Civil Society Marches Toward Global Governance

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 12:53 PM 1/11/00 +0000, R. Magellan wrote:
>
>See below an example (in Armenia) of what Yoshie has referred to.  The 
>related links are full with references to civil society and the former 
>Soviet bloc countries.  This is the new ideological usage of that old 
>concept.   Let's remember the best known reference to it in Marx  (A 
>contribution to the critique of political economy, Preface, 1859):
>

I would not pay too much attention to what the Eastern European scribbling
class says about "civil society" or any other subject that resonates in the
'West.' Paraphrasing John Kenneth Galbraith, these folks tend to be well
versed in the art of providing the needed conclusions to those in the
position to bestow status and resources upon them, be it the communist
party nomenklature or western aid offcials and foundations.  As my Mexican
friend used to say, "for money, even a dog will dance" - let alone symbol
manipulators weaned from government-funded sinecures.

The best way of approaching at all this "civil society" babbling is to skip
the normative parts telling us what "civi society" ought to be (about 3/4
of what's been written on the subject) and focus on empirical research of
what the said organizations are actually doing. Caustion: "empirical" does
NOT mean "anectdotal."

wojtek