Page 102 - Culture Society and Economy

Robotham-05.qxd 1/31/2005 6:23 PM Page 95

CAPITALISM ORGANIZED AND DISORGANIZED

The stability (complacency?) and level of organization of the old
industrial working class in Britain also derived from the privileges
enjoyed by British capital in the world market, some of the profits from
which benefited sections of the leadership of this very same working
class. Moreover, the record of this working class in the sphere of consis-
tent opposition to British colonialism and imperialism is an inconsistent
and inglorious one. Likewise its attitude to anti-black racism and immi-
gration. Some sections of this European industrial proletariat were inter-
nationalist in outlook and activity. But others were not renowned for
selfless acts of international solidarity or for their revolutionary spirit. On the
contrary, what often struck outsiders was their nationalism and, at times,
chauvinism. Lash and Urry’s portrait of the ‘organized’ and then ‘disor-
ganized’ European proletariat starts from a somewhat idealized baseline.
It is insufficiently critical of the ‘organized’ proletariat, especially its polit-
ical and intellectual leadership. To some extent, it could be argued that
a ruthlessly cosmopolitan corporate capital has taught this ‘organized’
working class of Europe a cruel lesson and made them pay a high price
for not seeing beyond the immediacy of the post-war compromise. They,
or at any rate their leaders, may have been the authors of their own
misfortune.
But there is a more important point. This has to do with the way in
which the new world developments in culture and economy are per-
ceived simply as bringing ‘disorganization’. This can only be an appro-
priate term if one takes the nation–state as an inescapable ontological and
practical reality in the manner of ‘methodological nationalism’. It is
indeed the case that, from the point of the view of those who have been
habituated to take the old nation–state structures for granted, the new
globalization processes are profoundly ‘disorganizing’. But to see only this
negative aspect is to miss the point that they are also profoundly ‘orga-
nizing’ but on an infinitely larger global scale. Especially in Economies of
Signs and Space Lash and Urry recognize this point. There they argue that,
as a result of information technology, ‘disorganization’ creates new
46
opportunities for progressive political movements. They affirm that the
new changes are irreversible and that there is no going back either to the
old culture, the old social solidarities, the old economy or to the politics
of the old working-class trade union and labor movements – a fortiori to
the old welfare state. But they reject the idea that these changes mean the
end of all progressive politics.
Here, their argument takes a truly fascinating turn which, I would
argue, is also a result of the embeddedness of the idea of the nation–state
in their thinking as well as their notion of finance capital as consisting

95