unequivocally in the direction of imperialism. We now come to the final step in our line of reasoning.
Since we cannot derive even export monopolism from any tendencies of the competitive system toward big enterprise, we must find some other explanation. A glance at the original purpose of tariffs provides what we need. Tariff sprang from the financial interests of the monarchy. They were a method of exploiting the trader which differed from the method of the robber baron in the same way that the royal chase differed from the method of the poacher. They were in line with the royal prerogatives of safe conduct, of protection for the Jews, of the granting of market rights, and so forth. From the thirteen century onward this method was progressively refined in the autocratic state, less and less emphasis being placed on the direct monetary yield of customs revenues, and more and more on their indirect effect in creating productive taxable objects. In other words, while the protective value of a tariff counted, it counted only from the viewpoint of the ultimate monetary advantage of the sovereign. It does not matter, for our purposes, that occasionally this policy, under the influence of lay notions of economics, blundered badly in the choice of its methods. (From the viewpoint of autocratic interest, incidentally, such measures were not nearly so self-defeating as they were from the viewpoint of the national economy). Every custom house, every privilege conferring the right to produce, market, or store, thus created a new economic situation which deflected trade and industry into ‘unnatural’ channels. All tariffs, rights, and the like became the seed bed for economic growth that could have neither sprung up nor maintained itself without them. Further, all such economic institutions dictated by autocratic interest were surrounded by manifold interests of people who were dependent on them and now began to demand their continuance – a wholly paradoxical though at the same time quite understandable situation.
Capitalist Pyramid critiquing capitalism in a 1911 publication advocating industrial unionism [Image: Wikimedia Commons]The bourgeoisie and its feudal traits: territorialism and nationalismThe trading and manufacturing bourgeoisie was all the more aware of its dependence on the sovereign, since it needed his protection against the remaining feudal powers; and the uncertainties of the times, together with the lack of great consuming centres, impeded the rise of free economic competition. Insofar as commerce and manufacturing came into being at all, therefore, they arose under the sign of monopolistic interest. Thus the bourgeoisie willingly allowed itself to be moulded into one of the power instruments of the monarchy, both in a territorial and in a national sense. It is even true that the bourgeoisie, because of the character of its interests and the kind of economic outlook that corresponded to those interests, made an essential contribution to the emergence of modern nationalism. Another factor that worked in the same direction was the financial relation between the great merchant houses and the sovereign. This theory of the nature of the relationship between the autocratic state and the bourgeoisie is not refuted by pointing out that it was precisely the mercantile republics of the Middle Ages and the early modern period that initially pursued a policy of mercantilism. They were no more than enclaves in a world pervaded by the struggle among feudal powers. The Hanseatic League and Venice, for example, could maintain themselves only as military powers, could pursue their business only by means of fortified bases, warehousing privileges, protective treaties. This forced the people to stand shoulder to shoulder, made the exploitation of political gains with a corporate and monopolistic spirit. Wherever autocratic power vanished at an early date – as in the Netherlands and later in England – and the protective interest receded into the background, they swiftly discovered that trade must be free – “free to the nethermost recesses of hell.”
Trade and industry of the early capitalist period thus remained strongly pervaded with pre-capitalist methods, bore the stamp of autocracy, and served its interests, either willingly or by force. With its traditional habits of feeling, thinking, and acting moulded along such lines, the bourgeoisie entered the Industrial Revolution. It was shaped, in other words, by the needs and interests of an environment that was essentially non-capitalist, or at least pre-capitalist – needs stemming not from the nature of the capitalist economy as such but from the fact of the coexistence of early capitalism with another and at first overwhelmingly powerful mode of life and business. Established habits of thought and action tend to persist, and hence the spirit of guild and monopoly at first maintained itself, and was only slowly undermined, even where capitalism was in sole possession of the field. Actually capitalism did not fully prevail anywhere on the Continent. Existing economic interests, ‘artificially’ shaped by the autocratic state, remained dependent on the ‘protection’ of the state. The industrial organism, such as it was, would not have been able to withstand free competition. Even where the old barriers crumbled in the autocratic state, the people did not all at once flock to the clear track. They were creatures of mercantilism and even earlier periods, and many of them huddled together and protested against the affront of being forced to depend on their own ability. They cried for paternalism, for protection, for forcible restraint of strangers, and above all for tariffs. They met, with partial success, particularly because capitalism failed to take radical action in the agrarian field. Capitalism did bring about many changes on the land, springing in part from its automatic mechanisms, in part from the political trends it engendered – abolition of serfdom, freeing the soil from feudal entanglements, and so on -but initially it did not alter the basic outlines of the social structure of the countryside. Even less did it affect the spirit of the people, and least of all their political goals. This explains why the features and trends of autocracy – including imperialism – proved so resistant, why they exerted such a powerful influence on capitalist development, why the old export monopolism could live on and merge into the new.
The feudal substance of Europe
These are facts of fundamental significance to an understanding of the soul of modern Europe. Had the ruling class of the Middle Ages – the war-oriented nobility – changed its profession and function and become the ruling class of the capitalist world; or had developing capitalism swept it away, put it out of business, instead of merely clashing head-on with it in the agrarian sphere – then much would have been different in the life of modern peoples. But as things actually were, neither eventuality occurred; or, more correctly, both are taking place, only at a very slow pace. The two groups of landowners remain social classes clearly distinguishable from the groupings of the capitalist world. The social pyramid of the present age has been formed, not by the substance and laws of capitalism alone, but by two different social substances, and by the laws of two different epochs. Whoever seeks to understand Europe must not forget this and concentrate all attention on the indubitably basic truth that one of these substances tends to be absorbed by the other and thus the sharpest of all class conflicts tends to be eliminated. Whoever seeks to understand Europe must not overlook that even today its life, its ideology, its politics are greatly under the influence of the feudal ‘substance,’ that while the bourgeoisie can asserts its interests everywhere, it ‘rules’ only in exceptional circumstances, and then only briefly. The bourgeois outside his office and the professional man of capitalism outside his profession cut a very sorry figure. Their spiritual leader is the rootless ‘intellectual,’ a slender reed open to every impulse and a prey to unrestrained emotionalism. The ‘feudal’ elements, on the other hand, have both feet on the ground, even psychologically speaking. Their ideology is as stable as their mode of life. They believe certain things to be really true, others to be really false. This quality of possessing a definite character and cast of mind as a class, this simplicity and solidity of social and spiritual position extends their power far beyond their actual bases, gives them the ability to assimilate new elements, to make others serve their purposes – in a word, gives them prestige, something to which the bourgeois, as is well known, always looks up, something with which he tends to ally himself, despite all actual conflicts.
The nobility entered the modern world in the form into which it had been shaped by the autocratic state – the same state that had also moulded the bourgeoisie. It was the sovereign who disciplined the nobility, instilled loyalty into it, ‘statized’ it, and, as we have shown, imperialized it. He turned its nationalist sentiments – as in the case of the bourgeoisie – into an aggressive nationalism, and then made it a pillar of his organization, particularly his war machine. It had not been that in the immediately preceding period. Rising absolutism had at first availed itself of much more dependent organs. For that very reason, in his position as leader of the feudal powers and as warlord, the sovereign survived the onset of the Industrial Revolution, and as a rule – except in France – won victory over political revolution.
The bourgeoisie servant of the state
The bourgeoisie did not simply supplant the sovereign, nor did it make him its leader, as did the nobility. It merely wrested a portion of its power from him and for the rest submitted to him. It did not take over from the sovereign the state as an abstract form of organization. The state remained a special social power, confronting the bourgeoisie. In some countries it has continued to play that role to the present day. It is in the state that the bourgeoisie with its interests seeks refuge, protection against external and even domestic enemies. The bourgeoisie seeks to win over the state for itself, and in return serves the state and state interests that are different from its own. Imbued with the spirit of the old autocracy, trained by it, the bourgeoisie often takes over its ideology, even where, as in France, the sovereign is eliminated and the official power of the nobility has been broken. Because the sovereign needed soldiers, the modern bourgeois – at least in his slogans – is an even more vehement advocate of an increasing population. Because the sovereign was in a position to exploit conquests, needed them to be a victorious warlord, the bourgeoisie thirsts for national glory – even in France, worshiping a headless body, as it were. Because the sovereign found a large gold hoard useful, the bourgeoisie even today cannot be swerved from its bullionist prejudices. Because the autocratic state paid attention to the trader and manufacturer chiefly as the most important sources of taxes and credits, today even the intellectual who has not a shred of property looks on international commerce, not from the viewpoint of the consumer, but from that of the trader and exporter. Because pugnacious sovereigns stood in constant fear of attack by their equally pugnacious neighbours, the modern bourgeois attributes aggressive designs to neighbouring peoples. All such modes of thought are essentially non-capitalist. Indeed, they vanish most quickly wherever capitalism fully prevails. They are survivals of the autocratic alignment of interests, and they endure wherever the autocratic state endures on the old basis and with the old orientation, even though more and more democratized and otherwise transformed. They bear witness to the extent to which essentially imperialist absolutism has patterned not only the economy of the bourgeoisie but also its mind – in the interests of autocracy and against those of the bourgeoisie itself. This significant dichotomy in the bourgeois mind – which in part explains its wretched weakness in politics, culture, and life generally; earns it the understandable contempt of the Left and the Right; and proves the accuracy of our diagnosis – is best exemplified by two phenomena that are very close to our subject: present-day nationalism and militarism.
Nationalism and militarism supported by capitalism
Nationalism is affirmative awareness of national character, together with an aggressive sense of superiority. It arose from the autocratic state. In conservatives, nationalism in general is understandable as an inherited orientation, as a mutation of the battle instincts of the medieval knights, and finally as a political stalking horse on the domestic scene; and conservatives are fond of reproaching the bourgeois with a lack of nationalism, which from their point of view, is evaluated in a positive sense. Socialists, on the other hand, equally understandably exclude nationalism from their general ideology, because of the essential interests of the proletariat, and by virtue of their domestic opposition to the conservative stalking horse; they, in turn, not only reproach the bourgeoisie with an excess of nationalism (which they, of course, evaluate in a negative sense) but actually identify nationalism and even the very idea of the nation with bourgeois ideology. The curious thing is that both of these groups are right in their criticism of the bourgeoisie. For, as we have seen, the mode of life that flows logically from the nature of capitalism necessarily implies an anti-nationalist orientation in politics and culture. This orientation actually prevails. We find a great many anti-nationalist members of the middle class, and even more who merely parrot the catchwords of nationalism. In the capitalist world it is actually not big business and industry at all that are the carriers of nationalist trends, but the intellectual, and the content of his ideology is explained not so much from definite class interests as from chance emotion and individual interest. But the submission of the bourgeoisie to the powers of autocracy, its alliance with them, its economic and psychological patterning by them – all these tend to push the bourgeois in a nationalist direction; and this too we find prevalent, especially among the chief exponents of export monopolism. The relationship between the bourgeoisie and militarism is quite similar. Militarism is not necessarily a foregone conclusion when a nation maintains a large army, but only when high military circles become a political power. The criterion is whether leading generals as such wield political influence and whether the responsible statesmen can act only with their consent. That is possible only when the officer corps is linked to a definite social class, as in Japan, and can assimilate to its position individuals who do not belong to it by birth. Militarism too is rooted in the autocratic state. And again the same reproaches are made against the bourgeois from both sides – quite properly too. According to the “pure” capitalist mode of life, the bourgeois is unwarlike. The alignment of capitalist interests should make him utterly reject military methods, put him in opposition to the professional soldier. Significantly, we see this in the example of England where, first, the struggle against a standing army generally and, next, opposition to its elaboration, furnished bourgeois politicians with their most popular slogan: “retrenchment.” Even naval appropriations have encountered resistance. We find similar trends in other countries, though they are less strongly developed. The continental bourgeois, however, was used to the sight of troops. He regarded an army almost as a necessary component of the social order, ever since it had been his terrible taskmaster in the Thirty Years’ War. He had no power at all to abolish the army. He might have done so if he had had the power; but not having it, he considered the fact that the army might be useful to him. In his “artificial” economic situation and because of his submission to the sovereign, he thus grew disposed toward militarism, especially where export monopolism flourished. The intellectuals, many of whom still maintained special relationships with feudal elements, were so disposed to an even greater degree.
Just as we once found a dichotomy in the social pyramid, so now we find everywhere, in every aspect of the bourgeois portion of the modern world, a dichotomy of attitudes and interests. Our examples also show in what way the two components work together. Nationalism and militarism, while not creatures of capitalism, become ‘capitalized’ and in the end draw their best energies from capitalism. Capitalism involves them in its working and thereby keeps them alive, politically as well as economically. And they, in turn, affect capitalism, cause it to deviate from the course it might have followed alone, support many of its interests.
Imperialism as expression of the autocratic state in alliance with capitalism
Here we find that we have penetrated to the historical as well as the sociological sources of modern imperialism. It does not coincide with nationalism and militarism, though it fuses with them by supporting them as it is supported by them. It too is – not only historically, but also sociologically – a heritage of the autocratic state, of its structural elements, organizational forms, interest alignments, and human attitudes, the outcome of pre-capitalist forces which the autocratic state has reorganized, in part by the methods of early capitalism. It would never have been evolved by the ‘inner logic’ of capitalism itself. This is true even of mere export monopolism. It too has its sources in absolutist policy and the action habits of an essentially pre-capitalist environment. That it was able to develop to its present dimensions is owing to the momentum of a situation once created, which continued to engender ever new ‘artificial’ economic structures, that is, those which maintain themselves by political power alone. In most of the countries addicted to export monopolism it is also owing to the fact that the old autocratic state and the old attitude of the bourgeoisie toward it were so vigorously maintained. But export monopolism, to go a step further, is not yet imperialism. And even if it had been able to arise without protective tariffs, it would never have developed into imperialism in the hands of an unwarlike bourgeoisie. If this did happen, it was only because the heritage included the war machine, together with its socio-psychological aura and aggressive bent, and because a class oriented toward war maintained itself in a ruling position. This class clung to its domestic interest in war, and the pro-military interests among the bourgeoisie were able to ally themselves with it. This alliance kept alive war instincts and ideas of overlordship, male supremacy, and triumphant glory – ideas that would have otherwise long since died. It led to social conditions that, while they ultimately stem from the conditions of production, cannot be explained from capitalist production methods alone. And it often impresses its mark on present-day politics, threatening Europe with the constant danger of war.
This diagnosis also bears the prognosis of imperialism.
The pre-capitalist elements in our social life may still have great vitality; special circumstances in national life may revive them from time to time; but in the end the climate of the modern world must destroy them. This is all the more certain since their props in the modern capitalist world are not of the most durable material. Whatever opinion is held concerning the vitality of capitalism itself, whatever the life span predicted for it, it is bound to withstand the onslaughts of its enemies and its own irrationality much longer than essentially untenable export monopolism – untenable even from the capitalist point of view. Export monopolism may perish in revolution, or it may be peacefully relinquished; this may happen soon, or it may take some time and require desperate struggle; but one thing is certain – it will happen. This will immediately dispose of neither warlike instincts nor structural elements and organizational forms oriented toward war – and it is to their dispositions and domestic interests that, in my opinion, much more weight must be given in every concrete case of imperialism than to export monopolist interests, which furnish the financial ‘outpost skirmishes’ – a most appropriate term – in many wars. But such factors will be politically overcome in time, no matter what they do to maintain among the people a sense of constant danger of war, with the war machine forever primed for action. And with them, imperialisms will wither and die.
It is not within the scope of this study to offer an ethical, aesthetic, cultural, or political evaluation of this process. Whether it heals sores or extinguishes suns is a matter of utter indifference from the viewpoint of this study. It is not the concern of science to judge that. The only point at issue here was to demonstrate, by means of an important example, the ancient truth that the dead always rule the living.
African nations mend and make do as China tightens Belt and Road Workers are seen on site during the construction of the Nairobi Expressway, in Nairobi
Sun, November 21, 2021 By Duncan Miriri
NAIROBI (Reuters) - Deep in Kenya's Great Rift Valley, members of the National Youth Service tirelessly swing machetes to clear dense shrubs obscuring railway tracks more than a century old.
It's a distinctly low-tech phase for China's Belt and Road drive in Africa to create the trade highways of the future.
There's not enough money left to complete the new 1,000-km super-fast rail link from the port of Mombasa to Uganda. It ends abruptly in the countryside, 468 km short of the border, and now Kenya is resorting to finishing the route by revamping the 19th-century colonial British-built tracks that once passed that way.
China has lent African countries hundreds of billions of dollars as part of President Xi Jinping's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) which envisaged Chinese institutions financing the bulk of the infrastructure in mainly developing nations. Yet the credit has dried up in recent years.
On top of the damage wrought to both China and its creditors by COVID-19, analysts and academics attribute the slowdown to factors such as a waning appetite in Beijing for large foreign investments, a commodity price crash that has complicated African debt servicing, plus some borrowers' reluctance to enter lending deals backed by their natural resources.
"We are not in the go-go period anymore," Adam Tooze, a Columbia University historian, said about China's overseas investment projects. "There is definitely a rebalancing from the China side," said Tooze, whose new book Shutdown examines how COVID-19 affected the world economy, adding that Beijing's current account surplus was "dwindling somewhat".
Chinese investments in the 138 countries targeted by BRI slid 54% from 2019 to $47 billion last year, the lowest amount since the BRI was unveiled in 2013, according to Green BRI, a China-based think-tank that focuses on analysing the initiative.
In Africa, home to 40 of those BRI nations, Chinese bank financing for infrastructure projects fell from $11 billion in 2017 to $3.3 billion in 2020, according to a report by international law firm Baker McKenzie.
This is a blow for governments who were anticipating securing Chinese loans to build highways and rail lines linking landlocked countries to sea ports and trade routes to Asia and Europe. The continent is facing an estimated annual infrastructure investment deficit of around $100 billion, according to the African Development Bank.
"The pandemic has actually made things worse. Those numbers will go up," said Akinwumi Adesina, the president of the bank, citing the need for additional infrastructure to support health services.
Hold-ups have hit some other BRI projects across the continent, such as a $3 billion Nigerian rail project and a $450 million highway in Cameroon.
China's ministry of foreign affairs did not respond to a request for comment.
Beijing officials have said that the two sides have a mutually beneficial and cooperative relationship and that lending is done openly and transparently.
"When providing interest-free loans and concessional loans, we fully consider the debt situation and repayment capacity of the recipient countries in Africa, and work in accordance with the law," Zhou Liujun, vice chairman of China International Development Cooperation Agency told reporters in late October.
Another Chinese official, who declined to be named as they are not authorised to speak to the media, said Beijing always intended to implement BRI gradually to manage debt default risks by countries or projects.
Workers are seen on site during the construction of the Nairobi Expressway, in Nairobi
'RAILWAY WILL BE BUILT'
Officials in Kenya said its rail route were long-term projects that would be seen through over time, without giving any specific timeframe. The COVID-19 has presented the world with unforeseen and unprecedented challenges, they added.
"Eventually, this standard gauge railway will still be complete because it is part of what we call the Belt and Road Initiative," said James Macharia, Kenya's transport minister.
The government has already spent about $5 billion on its new rail link, and can't currently afford the additional $3.7 billion needed to finish it. The last station hooked up is only accessible by dirt roads.
Hence engineers in the Rift Valley are no longer building new infrastructure, but rather shoring up colonial-era viaducts and bridges in an operation that the government estimates will cost about 10 billion shillings ($91 million).
There are knock-on effects and, over the border in Uganda, construction on a modern railway line has been delayed because it's supposed to link to the Kenyan one.
That has been one factor in the hold-up in a $2.2 billion loan from the Export-Import Bank of China (Exim Bank), David Mugabe, spokesperson for Uganda's Standard Gauge Railway project, told Reuters.
In Nigeria, the government turned to London-headquartered Standard Chartered Bank this year to finance the $3 billion railway project https://www.reuters.com/article/nigeria-railway-funding-idUKL5N2OE43A initially slated to receive Chinese backing. Standard Chartered declined to comment on the deal, citing confidentiality agreements.
In Cameroon, the $450 million highway linking the capital Yaounde and the economic hub of Douala, whose funding was secured from China's Exim Bank in 2012, stalled in 2019 as the bank stopped disbursing further tranches of the loan.
Exim Bank did not respond to a request for comment on its loans to Uganda and Cameroon. MALAYSIA TO BOLIVIA
Zhou Yuyuan, Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for West Asian and African Studies at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, said the COVID-19 crisis had strained Chinese lending institutions and African finances alike.
In future, he added, Beijing was likely to encourage more corporate Chinese investment in the continent, to fill the role of state-backed financing. "Once the pandemic is over, Africa's economy is likely to recover," he said. "That could drive China's corporate investment."
The pandemic has added to the obstacles facing President Xi's self-described "project of the century". After peaking at $125.25 billion in 2015, Chinese investments into BRI nations have dropped every year, apart from 2018, when they edged up 6.7%, the Green BRI data showed.
In 2018, Pakistan https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pakistan-silkroad-railway-insight-idUSKCN1MA028 balked at the cost and the financing terms of building a railway. The previous year, there were signs of growing problems for BRI, after China's push in Sri Lanka https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sri-lanka-china-insight-idUSKBN15G5UT sparked protests.
AidData, a research lab at the College of William and Mary in the United States, said in a study https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-belt-road-plans-losing-momentum-opposition-debt-mount-study-2021-09-29 at the end of September that $11.58 billion in projects in Malaysia had been cancelled over 2013-2021, with nearly $1.5 billion cancelled in Kazakhstan and more than a $1 billion in Bolivia.
"A growing number of policymakers in low and middle-income countries are mothballing high-profile BRI projects because of overpricing, corruption and debt sustainability concerns," said Brad Parks, one of the study's authors.
China's foreign ministry said in response to the AidData report that "not all debts are unsustainable", adding that since its launch the BRI had "consistently upheld principles of shared consultation, shared contributions and shared benefits". 'RESOURCES ARE FINITE' A key problem is debt sustainability.
Copper producer Zambia became Africa's first pandemic-era sovereign default last year after failing to keep up with payments on more than $12 billion of international debt, for example. A recent study suggested more than half of that burden is owed to Chinese public and private lenders.
In late 2018, Beijing agreed to restructure billions of dollars in debt owed by Ethiopia.
Some African governments are also growing more reluctant to take out loans backed commodities such as oil and metals.
"We can't mortgage our oil," Uganda's works and transport minister Katumba Wamala told Reuters, confirming the country had refused to pledge untapped oil in fields in the west to secure the railway loan.
The finance squeeze means African governments must make more strategic investment decisions in terms of debt sustainability, said Yvette Babb, a Netherlands-based fixed income portfolio manager at William Blair.
"There is no infinite amount of capital," she said.
($1 = 110.2500 Kenyan shillings)
(Additional reporting by Joe Bavier in Johannesburg, Elias Biryabarema in Kampala, Kevin Yao and Ella Cao in Beijing; Editing by Katharine Houreld, Karin Stohecker and Pravin Char)
Jobs lost, middle class Afghans slide into poverty, hunger An Afghan woman resisters her name to receive cash at a money distribution center, organized by the World Food Program in Kabul, Afghanistan on Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2021. With the U.N. warning millions are in near-famine conditions, the WFP has dramatically ramped up direct aid to families. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)More
LEE KEATH Sun, November 21, 2021,
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Not long ago, Ferishta Salihi and her family had enough for a decent life. Her husband was working and earned a good salary. She could send several of her daughters to private schools.
But now, after her husband lost his job following the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, she was lined up with hundreds of other Afghans, registering with the U.N.’s World Food Program to receive food and cash that her family desperately needs just for survival.
“We have lost everything. We’ve lost our minds,” Salihi said after her registration was complete. With her was her eldest daughter, 17-year-old Fatima, whom she had to take out of school. She can’t afford to pay the fees at a private school, and the Taliban so far are not allowing teenage girls to go to public schools.
“I don’t want anything for myself, I just want my children to get an education,” Salihi said.
In a matter of months as Afghanistan’s economy craters, many stable, middle-class families like Salihi’s have plummeted into desperation, uncertain of how they will pay for their next meal. That is one reason the United Nations is raising alarm over a hunger crisis, with 22% of the population of 38 million already near famine and another 36% facing acute food insecurity - mainly because people can’t afford food.
The economy was already in trouble under the previous, U.S.-backed government, which often could not pay its employees. The situation was worsened by the coronavirus pandemic and by a punishing drought that drove up food prices. Already in 2020, nearly half of Afghanistan’s population was living in poverty.
Then the world’s shutdown of funding to Afghanistan after the Taliban’s Aug. 15 seizure of power pulled the rug out from under the country’s small middle class. International funding once paid for much of the government budget — and without it, the Taliban have largely been unable to pay salaries or provide public services. The international community has not recognized Taliban rule, demanding the militants form a more inclusive government and respect human rights.
Hospitals are seeing increasing numbers of emaciated, malnourished children, mostly from the country’s poorest families who were already barely getting by.
Now families that have seen their once-stable livelihoods wrecked also find themselves with nothing and must scrape for ways to cover costs of food, rent and medical expenses.
Salihi’s husband once made around 24,000 Afghanis ($264) a month working in the logistics department at the World Bank’s office in Kabul. But after the Taliban took power, the World Bank halted its projects. The 39-year-old Salihi said her husband was told not to come to the office and he hasn’t received his salary since.
Now she is the family’s only source of income. One of her neighbors has a business selling nuts, so they give her bags of nuts to shell at home and she then sells the shells to people who use them to burn for fuel.
Her husband, she said, spends his day walking around the district looking for work. “All he can do is measure the streets with his steps,” she said, using an expression for someone with nothing to do.
The U.S. and other international donors are funneling money to Afghanistan for humanitarian aid through U.N. agencies, which ensure the money doesn’t go into the coffers of the Taliban government. The main focus has been on two tracks. The U.N. Development Program, World Health Organization and UNICEF are working to directly pay salaries to doctors and nurses around the country to keep the health sector from collapsing. The WFP, meanwhile, is providing direct cash aid and food to families, trying to keep them above water.
The WFP has had to ramp up its program dramatically. In 2020, it provided aid to 9 million people, up from the year before. So far this year, that number has risen to nearly 14 million, and the rate has risen sharply each month since August. Next year, the agency aims to provide for more than 23 million people, and it says it needs $220 million a month to do so.
It’s not just the poorest of the poor, usually based in rural areas, who need help. “There’s a new urban class of people who up until the summer would have been drawing a salary ... and now are facing hunger for the first time,” said Shelley Thakral, the WFP spokesperson for Afghanistan.
“People are now having to scavenge for food, they’re skipping meals and mothers are forced to reduce portions of food,” she said.
Last week, hundreds of men and women lined up in a gymnasium in a west Kabul neighborhood to receive a cash distribution - 3,500 afghanis a month, about $38.
Nouria Sarvari, a 45-year widow who was waiting in line, used to work at the Higher Education Ministry. After the Taliban came to power, they told most women government employees to stay home. Sarvari said she hasn’t received a salary since and she’s struggling to keep food on the table for her three children still living with her.
Her 14-year-old son, Sajjad, sells plastic bags in the market for a little cash. Sarvari says she depends on help from neighbors. “I buy from shopkeepers on credit. I owe so many shopkeepers, and most of what I receive today will just go to paying what I owe.”
Samim Hassanzwai said his life has been overturned completely over the past year. His father and mother both died of COVID-19, he said. His father was an officer in the intelligence agency and his mother was a translator for an American agency.
Hassanzwai, 29, had been working in the Culture Ministry but hasn’t gotten a salary since the Taliban came to power. Now he’s jobless with his wife and three children as well as his four younger sisters all dependent on him.
“I had a job, my mother had a job, my father had his duties. We were doing fine with money,” he said. “Now everything is finished.”
Activision CEO Tells Execs He Will Consider Leaving If Harassment Issues Aren’t Fixed ‘With Speed’
Jeremy Fuster Sun, November 21, 2021, 6:50 PM·3 min read
Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick told senior managers at the videogame company that he will consider leaving if issues of sexual misconduct and harassment are not resolved “with speed,” according to the Wall Street Journal.
After more than 1,200 employees signed a petition demanding his resignation, Kotick met with executives at Blizzard on Friday, ready to step away if he couldn’t reform the company’s culture. He stopped short of outright leaving, however.
In a separate meeting with Activision executives, Kotick said he was “ashamed of some of the incidents that had happened on his watch and apologized for how he has handled the unfolding problems,” but was told by executives that some employees would only be satisfied by his departure.
In July, the gaming studio behind popular franchises like “Call of Duty” and “World of Warcraft,” was hit with a civil lawsuit from California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing, claiming the company was “akin to working in a frat house.” The alleged sexual harassment included inappropriate comments about women’s bodies, rape jokes and unsolicited touching of female employees.
The company dismissed the claims and said in part in a statement to NPR, “The DFEH includes distorted, and in many cases false, descriptions of Blizzard’s past.”
Activision Blizzard employees later staged a mass walkout at the company’s offices in Irvine, California, a move intended to pressure the company into creating a better work environment for non-male employees as well as equalize pay. And in an open letter to management published via Polygon, nearly 3,100 Activision Blizzard employees urged the company to do better.
On Oct. 27, Kotick announced a “zero-tolerance policy” along with a series of reform policies, including a pledge to increase the number of female and non-binary employees at the company by 50%, waiving arbitration for any employee filing a harassment or discrimination claim, and slashing his pay to the minimum annual salary of $62,500 required by California law.
“I truly wish not a single employee had had an experience at work that resulted in hurt, humiliation, or worse – and to those who were affected, I sincerely apologize,” Kotick said. “You have my commitment that we will do everything possible to honor our values and create the workplace every member of this team deserves.”
But this past week, the heat was turned up on Kotick again after a Wall Street Journal report revealed his direct involvement in the harassment of women at Activision Blizzard, specifically threatening in a 2006 voicemail to have a female employee killed and threatening to “destroy” a private jet flight attendant who sued him for sexual harassment committed by his jet’s pilot.
After the story was published, ABK Workers Alliance, an advocacy group formed after the systemic issues of harassment at Activision Blizzard came to light, staged a walkout to demand that Kotick step down. A group of Activision shareholders led by SOC Investment Group joined in the calls; and Microsoft gaming EVP Phil Spencer, who heads the company’s Xbox division, said in a memo to employees that he is “evaluating all aspects of our relationship with Activision Blizzard.”
Despite the renewed pressure, Activision’s board of directors has said in a statement that it stands by Kotick and ”remains confident that he appropriately addressed workplace issues brought to his attention.“
Mexican 11-year-old tattooist follows in father's footsteps Mexican schoolboy Brandon Burgos uses a tattoo machine in the city of Puebla
(AFP/JUAN CARLOS SANCHEZ) German Campos Sun, November 21, 2021, 2:09 PM·2 min read
Brandon Burgos carefully tattoos a customer's arm in his father's studio in Mexico. He's only 11 years old, but the schoolboy already has around 30 creations to his name.
He is following in the footsteps of his father, who says his son has a natural talent.
His small hands covered by latex gloves, Brandon uses a tattoo machine under his father's supervision in his small studio in the central city of Puebla.
He inks the image of an Egyptian cat's face before carefully cleansing the skin.
Brandon is in the last year of elementary school, and while he dreams of being a sailor, his second choice is tattoo artist, he says with a smile.
He first put ink to skin just a year ago, drawing a skull on his father.
"I started helping my dad, watching videos, and there's a book that's a tattoo course so I started reading it," he says.
Brandon is in the last year of elementary school and while he dreams of being a sailor, his second choice is tattoo artist (AFP/JUAN CARLOS SANCHEZ)
After his father came uncles and friends who let Brandon hone his skills on them.
"Now more people ask me to tattoo them and, of course, they're giving me confidence and I appreciate it," says Brandon.
He no longer feels as nervous as he did when he first tattooed his father. He has even been invited to participate in his first exhibition, in Tepito, a rough neighborhood in Mexico City.
His father Jose Burgos, who has been a tattoo artist for seven years, says it was Brandon's own choice to learn about his trade.
"He liked drawing from the age of six, but with the pandemic he got more involved. The only condition is that he gets good school grades," he says.
Before tattooing people, Brandon practiced on synthetic silicone skin and fruit.
Now he has no shortage of human canvases.
"He's done about 30 tattoos and everyone's satisfied," his father says.
"I never imagined that my son would tattoo me. He has a good hand, very light," he adds.
Josephine Baker overcame the racism that she parodied in her famous banana skirt dance to become the world's first Black female superstar. And later this month she will become the first Black woman to enter the Pantheon in Paris, the mausoleum reserved for France's "great men". Her adopted country is honouring her 46 years after her death not only as a mould-breaking entertainer but also as a French Resistance hero, civil rights activist and a diversity pioneer who created her own multiracial family. Openly bisexual, Baker lived free love decades before the sexual revolution of the 1960s, declaring: "I'm not immoral, I am only natural.
"I have married thousands of times because every man I loved has been my husband," she insisted.
Born Freda Josephine McDonald into extreme poverty in Missouri in 1906, Baker left school at 13.
After two failed marriages -- she took the name Baker from her second husband -- she managed to land herself a place in one of the first all-Black musicals on Broadway in 1921.
Like many Black American artists at the time, she moved to France to escape racist discrimination back home.
But she never stopped campaigning for civil rights. - March on Washington -
She was the only woman to address the March on Washington in 1963, taking the microphone after Martin Luther King had given his iconic "I have a dream" speech.
In a personal bid to prove there is "only one race", Baker adopted 12 children from across the world to live with her in her French chateau, which she later tried to turn into a "Global Village".
"We all have the same heart, the same blood, and the same need for love," she declared.
Plucked from the chorus line of "La Revue Negre" -- an attempt to bring "authentic" Black American culture to Europe -- she became its star and caused a sensation. It was the first time most Parisians had ever heard jazz or seen it performed.
The writer Ernest Hemingway -- who was living in the French capital at the time -- said Baker was "the most sensational woman anyone saw".
The artist Pablo Picasso marvelled at her "smile to end all smiles".
When the show moved to the Folies-Bergere, Baker gave the performance in 1927 for which she will always be remembered.
Wearing nothing but a string of pearls and a skirt made of 16 rubber bananas, she danced the Charleston. - 'I have to be scandalous' -
France, which had many Black African colonies, was dumbstruck by her wild performance, which at the time some saw as a parody of white male sexual fantasies.
"With racist fantasies on the one hand and colonialist fantasies on the other it seems fair to say that Baker's impact on Paris... had as much to do with her colour as her talent," American literary critic Phyllis Rose wrote.
Ilana Navaro, who made a documentary about Baker, said she "transformed bananas, the ultimate racist symbols, into phallic trophies".
Baker became a fashion idol, deluged with dresses by designers, and kept control of her image by working with illustrator Paul Colin, who created some of the most enduring images of her.
Her 1931 hit song "Two Loves" made her a diva, a reputation further boosted by her lead role as the Tunisian singer in the 1935 movie "Princess Tam Tam".
Such was her star power that the movie later gave its name to a luxury French lingerie brand.
"If I want to become a star, I have to be scandalous," Baker declared.
The woman known as "Black Venus" would also perform with a snake wrapped around her neck or with her pet cheetah.
And she pushed the boundaries in the bedroom too, having affairs with both men and women -- including the French novelist Colette, the architect Le Corbusier and the crown prince of Sweden -- in a colourful and exuberant private life. - WWII hero spy -
After her marriage to the French industrialist Jean Lion in 1937 she took French nationality, but the relationship was not to last.
It was to be one of many wartime exploits in which Baker showed the same mettle that led her to refuse to perform before segregated audiences in the US, an unpopular move at the time.
She became a spy for France's wartime leader-in-exile General Charles de Gaulle and used her people skills and contacts to get information on the plans of Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini.
She was an informant, courier and lover of De Gaulle's counter-intelligence chief in Paris.
She also sent reports to London written in invisible ink in her sheet music, work for which she would later be decorated with the Croix de Guerre and the Legion d'honneur.
"France made me who I am," she later said. "Parisians gave me everything... I am prepared to give them my life," she added. - 'Rainbow tribe' -
After several miscarriages, she and her fourth husband, orchestra director Jo Bouillon, adopted 12 children of different ethnic backgrounds.
She installed what she called her "Rainbow Tribe" in a chateau in the Dordogne in southwestern France.
Baker later transformed her multiracial utopia into a theme park dedicated to world peace.
But her high ideals and grand ambitions did not pay the bills and she ran into debt.
Ruined, she returned to the stage in a vain bid to save her estate.
Her fellow American, Princess Grace of Monaco, came to her aid and helped her settle on the French Riviera in 1969.
But Baker could not stop performing, and she was to have one last hurrah, with a final smash-hit cabaret show in Paris retracing her remarkable career.
She died on April 12, 1975, aged 68, from a brain haemorrhage as she read the reviews of the star-studded gala attended by Mick Jagger and Sophia Loren to celebrate her half-century on the stage.
Imports imperil Jordanian makers of handcrafted shoes Jamil Kopti, 90, the oldest shoemaker in Amman, at his workshop in Jordan's capital
(AFP/Khalil MAZRAAWI)
Kamal Taha Sun, November 21, 2021
He was once dubbed the "King of Shoes", but after decades of fashioning footwear for kings, queens and presidents, 90-year-old Jamil Kopti fears cheap imports are killing off his craft.
"We started losing customers one after another, and we kept losing stores until we closed down three shops," said Kopti, believed to be Jordan's oldest maker of handcrafted shoes.
"In the past five years, our profession began to decline dramatically in face of imported foreign shoes that flooded the market," he sighed, surveying his once prosperous workshop.
Now he has just five workers, a far cry from the 42 staff he used to employ.
And around the workshop in the popular Al-Jofeh district of Amman, hundreds of moulds lie gathering dust.
After entering the trade in 1949 at just 18, Kopti attended shoe fairs every year in Bologna and Paris.
In 1961, at a show at the University of Jordan, he met the late King Hussein and gifted him four pairs of handmade shoes.
Hussein became an instant fan, particularly of black, formal shoes, and "after that, and for 35 years, I made the king's shoes".
"He loved classic shoes," said Kopti, proudly showing off two old photos on his phone of him and the late monarch.
He was awarded Jordan's Independence Medal and was a frequent palace guest on special occasions.
- 'Made in Amman' -
And Kopti's fame spread.
In 1964, the monarch visited France where he met then president Charles de Gaulle.
"All the time during the meeting ... he had his eyes on my shoes and when he asked me where I got them from I told him 'They were made in Amman'," the king told Kopti.
"King Hussein asked me to make two pairs of shoes for de Gaulle," said Kopti, adding "his shoe size was very big".
According to the country's Shoe Manufacturers Association, there used to be over 250 shoe workshops and factories in Jordan, employing about 5,000 people.
Today "we have around 100 workshops and less than 500 workers", said Naser Theyabat, head of the association.
During his long career, Kopti has made shoes for the new King Abdullah II and most of Jordan's princes and princesses, as well as top politicians and military officers.
Using imported leather from France, Italy, and Germany, his workshop once made 200 pairs of shoes a day.
Nowadays it is more like 10 pairs, forcing him to turn to medical shoes and children's footwear.
But Kopti believes his loyal customers will help him survive, pointing to one client he has served for 50 years.
Handmade leather shoemakers had a "golden age" in the 1980s and 1990s, recalls Theyabat.
However with time, imports have increased.
Textile, Readymade Clothes and Footwear Syndicate head Sultan Allan said that before the Covid-19 pandemic Jordan imported about 44 million dinars ($62 million) worth of shoes annually.
These figures are likely to decrease due to the repercussions of the epidemic.
"This craft is on the verge of extinction," said Theyabat, lamenting that Jordanian shoemakers received little support.
"On the contrary, there was a policy to flood the market with Chinese-made shoes."
- 'Profits too low' -
In the Marina workshop in an old building of the Ashrafiyeh district, three shoemakers were sewing on soles, adding heels, and trimming off leather, watched by owner Zouhair Shiah.
"The terrible decline started in 2015 when the market was flooded with Chinese, Vietnamese, Syrian and Egyptian-made shoes," the 71-year-old told AFP.
"I had 20 workers and I am left with three. We used to make 60 to 70 pairs of shoes a day compared to less than 12 today."
Holding up a shoe, he pointed out it was "strong and durable" and said the pair cost 20 dinars ($28). "Our profit is very low."
Shiah is hoping for government support to "reduce taxes ... because we have debts that we cannot pay".
Bent over a machine cutting leather, white-haired Youssef Abu Sarita recalled: "I started doing this 50 years ago. I love this job and know nothing else.
"What is happening to us is sad. Most of the workshops closed and their workers have left," he said.
"I am sure that we will face the same fate, but I do not know when."
Plunder: A Play by Fredy Perlman Front cover by John Ricklefs. 1973 reprint of 1962 play. Black & Red Printing Co-op, Detroit. Public domain due to no copyright notice. Addeddate 2014-01-14 06:20:32 Identifier Perlman_Plunder Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t9c562m0k Ocr ABBYY FineReader 9.0 Scanner Internet Archive HTML5 Uploader 1.4.2. plus-circle Add Review. comment. Reviews There are no …
Robot waiters take Iraq's Mosulites back to the future Robot waiters take Iraq's Mosulites back to the futureA robot waiter carries a bill to patrons of the White Fox restaurant in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul (AFP/Zaid AL-OBEIDI) Raad al-Jammas Sun, November 21, 2021
From the rubble of Iraq's war-ravaged city of Mosul arises the sight of androids gliding back and forth in a restaurant to serve their amused clientele.
"Welcome", "We wish you a good time in our restaurant", "We would be happy to have your opinion on the quality of the service", chime the automated attendants, red eyes blinking out of their shiny blue and white exteriors.
"On television, you see robots and touch-screen tables in the United Arab Emirates, Spain and Japan," said Rami Chkib Abdelrahman, proud owner of the White Fox which opened in June.
"I'm trying to bring these ideas here to Mosul."
The futuristic servers are the result of technology developed in the northern city, erstwhile stronghold of the Islamic State jihadist group.
"We saw the concept on social media in more than one restaurant," said Abdelrahman, a dentist by profession. - Voyage to space -
Occupied by IS between 2014 and 2017, the northern metropolis of Mosul still bears the scars of war.
But at dinnertime, patrons of the restaurant that is packed every night can escape from the city on a voyage through space.
An astronaut floating across the muralled wall sets the scene and views of Earth and other planets as seen from space give customers the sense of peering out through the portholes of a spaceship.
The ceilings are speckled with glowing constellations.
But the star attractions remain the two androids, sporting a scarf and black beret, shuttling back and forth across the restaurant on rails to deliver orders.
As they approach, smartphones come out and children promptly line up next to them for a souvenir snapshot.
The androids are the restaurant's star attraction (AFP/Zaid AL-OBEIDI)
- Time for a selfie -
The robots are imported, Abdelrahman explained without giving the source, adding that everything in the restaurant is digital, including the 15 touch-screen tables with built-in menus.
A team from the University of Mosul's department of mechatronics -- integrating several fields of engineering as well as robotics -- was in charge of programming and connected a network and server to the restaurant.
Humans have not been completely replaced by machines.
Four young waiters are busy picking up the dishes from the robots' trays and placing them on the tables.
Having dinner with his wife, Bashar Mahmud was won over. He took a selfie, smiling broadly.
"I've travelled abroad and I've never seen anything like this, not in Turkey, Jordan or Saudi Arabia," exclaimed the 50-year-old blacksmith with a salt-and-pepper beard.
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Apple tells workers they have right to discuss wages, working conditions Julia Love Sat, November 20, 2021,
FILE PHOTO: Apple logo at an Apple store in Paris
By Julia Loe
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple delivered a message to employees on Friday that was striking given its reputation for secrecy: a reminder that workers may discuss wages, hours and working conditions.
The notice came as some employees have been pushing Apple to do more to ensure there are no unfair gaps in pay across the company.
In a post on an internal site, Apple said its policies do not preclude employees from "speaking freely" about working conditions, according to a copy of the message viewed by Reuters.
"We encourage any employee with concerns to raise them in the way they feel most comfortable, internally or externally," the post states.
A spokesperson for Apple declined to comment.
Apple's business conduct policy already included language stating that workers were not restricted in their ability to discuss wages, hours and working conditions, which is generally protected under U.S. law.
But employees who have spoken out in recent months have faced resistance, said former Apple program manager Janneke Parrish.
Parrish, who was fired after playing a leading role in employee activism, said she is hopeful that Apple's message will ease the path for others.
"The first step is making sure people are aware of their rights," she said.
Apple has previously said it does not discuss specific employee matters and is "deeply committed to creating and maintaining a positive and inclusive workplace."
The move comes amid a broader push by Silicon Valley workers to speak out about their working conditions and the impact of technology on society.
Earlier this week, another prominent activist, Apple software engineer Cher Scarlett, wrote on Twitter that she is leaving the company.
Scarlett filed a charge with the National Labor Relations Board alleging that Apple halted discussions of pay among employees. Her lawyer, Aleksandr Felstiner, said the matter had been settled and the charge would be withdrawn. Scarlett said she could not comment.
Scarlett and Parrish worked together on "#AppleToo," a group through which current and former employees have been sharing stories of what they call harassment and discrimination.
Apple is known for its secretive culture, intended to keep details of new products under wraps. Employees sometimes are unaware of their right to speak about topics such as pay and working conditions, Parrish said.
Ashley Gjovik, a senior engineering program manager who was fired by Apple in September after raising concerns about harassment and workplace safety, has filed NLRB charges in which she alleges that Apple policies violate the National Labor Relations Act.
(Reporting by Julia Love; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
