Hundreds of farmers, truckers and taxi drivers blocked roads in and around Brussels, Belgium, on the eve of a European Union summit meeting. The meeting was called on an emergency basis to address the ongoing fuel crisis that has sparked worldwide protests.
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French fishermen led the way by launching a strike in mid-May, and were soon joined by farmers and truckers. Each sector of the strike has targeted the economy in its own way. Truckers have paralyzed traffic by driving at a snail’s pace and blockading refineries, while farmers have led protests on their tractors.
As the actions spread through Europe, strikers starved Lisbon’s main airport of fuel, sealed the French-Spanish border and idled fishing fleets in several countries. Britain, Italy and Bulgaria have each seen protests in recent weeks as well.
The protests and strikes are now spreading throughout Asia. In South Korea, 17,000 construction workers have thrown their weight behind a truck drivers’ strike that began on June 13 at major ports. The Ministry of Land, Transportation and Maritime Affairs indicated 510 state building sites were affected, with work brought to a halt at 53. According to government figures, the first four days of the truckers’ strike caused $2.31 billion in losses to exporters and another $2.43 billion in losses to importers. (AFP, June 17)
The South Korean actions, which included a 13,000-strong truckers’ rally in Seoul on June 16, come at a critical time for President Lee Myung-bak. Lee’s government has been the target of mass protests for pandering to U.S. interests and lifting health-safety restrictions placed on U.S. beef imports.
In Thailand, energy and transport officials have met with representatives of the Land Transport Federation after a call was put out to the federation’s 400,000 truckers to blockade the country’s capital.
“Imagine what will happen to Bangkok traffic when you have thousands of trucks driving very slowly into the capital and police can’t stop us,” said Thongyu Khongkan, head of the truckers’ federation. (Reuters, June 16)
Thongyu indicated that the meeting with government officials was positive, but has not discarded the possibility of a blockade should the government fail to meet the truckers’ demands.
The negotiations came on the heels of a half-day truckers’ strike demanding fuel assistance in the form of a nine-cent discount per liter of diesel and affordable loans to convert vehicle engines to compressed natural gas. Only last month, the country’s state-run refineries conceded an 8 percent discount on diesel to Bangkok bus companies. (Reuters, June 16)
A recent strike threat by Colombian truckers indicates that Latin America may be joining the actions. Though limited protests by U.S. truckers took place in April, it remains to be seen whether the phenomenon will take on a similar mass character in the United States.
What is behind the fuel crisis?
The imperialist stage of capitalism has been characterized by a concentration of capital into monopolies and the division and redivision of the world amongst the developed, industrialized countries. Through war and other instruments of oppression, imperialist nations have guaranteed the expansion of capital beyond the constraints of their national boundaries.
This process has welded together the world’s economies into an intricate network where each crisis has the potential to ripple throughout the planet. The skyrocketing cost of oil has created not ripples, but a tidal wave.
Energy is the single most important resource in modern industry—no sector of the economy can function without it. Oil, in turn, has become the single most important source of energy due to its relative abundance and ease of extraction. The brutal wars waged upon the Middle East by imperialist powers over much of the past century largely revolved around control of this most valuable geostrategic resource.
In recent years, global demand for oil has outpaced oil production. China, a country of 1.3 billion people, has experienced tremendous economic growth in recent years in its attempts to overcome underdevelopment and chart an independent course. China’s demand for energy has naturally increased as well. In fact, its economic growth is the single greatest factor in the worldwide increase in oil consumption.
While U.S. politicians blame China for their economic woes, the United States retains its status as the world’s largest oil guzzler. Increased oil consumption alone cannot account for the 400 percent increase in the price per barrel of crude oil since March 2003.
Capitalist speculation by the biggest banks and other mega-investors, fueled by a falling dollar, has been a dynamic factor driving the sudden and huge price increases. Big oil monopolies have also kept prices artificially high at the pump even as they pocket record profits.
The fuel crisis is, above all, a manifestation of the anarchy of profit-driven capitalist production at the global level. Corporate interests make economic decisions based strictly on profitability, with no plan in place to manage finite and important resources such as oil. There is no plan to ensure commuters can afford fuel to get to work, farmers can grow food at prices affordable to the poor and the working class, or fishermen can operate their boats and still feed their families. Under capitalism, they all must compete with speculators, weapons manufacturers and other corporate interests that drive energy prices up and do nothing to meet people’s needs.
When the Great Depression hit nearly eight decades ago, it too sent a tidal wave across the world. But it did not deliver the same body blow to the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union’s centrally planned economy enabled it to weather the economic storm in a way that a capitalist economy never could.
Workers fight back
An increase in supply from Saudi Arabia—the only country capable of quickly expanding production in any substantial way—will do little to alleviate the crisis. Despite the talk about increasing “regulation,” the capitalist system offers no mechanism to fundamentally address the current crisis. To do so would threaten the rule of profit, the bedrock of the capitalist social order. Some capitalists’ interests have of course been hurt by skyrocketing prices, but the energy industry profiteers have been making a killing.
Workers are now taking up the struggle as a matter of survival. While some capitalists mull over reduced profits, working people must figure out how to feed and clothe their families. Politicians will not move on their own accord to alleviate this suffering.
Through militant organization and coordination, this international movement has the power to extract substantial concessions from fear-stricken capitalists. The fuel crisis has reaffirmed the global character of capitalism and likewise, the common interests of workers across all borders. Each new strike that breaks out reveals the latent power of the working class and sets an example for other workers around the world to follow.
