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NAFTA, Capitalism and Alternatives: Debate, VI
On Thu, 27 Apr 1995, Kenneth M. Price wrote:
> Harry: You wrote the following in response to Victor Story:
> >Victor: "Development" is capitalist development, there has never been any
> >other kind. The very concept of development has been intimately wound up
> >in the elaboration of capitalism. Think of the literature. From at least
> >Rosenstein Rodan onward, economists have discussed development in terms
> >of achieving growth (more investment, more wage labor, more profits)
> >through the improvement in capitalist institutions (labor markets,
> >capital markets, government demand and supply management policies).
> >Political scientists, sociologists and anthropologists have discussed
> >development in terms of "modernization", i.e., the transformation of
> >pre-capitalist institutions, mindsets, behaviors, and other social
> >behaviors into those of "homo economicus" -that psychopathic construct
> >built by economists to found their models. Even so-called "socialist"
> >development, upon closer examination, turned out to be capitalist
> >development, only with a stronger role for the state and a gloss of
> >pro-worker revolutionary rhetoric (somewhat like that of the PRI).
> >
> Harry: I would be most interested in seeing exactly what economic system you
> propose as a substitute for both capitalism and socialism. I do not claim
> that capitalism is the total answer to the problems of the world, and I know
> that socialism/communism has created more problems than it has solved. Your
> writings appear to indicate that you have some ideas that are neither, but
> that you feel have a better chance of success. I am certain that all readers
> are an anxious as I am to understand exactly how your economic theory would
> work.
>
> Ken Price (PanAmerican Consulting Associates, Inc.)
Ken: Back in February, when we last exchanged views on the net, I
suggested that alternatives to Western-style capitalism and Soviet-style
state-capitalism could be found in a variety of grassroots initiatives:
"What makes the Zapatistas so interesting is the way in which they have
given voice to grassroots visions of real alternatives, not just real
democracy, but reorientations of life around meeting its own needs,
rather than that of the bottom line. The Zapatistas have been explicit
about reversing the relationship between the 'economy' and needs from the
capitalist [and we might add Soviet-style] subordination of the later to
the former, to a liberated subordination of the former to the later."
Now, taking that answer as a point of departure, let me make two points.
First, the "visions of real alternatives" that I am talking about are not
shared, unified visions of an alternative "economic system". You ask me
"what economic system you propose"? The answer is "none". The reason the
answer is "none" is because I think that the moment you propose replacing
one hegemonic system by another, you are really talking about replacing
one system of domination by another. Even more fundamental than their
inability to see beyond capital's work-centered society, was the
socialist failure to see beyond unity to diversity. Why should the
peoples of the world all be locked up together in a single "economic
system". Historically speaking "locked up" is a good characterization
because the history of the growth of such unifying "systems" was a
history of their imposition, e.g., capitalism was imposed on the world
through colonialism, then neo-colonialism etc. As the study of both
history and contemporary society shows, humans are a diverse species.
They choose (within constraints) to do what they do in many different
ways. They choose different cultural practices, different ways of
organizing family life, different ways of organizing politics, different
ways of organizing the production and distribution of material wealth,
and so on. One of the reasons I object to capitalism is because it tends
to wipe out such differences or by subordinating them, reduce differences
to superficial variations of its own patterns. I would object to the
substitution of any other singular "economic system" for capitalism for
the same reason.
More interesting, it seems to me, would be a world in
which there are a wide variety of ways of doing things, of organizing
social life. Such diversity need not involve either isolation (back to
the land localism) or a lack of politics (no interaction among the
different groups). Nor need it involve contradiction and antagonism
between groups (e.g., the "ethnic" warfare of ex-Yugoslavia). The
challenge is to create a politics of interaction, as one part of creating
such a new world, through which difference can co-exist
--sometimes with harmony, sometimes with conflict, but without
conflict developing into antagonism and violence. The problem is similar
to the one faced by the drafters of the American constitution as they
sought to reconcile local rights (states' rights) with collective
agreements (federal law). It was to create a forum/occasion for the
discussion of such problems that the CND called for grassroots
discussions to feed into a consitutional convention to rewrite the
Mexican constitution.
One example of such discussion in Mexico has been that of redefining
indigenous women's rights. Starting from the Zapatista's Revolutionary
Women's Law, indigenous women in Chiapas have been discussing Article 4
of the Mexican Constitution --the one that guarantees cultural autonomy
for the Indigenous. They have seen how Article 4 could be used against
them because "cultural autonomy" when interpreted by men preserves many
traditional patriarchal practices hurtful to women. Therefore, they have
seen the need to rework the intersecting frameworks for thinking about
both gender and cultural rights.
Another example of work in the same direction has been the creation by
the new counter-institutions created last year in Chiapas (the Avendano
government, etc) of new "pluriethnic autonomous zones" in the state.
These are experiments to develop new ways of organizing political life
outside the control of the state. These experiments need be neither
definitive nor generalized but do stand as examples of alternatives
currently being explored.
Second, when I speak of the subordination of the "economy" to need I am
speaking loosely, but I will try to explain what I mean. I share with
Marx and Polanyi the understanding that the "economy" is a relatively
modern invention that involved the subordination of other social
practices and institutions to those we generally call "economic", i.e.,
production and circulation of social wealth, either through the market
or through state planning or some mixture of both. That subordination
involved, in Polanyi's terms, the disembodying of the "economic" from the
more general fabric of society. That subordination involved, in Marx's
terms, the commodification of life through the capitalist take-over of
more and more human activities. In my terms it involved the
reorganization of life around imposed work. In such terms, it is
impossible to talk about the subordination of the "economy" to need
because the "economy" has historically subordinated need to itself (e.g.,
converted "need" into "demand" and made the meeting of "needs" dependent
on having the cash to buy something (food, clothing, amusement,etc).
However, that said, we CAN talk about the reorganization of those
activities which today serve as "economic" in ways that subordinate them
to need, or re-embed them in a social fabric responsive to need, or
liberate them from the being component parts of a life-sentence to hard
labor.
An obvious place where such reorganization has been discussed has been in
the growing and distributing of food. As against the neoliberal model of
comparative advantage and the orientation of agriculture to export
markets (e.g., selling tomatoes to the U.S. and importing corn to Mexico)
--the model embodied in NAFTA and called a death sentence for the
indigenous in Chiapas by the Zapatistas-- there has been discussion of
the reorganization of agricultural production to the meeting of local
needs with long-distance trade to be undertaken only in so far as those
needs are met. This thinking (which is obviously integrally connected to
discussions of land redistribution and access to investment goods) is not
only parallel to old arguments about National Security Interests (the
U.S.Strategic Oil Reserve) but is rooted in a complex definition of
the "needs" that are associated with food production. In capitalism food
is just another product, produced by another process of production and it
is just another consumption good, consumed in various ways. In Chiapas
and in other parts of Mexico the basic food stuff, corn, has
traditionally had far more complex connotations --as those familar with
Mexico are undoubtedly well aware-- playing not only a basic social but
also a spiritual role in a variety of indigenous cosmologies. The
"productivity" of corn production is not measurable by economic measures,
nor by any simple quantitative yardsticks. One can (and does) put a price
on corn,but the price by no means measures its worth. The "corn laws" of
Mexico are not just a matter of price, trade and budget; they are matters
of politics, of social fabrics and cultural survival. To the usual
economist question: but what of efficiency? one must answer: what of
efficiency? How do we measure the inputs and outputs, when both are
multidimensionally complex. Being rejected is a model of efficiency where
the concept is so narrowly defined as to ignore the most important parts
of reality. We CAN talk about efficiency in narrow terms, but we should
do so with the same attitude that we discuss other technical questions,
and not substitute that discussion for more difficult discussion of
things that matter more. That is part of what it means to subordinate
"economic relationships" to the meeting of needs.
What is true with respect to "the economy" is true with respect to
"economic theory". There are elements of economic theory that may (or
may not) have their (subordinate) place in social orders organized around
meeting people's needs. But in as much as contemporary mainstream
economics (classical, neoclassical, new classical) was developed as an
integral part of the management and justification of capitalism, it is as
subject to critique and rejection as capitalism itself. Despite its
imperial pretences to providing a general theory of human choice
(economic and other), both its structure and its content have been
intellectually and practically inseparable from the system of which it is
an expression. Now, as I have argued elsewhere, Marxism does not provide
a much better point of departure for reconceptualizing the "economic" as
something else because its genesis and development have also been bound
up with capitalism, albeit in a critical way (i.e., whereas mainstream
economics is geared to managing and apologizing for capitalism, Marxism
is geared to critiquing it as a contribution to its supersession. Thus,
despite the best efforts of Leninists and Western anti-communists to
find a formula for a post-capitalist economy in Marx, there really has
never been one. As early as the 1840s Marx rejected utopianism and never
changed his mind. What little he said about the directions in which
history seemed to be moving was based on the struggles of the times
(e.g., the Paris Commune, the Russian MIR). As a result, we are on our
own for elaborating new ways of thinking about post-capitalist
"economics" just as we are on our own for developing new ways of being.
Clearly the two are going along hand in hand, with, as usual the
thinking also lagging behind the doing, just like Minerva's owl taking
wing at dusk.
This said, what I have tried to indicate is that there is already a
great deal to talk about in almost every area of social and private
life, from the reorganization of agriculture to the renegotiating of
gender relationships, from the transformation of work relationships to
those of crime and punishment, from local rearrangements to
international ones. This series of discussions began with some comments
on NAFTA. In the period prior to the formal agreements on NAFTA there
was an enormous amount of discussion about free trade (neoliberalism)
versus the subordination of trade to other considerations, e.g., labor
rights, protection of the environment, indigenous rights, women's rights
etc. Much of that discussion is preserved in the archives of the net
lists where those discussions occurred. Other parts are preserved in
hard copy publications which were spun off from or intersected those
discussions. Some parts are preserved in peoples memories and continue
to be elaborated in specialized discussions. The same is true about many
other things. The fact that there has been so much discussion about so
many aspects of our lives makes it hard to grasp how much is at issue,
how much is being developed. Indeed, the task is so hard that probably
most people tend to focus in on some aspect of things which concern them
most and block out the rest --resisting sensory and intellectual
overload. Thus the difficulty of carrying on a discussion like this one
which is almost a meta-discussion of other discussion. There is
consideral abstraction involved which can degenerate into antagonistic
assertion and counter-assertion. The only check on that process is
frequent engagement at much lower levels of abstraction, i.e., the
citing and discussing of concrete examples and counterexamples, and of
their meaning for the more abstract discussion. This is hard work. But
doable, I think, if undertaken with good will and not merely polemical
intent.
======================================
Harry Cleaver
Department of Economics
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas 78712-1173
USA
Phone Numbers: (hm) (512) 442-5036
(off) (512) 471-3211
Fax: (512) 471-3510
E-mail: hmcleave@mundo.eco.utexas.edu
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