Ronaldo Munck
Global Social Movements
Or
Sorel In Seattle
Introduction
The notion of ‘global social movement’ (GSM)
is now gaining currency across the social sciences (see, for example, della
Porta et al, 1999, Cohen and Rai, 2000 and Hamel et al, 2001) and hopes for
social transformation are being pinned on their development. But is the GSM simply a Sorelian myth as the
‘general strike’ once was, resonating with meaning but ultimately an
ideological construction? To answer
this question we need to review some of the recent debates on the nature of
globalisation and its contestation by various social and political forces. Has ‘globalisation from below’ emerged as a
credible challenge to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) bid to transform the
world according to the tenets of free-market neo-liberalism? From the protests at Seattle in 1999
onwards, the prospects for a global social movement contesting this process
have increased but do they represent a viable alternative? Having reviewed the general terrain of
globalisation and contestation, followed by the movements emerging from Seattle
onwards, we can move to a more theoretical and reflexive consideration of the
universalism embedded in the notion of GSM as prime mover of the new
counter-globalism. Reflections on ‘Sorel in Seattle’ close this chapter.
I would argue that much of the literature on
globalisation still lacks the degree of complexity necessary for it to act as
an effective guide to action. In
becoming the new overarching paradigm for the social sciences, the term
‘globalisation’ has assumed certain imperialistic characteristics, often
over-reaching itself in the process.
However the globalisation paradigm could on the other hand be seen as
symptomatic of the way in which the social sciences are accepting notions of
complexity as the physical and biological sciences had already done about a
decade ago. This is argued most clearly
by John Urry for whom “globalisation brings out how there are non-linear
interdependencies between peoples, places, organisations and technological
systems across the world, interdependencies that problematise the notion that
global systems can be said to reach any state of equilibrium” (Urry, 2002:
3). Indeed, after the collapse of the
Twin Towers and its global ramifications it is no longer so outrageous to argue
that the world is always-already on the brink of chaos. The decentered, complex world we are now
living in is indeed global, but it is also characterised by hybridity and an
intense inequality.
If the globalisation debates are still
somewhat simplistic the same could be said about the majority of accounts of
its contestation by subaltern social forces.
More or less at random we can cite Jeremy Brecher and co authors for
whom: “Just as the corporate and political elites are reaching across national
borders to further their agendas, people at the grassroots are connecting their
struggles around the world to impose their needs and interests on the global
economy. Globalisation from above is
generating a worldwide movement of resistance: globalisation from below”
(Brecher et al 2000: 10). This by no
means uncommon perspective gives us a picture of inevitability, what Unger once
called ‘false necessity’ (Unger, 1987).
The debate on the ‘new labour internationalism’ both in the 1970’s and
today (see Munck, 2000a) shows how wrong it is to expect the subaltern classes
to match or mirror capital’s moves in a linked symmetry. It is not only an elusive search but also,
ultimately, a debilitating politics because it is simply reactive. It also tends to be demobilizing in its
impact if its target goals (anti or counter globalisation) are actually
unrealisable.
To be ‘against’ globalisation is not, I would
argue, a fruitful position. For one it
subsumes too many of the ills of society under the one overarching label. It can also become a path towards a
reactionary localism. The sorry fate of
the ‘de-linking’ strategy in the 1970s should be recalled. More specifically, as Cecilia Lynch argues,
the ‘discursive demobilization’ of the GSM ‘vis-à-vis globalisation is
compounded by the lack of knowledge or common articulation of against whom or
what any challenge to globalisation is targeted” (Lynch, 1993: 163). This makes anti-globalisation ultimately a
disabling political discourse. It is a
discourse and a social movement which has had an undoubted political effect
over the last three or four years. It
has deligitimised, at least to some extent, the rampant globalisation drive of
the mid-1990’s. However, it is quite unclear what the broad array of movements
under the anti-globalisation banner may have in common and how they might be
able to articulate a unifying normative platform and strategy for social
transformation.
The non-complex understanding of globalisation
and its contestation extends to the issue of tactics. The slogan ‘Fix it or nix it’ might just be a catch phrase but it
has come to symbolise the political philosophy of the anti-globalisation
movement. The very success of Seattle
1999 in actually stopping a World Trade Organisation session encouraged this
‘all or nothing’ perspective. If the
anti-globalisation movement could not ‘fix’ the way the WTO worked, it would
simply ‘nix’ (stop) it. Of course, in
practice, there are many more options available than this simple binary
opposition, and the global social movements have had considerable success in
altering the agenda of some of the multilateral economic organisations (see,
O’Brien et al, 2000). The more
successful of the GSM’s such as those of women and the environmentalists have
effectively engaged in a strategy of radical reform to transform
globalisation. For Unger “reform is
radical when it addresses and changes the basic arrangements of a society: its
formative structure of institutions and enacted beliefs” (Unger, 1998:
18-9). Perhaps this level of social
transformation has not been achieved by the GSMs but it has probably been more
than mere institutional tinkering they have engaged in.
Another major simplifying tendency has been to
proclaim the wave of anti-globalisation protests since 1999 as a new
‘anti-capitalism’ movement. Thus a
collection edited by Emma Bircham and John Charlton (2001) lists under the
banner of anti-capitalism just about every conflict in the world, from the
Middle East to GM foods, from Argentina to the new anarchists. But if we accept that globalisation is
complex so, inevitably, will be the protest or reactive movements it
generates. We cannot by simple
definitional fiat, as it were, homogenise these movements and, even more
fantastically, subsume then under an anti-capitalist banner. We need to understand and explain the diversity
of these movements and what motivates them.
It really does not help this task to tell the anti-globalisation
protestors, that “in building movements against the system they are treading
the same path that Karl Marx and Frederick Engels set out on nearly 160 years
ago” (Harman, 2000: 56). This is the
type of simplistic politics that once made Marx himself declare that he ‘was
not a Marxist’. It certainly does not benefit the movements to ‘lump’ them in
this way and prematurely ‘label’ them politically.
It is possible now and necessary, I believe,
to develop a complex understanding of globalisation and its contestation. We need to move beyond the simple binary
oppositions of ‘globalisation from above’ versus ‘globalisation from below’ or
the even simpler global=bad, local=good.
Not only do these conceptions entail a geographical or spatial fetishism
but they also imply ‘levels’ in society in a way that is quite disabling
politically. They are based on a
zero-sum conception of power based on mutually exclusive domains. A focus on a specific global social movement
(GSM), that of labour, soon shows how inadequate these perspectives are. Trade unions operate at local and national
levels as well as transnationally, not forgetting the regional domain that may
well become increasingly important.
From the lobbying that the ICFTU (International Confederation of Free
Trade Unions) does within the multilateral economic institutions through to a
local strike, there are a myriad forms of labour contestation of sensible
labour strategists do not seek to prioritise ‘levels’ any more.
There is no simple ‘out there’ of
globalisation distinct and separate from the ‘in here’ of the places where we
live. Social processes are spatially
and temporally diverse and particular but they are articulated with each
other. As Michael Smith puts it: “the
global-local interplay becomes a matter of ‘locating’ both transnationalism and
globalisation on the ground in all of their untidy contingencies as various
projects get constructed, accommodated to, or resisted in specific times and
places” (Smith, 2001: 3). What the
globalisation and anti-globalisation discourses seem to lack in similar measure
is precisely attention to ‘untidy contingencies’, to particular ‘times and
places’, not to mention that old-fashioned term, contradictions. They share this in common in spite of the
economism of one and the voluntarism of the other. Place and space have, indeed, been transformed by globalisation
in ways that are still developing. But the
new social relations emerging globally are messy and cannot be reduced to a
unified capitalist process roaming free across space as against a place-bound
citizen.
We can now understand more clearly that the
making of globalisation is quite inseparable from its contestation. So, for example, the action of workers
worldwide contesting capitalism in the 1970’s played a considerable role in
shaping capital’s global restructuring in the 1990’s. Today, if we examine the dynamic and the dialectic of protest
events since Seattle 1999 we can see how ‘globalisation from above’ is really
inseparable from ‘globalisation from below’.
In practice there is an engagement between the ‘enlightened’ drivers of
globalisation and the ‘reasonable’ end of the anti-globalisation spectrum. The era of the post-Washington consensus is
different from the heyday of neo-liberalism in the early 1990’s. The market is moderated by a renewed call
for some regulatory role by the state and the ‘social capital’ perspective
currently promoted by the multilateral economic organisations is not the same
as turning a blind eye to the impact of neo-liberalism. While the Sorelian myth constructed around
the anti-globalisation movement since Seattle is certainly understandable and
may even have had positive effects, it is necessary to distinguish between the
simple myth and complex reality.
Perhaps a good way to illustrate the
limitations of counter-globalism is in relation to Chiapas and the
transnational discursive construction of the Zapatistas. There has been a very clear Sorelian
mythification of the Zapatista movement especially through the Internet. For Manuel Castells: “The success of the
Zapatistas was largely due to their communication strategy, to the point that
they can be called the first informational guerilla movement” (Castells,
1997: 79). Of course the diffusion of
the Zapatista struggle through the Internet was a notable event but it is
hardly the main characteristic of the movement. We would need to distinguish between a ‘real’ and a ‘virtual’
Chiapas to introduce some complexity into the rather one-sided accounts of the
electronic solidarity sites. Judith
Hellman argues persuasively that: “Given the elegant simplicity of these images
[of Chiapas, Marcos, etc] in a world normally filled with ambiguity (or worse,
post-modern relativism), it is not surprising that there are progressive people
around the world who would do anything to support the struggle in
Chiapas except learn the confusing details” (Hellman, 1999: 162).
There is now an ample literature analysing
Chiapas from a complex materialist perspective (see Harvey, 1998) yet the
virtual GSM seems to prevail. The
issues of land and religion are considerably more complex on the ground. The notions of ‘civil society’ and NGO
(Non-Governmental Organization) are often applied in a way that obscures as
much as it simplifies. Chiapas is a
more conflictual and diverse place than it appears to be in the Internet. Leanne Reinke goes as far as to argue that:
“In addition to the appropriation of the Zapatista struggle by intellectuals in
the developed world, many writers have turned the ‘struggle’ into a
romanticised circus” (Reinke, 2002: 82).
Cyber-solidarity may well be a good thing in general but it is not
innocent of political contradictions.
Romantic Thirdworldist myths and investment in an exotic Other are
probably not the best way to build a global social movement for democracy. I am not even sure to what extent the ‘real’
Chiapas is part of a global social movement, Intergalactic Encuentros
against neo-liberalism notwithstanding, other than in a symbolic way.
The protest movement against the WTO
Ministerial held at Seattle in 1999 has, of course, become a major element in
the unfolding myth of the new global social movement. For four days some 40,000 protestors from the student and
environmental movements but also, significantly, from the trade unions
virtually brought the city to a standstill and the WTO meeting broke up
inconclusively. Those familiar with
labour history would have known that in 1919 a general strike had paralysed
Seattle for five days. As Levi and
Olson write in an interesting historical retrospective “one of the seeming
ironies of the 1999 Battle in Seattle was the presence of the longshoremen,
workers who thrive on international trade, at the forefront of actions directed
at regulating international trade” (Levi and Olson, 2000: 316). In the event these workers and others in the
transport sector did develop an alliance of sorts with the environmentalists -
‘Teamsters and Turtles” - in pursuit of a common objective. The point is simply that history counts.
Most of the contemporary accounts of Seattle
1999 lacked a historical perspective or stressed, perhaps understandably, the
novelty of the movement. Thus Danaher
and Burbach in their introduction to ‘Globalize This!’ declare that: “Seattle
was the coming out party for a new global movement for citizen power that will
certainly go on...” (Danaher and Burbach, 2000:5). Great emphasis was placed on the Internet as a mobilizing tool
and on the originality of some of the protest modalities. The anarchist or libertarian ethics of many
demonstrators and their mode of organizing were highlighted. The fact that the
protest could be classified as a victory - insofar as that particular round of
the WTO negotiations could not be concluded - meant that Seattle 1999 would be
etched in popular consciousness. It was
perhaps inevitable that a Sorelian myth would emerge around the events at Seattle
at the very close of the 20th century.
It is still probably too early to settle on a
reliable interpretation of the significance of Seattle 1999. From Mexico, Comandante Null declared that:
“The new century was born on November 30th, 1999 with the revolt of the
globalised in Seattle .... The boycott
of the opening of the WTO summit.... is not the last protest of the world’s
forgotten, but rather the grand prémiere in ‘society’ of world
resistance to a globalisation model.... [which] unleashed a peaceful protest
against the new Babylon” (Null, 1999).
In short, this was the coming out party for global civil society. It did not express a drive for a reversal of
globalisation (probably a minority strand amongst the protestors) but more a
move to democratise or, as Mary Kaldor (2000) put it, to ‘civilize’
globalisation. It brought out new
political cleavages in the global order that led to a move to co-opt the
‘reasonable’ or ‘compromising’ end of the counter-globalisation movement. The influential The Economist journal
in the wake of Seattle praised the way the World Bank had sought (and often
succeeded) in co-opting NGO’s after the 1994 ‘Fifty Years in Enough’ campaign
(Economist, 1999). Apart from the macro-interpretations of Seattle there is, of
course, the micro-story of how it actually happened. Susan George, a leading organiser/intellectual of the
counter-globalisation movement, wrote of how “Anyone could have a front seat,
anyone could take part in the advance on Seattle. The main rallying point was the Stop WTO Round distribution list”
(George, 2000: 2). A number of NGO’s
became involved including the Third World Network and then some US trade
unions, particularly those that have been involved recently in disputes. In the event, direct action (in the shape of
the Direct Action Network) won the day on the streets but the ‘Teamster’s and
Turtles’ perspective claimed the discursive high ground. However, it was not long after Seattle that
the mainstream US trade unions rediscovered their natural protectionist
vocation when they began to lobby assiduously to keep low-wage Chinese workers
out of the WTO. We can but conclude
that one joint action a political alliance does not make.
Seattle 1999 was, as everyone knows, just the
starting point in a broad international movement against globalisation. The ‘Seattle effect’ was real and its
ripples were felt in many parts of the world, above all, in North America and
in Europe. In the year 2000 there was a
large anti-fascist mobilization in Vienna and a demonstration against a joint
IMF/World Bank meeting in Washington D.C.
Prague towards the end of 2000 was the focus of a pan-European
mobilization against another IMF/World Bank meeting. There were other mobilizations in Millau (France), Okinawa (Japan),
Melbourne (Australia) and Seoul (Korea).
In 2001 one of the main event was at Quebec City where some 80,000
people protested vigorously against the proposed Free Trade Area of the
Americas. The protests in Genoa 2001
against the G8 meeting ended tragically with the death of a demonstrator. While many, if not most of these
mobilizations had Seattle as their obligatory reference point they are
characterized by considerable diversity in terms of their targets and their
objectives.
The managers and organic intellectuals of the
new global capitalism had for some time met in the Swiss retreat of Davos to
debate openly the state of the world and ‘what is to be done’. By early 2001 the counter-globalisation
movement responded ‘from below’ through the World Social Forum (WSF) held by
the Brazilian left-run city of Porto Alegre.
The Forum’s opening statement was “Together we are building a great
alliance to create a new society, different from the dominant logic wherein the
free market and money are considered the only measure of wealth. Davos represents the concentration of
wealth, the globalisation of poverty and the destruction of our Earth. Porto Alegre represents the hope that a new
world is possible, where human beings and nature are the centre of our concern”
(www.worldsocialforum.org). Some 20,000 delegates and participants, mainly from
Latin America but also from many other parts of the world met and debated,
becoming at the very least an ‘anti-Davos’ in terms of the debates for and
against globalisation.
The second WSF held in 2002 saw some 60,000
people gather in Porto Alegre from a vast array of GSM’s and from a greater
number of countries. Was this global
civil society coming of age? Was this
the beginning of a new transnational movement for global justice that could
become a pole of attraction for the myriad forms of counter-globalisation
protest? Much greater mainstream trade
union participation in the Forum was certainly a significant breakthrough. The women’s movement also played an important
and clearly recognised role in the events.
Yet the Forum was still dominated in many ways by the nationally based
political parties of the old ‘new left’ such as the PT (Partidos dos
Trabalhadores/ Workers’ Party) in Brazil.
Ultimately there is no one World Social Forum because as Peter Waterman
describes “Porto Alegre has to be seen as a terrain disputed between the PT,
the Brazilian NGO’s, the social movements, the international NGOs, and then the
hundreds, if not thousands, of groups and individuals who will be carrying its
message home” (Waterman, 2002: 16). It is a terrain of struggle much as global
civil society is, rather than a simple single entity.
If WSF 1 launched the challenge to
globalisation and WSF 2 put on the global agenda that ‘Another World is
Possible’, WSF 3 in 2003 was the coming of age of the forum concept and
organisation. Some 100,000 people were divided into three distinct classes in
Port Alegre: the (essentially self-appointed) ‘organisers’, the ‘delegates’
from organisation, and the ‘observers’ (in Portuguese ‘hearers’ which
accurately describes their role). The movement was experiencing all the
contradiction of Michels’s ‘iron law of oligarchy’ that had afflicted socialist
and labour movements in the past. The ‘space for free exchange’ the WSF saw
itself as was inherently unequal and many sidelined people and even movements
complained bitterly. But the movement was taking seriously its task to go
beyond proclamatory statements to build a viable political alternative to neo-liberal
globalisation, a counter-hegemonic globalisation of its own, or what Sousa
Santos calls a ‘subaltern cosmopolitan politics’ (Sousa Santos, 2003: 9). What
this led to was inevitably issues such as ‘bureaucratisation’ (pace Michels)
but also the perhaps more serious issue of ‘representation’ or
‘representativeness’. While the WSF charter of principles eschews in principle
the notion that it or delegates ‘represent’ social constituencies this bid to
speak for other as NGO’s do made itself felt. When the WSF moved to India for
its 2004 gathering the organisers were the usual mix of political parties,
social movements and friendly NGO’s. The unspoken rules of the WSF are, perhaps
inevitably, the rules of the hegemonic lefts. There was not only little Asian
or African presence at Porto Alegre, there was no even much of a presence from
non’ white indigenous and black Latin America. A question in terms of global
‘representativenss’ is why the 2005 WSF is already being planned for Porto
Alegre and not, say, for Shangai?
While the post-Seattle wave of
anti-globalisation protests is a clear priority for action research by
transformation oriented social scientists, we should maybe at this stage stand
back to take a cool look at it first.
We should perhaps begin by examining what André Drainville calls the
‘making of transnational subjects’ (Drainville, 2001) because we cannot just
take the GSM’s at face value (i.e. in terms of their own proclaimed
objectives). For Drainville, the NGO’s
and the various spokespersons that gathered in Quebec City in 2001 were like
‘cosmopolitan ghosts’ (Drainville, 2001: 2). They can be seen as ‘ghosts’
because they are not rooted in specific communities of struggles. As would-be
representatives of an ill-defined and self-referential ‘global civil society’
they clearly have their own agendas. The informal or parallel NGO ‘summits’
around major UN events, be they on gender or environmental issues, have taken
on a life of their own. For Drainville,
and I must say I agree, the actually existing counter-globalisation movement
“is closer to a transnational mob in revolt against the injustices of the new
order than to the a priori internationalism of erstwhile citizens of the
world gathering at UN summits” (Drainville, 1997: 51). This perspective leads
us necessarily to a different research strategy than the usually a-historical
and sometimes teleological approach of GCS and GSM proponents.
The second issue we need to consider is that
of co-option by the dominant economic powers and organisations. It could be seen as positive gain of the
counter-globalisation movement (and its predecessors) that the multilateral
economic institutions have sought to co-opt them. The WTO clearly did not enjoy the spectacle at Seattle and it
would much rather deal with ‘reasonable’ NGO’s as the World Bank has learnt to
for over a decade now. For the critics,
however, participation by civil society organisations in these fora is simply
about co-option and the legitimising of a carefully choreographed ballet of
dissent. For Michel Chossudovsky,
writing just before the end of 1999, “In Seattle, the big divide will be
between those who are genuinely opposed to the New World Order and those
‘partner’ civil society organisations which have all the appearances of being
‘progressive’ but which in fact are creatures of the system” (Chossudovsky,
1999: 3). This tendency has, of course,
been accentuated since Seattle 1999 as the managers of globalisation begin to
realize how important it is to ensure some degree of sustainability for global
governance.
Finally, I think we need to stress more the
question of diversity within the broadly defined counter-globalisation
movement. There are now many
categorisations of this movement (see amongst others Starr, 2000 and Desai and
Said, 2001) but essentially we can distinguish between the reformers, the
refuseniks and the alternativists.
Amongst the first category are movements that look towards the United
Nations to legitimise their role.
Florency Passy refers (in relation to the indigenous peoples movement)
that “Their grievances, which are local or at best national at the outset,
globalise when they enter the UN” (Passy, 1999: 160). Thus a GSM is deemed to
be such when it is institutionalised through the mechanisms of global
governance. This is the world of the NGO’s, the ‘tamed’ representatives of
civil society who came from the social movements of the 1970’s and 1980’s. The
‘refuseniks’, on the other hand, are isolationists and would include movements
seeking to delink from the new global capitalism in the belief that ‘small is
beautiful’ or that an indigenous development is possible. They refuse the logic
of globalisation and refuse to ‘legitimise’ the structures of its governance by
participating in any form or shape other than protest. The third category of ‘alternativists’ can
in turn be divided into a more ‘radical’ current as in the ‘globalisation from
below’ approach, and a more ‘reformist’ tendency such as in those in the international
labour movement which seek a ‘global social compact’ and to ‘democratise’
globalisation for the common social good.
My focus will be mainly on this third category conscious that the
distinctions are rather crude and cover considerable overlap and fluidity
between constituencies and politics.
In much of the
literature on counter-globalism this movement is rather taken as a given, a
natural response to globalisation as it were.
Thus we have a statement such as ‘Rapidly globalising capital obviously
calls forth the need for a global labor movement” (Borgers, 1998: 3). Yet the small world ‘obviously’ is not so
obvious. What needs to be explained is
actually taken for granted. The
alternative to a globalising capitalism is a global social movement, which
constructs a global civil society (on which see Munck, 2002 b). For Peter Waterman the alternative world
order “means a non-capitalist/non-state, or anti-competitive/anti-hierarchical,
sphere for democratic efforts, within and without the multiple existing global
terrains” (Waterman, 1998: 277). For
Waterman, the new internationalism we see emerging with the GSM’s should be
based on universalism as a conceptual basis for a global citizenship. Although superficially attractive these
arguments pose several problems.
The concept of
universality lying behind such cosmopolitan politics is neither simple nor
innocent. As Ernesto Laclau puts it:
“The universal is an empty place, a void which can be filled only by the
particular... in short, each universal is the battleground on which the
multitude of particular contents fight for hegemony....” (Laclau, 2000:
51-9). Universality is constructed and
universalisms compete with one another.
A concept such as ‘global citizenship’ should be seen, essentially, as
an empty or a contested signifier. Even
at Seattle 1999 there was a consciousness that this event was predominantly
white and Northern in composition. A
new universalism cannot be extrapolated from Seattle (or Porto Alegre) without
considerable mediations and due attention to particularisms. Gayatri Spivak some time ago showed how
behind universalism, and even ‘internationalism’, lurked a very Eurocentric
notion of the subject that led to a politics of rights that for the majority
world simply occluded the power of global capital (Spivak, 1988). Maybe we
should be more wary of totalising slogans and solutions even attractive ones
such as ‘another world is possible’ ?
A related issue is
the question of whether the GSM’s are totally new phenomena or simply ‘old wine
in new bottles’. For the old sectarian
left, the GSM’s are nothing new. Their
wish is to tap the energy of the Seattle generation but within the parameters
of the old truths. Thus Chris Harman’s
(Harman, 2000) reviews the theory and practice of the anti-capitalism movement
today and finds much that is encouraging.
He sees it dealing with the ‘same’ issues which confronted Marx and
Engels and argues, “it is up to all of us [Marxists]... to help it to learn to
deal with these issues” (Harman, 2000: 56).
As to the current inspirational intellectuals of the
counter-globalisation movement “Monbiot and many others fail to define their
own alternative to simply relying on symbolic actions” (Harman, 2000: 51). The alternative is, of course, the traditional
workerist socialism one. As Harman puts
is succinctly: “Workers have a power to challenge the system that street
demonstrations do not... Serious [emphasis added] anti-capitalist
activists have to move on from simply demonstrating in opposition to the system
to find ways to tap this power” (Harman, 2000: 49). While there may well be a valid debatable point here, it hardly
captures the imagination or comes close to what is new about the post Seattle
GSM’s.
On the other hand,
for the authors/spokespersons of the counter globalisation movement such as
Naomi Klein it is the novelty of the post Seattle movements which is most
striking. Much stress is laid on the
novel (anarcho-libertarian / networking) modes of organisation of the so-called
anti-globalisation protests. Thus,
referring to Quebec City 2001, Klein argues that one of the main organisers
“acted only as facilitator - a glorified note - taker” of the autonomous
actions” taking place such as wrapping the security fence in toilet paper or the
Harvard grad students who “planned to read Foucault to the police” (Klein,
2001: 51). For Klein it would seem that
the movement is all and its objectives can be fairly fluid because “If someone
doesn’t feel like they quite fit into one of the 30,000 or so NGO’s or
thousands of affinity groups out there, they can just start their own and link
up” (Klein, 2001: 71). There is
certainly no point giving a Leninist lecture in response to this world-view but
we can note that perhaps the counter-globalisation movement is just one of the
new shapes that the ever-present contestation to capitalist rule can take.
If there is a ‘old
versus new’ dichotomy in the appraisal of the GSM’s, there is also a ‘good
versus bad’ one that is difficult to bridge conceptually. Apart from the vast celebratory literature
and websites dedicated to the counter-globalisation movement we can turn to
Peter Waterman who has done much to promote the ‘new labour internationalism’
in particular. For Waterman, writing
from Porto Alegre, “in the first dawn of global emancipation”, he can only echo
the words of Wordsworth for whom “Joy was it that first dawn to be alive. To be young was very heaven” (Waterman,
2002: 18). As against the violent
totalising revolutions of yesteryear the anti-globalisation one is seen as a
‘cultural revolution’ (but don’t mention China?!) with global ambitions in
keeping with the globalised society we live in. For Waterman, “the conditions for a theory and practice of global
solidarity are finally being laid” (Waterman, 2002: 18). This ‘optimism of the will’ does not really
stand up, however, to the critique of the sceptics I would argue.
A realist analysis
of NGO’s for example, would show how closely many work with governments and
even with the intelligence agencies of their respective countries (on which see
Chossudovsky, 1999). Be that as it may,
my main point is about the way opposition can be productive for power in a
truly Foucaultian way. Thus Esteva and
Prakesh mount an effective critique of counter-globalisation movements
organising “against the WTO or the World Bank, at their headquarters or their
jamborees [which] seems useless or counter-productive” (Esteva and Prakesh,
1998: 31). By recognising the power of
these capitalist bodies the counter- movement actually helps provide them with
legitimacy and thus ‘clothe the emperor’.
Certainly the manner in which the World Bank has utilized its newfound
‘gender-sensitive’ image indirectly points to an element of truth in this
critique. Resistance to global
capitalist organs leads them to create more defences, more bureaucracy and more
moves to co-opt and defuse the opposition.
However, the answer may not be to ‘go local’ as Esteva and Prakesh argue
insofar as that can only result in a new localism which does little to contest
the deleterious social effects of globalisation.
The third dichotomy
to consider is that between place and time, or the notion that globalisation
‘abolishes’ space. Thus for example
Castells argues that: “At its core, capital is global. As a rule labor is local... capital and
labor increasingly tend to exist in different spaces and times: the space of
flows and the space of places...” (Castells, 1996: 475). What this world-view leads to is a
conception of globalisation that capitalists and workers ‘live’
differently. While undoubtedly this
image does capture something about the present situation it does also seem to
exaggerate the mobility of capital and the immobility of labour. There seems to be a general tendency to
reduce place to space in the globalisation debates. As Jamie Peck puts it: “Places to live seem increasingly to be
reduced to spaces in which to earn or strive to earn a wage” (Peck, 1996: 233). Yet we all still live, work, think and play
in spaces. So, as Peck puts it: “This
does not mean that place - as a theoretical category or as a political site -
somehow matters less, but is rather to insist on an appreciation of the local
in the context of (and in relation to) the global” (Peck, 1996: 233).
Globalisation has not somehow ‘abolished’ space (along with time) rather it has
reconfigured it within a new complex social and spatial matrix.
The local-global
divide is probably the overarching perceived division between the pro and
anti-globalisation intellectuals. The
so-called local-global paradox has been at the centre of much theorising and
practical innovation. The local-global
nexus can no longer be understood in simple territorial terms or as the meeting
point of separate social spheres.
Notions of ‘hybridity’ to my mind best capture the complex local-global
interconnections. Globalisation has
prompted new identities and new interests in the local social and political
processes. Local politics has not been
shut down by globalisation but transformed and reinvigorated by these multiple
new identities. Certainly the local
cannot be seen as a refuge an oasis of tranquillity in the turbulent seas of
globalisation. Michael Smith notes
perceptively that: “The global-local duality in social theory rests on a false
opposition that equates the local with a cultural space of stasis,
ontological meaning, and personal identity … and the global as the site
of dynamic change, the decentring of meaning, and the
fragmentation/homogenisation of cultural (i.e. the ‘space’) of global
capitalism” (Smith, 2000: 157).
In conclusion, we
need to move beyond binary oppositions to adequately theorise the GSM’s.
Globalisation ‘from above’ and globalisation ‘from below’ are two sides of the
same coin: it is their complex and
contested interaction that is shaping the world we are moving into. Labour and other social movements resistance
to the impact of globalisation is shaping the plans being developed at this
very moment by the architects of the new global capitalism. This particular GSM at the same time
reflects an ‘old’ social movement but it has ‘new’ characteristics; it has
positive potential but also there are negative dangers of co-option or abstract
revolutionism ever-present. Local empowerment
and global empowerment depend on each other and thus we should not counterpose
the local to the global. Nor can we
simplistically counterpose ‘revolutionary’ direct action against globalisation
to a supposedly ‘reformist’ lobbying of the multilateral economic
institutions. Rather, we should be
seeking to ‘bridge the gaps’, show the links, and build up a complex picture of
this diverse movement contesting but also an integral part of globalisation.
Bridging the gaps is
a central tenet of the post-Porto Alegre ‘new politics’. As Hilary Wainwright describes it the new
politics is at the same time ‘in and against the state’ and also ‘in and
against the market’ (Wainwright, 2002).
It is all about ‘making connections’ in the era of connexity, especially
between and within the local and the global (not forgetting the often neglected
regional dimension). At a broader
level, we need to stress how the rescaling of the capitalist system over the
last decade has revived the ‘Polanyi problem’, that is how the ‘free-market’
can be regulated socially for its own good.
Much of the counter-globalisation movement dynamic can be understood in
terms of Polanyi’s ‘double movement’ whereby market expansion is checked by a
social counter-movement (Polanyi, 1957: 130).
This statement has a somewhat functionalist ring to it and we would need
to explore what sections of society and how they engage in counter- hegemonic
politics. But we can certainly follow Peter Evans and conclude that: “What is
most important is that organisers of counter-hegemonic globalisation have more
on their side than luck and pluck.
Elites, no less than the rest of us need to resolve the Polanyi problem”
(Evans, 2000: 239). That is why we need to place contestation within the
broader problematic of global governance where the contradictions of
free-market fundamentalist globalisation are tackled. It is not just a world
with globalisers and anti-globalisers.
I have deliberately
left Sorel till last so that he would not overwhelm the theoretical context and
the narrative of Seattle and beyond. Yet in the spirit of an afterword it may
be useful to ponder the relevance of Georges Sorel’s political philosophy for
an understanding of the era of Seattle. For Sorel, the revolutionary
syndicalist, the proletariat needed a myth of the general strike to create its
identity and struggle for a heroic future. For Sorel: ‘the general strike is….the myth in which
socialism is wholly comprised, ie a body of images capable of evoking
instinctively all the sentiments which correspond to the different
manifestations of the war undertaken by socialism against modern society” (
Sorel, 1999: 118). The proletariat can only fight against bourgeois society and
create its own identity through ‘war’ as parliamentary socialism can only sap
away its energy according to Sorel. For Sorel- and here the influence of
Neitzsche is clear- action is the driver of politics and ‘will’ can in and of
itself forge our futures. The ‘general strike’ is for Sorel the only concrete means of combating capitalism,
while parliamentary politics only leads to deliberations and compromise with
the capitalist order. Political actors, for Sorel, were simply contemptible as
the lacked principle and knew only opportunism.
Some of the the
anti-globalisation movements seem to share a similar political philosophy where
action and will are paramount and reflection or compromise takes a back seat.
Many strands of the movement also see themselves engaged in a veritable ‘war’
against neo-liberal globalisation where the very future of humanity is at
stake. The very physical nature of the
conflict at Seattle 1999 may well have encouraged such an outlook and the
dangerous illusion that physical force
can substitute for politics. The vaguely anarchist sentiment suffusing much of
the movement certainly leads to a prioritising of direct action and the power
of will is deemed paramount. As with Sorel there would be scant regard for what
Laclau and Mouffe call ‘ the quietism of orthodoxy’ ( Laclau and Mouffe, 1985:
39). It is only through action that political identity can be forged for this
current and the keyword ‘action’ (think even the activist NGO’s like
Greenpeace) is the privileged path for confronting globalisation.
The theory of the
myth in Sorel is explained further when he argues that the ‘general strike’
allows us to ‘obtain that intuition of socialism which language cannot give us
with perfect clearness- and we obtain it as a whole, perceive it
instantaneously’ ( Sorel, 1999: 118). This syndicalist myth finds its current counterpart
in the movement myth of ‘Seattle’ I would argue as created in myriad discursive
mediums including Indymedia and the varied organising/propaganda networks set
up after Seattle 1999. A poster image or a simple slogan allows us to perceive
‘instantaneously’ as it were the message with a clarity that the tortuous
debates of the more orthodox political currents do not. It is perhaps not
coincidental that the most popular T-shirt on sale at the Porto Alegre
gatherings has been that same image of ‘Che’ that graced the posters of every
‘radical’ chic in the West in the 1970’s. There is even a more serious side to
this way in which the counter-globalisation movements is made in the image of
that very commodity system it contests. Thus Jai Sen, for time one of the
organisers of WSF 2004 refers to how “ the Forum spreads across the
world…becoming a series of discrete events…..[and] the distinct possibility of
the Forum becoming a brand name…and its motto ‘Another World is Possible’ a
logo” ( Sen 2003: 9). The movement which had as its watchword No Logo is thus
seen as brand name which sets up franchised events such as the European Social
Forum, the Asian Social Forum with their NGO derived language of
‘participation’ but the practice of old style politics complete with ‘star’
speakers and participants dubbed with the Orwellian title of ‘hearers’( oyentes).
There is little
doubt that the anti-globalisation movement has its constitutive and mobilising
myths although one may legitimately ask what is unusual or harmful about that.
If a myth of Seattle ‘99 (or Genoa or Porto Alegre) creates a sense of unity
and purpose why should that be a problem? The Sorelian theory and practice of
the myth, with its emphasis on ‘will’ and ‘war’ is more than a harmless
mobilising tool I would argue. Sorel became very dismissive of parliamentary
politics and, as Laclau and Mouffe put it ‘ Sorel then becomes a decided enemy of democracy, seeing it as the main
culprit for that dispersion and fragmentation of subject positions which Marxism
had to grapple with at the turn of the century’ ( Laclau and Mouffe, 1985: 39).
It is eventually politics as a whole in this discourse that is superseded by
action and the myth of the general strike. I am not suggesting at all that
Sorel’s eventual role in the creation of a fascist ideology has any present day
equivalent. However, the myth of globalisation and its counter-myths in the
movement that have sprung up post –Seattle have tended to ‘flatten’ political
debate. To be for or against globalisation is hardly the sum total of the
political options open to us today.
There is distinct myth at play that grants ‘globalisation’ a homogeneity
of purpose it simple does not possess and thus ignores its contradictions.
There is a myth involved in making limited Western movements into ‘world’
forums and projects which ignore inter-cultural differences. In terms of
politics the ‘revolutionary’ myth is being reproduced which would demonise
‘reform’ and ignore the uneven but combined process of global governance that
sets the parameters of social transformation in today’s complex world. Sorel
and Seattle is a potentially dangerous combination and we should reject any
foreclosing of the political horizon or allow a blind ‘action’ orientation to
substitute for critical analysis and political debate.
Globalisation and Social Exclusion Unit, University
of Liverpool
Bircham, E and Charlton, J (eds) (2001) Anti-Capitalism. A Guide to the Movement. London: Bookmarks.
Borgers, F
(1996) ‘ The challenge of economic globalisation for US labor’, Critical
Sociology, 22(2)
(2000) “The Clouds Clear: Seattle and Beyond” <www.antenna.nl/~waterman.borgers.html>
Brecher, J, Costello, T and Smith, B (2000) Globalisation
from Below. The Power of Solidarity. Cambridge, Mass: South End Press.
Castells, M (1996) The Rise of the Network
Society. Oxford: Blackwell.
(1997) The Power of Identity.
Oxford: Blackwell.
Chossudovsky, M (1999) “Seattle and Beyond:
Disarming the New World Order” <www.transnational.org/forum/meet/seattle.html>
Cockburn, A (2000) “So Who Did Win at
Seattle? Liberals Rewrite History” <www.antenna.nl/~waterman/cockburn.html>
Cohen, R and Rai, S (eds) (2000) Global
Social Movements. London: The
Athlone Press.
Comandante Null (1999) “The Revolt of the
Globalized” <http://csf.colorado.edu/mail/wsn/99/msg01715.html>
Danaher, K and Burbach, R (ed) (2000) Globalize
This: The Battle Against the World Trade Organization and Corporate Rule <www.tid_sskriftcentret.dk/content.html>
della Porta, D, Krien, H and Rucht, D (eds)
(1999) Social Movements in a Globalizing World. London: Palgrave.
Desai, M and Said, Y (2001) “The New
Anti-Capitalist Movement: Money and Global Civil Society”, in M. Anheier, M.
Glasius and M Kaldor (eds) Global Civil Society Yearbook, 2001, Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Drainville, A (1998) “The Fetishism of Global
Civil Society: Global Governance, Transnational Urbanism and Sustainable
Capitalism in the World Economy” in M.P. Smith and L.E. Guarnizo (eds) Transnationalism
from Below. London: Transaction
Books.
(2002) “ Quebec City 2001 and the making of
transnational subjects”, Socialist Register, edited L.Panitch and
C.Leys, London: Merlin,2002.
Epstein, B (2001) “Anarchism and the
Anti-Globalisation Movement”, Monthly Review, Vol 53, No 1.
Esteva, G and Prakesh, M.S. (1998) Grassroots
Post-Modernism: Remaking the Soil of Cultures. London: Zed Books.
Evans, P (2000) “Fighting Marginalization with
Transnational Networks: Counter-Hegemonic Globalisation”, Contemporary
Sociology, Vol
Gills, B (ed) (2000) Globalisation and the
Politics of Resistance. London:
Palgrave.
George, S (2000) “Seattle Turning Point:
Fixing or Nixing the WTO”, Le Monde Diplomatique (January) <www.antenna.nl/~waterman/sgeorge.html>
Hamel, P, Lustiger-Thaler, H, Pieterse, J.N
and Roseneil, S (eds) (2001) Globalisation and Social Movements. London: Palgrave.
Harman, C (2000) “Anti-capitalism: theory and
practice”, International Socialism, No 88 (Autumn).
Harvey, N (1998) The Chiapas Rebellion: The
Struggle for Land and Democracy.
Durham NC: Duke University Press.
Hellman, J.A. (1999) “Real and Virtual
Chiapas: Magic Realism and the Left”, The Socialist Register 2000. London: Merlin Press.
Kaldor, M (2000) “‘Civilizing’
Globalisation? The Implications of the
‘Battle in Seattle’” <www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/global/ManySeattle.html>
Klein, N (2001) “Farewell to ‘The End of
History’: Organization and Vision in Anti-Corporate Movements” The Socialist
Register 2002. London: Merlin
Press.
Laclau, E (2000) “Identity and Hegemony: The
Role of Universality in the Constitution of Political Logics”, in J. Butler, E
Laclau and S. Zizek Contingency, Hegemony, Universality. Contemporary Dialogues on the Left. London: Verso.
Laclau,E and Mouffe,C ( 1985) Hegemony and
Socialist Struggle. London: Verso.
Levi, M
and Olson, D (2000) “The Battles in Seattle”, Politics and Society,
Vol 28, No 3.
Lynch, C (1998) “Social movements and the
problem of globalisation”, Alternatives, Vol 23, No 2.
Munck, R (2002a) Globalisation and Labour:
The New Great Transformation.
London: Zed Books.
(2002b) “Global Civil Society: Myths and Prospects”,
Voluntas Journal of Voluntary and Non-Profit Organisations,
Vol. 13 No.4
O’Brien, R, Goetz, A.M, Schulte, J.A and
Williams, M (2000) Contesting Global Governance. Multilateral Institutions and Global Social Movements. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Passy, F (1999) “Supranational Political
Opportunities as a Channel of Globalisation of Political Conflicts. The Case of the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples”, in D della Porta, H. Kriesi and D. Rucht (eds) Social Movements in
a Globalizing World. London:
Palgrave.
Peck, J (1996) Work Place: The Social
Regulation of Labour Markets.
London: Guildford Press.
Polanyi, K (1957) The Great Transformation. Boston: Beacon Books.
Reinke, L (2002) “Utopia in Chiapas? Questioning disembodied politics” in J.
Goodman (ed) Protest and Globalisation.
Prospects for Transnational Solidarity. Melbourne: Pluto Press.
Sen, J (2003) “The WSF as logo, the WSF as
commons, take a moment to reflect on what is happening in the World Social
Forum: a discussion note” ( mimeo, New Delhi, May 1st )
Sorel,G (1999) Reflections on Violence
(edited by J.Jennings), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sousa Santos, B (2003) “ The World Social
Forum: Toward a Counter-Hegemonic Globlaization “ www.ces.fe.uc.pt/bss/fsm.php
Smith, M P (2001) Transnational
Urbanism. Locating Globalisation.
Oxford: Blackwell.
Spivak, G (1988) “Can the Subaltern Speak?” in
C. Nelson anbd L. Grossberg (eds) Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture. London: Palgrave.
Starr, A (2000) Naming the Enemy. Anti-Corporate Movements Confront
Globalisation. London: Zed Books.
Unger, R.M. (1987) False Necessity:
Anti-Necessitarian Social Theory in the Service of Radical Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
(1998) Democracy
Realized. The Progressive Alternative. London: Verso.
Urry, J (2002) ‘Time, Complexity and the
Global’, published by the Department of Sociology, University of Lancaster at <www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/sociology/soc057ju.html>
Wainwright, H (2002) “Notes Towards a New
Politics. New Strategies for People
Power”, TNI Briefing Series, No 3.
Waterman, P (1998) Globalisation, Social
Movements and the New Internationalism.
London: Mansell.
(2002) Reflections on the 2nd World Social
Forum in Porto Alegre: What’s Left
Internationally?, Working Papers
Series, No. 362, Institute of Social Studies, The Hague.