Forms of Resistance
to Neoliberal Globalization
in the US
Max 132, Global Community
Professor Mark Rupert
Different kinds of resistance
pointing toward
alternative possible worlds:
Defensive nationalism
OR
Transnational Solidarity
Nationalism
Premised on some version of
“American Exceptionalism”:
• Constitutional Republic based on individual rights
and liberties;
• Free markets & American Dream;
• Judeo-Christian moral tradition;
• Heritage of Western civilization;
• Anglo-Saxon cultural roots;
and, for some nationalists
• “White” European gene pool
Varieties of Nationalism
•
•
•
•
Economic Nationalism
Political Nationalism
Ethnic-Cultural Nationalism
Racial Nationalism
Economic Nationalism
Fears that globalization will result in:
• Loss of American jobs, especially higherpaying manufacturing jobs;
• A lower standard of living for average
Americans;
• A dwindling tax base;
• Declining national wealth and power.
Ross Perot
“We must have a large manufacturing
base for two reasons:
Manufacturing jobs are the bestpaying jobs, and we cannot defend
our country unless we manufacture
here.
There is an unlimited supply of cheap
labor throughout the world. In the
''global economy,'' there are
hundreds of millions of people
throughout the world who will
work for 25 cents an hour or less.”
“When we put hard-working Americans
out of work by moving jobs to other
countries, our economy takes a triple hit.
The jobless no longer pay taxes, no
longer pay Social Security and draw
unemployment checks. Since our
country is spending beyond its means,
the workers who still have jobs must
pick up all of these expenses -- an
additional tax burden to the remaining
work force.”
Ross Perot
Political Nationalism
Fears that globalization will result in:
• Erosion of US sovereignty as
international laws, rules and regulations
increasingly govern life in US;
• Undermining of US Constitutional
Republic, with its guarantees of
individual rights & liberties;
• Rise of global government.
“American sovereignty is being
Patrick J. Buchanan
eroded. In 1994, for the first time,
the U.S. joined a global institution,
the World Trade Organization,
where America has no veto power
and the one- nation, one-vote rule
applies. Where are we headed?
Look at the nations of Europe that
are today surrendering control of
their money, their immigration
policy, their environmental policy,
even defense policy - to a giant
socialist superstate called the EU.”
“For America to continue
down this road of global
interdependence is a
betrayal of our history and
our heritage of liberty.
What does it profit a man if
he gain the whole world,
and suffer the loss of his
own country?”
Patrick J. Buchanan
Ethnic-Cultural Nationalism
Fears that globalization will result in:
• Influx of foreigners and “alien” languages,
ideas, values, practices, customs;
• Erosion of special ethnic or cultural identity as
“Americans”
“We come from all countries and
continents, in all colors and
creeds. But we are an Englishspeaking people, a child of
Europe, a part of the West.
Without apology, our party would
resist the use of mass immigration
to alter the character of our
country, and we would abolish all
racial preferences and quotas.
Patrick J. Buchanan
If America is to survive as ‘one
nation,’ we must take an
immigration ‘time out’ to mend
the melting pot.”
Racial Nationalism
Fears that globalization will result in:
• Subordination of white Americans under socialistic New World
Order run by “un-American” elites & stateless “international
bankers”
• Hard-working American taxpayers increasingly exploited by
two classes of (essentially alien) social parasites: the wealthy
elite of stateless international bankers ( Jews) who profit from
interest payments on national and personal debt, and nonproductive poor (people of color) who live off welfare.
• Racial “mongrelization” & loss of “white” racial identity
William Pierce, leader of neo-nazi
National Alliance
According to Pierce, internationalization of production and
de-industrialization of the US are two sides of the same
coin and have been the deliberate policy of a secretive
“power elite” :
“New World Order schemers” seeking to “permanently
fasten their grip on the power and wealth of the world.”
None too cryptically, Pierce describes members of this
hidden elite as “the eternal outsiders, the eternal
parasites whose strength always has been in their ability
to manipulate and deceive rather than in their ability to
build things.”
Pierce’s racial nationalism
The secret global elites are “hell-bent” on creating “a world
without national boundaries or even national distinctions, a
world in which every national economy has been submerged in
a global economy, a world with a single homogenized labor
force and a uniform standard of living.”
“men in Washington and New York and London and Tel Aviv
who are behind the policies which are exporting American
jobs to Mexico and Hong Kong because they want to create a
one-world economy in which Mexicans and Chinese and white
Americans will have the same living standard.”
Nationalisms: a family resemblance
• All these nationalisms share a presumption of American
exceptionalism and the belief that this implies Americans
should be specially privileged.
• They share a tendency to blame foreigners, aliens, and unAmerican forces for the world’s problems, and to suggest that
we must isolate ourselves from the sources of those problems.
• They all lend themselves to scapegoating & hostility toward
“others,” both inside & outside the US.
• They tend to undercut responses to globalization which would
build relationships of solidarity & mutual support across
national boundaries.
Resistance as Solidarity
• Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) seeking global
reform in order to stop the “race to the bottom” driven by
market competition, and to make global economic institutions
more equitable and democratic.
• More radical groups, oriented toward “direct action,” seeking
to disrupt global capitalism and build alternative, communitybased, democratic institutions.
• Both kinds of groups see relations of transnational solidarity as
crucial to their political projects.
NGOs seek global reform
• Debt forgiveness;
• Democratrization of IMF, World Bank, WTO;
• Global labor, environment, and consumer
safety standards;
• All designed to stop the “race to the bottom”
and prevent the profit motive from crowding
out all other social values.
Zapatista rebellion
Against Neoliberalism:
“ The historic crime in the
concentration of privileges, wealth
and impunities, which democratizes
misery & hopelessness.”
“The global economic process to
eliminate the multitude of people who
are not useful to the powerful”
“The new distribution of the world
which excludes the majorities”
“The world of money, their world,
governs from the stock exchanges.”
Subcommandante Marcos
Principles of Zapatista rebellion
• “It is not necessary to conquer
the world. It is sufficient to
make it anew.”
• “All we want is a world big
enough to include all the
different worlds the world needs
to really be the world”;
• A world which “recognizes the
existence of the other and does
not overpower or attempt to
silence it.”
“Be a Zapatista
wherever you are”
“This intercontinental network of resistance, recognizing
differences and acknowledging similarities, will strive to find
itself in other resistances around the world.”
“We are the network, all of us who resist.”
“This intercontinental network of alternative communication
is not an organizing structure, nor does it have a central head
or decision maker, nor does it have a central command or
hierarchies.”
“We are the network, all of us who speak and listen.”
Another World is Possible:
Anarchist-inspired visions
“In North America especially, this is a movement
about reinventing democracy. It is not opposed to
organization. It is about creating new forms of
organization. It is not lacking in ideology. Those
new forms of organization are its ideology. It is
about creating and enacting horizontal networks
instead of top-down structures like states, parties,
or corporations; networks based on principles of
decentralized, non-hierarchical consensus
democracy. Ultimately, it … aspires to reinvent
daily life as a whole.”
David Graeber, Anti-Capitalist Convergence
People’s Global Action: Five Hallmarks
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Rejection of the WTO and trade liberalization as active
promoters of a socially and environmentally destructive
globalization;
Rejection of all forms and systems of domination and
discrimination.
A confrontational attitude, since we do not think that
lobbying can have a major impact in such biased and
undemocratic organizations, in which transnational capital is
the only real policy-maker;
A call to non-violent civil disobedience and the construction
of local alternatives by local people, as answers to the action
of governments and corporations;
An organizational philosophy based on decentralization and
autonomy.
Major Protests against
Neoliberal Globalization
1998: Geneva, Switzerland;
1999: Seattle, WA;
2000: Cochabamba, Bolivia; Washington, DC; Milau,
France; Melbourne, Australia; Nice, France;
2001: Porto Alegre, Brazil, Davos, Switzerland; Quebec,
Canada; Gothenburg, Sweden; Genoa, Italy;
2002: Porto Alegre, Brazil;
2003: Miami, Florida
Realizing global solidarity
During the September 2000
protests against the IMF/World
Bank in Prague, PGA’s call for
global action was rewarded with
demonstrations in 110 cities
around the world.
February 15, 2003 demonstrations
against the Iraq war were even
bigger: including 11 million
people in 600 cities world-wide.
showing Globalization’s other face?