Corporate control of public sphere

The agenda has not been based on a long-term political plan, but constructed on the basis of surveys and opinion polls, leaving the door wide open to the articulation of private interests, as may be observed in Italy’s Democratic Party (Partito Democratico, PD); which no longer refers to itself explicitly as social democratic.

While common platforms spring to mind, it is probably possible to go a step further were these alliances to come up with a vision that is not limited to the next election, and a common agenda for research and ongoing activities.

social democracy must also mobilize civil society’s associationist elements, even if the latter are not automatically virtuous or effective. Citizen participation is increasingly manifested through associations proposing objectives that are a matter of collective interest or public interest. Therefore, a social democratic party cannot rely solely on labour unions; it must also embrace associative circles generally.

To be sure, the left is often stifled without its utopias and, as Ricoeur demonstrated in his reflection on the complementarity between ideology and utopia, the latter can provide society with a certain context or perspective.

Negotiation will no longer involve only capital and labour but all citizens and associations concerned about a good life for themselves and for future generations. If a new model for growth is still possible in principle, such a model would now engage in minimizing what is toxic, replacing it instead with goods and services with high quality social content and high quality energy.

This approach is all the more relevant since the crisis of European social democracy is largely the result of the crisis in the political construction of Europe, which includes the difficulty in creating a “social” Europe, a Europe with greater social solidarity. Isolated states may find it increasingly difficult to find solutions to the crisis in social democracy. Once again, we notice certain paradoxes: first, over the last two decades the construction of liberal Europe has been one of the main sources of disappointment in European social democracy; second, a social democracy oriented towards building a more “social” Europe might seem to provide a measure of salvation in a sea of globalization, and this precisely at a time when the social democratic parties in power form only a minority of EU members, and when further development of the EU seems increasingly difficult.

all of its constituent elements must be reviewed, including its social base of activists, members and electors. Its traditional values must be updated and brought into line with new values, including the social compromises and alliances required to this end.

If, as seems to be the case, there is still no economic theory that could play a role comparable to that provided by Keynesian theory beginning in the 1940s, might not social democracy find in the experiments and achievements we have observed not only the rudiments of new economic policy but also a redefining of its main components? Lastly, there are many heterodox economists whose views might be brought to bear on these issues (Stiglitz. Ostrom, Sen Gadrey, etc.).

The Gates Foundation gives to scientists, not farmers As can be seen in Graph 2, the single biggest recipient of grants from the Gates Foundation is the CGIAR, a consortium of 15 international agricultural research centres.

Efforts to implement the same model in Africa failed and, globally, the CGIAR lost relevance as corporations like Syngenta and Monsanto took control over seed markets. Money from the Gates Foundation is providing CGIAR and its Green Revolution model a new lease on life, this time in direct partnership with seed and pesticide companies.5

We could find no evidence of any support from the Gates Foundation for programmes of research or technology development carried out by farmers or based on farmers' knowledge, despite the multitude of such initiatives that exist across the continent. (African farmers, after all, do continue to supply an estimated 90% of the seed used on the continent!) The foundation has consistently chosen to put its money into top down structures of knowledge generation and flow, where farmers' are mere recipients of the technologies developed in labs and sold to them by companies.

Does the Gates Foundation use its money to tell African governments what to do? Not directly. The Gates Foundation set up the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa in 2006 and has supported it with $414 million since then. It holds two seats on the Alliance's board and describes it as the “African face and voice for our work”7.

GRA intervenes directly in the formulation and revision of agricultural policies and regulations in Africa on such issues as land and seeds. It does so through national "policy action nodes" of experts, selected by AGRA, that work to advance particular policy changes. For example, in Ghana, AGRA's Seed Policy Action Node drafted revisions to the country's national seed policy and submitted it to the government.

In a similar vein, the Gates Foundation provides Harvard University University with funds to promote discussion of biotechnology in Africa, Michigan University with a grant to set up a centre to help African policymakers decide on how best to use biotechnology, and Cornell University with funds to create a global “agricultural communications platform” so that people better understand science-based agricultural technologies, with AATF as a main partner.

“Listening to farmers and addressing their specific needs” is the first guiding principle of the Gates Foundation's work on agriculture.10 But it is hard to listen to someone when you cannot hear them. Small farmers in Africa do not participate in the spaces where the agendas are set for the agricultural research institutions, NGOs or initiatives, like AGRA, that the Gates Foundation supports. These spaces are dominated by foundation reps, high-level politicians, business executives, and scientists.

Our limited review makes it clear that the greatest pressure to change land and seed laws comes from Washington DC – home to the World Bank, USAID and the MCC.

But for many governments and corporations, it means the creation of Western-type land markets based on formal instruments like titles and leases that can be traded. In fact, many initiatives such as the G8 New Alliance explicitly refer to securitisation of “investors'” rights to land. These are not historic or cultural rights at all: these are market mechanisms. So in a world of grossly unequal players, “security” is shorthand for market, private property and the power of the highest bidder.

When it comes to seed laws, the picture is reversed. Subregional African bodies – SADC, COMESA, OAPI and the like – are working to create new rules for the exchange and trade of seeds. But the recipes they are applying – seed marketing restrictions and plant variety protection schemes – are borrowed directly from the US and Europe.

The G8 New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition was launched in 2012 by the eight most industrialised countries to mobilise private capital for investment in African agriculture. To be accepted into the programme, African governments are required to make important changes to their land and seed policies. The New Alliance prioritises granting national and transnational corporations (TNCs) new forms of access and control to the participating countries' resources, and gives them a seat at the same table as aid donors and recipient governments.3

As to seeds, all of the participating states, with the exception of Benin, agreed to adopt plant variety protection laws and rules for marketing seeds that better support the private sector. Despite the fact that more than 80% of all seed in Africa is still produced and disseminated through ‘informal’ seed systems (on-farm seed saving and unregulated distribution between farmers), there is no recognition in the New Alliance programme of the importance of farmer-based systems of saving, sharing, exchanging and selling seeds.

The effect is to create larger unified seed markets, in which the types of seeds on offer are restricted to commercially protected varieties. The age old rights of farmers to replant saved seed is curtailed and the marketing of traditional varieties of seed is strictly prohibited.

The World Bank is a significant player in catalysing the growth and expansion of agribusiness in Africa. It does this by financing policy changes and projects on the ground. In both cases, the Bank targets land and seed laws as key tools for advancing and protecting the interests of the corporate sector. The Bank's work on policy aims at increasing agricultural production and productivity through programmes called “Agriculture Development Policy Operations” (AgDPOs).

In Africa, AgDPOs support the National Investment Plans through which countries are implementing the Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP, adopted in Maputo in 2003). As of July 2014, three countries have been granted World Bank assistance though AgDPOs: Ghana, Mozambique and Nigeria. Besides financing AgDPOs, the World Bank directly supports agriculture development projects. Some major World Bank projects with land tenure components are presented in Annex 2, with a focus on the legal arrangements developed to make land available for corporate investors. These projects are much more visible than the AgDPOs and their names are well known in each country: PDIDAS in Senegal, GCAP in Ghana, Bagrépole in Burkina. These programmes make large amounts of funding available to enable foreign investors to get large scale access to African farmland – similar to the G8 New Alliance projects but without the political baggage of intergovernmental relationships.

It is the brainchild of Cameroonian notary Abdoulaye Harissou, a member of the International Union of Notaries. Harissou argues that African states must abandon the principle of state ownership of land, and decentralise land administration and management to municipalities. His idea is to have TSS co-exist with the formal land titling system.

Information about, and accountability for, the land partnerships is handled by the Global Donor Platform for Rural Development (Donor Platform), a network of 37 financing institutions, intergovernmental organisations and development agencies created in 2003.19 The Donor Platform has three activities on land: managing a database of more than 400 land projects funded by its members, operating a Global Donor Working Group on Land and serving as communication hub for the G8 LTI.20

The people or agencies representing three of those countries within the Platform are the same ones that lead their countries' G8 land partnerships. But the Donor Platform is not responsible for the LTI: its secretariat just provides information about it on the G8's request.

The partnership may also have links with other activities of the donor state in the African partner. In Burkina Faso, for example, the partnership with the US builds on the MCC’s support to implementation of the country's Rural Land Act. No further details could be obtained from the platform secretariat or individuals in charge of coordinating specific partnerships, much less the budget.

The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) is a US aid agency that was created by the US Congress in 2004 with a mandate to promote free market reforms in the world’s poorest countries. The MCC's works towards this goal by providing least developed countries with grants (or at least the prospect of grants) for large projects that they and the MCC identify in exchange for the adoption of free market reforms. The projects are implemented and overseen by agencies known as Millennium Challenge Accounts (MCA).

The MCC's various land reform efforts in Africa have consistently sought to formalise customary or informal land systems; map out and divide lands with the use of new cadastral and mapping technologies; allocate individual titles to lands; simplify and facilitate land transfers; and promote and facilitate agribusiness investment. The approach is not to completely sidestep customary forms of land management or local participation. The MCC typically integrates some basic elements of local practices to map out and allocate lands as a means to then establish forms of title that can be transferred (i.e. sold). As MCC puts it, "Formalisation of existing practices and rules is a way to make them more compatible with modern economies and production systems."24

Details of the MCC's involvement in nine African countries are presented in Annex 3. What they show is a deep and powerful engagement by the US government to transfer and transform customary systems of land management and control (in)to formal markets and private property. Deep, because the MCC's in-country work has changed not only laws but the institutional fabric to administer new land rights. And powerful because they have been very effective.

n Burkina, its work to transform and absorb customary systems into Western-type markets is making headway and being carried further by the US government within the context of the G8 Land Transparency Initiative. In Ghana and Mozambique, the MCC has been quite effective in getting land titles distributed to replace traditional systems.  

Both ignored their co-panellist and Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, Raghuram Rajan, who called for development efforts to support the policies that developing countries want. Rajan also noted that global transparency on taxes and removal of barriers imposed by rich countries on exports from the developing countries would help build a more equitable world.

t would appear from the panel that it is easier for the Bank to implement top-down policies with the help of a multi-billionaire than to partner with developing countries to tackle deeply-rooted market flaws and tax evasion. If there is any irony in partnering with a private, tax-exempt foundation like the BMGF to give lessons on public governance to the rest of the world, the World Bank fails to see it.

Between 1990-1993, four neo-liberal US magazines received $2.7 million from different foundations (The National Interest, The Public Interest, New Criterion, American Spectator). In contrast, four progressive US magazines with a national audience (The Nation, The Progressive, In These Times, Mother Jones) were given ten times less over the same period.

A somewhat astonishing conclusion can be drawn from all this: the right is a hot-bed of Marxists! Or at least of Gramscians. They know full well that we are not born with our ideas and must somehow acquire them; that in order to prevail, ideas require material infrastructures. They know, too, that these infrastructures will largely determine the intellectual superstructure: this is what Gramsci meant by capitalism's 'hegemonic project'. Defining, sustaining and controlling culture is crucial: get into people's heads and you will acquire their hearts, their hands and their destinies. Alas, as a friend of mine says, progressives can't seem to tell a hegemonic project from a hedgehog. What has the 'side of the angels' been up to all these years? Has it spent its time and money promoting and defending the ideas it professes to believe in? Precious little. Not only do progressive institutions appear complacent as to their side's intellectual superiority, but they've been cruising along as if there were no need to justify their positions, nor even to worry about the nearly hegemonic intellectual hold of the right. The 'angels' have, rather, seen their task as funding projects and programmes for the poor and disadvantaged; focusing on the grass roots, enhancing 'community empowerment'. Laudable goals all - but what happens when governments subscribe, instead, to structural adjustment which utterly devastates the lives of the poor in the South, or pass anti-welfare, anti-worker legislation in the North? What happens when the World Trade Organisation has more to say about community survival than the communities themselves? Or when public funds for health, education, housing, transport, the environment, etc. etc. dry up?

So far, I've not bothered to declare an interest. I assume readers know or have guessed I have one, since I am a professional researcher, writer and, when I can manage it, thinker. So yes: I have all too often heard or read the dread phrase, 'Your proposal is very interesting but we don't fund research and writing'! The point is not, however, private disappointment but mass denial. Progressive donors have sent out stacks, vanloads of rejections in response to proposals for intellectual work; their refusals positively litter the landscape. I have no reason to doubt that the goals of these donors are social equity, poverty alleviation, human rights, conflict resolution and sustainable development: such people, such institutions do, thank God, exist. I have always felt, too, that progressives are not just more decent but more interesting and more intelligent than people of the neo-liberal persuasion: this may be, selfishly, the ultimate reason behind my own choices and friendships. So I am mightily perplexed by their behaviour.

Why have we not learned from the single-mindedness of the right? Why can we not see that, for example, the destruction of welfare in the US or the threats to trade union achievements in Europe would have been impossible without the creation of an intellectual climate making such onslaughts appear not morally repugnant and regressive but natural and inevitable? Why is the 'project' approach not seen as self-defeating? As neo-liberalism dismantles the gains of the past fifty years and ever greater numbers of its victims are cast adrift, the pressure to fund only 'projects' will grow intolerably, pushing us into a self-reinforcing and unending procession towards the definitive dysfunctional society.

Funders should give up the 'project' approach in favour of institution building. Donors, understandably and quite rightly, want to discuss the substance and the politics of a project with the person who will be carrying it out, not with a professional fundraiser. But for that person, this process can be counter-productive, preventing him or her from getting on with the intellectual work. Drafting several project proposals, defending them separately, in different countries, before different audiences, by mail and in person; following up with correspondence, additional information, progress reports, accounts - all this is hugely time consuming.

Project funding, as opposed to institution building, offers no hope for an end to the cycle of low productivity.

Donors should fund not just the intellectual work itself but the means for making sure it will be widely used.

By focusing almost exclusively on projects, progressive funders have helped to insure right-wing dominance of the debate. The pernicious consequences of not taking Gramsci seriously are amply described above. We used to laugh at the idea that market mechanisms could solve social problems: such things are now said every day with a straight face. Issues we used to take for granted, including the third world itself, have almost vanished from the debate.

The exclusion of a tenth or a third or more of their members is, however, precisely the situation that obtains in societies regulated almost exclusively by the 'laws of the market'. There is a dangerous semantic slippage from 'law' to 'laws of the market'; from the body of democratically established rules for the proper functioning of society to the blind operation of economic forces. Neo-liberals want 'market law' to become the sovereign judge of the rights of persons and of societies as a whole.