Globalization
from Below, Resistance and New Perspectives
By Maria Mies
[This
article presented at the 29th German Evangelical Church Day,
When I read
the title of this event in the church day program, I remembered a student in
The Visions of Globalized
Capital
If we have
no other visions, nothing is left than to submit to the visions of endless
goods-production and increased capital.. Several
years ago I offered this vision in a poem: Let them patent”. Here are
some verses:
Whatever crawls and sweats on earth
Whatever blossoms on this earth,
Everything must become a commodity
And all commodities become money.
Nature is superfluous
Here in this vale of tears.
Our mother is Ms. technology,
Our father is Mr. Capital.
The god of
our time is capital, more exactly patriarchal capital. This god is
(supposedly) omnipotent, immortal, omniscient, omnipresent
and must always grow. This has never been so
clear as today in the age of neoliberal globalization controlled by
corporations. This god has its own priesthood and theologians, not only
its churches, banks and headquarters. These are the economists, natural
scientists and technocrats.
Everything
is done that is possible and brings money. Like every religion, the
religion of endlessly multiplying money is also based on a creed which one must
believe even when all our experience tells us this is not right. The
creed of neoliberalism also called the
That this
creed is believed today by so many people suggests that the people are in the
dark about global free trade and institutions like the WTO, the World Bank and
the IMF serving corporations worldwide today. Many of the elected
representatives of the people are frequently only mere lackeys of the
corporations. In the media, critical words were hardly found until
recently on free trade agreements like the MAI, NAFTA, the FTAA for
What is Globalization?
The
population in Germany knows almost nothing about the central agreements and
institutions which have determined our economic policy since the beginning of the
90s: the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) which in 1995 was
anchored in the World Trade Organization (WTO), the consequences of the
structural adjustment program of the World Bank, the International Monetary
Fund and other free trade agreements (NAFTA, EU, APEC). The media are and
were occupied for months or years with different scandals of individual
politicians. What about the university lecturers? For nearly a
year, the so-called sixty-eighters among them were and are focused on their
nostalgic retrospect to their past.
In any case,
university lecturers are not found among the activists of the international
protest movement against neoliberal globalization in
When you ask
today what globalization means, you hear the most fantastic explanations”
global interweaving through the Internet leading to a “global village”,
encounter of cultures, spread of democracy, freedom, equality and finally
eternal peace. Multinational corporations are not weary of preaching this
new social utopia as the result of their free trade policy. However the
shortest and most correct definition of the term globalization was given by the
president of a large firm, Percy N. Barnevik: “I would define globalization as
the freedom for my group of enterprises to invest where and when they want,
produce what they want, buy and sell where they want and support the least
possible restrictions resulting from labor laws and social regulations” (quoted
in: Tagesanzeiger, Jan 15, 2001).
Nothing more
actually needs to be added to this definition. The governments of nearly
all countries of the world, whether they understand themselves as
conservative/liberal, socialist/social democratic or green/social democratic
have handed over the economic policy of their countries on a tablet to the
transnational corporations, the so-called global players, so transnationals can
promote their growth and their profit unhindered by national or international
laws and agreements.
Many people
ask what justifications allowed the elected representatives of the people 10-15
years ago to unconditionally carry out this neoliberal globalization policy
controlled by corporations without a public discussion. I still don’t
have a conclusive answer to this question.
The most
superficial explanations come from the global players themselves. In
1979, even before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Ms. Thatcher said “there is no
alternative – TINA” when she restructured English economic policy according to
the theories of neoliberalism. Since then most governments and most
citizens of our countries have suffered under the TINA-syndrome: There is no
alternative. This belief was strengthened after the collapse of the
Soviet system.
Mr. Henkel,
former chairperson of BDI, wrote in a debate of Greenpeace Magazine (May 2001):
“Resistance against globalization is useless and counter-productive. It
is useless because globalization cannot be stopped. When it is hot
outside, I don’t stand defiantly before the door with scarf and woolen hat and
complain about the heat.”
Thus
globalization is like the weather. Others say globalization is like
gravity. Here are some of the most common metaphors: Unhindered global
free trade creates a “level playing field”. When large and small firms
compete with one another everywhere unchecked by state regulations, the
greatest well-being for everyone arises in the sense of the father of
liberalism, Adam Smith.
In variation
of the well-known trickle-down argument, when the flood rises, the small
fishing boats also rise, not only the luxury
yachts. The vision of globalized capitalism is that there is no vision
any more and one must pragmatically submit to the practical necessities like
the force of gravity. TINA. However TINA is not based on scientific
discoveries or findings but in reality represents a faith-system. No one
formulated this more clearly than Mr. Maucher, the head of Nestle. He
said: “One cannot explain any more to a normal person that stock prices rise
every day and simultaneously more people are on the street. Still
competitiveness is ultimately the most certain method of creating jobs even if
the way there is sometimes rough.”
Thus what is
involved is belief: no investments without competition and no jobs without
investments. We believe this even though daily experience shows that
these assertions are not true. Credo quia absurdum.
The
The creed of
neoliberalism was writtend own in 1989 by the American economist Williamson in
10 dogmas which became known as the Washington Consensus. This Washington
Consensus promised all governments, above all the poor countries, that all
their problems will be solved if they accept the rules of global free trade as
the central goal of the economy, namely:
1.
The most important goal of the
economy is growth. Growth creates jobs, wealth, development, equality and
democracy.
2.
Economic globalization: all borders
must be opened for the global traffic of goods, services, capital and
investments.
3.
Privatization
4.
Deregulation (liberalization): rules
and laws hindering this free trade must be deregulated.
5.
Global free trade is the source of
wealth, not local production.
6.
Restriction of the role of the
state, above all in the economy
7.
Lower taxes for entrepeneurs
8.
Limitation of state expenditures for
health, education, social projects and so forth.
9.
Unhindered competition of everyone
against everyone to stimulate output
10.
Liberalization of global free trade
The
governments of the poor countries did not merely accept this Washington
Consensus. Most of them were forced by the World Bank and the IMF with
its SAPs. Whoever wants credits of the World Bank must restructure the
economy according to the above rules. Still the governments of the rich
countries, their media and their universities have accepted the Washington
Consensus like a natural law – TINA. Why? One reason: Many of our
consumer goods were cheaper. A second: more and more people were bound in
the logic of capital accumulation by stock ownership including students. Where
should another social utopia arise in this fossilized TINA-situation in the
universities where the only value is shareholder value?
Falling Away from Belief in the Neoliberal Creed
Before other
visions can occur, many people in many countries must fall away from belief in
the promises of global free trade. Nevertheless this apostasy of faith
does not occur first in the ivory towers of the universities. Where the
WTO deregulates, globalizes, and privatizes the whole education sector from
elementary schools to universities in their member countries – in the scope of
the global agreement on trade and services (GATS) – we don’t hear anything
about rebellion and resistance against this policy in the German
universities. In her article, Claudia von Werlhof focuses on this
remarkable paralysis of defenders of the “mind”. Therefore the question
of this arrangement is also wrong. Visions are not “impossible” but
rather visions starting from academic institutions which submit to the creed of
neoliberalism
Visions out of Resistance
Apostasy
from faith and development of a new vision and hope do not arise in scientific
discourses in the protected space of universities and academic journals. This
complete change occurs in protest on the streets against the apparently
superior or overwhelming global players, their institutions and
agreements. Resistance turns directly against the big concerns and big
banks who are the winners of this neoliberal policy. Resistance is also
directed against the governments that no longer practice their mandate for the
well-being of the people but have become lackeys of the global players. Nowhere
is this clearer than in the attempts to speed up privatization and
liberalization of public services (education, health, water, transporation,
banks, insurance and others) demanded by GATS.
In January
2001, Maude Barlow of the Council of Canadians said at the protest against the
world economic forum in Porto Allegre that the real goal of GATS is
dramatically or completely reducing the ability of governments everywhere to
pass any laws in the interests of the citizens. Only the police control
of citizens is left. In the protest events since
The Washington Consensus has Broken Down
That many
citizens no longer believe but regard as deceit the promises of the neoliberal
globalizers was manifest since the third ministerial of the WTO in
After ten
years of global free trade policy, the unrestricted freedom and increased
wealth of several persons and corporations were purchased with increased
servitude and growing poverty of most people in the world. This gap has
widened as never before since the eighties not only between rich and poor
countries but also within the richest countries of the world: the
Here are
some statistics. In the 1997 annual report of UNCTAD, we read that
“globalization in its present form is responsible for a dynamic rise of
inequality in the world. In 1965, the average personal income in the G7
countries, the richest seven countries, was 20 times higher than the average in
the poorest seven countries of the world. By 1995, this difference
climbed to 35 times higher. The chasm between the incomes and
polarization within the countries also grows. The share of wealth taken
in by the top 20 percent of the population rose in most countries. What
about the
The American
Institute for Policy Studies has shown that average wages in the
In the third
world, the gap between the globalization winners and the globalization losers
is even more dramatic. For many people here, globalization means simply
that their survival is threatened. The penetration of large multinational
corporations in the agriculture of these countries ruins the small
farmers. The shipment of agricultural surpluses from the
Genetic
engineering coupled with the WTO regulation on protection of intellectual
property and the new patent rights dispossess people in the third world of
their traditional knowledge and make this knowledge the private property of
several corporations. The new products are then brought on the market
for giant profits. At the same time the biological diversity of these
countries is destroyed by the monoculture introduced in these countries by
agricultural multinationals.
The
ecological and social consequences of the globalization of the economy have led
to whole epidemics of suicides of farmers in
The
structural adjustment programs of the World Bank and the IMF forced on the
heavily indebted countries have similar consequences. The governments of
these countries must reduce their public spending for schools, public health
and other social projects and open their gates for imports and investors from
the rich countries which usually leads to the ruin of
native operations. Often these countries must devalue their
currencies. The wages of workers must be lowered ,
state or semi-state factories privatized and agriculture converted to export
production.
In a report
on
The End of Democracy, Further Destruction of the Environment, Threats to
Health, Erosion of Labor, Social- and Human Rights and an Economic Policy
Serving Humankind.
To the
people who took to the streets in
“Global free
trade and democracy are like fire and water,” John Gray, the former advisor of
Margaret Thatcher, wrote in 1998. “Those who want a free world market
have always insisted that the legal framework defining and anchoring it be
outside the range of every democratic legislature. Sovereign states can
become members in the WTO. However this organization and not the
legislature of any sovereign state determines what is
regarded as free trade and what is a trade barrier.” (Gray 1998)
Transnational
corporations cannot develop globally and “freely” when the danger exists that
the economic policy of the countries in which they operate can be changed every
4 years by the voting decisions of the citizens. This is the reason for
institutions like the WTO and agreements like Amsterdam (EU), NAFTA, GATS, AoA,
TRIPs and many other free trade arrangements. Once created, they are
quasi immune against democratic parliamentary changes.
The
destruction of democratic foundations was and is one of the main critical
points of the protestors on the streets of
The New Vision: An other World is Possible
The
realizations that the promises of neoliberal globalism are deceit arose in
local, national and international resistance actions, in globalization from
below, not in the protected space of academic discourse. However the
question was always raised to globalization opponents: If you are against
global free trade, what different economy and society do you propose as an
alternative?
The answer
to this question begins wherever people reject the TINA-syndrome, where they
stop believing there is no alternative. Many of the slogans in
The
worldwide protest movement against an economic policy that sets growth and
profit above everything is simultaneously the beginning of the hope that
another world is possible. Without hope, there is no vision. The
new worldwide social movement against globalization composed of different
initiatives, interest-groups, traditions and cultures has a common vision
although it does not follow a uniform ideology.
This vision
begins wherever people demand back control over their immediate living
conditions, no longer accepting decisions over their food, their air, their
water, health care, schools, the environment, personnel transfers and many
other areas of their immediate life by some board of directors of distant
multinational corporations or by bureaucrats in Brussels or Geneva in the name
of agreements they don’t know.
Contrary to
what some academic critics imagine, this vision is not merely a whistling in
the woods or a helpless conceitedness with no concept. This vision is
based on an exact criticism of conditions represented by the globalizers as a
natural event. As demonstrated in many examples, these conditions were
“made” at certain places, certain times and by certain actors (cf. George,
Balanya et al, Chomsky). They are neither an
accident nor necessary. What was made by people can also be changed by
people. This is the most essential insight for every vision of another
society.
The second
point about this vision is that there is no one alternative to the dominant
world order. Rather many people in many initiatives and organizations in
different countries of the world reflect about a different economy, society and
politics. This is good.
The third
characteristic of these new perspectives is that they are not mere utopias in
the sense of wish-dreams or ideals but are already put into effect everywhere
in the world, in large or small politico-economic and social projects and
movements. This was clear in Porto Allegre (southern
For twelve
years, Porto Allegre was governed by a leftist coalition under the leadership
of the workers’ party (PT). The city shows spectacular advances in many
areas – housing, local traffic, street cleaning, waste removal, ambulatory and
stationary health care, sewage system, environment, social housing development,
literacy, school construction, culture, pu8blic security among others. The
secret of this success is the joint determination budget. The inhabitants
of the different parts of town can decide concretely and democratically over
the use of community funds. The decision on what areas of the
infrastructure are created or improved is in their hands. They can see
the further development of the projects and the financing at close range.
Without misappropriation or embezzlement of public funds or abuse of office,
the investments correspond more precisely to the desires of the majority of the
city population” (Ignacio Ramonet, 2001).
If the city
of
This
perspective is not a mere utopia but has already been tested for example by the
Greens in
The Subsistence perspective
As an
ecofeminist, I agree with much of what Colin Hines and his friends in
We propose
the subsistence perspective for this necessary change. People win back
another idea of “good life” than what capital offers, namely much money and
full supermarkets. Immediate life production or subsistence production
stands in the center of all social and economic activities, no longer goods
production and the infinite multiplication of money. Men and women must
share equally in this subsistence production.
Like the
other perspectives, the subsistence perspective has already begun in countries
of the South and the North, in the city and the countryside. In our book “A Cow for Hillary. The Subsistence Perspective”
(
The
subsistence perspective is necessary and desirable. This is also true for
the centers of global capitalism, not only for countries and societies that
were victims of predatory neoliberal attacks (the countries of the South and
the former Soviet block). The BSE crisis made clearer than anything else
that only smaller, ecologically oriented economies can have food
sovereignty. This is only socially-friendly and possible when costs are
not shifted or “externalized” to women and other “minorities”.
Subsistence
means “freedom in necessity”, not mastery (transcendence) of the kingdom of
necessity. This assumes another relation to nature than the domination
model. Subsistence means peace with and in nature. Vandana Shiva
tells about an Indian movement to preserve biological and cultural diversity
which Jaiv Panchayat calls life democracy. Buffaloes, cows, goats,
snakes, trees, leaves, in a word all nature belong to this life democracy, not
only all people, women, men and children. People are only governors and
protectors of this diversity.
Subsistence
means above all peace between the genders. However this peace assumes the
defeat of patriarchal and capitalist domination. Peace between the
genders can only be attained through the reorientation of men and women
according to another model of the “good life”, not the adaptation of women
“upwards” (equal positions or gender mainstreaming).
Subsistence
means abundance and a new internationalism based on mutuality, new communities
and new social relations. As a slogan for this perspective, we have
chosen the motto of Brazilian farm workers who declared in 1997 during a
workshop before the
Let them be patented
Let
them be patented
Because they are capital.
Their
livers, their nerves,
Their genes at all times.
Let
them be patented
Because they only exist once.
Before
the multinationals dissect them,
They
have the first choice.
Genes,
genes and patents,
That
is the latest hit.
That
will bring the best pension.
Make
a killing, divide up the spoils!
Whatever
crawls and sweats on earth,
Whatever
blossoms in this world –
Everything
must become a commodity
And
every commodity must become money.
Merck,
Monsanto, Ciba Geigy
Hoechst
and Bayer join
In
the chase for patents,
In the run for profit.
These
new great mothers
Create
food, heal pain.
If
only the balance sheets are right,
They
don’t need a human heart.
Nature
does not produce
This beautiful new life.
Women
do not create children
Who
originate in the laboratory.
Nature
is superfluous
Here
in the vale of tears.
Our
mother is Ms. Technology
Our
father is Mr. Capital.
What
is life
In the eternal monotony.
Still
your gene lives eternally.
Where
the gene gives freedom
Fresh
on its seed bench
Where
progress multiplies
We
say thanks multis.
Maria Mies,
(c) Common Intellectual Property of People with
Resistance Genes (CIPPRG)
To be sung to the melody: Peace, Radiant Sparks of
God!