Globalisation and the historic course
For the past several years, Internationalist
Perspective has attempted to grasp the profound changes that have occurred in
the functioning, and in the economic and political operation, of world capital.
This has resulted in the rejection of a vision of a world divided into two
imperialist blocs; by a recognition of the significance of the passage from the
formal to the real domination of capital, with all its consequences for the
recomposition of social classes; by a better understanding of the meaning of
the decadence of the capitalist system; and by a renewed emphasis on the very
bases of the functioning of the economic system, and to the roots of its
crisis.
As
a contribution to this ongoing effort, we present this text, which focuses on
three fundamental aspects of the present period :
·
First,
globalization as an overall context and element basic to the redefinition of
classes. How are we to understand this phenomenon? Is it synonymous with a
harmoniously functioning capitalism, which has succeeded in overcoming its
internal contradictions and competition?
·
Second,
the notion of an historic course, specifically the schema "crisis - war -
reconstruction”. Is this concept still valid in the present situation, or must
we confront the present period with a different perspective? Does the very
concept of an historic course have to be questioned?
· Third, the understanding of the class struggle today, and the criteria utilized to grasp it.
Extension
is a tendency inherent in the capitalist system, one necessary to its
development. The centralization of capital, the constitution of trusts and
cartels, was a phenomenon that existed
at the end of the 19th century. However, it is necessary to distinguish that
tendency from the process of globalization. The latter, is a function of the
way in which the capitalist class creates the economic and political structures
that permit it to surmount the limits of the world market and to attenuate,
though only temporarally, the effect of the internal contradictions of the
system. To focus on the concept of globalization, then, makes it possible to
grasp the modifications that this phenomenon has imposed on the form and
content of the world market.
We
have shown on many occasions how the capitalist system is afflicted by its
internal contradictions and by the deepening of the world economic crisis. At
the same time, the ruling class seeks by every means possible to attenuate the
effects of this crisis and these contradictions. It is important to emphasize
that we are far from a perspective in which the capitalist system is resigned
to its demise, without resources, acknowledging the "brake" on the
development of its productive forces, in its death throes, thereby opening the
way to the "years of truth", a moribond capitalism that the
proletariat need only pluck like some over ripe fruit. In our view, that
mistaken perspective must give way to one in which the ruling class desperately
fights and utilizes its formidable weapons to assure its own survival --
weapons that can relieve the impact of the contradictions that ravage its
economy.
The
phenomenon of globalization is the way in which the international bourgeoisie
attempts to (re)organize itself, and constitutes the general framework in which
competition, imperialist tensions, and the opposition between social classes,
now play themselves out.
In
the face of the recession of the 1990's, the dominant economies, with the US in
the lead, intensified the restructuring of their capital -- begun in the 1980's
-- so as to make it more competitive, and to attempt to surmount the limits of
the world market. That entailed, among other things, the introduction of new
technologies in production (such as the spread of computers and information
technology), the creation of ever larger industrial entities through vast
mergers, the liquidation of outmoded sectors, all resulting in a dynamic of
integration of industrial sectors and capital, as well as an unprecedented
interdependence. That movement of globalization has only accelerated, and
scarcely a day goes by without the announcement of the merger of industrial
giants combining their forces to become titanic entities that now operate on a
global scale, or the establishment of control by a capital entity over sectors
sometimes far removed from their own sphere of production. That qualitative
leap in the process of globalization means that industrial production is now
spread out across the world, delocalized so as to take advantage of the low
wages in one country, or the tax breaks in another, or the central geographical
location of a third. That also implies the creation of structures of
supranational administration, suitable to the functioning of a globalized
economy. That whole economic and political reorganization has changed the very
face of world capital and production.
One
of the effects of globalization is immediately positive for capital: it
increases the general rate of profit, and enlarges the world market, thereby
provoking an increase of profits and purchasing power in the strongest
countries, as well as in the countries that benefit from the fallout from these
positive effects on the strongest economies. Superficially, that can make it
seem as if capitalism has succeeded in overcoming its contradictions and can
develop without limits. Superficially, this can also make it seem as if we
inhabit a unified world, without interimperialist tensions, the image of a
"super-imperialism" à la Kautsky, a situation that can only stengthen
the hegemonic position of the United States.
Yet,
it is nothing of the kind, and globalization must be understood as an attempt
by the strongest economies to strengthen their competitive position, to
attenuate and contain the contradictions that ravage the system, and that,
moreover, manifest themselves in the breakdown of national economies, such as
that of Russia, or the Asiatic countries, in the exclusion or marginalization
of whole populations, or in the development of famine in those zones now abandoned
-- after their pillage in the colonial epoch -- as is the case with sub-Saharan
Africa. Globalization provides no solution to the fundamental problems of
capital, it can only work on its symptoms, and besides, even in that sense, the
positive effects of globalization can only last for a limited time, inasmuch as
they end up exacerbating the historic contradictions of the capitalist system.
So, if certain economies, like that of the US, now benefit from this process,
it is not the same for all national economies. That's why there is so much
resistance to the processes of globalization in countries like China or Russia.
Nonetheless, it is necessary to recognize that the present period is marked by
a growing integration of the diverse national economies, by a growing
interdependence of different capitals, and, that as a result, the immediate
perspective is not one of world war as a "solution" to the economic
crisis. We must emphasize this contradictory movement between a dynamic of
integration and unification on the one hand, and the deepening of the
contradictions and the exacerbation of violence -- imperialist among others --
on the other hand.
This contradiction expresses itself on other levels too, notably in the image that the working class can have of itself. One fundamental element is that of the consequences of the passage from the formal to the real domination of capital. That has had the effect of eliminating the barriers between the different spheres of production, circulation, and consumption to the benefit of a single process of reproduction, valorization, and accumulation, at the national level. It's a matter, therefore, of a global process of the valorization of capital that renders null and void the definition of social classes that prevailed in earlier stages of capitalism, where there were clearly defined lines between blue collar workers and capitalists, large and small. To cite our comrade Lazare:
"The capitalist class is no longer defined as an ensemble of individual owners of the means of production, but as a social entity, collectively directing the process of the valorization of the national capital, and which includes both the individual owners of the means of production, as well as bureaucrats who are owners of the means of production only indirectly, as representatives of the state. Similarly, the working class is no longer defined as an ensemble of individuals providing productive labor, but as a social entity whose collective labor valorizes capital."[1]
A
second element is surely the context of globalization, which further
accentuates the global collective character of this process. And here, too, we
face a contradictory movement, that, on the one hand, leads to the integration
and development of production on an international scale, distributed over a
proletariat situated in a multitude of complementary sectors and different
countries, and, on the other hand, provokes an exacerbation of competition
between those same workers, because of the constant threat of delocalization permitted
by the current mobility of production, as well as the difficulty in perceiving
the links that unite workers, beyond sectors or countries.
Today,
when we attempt to understand the activity of our class, to evaluate its
struggles, we are irremediably caught in the vise of the either/or:
"course towards war" or "course towards class
confrontations." In that logic, if one does not see a development of class
struggle, then the perspective of the defeat of the proleatariat, and of world
war, immediately looms. Still, embroiled in this same schema, if you want to
continue to affirm the historic role of the proletariat, you must have an
understanding of the balance of forces between the classes in favor of the
proletariat, which constantly marches forward, enlarging its struggles and its
class consciousness. Or, if you hesitate, if you have the impression that no
clear perspective in favor of either fundamental class has clearly emerged,
then you fall into the idea of "parallel courses," impossible to
defend in the face of a theory that demands that the "course" must
necessarily go in one direction or the other, or that society be
"frozen," immobilized, rotting from the head down. Now, what do we
really see in social reality itself? Local wars throughout the world, which
bear witness to the exacerbation of imperialist tensions, but which do not
indicate the imminence of a third world war; an unprecedented economic crisis,
which instead of impelling the capitalist system to generalized war, is
contained by an equally unprecendented concentration of industry and capital;
finally, a proletariat that is not defeated, but which has enormous
difficulties in formulating its own perspective, which is not mobilized under
the bourgeois flag, but which also does not assume an active role as a
"brake on war," such as we understood it in the past.
Confronted
by this situation, we have been led to question the very notion of the historic
course. How can the historic course be configured? In what period is the term
meaningful? And is this concept still valid today?
There
is a link between the either/or of a course towards war -course towards class
confrontations, and the trio "crisis - war - reconstruction”. Essentially,
these schemas have made it possible to understand the period around the second
world war: faced by the impasse of its economic crisis, and in particular, the
shock of 1929, capitalism was led along the path of world war. This latter
would culminate in the division of the world into two great imperialist blocs,
redivide markets and zones of influence, and bring about a significant
destruction of infrastructures which would then have to be reconstructed. At
the same time, it delivered a devastating blow to the proletariat and made it
march in lock step. Faced with the perspective of war, the proletariat had only
two choices: either actively oppose it, or be destroyed. The various elements
in play at that time lent credence to the concept of an historic course such as
the ICC defined it, with its image of a tightrope from which one of the two
protaganists must fall. In today's situation, we can only say that this
perspective is too mechanistic and does not take account of the complexity and
the globality of the balance of forces between the two classes, nor of the way
in which the antagonism between the two classes, linked in a social relation in
which one, the proletariat, is subjected in a permanent fashion to the
ideological domination of the other, expresses itself. This concept of the historic
course does not allow us to develop a clear understanding of the period in
which we now find ourselves, nor to work out a global appreciation of the
balance of forces that takes into account the contradictory movements that
characterize it.
The
period of reconstruction ended long ago, and the world economic crisis is of an
unprecedented amplitude; so, what's happened? One extremely important factor to
emphasize is the capacity of the bourgeoisie to draw the lessons of the crisis
of 1929. The way in which it has attempted to attenuate and contain the effects
of the crisis are very different, and globalizations is one of these
mechanisms. Therefore, we are not at the moment of the massive destruction of
values and a redivision of markets through world war, but rather at a time of
modernizing economies so as to make them as competitive as possible and to
permit them to counteract -- to a certain extent -- the fall in the rate of
profit and the saturation of markets. One sign of that was apparent in the implosion
of the Russian bloc. The Russian bloc was not defeated by its imperialist rival
or by it proletariat, but rather by the world economic crisis, and its own
incapacity to adapt its economic system to its imperatives.
A
second important factor to be aware of is the fact that if imperialist tensions
and violence continue under capitalism, and even constitutes one of its
hallmarks, we can see that these tensions can be temporarally attenuated to the
benefit of the movement towards integration produced by globalization. The
pseudo-unanimity of Europe at the time of the Gulf war or Kosovo bears witness
to this. Even if we have had a tendency to see in certain conflicts, like the
war in Afghanistan or the Gulf war, the harbingers of a third world war, we must
insist that that is not the immediate perspective, and that we must extricate
ourselves from this schema of crisis - war, by grasping the fact that -- for the present moment at least --
capitalism disposes of other means than war to deal with its crisis.
The
perspective that a third world war is imminent has also induced a feeling of
urgency amongst many revolutionaries: it is imperative for the proletariat to
deploy its class perspective under pain of seeing itself definitively mobilized
behind the national flag. Confronted by the difficulty that our class is having
in fighting under its own flag, many have drawn the conclusion that the moment
of revolution has passed, and that there is no alternative to a frank
recognition that the present period is one of triumphant counter-revolution.
But, here too, we must take
into account the complexity of the present situation of the proletariat, and
not see it through the lens of the past. If capitalism has restructured itself,
then this restructuring has also had a profound impact on our class. To
appreciate today's struggles no longer means (even assuming that it once did)
simply measuring the degree of autonomy belonging to the class, or its capacity
to launch struggles. It is also necessary to consider things as a whole, by
extricating ourselves from ready-made schemas. The concept of the historic
course does not seems to us to be valid for an understanding of the present
situation, whether with respect to an appreciation of the class struggle or the
immediate perspective of a third world war.
We
already focused, in an article in Internationalist Perspective # 34, on the
criteria for evaluating the class struggle and what it means to set up such
criteria. These criteria don’t allow us to paint a picture that reflects the
principal and contradictory elements which are present in the activity of our
class and thus to make a general evaluation.
If
one wants to understand the general movement of our class, there is one
important question to answer: does the proletariat have enough distance from
the dominant ideology to remain able, if only potentially, to see itself as a
class and thus to perceive the antagonistic relation between its interests and
those which it is serving? Whatever the
weaknesses of the struggles, the faults one might find in them, if the answer
to this question is positive, it means that the proletariat remains capable of
asserting itself as revolutionary subject and agent of social change. This is
absolutely fundamental!
We
have already talked a lot about globalization and its repercussions on the
recomposition of the classes. But we haven’t sufficiently measured the impact
that these consequences have on the proletariat’s capacity to see itself as a distinct social class. If
we make a little digression into the individual psyche, we see that what makes
it possible for an individual to form a personal identity, to become conscious
of it and use it in his social and relational daily life, are the linkages. The
link with those who surround him will make it possible for the individual to
see himself as distinct and similar at the same time. If we use this process to understand the situation of the
proletariat, we can see that this link is what it strongly lacks, precisely
because of the very way in which capitalism has organized things. The link with
his class brothers, to whom he’d be close enough to recognize himself as a
member of the same social class, and thus sufficiently distinct from the other
social class to see the antagonism between them.
Capitalism
has dispossessed man from his labor, making him a stranger to himself and a
stranger to others. But it has also destroyed the possibility to easily see
what unites workers and all those victimized by the exclusion from work. The
great workers’ bastions, carriers of a tradition of struggle and solidarity,
are increasingly being dismantled, either because they have become obsolete or
because delocalization has dispersed production throughout the world. There is
no longer a “workers’ culture” and the changes that have occurred in the
working class impede the transmission of past class’ experience. Whereas the
bourgeoisie is pleased to see the disappearance of the proletariat and prefers
to call workers “agents of production” now, we must see a working class whose
outline has been redrawn by the restructurations of capital and which does not
easily perceive its own class identity and interest. All the more so because of the increased mobility of labor, which
dismantles work teams and makes it ever more difficult for workers to feel part
of a collectivity at work. Everything is seen as provisional, subject to sudden
change.
The
profound impact of the recomposition of the classes on the consciousness of the
proletariat, and on its capacity to see the bond that unites, it is a
fundamental element if we want to understand why it’s so difficult for the
class to react globally and to draw its own perspectives for the future. In
order to find your “class terrain”, you have to define it first and know which
class is meant. We wonder, for
instance, what image young workers have of the proletariat and whether the
current transformations still allow them to recognize themselves in it, or
whether the current period is one in which the proletariat must first
reappropriate its own, modified identity.
We
could also hypothesize that this difficulty in seeing the links that unite the
community of the exploited, tends to foster a search for substitute bonds,
which today’s society, with all its ideological power, is only too eager to
provide. And so the only identifiable criterion today is one of inclusion:
either you have work and therefore have a place and social recognition, or
you’re nothing. The link is no longer defined in terms of belonging to the same
class, you’re either part of the included
or you’re out. This helps to understand why workers sometimes cling so
desperately to their machines. To lose your job not only spells economic
misery, but can also mean a fall into nothingness. And this also helps to
explain the rise of the extreme right in areas of economic distress.
In
light of the proletariat’s profound difficulty in recognizing itself as a
class, with interests opposed to those of the bourgeoisie, I want to point
out some characteristics of recent movements, in particular those which rocked
Europe in 1995-1997, as well as the more recent protests against globalization.
But
first, let’s make clear that our concern is not to sacralize a struggle nor to
gloss over its weaknesses in order to pretend that everything is going well.
And even less do we want to use the importance of the questions raised in
1995-1997 to prove a linear progress of the class struggle, in the way the ICC
claimed that there are consecutive waves of struggles, each one starting at the
level of consciousness that the previous one had reached. Still, these struggles contain elements that
are relevant in regard to what we said earlier on the difficulty of the class
in seeing its common interests.
In regard to the movements which have shaken France
and Belgium between 1995 and 1997, the strikes, the demonstrations, the
struggles of the unemployed, the ‘Marches for Work’, the ‘White Marches’[2]
and, on another level, the recent protest movements against the effects of
globalization, we can discern the following characteristics:
·
A
mobilization that goes beyond the framework of a sector, a country and a
specific demand, which brings together workers and non-workers, students,
French, Belgians, Germans …, with the idea that “we’re all in this together”.
This carries the potential recognition of the bond that links all the exploited
in a community of interests.
·
An
understanding that the perspectives advanced by society are opposed to the
needs of the people that are mobilized. Slogans such as “We want a Europe for
the people, not for money” and the refusal of globalization and its effects
illustrate this. This shows the potential to perceive the global functioning of the system and the logic which drives it,
despite all that’s done to prevent this understanding.
·
The
beginning of an understanding that it’s the whole political structure in its
very way of functioning which is rotten, so that nothing good can be expected
from it, even if the international bourgeoisie shrewdly recuperates this
movement and derails it towards restructurations, human rights campaigns,
political excuses or ideological comedies and the like.
This
leads us to the conclusion that, despite the enormous weaknesses of these
movements and protests, despite the reformist recuperations to which they
easily fell prey, they contain a
potential which we haven’t seen before and which can lead in time to the
perception of the bond which unites members of the same class and of the
antagonism between the perspectives imposed by the dominant class and those of
the exploited class.
We
can hypothesize that the easy recuperation of these movements by the dominant
ideology was made possible by the proletariat’s incapacity, at this stage of
development of its consciousness, to know what it should do with the elements
that it brought forward, in other words, how to push these protests further by
drawing its own perspectives.
Generally speaking, despite the silence of our class, despite its relative indifference to certain wars (but we had the occasion to nuance this in regard to the Kosovo war), despite the current incapacity to free the struggles from union and reformist straitjackets, despite the isolation, despite the racist reactions, and all that can be deplored when we look at the activity of the proletariat, despite all this, the movements of recent years contain a new potential which comes as a response to the biggest current problem for the working class: its need to perceive itself as a class with its own interests and perspectives. This also shows that the proletariat maintains the capacity to continue the development of class consciousness, despite the ubiquitous presence of the dominant ideology. Therefore we don’t think that we are in a period of counter-revolution, but in one of profound restructuration which demands that the working class redefine itself in its turn, through its class activity.
The goal
of this text is to contribute to the reflection on the profound modifications
that we see in the current capitalist system, in order to grasp their
implications. The concept of globalization, while its background is the
movement of extension inherent in capitalism, must be seen as the way in which
the international bourgeoisie, especially the strongest countries, reorganizes
its economic and political structures on an unprecedented worldwide scale. This
shows the bourgeoisie’s capacity to adapt and also underlines the difference
between the current and past periods. One of its implications is the
contradictory situation of a deepening crisis and worsening inter-imperialist
tensions and, at the same time, a movement of integration and interpenetration
which can temporarally attenuate these
problems. Many questions remain to be explored in order to grasp the current
changes. Such as whether the national states remain adequate at a time when
everything tends to an international scale, and the depth of the positive
effects of globalization on the world economy. The counter-tendencies and the
potential resistance to this process also must be analyzed more.
Since
the perspective of a third world war has, at least in the short term, receded,
we have had to reexamine what had been, up to now, a theoretical tool: the concept
of the historic course. In our view, this concept does not acknowledge the
complexity of the balance of forces between the two classes in a context in
which the dominant class keeps its grip permanently on the working class. The
concept of the historic course seems to reflect a mechanistic view in which the
two protagonists are on an equal level in the fundamental antagonism between
them – though their relation is not like that in reality.
One of
the fundamental stakes for the working class today is to redefine itself as a
social class, digesting all the modifications which capitalism has imposed on
its functioning and composition. As long as it keeps the capacity to respond
subjectively to the questions raised by the current period, it maintains its role
as an active agent and motor of historic change.
________________________________________________________________________________
[1] M. Lazare, "The
Recomposition of Classes under State Capitalism," IP # 15.
2
Translator’s note: the ‘White Marches’ were massive but vague protests against
the state in Belgium, following political and police corruption scandals in a
case involving the kidnapping and murder of young girls.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
[from
Internationalist Perspective #37, fall 2000]