What alternative to globalization?

Walden Bello, The Future in the Balance: Essays on Globalization and Resistance, Edited with Preface by Anuradha Mittal (Oakland, Calif.: Food First Books, 2001), xviii+264 pages; $13.95.

What kind of popular movement is coming into being at the present time? It is certainly one that has turned its sights on capital's leading exponents, and not just in response to specific issues. More impressively, it now routinely targets capital's periodic international gatherings. Already before September 11, presidents and financial leaders could no longer confer globally except under fortress conditions, deployed against tens of thousands of protesters.

But how do these protesters define themselves politically? What is their own understanding of the institutions they oppose--and of any possible alternatives? The answers to these questions are not only mixed, but are also very much in flux. To the extent, however, that we can single out any intellectual leaders of the movement, Walden Bello would certainly have to be counted among them. Raised in the Philippines, with a doctorate in sociology from Princeton, and currently based at a research center in Bangkok (as well as teaching at the University of the Philippines), he is widely respected as an authority on East Asia and, more broadly, as a voice for the global South.

This book brings together his essays, columns, and interviews from the last four years on globalization-related issues, from the World Trade Organization to the 1997 Asian financial crisis to debates on "sustainable development." As such, it is an important document of struggle. It bears the invigorating stamp of immediacy even if it lacks the definitive quality of sustained argumentation. Its descriptive parts provide a highly readable introduction to the major international financial organizations and, especially, to the devastating impact of speculative investment on third world economies. With particular regard to Asia's formerly touted "tiger" economies, Bello offers a damning account of their shaky foundations and of their eventual collapse, as orchestrated not only by the mega-money-changers but also by U.S. policy-makers. More generally, Bello shows the degree to which, despite official rhetoric about trade "helping the world's poor," exports from rich countries remain heavily subsidized while interna tional organizations have abandoned whatever countervailing support they might once have offered the third world--for example, by insisting on more equitable terms of trade--during the heyday of post-Second World War developmentalism.

Bello may be read as a reliable guide to the institutions of neoliberalism as they have taken shape over the last quarter-century. So long as he is addressing the mechanics of these institutions and their impact, he is on solid ground. Much of his discussion, however, goes beyond this to touch, even if lightly, on deeper structural questions. His positions here become more debatable, but are all the more important inasmuch as they underlie the policy proposals that he puts forward throughout the book. His prominence in the antiglobalization movement makes it vital for us to address these matters.

Bello is against the WTO; he is against the "Bretton Woods twins" (the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank); and he is against transnational corporations. His opposition to these entities reflects a thorough awareness of their systemic roles. As he puts it, "Multilateral structures entrench the power of the Northern superpowers under the guise of creating a set of global rules for all" (p. 31). Consequently, the interest of the South lies in weakening such structures. In the ongoing strategic debate over whether they should be reformed or abolished, Bello thus tends toward the more radical stance. At the same time, however, he is careful to distance himself from an anticapitalist position. Two statements of his may be considered typical. The first is a slogan that could be uttered by almost any bourgeois politician: "Clean up government, so [that] it can serve as a more effective partner and regulator of the private sector" (p. 117). The second statement attempts to reconcile such a posture with hi s populist goals: "Disabling, disempowering, or dismantling the transnational corporation [TNC] should be high on our agenda as a strategic end. And when we say this, we do not equate the TNC with private enterprise, for there are benevolent and malevolent expressions of private enterprise" (p. 222). The "benevolent" expressions would then presumably reside in smaller-scale firms, and yet these are the very entities whose interests Bela invokes when he argues against the enforcement of eco-labeling (e.g., of "turtle-safe" shrimp harvests) (p. 175).

At this point we confront a core conundrum of Bello's position. On the one hand, he recognizes the necessity of environmental controls. On the other, he objects to the "unilateralism" of such controls emanating from a powerful country such as the United States. It is not within his purview to recognize that the measures in question reflect the work of popular movements against the big corporations. What concerns him is that these measures designed to protect the global environment often appear to threaten above all the export prospects of the more marginal--mostly third world--enterprises. Paradoxically, however, Bello is here taking precisely the kind of position typically taken by the WTO, against any measure that might be considered a "barrier" to free trade.

To be sure, eco-activists in the North need to take into account the immediate impact of environmental regulations on the economies of the South. Any proposals should reflect some level of international consensus. And if third world countries would be harmed economically, by say attempts to protect turtles, then some compensatory mechanism must be introduced to help them meet their needs. In this respect Bello is right. At the same time, however, it is appropriate to ask Bello to what extent he is willing to tie the long-term well-being of third world peoples and ecosystems to the interests of exporters from those countries who are seeking a niche in the global market. The dilemma, at any rate, is clear. The underlying question is whether, to what extent, and for how long the market is to dictate the course of third world development. In the meantime, Bello's very recognition of an antagonism between ecological and business priorities is sufficient commentary on the potential for "benevolence" in capitalist o perations, even when these are "non-corporate." Capital's ultimate allegiance to the bottom line is independent of size.

Why is it politically important to remind people of this? My sense is that we are at a formative stage in the development of this new movement (which does not yet even have an agreed-upon name). The very focus of the now-regular protests is itself unprecedented. Long-held assumptions are being held up to scrutiny, and a fresh generation of activists is coming onto the scene. There is a desperate need to comprehend the reality of power and not to construct illusory popular constituencies. Bello himself suggests something of the depth of the crisis when he mentions, at one point, that "a significant part of the establishment has embraced much of the progressive analysis" (p. 61). He is an important tribune of the movement. Does this not make it incumbent upon him to ask whether his own argument has gone far enough?

The TNC, in relation to capitalism, is not an aberration. It direct successor to the enterprise of pre-monopoly days. Failing to recognize this, Bello perceives a gulf that has no historical grounding. This is not an isolated oversight. It reflects a methodological posture that thoroughly permeates his analysis. It cannot but limit his effort to project an alternative future.

Bello outlines his positive proposals, with slight differences of emphasis, at a number of points in the book (especially pp. 30, 93 f., 117 ff., 149 ff., 189 ff., 223 ff.). It is in the nature of the "collected essay" format, given the original purposes for which the articles were written, that these passages do not constitute whole chapters or sustained expositions, but instead come in the context of specific discussions, whether of international organizations or of regional problems. Nonetheless, a clear enough pattern emerges. Beyond short-term measures, Bello's essential goal is encapsulated in his term "de-globalization," which encompasses, in his own words (p. 223; here reformatted):

* reorienting our economies from production for export to production for the local market;

* drawing most of our financial resources for development from with in...,

* ...income redistribution and land redistribution to create a vibrant internal market...;

* de-emphasizing growth and maximizing equity in order to radically reduce environmental dis-equilibrium;

* not leaving strategic economic decisions to the market but making them subject to democratic choice;

* subjecting the private sector and the state to constant monitoring by civil society;

* creating a new production and exchange complex that includes community cooperatives, private enterprises, and state enterprises, and excludes TNCs; [and]

* ... encouraging production of goods to take place at the community and national level...in order to preserve community.

What is at issue here is not the content of Bello's proposals, most of which are unexceptionable from a progressive standpoint. Similar sets of measures, complete with concessions to the private sector, have been put forward before, even by socialists (e.g., Ralph Miliband, in Socialism for a Sceptical Age, 1994). Bello's loosely formulated program offers something for almost everyone, conspicuously leaving aside matters where "quantity" turns into "quality" (e.g., how much redistribution? how much restraint on economic expansion? how much democratic choice?). Underlying all such questions is the real point at issue, namely, the question of agency: Which sectors of society can bring about the desired changes? What kind of understanding will they have to acquire in order to be able to do so? How, and against whom, will they have to act? Bello's discussion, far from offering guidance on these matters, does not even indicate the need to raise them. To do so would be to explode the facile consensual appearance of his program. It is one thing to imply, as in the above proposals, that a democratically structured public sector may have to coexist with the private sector, but it is quite another to suggest--as in Bello's conciliatory words about capitalism--that they do not reflect antagonistic interests.

Similar misconceptions recur at a number of levels. Most basic--pointing again to the question of agency--is Bello's failure to perceive the organic connections between the distinct faces of capitalist power (private and governmental; corporate and strategic). On this matter, he specifically attacks what he calls "orthodox Marxism" (p. xvi). He seems to be unaware, however, that corporate interests do not simply impinge on the U.S. government from outside. Rather, they effectively constitute the government, by permeating (as C. William Domhoff has shown) its top policy-shaping offices.

Although Bello's discussion of economic issues is generally well-informed, it is not free of inconsistencies that suggest some ambivalence about his goals. Thus, while a key aspect of his agenda for third world countries is a reduction in their dependence on the world market, the major thrust to his critique of international environmental regulations is, as we have seen, a concern to protect and extend those countries' exports. He values local autonomy but does not appear to have explored all the conditions that may be required in order to realize it. Ambiguous expressions like "sustainable development"--sustainable for whom? and on what terms?--remain unexamined. He does consider some of the problems associated with CSOs (civil society organizations) and NGOs (nongovernmental organizations), but he does not examine them in structural terms or, more pointedly, in terms of their impact on the formation and consolidation of revolutionary movements. With unintended irony, he envisages the solution to the ecology -vs.-third-world-development dilemma under the rubric of "an environmental 'Marshall Plan'" (p. 176). He thereby perpetuates the image of the Marshall Plan as an act of unparalleled generosity, overlooking the high-handed interventionist agenda of which it was an integral part (see Frank Kofsky, Harry S. Truman and the War Scare of 1948 [1993] and, more generally, William Blum, Killing Hope [1995]).

Bello concludes his introduction, which carries the book's main title ("The Future in the Balance"), by invoking Rosa Luxemburg for her prescience in warning against "barbarism." He neglects to remind us, however, of what she considered to be the only possible alternative to barbarism, namely, socialism.

Victor Wallis teaches in the General Education department at the Berklee College of Music and is co-managing editor of Socialism and Democracy. His article "Toward Ecological Socialism" appeared in the March 2001 issue of Capitalism, Nature, Socialism.

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