Confronting Empire

February 3, 2003 11:04 AM

Confronting Empire

"Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness - and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we're being brainwashed to believe. The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling - their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability. Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them. Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing."

Arundhati Roy in her inimitable style speaking at Life After Capitalism at the World Social Forum, 2003, Porto Alegre, Brazil, January 27, 2003, organised by Znet.
posted by nofundy (53 comments total)

"The free market does not threaten national sovereignty, it undermines democracy."
Well, maybe both really. I loved the comment towards the end about the "doggy door". She has a way with words, and it's nice to see someone pointing to a way out of this hell, however idealistic it might seem.
posted by Outlawyr at 11:22 AM on February 3, 2003

Just plain silly -- one of the many "stories" the weak and the defeated tell themselves to keep from accepting reality.

A billion people would emigrate to the heart of the "empire" (the United States) tomorrow, and would spend the next twenty years accumating big houses in the suburbs, SUVs, and Ivy League admissions to assure that their kids could be princes anbd princesses of the "empire"....
posted by MattD at 11:35 AM on February 3, 2003

What's amazing is that people find this admirable. She equates capitalism with Nazism, and her alternative?

Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.
posted by goethean at 11:40 AM on February 3, 2003

Her closing line is not "her alternative." She spells out examples of people speaking out, demonstrating, and otherwise trying to make positive change.
posted by Outlawyr at 11:43 AM on February 3, 2003

MattD: and your point is? It's good to be on top? Exploiting the world's recourses for your own short term gain works? Fuck everybody else, we're OK?

Seriously, what is your point?
posted by signal at 11:49 AM on February 3, 2003

mattd misread the article. the article did not equate 'empire' with 'the united states' but rather with the united states government as one part of the corporate globalization movement. he obviously thought otherwise, which is surprising, given the definitions were right up top:

When we speak of confronting "Empire," we need to identify what "Empire" means. Does it mean the U.S. Government (and its European satellites), the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, and multinational corporations? Or is it something more than that?

In many countries, Empire has sprouted other subsidiary heads, some dangerous byproducts — nationalism, religious bigotry, fascism and, of course terrorism. All these march arm in arm with the project of corporate globalization.
posted by quonsar at 11:59 AM on February 3, 2003

Bravo. It's good to be reminded periodically that none of this is inevitable.
posted by muckster at 12:11 PM on February 3, 2003

nickels worth of dumb courage in a dollar world.
posted by clavdivs at 12:14 PM on February 3, 2003

My point is that Roy's conception of resistance is a self-indulgent myth of a microscopically small contingent of intellectuals. A different, far less intellectual, resistance to modernity is more real, but for that has not much more ability to withstand the overwhelming force of reason, if properly applied.

In the world of free choice, all of those with the ability to do so embrace the freedom, opportunity and modernity which Roy misrepresents as the "empire", except for those few for whom oppression and anti-Americanism represent a profitable line of trade.

To take just India, appropriate for Roy -- how many tens of millions of teenagers have as their one short-term goal in life to gain admission to an IIT campus, and as the sole objective if they achieve that goal to emigrate to the US for a nice engineering job or medical internship and the chance to found their own company after that?

There is no "world" being exploited. There are only individuals seeking prosperity, and no doubt whatsoever that everyone (absent a trivial fringe) would most like to seek it in the American manner if given the chance.

If we're fortunate enough in the next few years to put paid all the snakes of the Middle East, the one (misguided) redoubt of mass anti-Americanism will vanish into history.
posted by MattD at 12:23 PM on February 3, 2003

There is no "world" being exploited.

hhahaha... spoken like a true american.
posted by specialk420 at 12:33 PM on February 3, 2003

MattD:

There is no "world" being exploited. There are only individuals seeking prosperity

Been to any sweatshops, ex-rainforests, slums, poliitical prisons, diamond mines or fruit plantations lately? No exploitation my ass.

no doubt whatsoever that everyone (absent a trivial fringe) would most like to seek it in the American manner if given the chance

Care to back up this rather extravagant claim?

I understand you're quite content in whatever part of the worlds you live, but dismissing people who actually suffer and deal with the ugly side of globalisation as "a trivial fringe" is a bit of a stretch, no?
posted by signal at 12:36 PM on February 3, 2003

"I find her writing vain, shrill, unoriginal, oversimplified, hyperbolic and lacking any voices but her own.
Her demonology is more capacious than that of the Ramayana; We would all be better off were she to revert to fiction." historian Ramachandra Guha.
It's so hollywoodesque to see that being a mult-millionaire doesn't stop Ms. Roy from raging against the machine.
posted by Mack Twain at 12:36 PM on February 3, 2003

Thing is, Arundhati Roy doesn't actually tell us what she wants. She says she doesn't want globalization. That's nice, I don't want it either (and I'm a capitalist!). But she doesn't say what she does want. What kind of a system does she want to govern world trade? She can't say. She doesn't want the "War on Terror". Ok, but what does she plan to do about those terrorists? Negotiation and fighting poverty helps, but it will only go so far. Thirdly, what practical measures is she really going to take to stop this "Empire"? Well, she's going to mock it and protest it. That's a nice start, but if she writes a nasty limerick about a pro-globalization politician, and some CEO hands him a sack of money, who's going to get listened to, particularly when there are no moderate capitalist alternatives offered? The name of the forum is called "life after capitalism. Just because people don't like globalization, you can't assume everyone's going to be pro-socialist. They want a more moderate form of capitalism, with checks and balances, and Ms. Roy can't offer that. Until the anti-globalization folks think up non-radical practical solutions to the problems they're complaining about, they're not going to be able to change anything.
posted by unreason at 12:38 PM on February 3, 2003

"If we're fortunate enough in the next few years to put paid all the snakes of the Middle East, the one (misguided) redoubt of mass anti-Americanism will vanish into history."

Capitalist determinism! Join up now kids, it’s the new dialetical materialism!
posted by raaka at 12:39 PM on February 3, 2003

I didn't mean to go off on MattD like that, but it's galling how in almost any thread even vaguely critical of US foreign policy, some [expletive deleted] jumps up with an amazing non-sequitur which essentially boils down to "if our foreign policy's so bad, how come so many people wanna live here?". And then uses the brilliant label "anti-american", as a symbol of how precise and specific their reasoning is.
posted by signal at 12:42 PM on February 3, 2003

[overheard on cell phone]
Hey! It's me. Great, thanks. So there's this Indian chick, Roy something... The tranzi kids think she's the greatest. I think she's just what we're looking for for the new Nike campaign -- it's all about rebellion, about opposing the dominant paradigm. What? Sure, she's doomed! She's a fuckin nitwit, but the pose she strikes -- whoa. Besides, dumb is in. So I'm seeing a quick cut spot, hand-held video, real grainy, her in the streets, some shitty 3rd world farm, then arms crossed in front of IMF HQ, looking defiant... then in with the swooshtika. "Nike: Change Your World." Or something like that. Her agent says we can get her cheap. Huh? No, all those idiots marching in fuckin Davos or DC or whatever -- I wanna see them all in Nikes. Look, I just think we need to option this chick now, before fuckin Benetton sees this op.
posted by Hieronymous Coward at 12:45 PM on February 3, 2003

From MattD: If we're fortunate enough in the next few years to put paid all the snakes of the Middle East, the one (misguided) redoubt of mass anti-Americanism will vanish into history.

From What the World Thinks in 2002:

U.S. image problems are not confined to Muslim countries. The worldwide polling conducted throughout the summer and fall finds few people, even in friendly nations, expressing a very favorable opinion of America, and sizable minorities in Western Europe and Canada having an unfavorable view.

Heh.
posted by moonbiter at 1:04 PM on February 3, 2003

On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.

Sad thing is, there ain't gonna be a quiet day in the next decades when the numbers of those impovered and hungry will double. We are talking billions of unheard cries here.
posted by zerofoks at 1:11 PM on February 3, 2003

So, basically, she wants to sell a different product to us. To compete in the marketplace. Go ahead, babe. But that's the very capitalism that you and your cohorts claim to despise.
posted by dagny at 1:32 PM on February 3, 2003

... except for the fact that she doesn't seem to be against capitalism, per se, but corporatism e.g. the way capitalism is practiced by multi-natinal corporations who definitely do not value market competition. I am basing this on reading her speech, I have no other real knowlege about her other than her great fiction. However you may be right about her cohorts.

An interesting sidebar could be Brazil's new leader, who spoke both at Davos and Porto Alegre, and was well-recieved at both events.
posted by cell divide at 1:42 PM on February 3, 2003

To blame capitalism is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The world is not black and white. Whenever I see rage against the "system" it just shows a complete lack of understanding of the complexities of how the world works. Children see the world as good and evil. Adults understand that even the most evil deed is usually done with good intentions and guidence and solutions come from understanding and change from within. There are appropriate times for creative destruction and revolution but not in this case, too much good comes out of capitalism.
posted by stbalbach at 1:56 PM on February 3, 2003

cell...

Everyone is against monopolies, the free marketers more than anyone. Both the US and the EU have very strict rules against international mergers which affect the domestic price structure, in an attempt to head off this type of thing.

What really gets me about Roy, though, is her appaling lack of historical qualification. She writes, as mentioned, of the evils of "nationalism, religious bigotry, fascism and, of course terrorism. All these march arm in arm with the project of corporate globalization. "

How exactly are those things related? If anything, nationalism, fascism and terrorism are concepts entirely opposite of what globalization, especially through large corporations, want to attain. Corporations that are large have the clout to help nations retain stability (witness the pressure of corps. on Roy's India, forcing Vajyapee to take down the rhetoric a little). The whole idea of nationalism, even, is antithesis to globalization.

I also get the feeling that a lot of people see "sweatshops, the destruction of the rain forest, slums and diamond mines" as problems of corporate globalization. It's simply not true. Many things that we call "sweatshops" in the States are an improvement on working conditions without globalization. So the people are getting paid 3 bucks a day in Kwabelistan - they would have been working doing substinence farming. No country stays at that level forever either. South Korea was "sweatshops" fifty years ago, was it not?

Are there changes that need to be made to globalization? Sure. If Roy actually had solutions that were feasible in the real world, where individuals act with some sort of self-interest a lot of the time, I would love to hear them.

All I'm hearing now is anti-Western rhetoric.
posted by Kevs at 2:01 PM on February 3, 2003

'Corporations that are large have the clout to help nations retain stability ' - sadly, they use this power to destabalise, usually.

'sweatshops fifty years ago' - need we repeat the mistakes of the past?

'Indeed, the vocabulary of finance and economics is itself a world of double speak that obscures the real nature and ways of money. For example, we politely use the term investors, when speaking of the speculators whose gambling destabilizes global financial markets. We use the terms money, capital, assets, and wealth interchangeably, leaving us with no simple means to express the difference between money—a mere number—and real wealth—which is comprised of things of real value—such as food, our labour, fertile land, buildings, machinery, and technology—things that sustain our lives and increase our productive output. Thus we accept the speculators claim that they are creating wealth, when they are actually expropriating it, and honour them with special tax breaks and protections. Such confusion has led us to establish a capitalist system of world rule by money that is literally killing us.'

free market capitalism has some pretty fundamental problems (.pdf) in my eyes. a system that does not value good parenthood is of questionable value (i.e. where do economists factor in time spent child-rearing?). a system that allows unscrupulous people to make alot of money from doing no 'real' work, such as currency speculators and day traders (not to mention those who bet on the market), which actually destablises the economic situation is not the best system for getting the best from or for everyone.

'if international financial liberalization is desirable from the perspective of international institutions and the U.S. and other governments, the message of this paper (.pdf) is that the surest route to sustained liberalization is enabling sustained democratization.'
not the other way round.

there are thousands of alternatives, if you look for them. the income gap is growing, the world is becoming less stable, something has to change.

discussing defining globalisation (from the link):
'But we're stuck with "globalisation". It does not begin to do justice to the richness and complexity of the changes that are happening as the world grows more interdependent and more connected, but around this one word has developed the first great debate of the 21st century.'

sorry about the length.
posted by asok at 2:44 PM on February 3, 2003

fiddlesicks, some of those links require registration
posted by asok at 2:51 PM on February 3, 2003

fiddlesicks, some of those links require registration.
posted by asok at 2:51 PM on February 3, 2003

And where exactly was Ms Ray when India was 'socialist'? Is she trying to insinuate that greed and corruption and exploitation did not exist earlier? Such simplistic reading of current affairs and pandering to the audience is sad.

She is a wonderful writer and she has the the gift of gab. However, if turn of phrase made a great statesman, India would truely be the land of plenty by now.

As many noted here, there is no substance to her speech, no alternate worldview, just anger and rage that comes dangerously close to endorsing anarchy.

At the risk of simplifying complex and disparate problems - all of which Ms Ray blamed on corporatization / globalization; let me suggest that the roots underlying most human tragedies - greed, hunger for power, tribal loyalties of various kind etc. have always existed and will always exist irrespective of the revolution that she seemed to suggest is just around the corner. It is education, access to a source of livelihood and economic and social stability that provides for a harmonious living. It is a strong military and strong alliances with other countries that stops neighboring countries from attacking you.

A working democracy is the only evolved form of government that has proven to provide a framework and the checks and balances that allows humanity to prosper without a great deal of conflict. Throw away nationalism is a ludicrous notion. EU is struggling with a much looser concept, leave alone the developing countries where the sense of nationalism is so much stronger.

If she has a better idea, let her propose it instead of giving loosely worded speeches.

Even when she is in the right, she has the habit of delivering wonderful rhetoric without any substance. I read her write-up on the testing of nuclear bombs in South Asia. Very eloquent. But at the end of it, I was not any wiser about why it happened, what can we do or what is in store for South Asia. Just very well written rants!
posted by justlooking at 3:07 PM on February 3, 2003

asok..."We use the terms money, capital, assets, and wealth interchangeably" - maybe Roy does, but no economist does, because they don't mean, as noted, the same things.

A lot of what is being blamed on globalization there is not a fault of globalization - globalization is a shift of blame. When Argentina's economy goes down the tubes, its not because of currency "speculators" - the currency goes to nations where productive work is being done, and not to nations where it is not. Argentina, to keep the example going, screwed themselves by a) printing money for decades when they went into debt, b) supporting govt. programs far more expensive that what they could afford and c) taking excessive loans, especially when they were under the military rule.

Sure, currency flows out and poverty increases there. But not because of capitalism. Capitalism merely lets people outside of Argentina avoid those problems.

As for the income gap, its not growing worldwide by any stretch of the imagination. Just the loss of poverty in China in the last 10 years is amazing. Some regions, especially those with politically instability, such as sub-Saharan Africa, have had poverty stay stable over the last 20 years (I believe Africa's dropped from 44 to 43 percent). In no region of the world is poverty increasing - that's a fact.

As for problems with market economics, there are many - decisions aren't always rational; governments and monopolies occasionally cause prices to go awry; protectionism and subsidies cause overproduction; certain non-market goods, such as the parenting you mentioned, cause underproduction. But the benefits of globalization on the human condition have been tremendous - far greater than the problems.

In human history, no system has worked better than the intl. corporate-based system running right now.
posted by Kevs at 3:08 PM on February 3, 2003

*yawn* I just spent two years in a masters program listening to this on a daily basis.

All I heard were people screaming about the evils of the United States. I have the patience of Job, I listened for months, and then something happend: my ears turned off.

There were no suggestions, there were no alternative ideas. There was only this leftist screaming and scorn and disgust.

I do think there is great validity to much of the criticism. But keep in mind that it is not only the United States, but the elites in foreign lands who are equally to blame. Okay, so you can't get Nike to stop using sweatshop labor - what about going after the host countries to stop them from permitting such poor standards?

While I am very sympathetic to the cause, (I took Peace and Development studies as my Masters) I became completely turned off by the end of my studies because I never heard many suggestions to move beyond rage and anger to solutions. More saddening, I saw how fractured and disparate the left can be. Most of my colleagues had no idea of basic concepts of international relations, political-economics, etc.

Outside of flat out revolution, it will require far more intelligent arguments that appeal to the oh-so-hated 'mainstream' for change to be effective.
posted by tgrundke at 3:17 PM on February 3, 2003

Corporations that are large have the clout to help nations retain stability.

Stability, yes. Freedom and justice, no. The stability that (shortsighted) multinational corporations want is the sort that allows them to do what they want in a country without the locals being able to mount any effective protest. The fewer freedoms that the local populace enjoy, the easier it is for multinationals to get away with fucking shit up for a quick profit.

I'm not at all anticapitalistic, and I didn't find Roy's speech that way either. You don't have to be against capitalism to find problems with how global trade is working these days.
posted by jeffj at 3:25 PM on February 3, 2003

Ms Roy -- aka "the marmot whisperer" ("Will it be possible ever again to watch the slow, amazed blink of a newborn gecko in the sun, or whisper back to the marmot who has just whispered in your ear - without thinking of the World Trade Centre and Afghanistan?") -- is not that interesting, as a op/ed writer and political activist. Because of her very limited understanding of economics, Roy's anti-globalization stuff is pretty dopey -- the well-meaning essay of a confused poetry major who has read too much Chomsky way too fast.
It's pretty easy to regurgitate some Zinn and rant against the war like Roy usually does (and I'm far from being a fan of the Perpetual War, Fuck Habeas Corpus and Kiss My Ass unilateralist warmongering crowd). It's harder to write a coherent essay on globalization, something she is obviously not very good at (no problem, Roy is primarily a fiction writer and she'd better stick to that)

Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing
Yes. And She is not only breathing, She is whispering: "Bullshit"
From marmot-whisperer to future-world-whisperer. One can ony wonder what's next for ms Roy.

Some of her speeches are here (scroll about halfway down the page)

Previous MeFi thread about Roy is here
posted by matteo at 3:33 PM on February 3, 2003

For another good example of a capitalist unimpressed by the course of globalization, see economist and Nobel Laureate Joseph Stieglitz.

Other viewpoints include:

"The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in essence, is Fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling power. Among us today a concentration of private power without equal in history is growing."
-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt

"Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power." -Mussolini

"We stand for the maintenance of private property. ... We shall protect free enterprise as the most expedient, or rather the sole possible economic order." - Adolf Hitler

"It is to prevent this reduction in price, ... by restraining that free competition which would most certainly occasion it, that all corporations, and the greater part of corporation law, have been established." - Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, 1776

"It would be easy for us, if we do not learn to understand the world and appreciate the rights, priveleges and duties of all other countries and peoples, to represent in our power the same danger to the world that Fascism did." -- Ernest Hemingway

So those of us who, like Roy, see such similarities are not alone.
posted by Nicolae Carpathia at 3:45 PM on February 3, 2003

Okay - cut out the sweatshops overseas, as the most 'visible' form of capitalism. Make the shoes/shirts/pants/whatever in the US.

Cost goes up here in the US. That's an annoyance to us, but we'd cope.

But the wages that the sweatshop worker was getting paid (and I think that hours, pay and conditions need to be regulated) which they were using for food, clothing, rent. . . disappear completely. That's NOT an annoyance - that's a personal disaster for the workers - and with no jobs to replace them, it'd affect the economy of their country.

Instead of $5/10/15 a day he/she is getting zip. Zilch, zero, nada damn thing.

Now, send Ms. Roy in to explain to them how much better off they are not being exploited by capitalists. Somehow, I don't think they'll believe it.

JB
posted by JB71 at 3:54 PM on February 3, 2003

Nicolae Carpathia: Godwin and Appeal to Higher Authority in one post. Good show!
posted by turbodog at 3:59 PM on February 3, 2003

Sorry to have checked out for a bit.

May I defend as valid the general response to anti-American screeds that, with a few exceptions, everyone in the allegedly oppressed developing world would be become American overnight if permitted to do so?

This is the UNDENIABLE reality of actual individual choice, not of theoretical posturing of the multicultural fantasists.

Millions of Iraqis may denounce America as the "enemy" when the cameras are turned on them, but you all know that virtually every one of them would be gladly working in his second cousin's liquor store in Detroit next week if he could get a visa. Chinese people borrow $50,000 at double digit interest to be smuggled to the US, knowing they'll have to spent ten years paying it back from the proceeds of cash-under-the-table manual labor jobs. Etc. etc.

The only reason why every country in the so-called third world isn't a mirror image of America is that there is an entrenched local power structure which has investment in an unfree population. Whether it is the conventional totalitarians of the Middle East or China, or the tribal warmongers of subsaharan Africa, or the mafiosi of Russia, or the helplessly inumerate wealth-destroying bureaucrats of Latin America (Chile aside), there is always someone local, not imposed from Europe or the US by the dreaded multinationals, who makes his living from holding the people down, not setting them free.

I don't like the idea of "sweatshops" per se, or other bugbears of globalism -- but I also challenge anyone to identify any prosperous country which didn't have a stage of widespread poorly-paid manual factory labor in its rise to prosperity. That stage of manufacturing allows capital and technical competency to build to a critical mass, concentrates populations in urban areas sufficient to support specialized schooling and services, lowers rural populations enough to make mechanized agriculture politically feasible, etc. etc. And, although the totalitarians don't like it, the concentration of population leads almost invevitably to the development of unions, progressive urban political movements, and the like -- all things which work nicely with capital and skill at critical mass to free up the population to move into the next, more democratic, stage of development.
posted by MattD at 4:16 PM on February 3, 2003

turbodog: Godwin and Appeal to Higher Authority in one post. Good show!

You can't call Godwin's Law when Fascism is being discussed (and technically, quoting AH doesn't qualify anyway), and since support was asked for, NC provided support for Roy's position. But I guess that's easier to point out than to address the actual content of those quotes.
posted by muckster at 4:44 PM on February 3, 2003

[This is a bit long, and I'm sure hardly anyone will agree with it. The usual characters will make the usual dismissive remarks, and if I'm really lucky, use a dollar sign instead of an "s" in my name (which is apparently considered a slam-dunk, irrefutable intellectual argument on MeFi). However, Roy's article deserves a response, and for anyone that does want to hear an alternative perspective ... here it is.]

Confronting (the Alternative) Empire:

As one of the unofficial MeFi spokespersons for so-called "global corporatism", it is a source of endless amusement to read this sort of thing ... and more fully understand how an alternative "power structure" makes it play for power. And have no doubt about this point: There IS an alternative power structure. It does play its own hardball, have its own ruling elite (many of whom, by the way, are every bit as wealthy as the average CEO) - with their own meetings and events - and their own very personal vested interests in creating their Alternative Empire.

These people - especially since the collapse of Communism, and with increasing speed in the last decade - have been badly losing in the marketplace of ideas, and their rhetoric is becoming more intense and extreme, and their claims of popular support more virulent - as their power wanes. (A few hundred thousand will attend simultaneous anti-war rallies in Europe and the US, and this we be called - by the leadership and the media - a huge turnout that suggests wide popular support ... unless one notices that a few hundred thousand out of a combined US/EU population of 6 or 7 hundred million hardly suggests "popular support").

And their power is waning because growing numbers of people - even the world's poor - are recognizing that capitalism, and "the Empire" supplies their needs and desires better than the Alternative Empire, often by an order of magnitude.

Capitalism, you see, does not claim to stand on some morally elevated plateau and try to tell people what they should want ... it tries to figure out what they do want, and sell it to them.

Every alternative speech and article (including the current one) starts by talking about how terrible it is that trends like the growth of multinationals, the privitization of government services, and the private control of our "collective" resources seem to be sweeping the world. They could not even remotely stomach the thought that this might be because reasonable people find this attractive, and think it is the best alternative of all those available ... no, it must be because people are stupid sheep, brainwashed by the media, and incapable of seeing the "truth". (I actually believe this is an extremely condescending, demeaning attitude ... but hell, I'm evil, so what do I know?)

I actually believe that people do see the truth - often far more clearly than the activists. Go ahead, talk about the injustice of Asian sweatshops and South American mines. Exhort people to "revolt", and subvert the "empire". Distribute pamphlets to workers telling them they are being abused by big selfish corporations. Point out that they are only getting $4 a day, while American workers get $20/hour for the same work. At the end of the day, however, the "truth" these people take home is this: The $4 a day they are paid by that horrible corporation is miniscule by US standards, but leads to twice the income they were getting before the "sweatshop" was opened. The evil corporation hands them food for their kids. The activists hand them ... a "vision of a future free of injustice".

Another for instance? (To select from the article) ... privitization a horrible trend? For whom? Well, for the elite of the Alternative Empire, one of who's largest power bases is government bureaucrats and union workers. The average US taxpayer has become accustomed to utterly unresponsive public "servents", countless inefficiencies and sometimes downright rudeness. They hate it. Behavior that would get any corporate employee fired just has to be tolerated ... complaining is useless, because it is nearly impossible to fire a government bureaucrat. So when a politician suggests privitizing a government service, it is not exactly a mystery as to why the population might go along with it - and it is not just because people are too stupid to know how they are being decieved. It's because when they realize they get service that is more attentive and polite from a Gap clerk than they do from the "public" offical who's salary they are paying, they are quite willing to give that nasty, "selfish", private sector a try. Why would the Alternative Empire try to convince people it is a horrible idea? POWER. Of the ten top donors in the 2002 election, exactly one was a corporation. Six of the ten were unions. And who was the single larest donor? The American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees. Is it really an "injustice" when services are privatized? To whom? The Alternative Empire's power base? Yes. But to the average taxpayer? Hardly.


Does Roy want to talk about India? Good! She mentions it is the world's biggest democracy. What she doesn't mention is that it is high on the list of the most corrupt as well. Is privitization being foisted upon abused Indians by a selfish government? Are they accepting only because they are too poor, or brainwashed to "fight" aganist it? Well, just maybe it's because Indians are tired of needing to bribe a half dozen bureaucrats to get anything done. Maybe it's because they think government services in private hands will make it much harder for bureaucrats to supplement their income at the population's expense.

The larger point is that the leaders of the Alternative Empire have managed to portray most of what they do as "fighting for the poor", and "speaking out against injustice", as organizing to fight big, selfish "multinationals". But they are losing the fight - badly - because they do not have clarity.

Simply because they, at a fundamental level, think in terms of collectivism, and hence group all big corporations, governments, and private enterprise into a single concept in their heads does not mean, that these very different entities are, in fact, related in truth. The power of "global corporatism" is precisely that it is utterly decentralized. It is millions of different people seeking to discern what people really want, and to sell it to them.

What pisses the Alternative Empire off almost beyond conception is the fact that capitalism is impossible to fight. It doesn't try to make anyone accept grand (and impossible) visions of some fantasy world of "total equality and justice". It just tries to sell them a T-Shirt. Cheaply. It doesn't try to tell them they are abused and should fight for a grand cause. It will, however, give them a job for minimum wage. And if they want to expend the effort, they have a good shot at doing much better than that.

There is no "Empire" to be "confronted". The "global corporate structure" is a concept used by an elite that is losing the battle of ideas to marshall its forces, but it does not exist as a truth.

So far as "justice", "ethics", or "service" goes ... ultimately even the poorest of the poor simply want to eat. And a goodly number of them seem to be deciding that "global corporatism" probably stands a much better chance delivering their next meal than all of the grand visions of the collectivists throughout history put together.

It is the Alternative Empire that needs to be confronted. Who's tired ideas and continual claims that everyone but them is "evil", and anyone not accepting their ideas is "deluded" now causes more trouble than it solves.

They central ideas that horrify them are, indeed, spreading like wildfire. Not because people are stupid and sheeplike ... but because the ideas themselves are better.
posted by MidasMulligan at 5:20 PM on February 3, 2003

The only reason why every country in the so-called third world isn't a mirror image of America is that there is an entrenched local power structure which has investment in an unfree population

Technically it would not be possible for 3rd world countries to attain the same level of success as America. There simply aren't enough resources (labor resources, natural resources, etc.) given today's technology. And while it's true that local corruption plays a large role (the largest?) in the economic difficulties of 3rd world nations, it is equally true that this corruption is a boon to corporations looking for stability and low wages. In short, it is true that entrenched local power is the main obstacle, but let's not forget the biggest source of that entrenchment, either. It is not anti-capitalist to ask that nominally-US businesses do their best to avoid working with tyrants who feed off of human misery, and in fact it is in all of our best interest that they do so. Furthermore, I have to laugh when people try to say that corruption is a primarily a 3rd world problem-- corruption is the same everywhere, the difference is the amount that can go on with no one noticing, and the system of law set up to deal with the most egregious offenders.

As to MattD's assertions about Sweatshops, I agree in the abstract, but I ask you to think about the difference between American sweatshops of the 1890's and the global type we see today. The primary difference seems to be that American sweatshops were usually owned by small businesses and designed to create low-cost goods for the country. Today's sweatshops are nominally owned by locals, but in reality controlled by foreign companies which produce products designed for export. Instead of internal investment designed for internal consumption, we have external investment designed for export. Furthermore if you make the case that many nations had similar labor practices in the past and slowly dragged themselves through hard-work to prosperity. This is true, however to replicate that effect you would also have to put into place the massive trade barriers that were in place during those times in Europe and America. So while I agree that it is better to have a job than to not have one, one should always remember that the goal of the sweatshop owners is not to create jobs, but to create inexpensive products for export. We should not expect today's sweatshops to have the same effect as those of the past.

I also agree with MidasMulligan in the abstract, however I feel he is missing the central point which is that the idea of capitalism and the free market is winning (and perhaps has always won), it is the application, not the idea, that is leading to a very real discontent that may not be represented by Roy, but is definitely out there and should not be dismissed as a small minority. The best thing someone like you can do is to make sure that the principals you admirably defend are actually instituted, and not subverted by greed, which has been the case in so many places.
posted by cell divide at 5:50 PM on February 3, 2003

MidasMulligan's rant on the Alternative Empire is entertaining but stretches reality a bit. Suggesting that the loose network of dissidents that speak up about injustices happening today have anything like the power of entrenched governments and enormous corporations is more than a little disingenuous. And how do you figure that government employees form part of the "alternative" empire??

Losing in the marketplace of ideas? Not at all. A few hundred thousand, mostly middle-class, mainstream people showing up at demonstrations is a VERY big deal. When's the last time you saw demonstrations this big for anything? They're like cockroaches, every one of these people that actually showed up represents a hundred in the woodwork that support the concept but didn't make it out.

Just because somebody uses a single word ("empire") to refer to a system DOESN'T mean they think the system is centralized and controlled like a conspiracy.

And another thing! This is more for MattD than MM, but oh well. What does it matter if someone complains about being oppressed by a system, but would happily join it? No contradiction there. If you had to make a choice, most of us would rather be oppressors than oppressed, but this is not inconsistent with believing that it's an unfair system in the first place. I'm not proud of some aspects of the western world's role in global culture, but I'm sure glad I live here.

MM, I agree with you that capitalism IS a better system than the alternatives, but it's rather useless to point to your theory and explain why it's perfect, while turning a blind eye to ACTUAL injustices that are ACTUALLY happening around you. The system needs to be tweaked a bit. Maybe a lot.
posted by jeffj at 6:27 PM on February 3, 2003

jeffj...I don't think MM (or myself) think capitalism is perfect. It's merely that, in its current state, it's better than everything else out there.

Can you tell me two or three economically feasible changes to make to capitalism. For instance, "make American companies pay higher wages overseas" would have the result of American companies hiring less people overseas, which is a negative for the local population. Roy doesn't have these answers. The protestors on the street don't have them either. All they have are complaints.

That's not to say that there aren't ideas on the left (and the right) worth considering as to how to improve globalization. De Soto's ideas for clarifying property law would reap fantastic benefits if implemented.

If we have more De Soto and Friedman's, and less Roy's, I'm sure the anti-"corporate" voices wouldn't be as ridiculed as they are today by the business world.
posted by Kevs at 8:34 PM on February 3, 2003

I am going to present the arguments from a different perspective.

One of the most common games is Prisoner's Dilemma (please review the links 1, 2, 3 if you do not know what I am talking about). When the game is played only once, the (Nash) equilibrium is for both players to choose defect as their strategy. But we do not play this game only once in our lifetime, we are playing it daily, and the low outcome of the Nash equilibrium does not suffice. We learn to cooperate. We invent and learn better strategies that improve the chance of cooperation and punish the defectors (free-riders). For example, Tit for Two Tats is a 2000 years old strategy (turn the other cheek) that is more robust in a noisy environment than its previous counterpart Tit for Tat (an eye for an eye). However, it is somehow more complicated.

In a closed group/community it can be seen (and under certain assumption proven mathematically) that a cooperative (non-Nash) equilibrium is achieved in the long run. Trust among participants is achieved and the young ones are educated in the spirit of cooperation. Strategies played by the group may be transmitted to the next generation as tradition or religion. This is the story of the city-states and many other small communities. As the group grows, new strategies are adopted, such as Monarchy or Nationalism.

Something disturbing happens when outsiders (traders) get in contact with our cooperative community. Remember, when the game is played as one-shot game, as is mostly the case against outsiders, the best strategy is defection [does this ring a bell?]. In certain groups, strategies involving a higher defection rate might spread and destabilize the community.

However, the outsider does not always bring chaos, sometimes he offers new opportunities to be explored, a way of fleeing the closed and stagnating (no deviation from the rules is permitted) community - think America vs. Europe at. 1600. In this brave new world, where contacts among members are not as often as back home, strategies based mainly on cooperation give poor results. If you read Benjamin Franklin's "The Way to Wealth" (1757) you would see that it lacks some "obvious" strategies, such as teamwork ("Trusting too much to others' care is the ruin of many"). This is the story of a society that has opportunities to explore, where gains can be made without employing cooperative strategies. After a while, cooperation starts to emerge: Social Security, Anti-Trust laws, Medicare, etc.

Now a new opportunity appears: globalization. As an example, steel industry is abandoned in US (local, non-cooperative behavior) to explore the gains from trading with oversee countries (global, cooperative behavior). The cycle starts over.

The main points: new opportunities are good to explore as they involve trade, however non-cooperating strategies break group cohesion. The balance is to find the right equilibrium between exploring these new opportunities (outsourcing, inventions, etc) and maintaining (or even increase) the cooperation level. How to do that? I do not know yet. My next best (subjective) example would be EU emergence, but only countries inside EU, as the others are still outsiders.
posted by MzB at 10:02 PM on February 3, 2003

Well, since you've put me on the spot Kevs, I'll embarrass myself. To begin with, it would be nice to have a world trade organization that took account of human rights and environmental issues when making trade rulings. This is by no means a radical concept - IANA economist, so I don't know the proper name for them, but there are fields of economic theory devoted to accounting for this kind of thing.

More information for consumers about where stuff comes from would help, too. If you could, at the point of purchase, easily research the tree of resources and labour that went into a product, you could make better decisions about what you're buying and what you're supporting. I guess this is the sort of thing people are thinking of when they say that free markets magically make everything better - only if there's a free flow of information, though.

More towards foreign policy, here's a radical thought: Why don't we place an emphasis on policies that increase education and freedom in the rest of the world, instead of supporting regimes that suppress their people?

More locally and concretely, we need more vigorous prosecution of corporate criminals. Throw a few CEOs in jail for the crimes of their companies. Punish the companies themselves in meaningful ways, such as the corporate death penalty in extreme cases.

I dunno. I admit that I too am more of a complainer than part of the solution, but hey. There's a lot to complain about, and I believe it's still strongly underrepresented in the popular consciousness. It's through awareness that problems eventually get solved.
posted by jeffj at 11:31 PM on February 3, 2003

So far as "justice", "ethics", or "service" goes ... ultimately even the poorest of the poor simply want to eat.

Exactly. Congratulations. Wow. You could have saved yourself the wordy screed, for you reduced your style of capitalism to its core philosophy with just a few words.

(Pretending that capitalism exists for the benefit of the great mass of people is shameful, yet commonplace. Good PR, you know. But one does wonder at the need for such a constant cheerleading to convince us of capitalism's virtues for us all, if it's really so grand).

Capitalism exists to satisfy greed. Don't try to pretend otherwise.

People need to eat, and businesspeople know that they can get the absolute cheapest price by exploiting the labor of people who just need to eat. How nice. How humane. How caring. "$4/day"....and the corporation makes how much again from that labor, MidasMulligan? How much more food and medicine and schooling could be bought if wages were paid based on actual bonafide value to the corporation?

Greed has had its heyday. It's actually in decline throughout the world, and will continue to be reigned in as people become increasingly fed up with the powerful few exploiting the many.
posted by fold_and_mutilate at 11:33 PM on February 3, 2003

They central ideas that horrify them are, indeed, spreading like wildfire. Not because people are stupid and sheeplike ... but because the ideas themselves are better.

Wow. I avoided this post like the plague, but MidasMulligan's post made my visit worthwhile.

Extremely well said, MM, as usual!
posted by hama7 at 11:57 PM on February 3, 2003

There IS an alternative power structure. It does play its own hardball, have its own ruling elite (many of whom, by the way, are every bit as wealthy as the average CEO) - with their own meetings and events - and their own very personal vested interests in creating their Alternative Empire.

Hahahahahahahaha. What a fucking shill you are. Democracy 101 McFly! If the alternative empire is Democracy of the sort that is free and equal in all forms, including Right-to-Know and self-determine with the same political clout as a billion dollar corporation, then what the fuck are you arguing about with this preposterous "Alternative Empire" who's mysterious leadership is "every bit as wealthy as the average CEO"? What kind of change could they possibly effect? Are they in power? Did we vote for them? What then is your point? There are these feudal Lords and then there are these feudal Lords. Choose wisely. You're Alternative Empire GoldenGolfCheat are the very lives you so casually write off with every stroke of your keys.

Further, care to name these clandestine Alternative Imperialists?

These people - especially since the collapse of Communism, and with increasing speed in the last decade - have been badly losing in the marketplace of ideas, and their rhetoric is becoming more intense and extreme, and their claims of popular support more virulent - as their power wanes. (A few hundred thousand will attend simultaneous anti-war rallies in Europe and the US, and this we be called - by the leadership and the media - a huge turnout that suggests wide popular support ... unless one notices that a few hundred thousand out of a combined US/EU population of 6 or 7 hundred million hardly suggests "popular support").

Your rhetoric knows no bounds. Your superlative, overstated, exaggerated flourishes of corpoagitprop is fucking remarkable:

collapse of Communism, and with increasing speed in the last decade

badly losing in the marketplace of ideas (Where the fuck is this "marketplace of Ideas"? You use "their" own Democratically meaningless language too. Everything's gotta be a goddamn marketplace.)

their rhetoric is becoming more intense and extreme (Intense and extreme for who? To whom does this pose a danger?)

claims of popular support more virulenttheir power wanes .

I think the exact opposite. A fire's been lit under my ass and frankly, you're goin' down scum. I'm still waiting to hear what wealthy Alternative Imperialist implanted this thought in my head. What am I going to "buy" from him now that I'm a believer? What the fuck was he trying to sell me anyways?

Or if you want to go another route, howabout, I feel it in my humanist gut, you and your karass are currently evoking the terrorism, the dissent, the will to rise above corporate dictated servitude and misery, that can only begin in a man or woman's heart.

People here speak so glibly about sweatshops opening avenues of income these impoverished countries would never have had were it not for the good graces of capitalist benefactors. Capitalist benefactors who, with such compassion and foresight only move production to these locales because they "save a buck or two" with their weak labor and environmental laws, which they weaken moment to moment as they would not be there of and by these burgeoning democracies' if these ragged countries' own corrupt politicians (like ours!) weren't bought paid and installed by neo-liberal puppets.

I don't speak glibly here, because one of my particular, hobbyist type causes (unfortunately "hobby only" for now as I can't dedicate myself fully to it) are the Mexican nationals who find themselves in America because they cannot support themselves in Mexico without family members north of the border, slaving for American consumerism and freedom. Yet simultaneously as you capitalist leechist-liars declare for a far way land what good tidings we've bequeathed unto them because they are now slaving for the Global Economy you allow them to come illegally into the US so that you and your capitalist leech profiteers have all the cheap labor they need to make a buck selling produce to the middle man who marks the price up for him that much more. Yet, simultaneously with that there are also those true believers who align themselves politically with those very leaders who realize the lucrative who again, simultaneously say, "Dem Mexicans need to git home. Tired uh dem takin' away our jobs." And then, simultaneously again agreeing "And it's jest a damn shame Americans are jest so damned lazy to do dem jobs no more."

And their power is waning because growing numbers of people - even the world's poor - are recognizing that capitalism, and "the Empire" supplies their needs and desires better than the Alternative Empire, often by an order of magnitude.

Alright, you've invented the "Alternative Empire" here. One of the most employed lapses of logic is the False Dichotomy as well as a liberal dousing in the well revered by corporo-fascist propagandists (you're one too Midas!) ~~~STRAWMAN~~~

Folks, GoldenGolfCheat has completely pulled this envisage of an "Alternative Empire" from his imagination. He only thinks he's being profound.

A False Dichotomy of a Strawman is probably one of the most rhetorically weak arguments a user of Earthly Logic can make..

Every alternative speech and article (including the current one) starts by talking about how terrible it is that trends like the growth of multinationals, the privitization of government services, and the private control of our "collective" resources seem to be sweeping the world. They could not even remotely stomach the thought that this might be because reasonable people find this attractive, and think it is the best alternative of all those available ... no, it must be because people are stupid sheep, brainwashed by the media, and incapable of seeing the "truth". (I actually believe this is an extremely condescending, demeaning attitude ... but hell, I'm evil, so what do I know?)

Oh poor Mr. I have to appeal to emotion. You completely invent an enemy in order to prove your snowy-white intentions, this all the while with the assumption that the Earth has infinite resources for all of the dissaffected, starving and without political voice who's populations continue to grow, exerting that much more ecological stress on the environment. and still maintain the faux humanitarian hubris that: "They could not even remotely stomach the thought that this might be because reasonable people find this attractive, and think it is the best alternative of all those available ... no, it must be because people are stupid sheep, brainwashed by the media, and incapable of seeing the "truth"."

You are a propagandist. I don't have time this evening to continue to debunk your ludicrous portrayal of Grassroots Democratic Movement as that of an Alternative Empire.

To waste time on you is to hopefully feel like I'm saving the world. Unfortunately it's probably too little too late.

--Nice birdie GoldenGolfCheat!



On preview
They central ideas that horrify them are, indeed, spreading like wildfire. Not because people are stupid and sheeplike ... but because the ideas themselves are better.

Oh god. I'll be back later.
posted by crasspastor at 12:06 AM on February 4, 2003

Hi foldy. Nice to seeya again.

I'd love to believe what you said in that last paragraph, but I honestly feel that the corporatism and exploitation I decry are as yet in the ascendancy. Everything I read seems to indicate that the gap between the haves and the have-nots is on the increase at present.

"The haves are on the march. With growing inequality, so grows their power. And so also diminish the voices of solidarity and mutual reinforcement, the voices of civil society, the voices of a democratic and egalitarian middle class." – James K. Galbraith, Created Unequal: The Crisis in American Pay (1998)

Please persuade me otherwise.
posted by Nicolae Carpathia at 12:10 AM on February 4, 2003

"The free market ... undermines democracy."

Hmm. May I walk with you...?

If you're an Indian citizen who dislikes Bush, you're out of luck -- there's no such candidate as The Anti-Bush, and, being non-American, you couldn't vote for it anyway. Not even Americans get to vote for an Anti-Bush.

But if you're an Indian citizen who doesn't like, say, Exxon, you can vote for the Anti-Exxon. Not just once but 1,000 times if you like. Hell, you can vote 1,000 times for Anti-Exxon-and-Shell-in-the-long-term-but-not-in-the-short-term. Any person, anywhere, can vote for or against any combination of players, places, and times; and globalization further expands that access. Infinite and very real choices.

Apologies if this is merely a figment of my sleep-deprived state, but -- given the common complaint in the US that political parties (a) are too similar and (b) leave no room for 3rd parties (let alone 1,000,003rd parties) -- it seems to me that there are few things more democratic than mature capitalism.
posted by Hieronymous Coward at 12:38 AM on February 4, 2003

I think the exact opposite. A fire's been lit under my ass and frankly, you're goin' down scum.

Hiya, crasspastor. Speaking of selling, someones either sold you as bill of goods, or you bought it wholesale.

What are you proposing?

Communism? (Kind-of passe and thoroughly discredited = extinct)

Anarcho-Syndicalism a la Chomsky? (Which means: "To free oneself from Chomsky's "slavery," one must live apart from society and provide his own food, shelter, medical care, companionship, etc.")

See you at Walden pond. But remember, your computer, your internet connection, books and booze and things are all brought to you and made better by................capitalism, and a free society where you are able to purchase goods and services, among other privileges too numerous to list.
posted by hama7 at 2:26 AM on February 4, 2003

Anarcho-Syndicalism a la Chomsky? (Which means: "To free oneself from Chomsky's "slavery," one must live apart from society and provide his own food, shelter, medical care, companionship, etc.")

How far do you have to be from society before you bump back into it again?

"Chomsky's 'slavery'" is a good one.
posted by crasspastor at 2:39 AM on February 4, 2003

That's a psychotic link by the way hama7.
posted by crasspastor at 2:41 AM on February 4, 2003

That's a psychotic link by the way hama7.

At your service.

How far do you have to be from society before you bump back into it again?

Take Antartica for example...
posted by hama7 at 3:20 AM on February 4, 2003

Antarctica, that is.
posted by hama7 at 3:23 AM on February 4, 2003

That's a psychotic link by the way hama7

Yes, but in a good way. I didn't know anything about that Front Page Magazine, and it's funnier than Dr Strangelove -- it makes NewsMax look like Lingua Franca! The guys from the ONION must be behind it, I bet. Thanks for the link!
posted by matteo at 3:41 AM on February 4, 2003

MattD: May I defend as valid the general response to anti-American screeds that, with a few exceptions, everyone in the allegedly oppressed developing world would be become American overnight if permitted to do so?

How is that a response? The "anti-american screeds"don't attack the quality of life in the US. They take issue with US Foreign Policy. Foreign Policy. Once more, Quality of Life /= Foreign Policy. Nobody disputes that the US is an overpriveleged land; what all those "anti-americans" don't like is very little of all that excess trickles down to the bottom of the pyramid.

You seem of average intelligence, why is this distinction so hard for you to grasp?
posted by signal at 6:48 AM on February 4, 2003