Maldekstra Salon: Who Makes the Rules?

Multinational corporations’ striving for export markets and investment opportunities ceaselessly pushes forward globalization. Their power is great and constantly increasing. They deploy a range of means and methods to exploit human labour and natural resources for the sake of increasing profits. Our world is characterized by extreme concentration and accumulation of capital, and regulating corporations seems practically impossible in given their global range of activity and their strong lobbying power.
Taking the activities of traditional and digital corporations in African countries as an example, we’ll discuss the resulting consequences for the African economy, policies, and working conditions, highlight international trends, and present regulatory options from different perspectives. We’ll discuss old and new dependencies, heightening contradictions, but also possibilities of resistance and regulatory interventions.

With:

• Janine Walter (Director, Rosa Luxemburg Foundation Johannesburg) on international trade union struggles to regulate labour relations in transnational corporations
• Africa Kiiza (University of Hamburg) and Fabio De Masi (economist and former member of the Bundestag for Die Linke) on the influence and concentration of power of digital trading and financial corporations and the possibilities of regulating them.

Chair: Britta Becker

The event will be held in English with German translation. Attend in person or watch the livestream at: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81674916974