On 2/25/2021 4:29 AM, Louis Proyect wrote:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/24/business/mckinsey-kevin-sneader.html
... Days into his new job in July 2018, Mr. Sneader flew to South
Africa to apologize for the firm’s work with a state-owned power
provider. McKinsey’s lucrative contract, found to be in violation of
South African contracting law, involved the use of a local
intermediary tied to a corruption scandal that brought down the
country’s president. McKinsey has returned tens of millions of dollars
in fees it earned in South Africa. “We came across as arrogant or
unaccountable,” Mr. Sneader said at the time. “To be brutally honest,
we were too distant to understand the growing anger in South Africa.”
Yup, but this lad actually got off lucky. In some cases, South African
activist punishments of these naughty Western Multinational Corporate
(and local "White Monopoly Capital") so-called WMCists are far more
punishing: the corporate death sentence.
In the most recent case, a major World Bank investment (22% peak
ownership) in much-vaunted "financial inclusion" tech was initially
highly lucrative for Cash Paymaster Services (CPS). During the 2010s,
the firm combined Big Data and a corruption-riddled state
grant-dispensing contract to impose - upon even wee six-year old girls
(!) - absurd microfinance and cellphone contracts. These were backed by
the risk-free monthly deductions from the tokenistic $28/month grant
their caregivers receive to prevent mass hunger and homelessness. CPS
had a proprietary-software iron grip on 17 million poor people's monthly
grants. It's a classic case of the World Economic Forum's oft-touted 4th
Industrial Revolution ("4IR") in the world's most unequal society,
fusing state/capitalist surveillance, predatory profiteering and growing
social misery.
In reaction, a dynamic economic-justice group better known for its
last-century, white-liberal-feminist opposition to apartheid, the Black
Sash, kicked CPS out of that contract. Strategies and tactics ranged
from court battles to street heat protest and public consciousness. The
World Bank was named and shamed, though that didn't seem to affect their
investment in CPS (through the father firm, now London-based Net1). The
Black Sash protests were successful, though, causing last October's
bankruptcy for the South African subsidiary - CPS - of this ongoing
World-Bankster 4IR gimmick. Details are here
<https://www.cadtm.org/Who-really-state-captured-South-Africa-Revealing-silences-in-poverty-inequality>
in a long article on "state capture" done last year, just before CPS
died; and in this teaching video <https://vimeo.com/508484820>
highlighting Black Sash feminists as lead cadre within a "4th Industrial
Counter-Revolution" (4ICR) that's extremely encouraging, against
ubiquitous South African (but Davos-originated) 4IR hucksterism
<https://vimeo.com/508332538>.
Actually, there's another better-known case of 4ICR activists killing a
corporation: Bell Pottinger. The disgusting London PR firm - which
dictators like Pinochet had on speed dial for their spin doctoring, as
Lord Tim Bell had been Thatcher's celebrated ad man - was hired by then
president Jacob Zuma's nexus of state capturers (especially the Gupta
brothers) to create political-manipulative bot armies of which Steve
Bannon would have been proud. In mid-2017, that London PR firm got the
corporate death sentence
<https://www.pambazuka.org/global-south/south-africa%E2%80%99s-fight-between-hostile-brothers-%E2%80%93-%E2%80%9Czuptas%E2%80%9D-and-%E2%80%9Cwhite-monopoly-capital%E2%80%9D-%E2%80%93>
as all sorts of 4ICR cadre here - including the scion of a filthy-rich
tobacco and luxury goods empire, Johann Rupert - revolted and ensured
that a decisive rift left the firm paralysed and reputationally sunk.
Its death throes were excellent, as captured in a 2020 doccie made by
fine local journos
<https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-08-21-bell-pottinger-exposed-influence-unpacks-the-evils-of-disinformation/>,
/Influence. /Here's <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czSZ9b1yipI> the
trailer.
Time for your overdue movie review, Lou?
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