Page 153 - Culture Society and Economy

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CULTURE, SOCIETY AND ECONOMY

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policies and projects amply demonstrates. The lessons of these failures
must be faced up to and learned, not swept under the carpet by populist
or culturalist rhetoric. Anti-capitalism is not enough. The notion that
central planning is a cure-all for the contradictions of capitalism has been
shown to be gravely mistaken. Likewise, naïve faith in ‘market socialism’
and worker self-management which ignores the necessity for central
coordination and planning at both the national and international levels
derives from a failure to positively appreciate the enormous benefits of a
globally integrated economy and society. It too is not helpful. It is in fact
a step backward in comparison to what capitalism has developed today
in the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade
Organization and, especially, to the proposals of John Maynard Keynes at
Bretton Woods, the most progressive of which were never accepted. 5
Without paying far closer attention to economics – without bringing the
economy back in – those who are serious about overcoming the failures
of capitalism will find themselves confined to an anti-capitalist passion
which is incapable of gaining wide public support.
We must start from the view that the problem of global oppression is not
size as such, but who owns and controls this ‘size’ and who benefits from it.
Thus, the issue is not the spatial spread of corporations, long-distance trade
and the global economy. Nor is the issue ‘commodification’ or ‘exchange’. In
a sense the problem is not globalization at all. It is matter of private owner-
ship of the means of production and of monopoly capital and the inherent
challenge of restoring individual and social control over a process based on
the division of labor on such an internationally vast scale.
The large size of corporations is simply a reflection of the high level
of contemporary forces of production. It simply reflects the growth of an
international division of labor on a grander scale. This is a good, not a
bad, thing, economically, culturally, socially and politically. Yes, there are
diseconomies of scale and monopolies and these must be prevented. But
this is to look at the matter from the point of view of the trees and to miss
the wood. What follows from this is that the development of alternatives
to capitalism must base itself on the social-economic foundations which
have already been developed within the global capitalist system. Any
alternative to the existing system of global monopoly capitalism must
build on, indeed, extend this globalization. All attempts to revert to one form
or the other of communalism or localism must be firmly rejected. For
example, a lingering communalism – in which labor mobility is restricted
and community banks control substantial amounts of investment funds – is
a weakness of the economic democracy and self-management alternatives
advocated by Howard and Schweickart. 6

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