Module #1

“On Neoliberal Globalization and its Impacts”

Table of Contents

Introduction

Primary Readings

1. International Labor Organization, “Globalization Failing to Create New, Quality Jobs or Reduce Poverty”

2. Edward S. Herman, “The Threat of Globalization”

3. Manning Marable, “Globalization and Racialization”

4. Ralph Blumenthal, “Levi’s Last US Workers Mourn Loss of Good Jobs”

5. Celia W. Dugger, “Guatemala: Supermarket Giants Crush Farmers”

Further Readings

William K. Tabb, “Progressive Globalism: Challenging the Audacity of Capital”

7. Raul Zibechi, “Privatizations: The End of a Cycle of Plundering”

8. Harry Targ and David Cormier, “Globalization, Neoliberalism and Workers”

9. William I. Robinson and Jerry Harris, “Towards a Global Ruling Class? Globalization and the Transnational Capitalist Class”

INTRODUCTION

We live in a world of seemingly frenetic and radical changes in the global political economy. The computer age has instantaneously connected peoples all across the globe; thus destroying the traditional barriers of time and space. Capitalists are now able to engage in transactions worth billions of dollars each and every day. At the same time anti-globalization and election activists communicate valuable information relevant to mass mobilizations against global capitalism. It is particularly relevant for progressives and socialists to come to grips with the changing nature of the global political economy that seems to be transforming our lives in new and often negative ways.

“Global celebrants” claim that the new age, brought to us by the wonders of technology, will transform the lives of human beings, destroying once and for all malnutrition, disease, and illiteracy. All nations and people need to do is adjust their political and economic institutions in conformance with recommendations from the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, or the World Trade Organization. Progressives, Socialists, and Marxist analysts and literally millions of people around the world know that the celebratory embrace of what is called “globalization” does not ring true. In fact, they say, human suffering has dramatically escalated since Prime Minister Thatcher boldly declared about capitalist globalization: “There is no alternative.”

This module is designed to expose study group students to written materials that seek to understand the process of “globalization” and the set of policies called “neoliberal” that have created the new era of “neoliberal globalization.” The literature below suggests that the era of neoliberal globalization must be understood as a continuation of the expansion of capitalism all over the face of the earth that Karl Marx long ago identified with the capitalist project. It, like Lenin, grounds the current era in the context of monopoly capitalism, finance capital, and imperialism. However, as some of the authors below suggest, there are differences in the global political economy of the 21st century.

Intimately connected to political change is a correct theoretical analysis of the politics and economics of our own day. So uncovering what is different and what remains the same about global capitalism in the era of neoliberal globalization is of critical importance to our political activism as well as our theoretical development.

The articles in Part A provide a brief overview of what globalization is and what it has meant for workers, people of color, and farmers. The articles in Part B raise theoretical issues concerning the nature of globalization, the role of the state in a new global system, and whether a transnational ruling class has emerged to supercede national ruling classes in power. SEP discussions can be organized around the readings in Part A, Part B, or both.

These articles suggest a number of questions of relevance to study groups:

1)What is globalization? Is it new? What is different about global capitalism today from what was the case in Marx or Lenin’s time?

2)What are neoliberal policies? Who supports them? Whose interests are served by them? How do these policies relate to class, race, and gender?

3)Does the era of neoliberal globalization constitute a new stage in the development of capitalism? If so what are its key institutions?

4)What roles do states play in the current era? Are they still the locus of political power or rather must we look to transnational ruling classes that have no national loyalties? Are there differences between hegemonic states and subordinate states?

5)What roles do the IMF, World Bank, WTO, Transnational Corporations, Banks and Investment Houses, and G7 countries play in the new global order.

6)What about resistance? How do we assess the anti-privatization struggles, the rise of indigenous movements, the anti-globalization movement, World Social Fora etc? Is there still a role for the traditional left in the Global North and the Global South including socialist and communist movements and the labor movements?

7)Is another world possible?

Suggested Readings:

There are libraries filled with books and articles on globalization. Here are a few to consider:

Duncan Green, Silent Revolution, The Rise and Crisis of Market Economies in Latin America.

David Harvey, The New Imperialism and A Brief History of Neoliberalism.

James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer, Globalization Unmasked: Imperialism in the 21st Century.

William I. Robinson, A Theory of Global Capitalism: Production, Class, and State in a Transnational World.

William K. Tabb, Economic Governance in the Age of Globalization. Globalization Failing to Create New, Quality Jobs or Reduce Poverty