6/YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE!
increase in wages. A Nike spokesperson worried that Indonesia
might be in the process of becoming 'too expensive for the
market'. Nike takes a similar approach to Vietnam, where in
1997 it dismissed 447 of its 6,000 workers, who had had the
audacity to struggle for a wage increase that would give them
more than the monthly minimum wage of S45 (Le Monde, 24
June 1997).- The crisis that has rocked S outheast Asia - specifically Thailand,
Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia - from the summer of
1997 onwards, shows the limits of a 'development' model based
on low wages, an open economy and export-oriented growth
that puts the internal market on the back burner. This model
goes hand in hand with a permanent tendency towards the
deepening of the current account deficit. As in the case of the
Mexican crisis in 1994, this problem is rooted in a basic
imbalance. Imports grow more quickly than exports, due to a
relationship of sustained dependence that leads such countries
to import most of their industrial goods and most luxury items
for the rich. Exports grow only in proportion to such a country's
ability to maintain 'attractive' wage levels, in a context of
competition from subsidiaries in other countries. Growth can be
very strong, but it is built on a destabilising leap forward that
presupposes an ongoing distortion of the country's socio
economic structure. The total liberalisation of capital inflows
and outflows puts these countries at the mercy of possible
massive and sudden outflows of capital in search of quick profits
or a safe haven. The crisis resulting from this capital outflow
increases government and domestic companies' short-term
need for liquidity. Debt rises very quickly (Chapter 16). - Beginning in the sixteenth century, the development of inter
national credit has followed close on the heels of the extension
of European capitalism across the planet (Chapter 6). - At the end of the nineteenth century and in the early part of the
twentieth century, the use of foreign debt as a weapon for
domination and destruction played a key role in the policies of
the main capitalist powers towards second-rank powers (China
and the Ottoman Empire) that could have become capitalist
powers themselves (Chapter 6). - During the 1930s external debt crisis in Latin America, 14
countries in the region unilaterally decided to suspend debt