A Marxist critique of globalisation
Surinder S. Jodhka

The Retreat to Unfreedom: Essays on the Emerging World Order
by Prabbat Patnaik. Tulika Books. Rs 525. Pages 302.

SPEAKING from the vantage point of the Third World countries, we can broadly identify two distinct perspectives on globalisation. First that sees it as an opportunity for countries of the South to integrate themselves with the global market. benefit from new technological breakthroughs and develop faster. The second, on the other hand, looks at globalisation essentially in negative terms. Though ideologically, they come from a diverse group, they all seem to agree on its likely impact.

Through globalisation, they argue, Western capitalist countries are trying to revive old colonial/imperialist agenda of subordinating Third-World countries and exploiting their natural resources. The author of this book belongs to the second category of scholars.

Using theoretical categories of Marxist theory, Patnaik makes a distinction between "proletariat internationalism" and "bourgeois internationalism". While the former leads to a genuine progress of human societies, the latter, viz. the current phase of "bourgeois globalisation" is largely regressive, particularly for countries of the Third World.

Though it presents capitalism as a potentially progressive system, in actual practice, it is a new form of imperialism. strengthened and thickened by the growing dominance of finance capital and "a retreat to unfreedom". Far from promoting development and harmony, it actually enhances dangers of economic disasters.

The emerging integration of Third-World economies into the global world order revives old unequal structures of international trade and re-institutes colonial patterns of international division of labour where the developing countries are made to increasingly export their primary products to the countries of the First World in order to meet their rising import bills. This makes it necessary for them to reorient their agricultural production by shifting from the production of food grains for domestic markets to the production exportable items, making them increasingly vulnerable to the possibilities of food shortage and famine. This he claims is already happening in some of the African countries.

Though much is being made of the development impact of direct foreign investments in countries of the Third World, the ground reality, he argues, is very different. Much of the capital coming into countries like India is not being invested production, but is coming in the form of speculative finance. Such free flow of global capital yields very little by way of additions to productive capacity of the economy or availability of new employment. On the other side, the growing domination of "capital-as-finance" significantly weakens the capacity of the nation-state to intervene.

Apart from its economic flaws,. globalisation could also accentuate social conflict by weakening the nation state and the spirit of anti-colonial nationalism that had brought together diverse categories of people in countries like India with a positive agenda of development and . The decline of such nationalist ideas encourages ethnic groups and communities to assert their cultural autonomy, which eventually causes conflicts and violence.

The impoverishment of large masses of common people that the new economic policy produces also breeds discontent among them. Despite the extensive use of Marxist theory, Patnaik underlines the critical importance of the agency of the nation-state in countering the growing power of finance capital and bourgeois internationalism. Unlike in the West, nationalism in countries like India was not a gift of the new capitalist class, he argues.

Nationalism emerged in India as an anti-colonial sentiment and, therefore, has the potential of being anti-imperialist, secular, democratic and inclusive. However, this "good nationalism" ought to be distinguished from the "bad nationalism" of oppressor nations of the West and the communalist nationalism of different groups within the Third World countries.

His approach to the parliamentary system of democracy is also at variance from the classical understaffing of the concept within Marxist theory. Unlike in the West where democratic institutions came up only after the capitalist system had consolidated itself, in India, democratic consciousness was a result of anti-colonial struggle.

The new independent Indian state and its structures, thus, represented a much wider alliance of classes under the leadership of the bourgeoisie. Those involved with the struggle for socialism, thus, should never undermine the value of existing democratic institutions.

One could not agree more with Patnaik on the question of democracy and socialism. However, one is not equally sure about his faith in the agency of nationalism in the contemporary Indian context. The revival of "good old nationalism" seems like a far-fetched idea, particularly in light of the fact that the old equation of social classes that had come together to produce such a sentiment against colonialism can no longer be expected. It is not merely the capitalists who have changed over the year; other social classes have also undergone changes — a subject on which very little work is being currently done by the Indian social scientists.

This book makes for stimulating reading, as it has been lucidly written. With the exception of a few sections that require familiarity with the jargon of economics, much of it can be read easily even by a layman.

HOME