Organic Revolution
22nd July 2005, 21:36
The Third World War, or the Cold War, lasted from 1946 until 1985-1990. [With] the defeat and destruction of the USSR, and the victory of the US, around which the great majority of countries have now come together... This is when what we call the "Fourth World War" broke out. And here a problem arose. The product of the previous war should have been a unipolar world - one single nation which dominated a world where there were no rivals - but, in order to make itself effective, this unipolar world would have to reach what is known as "globalization." The world must be conceived as a large conquered territory with an enemy destroyed. It was necessary to administer this new world, and, therefore, to globalize it… The Fourth World War is destroying humanity as globalization is universalizing the market, and everything human which opposes the logic of the market is an enemy and must be destroyed. In this sense, we are all the enemy to be vanquished: indigenous, non-indigenous, human rights observers, teachers, intellectuals, artists. Anyone who believes themselves to be free and is not.
-Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN)
The EZLN took up arms against this war that they felt was oppressing them on January 1st, 1994, which to many signaled the beginning of resistance to this war. Instead of being waged by armies, the war effects people in different ways. In the First World it means a family’s lifelong occupation being shipped overseas, in Mexico it means low-intensity warfare, in Argentina it means banks not being able to insure people’s investments because of a faltering economy, and in Iraq it is a military occupation. In different places around the world, the Forth World War takes on different shapes; in some places it has resulted in armed-conflict, in others, street demonstrations. One thing is for sure, as Globalization continues to expand, the resistance to it is equally globalized.
The first questions to ask when discussing Globalization is what is it and how does it occur?
Globalization101.org from the Center for Strategic and International Studies says:
Globalization is a process of interaction and integration among the people, companies, and governments of different nations, a process driven by international trade and investment and aided by information technology. This process has effects on the environment, on culture, on political systems, on economic development and prosperity, and on human physical well being in societies around the world.
The 2001 book, The Aurora of the Zapatistas: Local & Global Struggles of the Fourth World War, describes this name, "Globalization," almost as a misnomer, because the rest of the world-or those most experiencing it first-hand, call it, "Neo-Liberalism." And accordingly, the American-centric name that is given to it in the media and public discourse, is just one indication of how the rest of the world views the actions of Western corporations. (9)
Noam Chomsky, professor at MIT and political critic, speaks of this in his book, The Prosperous Few and the Restless Many:
[Globalization] is a fancy way of saying that you export jobs to high-repression, low-wage areas-which undercuts the opportunities for productive labor at home. It’s a way of increasing corporate profits, of course. And it'’ much easier to do with a free flow of capital, advances in telecommunications, etc.…[The result is that] to quote the business press, we’re creating a new ‘imperial age’ with a ‘de-facto world government.’ It has its own institutions-like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, trading structures like NAFTA and GATT [the North American Free Trade Agreement and General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs], executive meetings like the G-8 and the European Community bureaucracy.
Accordingly, the summary of the process is that Globalization is a process that is organized from the concentrations of wealth around the world in the Global North. Companies, based in the Global North, seeking to increase their profit margins and decrease their bottom-line cost, look for opportunities in undeveloped countries to create factories and jobs for people in the Global South in order to capitalize off of their low-wages and economic vulnerability. In the terms of the Globalists, Globalization is a process that promotes democracy and the development of the market economy around the world. One of the main organs of international banking, the International Monetary Fund, says this on their website:
The IMF is an international organization of 184 member countries. It was established to promote international monetary cooperation, exchange stability, and orderly exchange arrangements; to foster economic growth and high levels of employment; and to provide temporary financial assistance to countries to help ease balance of payments adjustment.
This, of course, is indicative of the roots upon which modern corporate Globalization started. This process, in its modern form, really began to surface in the era of the Marshall Plan after the Second World War, in which both the Eastern and Western blocs were attempting to create spheres of influence in order to prove which was a better tool for global manipulation and control.
But the effects of this process, in reality, are nothing compared to the way that they look in theory. In practice, Globalization, creates a global two-tiered society, with an ever-expanding gap between the "haves" and the "have-nots," pits workers in the Global North against those in the South, and creates a global hegemony that destroys local culture and replaces it with "cookie-cutter" corporate products and culture. (Chomsky 5-21)
In the first world, where for many years the entire concept of Globalization was hidden from public discourse altogether, it is finally emerging as something that needs to be discussed, and the 2004 elections are the only time in which matters of "out-sourcing," or shipping jobs abroad, was even mention by either of the political parties. While many have been victims of its processes and unaware of its existence, many have been pushing since the early 80’s to finally get it into the media. These attempts, finally, culminated in the first exposure of the emerging Forth World War, with the smashing of corporate stores in the streets of Seattle at the World Trade Organization Ministerial meeting in Novermber of 1999. Accordingly, therefore, the face of the Fourth World War in the first world, or Global North, takes the shape of the organizing among common people, activist culture, that struggles to put pressure on businesses to demand a sustainable economy for the people of the country.
Ranging from creating organs of criticism like Adbusters Magazine and fair-trade coffee businesses like Equal Exchange, to Anarchist groups advocating direct action, the face of resistance to corporate Globalization in the Global North is diverse and multi-faceted in its approach.
Demonstrations in the streets, while common all over the world, are most renowned in the Global North, because it is here where most of the major meetings that shape policy and opinion regarding Globalization take place. (Friedman 379-405)
In the other hand, the struggles of the Global South, also referred to in Cold War language as the "Third-World," are often much more violent because they are expressions of daily face-to-face exposures with the brunt end of the Globalization machine. Mexico, in particular, which is considered by many proponents of Globalization to be a stellar model of the success of these economic policies, is indeed a perfect example of how resistance in the Global South can, and often does, look.
On January 1, 1994, the effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect as a policy effecting the economic relationships of Canada, the United States, and Mexico. The ability of this treaty to go into effect, however, was monitored by the international organs of Globalization, such as the IMF and World Bank, who refused to allow the treaty to happen if the three countries involved, did not participate in a program of "structural adjustment." This term is used to describe the process by which countries prepare themselves for foreign investment, by creating more lax economic which is, laws that are easy on the companies to do what they want, and labor regulations. But in the case of Mexico, in particular, this meant that constitutional communal land rights granted to indigenous people would have to be revoked, and in turn, allowed to be put on the auctioning block for foreign investors. (Midnight Notes 9-14)
Knowing what rights were at risk for the indigenous people, people in the state of Chiapas-Mexico’s southernmost and most poor state--formed an uprising, which was the first outright conflict that would form the basis for the defense of the Global South in what these people would later call the "Fourth World War." (Midnight Notes 11)
In Argentina, the crises of economic Neo-Liberalism was able to change the government of the country five times within a thirty-day period. For years, Argentina was considered a role-model of Globalization, as the largest economic power in Latin America to move away from Nationalized industries of decades past, and instead moving towards increased foreign investment and trade. The 2002 economic crisis was a result of decades of international involvement in Argentina. During the 1980’s, Argentina’s economy was experiencing hyper-inflation, and in order to stabilize their currency, the IMF encourage Argentina to peg their currency to the American dollar as a way to anchor the money down. In the end, after numerous economic crises around the world, the Argentinean economy came to an end. Nobel Prize-winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz explains on Globalpolicy.org:
The problems began with the hyper-inflation of the 1980s. To slash inflation, expectations needed changing; 'anchoring' the currency to the dollar was meant to do this…The IMF encouraged this exchange-rate system. Now it is less enthusiastic, though Argentina is the one paying the price. The peg lowered inflation but did not promote sustained growth…There were other mistakes in Argentina's 'reform' programme. It was praised for allowing large foreign ownership of banks. This led to a seemingly more stable banking system, but…failed…
The resultant effect after a Global economic slow-down in 2001, was that banks were not able to insure investors, and lost the money of investors. Seeing the economic problems in East Asia and other places around the world the previous few years, investors began to pull money out of Argentine banks. Which is another reason why Globalization is unsustainable.
Nonetheless, the double-digit unemployment did not mean much to people in positions of comfort in power at first, but when Middle-class people and others were not able to pull money out of the banks chaos erupted. This is where the resistance by the Argentine people to the policies of the super-powers of the Fourth World War began. Riots began in the streets; people were demanding a change of government and a change in economic policy-namely, a break with the IMF and World Bank. Unemployed workers, recently-fired, took over factories and began to organize small-scale democratic, non-hierarchical worker’s councils, that took the place of the government, and were responsible for decision-making in the factories and individual neighborhoods. In the end, the same scenario that has always been the case in Latin America and the military stepped in to protect Capitalism. But, the majority of the neighborhood councils and collective factories still are in place, and if the policies of the Argentine government once again become involved in such Globalization practices, the people of Argentina will respond again.
Perhaps the most over-the-top, and most direct, of the conflicts of the Fourth World War is the occupation of Iraq by the United States. Not too long ago, American newspapers and media outlets were toting the fact that Iraq has "the freest market in the world," a place where anything can be privatized by anyone at any time. Road, water, oil, buildings, and anything else short of people can be bought by companies who compete to have contracts with the occupation forces to have permission to do what they like in Iraq. Naomi Klein explains:
Some highlights: The $4.8 million management contract for the port in Umm Qasr has already gone to a US company, Stevedoring Services of America, and the airports are on the auction block. The US Agency for International Development has invited US multinationals to bid on everything from rebuilding roads and bridges to printing textbooks. Most of these contracts are for about a year, but some have options that extend up to four. How long before they meld into long-term contracts for privatized water services, transit systems, roads, schools and phones? When does reconstruction turn into privatization in disguise?
The occupation forces, themselves, have been increasingly privatized, and private companies commission entire units of troops that are patrolling with US forces. The effects not only of direct military control of cities, with continual random raids, but also of companies controlling water-rights and other vital industries, the effects of this occupation is devastating on the Iraqi people. As we can see from the complaints of one soldier in the film Fahrenheit 9/11, though, people working for companies like Halliburton are paid upwards of quadruple what the average American soldier, who most often is working-class, is paid. Privatization on this scale has never been seen before, because it is the first time in the Fourth World War, that the proponents of the economic policies are actually able to do the physical manipulation of an entire country’s infrastructure from start to finish. The way that Iraq’s economy looks like in a few years, could be an indication of what is in store for other Global South countries if they agree to fully comply with the ideas of the Globalists, and are willing to get exploited.
While the war looks different around the globe, as does the resistance, the Fourth World War will be remarkably different that wars before it. While the other World Wars resulted in attempting to change maps for means of the gain of a few, the Fourth World War, if the uprisings in reaction to it are successful, will be something very different, promoting local cultures, while Globalizing a radically different culture to the current global Capitalist paradigm. In the end, it is probably best to echo the millions of people around the world that are affected by this Fourth World War, who exist in every corner of the globe, in San Cristobal de Las Casas, in South Africa, in Baghdad, in Seoul, in Seattle, in Prague, when they say, "Another world is possible."
-Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN)
The EZLN took up arms against this war that they felt was oppressing them on January 1st, 1994, which to many signaled the beginning of resistance to this war. Instead of being waged by armies, the war effects people in different ways. In the First World it means a family’s lifelong occupation being shipped overseas, in Mexico it means low-intensity warfare, in Argentina it means banks not being able to insure people’s investments because of a faltering economy, and in Iraq it is a military occupation. In different places around the world, the Forth World War takes on different shapes; in some places it has resulted in armed-conflict, in others, street demonstrations. One thing is for sure, as Globalization continues to expand, the resistance to it is equally globalized.
The first questions to ask when discussing Globalization is what is it and how does it occur?
Globalization101.org from the Center for Strategic and International Studies says:
Globalization is a process of interaction and integration among the people, companies, and governments of different nations, a process driven by international trade and investment and aided by information technology. This process has effects on the environment, on culture, on political systems, on economic development and prosperity, and on human physical well being in societies around the world.
The 2001 book, The Aurora of the Zapatistas: Local & Global Struggles of the Fourth World War, describes this name, "Globalization," almost as a misnomer, because the rest of the world-or those most experiencing it first-hand, call it, "Neo-Liberalism." And accordingly, the American-centric name that is given to it in the media and public discourse, is just one indication of how the rest of the world views the actions of Western corporations. (9)
Noam Chomsky, professor at MIT and political critic, speaks of this in his book, The Prosperous Few and the Restless Many:
[Globalization] is a fancy way of saying that you export jobs to high-repression, low-wage areas-which undercuts the opportunities for productive labor at home. It’s a way of increasing corporate profits, of course. And it'’ much easier to do with a free flow of capital, advances in telecommunications, etc.…[The result is that] to quote the business press, we’re creating a new ‘imperial age’ with a ‘de-facto world government.’ It has its own institutions-like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, trading structures like NAFTA and GATT [the North American Free Trade Agreement and General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs], executive meetings like the G-8 and the European Community bureaucracy.
Accordingly, the summary of the process is that Globalization is a process that is organized from the concentrations of wealth around the world in the Global North. Companies, based in the Global North, seeking to increase their profit margins and decrease their bottom-line cost, look for opportunities in undeveloped countries to create factories and jobs for people in the Global South in order to capitalize off of their low-wages and economic vulnerability. In the terms of the Globalists, Globalization is a process that promotes democracy and the development of the market economy around the world. One of the main organs of international banking, the International Monetary Fund, says this on their website:
The IMF is an international organization of 184 member countries. It was established to promote international monetary cooperation, exchange stability, and orderly exchange arrangements; to foster economic growth and high levels of employment; and to provide temporary financial assistance to countries to help ease balance of payments adjustment.
This, of course, is indicative of the roots upon which modern corporate Globalization started. This process, in its modern form, really began to surface in the era of the Marshall Plan after the Second World War, in which both the Eastern and Western blocs were attempting to create spheres of influence in order to prove which was a better tool for global manipulation and control.
But the effects of this process, in reality, are nothing compared to the way that they look in theory. In practice, Globalization, creates a global two-tiered society, with an ever-expanding gap between the "haves" and the "have-nots," pits workers in the Global North against those in the South, and creates a global hegemony that destroys local culture and replaces it with "cookie-cutter" corporate products and culture. (Chomsky 5-21)
In the first world, where for many years the entire concept of Globalization was hidden from public discourse altogether, it is finally emerging as something that needs to be discussed, and the 2004 elections are the only time in which matters of "out-sourcing," or shipping jobs abroad, was even mention by either of the political parties. While many have been victims of its processes and unaware of its existence, many have been pushing since the early 80’s to finally get it into the media. These attempts, finally, culminated in the first exposure of the emerging Forth World War, with the smashing of corporate stores in the streets of Seattle at the World Trade Organization Ministerial meeting in Novermber of 1999. Accordingly, therefore, the face of the Fourth World War in the first world, or Global North, takes the shape of the organizing among common people, activist culture, that struggles to put pressure on businesses to demand a sustainable economy for the people of the country.
Ranging from creating organs of criticism like Adbusters Magazine and fair-trade coffee businesses like Equal Exchange, to Anarchist groups advocating direct action, the face of resistance to corporate Globalization in the Global North is diverse and multi-faceted in its approach.
Demonstrations in the streets, while common all over the world, are most renowned in the Global North, because it is here where most of the major meetings that shape policy and opinion regarding Globalization take place. (Friedman 379-405)
In the other hand, the struggles of the Global South, also referred to in Cold War language as the "Third-World," are often much more violent because they are expressions of daily face-to-face exposures with the brunt end of the Globalization machine. Mexico, in particular, which is considered by many proponents of Globalization to be a stellar model of the success of these economic policies, is indeed a perfect example of how resistance in the Global South can, and often does, look.
On January 1, 1994, the effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect as a policy effecting the economic relationships of Canada, the United States, and Mexico. The ability of this treaty to go into effect, however, was monitored by the international organs of Globalization, such as the IMF and World Bank, who refused to allow the treaty to happen if the three countries involved, did not participate in a program of "structural adjustment." This term is used to describe the process by which countries prepare themselves for foreign investment, by creating more lax economic which is, laws that are easy on the companies to do what they want, and labor regulations. But in the case of Mexico, in particular, this meant that constitutional communal land rights granted to indigenous people would have to be revoked, and in turn, allowed to be put on the auctioning block for foreign investors. (Midnight Notes 9-14)
Knowing what rights were at risk for the indigenous people, people in the state of Chiapas-Mexico’s southernmost and most poor state--formed an uprising, which was the first outright conflict that would form the basis for the defense of the Global South in what these people would later call the "Fourth World War." (Midnight Notes 11)
In Argentina, the crises of economic Neo-Liberalism was able to change the government of the country five times within a thirty-day period. For years, Argentina was considered a role-model of Globalization, as the largest economic power in Latin America to move away from Nationalized industries of decades past, and instead moving towards increased foreign investment and trade. The 2002 economic crisis was a result of decades of international involvement in Argentina. During the 1980’s, Argentina’s economy was experiencing hyper-inflation, and in order to stabilize their currency, the IMF encourage Argentina to peg their currency to the American dollar as a way to anchor the money down. In the end, after numerous economic crises around the world, the Argentinean economy came to an end. Nobel Prize-winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz explains on Globalpolicy.org:
The problems began with the hyper-inflation of the 1980s. To slash inflation, expectations needed changing; 'anchoring' the currency to the dollar was meant to do this…The IMF encouraged this exchange-rate system. Now it is less enthusiastic, though Argentina is the one paying the price. The peg lowered inflation but did not promote sustained growth…There were other mistakes in Argentina's 'reform' programme. It was praised for allowing large foreign ownership of banks. This led to a seemingly more stable banking system, but…failed…
The resultant effect after a Global economic slow-down in 2001, was that banks were not able to insure investors, and lost the money of investors. Seeing the economic problems in East Asia and other places around the world the previous few years, investors began to pull money out of Argentine banks. Which is another reason why Globalization is unsustainable.
Nonetheless, the double-digit unemployment did not mean much to people in positions of comfort in power at first, but when Middle-class people and others were not able to pull money out of the banks chaos erupted. This is where the resistance by the Argentine people to the policies of the super-powers of the Fourth World War began. Riots began in the streets; people were demanding a change of government and a change in economic policy-namely, a break with the IMF and World Bank. Unemployed workers, recently-fired, took over factories and began to organize small-scale democratic, non-hierarchical worker’s councils, that took the place of the government, and were responsible for decision-making in the factories and individual neighborhoods. In the end, the same scenario that has always been the case in Latin America and the military stepped in to protect Capitalism. But, the majority of the neighborhood councils and collective factories still are in place, and if the policies of the Argentine government once again become involved in such Globalization practices, the people of Argentina will respond again.
Perhaps the most over-the-top, and most direct, of the conflicts of the Fourth World War is the occupation of Iraq by the United States. Not too long ago, American newspapers and media outlets were toting the fact that Iraq has "the freest market in the world," a place where anything can be privatized by anyone at any time. Road, water, oil, buildings, and anything else short of people can be bought by companies who compete to have contracts with the occupation forces to have permission to do what they like in Iraq. Naomi Klein explains:
Some highlights: The $4.8 million management contract for the port in Umm Qasr has already gone to a US company, Stevedoring Services of America, and the airports are on the auction block. The US Agency for International Development has invited US multinationals to bid on everything from rebuilding roads and bridges to printing textbooks. Most of these contracts are for about a year, but some have options that extend up to four. How long before they meld into long-term contracts for privatized water services, transit systems, roads, schools and phones? When does reconstruction turn into privatization in disguise?
The occupation forces, themselves, have been increasingly privatized, and private companies commission entire units of troops that are patrolling with US forces. The effects not only of direct military control of cities, with continual random raids, but also of companies controlling water-rights and other vital industries, the effects of this occupation is devastating on the Iraqi people. As we can see from the complaints of one soldier in the film Fahrenheit 9/11, though, people working for companies like Halliburton are paid upwards of quadruple what the average American soldier, who most often is working-class, is paid. Privatization on this scale has never been seen before, because it is the first time in the Fourth World War, that the proponents of the economic policies are actually able to do the physical manipulation of an entire country’s infrastructure from start to finish. The way that Iraq’s economy looks like in a few years, could be an indication of what is in store for other Global South countries if they agree to fully comply with the ideas of the Globalists, and are willing to get exploited.
While the war looks different around the globe, as does the resistance, the Fourth World War will be remarkably different that wars before it. While the other World Wars resulted in attempting to change maps for means of the gain of a few, the Fourth World War, if the uprisings in reaction to it are successful, will be something very different, promoting local cultures, while Globalizing a radically different culture to the current global Capitalist paradigm. In the end, it is probably best to echo the millions of people around the world that are affected by this Fourth World War, who exist in every corner of the globe, in San Cristobal de Las Casas, in South Africa, in Baghdad, in Seoul, in Seattle, in Prague, when they say, "Another world is possible."