ANGE...

With an investment of
only $400,000 in new
lish-washing
quipment, seen here
°n the right at B.C.
Packers Prince Rupert
Plant, the companies
alized labor cost
Savings of $1 million in
‘he 1985 salmon
Season alone.
€ introduction of the

©quipment resulted in

the loss of some 250
lObs,

| Netrono;

im P rolitan areas. The examples illustrate
| chan Wersity and chaos of technological
} to, 4, BVOlving every major industrial sec-
} capi hey also serve to demonstrate that
y

oe in this province, and in this coun-
tOWar impelled by the drive for profit
| STR an even greater intensification of the

va italists are ultimately impelled to
lence M new technology when they expe-
4 falling rate of profit — a tendency

er octet
Droft Nt under capitalism. That the rate of

i
)
i
f ;
f dem Canada is tending to fall is a fact
Emi Mstrated by trade union economist,
( Jarnason, in several articles.
tctigg et things being equal, the intro-
Proces Of new technology to a production
I ica has the immediate effect of dramat-
() lboy Mcreasing the rate of exploitation of
B inore and of re-establishing an era of
4sed profitability. When investment in
4 tion Rennology becomes the general condi-
Ping °t the revivial of capitalism, the result-
Qualitative changes in the organic
ie tion of capital gives rise to a dra-
Do Fae rease in the general level of unem-
4) Dur, ct and a general undermining of the
$} Ung Ing power of the working class.
fal i “t Conditions of the increasing gen-
if the SIS of capitalism and a deepening of
if Teqy;, 1 contradiction, monopoly capital
ng ‘*S that the state play a greater role in
r) Nong 8 the growth and development of

) aii in insuring the increased profit-

) Stance or onopoly: in suppressing the res-
BO ni the working class movement; and
if) Ue Tizing the economy. Hence the

Ve
(| bi ‘opment of monopoly capitalism to
TT, Stages of state monopoly capitalism.
é}) tly, “Y n Canada, the corporate sector is
f of ie Most completely on the three levels
al Of ta. cament to stimulate and finance, out
if Sientig Primarily on the working class, the
J} the co and technological transformation
i 5 Nadian and provincial economies.
J ny Bett for this conclusion is found in
PF Nau; alysis of the extent to which the
Capi Ments of industrial and commercial
jo} he ,,. being increasingly subordinated to
of} pj duirements of multinational finance
9) Poy; aoe the extent to which federal and
fH theag lal fiscal policies are tilted full speed
Nhsidion the direction of massive public

2, Won of the costs of technological
sf . - the interests of private profit.
fate “ect involvement of the Canadian
th ~ in ST €deral and provincial governments

iy 3 has many expressions. It involves
Ph New ak in infrastructure; acquisition of
a Worke, Nology to replace public sector

A Non wy 3 the establishment and subsidiza-
ate geatch facilities for the benefit of
r ang te Ompanies; the relaxation of laws
“f Bats related to monopoly con-

mer protection and public health
it! nibsidieg tax concessions, grants and loan
# "lati, 22d commissions of inquiry into
of production and the institutions

ate them, privatization of public

e, Sean nmental land use, free
the measures necessary to

© way for industrial restructuring.

At the federal level, the taxation assistance
alone given to encourage corporate spend-
ing on technological change is astronomi-
cal. The first Wilson-Tory budget of March,
1985 has as one of its centre planks encour-
agement and aid to technological change.
Under the pretext of creating more jobs
Wilson stated:

“Technological change is the driving
force behind economic progress. We must
keep pace in order to compete both at home
and in foreign markets. A strong R & D
(research and development) performance
has a vital role to play in meeting this chal-
lenge. It is an on-going priority of this
government to encourage a much improved
R & D performance in Canada.”

Wilson then proceeded to announce a
number of tax expediture measures directed
at increasing STR in the private sector: con-
tinuing the policy begun-under the Liberals
of allowing rapid depreciation of capital
costs and which cost the federal treasury
$2.3 billion in lost tax revenue in 1980 alone;
continuing direct support to private sector
development of new technology through a
host of subsidies, contracts and tax conces-
sions which cost the people of Canada
$252.4 million in 1982; provision of a 100
per cent refundable investment tax credit to
companies that invest up to $2 million in
R & D (in 1986 this tax concession alofre
was estimated to be worth another $125

million); and provision for a $500,000 life-
time capital gains exemption designed to
benefit high technology development and to
cost the rest of the taxpayers $700 million in
1986.

Research and development by govern-
ment in Canada in fact accounts for 29 per
cent of all R & D. This is a higher govern-
ment proportion that in most OECD coun-
tries. In the 1960s and 1970s the ratio of
Canadian government research was as high
as 33 per cent of all research spending:

At the provincial level, in B.C., the res-
tructuring of capital and industry to maxim-
ize the private accumulation of capital is
being promoted, if not led, by the Social
Credit government. This is being done both
by the enticement of private investment in
the acquisition of public service enterprises
owned by government, and by massive sub-
sidies, free services and tax concessions to
stimulate and fund technological change.

Most provincial governments now have
ministries or departments of science and
technology. In B.C., co-ordination of scien-
tific and technological development comes
under the Ministry of Universities, Science
ad Communications. In 1979, the govern-
ment established and incorporated the Dis-
covery Foundation as a “charitable organ-
ization,” and in 1980, this research charity
was given $13.4 million and directed to
establish four research parks (Discovery

In his 1985
budget, federal
Finance Minister
Michael Wilson
introduced a
wealth of new
provisions,
including special
depreciation
allowances,
subsidies and
refundable tax
credits, intended
to assist the
corporate sector
by funding the
development of
new technology.

Securing Economic Renewal

Budget
in Brief

May 1985

Canada

Parks as they are called) to provide subsid-
ized facilities for private high tech compan-
ies. Under this program the Silicon Valley of
California was to move north to British
Columbia. Today, these Discovery Parks
stand as a monument to the gross incompe-
tence of the government in power, or to the
total disinterest of monopoly capital in the
future of the B.C. economy, or to the bank-
ruptcy of the system. Discovery Parks have
been an almost total failure, six years after
their development, and are virtually empty
lots growing nothing but weeds. Despite
that, on March 20, 1986, the new provincial
budget gave another $8 million to Discov-
ery Foundation to fund the start-up of new
technology ventures.

It is in the areas of industrial develop-
ment funding programs and tax conces-
sions to business that the B.C. government
has provided the greatest amount of finan-
cial assistance to promote technological
change.

In the 1985 provincial budget there was a
total of $180 million for industrial moderni-
zation programs involving low interest loan
assistance and tax credits, a phase-out of
capital taxes and $165 million worth of
property tax exemptions. The tax reduc-
tions to business related to modernization,
new technology, machinery and equipment
amounted to between 21.3 per cent for a
typical sawmill and 21.7 per cent for a typi-
cal copper mine, according to government
estimates.

The directives of monopoly capital to the
government had been followed to the letter
in the 1985 budget: Roger Weivel, a senior
vice president of MacMillan Bloedel, told
the B.C. Cabinet Committee on Economic
Development in late 1984: “High technol-
ogy sawmills or the value added paper mills
of the future will be penalized without a
complete revision of the onerous B.C.
government approach to property and bus-
iness tax...” He made the point that the
elimination of the school property tax on
machinery and equipment would have
increased MacMillan Bloedel profits by
$13.8 million. The following March, the
B.C. government promptly eliminated the
school property tax on machinery and
equipment and at the same time continued
to make savage cuts in the funding of public
education all in the interests of promoting
the STR.

In the March, 1986, provincial budget,
industry benefited from a further $96 mil-
lion reduction in corporate income tax over
three years, and another $3 million reduc-
tion in property taxes on forest lands.

For monopoly capital, the politics and
the economics of STR involves the state
playing a decisive role in redistributing
social caital to fund private sector expan-
sion and development, while at the same
time ensuring that the increased exploita-
tion of the working class made possible
thereby is more rigidly contained by increas-
ing attacks on the rights and freedoms of the
workers to resist.

For the working class, the politics and the
economics of STR involves the loss of some
of the traditional sources of power emanat-
ing from their relationship to the produc-
tion process, it involves increasing insecurity
and unemployment, it involves a qualitative
change in the composition of the working
class; and it involves an expansion of the
occupations drawn into organized class
struggle.

The politics of the STR for B.C. workers
is such that the struggle for control over the
character and rate of introduction of new
technology, the struggle for a greater share
in the increased wealth produced with the
aid of science and technology, and the
struggle for jobs, shorter working hours and
a better quality of life, is inseparable from
the struggle against the growth and power
of monopoly capitalism. In the final analy-
sis, this struggle over STR involves a change
in the social territory on which the struggle
to control it is carried out. It involves the
politization of workers’ daily struggles
around what are fast becoming fundamen-
tal economic questions of our time —
ownership and control of the means of
production.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, APRIL 30, 1986 e 21