The Age of Discipline
It has been a growing source of
concern among many of the
defenders of Latin America’s
neoliberal model that the decade’s
most touted economic recoveries
have done so little for the region’s
working populations. Declining real
wages and vanishing job security
have accompanied modest-to-
strong recoveries in Chile,
Argentina, Peru and Mexico-as
well as the United States. This con-
cern seems somewhat disingenuous
since job insecurity is the very basis
of the neoliberal model of growth
and development. Neoliberalism
has speeded the growth of a global
and casual labor force, willing to
work hard for low wages in terribly
insecure conditions. It is precisely
this insecurity-this global labor
discipline-that has weakened the
region’s trade-union movements,
and created the conditions for the
profitable streamlining of produc-
tion and trade.
Neoliberalism calls for privatiza-
tion, deregulation, cuts in social
spending, the replacement of insti-
tutional entitlements with a “resid-
ual” social policy, free capital flows
and free trade. As a coherent pack-
age-with national variations-it
made its appearance in the late
1970s and early 1980s in Thatcher’s
England, Pinochet’s Chile,
Reagan’s United States, and-by
the mid-1980s-in the Mexico of
President Miguel de la Madrid and
his successor, Carlos Salinas de
Gortari.
Bill Clinton’s United States now
finds itself with a good deal in com-
mon with the Mexico that those two
presidents built. Beyond declining
currency values, both countries
have seen an unambiguous growth
in poverty during their most recent
periods of economic growth–
although, needless to say, Mexican
conditions are a good deal worse.
Real wages in the United States
have been shrinking since the mid-
1970s. Over 15% of U.S. citizens
now live below the government-
defined poverty line, up from just
over 10% in 1974. In Mexico,
according to the calculations of
economist Julio Boltvinik, poverty
has dramatically grown over the
past decade. In 1993, 66% of the
Mexican population could not
afford to purchase a minimally nec-
essary basket of goods for econom-
ic survival-up from an already dis-
mal 48% in 1981. It now takes five
and a half minimum wages to afford
that minimal basket-up from just
under two.
n early April a story appeared in
the New York Times under the
headline, “112 Cleaners Are Ar-
rested At Airport.” It seems that the
Immigration and Naturalization
Service (INS) had reason to suspect
that a small New Jersey-based clean-
ing service called Lisbon Cleaners
had illegal immigrants on its payroll.
In a lightning sweep, the agency
arrested 112 of Lisbon’s employees,
eventually holding 74. Lisbon
Cleaners contracts with Continental
Airlines to clean planes and hangars
at Newark Airport. Continental, which rents space at Newark from
the New York Port authority, was not
a target of the investigation, and
according to a Port Authority spoke-
sperson, the airport is not legally
responsible for the airlines that rent
space in its terminals. “It’s Cont-
inental’s call,” said the spokesperson.
“That’s the beauty of privatization.”
“The beauty of privatization” is
that no one except a marginal sub-
contracting firm need feel any
responsibility for the status of des-
perate, insecure immigrant workers
from Mexico, El Salvador or
Portugal who have been allowed
through porous U.S. borders so they
can boost the lean efficiency of a
big public agency, and the profits of
a large private airline. The dispensi-
ble Lisbon Cleaners may face fines
for knowingly hiring illegal aliens.
But even if that small business is
displaced by, say, Cairo Cleaners,
Continental and the Port Authority
will continue to enjoy the benefits
of a low-cost, hard-working, unde-
manding workforce.
As the powerfully organized U.S.
right continues to point out, an
alienated workforce needs the disci-
plinary whip of hunger to work hard
and cheap. Under the class relations
of capitalism, too much security
undercuts productivity and prof-
itability. But a capitalist economy
cannot be reproduced by insecurity
alone. That same workforce needs
minimal levels of social security to
stick around and do the job tomor-
row. In the long run, it needs to be
fit and motivated to be productive.
And beyond the workplace, as both
J. M. Keynes and Henry Ford point-
ed out over 60 years ago, a low
wage bill may do wonders for the
profits of an individual firm, but it’s
not so great for the purchasing
power of an entire economy.
Economists and policymakers
seldom acknowledge this strange
simultaneous necessity of security
and insecurity. Instead, these con-
tradictory needs do battle in the
political arena. Since security and
insecurity cannot exist simultane-
ously, they tend to undercut one
another and hence dominate alter-
nating historical periods. Insecurity, in the form of labor discipline, is
now hard upon us. In its heart of
hearts, that’s what neoliberalism-
as ideology and structural reform-
is all about.
Manny Maldonado, founder of
Musica Against Drugs [see “Musica
Against Drugs,” Sept/Oct, 1994], died on February 23 of AIDS. Mald-
onado’s commitment to New York’s
Puerto Rican community, his cre-
ative use of music and art to mobi-
lize the community, and his person-
al courage will be sorely missed.
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