I understand that people have a hard time attributing
genocide to the acts of American or multinational corporations, especially
since, as upper middle class white kids, we have been brought up to respect the
Corporation, and to trust that simply "making a profit" is a neutral
and worthy goal. Obviously, there is a huge difference between me purchasing a
shirt that was made with forced labor and a footsoldier who kills people- no
one would disagree with that. When Brooklyn made the point in his blog post about
what happens every time we buy an iPod, he was suggesting that we need to wake
up and take a closer look at the global consumer forces that are moving around
us.
Let's take the iPod for one example: smartphones, laptops,
tablets, and other electronics all require a mineral called coltan, which is
available in heavy abundance in parts of Africa, including the resource-rich
Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Multinational companies like Apple outsource their manufacturing which
outsources its material sourcing which enlists a mining company to gather the
coltan. There are no safety standards and no labor regulations, children mine
with their bare hands and are subject to terrible illness and sickness. Different armed groups control the
coltan mines, and sell the mineral to corporations. These armed groups are
making hundreds of millions of dollars off of international corporations, and
use that money to fund the horrific, genocidal resource scramble that has been
ravaging the Congo for the past fifteen years.
At least seven million people have died due to ongoing
violence in the Congo. For too long we have been told that we cannot
"understand" this deadly "war" because it had a lot to do
with tribal tensions, ethnic hatreds, etc. But we all know, since being in this
class, that "ancient ethnic hatred" is used by the powerful as a
shroud to cover what is really going on. My argument is this: if we can think
about European colonialism- the stealing of land, the subjugation of peoples to
sub-standard living conditions, the rape and deaths of thousands or millions of
innocent people- as genocide, then we need to apply the same framework to
multinational corporations in looking at their actions all around the world,
but especially in the global south. The violence in the Congo is supported by,
fueled by, and exists BECAUSE of multinational corporations. In the most
resource-rich nation in the world, corporations steal land from those who it
belongs to, cause incredible damage to the environment, effectively making
cultivation of any kind impossible in large swathes of Africa, create or align
with armed groups who systematically rape and murder innocent civilians, and
then fuel the "instable war" because corporations like the
distraction of war to hide behind.
"The tragedy of the Congo conflict has been instituted
by invested corporations, their proxy armies, and the supra-governmental bodies
that support them.
The process is tied to major multinational corporations at
all levels. These include U.S.-based Cabot Corp. and OM Group; HC Starck of
Germany; and Nigncxia of China—corporations that have been linked by a United
Nations Panel of Experts to the atrocities in DRC. Extortion, rape, massacres,
and bribery are all part of the criminal networks set up and maintained by huge
multinational companies." (Keith Harmon Snow and David Barouski, Project
Censored: Media Democracy in Action)
The "situation" in the Congo is made possible and
supported by the international community, or the “supra-governmental bodies”
the quote was referring to. Through the policies of theIMF and the World Bank,
the governments and economies of the global south, especially in Africa, have
been forced to accept the unchecked activity of multinational corporations in
return for aid or debt relief. Coming directly from the US government, these
neoliberal economic policies not only allow corporations to operate without
conscience or oversight but they cause economic deprivation, stagnation, and
corruption in affected countries. International governments who could step in
to combat these multinational corporations don't because they are also directly
profiting from the seven million death toll and the deadly resource scramble.
Brutal colonialism is still being perpetrated by (mostly)
white people even today in the global south. If we still want to argue that
corporations don't commit genocide because they do not target groups based on
their nationality, ethnicity, race, or religion, I would encourage us to 1)
think bigger and 2) acknowledge that corporations every day knowingly fund
genocide and ethnic cleansing, and in that they are complicit in genocide,
making them guilty of genocide under the UN Genocide Convention.
Lastly, I would like to directly challenge some of my fellow
classmates’ justifications about why corporate capitalism can’t be genocide.
The effects of our current system of corporate capitalist dominance isn’t just
an “unfortunate situation”, isn’t just “low wages”, and it certainly isn’t a “spread of culture” as Lemkin suggests. The
effects are millions of deaths, millions of rapes, the destruction of culture
and tradition, and the forced mass movement and displacement of peoples.
This argument concerning corporate genocide was obviously prominent back on Tuesday when the point was brought up by Brooklyn. Many are in agreement that some sort of ethnic killing is going on, such as in this blog; however, I still cannot agree that this situation is genocide.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I acknowledge that the exploitation of laborers such as in the Congo, Mexico and elsewhere is a serious issue which I am in favor of addressing. Despite this obvious issue, it is difficult to label the exploitation as genocide. Genocide is an intentional destruction of an ethnic group; however, the corporations have no intention of destroying these groups. The goal of these corporations is to make money through cheap labor. They are unconcerned for whatever race they are exploiting.
In essence, corporate greed is color blind. People indeed die in mines, factories and other conditions for these corporations, but genocide requires an intention of destruction. Corporations control a limited portion of the population and therefore unable to destroy the ethnic group if they wanted to. Their only intention is garnering cheap labor for easier profits. If there is no intention or destruction, merely causalities to their greed, then the situation cannot be called genocide.
There is no denying that this exploitation affects many people and is brutal, yet the issue is global and not centered on any specific ethnic group. Although it is true today that these forced and exploited laborers are often Africans, Mexicans or other unique ethnic groups, the exploitation merely spread and moved to these areas overtime. These corporations used to exploit white Americans and Europeans during the first half of the twentieth century. They moved to Africa and other areas when America and Europe countries instituted stricter regulations on these corporations. This fluidity of corporations for cheap labor is proof that they are unconcerned with race and only with profit.
Therefore, genocide is an improper label for this exploitation. Perhaps ethnic cleansing on a limited scale is a better one, but the killing has no ethnic reasoning. The exploitation is clearly a problem but simply cannot be called a genocide.
I have to agree with Ian in this regard. Although Marina, you aptly describe the horrible exploitation that is perpetrated by large corporations without any regard for human life, their abuses are not genocide because they are not done with any intent of destruction of a population. In fact, although corporations might be perfectly content to work people to death as long as they have a constant stream of labor, systematically killing off an entire source of cheap labor (which is how people in developing countries are often seen), goes against the primary goal of corporations, which is of course, to make a profit.
ReplyDeleteThat does not mean that corporations do not overlook human rights abuses, both in their own streams of production as well as in the countries in which they operate. Technology corporations have proven perfectly willing to bribe warlords to give them access to coltan mines and labor sources. The warlords in turn fight over the coltan, which they know they can sell for millions to fund their wars. (For a good discussion of the problem, check out this NY Times article: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/12/magazine/the-dirt-in-the-new-machine.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm). Moreover, corporations know they can get away with abusing workers in developing countries with struggling economies and few labor laws.
As Ian points out, this exploitation is part of a larger trend that began with colonialism. That does not mean it is acceptable or is impossible to end, but it readily demonstrates the power of human greed. Moreover, to address the "race debate" that occurred and class and continues to go in our blogs, of course there is a race aspect to exploitation. The inferiority of a person's race is one of the easiest ways to justify exploitation: It occurred under the Spanish occupation of South America, with the use of Chinese immigrants to build the railroads of the American West, and even during the Industrial Revolution with the mistreatment of Eastern and Southern European immigrants—who were likewise labeled inferior to Americans of Western European descent.
But that isn't the point. Defining the exploitation of people as race-based oversimplifies the economic processes at work. As Ian explains, corporations will go anywhere with cheap labor and few regulations because they know that's what will make them competitive in the global market. (For an in-depth analysis of this process, check out Jefferson Cowie's "Capital Moves: RCA's 70-Year Quest for Cheap Labor.") These countries do not have weak economies and few regulations because they are made up of people of color, but because for centuries they have been exploited by Western countries seeking to fuel their own economic development at the expense of others. The problem isn't an issue of race, but the international system that continues to encourage the exploitation of individuals for the benefit of corporations and their home-countries.
That isn't genocide, that's capitalism.