23.01.1997

Pecking order

Around the left

A word you hear constantly these days is ‘globalisation’. This almost magical word turns up in countless newspaper and magazine articles, and in ‘learned’ books on the nature of the world market/economy. No respectable discussion show on the radio or television can go by without its evocation by the ‘experts’. The current disturbances in South Korea, and the announcement of severe job losses at Ford’s in Halewood, have been viewed through the prism of ‘globalisation’.

What does it mean though? Everything and nothing, by the looks of it. This seems to be the conclusion reached in the latest issue of Class Struggle, the quarterly journal of the Internationalist Communist Union. In an interesting article on the world economy, Class Struggle defines ‘globalisation’ as a “trendy term which obscures rather than clarifies the reality of imperialism” (January/February). Not too elegantly put perhaps, but there is certainly a strong element of truth to CA’s opinion.

CA goes on to argue: “The advantage of using such a term, at least for those who choose to use it, is that it is an all-purpose catch word, which in itself, does not mean much.” However, according to Class Struggle, both the ‘pro’ and ‘anti’ schools “start from the same assumption - namely, that ‘globalisation’ marks a qualitative change in the way imperialism works”.

This certainly appears to be the case. Many of the debates around globalisation do seem predicated on the mistaken belief that this is a totally new phenomenon, hitherto never seen before or commented upon. As Class Struggle says, “These trends are not new. They have already been visible for almost a century!” - most prominently by VI Lenin in Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism.

Another “cliché” is the idea of ‘global capital’, made flesh in the form of so-called ‘multi’-national companies. Apparently, “this capital seems to have no roots, no identified owners, as if it existed and circulated under its own steam”. This is certainly a fashionable view in some circles.

However, there is a static or mechanical feel to much of the analysis. From reading Class Struggle you would get the distinct impression that the ‘advanced’ imperialist countries - UK, USA, Germany, etc - are somehow predestined to remain the top dogs, while the medium developed countries, such as South Korea, are permanently relegated to colonial domination. In one passage, in the context of the ‘Asian tigers’, we are told that globalisation implies that an “increasing number of countries ... are already, or are in the process of becoming, fully-fledged competitors”, thus blurring the “real nature of the relations of domination between a small number of imperialist countries and the rest of the world”.

What is the iron law of history which decrees that the imperialist pecking order is fixed ad infinitum?

Don Preston