Page 156 - Culture Society and Economy

Robotham-08.qxd 1/31/2005 6:24 PM Page 149

ALTERNATIVES

quantity) to be efficiently and effectively specified ex ante by a central
planning agency. It is only in the actual act of buying and selling by
free consumers and producers that the social value attributed to particu-
lar goods and services emerges, post hoc. Once the inequities and gross
maldistribution of incomes typical of monopoly capitalism are corrected,
socially necessary production can only express itself in the actual sale and
purchasing decisions of millions of individual consumers and producers.
Therefore, socialization of the means of production – essential for the solu-
tion of the contradictions of capitalism – must at the same time operate
through a partially socialist market.
In the conditions of the modern world where there are giant transna-
tional corporations and banks, this issue is posed not simply at the national
but at the international level. A vital question therefore is not primarily
the issue of ‘trade’ which often exercises the anti-globalization movement.
It is the issue of what is to be done with these huge global concentrations
of capital which are the root of the economic and political problems of the
world. As economists such as Bagwati have insisted, one must distinguish
clearly between free trade in goods and services and free movement of
capital. 12 The first does not imply the second. Indeed, the second often
undermines the potential benefits of the first.
I approach the problem of developing an alternative to the present
global economy in a two-stage manner – a minimum and a maximum pro-
gram. Contrary to what Callinicos seems to suggest, such a minimal pro-
13
gram would be anti-imperialist, not anti-capitalist. I do not discuss the
politics of these programs although this, to say the least, is an absolutely
vital question. My only comment on the political feasibility question is to
observe that proposals which often seem far-fetched in one social and
economic context are precisely the ones which come to the fore in another.
If one seriously holds to the view that present global economic and polit-
ical systems are not sustainable, then this by itself suggests that, as events
unfold, this unsustainability will show itself in crises of one sort or another.
The time to develop alternatives in anticipation of such crises is now, not
when the crises are upon us. What political solutions emerge from any
given crisis depend on human agency and are inherently unpredictable.
One thing, however, is certain: if one has not thought about and discussed
alternatives before, by this fact alone, one nullifies one’s possibilities for
agency in any given crisis situation in the future.
The first issue that arises therefore in formulating an alternative
to global monopoly capitalism (minimum program) is for there to be a
restoration of exchange controls. The imposition of a Tobin Tax on global
currency or stock market transactions is a problematic proposal which

149