Re-inventing internationalism: lessons from the World Social Forum.
| Author | Chowcat, John |
The world paid attention when respected former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook dramatically resigned from Tony Blair's government to oppose the looming US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Few remember, however, his broader reflections on global trends:
It is no longer possible to separate into neat compartments domestic and foreign policy...I still hear discussion of British foreign policy in terms of the pursuit of narrow national interest, as if we were living in the age of Metternich or Palmerston. In reality, in today's interdependent, interconnected world the interest of the international community is also our national interest. (1) Today's UK Labour leaders, in our era of transparently global challenges and cross-border protest movements such as Me Too, climate repair and Black Lives Matter, are regularly confronted with this reality, sharpened by the grave long-term consequences of a monocultural Tory Brexit crusade. This necessitates deeper debate within the party over how to construct effective international policies and alliances - illustrated by recent essays in Renewal on perspectives for a 'progressive re-globalisation' by Matthew Bishop and Tony Payne, and for an international institutional turn by David Adler. (2) Faced with a problematic globalised economy of extensive short-term financial speculation and giant hierarchical corporations, further distorted by the Coronavirus pandemic, efforts are already growing to build a global network of progressives to coordinate opposition to the multiple ravages of contemporary neoliberalism. The most far-reaching of such initiatives to date originated in South America in the form of the large-scale international gatherings of the World Social Forum and its array of related thematic, regional and national social forums - an endeavour twenty years old this year. This significant experience invites careful assessment, to assist Labour's deliberations.
The period prior to the WSF's launch in 2001 had witnessed a key shift in world politics. The collapse of the USSR and its allies, after seventy years of rivalry with Western capitalism, not only weakened the appeal of socialist movements in general, but damaged the deeper argument for class-based social change. 'Orthodox' Soviet ideology had long magnified the strident language of Karl Marx's more propagandistic writings, rather than his closely-argued mature studies: for example it stressed the 'inevitability' of a monolithic working class taking political power - a simplification Marx himself partly corrected in his 'Theories of Surplus Value'. The West's triumph in the Cold War consequently reopened the basic question of agency in pursuing social progress: who or what would form the contemporary forces challenging the establishment?
Despite this renewed controversy, class-based tensions clearly remain highly important, including in Western countries, where rising disparities in both income and wealth are regularly evidenced. Yet the Western working class itself has changed significantly. While it has always contained diverse elements, modern post-Fordist economies - and, increasingly, those based on post-industrial services - have generated a noticeably sub-divided, unequal and flexible labour force. The resultant segmentation has eroded unified class identification, reducing the working class's overall political influence and job security, while upward social mobility stalls. Instead, globalisation has relocated manufacturing activity to the East, creating a new industrial working class with poorer, though slowly improving, pay and working conditions. This workforce is growing restless and socially assertive, an outlook sometimes shared by the many internal migrants seeking factory work to escape rural deprivation. Meanwhile, millions of people in the global South are still not directly involved in industrial production, let alone the newest service sectors.
The narrower identities that such recent social fragmentation has encouraged in the West have effectively downgraded class, in many eyes, as a prime focus of social change. Prominent European postmodern theorists had already paved the way for this development by rejecting the very notion of drawing on philosophical 'grand narratives' to interpret human history or prospects. And these shifts have themselves compounded the increasing impact of individual consumerism and escapism on atomised everyday lives. Though the term 'existentialist' is now rarely revived, it still captures the attitude of the majority living in the urban centres where complicated modern life evolves. Years ago, Chantal Mouffe indicated a link between the commodification of individualised lifestyles - through mass media penetration and targeted marketing - and the nascent resistance reflected by new protest movements closer to personal quality-of-life issues. (3)
Since the weakened Western labour movements could not stem the decline of public services and state provision associated with post-industrial economies, a significant vacuum emerged in meeting day-to-day human needs. This in turn boosted the social protest movements and encouraged new non-state providers of essential services. The former varied widely in scale, organisation and impact, but tended towards self-funded radical activism and authentic grassroots democracy in confronting distinct social challenges. This focus on local or sectional concerns sometimes lacked clearly agreed demands, but did not preclude the possibility of wider international understanding and solidarity. Some organisations favoured direct action, as illustrated by the million-plus membership of Brazil's Landless Workers' Movement (MST), which supported the occupation of private farmlands to further land reforms. Others, including grassroots campaigns for LGBTQ rights in various countries, evolved to embrace intensive lobbying of key politicians as the wider legalisation of same-sex marriages and broader acceptance were secured. Most of these autonomous social movements, while objectively political in ambition, distanced themselves from traditional political parties. The varying sociological theories elaborated to date to explain the sheer scale of their growth remain broadly controversial.
Meanwhile, mushrooming new service providers joined existing charities and cooperatives - many of which were already functioning mainly beyond market forces - to form a growing 'social economy' of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), mutual societies and community enterprises. By 2010, this worldwide sector had expanded enormously, to account for 56 million...
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