13 arguments on globalisation*

Asbjørn Wahl

Argument 1:  On globalisation
Originally, the word «Globalisation» awakens positive associations in me. As an internationalist, I value the concept of world integration, that we grow and develop together, that human and cultural exchanges evolve, and so forth. Today’s developments in international economics are, however, in the process of bringing the concept into discredit. It is, therefore, not globalisation as such which is the problem, but the particular form of globalisation which today takes place completely on the premises of the financial capital and the multinational companies

Argument 2:  On the debate
If we wish to have a sensible debate about «globalisation», it is important that all participants give their definition as to what their concept of the term is. Different people have completely different ideas about what globalisation is all about. The purpose of the debate must be to illuminate the problematic sides of globalisation, together with the prevailing disagreements around it. The existence of exotic spices in local restaurants and corner shops, or the fantastic chance we have to see live TV-pictures, directly from every corner of the earth while sitting in our homes, is not my subject. Focusing on this, without including the driving economic forces of globalisation, represents, in other words, a reduction to stupidity or a veiling of the debate.

Argument 3:  On capital’s international offensive
What worries me, and as far as I have understood, an increasing part of the world’s population, is the proceeding economic globalisation, which is based on politically decided free movement of capital, deregulation and liberalisation and a steady transfer of power from democratically elected bodies to the market’s blind rules. This development during the last two decades has given capital interests, at both national and international level, an enormous position of power. We are facing a massive international offensive from capital powers. The two prime pillars in this offensive are represented by the financial capital and the multinational companies, with the world’s richer governments as benevolent door openers.

Argument 4:  On multinational companies
At the moment, there is taking place a vehement concentration of power and resources in the hands of multinational businesses. We frequently get to hear announcements on new fusions, surpassing everything earlier in size and value (e.g. Daimler Bentz/Chrysler and BP/Amoco). For the first time in history, the majority of the world’s 100 largest economic units today are companies and not states. 2/3 of world trade is either internally carried out in the multinational companies or between them. The 200 largest multinationals control over ¼ of the world’s gross product. The largest 20 companies have a yearly turnover which is larger than that of the 80 poorest countries in the world put together – and this is achieved with only 4 1/2 million employees.

Argument 5:  On the role of financial capital
Similarly, there has been a dramatic growth in international financial transactions over the last 10-15 years. The turnover is more than ten times greater than in 1985. Daily trading represents a value corresponding to the total currency reserves in the world. Only 2-3% of all these transactions are the buying and selling of goods and services, things we actually need. This «Turbo-capitalism» or «Casino-economy» behaves more and more as if it is released from the real economy – at the same time as it works strongly and destructively back against the real economy. This has created increasing unpredictability and vulnerability in the world economy, contributing to both the forming and the deepening of extensive crises in the economy.

Argument 6:  On the ideological offensive
A massive propaganda campaign is being carried out in order to convince us that this is a necessary and inevitable development – it is bound to irreversible technological and economic developments, as it is called. There is no alternative! The collapse of the state-controlled economies of Eastern Europe has been used not only to write-off any alternative to market liberalism, but also to declare all ideologies dead. In this neoliberal political-ideological offensive the present international offensive of capital powers is being stated as a law of nature.

Argument 7:  On increasing inequality in the world
One of the more manifest consequences of this «New Economic World Order» is the massive inequality in development. The inequalities increase at all levels of world-wide society – between the poor and the rich countries, between the poor and the rich in the rich countries as well as between the poor and the rich in the poor countries. The extremely bizarre situation has arisen that the richest 348 individuals in this world manage the same amount of wealth as the poorest 2,5 billion people – almost half of the world’s population. The rise of a layer of corporate «fat-cats» is another expression of this development. In the last resort, this reflects the changing structural power in society and cannot be stopped just by well-meant moral appeals.

Argument 8:  On the flexibilisation of the labour market
The cutthroat competition and enormous demand for profits which this economic development bears with it, leads to an immense pressure on large groups of workers. The employers prime strategy in this fight can be gathered under the label of flexibility, that is to say, weakening of the laws and agreements which protect the employees in their working environment – such as sickness benefits, health and safety regulation, working hours and job security. Through out-sourcing, competitive tendering, privatisation of public services, splitting companies into smaller companies and hiring in of workers the employers seek to withdraw from the responsibility for the workers and weaken trade unions. The ideal is obviously to work on individual contracts at market price and pay.

Argument 9:  On the Multilateral Agreement on Investment
We are witnessing the financial capital and multinational companies transforming the world in their own image. International agreements and institutions which are being built up today reflect, necessarily, the lopsided balance of strength which has developed between labour and capital, between the market and civil society. The so far most extreme example of this was the proposal of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), which represented an attempt to institute market liberalism as «the world economic order». The proposed agreement made, for the first time in history, companies, and not states the basic units of world society. It proposed a new legal constitution one-sidedly serving the multinational companies, and it created a completely new and exceptionally widened concept of the notion of expropriation. The breakdown of the negotiations in the OECD gives no reason to relax, as the proposals are now being pursued in the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

Argument 10:  On the conflicting of interest
Under globalisation’s ideological smoke screen, there is currently going on a comprehensive social struggle, an intense struggle for power and for control of the world’s resources. Certain interests in society press the current development forward because they are benefiting economically and politically from it. The strong redistribution of wealth which is currently going on, from public to private and from labour to capital, is shifting the balance of strength between the social groups. As virtually every reform in direction of expanded democracy and building up of the welfare state during the last century took place in confrontation and fight with corporate forces and the political right wing, this development is a threat exactly to these achievements. The struggle, however, represents nothing new. The achievements of the trade union and the labour movement, together with their allied partners, during the 20^th century, were precisely made possible by the fighting of market liberalisme.

Argument 11:  On Norwegian peculiarities
Norwegian economy is strongly integrated in this new economic world order. Yet we are in a more favourable position than many other countries because of the extensive income received from the oil industry. This has damped the effects of capital’s offensive. However, the tendencies are the same in our country, and the turbulence in interest and foreign exchange policy, which followed the Southeast Asian crisis in 1998, demonstrated how easily our economy can be a helpless victim of the international financial speculators. On the other hand, Norway’s oil wealth and the reserve fund which is being built up from oil revenue, have also made important private and public interests in our country part-takers of the international «casino-economy», with its economic and political consequences. Illustrating is the role of Statoil, once established as a tool of state oil policy, now an international part-taker where other countries’ desires for corresponding national control constitute a problem. Norway has, in other words, lost the innocence which many believed it had.

Argument 12:  On the mobilisation of the anti-movement
The conclusion is that we are facing a comprehensive social struggle. This struggle is already underway. It is being fought by poor farmers in Africa, by the working masses in the tiger economies in South East Asia, by the incredibly exploited and repressed workers in the economic free zones in Latin America, by environmental organisations fighting against the ruthless exploitation of resources, by lorry drivers in France and by the 139 dustmen in Oslo who were sacked after a competitive tendering where the municipal undertaking lost to a private company of contractors. The struggle is social, not national. It is, in other words, the power of capital which must be curbed and not the boarders between countries which must be closed. The solutions lie in the future, not in the past. It is not any longer a question of what we think of the economic globalisation we are experiencing today. The problem consists of how to build broad alliances and mobilise sufficient anti movements, so that we again can begin to bridle capital powers, to humanise the economy through political regulation and democratically elected control.

Argument 13:  On the role and strategy of the trade union movement
The international offensive of the capitalist forces has forced trade unions on the defensive all over the world. In spite of that, the trade union movement remains the most important potential counter-force, because it organises those who, through their labour, produce the values of society. Mobilisation from below, democratisation of trade unions at all levels, politicising of the trade union struggle, developing unity in the trade union movement and alliances with the environmental movement and other popular organisations and strengthening of international solidarity have to be important pillars of a counter-strategy. The struggle must be concentrated on a defence of the normal working day and trade union rights, the welfare state and the environment, the rejection of privatisation and out-sourcing and restrictions on the global ravaging of the financial capital. Ideological strengthening, sharpening of the system criticism, and a new vision of a society based on freedom, equality and solidarity are decisive in order to fight apathy and resignation. French public sector workers, UPS workers in the USA, Australian dock workers and Norwegian bus-drivers have proved that industrial action makes a difference.

* This is a revised version of a contribution given at a Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ National Seminar on Globalisation on 27 October 1998.