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Commentary No. 82, Feb. 1, 2002
"Porto Alegre, 2002"
In 1971, the grand neo-liberal offensive against the gains that had been made by the world's populations in the post-1945 period was launched symbolically (and to some extent really) by the convening of the first Davos conference. Davos was to be a meeting-place of the powerful of the world - heads of major corporations and banks, political leaders, key figures in the media - to consult with each other, create the proper rhetoric, coordinate strategy.
By the mid-1990s, it seemed amazingly successful. The principal Soviet regimes had been dismantled, the historic national liberation movements discredited or diminished. The rhetoric of development (not to speak of that of socialism) had been replaced throughout the world by the rhetoric of globalization to which, it was said, there was no alternative. The world's communist parties had become social-democratic parties, and the world's social-democratic parties now espoused a market liberalism that was only mildly watered down from that espoused by conservative parties.
The forces of Davos pushed ahead full force. And suddenly they ran into trouble. The secretly-discussed Multilateral Accord on Investments, which would have made national legislation restraining foreign corporations illegal, was scuttled in 1998, in part by French opposition. The following year, at Seattle, an unexpected coalition of environmentalists and the U.S. trade unions demonstrated so vigorously against the launching of a new trade round by the World Trade Organization that WTO could not proceed. And this was done primarily by U.S. demonstrators. There followed then a cascade of demonstrations: Quebec, Nice, Gothenburg, Genoa - all successful.
And then came the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre in 2001 - 15,000 persons from around the world, from all kinds of organizations, to insist that "another world is possible." The press of the western world remained skeptical, but the people of Davos were troubled. They decided to move their meetings to safer places - to Doha in the United Arab Emirates for the World Trade Organization, to a remote Canadian mountain location for the G8, and to New York City from Davos for the World Economic Forum.
The attack of Sept. 11, 2001 served the interests of the forces of Davos well. Large-scale demonstrations, with their risks of violence, seemed threatened by the accusation of terrorism. The well-protected Doha meeting of the WTO relaunched world trade talks. But now, almost five months later comes Porto Alegre II. This time, the advance figures were that 50,000 persons would come. This time, the world's press is paying more attention to Porto Alegre than to Davos, except of course in the U.S.
It is a moment to take stock. What have been the strengths of the anti-globalization coalition? The first is that it has demonstrated a breadth and depth of popular support across the world which makes it clear that there is indeed an alternative to the neoliberal agenda of the forces of Davos. Sept. 11 seems to have slowed down the movement only momentarily.
Secondly, the coalition has demonstrated that the new antisystemic strategy is feasible. What is this new strategy? To understand this clearly, one must remember what was the old strategy. The world's left in its multiple forms - Communist parties, social-democratic parties, national liberation movements - had argued for at least a hundred years (circa 1870-1970) that the only feasible strategy involved two key elements - creating a centralized organizational structure, and making the prime objective that of arriving at state power in one way or another. The movements promised that, once in state power, they could then change the world.
This strategy seemed to be very successful, in the sense that, by the 1960s, one or another of these three kinds of movements had managed to arrive at state power in most countries of the world. However, they manifestly had not been able to transform the world. This is what the world revolution of 1968 was about - the failure of the Old Left to transform the world. It led to 30 years of debate and experimentation about alternatives to the state-oriented strategy that seemed now to have been a failure. Porto Alegre is the enactment of the alternative. There is no centralized structure. Quite the contrary. Porto Alegre is a loose coalition of transnational, national, and local movements, with multiple priorities, who are united primarily in their opposition to the neoliberal world order. And these movements, for the most part, are not seeking state power, or if they are, they do not regard it as more than one tactic among others, and not the most important.
So much for the strengths of Porto Alegre. Now for its weaknesses. Its strengths are its weaknesses. The lack of centralization may make it difficult to coordinate tactics in the more difficult battles that are ahead. And we shall have to see how great is the tolerance among the many interests represented, tolerance of each other's priorities.
And if taking state power is not the primary object, then what is? So far, the forces of Porto Alegre have been fighting mainly defensive battles - stopping the forces of Davos from pursuing their agenda. This is important, useful, and has been more successful than many would have predicted a few years ago. But soon this will begin to seem not enough. There will have to be a serious positive agenda. The Tobin tax (to fight speculation in capital flows), eliminating tax shelter arrangements, canceling Third World debt are all useful proposals. But none is enough to change the fundamental structure of the world-system.
What the forces of Porto Alegre need to do more clearly is (1) to analyze where the capitalist world-economy is going structurally, and what are its inherent weaknesses; and (2) begin to outline an alternative world order. In a sense, the world left is back to where it was in the middle of the nineteenth century, with this one advantage. It has the experience of the wisdom and the errors of the past 150 years behind it. So another world is possible. But it is by no means certain.
Immanuel Wallerstein
[Copyright by Immanuel Wallerstein. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to download, forward electronically or e-mail to others and to post this text on non-commercial community Internet sites, provided the essay remains intact and the copyright note is displayed. To translate this text, publish it in printed and/or other forms, including commercial Internet sites and excerpts, contact the author at iwaller@binghamton.edu; fax: 1-607-777-4315.
These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen
from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]
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