The Philippine Society

Global capitalism has altered the economic, political, and cultural terrains of the Philippine society.  As a society

integrated in the international political economy, the Philippines is subjected to the logic of global capitalism in which

capital profits and thrives from uneven development, the differentiation of social conditions among national

economies, the preservation of low-cost labor regimes, and the reproduction of relative poverty.  Apparently, the

Philippine state itself has authored its subjection to the competitive logics and exigencies of international production,

trade, and finance.  Its membership to multilateral institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary

Fund, and the World Trade Organization at the time when the determining power of capital is more powerful than

ever before has put the Philippines and its people under the harsh and alienating disciplines of neo-liberalism.

Class Structure

The locking-in of the Philippine society under the disciplines of neo-liberalism has resulted in tremendous change in

its social and class structure.  Class structure in the Philippines does not only revolve between the polarized,

antagonistic classes of capitalists and workers; it also includes the loosely located classes in the societal structure –

specifically, the middle class, the underclass, and the class alliances.

The capitalist class as well as the elites in various economies need to compete with each other, as well as cooperate, in

order to maintain and further the hegemony of capital over labor.  This highlights the emergence of a new reckoning

force, the ‘transnational capitalist class’, which crosses national borders in pursuit of prospective markets.

The Economic Terrain

The economic history of the Philippines underscores the change in form and the continuity of substance of

capitalism.  The Philippines have experienced subsistence economies during the pre-Hispanic period, to the period of

reconstruction brought about by war, to import-substitution industrialization, to export-oriented industrialization,

and to neo-liberalism to date.  But the capitalist mode of production remains.  (Of course, there was feudalism, which

was a relationship of domination during the pre- and early Hispanic periods).  The system of appropriation that is

very much private has continuously endured since the establishment of the Philippine nation-state in the 1940s.  It

can be said that the economic history of the Philippine nation-state is a history of capitalism. 

Poverty remains.  Tremendous unemployment, inequality, and social immobilization appear to be a permanent

fixture in the Philippine capitalist society.  The base, in the triangular, hierarchical structure of the Philippine society,

is widening while the apex is getting stronger and more affluent.  The Philippines remains a Third World (developing)

economy following the prescriptions of macroeconomic policies of the World Bank, structural adjustment programs

of the International Monetary Fund, and free trade policy of the World Trade Organization.  Paradoxically, the neo-

liberal policies of globalization it has authored and advanced carry no general solution for third world development.
The neo-liberal policies of privatization, liberalization, and regulatory innovations adopted by the Philippine economy

are geared towards the management of globalization, which has been presented by its pushers as a brute fact,

divorced from human agency.  Neo-liberalism, with its message that there is no alternative, obliges all countries on

pain of extinction to follow the laws of global competition.  As a result, globalization becomes an all-purpose alibi,

justifying direct international intervention in domestic policy-making around the globe and obliterating sovereignty. 

Governance

In this environment of global competition for market share, the Philippine state, like almost all states, is driven

towards making its territory hospitable to capitalist investment, whether foreign or domestic.  Following the neo-

liberal agenda, it has removed obstacles to the free range of capital with the introduction of the Philippine

Privatization Program in the late 1980s, and the removal of protection, and cuts the costs of its operation by reducing

taxes and promoting ‘efficient’ systems of targeted welfare from the 1990s to date. 

Moreover, the Philippine capitalist economy has recognized the neo-liberal formulation that: capital, which has

spilled over at the global scale, cannot live by the logic of the self-regulating market alone, but needs supporting

government policies and social (non-market) institutions in order to accumulate wealth.  With this recognition, the

Philippines has implemented in its domestic economy a neo-liberal form of governance in which economic policies

are separated from political accountability in order for governments to be more responsive to market forces than to

popular-democratic forces.  This form of governance is obviously geared towards serving the interests of a globalizing

transnational capitalist elite, and hence the exigencies of global competitiveness.

The Political Terrain

Like its economic history, the political history of the Philippines has undergone change in form but not in substance

of elitism.   We have experienced changes in form of our politics – from the baranganic societies during the pre-

Hispanic period to colonial politics/government under Spain, Japan, and America; to authoritarianism/dictatorship;

to the so-called ‘restoration of democracy’.  But the political history of elitist politics in the Philippines endures.

With the advent of neo-liberal globalization, we have not witnessed the by-passing of the state.  Instead, we can see

very active states like the Philippines and highly politicized sets of capitalist and pro-capitalist forces working hard to

secure new international regimes that define and guarantee the global and domestic rights of capital.  As a result, the

Philippine state has also become ‘risk absorber’ of the failures and bankruptcies of competing capitalisms.

At the domestic level, the Philippines has remained a ‘weak state’ resulting from the absence of a relatively

autonomous state independent from direct management and control of the dominant capitalist class.  It has faithfully

performed the indispensable functions the state has to perform in a capitalist society (i.e., guaranteeing property

rights, contracts, dismantling obstructions to markets and ensuring the soundness of money).  At the regional and
world levels, the Philippine state has authored regimes – through international treatises, obligations, commitments,

and agreements – that lock-in its own people to the exigencies of global competitiveness.

The Cultural Terrain

The cultural history of the Philippines recognizes the fact that it is a melting pot of several cultures (Chinese, Malay,

Spanish, Japanese, American, etc).  While it can be said that there are patterns of continuities of local identities and

cultures, the operations of capital in this epoch of globalization threaten our heritage.  Competing capitalisms affect

culture both in a homogenizing project (i.e., Westernization or homogenization of culture) and in differentiating

project (that embraces the principle of market choice).

In the epoch of globalization, two cultural globalization trends are seen in the Philippine society.  One process

features a cultural imperialism in which dominant cultures of the West and the US, including the flow of cultural

goods and lifestyle, are swamping our local cultures in processes of homogenization.  This is the strategy employed by

advanced American and Western economies so as to prepare local cultures to the importation of their goods; and

hence meet their economic interests.  Another process at work is the classic way of capitalism of producing diversity,

heterogeneity and difference that are translated by international and domestic capital into niche markets.  This

strategy of capital in the production of difference is part and parcel of the process of capital accumulation that has

transformed the realm of culture into an arena of fierce competition for profit-making.

Towards a Strategy for Socialist Practice

Our analysis of the contradictions, conflicts, and crises of globalizing capitalism is to be used in our struggle for

change because they open opportunities where we can advance socialist practice.  Socialism has always been a logical,

sound, and viable alternative to the oppressive capitalist system because it has very powerful ideological counter-

offensives in bringing fundamental change.    

The universalization of capitalism does not only represent the measure of its success but it does also express a source

of weakness. Capitalism can become universal but it cannot be universally successful.  It can only universalize the

contradictions, conflicts, and crises that lie within its own logic; and the polarizations between the rich and the poor. 

Capitalism is a disease, a cancerous growth that destroys the social fabric and nature itself.  It is an inhuman and

inegalitarian system of exploitation that, like all other human constructs, is not destined to last forever but can and

must be overthrown and replaced by socialism as soon as possible.

The universalization of capitalism is not just a defeat for us but an opportunity as well – and that, of course, above all,

means a new opportunity for class struggle. Indeed, this is the moment when a thorough critique of, and a fearless

struggle against, capitalism is most urgently needed, one that not only makes demands for constitutional and legal
 safeguards against abuses of basic citizens’ rights but also posing a collective challenge to, and assertion of democratic

control over, capital. 

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 August 1, 2007 at 7:32 am
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