Multiple crises, multiple burdens: Women and neo-colonies under the ever-increasing weight of imperialist domination and greed

Makabayang Kilusan ng Bagong Kababaihan – MAKIBAKA (Revolutionary Womens Organization in the Philippines)

March 2024

The history of imperialism is a history of successive rounds of economic crises which has also led to multiple yet inter-connected crises. The capitalist crisis of overproduction, which has consequently led to massive destruction of productive forces, mergers and acquisitions, and increased concentration of capital in the hands of financial oligarchs, is also fuelling an insatiable drive towards expansion of markets and greater imperialist command of natural resources. All these are bringing the Earth closer and closer to planetary collapse, with people in so-called “underdeveloped” and “emerging markets” the most vulnerable in the face of climate crisis.

Women in neo-colonies in particular are disproportionately bearing the brunt of severe economic downturns and ecological disasters, as they are shackled to and disproportionally concentrated in low-wage and “low value-added” production networks, non-regular modes of work, and vulnerable communities.

In this contribution to the theoretical conference on Imperialist Economic Crisis, we seek to provide the perspective of women in neo-colonies in grasping the current state of imperialism and the range of tools which it has unleashed to tweak in vain its ever intensifying and inherent contradictions.

I.  Crisis of overproduction, emerging technologies

The constant revolutionizing of the instruments of production, as Karl Marx pointed out in Communist Manifesto, and the increase in the organic composition of capital as explained in Marx’s Das Kapital, provide an important starting point in understanding the rapid strides in technological advances made by monopoly capitalism supposedly to increase productivity, and the economic consequences of such improvements in the instruments of production.

The constant improvements in machineries, and later on, in automation, robotics and intelligent computers, stem from the persistent drive to extract larger surplus values from laborers. But instead of raising their rates of profits, capitalists generally face the exact opposite due to the rising organic composition of capital (which Marx extensively

demonstrated in Das Kapital). Empirical data suggests that since the 1970s, the rate of profit in G20 countries has generally declined while the organic composition of capital has spiked.

Advanced economies’ monopoly over cutting-edge technologies, intangible assets, and overseas markets enables them to structure global production networks wherein lead firms enjoy extraordinary profits while subcontracted or offshored labor in poorer countries receive a paltry share despite generating the real value-added in the production chain and despite no substantial difference in productivity compared when production is done domestically.

Monopoly capitalists and multilateral institutions have termed this production networks as global value chains (GVCs), wherein value distribution is highly skewed to favor pre- production (research & development, design) and post-production (logistics, marketing and services) firms. This is based on the distorted assumption that intellectual property and other intangible assets generate value-added in the same way that labor creates value-added in production. This assumption has given multinational companies the license to amass immense profits for practically just owning intellectual property rights and technologies, and to press down on wages of workers in supplier firms located in poor countries, usually inside industrial enclaves and economic zones. Northern firms control around 97% of all patents which is a clear expression of monopoly power and command over other processes in the value chain.

The so-called “Fourth Industrial Revolution,” which refers to the current era of connectivity, advanced analytics, automation, intelligent computers, and artificial intelligence (AI) marks the fourth phase in the continuum of constant transformations of the instruments of production and the continuing monopoly over them by advanced economies. This current phase was built on the advancements in information and communication technology (ICT), and on the expansion of the electronics industry as the supplier of computers and other hardware.

It bears emphasizing that the development and expansion of automation and even of AI cannot be possible without its material basis – the swathes of factories in various countries such as the Philippines producing microchips, motherboards, wires and other electronic components crucial to assemble mobile phones, computers and other hardware. Broadly speaking, the material backbone also includes the mining of essential metals as key inputs to the manufacture of electronic components and devices. Thus, while there are job displacements in advanced countries due to AI and automation1, the overall trend is the increase in the social character of production as production of material components are outsourced to a growing set of workers employed by suppliers and manufacturers.

Women workers comprise more than half of the entire labor force in electronics firms in many countries (80% in Vietnam, +64% in the Philippines, 60% in Malaysia), and they work inside free trade zones or economic zones where they are subjected to depressed wages, flexible work arrangements, and hazardous work conditions due to exposure to chemicals and metals.2 Women workers suffer inhumane work conditions (long workhours, reduced work breaks, acquired occupational diseases) while tech companies rake in billions in profit in their hyped up digital innovation frenzy.

While usually considered as human-free machine learning, the AI technology essentially relies on the backbone of outsourced employees who train computers and carry out systems

  1. https://techcrunch.com/2024/03/27/tech-layoffs-2023-list/
    1. https://goodelectronics.org/womens-health-decent-work-and-the-electronics-industry/

maintenance for big tech firms. Presto Automation, the company that provides the drive-thru systems in many countries, admitted in recent filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission that it employs “off-site agents” in countries like the Philippines who help its “Presto Voice” chatbots in over 70 percent of customer interactions.3 It was also uncovered that the Philippines is home to “digital sweatshops” where workers train AI models for tech company Scale AI for below-minimum pay and non-regular work arrangements. An article has also revealed that OpenAI, ChatGPT’s creator, employed Kenyan workers for very low wages to label tens of thousands of snippets of text from the vast expanse of the internet.

It then follows that the current digital market race among tech giants Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, and Nvidia will translate to race-to-the-bottom conditions for electronics workers and digital sweatshop workers.

The COVID-19 pandemic has unleashed opportunities for digital platforms, AI and other ICT innovations to flourish with the reconfigurations in the world of work, including in the distribution systems. Digitalisation “has greatly multiplied the possibilities for different kinds of outsourcing and relocation both by increasing the amount of work content that can be transmitted over distance and by making it possible to manage processes remotely and co- ordinate logistics on a just-in-time basis.”4

The original offshoring of business processes has proceeded further to make room for work- from-home arrangements, wherein workers in the global South such as in the Philippines attend to client calls on the other side of the globe from his or her home. But more significantly, ICT innovations and the new digital division of labour have given rise to new groups of workers – location-based platform workers, e-commerce workers, and other odd jobs in the creative sector.

In the Philippines, products ordered from online e-commerce platforms such as Lazada and Shopee usually had to be manually packed by home-based women workers living in depressed communities, and to be delivered by platform workers usually on quota and whose sizeable chunk of incomes go to platform companies who merely owns and manages the apps. Based on the December 2021 Labor Force Survey, an estimated 7.310 million Filipino workers were classified as gig economy workers or those engaged in online platforms or mobile applications in his/ her work. This constituted around 15% of the total employed persons during the same period. Another survey revealed that most platform workers in the country are paid below the highest prevailing minimum wage of P610/ day (US$10.89).

Platform economies and e-commerce seek to address the original crisis of overproduction by engaging in mass customization of commodities, intrusive and algorithm-based advertising, and in just-in-time production and distribution. But the inherent contradiction remains, as wages remain depressed even of the new subset of platform workers.

II.             Financial crisis, socialized risks

The dominance of finance capital, as one of the defining features of imperialism, has been more pronounced than ever in the past two decades, especially during the 2008 global financial crisis wherein financial instruments worth ten times the global economy exploded and consequently sent stock markets deep into the red and millions jobless. In 2021, financial assets held by financial corporations across the globe stood at $490 trillion, which is roughly five times the size of the global economy. The total market capitalization alone of S&P 500 – the 500 leading US publicly traded companies – stands at $43.928 trillion. This is larger than the US gross domestic product amounting to $26.95 trillion as of end-2023.

While the exact size of the global financial system cannot be easily estimated, the inherent irony easily pops out: obscene amounts of wealth remain concentrated in the hands of the very few financial oligarchs, while the world’s poor pinch pennies to survive. The 100 biggest banks in the world, led by JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, holds a cumulative asset of $113.7 trillion which is again bigger than the world economy.

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the global financial balance sheet even expanded as governments rolled out large-scale support for households and businesses affected by lockdowns and as central banks embarked on consecutive rounds of quantitative easing. The sudden slump in manufacturing and stock markets was easily masked by massive public spending, borrowing binge and temporary rate cuts, as big firms capitalized on the period to embark on a slew of mergers and acquisitions, thanks to a surplus of investment capital.

Following the 2008-2009 global financial crisis, it took nearly seven years for the S&P 500 to recover. But when COVID-19 struck in 2020, the S&P reclaimed its losses within

150 days and finished the year 16% higher than where it started.5

More than a decade after the 2008 global financial crisis, the global financial system flaunts a false sense of stability. In February 2024, the S&P 500 index historically breached the 5,000 mark – and there appears to be no sign of slowing down. The cryptocurrency index is also displaying a resurgence since the start of the year. A key explanation to these trends is the

  • Bain & Company. Global Private Equity Report 2021

frenzy and misplaced excitement over artificial intelligence (AI) developments which fuel the boom in tech stocks. Close to one-third of the S&P 500 index is accounted for by major tech companies dubbed as the Magnificent Seven – Apple Inc., Alphabet Inc., Meta Platforms Inc. Microsoft Corp., NVIDIA Corp., Amazon.com Inc. and Tesla Inc.

Thus, the current rally of global stock markets is merely driven financial speculation in tech stocks, with some observers issuing a warning on an “AI bubble.” There is no actual expansion of the real economy, with global GDP growth projected to fall to just 2.9% in 2023. The unfortunate part to this impending massive financial collapse is that the vast army of workers employed in the swathes of electronics firms in the global South – majority of which are women workers – will be the ones to directly suffer the painful consequences.

Surplus capital is being repackaged in the global South under the banner of “financial inclusion” which include financial support to micro and small enterprises, microfinance, and mobile banking/ digital payments services. Five of the largest development banks committed almost $15 billion to microfinance and small-business lenders in more than 80 countries from 2011 to 2020. From the private sector side, Citigroup Inc. had lent about $1 billion to 89 microfinance institutions as of January 2020. Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group has invested billions of dollars in Asian firms, including in Cambodia. JPMorgan Chase & Co. sold a $175 million collateralized loan obligation in 2019 backed by microfinance and small- business repayments.6

Women in marginalized communities are fixed targets of these programs. An International Labour Organization (ILO) paper has explicitly stated that women are targeted for microfinance as women comprise 70% of the world’s poor and account for more than half of the informal economy. “The business case for focusing on female clients is substantial, as women clients register higher repayment rates. They also contribute larger portions of their income to household consumption than their male counterparts,” the ILO report declared.7

The Bangladesh-based Grameen Bank, the world’s largest microfinance institution and considered as pioneer in microfinance, has served as a model for other countries in rolling out microfinance programs supposedly for poverty alleviation. But a number of studies have shown that the microfinance model actually facilitates credit drain from the poor to the rich,

rather than the other way around. In the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, which is home to some of India’s largest microfinance institutions, at least 88 women had committed suicides allegedly due to the vicious cycle of debt and exorbitant interest rates of as high as 50 percent.8

Microfinance programs have also evolved to become consumption-focused under the guise of entrepreneurship. Through micro-entrepreneurship, MNCs are able to expand market reach in communities and areas where women micro-entrepreneurs operate. They can be distributors or retailers of their commodities which further increase corporations’ sales by establishing new distribution channels for MNCs products in underserved or remote areas.

In the Philippines, nine out of ten enterprises are microenterprises and operate in the informal, unregistered and unregulated segment of the economy, according to the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Many women are in small retail trade businesses such as sari-sari stores (neighborhood variety stores). A study (2010) reveals that among new businesses by women, 51% engage in retail activities, 41% engage in service, and only 5.5% engage in manufacturing. Encouraging women to venture into businesses is convenient in an economy that cannot produce jobs for its people.

Big businesses are venturing into microentrepreneurship with women so as to sell their goods and products and further maximize profit. For instance, Coca-Cola Philippines has its Sari- Sari Store Training and Access to Resources (STAR) Basic Entrepreneurship Program in partnership with the Philippine Government through its Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA). It targets women microentrepreneurs who own and manage sari-sari stores or carinderias (small eatery that serves affordable and local dishes).

Promoting the project as their support to women’s economic empowerment, Coca-Cola and TESDA provide basic entrepreneurship training to women, as well as facilitation of access to business resources, like Coca Cola products and merchandise. 9

While corporations such as Coca-Cola and Unilever present their micro-entrepreneurship programs as opportunities for women to build their livelihood and achieve economic independence, the underlying motive remains profit extraction for the corporation. Women entrepreneurs generate profit through their labor and entrepreneurship efforts, but a significant portion of the profits is siphoned off by the MNCs, with women left with a disproportionately small share. These programs serve to perpetuate and legitimize capitalist exploitation under the guise of women’s empowerment.

III.            Climate crisis: Women at the center of the growing ecological disaster

The surge in electronics industry, rise of electronic vehicles (EVs), and the AI boom are pushing the Earth closer to its planetary limits, as they heavily rely on the extraction of rare earth minerals, chips manufacturing, and massive electricity consumption, not to mention the

tons of electronic wastes that they are generating. A chip fabrication plant for instance can use millions of water a day, as it also creates hazardous wastes.

In an attempt to increase semiconductor production, many countries are embarking on big programs to boost the industry. The Chips for America Act proposes $52bn in funding over five years for the US semiconductor industry. The EU has forwarded its own legislation aimed at increasing its share of the global chips market to 20% by 2030. In 2022, China allocated over 12.1 billion yuan in subsidies to domestic companies, with Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) and Huawei Technologies as top beneficiaries. On the environmental calculus, this will only mean further expansion of mining operations, worse environmental plunder and destruction, higher energy demand from the electronics sector, and more hazardous wastes disposed in communities. Consequently, these aggravate the climate conundrum – despite the greenwashing of imperialist countries.

As imperialist countries impose on neocolonies the so-called “green policies” such as the sourcing of renewable energy, they are implemented in favor of MNCs and local businesses. For instance, the generation of renewable energy from biofuels in the Philippines has resulted to the conversion of lands for food crop generation to agrofuel plantations, as well as land grabbing cases. From 2002 to 2012, an estimated 1.5 million hectares of land have been planted with jathropa, sugar cane, coconut, and cassava for biofuels, owned or controlled by investors from UK, Japan, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia, and South Korea in partnership with big local companies. Many of these plantations, including the Japanese-Taiwanese-Filipino Consortium, Green Future Innovation, are also in agro-industrial economic zones where investors get various incentives such as tax holidays.

Mountains are flattened and forests are denuded to give way to large-scale and foreign- owned mining operations and agricultural plantations. Most of the Philippines’ vast forests, covering around 70 percent of the country’s total land area of 30 million hectares have been damaged for the past 100 years. Since the 1950s, the Philippines has been struck by more than 530 meteorological (storms), hydrological (flood and landslide) and climatological (drought) disasters. The number of recorded disasters has increased dramatically in

seven decades. The operations of large-scale corporations aggravate the consequences of extreme weather conditions brought by climate change. Denuded mountains and forests were cited as the major causes behind the flash floods that devastated the parts of northern Mindanao in 2011 killing more than 1,200 people. In the Visayas, the devastation of Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) in 2013, incurred 6,300 deaths, 28,688 injured, more than a thousand missing, 3.42 million affected families and Php95.48 billion (US$1.9 billion) in damages. 10

Women in poor countries are particularly more vulnerable to the climate crisis. For one, 70% of the 1.3 billion people living in conditions of poverty are women. In urban areas, 40 per cent of the poorest households are headed by women. Women predominate in the world’s food production (50-80 per cent), but they own less than 10 per cent of the land. Women also represent a high percentage of poor communities that are highly dependent on local natural resources for their livelihood, particularly in rural areas where they shoulder the major responsibility for household water supply and energy for cooking and heating, as well as for food security.

  1. Ulat Lila March 2019

Women and children’s health are at risk whenever disaster strikes. Women are more likely to suffer from malnutrition when food supplies are limited due to their specific nutritional needs when they are pregnant or breast feeding. Women’s hygiene are also affected by disasters, with women left without access to menstrual products. In drought, the low moisture brings dust, which causes cough and triggers asthma. Both in droughts and flooding, the limited supply of clean water leads to diarrhea and dehydration especially among children. These situations bring stress and anxiety to mothers who always think of their families’ survival.

In the cities, the large population in urban centers are no less vulnerable to disasters. Nearly a third of the 110 million Filipinos live in urban poor communities that are susceptible to floods. Severe floods caused by Ondoy in 2009 (Typhoon Ketsana) and Ulysses in 2020 (Typhoon Vamco) in the National Capital Region have resulted to loss of lives and livelihood of thousands of families.

In times of catastrophes and natural calamities leading to displacement of communities, women find alternative sources of income. They take on various jobs such as house helpers, laundrywomen, vendors, dress makers, among others. In farmlands, women work as laborers for rich farmers and in plantations where they get Php100 (US$1.98) to Php150 (US$2.97) for a whole day’s work.

Displacement of families affected by climate disasters make women vulnerable to sexual violence in evacuation centers where many people are cramped up in a small space where they sleep, wash and dress. Women are also forced into sex trafficking and prostitution in the absence of livelihood. In the aftermath of Supertyphoon Yolanda, cases of women and children sold into prostitution and trafficked in nearby provinces were rampant. Poor families were promised jobs and lodging only to be brought to brothels in the cities.

Climate crisis exposes the bane that is imperialism. It magnifies the effects of natural disasters and exacerbates poverty and violence experienced by women and children.

Conclusion

The AI boom which is artificially propping up the stock markets around the world rests on the back of hundreds of thousands of women workers in electronics sweatshops producing chips and more efficient memory cards. Women, too, are in the midst of the developing ecological disaster borne out of this mad rush to develop technologies and extract metals and minerals for industrial use. Taking the path towards revolutionary resistance, women, along with other exploited classes and oppressed sectors, can decisively stand up against imperialist plunder and greed and disrupt the circuits of mega-profits. #