International

Two major concerns characterise the current political era, a period that began at the start of the 1990s with the fall of the Soviet Union. The permanent war, for the most part waged in Asia and Africa; and the abiding need to put an end to nuclear arms. Now that the INF treaty has been abrogated, the struggle against nuclear weapons must be taken up again, and powerfully.

Many products on sale in the Netherlands are made elsewhere in the world, often under atrocious working conditions and for a much lower wage than they would be paid here. In the last fifty years a large slice of Dutch industry has decamped to low wage countries. The result? Competition between Dutch workers and workers abroad, the consequence of which is a race to the bottom. According to free market politicians and the multinationals, wages in the Netherlands must also be lowered if we want to compete with foreign countries. The ordinary Dutch or foreign worker gains no benefit from this, but big corporations have the last laugh as they see their profits explode.