“There are two things that are important in politics. The first is money, and I can’t remember what the second one is.”
– Mark Hanna, the Ohio industrialist and senator who ran William McKinley’s 1896 campaign, quoted in the January 14, 2008 issue of THE NEW YORKER.
Our 5 percent UBAD voters seek direction in the matter of the upcoming general elections, but this will be the most complex generals ever. I think the big reason for the complexity of the situation is the growing interest the corporations have in Belize. The profit opportunities in Belize have caught the attention of the money conglomerates who essentially rule the world. Consider the quick wealth opportunities here in the following areas – real estate, tourism, petroleum, gold, offshore banking, etc. Belize, moreover, has twice consecutively elected a government which manifestly places business interests above those of the local population. But the Opposition to the present government was best known previously as the pro-business option. So what is the roots Belizean voter to do?
Personally, I know constituencies where I would vote PUP, and I know constituencies where I would vote UDP. I know divisions where I would vote PNP, and I know divisions where I would vote VIP. And I know divisions where I would not vote for any of the candidates.
I want the best for my country and my people, but I know that my views are minority views, because we’ve been classified as radicals. I am an environmentalist, for instance, and I dislike the tourism industry. But there is no stopping tourism industry growth in Belize. I am resigned to that.
In my column today, I will try to explain the nature of the corporations which are affecting our daily lives in ways which have given us Belizeans a feeling of helplessness. Corporations are business entities which have no human component the way we have known humanity to exist. We can see that a sidewalk vendor of peanuts is a human being like us. But corporations are really faceless forces which are accumulations of millions and sometimes billions of dollars. Corporations are like sharks. They cruise the world 24 hours a day seeking profits for their shareholders. They are absolutely cold-blooded.
When I was a teenaged university student spending the 1966 summer holidays in Brooklyn, which is one of the five boroughs of New York City, there were times I would do temporary jobs in the business district of Manhattan, which is called Wall Street. If I knew then what I know now, I would have paid much closer attention to my surroundings. I know now that Wall Street is where it’s at. I’m talking about money.
There are stock markets on Wall Street, and these stock markets are the institutions which enable and regulate the movement of investment capital into the corporations, and then allow for the dividends (profits) from this investment capital to be returned to those investors whose corporations have performed well. There are people who get very rich, sometimes very quickly, making wise investments on Wall Street. If you invested a small amount of money in Coca Cola way back at the beginning of the twentieth century, that would be a classic example of an investment whose returns would have been phenomenally profitable over a period of time. Investments in computer related and communications technology companies have sometimes made big money quickly in the last two decades.
It is the case in today’s globalized world that there are stock markets all over the planet – in London, in Berlin, in Paris, in Zurich, in Moscow, in Hong Kong, and so on and so forth. There are, then, the humble citizens of individual nation states, like me and you, and then there are the corporations which operate across national boundaries with lightning-like speed and frightening power. In Belize, we have had Tate and Lyle, the Carlisle Group (now BB Holdings), Royal Caribbean, Carnival, Fortis, Cascal, and the various international banks. Quite often there are seemingly innocent companies which do not bear the names of the international corporations which own them. These are front companies: I would call names, but I am not a lawyer. The names change often, because the corporations are always avoiding taxation, and they are always trying to hide their hand, so to speak.
Sometimes we can see the faces of the high profile investment bankers and chief executives who earn incredible salaries running the world’s largest corporations – Toyota, IBM, Coca Cola, Microsoft, Intel, Nike, International Nickel, Exxon, and so on. But we almost never see the lawyers and accountants who are in charge of protecting the corporations from the people of planet earth, while always maximizing the corporations’ profits. This is a world, the corporate world, where, operating behind closed doors, they elect governments and they overthrow governments. They sometimes murder and torture millions in order to increase their profits, but corporations are almost never liable for their capital crimes.
Consider the case of the tobacco companies which were and are responsible for millions of deaths and disabilities. Their lawyers keep the cases involving the claims of tobacco victims bogged down in courts for years and years, while the tobacco companies continue to perform magnificently on the stock markets. When the developed countries began to attack them, the tobacco companies aimed their marketing at poor countries. By the same amount that tobacco sales declined in the United States and Europe, those sales increased in Africa and Asia. If the shark does not swim, it will die. If the corporation does not make profits, it will cease to exist.
On Belize City’s Southside, there are two politicians who entered politics as roots candidates. The British peer who is the chair of BB Holdings is the dominant corporate force in the politics of Belize. That peer has essentially bought those two. When roots voters give that combo their support on February 7, they will actually be voting to protect Chichester, even while the Southside voters believe they are voting for roots. Times have changed. People have changed. Politicians want to win, and money is the most important factor in politics.
Our sources say Chichester also owns a politician on the Northside, and one in Orange Walk. Essentially, he has targeted four divisions, across party lines, for the protection of his corporate interests. It emerged last year in March that the Lord of Chichester is in fact the most serious opponent of Kremandala in this nation. Chichester essentially has his own special interests political party. Kremandala, in self-defence, has to adjust to BB Holdings’ initiatives. If the peer’s four are elected, and they are all considered frontrunners, remember this – even though they look like us, they will be working for him. Can you dig it?
It’s a war that we’ve been in since 1969. Laissez faire capitalism expresses itself today as the modern corporation. The corporations’ unrestrained, predatory capitalism is now referred to as neoliberalism. People we started out with back then fighting for the people, now work for the corporations. Working for the corporations is the best way to be a so-called winner. It is the corporations which rule Belize. Those of us who fight for the people, are underdogs. Thus it was in the beginning, and thus, it seems, it remains. It’s not a problem. We are what we are. Power to the people.