[Nettime-bold] Anti-globalisation movements

[Ian andrews <i.andrews@metroscreen.com.au>]

The following text came out of a question/comment raised at the TILT seminar "Tactical Media: how to make trouble and influence people" held in Sydney on the 8/10/01.The question was well answered by the panel: Geert Lovink, Rachel Baker, Sam de Silva, Gabrielle Kuiper and Ian Walker.
But I felt that all of the responses somehow slightly missed the mark. This, most probably, was due to my failure to articulate the question properly. So here I have made an attempt to reinscribe and elaborate on it (the original question and the panel's responses are not included).

The suppression of the anti-globalisation movements has so far not come so much from direct police repression but rather from the inability to disseminate, via the mass media, a clear and concise statement of purpose. This has been complicated by composition of the movements themselves: a diverse collection of ideologies, causes and networks, none of which share a common goal (or at least one which can be clearly communicated). While this drift away from the grand emancipatory discourses, towards a more fragmented micropolitics is a necessary step, in my opinion, it must also be crucial to reach a consensus on what it is that constitutes the dominant ideology of globalisation and the institutions which enable its power.  In other words, it is necessary to know one's enemy.

Too often, issues pertaining to globalisation, or free trade agenda, become entangled with issues related to capitalism in general. Very often it is the symptoms, or certain instances, of globalisation which are attacked without addressing the underlying ideology, nor the discourses that support them, resulting in, what the general public sees as a "lining up of the usual suspects," (McDonalds, Nike, Shell), or as a series of gripes rather than a coherent political argument.  Consequently, the media is able to successfully portray the anti-globalisation movements as a cynical gathering of independent causes, each clamouring for publicity under the spotlight of an event (such as a conference), in order to push their own agenda rather than present a sustained argument against the event itself (at least this has been the case in Australia).
One of the most visible of the micro-protests is the protest against Nike.  Nike is often attacked as the symbolic embodiment of the diffuse and abstract movement that is globalisation. It is often used as a tool to illustrate the problems of globalisation. But it's not really a good example. Nike is really an old fashioned transnational which indulges in a kind of primitive Taylorism, and peripheral Fordism, which exploits the international division of labour. While Nike is detestable, it represents nothing new.  It can be seen rather as part of the movement of transnationalisation of capital that began in the 1960s.  There is nothing unique about Nike that would allow it to be categorised as an example of post-coldwar globalisation implementations, except, perhaps, its contribution to a global monoculture, by way of a peculiar brand fetishism.  But even that phenomenon began much earlier, with the proliferation of tele-techno-media.
In an attempt to dismiss the anti-globalisation movement journalists and economists often argue that the economy _is_ global, and as such, it would be stupid, to try and make it unglobal. They are right, in one respect; the economies of the world have been globally interlinked since the Second World War, but they miss the point of the anti-globalisation argument. No one wants the economy to become un-global and "globalisation" (for want of a better term) does not simply refer to the global economy. It is something new and different.

Globalisation is much more than an economic system, or strategy. It is also a political and cultural ideology.  Globalisation can perhaps be summed up as an ideology which seeks to impose a global regime (of accumulation), through rule of law, which guarantees free trade at any cost (social, cultural, environmental). This end is to be achieved by the systematic granting of unilateral powers, over and above those of nation states, bypassing democratic processes, in the interests of a group of corporate entities who are unaccountable to public interests, and bear no responsibility for the ensuing social (or environmental) consequences (in this sense it should be stressed that globalisation is an assault on democracy as much as the 911 attacks were).  In exchange for the granting of theses powers, which put an end to protectionism, as well as controls over local economies, indigenous landrights claims, and ecological protection measures.  Globalisation promises to generate huge profits for a few with trickle down benefits to the rest.  This free trade ideology is deeply suspicious of governments.  It believes that the market, if left to its own devices, can automatically correct itself and determine its own progress towards unlimited growth.  Yet, paradoxically, it depends on recourse to some kind of global legislative authority to ensure that state or public interference does not occur.

Perhaps the most disturbing and objectionable aspect of globalisation is a move towards the denial of responsibility, or obligation, to the world's population. This can be seen as a move retrogressive move toward the first stage of capitalism - what some describe as "The Gilded Age" (cf Twain and Warner's description of the ruthless laissez-faire capitalism of post-Civil War America).  It is this large-scale abandonment of social responsibility that characterises the movement of globalisation as a distinct ideology of late capitalism. An evangelistic belief in the infallibility of the market to provide a rational solution to the needs of the world's population. A neo-puritan ethic that values the plight of the interiorised and privatised individual as opposed to communities.

This ideology needs to be opposed with something of greater substance. The slogan "people before profits" is a good start. It articulates a desire to place social concerns above economic concerns. It carries with it, what Jacques Derrida calls "a certain spirit  of Marx."
An affirmation of the spirit of Enlightenment - a certain idea of justice dissociated from law, which is ultimately undeconstructible - which, at the same time, resists the hegemony of Marxist dogma - which does not necessarily renounce the ideal of democracy but, rather, attempts to reconfigure it.  Derrida calls for a "new international."

"Instead of singing the advent of the ideal of liberal democracy and of the capitalist market in the euphoria of the end of history, instead of celebrating the "end of ideologies" and the end of the great emancipatory discourses, let us never neglect this obvious macroscopic fact, made up of innumerable singular sites of suffering: no degree of progress allows one to ignore that never befoe, in absolute figures, never have so many men, women, and children been subjugated, starved, or exterminated on the earth...."
(Jacques Derrida, Specters of Marx)

The unilateral policies of globalisation (Fasttrack, NAFTA, MAI, etc.) need to be opposed with other international treaties, guaranteeing, not only basic human rights, but the rights of workers, indigenous peoples, minority groups, and protection of the environment, over and above the rights for the free flow of capital.

On an optimistic note, I believe that there is some truth in Malcolm Bull's comment included in Kermit Snelson's excellent post:

> "But the debate about social control prompted by the hijackings is one
> that others on the Left should hurry to join. The issue here is not American
> hypocrisy (Nagasaki, not Pearl Harbor, is the relevant comparison): let the
> Swiss cast the first stone - London has statues of war criminals all over
> the place. It is rather that, without yet realising it, the world's only
> superpower wants to achieve something that presupposes greater economic and
> social justice.  Current US policy may be unacceptable, but the long-term
> project holds an unexpected promise."


The shift away from the post Cold War era of neglect and abandonment may have already begun (even before 911). As George Bataille argues in "The Accursed Share," It is only the US that is capable of the massive expenditure needed to kickstart the general (as oppossed to the restricted) economy (Bataille was discussing the Marshall Plan but perhaps the same still holds today). A good start would be for the US to begin the huge potlatch of amortising world debt.  Or am I simply dreaming?

Ian Andrews
Metro Screen
Sydney


Email: i.andrews@metroscreen.com.au
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