And Now for the Causes of Pinochet
Hilary Wainwright
Red Pepper, January 1999
"Most important is the role of the multinationals. They started the whole process. They were pushing the military to carry out the coup. They were the conveyer belt for the tragedy of our country". Jorge Silva, a lieutenant in the Chilean airforce at the time of the coup, should know. He was in counterintelligence and witnessed the build up to the coup. On several occasions he warned Allende of the danger. The plan for the coup was drawn up by telecoms giant ITT, worried that the Allende government might carry through its democratic mandate to bring telecommunications into public ownership. And Pepsi Cola was at Kissinger's side ensuring that the CIA put an end to this local threat to its global empire.
With great bravery, socialists in Chile took the multinationals on. They failed. For over 20 years now the combination of the military, multinationals and US government has seemed invincible. Now, as the moral legitimacy of the cause of Chile's victims is vindicated, we owe it to those who perished to consider the lessons of that failure. Jorge Silva, who sought to defend the constitution and the elected government against the coup, draws lessons about the military. But what about the multinationals?
Faced with the limitations of national governments in felling these global giants - a common experience, though not on the dramatic and tragic scale of Chile - the left's strategic thinking looked to labour: international trade unions, shop stewards combine committees across Dunlop Pirelli, Ford, Unilever and so on. Through these innovative and militant organisations, management attempts to pay off one isolated workforce against another were often thwarted.
Nevertheless, labour has taken a beating. On their own, unions do not have the bargaining strength to take on these companies who can move capital where they wish, and who do not depend on any single workforce any more than they need a particular government - apart from the US government.
Ethically committed consumers are a new force joining the battle. Consumers? Those gullible beings who'll buy anything labelled "healthy eating", "low fat", "animal friendly". Certainly they are not on their own the Davids that can bring down the corporate Goliaths. But they are getting organised and informed onmany fronts: insisting on organic food, boycotting products of exploited labour, whether Nike trainers or carpets woven by children, avoiding goods associated with cruelty to animals or the destruction of the oceans, forests and countryside. Increasingly they won't be fobbed off with compensatory tree-planting or pennies for Venice.
They are demanding economic rights: of information of control; a kind of economic citizenship. Consumer campaigns can hurt in a marketplace where the brand is all-important and where information damaging to the brand spreads faster than advertising. MacDonald's vicious respons to criticism reflected the imperative of absolute control over the brand - and hence companies' vulnerability to consumer challenge. In this issue Robin Murray and Pauline Tiffen from Twin Trading illustrate an alternative which links producers, in this case cocoa farmers, directly with consumers, though a democratically controlled chocolate company.
Copyright 1999 Red Pepper
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