archivi delle proteste globaliarchives of global protestsStrategy for global anticapitalism
by Torkil Lauesen, Copenhagen 10.7.96
Through out the last 20 years the world has changed radically. I'm not only thinking of the great political events about 1989, but I'm thinking of more profound global changes in a much longer perspective of time. After the disappearance of the Berlin wall and the end of the East - West conflict, these changes clearly stand out. Capitalism has once again undergone a development and its form has changed.
We, anti-imperialists, have not been able to ajust to this development. Our image of the world and our strategy was mainly funded in the beginning of the 1970's: The main enemy was the imperialism of USA. The third world was offended. We were to support the liberation movements. They ought to create a society based on socialism, they were to brake down the imperialism and change the world. In those years it maybe was realistic, at least Vietnam had its victory. The same happened in Zimbabwe and Nicaragua etc. But were they capable of building the society we all dreamed about? Did the imperialism brake down? No! The world changed, but it didn't respond to our struggle. Did we understand what was going on and were we capable of developing our strategy? At least we were submitted to pressure through out the 80's by Thatcher, Reagan, EU, the World Bank, IMF, neo- liberalism, debt crisis, structural adjustment etc. What ever our position was towards the Soviet Union - solidarity or criticism - the collapse of the real existing socialism meant that we had to re-think our strategy.
In short, our strategy of changing the world was as follows: We must organised ourselves in trade unions and political parties and we must conquer the state power by using the: ballots, through general strikes, armed guerrilla wars, long-standing civil wars or what ever. Then the next step was to use the power of state to change society.
The social democrats, the revolutionary people in Russia and East Europe and the anti- imperialists in the third world China, Cuba, Vietnam, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Nicaragua and South Africa obtained state power. And yes they changed something. The social democrats in the western part of the world succeeded in creating better working and living conditions within the frames of capitalism, but they didn't change the world radicaly. On the contrary, capitalism became modernised and consolidated in our part of the world. A consolidation which ensure the global fuction of capitalism
The communists in the east part got rid of an old fashioned feudalism and tried through state power to create a socialistic society, but as known they failed. In a number of years they succeeded in debilitating the market's forces in the east block, but they didn't create a radical different society. On the contrary a longing for modern western capitalism was created. Their conquest of the state power by socialists was not an irremediable break with the ruling world order. It was not a step forward which could not be erased. The state socialism in east was turned back. In the third world the socialists also obtained power. In many countries they got rid of colonialism, they cleaned up an old fashioned form of capitalism, but they did not, in spite of our and their dreams, create a radical different society.
Concerning radical changes, we have not reach that far even after 150 years of anticapitalistic struggle. I don't think it is owed to individual treachery or corruption. Many of the communists and socialists leaders wanted radical changes. On one side I believe it is owed to an underestimation of the capability of capitalism for change and development. An underestimation of its capability to penetrate our life, our norms and our way of thinking. Capitalism is not just exploitation, suppression and poverty. Capitalism is also a life style; individualism, a moral codex, the way we relate to each other. On the other side it is owed to an overestimation of the possibilities for radical changes, nation by nation and through the state power. To push it to extremes: You can't change the world through state power, maybe you can reform it.
I don't want to make a fool of this reformism. We wouldn't be able to fight for radical changes if the struggle for the life terms wasn't present. But everybody will be in a very bad shape in about 25 -50 years if nobody fights for radical change.
I don't believe the ruling power, by that I mean that the global neoliberalism, will last for 25 -50 years more. The ruling order is ecologically and socially going down. I believe the next decades will be overwhelmed by chaos and disturbances based on the conflicts created by the global capitalism and based on a lack of strategies and visions for change, created by failure of socialism. It is going to be worse if we don't come up with something - it is not only continuing as present. The alternative is some kind of socialism or barbarity.
The globalisation of neoliberalism present two problems: First our old descriptions of capitalism aren't current any longer, there are too many circumstances that can't be explained. We need a new description of the composition of the world, and a description of realities of the world, and these descriptions ought to include explanations.
Second, our strategy of building up The Party which should guide the working class towards the conquest of the state of power didn't work. The conquest should afterwards assure socialism in all countries. Practically it was a flop. We didn't manage to mobilise the population towards changes in our part of the world. We didn't get the societies we dreamed about in Soviet, China, Vietnam, Zimbabwe, Nicaragua or in any other place in the world, where people with whom we sympathised with, gained power. Do we have a strategy which can manage the offensive neoliberalism? I don't think so. That is what we have start building up. It is not enough just to clean up the old dusty slogans, strategies and technics while saying: " Now we really need "to get hands of". We have to learn from the failures, we have to think in a new way, the world has to change.
Globalisation
Then what are the signs of today's world?. If I should use a few words they would be; economic, political and cultural globalisation. First of all the financial system and the transnational companies are the motivating power in this process. It is not the different state authorities. The national states are trying to keep up with the economic power by building up political frames and organisations such as EU, NAFTA, G7 and WTO. Every day thousands of billions of dollars are crossing national frontiers. The world trade grew significantly faster than the gross national products. Only 14 national states have a GNP superior to sales of the biggest transnationals.
The old model of a mother company with roots in one country and with its branches abroad has changed into a structural network of design, supply, production and distribution facilities, e.g. electronic and car industries. The production itself has been globalised. The spare parts for one single Ford are produced in a number of different countries according to the production conditions for exactly this kind of spare part. The turnover is not brought home to the USA, the turnover is brought into the global financial market. Is Ford then an American company? Are Shell and Phillips Dutch? Is Nestle Swiss? - or are these companies not just globalised capitalistic businesses?
Globalisation and the national state
I believe that globalisation has a determinate importance for the national state and what can be done with state power. The globalisation has reduced the space for economic and social political direction within the national state. Through liberalisation of capital, merchandise and services the national state is being forced into adjustments according to the market forces. The objectives of the national state are increasingly directed by the global financial conditions. Hence the state tried to control and regulate the market and now the objective is to facilitate and service the capital.
The national state has lost capacity of solving national financial, political and ecological problems. The state is being suppressed by the financial globalisation from above and it is being pushed from below by the population, whom reacts upon the lack of capacity of solving the national problems. The fact that the state can't change the financial and social terms is boosting to ethnic, racist and regional divisions. It is only a apparently paradox when we experience a globalisation of the financial power and a revitalisation of national and regional flows. Both are signs of the reduction of the state power compared to market forces.
It does not mean that the state disappears, it is just changing its character. The globalisation is changing the rule of the game within the frames of the national state. The capital needs the state to carry out certain necessary functions, but it doesn't not need a determinate state. The capital can choose the state authority which presents the most favoured facilities and the one offering the best service. The criteria may be: cheap labour force, well educated labour force, social stability, well planned infrastructure, etc. If the rules of the game doesn't appear attractive in one state, capital may abandon the arena and try in another which offers better conditions. This change of game does have consequences for the old national state. To establish the best conditions for the accumulation of capital becomes the definitive political priority. But this also means that a working class that still tries to solve its problems on the national level not is reaching that far. It is no longer national bound capital against a national working class. It is a global mobile capital against a working class which is nationally fixed It has become far to difficult to press the capital through the national trade unions and political parties. We are going to see national authorities giving up control and regulation of finances and instead they are going to control and regulate the people. Moving away from adjustments of economics to the needs of the people and moving towards adjustments of people to the needs of the market. Control, surveillance and discipline are increasing significantly these years. Not less of the unemployed, the refugees, the immigrant and the marginal groups. This chaos and social disturbance caused by the gap between rich and poor people needs to be neutralised - discipline must be created - and it demands increased surveillance and control.
From anti-imperialism towards global anticapitalism
I believe that if the current world order is to be removed and a new one is to be build up, we will have to leave behind the national state and inter-national arena and turn it into a global anticapitalistic struggle. The national state is transformed in a way which makes it even less usable as basis for creation of democratic self-determination. The globalisation of capital destroys national democracy. Instead we have to develop local and global arenas. We have to change from citizen of state to fellow citizen and citizen of the world. After all we are all responsible for this planet and its problems. We all have to ensure a growing global consciousness and solidarity if we are going to solve the problems. Democratic development means today global democracy, no matter the national state, that is to say equalisation of the global economic and social disparity. To succeed in doing this a close local and global collaboration has to take place out of the reach of the state structure. These two kinds of collaboration have to be co-ordinated. The local activities have to be considered in a global perspective, and the global strategy has to turn into local actions because any way your actions are taking place in your local environment.
In that way the struggle for a radical new world order is not concentrated in the improvement of the existing national state or the foundation of a world state. The struggle is about setting up another political strategy with links between the local and global and links between centralised and decentralised organisations.
Pawns for strategy
New conditions and the failure of the old strategy demand new strategies which you might call global anti -capitalism. Objectively the conditions for mobilisation of such strategies are fairly good because the need for change is urgent. The monarchy of capitalism is not going to be peace and order. The future will become chaos. People are confused, angry, terrible frustrated, but they are not passive. Something is totally wrong and we know it. The necessity for action is well known as well as the acknowledge of the inadequacy of the traditional suggestions.
Subjectively the conditions are far to hard. The setback of the anti-imperialistic struggle and the failure of the old socialist bloc make it difficult to develop alternatives and strategies with a mobilising strength. We have to try to transform the present feeling of impotence to a kind of power of opposition. I feel that a new global left wing is conscience about the necessity of a new strategy. The global neoliberalism has erased the old national strategy of changing the world but one present common enemy - global neoliberalism is lined up.
The force of this new global left wing are movements of exploited, suppressed and marginalised people. They are struggling against an financial world order which causes poverty but no democracy and autonomy. Frequently the point of departure of these movements are local conditions and they are case orientated. Their global perspective is shown in a meeting such as this in the jungle of Chiapas.
The necessity for global perspective is now more urgent than ever before. Our enemy - the capital - is much more globalised than we are. If we don't think globally and include the global perspective in our local strategies, they will and they are going to divide us and make us fight within our own ranks. It is not enough to say that our national struggle against capitalism is our contribution to the international struggle, because the national arena is being dissolved. Working politically in order to change the world is effective on the local and global level, but political work through/within the national state is very limited.
I do not claim that the national state is unimportant but it is not the source of power. Maybe it is a kind of crystallisation of power. One shape power takes, when where all micro strategies and tactics are melted together.
The source of power is situated in the daily human relations such as our discipline and morality in the day care centre, the nursery, the school, the church, the social office, the factory, the office, supermarket etc. When we buy and sell labour power. When we buy and sell goods. When we are told what is right and what is wrong, true and false by science and media. The power is the discipline that directs our body and mind in our daily life's All these strategies end tactics are supported and unified in institutions as state authorities and transnational companies a/o. The power of the transnationals is relying on discipline and techniques of surveillance used in the production and in control of consumption. They supervise the situation of the market of capital, raw materials and sales. The production it selves is subordinated to surveillance and techniques of discipline. In the market we do what the law of the market demands. We try to sell expensive and buy cheap. We don't care about the social conditions of production We do respect private property and our identity is formed through private consumption. To live is to buy.
This way of seeing power may be difficult to deal with politically. How are you going to confront this diffuse form of power. Where and against who are you going to fight? Isn't it the authority of state, the civil servants and the transnational companies who are power?
On the other hand this way of considering power impede the illusion of liberation through conquest of state and by a replace of civil servants. I think we have to consider the power on two levels, partly as relations of micro power and more traditionally as actions done by human beings ( the secretary of state, the manager, the policeman) and by institutions (state machinery, the multinational company). Behind these human beings, institutions and organisations we have to keep an eye on the micro relations which are penetrating society - our body and soul.
We have to differ between the two perspectives. The opposition has to be directed against the responsible persons, but it is necessary to understand that the power is not their power, it is a relation between them and us and between ourselves. In that way the focus and the character of the opposition has to switch between these two conceptions in a steady development. I don't think you can change the world radically from upside down and through the state authority. You can jail people, you can torture them, yuo can make things a little better or worse - but you can not radical change the relation between human beings by the state power. State power is a form power may take- it is not the source of power it selves. Power has many complexities and many techniques at its disposition. Power possesses many places e.g. included places where we are. Power has many executors including us. That means that the opposition has many complexities and tools at its disposition. Many places can be affected including the places where we are. The opposition has many executors including ourselves.
Considering power on these two levels we have to fight two struggles: One struggle for life, food and water a struggle which takes place right now. A struggle against poverty and suppression. The state authority is here an essential factor. We may conquer the power and use it for reforms but it has its limitations.
The other struggle is for radical changes; Here the authorities will become a savage enemy which we have to neutralise and defend us against. We might even conquer it, but we must realise that the state power is not a means of radical change, though it might be a condition. The basis for radical changes is here there and everywhere where human relations exist. It demands a mobilisation on a local and a global level with a lot of different practices. It demands a various ideas and visions. The question is not to conquer the power, to conquer somebody or something but the question is to create power, create possibilities for resistance and to introduce democracy into the power of the capital, to change the way of doing things and to challenge the power in all its forms. "It is not necessary to conquer the world; it is enough to re-create it"
The market forces is not a law of nature which we have to be subordinated to, the market forces is relations between human beings which we can change from below now and here. We have to struggle against the suppression and control of human beings. We have to promote democracy as people's autonomy. Our analysis of power has been too simple and centralised. We believed that if we conquered the power and we could change society. State of power is important, but the basis of power is more than police and army. Power is presented in several ways and in many different places. Power is presented in norms, habits, ideology and in our inter relations. That means that opposition also has many ways of development and points of attacks. We need to focus on this and to develop. We need to build up new organisations and present alternatives which brake down the old order and show a new way. As the micro-power strategies are gathered together in the power machinery of the and capital the opposition have to gather its different forms and strategies and become a revolutionary process which may create radical changes when optimal conditions exist. That is when the old norms are broken down, when people don't believe in the existing definitions of what is right and what is wrong, true and false, when people have had enough, when people say ya Basta, as they say in Chiapas.
Torkil Lauesen Blågårdsplads 15. 2 sal. th. 2200 Copenhagen Denmark
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