Anti-Globalization? Or Anti-Capitalism? Or Both?
A Review of Two Strategies

by Sheila Wilmot
The New Socialist Magazine, March / April 2001


The struggle against globalization continues to build. Even the Globe & Mail has had to add "antiglobalization" to its spell-check to describe the huge protests that continue to be mounted whenever international state leaders meet to work on making the world safer for capitalism. Yet the meaning of this term, and what it means to be anti-capitalist, remain unclear. As well, different approaches taken by Left groups are often inadequately explained as tactical differences between "radical" and "reformist" perspectives.

One way to clarify the analysis is to compare the antiglobalization view that is most acceptable and gets the most media play with a more radical approach. A social democratic view (reflected in organizations like the Council of Canadians, Canadian Labour Congress and the Centre for Social Justice) differs from an anti-oppression feminist socialist view (that connects race, gender and class) in terms of its definition of globalization and who it most affects, its perspective on the role of the state and its proposals for what we need to do to fight globalization.

What is it?

Both views agree on the visible features that are making conditions of life for most worse, such as free trade deals, privatization of public enterprises, tax cuts and other advantages for corporations, social program cuts and Structural Adjustment Programs, the use of technology for currency speculation that sends $1 trillion (US) per day around the world, fewer and fewer private banks having more power, and increased exploitation of workers. However, from this point on the two approaches differ a lot.

The social democratic view holds that globalization, or neoliberalism, is the "new age of corporate rule," a new phenomenon of the last few decades. It also generally says that the process of globalization, although devastating, is irreversible. On the other hand, an anti-oppression feminist socialist view holds that globalization is not new, but is actually a form of international capitalism—and capitalism has been international from the start. While there have been changes in the last few decades to formalize and consolidate international decision-making and intensify the ruthless accumulation of profit, the unity of the international ruling class in profiting off of the labour of working class people continues. In the form capitalism takes now, trade blocs are actually competing imperialist powers. Understanding imperialism and colonialsim as integral to global capitalism is important because these forces ensure the North’s domination of the South and of Indigenous people in the North, as well as the control of some capitalist blocs by others.

Has the state lost all its power?

Both Left approaches agree on some aspects of the state’s role. There is a supra-national constitutionalization going on, through institutions like the World Trade Organization, World Bank, International Monetary Fund and policies like the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Free Trade Area of the Americas negotiations. Government and business elites plan the global agenda behind closed doors with corporations and banks playing a key role on shaping this process.

Yet, there is a fundamental difference in the social democratic and socialist feminist understanding of the state’s role beyond this point, a difference that has huge implications for further analysis and action. The former says that the state itself is neutral. If we elect "good" governments, the nation-state will do the best job of looking after people. But, this view reasons, our problem is that more and more multinational corporations are picking up and moving around the world, and the governments are unable to police, tax or control them. Therefore, the view says the problem is that the state has lost a critical degree of power to MNCs.

However, the integrated feminist socialist view knows that the state is not neutral: no matter whether there is a "good" or "bad" government, the state’s purpose is to look after the interests of the capitalist class. As well, on a global scale, the state has not lost its power but has shifted its focus to the world level as decisions at the national level get tied more and more to the global movement of capital. In different ways, the state is being nationally and internationally re-organized as part of the ongoing fight between states to attract and/or keep a share of world capital.

Even so, the state still has the job of guaranteeing private property and profits, making sure multinational corporations have access to ever-cheapening and "flexible" labour supply, creating the social acceptance for all this to happen, and keeping the social order. Therefore, the state’s function has not changed but its form is getting worse: in Canada, laws are being changed to accommodate big business by Conservative, Liberal and New Democratic provincial governments. Federally, we see the racist, sexist and class-specific migration and work policies in the Live-in Care-giver Program and in Employment Insurance changes. In Ontario, the Harris government’s assault on welfare, the Tenant Protection Act, the new Employment Standards Act, Safe Streets Act and the Prevention of Unionization Act are also glaring examples. Local governments pitch in to help police continue to keep the social order, often in a most brutal, racist way through the harassment and murders of Aboriginal people and people of colour.

Just who do we think gets hit worst by globalization?

The second most popular term bandied about these days after globalization is "civil society." The social democratic view blends us all together as people of all nations who are united against corporate "values" and new corporate rules. It is understood that women of colour and Aboriginal women are the poorest of the poor and that the North-South relationship has changed so that we are all being forced by corporations to the "lowest common denominator" in living standards.

The feminist socialist anti-oppression perspective is fundamentally different. On a global scale, a few elites are able to pile up profit because of the low wages and bad working conditions of people of colour and Aboriginal people, especially women. This is how class takes shape through racism and sexism. So, it’s not about millions and millions of women being on the bottom rung of some economic ladder: this international labour force on the move is the very foundation of the whole global economy, no matter where you look. The changes over the last few decades have made this more vicious: there are at least 30 million homeworkers in India; millions of women migrate from the Philippines to work in the North; maquiladoras (assembly plants in free trade zones) all over East Asia and Latin America employ women in the poorest paid, least safe jobs; in Toronto, sweatshop work, homework and below minimum wage temp agency work is on the rise. It is low income and poor women of colour and Aboriginal women that are hardest hit by the Structural Adjustment Programs of the South and social program cuts in the North.

What do we need to do to fight it?

The dominant Left view would say that what we need to do is mobilize "civil society" to expose corporate rule, discipline corporate behaviour (e.g. through corporate campaigns and boycotts) and restore democratic control. The central feature of the fight-back is for labour and non-governmental organization elites to work with governments and business in order to "get in the door and sit at the table" on civil society’s behalf, to negotiate the best deal possible that will once again put social institutions and mechanisms in place where the market has taken over.

Further, protests are good but they need to be managed and "spun" by Left elites. While focusing on nationalism is the key to competing better internationally - as in, "we" are all in it together to "save Canada" - promotion of internationalism is generally limited to working within global networks of Left elites.

For anti-oppression feminist socialists, this is not the project that we need. What we do need is, from the ground up, to make visible and follow the leadership of women of colour and Aboriginal women who are resisting and organizing around the world. To really do this, to make these connections and develop this true solidarity, we need a fundamentally anti-oppression approach to our work. There is an urgent need to fight, using various tactics, for less oppressive conditions right now (e.g. non-profit housing programs, safe work conditions and fair wages, and higher corporate taxes). But this struggle needs to be rooted in the goal of ending, in the long run, the structural violence that is capitalism. The activity and analysis of organizing must be rooted in communities and workplaces, in the struggles and the realities there, not in institutions. It is about mobilizing and building real democratic movements that direct and make change.