Portugal's economic crisis, not surprisingly, it has a long history that is closely linked with the history of the country. And it has probably a great future.
Published in: Jungle World, 7.10. 2010http://jungle-world.com/artikel/2010/40/41810.html
The history of economic development of Portugal can be described as the history of peripheralization. Portugal Europe's remoteness and its concentration on the colonial expansion in South America, Africa and South Asia, while defining the great rivals Spain led to a substantial decoupling of the country from European developments. The demise of the colonial empire, which took place slowly over centuries and in a similar way, Spain will become a land of semi-periphery the capitalist world system, made in Portugal brought an economic dependency on the British Empire, which is also in the 20th Century changed only gradually.
also Salazar contributed to its preservation of the agricultural elites, the power of the Catholic Church and the colonial exploitation regime will help to prevent both economic and political development of the country, while political and military elite tried, against all opposition and anti-colonial movements the remaining power of Portugal in its colonies of Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau to hold and Cape Verde. Even Goa, which was already occupied in 1961 by Indian troops, was on Portuguese maps yet still drawn to the Revolution as a colony.
The Carnation Revolution in 1974, a survey initially left the military, were united in the movement of the armed forces, was the starting point for a variety of social demands and movements, which recorded the country. The most famous claim, "A terra a quem trabalha a" (The land to those who work there), was reflected in land occupation and expropriation of the landlords and the establishment of cooperatives down. For a short time, the establishment of a socialist society seemed possible. Communist organizations, especially the underground active and as among the rural workers of the Alentejo strongly anchored PCP, initially had great popularity and influence. With the end of the colonial wars in Angola and Mozambique, which gained with the Portuguese revolution finally its independence, was then completed in Portugal, the chapter of colonialism.
But even with the elections of April 1975 began a counter-revolutionary trend: The Left lost votes and seats to the Social Democratic and conservative parties, the unions were split into two groups, the more communist CGTP-Intersindical and more social-democratic UGT. Among other things, also had the efforts of the German Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, the social democratic social democratic and legal organizations supported financially, a not inconsiderable part in it, to strengthen political forces which participated actively in the stalling of the revolution. In the following years through amendments to the Constitution of 1974 abolished many achievements, in 1975, socialized enterprises were re-privatized. Although it was still anchored to 1988, socialism as a national objective in the Portuguese Constitution, but soon was no more than this rhetoric from the rubble of a socialist revolution was built in Portugal, a bourgeois democracy.
The Revolution of 1974 was also the beginning of a comprehensive social Modernization, which manifested itself first in the abolition of misogynist laws. But the economic structure began to change. Portugal, until then mainly an agricultural country, developed an approach favored by foreign direct investment from Germany, France and Great Britain, industrialization, which, however, took place mainly in the north of the country. Agriculture, which was still in the seventies, the most important sector accounts, today only five percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and employs 15 percent of the workforce.
Since EU accession of Portugal and the associated opening of cheaper agricultural imports many farms have given up much of the food consumed in the country is now imported. It first appeared above all the accession to the EU in 1986 and the introduction of the euro, the industrialization of the country to encourage foreign investments and bestowed by above-average growth rates. However, it was at the newly established industrial companies often are those that make their choice of location depends primarily on the available supply of cheap and unskilled labor. In this case, are making that most labor-intensive manufacturing, with which only a small value can be achieved, or manufacture goods, already a more advanced stage of their product cycle have been reached. Their production will be relocated within the international division of labor and for reasons of rationalization and cost reduction in the core areas of industrial production in the EU in the less developed peripheral areas like Portugal.
is designed primarily as the land of cheap labor. In a statutory minimum wage of 475 € is the Portuguese gross average income today is around 1100 € gross. And despite growth rates above the EU average, Portugal, which refers to the average standard of living of the population, along with Greece one of the poorest countries in the euro zone remained. Felt itself does not make this about in the unemployment rate, which lies about ten percent in the EU average, but rather in the large informal sector, a significant proportion of the unemployed and immigrants from the countryside to the cities on the basis of low wages and insecure employment fields.
Since about the turn of the millennium, the economy of Portugal because of the increasing globalization and increasing international competition under pressure. Since then, include the earlier growth rates that have been achieved by the settlement of labor-intensive industries of European companies in the past. While the industrialization of certain sectors and regions have remained limited, has grown significantly, especially the service sector in the past 20 years, due not only to tourism. Services are now responsible for two thirds of gross domestic product.
Foreign trade is conducted at about 80 percent with the EU countries. The great majority of Portuguese exports go to Spain, France, Germany and Great Britain. Exports are mainly clothing and footwear, machinery, chemicals, cork, pulp and paper. Imports are machinery, transport equipment, oil and oil products and agricultural products. While Portugal has a huge trade deficit. For the Portuguese industry, the pulp of one of the most important export goods to be planted large areas with fast-growing eucalyptus as raw material, agricultural economic monoculture are the result. This is problematic not only for economic but also for ecological reasons, because eucalyptus depletes the soil, the original forest displaced and promotes the regular outbreak of catastrophic forest fires in summer.
As a direct result of the international economic crisis in 2009 and exports both fell by nearly 20 percent. With her savings program that was adopted this summer, the government has a large-scale attack on the public sector and its employees started at the same time is increased with the increase in VAT, the social pressure on the poorer population further.
Unions have documented with first strike their will to resist, but these have been very limited and operational, such as Francisco Louca, coordinator of the Bloco de Esquerda (BE) and an economics professor at the Technical University of Lisbon, recently admitted in an interview. "Low wages and the fear of the crisis lead to a defensive reaction, as far as work stoppages. But of course, is preparing for a global response "On the agenda, he continued.
There is dissatisfaction, further attacks on living standards of the population could lead to protests. Already the elections last year led to a strengthening of the political left - about 20 percent of voters were almost equally between the two main formations of the Left, the electoral alliance of the Communist Party and the Greens as well as the area formed by Trotskyists and independent left Left Block ( BE), where their voice.
A much more fundamental problem than the national debt, however, is the productive base of economic development. Portugal In recent decades, in the classical manner a dependent capitalist development through a region of the mid-periphery of the European center in the world system and aligned under an imperial division of labor in the production of its economy to European markets at lower wages. Because of European integration and the integration into the capitalist from the centers of Germany, France and Great Britain dominated the development of a major European economic area, it can hardly compete with cheaper imports, and it also stands as a low wage country in competition with Eastern European locations. Such a fragile and dependent economy is to fluctuations of the world market subject in particular.
Sun complain because even now bourgeois economists about the lack of competitiveness of the country. The translates into a foreign trade deficit, which in 2009 stood at over ten percent of economic output. In the past, Portugal's economy was in particularly low-wage sectors such as textile production strong. But globalization and the eastern enlargement of the European Union have challenged this economic model, the Portuguese wages but still higher than the Czech, Romanian or Chinese wages. In the logic of competition for the best investment environment for capital and the lowest wages may lose the Portuguese workers and workers only, but also in the logic of an independent capitalist development, the dependency of Portugal from the economic and political centers of the EU is a problem for which itself is no long-term solution in sight.
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