File spoon-archives/aut-op-sy.archive/aut-op-sy_2001/aut-op-sy.0102, message 139


Date: 22 Feb 2001 09:44:06 +0200
From: "Tahir Wood" <twood-AT-uwc.ac.za>
Subject: Re: empire & globalization, was... Re: AUT: Re: autonomist




>>> pvh-AT-egenetics.com 02/21 3:27 PM >>>
a process of 'class composition'
across and against national borders. Something of this comes
across in Massimo de Angelis's 'Global Capital and Global Struggles'
http://www.acephale.org/encuentro/globintr.html. Might the supercession
(aufhebung) of capitalism be possible alongside the linkages that
globalisation creates? 

Tahir: Thanks for this reference and, having checked it out, I see how it connects with what I was suggesting. What worries me in your comments though is just the idea of being "pro-globalisation" - and I'm not talking about at a purely rhetorical level here - obviously that would be very problematic. But your theoretical points notwithstanding, one should acknowledge that a great many very vulnerable people across the globe cling to national institutions of various kinds as a way of trying to protect themselves from the forces we're talking about - the example of Cuba, amongst others, comes to mind. However misguided that may be in the bigger scheme of things, one should be very careful politically about who you line up with and how it will affect people in the shorter term. Otherwise one is just being 'clever' in the sense that sometimes gives the ultra-left a bad name.

I'm reminded of an anecdote that Chomsky related in Cape Town when he was asked by Martin Legassick: why do you seem to support certain state institutions when you're an anarchist and anarchists are supposed to be anti the state? He replied with an analogy that he'd got from some Latin American comrades: if you were inside a cage and there was a sabre-toothed tiger outside the cage you would not want to destroy the cage. You'd want to strengthen the bars, although you might also want to enlarge the cage a bit to make more room to live in. The cage here is the state. This is how a great many people are seeing globalisation at this time - it is the sabre-toothed tiger - and one has to be cognisant of this. 

Taking this political point further, I would say that what is really important is to avoid the alternative notions of citizenship that are being posed in response to the crisis of the nation state: European citizenship, a united states of Africa, etc. To me this is really sinister stuff. I'm not sure that 'global citizenship' is the best term for what I have in mind, but it does roughly capture what I'm suggesting, as long as citizenship is is conceived of in active terms, not as the bestower of 'rights' to the passive. 

There are many political and cultural difficulties also around questions of language too. Globalisation does mean the destruction of languages and the homogenisation of culture, which has a very negative impact on third world peoples, at least in the shorter term. Try taking part in an internet debate in Xhosa! Even such an international language as Spanish is of limited usefulness here, which is why many Latin American comrades rally around it. Your points about standardisation need to be considered carefully. The standardisation of national languages in Europe after 300 years or so is still only partially achieved and the extent that the masses benefitted from it relative to the bourgeoisie is a complex question. Why should this play itself out differently on an international level?

Nevertheless we are in broad agreement, I think. We will obviously have to have a more nuanced terminology than 'globalisation' to refer to these phenomena, which I think you suggested too.



Is 'globalisation', which is not only the globalisation of the ruling class, 
but also entails numerous processes of standardization (e.g. the TCP/IP 
infrastructure which makes the Internet possible, global telephonic 
communication standards, the deployment of similar 'base technologies' on a
global scale to ensure that 'innovation' (in other words extraction of 
surplus value) can be moved rapidly from place to place) and development 
of 'cultural trans-nationalism' (in the sense that 'cultural understanding' 
is vital for the development of trans-national capitalism - this means 
everything from a common 'trade language' to a desire for 'multi-
culturalism') not a resource which makes the emergence of a truly
global 'self-conscious social humanity' easier?

This is not to say that the various processes of 'globalisation' need
to accepted or rejected as one, of course.

Tahir: No problem with any of this.

BTW. Doug Henwood has a positive review of Negri & Hardt's 'Empire' in
the latest issue of LBO (LBO #96). He addresses some of the meaning of
being 'for globalisation' from a progressive perspective there. I've
got a copy on campus if you want a look.

Tahir: thanks, I would.




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