Global
Justice School 2003
Alternative politics, I: "Delinking", or a different
globalization?
Resistance and alternatives
Stéphanie
Treillet
Introduction: 3 ideas that underlie
my argument:
- The dynamics of global justice struggles poses (in embryonic form) some elements of the society to be constructed.
- A double break is always
necessary: an external break (with imperialist domination) and an internal
break inside each society (with class relations and all forms of oppression).
- Global justice struggles are
beginning to lay the foundation for a concrete anti-capitalism and
internationalism.
A/ Anti-neoliberal and global
justice struggles have an anti-capitalist dynamic
1) Common developments in new
struggles and new social movements in different regions of the world, in the
global justice movement or outside it.
a) Dynamics of a global challenge
to the system based on specific issues.
b) In certain struggles, networks
of groups of people with different but converging interests (e.g. trade
unions, consumer groups, neighbourhood groups, environmental associations, etc.
against multinationals).
c) Links between old structures of
struggle (trade unions etc.) and new ones
d) New methods of struggle (civil
disobedience).
e) New democratic demands put
forward in these movements
f) Pose in embryonic form the
question of new relations between "social" and "political"
dimensions.
2) The global justice movement
itself is at the heart of building this new anti-capitalism, for several
reasons
a) It tends to federate and link
other movements (i.e. World Social Forum, continental Forums)
b) It is taking on more and more
issues, which form a system.
c) The current stage of capitalism
leaves no space for "reforms" or "regulations": all
the anti-neoliberal demands take on a de facto anti-capitalist dynamic (e.g.
control of capital movements).
d) The global justice movement
attacks the essence of the current stage of capitalism:
- the general trend of setting all
workers and peoples in competition against each other on a planetary scale
- total freedom for capital and
multinationals
-general and absolute
commodification of all resources and human activities
- the absolute character of
capitalist property
B/ Responses to strategic questions
show in practice that regulation of globalized and neoliberal capital is not
possible.
1) The struggle against
international organizations (WTO, IMF, World Bank, MAI, GATS)
a) Should we seek to transform or
dismantle them?
Each demand for reform (e.g. public
discussion) is a challenge to the very logic of their functioning.
b) Include or exclude social and environmental dimensions? i.e. Lee Chang-geun text)
Exclude as many areas as possible
from the WTO's grasp
2) Resisting attempts to pit workers
or peasants against each other
a) The social clause trap: don't
be fooled
- first, a challenge to the export
model.
- sanctions against multinationals
first
- attack WTO to defend social rights
(see point 1b above)
b) Seek out new ways of linking
up struggles internationally
- resist idea of North- South
opposition among peoples
- the idea that all forms of
resistance take part in building a single balance of power (e.g. NAFTA -
struggles by US workers in solidarity with Mexican workers in the same firm).
c) The struggle against
capitalist globalisation also takes place on the spot, against national ruling
classes in South and North alike.
Two consequences:
- Don't see Europe as a rampart
against US imperialism or overlook European capitalism.
- In the South, don't look for
alliances with local capital against multinationals (see debate between Walden
Bello and Patrick Bond).
3) Need for class and struggle
perspective against all oppressions (notably gender): against all alliances with
reactionary religious or nationalist forces in the name of "anti-neoliberalism
or "anti-imperialism".
C/ Can we limit ourselves to an
approach based on monitoring and counter-power?
1) A movement that for the moment
does not foresee any central political break.
2) A risk not so much of "reformism"
as of valuing and systematizing strategies of pockets of survival with
an adaptation either to the market or to traditional oppressive relations ("an
economy of solidarity").
A/ Deglobalization or a different
kind of globalization? (See the debates between Walden Bello on the one hand and Patrick Bond
and Victor Wallis on the other)
1) Reorienting economies towards the
domestic market: on what basis?
a) How to define sector-based
priorities
- According to what democratic
procedure? (e.g. the participatory budget: possible on a large scale?)
- Based on the interests of what
classes?
- Based on what rhythms of
accumulation (investment or consumer goods)?
b) What kind of land reform?
c) Lessons of past struggles
(Nicaragua etc.)
2) What new architecture do we want
for the world economy?
a) New institutions based on
different principles?
b) A new regionalization?
c) The possibility for Third World
economies of a "sieve" and controlling trade
3) Rejecting a different
globalization: a political danger
a) The call for "sovereignty"
and chauvinist currents in industrialized countries
b) "Cultural" inward
turns everywhere, reinforcing traditional repressions
c) The contradictory character of
globalization, which strengthens the potential for common struggles
B/ A different society takes shape
in the course of struggle
1) The space for free goods and
services
a) "Technological"
possibilities: against patents (on medicines, computer programmes, etc.)
b) Public services and social
protection: a space to be fought over, against commodification
2) An orientation towards meeting
the needs of the majority
a) Capitalism is incapable of
satisfying these needs: essential consumer goods or services
b) The demand that these needs be
met implies a challenge to the rights of capitalist private property
c) It also requires a minimum
rate of growth, whose (social and ecological) content must still be
determined: crèches, hospitals and schools instead of automobiles =>
rejecting the dangerous illusions of "slow growth" and "rejecting
development"
Conclusion:
- An anti-imperialist perspective is
essential but insufficient for laying the foundations of a global alternative
to capitalism
- We must link up struggles against
all the dimensions of oppression and domination without establishing a
hierarchy among them.