Towards an Alternative to Globalization
(Global Research) -- This text will be presented at the Third All-Russia Anti-Global Forum, Moscow, December 2009...
There is a popular expression (attributed to various famous authors), that any "anti-" is dissolved in that, against which it is "anti-". This phrase has a profound meaning, which consists in the fact that to unite in a bare denial of anything is counter-productive and doomed to defeat. A viable alternative may be only an independent project that contains a constructive idea and a program for implementation.
Accordingly, the Third Forum of Anti-Global Resistance diverts from the themes of criticism and exposure of the essence of imperialist globalization and seeks to create its own meaningful project, its own civilizational alternative to globalism. As a part of this task, we would like to present our positions in a succinct form.
1. Economy for man, not man for economy.
The logic of modern civilization, which represents global capitalism in the final stage of capital concentration and expansion of markets of raw materials, labor and sales, is profit maximization as the basic task of production. This approach appears to be a form of fetishism, a kind of religious ministry to a deified material idol. It breeds widespread poverty and actual purposeful genocide of the "economically unjustified" populations of entire regions of the world, escalation of class and ethnic conflicts, extremely wasteful and historically irresponsible squandering of nonrenewable natural resources, destruction of traditional cultures and moral standards, imposing standards of consumer thinking and behavior that lead to cultural and intellectual degradation of mankind, denaturalization of consumer goods, leading to an increase in the number of diseases, including the genetic degradation of the human species.
As an alternative, we propose a planned system of production, entirely subordinate to the purposes and objectives of Life and Life Reproduction, meeting the needs of a particular country in the agricultural, industrial, and information products required for the stable maintenance of a decent standard of living. Such a type of production requires as a prerequisite the nationalization of major industries and a significant preponderance of public (state) ownership over private ownership. The existence of such production should imply stable, sustainable self-reproduction, rather than unlimited growth and expansion.
Of course, this approach does not exclude the differences in the levels of development and consumption between developed regions and those lagging behind, but, at least, the present absurd situation of exterminating the "economically unjustified" population will be impossible, given that population has everything needed for sustainable life reproduction on their land.
2. The unconditional priority of the principles of national statehood and sovereignty over the international law, the authority of international organizations and the rights of transnational corporations.
Today, the capitalist system, which has reached the stage of consolidating the world in a single market, seeks to eliminate national borders and make the world completely "free" in the sense of free movement of goods, raw materials, capital and labor, thus totally fine-tuning it with the interests of capitalist profit. This results in withering away of the nationhood, associated with the interests of specific nations and populations of specific areas - that is, with the interests of socially organized populations. In parallel, a number of roles and prerogatives, at first monopolized by the state, have transferred to the extraterritorial power centers (especially TNCs), unrelated to the interests of specific people and specific areas. We observe the formation of private armies and quasi-police security forces of commercial corporations. This situation is fraught with the disappearance of law as a category and the absolutely uncontrollable and irresponsible use of armed violence by financial clans.
A special tragedy of the situation is that modern states, being inherently capitalist, primarily express the will of the bourgeois class, and, in the interests of this class, are losing out to multinational corporate structures with virtually no fighting and resistance.
We propose the shift to the revival of the sovereignty of nation-states, which is possible only if the first item on the program – the nationalization of the basic means of production - is implemented. Only in this case the state would become national, not in word, but in deed, that is expressing the will of the nation, rather than the bourgeois class. And in the modern world such a common nation-state, beyond any class interests, can exist only on the basis of a classless socialist society. Only in this case, the monopoly on armed violence remains under the control of people, and there may be reproduction of the legal relationship (although the legal principle is not absolute and should not apply to all spheres of public life, see below)...--Sergey A. Stroev...Cont'd...LINK