18. Globalising Resistance
THOSE WHO SAY GLOBALISATION IS UNAVOIDABLE
SHOULD REALISE THAT THEY CAN BE BYPASSED OR
OVERTHROWN
Neo-liberal thought nurtures the idea of inevitability. The system
that exists must exist because it exists. Globalisation in its current
form cannot be avoided, everyone must fall into line.
This is a recipe for mysticism and fatalism. Any serious study of
history reveals that nothing is 'irreversible'. Take finance, for
example. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the free flow of
capital made possible by the gold standard, and free trade guaranteed
by treaties on trade and investment, seemed irreversible. The First
World War put an end to all that. In the 1920s, the omnipotence of
financial markets seemed just as irreversible as it does now. The 1929
crash and the long crisis that followed forced governments to monitor
banking and financial activities closely. At the end of the Second
World War, the governments of the main victorious capitalist
countries agreed to set up bodies to regulate global finance. The IMF,
for example, was established primarily to ensure that this regulation
would be carried out (article 4 of its statutes is very clear in this
respect). Beginning in 1945, a number of Western European
governments carried out extensive nationalisations, including in the
banking sector, in the face of pressure from organised labour.
Neo-liberal theoretical 'certainties' held forth in recent years are no
more valid than those of the liberals and conservatives that held
power in the 1920s on the eve of the financial meltdown. The
economic failure and social disaster created by today's neo-liberals
might well lead to a round of major political and social changes.
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