1NC
Economic Engagement is the mechanism for neoliberal enclosures - The new
enclosures are different from the violent bloody expropriation of the English
countryside. The regime of neoliberal capital works by enclosing the last
vestiges of public commons and embedding them within new markets.
A Haroon Akram-Lodhi ‘7 Department of International Development Studies, Trent University (Third
World Quarterly Vol. 28, No. 8, 2007, pp 1437 – 1456)
The continuous character of enclosures, either by deliberate recourse to extra-economic power or as a by-product of
the process of accumulation, as part of the immanent if not immutable drive of capital, must be situated within the
specific characteristics of neoliberal globalisation. Neoliberal globalisation dates from the
1980s, and has witnessed a sustained reassertion of enclosure in shaping rural livelihoods in
the South. Indeed, Araghi memorably calls it ‘the great global enclosure of our times’.40 Dominant classes in the
South, working in conjunction with neoconservative dominant classes in the North, have used
the policy conditionalities imposed with their agreement upon the countries in the South, in the form of structural adjustment
programmes, to compress the state, to enhance the role of markets in social and cultural life, and in so
doing to broaden and deepen the role of capital and the capitalist mode of production in the
countries of the South.41 Neoliberal globalisation has thus sought to promote the deeper
capitalist transformation of societies in the South, in the form of a marked sharpening of
capitalist social property relations. Neoliberal globalisation has, as a consequence, promulgated changes in the
character of the rural economy in many countries, most vividly around access to land. These alterations commenced with a series of
legislative changes in several countries that sought to terminate or roll-back a wide variety of state-led agrarian reforms produced
during the first three-quarters of the 20th century. These had constituted a form of counter-enclosure, in that ‘access to public
wealth without a corresponding expenditure of work’42 had resulted in the creation of commons, that is to say ‘non-commodified
means to fulfil social needs, eg to obtain social wealth and to organise production . . . created and sustained by communities . . . that
are not reduced to the market form’.43 Of course, the most famous examples of this termination of counter-enclosure were
witnessed with Chinese and Vietnamese decollectivisation, as well as with the collapse of collective agriculture in the former Soviet
Union; the former created opportunities for relatively egalitarian capitalist farming, while the latter created opportunities for largescale capitalist farming. However, neoliberalism was equally hostile to state-led agrarian reforms that distributed land noncollectively to individual peasant households, such as in Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Egypt, India and Zimbabwe, among others. Thus a less
well known but equally dramatic rollback of state-led agrarian counter-enclosure occurred; Egypt and Chile offer stark examples.
Often predicated on the subdivision and privatisation of the collectives or co-operatives that had emerged out of a state-led agrarian
reform process, such as the ejidos in Mexico, and with the common objective of seeking to attract foreign capital into landscapes
that were not fully colonised by capital, these
transformations of counter-enclosure were a result of direct
action by the state designed to facilitate a market-led appropriation of land under conditions
regulated by dominant classes. Thus neoliberal globalisation has produced changes that have, as a
general if not universal rule, reshaped the rural production process, in that there has been, to differing degrees, a reassertion
of forms of enclosure carried out in subsectors of the rural economy that have served, in some cases, to reinforce, and, in
other cases, to resurrect, inequalities in access to land and, as a result, to sustain a bias in the pattern of rural accumulation so that it
This common process I will term ‘neoliberal enclosure’ . Neoliberal
enclosure can be differentiated from previous enclosures in that its objective is not to
establish capitalist social property relations but rather to deepen the already prevailing set of
capitalist social property relations by diminishing the relative power of peasants and workers
in favour of dominant classes. This is achieved principally through the use of market-based
works to the benefit of a minority.
processes supplemented by the direct action of the state. In this sense neoliberal enclosure is
often a by-product of the accumulation process, using capitalist economic rationality as a
mechanism to achieve its ends. However, neoliberal enclosure required, in the first instance,
fundamental alterations by the state in the structure of rights to property in the juridical and
legal sphere that it monopolised , and which thus reflected the power of dominant class forces to regulate the
underlying social relations that govern the extraction of surplus labour. Indeed, I would argue that this is the context within which
MLAR arises: state alterations of the juridical sphere have facilitated the capacity of dominant classes to regulate neoliberal
enclosure, establishing market imperatives that promote the use of capitalist economic rationality, and thus have resulted in a
deepening of capitalist social property relations in the South as it underwent neoliberal agrarian restructuring.
The Impact: the process of enclosure is a continuation of the same process that
colonized the South – the expansion of neoliberal enclosure creates global
violence and global death zones of humanity – perpetual suffering and violence
is inevitable.
Balibar ‘4, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at The University of Paris-X, 2004 [Etienne, also
Distinguished Professor of Humanities at University of California at Irvine, We, The People Of
Europe?: Reflections On Transnational Citizenship, p. 115-116, 126-129]
I am aware of all these difficulties, but I would maintain that a reality lies behind the notion of something "unprecedented." Perhaps
it is simply the fact that
a number of heterogeneous methods or processes of extermination (by which I
mean eliminating masses of individuals inasmuch as they belong to objective or subjective groups) have themselves
become "globalized,” that is, operate in a similar manner everywhere in the world at the same time, and so progressively
form a “chain,” giving full reality to what E. P. Thompson anticipated twenty years ago with the name “exterminism.” In this
series of connected processes, we must include, precisely because they are heterogeneous—they do not have
one and the same "cause," but they produce cumulative effects: 1. Wars (both “civil” and “foreign,” a distinction
that is not easy to draw in many cases, such as Yugoslavia or Chechnya). 2. Communal rioting,
with ethnic and/or religious ideologies of “cleansing.” 3. Famines and other kinds of
“absolute” poverty produced by the ruin of traditional and nontraditional economies. 4.
Seemingly “natural” catastrophes, which in fact are killing on a mass scale because they are
overdetermined by social, economic, and political structures, such as pandemics (for example, the difference
in the distribution of AIDS and the possibilities of treatment between Europe and North America on one side, Africa and some parts
of Asia on the other), droughts, floods, or earth-quakes in the absence of developed civil protection. In the end it would be my
suggestion that the
"globalization" of various kinds of extreme violence has produced a growing
division of the "globalized" world into life zones and death zones. Between these zones (which indeed are
intricate and frequently reproduced within the boundaries of a single country or city) there exists a decisive and fragile superborder,
which raises fears and concerns about the unity and division of [hu]mankind—something like a global and local “enmity line,” like
the “amity line” that existed in the beginning of the modern European seizure of the world. It is this superborder, this enmity line,
that becomes at the same time an object of permanent show and a hot place for intervention but also for nonintervention. We
might discuss whether the most worrying aspect of present international politics is "humanitarian intervention" or "generalized
nonintervention," or one coming after the other. Should We Consider Extreme Violence to Be "Rational" or "Functional" from the
Point of View of Market Capitalism (the "Liberal Economy")? This is a very difficult question—in fact, I think it is the most difficult
question—but it cannot be avoided; hence it is also the most intellectually challenging. Again, we should warn against a paralogism
that is only too obvious but nonetheless frequent: that of mistaking consequences for goals or purposes. (But is it really possible to
discuss social systems in terms of purposes? On the other hand, can we avoid reflecting on the immanent ends, or "logic," of a
structure such as capitalism?) It seems to me, very schematically, that the
difficulty arises from the two opposite
"global effects" that derive from the emergence of a chain of mass violence—as compared, for
example, with what Marx called primitive accumulation when he described the creation of the
preconditions for capitalist accumulation in terms of the violent suppression of the poor. One
kind of effect is simply to generalize material and moral insecurity for millions of potential
workers, that is, to induce a massive proletarianization or reproletarianization (a new phase of
proletarianization that crucially involves a return of many to the proletarian condition from which they had more or less escaped,
given that insecurity is precisely the heart of the "proletarian condition"). This process
is contemporary with an
increased mobility of capital and also humans, and so it takes place across borders. But, seen
historically, it can. also be distributed among several political varieties: 1. In the “North” it involves a partial or deep dismantling of
the social policies and the institutions of social citizenship created by the welfare state, what I call the "national social state," and
therefore also a violent transition from welfare to workfare, from the social state to the penal state (the United States showing the
way in this respect, as was convincingly argued in a recent essay by Loïc Wacquant). 2.
In the "South," it involves
destroying and inverting the “developmental” programs and policies, which admittedly did
not suffice to produce the desired “takeoff” but indicated a way to resist impoverishment. 3. In
the "semiperiphery," to borrow Immanuel Wallerstein's category, it was connected with the collapse of the dictatorial structure
called "real existing socialism," which was based on scarcity and corruption, but again kept the polarization of riches and poverty
within certain limits. Let me suggest that a common formal feature of all these processes resulting in the reproletarianization of the
labor force is the fact that they suppress of minimize the forms and possibilities of representation of the subaltern within the state
apparatus itself, or, if you prefer, the possibilities of more or less effective counterpower. With this remark I
want to
emphasize the political aspect of processes that, in the first instance, seem to be mainly
"economic." This political aspect, I think, is even more decisive when we turn to the other scene, the other kind of result
produced by massive violence, although the mechanism here is extremely mysterious. Mysterious but real, unquestionably. I am
thinking of a much more destructive tendency, destructive not of welfare or traditional was of life, but of the social bond itself and,
in the end, of “bare life.” Let us think of Michel Foucault, who used to oppose two kinds of politics: “Let live” and “let die.” In
the
face of the cumulative effects of different forms of extreme violence or cruelty that are
displayed in what I called the “death zones” of humanity, we are lead to admit that the
current mode of production and reproduction has become a mode of production for
elimination, a reproduction of populations that are not likely to be productively used or
exploited but are always already superfluous, and therefore can be only eliminated either
through “political” or “natural” means—what some Latin American sociologists call problacion chatarra, “garbage
humans,” to be “thrown” away, out of the global city. If this is the case, the question arises once again, what is the rationality of
that? Or do we face an absolute triumph of irrationality? My suggestion would be: it is economically irrational (because it amounts
to a limitation of the scale of accumulation), but it is politically rational—or, better said, it can be interpreted in political terms. The
fact is that history does not move simply in a circle, the circular pattern of successive phases of accumulation. Economic and political
class struggles have already taken place in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries with the result of limiting the possibilities of
exploitation, creating a balance of forces, and this event remains, so to speak, in the "memory" of the system. The system (and
probably also some of its theoreticians and politicians) "knows" that there is no exploitation without class struggles, no class
struggles without organization and representation of the exploited, no representation and organization without a tendency toward
political and social citizenship. This is precisely what current capitalism cannot afford: there is no possibility of a "global social state"
corresponding to the "national social states" in some parts of the world during the last century. I mean, there is no political
possibility. Therefore there is political resistance, very violent indeed, to every move in that direction. Technological revolutions
provide a positive but insufficient condition for the deproletarianization of the actual or potential labor force. This
time, direct
political repression may also be insufficient. Elimination or extermination has to take place,
"passive" if possible, "active" if necessary; mutual elimination is "best," but it has to be
encouraged from outside. This is what allows me to suggest (and it already takes me to my third question) that if the
"economy of global violence" is not functional (because its immanent goals are indeed contradictory), it remains in a sense
teleological: the "same" populations are massively targeted (or the reverse: those populations that are targeted become
progressively assimilated, they look "the same"). They are qualitatively "deterritorialized,” as Gilles Deleuze would say, in an
intensive rather than extensive sense: they “live” on the edge of the city, under permanent threat of elimination, but also,
conversely, they live and are perceived as "nomads," even when they are fixed in their homelands, that is, their mere existence,
their quantity, their movements, their virtual claims of rights and citizenship are perceived as a threat for "civilization."
Alternative – Endorse commons, not enclosures. The articulation and advocacy
on behalf of commons is a necessary first step that paves the way towards life
despite capitalism – by identifying and endorsing commons, the alternative
prepares the world to resist neoliberalism.
De Angelis 6 [Massimo De Angelis, Professor of Political Economy at the University of East London, “The Beginning of History
Value Struggles and Global Capital”, December 2006, published by Pluto Press, pages 238-239]
It seems to me that the
question/problematic of commons emerges and must be posited at a
point/moment of division of a struggling body, at whatever scale of social action. It is at that juncture that the ability to
problematise the commons and recompose struggles on that new terrain allows the struggle
to move forward onto a new plane, to climb a step in the ladder of¶ the fractal panopticon and contribute towards
extending the articulation among struggles. This, of course, does not mean to call for unity, as the socialists do all the time - a unity
not rooted in real concrete commons that struggling and diverse subjects can produce beyond a hierarchal and divided¶ social body,
but predicated on ideology brought from a metaphysical outside (the party). To say that at the point of division struggling subjects
must seek to produce commons is not to be prescriptive: commons are often produced by struggles, whether an author calls for it or
not. Rather it is to warn that the¶
failure to produce commons, while the struggle loses momentum
and external pressure to break it up increases, implies ripping apart the fabric holding
together subjects in struggle, and the movement flows out in a thousand ripples. This, of course, might all be perfectly
understandable, depending on the¶ context: if, for one section of the movement, the price of finding a common is the annihilation of
ones desires and needs, it is perhaps better to maintain full autonomy. The time is not ripe for the production of that type of
commons. In these contexts, when articulation of conditions and desires across subjects in struggles is not possible or carries
insurmountable limits, hence¶ new value practices articulating different subjects cannot be established, the market might even offer
the taste of liberation. For many women, the struggle against patriarchy involved getting a job, hence achieving financial autonomy
vis-a-vis men. As we have seen in Chapters 5 and 6, capital has of course accommodated that, recoding patriarchy in a new
international division of labour and making it necessary to recast the struggle against patriarchy on new terrain.¶ But we must keep
in mind that the
production of commons occurs at the point of division within the struggling body, precisely because it is
a proactive creation to resist the division of the social body on the basis of immediate material
interests. The production of commons can overcome these divisions not by ignoring them, but
by rearticulating them around new value practices. Indeed, the production of commons to
recompose a divided struggling body coincides with what might be called articulation, that is
the production of meanings. The answer to the context-specific question of how diverse and interconnected struggles
can be articulated together is the question of how common meanings can emerge. Bearing in mind what we discussed in Chapter 2,
that values are the socially produced meanings people give to action, the problematic of the circulation of struggle, the question of
the effectiveness and organizational reach of struggle, is one with that of the production of common value practices in opposition to
the value practices of¶ capital.¶ It is
through the production of commons that new value practices
emerge¶ and divide-and-rule strategies dividing the social body on the basis of material
interests can be contrasted. That process of reflection/communication/negotiation aimed at
identifying and crafting a specific contingent commons is a philosophy born in struggle, a necessary moment
of the production of struggle itself, a philosophy that is grounded, but also that aspires, and hence develops a¶ strategic
look that helps to make clear what it is up against; hence it has the potential to be a material
force 'that grips the masses', because the same struggling 'masses' (i.e., a 'whole' of relating subjects)
are the producers and the product of this philosophy. Also, we must recognise that the ability to
identify and generate a common means to go to a deeper level, the effect of which is to
achieve a 'higher' organisational reach, to travel towards the root of things, is to 'kick asses' at
the top!¶ The clash in perspective between a social force that produces enclosures and one
that produces commons means this: capital generates itself through enclosures, while
subjects in struggle generate themselves through commons. Hence 'revolution' is not
struggling for commons, but through commons, not for dignity, but through dignity. 'Another world is possible*,
to use an under- problematised current slogan, to the extent that we live social relations of¶ different types. Life despite capitalism,
as a constituent process, not after capitalism, as a constituted future state of things.
Links
2NC Internal Link
Enclosures are the lynchpin of the growth of neoliberal capitalism – they occur
whenever individuals are forced to rely on markets to survive and lose access to
commons and share resources. The introduction of markets, the desire for
more market efficiency, and economic engagement are all attempts to spread
neoliberal enclosures around the world
Massimo De Angelis ‘4 “’Opposing Fetishism by Reclaiming our Powers’. The Social Forum
Movement, Capitalist Markets and the Politics of Alternatives” International Social Science Journal, N.
1882 (December 2004).
There is not the space here to discuss the processes of market creation. Suffice to say that it is possible to theorise them in terms of
“enclosures” (Caffentzis, 1995; De Angelis, 2004b). To put it simply, enclosures
refer to those strategies promoted
by economic and political elites that “commodify” things. In general commodification is to
turn resources that are held in common among communities, or exchanged as gifts among its members or
across members of different communities, or administrated and distributed by central institutions
(Polanyi, 1944), into things that are bought and sold on the market, commodities. The “things”
turned into commodities often represent important resources necessary for communities to
reproduce their livelihoods, and their “enclosure” represents at the same time the destruction
of those communities and their increasing dependence on markets, which in today’s context are
increasingly linked to global commodity chains. The consolidation, development and deepening of
capitalism in our lives heavily depends on enclosures. Indeed, as others and I have argued, enclosures
are a continuous feature of the capitalist mode of production (Caffenzis, 1995; De Angelis, 2004b;
Parelman, 2000) Today, enclosures, the commodification of resources upon which people depend
for their livelihoods, take many names. They may involve the dispossession of thousands of farming communities
from land and water resources following international bank funding of dam construction, as in the case of the dam project in the
Narmada valley in India or the Plan Puebla Panama in Latin America. Or they may take the form of cuts in social spending on
hospitals, medicines, and schools, or, especially in countries in the south, cuts in food subsidies so as to have money to pay interest
on a mounting international debt. In
all these cases, cuts, dispossessions and austerity, namely
“enclosures”, are imposed for the sake of “efficiency”, and rationalisation and “global
competitiveness”. Enclosures are therefore any strategy that push people to depend on
markets for their livelihood. Enclosures only create a context for market social interaction to occur. If enclosures push
people into increasing the degree of their dependence on markets for the reproduction of their livelihoods, then markets integrate
their activities in a system that pits all against all. The increasing intensification of planetary interdependence brought about by
global markets implies that any “node” of social production, at whatever scale – whether an individual on the labour market, a
company in a particular industry, a city and country in competition to attract capital and investments vis-à-vis other cities and
countries – faces an external force that forces it to adapt to certain standards of doing things, to adopt certain forms of social
cooperation, in order to beat the competitor on pain of threat to its livelihood. But “beating
the competitor” is also, at
the same time, threatening the livelihoods of other communities we are competing with, to
the extent that they also depend on markets to reproduce their own livelihoods. The more we
depend on money and markets to satisfy our needs and follow our desires, the more we are
exposed to a vicious circle of dependence that pits livelihoods against each other. Some of us win,
and some of us lose, but in either case we are both involved in perpetrating the system that keeps us reproducing scarcity when in
fact we could celebrate abundance. It must be noted that the competition that runs through the global social body is not similar to
the competitive games we play with friends. When I play table football with my friends I aim at winning. But whether I win or lose, I
end up sharing food and laughter with my friends, whether they lose or win. Competition in this realm is innocuous; it is a practice
that might strengthen communities’ playfulness instead of destroying it. But competition in
the economy – whether
“perfect” or “imperfect”, whether real or merely simulated (the latter being increasingly the case in public services where,
in the absence of markets, government agencies simulate their dynamics by setting new benchmarks) – ultimately finds its
very energy in its threat to livelihoods. It is a mode of social relation that is based on pitting
livelihoods against each other. In so doing it continuously reproduces scarcity and community
destruction .
From the perspective of any “node”, this mode of articulation across the social body is disciplinary because,
borrowing from Foucault’s (1975) analysis of Bentham’s Panopticon, or model prison, the market is also a mechanism in which
norms are created through a social process that distributes rewards and punishments (see De Angelis, 2002). By norms of
production I am here referring to the variety of principles of allocation of resources and distribution associated with social human
production, as well as ways of doing things, rhythms and forms of cooperation, that in capitalist markets are synthesised in prices.
Norms of production (that is, ways of relating to one another) are answers to such fundamental questions as: what we shall
produce, how we shall produce it, how much of it we shall produce, how long we should spend working to produce it, and who shall
produce it – all very concrete questions that define process and relational questions concerning the reproduction of our social body
and the ways in which we relate to each other and to nature. These questions are not answered by people themselves taking charge
of their lives and relations among themselves; thus, equally, the norms of social production and of their relations to each other are
not defined collectively. Instead they are defined by an abstract mechanism that we have created (actually, that states have created
at sword- and gun-point: see Polanyi, 1944, and Marx, 1867, as classical accounts) and that we take as “natural” in the daily practices
of our lives. It is the abstract process of disciplinary markets that articulates the social body in such a way as to constitute social
norms of production, rather than individual social actors negotiating among themselves the norms of their free co-operation. In
this market mechanism, individual actors must respond to existing heteronomous norms
imposed by the blind mechanism of the market by meeting or beating the market benchmark
(or the simulated market benchmark imposed by neo-liberalism’s state bodies), an activity which in turn affects the market norm
itself. In
this continuous feedback mechanism, livelihoods are pitted against each other. When
rewards and punishments are repeated in a system, norms are created. This is a process that the
paladin of market freedom, Friedrich von Hayek, well understood, although he ignored the question of power and enclosure
processes in explaining the emergence of capitalist markets. For Hayek, the abstract mechanism of the market is a spontaneously
emerging system of freedom (De Angelis, 2002).
Generic
Foreign Investment
Foreign investment is code for enclosing the commons – private corporations
move in, buy up all the land, and kick out the inhabitants. FDI IS ENCLOSURE.
Wily 12 [Liz Alden Wily, affiliated fellow of Leiden Law School and a Fellow of Rights & Resources in Washington, D.C, “THE
GLOBAL LAND GRAB: THE NEW ENCLOSURES”, April 2012, an essay in The Wealth of the Commons by David Bollier,
http://wealthofthecommons.org/essay/global-land-grab-new-enclosures]
Now consider this. It is 2011. Hundreds
of rural communities in Africa – as well as parts of Asia and Latin America – are
physically confronted with eviction or displacement or simply truncation of their livelihoods and
lands they customarily presume to be their own. These lands are willfully reallocated by their
governments to mainly foreign investors to the tune of an estimated 220 million hectares since mainly 2007, and still rising.1 Two thirds of
the lands being sold or mainly leased are in poverty-stricken and investment-hungry Africa. Large-scale deals for hundreds of thousands of hectares
dominate, although deals for smaller areas acquired by domestic investors run apace (World Bank 2010).¶ ¶ This is the global
land rush,
triggered by crises in oil and food markets of the last decade, and compounded by the financial crisis.2 The latter adds backing
and raises the speculative stakes enormously. The crisis provides lucrative new investment opportunities to
sovereign wealth funds, hedge funds and global agribusiness, the new entrepreneurs with “accumulated capital
burning holes in their owners’ pockets.” Global shifts in economic power are evident; while western actors continue to dominate as land acquirers, the
BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, China) and food-insecure Middle Eastern oil states are active competitors. A regional bias is beginning to show; China and
Malaysia dominate land acquisition in Asia while South Africa shows signs of future dominance in Africa. Two South African farmer enclaves already
exist in Nigeria, and Congo Brazzaville has granted 88,000 hectares with promises of up to ten million hectares to follow. Negotiations are ongoing in at
least 20 other African states (Hall 2011).¶ ¶ What
foreign governments and other investors primarily seek are
lands to feed the lucrative biofuel market by producing sugar cane, jatropha and especially oil palm at scale.3 They also
want to produce food crops and livestock for home economies, bypassing unreliable and expensive international
food markets. Additionally, investors seek to launch lucrative horticultural, floricultural and carbon credit schemes. For all this cheap deals are needed:
cheap land (US$0.50 per hectare in many cases), duty-free import of their equipment, duty-free export of their products, tax-free status for their staff
and production, and low-interest loans, often acquired from local banks on the basis of the new land titles they receive. ¶ ¶ This rush for land, the new
landgrab, does not stand alone. Local
banks, communications, infrastructural projects, tourism ventures
and local industry are also being bought up with a vengeance. These take advantage of the
new market liberalization that poor agrarian governments now finally provide after decades
of nagging by international financial institutions. For host governments, foreign investment is the new aid and path to
economic growth, firmly facilitated by international agencies (Daniel 2011). Local land speculation flourishes in its service. The promise of jobs is more
or less the only immediate benefit to national populations, and experience thus far suggests these are not materializing.¶ ¶ Nor is the phenomenon a
one-way street. Extending and entrenching competitive “spheres of economic influence” is also on the agenda. Foreign
capture of
population-rich new markets for home manufactures is actively sought alongside land deals .
This is best illustrated in the largely foreign capital buy-in and buy-up of Special Economic Zones (SEZ), most advanced in India but emerging elsewhere,
such as in the Chinese “Shenzhen” planned in eight African states (Brautigam 2011). Should these develop they will provide tariff-free entry for Chinese
goods at scale and locales for Chinese producers and laborers seeking to escape the saturation of home markets. Bilateral investment treaties, of which
nearly five thousand have been signed between North and South states over the last decade, provide the governing framework for these
developments.¶ ¶ In
short, economic crises and shifts in the balance of political power once again
produce seismic shifts in who owns and controls land, resources and production. But where are the
poor and the commons in all this?¶ ¶ THE COMMONS AND COMMONERS¶ ¶ The answer is quite simple. Much of the lands being sold
or leased to entrepreneurs are commons. This is not surprising because lands defined as commons in the modern agrarian
world generally exclude permanent farms and settlements. Governments and investors prefer to avoid settled lands as their dispossession is most likely
to provoke resistance. They also want to avoid having to pay compensation for huts and standing crops, or for relocation. Only the unfarmed commons
– the forest/woodlands, rangelands and wetlands, can supply the thousands of hectares large-scale investors want. But most of all, the
commons are deemed “vacant and available.” For the laws of most host lessor states still treat
all customarily-owned lands and unfarmed lands in particular as unowned, unoccupied and
idle. As such they remain the property of the state. This makes their onward sale or lease to private investors perfectly legal. Indeed, without such
legality in domestic land law, and investor-friendly international trade law to take their side in international courts if needed, no international or local
investor would proceed.¶ ¶ Of course the commons are neither unutilized or idle, nor unowned. On the contrary, under local tenure norms virtually no
land is, or ever has been, unowned, and this remains the case despite the century-long subordination of such customary rights as no more than
permissive possession (occupancy and use of unowned lands or lands owned by the state). ¶ ¶ In practice, customary ownership is nested in spatial
domains, the territory of one community extending to the boundaries of the next. While the exact location of intercommunity boundaries are routinely
challenged and contested, there is little doubt in the locality as to which community owns and controls which area. Within each of these domains
property rights are complex and various. The most usual distinction drawn today is between rights over permanent house and farm plots, and rights
over the residual commons. Rights over the former are increasingly absolute in the hands of families, and increasingly alienable. Rights over commons
are collective, held in undivided shares, and while they exist in perpetuity are generally inalienable. This is not least because the owner, the community,
is a continuing, intergenerational entity. This does not mean that in the right circumstances, parts or even all of a community’s commons cannot be
leased. Whether the community wishes to do so or not, is, communities believe, a matter for commoners to decide. Clearly, most domestic statutory
legislation does not agree, let alone consider these critical estates in land to be community assets in the first instance. ¶ ¶ The results of this continuing
denial that property ownership exists except as recognized by “imported” European laws are clear for all to see in the current land rush. Not just
commons but occupied farms and houses are routinely being lost as investors move in. In Democratic Republic of the
Congo, for example, villagers with homesteads scattered in the forest have lost their entire domains to commercial crop farmers and now squat in a
neighboring National Park from whence they will in due course also be evicted (Mpoyi 2010). In Ethiopia, communities are already being relocated from
10,000 hectares allocated to a Saudi-Ethiopian company with many more relocations anticipated as its lease is extended to 500,000 hectares (Oakland
Institute 2011). Elsewhere communities are merely dramatically squeezed, retaining houses and farms but losing their woodlands and rangelands.
Investors are clearing forests, damming rivers and diverting irrigation from smallholders, causing wetlands crucial to fishing, seasonal fodder production
and grazing to dry up and enclosing thousands of hectares of grazing lands for mechanized farming for export. All this happens in Ethiopia, where local
food security is already an issue and the specter of famine looms. The Ethiopian government is meanwhile expanding areas designated for investors to
grow oil and food crops for export by 900,000 hectares in another region. ¶ ¶ Sometimes villagers tentatively welcome investors in the belief that jobs,
services, education and opportunities will compensate for the loss of traditional lands and livelihoods. The reality can be very different. Villagers in
central Sierra Leone, Rwanda, and Kenya are among those not told that canal construction for industrial sugar cane production would dry up their
wetlands, critical for seasonal rice production, fishing, reed collection, hunting and grazing.4 Deng (2011) records the case of a community in South
Sudan agreeing to hand over 179,000 hectares to a Norwegian company for an annual fee of $15,000 and construction of a few boreholes; the
company aims to make millions on both production and carbon credit deals. ¶ ¶ In such cases, traditional leaders and local elites are often facilitators of
deals, making money on the side at the expense of their communities. Reports abound of chiefs or local elites in Ghana, Zambia, Nigeria and
Mozambique persuading communities of the benefits of releasing their commons to investors, and even reinterpreting their trusteeship as entailing
their due right to sell and benefit from those sales. Central government officials, politicians and entrepreneurs are routinely on hand to back them up.
Such accounts are repeated throughout Africa, and in some Asian states such as Indonesia and Malaysian Borneo, where 20 million hectares have been
scheduled for conversion into oil palm plantations (Colchester 2011). Everywhere the story is more or less the same: communal
rights are
being grossly interfered with, farming systems upturned, livelihoods decimated, and water
use and environments changed in ways which are dubiously sustainable.¶ ¶ Clearly possession
is no more sufficient today than it was for the English villagers of the 17th and 18th centuries
of enclosure. Only legal recognition of commons as the communal property of communities is sufficient to afford real protection. A handful of
states in Africa (and somewhat more in Latin America) have taken this crucial step, setting aside fungibility and formal registration as prerequisites to
admission as real property. The land rush instead not only activates the effects of failing to make such changes a thousandfold. It also raises concern
that fragile reformist trends will not be sustained. Governments
appear to find leasing out their citizens’ land too
lucrative to themselves and aligned elites, and too advantageous to market-led routes of growth, to let justice or the benefits of
the commons stand in their way.
Foreign investment crowds out local producers, driving down wages and
causing neocolonial dependence
Starr and Adams 2k3 (Amory, Activist and sociologist at Colorado State University, Jason,
Professor at Simon Fraser University, “Anti-globalization: The Global Fight for Local Autonomy”,
New Political Science, Volume 25, Number 1, 2003,
http://eng316.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/starr-and-adams-anti-globalization.pdf )
A variety of movements respond to globalization by defending or rebuilding local economic
institutions. Although these movements rarely conceptualize¶ themselves as “autonomous,”
they establish a basis for community autonomy. In the face of corporate globalization, local
producers and retailers find their¶ established local markets invaded by international
competitors with massive¶ advertising budgets, economies of scale, brand recognition,
capital, and expensive product research and development. In North America, politicized
business¶ organizations decry corporate crony contracting, predatory pricing, the vampiric¶
behavior of corporate retailers, and the crushing effects of vertical and horizontal¶ integration,
dichotomizing local-based enterprises and footloose corporations.¶ Two well-known examples of
this approach are the attempts to bar Wal-Mart¶ store openings and the challenges to
integration in beef and pork processing in¶ the US.12¶ In parallel with this process, as
globalization distorts all kinds of markets and¶ destroys livelihoods without necessarily
providing living-wage jobs in the¶ process, workers are under new pressure to innovate by
becoming microentrepreneurs. A variety of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are¶
working to support the development of small businesses and micro-enterprises,¶ also without
opposing globalization. Perhaps the best known of these efforts is¶ “micro-lending” to the very
poor, a model which the World Bank has embraced¶ and which is now even being applied in first
world nations. A second sector of¶ official support for small businesses is the Fair Trade
movement, which seeks to¶ build direct markets to bring higher returns to small enterprises
certified as¶ meeting a set of social and environmental standards. Similarly, but without the¶
standards, are organizations like Aid to Artisans, which assists craftspeople in¶ designing
products appropriate for international markets, managing business¶ development, and building
successful relationships with corporate retailers like¶ Pier One.13 Such projects suffer the same
problems as Fair Trade—while¶ providing a slightly better return to producers and a framework
of economic¶ education for first world consumers, they still emphasize monocultural production
for export (at the cost of diversity in production) and foster dependent¶ development in which
third world producers are whipped by the whims of first¶ world colonial-style luxury
consumption.
Debt Relief/Support
Solving debt crises in Latin America is merely a ploy to expand international
credit systems that act as levers of enclosure and primitive accumulation
Grandia 07The Tragedy of Enclosures¶ Rethinking Primitive Accumulation from the
Guatemalan Hinterland¶ BLiza Grandia, Ph.D ¶ Yale University, April 27,
2007http://www.yale.edu/agrarianstudies/colloqpapers/26grandia.pdf
In some cases, however, primitive accumulation occurs at one’s own expense through the¶
“collateral damage” of credit forced onto people. This may happen on a personal, family,¶
community or even national scale—witness, for example, the massive debt crisis of the Third¶
World of excess capital foisted on them by “economic hit men” for projects doomed to fail¶
(Perkins 2004). Marx himself comments that public debt (e.g. treasury bonds) and the¶
international credit system were “the most powerful levers of primitive accumulation,”
working¶ like an “enchanters wand” to turn non-existent money into capital (1976:919). Debt
can be¶ coercive—either forcing credit onto people who cannot possible repay it or making life
too¶ expensive to survive without debt.
Fighting Corruption
Their attempts to minimize corruption in Latin America inevitably devolve into
the logic of foreign market expansion, guaranteeing enclosure
Manzetti and Blake ’96 (Luigi Manzetti and Charles H. Blake; Southern Methodist University
and North-South Center, University of Miami, and James Madison University; “Market Reforms
and Corruption in Latin America: New Means for Old Ways;” Winter 1996; Review of
International Political Economy, Vol. 3, No.4, pp. 662-597; JSTOR)
Proponents of market reforms in Latin America also underscored the anti-corruption nature of
privatization and market deregulation. The basic assumption of their argument was that, by
freeing the market from state intervention and political manipulation, the opportunity to
engage in corruption activities would be reduced if not eliminated altogether (Benavente
Urbina, 1994). According to this logic, corruption would 'cease because its cost [could] no
longer be hidden or subsidized, and better managers [would] now be found' (Austin et al.,
1986: 52). These ideas were reinforced by several scholars who asserted that deregula-tion
(Balassa et al., 1986: 130; Ayttey, 1992: 263) and privatization (Klitgaard, 1988: 87; Theobald,
1990: 158) could be important weapons in the battle to combat corruption. The notion of a
leaner state at the center of strategies to limit corruption was also supported by the IMF
(Hemming and Mansoor, 1988: 4) and the World Bank (1983: 117). In the late 1980s, such
arguments gained prominence in the presidential campaigns of Alavaro Alsogaray in Argentina
and Mario Vargas Llosa in Peru, who turned market reforms into ideology-driven policies as
part of their neoliberal agenda.
Resource Assistance
Resource assistance in Latin America inevitably leads to market grabs that
guarantee co-option and enclosure of the commons
Tricarico 12 [Antonio Tricarico, works for Re: Common, formerly the Campaign to Reform the World Bank (CRBM), in Rome,
on international financial institutions, financial markets regulation and financial glob- alization related issues, “THE COMING
FINANCIAL ENCLOSURE OF THE COMMONS”, April 2012, an essay in The Wealth of the Commons by David Bollier,
http://wealthofthecommons.org/essay/coming-financial-enclosure-commons]
We live in a time of finance capitalism, where trading money, risk and associated products is
more profitable than production itself, and often accu-mulates greater capital than trading
goods and services. This has huge implications for where capital is invested and the everyday
impact that capital markets have on people, as more and more aspects of everyday life – from
home ownership to pensions to schooling – are mediated through financial markets (rather than conventional
markets alone). This is what people mean when they talk about the “financialization” of the economy.¶ Financialization
should be regarded as more than just a further stage of commodification. Financialization
reduces all value that is exchanged (whether tangible, intangible, future or present promises, etc.) into either a
financial instrument or a derivative of a financial instrument. Financialization seeks to reduce
any work, product or service to an exchangeable financial instrument like currency, and thus make
it easier for people to trade (and profit from) these financial instruments. A mortgage loan, for example, is a financial instrument
that lets an employee trade a promise of future wages for ownership of a home. Financialization
aims to transform
labor, goods and services into tradable financial products as we know it from currency trade. ¶
With financialization increasingly penetrating into the real economy, financial markets,
financial institutions and financial elites are gaining greater influence over basic economic
policies and economic outcomes. Financialization transforms the functioning of economic
systems at both the macro and micro levels of the economy in three distinct ways : 1) It
changes the structure and operation of financial markets; 2) It changes the behavior of nonfinancial corporations (whose profits are more and more generated through financial markets than through actual
production); and 3) It changes the priorities of economic policy.¶ Financialization is now reaching
into all commodity markets and transforming their basic functioning. Just as the first wave of
financialization focused on privatizing public services such as pensions, health care, education and housing systems (in the quest for
better returns on investment), so the
new wave of financialization seeks to commodify natural
resources. In many instances, this leads to enclosures of the commons, which in turn affects
both resource exploitation as well as resource conservation projects.¶ At the same time, growing
global competition for the control and management of natural resources worldwide is intensifying
pressures on national economies to exploit natural resources, resulting in what Michael T. Klare calls
“resource wars” (Klare 2002). This is not simply a matter of rapid industrialization and emerging economies fueling greater global
consumption and competition for limited resources. Resource
wars are symptoms of new geopolitical and
geoeconomic dynamics. The control of natural resources flows is increasingly seen as a key
strategic tool for directing futures markets, political relations and economic supremacy.2¶ This trend
is quite evident in recent large-scale land acquisitions at an international level by governments and the private
sector. Their aim often goes beyond just securing future crop production for their own populations; they want to secure
long-term, highly profitable positions in foreign markets to enable them to acquire and
process natural resources as well as diversify their investments.3 In this context, advanced
economies, particularly those reeling from the economic crisis, want to expand capital markets in other
countries in order to establish a new private financial infrastructure that can generate enough
financial resources to develop these new infrastructure investments. Financial markets awash in liquidity
are desperate for such new investment vehicles: At the end of 2010, global capital markets were trading more than $200 trillion,
which is almost four times more than the world’s GDP, according to the McKinsey Global Institute (McKinsey, 2011).¶ The
emerging “turbo-capitalism” driven by financialization seeks to address two pressing
problems now facing investors: how to invest the massive amounts of private wealth and
liquidity present today in capital markets, and at the same time how to create new financial
instruments that will generate additional revenues for the financial industry.¶ Developed markets
currently account for $30 trillion of the estimated total $43 trillion of global equity market capitalization, according to a recent
estimate by Timothy Moe, chief Asia-Pacific strategist at Goldman Sachs. Over the next 20 years, global market capitalization could
expand to some $145 trillion, he predicted.4 Looking only at private wealth not channelled through institutional investors, private
equity funds managed $2.5 trillion at the end of 2008 (a 15 percent increase compared to 2007, despite the financial turmoil).
International Financial Services London forecasts that funds under management will increase to over $3.5 trillion dollars by 2015,
starting from less than $1 trillion in 2003.5 More
and more private equity funds will focus on emerging
economies. Global hedge-fund assets surpassed the $2 trillion mark for the first time ever, Hedge Fund Research Inc. said in
April 2011, marking an impressive industry rebound from market losses and customer flight during the financial crisis.6¶ This new
stage of financialization will provide new economic and legal leverage for the further
commodification of nature and the commons in general. More and more natural resources will
be extracted and commercialized, unleashing a new massive attack on the global and local
environment and the common wealth.¶ Capital markets regard this approach as a vital longterm strategy to secure and lock in a new structure of control over natural resources that
assures attractive profits. But this finance-driven structure will also dramatically reduce the
ability of communities to reclaim their shared wealth and assert their collective, locally
responsive management. This systemic goal of “financial enclosure” of the commons, when coupled with
existing trade and investment agreements,7 could produce a long lasting, legally durable enclosure that
would seriously diminish (policy) space for any political player and for social movements – farmers,
Transition Towns, Occupy Wall Street, and others. Most importantly, it threatens to extinguish the possibility of
people reproducing their livelihoods independent of the overwhelming influence of financial
markets.
Resource assistance to foreign nations creates a seizure of the commons
whereby previously collectively-held resources are co-opted by markets
Tricarico 12 [Antonio Tricarico, works for Re: Common, formerly the Campaign to Reform the World Bank (CRBM), in Rome,
on international financial institutions, financial markets regulation and financial glob- alization related issues, “THE COMING
FINANCIAL ENCLOSURE OF THE COMMONS”, April 2012, an essay in The Wealth of the Commons by David Bollier,
http://wealthofthecommons.org/essay/coming-financial-enclosure-commons]
The systematic financial speculation on commodities (and its systemically influential increase in recent years) has been driven mainly
by deregulation of derivative markets. Derivatives markets, which trade in futures contracts and options, among other financial
instruments based on other assets, enable the price risks for an asset (wheat, oil, pork bellies) to be transferred from the producer
to other parties, often speculators, through the sale of “derivative” financial instruments. Speculation has also soared as investment
banks, hedge funds and other institutional investors have jumped into the derivative market, often intro-ducing new financial
instruments such as index funds and exchange-traded funds.¶ All of these trends have been accelerated by financial deregulation,
which over the last decade, for the first time in history, has transformed commodities into financial assets. Until the beginning of the
2000’s, holding a ton of corn could not produce a revenue stream or rent, other then from sales based on market prices. Today,
thanks to financial engineering, such financial schemes are not only possible, they are highly lucrative. The largely
unregulated commodity derivatives markets have resulted in greater speculation on food
commodities, which can cause high prices and shortages, particularly in poorer countries. Such
“financial innovation” is part of a broader trend that is structurally transforming the global
economy and natural resources management.¶ Contrary to common sense and what civil society often assumes,
financial markets are penetrating deeper and deeper into the “real economy” of actual
production. Speculative finance is increasingly influencing prices and thus productive output
in agriculture and energy as well as natural resource commons that have historically
functioned outside of markets. The result: speculative capital is becoming structurally
intertwined with productive capital, including the commons as productive realms. This
expansion of (finance) capital represents a new historic type of enclosure: investor-driven
appropriations and control of many forests, fisheries, arable land and water resources
historically managed as commons.¶ The 2007-2008 crash of financial markets and the global economy,
coupled with investors’ need to diversify investments beyond traditional markets (including equity,
bonds and real estate), has intensified the search for new ways to achieve high rates of return, cover
heavy losses that some institutional investors experienced during the crisis, and absorb the massive liquidity of
capital that exists globally. These needs have propelled the development and even the creation of new types of
financial market risks. But in so doing, financial market operators are reformulating the fundamentals of the real economy where
everyday production and consumption occur. A massive financial transformation is underway as financial entrepreneurs create new
tradable asset classes out of existing commodities, which provide a physical source of value to support new structured financial
instruments.¶ The
new financial assets are being created from existing commodities. And where
markets do not yet exist, natural resources are being converted into commodities so they can
be traded. Indeed, new commodities and markets are being created from scratch to satisfy the
demands by financial markets for new, high-return investments.
Environmental Assistance
Environmental assistance toward Latin America inevitably proceeds as a market
ruse to enclose the commons in the name of “sustainability”
Corson 11 [Catherine, professor of environmental studies at Mount Holyoke College and researches explores the politics of
environmental foreign aid and international environmental governance under neoliberalism University of California, Berkeley,
Ph.D.¶ University College London, MSc¶ Cornell University, MPA¶ Cornell University, BA, “Territorialization, enclosure and
neoliberalism: non-state influence in struggles over Madagascar's forests”, September 14, 2011, The Journal of Peasant Studies
Volume 38 Issue 4,
http://www.tandfonline.com.turing.library.northwestern.edu/doi/full/10.1080/03066150.2011.607696#.Ueb20xZfbBQ]
Importantly, these territorialized governance
strategies for parks need to be seen as a concurrent
practice of enclosure – i.e. a distinct practice of primitive accumulation that aids in the commodification of the park spaces.
Primitive accumulation, Marx (1977, 875) argued, or ‘the historical process of divorcing the
producer from the means of production’, was the point of departure of the capitalist mode of
production, exemplified in his writing by the British enclosures. More recent analyses have explored
contemporary primitive accumulation as an ongoing process (e.g. Angelis 1999, Kelly this volume). In
reframing Marx's concept of primitive accumulation, Harvey (2003) argues that capitalism requires the continual
release of new assets that over accumulated capital can seize and convert to profit, and he
introduces the concept of ‘ accumulation by dispossession’ , as the mechanism by which capitalism
overcomes inevitable over accumulation crises.¶ The reframing of primitive accumulation as an ongoing process
enables us to recognize that it does not just entail the enclosure of land and resources, but also the
enclosure of ideas (see Kelly this volume). Conservation enclosures can range from the taking of formerly
common lands for protected areas to the creation of commodities from a variety of things
previously isolated from capitalism (e.g. McAfee 1999, Büscher 2009). The enclosure of a park's image can be a form
of primitive accumulation, where processes of capital accumulation are launched via the consumption
of conservation images and values (Brockington et al. 2008, Carrier and West 2009, Igoe et al. 2010). Thus,
accumulation is initiated through, for example, the virtual consumption of conservation
images and values. Here, the ability to accumulate in the speculative conservation market, as in any speculative
market, depends on perceptions of ‘conservation success.’ While foreign donors, governments and NGOs
showcase the successful expansion of protected areas in order to attract greater investment, private entities acquire wealth through
development and media contracts, for example.¶ Harvey (2003, 145) focuses on the state role in primitive accumulation of ‘keeping
the territorial and capitalistic logics of power always intertwined … ’, yet, as he points out elsewhere, multilateral institutions like the
World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) influence state policy in the South. In addition to multilateral institutions
numerous non-state
actors influence state policy. Through funding, technical assistance and advocacy, they not only
also claim public authority to align the territorial and capitalistic logics of power .¶ In
conservation specifically, transnational conservation NGOs and private sector organizations are becoming
increasingly powerful as they influence and act under the auspices of state power across international,
shape, but
national, regional and occasionally even local scales. Moreover, as donors and large transnational conservation NGOs embrace
partnerships with the corporate world, complex, new
power relations among private/non-profit/state
actors emerge (e.g. Chapin 2004, Dowie 2005, Corson 2010). Thus, contemporary processes of territorialization are reworking
not only human-environment relations, but also power relations among social groups.¶ As these conservation
advocates emerge as significant players in battles over land and natural resources, they often reinforce the
broader political economic structures that have historically marginalized rural peasants from
the sources of their livelihoods. Through projects aimed at capturing carbon credits and
expanding protected areas, they are staking claims to peasant-utilized commons in the name of
‘the global commons’. In the neoliberal era of downsized national governments, these conservation claims are
often initiated, shaped, implemented and even enforced by private and non-profit actors
operating in collaboration with and often under the auspices of the state. The implications of this form
of ‘rule of experts’ (Mitchell 2002) are as serious as they are new. Alliances among these agents form in corridors during
international meetings and in foreign offices or domestic capitals – arenas often inaccessible to rural peasants. Yet, parties
within these alliances negotiate not only rural peasants' rights and access to land and
resources, but also the authority to legitimate these rights.¶ It is important to underscore that the
international conservation agenda is no longer engaged just in protecting natural resources by restricting human
access to priority landscapes; it is increasingly promoting the protection of resources for the purposes
of capital accumulation by a host of actors. As Peluso and Lund (this volume) point out, enclosure through
restricting resource use can have the same impact on rural peasants as enclosure through the
physical fencing of space. Restrictions that preclude peasants from current and future accumulation
possibilities (as well as livelihoods) can serve to maintain the resources for future capitalist
accumulation by others, be it via conservation or exploitation.
Sustainable Development
Sustainable Development is a ruse – it’s just another word for enclsoure
Josée Johnston ‘3 Assistant Professor Department of Sociology University of Toronto at Mississauga .
Who Cares About the Commons? Capitalism, Nature, Socialism 14 (3):1-41.
Despite the growth of public environmental awareness and the plethora of green marketing, current
environmental solutions do not appear radical enough to ebb the tide of ecological exhaustion, and
outright extinction.19 An article in Nature documented a "coherent pattern of ecological change across
systems," resulting from already observable signs of global warming, and predicts an avalanche of species
extinction carried out on a non-linear time scale.20 E. 0. Wilson speaks of a sixth spasm of extinction
which, unlike the previous five extinction waves that occurred over the past 500 million years, is caused
primarily by human beings.21 The intensification of capital accumulation on a world scale sharpens the
nature-capital contradiction, characterized by an overarching logic of exhaustion that threatens the longrun viability of human life on the planet.22 Yet despite myriad symptoms of biospheric exhaustion, a deep
quasireligious faith in capitalist modes of accumulation and perpetual growth continues to drive the vast
majority of human economic activities.For green theorists and scholars of environmental movements, a
key analytic puzzle is inaction and institutional inertia in the face of ecological exhaustion. The emergence
of sustainable development discourse is a key part of understanding this paradox, explaining how
increasingly visible symptoms of biospheric breakdown can coexist with global capitalist expansion and
further "enclosure" of the ecosocial commons. The hegemonic metadiscourse of productivism has
increasingly been brought into question as dystopian elements of industrialism like climate change and
ozone depletion become harder to ignore.24 This presents two possibilities: either the discourse will
disintegrate, forcing a reevaluation of expansionist, anthropocentric logic, or the rupture will be
"temporarily 'sutured,' that is, conceptually sewn back together. Smith's research on environmental
marketing strategies demonstrates how the discourse of green consumerism operates as such a suture,
"an attempt to hide the wound that contemporary environmentalists are making to the smooth fabric of
productivist discourse."The discourse of sustainable development functions in a similar fashion, suturing
the gap between ecological exhaustion and a utopian faith in the benefits of industrialization and
perpetual growth. Because of its ability to minimize the tension between capitalist expansion and
planetary survival, sustainable development discourse has become "arguably the dominant global
discourse of ecological and one of the "world's most unquestioned environmental philosophies.
Sustainability emerged as a response to the crisis of the environment - a crisis publicized by books like
Rachel Carson's, Silent Spring, and the Bhopal tragedy in India that killed 20,000 people. Throughout the
1980s it became increasingly difficult for business to maintain that the environment was none of their
business. Capital went on the offensive against the rising tide of environmental concern, determined to
capture the discursive field of sustainability. As Sklair writes, "[s]ustainable development was seen as a
prize that everyone involved in arguments wants to win. The 'winner,' gets to redefine the concept."29
The hegemonic understanding of sustainable development that prevailed in the dominant public sphere
was one that allowed businesses to have their cake and eat it too.30 By speaking the language of
sustainability, corporations and states could give lip service to the environment while actively pursuing
growth, commodification, and profits. The 1992 Rio Earth Summit crystallized this vision of sustainability
that encapsulated the goals of sustainable capitalism and economic growth, rather than a sustainable
human existence on earth across multiple generation^.^^ Like green consumerism, the sustainable
development discourse works to suture the contradiction between perpetual growth and ecological
breakdown within the hegemonic metadiscourse of productivism. This is more complex than a simple
cooptation of environmentalist terminology, and reflects the nature of hegemony, understood not as a
"thing," but as a process of continual negotiation. As Smith observes in the case of green consumerism,
"[tlhe discourse of productivism is in constant mutation, and these contributions become a real part of a
new, improved produ~tivism."A sustainable capitalism is a more efficient capitalism, and this can work in
the interest of corporate profitability. A Rand publication applauds this process at work in major
corporations like DuPont and Monsanto: Sustainability is operationalized at Monsanto as the process of
doing more with less. It is therefore a process, or a way of viewing market opportunities, as opposed to an
endpoint or a goal. While there are strong links to environmental issues, sustainability is not viewed as an
environmental strategy so much as a standard business strategy.3
Land Privatization
Land privatization causes enclosure and ruins lives
Löhr 12 [Dirk Löhr, economist and professor at the Environment Campus Birkenfeld--research focus is property rights and land,
“THE FAILURE OF LAND PRIVATIZATION: ON THE NEED FOR NEW DEVELOPMENT POLICIES”, April 2012, an essay in The Wealth of the
Commons by David Bollier, http://wealthofthecommons.org/essay/failure-land-privatization-need-new-development-policies]
However, it conceals an important fact: The
right to take the yields from land (usus fructus) and the right
to sell the asset (ius abutendi) are not limited to the “improvements” (such as plantings or buildings).
They also include the most important sources of land value – the location, the intensity of use and the quality of the land compared
with marginal lands (where the yields just cover the costs). Economists call these factors “differential rents.” Such advantages are
often circumstantial and beyond the control of individual owners. In
most cases, in fact, the basis for land values
is created by the community, e.g., changes in land use plans or investments in infrastructure
that affect the value of the site.¶ ¶ A high share of these costs is borne by the community. These
costs comprise the costs of planning, the costs of infrastructure construction and the opportunity costs of forgoing alternative public
or private land use. In the case of improvements to land, individual
owners both pay the costs and receive the
benefits. But the same does not hold true for the actual unimproved land because rents and
incremental values are privatized, whereas the lion’s share of the related costs is borne by the
community. The decoupling of benefits and costs is an important driver for a multitude of unfair
aberrations such as land grabbing2 and rent-seeking, and not only in developing countries (Löhr 2010).
However, the picture presented thus far is not complete. Many developing countries have both private property and state property
regimes for land. But there are two reasons why that distinction is often more of a nominal than a real difference. First, while access
should be controlled to protected areas – which are often former commons that lost that status during the formalization of property
rights in land – the state often does not have the capacity or the will to control access effectively.3 Second, state
property is
frequently leased out as economic concessions to private sector actors for their private
economic exploitation. In Cambodia, for instance, “Economic Land Concessions” on so-called “State Private Land” now
account for about 25 percent of the country’s agricultural land. In addition, there are extensive concessions regarding forestry,
mining and other commercial activity. Although lands
used under concessions are regarded as state
property, from an economic point of view they have all the characteristics of private property.
Even the abusus right is oftentimes de facto in private hands, if, for example, forest protection laws are ignored by the
concessionaires and the state ignores violations of the law. Unlike private property, the
allocation of benefits from
land is not driven by market forces, but by the state – oftentimes in the form of undisclosed payoffs to political
cronies. Apart from bribes that are often paid, concessionaires pay no acquisition costs, and the formal fees are often ridiculously
low; the concessions are obviously privileges. FLATTENED BY THE STEAMROLLER OF PRIVATIZATION: RENT-SEEKING AND STATE
CAPTURE. Rent-seeking
occurs when institutions allow the privatization of land rents and
incremental value at the expense of the community. Oftentimes land speculators and land
grabbers hold the state hostage, or succeed in planting its representatives within government agencies. The result:
needy people are deprived of their livelihoods, common resources get enclosed and the land
concentration process continues. This mechanism of appropriation works in favor of the elite.
The privatization agenda can succeed only by overcoming the separation of govern-mental powers. It generally needs a strong
executive power and strong centralized state that can prevail against the lower administrative levels.¶ ¶ Although governmental
development organizations may not consciously support land appropriation by the elite, they at least tolerate it while the
general population disapproves. Governmental development actors are behaving schizo-phrenically in
this regard: On the one hand they promote and demand “good governance,” but on the other hand they are helping to
issue a carte blanche for rent seeking (private property on land) that harms use of land as
commons. Increasingly, governmental development organizations see themselves as exporters of a product that might be called
“private property titles in land.” However, this product does not work well even in the western context, as seen in a long list of
failures such as unused and underused sites, urban sprawl, and a systematic bias in the planning process in favor of influential
investors (Löhr 2010). In western states, such extreme abuses of privatization are contained by a working separation of
governmental powers and a constitutional state. This is not the case in many developing countries that have weak governance. In
the end, governmental development organizations in fact are helping to eliminate customary
rights in land and thereby destroy numerous land commons . ONE SIZE FITS ALL? The elite knows how to
play the game. It has access to legal advice and personal connections to key governmental decision makers. In contrast, poorly
educated rural people are defenseless when new land titles are suddenly claimed out of the
blue. They do not understand what is going on until it is too late. With little understanding of formal legal
procedures and no financial and political backing, they have barely any chance of successfully defending
their traditional claims. However, law is based on mutual acknowledgement, without which there is no legitimacy. The
problem is a clash of norms. The formalized legal rights invoked by the elite are allowed to override
the customary rights of the poor and marginalized to regulate their own commons. The abuse of
law to sanction this power play is pushing many states into a state of de facto anarchy. Paradoxically, the resulting, new state of “de
facto open access” is sometimes producing a gridlock of fragmented, overlapping property rights claims, a problem known as a
“tragedy of anticommons” (Fitzpatrick 2006). ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES¶ ¶ It is of no surprise, then, that in
many
cases the results of privatization do not meet the stated expectations. Land is not allocated to
the best users, but to speculators. Land often remains unused. “At best,” land goes to
agribusiness companies, i.e., to powerful and concentrated economic groups.¶ ¶ Ways of life and economic models with a
low ability to pay are severely disadvantaged in this context. It means that the diversity of forms essential to a sound social and
economic organism, is reduced. The disappearance
of traditional ways of life and economic models often
goes hand in hand with migration to big cities (and the rise of new slums) or to peripheral
regions. Yet the influx of displaced people into peripheral regions, combined with a lack of effective access
controls, only causes further degradation of natural resources that had been stable commons in
the past. A telling example is the province of Pailin in Cambodia, where about 50 percent of the primary forest has been
destroyed, and agricultural land gradually degraded, in recent years.¶ ¶ The central state bears responsibility for much of this harm.
It grants most of the economic concessions, usually without consulting regional or local admini-strations. Oftentimes environment
and social impact assessments are conducted inadequately or not carried out at all. The resulting overlapping land claims often lead
to disputes, which concessionaires do not even try to solve by negotiating agreements with the people affected. Instead, they simply
contact the central government, which has allotted the concession to them, because they expect that the government will “resolve”
such conflicts in their favor, using police or armed forces if necessary. The people
join the queue of landless migrants.
who lose their livelihoods then
Immigration Facilitation
Facilitating immigration between the U.S. and Latin American nations merely
serves to fuel the process of enclosure by enabling faster market co-option of
the dispossessed
Petras and Veltmeyer ’07 (James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer; Binghamton University, New
York, and St. Mary’s University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada; “Neoliberalism and Imperialism in
Latin America: Dynamics and Responses;” 2007; International Review of Modern Sociology, Vol.
33, Special Issue, pp. 27-59; JSTOR)
One of the first popular responses to neoliberalism and imperialism in the early to mid-1990s
was outmigration (Petras, 2007a). Many of the rural poor took the road of migration, first, and
in great numbers, to the not so distant urban centers; and then to the more distant destination
points of transnational migration, mostly (from Mexico and Central America but also, by
plane, from points further south) to the urban centers of the U.S. but also to the farms in the
U.S. south. This outflow of rural migrants in many respects was simply a variation on the
classic process of primitive accumulation and proletarianization; and indeed the migrants
constitute an enormous reservoir of reserve labor that has fuelled an on-going process of
capital accumulation and development in the urban centers of Latin America and in the North.
Estimates of the rural dispossessed who have taken the route of outmigration since the first and
later onslaughts of neoliberal globalization are difficult to come by but are in the millions.
Developments in Brazil and Mexico, two of the three most populous countries in the region
provide glimpses into both the complexities and the scope of the phenomenon. Just in the 1990s
it has been estimated that over nine million landless workers migrated to the cities and urban
centers in Brazil in the search of work livelihood. Today, much of this 'multitude' makes up an
urban proletariat of street workers, eking out a bare existence on the margins of a burgeoning
urban economy. In Mexico the dimensions of these dynamics are even larger, certainly in terms
of the visible effects of transborder migration on the U.S. economy, parts of which now are
heavily dependent on a continuing outflow of Mexican migrant labor. Millions of Mexicans
have migrated to the U.S. over the course of the latest and earlier phases of capitalist
development, the vast majority without legal documents-crossing the relatively porous USMexico border. Up to forty million Mexicans now are estimated to live and work in the U.S., one
half this number consisting of recent generations of rural outmigrants from states such as
Zacatecas and Hidalgo, whose system of agrarian production and associated rural communities
has been decimated by the impact of neoliberal 'structural' or free-market reforms' (DelgadoWise, 2006).
Discourse
the enclosure of the 1ac works discursively. Acts of enclosure are more than
physical appropriation of resources – they are ways of understanding the
rationality of markets in order to bring subjects into neoliberal social relations.
Massimo De Angelis ‘4 Lecturer, University of East London, Historical Materialism, volume 12:2 (57–
87) “Separating the Doing and the Deed”
If capital encloses, it cannot do it without a corresponding discourse. This discourse however, is not
crystal-clear, but fuzzy and takes many names. While it has to reflect the telos and objectives of capital by
promoting separation, at the same time, it has to discourage alternative projects and objectives,
especially those that are based on a movement of direct association between waged and unwaged
producers and social wealth. The discourse of enclosures, in other words, must present itself not as a
negative force, one that separates, brutalises, and disempowers; but, on the contrary, it also has to wear
the mantle of rationality, and project a vision of the future that makes sense to a multiplicity of concrete
subjects. Thus, we may understand enclosure in terms of a rationale of capital accumulation and
indifference to social needs (such as common access to entitlements or knowledge). But enclosure is
endorsed in the meta-discourse of economics, through talk of ‘trade liberalisation’, ‘antiinflation’ policies,
‘fiscal responsibility’, ‘debt management’, and so on. We can also cite ‘growth prospects’, ‘democracy’,
‘transparency’, ‘accountability’ and ‘good governance’. This, I would argue, is not simply a smokescreen.
Enclosures are not just about taking resources away from people, but the first step towards attempting to
define new subjects normalised to the capitalist market. Capital does not enclose simply in order to rob,
but also so as to integrate the social body in particular ways. The integration of the social body predicated
on enclosures requires the constitution of social subjects who are normalised to the commodity-form,
that is to stratified enclosures. The construction of ‘economic man’ normalised to markets and enclosures
is the result of policies emerged from theoretical frameworks such as economics which work on the
assumption of such a normalised subject.
Trade
All trade is predicated on enclosure – can’t be fair.
Massimo De Angelis ‘2k Lecturer, University of East London (Paper presented at the CSE conference
"Global Capital and Global Struggles: Strategies, Alliances, and Alternatives", London 1&2 July 2000)
Strategies of enclosures are indeed part of all strategies of trade liberalisation, old and new. As soon as it
takes capitalist form, the method of acquiring goods not available on the spot presupposes violence and
force to enclose the traditional socio-economic spaces used by people to produce and reproduce their
lives. Thus, capitalist trade is from the beginning, trade presupposing violence, imposed “two-sidedness”.
It cannot be otherwise, as any active promotion of trade is linked to the promotion of people's
dependence on commodities, on the market, etc. On a world scale, the dependency may well be
expressed in terms of slavery, as necessity to sell labour power (creation of wagedworkers), or as
necessity to sell commodities on the global market by small producers. For this reason, an active
promotion of trade liberalisation is always linked to systemic policies to reduce all other alternative noncommodity access to social sources of use values, whether these are entitlements or other forms of direct
access to use values and resources to produce use values (commons). Thus, capitalist trade presupposes
enclosures. This, must be emphasised here, is a continuous ever-present aspect of capitalist production,
not only a strategy confined to its primitive stage (Caffentzis 1995; De Angelis 1999). Enclosure is of
course the first big silence of traditional trade theory, from Adam Smith absolute advantage to modern
versions of Ricardian comparative advantage theory (Parelman 2000). When these theories predicts the
advantages brought about by trade, they do so on the basis of a given set of endowments of capital,
labour, land and raw materials, they hide how national capitals came to acquire a particular configuration
of capital and productive resource endowments, they brush aside how the existing factor endowments
and cost structures at the bias of comparative costs presupposes the role of military, socio-economic and
political institutions.6 Indeed, mercantilist policies were key to shape “factor endowments”, so as to allow
colonies to supply raw materials and other tropical products to European powers who where
industrialising. The silence on this, which is of course at the basis of the naturalisation of the market by
economic theory, also extends on the silence on the capital’s strategic rationale on shaping the existing
international division of labour.
Trade involves the integration of market enclosures – the process of shifting
comparative advantage back and forth cementing exploitative capital flows
Massimo De Angelis ‘2k Lecturer, University of East London (Paper presented at the CSE conference
"Global Capital and Global Struggles: Strategies, Alliances, and Alternatives", London 1&2 July 2000)
The last key characteristic of the “acquisition of goods from a distance” as it is promoted within the capitalist
mode of production is its systematic character. Contrarily from precapitalists forms of trade, here commodities flowing
among different regions are not “peaceful forms of raid”, to paraphrase Polanyi, but tend to follow systemic routes paralleling
diverse activities and specialisation of production. Driven by capitalist production and accumulation of value and surplus value,
trade here must be organised spatially and temporally as a continuous flow, so as to allow continuous flows of
inputs to the industries making use of them and continuous flows of outputs demanded by markets. What changes during the
course of capitalist history is the intensity and thickens of the trade flows, not its systematic character. These changes are of course
important, as they result in different degree and patterns of mutual dependency (to say that the south is dependent from the North
is also to say that the North is dependent from the South). As we will see in the next section, the degree of this thickness is at the
basis of today’s global economy. 3. Trade and the global factory 3.1. Introduction In common parlance, when we think about trade,
we think about a human activity which main purpose is to redistribute scarce goods from places where they are produced in surplus
to places where they are needed. As we have seen, this “vent-for-surplus” trade has been a key characteristics of both pre-capitalist
and capitalist forms of trade, although in the latter case the surplus itself was socially, military and politically engineered to serve the
inputs needs of developed capital and thus subsumed within a continuous and systematic flow serving boundless accumulation. 11 A
large and increasing part of modern trade does not have anything to do with this. To the North-South specialisation which
saw the South specialising in cash crop and raw materials and the North in manufacturing industries, and
to the vent-for-surplus trade among developed nations (each tending to specialise in particular products), we are
increasingly witnessing another form of capitalist trade, which we may call disciplinary trade. Disciplinary
trade is a form of “acquisition of goods from a distance” in a context in which the economic (not the
ecological and social) cost of overcoming distance has been drastically reduced due to the vast increase in
productivity in communication and transportation. This form of trade turns importing and exporting of
goods into a process fully integrated within capitalist relations of production which not only serves the input needs of
production processes disperse through global commodity chains, but also play a central role in aiming at regulating and displacing
the inherent conflict of social relations of production. In thus doing, the "technical" specifications of trade flows are
subordinated entirely to the regulatory function of social antagonism at the global level. Trade becomes
fundamental moment for the constitution of the global capitalist factory . Let us review some rough stylised facts
regarding trade in this context.
State Action
Markets don’t come from nowhere – a neoliberal state apparatus is necessary
to clear the space for markets to takeover agricultural regimes. This type of
state ‘intervention’ is the foundation of enclosure.
William Sites ‘2k University of Chicago (Sociological Theory 18:1 March 2000)
This conception opens up greater possibilities for understanding the relationship between market actors
and contemporary neoliberal states as being at least partly constructed by subglobal politics. Without denying a structural
context in which the powers of international and domestic capital are strong, this approach makes plausible the contention that a
distinctive domestic politics continues to play a significant role in shaping the extreme neoliberalism in
the U.S. national context, perhaps through a dynamic known as “preference accommodation” (Hay 1997; see also Block 1987).
The argument of preference accommodation understands state policies—seen neither as the intentional product of
state-led interests nor as the indirect expression of the structural dependency of the state on capital—as resulting from an
established pattern in which state and party actors anticipate, accommodate, and thereby reinforce the short-term
preferences of business and other economic actors. For a U.S. state long marked by highly porous boundaries with civil society
(Katznelson 1986; Piven and Cloward 1993), state policies that cater to the short-term preferences of business not
only inhibit state actors from attempting to mobilize society around broadbased developmental strategies or
national goals but, over time, exacerbate fragmentation of the state itself. A repeatedly reactive posture by the state undermines its
capacities to engage with collective social responsibilities, weakens performance of its custodial role, and frees up political leaders
and state officials to forge interest-group alliances increasingly untempered by allegiance to governmental institutions. These
alliances tend currently to promote decentralization of those state functions which they do not attempt to abolish outright, in the
reasonable expectation (reasonable because of the weaker organization of subordinate social interests at the local level) that local
state officials are even more susceptible to the influence of powerful social groups than are national ones. These downward shifts do
not necessarily form an irrevocable or structural adaptation to external economic conditions, particularly when their actual impact
locally is not yet known. And it is important to acknowledge that this porousness of the state—its penetrability by nonstate
interests—does enable the state to respond quickly and flexibly to short-term economic opportunities and
pressures; in neoliberal terms, of course, here lies the source of its strength. Yet these same qualities also disable the state
from assuming a leadership role in fashioning coherent, broad-based projects that respond strategically to international integration
over the long term. Instead, a central aspect of this state’s relationship to globalization consists in its policy
measures which facilitate the “separation” of social actors—corporations, citizens, residents—from the sociopolitical
conditions and spatial patterns that anchored an earlier era. More than simply an economic pattern of activity, this earlier
order—whether understood as a Keynesian social structure of accumulation or welfare state, a Fordist regulatory regime or a
postwar social contract—rested upon a particular alignment of social and spatial relationships that not only
supported national economic activities but also rooted them, and social actors generally, in certain patterns of
civic life. Although limited in many ways, the political rights and spatial boundedness conferred by welfare state expansion (from
housing rights and rent restrictions in public housing, provisions for community review of land-use decisions, and minimal levels of
welfare entitlement to labor law provisions that still anchor certain working-class communities) often constitute obstacles, in
economic and spatial terms, to short-termist development because they root people in place as well as furnish political arenas of
contestation (Smith 1988; Walton 1992). Many conceptions of globalization tend to explain the loss of these rights and benefits as
an erosion in consequence of economic transnationalization, yet state policy has contributed—sometimes directly,
sometimes indirectly—to the process of clearing the social ground for neoliberal economic activity. Thus,
restructuring of governmental spending during the 1980s not only tended to free market actors from social and
statutory constraints but also shifted economic development policy to state and local levels, sparking a kind of
“subnational mercantilism” (Fainstein and Fainstein 1989). More recently, social policy has taken the form of a kind of
“bloody legislation,” which has mandated quite significant increases in incarceration and restrictions in civil and social liberties,
abolition of welfare entitlement, and privatization of public housing; recent policy proposals have mooted the dismantlement of the
social security system. Through these actions, state policy concentrates less on constructing globalization—in the sense of
developing new forms of political and social regulation to sustain economic activity—than on severing cross-class, cross-race, crossregional, and intergenerational social obligations that stand in the way of short-term economic activity. Although these actions do
tend to promote certain kinds of cross-border linkages, in the narrow sense of facilitating short-term foreign investment in domestic
capital markets or holding down the wages of certain strata of local workers, they fall well short of an internationalization of
domestic policy. Nor do they represent an effective “globalization strategy” in the sense of establishing, at the subglobal level, the
kind of durable political and social conditions that will be demanded over the long term by the global0national and global0local
linkages posed by international economic integration. This kind of relationship between state and globalization positions the state
not only as facilitator but as victim of globalization. State actions that disembed also lead to certain kinds of detachment or
separation of social actors from the state itself. I do not wish to exaggerate this trend. Even in the United States, of course, the state
continues to perform a large array of important tasks, many of them contributing—through investment and support for physical
infrastructure, public sector institutions, and nongovernmental services—to social welfare as well as economic growth. Yet one
distinct trend of the mid-1990s pointed toward a “vicious downward spiral” (Esping-Andersen 1996:8)—with
welfare state retrenchment spurring poverty, social disorder, and further retrenchment— which would
threaten to chronically weaken collective social support for the custodial role of the state, and would do so without necessarily
impinging on the role of state policy as economic stimulus. This scenario suggests not the straightforward erosion of the state so
much as a spiralling adaptation of state powers to tasks of diminishing the ties (rights and obligations with respect to work, housing,
education, and community) that connect citizens to the state. Under these conditions, “separation” poses not the eclipse of state
institutional capacities per se but the depletion of legitimacy. Weakened ties of legitimacy and accountability not only make it more
difficult for politics to propose, or the state to consider, broad tasks of economic and social regulation, but over time diminish the
relevance of the notion of legitimacy to a set of institutions which are seen to be “loaded up” with particularistic rather than
collective responsibilities.
Cuba
FDI
American support for Cuban industry empirically manifests itself in the
escalating infiltration of markets, which allows for enclosure of the commons –
the sugar industry proves
Leogrande and Thomas ’02 (William M. Leogrande and Julie M. Thomas; Leogrande is the
Professor of Government in the School of Public Affairs at American University, and Thomas is a
Participant in a Ph.D. Dissertation at the School of Public Affair, American University; May 2002; “Cuba’s
Quest for Economic Interdependence;” Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 34, No. 2, pp. 325-363;
JSTOR)
The rise of sugar also linked Cuba to the United States, a thriving market with limited domestic
sugar production.2 In 1884, when a collapse in international sugar prices pushed many Cuban
sugar mills into bankruptcy, capital from the United States poured into the island,
consolidating and modernising the sugar sector. In 1898 Washington's desire to protect these
new economic interests contributed to the decision to intervene in Cuba's war of
independence. The subsequent US occupation of the island tied its economy ever closer to the
United States as US military governors promulgated laws giving US firms concessionary access
to the Cuban market.3 By the late 1920S US firms controlled 75 per cent of the sugar industry,
and most of the mines, railroads, and public utilities.4
Cuba has the potential to become self-sufficient – but the plan is an economic
carrot driving them towards enclosure of the commons and ecological
destruction – now is the turning point
King 12 (M.Dawn, Assistant Professor at Brown University’s Center for Environmental Studies,
Ph.D. in Environmental Politics at Colorado, “Cuban Sustainability: The Effects of ¶ Economic
Isolation on Agriculture and ¶ Energy”, March 21-24, 2012,
http://wpsa.research.pdx.edu/meet/2012/kingmdawn.pdf )
Despite the potential to become more sustainable with a purposive and focused opening ¶ of
the economy, the recent surge in joint venture investment on expanding domestic oil ¶
extraction, petrochemical facilities, and oil refinery infrastructure reveals a trend toward ¶
decreasing environmental sustainability. Once heralded as the world’s most sustainable
country ¶ by coupling environmental performance indicators with their human development
scores, Cuba ¶ is slipping further away from this goal. Perhaps the most distressing part of this
current trend is ¶ that it took Cuba decades to create a national identity that embraced
sustainable environmental ¶ practices in both the energy and agricultural sector, and it
seemingly took only a couple of years ¶ to derail these efforts. Undoubtedly, conservation efforts
and sustainable education programs ¶ can only satiate citizen’s energy desires to a certain point.
In order to further the quality of life in ¶ the country, electric production must increase to rural
areas with little energy infrastructure and ¶ to Havana in order to spur foreign investment and
domestic small business growth. ¶ Cuba’s trade agreement with Venezuela is bringing in muchneeded petroleum for ¶ electricity production, but their dependence on a relatively unstable
country for crude is trapping ¶ them into the same relationship that crippled their economy in
1990 – impairing their original ¶ goal of self-sufficiency. Cuba is at a turning point in their path
toward environmental ¶ sustainability, and the current need for immediate foreign capital and
increased energy ¶ production seem to be trumping its desire to achieve development
sustainably. Cuba still has ¶ enough centralized control to leap-frog dirty electric production for
cleaner renewable forms of ¶ energy and the potential to guide development strategies that
emphasize investments in and ¶ research on renewable energy. It can utilize its expertise on
organic farming strategies to increase ¶ sugar production in a much more ecologically friendly
manner than their monoculture approach ¶ in the 1970s and 80s. Decisions made in the next
five years will demonstrate whether Cuba ¶ embraces their newly created national identity as
a society striving for sustainable development ¶ or rejects the goal of sustainable
development to increase short-term capital and energy needs.
Foreign investment and joint ventures in Cuba are inevitably accompanied by
enclosure of the commons, requiring support enterprises and entrepreneurial
classes
Werlau ’96 (Maria C. Werlau; Executive Director of Cuba Archive; 1996; “Foreign Investment
in Cuba: The Limits of Commercial Engagement;”
<http://www.ascecuba.org/publications/proceedings/volume6/pdfs/57Werlau.fm.pdf>)
Cuba’s capitalist enclaves have required the de-velopment of support enterprises that did not
ex-ist, particularly in the tourist sector. This, to-gether with the success of self-employment, can
help dispel the myth that decades of socialism have eliminated private initiative and entrepreneurship, demonstrating that the citizens can re-act positively to the pursuit of private gain. •
Foreign joint ventures carry the seed for the emergence of an entrepreneurial class which
would be psychologically prepared for the transi-tion to capitalism.188
Embargo Removal
The Cuban embargo is key to preventing American economic dominance and
the expansion of neoliberal markets via enclosure – the plan reverses this
trend
Leogrande and Thomas ’02 (William M. Leogrande and Julie M. Thomas; Leogrande is the
Professor of Government in the School of Public Affairs at American University, and Thomas is a
Participant in a Ph.D. Dissertation at the School of Public Affair, American University; May 2002; “Cuba’s
Quest for Economic Interdependence;” Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 34, No. 2, pp. 325-363;
JSTOR)
If there is one bright spot in the current landscape of Cuba's economic travails, it is the fact that
Cuba has not (yet) fallen back into a dependent economic relationship with the United States.
That, of course, is because of the US economic embargo - a politically motivated sanction that
ironically has become the principal bulwark against US economic domination of post-Cold War
Cuba. No doubt the embargo hinders Cuban economic growth by preventing US direct foreign
investment on the island, by discouraging investment from other sources, and by increasing Cuban
transportation costs for things it must sell farther from home. In the absence of the embargo, there is
little doubt that trade with the United States would quickly grow to dwarf trade with every
other trade partner, tourists from the United States would dwarf the numbers from Canada and
western Europe, and investment from US firms (including Cuban-American firms) would dwarf
investments from elsewhere.
Cuba – Travel/Tourism
Tourism is reponsible for income inequality in Cuba – opens it up to foreign
investment and enclosure of the commons
Sanchez and Adams 08 (Peter M., full professor and Graduate Program Director in the
department of political science at Loyola University Chicago, where he has taught international
relations, comparative politics, and Latin American politics since 1993. He earned his Ph.D. and
M.A. in government and politics from the University of Texas at Austin, and his B.A. in political
science from the University of Florida in Gainesville, Kathleen M., (Ph.D., University of
Washington) is a socio-cultural anthropologist with field research experience in Indonesia
(especially Sulawesi and Alor) and San Juan Capistrano, CA. Dr. Adams's areas of research
expertise include the anthropology of tourism, heritage and the politics of identity,
ethnographic arts, and museum studies, “THE JANUS-FACED CHARACTER OF TOURISM IN CUBA
“,Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 35, No. 1, pp. 27–46, 2008)
When Cuba entered its contemporary economic crisis in 1991, the¶ regime’s new slogan became
‘‘socialism or death!’’ The slogan could¶ just as well have read ‘‘socialism or tourism?’’ Instead,
the government¶ embarked upon a program to embrace both socialism and tourism, as it¶
opened its economy to foreign investment while steadfastly attempting¶ to retain its socialist
economic and political system. To promote tourism, however, the government had to make
fundamental economic¶ changes, such as inviting foreign investment and legalizing the US
dollar, significantly challenging the character of Cuban socialism.¶ These changes have led to
new inequalities and to the return of some¶ of the problems— corruption, drugs, racism, and
prostitution —that¶ once characterized the Batista dictatorship (Barbassa 2005:17). Private¶
incentive and entrepreneurship, whether legal or not, are now salient¶ characteristics of the
Cuban economy. Much of this individualism takes¶ place in the tourist industry where Cubans
struggle to obtain hard currency through various means not sanctioned by the government.
Until¶ 2004 the US dollar was king, but after the Bush Administration imposed tighter rules on
travel and US currency entering Cuba, Castro¶ banned the US dollar and now the convertible
peso has taken its place.¶ Perhaps one of the most paradoxical outcomes of the latest tourism¶
boom is the increasingly visible economic inequality in a socialist¶ county, described by
Jackiewicz as a ‘‘huge class divide’’ Jackiewicz¶ (2002:na). Although a political elite existed on the
island since the¶ early days of the revolution, tourism has contributed to the emergence¶ of a
nascent petite bourgeoisie whose members are becoming conspicuous¶ consumers. Those
who have access to tourism-derived hard currency¶ can live more comfortably than those who
do not. Moreover, since¶ the government can no longer provide for all basic needs and has
accepted the notion of unemployment, many who lack access to hard currency now live in the
kind of poverty visible in other developing¶ countries. Cubans running paladars, casa
particulars, working in hotels,¶ or selling products illegally to tourists all have access to hard
currency¶ and have managed to weather the economic crisis better than those¶ outside the
tourism industry.¶ For example, Cuban doctors earn less money than bellhops at international
hotels, as many workers told the authors during interviews.¶ Wood and Jayawardena (2003:153)
report that while a general practitioner in Cuba earns roughly US$20 per month, a hotel
manager¶ earns approximately $40 per month and a restaurant waiter earns¶ $20, plus another
$17 in tips. Consequently, many professionals¶ (including communist party members) have
abandoned government¶ jobs to enter the industry. (One should note that not only tourist
dollars enabled the emergence of this petite bourgeoisie, but also remissions sent by exiled
family members to kin remaining on the island.)¶ These jobs may be perceived as ‘‘demeaning’’
from a professional¶ perspective, but they are financially rewarding. One hotel worker,
previously employed as a mechanical engineer, told the authors that his¶ hotel bellhop job had
resulted in both greater income and opportunities for foreign travel, indirectly giving him access
to more money.¶ Likewise, Cabezas notes that tourism offers a venue in which workers¶ can
meet foreigners who may facilitate travel abroad or who may become marriage partners, thus
enabling greater incomes and, potentially, opportunities to leave the country (Cabezas
2006:508). In¶ effect, then, the emerging industry has undermined Castro’s goal of¶
egalitarianism. Adding insult to this phenomenon is the fact that¶ the merit-based economic
structure has been partly inverted by¶ menial tourism jobs becoming more desirable than
professional and¶ high-level government jobs.¶
U.S. Collaboration
American collaboration with Cuba stymies Cuban socialism and facilitates
market expansion and enclosure
Azicri, 2000 Max, Cuba, Today and Tomorrow,
The electoral system is a compromise between limited political reform¶ and the need for
defensive measures. While it allows a direct secret vote¶ and the "possibility of relatively
unknown elected representatives becoming¶ legislators in the National Assembly and even being
elected to the¶ Council of State, the lack of candidates competing at the national and¶ provincial
levels detracts from its potential as a democratic representative¶ system: There should be a new
electoral system providing the electorate¶ with a choice among- competing*candidates at-all
jurisdictional¶ levels.¶ Alarcon has stated -that American punitive policies are holding back¶ the
implementation of further political reform, including changing the¶ electoral system. The
situation places the country physically and psycho-¶ ¶
logically in a state of readiness to withstand any external aggression. This¶ is not Cuba
overreacting; history has demonstrated that economic, political,¶ and cultural aggression can be
as harmful as military aggression.¶ Cuba needs to continue on the path of reform while
adjusting to international¶ realities and domestic expectations. While the changes already¶
made have recognized such exigencies, future change should respond to¶ Cuba's interests and
objectives. The reform process must continue uninterrupted¶ regardless of hostile U.S.
policies. This is not to say that national¶ security should be disregarded but that the ongoing
transformation¶ of the political and economic system should not be hostage to the¶ CubanU.S. relations problematic. Although 1998 and 1999 were not the¶ years for a rapprochement,
perhaps President Clinton's decision easing¶ some of the sanctions may pave the way for a
future normalization of¶ relations with a new administration in Washington.¶ As regards
continuing the political and economic reform process, the¶ suggestion Morales Dominguez made
close to forty years ago still applies:¶ "If it were possible, it would be convenient for Cuba to
forget that¶ the United States [exists]."¶ ¶ That way the newly emerging socialism¶ could
develop according to the expectations of the Cuban people and¶ the revolutionary leadership
about what it should be like. But regardless¶ of these considerations and obstacles, or perhaps
because of them,¶ Cuba will continue reinventing its own brand of socialism today and¶
tomorrow.¶
U.S. Treasury Action
U.S. treasury action in Cuba only serves to strengthen U.S. hegemonic influence
and allow for enclosure of the commons
Harvey 03, David, The New Imperialism
The¶ economic power to dominate (such as the trade embargo¶ on Iraq and Cuba or IMF
austerity programmes implemented¶ at the behest of the US Treasury) can be used¶ with equally
destructive effect as physical force. The¶ distinctive role of US financial institutions and the¶ US
Treasury backed by the IMF in visiting a violent¶ devaluation of assets throughout East and
South-East¶ Asia, creating mass unemployment and effectively rolling¶ back years of social and
economic progress on the part of¶ huge populations in that region, is a case in point. Yet¶ most
of the US population either lives in a state of denial,¶ refusing even to hear of such things, or, if it
does hear,¶ passively accepts liquidations and coercions as facts of¶ life, the normal cost of doing
fundamentally honest¶ business in a dirty world.¶ But what the critics who dwell solely on this
aspect of¶ US behaviour in the world all too often fail to acknowledge¶ is that coercion and
liquidation of the enemy is only¶ a partial, and sometimes counterproductive, basis for US¶
power. Consent and cooperation are just as important. If¶ these could not be mobilized
internationally and if leadership¶ could not be exercised in such a way as to generate¶ collective
benefits, then the US would long ago have¶ ceased to be hegemonic. The US must at least act in
such¶ a way as to make the claim that it is acting in the general¶ interest plausible to others
even when, as most people suspect,¶ it is acting out of narrow self-interest. This is what¶
exercising leadership through consent is all about.¶ In this regard, of course, the Cold War
provided the US¶ with a glorious opportunity. The United States, itself¶ dedicated to the endless
accumulation of capital, was prepared¶ to accumulate the political and military power to¶
defend and promote that process across the globe against¶ the communist threat. Private
property owners of the¶ world could unite, support, and shelter behind that power,¶ faced with
the prospect of international socialism. Private¶ property rights were held as a universal value
and proclaimed¶ as such in the UN Declaration of Human Rights.¶ The US guaranteed the security
of European democracies,¶ and benevolently helped rebuild the war-torn¶ economies of Japan
and West Germany. Through its policy¶ of 'containment' it tacitly established the boundaries¶ of
its own informal empire (particularly in Asia), while¶ committing itself to undermining by
whatever means possible¶ the power of its great competitor, the Soviet empire.¶ While we know
enough about decision-making in the¶ foreign policy establishment of the Roosevelt-Truman¶
years and since to conclude that the US always put its own¶ interests first, sufficient benefits
flowed to the propertied¶ classes in enough countries to make US claims to be acting¶ in the
universal (read 'propertied') interest credible¶ and to keep subaltern groups (and client states)
gratefully¶ in line. This 'benevolence' is quite plausibly presented by¶ defenders of the US in
response to those who emphasize¶ the rogue state image based in coercion. It is also heavily¶
emphasized in the way in which the US typically views¶ and presents itself to the rest of the
world, though here¶ there is as much myth-spinning as truth-telling. The US¶ likes to believe, for
example, that it and it alone liberated¶ Europe from the Nazi yoke, and it erases entirely the¶
much more important role of the Red Army and of the¶ siege of Stalingrad in turning the tables
in the Second¶ World War. The more general truth is that the US¶ engages in both coercive and
hegemonic practices simultaneously,¶ though the balance between these two facets in¶ the
exercise of power may shift from one period to another¶ and from one administration to
another.
Mexico
Projects in Mexico lead to enclosures and misuse of land—reverses progress
being made now
De Ita 12 [Ana de Ita, P researcher at and founder of the Centro de Estudios para el Cambio en el Campo Mexicano (Ceccam)
Research Center for Change in Rural Mexico, “USING “PROTECTED NATURAL AREAS” TO APPROPRIATE THE COMMONS”, April 2012,
an essay in The Wealth of the Commons by David Bollier, http://wealthofthecommons.org/essay/using-“protected-natural-areas”appropriate-commons]
Even as
worldwide pressures mount to protect sites with high biological diversity, indigenous
peoples and local communities are redoubling their struggles of resistance against a “solution”
that claims to protect ecosystems, the establishment of protected natural areas (PNAs). The policy of establishing PNAs,
which seeks to maintain the best conserved redoubts of the planet, is often at odds with the rights of native
peoples, since many of those redoubts exist in the first place only because indigenous
communities have conserved, recreated, and maintained them.¶ In Mexico, half the national
territory, some 106 million hectares, is the property of ejidos and comunidades agrarias,1 home to
peasants and indigenous peoples. Although the discourse of protecting nature is familiar to the ways of thinking of
such communities, PNAs have become a threat to their territories and to their autonomy or selfdetermination, which is their main demand.¶ PNAs are established by the decree of any level of government and are
considered to be of public utility, which according to Article 27(VI) of the Constitution means that lands can be expropriated. In PNAs
the rights of persons who possess the territory are legally inferior to the decrees regulating
the area, management programs, or environmental land use regimes. In addition, the possessors whose lives
depend on these territories, which they use and tend, do not have priority over any other
person or social group involved; they are merely considered one more stakeholder. Nor do the possessors
have any right to veto management rules, nor to have the guaranteed right to give or withhold their free, prior, and
informed consent, even if they are indigenous peoples.¶ Moreover, PNAs do not even guarantee that
conservation objectives will prevail over moneyed interests, for highly contaminating activities
such as oil operations and mining are not prohibited. Nor is the appropriation of water or any
other resource by any economic actor prohibited; all that is required is that the commercial uses “not cause
degradation to the ecological balance.Ӧ In the PNAs government administrators, international conservation organ-izations such as
Conservation International, World Wildlife Fund, and The Nature Conservancy, and even
private companies such as
Coca Cola, breweries, hotels, and many others wrest control over decisions on the territory
and resource use from the assembly of ejidatarios and comuneros, making it ever more difficult for the
government to establish them.¶ Up until the year 2010, the National Commission on Protected Natural Areas (Conanp: Comisión
Nacional de Áreas Naturales Protegidas) administered 174 PNAs in Mexico covering 25.4 million hectares in all. According to a World
Bank study, 95 percent of the PNAs are situated in areas of common use, both ejidos and comunidades agrarias, and at least 71 of
them are on the territories of 36 indigenous peoples.
Of the more than 152 priority terrestrial areas for
conservation, covering some 51 million hectares, at least 60 overlap with indigenous territories .¶ In the late
1980s, the government, upon announcing plans to establish PNAs, were confronted by the ejidos and comunidades possessing the
territories that were proposed as “voluntary” conservation areas. There are now 177 voluntary areas in 15 of Mexico’s 31 states,
encompassing approximately 208,000 hectares, and at least nine indigenous peoples participate in them. Most are located in
Oaxaca, with 79 voluntary certification areas.¶ Yet in 2008, the General Law on Ecological Balance and Environmental Protection
introduced a change, making voluntary conservation areas one more category of protected natural area. The lands
were
declared to be under federal jurisdiction and of public utility – and then new conditions for
their management imposed. This included promoting the entry of newcomers to the lands and giving
them decision-making authority over resources used in common – which the communities had specifically
sought to prohibit. ¶ The 2008 law has sparked major conflicts in the territories between the communities and the Conanp. Each has
its own model of conservation and structure of government. One seeks conservation from within the communities, with the
regulations decided by agreement of the assembly, based on consensus-building. The other seeks conservation from outside, with
government decisions imposed on the territories. When the communities have sought to terminate their commitment to “voluntary
conservation,” they have found that it is in fact mandatory, and that they must either wait for the commitment period to run its
course or else pay for a technical study to justify their refusal to do so. ¶ In
2010, just before the Conference of Parties in Nagoya,
indigenous peoples – Kuna, Kichwa Kayampi,
Q’eqchi de Livingston, Bene Gulash, Ñu Savi – began to circulate what was called the Declaration of Heredia. It
demanded that no more protected natural areas be established in indigenous territories; that
the ones decreed to date be canceled; and that those lands and territories be returned to the
communities and peoples from whom they were taken. The Declaration stated: “No government, no
on the Biodiversity Convention, and in Cancún, on climate change, several
environmental policy or legislation can be imposed above our territorial rights, which are guaranteed in Convention 169 of the
International Labor Organization and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.Ӧ The establishment
of PNAs has become a modern instrument of colonization that regards indigenous and
peasant territories as empty “no-man’s land” that the state can manage as it sees fit.
Venezeula
Foreign Investment
Pre-Andean Pact empirics prove that foreign investment toward Venezuela is
an undercover mode of expanding market economics and external dominance
by closing the commons and co-opting domestic production
Bye ’79 (Vegard Bye; Former Representative of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights,
Bolivia & Angola, Former President of NORLAT, Former Head of NORAD’s Latin American
Division, Former Executive Director of the Main NGO Network, Forum for Environment and
Development; “Nationalization of Oil in Venezuela: Re-Defined Dependence and Legitimization
of Imperialism;” 1979; Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 57-78; JSTOR)
When the military dictatorship was over-thrown in 1958, and the AD leadership stepped onto
the stage once more, it was a totally open question how the relation to foreign capital would
develop. All the polit-ical forces in the country, from the centre towards the left, were waiting
hopefully for political solutions totally contradictory with each other. In retrospect, it can be
con-cluded that the outcome was a policy of cap-italist consolidation in close alliance with
foreign capital. The major general tendency in the development of external dominance during
that period was a strong and rapid process of import substitution. Because of the excess of oil
incomes, Venezuela had never had the structural prerequisites for creating any substantial
domestic industry sector, as for instance Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil had done in the 1930s.
Now, however, it became a political objective of the leading domestic sectors, including the
Government, to use parts of oil money in an effort to industrialize. A highly significant
characteristic of this process in Venezuela should be emphasized. The process came about,
from the very beginning, by means of foreign capital. Thus, the domestic in-dustry market in
Venezuela became inter-nationalized before any indigenous, national industry sector was
allowed to develop. This had vital repercussions on the development of class alliances. It is
important to notice that the State in this period played an active role in the foreign capital
penetration of sectors outside oil. Until Venezuela as late as 1972 became member of the
Andean Pact and thus subject to the fairly severe restrictions on foreign investment effective
in that or-ganization till 1976, the Venezuelan State allowed total freedom in transnational capital transactions. Import substitution thus led first of all to a diversification of external
dominance.
Oil/Energy
Allowing oil companies to access Venezuela co-opts the commons and creates a
scenario of enclosure whereby concessionaries’ “mother companies” forcibly
expand a market economy
Bye ’79 (Vegard Bye; Former Representative of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights,
Bolivia & Angola, Former President of NORLAT, Former Head of NORAD’s Latin American
Division, Former Executive Director of the Main NGO Network, Forum for Environment and
Development; “Nationalization of Oil in Venezuela: Re-Defined Dependence and Legitimization
of Imperialism;” 1979; Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 57-78; JSTOR)
To give a picture of the total technological dependence in the Venezuelan oil sector before nationalization, it is sufficient to refer to some of the conclusions in a report published by the
government's own research-institute for oil technology, INVEPET (later INTEVEP) (INVEPET, 1975).
The task of this report was to assess to what extent the oil com-panies operating in Venezuela
were depen-dent on foreign-based technology, either from the concessionaries' mother
companies or from specialized service companies. That the domestically available technology
was totally monopolized by the giant's operation units in the country was not even questioned. The conclusions may briefly be summed up as follows: The dependence on mother
companies or specialized service companies - the latter frequently parts of the same
enterprises- was almost total in all aspects of the oil industry: exploration, production, and
refining. This was also true for routine operations, but even stronger in innovative operations,
and in research and develop-ment. This fact notwithstanding, a signi-ficant process of
'venezuelization' was going on in the companies over the 15 years prior to the nationalization:
this is shown by the fact that the percentage of foreigners on their staff was reduced from 12 to
2.
Foreign integration in the Venezuelan oil business is merely a ruse used to
enclose the commons via the private appropriation of oil rents
Coronil and Skurski ’82 (Fernando Coronil and Julie Skurski; Massachusetts Institute of
Technology; Winter 1982; “Reproducing Dependency: Auto Industry Policy and Petrodollar
Circulation in Venezuela;” International Organization, Vol. 36, No. 1, pp. 61-94; JSTOR)
In contemporary Venezuela the main source of capital accumulation and the basis of class
formation has been the appropriation and distribution of oligopoly oil rents. 16 An essentially
mercantile system of organization has developed around the state's role as the rent-maximizing
owner of the oil fields. The state-mediated transfer of internationally derived revenues to the
domestic sphere has reinforced the development of truncated capitalist relations typical of
dependent economies. Change at the level of mate-rial production has been conditioned by
continuity at the level of social reproduction, where relations of circulation predominate. That is,
mate-rial production is structured and articulated with other spheres by a wider set of relations
oriented primarily toward the capture rather than the pro-duction of value. 17 To the extent that
the state and local and foreign private capital seek to extend capital accumulation in industry,
they do so while attempting to re-produce the existing commercial and political bases of their
own power and profits: the subordinate integration of the local economy into the world
economy through the appropriation of oil rents and the channeling by the state of a
substantial proportion of these rents to private capital under unre-strictive conditions.
Private sector energy and oil production in Venezuela empirically allows market
penetration by external interests – this guarantees enclosure and the
emergence of a petty bourgeoisie
Bye ’79 (Vegard Bye; Former Representative of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights,
Bolivia & Angola, Former President of NORLAT, Former Head of NORAD’s Latin American
Division, Former Executive Director of the Main NGO Network, Forum for Environment and
Development; “Nationalization of Oil in Venezuela: Re-Defined Dependence and Legitimization
of Imperialism;” 1979; Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 57-78; JSTOR)
From playing an extremely minor role in world economy before the start of oil pro-duction,
Venezuela rapidly developed into an important actor on the stage of world economy. As early as
in 1929, the country was the world's largest oil producer, with 10 % of total world production.
From the start, Venezuela's oil sector was completely monopolized by the major oil
corporations. In 1929, Standard Oil of California (SOCAL) and Gulf together stood for 54.8 % of
the production, and Shell for the remaining 45 %. In 1932, Standard Oil of New Jersey (ESSO,
later EXXON) took over SOCAL's interests; ever since then, these three companies have been
the dominating ones in the Venezuela oil business. (NACLA, vol. X (1976), No. 8, pp. 4-5.) This,
of course, meant that abruptly the country's economy was completely pen-etrated by external
interests. The conditions offered to the oil companies are estimated to have been among the
most advantageous offered to any foreign enterprises in Latin America at that time. But even
the small share of the oil in-comes that remained in the country repre-sented a considerable
amount of money, and this created the conditions for the emerg-ence of a growing pettybourgeoisie. Partic-ularly the state bureaucracy and the intel-lectuals were important in
fomenting a na-tionalist sentiment and ambitions for a stronger state apparatus to cope with
the oil giants. The resulting changes in government (see later) produced a certain restriction in
the freedom of the foreign companies.
Impacts
Apocalypse
Capital accumulation and enclosure causes ecological and social apocalypse
De Angelis 12 [Massimo De Angelis, Professor of Political Economy at the University of East London. He is author, most
recently, of The Beginning of History: Value Struggles and Global Capital, “CRISES, CAPITAL AND CO-OPTATION: DOES CAPITAL NEED
A COMMONS FIX?”, April 2012, an essay in The Wealth of the Commons by David Bollier,
http://wealthofthecommons.org/essay/crises-capital-and-co-optation-does-capital-need-commons-fix]
Today economic crisis is a capitalist crisis of social stability, not a simple recession—that is, a crisis that
requires a realignment of class/power relations and new systems of governance in order to re-establish
growth and accumulation.1 The last two times in which a real change in capital’s governance occurred
(in the post-World War II period with the embrace of “Keynesianism” and in the late 1970s with the shift to neoliberalism)
followed periods of intense social struggles that helped social movements imagine alternative socio-economic
arrangements. Capital, fearing that “ideas gripping the masses” might propel a radical transformation, was suddenly
willing to shift its “governance” paradigm to accommodate some social demands while cutting
deals with some segments of the movement and displacing the cost of doing the new
paradigm onto other communities and environments across the globe. Pitting one sector of
the social body against others has always been a strategy of capital development.2 But this
time, things are getting a bit more complicated. My first thesis is that in facing this crisis of social stability,
capital faces an impasse. By “impasse” I mean that vital support for the growth of the social
system is no longer forthcoming in sufficient degree, especially from the environment in which the capitalist
system operates.¶ Capital, understood as a social force organizing social cooperation for the
purpose of accumulation, has a twofold environment. The first is constituted by social systems
that reproduce the various facets of life in non-commodified ways. Access to money is, at most, only a
means through which needs are satisfied and not an end in itself, as it is for capital. When the purchased commodities
exit the market sphere and enter the spheres of social cooperation (households, associations, networks,
etc.), they often enter the complex, culturally and politically diverse and variegated sphere of the
commons. It is here that the cultural and physical reproduction of labor power, the valuecreating commodity so critically important for capital, occurs – outside the control of capital
but, of course, strictly coupled to it.¶ The other system that capital depends upon is the ecological
systems upon which all life and social organization depends. The impasse that capital faces
consists of the devastation of systems of social reproduction through reductions of wages and
welfare over the past 30 years as work has become more atomized, flexible and precarious as well the increasing
inability of natural ecosystems to support capital in its endless quest for greater resource
extraction and cost-shifting externalities, such as the free use of the atmosphere as a waste dump.¶ In this sense, capitalism
has reached an impasse, the overcoming of which, if done in its own terms, will produce a
social and ecological apocalypse at worst, and an intensification of social conflict at best.¶ How can
capital overcome this impasse? The difficulty lies in the fact that if the system has to survive it will have to
continue to push for strategies of growth, i.e., accumulation. Capital’s systemic necessity for growth derives
not only from its elemental need for accumulation through a cost-cutting and cost-externalizing process of competition. Growth is
also necessary as a way to reconcile a profit-maximizing mode of production with hierarchical modes of distribution. If “all boats are
lifted by a rising tide,” there will be less pressure to address inequality and redis­tribution called upon by struggles for social justice.¶
Yet today,
all the strategies and fixes available for capital to pursue growth in the world system
will only intensify the crisis of social and ecological reproduction, amplifying and widening the
range of resistance even if there is no focal, program-matic point.3 Capital is therefore pressed to shift the
mode of governance of social relations, or at least to fine-tune neoliberal governance in such a
way to contain the costs associated with the crisis of social reproduction and limit public
expenditures necessary to police and control the rebellions generated by the crisis. In either case, capital
needs other systems and forms of sociability to fortify its agenda.¶ This leads me to my second thesis: to solve or at least to address
this impasse, capital
needs the commons, or at least specific, domesticated versions of them. It
needs a commons fix. Since neoliberalism is not about to give up its management of the world, it will likely have to ask the
commons to help manage the devastation. And if the commons are not there, capital will have to promote them somehow. ¶ On the
other hand, commons are also systems that could do the opposite: they could
create a social basis for
alternative ways of articulating social production, independent from capital and its prerogatives.
Indeed, it is difficult today to conceive emancipation from capital–and achieving new solutions to the
demand of buen vivir, social and ecological justice–without at the same time organizing on the terrain of commons, the
non-commodified systems of social production. Commons are not just a “third way” beyond state and market
failures; they are a vehicle for claiming ownership in the conditions needed for life and its
reproduction. The demands for greater democracy since the 1970s, now exploding worldwide in the face of the social and
economic crisis, are really grassroots democratic demands to control the means of social reproduction. Democratic
freedoms imply personal investments and responsibilities, and commons are vehicles for
negotiating these responsibilities and corresponding social relations and modes of production.
That is what Peter Linebough calls “commoning.”¶ Hence, there is in fact a double impasse, for both capital and the social
movements. Capital needs the commons to deal with the crisis as much as social
movements need to confront
capital’s enclosures of the commons in order to construct serious alternatives and prevent
capital’s attempts to co-opt the commons. Hence, it is crucial not only to defend existing
commons from enclosures, but also to shape new commons as they become a crucial terrain
of struggle. This value struggle lies at the heart of the commons’ potential as a social system and
force that might overcome the hegemony of capital. This struggle between the value-generating logic of the two
systems has not been sufficiently addressed in commons literature.
Endless War
Endless War
Chowdhury, associate professor of English at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, 2006
[Kanishka, “Interrogating "Newness" Globalization and Postcolonial Theory In the Age of Endless
War,” Cultural Critique 62 (2006) 126-161, muse]
One other point, however, needs to be acknowledged in any discussion about the accumulation of capital in the "new" age of globalization and endless war. Globalization has
ensured that the means of capital extraction have become far more varied and regulated. A couple of quick examples will illustrate my point. In 1996 the government of
Maharashtra, a western state in India, signed a contract worth thirty billion dollars in order for Enron to produce electricity. It was the largest contract signed in the history of
Indian commercial transactions. The project's gross profit would accrue over twelve billion dollars. The official return on equity turned out to be more than thirty percent, which
is almost double what Indian law permits in power projects. The Maharashtra State Electricity Board (MSEB) had to set aside seventy percent of its revenue to be able to pay
Enron, all for an increased capacity of only eighteen percent (Roy, Power Politics, 54–55).
Capital's quest for absolute surplus value may well
have been realized in this instance. Of course, those servants of global capital, the IMF and the World Bank, have mastered a more efficient means of extraction
of surplus value—the ritual of debt. Consequently, governments in sub-Saharan Africa now spend more on debt
repayment than on health care and education combined. According to U.N. statistics, "if Mozambique were allowed to
spend half of the money on health care and education that it is now spending on debt service, it
would save the lives of 100,000 children per year" (Chomsky, 100). The global reality of the new age is that "from Argentina to Ghana,
state intervention in the economy has been drastically curtailed, protectionist barriers to Northern imports have been eliminated wholesale, restrictions on foreign investment
have been lifted and, through export-first policies, internal economies have been more tightly integrated into the capitalist world market dominated by the North" (Bello, 17–
18). All of these policies, finally, are designed to fulfill one end: capital accumulation. What Marx had said in reference to the extraction of wealth by the British in India—"a
bleeding process with a vengeance"—remains true for contemporary capitalism. [End Page 145]
This brings me to my second point, and that is, as Marx puts it in volume 1 of Capital, "accumulation of capital is, therefor e, increase of the proletariat" (Tucker, 421). Although the definition of the proletariat must be expanded to include a variety of disposses sed
and exploited laborers such as the agrarian and migrant populations that I mentioned earlier, these populations, in the historical sense of the proletariat described so powerfully in the Manifesto, also "live only so long as they find work, and . . . find work only as long
as their labour increases capital. These labourers, who must sell themselves piece-meal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market" (479). In order for
us to contextualize the contemporary processes of migration, and diasporic shifts in culture and populations, we have to recognize the role of the disciplining of the labor process. The relationship between the owners of m oney and of laborers, Marx reminds us, is
not a natural one, but is "the result of a past historical development, the product of ma ny economic revolutions, of the extinction of a whole series of older forms of social production" (339). Paying attention to the dynamic nature of this relationship provides the
historical context for understanding issues of identity, marginality, and cross-cultural transactions that postcolonial thought is so immersed in; the current crisis of the proletariat evident in so many d eveloping nations, what we have named as an inevitable
consequence of globalization, needs to be historicized, and Marx provides that framework in The Grundrisse:
[It is] the effect of capital and of its process, once arisen, to conquer all of production and to develop and complete the divorce between labour and property, between labour and the objective conditions of labour, everywhere. . . . Capital rapidly forms an internal
market for itself by destroying all rural secondary occupations, so that it spins, weaves for everyone, clothes everyone, etc ., in short, brings the commodities previously created as direct use values into the form of exchange values, a process which comes about by
itself through the separation of the workers from land and soil and from property (even in the form of serf property) in the conditions of production.
(275)
The migratory process that so distinguishes the movement of labor in our age is in part determined by this separation of the worker from the land.18 As agriculture is increasingly privatized and rural social [End Page 146] structures destroyed, more and more of the
landless migrate to urban centers, while others attempt to make potentially fatal border crossings into carefully policed, metropolitan zones of privileg e. In the last few decades, the scale of destruction of rural secondary occupations, be they in the Philippines, in
Bolivia, or in Nigeria, has also led to the availability of a reserve labor force to produce the cheap goods that fuel global trade. Indeed, as Marx elaborates in volume 1 of Capital, "the greater the social wealth, the functioning capital, the extent and energy of its
growth, and, therefore, also the absolute mass of the proletariat and the productiveness of its labour, the greater is the industrial reserve army" (429). The point worth making here, and one that postcolonial theorists in their rush to celebrate migr ations and
crossings too often forget, is that there is a direct correlation between capital accumulation and proletarian misery; in short, Marx argues that "all methods for the production of surplus-value are at the same time methods of accumulation; and every extension of
accumulation becomes again a means for the development of those methods. It follows, therefore that in proportion as capital accumulated, the lot of the labourer, be his payment high or low, must grow worse" (431).19
A final point needs to be made about the inevitability of crisis in capitalism, a point that can inform postcolonial theory and anticapitalist resistance movements in significant
ways. The possibility of crisis appears as a result of the chain of reciprocal dependence; as this chain is constantly disrupted and restored, the possibility of crisis increases, but,
most importantly, the chief source of this crisis is "the contradiction between the evolution of the forces of production on the one hand and the social relations upon which
capitalist relations are based on the other" (Harvey, The Condition, 181). Crisis, as Marx described it in Theories of Surplus Value, "is nothing but the forcible assertion of the
unity of phases of the production process which have become independent of each other" (Tucker, 452), or, as Marx puts it in volume 3 of Capital, "the last cause of all real
crises always remains the poverty and restricted consumption of the masses as compared to the tendency of capitalist production to develop the productive forces in such a
ven as capital tries to rectify the
disturbed equilibrium that arises because of the discrepancy existing between the productive
development of society and its [End Page 147]hitherto existing relations of production, crisis expresses
itself in bitter contradiction and spasms, moments where the "intertwining and the coalescence of the process of reproduction or circulation of
way, that only the absolute power of consumption of the entire society would be their limit" (568). E
different capitals" emerge due to the division of labor, but also by accident (453). It is in these moments and spaces of contradiction, accidents, and spasms that postcolonial
theory has to find room for intervention. Crisis and capitalist accommodations and reinvention are vital moments in which to conceptualize, realign, and reinsert resistance. A
historical understanding of crisis provides an informed analytical space that is far removed from Bhabha's dismissive reference to the "teleological spaces of global capital."
These contradictory moments in capital have to be finally appreciated within the context of the
contemporary process of globalization, a process that has to be understood in its multiple political and economic dimensions. Any theory connected to analyzing
cultural products in the so-called developing world has to consider the following effects of capitalist globalization: an increased inequality in the
distribution of world income; the reproduction of metropolitan capitalist class relations in developing countries with widening
inequalities in wealth between the ruler and the ruled; the vulnerability of the developing world
as a result of the financialization of capital (Argentina and Indonesia are just the most obvious cases); the degradation of
the environment in poorer countries as Western companies shift their operations overseas; and,
finally, the increasing proletarianization of the workforce as a result of the race-to-the-bottom
strategy of transnational companies. These are the consequences of endless war, but, as I suggested earlier,
these measures work precisely because of the powerful military alliances that determine the
fate of poor countries. After all, the initiator of these alliances, the United States, rules not just through
international intermediaries and unjust trade laws but through a very specific military
presence, which can be translated quite rapidly into deployment of military force in the so-called
Third World. It is an empire with more than three hundred military bases worldwide and troops
in many other countries, including the newly independent Central Asian Republics. In the last twenty years it has attacked
Panama, Sudan, Somalia, Iraq twice, Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan. This is a force that will protect
its interests by any means necessary.
Ultimately, though, what do these global configurations of power [End Page 148]say about the way we—postcolonial critics—practice cultural analysis? Surely it is by now evident that it is not enough merely to talk about representation or difference or to highlight
the ambivalent structures of cultural production. I want to argue that postcolonial theories vigorously informed by a Marxist tradition, and especially by an attention to the three points that I have been emphasizing, may serve as provo cative interventions, both in
constructing an effective methodological framework and as a plan for political action based on a foundational notion of anticapitalist activism. As Alejandro Colas has emphasized in another context, postcolonial theory "must develop a class analysis of world politics
premised on the complex and variegated reproduction of capitalism through the mediation of states and the attendant oppressiv e ideologies such as racism and sexism" (207). The following points, in my view, may well contribute to a more politically relevant
version of postcolonial studies.
First: We must ground postcolonial critical production within the framework of a fundamental anticapitalist critique. It is not enough to claim, as Masao Miyoshi, among others, does, that "the current academic preoccupation with 'postcoloniality' and
multiculturalism looks suspiciously like another alibi to conceal the actuality of global politics" ("A Borderless World," 1868). Miyoshi's solution is to call for an analytical model based on a flexible polycentric world rather than one informed by a specific anticapitalist
critique. A crucial step in establishing this critique would be to challenge the tacit anti-Marxism of contemporary postcolonial studies. It is important, for instance, to contest the generalized claims of mainstream journals and resist the reductive arguments that can
diminish a complex Marxist tradition into an orthodoxy that merely promotes universals, grand narratives, and teleology. While postcolonial theory has a lot to contribute to Marxist analysis in terms of providing a framework for understanding the complex relations
of power in colonial societies, or in revealing the place of racial ideology in analyzing class struggle, it can equally benefit from Marxism as a global theory grounded in a scientific critique of capitalism; if anything, in a globalized age Marxism offers a special relevance.
As cultural transactions multiply and accelerate in the age of late capital, Marxism provides the tools to uncover and unmask the social relations that govern these transactions. Jameson, for one, has argued that "it does not make much sense to talk about [End Page
149] the bankruptcy of Marxism, when Marxism is precisely the science and the study of just that capitalism w hose global triumph is affirmed in talk of Marxism's demise" ("Conversations," 255). Finally, my argument here would be incom plete without reiterating a
simple point regarding anticapitalist knowledge formation: postcolonial knowledge is largely circulated in the form of metropolitan culture; in order to be relevant, this knowledge must also emerge from the many unwritten and uncollected narratives that are
written on the edges of official postcolonial experience. The faces captured so effectively by Brazilian photographer Sebastiao Salgado have many stories to tell, and unless we "hear" those stories, we will continue to privilege the metropolitan experience and a
limited form of class analysis. Second:
The tropes of disjuncture and disorder that have become so commonplace in postcolonial theory have to be countered with the argument that the
world is not merely inevitably and somewhat mysteriously chaotic, as some postmodernists and postcolonial critics claim. Here is where a historicized understanding of capital
the constant attempt by capital to police the world through war
and economic control, as I have argued, takes on different forms in different historical moments. It certainly could be argued that
capitalist control over the world economy is far more regulated in the age of globalization. While
economic effects clearly are not entirely controllable and crisis remains inevitable, the system of legislation, financial policies, and
structural adjustment programs have created a world in which labor is more tightly controlled
and the access to power and resources is even more circumscribed. A criticism informed by this possibility might mine
accumulation and crisis may be more useful. Indeed,
richer ground than one merely attempting to expose uncertainty and disjuncture. The counter to disjuncture does not have to be completion, order, and unity; indeed, it is no
great revelation that capitalism gives rise to disjuncture. What a Marxist analysis offers is the realization that in the midst of this disjuncture there are specific global economic
processes, with definite actors, definite classes, and definite sites of power. For postcolonial critics, such an understanding makes it possible to capture the power alliances that
are often reified in acts of accelerated cultural translation.
Third: What we find from rereading Marx, and more specifically Capital, is capitalism's ability to innovate, reinvent, and, as David [End Page 150]Harvey puts it, enact modes of flexible accumulation, so that it occupies markets, marshals productive forces, and
generates profits. The gains of postcolonial theory—with its attention to interstices, to ambiguous, contradictory moments and iterations, for instance—can be reinforced to examine how and where capitalism is adapting, confronting, and perhaps being reinvented
through specific cultural transactions. Consequently, instead of merely highlighting the often-visible moments of ambivalence, anxiety, and disjuncture, we must historicize these moments through an attention to class conflict and changing social relations. A
consideration of the specific laws of capitalism does not necessarily mean the acceptance of an unchanging, determining master narrative; on the contrary, any understanding of Marx's dialectic disproves an adherence to a teleological construction. Paying attention
to materialist dialectics enables us to grasp the multiple, contradictory, and ever-shifting vectors of cultural translation within a complex global system. Culture must be reconnected to political economy because it strengthens our analysis, not because it limits it.
After all, the "'culture,' that is the idea-system, of this capitalist world-economy is the outcome of our collective historical attempts to come to terms with the contradictions, the ambiguities, the complexities of the socio-political realities of this particular system"
(Wallerstein, 1830).
Fourth: One of the sadder legacies of contemporary postcolonial theorizing is that even though transculturalism and transnational-ism have been embraced as theoretical constructs, there has been an unwillingness to posit a concerted, internationalist anticapitalist
resistance. Localized acts of resistance, outside the space of the (inter)national, tend to be celebrated. The microstruggle, often unconnected to larger economic relations, is lauded as the only means of resistance. Historically, capitalist expansion generates antiimperialist resistance movements, and microstruggles are an important part of these movements, but they must be theorized within the framework of the international division of labor and the larger context of global capital. Gayatri Spivak, for instance, in her
analysis of Mahasweta Devi's work, has pointed to the international division of labor as a way of understanding local effects . Spivak herself calls for "non-eurocentric, globe-girdling movements or surges," which is her way of supplementing Marxism (115). Whether
or not these movements themselves can be theorized in any concrete way, what is clear is that unless the patterns [End Page 151]of global labor relations can be traced and the alliances between local and global capitalist structures uncovered, tra nsculturalism will
remain a theoretically ineffective concept. Likewise, Hardt and Negri's abstract version of "the plural multitude of productive, creative subjectivities of globalization that have learned to sail on this enormous sea" will not do (60).
new technologies and forms of capitalist adjustments and
accumulation reinstate versions of patriarchy, particularly in the so-called developing world. In these
Fifth: An informed postcolonial criticism should consider how
contexts, attention to traditional identity categories could be informed by an analysis of the geography of underdevelopment. Postcolonial theorists have been scrupulous in
their attention to the complex and varied mapping of gender and race, but quite often these categories have been theorized outside of the space of wage labor or class conflict.
The current conjuncture of religion, nation, and capital in India would be a good instance of a patriarchal space that is constantly experiencing invention and reinvention.
One example certainly would be
in the Philippines, where the destruction of rural life has led to large-scale migration of Filipinas who have become part of
the global superexploited. Their roles as maids, garment workers, and nurses have transformed gender relations in the Filipina diaspora in the late
Considering gender issues, for instance, within the context of capitalist adjustments of labor can only be illuminating.
twentieth century. Similar stories abound in different social structures, and these stories need to be heard in relation to the continuous project of capital accumulation.
Sixth: Postcolonial theorists must reassess their commitment to postnationalism. It is important to recognize that this ideological fixity falls prey to many of the limitations that
have been heaped on so-called nationalist analytical models. Certainly it collapses different social structures and political situations within the terms of an absolute political
vocabulary. I suggest that instead of casting off the nation-state as a site for potential resistance, the following questions need to be asked. How has the nation-state adjusted to
the requirements of international capital? How does the ruling class manage contrasting and sometimes contesting ideologies through the mechanism of the nation-state?
Specifically, how does the nation-state adjust its repressive apparatus in order to discipline labor? How can the longing for [End Page 152] nation be connected to collective acts
of anticapitalist resistance? After all, as Ellen Meiksins Woods points out, "the nation-state is the main conduit through which national (or indeed multinational) capital is
inserted into the global market" (Empire of Capital, 4). Likewise, Radhakrishnan argues that there is "no contradiction between the logic of globalization and the self-interest of
dominant nationalisms and nation-states. . . . Globalization takes the form of the dismantling of subaltern nationalisms by developed nationalisms" (316). A reconsideration of
Even as conceptual borders are melting,
nations, especially the wealthy ones, are tightening borders with religious zeal. The many bodies
of migrant laborers—Chinese workers suffocating to death while crossing the English channel,
Moroccan workers drowning while trying to reach Spain, Mexican workers dying in the backs of
sealed trucks—are testimony to the fact that borders are, in fact, strengthening, and with the
launching of the so-called war against terror, there is a virtual carte blanche to detain, imprison,
and deport all those whom the state considers hostile. Consequently, if we agree that the state is the main channel through which
nationalisms in all shapes and forms may also lead to a rethinking of the significance of the border.
hegemonic capitalism operates, it would be unwise to abandon the state as a site of struggle and change. Capital performs the dual task in the present of accumulating an
international labor force while enforcing strict controls to restrict this force within specific boundaries. Ultimately, while migrant workers do occupy liminal spaces, and while
their identities certainly are in a state of flux as postmodern postcolonial theorists argue, it is because they are directly implicated in the accelerated transfer of wealth in the age
of globalization.
Seventh: Postcolonial critics need to expose the discursive continuum between so-called diasporic, progressive narratives and what are sometimes termed the fundamentalist narratives of nation. One sees this duality reinforced especially in regards to gender when
the Third World "oppressed" woman is recovered within the terms of a (Western) global pan-feminism. What is often lost in these constructed dualities are the collusions between narratives of diaspora and those of the nation, one apparently rejecting the values of
patriarchy, xenophobia, and religious fundamentalism, while the other reinforcing them. Needless to say, diasporic narratives are not progressive purely because they emerge from a transnational space. Indeed, the circuits [End Page 153]of global capital and the
interpenetration of different capitals make these narratives particularly susceptible to the spectacular economic dynamics that underpin cultural translations. Consequently, capitalist alliances that link reactionary state interests with those that fund the postcolonial
intellectual avant-garde have to be uncovered. The international luminaries of the postcolonial world (writers, poets, intellectuals), the captains of the global corporate world, and varied cultural documents, be they election narratives of a fundamentalist party, a
feminist diasporic film, a World Bank document, or a "Third World" novel, are very often caught up in the same circuits of capital. It must be the work of the postcolonial critic to reveal these relationships.
Let us now return to Lenin's notion of imperialism and endless war in the context of the recent U.S.-led wars and of postcolonial studies as it is practiced in the Western
academy. I have tried to argue that, in its adherence to a dematerialized "new," postcolonial studies reaches its conceptual limits. One way to renew the discipline is, as I have
suggested above, to (re)establish a serious engagement with the Marxist tradition, which offers a valuable methodology for understanding the "new" configurations of the
global economy. Undoubtedly, Lenin's vision of an imperialist landscape where the major powers wage war for control of resources must be adjusted within the terms of the
contemporary world stage. However, his insights regarding the role of finance capital, his attention to the contradictions inherent in the latest stage of capitalism, and most of
all, his understanding that, "politically, imperialism is, in general, a striving towards violence and reaction" ("Imperialism as a Special Stage," 91) can guide postcolonial critics in
the "boundless domination of
a global economy, and of the multiple states that administer it, requires military action without
end, in purpose or time," then postcolonial critics' attention to difference, disjuncture, and displacement needs to be
reshaped by a much closer consideration of the patterns of this new imperialism masquerading
as globalization (Empire of Capital, 144). Heeding Lenin's warning regarding the "conditional and relative value for all definitions" ("Imperialism as a Special Stage,"
89), one may pose endless war as a symptom of the new global order . The state, a vital unit in the new imperialistic project, becomes a
site for perpetual monitoring. From this perspective, the [End Page 154]occupation of Iraq is not merely a means of acquiring oil reserves or an example of imperialist excess
or unlimited nationalism. Instead, it is a step in maintaining a U.S.-led global hegemony, asserting territorial and
political domination. However, this process of endless war is beset with contradictions: the possibility of
comprehending the connections between capitalist globalization and endless war. If indeed, as Meiskins Wood argues,
crisis may emerge as the ends of capital and state converge; contemporary militarism, a step in a continually evolving process of capitalist accumulation, may assist or destroy
the global project to manage and universalize production; finally, the increasing disparity in wealth, spurred, in part, by militaristic excess, will inevitably trigger unmanageable
globalization and its effects are inextricably linked to the notion of endless war
dissent. Since
, postcolonial
critics need to regard the "new" from a variety of angles, including the patterns of accumulation and reproduction that coalesce and intertwine, the continuing exploitation of
the international proletariat, and the contradictions and crises that are inevitable within capitalism.
Slavery/Livelihood
Neoliberal enclosures subject massive populations to blood, plunder, and
modern slavery. By forcing people to rely on markets to survive, enclosures
ensure a life of exploitation and oppression
De Angelis 6 [Massimo De Angelis, Professor of Political Economy at the University of East London, “The Beginning of History
Value Struggles and Global Capital”, December 2006, published by Pluto Press, pages 46-50]
GLOBAL M-C-M':A CLASSIC ILLUSTRATION¶ An illustration of the principle
of boundless accumulation - which also
opens up for a reflection on the planetary reach of M-C-M' circuits and reveals how this
accumulation is one with state violence and production of patriarchy - is the so-called
'transition' between feudalism and capitalism, that is the process of blood and plunder
occurring in the sixteenth century, in which the European ruling classes were able to use the punishment of capital as
well as capital's punishment (Linebaugh 1991) to overcome a limit to the feudal rule posed by
peasants and urban workers in the struggles of the previous centuries. Indeed, the limit that European feudal rule could
not bypass was a limit brought about by a long series of class conflicts running through the Middle Ages (Hilton 1978), which saw
peasants' revolts and heretic and millenarian movements, as¶ well as urban artisans' struggles against landlords, the church and
political rulers, shifting considerably the power balance between the classes. In particular, the endemic peasants' revolt throughout
Europe managed to win 'privileges and charters' that fixed the burden of the surplus work that was extracted to the benefit of the
landowners as well as broadening the sphere of economic and judicial rights. Customary rights for the use of commons by the great
bulk of the population were also established. Peter Linebaugh (forthcoming) shows how the commoners' struggles for and through
commons are at the basis of founding constitutional documents such as the Magna Carta. As Federici puts it, after
surveying
the literature on the crisis of feudalism,¶ by the late Middle Ages the feudal economy was
doomed, faced with an accumulation crisis that stretched for more than a century. We deduce its
dimensions from some basic estimates indicating that between 1350 and 1500 a major shift occurred in the powerrelation between workers and mas- ters. The real wage increased by 100%, prices declined by 33%, rents also
declined, the length of the working-day decreased, and a tendency appeared towards local self-sufficiency. (Federici 2004:62)¶
Starting with the sixteenth century, with the age of mercantile capital and the beginning of the great waves of exploration,
colonisation and subjection of the people of the 'new world*, M-C-M' trade circuits driven by
corresponding value practices began to extend their global reach as a way out of the crisis faced by the
European ruling classes. This is the period of the emergence of a symbiosis still with us, that between capital
accumulation and war, or, more generally, the 'economy' and the 'state', 'economic power'
and 'political power' backed by force. It is a symbiosis theorised by the Mercantilist writers, the first 'economists' to
voice to kings and emperors the concerns of the economic elites of the time, the great merchants, in the newly invented discourse
that we call today 'economics' (Latouche 2001). This
is a discourse that not¶ only 'invents' the economy as an
independent sphere of social activity,¶ 9 separated from the spheres of 'culture*, 'politics* and indeed 'society' , but that¶
in, making this separation and constructing its corresponding narratives acts upon the social
body in such a way as to create this separation. For the early Mercantilists, the separation is created
by domestic policies that promote enclosures and expropriation of the commons, the setting
of maximum levels of wages, and the discursive construction of workers as inputs of
production to feed the economic rationale of accumulation. But the real 'contribution' of¶ the Mercantilists
is at the planetary level, by establishing a synergy between war and international trade. War became
instrumental in opening up access to distant lands and their resources, and in establishing and
defending trade routes against pirates and opposing state powers. On the other hand, trade would bring the monetary resources,
gold, to supply the military with new fleets and soldiers, and contribute to the strength of the state. A
virtuous cycle made
of might and gold and mediated by trade, very much similar to the cycle of awe and oil
mediated by trade and financial liberalisation, as attempted in the second Iraq war of the new
millennium.¶ From the late sixteenth century, and especially in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, M-C-M' circuits
began to weave a web of human doing across the globe, seeking to couple together life
practices and conditions of livelihoods with the inherently boundless value practices of capital
on a scale never seen before. The M-C-M' circuits that began to embrace the globe were obviously predicated on
the existence of commodities to sell, and the latter on the human labour that produced them.
In a world in which the vast majority of people lived and worked in conditions of self-sufficiency, whether as members of-tribes,
clans or parishes, and whatever the surplus labour extracted from them by their masters when they had any, commodity
production, especially that destined for distant trade, was a marginal activity for the vast majority of*the world's populations, one
that scarcely contributed to the core of their reproduction. After an initial period of direct predation of already produced luxuries,
especially at the hands of the early Spanish conquistadores, the M-C-M'¶
circuits of the great merchants began
be fed by the increasing supplies of gold, silver, sugar and cotton extracted by local
indigenous people forced to work to death in mines and plantations.¶ But the local indigenous were a
therefore to
difficult 'input of production*. They were not only rebels in a land of their own, which they knew and which could offer them
protection and sustenance for escape, but were also increasingly scarce, as a result of the massacres perpetrated and diseases
brought by the Europeans. With the limited population of Europe in the context of the demographic and economic crises of the
seventeenth century, 'the free
labourers necessary to cultivate the staple crops of sugar, tobacco and cotton in
not have been supplied in quantities adequate to permit large-scale
production. Slavery was necessary for this' (Williams 1964: 6). Capital's value practices are
inherently boundless, and therefore do not stop when faced with a barrier such as the
available population to put to work.¶ The transnational slave trade took place between the sixteenth century and the
the "New World" could
first half of the nineteenth century, and its peak was in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century (the period of the industrial
revolution) (Potts and Bond 1990: 41). The
drive to accumulate bypassed the constraint given by the lack
of sufficient willing and available suppliers of labour power and led to the kidnapping of
between 10 and 20 million people from the African continent into the largest forced migration in the
history of humanity. Basically the same evaluation¶ processes, the same calculations that current operation managers apply
with sophisticated information technology to minimise costs across a transnational commodity chain, were applied to the human
cargoes of the mercantilist era. The same measuring activities, the same principles of selection, defining 'goods', which bring in
profits and must be maximised, and 'bads', which reduce costs and must be minimised. The ship's captain would make his
calculation, taking into account the many men, women and children who would die as a result of this transportation, 'pack' the ship
with what he thought to be the 'optimum' number¶ of bodies, and 'discount' the economic loss (brought about by the percentage of
the human cargo dying on the trip) from the forecast revenue.¶ At its peak during the eighteenth century, the most important
countries involved in the slave trade were England, Portugal and France, taking 41.3 per cent, 29.3 per cent and 19.2 per cent of the
trade respectively, followed by Holland, British North America (USA), Denmark, Sweden and Brandenburg (Potts and Bond 1990).
The transatlantic slave trade soon became part of a tri- angular or circular trade between the west coast of Africa, the Americas and
Caribbean, and Europe. The English ports of Liverpool, London and Bristol were the most important European nodes of the
triangular trade, which consisted of a flow of manufacturing commodities from Europe (many manufactured in the sweatshops of
the English industrial revolution). These were the final payment for slaves captured by African and Arab middlemen. Slaves in turn
were shipped to the Americas and Caribbean, and were purchased by landowners with the proceeds they got from selling their
products to Europe. Flows of gold of course travelled in the opposite direction, as any sale is some- one else's purchase.¶
We can
see in this trade circuit an early example of capitalist globalisation processes. Three continents
were tied together by M-C-M' value practices that disseminated rewards and punishments,
although still at a crude and unsophisticated level, that is, one that had not yet been
normalised. The livelihoods of several communities across the two sides of the Atlantic were following an interlinked destiny, in
a situation in which the victims were also subjects of struggles.'' The same of course later applied, with some
modifications but no less bloody implications, with the M-C-M' circuits of the Asian colonies.¶ The linkages among
the communities across the globe could be seen through what is common to them all. In the first place, all of them had to
ertdure historical processes of enclosure, of forceful separation from non- market conditions
for reproducing their livelihoods. At the peak of the slave trade, coinciding with the English industrial revolution, the
men, women and children entering Manchester's sweatshops and working daily for 14 or 16 hours in exchange for a pittance were
the result of the proletarisation of the preceding three centuries of enclosure of land, state repression of the struggles for commons
and criminalisation of 'indigence' and 'vagrancy*, all means that¶ increased dependency on the market (this time the 'labour
market') as a means for the reproduction of livelihood. Also the mines, plantations and other 'business
operations' in the
'new world' were put in place on lands and along rivers expropriated from the local
populations, while the slave-bodies shipped to work in them were themselves 'enclosed*,
forcefully separated from their communities. Furthermore, it is not only modern slavery that is
born out of capital identifying a barrier, whatever its nature, as a business opportunity . The other
unwaged activity that the economic calculus and its accounting tools systematically hides from sight also becomes the target of
restructuring and subordination to it. Reproduction, that is the activity of giving life and nurturing it, but also of caring for the
community and creating and advancing the corresponding forms of knowledge, an activity historically centred on women's¶ labour,
is subjected to the structural adjustment of the witch-hunt both in the 'old* and the 'new world', to the criminalisation of women's
control over procreation and to the discursive definition of women as non-workers (Federici 2004). This is a period in which the
semi-autonomous communities of the village are fragmented and, in a movement that will reach its climax
during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the family begins to be turned into a 'micro-state',
opening the way for the patriarchy of the wage within working- class families, where control over
wages plays the same role as property in¶ upper-class families, as men's source of power vis-a-vis
women.¶ In the second place, the transatlantic trade circuit M-C-M' is an early example of global
articulation of different conditions and activities of production and reproduction, different socioeconomic compositions of labour, different class compositions, different cultural languages of struggles, different subjectivities.
From the perspective of capital and its reproduction, it
is a global articulation of different techniques and
strategies to make people work as efficiently as possible in the face of their resistance and
struggles, so as to maximise the monetary profit of the owners of capital employing them and
operating in the buying and selling of commodities in the trade circuits. M-C-M'¶ value practices, in
other words, started to pervade production and reproduction and increasingly turn life practices into 'work'
(Cleaver 1979).¶ This point must be emphasised, since we have grown accustomed to¶ 12 theorising capitalism through historical
narratives of national capitalisms. From Marx's focus on the stages and conditions of English industrial capital- ism to modern and
contemporary theorisations of Fordism and post-Fordism, capitalism
has not been sufficiently problematised
as global articulation of a multitude of techniques and strategies, from slavery to wage labour,
from unwaged work of reproduction to post-Fordist temporary work, from unwaged third world petty commodity producers on the
breadline to the highly skilled 'systems analysts' of high-tech capitalism, from
Fordist sweatshops to cognitive
precarious labour. Today, when this articulation of different positionalities in the global wage hierarchy is the truly
constituent moment of capital's discipline, we can no longer hesitate. The general problematic of the overcoming
of capitalism, the problematic of the exodus from its value practices, is all captured by the
problematic of the overcoming of this articulation dividing the global social body and pitting
co-producing communities against each other.
War on the Poor
Enclosure creates a “war against the poor,” whereby peoples’ identities are
intrinsically and dependently tied to the market – the result is the destruction
of community ethics
Grandia 07The Tragedy of Enclosures¶ Rethinking Primitive Accumulation from the
Guatemalan Hinterland¶ BLiza Grandia, Ph.D ¶ Yale University, April 27,
2007http://www.yale.edu/agrarianstudies/colloqpapers/26grandia.pdf
The first and primary effect of enclosures was to undermine people’s ability to provide
for themselves. Whether by direct suppression of the subsistence economy or by manipulation
of prices (for example the Corn laws) to discourage peasants from investing in labor-intensive
agriculture, the uncomfortable truth of early political economy is that capitalism flourished by
disrupting independent agrarian livelihoods. As a result, over the course of the eighteenth
century, England went from being a net exporter of grain to a net importer (Perelman 2000).
The second part of the process was preventing these newly dispossessed people from
finding alternatives to wage labor, while still keeping wages low. If coercion were not enough
to maintain a steady labor supply, the brute force of starvation might force the poor to become
diligent workers. As a British commentator Arthur Young put it in 1771, ‘everyone but an idiot
knows that the lower classes must be kept poor, or they will never be industrious’ (Perelman
2000: 980). Following the Black Death (1345-48), the European peasantry had enjoyed a
marvelous century of prosperity; as they were so few in number, they could demand the wages
they wished, even additional food expenses such as a viaticum. It was this population crisis that
turned “population growth into state matters, as well as primary objects of intellectual
discourse” (2004:86) and also transformed the Inquisition into state-sponsored witch-hunts,
which especially targeted midwives, sterile women, widowers, and women who owned
property—in other words, women not bound to the privacy of a nuclear home. Starting in the9
mid-sixteenth century and concurrent with the slave trade, the state also began to harshly
punish contraception, abortion, and infanticide—even turning these into capital crimes.
The third part of the process was the criminalization of poverty and the destruction of
community ethics ensuring every person’s right to survival. This involved a new series of laws
prohibiting the dispossessed from falling back on the welfare system with particularly brutal
punishment for recidivism. For example, a 1572 statute under Queen Elizabeth prescribed
flogging and iron branding of the left ear for any persons over fourteen caught begging; any
repeat offenders over the age of eighteen could be executed if no one agreed to take them into
service; third repeat offenders would be summarily executed (Marx 1976:897-8). E.P.
Thompson (1966) notes that in 1785 only one of nearly a hundred people executed in London
and Middlesex had been convicted of murder; the rest were primarily crimes against property,
for example pulling down fences (Andreasson 2006). That so many vagabonds still risked their
own lives by taking to the road to avoid wage labor should indicate something about the
brutal
conditions of employment. As criminal punishment proved insufficient to prevent “sloth,” the
state experimented with new techniques for the disciplining of the poor, the criminal and the
infirm. As described by Foucault (1977), work houses, prisons, and hospitals became places for
the creation of new subjectivities; and,for the reasons described above, Federici(2004) suggests
adding the witch’s torture chamber to his list of disciplinary technologies. Cleverly disguising
this war of the propertied against the poor was new liberal rhetoric about freedom and rights.
AT: Cap k2 Freedom
Enclosure degenerates into enslavement, denying humanity and negating the
life processes of the earth – markets are THE OPPOSITE of freedom
Shiva 9 [Vanadan Shiva, Indian environmental activist and anti-globalization author-- trained as a physicist and received her PhD
in philosophy from the University of Western Ontario, essay from “The Enclosure and Recovery of the Commons”, published by The
Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, October 22, 2009, http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/com-cn.htm]
In the colonial period peasants were forced to grow indigo instead of food, salt was taxed to provide revenues for the British
military, and meanwhile, forests were being enclosed to transform them into state monopolies for commercial exploitation. In
the
rural areas, the effects on the peasants were the gradual erosion of usufruct rights (nistar rights)
of access, of food, fuel, and livestock grazing from the community's common lands. The
marginalization of peasant communities' rights over their forests, sacred groves and
'wastelands' has been the prime cause of their impoverishment. Biodiversity has always been a local
commonly owned and utilised resource for indigenous communities. A resource is common property when social
systems exist to use it on the principles of justice and sustainability. This involves a combination of rights
and responsibilities among users, a combination of utilisation and conservation, a sense of co-production with nature
and sharing them among members of diverse communities. They do not view their heritage in terms of
property at all, i.e. a good which has an owner and is used for the purpose of extracting economic benefits, but instead they
view it in terms of possessing community and individual responsibility. For indigenous
peoples, heritage is a bundle of relationships rather than a bundle of economic rights. That is
the reason no concept of 'private property' exists among the communities for common
resources. Within indigenous communities, despite some innovations being first introduced by individuals, innovation is seen as
a social and collective phenomena and results of innovation are freely available to anyone who wants to use them. Consequently,
not only the biodiversity but its utilisation have also been in the commons, being freely exchanged both within and between
communities. Common resource knowledge based innovations have been passed on over centuries to new generations and adopted
for newer uses, and these innovations have over time been absorbed into the common pool of knowledge about that resource. This
common pool of knowledge has contributed immeasurably to the vast agricultural and medicinal plant diversity that exists today.
Thus, the
concept of individual 'property' rights to either the resource or to knowledge remain
alien to the local community. This undoubtedly exacerbates the usurpation of the knowledge
of indigenous people with serious consequences for them and for biodiversity conservation.¶ ¶
The Western bias in defining property rights¶ ¶ Today we have to look beyond the state and the market place to protect the rights of
the two-thirds majority of India - the rural communities . Empowering
the community with rights would enable
the recovery of commons again. Commons are resources shaped, managed and utilised
through community control. In the commons, no one can be excluded. The commons cannot
be monopolised by the economically powerful citizen or corporation, or by the politically
powerful state.¶ ¶ Commons and communities are beyond both the market and the state. They
are governed by self-determined norms, and are self managed. In the 'colonial' and 'development' era, the
commons were enclosed and community power undermined by takeover by the state. Thus,
water and forests were made state property, leading to the alienation of local communities, and the
destruction of the resource base. Poverty, ecological destruction and social disintegration and
political disempowerment have been the result of such state-driven 'enclosures'.¶ In the
globalisation era, the commons are being enclosed and the power of communities is being
undermined by a corporate enclosure in which life itself is being transformed into the private
property of corporations. The corporate enclosure is happening in two ways. Firstly, IPR systems are allowing the
'enclosure' of biodiversity and knowledge, thus eroding the commons and the community. Secondly, the corporation is being treated
as the only form of association with legal personality. IPRs are the equivalent of the letters patent that the colonisers have used
since 1492, when Colombus set precedence in treating the licence to conquer non-European peoples as a natural right of European
men. The land titles issued by the Pope through European kings and queens were the first patents. Charters and patents issued to
merchant adventurers were authorisations to 'discover, find, search out and view such remote heathen and barbarous lands,
countries and territories not actually possessed of any Christian prince or people'. The colonisers' freedom was built on the slavery
and subjugation of the people with original rights to the land. This
violent takeover was rendered 'natural' by
defining the colonised people into nature, thus denying them their humanity and freedom.¶ ¶
Locke's treatise on property effectively legitimised this same process of theft and robbery during the enclosure movement in
Europe. Locke clearly articulates capitalism's freedom to build on the freedom to steal ; he states that
property is created by removing resources from nature through mixing with labour in its 'spiritual' form as manifested in the control
of capital. According to Locke, only capital can add value to appropriated nature, and hence only those who own the capital have the
natural right to own natural resources; a right that supersedes the common rights of others with prior claims. Capital
is thus,
defined as a source of freedom, but this freedom is based on the denial of freedom to the
land, forests, rivers and biodiversity that capital claims as its own. Because property obtained
through privatisation of commons is equated with freedom, those commoners laying claim to
it are perceived to be depriving the owners of capital of freedom. Thus, peasants and tribals
who demand the return of their rights and access to resources are regarded as thieves and
saboteurs.¶ ¶ The takeover of territories and land in the past, and the takeover of biodiversity and indigenous
knowledge now has been based on 'emptying' land and biodiversity of all relationships to
indigenous people.¶ ¶ All sustainable cultures, in their diversity, have viewed the earth as terra mater (mother earth). The
colonial construct of the passivity of the earth and the consequent creation of the colonial category of land as
terra nullius (nobody's land), served two purposes: it denied the existence and prior rights of
original inhabitants and negated the regenerative capacity and life processes of the earth. ¶ ¶ In
Australia, the concept of terra nullius (literally meaning 'empty land') was used to justify the appropriation of land and its natural
resources, by declaring the entire continent of Australia uninhabited. This declaration
enabled the colonisers to
privatise the commons relatively easily, because as far as they were concerned, there were no
commons existing in the first place!¶ ¶ The decimation of indigenous peoples everywhere was
justified morally on the grounds that they were not really human; and that they were part of
the fauna. As Pilger has observed, the Encyclopedia Britannica appeared to be in no doubt about this in the context of Australia:
'Man in Australia is an animal of prey. More ferocious than the lynx, the leopard, or the hyena, he devours his own people.' In
another Australian textbook, Triumph in the Tropics, Australian aborigines were equated with their half-wild dogs. Being animals,
the original Australians and Americans, the Africans and Asians possessed
no rights as human beings. Their lands
could be usurped as terra nullius - lands empty of people, 'vacant', 'waste', and 'unused'. The
morality of the missions justified the military takeover of resources all over the world to serve
imperial markets. European men were thus able to describe their invasions as 'discoveries',
piracy and theft as 'trade', and extermination and enslavement as their 'civilising mission'.
Whether it is the gradual privatisation and divisibility of community held rights or the declaration of terra nullius, the
transformation of common property rights into private property rights, implies the exclusion
of the right to survival for large sections of society. The realisation that under conditions of limited availability,
uncontrolled exploitation of natural resources involves taking away resources from those who need them for survival, has been an
underlying element of Indian philosophy. Prudent and restrained use of resources has been viewed as an essential element of social
justice.¶ ¶ According to an ancient Indian text, the Ishopanishad:¶ ¶ 'A
selfish man over utilising the resources of
nature to satisfy his own ever increasing needs is nothing but a thief because using resources
beyond one's needs would result in the utilisation of resources over which others have a
right.'¶ ¶ This relationship between restraint in resource use and social justice was also the core element of Mahatma Gandhi's
political philosophy. In his view:¶ ¶ 'The earth provides enough for everyone's need, but not for everyone's greed.'¶ ¶ The
eurocentric concept of property views only capital investment as investment, and hence treats returns on capital investment as the
only right that needs protection. Non-Western indigenous communities and cultures recognise that investment can also be of labour
or of care and nurturance. Rights in such cultural systems protect investments beyond capital. They protect the culture of
conservation and the culture of caring and sharing.¶ ¶ There
are major differences between ownership of
resources shaped in Europe during the enclosures movement and during colonial takeover,
and 'ownership' as it has been practised by tribals and farmers throughout history across
diverse societies. The former is based on ownership as private property, based on concepts of returns on investment for
profits. The latter is based on entitlements through usufruct rights, based on concepts of return on labour to provide for ourselves,
our children, our families, our communities. Usufruct rights can be privately held or held in common. When held in common, they
define common property.¶ ¶ Equity is built into usufruct rights since ownership is based on returns on labour. The poor have
survived in India in spite of having no access to capital because they have had guaranteed access to the resource base needed for
sustenance - common pastures, water, and biodiversity. Sustainability and justice is built into usufructuary rights since there are
physical limits on how much one can labour and hence there are limits on returns on investment of labour and return on
investment. Inequity is built into private property based on ownership of capital since there is no limit on how much capital one can
own and control and invest.¶ ¶ IPRs as an extension of the eurocentric concept of property to biodiversity and biodiversity-related
knowledge¶ ¶ The culturally biased and narrow notions of rights and property that have shaped IPRs are inadequate and
inappropriate for indigenous cultures and for the objective of conserving biodiversity and cultural diversity. Through IPRs and TRIPs a
particular eurocentric culture has been universalised and globalised. When applied to biodiversity, such
narrow concepts
of rights become mechanisms for denying the intrinsic worth of diverse species, and denying
the prior rights and prior innovations of indigenous communities.
Biodiversity
Local autonomy is comparatively better than neoliberalism for local biodiversity
– rejection removes wasteful corporate commercialization
Starr and Adams 2k3 (Amory, Activist and sociologist at Colorado State University, Jason,
Professor at Simon Fraser University, “Anti-globalization: The Global Fight for Local Autonomy”,
New Political Science, Volume 25, Number 1, 2003,
http://eng316.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/starr-and-adams-anti-globalization.pdf )
Autonomous economies by necessity recognize ecological limits . They also protect diversity
(biological, cultural, and social), increasingly understood as one¶ of the most important aspects
of production security. Production security would¶ also require collective regulation so as not
to undermine the resource base and¶ for this purpose communities have re-established
commons regimes.¶ “Bioregionalism” could provide an appropriate scale for regional
federations,¶ since bioregions should include a diverse ecology and production base.73
Federations of localities could respond to emergencies, share appropriate technology,¶ and
trade luxury goods once a critical mass of autonomous communities¶ emerges.
Biodiversity loss decimates indigenous populations and cause rampant poverty
Bechtel 2010 (Jamie D., Ph.D. in marine biology from Boston University and a J.D. in
environmental law from Boston College. She is an adviser to the Clinton Global Initiative,
“Gender, Poverty and the Conservation of Biodiversity”, Macarthur Foundation conservation
White PaPer series, 2010,
http://production.macfound.org/media/files/CSD_GENDER_WHITE_PAPER.pdf )
Over half of the world’s poor live in rural areas. Despite recent increases in migration toward ¶
urban centers, the correlation between poverty and remoteness remains strong and is ¶
predicted to be significant in most countries over the long term. Rural people are often
isolated ¶ from economic opportunities, have less access to basic social services, and therefore
rely ¶ heavily on goods and services derived from biodiversity and ecosystems. ¶ In rural areas,
while land-owners often receive the greatest benefit from increased productivity ¶ and farming
yields, yet even land-owning households often cannot derive all of their survival ¶ needs by
farming alone. Forests enable the rural poor to conduct activities such as gathering ¶
firewood, preparing charcoal, fishing, hunting, collecting materials for making handicrafts and
¶ accessing non-timber forest products such as medicinal plants, fruits, and rubber. Near
shore ¶ and coastal systems enable activities such as the gathering firewood (mangroves),
fishing for fin ¶ and non fin fishes, collecting ornamental materials for handicrafts, accessing
building materials, ¶ and utilizing fresh water resources. ¶ Because poor people rely
disproportionately on the goods and services that are provided by the ¶ natural world for
food, water, medicine, and fuel, they are disproportionately impacted by the ¶ loss of natural
resources. Further, biological resources make up a larger proportion of the ¶ ‘wealth’ of
developing countries and are the basis upon which development can be built ( irish ¶ aid).
Therefore, the loss of biodiversity not only undermines food, health and water security, ¶ and
diminishes energy security it also increases the vulnerability and decreases resiliency of the ¶
poor to external forces such as climate change, rapid demographic shifts, and impacts from ¶
economic growth.
Environment
The introduction of multinational corporations would wreck sustainable models
of environment and cause widespread poverty, marginalization, and
biodiversity loss – Cuba proves
Fanelli 08 (Carlo Fanelli, professor of sociology at NYU, “‘Cubanalismo’: The Cuban Alternative
to Neoliberalism”, New Proposals: Journal of Marxism and Interdisciplinary Inquiry, Vol.2, No. 1
(November 2008) Pp. 7-16)
Neoliberal policies have had severe environmental consequences for the poorest and most
marginalized of individuals since many live off the fruits of the land. That is to say, local
agricultural producers, com- munities and indigenous populations receive their drinking water
from local rivers, their basic foodstuffs from community farms, and unavoidably, breathe in the
oxygen that is often laced with various chemi- cals and pollutants.This antagonism stems from
the fact that environmental laws and protectionisms are often viewed as a barrier to capital
accumulation due to their high-costs and time-consumption. However, since many countries in
the Global South are in such dire need of economic assistance—many due to a history of
colonialism, prior debts, or government corruption—many governments under the direction of
the IMF, WB, and WTO make concessions allow- ing large and powerful multinational
corporations (MNC) to bypass environmental and labour laws. Even when upheld, the windfall
gains of shifting the costs of environmental clean up and protection to the physical environment
far outweighs any poten- tial fines or penalties that MNC’s may face (Adeola 2003). The
consequences have been increased deforestation and the loss of biodiversity, widespread
toxic and chemical dumping, relaxed environmental laws, and a substantial decrease in air
quality and over- all health. On the flip side, lax environmental laws has meant abundant capital
gains, often from foreign multinational investors, and the entrenchment of a worldwide
economic system that embeds countries within a neoliberal framework. The costs associated,
however, include intensifying environmental degra- dation, increasing polarization between
the rich and poor, growing poverty and malnutrition, as well as rising dependency and
marginalization.¶ Turning to Cubanalismo, recently, the World Wildlife Federation (WWF)
ranked Cuba as the only country in the world to be developing sustainably without undue
harm to the environment and environmental protection as a clearly mandated policy objectives
(WWF 2006). The WWF came to this conclusion by examining Cuba’s Human Development Index
(HDI), which according to the United Nations “is deeper than economic income or growth, since
the HDI looks at health and education indicators, nutrition, cultural freedoms, social opportunities, standard of living and a countries ecologicalfootprint1 ” (WWF 2007:1). The study’s
authors credit the high levels of literacy, long life expectancy and low levels of individual
consumption of energy for Cuba’s success. Furthermore, Cuba is also replac- ing chemical
fertilizers with nitrogen-fixing bacteria2 ,recycling the residues leftover from the processing of
harvests, and pesticides are being replaced with poly- culture, which are natural enemies
against parasites and insect pests, while increasingly using goats and horses as weed control
rather than tractors that pro- duce excessive carbon monoxide and waste essential animal foods
(Levins 2004). Cuba leads the world in active compliance with the environmental agendas of Rio
and Kyoto, nearly all urban vegetable production and approximately half the total food
production is organic, and freon is being replaced in refrigerators with a Cuban-developed
natural substitute derived from sugar cane in order to protect the ozone layer (Levins 2004).
Special programs have been devel- oped that aim to protect fragile mangroves along the coast,
resist desertification, and integrate devel- opment of rural and mountainous regions. Whereas
only 14% of pre-revolution Cuba was covered by for- ests, by 2003 that had increased to 21%
with the goal being around 27% in the years to come. While neoliberal discourses often view
environmental pro- tectionisms as an added cost, Cuba has been able to expand its economy
and social services and simulta- neously protect the environment by developing local and
national projects, recycling, and developing bio- fertilizers that may potentially be a valuable
export commodity in the near future. All things considered, given Cubanalismo’s concern for the
environment, which in turn affects people’s health and well-being, Cubanalismo remains a
workable and preferable alternative to neoliberalism, which is perhaps, only eclipsed by the
even larger differences that exist in the areas of healthcare and education.
Alternative
Solves – Generic
The alternative is to reject enclosure in the instance of the plan – this creates
“pores” for the commons to flourish, allowing for a spill-over effect that allows
for positive emancipatory change
De Angelis 12 [Massimo De Angelis, Professor of Political Economy at the University of East London. He is author, most
recently, of The Beginning of History: Value Struggles and Global Capital, “CRISES, CAPITAL AND CO-OPTATION: DOES CAPITAL NEED
A COMMONS FIX?”, April 2012, an essay in The Wealth of the Commons by David Bollier,
http://wealthofthecommons.org/essay/crises-capital-and-co-optation-does-capital-need-commons-fix]
Commons operate within social spaces that are not occupied by capital, whether these spaces
are outside or inside capital’s organizations. Thus we find commons in community organizations and associations,
social centers, neighbor associations, indigenous practices, households, peer-to-peer networks in cyberspace, and in the
reproduction of community activities that are organized within faith communities. We also find commons on the shop floor of
factories and in the canteens of offices among co-workers supporting one another, sharing their lunch and developing forms of
solidarity and mutual aid. We
find commons and commoning in the “pores” of social labor that capital
cannot control in spite of its always “revolutionary” management strategies.¶ These commons
practices are possible to the degree they fill spaces not occupied by capitalist practices. For this
reason, whenever the value-struggle between the two different ways of giving value to human
activity reaches a structural limit – and there is no social space left for capital or the commons
to develop without contesting the other – a frontline is established. Reaching this frontline is,
from the situation of commons, the opportunity to mobilize against the capitalist logic, or to
capitulate to it, depending upon a given situation of social powers.¶ The fact that a frontline is or can be
reached between commons and capital is because commons are a special type of social
system. Within its realm, there lies the possibility that its labor activity, organization and patterns of
social relations will not succumb to external pressures, but instead organize its own
reproduction autonomously, following criteria of equity and justice as defined by the commoners themselves. This
possibility depends on the contingent power relations within the commons; on the power of
networked commons; and on forces outside the commons, such as capital. The commons therefore represents
a field of possibilities in the struggle against capital.¶ Of course, the capitalist organization of production seeks to limit these
possibilities as much as possible, both at the level of a particular capitalist enterprise and at the level of their articulation through
the market. For example, labor must succumb to the bottom line of capitalist development; it is profit–not the actual contributions
of social labor to well-being or buen vivir–that defines whether the social labor mobilized in production and reproduction will be
considered viable. This implies that struggles within capital
for better conditions of work and life can
bring about positive emancipatory change for some. However, to the extent these struggles are channeled into
profit-seeking capitalist development, these changes also imply higher costs of social reproduction for capital and therefore the
need to shift these costs onto other nodes of social production and on the environment, if capital as a system is to survive. The last
wave of capitalist globalization is a vivid example of this dynamic.
Rejection enclosures halts exploitations and is a powerful revolt against capital
Starr and Adams 2k3 (Amory, Activist and sociologist at Colorado State University, Jason,
Professor at Simon Fraser University, “Anti-globalization: The Global Fight for Local Autonomy”,
New Political Science, Volume 25, Number 1, 2003,
http://eng316.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/starr-and-adams-anti-globalization.pdf )
What is different about the autonomous movements’ response to globalization? They propose
a better quality of life , a different kind of security, a new¶ way of exercising responsible
citizenship, a practical method of supporting¶ diversity, more participatory forms of decision-
making, and appropriate tactics¶ for halting modern exploitation . The autonomous
movements, in drawing from¶ indigenous and peasant struggles, from farmers’ knowledge, from
third world¶ postcolonial experiences, from long-marginalized and well-developed movements
like anarchism, from an unpopular historicism, from sustainable and local¶ producers’
movements, engage in a highly adaptable framework of insurrectionary experimentation.¶ What
the empirical record of the autonomous movements shows is the¶ central role that grassroots
social movements are set to play in the contemporary¶ political economic terrain. Though this
terrain is certainly hostile, it is also¶ emboldening in that it raises the stakes by deliberately
rearranging the rules of¶ engagement, forcing people to seek solutions in the present tense,
outside the system. What the contemporary insurrections of Buenos Aires, Seoul, San¶ Salvador
Atenco, and numerous other localities show is that recurring instances¶ of revolt against
established authority can often be more powerful and infectious ¶ than the more finalistic
ideology of change embodied in traditional notions of¶ revolution. While we have
undoubtedly learned a lot from the reformist and¶ revolutionary movements of the past we
probably have a lot more to learn from¶ the autonomous movements and insurrectionary
moments of the present. Rejecting the false dichotomy of reformist or revolutionary notions of
social change,¶ these movements guide us to begin looking beyond centralized power
(whether¶ that means seizing the state or a top–down military-style revolution) as an¶
important agent of change and to begin looking to each other as sources of¶ power. As Pablo,
a jubilant insurrectionary marching with an Argentine cacerolazo, teaches, “security used to be
in the bank, and insecurity was in the streets.¶ Now insecurity is in the bank. The robber who
used to be outside the bank is¶ now in it. And security is in the streets, with our neighbors.”
Alt Solves – Movements
The alternative to endorse commons joins up with other movements around
the world doing the same thing – in other words, other status quo movements
bolster alternative solvency
Klein 2k1 (Naomi, Canadian author and social activist known for her political analyses and
criticism of corporate globalization. She is best known for No Logo, a book that went on to
become an international bestseller, “Reclaiming the Commons”, New Left Review 9, May-June
2001, http://citygallery.org.nz/assets/New-Site/Public-Programmes/2011/Art-Forum-Series2011/AdamintheCityArtForum2.ReLocateKlein.pdf )
What is 'the anti-globalization movement'? [1] I put the phrase in quote-marks because I immediately have two¶ doubts about it. Is
it really a movement? If it is a movement, is It anti-globalization? Let me start with the first¶ issue. We can easily convince ourselves
it is a movement by talking it into existence at a forum like this—I spend¶ far too much time at them—acting as if we can see it, hold
it in our hands. Of course, we have seen it—and we¶ know it's come back in Quebec, and on the US-Mexican border during the
Summit of the Americas and the¶ discussion for a hemispheric Free Trade Area. But then we leave rooms like this, go home, watch
some TV, do a¶ little shopping and any sense that it exists disappears, and we feel like maybe we're going nuts. Seattle—was that a¶
movement or a collective hallucination? To most of us here, Seattle meant a kind of coming-out party for a global¶ resistance
movement, or the 'globalization of hope', as someone described it during the World Social Forum at Porto¶ Alegre. But to everyone
else Seattle still means limitless frothy coffee, Asian-fusion cuisine, e-commerce billionaires¶ and sappy Meg Ryan movies. Or
perhaps it is both, and one Seattle bred the other Seattle—and now they¶ awkwardly coexist.¶ This movement we sometimes
conjure into being goes by many names: anti-corporate, anti-capitalist, anti-free¶ trade, anti-imperialist. Many say that it started in
Seattle. Others maintain it began
five hundred years ago—when¶ colonialists first told indigenous
peoples that they were going to have to do things differently if they were to¶ 'develop' or be
eligible for 'trade'. Others again say it began on 1 January 1994 when the Zapatistas launched their¶ uprising with the words
Ya Basta! on the night NAFTA became law in Mexico. It all depends on whom you ask. But I¶ think it is more accurate to picture a
movement of many movements—coalitions of coalitions. Thousands
of groups today are all working against
forces whose common thread is what might broadly be described as the privatization¶ of
every aspect of life, and the transformation of every activity and value into a commodity . We
often speak of the¶ privatization of education, of healthcare, of natural resources. But the process is much vaster. It includes the
way¶ powerful ideas are turned into advertising slogans and public streets into shopping malls; new generations being¶ targetmarketed at birth; schools being invaded by ads; basic human necessities like water being sold as¶ commodities; basic labour rights
being rolled back; genes are patented and designer babies loom; seeds are¶ genetically altered and bought; politicians are bought
and altered.¶ At the same time there are oppositional threads, taking form in many different campaigns and movements. The
spirit they share is a radical reclaiming of the commons. As our communal spaces—town
squares, streets, schools,¶ farms, plants—are displaced by the ballooning marketplace, a spirit
of resistance is taking hold around the world. People are reclaiming bits of nature and of
culture, and saying 'this is going to be public space'. American students¶ are kicking ads out of the classrooms.
European environmentalists and ravers are throwing parties at busy¶ intersections. Landless Thai peasants are planting organic
vegetables on over-irrigated golf courses. Bolivian¶ workers are reversing the privatization of their water supply. Outfits like Napster
have been creating a kind of¶ commons on the internet where kids can swap music with each other, rather than buying it from
multinational¶ record companies. Billboards have been liberated and independent media networks set up. Protests are multiplying.¶
In Porto Alegre, during the World Social Forum, Jos£ Bove, often caricatured as only a hammer of McDonald's,¶ travelled with local
activists from the Movtmento Sem Terra to a nearby Monsanto test site, where they destroyed¶ three hectares of genetically
modified soya beans. But the protest did not stop there. The MST has occupied the¶ land and members are now planting their own
organic crops on it, vowing to turn the farm into a model of¶ sustainable agriculture. In short, activists
aren't waiting for
the revolution, they are acting right now, where they¶ live, where they study, where they work, where they farm.¶
But some formal proposals are also emerging whose aim is to turn such radical reclamations of the commons into¶ law. When
NAFTA and the like were cooked up, there was much talk of adding on 'side agreements' to the free¶ trade agenda, that were
supposed to encompass the environment, labour and human rights. Now the fight-back is¶ about taking them out. Jose Bove—along
with the Via Campesina, a global association of small farmers—has¶ launched a campaign to remove food safety and agricultural
products from all trade agreements, under the slogan¶ 'The World is Not for Sale'. They want to draw a line around the commons.
Maude Barlow, director of the Council of¶ Canadians, which has more members than most political parties in Canada, has argued
that water isn't a private¶ good and shouldn't be in any trade agreement. There is a lot of support for this idea, especially in Europe
since the¶ recent food scares. Typically these anti-privatization campaigns get under way on their own. But they also¶ periodically
converge—that's what happened in Seattle, Prague, Washington, Davos, Porto Alegre and Quebec. ¶ Beyond the borders¶ What this
means Is that the discourse has shifted. During the battles against NAFTA, there emerged the first signs¶ of a coalitton between
organized labour, environmentalists, farmers and consumer groups within the countries¶ concerned. In Canada most of us felt we
were fighting to keep something distinctive about our nation from¶ 'Americanization'. In the United States, the talk was very
protectionist: workers were worried that Mexicans would¶ 'steal' away 'our' jobs and drive down 'our' environmental standards. All
the while, the voices of Mexicans opposed¶ to the deal were virtually off the public radar—yet these were the strongest voices of all.
But only a few years later,¶ the debate over trade has been transformed. The
fight against globalization has
morphed into a struggle against¶ corporatization and, for some, against capitalism itself. It has
also become a fight for democracy. Maude Barlow¶ spearheaded the campaign against NAFTA in Canada twelve years ago. Since
NAFTA became law, she's been¶ working with organizers and activists from other countries, and anarchists suspicious of the state in
her own¶ country. She was once seen as very much the face of a Canadian nationalism. Today she has moved away from¶ that
discourse. 'I've changed', she says, *I used to see this fight as saving a nation. Now I see It as saving¶ democracy.' This is a cause that
transcends nationality and state borders. The real news out of Seattle is that¶ organizers around the world are beginning to see their
local and national struggles—for better funded public¶ schools, against union-busting and casualization, for family farms, and against
the widening gap between rich and¶ poor—through a global lens. That
Is the most significant shift we have seen
in years.¶ How did this happen? Who or what convened this new international people's movement? Who sent out the memos?¶
Who built these complex coalitions? It is tempting to pretend that someone did dream up a master plan for¶ mobilization at Seattle.
But I think it was much more a matter of large-scale coincidence. A lot of smaller groups¶ organized to get themselves there and
then found to their surprise just how broad and diverse a coalition they had¶ become part of. Still, if there is one force we can thank
for bringing this front into being, it is the multinational¶ corporations. As one of the organizers of Reclaim the Streets has remarked,
we should be grateful to the CEOs for¶ helping us see the problems more quickly. Thanks to the sheer imperialist ambition of the
corporate project at this¶ moment in history—the boundless drive for profit, liberated by trade deregulation, and the wave of
mergers and¶ buy-outs, liberated by weakened anti-trust laws—multinationals have grown so blindingly rich, so vast in their¶
holdings, so global in their reach, that they have created our coalitions for us.¶ Around the world, activists are piggy-backing on the
ready-made infrastructures supplied by global corporations.¶ This can mean cross-border unionization, but also cross-sector
organizing—among workers, environmentalists,¶ consumers, even prisoners, who may all have different relationships to one
multinational. So you can build a single¶ campaign or coalition around a single brand like General Electric. Thanks to Monsanto,
farmers in India are working¶ with environmentalists and consumers around the worfd to develop direct-action strategies that cut
off genetically¶ modified foods in the fields and in the supermarkets. Thanks to Shell Oil and Chevron, human rights activists in¶
Nigeria, democrats in Europe, environmentalists in North America have united in a fight against the unsustainability ¶ of the oil
industry. Thanks to the catering giant Sodexho-Marriott's decision to invest in Corrections Corporation of¶ America, university
students are able to protest against the exploding US for-profit prison industry simply by¶ boycotting the food in their campus
cafeteria. Other targets Include pharmaceutical companies who are trying to¶ inhibit the production and distribution of low-cost
AIDS drugs, and fast-food chains. Recently, students and farm¶ workers in Florida have joined forces around Taco Bell. In the St
Petersburg area, fietd hands—many of them¶ immigrants from Mexico—are paid an average $7,500 a year to pick tomatoes and
onions. Due to a loophole in the¶ law, they have no bargaining power: the farm bosses refuse even to talk with them about wages.
When they¶ started to look into who bought what they pick, they found that Taco Bell was the largest purchaser of the local¶
tomatoes. So they launched the campaign Yo No Quiero Taco Bell together with students, to boycott Taco Bell on¶ university
campuses.¶ It is Nike, of course, that has most helped to pioneer this new brand of activist synergy. Students facing a corporate¶
take-over of their campuses by the Nike swoosh have linked up with workers making its branded campus apparel,¶ as well as with
parents concerned at the commercialization of youth and church groups campaigning against child¶ labour—all united by their
different relationships to a common global enemy. Exposing the underbelly of high-gloss¶ consumer brands has provided the early
narratives of this movement, a sort of call-and-response to the very¶ different narratives these companies tell every day about
themselves through advertising and public relations.¶ Citigroup offers another prime target, as North America's largest financial
institution, with innumerable holdings,¶ which deals with some of the worst corporate malefactors around. The campaign against it
handily knits together¶ dozens of issues—from clear-cut logging in California to oll-and-pipeline schemes in Chad and Cameroon.
These¶ projects are only a start. But they are creating a new sort of activist: 'Nike is a gateway drug', in the words of¶ Oregon
student activist Sarah Jacobson.¶ By focusing on corporations, organizers can demonstrate graphically how so many issues of social,
ecological and¶ economic justice are Interconnected. No activist I've met believes that the world economy can be changed one¶
corporation at a time, but the campaigns have opened a door Into the arcane world of International trade and¶ finance. Where they
are leading is to the central institutions that write the rules of global commerce: the WTO, the¶ IMF, the FTAA, and for some the
market itself. Here too the unifying threat is privatization—the loss of the¶ commons. The next round of WTO negotiations is
designed to extend the reach of com modification still further.¶ Through side agreements like GATS (General Agreement on Trade
and Services) and TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects¶ of Intellectual Property Rights), the aim is to get still tougher protection of property
rights on seeds and drug¶ patents, and to marketize services like health care, education and water-supply.¶ The biggest challenge
facing us is to distil all of this into a message that is widely accessible. Many campaigners¶ understand the connexions binding
together the various issues almost intuitively—much as Subcomandante Marcos¶ says, 'Zapatismo isn't an Ideology, it's an intuition.'
But to outsiders, the mere scope of modern protests can be a¶ bit mystifying. If you
eavesdrop on the movement
from the outside, which is what most people do, you are liable to¶ hear what seems to be a
cacophony of disjointed slogans, a jumbled laundry list of disparate grievances without¶ clear goals. At the
Democratic National Convention In Los Angeles last year, I remember being outside the Staples¶ Centre during the Rage Against the
Machine concert, just before I almost got shot, and thinking there were slogans¶ for everything everywhere, to the point of
absurdity.¶ Mainstream failures¶ This kind of impression Is reinforced by the
decentralized, non-hierarchical
structure of the movement, which¶ always disconcerts the traditional media. Well-organized press conferences
are rare, there is no charismatic¶ leadership, protests tend to pile on top of each other. Rather than forming a
pyramid, as most movements do, with¶ leaders up on top and followers down below, it looks more like an elaborate web. In part,
this web-like structure is¶ the result of internet-based organizing. But It Is also a response to the very political realities that sparked
the¶ protests in the first place: the utter failure of traditional party politics. All over the world, citizens have worked to¶ elect social
democratic and workers' parties, only to watch them plead impotence in the face of market forces and¶ IMF dictates. In these
conditions, modern activists are not so naive as to believe change will come from electoral¶ politics. That's why they are more
interested in challenging the structures that make democracy toothless, like the¶ IMF's structural adjustment policies, the WTO's
ability to override national sovereignty, corrupt campaign financing,¶ and so on. This is not just making a virtue of necessity. It
responds at the ideological level to an understanding that¶ globalization is in essence a crisis In representative democracy. What has
power and decision-making has been handed
along to points ever further away from¶ citizens: from local to provincial, from provincial to national, from
national to international institutions, that lack all¶ transparency or accountability. What is the solution? To articulate
an alternative, participatory democracy.¶ If you think about the nature of the complaints raised against the World
caused this crisis? One of the basic¶ reasons for it is the way
Trade Organization, it is that governments¶ around the world have embraced an economic model that involves much more than
opening borders to goods and¶ services. This is why it is not useful to use the language of anti-globalization. Most people do not
really know what¶ globalization is, and the term makes the movement extremely vulnerable to stock dismissals like: 'If you are ¶
against trade and globalization why do you drink coffee?' Whereas in reality
the movement is a rejection of what is¶
being bundled along with trade and so-called globalization —against the set of transformative
political policies that¶ every country in the world has been told they must accept in order to
make themselves hospitable to investment . I¶ call this package 'McGovernment'. This happy meal of cutting
taxes, privatizing services, liberalizing regulations,¶ busting unions—what is this diet in aid of? To remove anything standing In the
way of the market. Let the free¶ market roll, and every other problem will apparently be solved in the trickle down. This isn't about
trade. It's about¶ using trade to enforce the McGovernment recipe.¶ So the question we are asking today, in the run up to the FTAA,
is not: are you for or against trade? The question¶ is: do we have the right to negotiate the terms of our relationship to foreign
capital and investment? Can we decide¶ how we want to protect ourselves from the dangers inherent in deregulated markets—or
do we have to contract out¶ those decisions? These problems will become much more acute once we are in a recession, because
during the¶ economic boom so much has been destroyed of what was left of our social safety net. During a period of low¶
unemployment, people did not worry much about that. They are likely to be much more concerned in the very near¶ future. The
most controversial issues facing the WTO are these questions about self-determination. For example,¶ does Canada have the right to
ban a harmful gasoline additive without being sued by a foreign chemical company?¶ Not according to the WTO's ruling in favour of
the Ethyl Corporation. Does Mexico have the right to deny a permit¶ for a hazardous toxic-waste disposal site? Not according to
Metalclad, the US company now suing the Mexican¶ government for $16.7 million damages under NAFTA. Does France have the
right to ban hormone-treated beef from¶ entering the country? Not according to the United States, which retaliated by banning
French Imports like Roquefort¶ cheese—prompting a cheese-maker called Bove to dismantle a McDonald's; Americans thought he
just didn't like¶ hamburgers. Does Argentina have to cut its public sector to qualify for foreign loans? Yes, according to the IMF-¶
sparking general strikes against the social consequences. It's the same issue everywhere: trading away democracy¶ in exchange for
foreign capital.¶ On smaller scales, the same struggles for self-determination and sustainability are being waged against World Bank¶
Most¶ people in
these movements are not against trade or industrial development. What they are fighting for
is the right¶ of local communities to have a say in how their resources are used, to make sure
that the people who live on the land benefit directly from its development. These campaigns are a
dams, clear-cut logging, cash-crop factory farming, and resource extraction on contested indigenous lands.
response not to trade but to a trade-off that is¶ now five hundred years old: the sacrifice of democratic control and selfdetermination to foreign investment and the¶ panacea of economic growth. The challenge they now face is to shift a discourse
around the vague notion of¶ globalization into a specific debate about democracy. In a period of 'unprecedented prosperity', people
were told¶ they had no choice but to slash public spending, revoke labour laws, rescind environmental protections—deemed¶ illegal
trade barriers—defund schools, not build affordable housing. All this was necessary to make us trade-ready,¶ investment-friendly,
world-competitive. Imagine what joys await us during a recession.¶ We
need to be able to show that
globalization—this version of globalization—has been built on the back of local¶ human
welfare. Too often, these connexions between global and local are not made. Instead we sometimes seem to¶ have two activist
solitudes. On the one hand, there are the international anti-globalization activists who may be¶ enjoying a triumphant mood, but
seem to be fighting far-away issues, unconnected to people's day-to-day¶ struggles. They are often seen as elitists: white middleclass kids with dreadlocks. On the other hand, there are¶ community activists fighting daily struggles for survival, or for the
preservation of the most elementary public¶ services, who are often feeling burnt-out and demoralized. They are saying: what in the
hell are you guys so¶ excited about?¶ The only clear way forward Is for these two forces to merge. What is now the
antiglobalization movement must¶ turn into thousands of local movements, fighting the way
neoliberal politics are playing out on the ground:¶ homelessness, wage stagnation, rent escalation, police
violence, prison explosion, criminalization of migrant¶ workers, and on and on. These are also struggles about all kinds of prosaic
issues: the right to decide where the¶ local garbage goes, to have good public schools, to be supplied with clean water. At the same
time, the
local¶ movements fighting privatization and deregulation on the ground need to link
their campaigns into one large global¶ movement, which can show where their particular
issues fit into an international economic agenda being enforced¶ around the world. If that
connexion isn't made, people will continue to be demoralized. What we need is to¶ formulate a political
framework that can both take on corporate power and control, and empower local organizing¶ and self-determination. That has to
be a framework that encourages, celebrates and fiercely protects the right to¶ diversity: cultural diversity, ecological diversity,
agricultural diversity—and yes, political diversity as well: different¶ ways of doing politics. Communities must have the right to plan
and manage their schools, their services, their¶ natural settings, according to their own lights. Of course, this is only possible within a
framework of national and¶ international standards—of public education, fossil-fuel emissions, and so on. But the goal should not be
better far-¶ away rules and rulers. It should be close-up democracy on the ground.¶ The Zapatistas have a phrase for this. They call it
'one world with many worlds in It'. Some have criticized this as a¶ New Age non-answer. They want a plan. 'We know what the
market wants to do with those spaces, what do you¶ want to do? Where's your scheme?' I think we shouldn't be afraid to say: That's
not up to us'. We need to have¶ some trust in people's ability to rule themselves, to make the decisions that are best for them. We
need to show¶ some humility where now there is so much arrogance and paternalism. To believe in human diversity and local¶
democracy is anything but wishy-washy. Everything in McGovernment conspires against them. Neoliberal¶ economics
is
biased at every level towards centralization, consolidation, homogenization. It Is a war waged
on¶ diversity. Against it , we need a movement of radical change, committed to a single world
with many worlds in it,¶ that stands for 'the one no and the many yesses' .
AT: Alternative = Unsustainable
Inevitable internal crises within capitalism prove movements like the
alternative can be sustainable
Federici 12 [Silvia Federici, autonomist feminist Marxist specialist/ professor emerita and Teaching Fellow at Hofstra
University, “FEMINISM AND THE POLITICS OF THE COMMONS”, April 2012, an essay in The Wealth of the Commons by David Bollier,
http://wealthofthecommons.org/essay/feminism-and-politics-commons]
At least since the Zapatistas took over the zócalo in San Cristobal de las Casas on December 31, 1993, to protest legislation dissolving
the ejidal lands of Mexico, the concept of “the commons” has been gaining popularity.2 There are important reasons why this
apparently archaic idea has come to the center of political discussion in contemporary social movements. Two in particular stand
out. On one side is the demise of the statist model of revolution that for decades had sapped the efforts of radical movements to
build an alternative to capitalism. On the other hand, the
defense against “old and new enclosures” have
made visible a world of communal properties and relations that many had believed to be
extinct or had not valued until threatened with privatization.3 Ironically, these enclosures have
demonstrated that not only has the commons not vanished, but also new forms of social
cooperation are constantly being produced, including in areas of life where none previously existed like, for
example, the Internet. The idea serves an ideological function as a unifying concept prefiguring the cooperative society that many
are striving to create. Nevertheless, ambiguities as well as significant differences remain in the interpretations of this concept, which
we need to clarify if we want the principle of the commons to translate into a coherent political project.4¶ What, for example,
constitutes a common? We have land, water, air commons, digital commons; our acquired entitlements, e.g., social security
pensions, are often described as commons, and so are languages, libraries, and the collective products of past cultures. But are all
these commons equivalent from the viewpoint of their political potential? Are they all compatible? And how can we ensure that
they do not project a unity that remains to be constructed? Finally, should we speak of “commons” in the plural, or “the common,”
as Autonomist Marxists propose we do, this concept designating in their view the social relations characteristic of the dominant
form of production in the post-Fordist era?¶ With these questions in mind, in this essay I look at the politics of the commons from a
feminist perspective where “feminist” refers to a standpoint shaped by the struggle against sexual discrimination and over
reproductive work, which, to paraphrase Linebaugh’s comment above, is the rock upon which society is built and by which every
model of social organization must be tested. This intervention is necessary, in my view, to better define this politics and clarify the
conditions under which the principle of the common/s can become the foundation of an anti-capitalist program. Two concerns make
these tasks especially important.¶ First, since
at least the early 1990s, the language of the commons has
been appropriated for instance by the World Bank and put at the service of privatization.
Under the guise of protecting biodiversity and conserving the global commons, the Bank has
turned rainforests into ecological reserves, has expelled the populations that for centuries had
drawn their sustenance from them, while ensuring access to those who can pay, for instance,
through eco-tourism.5 The World Bank is not alone in its adaptation of the idea of the
commons to market interests. Responding to different motivations, a revalorization of the commons has
become trendy among mainstream economists and capitalist planners; witness the growing academic
literature on the subject and its cognates: social capital, gift economies, altruism.¶ The extension of the commodity form to every
corner of the social factory, which neo-liberalism has promoted, is an ideal limit for capitalist ideologues, but it is a project not only
unrealizable but undesirable from the viewpoint of long-term reproduction of the capitalist system. Capitalist
accumulation
is structurally dependent on the free appropriation of immense quantities of labor and
resources that must appear as externalities to the market, like the unpaid domestic work that women have
provided, upon which employers have relied for the reproduction of the workforce. It is no accident, then, that long before the Wall
Street meltdown, a variety of economists and social theorists warned that the marketization of all spheres of life is detrimental to
the market’s well-functioning, for markets too, the argument goes, depend on the existence of non-monetary relations like
confidence, trust, and gift giving.6 In brief, capital
is learning about the virtues of the common good.¶ We
must be very careful, then, not to craft the discourse on the commons in such a way as to
allow a crisis-ridden capitalist class to revive itself, posturing, for instance, as the
environmental guardian of the planet.¶ A second concern is the unanswered question of how
commons can become the foundation of a non-capitalist economy. From Peter Linebaugh’s work,
espe-cially The Magna Carta Manifesto (2008), we have learned that commons have been the thread that has
connected the history of the class struggle into our time, and indeed the fight for the
commons is all around us. Mainers are fighting to preserve access to their fisheries, under attack by corporate fleets;
residents of Appalachia are organizing to save their mountains threatened by strip mining; open source and free software
movements are opposing the commodification of knowledge and opening new spaces for communications and cooperation. We also
have the many invisible, commoning activities and communities that people are creating in North America, which Chris Carlsson has
described in his Nowtopia (2007). As Carlsson shows, much creativity is invested in the production of “virtual commons” and forms
of sociality that thrive under the radar of the money/market economy.¶ Most important has been the creation of urban gardens,
which have spread across the country, thanks mostly to the initiatives of immigrant communities from Africa, the Caribbean or the
South of the United States. Their significance cannot be overestimated. Urban
gardens have opened the way to a
“rurbanization” process that is indispensable if we are to regain control over our food
production, regenerate our environment and provide for our subsistence. The gardens are far more
than a source of food security. They are centers of sociality, knowledge production, and cultural and
intergenerational exchange.7 [….]¶ The most significant feature of urban gardens is that they produce for
neighborhood consumption, rather than for commercial purposes. This distinguishes them
from other reproductive commons that either produce for the market, like the fisheries of Maine’s
“Lobster Coast,”8 or are bought on the market, like the land trusts that preserve open spaces. The problem, however, is
that urban gardens have remained a spontaneous grassroots initiative and there have been few attempts by movements in the US to
expand their presence and to make access to land a key terrain of struggle….¶ WOMEN AND THE COMMONS¶ More generally, the
left has not posed the question of how to bring together the many proliferating commons that are being defended, developed and
fought for so that they can form a cohesive whole and provide a foundation for a new mode of production. It is in this context that a
feminist perspective on the commons is important because it begins with the realization that, as the primary subjects of
reproductive work, historically and in our time, women have depended on access to communal natural resources more than men
and have been most penalized by their privatization and most committed to their defense.¶ As I wrote in Caliban and the Witch
(2004), in the first phase of capitalist development, women were at the forefront of the struggle against land enclosures both in
England and in the “New World” and they were the staunchest defenders of the communal cultures that European colonization
attempted to destroy. In Peru, when the Spanish conquistadores took control of their villages, women fled to the high mountains
where they recreated forms of collective life that have survived to this day. Not surprisingly, the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
saw the most violent attack on women in the history of the world: the persecution of women as witches. Today, in the face of a new
process of Primitive Accumulation, women are the main social force standing in the way of a complete commercialization of nature,
supporting a non-capitalist use of land and a subsistence-oriented agriculture. Women are the subsistence farmers of the world. In
Africa, they produce 80 percent of the food people consume, despite the attempts made by the World Bank and other agencies to
convince them to divert their activities to cash-cropping. In the 1990s, in many African towns, in the face of rising food prices, they
have appropriated plots in public lands and planted corn, beans, cassava along roadsides... in parks, along rail-lines, changing the
urban landscape of African cities and breaking down the separation between town and country in the process.9 In India, the
Philippines, and across Latin America, women have replanted trees in degraded forests, joined hands to chase away loggers, made
blockades against mining operations and the construction of dams, and led the revolt against the privatization of water. 10 ¶ The
other side of women’s struggle for direct access to means of reproduction has been the formation across the Third World, from
Cambodia to Senegal, of credit associations that function as money commons (Podlashuc 2009). Differently named, the tontines (as
they are called in parts of Africa) are autonomous, self-managed, women-made banking systems that provide cash to individuals or
groups that have no access to banks, working purely on a basis of trust. In this, they are completely different from the microcredit
systems promoted by the World Bank, which function on a basis of mutual policing and shame, reaching the extreme, e.g., in Niger,
of posting in public places pictures of the women who fail to repay the loans, so that some women have been driven to suicide.11¶
Women have also led the effort to collectivize reproductive labor both as a means to economize the cost of reproduction and to
protect each other from poverty, state violence, and the violence of individual men. An outstanding example is that of the ollas
communes (common cooking pots) that women in Chile and Peru set up in the 1980s when, due to stiff inflation, they could no
longer afford to shop alone (Fisher 1993; Andreas 1985). Like land reclamations, or the formation of tontines, these practices are the
expression of a world where communal bonds are still strong. But it would be a mistake to consider them something pre-political,
“natural,” or simply a product of “tradition.” After repeated phases of colonization, nature and customs no longer exist in any part of
the world, except where people have struggled to preserve them and reinvent them. As Leo Podlashuc has noted, grassroots
women’s communalism today leads to the production of a new reality, it shapes a collective identity, it constitutes a counter-power
in the home and the community, and opens a process of self-valorization and self-determination from which there is much that we
can learn.¶ The
first lesson we can gain from these struggles is that the “commoning” of the
material means of reproduction is the primary mechanism by which a collective interest and
mutual bonds are created. It is also the first line of resistance to a life of enslavement and the
condition for the construction of autonomous spaces undermining from within the hold that
capitalism has on our lives. Undoubtedly the experiences I described are models that cannot be transplanted. For us, in
North America, the reclamation and commoning of the means of reproduction must necessarily take different forms. But here too,
by pooling our resources and re-appropriating the wealth that we have produced, we can begin to de-link our reproduction from the
commodity flows that, through the world market, are responsible for the dispossession of millions across the world. We can begin to
disentangle our livelihood not only from the world market but also from the war machine and prison system on which the US
economy now depends. Not last we can move beyond the abstract solidarity that so often characterizes relations in the movement,
which limits our commitment, our capacity to endure, and the risks we are willing to take.¶ In a country where private property is
defended by the largest arsenal of weaponry in the world, and where three centuries of slavery have produced profound divisions in
the social body, the recreation of the common/s appears as a formidable task that could only be accomplished through a long-term
process of experimentation, coalition building and reparations. But though this task may now seem more difficult than passing
through the eye of a needle, it is also the only possibility we have for widening the space of our autonomy, and refusing to accept
that our reproduction occurs at the expense of the world’s other commoners and commons.¶ FEMINIST RECONSTRUCTIONS¶ What
this task entails is powerfully expressed by Maria Mies when she points out that the production of commons requires first a
profound transformation in our everyday life, in order to recombine what the social division of labor in capitalism has separated. For
the distancing of production from reproduction and consumption leads us to ignore the conditions under which what we eat, wear,
or work with have been produced, their social and environmental cost, and the fate of the population on whom the waste we
produce is unloaded (Mies 1999). In
other words, we need to overcome the state of irresponsibility
concerning the consequences of our actions that results from the destructive ways in which
the social division of labor is organized in capitalism; short of that, the production of our life
inevitably becomes a production of death for others. As Mies points out, globalization has
worsened this crisis, widening the distances between what is produced and what is consumed,
thereby intensifying, despite the appearance of an increased global interconnectedness, our
blindness to the blood in the food we eat, the petroleum we use, the clothes we wear, and the
computers we communicate with.¶ Overcoming this state of oblivion is where a feminist perspective teaches us to
start in our reconstruction of the commons. No common is possible unless we refuse to base our life and
our reproduction on the suffering of others, unless we refuse to see ourselves as separate
from them. Indeed, if commoning has any meaning, it must be the production of ourselves as
a common subject. This is how we must understand the slogan “no commons without
community.” But “community” has to be intended not as a gated reality, a grouping of people joined by exclusive interests
separating them from others, as with communities formed on the basis of religion or ethnicity, but rather as a quality of relations, a
principle of cooperation and of responsibility to each other and to the earth, the forests, the seas, the animals.¶ Certainly, the
achievement of such community, like the collectivization of our everyday work of reproduction, can only be a beginning. It is no
substitute for broader antiprivatization campaigns and the reclamation of our common wealth. But it is an essential part of our
education to collective government and our recognition of history as a collective project, which is perhaps the main casualty of the
neoliberal era of capitalism.¶ On this account, we too must include in our political agenda the commu-nalization of housework,
reviving that rich feminist tradition that in the US stretches from the utopian socialist experiments of the mid-nineteenth century to
the attempts that “materialist feminists” made from the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century to reorganize and
socialize domestic work and thereby the home and the neighborhood, through collective housekeeping – attempts that continued
until the 1920s when the Red Scare put an end to them (Hayden 1981 and 1986). These practices and, most importantly, the ability
of past feminists to look at reproductive labor as an important sphere of human activity not to be negated but to be revolutionized,
must be revisited and revalorized.¶ One
crucial reason for creating collective forms of living is that the
reproduction of human beings is the most labor-intensive work on earth and, to a very large
extent, it is work that is irreducible to mechanization. We cannot mechanize childcare, care for the ill, or the
psychological work necessary to reintegrate our physical and emotional balance. Despite the efforts that futuristic industrialists are
making, we cannot robotize care except at a terrible cost for the people involved. No one will accept nursebots as caregivers,
especially for children and the ill. Shared responsibility and cooperative work, not given at the cost of the health of the providers, are
the only guarantees of proper care. For centuries, the reproduction of human beings has been a collective process. It has been the
work of extended families and communities on which people could rely, especially in proletarian neighborhoods, even when they
lived alone so that old age was not accompanied by the desolate loneliness and dependence on which so many of our elderly live. It
is only with the advent of capitalism that reproduction has been completely privatized, a process that is now carried to a degree that
it destroys our lives. This trend must be reversed, and the present time is propitious for such a project.¶
Sustainability has been working for centuries – their evidence assumes a preexisting dependent relationship that the alt solves
Starr and Adams 2k3 (Amory, Activist and sociologist at Colorado State University, Jason,
Professor at Simon Fraser University, “Anti-globalization: The Global Fight for Local Autonomy”,
New Political Science, Volume 25, Number 1, 2003,
http://eng316.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/starr-and-adams-anti-globalization.pdf )
World historically, “sustainable” production is omnipresent, but unnamed.¶ Fairly recently it
has become a social movement, with ideology, activists, and¶ practices. And despite the best
efforts of elites to co-opt the concept beyond¶ recognition, grassroots practitioners all over the
world have experimented with and mastered sustainable technologies for agriculture,
economies, water and waste management, energy, education, healthcare, and political life. In
the third¶ world, the movement often takes the form of ongoing critique of modernization,
particularly in agriculture. Gandhian development is an example of the politicization of this
dialogue, emphasizing “ ‘the khadi mentality’, meaning the¶ decentralization of the production
and distribution of the necessities of life.”35¶ Swadeshi (home economy) is a vision of “selfgoverning, self-reliant, self-employed people” living in “village republics” which have
“maximum economic and political power—including the power to decide what could be
imported into or exported from the village.”36¶ In the early 1970s, while examining forests, Bill
Mollison hypothesized that¶ it must be possible to design agricultural systems modeled on the
dense functional interdependency of ecosystems. The resulting permanent, lowmaintenance
“food forests” might then produce the level of abundance visible in nature. In developing
what he calls the only “design system” for sustainability,¶ Mollison draws on practices used by
indigenous people all over the world.37 A sustainable system is one which in its lifetime will
produce the energy required¶ for its construction and maintenance. Mollison refers to
Permaculture practitioners worldwide as “our own nation,” indicating his vision of separation
from,¶ rather than collaboration with, existing political economic systems.38¶ In the early 1990s
Cuba transformed agricultural production to essentially organic techniques to survive the loss
of imported inputs, resurrected a traditional diet (heavier in viandas), and created new
economic institutions to manage local production decisions and to distribute fresh produce
quickly. The¶ resulting decentralization, urban markets, and semi-privatization of control over¶
farming affirmed the importance of small-scale ownership in farm efficiency39¶ and proved that
organic methods could feed a nation.¶ To achieve international equity, first world sustainability
movements focus on taking responsibility for having underdeveloped the third world and
figuring out how to make the first world sustainable—Weinberg calls this “scaling back¶
overdevelopment.”40 By 1987, first world environmentalists had begun to recognize that “to be
more effective at saving tropical Rain Forests … what we need¶ is to get our foot off the throat of
the Rain Forests.”41 Internationally, a large¶ number of governmental and non-governmental
organizations promote sustainable technologies while demonstrating the viability of totally
sustainable communities, many of which have communal governance systems. Urban¶
sustainability movements insist that cities can use resources responsibly and¶ maintain high
quality of life. A host of enthusiastic inventors create designs¶ while consumption reduction
movements try to get individuals to take responsibility for the externalized costs of their
consumption. The Enough! Campaign¶ (founded 1992) emphasizes the drawbacks of
unsustainable consumption, the¶ pleasures of neighborhood-based economies, and the impacts
of anti-consumption on jobs.¶ Traditional peoples have been refining their self-sufficient
agricultural and¶ social systems for upwards of 10,000 years, providing full employment and
avoiding poverty. In the Global South, the most urgent aspect of food and agriculture is land
reform, which would enable peasants to produce for them- selves rather than for export
markets. Sustainability is essentially an extension of this logic as an alternative to
globalization.
Empirics prove rejection of corporate dominance is both sustainable and better
for the populus
Starr and Adams 2k3 (Amory, Activist and sociologist at Colorado State University, Jason,
Professor at Simon Fraser University, “Anti-globalization: The Global Fight for Local Autonomy”,
New Political Science, Volume 25, Number 1, 2003,
http://eng316.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/starr-and-adams-anti-globalization.pdf )
From the ashes of state legitimacy and corporate dominance have emerged¶ new
autonomous productive and distributive structures; supplementary subsistence production of
over 450,000 huertas (community gardens),53 collectivization¶ of over 100 abandoned factories,
and sprawling, multilinked bartering networks.54 Another result of has been the emergence
of what are widely understood to be autonomous, anarchistic “popular assemblies” organized
from the¶ ground up at the neighborhood level.55 The many points of self-organization for¶
subsistence in emerging Argentinean society are coordinated by these assemblies to discuss
and plan strategies for dealing with emergency health and food issues¶ brought about by the
economic crisis.¶ The result is impressive; the huertas have produced an average yield of 80,000¶
tons of food per year, helping to feed some 2.5 million daily. The factories that¶ have been
collectivized nationwide since December 2001 employ over 10,000¶ people; a single collectivized
ceramics factory in Zanon provided sustenance for¶ over 300 families. Demonstrating the level
to which such autonomous activity¶ has risen, an owner of a blockaded wool factory
lamented, “nowadays the mob¶ can appropriate goods and the authorities are afraid to do
anything; we’re¶ heading back to the days after the Russian Revolution.”56
Alt Solves – Cuba
An ideological refusal and interrogation of the neoliberal future is critical to the
self-determination of the Cuban people
Powell 2k8 (Kathy, Department of Political Science & Sociology at the National University of
Ireland Galway, “Neoliberalism, the Special Period and Solidarity in Cuba”, 2008,
http://vmserver14.nuigalway.ie/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10379/208/KPowell1.pdf?sequence=1
)
The ‘street’ constitutes a complex social geography in which not only is loyalty to the¶ state
patchily eroded, but also what makes the production of community solidarity¶ possible. How
widespread these ‘erosions’ might be is difficult to gauge: there is¶ evidence that support for the
socialist state remains substantial and much greater than critics of the regime like to think64:
at the same time levels of ‘disaffectedness’,¶ while not generalised, are also probably higher
than supporters of the regime like to¶ think too. Political cynicism will by no means necessarily
prevail, but may well¶ undermine or problematize the dynamics of political solidarity, at a time
when it is¶ increasingly important to maintain. Despite its aim to address inequality, the Batalla¶
de Ideas which launched the recentralization drive and reasserted Revolutionary¶ consciousness
and morality, is likely to harden positions among the disaffected as¶ much as boost solidarity
among supporters, and may well see an expansion of the¶ informal sector while increasing
intolerance towards it. 65 Yet, while a ‘battle of ideas’¶ may sound like an anachronism of
socialist discourse, some such a battle has to take place if the taken-for-grantedness of
neoliberal capitalism is to be ruptured and interrogated . Centeno sees the decay of the social
infrastructure, including health and education¶ systems, poverty, rising inequality, informality
and migration as signalling the end of¶ Cuban exceptionalism with respect to the rest of Latin
America, a conformity to the¶ structural problems of the region, and he admits to being less than
optimistic about¶ the future66 - with good cause. Responses to increased inequality under
neoliberalism seen throughout Latin America – forced microentrepreurship, informality,
migration and crime67 – are evident here. Indeed, parallels can be drawn¶ beyond the region:
processes of “economic polarization, political demobilization and¶ market triumphalism” which
have underwritten the ‘new poverty’ in the US68 are¶ apparent enough in contemporary Cuba,
even if the triumph of the market has been¶ disavowed and resisted, while inventively
accommodated.¶ At the same time, as mentioned above, even the ‘disaffected’ still take it as
read that¶ in a post-Castro era, which they – along with much of the rest of the world - assume¶
will be capitalist, and in which they assume they will be able to do well once the¶ constraints of
socialism are removed - even they take it as read that the¶ achievements of the revolution and a
significant measure of social justice should be¶ preserved: health and education for all, no
homelessness, no extreme poverty.¶ However, this is not a scenario characteristic of other Latin
American or Caribbean¶ economies; if Cuban development after Castro follows the wellfurrowed route of¶ integrating more fully into the global economy with the help of foreign
aid, then¶ there is no reason to suppose that this would not come with conditions attached¶
which threaten the very areas people most wish to preserve: much Latin American¶
neoliberalization has been premised upon reduced state spending in precisely these¶ areas.
Indeed, in Cuba they are already moving from being symbols of achievement¶ to signifiers of
decay. Hospitals and clinics as well as schools are sorely under¶ equipped and even basic
medicines are scarce, while schoolteachers and health sector¶ workers cannot live on what they
earn.¶ If – as many people wish and several commentators have suggested - the scenario is¶
reform, understood as the development of a Cuban capitalism which will sustain a¶ commitment
to social justice, then even this is going to need defending, and¶ vigorously: this is where the
thrall of the ‘Messianic Event’ is especially disingenuous¶ - in the assumption that, post Castro,
the development of Cuba capitalism on its own¶ terms will be relatively unproblematic. Here
perhaps both fidelismo and Cuban¶ exceptionalism have been internalised: the experience of
other countries in the¶ region will not apply – Cuba is different. Yet resistance – to neoliberal
imperatives of¶ the privatization of common goods, to the political and economic claims from
Miami¶ – is likely to require considerable solidarity. Whether a socialist or a reformist state is¶
at issue, reclaiming solidarity – a disposition to stand together in the face of inevitable external
pressures and a recommitment to equality - seems essential if any¶ measure of selfdetermination is to be carved out in shaping the future, as well as¶ protecting the struggles
and achievements of generations past. Yet, it has to be¶ recognised that such resistance will
require most from precisely those who have¶ already been struggling for so long, and that the
effects of those struggles may not¶ necessarily be uniformly consistent with progressive hopes.¶
Nonetheless, if, as Centeno persuasively argues, Cuban exceptionalism has in the¶ past been
much overstated, then this might be the time to insist upon or reinvent it.¶ Loyalists to the
socialist project are encouraged by the shift to the left registered by¶ recent elections
throughout Latin America (although the uneven and volatile nature¶ of this must be also be
recognised), and Cuba’s significance to the Latin American left¶ remains important. Renowned
analysts such as Mesa-Lago may well be facetious¶ about Presidents Castro and Chavez’s
‘Bolivarian pretensions’, but regional electoral¶ patterns suggest that demand for an
alternative to neoliberal hegemony is¶ increasingly insistent, and intra-regional alliances seem
essential if its disciplinary¶ constraints are to be surmounted.¶ A more cheerful return of Cuba to
the Latin American fold than that envisaged by¶ Centeno depends on a radical refusal of the
future offered by neoliberalism across¶ the region, which in turn depends on a refusal of its
relentless normativity. It may be easy to dismiss such a prospect as ‘Utopian’ ( although there
are strong arguments for¶ revisiting ‘Utopian’ thinking69), but it is equally easy to forget that
discrediting the notion that more equal futures might be shaped is, after all, an ideological
device which serves to protect neoliberal normativity .
The 1959 autonomous rejection of Cuba’s dependence on American markets
proves radical movements like the alternative can solve
Leogrande and Thomas ’02 (William M. Leogrande and Julie M. Thomas; Leogrande is the
Professor of Government in the School of Public Affairs at American University, and Thomas is a
Participant in a Ph.D. Dissertation at the School of Public Affair, American University; May 2002; “Cuba’s
Quest for Economic Interdependence;” Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 34, No. 2, pp. 325-363;
JSTOR)
The revolution of 1959 was animated in part by a nationalist desire to reduce Cuba's
dependency on the United States.' By 1960 Cuba's revolutionary leaders had concluded that
the path to economic independence and development was socialism, and before the year was
out $I billion of US direct investment had been nationalised. Thus ended, in one convulsive
rupture, a century and a half of US dominance over the Cuban economy.
Movements like the alternative empirically succeed in Cuba
Fanelli 08
Cubanalismo’: The Cuban Alternative to Neoliberalism¶ Carlo Fanelli¶ Department of Sociology,
York University¶ New Proposals: Journal of Marxism and Interdisciplinary Inquiry¶ Vol.2, No. 1
(November 2008) Pp. 7-16¶
Once in a domestically stable and autonomous¶ position, Cuban offcials looked to ‘loosen-up’
the¶ economy by increasing FDI in areas where Cuban¶ economists and policy makers had
identified as¶ central to their continued development such as¶ the mining, telecommunications,
fuel, and tourism¶ industries. High levels of state intervention into the¶ ¶ economy and loose
fiscal and monetary restraints¶ allowed the Cuban economy to strengthen and build¶ upon
their historical sectors of the economy, while¶ simultaneously developing advanced
pharmaceutical¶ and scientific industries. For example, with the¶ international demand for sugar
dropping substantially¶ over the years, Cuba has deliberately begun¶ phasing out large-scale
sugar production in order¶ to meet domestic needs and consumption, rather¶ than produce
sugar as an export commodity. As well,¶ Cuba’s rapidly evolving technological innovations¶ in
biotechnology and medicine are reorienting the¶ Cuban economy from a traditionally agrarian
marketplace¶ in favour of high technology and advanced¶ medical-scientific research, all of which
will be¶ discussed at length later in this paper. Aside from¶ increasing investments in
biotechnological and pharmaceutical¶ industries, one of Cuba’s most affuent¶ investments has
been in the tourism industry. Ever¶ since the mid-1 0s, Cuban tourism in the form of¶ hotels,
restaurants and leisure activities has continued¶ growing at nearly 10% annually and contributes¶
nearly $3 billion to the economy in gross revenues¶ (Perry et al 1 7). The strength of the Cuban
economy¶ is demonstrated by the fact that in 2006 the¶ Cuban economy grew at nearly 12%
(CIA 2007a)¶ compared with the US economy, which grew at only¶ 2. % in the same year (CIA
2007b). Although the¶ Cuban economy has oriented itself to one focused on¶ high technology
and has also increased the amount¶ of FDI, public sector employment remains very high¶ and
stable at roughly 76% of the working population¶ (Uriarte, 2002). Given Cubanalismo’s emphasis
on¶ state-led economic flexibility, high levels of public¶ sector employment, and the
maintenance of high tariffs¶ and subsidies in order to protect infant industries,¶ Cubanalismo
remains a workable economic alternative¶ to neoliberalism, which is further expressed by¶ the
vast differences demonstrated towards environmental¶ policies.¶
Empirically, movements like the alternative succeed in solving environmental
destruction in Cuba
Fanelli 08
Cubanalismo’: The Cuban Alternative to Neoliberalism¶ Carlo Fanelli¶ Department of Sociology,
York University¶ New Proposals: Journal of Marxism and Interdisciplinary Inquiry¶ Vol.2, No. 1
(November 2008) Pp. 7-16¶ Comments and Arguments
¶ Recently, the World¶ Wildlife Federation (WWF) ranked Cuba as the¶ only country in the
world to be developing sustainably¶ without undue harm to the environment and¶
environmental protection as a clearly mandated¶ policy objectives (WWF 2006). The WWF came¶
to this conclusion by examining Cuba’s Human¶ Development Index (HDI), which according to
the¶ United Nations “is deeper than economic income or¶ growth, since the HDI looks at health
and education¶ indicators, nutrition, cultural freedoms, social opportunities, standard of living
and a countries ecological¶ ootprint¶ 1¶ ” (WWF 2007:1). The study’s authors¶ credit the high
levels of literacy, long life expectancy¶ and low levels of individual consumption of energy¶ for
Cuba’s success. Furthermore, Cuba is also replacing¶ chemical fertilizers with nitrogen-fixing
bacteria¶ 2¶ , recycling the residues leftover from the processing of¶ harvests, and pesticides are
being replaced with polyculture,¶ which are natural enemies against parasites¶ and insect pests,
while increasingly using goats and¶ horses as weed control rather than tractors that produce¶
excessive carbon monoxide and waste essential¶ animal foods (Levins 2004). Cuba leads the
world in¶ active compliance with the environmental agendas of¶ Rio and Kyoto, nearly all
urban vegetable production¶ and approximately half the total food production is¶ organic, and
freon is being replaced in refrigerators¶ with a Cuban-developed natural substitute derived¶ from
sugar cane in order to protect the ozone layer¶ (Levins 2004). Special programs have been
developed¶ that aim to protect fragile mangroves along¶ the coast, resist desertification, and
integrate development¶ of rural and mountainous regions. Whereas¶ only 14% of prerevolution Cuba was covered by forests,¶ by 2003 that had increased to 21% with the¶ goal
being around 27% in the years to come. While¶ neoliberal discourses often view environmental
protectionisms¶ as an added cost, Cuba has been able to¶ expand its economy and social
services and simultaneously¶ protect the environment by developing local¶ and national
projects, recycling, and developing biofertilizers¶ that may potentially be a valuable export¶
commodity in the near future. All things considered,¶ given Cubanalismo’s concern for the
environment,¶ which in turn affects people’s health and well-being,¶ Cubanalismo remains a
workable and preferable¶ alternative to neoliberalism, which is perhaps, only¶ eclipsed by the
even larger differences that exist in¶ the areas of healthcare and education.
Anti-enclosure gestures like the alternative are empirically successful, and spill
over, in Cuba
Fanelli 08
Cubanalismo’: The Cuban Alternative to Neoliberalism¶ Carlo Fanelli¶ Department of Sociology,
York University¶ New Proposals: Journal of Marxism and Interdisciplinary Inquiry¶ Vol.2, No. 1
(November 2008) Pp. 7-16¶ Comments and Arguments
¶ Although the bulk of this paper has¶ focused on comparing the social, environmental and¶
economic realities of Cubanalismo and neoliberalism,¶ it has omitted significant issues such as
race,¶ gender, religion and ethnicity, which constitute significant¶ and valuable areas for future
research. In¶ addition, future explorations may strive to consider¶ how Cubanalismo relates to
the larger global struggle¶ against neoliberalism as countries of the periphery¶ struggle for
equality, subsistence and sovereignty. The¶ significance of Cubanalismo is that it has resisted
the¶ pull of neoliberalism, and that regional solidarity in¶ direct confrontation to neoliberalism is
transforming¶ and challenging the dominant ideologies of the¶ Global North. Through unity,
struggle and solidarity¶ Cubanalismo has demonstrated that despite¶ overwhelming pressure
and coercion from the most¶ powerful nation-states alternative modes of socioeconomic¶
and environmental polices can and do¶ continue to exist.
Cubanalismo proves that radical gestures like the alternative can solve
enclosure within Cuba
Fanelli 08
Cubanalismo’: The Cuban Alternative to Neoliberalism¶ Carlo Fanelli¶ Department of Sociology,
York University¶ New Proposals: Journal of Marxism and Interdisciplinary Inquiry¶ Vol.2, No. 1
(November 2008) Pp. 7-16¶ Comments and Arguments
As this paper has attempted to integrate throughout¶ this discussion, alternatives to
neoliberalism do,¶ in fact, exist. The anti-neoliberal declaration that¶ “another world is
possible” simultaneously represents¶ the growing distrust and cynicism in regards¶ to
neoliberalism, as well as the mounting optimism¶ that change on a local, national and regional
level¶ is achievable. Through struggle, trial and error, mistakes¶ along the way, and intermittent
uncertainties¶ about the success of the revolution, Cubanalismo¶ remains a work in progress
that is yet to fully mature.¶ Whereas neoliberalism emerged in the mid-1 0s¶ as a dominant
player in the realm of domestic and¶ foreign policy, this ideology has long standing, deep,¶ and
historical roots that date back to classical liberalism. When considering the material realities of
the¶ two frameworks, however, in the case of private-led¶ growth versus state-led
development, Cubanalismo¶ has implemented policies that attempt to achieve¶ the “greatest
good for the greatest number of people,”¶ while neoliberalism has all too often created¶
“wealth for some and poverty for many.” When comparing¶ environment policies,
Cubanalismo not only¶ establishes and enforces environmental laws, but also¶ considers the
consequences of inaction on people’s¶ health, well-being and social relations. Neoliberalism,¶
on the other hand, considers environmental policies¶ to be a barrier to economic growth and
accumulation.¶ When comparing healthcare and education poli-¶ cies, the US (neoliberal) and
Cuban (Cubanalismo)¶ citizenry are nearly parallel. The difference is that¶ Cubanalismo offers
free and universal healthcare¶ and education for all, whereas neoliberalism treats¶ social
expenditures as a commodity to be purchased,¶ consumed and repurchased, which often
creates¶ severe differences in accessibility, scope and implementation.
Cuba’s current sustainable agriculture proves that the commons can succeed in
that nation specifically
Bachman 6 [Megan Quinn Bachman, published articles in Permaculture Activist, Communities Magazine, WellBeing and
Kindred and appeared in Harper’s Magazine and on MSNBCreceived a Bachelor of Arts in Diplomacy and Foreign Affairs from Miami
University in Oxford, Ohio and a Master of Science in Environmental Education from Wright State University in Dayton, “The power
of community: How Cuba survived peak oil”, February 25, 2006, http://www.resilience.org/stories/2006-02-25/power-communityhow-cuba-survived-peak-oil]
Havana, Cuba -- At the Organipónico
de Alamar, a neighborhood agriculture project, a workers' collective runs a
large urban farm, a produce market and a restaurant. Hand tools and human labor replace oil-driven machinery. Worm
cultivation and composting create productive soil. Drip irrigation conserves water, and the diverse, multi-hued produce
provides the community with a rainbow of healthy foods.¶ Farmers at the Organiponico de Alamar,
a neighborhood agriculture project in downtown Havana, weed the beds. (Photo by John Morgan)¶ In
other Havana neighborhoods, lacking enough land for such large projects, residents have installed raised garden
beds on parking lots and planted vegetable gardens on their patios and rooftops.¶ Since the early 1990s, an
urban agriculture movement has swept through Cuba, putting this capital city of 2.2 million on
a path toward sustainability.¶ A small group of Australians assisted in this grass-roots effort, coming
to this Caribbean island nation in 1993 to teach permaculture, a system based on sustainable agriculture
which uses far less energy.¶ This need to bring agriculture into the city began with the fall of the
Soviet Union and the loss of more than 50 percent of Cuba's oil imports, much of its food and 85 percent of its
trade economy. Transportation halted, people went hungry and the average Cuban lost 30 pounds.¶ "In reality, when this all began,
it was a necessity. People had to start cultivating vegetables wherever they could," a tour guide told a documentary
crew filming in Cuba in 2004 to record how Cuba survived on far less oil than usual.¶ The crew included the staff of The Community
Solution, a non-profit organization in Yellow Springs, Ohio which teaches about peak oil – the time when oil production world-wide
will reach an all-time high and head into an irreversible decline. Some oil analysts believe this may happen within this decade,
making Cuba a role model to follow.¶ "We wanted to see if we could capture what it is in the Cuban people and the Cuban culture
that allowed them to go through this very difficult time," said Pat Murphy, The Community Solution's executive director. "Cuba has a
lot to show the world in how to deal with energy adversity."¶ Scarce petroleum supplies have not only transformed Cuba's
agriculture. The nation has also moved toward small-scale renewable energy and developed an energy-saving mass transit system,
while maintaining its government-provided health care system whose preventive, locally-based approach to medicine conserves
scarce resources.¶ The era in Cuba following the Soviet collapse is known to Cubans as the Special Period. Cuba lost 80 percent of its
export market and its imports fell by 80 percent. The Gross Domestic Product dropped by more than one third.¶ "Try to image an
airplane suddenly losing its engines. It was really a crash," Jorge Mario, a Cuban economist, told the documentary crew. A crash that
put Cuba into a state of shock. There were frequent blackouts in its oil-fed electric power grid, up to 16 hours per day. The average
daily caloric intake in Cuba dropped by a third.¶ According to a report on Cuba from Oxfam, an international development and relief
agency, "In the cities, buses stopped running, generators stopped producing electricity, factories became silent as graveyards.
Obtaining enough food for the day became the primary activity for many, if not most,
Cubans."¶ In part due to the continuing US embargo, but also because of the loss of a foreign market, Cuba
couldn't obtain enough imported food. Furthermore, without a substitute for fossil-fuel based large-scale farming,
agricultural production dropped drastically.¶ So Cubans started to grow local organic produce out of
necessity, developed bio-pesticides and bio-fertilizers as petrochemical substitutes, and
incorporated more fruits and vegetables into their diets. Since they couldn't fuel their aging cars, they walked,
biked, rode buses, and carpooled.¶ "There are infinite small solutions," said Roberto Sanchez from the Cuban-based Foundation for
Nature and Humanity. "Crises or changes or problems can trigger many of these things which are basically adaptive. We are
adapting."¶ A New Agricultural Revolution¶ Cubans
are also replacing petroleum-fed machinery with oxen,
and their urban agriculture reduces food transportation distances. Today an estimated 50 percent of
Havana's vegetables come from inside the city, while in other Cuban towns and cities urban
gardens produce from 80 percent to more than 100 percent of what they need.¶ In turning to
gardening, individuals and neighborhood organizations took the initiative by identifying idle land in the city, cleaning it up, and
planting.¶ Farmers pose with their produce at a farmers' market in downtown Havana. The Cuban government now allows these
private markets, which provide year-round fresh local food to the community. (Photo by John Morgan)¶ When
the
Australian permaculturists came to Cuba they set up the first permaculture demonstration
project with a $26,000 grant from the Cuban government.¶ Out of this grew the Foundation for Nature and Humanity's urban
permaculture demonstration project and center in Havana. "With this demonstration, neighbors began to see the possibilities of
what they can do on their rooftops and their patios," said Carmen López, director of the urban permaculture center, as she stood on
the center's rooftop amongst grape vines, potted plants, and compost bins made from tires.¶
Since then the movement
has been spreading rapidly across Havana's barrios. So far López' urban permaculture center has trained more
than 400 people in the neighborhood in permaculture and distributes a monthly publication, "El Permacultor." "Not only has the
community learned about permaculture," according to López, "we have also learned about the community, helping
people wherever there is need."¶ One permaculture student, Nelson Aguila, an engineer-turned-farmer, raises food for the
neighborhood on his integrated rooftop farm. On just a few hundred square feet he has rabbits and hens and many large pots of
plants. Running free on the floor are gerbils, which eat the waste from the rabbits, and become an important protein source
themselves. "Things are changing," Sanchez said. "It's a local economy. In other places people don't know their neighbors.
They don't know their names. People don't say 'hello' to each other. Not here."¶ Since going from petrochemical intensive
agricultural production to organic farming and gardening, Cuba now uses 21 times less pesticide than before the Special Period. They
have accomplished this with their large-scale production of bio-pesticides and bio-fertilizers, exporting some of it to other Latin
American countries.¶ Though
the transition to organic production and animal traction was
necessary, the Cubans are now seeing the advantages. "One of the good parts of the crisis was to go back to
the oxen," said Miguel Coyula, a community development specialist, "Not only do they save fuel, they do not compact the
soil the way the tractor does, and the legs of the oxen churn the earth."
Alt Solves – Vz
Rejecting “enclosure” in Venezuela uniquely solves – empirics, political
campaigns, and the attitudes of the working class and the unions guarantee
Bye ’79 (Vegard Bye; Former Representative of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights,
Bolivia & Angola, Former President of NORLAT, Former Head of NORAD’s Latin American
Division, Former Executive Director of the Main NGO Network, Forum for Environment and
Development; “Nationalization of Oil in Venezuela: Re-Defined Dependence and Legitimization
of Imperialism;” 1979; Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 57-78; JSTOR)
Nationalization, at least in the form it took in Venezuela, was certainly a brilliant way of
mediating the conflict within the cap-italist state between accumulation and legit-imacy. As far
as accumulation is concerned, it was evidently necessary for the state bourgeoisie to come to an
understanding with the MNCs to guarantee efficiency of the nationalized industry. That explains
the secret negotiations and the modification of article 5. From an accumulation point of view,
nationalization has doubtless been a great success.22 In regard to legitimacy, per-haps the
main motive for nationalization, the effects are obvious. The anti-imperialist po-tential
among the working class has been no negligible factor in Venezuela, despite the absence of
strong leftist groups. It is evi-dent that the MNCs' almost total control of the export sector of the
national economy would have been an extremely awkward fact to live with on a long-term basis.
The unions had long demanded nationalization, and anti-imperialist demagogy had long
been a necessary ingredient in most political campaigns in Venezuela, although mostly in the
shape of nationalism. By nationaliz-ing the oil industry, then, the political and economic system
regained its national pride and could claim that the country's economy had been brought
under national control. At least for a while, anti-imperialist demands and sentiments seen to
have been satisfied. The system has secured its own legitimacy.
Other Blocks
At: Perm
The permutation doesn’t solve – the discourse of the commons must be
articulated entirely outside of the new enclosures.
Think of the permutation as the enclosure of the commons by the plan.
Massimo De Angelis ‘3 Lecturer, University of East London “Reflections on alternatives, commons and
communities” http://www.commoner.org.uk/deangelis06.pdf
Note: they open the question of commons, they do not immediately and uniquely pose it. Between the
struggle against enclosure and the positing of commons there is a political space in which co-optation
that is the acknowledgment of struggles in order to subsume them into a new modality of capital
accumulation can still take place. Examples of this are endless and our political discourse should be aware
of this always-present danger. For example, governments’ practical solutions devised to deal with the
struggles against the enclosures in health and education as well as their crises, instead of fully recognizing
them as commons, deploy new forms of private participation in these sectors without formal
privatization. This formally acknowledges public entitlements, but at the same time shapes the nature of
their services in tune with the markets, by pitting nurses against nurses, teachers against teachers, and
“service consumers” against “service deliverers”. At the same time, the exports of service industries are
promoted, thus threatening “service consumers” and “service deliverers” in other localities. The way of
cooptation is here the way of trans-local community destruction through competition. Another example is
the acknowledgment of “commons” but without their link “to communities”, that is when commons are
not referred to community practices for their access and reproduction. For example, behind the emerging
concept of “global commons” there is, at most, an abstract concept of “global community” but no
concrete communities, no problematic of their constitution, protection and empowerment, and
articulation with each other. However, we cannot have commons (not even “global”) without community.
Another opening to co-optation may occur when, in pursuit of “legitimacy”, the movement too heavily
relies on emerging critical voices from within the camp of international financial institutions. For example,
uncritically relying on economists like Joseph Stiglitz, thinking that he could give us legitimacy because he
acknowledges many of the movements’ denunciation of the IMF and the Washington consensus policies,
could be a risky strategy. Behind these denunciations there is no agenda that is alternative to competitive
market interaction between people on the planet and capital accumulation with all its consequences.
There is no promotion of “communities” at the basis of these criticisms, but an agenda that attempts to
use our struggles to push accumulation to a possibly new phase. If it does not succeed in pushing for an
autonomous discourse on alternatives, the movement risks to capitulate to an alternative form of cooptation.
Meretz 12 [Stefan Meretz, engineer, computer scientist, and author whose publications focus on commons-based peer
production and development of a free society beyond market and state, “THE STRUCTURAL COMMUNALITY OF THE COMMONS”,
April 2012, an essay in The Wealth of the Commons by David Bollier, http://wealthofthecommons.org/essay/structuralcommunality-commons]
The commons are as varied as life itself, and yet everyone involved with them shares common convictions. If we wish to understand
these convictions, we must realize what commons mean in a practical sense, what their function is and always has been. That in turn
includes that we concern ourselves with people. After all, commons
or common goods are precisely not merely
“goods,” but a social practice that generates, uses and preserves common resources and
products. In other words, it is about the practice of commons, or commoning, and therefore also
about us. The debate about the commons is also a debate about images of humanity. So let us take a step back and begin with
the general question about living conditions.¶ Living conditions do not simply exist; instead, human beings
actively produce them. In so doing, every generation stands on the shoulders of its forebears. Creating something new and
handing down to future generations that which had been created before – and if possible, improved – has been part of human
activity since time immemorial. The historical forms in which this occurred, however, have been transformed fundamentally,
particularly since the transition to capitalism and a market economy. Although
markets have existed for millennia,
their function was not as central as they have become in contemporary capitalism, where they
set the tone. They determine the rules of global trade. They organize interactions between
producers and consumers across the world. Some observers believe they can recognize practices of the commons
even in markets. After all, they say, markets are also about using resources jointly, and according to rules that enable markets to
markets are not commons, and it is
worth understanding why.¶ Although markets are products of human action, their production
is also controlled by markets, not by human action. It is no coincidence that markets are spoken of as if they
were active subjects. We can read about what the markets are “doing” every day in the business pages. Markets decide,
prefer and punish. They are nervous, lose trust or react cautiously. Our actions take place
under the direction of the markets, not the other way around. Even a brief look at the rules mentioned
function in as unrestricted and unmanipulated ways as possible. However,
above makes that clear. Rules issued by governments first recognize the basic principles of markets, but these rules function only as
“add-ons” that are supposed to guide the effects of the markets in one direction or the other.¶ One direction may mean restricting
the effects of the market so as to attain specific social goals. Viewed in this light, the supposedly
alternative concept of
a centrally planned economy turns out to be nothing more than a radical variant of guiding
markets. The other direction can mean designing rules so that market mechanisms can flourish, in the hope that everyone is
better off in the end if individuals pursue their own material self-interest. The various schools of economic thought
reflect the different directions. They all take for granted the assumption that markets work,
and that what matters is optimizing how they work. A common feature is that none of these standard
schools of thought question markets themselves. That is why markets are at times described as “second nature”
(Fisahn 2010) – a manifestation of nature and its laws that cannot be called into question, but only
applied.¶ The habit of treating markets, and therefore also the economy, as quasi-natural beings
prompted economist Karl Polanyi to speak of a reversal of the relationship between the social and the economic: “Instead of
economy being embedded in social relations, social relations are embedded in the economic
system” (Polanyi 1957). Before the onset of capitalism, only religious ritual acts were seen as having a life of their own in this
way. The attitude was: “We cannot regulate god or the market, we can only attempt to secure their goodwill, perhaps plead or at
times outwit them, but we can never get them under control.” In the case of markets, it is the economic augurs of all kinds who take
on the task of fathoming divine will. They are interpreters of the inevitable. ¶ Markets
are not commons – and vice
versa. The fundamental principle of the commons is that the people who create the commons also create the rules for
themselves. But are people able to do so? Isn’t it better to trust in a mechanism that may be invisible and impersonal, but that is
also generally valid, rather than trying to formulate and negotiate rules oneself? Now we are at the core of the differing concepts of
humanity: the
market position assumes Homo economicus individuals maximizing their utility. 1
who at first think only of themselves and their own utility. Only by
trading on the market do they become social creatures.¶ Now, it is not these isolated individuals who
determine their social relations. As we saw above, they give themselves up to the workings of the
markets, trying to derive benefits from them. To make it abundantly clear: isolated individuals submit to an
anonymous power that is not their own by joining it and internalizing its logic. They then have the opportunity to
create and confirm their individuality by means of consumption. Consumption is also the
medium in which social life takes place. In other words, markets are not only places of
distribution; they are places where people connect and develop identities. As consumption
does not create true communality, and as many people feel isolated even in a group, the only
way out of this dilemma is more consumption. Thus, consumption creates more and more
consumption, which matches the producers’ interests to sell more and more to consumers. It also perfectly serves
the necessity of the capitalist economy to keep growing. However, consumers can never “buy our
way out” of their social isolation. Markets are based on and continuously create structural
These are isolated people
isolation.¶ Structural isolation does not mean that we do not come together or cooperate. Yet in markets, cooperation
always has the bitter flavor of competition as well. 2 We cooperate so that we can hold our ground better in
competitive situations. With the underlying necessity of competition, any cooperation on one side
implies exclusion on the other. One company’s success is another company’s failure. One country’s export surplus is
another’s trade deficit. One person’s success in applying for a job means rejection of all the other
candidates. One person’s green card means another person’s deportation. It is this aspect of markets which I call
structural exclusion. Both aspects, structural isolation and exclusion, permeate our actions,
thoughts and feelings like a gossamer web. They determine what people consider normal in
everyday life. If a fish swims in endless circles in its bowl and has learned not to bump into the glass, seemingly automatically, it
might falsely suppose it is enjoying the freedom of the ocean. If we are to withstand structural isolation and exclusion, we need
places and forms of compensation. Besides consumption, which we have already mentioned, families and other social relationships
play a central role here. Time and again, we can observe that people who lose their social relationships quickly end up in a situation
of real isolation and exclusion.¶ Structural
isolation and exclusion entail another type of behavior, one I
call structural irresponsibility. Hardly anyone wants to marginalize others, hardly anyone
wants their own advantage to be paid for by others – yet this still takes place. Isolation and
separateness in markets also mean that we cannot grasp the consequences of a purchase. Perhaps we have heard about
people in the Congo working under extreme and inhumane conditions to extract coltan, from
which tantalum for producing cellphones is extracted. But do we do without cellphones for
this reason? And we have read about t-shirts being produced with child labor, but do we pay
attention every time we buy one? Or environmental pollution caused by aluminum
production – do we even know which products contain aluminum?¶ These are only a few of countless examples that show that
it is virtually impossible to exercise personal responsibility under market conditions. Short of
massive boycotts or public organizing, consumer purchases cannot alter the labor conditions and environmental effects of
production; in this respect, money is an extremely poor means of communication.
All of our after-the-fact attempts
to contain the harmful consequences of market activity amount to a never-ending task, one
that often fails, sometimes colossally – for instance, in limiting global CO2 emissions.¶ But that is not the
only option, as the commons demonstrate. Here, people are connected to one another. They
use common resources, devise rules to sustain or increase them, and find the social forms that
fit best. The starting point is always the needs of the people involved, and those needs are never the same. In a commons,
the implicit model of humanity is not about individuals’ abstract equality, but rather their
concrete uniqueness. People participate actively in the commons process with their rich
individuality. Thus, the following is clear: if both the resources and the products are different,
and if the people involved remain special individuals, then uniform rules cannot work. But
that is not a problem in a commons because, in contrast to the market, the rules of a
commons are made by the commoners themselves. It is no simple task to establish workable rules, and they
may fail, but there are countless commons that do work, provided that certain conditions for success are taken into
account.¶ Self-organization works if it is in fact self-determined. For this reason, an important aspect during the rule-making process
is taking the participants’ different needs into account – be it in form of consensus or compromise. It is critical that people feel a
sense of fairness. Fairness is not the same thing as formal justice: It describes agreements that nobody feels they need intervene
against. That, too, is different in the case of markets. Here,
there is a system of equivalent trading that is
formally just, because in an ideal market, assets of the same economic value change hands . But
first, this holds only on average; individual cases can be unjust or even fraudulent.¶ Let us recall: People who maximize
their own benefit do so at other people’s expense, and those other people have to bear the burden. Second,
equivalent trading means that different productivities may be expressed in the same prices, but in real terms, in different amounts
of effort necessary to achieve the same price. Developing
countries have to work much harder than
industrialized ones for the same monetary yield. Is that fair? No. The market ignores
differences; commons take them into account. What is more, the market pushes differences aside;
commons thrive on them. If a few varieties of rice obtain the highest profit, then all other varieties of rice are displaced
from the market. Participants in the commons, in contrast, are aware that diversity is not a flaw –
an impediment to “maximizing value” – but a positive quality. It means more creativity, more variety,
more opportunities for learning, a better quality of life.¶ Self-organization can fail. It is often unsuccessful if
alien logic creeps into practices of the commons, and that can occur in very different ways. For example, if equal portions of a finite
resource are made available for the people involved to use (formally just), then it may well be that individuals feel this arrangement
to be unfair. This may be the case if the resource is of lesser quality, or if the needs of the people involved differ for reasons made
transparent. Formally equal distribution must be augmented by additional criteria that are to be taken into account until everyone
feels things are fair.¶ As soon as fairness is neglected, the
danger arises that individual strategies for
maximizing utility prevail. Then, market thinking enters into the commons. If one person
begins to push through his or her individual goals at other people’s expense, fairness is
undermined to an ever greater degree. Others respond in kind, a downward spiral sets in, and
in the end, self-organization fails. Market ideologues are aware of this effect and occasionally
employ it in order to destroy commons. For example, in Peru (and elsewhere) the proposal was made to divide up
land that had previously been used jointly and to distribute it to the indigenous popul-a-tion with individual titles of ownership–
formally just, of course. Members
of communities were to be transformed into isolated, utilitymaximizing individuals. The indigenous population rejected this plan because they realized it
would endanger their lifestyle. 3¶ Commons work only if everybody is included in the community and nobody is
excluded. They are based on cooperation, and they generate cooperation. They enable responsible action,
and they require it. In this sense, the social practices of commons represent structural communality. Commons projects represent a
practical rebuttal to the Homo economicus paradigm. Nobody
has to have certain characteristics in order to
participate in commons projects, but many people change when they do. In commons, people can live as
what they have actually always been: societal beings who jointly create their living conditions.
In contrast to the logic of the market, individuals have nothing to gain from having their way at other people’s expense. A central
step in learning about practices of the commons is understanding that one’s
own needs are taken into account
only if other people’s needs are also part of the common activities. I call this aspect of the
commons structural inclusion. The Ubuntu 4 philosophy of the Zulu and Xhosa puts it in these words: “I am because you
are, and I can be only if you are.Ӧ Actually, this expresses something obvious. It seems so special to us because we have been
trained from an early age to struggle as individuals against others. Selection determines our experiences at school; opportunities in
life are allocated along with grades. We experience selection in markets when we need to sell our labor or our products. We
experience selection when we are sick or old, when we worry about receiving appropriate care. Selection is the means of structural
exclusion employed in the logic of the market. Whatever “doesn’t make money” falls between the cracks.¶ To be sure, the commons
have boundaries, and it must be decided who belongs and who does not. We have learned from Elinor Ostrom that drawing such
boundaries is important – at least in the case of rival common resources.5 In
a commons, there is a very different
social logic at play than in market settings; the criteria for access and use may include one’s local affiliations,
contributions of labor and particular uses of the commons. For example, rules of open-access usage make sense
for goods that are non-rival and not consumed or “used up” (such as collaborative websites like Wikipedia or
free software programs); such rules help avoid underuse of the resource and the danger that they might be abandoned. In contrast,
goods that are rival and consumptive, such as land, water or fisheries, require other sorts of rules because in such cases the problem
is overuse, not underuse.¶ What is decisive in the success of a commons is which rules are recognized by the community as
reasonable or necessary. Here, the primary question is not whether something pays off, but what sustains the commons and their
resources so that everyone involved can benefit in the long term. The
social form is valuable in and of itself, as
social relationships are the decisive means for settling disputes. And conflicts are to be
resolved in such a way that everyone feels that the process and its results are fair, as
discussed above.¶ Thus, commons structurally generate responsibility on the part of their
participants for preserving the resource and the collective relationships, while markets
generally do not. Commoners are in charge of shaping the social relationships involved; therefore, they can take responsibility
for their actions. However, this also entails their responsibility to do so. In the commons, it is possible to deal with
conflicting goals and varying needs before taking action. In the market, however, action
comes first, and then the consequences are dealt with later. The market is seldom capable of
mediating between different needs and identifying responsible solutions because maximum
profits is the touchstone for choice.¶ We are all aware of such paradoxes. We want to drive on a good road network
without congestion, but object to having major roads pass by our front doors. We want environmentally friendly energy to replace
nuclear power, but we object to windmills marring the landscape. We object to fish stocks being depleted, but want to purchase
fresh and cheap fish. Different needs and goals conflict with one another, and the one that can mobilize the most market and
political power will prevail. First, we create a fait accompli, then we have to suffer the consequences. ¶ In
the commons,
people are capable of mediating between different needs and desires from the outset. Farmers
can come to an understanding about joint usage of pastures in advance, and can do so time and again to avoid overexploitation of
the common resource; fisherfolk can arrange for sustainable fishing quotas, in contrast to nation-states, each of which wants
maximum usage for itself; free software projects can agree on programming priorities. Filmmaker Kevin Hansen speaks about
commons cultivating a sense of overarching responsibility: “A
commons approach innately presumes
responsibility and rights for all. No one is left out. It is the responsibility of all commons
trustees (effectively, this means everyone) to be responsible – even for those who do not
speak.... [T]his includes not only the young, elderly or disabled people who cannot speak for
themselves. It also means the disenfranchised, the poor, the indigenous and other humans
who have traditionally not had a significant voice in politics and economics.” 6¶ While including
everyone is part of the logic of the commons in terms of principle and structure, such inclusion does not occur automatically, but
must be implemented intentionally. The freedom to shape arrangements that exist in principle also entails a necessity to do so. That
is different from market relationships, where rules are set externally and uniformly. Whichever option earns money prevails. In a
commons, communities must themselves determine the rules appropriate for individual situations and for the people involved in
them.
In the process, the temptation to achieve gain at the expense of others, after all, is
ubiquitous, coming from the logic of the market. Yet to the other, I am the other as well. If I prevail at the
expense of others, they will do the same (or exclude me). That would be the beginning of a downward spiral, a development we
know well. The company that lowers wages faster than others generates more jobs. The one that cuts benefits most can obtain
credit in order to survive. That is the
logic of the markets, where most people end up losing, and even
the winners cannot be sure whether they themselves might be among the losers tomorrow.
We can establish commons and their structural communality, inclusion and generation of
responsibility on the part of their participants only in opposition to the logic of exclusion. That
is never easy, but it is worth the effort.
Perm fails – the alternative would be co-opted by state actions at the behest of
capital
De Angelis 6 [Massimo De Angelis, Professor of Political Economy at the University of East London, “The Beginning of History
Value Struggles and Global Capital”, December 2006, published by Pluto Press, pages 87-89]
GOVERNMENTALITY There are however times in which this 'balance' cannot be maintained and conflict threatens the particular
forms of disciplinary mechanism as well as their very rationale. The 'disequilibria' of flow, the cycles, the ebb and flow of business
activity are no longer sufficient to discipline subjects, to channel norms of behaviour, to make them accept and internalise the
normality of competitive market interaction. To the extent that this happens, crisis presents itself as a crisis of social stability, a crisis
that, whatever its systemic trigger, calls into question the viability and/or legitimacy of many of the qualitative transformations
necessary for accumulation (M-C-M'). From the perspective of accumulation, social stability is the stability of social arrangements
and interaction in forms compatible with the accumulation process, the extensive commodification of life, particular forms of
disciplinary processes of market interaction and extraction of work. It is ultimately a stability of the coupling between reproduction
and production, between the value practices centred on life preservation in the broad sense and the value practices centred on the
preservation of capital. Thus,
there are potentially many instances in which social stability thus
defined enters into crisis: when capital is increasingly unable to guarantee access to the goods and services necessary for
reproducing bodies and social cohesion corresponding to given 'class compositions'; or when the aspirations of new generations are
at odds with the 'deals' agreed by older generations and their struggles begin to shape the times; or when subjectification has gone
so far as to erase all hope and bring exasperation to large sectors of the population; or when, on the contrary, hope is self-generated
by social movements that challenge what they believe is the subordination of nature, dignity, peace, justice, life to greed, but that
we can read as the systemic drive of accumulation; or
when a combination of these and other factors
emerges in particular historical circumstances so as to¶ threaten the legitimacy of many of the
enclosures and integration practices and processes at the root of accumulation. These are all
the cases that, from the perspective of capital's conatus of self-preservation, require strategic
intervention beyond mere repression and coercion. What capital needs here is an approach
that allows the acknowledgment of the problems and issues at the basis of the crisis as 'social
stability', but at the same time co-opts them within the mechanism of accumulation and its
value practices.¶ This double function can be described, in general terms, using Foucault's term 'governmentality’ This is an
art of government that, unlike 'enclosures', is not based on decree but on management,
although this, as we shall see, is also predicated on the iron fist of the state. With governmentality,
the question is 'not of imposing law on men but of disposing things:9 that is of employing tactics rather than laws, or even of using
laws themselves as tactics - to arrange things in such a way that, through a certain number of means, such-and-such ends may be
achieved' (Foucault 2002:211). We cannot here discuss this category in detail, at. Foucault's work on this issue is dense with
historical details and insights.10 For our purposes here, governmentality is the management of networks of social relations on the
frontline of conflicting value practices.11 This management does not come from a transcendental authority that is external to the
network itself, such as in the problematic of the Machiavellian prince. Rather, the problem and solution of authority is all internal to
the network, and it is for this reason that it¶
deploys tactics rather than laws: tactics and strategies aimed at
creating a context in which the nodes interact without escaping the value practices of capital.
Social stability compatible with the priorities and flows necessary for accumulation is one of
the rationales of capitalist governmentality.¶ Examples of these practices are post-war
Keynesianism and the current dis- courses of neoliberal governance. A classic example of this
'governmentality'¶ is the productivity deals that were at the heart of the Keynesian era. These where the result of a long institutional
process grounded on the crisis and struggles of the 1930s, the worldwide revolutionary ferments following the Russian Revolution,
and became the kernel not only of Keynesian policies, but also the hidden parametric assumptions of post-Second World War
Keynesian models. Here the state did not implement laws establishing prices and wages¶ (when it tried this in emergency
situations it usually failed), but promoted guidelines and an institutional context in which unions and capital would negotiate within
an overall framework. In other words, 'social stability' in the case of Keynesianism was
seen as the output of a production
process that had 'government' as its 'facilitator' and class struggle as its enforcer on the global ¶ 12
scene. While I refer the reader to the literature for a discussion of Keynesianism,¶ in. what follows I want to deal with the modern
form of governmentality: neoliberal governance.
Specifically in Latin America, state-based politics fail to capture the needs of the
individual and corrupt self-determination – their authors assume the necessity
of intellectuals in the process of change
Quandt 2k10 (Midge, historian and solidarity activist who works with The
Nicaragua Network in Washington, DC, “Grass Roots Movements and Electoral
Politics: Strategies for Change in Latin America” May 1 2010,
http://www.quandt.com/all3together.pdf )
Both the practice and idea of horizontalism are rooted in the everyday experience of the
marginalized: the failure of all forms of authority, of government, party leaders, union
organizers, bosses and managers, to meet their basic needs; the consequent importance of
neighborhood and ¶ geographical space, rather than the factory, as the foci of uprisings and ¶
organizing. Experience, practice and theory interacted as ideas migrated ¶ back and forth
between protagonists and writers. It is important to remember ¶ here, as activist and
anthropologist David Graeber reminds us, that ¶ academics usually overestimate the role of
intellectuals in the production of ¶ ideas when actually the process is a two-way street.18 An
Argentinian ¶ activist put the back-and-forth process this way: “Before the rebellion, only a few
circles discussed the idea of the state and read things by people like ¶ John Holloway and
Antonio Negri about old concepts of power. The [old] ¶ idea was to take power. There was a
reaction of the extreme opposite, that is, ¶ forget about the state and build territorial
power.”19¶ Many who write about these new movements champion their ¶ commitment to
“politics from below.” Winning control of the state apparatus ¶ as the fulcrum of social change
is rejected not only because Latin American ¶ governments could not deliver economic and
social benefits to the poor, but ¶ also because all states and political parties, whether
vanguardist or ¶ parliamentary, are regarded by this camp as inherently hierarchical and ¶
authoritarian. The post-Marxist dislike of verticalism and preference for ¶ autonomy, together
with a participatory process, is important for ¶ understanding the new movements. It
predisposes many observers (some of ¶ whom cut their teeth on Marxist analysis) to uphold the
idea of change from ¶ the bottom up. The notion of “power over,” in some cases, even the idea
of power at all, is seen as hostile to self-determination and solidarity.20 Parties ¶ and
governments on the left are as suspect as others. They still are tainted with the logic of
domination . ¶ Both activists and scholars write in this vein. Some texts are rooted in ¶ particular
movements, such as Marina Sitrin’s book on uprisings in ¶ Argentina, aptly entitled
Horizontalism; and Raúl Zibechi’s study of ¶ Bolivia’s rebellion, Dispensar el Poder: Los
Movimientos como Poderes ¶ Antiestatales. And the Uruguayan sociologist Zibechi’s other
writings have ¶ also made important contributions to this discourse.21 In addition, two ¶
theoretical works have been very influential among post-marxist writers and ¶ activists: Change
the World Without Taking Power by John Holloway ¶ (2002) and Empire by Michael Hardt and
Antonio Negri (2000). Both theoretical contributions have been widely discussed in the ¶ North
and South. (Holloway, a Scotsman, teaches at the Autonomous ¶ University in Puebla, Mexico.)
Using the Zapatista rebellion as a model, ¶ Change the World situates itself within the “open
marxism” of Negri and ¶ others.22 Thus, Holloway moves beyond the traditional working class to
¶ include peasants, women, students ― indeed all of those oppressed by ¶ capitalist society
(which turns out to be almost everyone) as agents of ¶ revolution. In addition, he rejects not only
state power but the whole notion ¶ of “power over” as opposed to “power to” in his reworking
of Marxism. ¶ The weakening of the state that supposedly accompanies globalization ¶ is the
starting point of Hardt and Negri’s Empire. The process of ¶ globalization is the rationale for
their contention that control of state is ¶ superfluous. Because empire, in contrast to the
imperialism of the 20th¶ century, has no center of power and by-passes national
sovereignty.23 It is a ¶ supranational, non-territorial network of power (with the U.S.
admittedly at ¶ the forefront). Hardt and Negri do not deny that empire is coercive, but they ¶
argue that “the insurgent multitude,” once it is politically organized, can and ¶ will resist the new
forms of capitalist domination. Although the concept of ¶ the multitude is not a synonym for civil
society here, it is close enough to ¶ give theoretical fuel to the non-statist arguments for
systemic change that ¶ have appeared inside and outside the academy in recent years.
AT: “We Don’t Make X Country Capitalist”
Even absent a complete transformation toward capitalism, enclosure can
happen – capitalist relations and rationality can still become dominant in
otherwise non-capitalist, peripheral nations
Coronil and Skurski ’82 (Fernando Coronil and Julie Skurski; Massachusetts Institute of
Technology; Winter 1982; “Reproducing Dependency: Auto Industry Policy and Petrodollar
Circulation in Venezuela;” International Organization, Vol. 36, No. 1, pp. 61-94; JSTOR)
Paradoxically, then, the dependency perspective starts from the recog-nition of the partial
nature of peripheral capitalism, but its analysis tends to proceed as if capitalist relations and
rationality inexorably become dominant in peripheral nations. Insofar as the domination of
local economies by inter-national capital is confused with the generalization of capitalist
relations throughout dependent societies, the problem of the transition to capitalism in these
societies is bypassed. From a process to be explained, capitalism becomes an all-embracing
explanatory category.
AT: Neoliberalism = Sustainable
The neoliberal ‘self-regulating sustainable market’ is a façade to hide the
deliberate control and regulation destroying both social relations and the
environment
Munck 2k6 (Ronaldo, professor of sociology at Dublin City University. Professor Munck earned
his PhD in sociology from the University of Essex, “Globalization and Contestation: A Polanyian
Problematic”, Globalizations June 2006, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 175–186,
http://www.dcu.ie/community/contestation_1.pdf )
According to Polanyi, who was writing during the cataclysm of the Second World War, ‘the fount
and matrix of the [capitalist] system was the self-regulating market’ (Polanyi, 2001, p. 3).¶
Polanyi traces the birth of market society as we know it to Britain’s Industrial Revolution of the¶
nineteenth century. Previous societies had been organized on principles of reciprocity or
redistribution or householding, now exchange would be the sole basis of social and economic
integration. Markets were previously an accessory feature in a system controlled and
regulated by social authority . Henceforth the market ruled unchallenged and changed society
in its¶ image: ‘A market economy can exist only in a market society’ (Polanyi, 2001, p. 74).
Economic¶ liberalism was the organizing principle of the new market society where economics
and politics¶ were, for the first time, split up. What is remarkable about this economic discourse
is that: ‘The¶ road to the free market was opened and kept open by an enormous increase in
continuous centrally organized and controlled interventionism’ (Polanyi, 2001, p. 146). As with
neo-liberalism¶ in the 1980s, laissez-faire economics was nothing if not planned .¶ Polanyi’s
self-regulating market was to be based on the ‘fictitious commodities’ of land,¶ labour and
money. That labour should become a commodity that could be bought and sold¶ was
essential to the logic of the market economy. But, as Polanyi (2000, p. 75) argues,¶ ‘labor, land,
and money are obviously not commodities ... Labor is only another name for a¶ human activity
which goes with life itself ... land is only another name for nature, which is¶ not produced by
man; actually money, finally, is merely a token of purchasing power’.¶ Polanyi goes further than
Marx to argue that ‘labour power’ is but an ‘alleged commodity’ precisely because it ‘cannot
be shoved about, used indiscriminately, or even left unused without¶ affecting also the
human individual who happens to be the bearer of this peculiar commodity’¶ (Polanyi, 2001, p.
76). This is more than a moral critique of capitalism, however, because¶ Polanyi goes on to argue
that trade unions, for example, should be quite clear that their¶ purpose is precisely ‘that of
interfering with the laws of supply and demand in respect ofhuman labour, and removing it
from the orbit of the market’ (Polanyi, 2001, p. 186). Any move¶ from within society to remove
any element from the market (‘decommodification’) thus challenges the market economy in
its fundamentals.¶ When Polanyi distinguishes between real and fictitious commodities he is
going beyond the¶ moral principle that people or nature should not be treated as though they
could be bought ¶ and sold. The project of creating a fully self-regulating market economy
required this¶ fiction but if fully implemented then society and the environment would both
be destroyed .¶ In practice, against the basic tenets of liberalism (and in our era’s neoliberalism), the state¶ plays a continuous, intensive role in regulating the flow of labour across
frontiers; educating¶ and training workers, dealing with unemployment, and so on. The use of
land in rural and¶ urban areas is tightly controlled by the state. In actually existing market
societies the state¶ plays a guiding economic role and is never ‘outside’ of the market in any real
sense. As¶ Polanyi puts it:¶ Undoubtedly, labor, land and money are essential to a market
economy. But no society could stand¶ the effects of such a system of crude fiction for the
shortest stretch of time unless its human and¶natural substance as well as its business
organization was protected against the ravages of this¶satanic mill. (Polanyi, 2001, pp. 76–77)¶
The self-regulating or self-adjusting market was, for Polanyi, a ‘stark-utopia’ in the sense
that¶ it could not be achieved: ‘ Such an institution could not exist for any length of time
without annihilating the human and natural substance of society; it would have physically
destroyed man and transformed his surroundings into a wilderness ’ (Polanyi, 2001, p. 3). In
modern terminology,¶ the self-regulating market was neither socially nor environmentally
sustainable. Neo-liberals¶ today have developed a similarly fundamentalist discourse based on
the ‘magic of the¶ market’. Central to this identity is the notion that government interference in
economic affairs¶ must be reversed and that the individual market agent or ‘entrepreneur’
should be given a¶ free hand. In this grand schema society does not exist and nature is seen
simply as a factor of¶ production. This market system and the associated laissez-faire ideology
‘created the delusion¶ of economic determinism’ (Polanyi, 1947, p. 70) against which Polanyi
calls for ‘the reabsorption of the economic system in society, for the creative adaptation of our
ways of life to an industrial environment’ (Polanyi, 1947, p. 143).¶ For Polanyi, in his day, but
probably even more so today, ‘The true implications of economic¶ liberalism can now be taken in
at a glance. Nothing less than a self-regulating market on a world¶ scale could ensure the
functioning of this stupendous mechanism’ (Polanyi, 2001, p. 145). Globalization, in the
broadest sense of the word, can thus be seen as inherent in the free-market¶ project. The
world, naturally enough from this perspective, becomes just one giant marketplace¶ where
everything and everybody can be bought and sold. Social relations are reduced to market¶
relations. The ‘opening up’ of the world market becomes the raison d’eˆtre of development,
wit¶ only some token gestures paid to social and human development. What Polanyi analyzed
for the¶ national level—in terms of a separation of the economy from the social and political
domains of¶ human life—is now becoming realized and empowered on the global terrain. Even
the proponents of ‘globalization with a human face’ in the United Nations and elsewhere simply
take¶ this free-market project and ideology for granted
AT: Cede the Political
The alternative is the most political action – creates a new form of politics
centered around the community
Motta 13 (Sara C., Lecturer in Latin American and Comparative Politics at the School of Politics
and International Relations, University of Nottingham, “Reinventing the Lefts in Latin America:
Critical Perspectives from Below”, Latin American Perspectives 2013 40: 5)
Out of these counter-spatialities come new conceptions of the political . First, ¶ there is a
politics of life that cuts to the very heart of the logics of neoliberal globalization, in which large
sections of the popular classes become disposable, ¶ reduced to conditions of bare life in
which they are unable to ensure their social ¶ reproduction and survival (see Agamben, 1998;
Rancière, 2004). Yet from these ¶ conditions emerge struggles that challenge the foundations of
capitalist accumulation. Paradigmatic of this is the contribution of Philipp Terhorst, Marcela ¶
Olivera, and Alexander Dwinell, who point out that “the basis of water movements in a
‘commons’ approach generates . . . a renewed reference point for the community and
alternative community economies of water. The activists themselves see it as a new kind of
politics , a new kind of economics, and a new model ¶ of life that has far-reaching implications
for politics and society in general.” It is ¶ from concrete and particular struggles for basic
resources that practices are ¶ developed that enable the flourishing, remembering, and
reinvention of cosmologies, social relationships, and political imaginaries. This prefigurative
politics ¶ challenge the basis of capitalism by enacting an alternative basis of social life.
At: We are nice
Neoliberal accumulation isn’t about intention – the plan falls within the
geography of neoliberal enclosure
Nik Heynen ‘5 James McCarthy, Scott Prudham, and Paul Robbins Neoliberal Promises
At the most general or over-arching, "big-picture" level, neoliberalism has been examined by David
Harvey as a global project to restore, renew, and expand the conditions for capital accumulation and, in
related fashion, to restore power to economic elites (or to establish it where it did not already exist)
(Harvey 2005; see also Dumenil and Levy 2004). Harvey argues that neoliberalism is not only an abstract
set of ideas about how to best to organize society to facilitate the production of wealth and allow for the
maximization of freedom, as many proponents of neoliberalism would have it. Rather, he argues that
neoliberalism is an intensely political project, one in which economic elites more or less intentionally seek
to increase their wealth and income, but also their political and economic freedom and flexibility by
rolling back the redistributive reforms of the mid-twentieth century (particularly those adopted in the
aftermath of the global Great Depression of the 1930s), reforms often dubbed by an additional shorthand
concept of Keynesianism. As evidence, Harvey and others point to the fact that central elements of the
neoliberal era have featured the rollback of regulations on capital accumulation coupled with reductions
in social safety net provisions and state-coordinated redistribution of wealth and income, with evident
consequences in spiralling social inequality. While we agree in substantial measure, it is also important to
recognize that neoliberalism has an important intellectual, discursive, and ideological lineage which helps
lend at least the appearance of coherence and consistency to what we admit (and seek to problematize in
this volume) as disparate, context-contingent projects. Returning to and fusing ideas drawn from classical
political as well as economic liberalism (hence the name), neoliberal discourses tend to emphasize at least
the idea (often selectively invoked in practice) of so-called "laissez-faire" economic regulation, i.e. shifting
and "rolling back" the state apparatus where it is seen to impinge upon capital investment, commodity
production, and market exchange, typically via championing abstract constructions of yeoman
entrepreneurial capitalists and small businesses (as opposed to powerful, footloose multinationals)
struggling under the oppressive weight of an overbearing state. Neoliberalism tends also to reinforce and
celebrate strong private, individual, and exclusive property rights. Proponents tend to invoke specifically
political notions of liberalism with emphasis on the rights, freedoms, and responsibilities of individuals,
again typically posed in relation to a monolithic state represented as singularly in opposition to the
realization of individual freedom.'
At: “Overthrow” Bad/Trans Wars
The alternative is not an attempt to overthrow capitalism; it’s not even about
capitalism – it’s about neoliberalism, but more specifically, it’s about resisting
ENCLOSURES – it’s something totally different.
The question for the alt is how there can be life despite capitalism, not after
capitalism. The key claim is the production of commons as a social practice, not
necessarily an attempt to re-engineer society. What’s importance is the
opposition to enclosures.
Massimo De Angelis ‘4 Lecturer, University of East London, Historical Materialism, volume 12:2 (57–
87) “Separating the Doing and the Deed”
However, we must be fully aware of the implications of this discourse on commons. As we have seen,
since commons emerge out of a relational social field, they are defined in opposition to enclosures. In
other words, just as capital’s drive for accumulation must identify a common as limit for its expansion and
thus outline strategies of new enclosures,67 so the building of alternatives to capital must identify a
strategic space in which current enclosures are limiting the development of new commons. To be able to
identify, so to speak, ‘them’ as the limit of ‘our’ project would be a great strength, a strength that is based
on processes of political recomposition and constitution of projects that pose the concrete question of
alternatives here and now, and not in a distant future. In other words, life despite capitalism and not life
after capitalism. How can we politically invert capital’s strategies and identify enclosures as limits for nonmarket social interactions and as a strategic space for new commons? This is the true strategic challenge
faced by the many articulations of today’s global justice and solidarity movement. As I have argued
elsewhere, to be viable and desirable, a process for the definition and constitution of alternatives requires
nothing less than participatory, inclusive and democratic forms of organisation that found their political
practice on formulating and addressing questions such as ‘What do we want?’, ‘How do we go about
getting it?’ and ‘Who is “we”?’.68 Raising and addressing these naïve questions as part of our political
practice implies that we participate in the production of a discursive inversion of the ‘ordinary run of
things’, and the opening up of the many spaces for alternatives and the problematisation of their
articulation