Letter: Globalisation (2009)

Letter to the Editors from the August 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

Globalisation

Dear Editors

“Is globalisation just another word for capitalism? The short answer is yes” (Book Reviews, Socialist Standard, July 2009).

 Globalisation is not the same as capitalism. It is a process occurring within capitalism. It has predominated in recent decades, but it was not predominant at earlier stages of the development of capitalism. It will not necessarily continue to be predominant.

 It is important to distinguish between capitalism and globalisation because many opponents of globalisation advocate not socialism but the restoration of national capitalism.

Stephen Shenfield (by email)

Reply:

That depends on what is meant by “globalisation”. In the middle of the nineteenth century Marx and Engels gave a vivid description that could equally apply to the present day:

“All old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilised nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe. In place of the old wants, satisfied by the production of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes. In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations” (Communist Manifesto, 1848).

This “golden age” of globalisation was brought to an abrupt end in 1914 with the start of the First World War and the abandonment of the international gold standard. Thereafter globalisation continued with the help of increased state intervention. Capitalism has an inherent tendency towards globalisation, driven by the competitive accumulation of profits. Globalisation is not a particular arrangement of institutions, for example deregulated markets, or a particular ideology such as neo-liberalism. Of course there are many opponents of “globalisation” who want a restoration of national capitalism, and we agree it is important to counter their faulty conception of what constitutes capitalism – Editors.