As a follow-up to the recent FW thread on democracy and globalization,
I'm quoting an article from the NYT which shows that even the NYT now
admits what Keith seems to deny...
Chris
________http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/20/opinion/20HARDT.html________
New York Times July 20, 2001
What the Protesters in Genoa Want
By MICHAEL HARDT and ANTONIO NEGRI
[...]
The leaders, however, seem detached somehow from the transformations
around them, as though they are following the stage directions from a
dated play. We can see the photo already, though it has not yet been
taken: President George W. Bush as an unlikely king, bolstered by lesser
monarchs. This is not quite an image of the future. It resembles more an
archival photo, pre-1914, of superannuated royal potentates.
[...]
If it is not national but supranational powers that rule today's
globalization, however, we must recognize that this new order has no
democratic institutional mechanisms for representation, as nation-states
do: no elections, no public forum for debate.
The rulers are effectively blind and deaf to the ruled. The protesters
take to the streets because this is the form of expression available to
them. The lack of other venues and social mechanisms is not their
creation.
Antiglobalization is not an adequate characterization of the protesters
in Genoa (or G�teborg, Quebec, Prague, or Seattle). The globalization
debate will remain hopelessly confused, in fact, unless we insist on
qualifying the term globalization. The protesters are indeed united
against the present form of capitalist globalization, but the vast
majority of them are not against globalizing currents and forces as
such; they are not isolationist, separatist or even nationalist.
The protests themselves have become global movements and one of their
clearest objectives is for the democratization of globalizing processes.
It should not be called an antiglobalization movement. It is
pro-globalization, or rather an alternative globalization movement � one
that seeks to eliminate inequalities between rich and poor and between
the powerful and the powerless, and to expand the possibilities of
self-determination.
[...]
