The Globalization of Apartheid (original) (raw)

Inequality is intrinsic to the functioning of the modern economy at all levels from the global to the local. The rich and poor are separated physically, kept apart in areas that differ greatly in their standards of living. It is impossible to prevent movement between the two areas in any absolute sense, since the rich need the poor to perform certain tasks for them on the spot (especially personal services and dirty work of all kinds). But movement of this sort is severely restricted, by the use of formal administrative procedures (state law) or by a variety of informal institutions based on cultural prejudice. Systems of classification perform this task for us, of which racism is the prototype and still the single most important means of inclusion and exclusion in our world. There is a great lie at the heart of modern politics. We live in self-proclaimed democracies where all are equally free; and we are committed to these principles on a universal basis. Yet we must justify granting some people inferior rights; otherwise functional economic inequalities would be threatened. This double-think is enshrined at the heart of the modern nation-state. Nationalism is racism without the pretension to being as systematic or global. The neo-liberal conservatives who have dominated world society for several decades had as their principal aim dismantling the social democratic institutions (welfare states) that arose in the mid-twentieth century to protect national workers and their families. This was accompanied by engineering consistent downward pressure on wages through the threat of exporting capital to cheaper countries or importing cheap labour, latterly from eastern Europe. The result in the rich countries is racist xenophobia exacerbated by job insecurity and rising levels of poverty at home. This is the immediate context for the globalization of apartheid as a social principle. And it is echoed in increased security measures aimed at regulating movement in the name of the ‘war on terror’. More than two centuries ago, Kant argued for the ‘cosmopolitan right’ of free movement everywhere. Our world seems to be the opposite of that now. But, sooner or later, economic and political crisis will force a reconsideration of the principles organizing world society. Movement is predicated on some things staying as they are. We need to feel at home, so we build up durable attachments in particular places. Place and movement across distance are contradictory, in that they are hard to combine in practice. Obviously, if virtual movement (communications) can substitute for real movement, this dilemma would be reduced, The digital revolution in communications brings the world closer to each of us and it makes society at distance possible without disturbing our commitments to particular places. This machine revolution bears comparison in human history with the invention of agriculture 10,000 years ago. Indeed our task is to understand the relationship between the two revolutions. The exchange of commodities (markets) and cultural communication (language) are converging. It is now possible to imagine machines as instruments of human freedom rather than the opposite, to be a means of feeling more at home in the world, What is needed is a new free trade movement seeking to dismantle the institutions of national privilege and insisting on movement as a human right. Only then will the better off see any reason to engage with the world outside their fortified enclaves. The world belongs to all human beings and each of us has a right to move in it as we wish. A modified Keynesian programme for the world economy might be one step in that direction, redistributing purchasing power to the impoverished masses. Global capital will only be checked effectively when popular forces are able to mobilize freely. First, however, the world is already seeing a move towards national and regional trade protection. This move is bound to be resisted by the forces of neoliberal globalization – the transnational corporations and countries committed to production for export – with war on an unpredictable scale the likely outcome. Presentation for the first Rethinking Economies workshop ‘Unequal development: the globalization of apartheid’, Goldsmiths College London, 24th March 2006: organized by Catherine Alexander.