Socialist Globalization

by Robert Wolfe (February 2014)

The need for a socialist alternative to the international capitalist system stems from the failure of this system to cope with the three most pressing problems confronting the world today. They are:

(3) The intense violence of the endless conflicts both within the Muslim world and between the Muslim world and its neighbors.

The question is: could a socialist international system do a better job of coping with these problems than the capitalist international system? What would such a socialist system look like? And above all, how could it be put into practice?

Lenin said that imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism, but actually it would be more accurate to say that capitalism is the highest stage of imperialism. First came the European empires of the early modern period, founded on the power of the gun, and then came the industrial revolution and the emergence of a capitalist system based on a set of unequal relations between the industrialized countries and their colonies or semi-colonies. The former produced manufactured goods, especially textiles at first, which they exchanged for minerals or cash crops provided by the latter. What was grown or mined, by whom, at what price, was determined by the industrialized countries, not the colonies or semi-colonies. The bottom line was the military domination of the latter by the former, which tended to increase as industrialization proceeded.

There is, however, one group of countries whose industrial production is very slight yet which do not fit the profile of the other non-industrialized countries. That is the group of countries which export large quantities of oil. Oil differs from minerals and cash crops in that it is not merely a desirable but an essential commodity for all industrialized countries. Those who do not have it must import it and this gives the producers of oil a leverage which is reflected in much higher payments for their commodity than for any other. With the income they receive from the sale of oil they are in a position to purchase heavy weapons, provide domestic social services and in general throw their weight around on a world scale. And since the majority of these countries are dominated by the followers of the Muslim religion, much of their activity around the world is directed towards enhancing the power and prestige of Islam. This activity takes many forms, some of which are peaceful, others of which are not.

The main reason why the capitalist system has become so dominant on a world scale over the course of the past 30 years or so is the advent of globalization. Multi-national corporations that can roam the world in search of the perfect combination of cheap labor and cheap raw materials have a tremendous advantage over state owned enterprises that must employ local workers at a reasonable wage in local production facilities. Although socialism was always in theory an internationalist movement, in practice socialist organizations have operated mainly within the framework of the individual nation states. What is needed today is a socialist form of globalization, a system of planning and production that transcends the boundaries of the individual nation states. The goal of socialist globalization should be the treatment of the entire world as a single economic unit within which the provision of necessary goods and services would be maximized and the damage to the environment minimized. The goal is clear: the question is how to get there. The answer is that socialist globalization must be founded on the principle of global democracy.

Ultimate authority for a planned world economy should rest with an assembly in which countries are assigned seats proportionate to their population. The function of this assembly would be to formulate general policy guidelines for the economic development of the various regions around the world. Long range planning based on these guidelines should then be the task of a body composed of experts in the various fields, such as economics, agronomy, geology and so forth, relevant to economic development. This body should in turn assign responsibility for the implementation of its plans to an appropriate mix of private, state owned and cooperative enterprises. It would be a utopian exercise to attempt a detailed analysis of just how such a system might work in practice. The transition from capitalist to socialist globalization will be a complex process whose precise outlines cannot be decreed in advance. One thing is for sure: for this transition to take place a revived international socialist movement is needed.

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