WTO Protest

WSN,

Claims that the WTO protests are expressions of nationalist sentiments are
misguided. I do not think that WTO protesters are motivated solely by the
loss or possible loss of their jobs due to globalization (although this
complaint should not be dismissed as a nationalist interest). They are
concerned about a great many other things. What will happen to labor
standards in the U.S., standards that were achieved through long struggle?
Will workplace safety be threatened? What about these issues in the
periphery? The U.S. standards, albeit inadequate, must be maintained (and
strengthened) and serve as goals for peripheral markets to obtain. Should
we have the U.S. lower its standards to the typical level of the EPZ? What
about consumer protections? Dolphin- and sea turtle-contaminated fish
products are only the beginning of an assault on consumer protection. WTO
protesters are concerned about resource extraction, land management, and
global warming. There are many other matters that rightly worry U.S.
citizens. And the struggle of U.S. citizens strengthens the hand of
peripheral workers and peasants.

Marx and Engels argue that the labor movement is vital to the progression
of socialism. The reformist labor organizations "work well as centers of
resistance against the encroachments of capital," Marx writes in Value,
Price, and Profit. Noting that the struggle over maintaining an adequate
wage level does not transform the system, Marx asks, "is this to say that
the working class ought to renounce their resistance against the
encroachments of capital and abandon their attempt at making the best of
the occasional chances for their temporary improvement?" He answers: "If
they did, they would be degraded to one level mass of broken down wretches
past salvation." Marx and Engels are not ambiguous about the importance of
reform, but a lot of Marxists are.

It does no good to allow capital the freest possible reign over humankind.
In fact, restricting capital weakens capital; if workers can constrain the
free movement of capital and limit capitalists' ability to maximize the
production of surplus-value and the realization of profits, workers can
force or at least amplify crisis in the system. The errors some Marxists
commit when they make blanket criticisms of resistance and reform result
from a crude teleology, namely, by letting capitalism mature as fast as
possible its end is brought around more rapidly. In this view, reform and
resistance slow the progression of capitalism and postpone the inevitable
fall of the system, thus strengthening the capitalist system even while it
improves the living conditions of workers. Some Marxists even advocate a
program of capitalist modernization globally to create the conditions for
a global socialist revolution, often misusing Marx and Engels' point that
workers have no country--forgetting or omitting that M-E argue that
workers have to settle accounts with their own bourgeoisie first, that the
proletarian struggle is at first a national one, as well as stressing that
communists must actively associate with mainstream national parties to
advance the interests of working people. Marx argues in Value, Price, and
Profit that the problem with resistance and reform is not that it
strengthens the capitalist system or prolongs its demise but that elements
of the working class who pursue only these strategies suffer from a lack
of vision and proper level of agitation. What the labor movement "ought to
inscribe on their banner," Marx says, is "the *revolutionary* watchword:
*"Abolition of the wages system!"* But this does not mean giving up
reform. In Marx's view people have to struggle to maintain a decent
living standard.

The problem for communists and socialists is not that people are in
Seattle protesting the WTO. Indeed, there would be a real problem if
nobody protested an organization whose goal is to free capital to rule
over the world in the strongest possible fashion. The problem is that
there is not a summit of progressive organizations being held in Seattle
to organize workers and students into a revolutionary movement to
overthrow capitalism. But lacking this does not mean that capital is
strengthened by the protests or that the protesters are a manifestation of
nationalism or populism.

Andy Austin