David Miller, July 11, 2005 

So that’s alright then. But what’s that I see on the Make Poverty History website? A critique of the G8, who are said to have ‘chosen not to do all that campaigners insist is necessary’ and that they ‘need to run much faster to catch up’ with the people of the world. On Debt MPH are scathing. The G8 ‘will provide less than $1billion this year’. On Aid the result ‘is far from the historic deal’ that has been demanded. ‘The G8 have not met the challenge of trade justice’. There are fine words but at the WTO ‘they continue to force open developing country markets’. Even the Make Poverty History campaign as compromised and co-opted as elements of its leadership are, is clear that the G8 have failed to live up to the fine words of Gordon Brown earlier this year when he affirmed that ‘the arc of the moral universe… must tilt towards justice.’

Contrary to the positive headlines in the corporate media, the G8 have produced nothing of worth.

This is not because the good intentions of the G8 leaders have been ‘corrupted by capitalism’, as Iain McWhirter put it in the Sunday Herald at the weekend. Rather it is because the G8 are the representatives of neoliberal capitalism. We must understand that Blair, and especially Brown, are engaged in a staggering deception over Africa. At least Bush says straightforwardly that he will defend the interest of US business. Meanwhile Blair and Brown pose as the champions of Africa while actually leading the neoliberal charge into Africa. In amongst the nice words in the G8 communique are the tell tale phrases which show what the real agenda is. The Announcement on Africa is a many layered deception. First, as Make Poverty History note: the G8 ‘have done no more than confirm the proposed deal by the G8 Finance ministers’ in June. So the £25 billion is not new, but the same £25 billion announced three weeks ago. Second the debt relief will be taken from existing aid flows, so nothing is gained. Third, in order to qualify for this ‘victory for millions’ the 18 Highly Indebted Poor Countries have been forced to sign up for privatisation of basic services by the ‘ elimination of impediments to private investment, both domestic and foreign’. and allowing access for multinational corporations to natural resources and labour, above all to access oil. Which is why the G8 finance ministers noted that ‘ Nigeria is key to the prosperity of the whole continent of Africa’

On climate change no-one in the NGO world even pretends that progress was made. The draft communiqué was leaked twice in the run up to the summit. The first version was entirely devoid of any effective action on climate which would mean taking on the corporations. It is often said that the problem is that the US will not sign up to Kyoto. But the real story is that none of the G8 countries will countenance anything but market based ‘solutions’ One is carbon trading which allows BP to continue polluting Grangemouth if it buys ‘carbon credits’ in Brazil to plant Eucalyptus trees, thus throwing indigenous peoples off their land thus creating more poverty and environmental problems. The other ‘solution’ is nuclear power! In the second draft, leaked in June, 'virtually all that was active in this action plan has been swept into the inert limbo of square brackets - meaning there is still no agreement on its inclusion', reported the Financial Times. As if this was not enough, the final communique was further filleted to remove the word 'threat' and replace it with climate change as a 'challenge', the language favoured by Bush. Not even the carefully selected developing world leaders, brought in to lend an air of legitimacy were happy. The Indian Prime Minister said ‘We had a very limited role at this meeting’ and condemned the summit for failing ‘to come to grip with the challenge of climate change’

But maybe Geldof and Bono are right. Maybe the G8 has delivered in some respects. It has certainly delivered for the ageing rock stars and record companies whose album sales have jumped, the marketers, the PR firms, including Freud Communications run by Matthew Freud, close to New Labour and married to Rupert Murdoch’s daughter. It has also delivered for Geldof. His TV production company Ten Alps, ‘which provided the two big screens in Hyde Park, is also closely associated with the government’, writes Ann Talbot. ‘It … makes programmes for the Department for Education and Skills. Last year, it enjoyed a 400 percent increase in profits… The high profile that Live 8 has given it can only enhance the company’s international exposure.’

But the major beneficiaries are the world’s largest corporations who pull the strings. Their agents, the G8 leaders, will be looked after with Directorships and lucrative consultancies when they lose office. They will be congratulated on a job well done in attempting to enforce global corporate rule. Our rulers would like us to think that resistance to this apparently overwhelming power this is futile. And their camp followers in journalism try their best to deny that there are alternatives to capitalism. But as we saw in the historic protests in Edinburgh and at Gleneagles last week and as we see across Latin America and in countless struggles around the world, resistance is growing. It is the only thing that can stop the G8 and the corporations from destroying humanity and the planet.