A Note of Critical Appreciation

Prof. Jose Maria Sison comments on the recent book, Global Finance Capital and the Philippine Financial System, by UP Prof. Edberto Malvar Villegas. The book was published by the Institute of Political Economy in Manila.

By Jose Maria Sison 
Chairman, International Network for Philippine Studies

Global Finance Capital and the Philippine Financial System by Prof. Edberto Villegas is obligatory reading for all those who wish to know the essential characteristics of the Philippine financial system, the consequences of the long-term interaction between U.S. finance capital and that system and the dismal prospects of the Philippine economy which simultaneously translate into bright prospects for the revolutionary resistance of the Filipino people.

The book is well-researched and ingeniously structured. The first three chapters focus on the history of the Philippine financial system, U.S. monopoly capitalism serving as the main determinant of that system from the outside and the comprador big bourgeoisie as the basic internal class determinant of that system. The fourth chapter concentrates on the latest plundering by foreign monopoly capitalism through the most fantastic methods of finance capital overhanging the crisis of overproduction. The conclusions of the fifth and final chapter are therefore well-grounded.

I appreciate the marshaling of the facts and I agree with such basic propositions as the following:

1. That the interaction between U.S. monopoly capitalism and the Philippine economy since the beginning of the 20th century has resulted in a semifeudal economy, with the land-based comprador big bourgeoisie serving as the chief trading and financial agent of foreign monopoly capitalism and acting as the most powerful exploiting class;

2. That the Philippine financial system, including private and public financial institutions, has basically a commercial character under the domestic control of the comprador big bourgeoisie and is different from the imperialist financial system, characterized by the merger of bank and industrial capital under the monopoly bourgeoisie;

3. That the "liberalization" of the Philippine financial system, allowing increased direct operations of foreign monopoly banks and unrestricted movement of foreign capital, will bring further economic and social disaster to the people, especially the toiling masses; and

4. That global finance capital generates both financial crisis and the crisis of overproduction in combination, with the financial crisis wreaking havoc in unprecedented ways at the speed of high technology centered in the imperialist countries.

Significant facts

My critical comments are subordinate to my praise of the book. The conciseness of the book has restricted the author from going deeper into the big comprador character of the phenomenon of bureaucrat capitalism and into the major policy shifts of the imperialist countries and their multilateral agencies, from the pretense of Keynesian "development” to that of neoliberal "free market.”

But the author bares the significant facts in quick historical fashion especially in the first three chapters, and lets the reader think out how the private and bureaucrat big compradors mutually make use of official financial policy and the public and private financial institutions to aggrandize the comprador big bourgeoisie and its imperialist masters and perpetuate the unequal exchange of local raw materials (plus semi-processed goods) and finished manufactures from abroad and keep the country sinking in financial bondage to the imperialists in the endless rounds of trade deficits and foreign borrowing.

It is worthwhile to stress that every puppet regime that arises under the auspices of "free market” globalization is bound to be so weak in economic financial and political terms. Under the terms of liberalization, privatization and deregulation, the regime is reduced to being a tax collector and a parasitic spender in a country already overburdened by foreign debt and military spending. It is under strict imperialist orders to keep labor cheap and docile and not to intervene in the “free market.” It cannot even pretend to be for industrial development and agrarian reform of the improvement of the rapidly deteriorating state of social services.

The neocolonial state is now an easy target of the revolutionary movement either on grounds of corruption or repressiveness or both, thanks to the unbridled rapacity of foreign monopoly capitalism which actually make puppet regimes weak and venal but obviously brutal to the people. It is therefore the correct strategy of the movement to isolate and destroy one puppet regime after another until it can accumulate enough strength to topple the entire ruling system. Posted by Bulatlat.com

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