© the other press ¢ Opinions continued from page 9 forces, as well as the justness of their mission. Of course, in doing so “our” Queen blatantly contradicted our own government’s stance on the war. As uninspiring as it may have been, Prime Minister Chreten’s decision to stay out of the Iraq war was a decision that he had every right to make, as Canada’s elected Head of Government. On the other hand, Britain’s elected Head of Government Tony Blair made the more principled decision to send forces to topple the Iraqi dictator. It’s no great mystery whose policies have Queen Elizabeth’s allegiance, and her speech reflects this. The Queen is monarch to over a dozen countries. The idea that her actions can reflect the will of the British government, while simultaneously the governments of Canada, Jamaica, Australia, etc. is simply laughable I don’t doubt that a monarchy can be a useful system of government in certain circumstances. In many war-torn nations, such as Nepal and Cambodia, the monarchy provides a source of stability that military juntas and Marxist despots cannot. Canada, however, is a mature, western democracy. We are a sovereign nation, and our identity is no longer dependent on the support of England or the “stability” of an un-elected hereditary family. We do not need a monarchy, especially a foreign one. It is time for Canada to grow up. August 2003 Me Teme (eM el Mar aii rae Cartoon by J.J. McCullough Top 3 Unsustainabilities of Capitalism Martin Pjecha OP Contributor Since the end of the Cold War, much of the world has proclaimed Capitalism as the triumphant ideology, one that will survive for the rest of history. Indeed, some Liberal political scholars, such as Fukuyama, have even named the era following the Cold War as “the End of History,” asserting that liberal capitalism has proved itself as being the most coherent and durable political structure on which global relations may be founded. To many in the West today, this may seem to be true, but, by closely examining the funda- mental flaws that are inherent in the capitalist struc- ture, its inevitable downfall becomes evident. 3. Gender inequality: Exploitation of women by Capitalism still exists today, possibly more than ever, and in different forms. In the Third World, exploita- tion of women continues to take the form of cheap labour, which is demanded by countries that partici- pate in the competitive global market, especially those that can only offer cheap resources . Though men also offer cheap labour, women and children are more like- ly to be found in this situation because they have smaller hands, enabling them to do more intricate tasks (such as sewing), but, more importantly, because they are seen as less likely to object to harsh treatment. In the West, however, we are trained to believe that we have achieved some kind of gender equality, and that liberal democracy, and the inherent capitalist structure that it goes along with it, should be spread for the rest of the world to enjoy. However, we do not realize that women continue to be treated as subordi- nates to men, even today in the West. Though many feminists may have been satisfied when women could vote, or when they could finally enter areas of work that were previously designated as “male only,” the current level of gender exploitation goes much further than this. It must be realized that, though women can achieve positions similar to those of men, they will always be measured as relative to men. For this reason, female politicians, such as Margaret Thatcher or Indira Gandhi, must acquire many distinctively male characteristics to succeed in their careers. In other words, there is a very distinct personality type that is seen as ideal for many roles in society, and, though this personality type may, in some cases, be acquired by women, it remains to be inherently male. It is this prejudicial personality type, which assumes all Page 40 e hittp://www.otherpress.ca “manly” traits such as war-mongering and “sabre rat- tling”, that is at the heart of gender inequality. Furthermore, Capitalism has gained so much authority in society that it has brought women to believe that it is in fact natural for them to be subor- dinate to men. Capitalism has created “gender roles” for us, for it cannot function without them. Within these gender roles, women and men live by “universal facts” that have supposedly been proven throughout history. These “facts” are drawn from tradition, and seen by both men and women as “natural.” For many of their “traditional” tasks that women do at home, they gain no credit from the patriarchal structure which separates private and public life. 2 Environmental destruction: Though Capitalism has continually created newer technologies with which it may extract more food and resources from the earth to support an ever-growing population, it has failed in finding a truly sustainable way of life. Indeed, it has created perhaps the most unsustainable way of life imaginable: Consumerism. In the West, we are continually encouraged to purchase and consume as much as possible, and a little more. Corporations compete amongst each other for customers, continu- ally lowering prices to do so. On the other end, however, Third World countries are forced to compete with each other for corporate attention. To keep conditions “appealing” to these corporations, labour and environmental standards must be lower than any other competitors. This cre- ates a “race for the bottom”, as wages in these coun- tries drop to a dismal few cents a day, and environ- mental destruction is inevitable. These businesses absolutely must be permitted to treat their employees as they wish, and pump as much pollution into the air and water as is required, or they will threaten to take their business elsewhere. Thus, to set a “business friendly” appearance, Third World countries have lit- tle choice but to accept the terms of Free Trade in order to pay off their ever-increasing national debts to other Capitalist tools such as the World Bank and WTO. 1 Economic inequality: Throughout history, even before Capitalism in the ages of Feudalism, the centres of production always demanded resources from their colonies, neighbours, etc. In the times of the Roman Empire, resources were extracted by force, and so, too, during the era preceding World War 1. However, modern Capitalism extracts resources in a slightly different manner. Instead of extracting resources with physical force, like the Romans or British did in previous centuries, today Capitalism extracts with economic force. Tools like the world market make resource rich countries believe that it is in their best interest to compete for buyers, and the more involved they get in this market, the harder it is to get out. The dominant idea of Free Trade means that resource rich countries must continually sell off their resources for extremely low prices, in order to compete with other countries that are doing the same. This system means that the West can buy resources for low prices, and, in return, the countries that are being exploited become poorer and poorer. To maintain their dominance, Western countries must also maintain the situations that are present in the Third World, like poverty and desperation. To do this, they use mechanisms like the World Bank, which offers to lend money to countries in need, but only if they first agree to comply with certain Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs). These, as mentioned above, include the lowering of both environmental and working standards, and also ensure that Western corporations can set up shop there and exploit these conditions. If, however, a country cannot be persuaded by either of these means mentioned above, and Capitalism’s demand for certain resources continues to grow, then another possible outcome is to take the resources by force, by war. Examples of this include the recent case in Iraq, and other cases like Cuba. Either way, mass privatization occurs, where resources that were once owned by the people or the state now belong to foreign corporations. A cycle is soon created, one in which the poor states are forced to borrow money with high interest rates, and are then forced to sell off their resources for an amount of money that can not even put a dent in their debt. Furthermore, the people of the country will never see any of the money that their resources were sold for, because it immediately goes to pay off the increasing debt. In this way, Capitalism perpetuates the condi- tions that are necessary for Western global hegemony.