NOT FOR QUOTATION OR CITATION WITHOUT THE AUTHOR’S WRITTEN PERMISSION
Michael R. Krätke
Towards another International?
Transnational Social Movements Against Global Capitalism
University of Amsterdam
Department of Political Science
Oude Zijds Achterburgwal 237
1012 DL Amsterdam
First draft, please do not quote.
“Get rid of capitalism and replace it with something nicer! “
Slogan at the mayday demonstration in London 2001
1. Social movements - new and old
Today’s anti-globalist movements look very much like the “new social movements”of recent decades, as opposed against the “old”, that is the socialist and working-class based movements of earlier times. However, there are more similarities than clear cut differences between “old” and “new” social movements. The picture of the “traditional” and “class-based” social movements of the 19th century as depicted by the votaries of “new”social movements is historically ill informed, to say the least. We should know better than to believe in the now conventional and highly misleading picture of a homogenous, tightly organized, unified working class movement. As a matter of well established historical fact, those move-ments were anything but univocal, nor homogenous, and they did not constitute just one single collective actor in a single social drama with one clear cut “big issue”, the issue of socialist liberation (cf. Katznelson / Zolberg 1987; Calhoun 1993). There were different movements with varying degrees of mobilization at different times, there were different organizations and different collective actors, more often than not compound actors. Working-class collective identity used to be highly contested; notions of “class” and “class struggle” were as much analytical concepts as they were symbols of political and social identities. And highly con-tested ones, as heated debates raged on over who should be included in the working class and who should be excluded, whether manual workers or industrial workers or “workers of all kinds” should belong to the one class, whether divisions between skilled and unskilled, male and female, industrial workers and artisans should be taken into account or not. Working-class based movements brought forth and tried various forms of organization and collective action - from clubs to parties, from friendly societies and multi-functional trade unions to co-operatives in various guises. Women and non-industrial workers, small artisans and casual workers were everything but absent from the “old” movements. Religious, national and ethnic divides were not subdued by an alleged predominance of an ideal “average” industrial worker dominating all and every labour movements.
Another myth transported by the fashionable grand “meta-narratives” of postmo-dernism refers to the clear cut sequence of “materialist” or “economic” values or goal orientations first and “non-materialist” values and orientations much later, that is only in recent decades. A myth that lies at the heart of the fancy “post-materialism” thesis, but is historically as flawed as any other of the fairy tales of which the bulk of so called theories about “New Social Movements” is made of. The early labour movements of the nineteenth century were as defensive of “life-worlds”, as moralizing, as bent upon politicizing various aspects of everyday life, as eager to wage moral crusades for a better world, as prepared to challenge the extant division between public and private spheres as the New Social Movements are according to the now standardized tales. From the chartist movement onwards, they were more often than not going far beyond the scope of purely class movements engaging in battles for citizenship and citizen’s rights as well as they were battling for working men’s rights proper (cf. Calhoun 1993). In a specific sense, and due to the actually much higher level of labour mobility and labour migration until 1914 (even in comparison with the present stage of “globalization”), they were much less confined to national borders or ethnic communities than they are today. Journeymen artisans, migrant workers, even migrant working class communities played a considerable role in an ongoing exchange of ideas, practices, people between those move-ments, establishing links and even “networks” of relations between members of movements from different countries, spurred by several waves of forced, political emigration in the 1840ties and after. Some kind of grass - roots internationalism “from below” already existed long before the first, short-lived international organization of the labour movements was created in the 1860ties. And it provided a base for “internationalism” at least among certain groups of workers throughout the European continent until 1914.
2. Anti-globalism as social and political movement
According to influential papers like the Economist or the Financial Times the recent surge of mass movements “against globalization” embody some kind of “anti-“ or even “counter-capitalism”. However, the “new” movements are rarely denounced as being socialist or communist. Anarchists may be part of it, even social-democrats and trade unionists of different brands, but socialists they are not. The very fact that they doe not flock together in a struggle for some kind of economics and politics different from capitalism, some sort of “socialism” or “communism” makes them a moving target difficult to hit for the veterans of many ideological battles on the right as on the left. Marxists of different strands are to be found in its ranks and files, even among the few “leaders”, but they are a tiny minority. Clearly on the fore are spokesmen and -women supporting moral and political criticisms of global capitalism, arguing against the big multinational corporations, against the power of financial markets and / or pleading the cause of the losers of globalization. If there is anti-capitalism or anti-imperialism, it is of a special breed, lacking the determination and comprehensiveness of earlier socialist movements. Globalization is the catch and buzz word that dominates the political debates in today’s anti-globalist movements. What is more, the intellectual debates and much of the books and pamphlets circulating within the movements are not very far from the world views as exposed in the writings of many of the more enthusiastic votaries of the “globalization” proper, the “hyper-globalizers” as they are called in academic parlance. Globalization myths and, accordingly, many hardy, even foolhardy statements of highly contested and disputable “facts” are disseminated by the alleged critics and adversaries of globalization. In the writings of authors like Noreena Hertz or Naomi Klein you will easily find statements that could be regarded as summaries of the neoliberal cause, praising capitalism for its unrivalled achievement in generating wealth and bringing forth unprecedented economic growth in most of the world (cf. Hertz 2001, p. 10). For many, at least for the dominant spokesmen / -women of the movement, the problem is not capitalism, not even capitalism as a world system, but a specific set of false policies, and /or some false developments or developments going just too far - like the de-regulation and liberalization of financial markets in recent years that have led towards what is perceived as a dominance of financial markets and financial capital in the present world economy (cf. f.i. Bello e.a. 2000; Patomäki 2001). For some, it is the uncontrolled power of multinational corporations that is to be blamed for all the discontents of the present era of world capitalism and that has to be checked accordingly (cf. f.i. Klein 2000). So, it is not capitalism as such, not even capitalism as a world-system, but rather certain aspects of it or certain sorts of capital together with certain practices of capitalist enterprise that is to be blamed.
Today’s movements do not lack an element of utopianism either, a view of a better, brighter world of justice and peace in the future. However, this is not as clear cut as the utopia’s of the older labour movements used to be. Labour movements worldwide even had their real utopia’s to refer to - some of them hailed by virtually all of them like the Paris Commune, some of them ardently contested like the great examples of Soviet Union or Red Vienna, just to mention a few. Today’s anti-globalists might find similar examples in some area’s of the world: Examples of local self-government defying the apparently overwhelming logic of neoliberal recipes of economic policy and especially intriguing as they occur in coun-tries and regions belonging to what used to be called the 3rd world until recently. Neverthe-less, these examples are hailed and cherished, but not presented as models for the rest of the world to follow. If there is a common denominator for the variety of anti-globalist move-ments, it is not to be found in some kind of alternative model or concept. The movement as it presents itself today to the eye of the sympathetic beholder is imbued with traditional liberal concepts like the idea of self-determination - against the dictatorship of foreign or global capital - and the overarching ideal of “justice” in economic relations. Justice for all, especially the weak, the losers and the victims of globalization so far, that is what they share as a com-mon value. Hence, the popularity of the label “global justice movement” that some use to denominate the peculiar stance of the new movements.
Recently, these movements have gained a lot of attention and sympathy in the mass media. Of course, they created big media events like the mass demonstrations in the streets of Genoa and other sites of international summits and the media-professionals were grateful for that. It is a mass movement of young people mostly, so it is attractive again for that reason for the media. But journalists are not stupid, at least not all of them. So they quickly realized that these movements are not all that radical that they are cracked up to be. Regarding the proposal of a Tobin-tax which is certainly the most wide spread idea bringing together larger parts of the anti-globalist movements in different parts of the world, this is by origin and by impact a highly conventional, even liberal reform perfectly fitting into a world of softly regula-ted (financial) markets. Only die hard market fundamentalists might find it hard to digest. Objections to it are of a purely pragmatic nature.[1] Whatever its difficulties and its merits, it can hardly be regarded as a “revolutionary” measure that would turn the world of financial markets upside down.
3. Internationalism and the varieties of anti-capitalism
In comparison with the Internationals of the labour movement, the new anti-globalist movement has a much broader scope, but not any larger impact. In terms of actors involved, it displays a larger diversity as it is not made up of political parties and / or trade unions, although both political parties and trade unions, at least factions of both, are taking part, their representatives “unofficially” showing up in ever larger numbers at the larger mass events like the World Social Forum (Porto Alegre I , II and III). Dominant are movements like Attac which are certainly not political parties but rather loose networks of local clubs without a clear cut centralized nor hierarchical authority structure and only a minimum of common articles or constitutional documents. Attac is peculiar as it is a mix of an organization of individuals and of collectivities (legal persons or already existing organizations) joining a larger compound. In this respect, it is highly comparable to the traditional Labour Party as it existed before recent reform efforts by so called modernizers came into sway. Trade unions, but also co-operatives and other firms - like some of the leading left wing periodicals in France -, local and regional groups and farmer’s associations, tenant’s associations, citizen’s initiatives have all joined and they are participating in a structure of local committees ( more than 200 in the case of France) all over the country that act as the movement’s constituencies. Within two years, it has spread all over the EU member states and some of the future member countries where very similar groups have sprang up under the same name. It exists now in more than 40 different countries. They have not replaced already existing and well established NGO’s but rather build informal alliances with them, using already existing informal networks and expanding them. Cooperation is widespread, especially in the field that these new movements characteristically share with the “old” labour movements - that is popular education. All of them are first and foremost learning organizations, educating themselves and each other, whether in the garb of summer or winter schools or universities, evening and / or weekend seminars or else. Where possible, they make use of the still existing infrastructure for educational activities as they have been built up by the trade unions, the co-operatives and other organizations in many European countries. Which is, of course, an element that makes them rather attractive for young intellectuals and students.
The World Social Forums in Porto Allegre as well as the European and the Latin American Social Forums have made it quite clear that these movements are no longer dominated by Europeans and / or North Americans. Attac has spread out and sprung up in North America, in most Latin American countries, in Japan as well as in some African countries. Movements and NGO’s from 3rd world countries as well as trade unions and farmers’ associations or other varieties of “poor people’s movements” are now clearly in the majority. And similar groups from the former “socialist” countries have recently joined in increasing numbers. Still, and the apparent regularity of highly popular mass meetings like the World Social Forum notwithstanding, there is no international organization binding together what is a de facto international movement of movements from an ever increasing number of countries in the world. But these world or continental fora, what one might call the internatio-nal conferences of the anti-globalist movement, have already much more participants, demand a much larger organizational effort, have a much wider impact than the conferences of the former and still existing internationals ever had. Until this very day, their success depends upon unpaid voluntary work of thousands of people in several hundreds of local and regional and national committees charging themselves with the difficult task of preparing the next world wide meeting for the movements’ activists.
Clearly, the first three internationals have been dominated by white, male and mostly European working class people, representing only parts of the actually existing labour movements of their day. The first international (IWA, International Working Men’s Association), founded in 1864 on the initiative of French and British trade unionists, remained a clearly Western European affair, its impact upon North America restricted to the circles of mostly German speaking immigrants. As far as it took any action and interfered in world politics, it was in a classical symbolical and highly intellectual way - by issuing pamphlets and declarations, the declarations issued by its London based General Council concerning the Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune being the most prominent examples. In 1870/ 71 it was at the height of its fame and public response, mostly due to its alleged role as the clandestine organizing force behind the Paris Commune. As a body for mutual information and exchange it hardly started to work, although initiatives for the organization of systematic surveys on the life and working conditions of working class people in several countries were announced - and in one, exceptional case, the enquête ouvrière as prepared by Marx himself, actually launched - with a rather modest success. First and foremost, the international acted as a body for propaganda and as such, propagating the idea of independent, working class based political parties, labour parties with a clear socialist orientation, it succeeded - although an actual split over the issue of the political organization of the working class was only avoided by what amounted to disbanding the international. But its real and increasing influence among the emerging industrial working class in Europe depended upon its actual and repeated assistance in industrial conflicts: The IWA was for quite some time, between 1864 and 1872, able to manage and coordinate activities to support industrial strikes in various European countries, trying to prevent the importation of blacklegs, collecting money, organizing public support for the workers actually engaged in industrial action. Hence, it was more than a mere propaganda society and did its share in organizing solidarity actions across borders, however small in size and scope (cf. Knudsen 1988).
Like its predecessor, the Second International rose and flourished in an age of nationalism. It was based upon working class communities within the borders of already established “nation” states, its members being well established socialist parties regarded as representative for at least a larger proportion of the working class in their respective home countries. As some smaller strands of working class movements, especially anarchism, were excluded, it achieved more of an “ideological” unity than the first international. Its “internatio-nalism” was clearly opposed to the prevailing mood of nationalist, even chauvinist confron-tation between rivalling industrial and imperialist powers that the conservative, liberal, even christian political parties of the bourgeois right and centre adhered too and propagated. The dominant form of internationalism in the high times of classical “imperialism” was to be found in the international conferences of the national socialist parties that had joined the Second International. As an organization, it looked much more impressive than its predecessor, em-bracing more parties, much more members and being more thoroughly rooted in the industrial proletariat of the leading industrial nations of the capitalist world. It also fared somehow better as an organization, at least as far as its impact upon some pieces of national legislation was concerned. With regard to labour legislation it had some influence, although limited, both on the national and international level. As an alliance of socialist political parties, many of whom were already represented in national parliaments, it provided some symbolical joint action - declaring its intention to resist any European war by more or less all means. In fact, it was the only forum available for socialist parties for a long time where they could debate their views on foreign and international politics proper and take something like diplomatic action. When the real test for joint, international action according to its many declarations came in July and August 1914 it failed - some courageous exceptions notwithstanding - and perished within days as an international organization.