The Dialectics of Globalization (page 5 of 5)
By Jerry Harris

To appreciate the extent of holdings by major TNCs below are four of the largest European transnationals, their foreign affiliates and the countries they operate in.

Overall in Western Europe there are 39,715 TNCs with controlling interests in foreign affiliates. In return 77,415 foreign affiliates operate inside Western Europe. In every country, except Denmark, there are more foreign affiliates than TNCs of national origin. For example, in Germany there are 8,522 parent corporations with outside foreign affiliates, and 13,826 foreign affiliates doing business inside Germany. In the UK there are 3,132 parent TNCs and 13,828 affiliates active in the British economy. The United States is home to 3,235 TNCs and host to 15, 712 foreign affiliates. (UNCTD, 2003, p.222)

Such levels of integration means the largest and most powerful global capitalists are deeply invested in the health of foreign economies. Not only for sales, but as links in global assembly lines. Just as Fredrick Taylor first broke down the labor process into specialized tasks in Henry Ford’s auto factory, today the labor process is being coordinated and structured on a global scale creating new forms of labor stratification. Capitalists using information technology divide work between countries, each task located to gain the best competitive advantage. Often this means seeking low wage workers, but market access, economic infrastructure, and manufacturing and skill networks are all important factors. This organizational structure also encompasses knowledge workers so that many formally protected high skill jobs are being offshored. As Bharat Wakhlu, Tata’s US regional president explains, “When services can be digitized, it is possible to break even complex processes into discrete pieces of information and tasks.” (Roberts) One result is TNCs are beginning to simplify operations to core profitable operations while seeking business partners and outsourced labor in a variety of changing combinations for different product runs. One example is Hong Kong based clothing manufacturer Li & Fung that coordinates 7,500 business partners across the globe. (Brown/Hagel) All of this links transnational capitalists into greater levels of codependency and creates competitive forms no longer based on a nationally identified workforce or nation-centric economies.

For many workers throughout the world their economic position and struggle is defined by these new relations of production. With the rapid growth of global production chains both offshoring and immigration has created divisions within the working class reflecting the antagonism between nationalist and globalist accumulation models. Industrialization is also rapidly changing the face of Third World labor, not only through the growth of sweatshops but also the global search for employment. The $38 billion sent home to Latin America from workers abroad is now greater than the combined totals of foreign direct investment and official aid. Some 50 million people in Latin America are supported by remittances that amount to 50-80 percent of their average income. (Lapper) Worldwide remittances are estimated to be $100 billion a year. The new global organization of labor is perhaps the greatest challenge faced by unions and organized workers.

Conclusion

Rather than putting a nation-centric viewpoint at the heart of our political analysis we should understand the main contradiction as a transformation between capitalist eras. The question is which international system of accumulation will win out and how the synthesis will take shape. It is a dialectic not only played out between nations, but also between different blocs of capitalists that span national territories. Of course struggles still exist between nation states and regions, but we need to view them from a globalist standpoint. US globalists are part of the transnational capitalist class, and the many structural changes already present in the transnational accumulation model makes a US-centric world unsustainable.

Just as the transnational capitalist class spans borders so too does the global justice movement. Millions throughout the world are fighting for an international order based on solidarity. For working class parties and popular movements the question of class alliances is becoming more complex. How do we respond to protectionist and nationalist demands from workers who not only see TNCs as their enemy but also immigrants and foreign workers? Does developing an alternative economic strategy to globalism mean working with mid sized capitalists and developing models of sustainable local markets? Is temporary unity with the globalists an important step in fighting US hegemonic imperialism and does the battle against terrorist organizations have points of mutual interests between the working class and capitalists? What is our attitude towards third world globalists in China, Brazil, South Africa and India, countries lead by political parties that claim a revolutionary or anti-imperialist history who today advocate development by linking into globalist accumulation chains?

These are just some of the practical questions that revolve around the national/global nexus. All of these political and social forces exist in relationship to each other and their expressions are determined by this dialectical link. But the link is not simply national rivalries, such narrow thinking cannot appreciate the fullness and complexity of the present transitional era. For those seeking to change the world chaining progressive movements to nation-centric political agendas ignores this basic relationship and will fail to develop a clear strategy.

Jerry Harris, Professor of History
DeVry University, Chicago
3300 N. Campbell
Chicago, IL 60618
gharris234@comcast.net

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