To Be Or Not To Be: The Nation Centric World Order Under Globalization
By Jerry Harris

The new global organization of labor was a hot political issue in the US presidential race and also appeared in Europe as lower cost eastern European nations joined the EU. Furthermore, these tensions have increased the appeal of reactionary nationalist movements, and appear within the global justice movement as activists struggle between international labor solidarity and fighting job loss at home. Can working class movements develop a political strategy that defends the right to jobs for Chinese and Mexican workers while defending jobs in the US and Europe? This is a key task in building an alternative social vision and radical movement. The left must define a clear road between nationalism and capitalist globalization, and any such strategy must have a clear grasp between transnational and national modes of accumulation to articulate distinct working class interests.

On political matters Douglass Daft, former chairman and chief executive of Coca-Cola, writing with Niall Fitzgerald, co-chairman of Unilever, appealed to the transnational business community “to prevent current US-European diplomatic tensions spilling over into the economic sphere.” As they point out: “Thanks to continuing levels of transatlantic foreign direct investment, most large companies can no longer be categorized as ‘US’ or ‘European’ companies but rather as ‘transatlantic companies.” (Daft and Fitzgerald) Yet Daft and Fitzgerald’s fail to offer a clear political alternative relying instead on old globalist’s economic solutions such as eliminating barriers to direct investment and increasing the flow of goods and services. The real problem facing the transnational capitalist class is pushing forward their political project. This is the heart of their troubles when confronting nation/centric institutional power. Structural economic change will not by itself defeat the nationalist hegemonic agenda. The emergence of a transnational state now taking form in global institutions such as the World Trade Organization and within national states as they transform to help structure transnational relations remains only partially articulated. The economic vision is strong but its political voice often struggles to be heard.

One articulate voice for the transnational capitalist class is Martin Wolf, chief economic commentator for the Financial Times. In his recent book he contends the biggest obstacle to global prosperity is “not global economic integration or transnational companies, as critics allege, but the multiplicity of independent sovereigns. Its is not just the failure of states, but their existence, that creates the problems we now confront.” Wolf’s solution is a “powerful mechanism…for jurisdictional integration” that ultimately should take the form of a “world-country” or “global federation with equal voting rights for all.” (Wolf) Few globalists are so clear and militant in their anti-nationalist politics or bold in their political vision.

Perhaps the clearest new political agenda to appear is the formation of Third World globalists into the G-20 under the leadership of Brazil, India and South Africa. Demanding a more equal political arrangement in the WTO and other world bodies they put forward a post-Keynesian vision of globalization that seeks to balance growth with social investments. Their vision for national development is not a rehash of the 1960s strategy of import substitution and state backed industrialization, but one of full and equal integration into the global economy but with a cautious approach to privatization and capital mobility. This effort to balance the national economy within the context of global accumulation has been dubbed the “Beijing Consensus” by Joshua C. Ramo. Ramo argues the explosive rise of China with its rejection of important aspects of the Washington Consensus is providing an alternative globalizing strategy gaining popularity with developing countries. This represents both a struggle within the transnational capitalist class as well as between Third World globalists and Western national capitalists. (Ramo) More >>