The "New World Order," economic globalization and neo-liberalism are
understandably receiving long-due criticism from popular forces. A conference is
being held in Washington about the costs of globalization. Phil McMichael's
article, "The new colonialism: global regulation and the restructuring of
the interstate system," (pp. 37-56 in David A. Smith and Jozsef Borocz
(eds.) _ A New World Order? Global Transformations in the Late
Twentieth Century_ (New York: Praeger 1995) makes the case against
economic globalization.
But progressives need to be wary about joining up with economic
nationalists like Buchanan. The progressive attack on neo-liberalism
needs to be organized at national, international and global levels if it is
to succeed. Socialism at the national level has never worked in the past
and it certainly will not work in a world that is more interlinked than ever
before. In the same Smith and Borocz collection is a thoughtful article
by Andre Drainville about new forms of Left internationalism. It may be the
case that the old forms were somewhat premature, and that internationalism
has finally become not only desireable but necessary.
This does not mean that local, regional and national-level
struggles are irrelevant. They are just as relevant as they always have
been. But they need to also have a global strategy and global-level
cooperation lest they be isolated and defeated.
The international segment of the world capitalist class is indeed moving
slowly toward global state formation. Rather than oppose this move
progressives should make every effort to organized social and political
globalization, and to democratize the emerging global state. We need to
prevent the normal operation of the interstate system and future hegemonic
rivalry from causing a future war among core powers. And we need to
transform the emerging world society into a global democratic commonwealth
based on collective rationality, liberty and equality.
To do this we need to construct a new philosophy of democratic and
egalitarian liberation. But this will not require throwing out all the
ideals of the European Enlightenment. It was not the Enlightenment
philosophy that caused Europe to dominate and exploit the world. Rather
it was the military and economic power generated by capitalism that
made European hegemony possible. The ideals of the Enlightment had often to
be stretched or ignored in the process.
Wing critique of capitalism are shared by non-European philosophies.
Democracy (in the sense of popular control over collective decision-making)
was not invented in Greece. It was a characteristic of all non-hierarchical
human societies on every continent. My point is that the new universalism
can incorporate quite a lot from the old universalisms. After all,
national self-determination and multiculturalism _vis a vis_ religion
have been important features of liberalism. It is not
liberal ideology that caused so much exploitation and domination. It was
the failure of real capitalism to live up to its own ideals. That is the
problem that progressives must solve.
chris
Prof. Chris Chase-Dunn
Department of Sociology
Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, MD. 21218 USA
tel 410 516 7633 fax 410 516 7590 email chriscd@jhu.edu