Rising from the Ashes? labor in the Age of ‘Global’ Capitalism (original) (raw)

2001, Historical Materialism

Reviewed by Phil Taylor Recently, Pierre Bourdieu has written, 'To fight against the myth of globalization, which has the function of justifying a restoration, a return to an unrestrained-but rationalized-and cynical capitalism, one has to return to the facts.'l Developing an analysis based on facts has been a necessary task for socialists seeking to undermine the insidious assumptions of the orthodoxy of globalisation 'theories', which are rooted more in the seductive illusion of common sense than in empirical evidence. However, the actuality of workers' struggle and mass protest are even more effective weapons in the challenge to globalisation, particularly in confronting the myth that there is no alternative to the dictates of a mobile and unfettered capitalism. In this sense, the events of November and December 1999 in Seattle represent a major turning point. The global capitalist consensus was shattered both for the many thousands of participants and for very many of the millions watching on television. Not only were the naked interests of the World Trade Organisation, and of those who perpetuate the myths of globalisation, stripped bare for all to see, but the working class, the oppressed and environmentalists across the globe were given a glimpse of the possibility of an alternative world order. Although the triumph of paralysing the 'Star Chamber for global capitalists', to use St. Clair's phrase/ will resonate for years, the deeper significance of Seattle lies in the reasons why apparently diverse groups of environmentalists, farmers and thousands of blueand white-collar workers came together to protest. The WTO represents an enemy in common, free-trade capitalism, which, depending on one's starting point(s), is seen as destroying the planet, ruining people's health, destroying jobs, intensifying and flexibilising work, privatising the welfare state or immiserating the less developed world. The slogan 'Teamsters and Turtles ... Together at Last' symbolises a unity of interests perhaps unthinkable in decades past, between ecologists and manual workers. In the identification of a common enemy and in the heat of the battle, a unity of interest and