CCDS FORUM & DISCUSSION BOARD

NAME: Mark Solomon
EMAIL: Solomonm@aol.com
DATE: 05/24/2007
TITLE: Is Globalization Killing the State?

Is Globalization Killing the State? (Part Two)
(Revised text of talk delivered at the Deerfield Progressive Forum (Deerfield Beach, Florida) February 17, 2007)

Mark Solomon

The nation’s corporate elite and its governmental acolytes have been committed to expanding US influence and ultimate domination of the Middle East since the end of World War II. For that matter the reach of US imperial ambitions also extends well beyond the oil-rich Middle East. Thus, in 1988 an official government document “Discriminate Deterrence” projected US military power virtually all over the world. It said: "The United States has critical interests in the continuing autonomy of some allies very distant from us -- in Europe and the Mediterranean, in the Middle East and Southwest Asia, in East Asia and the Pacific, and in the Western Hemisphere." Recently, Defense Secretary Robert Gates told a congressional committee that “We need the full range of military capabilities, including ground combat forces to battle large armies and nimble special operations troops to scout out territorial threats that may come from Russia, China, North Korea “and elsewhere.” What has happened to that integrated global system that depended less on military force than on economic vitality, open markets, free trade and interdependence? In short, why is the national state, in the light of globalization, still as lethal as ever?

First, globalization at its apex never fully undermined the national state. Indeed, the state, depending upon its accumulated wealth (or lack thereof), productivity, technological advances, size, strategic position, and military strength always played a crucial role in enabling globalization, especially in mediating the movement of capital around the world. The levers of the advanced states, i.e., control over trade, taxes, monetary policy, armed forces, foreign political relations, etc., were utilized to advance neo-liberalism, to expedite the (relatively) unimpeded flow of capital over national borders, and most vital – to dictate economic and social policies to weaker states, to threaten “uncooperative” states, and to crush opposition be it from socialism or later from fundamentalist movements.

Second, while transnational corporations operate on a global scale, whereby their quest for maximum profits is embedded in a solidly global framework, they also rely upon their national states of origin for the social, political and military muscle to aggrandize their interests. (We should note that whatever the size and reach of a transnational corporations, they all remain recognizably rooted in specific national states. For example, General Motors, until recently, the world’s largest transnational, clearly depends upon the US government and US politicians to abet its outsourcing of production, to prevent the enactment of environmental controls on its automobiles, to facilitate the lowering of domestic taxes, to fight increasingly ferocious competition, to demand the opening of foreign markets to GM products and GM investments, etc. Thus, while GM’s executives and financiers may view themselves as members of a “transnational capitalist class” they are by no means constrained from using their state of origin to pursue their global interests.)

Third, the national state is the embodiment of the interests of its ruling class, modified and reshaped by class struggle. Under globalization, the state, responding to the interests of its increasingly internationalized ruling class itself becomes internationalized. (When and if a ruling class concludes that an internationalized state no longer serves its interests, the state will no longer be internationalized. In the United States, for example, the ruling class has been roughly divided between “internationalists” who wish to pursue US economic and strategic interests within the framework of a world order and “unilateralists” who view US participation in international organs as confining and wish to pursue ruling class interests unhindered by obligations to those organs. This conflict was at the heart of the battle after WWI over US entry into the League of Nations and has been replicated in a variety of forms. It is not inconceivable to the country may yet experience an unambiguous unilateralism detached from globalization.)

At this juncture, a major portion of the US ruling class insists upon the continuing and expanding dismantlement of internal social programs. With a weakened and fragmented progressive community, that ruling class has been poised to undermine the most sacred tenets of the New Deal like Social Security and Medicare. It also presses privatization of government services – rendering those services available for private profit and beyond the reach of democratic controls. It presses for continuing redistribution of wealth from the bottom and middle to the top; it engages in relentless efforts to undermine the indigenous labor movement, expands repressive policies domestically and globally such as illegal wiretapping, forced renditions, atrocities committed at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, etc., and continues to foment armed interventionism against forces viewed as arrayed against globalization.

While Bush at times appears to be planted in both the “internationalist” and “unilateralist” camps, the commitment of his administration to the internationalized ruling class and to globalization is unmistakable. (Of course, the ruling class is increasingly divided – over the incredible Administration blunders in Iraq that are seen as increasingly inimical to a stable global system. Nevertheless, that that class remains relatively united on maintaining the “national security state” and defending capital around the world.) Recently, George W. Bush was asked about the large influx of foreign capital into the United States. He responded by noting that unimpeded capital movement is an essential feature of globalization and is “good for everybody.” At the same time, Bush’s position on immigration is tailored to facilitate the flow of cheap agricultural labor into the US through his “guest worker” program while at the same time accommodating the racist anti-immigrant outlook of his right wing base by denying those workers access to permanent residency in the country.

In sum, The USA as the undisputed “sole remaining superpower” has taken the role of hegemonic capitalist power with the mission of safeguarding and advancing capitalist interests all over the world. In assuming this role, Washington is in the lead in pushing global capital’s assault on social commitments by states (using the IMF in particular to pressure social spending). Under conditions of ferocious globalization, the US is also the principal force in creating new “protectorates” spawned by imperial interventions – countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Grenada, Haiti. It also is the principal force in marshalling military and political pressure against “rogue states” that allegedly constitute a threat to the “free world” due to their refusal to cooperate with the neo-liberal global system (Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Somalia and soon to be added – Venezuela, Nicaragua and other emerging states in Latin America resistant to corporate globalization). It is the breeder and carrier of racism aimed at the world’s majority people of color.

However, corporate globalization is by no means a perfect, peaceful amalgam of global commercial activities. It is rife with severe economic competition, political disagreements, conflict over trade and fiscal policies, disputes over the scope and character of military interventions (with US threats against Iran a new flashpoint of conflict) and bitter controversies between big and small states over the dismantling of state sponsored social programs. Clashes over the war in Iraq are the most visible manifestations of such conflicts. Further, Russia has been engaged in battles with former Soviet republics and with Western Europe over the price and availability of its oil and natural gas. The United States has contested with China over the valuation of Chinese currency and Chinese copyright policies. The European Union has strongly opposed illegal and extra-legal US practices in pursuing the “war on terror.” Russia, China and countries of Central and South Asia have joined to form the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to resist the United States vision of globalization. That is a development of crucial importance.

Most significant, there is a vigorous emerging movement all over the world, with Latin America in the forefront, to oppose the terrible consequences of corporate globalization that are manifested in policies of the IMF, World Bank, WTO and various regional trade agreements. Those consequences have involved potentially catastrophic environmental degradation, a rapidly growing gap between rich and poor all over the world, the spread of diseases from AIDS to malaria to dysentery from untreated water that kill millions every year, and severe crises due to the lack of elementary health care, housing, education and employment.

At home, the evolution of the national state into a garrison and “national security” state has come nearly full circle. Bush’s interpretation of the US mission as safeguard of the global system now involves expenditures of 265 billion dollars in Iraq over the next 20 months accompanied inevitably by Draconian cuts at home in Medicare, housing assistance, education, veterans’ benefits, etc., inflicting deep pain, especially upon the most vulnerable members of this society. At the same time, the Pentagon is preparing a massive program of military modernization that will cost additional billions.

Corporate globalization stands at the very core of mounting problems confronted by populations all over the world. Here, the state, rather than declining is being transformed into a vehicle for military interventions, for privatization, for facilitating the global race towards mass impoverishment, for dismantling social programs and for shifting additional wealth to the corporate rich. The consequences are wage stagnation, impossibly escalating costs of health care, more prisons – especially to house the poor, the young, and people of color, trillions in consumer debt, growing bankruptcies, and continuing assaults on labor’s right to organize.

But there is an unmistakable shifting of the political winds and growing movements to challenge deteriorating living standards and the futile, tragic expenditure of blood in wars fomented by falsehoods. Yet, the depth and durability of those movements can only be assured by understanding of the reality embodied both in corporate globalization and in the policies of national states in guarding and advancing those interests.

The task of exposing and resisting the disastrous impact of transnational capital and of the policies of national states in safeguarding and advancing that capital requires political clarity and reinvigorated commitment to educating and building a vast progressive majority all over the world. That is a huge undertaking, but it has already begun. It has begun with the series of world social forums, with revived left and progressive electoral coalitions in Europe and elsewhere, with the exciting emergence of new governments in Latin America dedicated to fighting corporate globalization, in a reawakening of labor and social movements all over the world. We are still at the beginning of this great counter-offensive and there is a long way to go. Yet, with clarity, unity, and unwavering commitment, progress will win and the promise of a better life of justice, culture, security and peace for all will be achieved.

Notes:
Thanks to Morton Frank for his insight and information on US military planning and policies discussed in this talk.
Thanks to Spyros Sakellaropoulos for his article (Science & Society, Vol. 71., No. 1) “Declining State? Rise of the Headquarters State” that helped to shape this talk.
Thanks to Harry Targ for his insightful and immensely critique of an earlier draft of the talk.

Mark Solomon

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