Re: Is there a left program at the global level?
- Original Message - From: Peter Dorman [EMAIL PROTECTED] At first, I was irritated by Uchitelle's assertion that concrete proposals for change are not coming from the streets but from more moderate types like Dani Rodrik. But then I thought about it, and it seemed to be more or less correct. Depends where you look, comrade Peter. Each society has its own lefties arguing for concrete alternatives. A recent book I did (Advert warning!: *Against Global Apartheid: South Africa meets the WB, IMF and Int'l Finance* from University of Cape Town Press, out last October) has a concluding chapter with all the historic references, int'l comparisons and concrete proposals floating around for locking capital down. These would be exceptionally radical in terms of changing the balance of class forces and the character of capital accumulation in our particular setting, and would thus set the stage for non-reformist reforms in a variety of other development spheres. As for the concrete proposals, they typically flow from the kinds of underlying principles that Esping-Andersen has documented from the working-class movements which struggled, over the past century, for national-scale social policies: decommodification, destratification, degendering of access to services/goods, and harmonised society/nature relations. Taking one example, water, look for concrete proposals (e.g. from the int'l Blue Planet project hosted by the Council of Canadians) along the following explicitly anti-capitalist lines: constitutionally-guaranted lifeline access on a universal basis; progressive command/control functions over national resources management from the central state based upon nationalised ownership of water resources (instead of Riparian land-based ownership); demand-side management and penalisation for hedonistic water use instead of supply-side enhancements like big dams; progressive regional arrangements for shared water courses; prohibition of privatisations/corporatisations of municipal supplies; etc etc. I wasn't in Porto Alegre, but I think that the current epoch of struggle against neoliberalism has generated so many incredibly good grassroots/shopfloor comrades who are, perhaps for the first time in recent history, thinking and acting these through, in large part by making inspired international links. When our best Soweto leaders swop stories of privatisation-sabotage with the comrades from Accra, Manila, Cochabamba and Ontario, as I've witnessed on several occasions, it brings real meaning to the idea of people's globalisation (against capital's globalisation). If you come out to both/either our decommodification prepcom at the Jo'burg Workers' Library in May (soon to be advertised at http://www.queensu.ca/msp) , and/or the World Summit on Sustainable Development parallel sessions we're helping with in August-September, you'll really see this synthesis in research/strategy/protest. Very inspiring! But you're right to be cautious, insofar as the proposed mechanisms follows an unresolved debate over fix it or nix it of int'l institutions. If the goal is to close the World Bank, IMF and WTO (with some people arguing for global-scale alternatives and others insisting that such would be utopian), then the concrete mechanisms necessarily are local, national and in some cases (e.g. following Bello and Amin) regional. If the UN is seen as a site of reform/regulation (really utopian!), then other mechanisms (like Tobin Tax) follow logically. That debate remains crucial, and I'm nearly always convinced that the best grassroots/shopfloor social forces are moving it to the left by their praxis. Kicking James Wolfensohn out of Porto Alegre was most encouraging. The excellent critiques of the existing system usually end with a brief wish list of desired outcomes but not actual proposals, or where there are proposals they are disappointingly nonradical. (Perhaps the only exception is the demand for widespread debt relief, but isn't this also defined in terms of the outcome and not the concrete mechanism?) The mechanism there is repudiation, and the next big push is for reparations (eco-debt, slavery, colonialism, neoliberalism); Jubilee South's Porto Alegre Debt Tribunal did lots of work on this... From Argentina to Zimbabwe, it's on the agenda of the popular groups and in Argentina and Zimbabwe their are de facto defaults. (Advert warning!: The latter case is documented in the book -- out next week from Africa World Press and Merlin in N.America/Europe -- coauthored by myself and Mugabe's 1990s chief economist, Masimba Manyanya, in *Zimbabwe's Plunge: Exhausted Nationalism, Neoliberalism and the Search for Social Justice*). I'd like to be wrong. I would love to say that our side has carefully thought-out demands to fight for, and that the problem is just that they are being ignored or blacked out. Please convince me that this is so. (And, no, the Tobin tax does not qualify as a radical proposal.) Right
Re: Is there a left program at the global level?
on 2/9/02 03:33 PM, Peter Dorman at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At first, I was irritated by Uchitelle's assertion that concrete proposals for change are not coming from the streets but from more moderate types like Dani Rodrik. But then I thought about it, and it seemed to be more or less correct. The excellent critiques of the existing system usually end with a brief wish list of desired outcomes but not actual proposals, or where there are proposals they are disappointingly nonradical. (Perhaps the only exception is the demand for widespread debt relief, but isn't this also defined in terms of the outcome and not the concrete mechanism?) I'd like to be wrong. I would love to say that our side has carefully thought-out demands to fight for, and that the problem is just that they are being ignored or blacked out. Please convince me that this is so. (And, no, the Tobin tax does not qualify as a radical proposal.) Peter Ian Murray wrote: [NYTimes] February 9, 2002 Challenging the Dogmas of Free Trade By LOUIS UCHITELLE snip The anti-globalization protests, including the protests near the Waldorf last weekend, have rallied tens of thousands of people against globalization and above all against its laissez-faire guiding principle. But the alternative visions that are beginning to be offered are not coming from the streets. They are coming instead from Mr. Rodrik, a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, and a handful of other economists, sociologists and political scientists. You need not concern. Ongoing various social movements such as anti-globalizaiton ,ecology, feminists, ethnic rebuilding, local community rebuilding using LETS as exchange means and small banking which is for example, in progress in Afghan revival plan due to World bank, UN,UNICEF, or religious form of class struggle, especially by Muslim emerges increasingly day by day. We may better change image of revolution, which we experienced past. Lenin or Mao type political revolution may be old. Because although they succeeded in abolishing capital but failed to abolish money. To abolish money may be key point of expected revolution, and its process already exists, for example LETS instead money. We learned in school that working-class revolution is differ from bourgeois revolution in which within feudal system bourgeois matured and leaded to revolution. Differ from bourgeois revolution, we are taught that working-class revolution begins with taking over political power. But in reality, we are experiencing new type society are emerging increasingly within capitalist system. We may base these new social movements as revolutionary elements and may take over political power as final action. MIYACHI TATSUO PSYCHIATRIC DEPARTMENT KOMAKI MUNICIPAL HOSPITAL KOMAKI CITY AICHI Pre. JAPAN [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Is there a left program at the global level?
Patrick Bond refers to:concrete proposals floating around for locking capital down. someone might argue that models showing the benefit of freer trade don't include the impact of capital (and labor) mobility and in fact that some say that we don't need either type of mobility (Heckscher-Ohlin). So they might advocate a kind of globalization that is all about free trade, but bans factor mobility. just musing, Jim Devine
Re: Re: Is there a left program at the global level?
Patrick Bond is absolutely correct to choose water as his example. It is crucial. Once grass roots replaces gross loots organizations -- gee, I just coined that -- international organization must follow since water is transnational. Rivers don't respect boundaries. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Is there a left program at the global level?
At first, I was irritated by Uchitelle's assertion that concrete proposals for change are not coming from the streets but from more moderate types like Dani Rodrik. But then I thought about it, and it seemed to be more or less correct. The excellent critiques of the existing system usually end with a brief wish list of desired outcomes but not actual proposals, or where there are proposals they are disappointingly nonradical. (Perhaps the only exception is the demand for widespread debt relief, but isn't this also defined in terms of the outcome and not the concrete mechanism?) I'd like to be wrong. I would love to say that our side has carefully thought-out demands to fight for, and that the problem is just that they are being ignored or blacked out. Please convince me that this is so. (And, no, the Tobin tax does not qualify as a radical proposal.) Peter Ian Murray wrote: [NYTimes] February 9, 2002 Challenging the Dogmas of Free Trade By LOUIS UCHITELLE snip The anti-globalization protests, including the protests near the Waldorf last weekend, have rallied tens of thousands of people against globalization and above all against its laissez-faire guiding principle. But the alternative visions that are beginning to be offered are not coming from the streets. They are coming instead from Mr. Rodrik, a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, and a handful of other economists, sociologists and political scientists.
