In the following post Jim Oconnor has made an eloquent statement to the
effect that an independent anti-capitalist (and not merely
anti-globalist) organization is needed. I think this need should become
more central to discussions on marxist maillists.
Carrol
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: post S26 (Jim O'Connor)
Date: Mon, 09 Oct 2000 18:57:41 -0800
From: Barbara Laurence <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
I agree with Doug and Ian, the pre-Seattle and post-Seattle agitwork has
been tremendous. I haven't seen the likes of it since the 1960s. I've
even decided to finish a book on global capital and all that, so stoked
we
are here. I disagree that "making democratization the watchword for all
forms of economic/political governance and self-management while
avoiding
(factionalization)" will yield the results many want. First because
"democracy" as we practice it is a procedural question not a substantive
one.
Second. once you get into substance, the different, clashing interests
at
work in world economy will force splits, schools of thought, opposed
political groups, etc. These splits have already happened, largely
without
debate and behind closed doors. John Cavanagh, long-time
anti-globalist,
calls our movement the "anti-corporate globalization movement," which
obviously keeps organized labor and the big enviro ores in the game.
Labor isn't against the corporations, which feed the workers. They are
against certain corporate globalization practices, e.g., export
platforms
that grow at the expense of union jobs in the US. Big green is also not
against corporations as such: they depend on big money for their grants
etc. They just want the corporations to tread more lightly on nature.
Meanwhile, labor is for globalization, to the degree that globalization
expands US exports especially by unionized employers, e.g., Boeing. And
the big unions here are more or less deaf to the demands of the
antigloblist movement in the South, e.g., technology transfer and market
opening in the north. I could continue in this vein, but stop with just
one more example of the coming divisions, organized divisions,
ideologically opposed divisions in the antiglobalist movement. South
farmers by and large are threatened by especially Anglophone
agricultural
interests and exports. And the former tend to be very
anti-globalization,
when it comes to food and raw material production and exports, esp. when
subsidies are involved, as they are, Australian food raw material
exports
excepted. The US and Europe of course scream at each other to "lower
agricultural trade barriers" as well as plot how they'll share the food
and
materials mkt in the South, if and when WTO begins to enforce trade
provisions for agriculture. South farmers therefore are objectively
against (or on the other side of the food export issue) compared with
small
European farming and also small US farms which are highly capitalized
hence
highly productive. The problem with Ian's approach is that, so long as
the
issues are constructed the way they are today, small farmers in the US
and
EU would benefit from trade rules that would ruin many small farmers in
the
South.
This kind of thing is exactly why we internationalists, socialists,
secularists, etc., need an independent organization so that we can
propose
independent solutions.
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