To Be Or Not To Be: The Nation Centric World Order Under Globalization
By Jerry Harris

The reorganization of space beyond national borders for labor, capital and culture is fundamentally shaped by this revolution in the means of production. These changes naturally affect and redefine the role of the state. How people work, how commodities are produced and the forms that power can be expressed have forever changed from the industrial era. The underlying logic of corporate competition, accumulation and expansion has not.

It is no longer a question of simply returning to the old international system structured around nation/state competition. The fundamental changes in the organizational capacities of capitalism means any emerging order, even one in which nation centric forces reassert control over the transformational process, will be a synthesis containing powerful elements of globalization. As Marx noted, people may make history, but not as they wish. Even with the rise of unilateralism and protectionism it’s hard to image the disappearance of global assembly lines, cross border mergers and world financial markets.

There has also been significant internal weakness’ within the transnational process. The Asian crisis in 1997 followed by serious problems in Russia, Brazil, Argentina and Turkey as well as the stock market crash in 2001 help lead to a resurgence of geopolitical realist influence. Many of the neoliberal corporate heroes lauded in the 1990’s turned into corporate criminals by 2002. Given these difficulties a temporary retreat from globalization is not surprising nor is the more assertive rise of Third World globalists lead by Brazil, India and China. Therefore the developing synthesis begins to look like two steps forward one step back as transnational forces slow, consolidate, expand and move towards another historic advance. This is similar to other historic periods, for example, the development of European capitalism between the French Revolution and the upheavals of 1848. Bravado and compromise, half victories and vacillations are to be found in every camp.

This contradictory process, so clearly a unity of opposites, necessitates an analytical approach that understands the structural moment as a complex struggle between two forms of capitalist accumulation and the class alliances and interests formed around these competing world systems. Globalization has not entered a period of relative stability and equilibrium nor is the main contradiction between U.S. imperialism and everyone else. Globalist’s economic, political and social forces remain strong inside U.S. society, as do nationalist forces in Europe and Asia. These splits are not based on the conservative /social democratic divisions of old. The globalist political and economic thrust is driven by a transnationalized capitalist bloc organized around its own logic and consciousness. Although there exists important internal divisions within globalism, the nationalist challenge poises the greatest danger. In fact, the very nature of nationalist politics has changed from nation/state competition to confronting the globalist structure of accumulation, organization and social impact.

Keeping this analysis in mind we can examine some of the most important current developments as reflections of the deeper structural relationships. It’s logical that the greatest challenge to the transnational capitalist class would take form in the state of the world’s most powerful nation. The U.S. war in Iraq is a prime example of this dialectic. The Bush administration has clearly upset the political development and direction of globalization. The regime’s articulation of a unilateral and hegemonic project is proclaimed proudly in the most undiluted expression of superpower hubris since fascist Germany. More >>