Business after the tragedy

Business after the tragedy

Yanuar Nugroho, Director, The Business Watch Indonesia,
Lecturer, Sahid University, Surakarta, Researcher, Unisosdem Jakarta,
yanuar-n@unisosdem.org

The world is shocked. Bali and Manado, two areas known for
their calmness and peacefulness, were brutally disrupted by
deadly explosions. Hundreds are dead and badly wounded. Most of
them were overseas tourists -- and a shocked world is now an
angry world. Australia sent its humanitarian and military
missions and the United Nations Security Council unanimously
enacted a resolution to "help Indonesia in finding out the
responsible parties in the tragedy".

The biggest daily newspaper in Indonesia, Kompas even put up a
red sign on its front page, Indonesia in danger for several days
after the sorrowful day. And 50 percent of the 300,000 or so
people here who depend on the tourism sector in Bali face lay-
offs and bankruptcy due to the sharp decline in tourism.

Many parties will inevitably, to varying degrees, take
advantage of the blasts.

The Sept. 11 tragedy marked an historic moment in the
political-economic trajectory of the United States in last 30
years. This also applies to Oct. 12 in Bali, one of Asia's
symbols of tourism in the last three decades. And as the fear of
economic protectionism emerged after Sept. 11, such is the case
with the tourism industry, or services, in general.

This brings us to movements of "capital" and "labor". In the
last 30 years, it has been the movement of capital that has been
the most dramatic development which has led to the mania of
economic globalization.

There will certainly be protective measures to guard the
system from being a financial haven for terrorist groups -- maybe
in the form of tougher scrutiny and prevention of money
laundering centers and tourism areas, such as Nauru, Cayman
Islands, etc.

There will be an injection of financial regulations into the
global financial system. But it is the movement of labor that
will likely be most affected, in the direction of more
protection, largely influencing immigration, education, shipping,
air travel, tourism, etc.

Of course, tourism has been hit hard, not only in Bali and not
only in Indonesia. Isn't this a sign to start seriously thinking
about small-scale tourism rather than relying on the nexus of big
financial owners?

For the global capitalists, the mobility of financial capital
in the past 20 years is too entrenched to be held back or
reversed. First, they are "profit accumulators on a global scale"
rather than "patriots". Second, their profit accumulation so far
very much depends on the free movement of their financial
resources.

The gross domestic production (GDP) of the U.S. and Western
Europe very much depends on unhindered movement of their trans-
national corporations (TNCs). True, the U.S. markets are vast,
for it is itself a vast continent.

But the U.S. has great interest in what it is good at --
exporting their brands (Coca Cola, Starbucks, etc), technology
(software, management service, etc), and entertainment (films,
pop music, etc). The repatriation of profits from such exports is
crucial for the GDP and wealth of their rich citizens. Besides,
many of these businesses in the developing countries operate as
franchise industries, which pay high fees to the U.S. patented
owners.

Will the tragedies of the World Trade Center and Bali really
lead to enough trauma to end this need for profit accumulation?

If the U.S. starts pioneering protectionist measures, it still
has to secure the consent of Western Europe. And there is tough
competition for global economic power between the EU and the U.S.
And this kind of struggle involves not only governments, but many
competing TNCs.

The TNCs of the U.S. and Europe may not be on good terms, and
both simply ask their respective governments to fight the battles
for them. The current case of agricultural products is a telling
example, to the point that both the U.S. and European Union
governments fuel these battles with high tariffs and huge
subsidies.

These latter issues angers developing countries most, for
agricultural products from these countries can never enter freely
into the U.S. and EU markets (sugar, wheat, corn, coffee, etc.).

The business downturn after the WTC and Bali tragedies will
not mean a decrease of business power, but the tragic consequence
of an unintended logic of power. Likewise the workers, as well as
the guests, at the Sari Club in Bali had never been intended
subjects for the working of such a power based on capital
movement.

Business may be even more powerful than before; they just need
to operate in a more sophisticated manner and rely less on the
free movements of labor -- humans vulnerable to be blown up.
Globalization may then be more of the mobility of financial
capital and less and less of the mobility of labor. With
information technology, "remote control" now serves power,
legitimate or otherwise.

Indeed, life is a newborn that eats its own umbilical cord.
And human emotional experiences triggered by these tragedies
often drive people to different conclusions, positions and even a
leap to the opposite end -- as reflected by various reactions to
Oct. 12. Humans are very frail and must live in a paradoxical
world.

Perhaps the measure of intelligence lies not in its ever
stronger capacity to invent a consistent, linear logical way of
thinking -- but in its ability to accept the complexity and the
paradoxes of life. The Bali tragedy has forced us to admit it.
Otherwise, we will go nowhere.