> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]On Behalf Of Patrick Bond
> Sent: Thursday, December 16, 1999 2:37 PM
>
> We have a very serious debate going on in the int'l movement now.
> You can't be so slippery, comrade Nathan. Who said, "ain't nothing
> in the middle of the road but dead armadillos"?
Jim Hightower (most recently famous in the US for the phrase). But arguing against "nix it" or "fix it" approaches is not being in the middle of the road when neither choice is really available. In practice, the "fix it" crowd is arguing for a weak "social clause" in a new round of WTO talks, while the "nix it" crowd basically is arguing for derailing the present WTO round, without a real plan for dismantling the established WTO/GATT system.
Of course, there is a serious debate of those arguing and fighting for a more sophisticated set of concerns and strategies-- I don't claim some great unique theory here. I was challenging the nix-it versus fix-it opposition being discussed post-Seattle. I actually think that there is far more unity on the broad long-term goals of the Seattle activists, despite friction over the strategic choice of how to approach the WTO round of discussion.
> > But the nix-it crowd is intellectually weak as well. Global
> capital will
> > not fall to its knees if the IMF, World Bank and the WTO ceased to exist
> > tomorrow.
>
> Who said it would? The argument is simply that global K's main
> cops would be taken off the beat, and that would be good news for
> the world's majority.
>[we will be better off] if the
> WashCon global deregulatory finance agenda fades because
> there's now more space for nation-states to impose capital
> controls, financial repression, reflation, etc.
Let's stop here for a second, since this is the crux of the debate (and it effects a whole lot of issues). Does global capitalism need these multinational institutions to exert its power? Unlike you, I am not convinced that the answer is yes or even that capital would be weaker without them.
Capital strike and country by country manipulation of politics is a quite reasonable substitute. The fact is that increased trade does two large things at once- changes the total global economic pie and changes power over and distribution of that pie. So capital may support those trade institutions for the perceived increase in the economic pie it delivers, yet be able to thrive quite well or better relative to grassroots forces in a world without them.
So I am not sure I agree with your argument that abolishing the WTO-IMF-World Bank "WashCon institutions" would "just provide a great deal more room for maneuvre in each local, national and regional site of progressive struggle."
Which does bring us to the issue at hand:
> But the
> international progressive movement debate in December 1999 that I
> think is most immediate -- and also most important for keeping up
> the leftward momentum -- is whether to play insider reform games
> on the one hand, or on the other to definitively end any pretense of
> a global state "regulating" (sic) capital movements in neoliberal (or
> even Post-WashCon) mode, instead moving towards restored
> national (and regional) sovereignty so that working-class and other
> progressive movements can get back on their feet.
Ah yes, "sovereignty"- you actually have more agreement with Pat Buchanan on that strategic point than I do, even if I would much prefer what you would do with that sovereinty than him.
No, I don't buy the sovereignty line; there is none in a global capitalist order where multinationals wield more economic power than whole nations and any country can be whip-sawed and disciplined by financial markets and capital strike far more effectively than by any WashCom institution.
In theory, we have an irreconcilable strategic opposition here, since I do think more not less regulation is the answer -- although not necessarily as a classic reform of the Big Evil Three. But then, neither shutting the Big Three down nor more serious regulation is likely to come to a vote any time soon.
So the real fight is going to be blocking this round of WTO agreements with its goals of promoting agribusiness and public service privatization. And on that point, the Seattle coalition will end up broadly united. So whether you like it or not, we can still all join hands and sing kum-bai-ya together.
Not that this broader strategic divide is not important and it will inform a lot of debates (and foment divisions where I don't think it has to in practical terms), but since you thought my socialist strategy was too escoteric and I think your "shut down the Evil Three" strategy is almost as unlikely in the near term, what do you think are the practical problems in pushing forward coalition work?
Given the resistance of capital to a serious labor and environmental clause in the WTO, moderate AFL-CIO demands for a labor clause is just as destabilizing to the WTO talks as smashing windows. I would argue more so, since moderate demands that you know the elite won't accept are often the most gnawing tactics possible for grassroots movements. There are of course worries about opportunism and settling for shit, but that is always a possibility on all sides, since if the talks continue to breakdown, the elites are going to be looking around for grassroots forces to coopt with petty concessions - whether on geneticly engineered food, sea turtle protection, or a watered down labor clause with no teeth. But the AFL-CIO and most grassroots US enviro groups opposed NAFTA with its bullshit side accords, so there's not too much worry that capital will offer enough to get a deal.
So if, as I argue, we are neither going to "fix it" - meaning get a serious labor or enviro clause in the WTO - or "nix it" -- meaning eliminate the institutions altogether, why can't those rhetorical strategies florish side-by-side in a coalition sharing the same goal of greater justice and global equity?
-- Nathan Newman