From: gerald_a_levy (gerald_a_levy@MSN.COM)
Date: Thu May 01 2003 - 09:14:05 EDT
The following is a chapter by Alberto Bonnet from Werner Bonefeld and Sergio Tischler ed. _What Is To Be Done?_ (London, Ashgate) reported on by John H in [8169]. The editors, in Ch. 1, wrote that Bonnet: "offers a critique of the Leninist theory of imperialism against the background of globalization and shows, with reference to Latin- America, that it is the insubordination of labour that is the key for the understanding of the fragility of global capital." This article was previously posted on another list. Any comments? In solidarity, Jerry ----------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 6 The Command of Money-Capital and the Latin American Crises Alberto R. Bonnet Introduction At the current time, more than three decades since the eruption of crisis put an end to the post-war capitalist order, the start-point for anti-capitalist critique is that we live (or, more to the point, survive) in a new and distinct period of capitalist development.1 Lenin was certainly one of the first theorists who dared to argue that capitalism went through distinct periods in its development (cf. McDonough, 1995; 1998). In effect, the phases that Marx had identified in Capital (manufacturing, large-scale industry) can, as such, be better understood as formative moments of original European capitalism rather than periods of global capitalist development. Leninâ?Ts idea that, towards the end of the nineteenth century or the beginning of the twentieth century, capitalism had entered into an â?~imperialistâ?T period (Lenin, 1977) inaugurated a long tradition of attempts to periodize capitalist development. Great crises and wars, profound changes in the correlation of social forces between classes, moments of accelerated technological innovation or radical restructuring of the world market, would from then on be associated with the emergence of a new period of capitalist development. Numerous Marxists in this way identified a new period of capitalism in the period following the Second World War. From Mandelâ?Ts â?~late capitalismâ?T, through Boccaráâ?Ts â?~state monopoly capitalismâ?T and Agliettaâ?Ts notion of â?~Fordismâ?T, to Sweezyâ?Ts renovated â?~monopoly capitalismâ?T; all the above highlight in their own way the specificities of post-war capitalism. However, whilst in some cases (re-vindicating their â?~Leninist orthodoxiesâ?T) they emphasised continuities with respect to the â?~imperialistâ?T capitalism studied by Lenin, these post-war Marxists nonetheless dared to argue that the novelties of post-war capitalism were of at least a similar magnitude to the continuities, and thereby worthy of sustained critical analysis. Naturally, this does not imply that contemporary analysts should be content with one of these aforementioned interpretations of post-war capitalism or with the Leninist interpretation of â?~imperialistâ?T capitalism. This contribution does not intend to review any of these interpretations. But, to take an example, Leninâ?Ts theory of imperialism is profoundly questionable with respect to two of its fundamental pillars: first, his conception of monopoly (which supposes the abolition of the law of value on a world market scale) and, second, his conception of the imperialist state (which presupposes an instrumentalist vision of the state). It is necessary for us, then, to develop a critical analysis of contemporary capitalism. In effect, we live in a period of capitalist development distinct from that associated with the transition between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and that of the second half of the twentieth century. Its origin is to be found precisely in the crisis that brought post-war capitalism to an end, that is to say, in the rainbow of social struggles that emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s that included the rejection of work in the large automated factories of advanced capitalism, the rebellions against the Stalinist bureaucracies of Eastern Europe, and the national liberation struggles of the colonial South: struggles that were expressed in the form of a crisis that negated any possibility of a return to the capitalism of the post-war period. Thirty years later, however, this contemporaneous capitalism in which we survive is already as old as the â?~thirty glorious yearsâ?T of post-war capitalism, which, to tell the truth, were neither â?~thirtyâ?Tnor â?~gloriousâ?T. Various economic phenomena can be invoked to support the distinction between the capitalism of our days and post-war capitalism. A slowdown in the average growth rates of production, investment, employment, productivity and wages, for example, which contrasts notably with the accelerated expansion of trade and capital flows on a global level. Moreover, there has been a greater extension and integration of the world market, facilitated by the collapse of the bureaucratic regimes of the East, alongside a persistent polarization of this world market centred on the regions associated with the United States, Europe and Japan. Indeed, contemporary capitalism is characterised by marked differentiation between the long-term economic performances of these poles and, concurrently, periodic episodes of deep recession with a more or less generalized scope. However, the phenomenon that is most significant for making the distinction between contemporary capitalism and post-war capitalism is the expansion and socialization of debt. There can be little doubt about the extreme importance of this factor. To appreciate this point it is enough to cast a glance at the sheer magnitude of the sums involved, at the nature of financial instruments, at the behaviour of the actors involved, and at the functioning of the respective markets. Nevertheless, interpreting this phenomenon and understanding the role that it plays within contemporary capitalism is a source of much disagreement. These problems are the theme of this article. To explore the nature and role played by this expansion and socialization of debt means to explore the specific manner in which class struggle is developing today. In effect, it is necessary to dialectically interpret the process of debt expansion and socialization as an expression of the antagonism between capital and labour. In other words, it must be seen as a result of the wave of class struggle that led to the crisis of post-war capitalism and, at the same time, as a capitalist response to that wave. As a capitalist response, this process instigated a new mode of the command of money-capital over capitalist accumulation. As a result of class struggle â?" and a class struggle that always returns to express itself as crisis â?" this command is necessarily a command-in-crisis. In this sense the article stresses the command-in-crisis of money capital, and shall concentrate particularly on the manner in which the latter operates in the Latin America. Contemporary capitalism â?" a new period of capitalist development â?" is associated in this manner with a new mode of command-in-crisis.2 However, it is possible to go further and that is, to associate the capitalism of the imperialist period analysed by Lenin as a determined mode of command â?" the command that Lenin linked to the large monopoly companies and the integration between the imperialist state and financial capital â?" just as it is possible to associate a new mode of command â?" the command-in-crisis of money-capital â?" to todayâ?Ts capitalism. However, in Leninâ?Ts work there existed a close relation between this mode of command and the composition, modes of organization and action, and programme of the working class. This bond is implicit in each one of the pages of What is to be Done?3 Cearly there also exists a relation between the current command-in-crisis of money-capital and the new global movements of anti-capitalist resistance, as shall be developed in the conclusion. In the Beginning was the Cisis In the beginning was the crisis: that is, the insubordination of labour that signified the disintegration of post-war capitalism. A falling rate of profit began to undermine the conditions for accumulation in the advanced Keynesian economies and these began â?" one after the other starting with the US â?" to plunge into stagflation. The central reformist states that had played a key role in creating the conditions for expanded accumulation during the post-war period in turn entered into a profound fiscal and political crisis. The existing structure of the world market, in particular the monetary and financial order created at Bretton Woods, disintegrated under the strains of international disequilibria that had no precedent. The configuration of the international state system that emerged during the Second World War and was consolidated during the Cold War, predicated as it was on a reactionary ordering of inter-state relations around the Soviet and North American blocks, was similarly challenged through class struggle. The immediate reaction of capital before the unprecedented magnitude of the crisis unleashed through the wave of class struggle was, like in other revolutionary conjunctures, a flight from the deteriorating conditions of accumulation. In fact, it was a double flight. In the first place, there occurred a spatial flight through a process of relocation of production to territories where the conditions for accumulation were more favourable (see Harvey, 1990; 1992). Certain countries that were economically more backward and subject to dictatorial political regimes were prime candidates for the reception of uprooted productive processes. These specifically included the anti-communist bulwarks in East and Southeast Asia installed by the US in the Cold War and, to a lesser degree, particular Latin American dictatorships. A brief illustration helps make the point. The wave of workers struggles in northern Italy that extended between the â?~hot autumnâ?T of 1969 until the â?~spring rebellionâ?T of 1977 had its epicentre in the strikes, occupations, confrontations and sabotage at the Fiat plant of Turin. The Fiat management reacted, not just by replacing living labour with dead labour through the forced automation of the production process â?" an action which leads to a rise in the organic composition of capital and, ultimately, a fall in the rate of profit â?" but also by to relocating productive processes to the periphery. In the words of one of their workers: â?~they have not used these profits in terms of investment in Italy â?" no, they have carried their cash abroad, and have set up factories in other countries. In Brazil, for example, or Argentinaâ?¦in all those countries with regimes that are fascistâ?T (CSE/Red Notes, 1979, p.195). In effect, the workersâ?T struggles forced Fiat to relocate a portion of its productive activities, including the production of complete models as well as specific auto parts, to plants in Latin American countries whose working class was then subject to the open repression of military dictatorships. The corporation developed an investment plan and a process of vertical and horizontal integration in Argentina (Córdoba) between 1977 and 1982, finally selling its assets and concentrating its regional activities in Brazil (Belo Horizonte, RÃo de Janeiro). Nonetheless, this relocation of production to territories where the conditions for accumulation appear more favourable has strict limits, which are far more complex than a simple cost-analysis of the relocation process. Fiat had already established itself in Argentina during the 1950s and since the 1960s was producing cars for the local market. The â?~hot autumnâ?T in Italy had been preceded by the Argentinean cordobazo with its own strikes, occupations, confrontations and sabotage, and the Fiat plant in Cordoba had been one of the epicentres (Brennan, 1996, James, 1990). It was only with the fierce military dictatorship that took power in 1976 that relations of force favourable to capital were established â?" by means of the persecution and assassination of union leaders, the prohibition of unions and strikes and other repressive measures taken by the state â?" and this enabled Fiat to carry out its restructuring plans â?" massive sackings and wage cuts â?" and provided the basis for its subsequent expansion. Hence, it is important to keep in mind that this same flight of capital from the insubordination of labour through relocation reproduces this same insubordination of labour in the periphery. As such, the insubordination of labour trails capital like its own shadow. The flight of capital from the insubordination of labour in the capitalist centres meets up with the insubordination of labour in the periphery. The recent Korean auto-workers strikes are illustrative of this point: the relocation of productive processes to the relatively backward countries of Southeast Asia ruled by anti-communist dictatorships, and with South Korea at the forefront, ongoing since the 1970s, found itself confronted by massive social struggles and crisis during the 1990s.4 In the second place, the reaction of capital consisted in a flight in time â?" that is a massive process of the expansion of credit that postponed the unleashing of the crisis (see Holloway, 1994). The inflationary expansion of credit, still accompanied at this point by Keynesian economic policies, was the immediate reaction of capital to the crisis for much of the 1970s. Another case in point helps illustrate the issue. In response to the â?~French Mayâ?T movement and the Grenelle accords in May and June of 1968, capital reacted by an inflationary expansion of credit that definitively put an end to one of the key pieces of the post-war Gaullist political programme â?" the metal fetish of the Finance Minister, Rueff. Note the exultant declarations of De Gaulle in the middle of the 1960s: We consider that international exchanges must be founded, as occurred before the great world disasters, in an unquestionable monetary base that does not bear the stamp of any particular country. On what base? In reality, it is difficult to conceive in this respect of any other criteria, any other standard, other than gold. Yes, gold, whose nature does not change, that can be converted into bars, ingots or coins, that has no nationality, that is considered in every place and in every time as immutable value and fiduciary par excellenceâ?¦With no room for doubt, no-one would think of imposing on a country the form of administering its internal affairs. Nonetheless, the rule of gold (and certainly it is pertinent to say so) must be applied and followed anew in international economic relations. The supreme law is the need to balance, through the income and expenditure of gold, the balance of payments that result from exchanges between two monetary areas.5 This reactionary dream of returning to the imposition of the deflationary discipline of gold on the working class succumbed a few years later to the Parisian barricades. In effect, the deterioration of the French balance of payments â?" a product of the concessions won by the unions during the 1968 movement â?" prompted an anticipatory flight of capital that decimated the reserves and unleashed a devaluation of the franc (Mandel, 1976). Capital found itself forced to renounce the discipline of gold. Pompidou undertook a devaluation of 12.5 percent towards the middle of 1969 and, towards the end of the year at the meeting of the European Economic Community in The Hague, he agreed to the incorporation of the franc into the European monetary snake, implemented in April 1972. The new strategy, which succumbed in turn a couple of years later in the midst of new devaluations of the pound, lira, and the franc itself, would no longer hang its hopes on the old metallic fetish but would attempt to pin them squarely on the disciplinary capacity of the Bundesbank. Now let us look at this double flight of capital analytically. It is clear that both reactions, both modes of capital flight, suppose the metamorphosis of productive capital immobilised in production into mobile money-capital form. And, at the same time, both modes of flight imply an always uncertain gamble for capital â?" that of finding improved conditions for accumulation in new locations or at a future moment: a gamble which presupposes a future inversion of the metamorphosis, a return from the money-capital form to the productive-capital form which alone is capable of exploiting living labour. However, whilst in the first case the two metamorphoses occur in a short time frame, in the second case they can remain separated on a more long-term basis. The insubordination of labour, for its part, can always refute capitalâ?Ts gamble. But this refutation expresses itself in a different manner in both cases: in the first instance it is expressed as a crisis of profitability of relocated productive capital; in the second as the long-term impossibility of re-converting money-capital into productive capital. Both modes of capital flight are related to each other, and both are characteristics of contemporary capitalism, as displayed by the expansion of foreign direct investment, of intra-firm trade, and of international financial flows. Nevertheless, we shall concentrate here on the second mode of capital flight, that is to say, the conversion of ever-greater masses of productive capital into money-capital, because we consider this process of expansion and socialization of debt (which we call the command-in-crisis of money capital) to be the mode par excellence in which the antagonism between capital and labour is manifested in contemporary capitalism. This means understanding this process as a result of the struggle of the working class and, in turn, as a capitalist response to the same. The Expansion and Socialization of Debt It could be said that the first of the two aforementioned moments is the dominant one in the development of the crisis of post-war capitalism during much of the 1970s, while the second is the decisive moment during the second half of the 1980s and 1990s. It could be said too that the capitalist offensive associated with the neo-conservatism arising in the later 1970s and extending during the first half of the 1980s operated as a sort of hinge between the two periods. However, as we shall see, this process of expansion and socialization of debt is always both a result of and a response to class struggle, it is permanently both capitalist command and crisis. The previous periodization can be clearly illustrated through the perspective of Latin America and its foreign debt. The crisis of profitability that, since the end of the 1960s, undermined the conditions for accumulation in the stagflation-stricken advanced Keynesian capitalisms, gave dynamism in the 1970s to a sustained increase in international liquidity, that is to a sustained increase in the offer of money-capital on international financial markets. In this sense, the financial recycling of the petrodollars accumulated by the OPEC countries as a result of the oil price hikes in 1974-75 and again in 1979-80, must be understood as a chapter in this wider process. The expansion of international credit, which during the 1970s was expressed primarily through the credit expansion of international commercial banks and only secondarily through the international emission of bonds, developed at a rate of some USD 50,000 million annually between 1973 and 1975, some USD 100,000 million annually between 1976 and 1978, and more than USD 150,000 Million annually between 1979 and 1981, before slowing abruptly because of the rise in interest rates.6 This expansion of international money-capital flows was not a response, therefore, to the conjunctural effects of the rise in oil prices driven by the OPEC countries but, more profoundly, it was a response to the deteriorating conditions of profitability of the advanced capitalisms that were mired deep in crisis. The counterpoint to this expansion of international flows of money-capital was, quite naturally, the process of external indebtedness of the peripheral capitalist countries and, in particular, those of Latin America. The annual net capital flows to Latin American countries climbed gradually at an average rate of USD 814 million between 1950 and 1965 (equivalent to 1.2 percent of regional GDP) to some USD 4,042 million between 1966 and 1973 (2.8 percent of GDP). From then, the increase accelerated, reaching averages of USD 14,956 million between 1974 and 1976 (4.2 percent of GDP) and USD 28,861 million between 1977 and 1981 (4.5 percent of GDP).7 In consequence, the total stock of Latin American external debt had already ascended to USD 258,665 million in 1980, a sum of which the major part was long-term public debt (USD 146,198 million) and an important portion was short-term (USD 68,597 million, against USD 42,458 million of long-term private debt and USD 1,413 million owed to the IMF).8 The immediate result of this process of Latin American indebtedness was the postponement during the 1970s of the regional unleashing of the global crisis of post-war development (Ominami, 1987). The expansion of credit operated once more as a â?~flight forwardâ?T. However, starting from the debt crisis, which reached its apex with the cessation of payments by Mexico in 1982, this same foreign indebtedness turned out in the medium term to be the primary mode of expression of this very crisis and a crucial instrument for the restructuring processes that constituted the response of capital. In other words, this foreign debt became the foremost regional expression of the command-in-crisis of money- capital. The deflationary policies of disciplining labour â?" imposed by the neo-conservative offensive in the advanced capitalisms from the end of the 1970s (see Bonefeld, 1995a; Clarke, 1988; Marazzi, 1995, amongst others) â?" operated as a hinge between one period and the next. In effect, the monetarist turn that Volcker â?" then a functionary of the Carter administration â?" imposed on the Federal Reserve from October 1979, replace the policy of interest rate control with a policy that tried to control the monetary base itself as the lynchpin of the deflationary strategy. In a technical sense, this policy of control was already doomed to failure given that inflation originates in the internal contradictions of capitalist accumulation and cannot be fully manipulated in an exogenous manner by state monetary policy. It merely induced the deflation that propelled the North American economy to its most severe recession in the post-war period (North American production, like its British counterpart, fell in 1980-2). Monetary emission accelerated once again towards the middle of 1981 and the original monetarist policy, facing the threat of a generalised bankruptcy of major banks, was definitively abandoned. This threat originated in the bankruptcy of over-indebted North American companies and the cessation of payments by foreign debtors that, started by Mexico, threatened to extend themselves on a regional scale. Thus, the initial monetarism was replaced gradually by a policy centred on the independence of the central banks: a policy less mechanical in its quantitative objectives and more orientated towards the discretional management of interest rates. It was modelled on the European monetary policy of the Bundesbank (see Kirshner, 1998).9 The monetarist restriction of credit returned in boomerang fashion against capital itself. Nonetheless, in the more political sense of an attempt at â?~monetary imposition of class relations through the subordination of the working class to the abstract equality of moneyâ?T (Bonefeld, 1995b, p.81), this monetarist policy of disciplining labour attained certain important successes in the advanced capitalist centres. The upward movement of the average rate of profit during the 1980s is the most succinct indicator of this success.10 Moreover, it is in this sense that the capitalist offensive associated with neo-conservatism operated as a sort of hinge between the two periods. A more detailed analysis of this process is beyond the scope of this paper. It is important, however, to note that the rise in real interest rates prompted by monetarist policies also signified a key turning point in the aforementioned process of Latin American external indebtedness. The reference interest rate for the region (i.e. the yield from US ten-year benchmark bonds) passed 15 percent during 1981 and the start of 1982 whilst annual dollar inflation fell from 12 to 2.5 percent. Capital flows towards Latin American countries, which had reached a peak of USD 39,804 million in 1981 (4.6 percent of regional GDP) consequently contracted to 20,133 million by 1982 and to an average of only 8,154 million annually between 1983 and 1989 (1.2 percent of a severely diminished regional GDP).11 In this manner the global crisis of post-war capitalism â?" which up to this point had been postponed â?" unleashed itself upon the region, and with an unprecedented depth: between 1970 and 1980 the GDP of the region expanded by almost a factor of four (396 percent) whereas between 1980 and 1990 it scarcely increased by one fourth (27 percent). In a number of years there was actually an absolute fall in production. The stock of foreign debt and its impact, despite the massive outflow of money-capital during the decade, could not but increase in the wake of this poor performance. By the end of the 1980s, the total stock of Latin American foreign debt had risen to USD 476,739 million: of this a larger part than in 1980 was long-term public debt (USD 355,893 million against USD 77,487 million short-term) and a much smaller part (USD 25,061 million) was long-term private debt, owing to various policies of state assumption of private debt, and a significant part (USD 18,298 million) was owed to the IMF for restructuring programmes. All the debt indicators had worsened: the stock of debt represented 33 percent of the annual product of the region compared to 26.5 percent in 1980, and 162 percent of exports in 1990 as against 88 percent in 1980.12 After the abandonment of monetarist policies, North American interest rates in the second half of the 1980s â?" notwithstanding some severe fluctuations â?" tended to decrease until they reached a band between 7 and 9 percent, while dollar inflation slowly recovered, reaching a peak of 6 percent at the end of the 1980s. However, during the entire decade the advanced capitalist centres â?" and particularly the US â?" operated as a giant suction pump for international money-capital flows. The extraordinary expansion registered by the market for titles in North American public debt gives a clear indication of this trend. Their volume registered a more than four-fold increase during the 1980s, whilst their nominal underlying value rose from USD 973 thousand million in 1980 to USD 4,144 thousand million in 1990.13 The expansion of debt, now as public debt emitted in order to finance fiscal deficits derived from the military-Keynesianism of Reaganomics, once again constituted the clearest expression of the crisis. International flows of money-capital to Latin American countries, nonetheless, recovered in the 1990s. In effect, these flows had by 1990 already equalled the amounts reached prior to the debt crisis (USD 37,211 million as compared to 39,804 million in 1981). Moreover, they would amply surpass them during the following years (USD 61,682 and 65,088 in 1992 and 1993; representing 5.2 percent of regional GDP as compared to the peak of 4.6 percent in 1981). The fall in North American interest rates during the 1990-91 recession â?" holding to about 6 or 7 percent during the first half of the decade â?" alongside stabilised dollar inflation of 2 to 3 percent annually prompted a new cycle of Latin American indebtedness. However, this new cycle adopted various distinctive features as compared to its predecessor. Firstly, it was much more selective in its chosen debtors. A small group of Latin American countries (Brazil, Mexico and Argentina in that order) along with another small group of Asian countries (China, Thailand, Indonesia, Korea and Malaysia) absorbed 70 percent of all lent money-capital.14 Secondly, it is enough merely to invoke the names of these particular countries to draw attention to the fact that this new cycle of lending would turn to massive capital outflows and consequent financial crises that have characterised the 1990s (discussed further below).15 Thirdly, it is, however, important to note that this cycle would be characterised by the process of disintermediation of the banks and the conversion of debt into property titles. These latter two factors created a process of indebtedness through investment in bonds and titles and, secondarily, from portfolio capital investment. This disintermediation and conversion of debt into titles, which had already started in the 1980s, was consolidated in the 1990s particularly through the mediation of the Brady Plan to restructure private debt. The process was a reaction by the large international banks to the cessation of payments and the danger of chain bankruptcies that characterized the 1980s. This is a significant point because it implies, alongside a new step in the process of debt expansion, a great advance towards the socialization of debt. Gradually, the large international commercial banks stopped being creditors, and were replaced by institutional investors such as pension funds, mutual funds and, to the degree that the quality of debtors decreases, speculative hedge funds. Debt was socialized through this displacement of creditors. It was socialized in a perverse manner, of course: on the one hand, as the loss of a whole lifeâ?Ts savings by retired workers whose pension funds included titles in their portfolios; and on the other, through the bountiful short-term gains of speculators in hedge funds registered in exotic fiscal paradises yet, often enough, controlled by members of the very same Latin American bourgeoisie. This disintermediation and underwriting of debt implied, moreover, that the debt came to be evaluated on a daily basis by international financial markets. The spreads that resulted from this process of continuous market evaluation, accompanied by the country-risk evaluations released by credit-rating agencies, are prima facie instruments of the command of money-capital, as discussed further in the following section. The Argentinean case serves to clearly highlight all of the new features of this present cycle of Latin American foreign indebtedness. The total Argentinean external debt grew from USD 61,300 million in 1991, after it overcame the moratorium incurred between 1988 and 1990, to USD 124,300 millions in 1997, just before contagion from the Southeast Asian crisis rocked the region. Private debt operated as the motor of this expansion, as occurred in the rest of the region and, to a much greater extent, amongst the Asian debtors. As such, between 1991 and 1997 private debt moved from 14 percent of total debt to 39.8 percent and at the same time it is estimated that local capital flows to the exterior, and invested in part in titles in this same foreign debt, grew from USD 60,400 million to 96,400 million. This debt was progressively disintermediated and converted into property titles during these years as the converging result of the restructuring of public debt foreseen in the Brady Plan, the emission of new public debt and the tendency of the local big bourgeoisie to directly finance itself through the emission of titles in international markets. These bonds, which represented scarcely 10.3 percent of total debt in 1991, grew to 54.1 percent in 1997. Meanwhile, debt owed to commercial banks fell from 53.9 percent to 16.3 percent.16 It is unnecessary to dwell upon the pressure exercised upon the direction of internal policies by such debt evaluations, carried out on behalf of investors represented by international financial organisations and risk-analysis agencies. It suffices to note that in applying policies of â?~debt capitalizationâ?T lauded by the IMF in its annual meeting in Seoul, 1985, Argentina is the country in Latin America that has gone furthest with debt-for-equity swaps, i.e. the privatization of public companies in exchange for debt titles.
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