Posted
23rd May 2001
Who's Right On The Left A Response
To
Fareed Zakaria's Newsweek Essay "The New Face Of The Left" By
Larry George, professor of political science, Cal State, Long
Beach The April 30 edition of Newsweek contains an essay (see
link at end) attacking the movement against corporate globalization
by Fareed Zakaria, an editor at Foreign Affairs, the premier
mainstream US journal of international relations. Zakaria attacks
the protesters in Quebec as ignorant, self-interested, anti-democratic,
elitist nationalists who betray the heritage of what Zakaria
calls the "democratic left". The following is a response by
Larry George, a professor of political science who has spent
over a year interviewing activists in the movement Zakaria criticizes
from afar. Fareed Zakaria's essay "The New Face of the Left"
(Newsweek, April 30, 2001 p. 32) is a confused and confusing
diatribe against the international movement opposing corporate-directed
globalization. The essay is off the mark in so many places that
it is hard to know where to begin criticizing it. Certainly
its most obvious problem lies in Zakaria's apparently comprehensive
ignorance regarding the actual people who make up this movement.
Zakaria feigns familiarity with the protesters, their beliefs,
even their motivations and intentions. Yet he gets so many things
wrong that it's obvious he has had little if any direct contact
with real movement activists. For over a year, I have been interviewing
and working alongside these activists. So why could I recognize
almost nothing I know of them in Zakaria's distorted portrait?
He seems to have constructed a sort of protester piÒata out
of media caricatures and misrepresentations, and then whacks
away at it with stock neoliberal cliches, backed up only by
a strained, if novel, reading of left political history. The
result is an uninformative hatchet job. Flippant Dismissal Ignores
Serious Critics. Let me try to tease out and respond to some
of Zakaria's criticisms of the anti-corporate globalization
movement. He begins with a condescending dismissal of the movement's
views, moaning about how "pointless" it is to have to "rebut,
one more time, the arguments made by the protesters in Quebec
City. "Flippant and patronizing, his tone suggests that by now
any rational person who is not either deluded, naÔve, or willfully
ignorant must have come to accept the predictable free market
catechisms and boilerplate apologies for corporate neoliberalism
routinely penned by commentators like Thomas Friedman. Zakaria
accuses protesters in Quebec of "misunderstanding" what he calls
"basic economics," as though what is taught as "economics" in
the American academy is some sort of genuine science, like geology
or physics, instead of what most real scientists deem it to
be: a partial, rather obviously ideological depiction of human
society as viewed from the perspective of businesses and consumers.
He fails even to gesture to the spate of denunciations of the
neoliberal model issued recently by prominent business leaders
like George Soros and high-ranking economic officials like former
World Bank chief economist Joseph Stiglitz. He completely ignores
several recent economic studies by analysts ranging from the
business-backed Economic Strategy Institute, to the Economic
Policy Institute, to critics like Thomas Frank and Global Trade
Watch's Lori Wallach -- that are widely acknowledged to have
undermined much of the theoretical and empirical grounds for
enthusiasm about the neoliberal model of globalization. Zakaria
continues by denouncing the Quebec protesters' slogans as "confused
and contradictory," without, however, providing even a single
illustration of what he is referring to. Presumably he means
to criticize the demonstrators for failing to submit to a party
line and then stick to its script, in the manner of, say, those
who speak for the US Federal Reserve, the IMF, or the World
Bank. (If he is really troubled by the protesters' "confused
and contradictory" views, then a brief comparison with the campaign
platforms of the Democratic or Republican Parties, or with a
transcript of President Bush's off-the-cuff remarks at the Quebec
summit, should prove reassuring). The protest movement against
corporate globalization is not intellectually confused, but
neither is it some sort of ideologically brainwashed army marching
in lockstep to the drums and whistles of a conspiratorial leader
cadre. It is, rather, a diverse coalition of distinctive groups
and individuals, with varying, and often divergent, political
views, attitudes, and ideas about what sorts of tactics and
strategies are appropriate for coping with the impending crisis
that confronts the planet today. What they have in common is
a distrust of what they understandably view as a corporate-led
plot to sneak into law a binding set of international trade
and investment rules that will only aggravate that crisis, while
benefiting primarily business elites at the expense of everyone
else.
Who's Avoiding Debate?
In
another astonishing gaffe, Zakaria accuses the protest movement
of seeking to avoid public debate over international trade rules.
"By taunting the police, beating drums and throwing rocks, the
rioters make it pretty clear that they want not a rational debate
but the world's attentionÖ" This while the text of the secretly
negotiated and drafted FTAA agreement itself still remains inaccessible
by the public, and while the heads of state of the entire western
hemisphere save Cuba were attending closed meetings behind a
ten foot fence! Is Zakaria unaware that for years, knowledgeable
movement intellectuals like Walden Bello, Kevin Danaher, Lori
Wallach, Noam Chomsky, and any number of others have been pleading
with representatives of the WTO, IMF, and related institutions
to agree to a public forum where issues of corporate globalization
could be debated before a national audience? Others of us have
debated frequently in more local forums with economists, business
representatives, and government officials over the merits of
NAFTA, the WTO, FTAA, and other such agreements. So far as I
know, in none of these local public debates has our position
failed to make its case and win the support of those present.
This undoubtedly helps explain why advocates of the corporate
globalization model are so afraid to engage these issues in
front of national audiences. Indeed, the fear that neoliberal
ideology is losing intellectual credibility may be the hidden
subtext of Zakaria's acknowledgement that the "success" of recent
protests around the world against corporate globalization "has
begun to persuade some left-of-center politicians in the West
to start speaking the new language of anti-globalization." Yet,
oddly, he views this partial success in forcing some modicum
of public accountability and government responsiveness into
the public debate over the future structure of the international
economy as somehow "anti-democratic". He actually says that
"[t]he anti-globalization crowd is antidemocratic" because it
is, he accuses, "trying to achieve, through intimidation and
scare tactics, what it has not been able to get through legislation.
The lesson of Seattle seems to be: if you cannot get your way
through traditional democratic methods, through campaigns, lobbying,
and legislatures, then riot and rabble-rouse on television."
No Idea What Democracy Looks Like What a pathetically confined
and hobbled conception of democracy Mr. Zakaria has!
As he is surely aware, today in the United States, and for that
matter throughout the rest of the incipient Free Trade Area
of the Americas, what he calls "traditional democratic methods"
provide virtually no meaningful political avenues to oppose
corporate neoliberalism. In the US, the combination of overwhelming
business domination of US economic policy making, the permanent
forestalling of campaign funding reform, the ever-tightening
control by corporate-owned media over the public discourse on
globalization, and, not least, the legal and political trammels
ratcheted into place by successive trade agreements like NAFTA
and the WTO, have obviously undermined, not strengthened, popular
democratic control over foreign economic policy. What, after
all, are WTO tribunals, fast-track presidential treaty negotiating
authority, and secretly drafted, hurriedly approved international
economic agreements if not blatant political subterfuges that
give the barest cover of law to transparent devices for evading
democratic accountability? Just as the pre-Civil War deference
to states' rights prevented abolitionists from using "traditional
democratic means" to effectively challenge slavery, and just
as business dominance over all three branches of the federal
government in the late 19th and early 20th centuries prevented
US workers from securing fair labor laws and standards, so too
today the political-economic structure faced by anti-corporate
globalization activists for the most part denies them meaningful
opportunities for genuine democratic participation through ordinary
channels. Under such conditions, what, then, does democracy
look like? In what does democratic political action consist?
Democracy must mean more than voting every four years for one
of two corporate-approved presidential candidates with nearly
indistinguishable neoliberal economic ideologies. It must be,
in Lincoln's felicitous phrase, self-government "of, by, and
for the people." But the US is rapidly becoming none of the
above. It is being steadily transformed into a government of,
by and for the wealthy and powerful an oligarchy, or, better,
a plutocracy. Far from furthering democracy, NAFTA, the WTO,
and the FTAA only exacerbate the process whereby this plutocracy
is increasingly able to orchestrate the national and global
economies almost entirely without public input or accountability.
Democratic citizens who are justifiably outraged by such a situation
have a right to be heard, if not in the halls of the world's
legislatures then in the streets of the world's cities. Whenever
governments have refused to respond to legitimate popular demands
presented through ordinary political avenues, then the people
have always recognized their right to pursue extraordinary means
to ensure that their grievances are redressed. The resounding
lesson of the past two hundred years of US political history
is that frequently only the power of confrontational politics
can snatch justice from the teeth of the powerful. As John Brown
and others came to understand, the Abolitionists would never
have rid the country of slavery if they had restricted themselves
to ordinary politics. Had it not been for mass demonstrations,
civil disobedience, and direct actions, the rights of workers
to organize unions, of African-Americans and women to vote,
and of young men not to be forced to die in the criminal US
war against Vietnam might never have been secured. The pursuit
of justice by the progressives and radicals of their times engaging
in the politics of confrontation in many ways represents the
US's noblest democratic tradition. To be sure, Zakaria does
openly acknowledge that it is "the right" that has long been
suspicious of and hostile to real democracy. As he observes,
they opposed democracy because "[s]ocial conservatives revered
the aristocracy and traditional hierarchies, and free marketeers
thought that the rabble would take away their property." And,
as he points out, one of the greatest traditions of the left
"has been a concern for the fate of democracyÖ The widening
of democracy in the West and then its worldwide spread has been
a lodestar of the left." But then, in yet another strange twist,
Zakaria asserts that in Quebec it was the "historically left-wing
forces" who "joined hands to oppose the strengthening of democracy
in the Western Hemisphere." So when, exactly, did the social
conservatives and free marketeers inside the citadel in Quebec
suddenly convert to democracy? And when, exactly did the leftist
"rabble" outside the fence lose their historically democratic
compass and pedigree? In Zakaria's bizarre interpretation, it
is the fence itself that now delimits democracy, but, oddly,
by ensuring that the tyrannical citizenry are prevented from
subverting the popular democratic impulses of their social conservative
and free marketeer leaders.
Betraying The Left?
In
still another bizarre characterization, Zakaria accuses the
protest movement of betraying the left's justifiably proud tradition
of internationalism, by, he claims, embracing "economic parochialism."
Yet here, once again, he either intentionally mischaracterizes
or profoundly misunderstands the views and values of most movement
activists. Zakaria depicts this amazingly diverse and eclectic
movement as comprised predominantly of protectionist economic
nationalists seeking, as he puts it, "shelters and subsidies
for their own, invariably inefficient, industries." (This after
admitting explicitly that "[t]he economic benefits to be had
through regional trade agreements are few and of dubious value"!)
But, as he is surely aware, it is not so much protesters, but
rather powerful and influential multinational corporations who
are the primary actors lobbying behind the scenes, seeking "protectionism"
wherever their own profit making and rent earning opportunities
are threatened or adversely affected by "free trade." An obvious
example is the furor surrounding "intellectual property protections."
Hollywood wants to "shelter" its movies and CDs from bootleg
duplication. Intel wants the same protections for its latest
(not infrequently heavily "subsidized") chip technology. The
world was recently shocked by lawsuits involving pharmaceutical
companies seeking property rights "protection" from the governments
of poor countries who want to make anti-retroviral AIDS drugs
available cheaply to those of their citizens who will die without
them. At the same time, of course, transnational corporations
will fight under their own banner of internationalism when it
serves their interests. A major weapon in their arsenal at the
moment is the notorious Chapter 11 clause of the NAFTA agreement,
which set up a new system for transnationals to sue governments
when democratically enacted laws threaten business profits.
In over 15 recent cases, companies have usurped the traditional
democratic rights of communities and governments by effectively
nullifying their laws to protect foreign capital investments.
Far beyond simply weakening protectionism, Chapter 11 challenges
the sovereignty of elected government itself. Zakaria apparently
misses the logical contradiction in such blatant examples of
corporate hypocrisy, or at least finds it unobjectionable. Yet
at the same time he damns it as vile protectionism when tens
of thousands of ordinary Canadian citizens take to the streets
to protest against a system of international rules that has
allowed US companies to force Canadians to export water to the
US by supertanker and allow the sale in Canada of US gasoline
tainted with dangerous additives, and then be forced to pay
the companies' legal bills. Given the current medical care crisis
in the US, is it "protectionist" for these Canadian demonstrators
to try to protect their "sheltered and subsidized" health care
system until recently perhaps the best in the world from becoming
horribly "Americanized" as a result of the global privatization
of medical and other public services under the auspices of NAFTA,
the WTO, the FTAA, and other such agreements?
Contempt For Unions
Zakaria also apparently has little but contempt for labor unions,
whom he dubiously claims "provided most of the money and bodies
for these protests". Yet, as he should know, it is precisely
the long string of political victories won over the years by
these very unions, and the political parties that represent
them, that have made everyday life for Canadian and European
workers far safer, more secure, and more comfortable than the
lives of most working Americans. Why shouldn't such workers
want to protect themselves from suffering the fate of their
fellow workers south of the 48th Parallel? What could possibly
be wrong with Canadian unions taking to the streets in international
solidarity with US and Latin American labor organizations, to
protest against an international economic order constructed
by their corporate enemies, one whose rules are designed to
make it even harder for unions in the US, in Mexico, the Caribbean,
and throughout Latin America to duplicate their successes? Who
but a corporate stooge could fail to see the political logic
and moral justice in such solidarity? If it is not "protectionism"
to clamp down on international trade in products that cut into
opportunities for Hollywood entertainment companies, computer
software manufacturers, and pharmaceutical producers three of
the most profitable industries on the planet to earn exorbitant
rents from their "intellectual property", then why is it "protectionism"
to try to regulate international trade in such a way as to protect
turtles, old growth forests, union jobs, public health care,
hormone- and genetic engineering-free food, and, not least,
democracy itself?
Economic nationalists?
Hard to imagine. The emblem that perhaps best captures the movement's
sentiments regarding nationalism is the Ruckus Society banner
that was briefly suspended on the Figueroa Hotel during the
Los Angeles DNC convention last year, until police cut it down,
nearly killing a protester in the process. The banner showed
the US flag with stars replaced by the corporate logos of McDonalds,
Exxon, Nike, Oxy Petroleum, and other transnational corporations
who underwrite the two mainstream US political parties. Nearly
every movement activist I know is a fervent internationalist.
What they are seeking is open, not fenced, borders; more, not
less, cultural exchange; more, not less cross-border human contact;
more, not less international solidarity. What they object to
is a system that permits basketball shoes manufactured in sweatshops
or toys made by exploited children or trafficked women or slaves
to enter rich countries without any public accountability for
the conditions under which these commodities are produced, while
thousands of peaceful, non-violent citizens who seek nothing
more than to express their indignation at this situation are
detained at international borders. What they object to is the
emerging system of global trade and investment that sanctions
only those international activities that benefit only business
corporations, while restricting and obstructing international
demands for justice and internationalist expressions of human
freedom and solidarity. What they oppose is not globalization,
but globalization without any meaningful input from the citizens
of countries likely to be harmed by it -- globalization without
representation.
A New Map Of Politics
Zakaria's confused screed does manage to get one thing right.
He recognizes that, as he puts it, with this emerging protest
movement against corporate globalization "[t]he new map of politics
is being charted." No doubt the real enemies of democracy and
internationalism will continue to rely on the political maps
drawn by Zakaria and other imperial cartographers to erect and
garrison ever stronger fortresses against the further spread
of the movement against corporate globalization. Movement activists
will do well to take their inspiration instead from the mapmaker
Fra Mauro, in James Cowan's novel A Mapmaker's Dream, who declares
"My role as a cartographer is tantamount to the discovery of
the world." Larry George is a professor of political science
at California State University, Long Beach, and an activist
with the Living Wage campaign. He travelled to Quebec to conduct
research for a book on the protest movement against corporate
globalization. Read Fareed Zakaria's essay "The New Face of
the Left." www.msnbc.com/news/562877.asp.
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