Globalization and its
Discontents: The Rise of
Postmodern Socialisms by Roger Burbach, Orlando Nufiez and Boris Kagarlitsky, Pluto Press, 1997, 196 pp., $49.95 (cloth), $19.95 (paper).
The authors of this provocative
book-activist/theorists from Cali-
fornia, Nicaragua and the ex-Soviet
Union-take “globalization” as a
given. “In effect,” they say, “capi-
talism and technology have col-
lapsed time and space.” And in the
regions of the world where most
people live, “governments find
themselves weakened as interna-
tional capital imposes its preroga-
tives on them.” Those governments
have simply become “administrative
and law-enforcement complexes”
for neoliberal capitalism.
Whether this state of affairs rep-
resents anything qualitatively new
in the history of capitalist develop-
ment can be-and has been-called
into question, but the authors are
not interested in that particular
debate. Rather, they are out to
engage the reader on the nature of
the system’s “discontents,” which,
they claim, represent the first steps
toward “postmodern socialisms.”
The current “world disorder,”
they say, has produced four “anti-
systemic challenges.” These are
underclass crime and violence, eth-
nic and racial movements (like the
Muslim nation of Farrakhan or the
Zapatista rebels), Islamic funda-
mentalism (now spreading beyond
the Middle East) and urban rebel-
lions (linking the first three phe-
nomena). These challenges, unlike
the old “modern” challenges to cap-
italism, do not contest for state
power. Rather, they attempt to con-
struct power in the interstices of the
old system. Their global signifi-
cance is linked to the downfall of
modernism: the “destabilizing im-
pact” of late capitalism, the “ideo-
logical impasse” of liberal demo-
cracy and the collapse of (real
existing) socialism as a political-
economic alternative.
One can argue that there is noth-
ing particularly “postmodern” about
self-help groups based on racial
identity or about the political power
of strongly held religious beliefs.
And while the Zapatistas are on
everybody’s list as the first post-
modern guerrilla movement, they
can also be seen as very unpostmod-
ern heirs to the Mexican Revolution,
rebelling over questions of land and
the tyranny of landlords-hardly
“postmodern” questions.
Nonetheless, if the “globaliza-
tion” they describe really is some-
thing new, Burbach, Nufiez and
Kagarlitsky may have some justifi-
cation in sweeping these diverse
political actors into a new political
movement. There has been an
exhaustion, say the authors, of the
legacy of the French Revolution–
the legacy that has shaped the poli-
tics of the past two centuries with its
emphasis on the quest for state
power and on the centrality of polit-
ical parties to advance all interests
and philosophies. If that is correct,
these diverse challenges may
indeed be, at least chronologically,
postmodern.
The authors link these “chal-
lenges” to the rise of “new postmod-
ern economies” which “are com-
prised of highly differentiated activ-
ities and economic islands that rise
phoenix-like out of what capitalism
discards.” These include the street
vendors of the informal economies
of Latin America, weak enterprises
sold to workers, “cottage” activities
of small firms that subcontract to big
capital, the new (impoverished)
peasantry of the ex-USSR, township
enterprises of China and microenter-
prises in general.
Again, there may be nothing new
here. Capitalism has always mar-
ginalized certain activities, though
many marginalized activities (like
16-hour workdays in off-shore
sweatshops) have, in turn, been cen-
tral to the functioning of the system.
So having been “discarded,” are
these “highly differentiated activi-
ties” really outside the capitalist
mode of production? For Burbach, et. al., these marginal activities “are
part of an emergent mode of pro-
duction” and, as such, give rise to
potential insurgencies: “A wave of
mercantile and petty productive
activity,” say the authors, “will
gradually begin to coalesce with
other popular endeavors like coop-
eratives, worker-run concerns and
municipal or township enterprises.”
This will produce “a vast class of
associate producers,” and a synthe-
sis of capitalism and socialism.
The content of the “postmodern”
project comes out of the new-left
project of the 1960s. The authors
emphasize participatory democracy,
human rights, environmentalism,
pacifism as an ideal, feminism, eco-
nomic democracy, sexual freedom,
social justice, ethnic liberation,
local power and workers’ power.
These were the watchwords of
Paris, 1968. Indeed, say the authors,
“we are witnessing the struggles
that burst into the open in 1968.” A
“new individuality” is being created
which, in contrast to the old self-
absorbed individualism, is defined
“in relation to one’s sexuality, to a
particular social or ethnic group, or
even in relation to other species or
the environment.”
They laud the new social move-
ments which organize quests “to
satisfy individual needs and
desires.” The postmodern move-
ments are multicultural in scope,
involving people of color, Indian
movements and religious people all
organized around issues of culture.
“If socialism is to be a part of this
process,” they say, “it will assume
many forms. This is why we speak
of postmodern socialisms.” As the
left searches for new directions and
footholds, the book, more manifesto
than analysis, makes an interesting
contribution to the debate.
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