On Sat, 31 Jan 1998, Andrew Wayne Austin wrote:
> On Sat, 31 Jan 1998, Dennis R Redmond wrote:
>
> > In true dialectical fashion, global capitalism is forcing firms to
> > create what are essentially non-market structures of sharing and
> > cooperation in order to remain competitive -- something Leftists with
> > plans to change the world into a more cooperative and sharing place
> > ought to take careful note of.
>
> What does this mean? I mean, I am interested in the behavior of TNCs, but
> the way this is worded.
It means, basically, that in the midst of the current
relapse into neoliberal barbarism, capitalism is beginning to eat itself.
It's not just the increasing networking of the professional classes who
work for the TNCs, it's economic, too: that allegedly invincible and
autonomous market is requiring bigger and bigger Government bailouts and
regulation, in order to avoid a 1929-style implosion. We've gone from S &
L bailouts in the Eighties to Japanese bank bailouts in the Nineties, to
West Germany's bailout of the ex-GDR, and now the bailout of the whole
damn Pacific Rim economy (a neat one-third of the world economy). At the
same time, global capitalism is spawning whole new techniques of workplace
input and democracy, via the electronic media as well as a multinational
labor-force with the potential of organizing itself into global unions and
Left parties. Which isn't to say it'll automatically happen -- this is our
job as activists, of course. But the potential for a 21st-century
socialism is being created in front of our very eyes.
OK. I'm way, way over quota on my WSN postings, so I'll shut up now & let
other folks have their say for awhile.
-- Dennis