Global
Justice School 2005
Alternative politics, I:
"Delinking", or a different globalization?
Resistance and alternatives
Stéphanie
Treillet, 12 June 2005
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, feminists 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, and demands for democratic
control of struggles, 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,
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.
·
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 debate between Walden Bello and Patrick
Bond)
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? (co-operation, non-competition, etc.)
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) On the contrary: the contradictory character of globalization strengthens
the potential for common struggles
B . A different society takes shape in the course of struggles
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 à rejecting
the dangerous illusions of "slow growth" and "rejecting
development"
·
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.