/* Written 9:43 PM May 27, 1998 by [EMAIL PROTECTED] in web:p.news */
/* ---------- "[PNEWS] Understanding globalization" ---------- */
/* Written 3:43 PM May 27, 1998 by jdav in igc:peoplestrib */
/* ---------- "06-98 Edit: Understanding globaliza" ---------- */
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People's Tribune (Online Edition)
Vol. 25 No. 6/ June, 1998
P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654
http://www.mcs.com/~league
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EDITORIAL: UNDERSTANDING GLOBALIZATION
Globalization! The very word makes a worker tremble, and with good
reason. On the one hand, the term "globalization" has become a
bogeyman reactionaries use to frighten and politically disorient
people. On the other, it is looked upon as part of the painful
birth process of a new world. Let's look at what we're struggling
with, because globalization is a result of history, it is real and
here to stay.
Everything that happens is the result of a chain of causes and
effects that tie the world together into an understandable whole.
By examining cause and effect, we can understand what
globalization is at this time.
At the beginnings of capitalism, merchants had to cast their
commercial nets far and wide since they had to expand their
businesses or perish in the competition. A primitive form of
"globalization" called "mercantile imperialism" began to tie the
economies of sectors of the world together.
As capitalism matured, it produced more than it could consume and
accumulated a mass of finance capital it could not profitably
invest in its various national markets. A new stage of
"globalization" set in as the major financial-industrial nations
carved out spheres of influence to guarantee a place for
investment and a protected market to dump their industrial
surplus.
By 1939, all the contradictions within the financial-capitalist
imperialist system burst out as World War II. By the end of that
war, the world was in economic and social ruins.
The United States, unscathed by war, financially enriched and
militarily dominant, initiated the so-called Cold War in order to
consolidate its political and financial grip on those regions of
the world not within the military or political influence of the
Soviet Union. This control was consolidated and insured by a
complex set of military alliances that were watchdogs for an
expanding global capital termed first multinational, then
transnational and finally supranational capitalist enterprises.
Each stage of development has brought more powerful groups of
financiers together to invest on a global scale.
There were limits to this stage of globalization because it was
not possible to minutely control the flow of money. The
development of the computer meant instant control and solved one
aspect of this problem. The subversion of the Soviet Union,
eliminating the last political barriers, solved the other.
>From its secure base in the domination of Europe and Latin
America, world financiers, dominated by U.S. finance capital, have
set out to reorganize the world. Their battle cry is "free trade."
Their artillery is the alphabet-soup committees such as the
International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Group of Eight
and other shadowy international bodies that no one has elected,
but that, by clandestine international treaties, all nations have
become subservient to.
At this point, globalization means that capital is free to roam
the world in search of cheap labor since every worker is competing
against all the rest as never before. The inevitable result is the
lowering of living standards for all the workers and absolute
poverty for most.
Does this mean there are no longer national interests? No,
actually the national interests are exacerbated. No nation, if it
wants to remain part of international commerce, has the economic
power to defy these world bodies.
Since the United States dominates these bodies by virtue of its
military and economic might, it has imposed an economic Pax
Americana over the rest of the world.
The other part of the picture is that there is a growing grouping
of financiers who are without national identification or
interests. While globalization today means a global economy
dominated by the United States, the tendency is toward a future
dominated by these truly global capitalists with the entire world
as their colony.
Can they accomplish this? Probably not. What they are achieving
historically is preparing the peoples and economies of the world
for a truly world revolution; investing in economic infrastructure
that ties all the workers together. This means bringing the most
advanced means of production to economically backward areas, thus
economically evening up the world. Globalization of the economy
ultimately means globalization of class politics -- which is the
basis of world revolution.
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This article originated in the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE (Online Edition),
Vol. 25 No. 6/ June, 1998; P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL
60654; Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; http://www.mcs.com/~league
Feel free to reproduce and use unless marked as copyrighted. The
PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE depends on donations from its readers.
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