b o o k r e v i e W Labor and Globalization: A Review Commentary

R o b e r t T a y l o r The Global Class War. By Jeff Faux. John Wiley and Sons, 2006. Pp. 304. $27.95 (hardcover), ISBN 0-471-69761-3. orkers of the world unite. You have “ nothing to lose Wbut your chains.” The stirring words of Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto have resonated through the generations. They once in- spired international labor solidarity with a vision of the defant proletariat on the march to a socialist future. Differences of identity based on race, ethnicity, gender, and nationhood were to be transcended by the working class’s advance toward a secular utopia—a global society free from exploitation, conflict, poverty, and Global Capitalism: Its Fall and Rise in The Fences and Windows: Dispatches from the degradation. Twentieth Century. By Jeffrey A. Frieden. Front Lines of the Globalization Debate. By For many, that intoxicating dream died in the mass slaughter of World W.W. Norton, 2006. Pp. 448. $29.95 (hard- Naomi Klein. Harper Perennial, 2002. Pp. War I. Others kept the faith, but most cover), ISBN 0-393-05808-5. 304. $13.00 (paperback), ISBN 0-312-30799-3. were eventually disillusioned by the un- folding horrors of Soviet Communism that culminated in the gulags. Still, the goal of collective labor as an effective counterchallenge to the domination of global capitalism was not entirely lost. Fiery populist rhetoric may have given way to a mild yet civilized social democ- racy in much of the world, but it still resonates in Latin America from Bolivia to Venezuela. Go into any bookshop in the United States, however, and it is diffcult to fnd volumes on labor in the global economy. In the great debate over the causes and consequences of globaliza- Capitalism Unleashed: Finance, Globaliza- Other Immigrants: The Global Origins of the tion and Welfare. By Andrew Glyn. Oxford American People. By David M. Reimers. University Press, 2006. Pp. 208. $29.95 (hard- New York University Press, 2005. Pp. 388. cover), ISBN 0-199-29199-3. $22.00 (paperback), ISBN 0-814-77535-7. tion, workers and their a force of nature, like the he is advocating protectionism and wants institutions hardly achieve The goal of weather, but a human arti- to put American jobs before those of more than a walk-on part. collective labor fact. As Faux writes, “Be- others in a dangerous, zero-sum game. This clutch of books under cause markets are made up However, job offshoring and outsourc- review, however, is differ- as an effective of socially determined laws ing add complexities to labor’s world. ent: they address important challenge to global or rules, all markets gener- Moreover, Faux does not devote enough issues regarding labor and capitalism was not ate politics to settle conflicts space to the implications of the massive, the international economic over the content of those recent migration of workers into the order. Marx’s romantic no- entirely lost. rules, how they are enforced United States in search of the American tion of a united working and who has the right to Dream. No easy answers or slogans are class may be outmoded, but labor still establish them” (p. 202). available to deal with these matters that matters and must regain its lost primacy Faux’s book reveals the nature and some regard as problems and others as in public policymaking. origins of today’s American plutocracy. opportunities. An even more basic trou- It began in the 1980s and 1990s as the ble is the lack of an institutional strategic The Party of Davos restraints and regulations of the New alliance to provide an effective counter- Jeff Faux, a founder of the Economic Deal social contract were torn apart, but challenge to the power of global capital. Policy Institute, has written a provoca- it has amassed even more control in the tive and important volume examining the imperialist age of George W. Bush. Still, Global Capitalism current global war against workers. His Faux sees no grounds for triumphalism. Jeffrey Frieden, a government professor central argument: “America’s bipartisan He points to the horrendous public debt at Harvard University, provides a cogent governing class protects its privileged accumulated in recent years, the fragility historical narrative of the evolution of clients while abandoning the rest of us to of an overblown economy, labor through the last cen- an unregulated and therefore brutal and the lack of international tury in his impressive and merciless global market” (p. 4). Faux ar- competitiveness among Offshoring and insightful volume on global gues that our world is dominated by “the American enterprises, and outsourcing add capitalism. He emphasises party of Davos,” the forces of global the growing evidence of a that globalization’s spread capital that meet annually in that Swiss world beyond U.S. frontiers complexities to across the world has en- ski resort to view the progress of their that has grown hostile and labor’s world. sured winners but also los- corporate projects. Their interests are angry at what America now ers among workers. “There articulated through the activities of the seems to stand for. is no trade without competition, no International Monetary Fund, the World What is to be done? Faux sketches fnance without risk, no investment with- Bank, treaties like the North America out an agenda for a “democratic North out obligation,” he writes. “There is no Free Trade Agreement, and organizations America.” It is based on a new bill way to avoid the trade-offs inherent in such as the European Community. They of economic rights for workers, which global capitalism. And there is no gener- remain bound together by an uncritical would guarantee minimum levels of ally accepted social yardstick to weigh commitment to neoliberalism, the de- health and workplace safety, clean air, the suffering of a worker whose job is regulation of markets by aggressive and and fresh water. Workers would also lost because of globalization against the avaricious corporations who preach and enjoy commonly accepted labor stand- benefts to a worker whose job depends practice the seductive but delusory won- ards—decent pay, government regula- on globalization” (pp. 474–75). ders of so-called free trade. tion to protect workers, and collective Frieden’s overall conclusions make Faux argues persuasively bargaining. Faux visualizes sense: “Economies work best when they that the rich and powerful a model of continental in- are open to the world. Open economies in the United States have Globalization is not tegration that would bring work best when their governments ad- detached themselves from a force of nature. the United States, Mexico, dress the sources of dissatisfaction with the bonds that tied the eco- and Canada into a common global capitalism” (p. 476). He sees nomic fate of all Americans classes to- system of economic effciency and social the challenge we face today as how to gether from the end of World War II justice. combine “international integration with until the Reagan years of the 1980s. He Unfortunately, it remains unclear how politically responsive, socially respon- is right to point to the obvious (but often such a proposal would relate to the rest sible government.” Frieden argues that overlooked) fact that globalization is not of the world. Faux is right to deny that most contemporary ideologues think this

P e r s P E C t i v e s O N W o r k 57 combination is impossible to achieve. a basic income for all, “though set at an radical politics stem from immersion He begs to differ. “Theory and history austere level,” that would emancipate in the world of social movements that indicate that it is possible workers from the endless meet annually at Porto Alegre, Brazil. for globalization to coexist pressure of competition and Klein provides evocative and powerfully The challenge: with policies committed to enable them to pursue hap- committed reporting. Although the book social advance” (p. 476). combining piness and the good life. begins in 1999 on the streets of Seattle, In a nice complement globalization and From the comfort of Ox- where 50,000 protesters besieged a meet- to Frieden’s book, Andrew ford University and as the ing of the World Trade Organization, the Glyn provides a concise and socially responsible progeny of the founder of a focus of her pieces ranges from “landless readable account of the re- government. leading British bank, how- farmers in Brazil, to teachers in Argen- cent history of the inter- ever, Glyn may not be in the tina, to fast food workers in Italy, to cof- national political economy. Glyn’s vol- best position to promote such ideas with fee growers in Mexico, to shanty town ume contains a particularly depressing success. dwellers in South Africa, to telemarketers chapter entitled “Labor’s Retreats.” It in France, to migrant tomato pickers in contrasts the advances made by workers Radical Chic Florida, to union organizers in the Philip- between 1945 and the late 1970s with A similar problem of radical chic faces pines” (page xvi). the defensive erosion of their power and Canadian journalist Naomi Klein in her As with Faux’s book, Klein’s essays influence since that time. published collection of articles. She re- raise the problem of agency. Klein ar- Glyn likes the Nordic social market gards globalization as an almost demonic gues that any successful antiglobalization model. He argues for establishment of force to be confronted all the time. Her challenge must be built from the ground up, from a decentralization of power and action. In what sense can such a response be defned as a “movement,” however? It looks more like a series of unrelated, epi- sodic and limited protests, a modern ver- sion of “doing your own thing”—and, in the end, an implicit recognition of defeat at the hands of capital and the state. Klein is skeptical about looking to the democratic process for solutions; she ad- mits she feels sick at the thought of vot- ing through the ballot box. But how can any democratic response to globalization make much sense unless it is organ- ized and rooted in representation with democratic legitimacy? Perhaps what we need is a radical renewal of democratic politics that is rooted in the assertion of civic virtues, such as citizen participa- tion in public life, and a concept of the public interest that transcends particular tendencies that fragment and divide. The most interesting and stimulating book in this collection comes from David Reimers, emeritus professor of history at New York University. He reminds us of the crucial role that immigration has al- ways played in making the United States and describes contemporary America as the “frst global nation.” In this century,

58 W I N t e r 2 0 0 7 the United States will cease are real enough. Interna- to be based predominantly In what sense can tional terrorism, especially on a Eurocentric working such a response that which is based on the population. Its future will Islamic world’s mounting lie with Hispanics, Asians, be defned as a hatred of Western values and blacks. Globalization is “movement?” and behavior, is a growing coming home to the United threat. The risk of nuclear States. conflagration has not really gone away, Reimers points to a new multi-eth- despite the end of the Cold War. nic working class and what might be Nevertheless, we must not forget that more hopeful times ahead. However, he globalization also has a more benign is sensibly cautious about the possible and hopeful face. The material promise Robert Taylor outcome of this complex social proc- of markets continues to attract millions. ess. “The entrance of so many people It is understandable that workers and Robert Taylor’s book review commentaries have ap- from beyond Europe is a major factor their families want better lives, and they peared in Perspectives on Work since 2002; he now changing the very meaning of race and should not be prevented from pursuing passes the baton to other LERA members. He is cur- ethnicity in the United States. This may that goal by states, corporations, or those rently researching a book on the future of labor and not signal the end of racial or ethnic who oppose globalization. Most workers work in the new age of globalization. conflict, but certainly important changes in Africa, North Korea, and Myanmar are under way. Predictions about the (Burma), for example, suffer not from too long-range future are risky at best. But in much exposure to globalization but from the short run, the present patterns of im- too little. Their lack of access to the op- migration will continue to make America portunities provided by markets, despite a more global society” (p. 291). all their imperfections and complexities, continues to condemn them to poverty, Vulnerability, But Also Hope and to short and diffcult lives. The world of labor may lack a fresh and The desperate people we see crossing arresting grand narrative to enthuse. the Rio Grande or the straits of Gibraltar Its old institutions—unions in search of work and pros- and social democratic polit- perity in the affluent West ical parties—may be in ter- The material suggest the study of labor minal decline in the devel- promise of markets continues to have a stimu- oped countries. Workers in lating future. However, its continues to attract combination have become research must widen and less powerful, less threaten- millions. be increasingly conducted ing to the established order, not locally or nationally but and less influential because they lack a globally. The international division and strong voice of democratic representa- solidarity of labor may not yet enjoy a tion. In large part, this stems from the focus of interest in the bookshops of the end of socialism as a utopian dream and developed world, but it should. After all, an organizational ideology, and from this is increasingly where the action is. the apparent hegemony of neoliberalism. Our world has turned into more of a marketplace than ever been before. Globalization has not brought with it suffcient worker security and well-being. Its foundations remain weak and vulner- able. The dual nightmares of economic depression and environmental apocalypse

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