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I. What is Globalisation?
Globalisation has become a bÍte noire for all sorts of people--activists and academics, reformists and revolutionaries. At a time when nationalism is resurgent, we see an internationalisation of struggle. And yet... confusion reigns--confusion over our objectives, our ideals, our methods and goals. A confusion that could be fatal--if we miss our chance when it is presented to us we might not get another one. We are living in critical times. Therefore in the following pages we examine the background to globalisation, the struggle against it and some of the confusions and misunderstandings that surround it. The current trend for opposing globalisation appears to have fallen for an inverted version of the same illusion that those in favour of it suffer from--that what is occurring (and has been for approximately the last 20 years) is something new and radically different to what has gone before. The things that are identified as constituting globalisation--free trade, the free movement of capital, the growth of international regulatory bodies and institutions, the expansion of multinationals and the creation of one global 'culture'-- are new in the sense that they are new forms of organisation and structure but in essence they are a continuation of what has gone before. Capital has always been global. The capitalist system is the most adaptable and voracious in history. From its beginning it has been driven by the need to constantly expand or die; the changes that have occurred in recent years are an expression of this need. Globalisation is 'worse' in the sense that it represents an attempt at extending and intensifying capital's grip on humanity, but it is not worse, as some seem to imply, in opposition to a mythical idealised past when capitalism was nice and local and the state intervened to protect us against the markets. The logic is the same now as it always been--to exploit people and nature to the maximum extent possible. The fact that in some previous eras this exploitation may have taken place in a way that was softer or more 'democratic' doesn't change its essential nature. In order to understand the process that has become known as globalisation, it is essential to understand the trajectory taken by post-war capitalism. Looked at in this context, globalisation can be seen not as a separate phenomenon but rather as the effect of the crisis caused by the resurgence of European and American class struggle in the late 1960s and the 1970s.