Liberalisation Privatisation Globalisation
The organisation of capitalist society is based on economics and naturally precipitates a class structure. The classes achieve their distinction solely on the premise of having or not having economic power. The economic structure of the society in turn depends on what the society produces, for whose consumption, and how it is exchanged. Any change in the modes of production and exchange are reflected directly or indirectly on the social fabric. Both these operations are controlled by the classes that are economically privileged and the interests of the other classes are almost always jeopardised. This logic is true not only in the internal relations of a society but also between societies. Since these relations are determined by an imbalance of power, they exist in a retarded and volatile condition that seeks discharge. Conflict and protest are therefore inevitable in such a structure. It is in these protests from the dispossessed classes that one finds the genesis of all major revolutions and rearrangements of social order. With the advent of capitalism, the lower classes that toiled at the farms or at the furnaces, became 'labour'- not bound to their trades by tradition or command of the feudal lord but they became free contracting agents who could sell their capacity to labour, in the market. This shift did not of course imply any elevation in their conditions. They remained indispensable cogs in the social machinery- only the machinery started producing profit. With this wealth the machinery received a face-lift but all the cogs got was grease- just to keep them running. Labour united under trade unions. The unions functioned as an important agency creating a joint responsibility and focused interests among workers in different sectors and occupational groups. They provided a voice to the workers' views on economic and social policies thus campaigning to ensure them a place in society. Class systems in the First and Third world
When capitalism was confronted with a crisis, the capitalist societies of the west invented imperialism. The controllers of production and wages sought new markets in terms of colonies to dump their surplus goods and capital. Late capitalism has to its credit the invention of globalisation. With both these solutions the capitalist countries of the west also managed to export their labour conflicts to their empires.
The G7 through globalisation fulfils its need to sustain a global system where it retains its economic and political domination. This it achieves through political, military and cultural manipulations and interventions. The G7 exercises its control through he WTO, The IMF and the World Bank. The structural adjustment programs and the stabilization measures that these organizations prescribe are mostly devastating with consequences like the collapse of national currencies, social destitution, environmental hazards etc. The structural adjustment programs and the stabilization measures advocate among other things privatization or joint ventures with foreign capital. This almost always entails retrenchment of labour and reduction of wages. The IMF requires the state to eliminate the minimum wages legislation and costs of living adjustments in agreements. The WTO for its part requires the liberalization of trade. The lifting of the quota regulations leads to the collapse of the domestic industries creating large-scale unemployment. In the last decade the structural adjustment programs have been applied to about a hundred countries (These programs have also been implemented in certain western countries but not as rigorously) with telling effects in Brazil, South Africa, Bangladesh, Rwanda, Somalia etc.

The IMF and the Indian Labour Movement
The 1991 economic reforms introduced by the then finance minister Manmohan Singh for the aid received from the IMF and the World Bank was the main reason for the development and planning policies taking a back seat. The state had to sell off the more profitable PSUs to foreign investors or to
Indian corporate houses and close the other so-called sick PSUs. The process of liberalization initiated at that point has been completed recently in the month of April 2001. The liberalization program is expected to affect Indian industry in a big way, pushing some domestic producers to bankruptcy. The social implications would be that the livelihoods of several hundred million people would be affected.
Liberalisation has diminished the bargaining powers of the labour unions. The voluntary retirement schemes are the only options that most of them are left with. There has been a marked decline in the labour movement even though the size of the working class has increased. Evidently the stranglehold of the trio - the IMF the WTO and the World Bank is stifling the labour movement. What remains to be understood is whether there is another way of negotiating these critical issues plaguing the countries with such notorious impositions and the co-opted state?
Tushar Joag
2001