Page 105 - Culture Society and Economy

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CULTURE, SOCIETY AND ECONOMY

not affected by the fact that the system of global corporate capital is far
more powerful than any single nation–state – including the most powerful.
This is because, global or not, corporate capital is still capital – that is, like
all capital it remains based on private ownership of the means of produc-
tion and therefore is driven by market competition. A critical part of this
competition remains the battle to hold on to one’s home market while
seizing hold of as much of the market of other nations as possible. Indeed,
globalization has made this competition between transnational corpora-
tions for global market share more intense than ever. Loss of one’s home
market – due to trade deficits, or current account deficits, currency depre-
ciation or non-economic factors – is a crucial strategic loss in this battle,
quite apart from its political consequences. It is therefore absolutely
essential for transnational corporations and global finance to be able to
mobilize their own nation–state or regional bloc or multilateral agency –
the European Union, the Group of Seven meetings of the main developed
countries, the International Monetary Fund or the World Trade
Organization – on their private behalf. Moreover, in the very nature of
monopoly, victory is neither sought nor won by resorting simply to tradi-
tional competitive means. Threats, power politics, militarism, geopolitics –
all means foul and fair – now become standard operating procedure. The
conflict between the European Union and the United States and the finely
calibrated political counter-response on steel tariffs vividly demonstrated
the close inter-connections between these geo-economic and geopolitical
realities. Likewise for recent divisions between the United States and
Britain, on the one hand, and France, Germany and Russia, on the other.
Adopting an internationalist perspective is therefore not a matter of aban-
doning national politics. It is a matter of understanding how such politics
are pursued. National politics now has to be pursued within a context of
the new, much more strongly integrated, international systems if it is to
be effective. National politics has to operate within and be a part of a truly
global politics.
It is striking that nowhere in the analyses by Lash and Urry or any other
theorist of the ‘new economy’, was the emergence of the anti-globalization
movement anticipated. One critical reason why Lash and Urry failed to
grasp this central economic and political reality has to do with their con-
ceptualization of international finance capital as a series of ‘flows’ which
move now in this direction, now that, completely disregarding national
frontiers. 48 But surely it should be obvious that these ‘flows’ move in
certain channels directed by transnational corporations and in the inter-
national currency and capital markets controlled by the large Japanese,
American and German investment banks? It is hardly the case that such

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