Page 17 - Culture Society and Economy

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CULTURE, SOCIETY AND ECONOMY

decisive factor for this group. What is more, the entry of this mainstream
stratum into the anti-globalization movement will radically transform its
character in a direction of which some current anti-globalization activists
may not approve.
Recognition of the social substance of globalization is altogether a
different matter from an acceptance of free trade neo-liberalism. For some
time now it has become apparent that globalization is in desperate need
of regulation, at the national and especially at the international levels.
Arrangements need to be made to assist weaker and smaller economies
and to compensate social groups harmed by the process. There needs, for
example, to be a new pool of social adjustment funds which will provide
grants and low-interest loans where needed in the manner of the social
and other support funds which flow from the wealthy to the less wealthy
European Union nations. The restructuring and democratization of inter-
national economic institutions such as the International Monetary Fund
and the World Bank are long overdue. Special consideration has to be
given to African economies, to assist them to contribute to the global
production process on an equal footing. Making such measures a reality
will not be easy and will require a long political struggle nationally and
internationally.
I attribute part of the weakness in articulating convincing critiques of
globalization to the triumph of cultural and social theories which have as
their central principle the basic independence of culture and society from
what I regard as their economic foundation. It is also a result of the
tendency of the Left to focus on the (ideological, organizational, political)
challenges of winning political power and not on the economic chal-
lenges which arise after power is won. In fact, as will be discussed in the
following chapter, the critique of ‘economism’ by writers on the Left
focuses almost entirely on the negative consequences (passivity, lack of
audacity and political will) of ‘economism’ in the struggle for political
power. They seldom raise, much less discuss, the vital question of what
happens if and when power is won – practical alternative economic poli-
cies to construct a different way or life – ‘economism’ in that sense.
But critiques of ‘economism’ by thinkers such as Gramsci took place
before or in the process of attempts to develop a socialist economic alter-
native. And, as we shall see in the following chapter, Gramsci strongly
supported a focus on the economy, during the post-revolutionary period
of ‘socialist construction’. By and large the downplaying of the economic
leads to the erroneous view that methods which may be appropriate to the
ideological or political struggle can simply be transferred to the economy.
Yet one of the most important facts of political life that anyone espousing

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