3/4/2019 A Brief History of Transnational Corporations

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A Brief History of Transnational Corporations AREAS OF WORK

Corporate Influence by Jed Greer and Kavaljit Singh Corpwatch Global Policy Watch 2000

Globalization Transnational corporations are among the world's biggest economic institutions. A rough estimate suggests that the 300 largest TNCs own or control at least one-quarter of the entire world's productive assets, worth about US$5 trillion.1 TNCs' total annual sales are Social and Economic Policy comparable to or greater than the yearly gross domestic product (GDP) of most countries (GDP is the total output of goods and services for final use by a nation's economy). Itochu Corporation's sales, for instance, exceed the gross domestic product of Austria, NGOs while those of Royal Dutch/Shell equal 's GDP. Together, the sales of Mitsui and are greater than the GDPs of UN Finance Denmark, Portugal, and Turkey combined, and US$50 billion more than all the GDPs of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa.2

International Justice Partly as a result of their size, TNCs tend to dominate in industries where output and markets are oligopolistic, or concentrated in the hands of a relatively small number of firms. The top five car and truck manufacturers are responsible for nearly 60 per cent of UN Reform worldwide sales of motor vehicles. The five leading oil majors account for over 40 per cent of that industry's global market share. For the chemicals sector, the comparable percentage is 35 per cent, and for both electronics and steel it is over 50 per cent.3 SPECIAL TOPICS Though based predominantly in Western Europe, North America, and Japan, TNCs' operations span the globe. The Swiss electrical engineering giant ABB has facilities in 140 nations, for example, while Royal Dutch/Shell explores for oil in 50 countries, refines in 34, World Food & Hunger and markets in 100. Offices of the US food processing firm H.J. Heinz cover six continents and Cargill, the US's largest grain company, operates in 54 countries. Britain's leading chemical company ICI has manufacturing operations in 40 nations and sales affiliates in The Dark Side of Natural 150.4 Resources Technical definitions of TNCs vary, but for the purposes of this guide the term "transnational corporation" means a for-profit enterprise Global Taxes marked by two basic characteristics: 1) it engages in enough business activities -- including sales, distribution, extraction, Humanitarian Intervention? manufacturing, and research and development -- outside the country of origin so that it is dependent financially on operations in two or more countries; 2) and its management decisions are made based on regional or global alternatives.5 Private Military and Security Companies A TNC can be a "public" corporation, which trades its shares of stock at stock exchanges or brokerage houses; the buyers from the public are "shareholders," and can include individuals as well as institutions such as banks, insurance companies, and pension funds. Tables and Charts DuPont and Enron are examples of publicly-traded corporations. Or a TNC can be "private," meaning that it does not have shares which are traded publicly; such firms are frequently family-controlled. Cargill is a private firm which until recently was controlled by ARCHIVED SECTIONS two families.

A "parent" company, located in the TNC's country of origin, exercises an authoritative, controlling influence over a "subsidiary" in Iraq Conflict another country either directly if it is private or, if it is public, by owning some or all of the shares (parent corporations can exert Empire controlling power even with relatively small share holdings in subsidiaries). United Carbide India Ltd., for example, was the Indian subsidiary of the US-based Union Carbide Corporation. Subsidiaries can have a different name than the parent company, and can of NGO Working Group on UN- course also be located in the same country as the parent. The style of relationships between parent and subsidiary companies --that NGO Relations is, how control is exercised--differs among TNCs' main home regions. More formal, centralised control has typically been a hallmark of US, and to a lesser extent European, corporations than of Japanese TNCs. Security Council

Nations & States Brief History of TNCs WORKING GROUPS From the Origins to the Second World War NGO Working Group on Food & The earliest historical origins of transnational corporations can be traced to the major colonising and imperialist ventures from Western Hunger Europe, notably England and Holland, which began in the 16th century and proceeded for the next several hundred years. During this MORE FROM GPF period, firms such as the British East India Trading Company were formed to promote the trading activities or territorial acquisitions of their home countries in the Far East, Africa, and the Americas. The transnational corporation as it is known today, however, did not really appear until the 19th century, with the advent of industrial capitalism and its consequences: the development of the factory system; larger, more capital intensive manufacturing processes; better storage techniques; and faster means of transportation. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, the search for resources including minerals, petroleum, and foodstuffs as well as pressure to protect or increase markets drove transnational expansion by companies almost exclusively from the and a handful of Western European nations. Sixty per cent of these corporations' investments went to Latin America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Fuelled by numerous mergers and acquisitions, monopolistic and oligopolistic concentration of large transnationals in major sectors such as petrochemicals and food also had its roots in these years. The US agribusiness giant United Fruit Company, for example, controlled 90 per cent of US banana imports by 1899, while at the start of the First World War, Royal Dutch/Shell accounted for 20 per cent of Russia's total oil production.7

Demand for natural resources continued to provide an impetus for European and US corporate ventures between the First and Second World Wars. Although corporate investments from Europe declined somewhat, the activities of US TNCs expanded vigorously. In Japan, this period witnessed the growth of the zaibatsu (or "financial clique") including Mitsui and Mitsubishi. These giant corporations, which worked in alliance with the Japanese state, had oligopolistic control of the country's industrial, financial, and trade sectors.

1945 to the Present US TNCs heavily dominated foreign investment activity in the two decades after the Second World War, when European and Japanese corporations began to play ever greater roles. In the 1950s, banks in the US, Europe, and Japan started to invest vast sums of money in industrial stocks, encouraging corporate mergers and furthering capital concentration. Major technological advances in shipping, https://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/47068-a-brief-history-of-transnational-corporations. 1/5 3/4/2019 A Brief History of Transnational Corporations

transport (especially by air), computerisation, and communications accelerated TNCs' increasing internationalisation of investment and trade, while new advertising capabilities helped TNCs expand market shares. All these trends meant that by the 1970s oligopolistic consolidation and TNCs' role in global commerce was of a far different scale than earlier in the century. Whereas in 1906 there were two or three leading firms with assets of US$500 million, in 1971 there were 333 such corporations, one-third of which had assets of US$1 billion or more. Additionally, TNCs had come to control 70-80 per cent of world trade outside the centrally planned economies.8

Over the past quarter century, there has been a virtual proliferation of transnat-ionals. In 1970, there were some 7,000 parent TNCs, while today that number has jumped to 38,000. 90 percent of them are based in the industrialised world, which control over 207,000 foreign subsidiaries. Since the early 1990s, these subsidiaries' global sales have surpassed worldwide trade exports as the principal vehicle to deliver goods and services to foreign markets.

The large number of TNCs can be somewhat misleading, however, because the wealth of transnationals is concentrated among the top 100 firms which in 1992 had US$3.4 trillion in global assets, of which approximately US$1.3 trillion was held outside their home countries. The top 100 TNCs also account for about one-third of the combined outward foreign direct investment (FDI) of their countries of origin. Since the mid-1980s, a large rise of TNC-led foreign direct investment has occurred. Between 1988 and 1993, worldwide FDI stock -- a measure of the productive capacity of TNCs outside their home countries -- grew from US$1.1 to US$2.1 trillion in estimated value.

There has also been a great increase in TNC investment in the less-industrialized world since the mid-1980s; such investment, along with private bank loans, has grown far more dramatically than national development aid or multilateral bank lending. Burdened by debt, low commodity prices, structural adjustment, and unemployment, governments throughout the less-industrialised world today view TNCs, in the words of the British magazine The Economist, as "the embodiment of modernity and the prospect of wealth: full of technology, rich in capital, replete with skilled jobs." 9 As a result, The Economist notes further, these governments have been "queuing up to attract multinationals" and liberalising investment restrictions as well as privatising public sector industries.10 For TNCs, less-industrialised countries offer not just the potential for market expansion but also lower wages and fewer health and environmental regulations than in the North.

Thus, in 1992 foreign investment into less-industrialised nations was over US$50 billion; the figure had jumped to US$71 billion in 1993 and US$80 billion in 1994. In 1992-93, less-industrialised countries accounted for between one-third and two-fifths of global FDI inflows -- more than at any time since 1970. These flows have not been evenly distributed, however, with just ten host recipients_the majority in Asia_accounting for up to 80 percent of all FDI to the less-industrialised world.11

Problems Arising from TNCs

Intra-Company Trade and Manipulative Price Transfers The post-Second World War period witnessed not merely a rise in TNCs' control of world trade, but also growth of trade within related enterprises of a given corporation, or "intra-company" trade. While intra-company trade in natural resource products has been a feature of TNCs since before 1914, such trade in intermediate products and services is mainly a phenomenon of recent decades. By the 1960s, an estimated one-third of world trade was intra-company in nature, a proportion which has remained steady to the present day. The absolute level and value of intra-company trade has increased considerably since that time, however. Moreover, 80 per cent of international payments for technology royalties and fees are made on an intra-company basis.12

Problems stemming from intra-company trade concern TNCs' ability to maximise profits by avoiding both market mechanisms and national laws with an instrument of internal costing and accounting known as "transfer pricing." This is a widespread technique whereby TNCs set prices for transfers of goods, services, technology, and loans between their worldwide affiliates which differ considerably from the prices which unrelated firms would have had to pay.

There are many benefits TNCs derive from transfer pricing. By lowering prices in countries where tax rates are high and raising them in countries with a lower tax rate, for example, TNCs can reduce their overall tax burden, thus boosting their overall profits. Virtually all intra-company relations including advisory services, insurance, and general management can be categorised as transactions and given a price; charges can as well be made for brand names, head office overheads, and research and development. Through their accounting systems TNCs can transfer these prices among their affiliates, shifting funds around the world to avoid taxation. Governments, which have no way to control TNCs' transfer pricing, are therefore under pressure to lower taxes as a means of attracting investment or keeping a company's operation in their country. Tax revenue which might be used for social programs or other domestic needs is thus lost.

Moreover, in countries where there are government controls preventing companies from setting product retail prices above a certain percentage of prices of imported goods or the cost of production, the firms can inflate import costs from their subsidiaries and then impose higher retail prices. Additionally, TNCs can use overpriced imports or underpriced exports to circumvent governmental ceilings on profit repatriation, causing nation-states to suffer large foreign exchange losses. For instance, if a parent company has a profitable subsidiary in a country where the parent does not wish to re-invest the profits, it can remit them by overpricing imports into that country. During the 1970s, investigations found that average overpricing by parent firms on imports by their Latin American subsidiaries in the pharmaceutical industry was 155 per cent, while imports of dyestuffs raw materials by Indian TNC affiliates were being overpriced between 124 and 147 percent.13

Influence in Nations' Political Affairs TNCs' influence over countries, particularly those in the less-industrialised world, has not been manifest solely in sheer economic power or manipulative price transfers. Such influence has also been reflected in corporations' willingness and ability to exert leverage directly by employing government officials, participating on important national economic policy making committees, making financial contributions to political parties, and bribery. Furthermore, TNCs actively enlist the help of Northern governments to further or protect their interests in less-industrialised nations, assistance which has sometimes has involved military force. In 1954, for instance, the US launched an invasion of Guatemala to prevent the Guatemalan government from taking (with compensation plus interest) unused land of United Fruit Company for redistribution to peasants.14

Perhaps the most notorious example of TNCs' meddling in the political affairs of a sovereign state, however, occurred in the early 1970s, when International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT) offered the US Central Intelligence Agency US$1 million to finance a campaign to defeat the candidacy of Salvador Allende in Chilean national elections. Though this offer was refused, and Allende democratically elected, ITT continued to lobby the US government and other US corporations to promote opposition to Allende through economic pressure including the cutoff of credit and aid and support of Allende's political rivals. After copper mines in Chile owned by https://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/47068-a-brief-history-of-transnational-corporations.html 2/5 3/4/2019 A Brief History of Transnational Corporations

the firms Kennecott and Anaconda were nationalised, the US government took a series of steps based largely on the recommendations of ITT to subvert Allende.15

Disclosure of ITT's efforts to overthrow Allende helped prompt initiatives in the United Nations to draft a TNC to establish some guidelines for . This move was part of more general concern about the extent of corporations' economic and political influence which emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, and which led some less-industrialised countries to demand that TNCs divest from certain sectors or to require changes in the terms of a company's investment. Yet such developments have been minor and temporary obstacles to the augmentation of TNCs' economic power, and overall the past three decades have been characterised by increased regional economic integration, the liberalisation of many international markets, and the opening up of new are as such as Central and Eastern Europe.

TNCs and International Politics Especially since the 1980s, TNCs' involvement at international political negotiations and fora has accompanied and encouraged the rise of global corporate economic power. In an effort to reduce barriers to trade and investment capital flows in the last decade, TNCs have lobbied vigorously to shape to their liking Europe's Single Market agreement, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). For TNCs, so-called free trade lessens governmental restrictions on their movement and ability to maximise returns. "The deregulation of trade aims to erase national boundaries insofar as these affect economic life," economists Herman Daly and Robert Goodland have noted. "The policy-making strength of the nation is thereby weakened, and the relative power of TNCs is increased."16

For example, rules established in the GATT's recently concluded Uruguay Round regarding trade-related intellectual property rights (TRIPs) and trade-related investment measures (TRIMs) will be of particular benefit to TNCs. The first gives corporations greater capacity to privatise and patent life forms, including plant and other genetic resources of less-industrialised nations and peoples. TRIMs render illegal certain measures which countries_ notably Southern nations_have employed to encourage TNCs to establish linkages with domestic firms. TRIPs, TRIMs, and other GATT rules fall under the authority of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), a new supranational body which works with the World Bank and other financial institutions to manage global economic policy to serve transnational corporate interests.17

In another demonstration of transnationals' growing political might, and perhaps the most striking example to date of organised corporate lobbying on the world stage, TNCs' efforts at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro undermined sections of the Summit's key documents. And well before the Summit took place, TNC pressure had led to the removal from UNCED materials proposals to regulate the practices of global corporations.19

This success in Rio underscores a broader issue: although TNCs are collectively the world's most powerful economic force, no intergovernmental organisation is charged with regulating their behaviour. United Nations efforts to monitor and to some extent address TNCs' impacts, notably through the UN's Centre on Transnational Corporations (CTC), have recently been decimated. Under a 1992 restructuring, the CTC lost its independent status, and in 1993 it was dismantled and a 17-year attempt to negotiate the aforementioned Code of Conduct on TNCs was abandoned. A new Division on Transnational Corporations and Investment emerged_with the aim of promoting foreign direct investment.

TNCs, Human Health, and the Environment The unwillingness or inability of national governments to control TNCs in a period of deregulated global trade and investment does not bode well for people's health or the environment. TNC operations routinely expose workers and communities to an array of health and safety and ecological dangers. All too often these operations erupt into disasters such as the gas release at the Indian subsidiary of the US-based corporation Union Carbide in Bhopal.

To regard such tragedies only as "accidents," however, distracts attention from the larger, inherent harm to the planet and its inhabitants TNCs' industrial development strategies cause. For example, TNC activities generate more than half of the greenhouse gases emitted by the industrial sectors with the greatest impact on global warming. TNCs control 50 percent of all oil extraction and refining, and a similar proportion of the extraction, refining, and marketing of gas and coal. Additionally, TNCs have virtually exclusive control of the production and use of ozone-destroying chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and related compounds.20

In destructive minerals extraction, TNCs still dominate key industries. In aluminum, for example, just six companies account for 63 per cent of the mine capacity, 66 per cent of the refining capacity, and 54 per cent of the smelting capacity. Four TNCs account for half the world's tin smelting capacity.22 With respect to their influence on global agriculture, TNCs control 80 per cent of land worldwide which is cultivated for export-oriented crops, often displacing local food crop production.23 Twenty TNCs account for about 90 per cent of the sales of hazardous pesticides.24Additionally, because TNCs control much of the world's genetic seed stocks as well as finance the bulk of biotechnology research worldwide, they are poised to reap large financial rewards from patenting life forms.

TNCs also manufacture most of the world's chlorine _ the basis for some of the most toxic, persistent, and bioaccumulative synthetic chemicals known such as PCBs, DDT, dioxins and furans, chlorinated solvents, and thousands of other organochlorine compounds. These chemicals' impacts on health include: immune suppression; birth defects; cancer; reproductive, developmental, and neurological harm; and damage to the liver and other organs. As a group, TNCs lead in the export and import of products and technologies that have been controlled or banned in some countries for health and safety reasons. For instance, 25 per cent of total pesticide exports by TNCs from the US in the late l980s were chemicals that were banned, unregistered, canceled, or withdrawn in the US itself.25 And a handful of Northern companies are responsible for the nuclear technology now found at plants in South America and Asia.

TNCs and their business associations claim that deregulated trade and investment will produce enough growth to end poverty and generate resources for environmental protection. The unrestricted free trade and investment-based growth beloved by TNCs, however, is the same kind of development which has led to overexploitation of land and natural resources, air, water, and soil pollution, ozone depletion, global warming, and toxic waste generation. As economists Herman Daly and Robert Goodland observe: "The dream that growth will raise world wages to the current rich country level, and that all can consume resources at the U.S. per capita rate, is in total conflict with ecological limits that are already stressed beyond sustainability."27

TNCs and Occupational Safety There have been many instances of TNCs failing to control industrial hazards at their facilities in less-industrialised nations as thoroughly as in their home countries. The situation in Bhopal, where comparison of operations of Union Carbide's Indian subsidiary and a similar plant in the US has revealed many double standards, is only the most infamous example of what the Industrial Labour Organisation acknowledges is a prevailing trend: "In comparing the health and safety performance of home-based [TNCs] with that of the subsidiaries, it could generally be said that the home country operations were better than those of subsidiaries in the developing https://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/47068-a-brief-history-of-transnational-corporations.html 3/5 3/4/2019 A Brief History of Transnational Corporations

countries."28 The case of the German TNC Bayer's chromate production factory in is illustrative. Chromate is a corrosive compound which can cause respiratory illness including lung cancer. Bayer has owned the facility, Chrome Chemicals, since 1968. In 1976, a South African government report noted health problems in nearly half the plant's employees which were related to their work and which, it said, "are extremely disturbing and would appear to indicate a lack of concern regarding the physical welfare of the workers."29

In 1990, a trade union learned that several workers had developed lung cancer, although none had been informed that the disease might be related to their employment. Chrome Chemicals management refused the union's request to review the plant's industrial hygiene records, and in 1991 the firm shut down much of its operation and laid off most of its workers. In South Africa, lung cancer was not added to the list of compensable occupational diseases until 1994, and Bayer has so far refused to provide compensation to a growing number of former employees at Chrome Chemicals who have developed lung cancer. Bayer could not get away with this in Germany, where as early as 1936 lung cancer was considered a compensable occupational disease for chromate workers. Indeed, German compensation authorities consider any labourer with more than three months of chromate work eligible for compensation if lung cancer develops subsequently.30

TNCs and Employment In an era of declining constraints on their mobility and the attraction of cheaper wages in less-industrialised nations eager to draw foreign investment, TNCs are eliminating jobs in their home countries and shifting production abroad. Although overall TNCs' employment in their home countries has changed little in the last decade, among the 300 largest corporations employment in 1989 was lower than it had been in 1980. US-based TNCs have eliminated jobs especially vigorously. Between 1982 and 1993, for example, US TNCs cut over three-quarters of a million jobs at home but added 345,000 jobs outside the United States.31 For workers in the US and other industrialised countries, TNCs' increased willingness to move operations to lower wage areas along with their greater use of automation, subcontractors, and part-time labour have rendered the strike relatively ineffective and undermined trade unions' collective bargaining power. In the US, there were one-tenth the number of strikes in 1993 as in 1970, and only 12 per cent of the US workforce is currently unionised, a lower proportion than in 1936.32

In less-industrialised regions, the lure for TNCs of fewer costs and regulations offers little promise to workers of decent working conditions, sufficient pay, or job security. Tax breaks and subsidies governments use as incentives are no guarantee that the TNCs will not move on after the benefits have expired, and as cost advantages now found in Singapore appear in, say, Bangladesh, the countries currently experiencing an influx of investment may eventually find themselves in the same position as that of the US and other industrialised nations today.

More fundamentally, as Richard Barnet has emphasised, the transnational corporate order cannot begin to solve the chronically severe unemployment problems in Asia, Latin America, and Africa, where an estimated 38 million new job seekers enter the labor market annually.35 A comparison of the growth in TNCs' outward foreign investment stock worldwide and their estimated global direct employment in recent decades lays this fact bare. Between 1975 and 1992, outward FDI stock increased almost seven times, whereas TNCs' employment did not even double. In less-industrialised countries, TNCs added only five million employees between 1985 and 1992.36

Notes 1. "Everybody's Favourite Monsters," The Economist, Survey of Multinationals, 27 March 1993.Back 2. The GDP and sales figures are taken, respectively, from the Human Development Report 1994, United Nations Development Programme, Delhi 1994, and the World Investment Report 1994 -- Transnational Corporations, Employment and the Workplace, UNCTAD Division on Transnational Corporations and Investment, Geneva, 1994, chapter 1.Back 3. "Everybody's Favourite Monsters," op cit.Back 4. Hoover's Handbook of World Business 1993, The Reference Press, Inc., Austin, Texas, 1993.Back 5. Yitzahak Hadari, "The Structure of the Private Multinational Enterprise," Michigan Law Review, 71, March 1973, pp. 731-806.Back 6. C. Aldana-Benitez & C.L. Posadas, TNCs In the Thick of Everything, ed. Ernest Valencia, IBON Philippines Databank and Research Center, Manila 1994, pp. 1-9. 7. John Dunning, Multinational Enterprises and the Global Economy, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Reading, , 1993, pp. 112 & 114.Back 8. Frederick Clairmonte & John Cavanagh, The World in Their Web The Dynamics of Textile Multinationals, Zed Press, London, 1981, pp. 5-6.Back 9. "Everybody's Favourite Monsters," op cit.Back 10. Ibid.Back 11. For the facts and figures on TNCs and FDI in this section, see: "Trends on Foreign Direct Investment -- Report by the UNCED secretariat," Commission on Transnational Corporations, 20th session, E/C.10/1994/2, 11 March 1994; World Investment Report 1994 -- Transnational Corporations, Employment and the Workplace, UNCTAD Division on Transnational Corporations and Investment, Geneva, 1994, chapter 1; "Ongoing and Future Research: Transnational Corporations and Issues Relating to the Environment," United Nations Centre on Transnational Corporations, 5-14 April 1989, p. 5; and "Activities of the Transnational Corporations and Management Division and Its Joint Units," E/C.10/1993/7, Commission on Transnational Corporations, 19th session, 5-15 April 1993, p. 12.Back 12. World Investment Report 1994, ibid, pp. xxi-xxii & 141-143.Back 13. Som Deo, Multinational Corporations and the Third World, Ashish Publishing House, New Delhi, 1986, pp. 75-76; Dalip S. Swamy, Multinational Corporations and the World Economy, Alps Publishers, New Delhi, 1980, pp. 118-119. See also The World in Their Web, op cit, pp. 148-149.Back 14. Multinational Corporations and the World Economy, ibid, p. 130.Back 15. R. J. Barnet & R.M. Muller, Global Reach The Power of the Multinational Corporations, Jonathan Cape, London, 1975, pp.81- 83.Back 16. H. Daly & R. Goodland, "An Ecological-Economic Assessment of Deregulation of International Commerce under GATT," World Bank Environment Department, Spring 1993 draft, p. 45.Back 17. Noam Chomsky, "Notes on NAFTA," The Nation, 29 March 1993.Back 18. "Bio/Technology/Diversity Week," vol. 3, no. 7, 25 March 1994, produced by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. 19. The Book on Greenwash, Greenpeace International, Amsterdam, 1992.Back 20. Dr. Arjun Makhijani, and Dr. A. van Buren, A. Bickel, S. Saleska, Climate Change and Transnational Corporations Analysis and Trends, United Nations Centre on Transnational Corporations, Environment Series No. 2, United Nations, New York, 1992, pp. 47.Back 21. Mukul, "Shell's Mess," Frontline, 11 August 1995. 22. Climate Change, op cit p. 77, and Transnational Corporations in World Development Third Survey, UNCTC, London, 1985, p. 150.Back 23. Steven Shrybman, "The Environmental Costs of Free Trade," in the Multinational Monitor, March 1990, p. 20.Back https://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/47068-a-brief-history-of-transnational-corporations.html 4/5 3/4/2019 A Brief History of Transnational Corporations

24. "Transnational Corporations and Issues Relating to the Environment: The Contribution of the Commission and UNCTC to the Work of the Preparatory Committee for the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development," UNCTC, 28 February 1991; and "Activities of the Transnational Corporations and Management Division and Its Joint Units," E/C.10/1993/7, Commission on Transnational Corporations, 19th session, 5-15 April 1993, p. 12.Back 25. From "Pesticides: Export of Unregistered Pesticides is not Adequately Monitored by the EPA," General Accounting Office of the US Congress, April 1989. Cited in "Unregistered Pesticides Rejected Toxics Escape Export Controls," Greenpeace International and Pesticide Action Network-FRG, October 1990, p. 2.Back 26. See: Barbara Dinham, The Pesticide Hazard: A Global Health and Environmental ,, Zed , London 1993; Citizens -- Pesticides -- Hoechst: The Story of Endosulfan and Triphenyltin, R. Macfarlane, Pesticide Action Network Asia and the Pacific, Malaysia, 1994; and "International Citizens' Campaign Targets Hoechst Pesticides," Global Pesticides Campaigner, September 1994. 27. Daly & Goodland, op cit, p. 14.Back 28. Barry Castleman, "The Migration of Industrial Hazards," Third World Resurgence, August 1995.Back 29. Ibid.Back 30. Ibid.Back 31. The Labor Institute, Corporate Power and the American Dream, April 1995, p. 11.Back 32. Richard J. Barnet, "Lords of the Global Economy," The Nation, 19 December 1994.Back 33. John Borsos, "The Judge Who Stood Up to GM," The Nation, 12 April 1993. 34. Aaron Freeman, "GM Abandons Ypsilanti," Multinational Monitor, Sept. 1993. 35. Richard J. Barnet, "The End of Jobs," Harper's, Sept. 1993.Back 36. World Investment Report 1994, op cit, p. 175Back

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by Anup Shah This Page Last Updated Sunday, June 30, 2013

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To print all information (e.g. expanded side notes, shows alternative links), use the print version: http://www.globalissues.org/print/issue/73

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket red signies, in the nal sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children… This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

— Former U.S. President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, in a speech on April 16, 19”53

The arms trade is a major cause of human rights abuses. Some governments spend more on military expenditure than on social development, communications infrastructure and health combined. While every nation has the right and the need to ensure its security, in these changing times, arms requirements and procurements may need to change too.

10 articles on “Arms Trade—a major cause of suffering” and 1 related issue:

The Arms Trade is Big Business  Last updated Saturday, January 05, 2013. Each year, around $45-60 billion worth of arms sales are agreed. Most of these sales (something like 75%) are to developing countries.

The 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council (US, Russia, France, and ), together with Germany and Italy account for around 85% of the arms sold between 2004 and 2011.

www.globalissues.org/issue/73/arms-trade-a-major-cause-of-suffering 1/6 5/9/2019 Arms Trade—a major cause of suffering — Global Issues Some of the arms sold go to regimes where human rights violations will occur. Corruption often accompanies arms sales due to the large sums of money involved.

Read “The Arms Trade is Big Business” to learn more.

World Military Spending  Last updated Sunday, June 30, 2013. World military spending had reduced since the Cold War ended, but a few nations such as the US retain high level spending.

In recent years, global military expenditure has increased again and is now comparable to Cold War levels. Recent data shows global spending at over $1.7 trillion. 2012 saw the rst dip in spending — only slightly —since 1998, in an otherwise rising trend.

The highest military spender is the US accounting for almost two-fths of the world’s spending, more than the rest of the G7 (most economically advanced countries) combined, and more than all its potential enemies, combined. www.globalissues.org/issue/73/arms-trade-a-major-cause-of-suffering 2/6 5/9/2019 Arms Trade—a major cause of suffering — Global Issues Read “World Military Spending” to learn more.

Training Human Rights Violators  Last updated Tuesday, October 30, 2001.

A US military training school, the School of the Americas, has trained many of the worst human rights violators and dictators in various Latin American countries. Some of the worst dictators and human rights abusers in the developing world have passed through the school's doors, including people like Roberto D’Aubisson from El Salvador and Manuel Noriega of Panama. The US Army maintain that the school was set up to preserve democracy.

Read “Training Human Rights Violators” to learn more.

Military Propaganda for Arms Sales  Last updated Saturday, June 21, 2003.

Arms contractors and maintain that arms sales are essential to foster good relations and also create more jobs at home. Arms companies selling to one country will often demonize their neighbors. Those countries are then demonized to us so we purchase more. That does not foster good relations. Often, to secure a sale, the manufacture of the arms also goes to the target nation. Therefore, jobs are created, but not at home. Propaganda comes in various forms, often via manipulative advertising campaigns. Arms corporations benet from alliances like NATO and conicts such as Kosovo, where opportunity for sales increases.

Read “Military Propaganda for Arms Sales” to learn more.

Small Arms—they cause 90% of civilian casualties  Last updated Saturday, January 21, 2006.

The growing availability of small arms has been a major factor in the increase in the number of conicts. In modern conicts over 80 percent of all casualties have been civilian. 90 percent of these are caused by small arms.

Read “Small Arms—they cause 90% of civilian casualties” to learn more. www.globalissues.org/issue/73/arms-trade-a-major-cause-of-suffering 3/6 5/9/2019 Arms Trade—a major cause of suffering — Global Issues

A Code of Conduct for Arms Sales  Last updated Sunday, November 30, 2008. The arms trade is one of the most corrupt trades in the world, fueling conict and poverty. Since the early 1990s there has been efforts to review and develop arms-transfer principles and codes of conduct to ensure that arms are not sold to human rights violators. The US, EU and others have developed some codes, but they are fraught with problems, loopholes, lack of and are open to corruption. There is a proposed international arms trade treaty to overcome these limitations. However, for various political and prot reasons, some nations seem unwilling to agree to a code of conduct. Proposals are growing stronger for an arms trade treaty. Will that suffer the same problem?

Read “A Code of Conduct for Arms Sales” to learn more.

Landmines  Last updated Friday, November 27, 2009. Throughout the 1990s, a coalition of numerous non-governmental organizations, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), campaigned successfully to prohibit the use of landmines.

This helped to create the 1997 Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction, also known as the “Ottawa Treaty.” (It also won the ICBL the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts.) This treaty came into force in 1999.

Although landmine use in the past decade has been signicantly reduced, problems such as clearance and rehabilitation remain. Furthermore, some key countries continue to use landmines, or support the need for them, despite the problems they often cause for civilians long after conicts have ended.

Read “Landmines” to learn more.

Military Aid  Posted Monday, May 03, 2010. Military aid can be controversial. Its stated aim is usually to help allies or poor countries ght terrorism, counter-insurgencies or to help suppress drug production. www.globalissues.org/issue/73/arms-trade-a-major-cause-of-suffering 4/6 5/9/2019 Arms Trade—a major cause of suffering — Global Issues Military aid may even be given to opposition groups to ght nations, which was commonplace during the Cold War where even dictatorships were tolerated or supported in order to achieve geopolitical aims.

The aid may be in the form of training, or even giving credits for foreign militaries to purchase weapons and equipment from the donor country.

It is argued that strengthening military relationships can strengthen relationships between nations and military aid may be a way to achieve that. But it seems some aid goes to oppressive regimes which may help with geopolitical aims but may not necessarily help people of the recipient nation.

Read “Military Aid” to learn more.

Arms Trade Links for more information  Last updated Sunday, August 29, 2004. Read “Arms Trade Links for more information” to learn more.

Corruption  Last updated Sunday, September 04, 2011. We often hear leaders from rich countries telling poor countries that aid and loans will only be given when they show they are stamping out corruption.

While that denitely needs to happen, the rich countries themselves are often active in the largest forms of corruption in those poor countries, and many economic policies they prescribe have exacerbated the problem.

Corruption in developing countries denitely must be high on the priority lists (and is increasingly becoming so in the wake of the global nancial crisis), but so too must it be on the priority lists of rich countries.

Read “Corruption” to learn more.

Arms Control  Last updated Sunday, June 30, 2013. www.globalissues.org/issue/73/arms-trade-a-major-cause-of-suffering 5/6 5/9/2019 Arms Trade—a major cause of suffering — Global Issues Read “Arms Control” to learn more.

by Anup Shah Created: Monday, July 20, 1998 Last Updated: Sunday, June 30, 2013

“Bad ideas ourish because they are in the interest of powerful groups” — Paul Krugman © Copyright 1998–2019

www.globalissues.org/issue/73/arms-trade-a-major-cause-of-suffering 6/6 The International Arms Trade: Difficult to Define, Measure, and Control

Paul Holtom and Mark Bromley

The international arms trade apparently has weathered the financial crisis quite well. Available data indicate that the impact to date on the volume of orders and deliveries has been limited.

As has been shown in the past, financial resources—from domestic budgets or foreign military assistance—are not the only factor that influences arms acquisitions. Perceived internal or external threats to national security, the need to replace or upgrade military inventories, demonstrations of international status, development of domestic arms industries via licensed production and offsets, the desire to strengthen ties with suppliers, and the influence of the military play important roles in the arms acquisition process. Before permitting exports of arms and military equipment, suppliers will assess the potential economic gains and the potential impact of the transfer on their strategic interests and foreign policy. Will the transfer harm or help friendly states or the supplier’s international commitments, reputation, or standing?

For several reasons, there is no straightforward answer to the question, “How big is the international arms trade?” First, there is no globally agreed definition of “arms.” States and international organizations that seek to measure or control the arms trade use lists of items that vary in their complexity and coverage, most notably with regard to their inclusion of “dual-use goods,” items with both military and civilian applications.[1] Second, there is no common agreement on what types of activities constitute the arms trade. Examples of areas where differences exist include arms leased to other states; gifts and donations; the transfer of technology to produce arms and military equipment; and upgrades, parts, and services related to the transfer of arms and military equipment. Third, the lack of openness and transparency by many arms suppliers and recipients regarding the value and volume of their arms exports and imports makes it difficult to collect accurate data. As a result, a variety of different definitions of the international arms trade and estimates of its scale exists. This has implications for efforts to establish controls on arms transfers via a future international arms trade treaty (ATT). This article will outline some of the challenges in defining, measuring, and controlling the international arms trade.

Definitions and Estimates

The national lists of arms and military equipment to be subject to export controls (control lists) maintained by most states and all major arms exporters provide a useful starting point for defining “arms” and the international arms trade. The Munitions List and Lists of Dual-Use Goods and Technologies of the Wassenaar Arrangement on Export Controls for Conventional Arms and Dual-Use Goods and Technologies provide the basis for the control lists of the 40 states that are members of the group. The Munitions List covers a wide range of arms and military equipment, from small arms to ships, as well as ammunition, information and communication technologies, training equipment, and equipment for producing arms. Several significant arms-exporting nonmembers, including China, have fully or partially aligned their national control lists with the Munitions List. As a result, all of the top 10 arms suppliers during 2005-2009 have control lists derived from the Wassenaar Arrangement.

National control lists serve as the basis for national reports on arms exports. As of January 2010, 32 states had published at least one national report on arms exports since 1990, and a further nine states provided information on the value of their export licenses and exports to the 2009 European Union (EU) Annual Report on Arms Exports.[2] These reports vary in detail but, at a minimum, tend to provide data on the financial value of arms export licenses or arms exports. Several major exporters (e.g., Russia) do not produce such reports, but do release official data on the financial value of their arms exports. Using national reports and official statements, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) has attempted to provide estimates of the financial value of the international arms trade (see below).

The now-defunct U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) created the following comprehensive definition of the arms trade, which has been widely used by researchers: weapons of war, parts thereof, ammunition, support equipment, and other commodities designed for military use.… Dual-use equipment…when its primary mission is identified as military. The building of defense production facilities and licensing fees paid as royalties for the production of military equipment.… Military services such as training, supply operations, equipment repair, technical assistance and construction are included where data are available.[3]

A similar definition of the arms trade is used to compile the U.S. Congressional Research Service’s (CRS) annual report, “Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations.” In spite of the name, the report contains estimates for the value of the global arms trade, not just trade with developing countries. The CRS estimated the financial value of deliveries of arms to be $34.5 billion for 2007.[4] Despite using a narrower definition of arms transfers than the CRS, SIPRI’s accounting of official financial data contained in national reports and official statements for 2007 generated a figure of $51.1 billion for arms exports, representing 0.3 percent of world trade.[5] This figure is likely to be lower than the true figure because a number of significant exporters, including China, do not release data on the financial value of their arms exports. The difference between the SIPRI and CRS estimates is a further demonstration of the difficulty of estimating the financial value of the international arms trade.

The SIPRI arms transfers provides information on international arms transfers from 1950 to the most recent calendar year.[6] Its coverage is narrower than that of the ACDA, CRS, and national control lists; for example, it does not include transfers of most small arms and light weapons (SALW). However, it provides information on the number of units transferred and employs a unique pricing system to measure the volume of arms transfers. The SIPRI trend indicator value allows researchers to track developments in transfers to and from different suppliers, recipients, and regions. SIPRI data form the basis for the discussion below.

Arms Trade Trends

The volume of international arms transfers in the post-World War II period peaked in 1982. Following the end of the Cold War, there was a steady decline in global arms transfers. They reached their lowest point in 2002, when transfers amounted to only 38 percent of their Cold War high. This decline has reversed, and the volume of international transfers of major conventional weapons during 2005-2009 was 22 percent higher than during 2000-2004.

One of the most marked aspects of the international arms trade has been its dominance by five suppliers. During 1980-1984, when global arms transfers were at the highest level, the (37 percent), the United States (29 percent), France (8 percent), the United Kingdom (5 percent), and the Federal Republic of Germany (5 percent) accounted for 84 percent of all exports. The five largest suppliers of major conventional weapons during 2005-2009 were the United States (30 percent), Russia (23 percent), Germany (11 percent), France (8 percent), and the United Kingdom (4 percent), collectively accounting for 76 percent of exports.

The governments of these major suppliers are actively engaged in assisting the export efforts of their domestic arms industries in the competitive international arms market. Some governments also provide military equipment to allies at beneficial rates as a key plank of their foreign and defense policies, something that often has clear benefits for commercial arms manufacturers based in these states.

Since 2001, the United States has increased foreign military aid for allies in regions of tension or conflict. President Barack Obama has maintained the Bush administration’s pledge to increase foreign military financing aid for , which is set to reach $3 billion in 2012.[7] Egypt and the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council have been the recipients of increased assistance as well.

Russia has announced its willingness to develop and produce arms jointly with other countries to help strengthen ties, accept payments through barter, participate in joint economic projects, and offer credit and exchanges of debt for arms. In 2009, Russia extended a $2 billion line of credit to Venezuela for arms purchases. In addition, it agreed to cancel Vietnam’s debt to Russia and help modernize its shipbuilding industry in exchange for Vietnam’s commitment to purchase 20 Su-30MK combat aircraft and six Type-636 Kilo-class submarines and further expand the involvement of Russian companies in the exploration and extraction of Vietnamese oil. In 2007 the French government simplified and modernized France’s arms export licensing system and began taking a more active role in promoting exports abroad. It has demonstrated a willingness to engage in far-reaching technology transfer agreements in order to win contracts. In September 2009 French President Nicolas Sarkozy visited Brazil to conclude an almost $10 billion deal to supply four conventionally powered submarines and technology to assist in the development of Brazil’s first nuclear-powered submarine.

Attempts by countries beyond the traditional major producers to develop their own arms industries and increase their share of global arms exports have typically had limited success, largely because of high technological barriers or an inadequate civilian industrial base. Yet, many countries still seek to increase their levels of autonomous capability in arms production, with some developing state-of-the-art products for particular niche items. For example, Israel is widely recognized as a leading producer and supplier of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), supplying systems and licenses for production for more than 100 UAVs to 18 states, including all of the top five suppliers, during 2005-2009.

In addition, licensed production agreements have led to an increase in the number of states that are capable of manufacturing less-advanced weapons systems, particularly small arms and light weapons.[8] Although licensed production agreements often include controls on who can receive the weapons produced, this is not always the case, or the agreements are not enforced. Soviet Avtomat Kalashnikov (AK) and German Heckler and Koch G3 assault rifles serve as classic examples of cases in which licensed production has led to exports being made without the express permission of those issuing the original license. Russia perceives the production of Kalashnikov rifles in a number of former Warsaw Pact countries to be unlicensed and illegal, claiming that arrangements concluded during the Soviet era have expired. The decision to give designs and information on product technology to Warsaw Pact states and clients during the Soviet era therefore remains a source of concern. Nonetheless, Russia continues to issue licensed production agreements for Kalashnikov rifles, revealing recently that 10 states had applied to build factories.[9] The possibility remains that today’s license holders could produce or export Kalashnikovs without the express permission of Russia in the future.

In contrast to the largest suppliers, the largest recipients of major conventional weapons have varied considerably over the years. During 1980-1984, the five largest recipients of military equipment—Iraq (7 percent), India (6 percent), Libya (5 percent), Syria (5 percent), and Egypt (4 percent)—accounted for 27 percent of total imports. The five largest recipients of major conventional weapons during 2005-2009 were China (9 percent), India (7 percent), South Korea (6 percent), the United Arab Emirates (6 percent), and Greece (4 percent), accounting for 32 percent of total imports. After the end of the Cold War, China imported a large volume of aircraft, ships, submarines, air defense systems, and missiles from Russia, but Chinese arms imports from Russia have declined dramatically in recent years. One explanation for this drop is that China appears to have overcome many of the problems that have dogged its and is now able to manufacture advanced weapons systems domestically. There are persistent allegations that many of China’s “indigenous” weapons systems are actually copies of other countries’ designs.[10] It continues to rely on imports of components and subsystems for a number of its weapons systems, but is regarded as an example of a country in which arrangements for licensed production and technology transfers as part of arms import deals have helped with the development of an indigenous arms industry. India has sought to develop its own arms industry and decrease its reliance on arms imports but with limited success to date. It is expected to replace China as the largest arms importer in the coming years.

Recent acquisitions by states in Latin America, the Middle East, North Africa, and Southeast Asia indicate the possible emergence of reactive arms acquisition patterns that could develop into regional arms races. The volume of deliveries to Southeast Asia nearly doubled during 2005-2009 compared to 2000-2004. Deliveries were 722 percent higher to Malaysia, 146 percent higher to Singapore, and 84 percent higher to Indonesia. In 2009, Malaysia received six Su-30MKM combat aircraft with advanced missiles from Russia, two Scorpène submarines from France and Spain, two MEKO-100 frigates from Germany, and 21 PT-91 tanks from Poland. Singapore received eight F-15E combat aircraft with advanced air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles from the United States, two La Fayette frigates from France, and 40 Leopard-2A4 tanks from Germany.

There is limited empirical evidence to suggest a direct causal link between an increase in the volume of arms imported and the outbreak of conflict or an increase in the intensity of conflict. It has been suggested, however, that states that acquire significant quantities of military equipment may be more prone to use armed force to resolve disputes. For example, the recent conflicts in Sri Lanka and Georgia, both of which are relatively minor arms importers, were preceded by significant increases in transfers.[11] In both cases, governments sought to restore what they perceived to be their state’s territorial integrity against forces that were seeking independence and had established high levels of autonomy to some degree within clearly defined regions. As the graph on this page demonstrates, the volume of Georgian imports of major conventional weapons in the years preceding the August 2008 conflict in South Ossetia increased significantly, with the largest volume of arms imports for Georgia, excluding acquisitions by forces in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, taking place in 2007. Significant increases in arms imports and military spending were perceived by some as indicating that the Georgian government was preparing to use force to restore Georgia’s territorial integrity.

Trade Control Efforts

At present, UN Security Council arms embargoes are the only global, legally binding prohibitions on arms transfers. Since 1990, the United Nations has imposed 28 arms embargoes against targets in 17 countries and one nonstate entity (Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda). The most recent new arms embargo was introduced against Eritrea on December 23, 2009.[12] Recent UN arms embargo resolutions recognize that nonstate actors play an important role in the contemporary arms trade and in the facilitation of arms transfers to “undesirable” end-users. States retain primary responsibility for enforcing arms embargoes and controlling the activities of arms brokers and dealers operating from their national territory or registered with their national authorities. Sanctions committees and panels of experts charged with monitoring arms embargoes have documented the role different states have played in violating arms embargoes, such as in the case of Eritrea’s involvement in transfers to Somalia. Also, states have been accused of giving shelter to individuals and entities accused of violating embargoes and of failing to investigate alleged violations but in such instances have not been sanctioned themselves. Stronger transfer control policies and increased political will are of central importance for preventing violations of UN arms embargoes.[13]

States have long been reluctant to give up any element of national control in the field of arms transfer controls. Yet, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and the scandals involving Western states and companies in the arming of Iraq prompted the development of the guidelines for conventional arms transfers, under which the permanent members of the UN Security Council agreed to exercise restraint in exports of conventional arms transfers.[14] Suppliers were required to ensure that exports met only the “legitimate self-defense” needs of the recipient and did not contribute to conflict or regional instability or introduce “destabilizing military capabilities in a region.” There is no international agreement on what constitutes legitimate self-defense or “destabilizing military capabilities.”

Efforts to improve controls on international arms transfers have primarily been driven and directed by suppliers in North America and Europe. Motivations have included protecting national industries by preventing the spread of technologies and limiting potential adversaries’ access to key technologies. The prevention of conflict and human rights abuses also has long been at the heart of efforts to control the arms trade. States, export control regimes such as the Wassenaar Arrangement, and regional organizations (e.g., the Economic Community of West African States, the EU, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the Organization of American States) have developed various sets of best-practice guidelines and model legislation to help ensure that arms exports do not provoke or exacerbate conflict and are not used to commit violations of human rights and humanitarian law. In addition, efforts have been undertaken to prevent the diversion of arms to terrorists, criminals, and armed groups.

Experience with existing regional mechanisms and export control regimes demonstrates some of the problems that an ATT is likely to face when it comes to ensuring harmonized interpretations of the criteria it puts in place. Despite developing agreed export criteria and mechanisms of consultation and information exchange, members of the Wassenaar Arrangement have demonstrated contrasting attitudes toward exports of arms and military equipment to a range of destinations. Although the EU and the United States have arms embargoes against Iran, (Burma), , and Zimbabwe, Russia continues to supply weapons systems to these states.[15] Meanwhile, Russia has repeatedly called for restraint on arms transfers to Georgia, but Wassenaar Arrangement members the CzechRepublic, Turkey, and Ukraine have continued to supply arms to Georgia. It appears that bilateral pressure on nonmembers Bosnia and Herzegovina, Israel, and Serbia led to some deals to Georgia being canceled.

Even within the EU, where states have agreed that their export license decision-making should be guided by eight criteria relating to issues such as conflict prevention, human rights, and economic development, there appear to have been differences of opinion among members regarding exports to Georgia. EU member states reported issuing licenses worth more than $180 million between 2004 and 2007 for exports of arms and military equipment to Georgia and making exports worth almost $96 million during that period. Also during this period, EU member states denied 41 export licenses for arms and military equipment for Georgia because of concerns about the potential impact of the transfer on the possibility of conflict within Georgia. In several cases, EU member states denied an export license for the export of a particular type of military equipment that other EU member states had exported.

Researchers have found evidence of a correlation between the introduction of the politically binding EU Code of Conduct on Arms Exports in 1998 and a decline in arms exports from EU member states to countries in conflict or considered violators of international human rights and humanitarian law, but differences in decision-making on “responsible” recipients continue within the EU.[16] In this regard, the impact of the EU arms exports code and the legally binding Council Common Position 2008/944/CFSP, defining common rules governing the control of exports of military technology and equipment, which replaced the EU arms exports code, continues to illustrate the challenges of reaching agreement on how to interpret and implement a set of agreed common standards among (supposedly) like-minded states. Disagreements in the Wassenaar Arrangement show the difficulties in achieving similar objectives when the group is composed of states that hold very different opinions on what constitutes a responsible end-user.

Conclusion

The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait drew attention to the impact of deliveries of significant volumes of arms on a recipient’s decision to use armed force to achieve political aims and the need for international agreement on exercising restraint in arms transfers. Following the Persian Gulf War and the end of the Cold War, there was a dramatic decline in the volume of major conventional arms transferred and an increase in international discussions aimed at increasing controls over the international arms trade. Nevertheless, conflicts raged in which small arms and light weapons were prevalent and where comparatively limited transfers of major conventional weapons had a decisive impact on the course of events (e.g., conflicts in Angola, Liberia, and Sierra Leone). Therefore, continued international attention to improving controls on arms transfers to address their potential negative impacts is welcome.

National governments remain ultimately responsible for permitting or denying the export of arms and military equipment and will remain so under a future ATT. Although the need to avoid supplying arms to zones of conflict or tension and contributing to destabilizing accumulations is considered in arms export decision-making processes, domestic economic and political implications, as well as foreign and security policy priorities, continue to play a significant role. This is an important consideration for those currently promoting the viability of an international treaty with legally binding guidelines. It remains to be seen if efforts within the UN to create an ATT can go beyond the League of Nations’ Convention for the Supervision of the International Trade in Arms and Ammunition and Implements of War, which was adopted in 1925 but failed to come into force because of an insufficient number of ratifications and failed to promote confidence and restraint. Will the discussions that take place during 2010-2012 within the UN be more successful at defining and securing agreement on the future direction of international efforts to control and make more transparent international transfers of arms?

If an ATT can be concluded, the next challenge will be to ensure that states have the capacity to control arms transfers (exports, imports, transit, transshipment, brokering, and other activities covered by transfer controls). In recognition of this fact, discussions on an ATT are already highlighting the need for mechanisms for providing international assistance and cooperation for implementation. This should help provide much-needed improvements on technical issues relating to transfer controls and anti-trafficking efforts. However, perhaps the most important contribution an ATT can make would be the development of detailed reporting mechanisms to show states and civil society at large how states are interpreting the criteria used to determine whether to permit or deny an export. As the examples of the Wassenaar Arrangement and the EU demonstrate, even the most detailed criteria are open to differing interpretation, and this will likely remain the case under an ATT. Only through open and transparent reporting mechanisms can the interpretation of criteria be discussed and analyzed and, hopefully, lead to global agreement on the types of transfers to be prohibited under an ATT.

Paul Holtom is director of the arms transfers program at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Mark Bromley is a researcher in the same program.

ENDNOTES

1. The UN Register of Conventional Arms has formed the basis for much of the debate on the potential types of weapons to be covered by a future ATT, but its scope is limited to particular items deemed of importance in interstate conflicts. It is not regarded as offering a definition of the international arms trade for the purposes of this article.

2. For a full list of states that have published national arms export reports and copies of their reports, see Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), “National Reports on Arms Exports,” http://www.sipri.org/research/armaments/transfers/transparency/national_reports, June 14, 2010. Cyprus, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, and Poland have submitted data to the EU annual report, but have not published national reports on arms exports. The EU Common Military List, which is used as the basis for reporting to the EU annual report, is derived from the Wassenaar Munitions List.

3. The ACDA World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers (WMEAT) reports used this definition when providing financial values for the international arms trade, based on figures supplied by the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency. The latest WMEAT report to include data on the international arms trade covers 1989-1999. ACDA, “World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers 1999-2000,” February 6, 2003, p. 197.

4. Richard F. Grimmett, “Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 2001- 2008,” CRS Report for Congress, R40796, September 4, 2009, p. 4.

5. Exports of goods and services in 2007 amounted to $17.1 trillion. International Monetary Fund, “International Financial Statistics Online,” www.imfstatistics.org/imf/. It has not been possible to generate an estimate of the financial value of the international arms trade in 2008 because of a lack of data. See Paul Holtom et al., “International Arms Transfers,” SIPRI Yearbook 2010: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 2010), p. 287.

6. SIPRI, “SIPRI Arms Transfers Database,” www.sipri.org/databases/armstransfers.

7. President Barack Obama requested $2.8 billion in foreign military financing aid for Israel for fiscal year 2010, in line with an agreement made by the Bush administration in 2007 to increase this aid annually to reach $3 billion in 2012. Jeremy M. Sharp, “U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel,” CRS Report for Congress, RL33222, December 4, 2009. See also Petter Stålenheim, Catalina Perdomo, and Elisabet Sköns, “Military Expenditure,” SIPRI Yearbook 2008: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 202–205.

8. According to one estimate, at least 1,249 companies in more than 90 countries are involved in some aspect of SALW production. Small Arms Survey, “Continuity and Change: Products and Producers,” Small Arms Survey 2004: Rights at Risk (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 2004), p. 7.

9. “Ten Countries to Build Kalashnikov Assault Rifle Producing Plants,” RIA-Novosti, November 10, 2009.

10. Keith Crane et al., Modernizing China’s Military: Opportunities and Constraints (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corp., 2005); “Russia Cancels Sale of Su-33 Fighters to China to Prevent Their Pirate Copies,” Pravda, March 10, 2009.

11. For information on arms transfers to Sri Lanka, see Siemon Wezeman, Mark Bromley, and Pieter Wezeman, “International Arms Transfers,” SIPRI Yearbook 2009: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 315-317.

12. UN Security Council, Resolution 1907, S/Res/1907, December 23, 2009.

13. SIPRI and the UppsalaUniversity Special Program on the Implementation of Targeted Sanctions, “United Nations Arms Embargoes: Their Impact on Arms Flows and Target Behaviour,” November 2007.

14. For a discussion of conventional arms transfer controls, see Jozef Goldblat, Arms Control: The New Guide to Negotiations and Agreements (London: Sage Publications, 2002), pp. 241-246.

15. For information on EU arms embargoes, see European Commission, “Sanctions or Restrictive Measures,” December 12, 2009, http://ec.europa.eu/external_relations/cfsp/sanctions/index_en.htm. For information on current U.S. embargoes, see Directorate of Defense Trade Controls, U.S. Department of State, “Country Policies and Embargoes,” www.pmddtc.state.gov/embargoed_countries/index.html. For information on Russian arms exports to these destinations, see SIPRI Arms Transfers Database.

16. Mark Bromley and Michael Brzoska, “Towards a Common, Restrictive EU Arms Export Policy?” European Foreign Affairs Review, Vol. 13, No. 3 (2008).

Economic Ideas of Mahatma Gandhi Kirti Shailesh

The following points highlight the top fifteen economic ideas of Mahatma Gandhi. The economic ideas are: 1. Economic Laws 2. Non-Violent Economy 3. Decentralisation: Cottage Industries 4. Khadi Industry 5. Use of Machines 6. Regeneration of Villages or Village Sarvodaya 7. The Trusteeship Doctrine 8. Law of Bread Labour 9. Food Problem 10. Population.

Economic Idea # 1. Economic Laws: According to Gandhi, economic laws which aim at material progress as well as social harmony and moral advancement, should be formulated according to the laws of nature. There is no conflict between the laws of nature and laws of economics. The laws of nature are universal.

The laws of economics, which deal with practical problems, are not universal. The economic laws of a country are determined by the climatic, geological and temperamental conditions of that country. Hence they vary with the conditions of the nations.

Economic Idea # 2. Non-Violent Economy: Gandhi advocated non-violence and hence his economics may be called economics of nonviolence. The principle of non-violence is the principle of Gandhian philosophy. As there was no industry and no activity without certain violence, he wanted to minimize it. He believed that violence in any form breeds greater violence.

He defined a non-violent occupation as one “which is fundamentally free from violence and which involves no exploitation or envy of others”.

The solution to Indian basic problems lies in the practice of non- violence. Gandhiji opposed capitalism as it resulted in exploitation of human labour. He believed that nature produced enough for the satisfaction of the people’s wants and there would be no pauperism and starvation if everybody took only that much that was sufficient to him.

Economic Idea # 3. Decentralisation: Cottage Industries: Gandhi was not in favour of large scale industrialisation, as it was responsible for many socioeconomic evils. He believed that large scale use of machinery led to drudgery and monotony. He was in favour of decentralised economy.

In such an economy, exploitation of labour would be nil. His belief was strong in the context of the Indian economy. India has plenty of human resources but capital supply was poor, therefore labour intensive technology should be followed. Gandhiji advocated a decentralised economy.

Production should be organised in a large number of places on a small scale. As Gandhiji was for the development of cottage and rural industries, he suggested delocalization of industries. Gandhiji believed that decentralisation was essential for the survival of democracy and for the establishment of a non-violent state.

Gandhi preferred the decentralisation of small units of production to the concentration of large scale units in few places. He wanted to carry the production units to the homes of the masses, particularly in villages. Cottage and village industries help increasing employment. Commodities can be produced cheaply as there is no need for a separate establishment; very few tools are needed. There is no problem of storage. Transport cost is negligible.

There is no overproduction and wastes of competition. All these factors make the production by the small units economical and thus, provide logic to the Gandhian scheme of decentralisation of village and cottage industries, Integration of cottage industries with agriculture provides work to the farmer in their spare time and thus harnesses “all the energies that at present run to waste”.

In fact, these industries are best suited to the rhythm of rural life. These industries increase the income of the villages and satisfy their basic requirements. They not only remove poverty and unemployment from the villages but also make them self-sufficient economic units. Economic Idea # 4. Khadi Industry: Every Indian needed at least 13 yards of cloth per year. Gandhiji believed that multiplication of mills could not solve the problem of cloth supply; therefore he stressed the development of Khadi industry. For Gandhiji, khadi was the “symbol of unity of Indian humanity of its economic freedom and equality”. Khadi means the decentralisation of production and distribution of the necessaries of human life. Khadi movement began only after Gandhiji’s return from South Africa.

He believed that Khadi industry would save millions of people from starvation and would supplement the earnings of poor people. To him, the music of the spinning wheel was sweeter and more profitable than harmonium. Gandhiji advocated the use of charkha due to its advantages. Charkha requires a small amount of capital; it is simple in operation. It is a source of steady income; it does not depend upon monsoon; it helps in solving the problem of unemployment. Charkha was considered to be the symbol of nonviolence. His slogan was “swaraj through spinning”.

His khadi scheme included the following: 1. Compulsory spinning in all primary and secondary schools.

2. Cultivation of cotton in areas where it was not grown.

3. Organisation of weaving by the multipurpose co-operative societies.

4. All employees in the department of education, co-operation, municipalities, district boards and panchayats should be required to pass a test in spinning, otherwise they may be disqualified.

5. Control of prices of handloom cloth woven of mill yarn.

6. Imposition of a ban on the use of mill cloth in areas where the hand woven cloth was in abundance.

7. Use of hand-spun cloth in all Government and textile and weaving departments. 8. The old cloth mills should not be allowed to expand and new ones should not be opened.

9. Import of foreign yarn or cloth should be banned.

However Gandhiji’s belief in charkha as a means to solve the problem of poverty was criticised as stupid, and childish. Some people criticised Khadi as a non-economic proposition because its roughness caused it to soil more quickly than the mill made cloth.

It required more frequent washing and its thickness used up more soap and therefore khadi wear was not economic but expensive. Further the wages paid to spinners were low. Khadi arrested the forward march of prosperity.

Economic Idea # 5. Use of Machines: Gandhiji described machinery as ‘great sin’. He believed that the modern technology was responsible for human frustration, violence and war. It was also responsible for the multiplication of material wants. The use of machines created a class of wealthy people and led to unequal distribution of wealth. Gandhiji was not against machinery.

He says “the spinning wheel itself is a machine; a little toothpick is a machine, what I object to is the craze for labour saving machinery. Men go on saving labour, till thousands are without work and thrown on the open streets to die of starvation”. But he was against all destructive machinery. He welcomed such instruments and machinery that saved individual labour and lightened the burden of millions of cottage workers.

Gandhiji emphasised that he was against large scale production only of those things which villages can produce without difficulty. He believed that machinery was harmful when the same thing could be done easily by millions of hands. He wrote “mechanisation is good when the hands are too few for the work intended to be accomplished. It is an evil when there are more hands than required for the work, as is the case in India”. In 1938 in ‘Harijan’ he wrote, “If I could produce all my country’s wants by means of 30,000 people instead of 30 million, I should not mind it, provided that the 30 million are not rendered idle and unemployed.” In short, Gandhi was aware of the menace of technological unemployment. He emphasised the need for labour- intensive methods of production in a country with surplus labour. Gandhiji’s ideas on machinery are still relevant. In spite of more than six decades of planned, machine using and power driven economic development unemployment is still there and is still growing.

Economic Idea # 6. Regeneration of Villages or Village Sarvodaya: Gandhiji evolved the ideal of Village Sarvodaya. Speaking about the old village economy, Gandhiji said, “Production was simultaneous with consumption and distribution and the vicious circle of money economy was absent. Production was for immediate use and not for distant markets. The whole structure of society was founded on non- violence.”

Gandhiji wanted the revival of ancient village communities with prosperous agriculture, decentralised industry and small scale co- operative organisations. He also wanted that there should be the participation of people at all levels.

He declared that the real India was to be found in villages and not in the towns and he accepted the remark that an Indian village was “a collection of insanitary dwellings constructed on a dunghill”. His desire was that every Indian village may be converted into a little self- sufficient republic.

His ideal of village sarvodaya implied that an ideal village must fulfill the following conditions: (i) There should be orderliness in the structure of the village;

(ii) There should be fruit trees;

(iii) It should have a dharamshala and a small dispensary; (iv) It should be self-sufficient in matters of food and clothing;

(v) The roads and lanes should be kept clean;

(vi) The places of worship should be beautiful and clean;

(vii) There should be gutters for draining of water in every lane;

(viii) The village should be well protected against robbers and wild animals;

(ix) It should have a public hall, a school and a theatre hall;

(x) It should have an efficient water supply;

(xi) It should have a play-ground, cattle sheds, etc.,

(xii) If space permits, cash crops excluding tobacco and opium may be grown;

(xiii) Adequate education up to the basic standard must be made compulsory;

(xiv) Rural activities may be organised on co-operative basis;

(xv) Rural administration and government should be in the hands of panchayats, consisting of 5 members duly elected every year by the adult villagers;

(xvi) The village panchayats would enjoy judicial, legislative and executive powers;

(xvii) A system of village guards must be made compulsory for every village;

(xviii) The caste system should be abolished.

He was confident that if all the villages in India are regenerated along these lines, there would not be any worries for her. But Gandhiji knew that it was not easy to establish ideal villages and, therefore, he emphasised the revival of village industries.

Economic Idea # 7. The Trusteeship Doctrine: Gandhiji remarked that the capitalist who had amassed a large sum of money was a thief. If a person had inherited a big fortune or had collected a large amount of money by way of trade and industry, the entire amount did not belong to him. It belonged to the entire society and must be spent on the welfare of all. He wanted to avoid a violent and bloody revolution by gearing a permanent stability of economic equality. He wanted the capitalists to be trustees and he enunciated the doctrine of trusteeship.

All social property is meant for all people—rich or poor. Capitalists being trustees would take care of not only themselves but also of others. The workers would treat the capitalists as their benefactors and would keep faith in them. In this way there would be mutual trust and confidence with the help of which the remarkable ideal of economic equality could be achieved.

His entire ideology is summed up as follows: (i) “Trusteeship provides a means of transforming the present capitalist order of society into an egalitarian one. It gives no quarter to capitalism, but gives the present owning class the chance of reforming itself. It is based on the faith that human nature is never beyond redemption.

(ii) “It does not recognise any right of private ownership of property except in as much as it may be permitted by society for its welfare.

(iii) “It does not exclude legislative regulation of the ownership and the use of wealth.

(iv) “Thus, under state-regulated trusteeship, an individual will not be free to hold or use his wealth for selfish satisfaction or in disregard of the interest of society. (v) “Just as it is proposed to fix a decent minimum living wage, even so, a limit should be fixed for the maximum income that could be allowed to any person in society. The difference between such minimum and maximum incomes should be reasonable and equitable and variable from time to time so much so that the tendency would be towards obliteration of the difference.

(vi) “Under the Gandhian economic order the character of production will be determined by social necessity and not by personal whim or greed”.

Economic Idea # 8. Law of Bread Labour: The Law of Bread Labour was propounded by T.M. Bondaref and popularized by Ruskin and Tolstoy. This law emphasises that man must earn his bread by his own labour. To Gandhiji the law of bread labour related to agriculture alone. But as every-body was not a cultivator, he could earn his bread by doing some other work.

If all people labored for their bread, there would be enough food and clothing for all, they would be healthier and happier, and there would be no problem of food shortage, no disease and no misery. He strongly believed that without physical labour no one was entitled to get his food. He advised the rich also to do bodily labour for the bread.

Economic Idea # 9. Food Problem: Gandhiji had seen the worst famine of his life during 1943-44, when Bengal suffered heavily owing to the country-wide shortage of food. To start with, Gandhiji thought that this scarcity of food had been artificially created. But after visiting Madras, Bengal and Assam, he arrived at the conclusion that the shortage of food was real and not artificial.

He suggested the following measures for solving the problem of food shortage in India: (i) Every individual should curtail his or her requirements of food to the minimum and as far as possible the consumption of food grains and pulses should be reduced to the minimum by substituting vegetables, milk, fruits, etc., for them;

(ii) Every flower garden should be utilised for cultivation purpose;

(iii) The consumption of food grains and pulses by the army personnel should be economized;

(iv) Black-marketing should be stopped;

(v) Deep wells should be sunk by the government so as to provide irrigational facilities;

(vi) Export of oil seeds, oil cakes, etc., should be stopped. Gandhiji was against food controls, because he thought that it not only created artificial scarcity, but made the people to depend upon others. They become spoon-fed. That is why, in November, 1947 he asked the Government of India to remove food controls.

Economic Idea # 10. Population: The most important problem which attracted the attention of Gandhiji was the rapid increase in population. Gandhiji opposed the use of contraceptives as its use in India would make the middle class male population imbecile through abuse of the creative functions. Gandhiji was in favour of birth control through self-control or brahmacharya and not through the use of artificial methods. He considered self- control as the “infallible sovereign remedy”.

He wanted the propagation of sex passion. He criticised those who argued that birth control was needed for solving the problem of overpopulation. He said, “In my opinion, by a proper land system, better agriculture, and a supplementary industry, this country is capable of supporting twice as many people as there are to-day”. Gandhiji was against the sterilisation of women, as it was inhuman. But he was not against vasectomy, especially in the case of those men who suffer from chronic diseases, because he thought that it were men who were the aggressors. Economic Idea # 11. Prohibition: According to Gandhiji, the use of coffee, tea, tobacco, and alcohol was detrimental to the mental, physical, and moral development of an individual. In his opinion, the use of liquor was a disease rather than a vice. He had no objection to the use of liquor if taken under medical advice. He would have preferred India to be reduced to a state of pauperism than have ‘thousands of drunkards in our midst’.

In one of his articles, he wrote that if he were appointed dictator of India, only for an hour, he would, in the first instance, close all the liquor shops without compensation, and compel the mill- owners to start refreshment rooms to provide harmless drinks to the workmen. He thought that the evil of drinking liquor could not be eradicated by legislative measures alone.

Other measures suggested by him are as under: (a) Public opinion should be educated;

(b) Refreshment rooms should be opened for selling harmless drinks;

(c) The income derived from the sale of intoxicants should be used for cultivating public opinion in favour of prohibition. He did not agree with those who contended that by prohibition, the revenue of the government will fall and it would not be able to incur expenditure on nation- building activities like education. He said that if the evil was removed, other resources of revenue could be developed without much difficulty.

Economic Idea # 12. Labour Welfare: One of the important fields where Mahatma Gandhi extended his right for economic equality was the factory. He saw that workers were subjected to gross injustice and the treatment meted out to them was below dignity. To him, the employment of children was a national degradation. He always pleaded for shorter hours of work and more leisure so that workers might not be reduced to the condition of beasts. He also demanded safety measures inside factories. Mahatma Gandhi laid emphasis on the welfare of the worker, his dignity and proper wages. In the Harijan dated June 9,1946 he wrote that all useful work should bring to the worker the same and equal wages. Until then, he should be paid at least that much which could feed and clothe himself and his family.

In order to improve the condition of the worker, first of all he laid claims on a minimum living wage so that a family of 4 to 6 members might live a human life. He wrote as far back as 1920 that the worker should get more wages, and should be given less work to do so that the following four things might be guaranteed to him — clean house, clean body, clean mind and a clean soul.

In so far as the relation between labour and capital is concerned, Mahatma Gandhi always suggested harmony between them. He argued that if the distinction of high and low disappeared, it would have a healthy reaction on all aspects of life. Consequently, the struggle between labour and capital would come to an end; and would give place to co-operation between them.

According to him, “capital should be labour’s servant, not its master”. Moreover, he believed in the formation of labour unions. If the rights of workers were not conceded, they could go on a strike which should be based on non-violence and truth.

Economic Idea # 13. Simplicity: Mahatma Gandhi was against the multiplication of human wants. In order to lead a simple life — a life untouched by immorality, untruth and political gain, he did not want many things. He eventually succeeded in complete renunciation. He firmly believed that Western materialism and industrialisation had increased human wants. He always pleaded for a simple life, life of plain living and high thinking, so that the requirements of such a life could be satisfied easily.

To Mahatma Gandhi, happiness lay in the curtailment of wants, and not in their multiplication. As he observed — “The less you possess, the less you want, the better you are, better not for the enjoyment of this life but for the enjoyment of personal service to one’s fellow beings, service to which you dedicate yourself, body, soul and mind”.

Economic Idea # 14. Exchange Economy: Gandhian idea on exchange economy is based on the swadeshi spirit. Every Indian village should be a self-supporting and self-contained unit exchanging only necessary commodities with other villages where they are not locally producible.

The person who has accepted the discipline of swadeshi would not mind physical discomfort or inconvenience caused by the non- availability of certain things which he has been using. He would gradually learn to do without those things which up to this time he has been regarding as necessary for his life.

Mahatma Gandhi asked people not to worry about the non-availability of such things as pin and needle, because these were not manufactured in India. He was prepared to buy from other countries those commodities (like watches from Switzerland, surgical instruments from England, etc.) which were needed for his growth; but he was not prepared to buy an inch of cotton of the finest variety from England or Japan or any other country of the world because the importation of cloth had caused the ruin of the home industry – it had harmed the interests of the millions of inhabitants of this country.

The guiding principle that he laid down in respect of all foreign goods was that those things should not be imported which were likely to prove harmful to the interests of the indigenous industry.

Mahatma Gandhi recognised money as a token of exchange only. In the economy envisaged by him, commodities were to be exchanged with commodities. The part played by money was insignificant. It became instrumental in the exploitation of the weak by the strong. To him, money was as useful as labour. He suggested that in order to make khadi universal, it should be made available in exchange for yarn, i.e., yarn-currency. Economic Idea # 15. Untouchability: Gandhi believed that untouchability was a sin against God and man. It was “like poison slowly eating into the very vitals of Hinduism”. It degraded both the untouchables and the touchables. He felt that Swaraj had no meaning if about 4 crores of people were kept under prepetual subjection; and were deliberately denied the fruits of their labour and national culture.” To him, untouchability was not only part and parcel of Hinduism but a plague which every Hindu should try to combat.

Mahatma Gandhi admitted that untouchability was an old institution; but as it was an evil, it could not be defended on this ground. He held that if some shastras had given sanction to it, it was a sin committed by Hinduism; this sin must be removed.

Once he went to the extent of saying: “If this is Hinduism, O lord, my daily prayer is that the soonest it is destroyed, the best.”

When he came to know that there was untouchability even among the untouchables, he concluded that the evil was all- pervading; and suggested that cultured Hindus should try to get rid of that curse as soon as possible.

Mahatma Gandhi laid the entire blame for the cancer of untouchability on the Hindus. To him, the removal of untouchability meant fighting against the impurity found in man. It meant also love for, and service of, the whole world. It would remove the barrier between man and man.

4/1/2019 Environmental Impacts of Dams | International Rivers

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Tweet Like 406 Share Environmental Impacts of Dams The environmental consequences of large dams are numerous and varied, and includes direct impacts to the biological, chemical and physical properties of rivers and riparian (or "stream-side") environments.

The dam wall itself blocks fish migrations, which in some cases and with some species completely separate spawning habitats from rearing habitats. The dam also traps sediments, which are critical for maintaining physical processes and habitats downstream of the dam (include the maintenance of productive deltas, barrier islands, fertile floodplains and coastal wetlands).

Another significant and obvious impact is the transformation upstream of the dam from a free-flowing river ecosystem to an artificial slack-water reservoir habitat. Changes in temperature, chemical composition, (https://www.internationalrivers.org/sites/default/files/styles/600- dissolved oxygen levels and the physical properties of a reservoir are often not suitable to the aquatic height/public/images/book/lori_pottinger/klamathfishkill.jpg?plants and animals that evolved with a given river system. Indeed, reservoirs often host non-native and itok=Q6eigz3F) invasive species (e.g. snails, algae, predatory fish) that further undermine the river's natural communities Low flows below dams killed thousands of salmon on the Klamath in 2002 of plants and animals. The alteration of a river's flow and sediment transport downstream of a dam often causes the greatest sustained environmental impacts. Life in and around a river evolves and is conditioned on the timing and quantities of river flow. Disrupted and altered water flows can be as severe as completely de-watering river reaches and the life they contain. Yet even subtle changes in the quantity and timing of water flows impact aquatic and riparian life, which can unravel the ecological web of a river system.

A dam also holds back sediments (/node/2221) that would naturally replenish downstream ecosystems. When a river is deprived of its sediment load, it seeks to recapture it by eroding the downstream river bed and banks (which can undermine bridges and other riverbank structures, as well as riverside woodlands). Riverbeds downstream of dams are typically eroded by several meters within the decade of first closing a dam; the damage can extend for tens or even hundreds of kilometers below a dam.

Riverbed deepening (or "incising") will also lower groundwater tables along a river, lowering the water table accessible to plant roots (and to human communities drawing water from wells) . Altering the riverbed also reduces habitat for fish that spawn in river bottoms, and for invertebrates.

In aggregate, dammed rivers have also impacted processes in the broader biosphere. Most reservoirs, especially those in the tropics, are significant contributors to greenhouse gas emissions (a recent study pegged global greenhouse gas emissions from reservoirs on par with that of the aviation industry, about 4% of human-caused GHG emissions). Recent studies on the Congo River have demonstrated that the sediment and nutrient flow from the Congo drives biological processes far into the Atlantic Ocean, including serving as a carbon sink for atmospheric greenhouse gases.

Large dams have led to the extinction (/node/1314) of many fish and other aquatic species, the disappearance of birds in floodplains, huge losses of forest, wetland and farmland, erosion of coastal deltas, and many other unmitigable impacts.

Latest additions: Celebrating Liberated Rivers (/blogs/264/celebrating-liberated-rivers) Scientists Question Dam Building in the , Congo and Mekong (/blogs/227/scientists-question-dam-building-in-the-amazon-congo-and-mekong) 30 Things You Didn’t Know About Rivers (/blogs/227/30-things-you-didn%E2%80%99t-know-about-rivers-0) PR – ‘State of the World’s Rivers’ Project Documents Decline in Rivers From Dams (/resources/8392) The State of the World's Rivers (/resources/8391)

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Environmental Problems Caused By Dams

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The construction of large dams completely change the relationship of water and land, destroying the existing ecosystem balance, which in many cases, has taken thousands of years to create. Currently there are around 40,000 large dams which abstract the World’s rivers, completing changing their circulation system this is not going to occur without dire environmental impacts.

Throughout the past few years, the negative impacts of dams have become so well known that most countries (including India) have stopped building them altogether and are now forced to invest their money into fixing the problems created by existing dams.

Some environmental problems caused by dams are as follow:

(i) Soil Erosion:

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One of the first problems with dams is the erosion of land. Dams hold back the sediment load normally found in a river flow, depriving the downstream of this. In order to make up for the sediments, the downstream water erodes its channels and banks. This lowering of the riverbed threatens vegetation and river wildlife.

One of the reason dams are built is to prevent flooding. However, most ecosystems which experience flooding are adopted and many animal species depend on the floods for various life cycle stages, such as reproduction and hatching. Annual floods also deposit nutrients and replenish wetlands. A major example of soil erosion problems is the Aswan Dam.

(ii) Species Extinction: www.yourarticlelibrary.com/essay/environmental-problems-caused-by-dams/42623 1/6 4/1/2019 Environmental Problems Caused By Dams Fisheries become an increasingly important source of food supply more attention is being paid to the harmful effects of dams on many fish and marine mammal populations. The vast majority of large dams do not include proper bypass systems for these animals, interfering with their life cycles and sometimes even forcing species to extinction.

(iii) Spread of Disease:

Dam reservoirs in tropical areas, due to their slow-movement, are literally breeding grounds for mosquitoes, snails and flies, the vectors that carry malaria, Schistosomiasis and river blindness

(iv) Changes to Earth’s Rotation:

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Nasa geophysicist Dr. Benjamin Fong Chao found evidence that large dams cause changes to the earth’s rotation, because of the shift of water weight from oceans to reservoirs. Because of the number of dams which have been built, the Earth’s daily rotation has apparently sped up eight-millionths of a second since the 1950s. Chao said it is the first time human activity has been shown to have a measurable effect on the Earth’s motion.

(v) Sedimentation:

It is the process by which larger sediments in water entering a reservoir are deposited as its upper end forming a delta and steadily raising the level of the upper reaches of the reservoir. This causes flooding due to its bank water effect, and in the case of the Sardar Sarovar Dam, this process shortens the utility of the dam.

(vi) Siltation:

It is the outcome of silt being deposited at the bottom of the reservoir, which inevitably reduces the utility of the dam. In the case of SSP there is the possibility of premature siltation, which decides the life span of a reservoir. Siltation reduces the water storage capacity of the reservoir, undermines its effectiveness for power-generation, irrigation and flood control and renders it usefulness in the long term.

(vi) Water logging:

www.yourarticlelibrary.com/essay/environmental-problems-caused-by-dams/42623 2/6 4/1/2019 Environmental Problems Caused By Dams Rich soils in the states of Punjab and Haryana have been robbed for their use because of water logging. The Indian Institute of science estimates that 40 percent of the command area for Sardar Sarovar Dam will become waterlogged. This area contains black cotton soils which are particularly prove to water logging under perennial irrigation due to high water retention capacity. Soils become water logged and crop yields fall.

(viii) Salinisation:

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The arid and semi-arid areas are incapable of handling large amounts of water brought by irrigation. Irrigation water has more saline content and adds more salt to the system leading to the increase of salinisation. Changes in the salt regime can affect the entire ecosystem and disrupt breeding of fishes. Large areas on the river banks are likely to be affected by an increased quality of salt after dam construction. In total, over 32,000 hectares of land have been submerged by the Sardar Sarovar Dam, 13,000 of which is forest land and 11,000 hectares of agricultural land.

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WSN 42 (2016) 156-166 EISSN 2392-2192

The causes of ethnic conflict in Multi-ethnic societies1

Hossien Mohammadzadeh Assistant Professor of Sociology, Department of Social Science, Payame Noor University, Tehran, Iran E-mail address: [email protected]

ABSTRACT Ethnic conflicts were the main forms of political instability in the multi ethnic societies during second half of twenty century and beginning of new century. The goal of this study determinates social context of ethnic conflict in multi ethnic societies. The methodology was comparative study. Data gathering by documents and secondary data. Data and documents show that Ethnic differences' and discrimination were the main cause of ethnic violence. The results indicated that much country in the world encounter with ethnic conflict during decades. But incidence of ethnic violence was different in varying country. In developing country incidence were low and in the developing sever. Developing country management ethnic conflict by participation and justice policy that the equality is the best way for resolve this problem.

Keywords: Ethnic; Ethnic conflict; Multi-ethnic society

1. INTRODUCTION

The term ethnicity has become established in recent times as one of the most Important concepts in the social sciences. The theoretical development corresponds to the realization

1 This article adopted from a comparative research that supported by deputy research of Kurdistan Payam Noor University. World Scientific News 42 (2016) 156-166

that ethnic phenomena considerably permeate and influence the main social events of our times. As howrowitz stated in his famous ethnic groups in conflict: ethnic conflict is a world view phenomenon (howrowitz, 1985:3). Ethnic conflict persist on every continent and such violence are a central feature of contemporary social life and have been for centuries in places where heterogeneous population live, or people from different ethnic group come into contact. An ethnic group is a set of people that share common racial and cultural characteristics. They may share the same language, religion, territory or economical system. Ethnic conflict is defined as any episode of sustained violent conflict in which national, ethnic, and religious or other communal minorities challenge governments to seek major changes in status (smith.2001, howrowitz, 1988, 1985, Bruce 2004). The term "ethnicity" as used today arose in the beginning of 21th century, replacing the terminology of "races" or "nations" used for the concept in the 19th century. Regular warfare was formerly conceived as conflicts between nations, and only with the rise of multi-ethnic societies and the shift to asymmetric warfare did the concept of "ethnic conflict" arise as separate from generic "war" (Center for Systemic Peace. 30 October 2006). This has been the case especially since the collapse of the multi-ethnic Soviet Union and of the relatively more homogeneous Yugoslavia in the 1990s, both of which were followed by ethnic conflicts that escalated to violence and civil war (Smith, 2001, Wallenstein, 2005). The end of the Cold War thus sparked interest in two important questions about ethnic conflict: was ethnic conflict on the rise; and given that some ethnic conflicts had escalated into serious violence, what, if anything, could scholars of large-scale violence (security studies, strategic studies, and interstate politics) offer by way of explanation? One of the most debated issues relating to ethnic conflict is whether it has become more or less prevalent in the post–Cold War period. At the end of the Cold War, academics including Samuel P. Huntington (1993) and Robert D. Kaplan predicted a proliferation of conflicts fuelled by civilization clashes, tribalism, resource scarcity and overpopulation. The post–Cold War period has witnessed a number of ethnically-informed secessionist movements, predominantly within the former communist states. Conflicts have involved secessionist movements in the former oslavia, Transnistria in Moldova, Armenians in Azerbaijan, Abkhaz and Ossetians in Georgia. Outside the former communist bloc, ethno- separatist strife in the same period has occurred in areas such as Sri Lanka, West Papua, Chiapas, East Timor, the Basque Country and Southern Sudan (Cornell, S. Hartmann, D. 1998). Ethnicity results from interethnic relations, whenever two different groups or societies come into contact and establish various modes of spatial, political-economic, cultural and social relations. Throughout history, ethnic conflicts have long been a component of international politics (Esman, 2004). Even today, ethnic wars continue to be the most common form of armed conflicts around the world (Mohammadzadeh, 2010). In the recent past for example, there have been numerous instances of ethnic conflict including ethnic war in Somalia, Kurdish struggle for autonomy in Iraq and Turkey, guerilla wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua, insurrection in Chechnya, and the conflict between Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda to name a few (Duffy, 2004, Schlichting, 1997, Fearon, 2003). However, it is apparent that certain places and states are more prone to ethnic conflicts, while others experience essentially none. What makes ethnic conflict more likely within a

-157- World Scientific News 42 (2016) 156-166

nation-state? This inquiry will look at ethnic conflicts and possible of social causes in the multi ethnic societies. I will explore ethnic conflicts that have occurred in different nation- states across the globe; specifically I will examine the conditions that contribute to an increased likelihood of ethnic conflict within multi ethnic societies and the way in resolves ethnic problem in the multi ethnic societies. Even though ethnicity constitutes one of the most dynamic and troublesome issues in society, theorization in this domain still leaves much to be desired. The established academic models on ethnic issues have also been shown to be insufficient. The functionalist and conflict schools of sociology, which were the dominant views at the macro -structural level up to the so -called "paradigmatic crisis" in the social sciences, continue to be reductionist in their approach to ethnic phenomena. Ethnicity was nearly a forgotten dimension in functionalist analysis. Even when dealing with a related phenomenon such as migration, traditional functionalist demographic analysis emphasized the "function" or mutual advantage to both the sending and recipient countries. For ethnicity and ethnic conflict they are many theory that tray explain what happen in the ethnic contexts. But three paradigms are famous:

Primordial's accounts Primordial views emphasize the primacy of ethnicity, close to kinship, in its impact on the psychological make-up of individuals. Proponents of primordialist accounts of ethnic conflict argue that “ethnic groups and nationalities exist because there are traditions of belief and action towards primordial objects such as biological features and especially territorial location. The primordialist account relies on a concept of kinship between members of an ethnic group. Horowitz (1985) argues that this kinship “makes it possible for ethnic groups to think in terms of family resemblances”. There are a number of political sociologist and political scientists who refer to the concept of ethnic wars as a myth because they argue that the root causes of ethnic conflict do not involve ethnicity but rather institutional, political, and economic factors. But in sociology view ethnic is a different culture and a core for discrimination politics. These political scientists argue that the concept of ethnic war is misleading because it leads to an essentialist conclusion that certain groups are doomed to fight each other when in fact the wars between them are the result of political decisions. Opposing groups may substitute ethnicity for the underlying factors to simplify identification of friend and foe Grosby, S. (1994). At the whole the primordial view ethnic conflict rooted in my blood, my exists, although this approach challenged by modernist or instrumentalists. His approach to ethnicity is associated with the views of Geertz (1963: 109), quoted below:

"By a primordial attachment is me ant one that stems from the 'givens' or more precisely, as culture is inevitably involved in such matters, the assumed 'givens' of social existence: immediate contiguity and live connection mainly, but beyond them the givenness that stems from being born In to a particular religious community, speaking a particular language, or even a dialect of a language, and following particular social practices. These congruities of blood, speech, custom and so on, are seen to have an ineffable, and at times, over powering coerciveness in and of themselves. One is bound to one's kinsman, one's neighbor, one's fellow believer, ipso facto, as the

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result not merely of personal attraction, tactical necessity, and common interest or incurred moral obligation but at least in great part by virtue of some unaccountable absolute import attributed to the very tie itself”.

Instrumentalist accounts Instrumentalist belief that ethnic war rooted in new situation. And they have many causes. Anthony Smith (2001) notes that the instrumentalist account “came to prominence in the 1960s and 1970s in the United States, in the debate about (white) ethnic persistence in what was supposed to have been an effective melting pot”. This new theory sought to explain such persistence as the result of the actions of community leaders, “who used their cultural groups as sites of mass mobilization and as constituencies in their competition for power and resources, because they found them more effective than social classes”. In this account of ethnic identification, “ethnicity and race are viewed as instrumental identities, organized as means to particular ends. Whether ethnicity is a fixed perception is not crucial in the instrumentalist accounts. Moreover, the scholars of this school generally do not oppose the views that ethnic difference is a part of many conflicts or that a lot of belligerent human beings believe that they are fighting over such difference. Instrumentalists simply claim that ethnic difference is not sufficient to explain conflicts. At reality they believe that ethnic conflict began from human relation and new communication that some ethnic and groups benefits from others. This inequality and discriminations are the causes of ethnic instabilities. Some of this scholar is mono casual and some of them are multi casual.

Constructivist accounts A third, constructivist, set of accounts stress the importance of the socially constructed nature of ethnic groups, drawing on Benedict Anderson's concept of the imagined community (malshvic, 2004). Proponents of this account point to Rwanda as an example since the Tutsi/Hutu distinction was codified by the Belgian colonial power in the 1930s on the basis of cattle ownership, physical measurements and church records. Identity cards were issued on this basis, and these documents played a key role in the of 1994, Grosby, S. (1994). Scholars of ethnic conflict and civil wars have introduced theories that draw insights from all three traditional schools of thought. In The Geography of Ethnic Violence, for example, Duffy (2003) shows how ethnic group settlement patterns, socially constructed identities, charismatic leaders, issue indivisibility, and state concern with precedent setting can lead rational actors to escalate a dispute to violence, even when doing so is likely to leave contending groups much worse off. Such research addresses empirical puzzles that are difficult to explain using primordialist, instrumentalist, or constructivist approaches alone. Gurr and moor (1997) uses a synthetically model built on Relative deprivation that attention to discrimination concepts, they divided to political, economic and cultural discrimination. Relative deprivation is the lack of resources to sustain the diet, lifestyle, activities and amenities that an individual or group are accustomed to or that are widely encouraged or approved in the society to which they belong. Measuring relative deprivation allows an objective comparison between the situation of the individual or group compared to the rest of society. Relative deprivation may also emphasize the individual experience of discontent when being deprived of something to which one believes oneself to be entitled;

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however emphasizing the perspective of the individual makes objective measurement problematic.

Political discrimination

Social-cultural discrimination

Cultural discrimination

Sense of Sense of social Sense of economical discrimination Political discrimination discrimination

Language

Ethnic

Ethnicity Religion defere nce's

Customs

Satellite Radio

Conscience

Figure 1. A theoretical framework of research.

However, some theorists contend that this does not represent a rise in the incidence of ethnic conflict, seeing many of the proxy wars fought during the Cold War as ethnic conflicts masked as hot spots of the Cold War. Research shows that the fall of Communism and the increase in the number of capitalist states were accompanied by a decline in total warfare,

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interstate wars, ethnic wars, revolutionary wars, and the number of refugees and displaced persons. Indeed, some scholars have questioned whether the concept of ethnic conflict is useful at all. Others have attempted to test the "clash of civilizations" thesis, finding it to be difficult to operationalise and that civilization conflicts have not risen in intensity in relation to other ethnic conflicts since the end of the Cold War On the question of whether scholars deeply invested in theories of interstate violence could adapt their theories to explain or predict large-scale ethnic violence, a key issue proved to be whether ethnic groups could be considered "rational" actors. Prior to the end of the Cold War, the consensus among students of large-scale violence was that ethnic groups should be considered irrational actors, or semi-rational at best. If true, general explanations of ethnic violence would be impossible. In the years since, however, scholarly consensus has shifted to consider that ethnic groups may in fact be counted as rational actors, and the puzzle of their apparently irrational actions (for example, fighting over territory of little or no intrinsic worth) must therefore be explained in some other way. As a result, the possibility of a general explanation of ethnic violence has grown, and collaboration between comparatives and international-relations subfields has resulted in increasingly useful theories of ethnic conflict. It is a term used in social sciences to describe feelings or measures of economic, political, or social deprivation that are relative rather than absolute. The term is inextricably linked to the similar terms poverty and social exclusion. The concept of relative deprivation has important consequences for both behavior and attitudes, including feelings of stress, political attitudes, and participation in collective action (Gurr and moor 1997). But many scholar and researcher accumulated theoretical framework. One of the set by author of this paper. This model is very flexible and to be tested in many situation. This model was my theoretical approach to context of ethnic conflicts: (Mohammadzadeh model, 2010) In the researcher view ethnic conflicts causes are three factors: ethnic factors like language and religion, ethnic discrimination like politic, social and economical one and conscience people by book newspaper and satellites. These models consist of objective and subjective factors and suitable for societies with more than ethnicity. Attention to cultural, economic and social in one side and relative deprivation in other side is a capability of this model. At the same time could engage macro and micro level of analysis.

2. METHODOLOGY

There are many methods for social science research. Comparative research one of them that use by famous sociologist like Marx and Weber. Comparative research is a research methodology in the social sciences that aims to make comparisons across different countries or cultures. A number of different techniques are used to generate information about what factors are most closely associated with ethnic conflicts. In the quantities methods at the first examines whether or not there are any correlations between the variables. Correlation analysis is used to determine if a linear relationship exists between the independent and dependent variables. This correlation analysis was performed using the independent, dependent and control variables to test for multi-co linearity; none were identified. But in the qualities method we comparison similarities and deference's between countries. Base of these methods rooted in miles philosophy. Because the data covers several

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countries over several years. Using comparison methods is very suitable for this research types. At reality we comparison of variances between countries as well as within countries over time. We attention which factors associated with ethnic violence and which factors share in counties with ethnic conflict experience. The comparative show me why ethnic conflict to be active in some region and country and not activated in other ones.

3. RESULTS

Ethnic conflicts are not exclusively of the industrialized capitalist world. They occur in socialist and in third world countries as well. Canadian social life was disrupted in the late 1960 and early 1970 by the violence of French Canadian separatist. Mexico has experience violent uprising by indigenous population in southern state of Chiapas and descendents of the indigenous people of central and south and South America continue to be violently subjugate and continue to fight back. This condition repeated in Asia and Africa. Some of this is still capable of flaring into violence today even as new ones arise. In Europe some former colonial power has more heterogeneous population today and at time violent conflict has resulted. In Britain and Germany we already find anti immigrant riots. After German reunification refugees were attacked in anti-minority riots in eastern in the early 1990 and 2015, while there is arson attack on Turkish homes in the western part of of the country. French and Spanish riots in recent years have been linked either to disaffection of minority groups. Nowadays there is discussion about a "fourth world," in reference to the oppressive conditions experienced by indigenous peoples (ICIHI, 1987). In short, all existing social systems, independently of political regime or level of development, exhibit, to variable degrees, conflictual inter-ethnic relations. If we attention to the map of world understanding that many country are multiethnic. In some country relation of ethnic groups and governments is suitable and we have not any sign of violence and skirmish. But at realty some of them encounter with ethnic problem. This problem were continue and a big challenge for governors. Of course racial conflict have exist for centuries in Africa and have been at the heart of many continent violent struggle, ethnic conflict continue to fuel violent in Rwanda, Congo, Nigeria, Somalia, Kenya, Darfur and elsewhere. Asia have experienced similar ethnic problem especially in Iraq, Turkey and India. There is also conflict where large modern nation have subsumed the historic territory of ethnic group like China and United Kingdom in France with the Bretons, in Spain with the Basques and in the Americas with the indigenous people. Ethnic conflict is one of the major threats to international peace and security. Conflicts in the Balkans, Rwanda, Chechnya, Iraq, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, and Darfur, as well as in Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, are among the best-known and deadliest examples from the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The destabilization of provinces, states, and, in some cases, even whole regions is a common consequence of ethnic violence. Ethnic conflicts are often accompanied by gross human rights violations, such as genocide and crimes against humanity, and by economic decline, state failure, environmental problems, and refugee flows. Violent ethnic conflict leads to tremendous human suffering. Many subordinate ethnic group members nowadays experience an ethnic identity dilemma.

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Given the extent of ethnic discrimination in contemporary society, ethnic identity is often associated with oppressive and conflictual features. For example: among 192 member of united nation only in 12 countries, population constitute from one ethnic and society was homogeny. at the same time in past half 20 century 93 war take place that 30 of them in Asia, 22 cases in north Africa, 10 in East Europe and 2 cases were in Latin American, in the past five decades 25 million people immigrated to other places (Salhi Amiry, 2005).

Table 1. Minority at risk in 1994.

Number Number Region of of Population Percents country minority

Western democratic and Japan 15 31 94291000 12 Eastern Europe 25 59 59671000 14 East, south east of Asia 21 62 397474000 13 Middle east and north Africa 11 27 89840000 26 African sub Sahara 30 81 294460000 51 Latin American 18 32 52965000 11 total 120 292 988701000 18 (Reference: Gurr, 1995)

This information show that a numerous people belong to minority in risk. This people conflict on benefits with other group and majority in power. For instance in 1994 near 989 million of world people belong to 292 ethnic groups that their individual expose some kind of discrimination and for defense of selfhood and their costs to be activated (Gurr,1995). We must attention that request of ethnic groups not accept by majority in power and in the result violence regain. One researcher added "post cold” war, 96 war and conflict take place that 91 one of them belong to ethnic wars, in the consequences of this war 20 million people killed (Peak, 1998: 25-29). The conflicts must be seen in the context of the historic relationships between the groups, between groups and state. Some of are based in long-contested territorial revivals like Tibet in China. in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, indigenous groups want self determination and degree of independence from lation-based national government. And the violence of Basque separatists is motivated by their belief that their region of the Pyrnees should not be controlled by Spaniards. Nowadays migration is development countries is a source of ethnic conflicts.

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4. CONCLUSIONS

Ethnicity has been shown to be of increasing saliency in public and academic pursuits. Interethnic conflicts between and within national states, renewed forms of racism and ethnicism (ethnic discrimination), acculturative stress and ethnic identity conflicts illustrate the extent to which ethnic problems constitute nowadays important contemporary social issues. That review includes an account of the main historical and ideological features behind the linguistic shift from "race" to "ethnicity." The uses and changing meaning of the term" ethnicity" are appraised in the realms of anthropology and sociology. Ethnicity implies both structural (material) and cultural (subjective) features. Structural ethnicity refers to the relative location of an ethnic group in relation to all other social groups in the stratification system, namely, as ethnic stratification. This ranked socio historical condition, based on ethnic criteria, holds the determining influence in the distribution of life burdens and privileges among the various ethnic segments of the population. In its cultural, social -psychological and psychological sense, ethnicity refers to a feeling of belonging to a group whose members share some phonotypical, cultural, linguistic, religious, national features, or a combination of some or all of these features. This psychological state of being has been characterized in the literature as a "consciousness of kind" (see Shibutani, 1965: 530 and Rex, 1986: 80), which is closely related to the notion of ethnic identity. As a social phenomenon, ethnicity manifests itself as an expression of interethnic relations. These relations have developed historically, blending colonial, racial, cultural and class dimensions, under complex circumstances. In turn, inter ethnic relations involve a wide range of social conditions that Vary in their degree of oppression. The latter is nowadays appraised in terms and degrees of ethnic discrimination (racism and ethnicism). Ethnicity, as a social condition, lies somewhere in between family or primary group experience and participating as citizens in society at large. Inter-ethnic relations constitute the context for both external/ascriptive ethnic identities Fiction and also for the personal process of attaining an ethnic identity. In this study I set out to explore what causes maybe effected ethnic conflict within nation-states in the multi ethnic societies. I hypothesized that some important causal factors were like cultural diversity and inequality in symbolic. Cultural, economic and political side causes ethnic conflicts. Analysis of these variables showed that cultural diversity and sense of relative deprivation have a significant impact in determining the likelihood of ethnic conflict, while the number of States with armed conflict and number of refugees coming into a nation- state both play a significant role in increasing the likelihood of ethnic conflict. The evidence gathered from this research contributes to a better understanding of ethnic conflicts overall; a better understanding will then allow for more effective policy and broader knowledge when addressing the issues of ethnic conflict in today’s international society. We think inequality and injustice have a big role in the subject and my theory model can repeat in other field research. Data shows three factors related to ethnic conflict and sever of violence. Cultural factor that define one ethnic by self and others, discrimination in political, social and economical dimension and consensuses. Now my comment is this factor. We think that assimilation policy must be eradicated because it encounters me with unattention consequences. But accept the identity of ethnic and participated in decided and govern is the best way for management

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and control of this problems. Try to equal opportunity to individual and ethnic group members' to participate in political process. Cultural differences and ethnic conflicts are important issues shaping international politics. Because cultural affiliations and ethnic identity are particularly strong factors shaping group relations, these conflicts have led to tremendous human suffering and are a significant threat to international security. Instability, refugee flows, spillover effects, and other international consequences guarantee that ethnic conflict remains an issue on the international political agenda. However, it is not the cultural differences per se that lead to conflict but the political, ideological, and economic goals of international actors, regardless of whether these actors are states or ethnic groups. Given the complexity of ethnic and cultural conflicts, there is no easy solution to related issues.

References

[1] Coakley John (1992). The resolution of ethnic conflict: Towards a typology. International 13. pp. 343-358. [2] Cornell S., Hartmann, D. (1998). Ethnicity and Race: Making Identities in a Changing World. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge. p. 59. [3] Duffy T. M. (2003). The Geography of Ethnic Violence: Identity, Interests, and the Indivisibility of Territory. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. [4] Esman J. M. (2004). An Introduction to Ethnic conflict, Polity Book. [5] Gilley B. (2004). "Against the concept of ethnic conflict". Third World Quarterly 25(6): 1155-1166. [6] Grosby S. (1994). "The verdict of history: The inexpugnable tie of primordialist – a response to Eller and Coughlan". Ethnic and Racial Studies 17(1): 164-171 [p. 168]. [7] Gurr T. R., Moore W. H. (1997) Ethno political Rebellion: A Cross-Sectional Analysis of the 1980s with Risk Assessments for the 1990s, American Journal of Political Science. [8] Huntington S. (1993). "The clash of civilizations?". Foreign Affairs 72(3): 22-49. [9] Harbom L., Wallenstein P. (2005). "Armed conflict and its international dimensions, 1946-2004" (PDF). Journal of Peace Research 42(5): 623-635. [10] Jonathan (2002). "Ethnic minorities and the Clash of Civilizations: A quantitative analysis of Huntington's thesis". British Journal of Political Science 32 (3): 415-434. [11] Malshvic S. (2004). The Sociology of Etnicity, Sage.London. [12] Horowitz D. L. (1985). Ethnic Groups in Conflict. Berkeley, CA: Press. p. 57. [13] "Measuring systemic peace". Center for Systemic Peace. 30 October 2006. Retrieved 18 February - 2007. [14] Mohammadzadeh H. (2010). The type of ethnically amog Kurdish people. PhD Thesis. Allame Tababai University.

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[15] Rex J. (1986). Race and Ethnicity, Open University Press, Milton Keynes. [16] Peck C. (1998). Substantial Peace, The role of the UN and Regional Organization in preventing conflict, Rowman & Littlefield publisher. [17] Salhi Amiry R. (2005) Management of ethnic conflicts in Iran, strategic center, Tehran. [18] Schlichting U. (1997). "Conflict between Different Nationalities: Chances for and Limits to Their Settlement". In Klinke, Andreas; Renn, Ortwin; Lehners, Jean Paul. Ethnic Conflicts and Civil Society. Aldershot: Ashgate. [19] Smith A. (2001). "Nationalism: Theory, Ideology, History". Cambridge: Polity: 54-55. [20] Shibutani, T., et al. (1965). Ethnic Stratification: A Comparative Approach, Macmillan, New York, [21] Smith D. (2003). "Trends and Causes of Armed Conflicts". In Austin, Alexander; Fischer, Martina; Ropers, Norbert. Berghof Handbook for Conflict Transformation, Berlin: Berghof Research Centre for Constructive Conflict Management / Berghof Foundation. [22] Wallenstein P., Sollenberg M. (1995). "After the Cold War: Emerging patterns of armed conflict 1989–94". Journal of Peace Research 32(3): 345-360.

( Received 12 February 2016; accepted 23 February 2016 )

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From feudalism to capitalism (Winter 1989)

From International Socialism 2 : 45, Winter 1989, pp. 35–87. Transcribed by Martin Empson. Marked up by Einde O‟Callaghan for the Marxists’ Archive.

The transition from feudalism to capitalism is necessarily of enormous interest to Marxists. It is about how the system we live in rose on the western fringes of Europe and then spread to the rest of the world. It is the most recent example of how one mode of production changes into another and provided Marx and Engels with many of the insights they incorporated into The German Ideology and The Communist Manifesto. Arguments about the transition are often, for this reason, as much about the correctness of Marx and Engels‟ method as they are about historical fact.

This has been particularly true in the last ten years. A range of people have used the account of the transition to be found in the articles of the American Marxist Robert Brenner – usually quoted as the authority on the question – to attack any notion that the development of the forces of production explain the development of the relations of production and, therefore, of society in general. Brenner‟s thesis collected, along with replies from his critics, in T.H. Ashton and C.H.E. Philpin (eds.), The Brenner Debate, is the essential starting point for many other writers. So it is that Comninel, in his recent book on interpreting the French Revolution, criticises Marx for falling into „liberal scientific materialism‟ when he wrote that:

the direct relation between the owners of production to the direct producers ... always naturally corresponds to a definite stage in the development of the methods of labour and therefore its social productivity. [1]

Steve Rigby follows the same path in his Marxism and History. He attacks what he calls „productive force determinism‟, claiming:

Marxist historians have been able to make little use of productive force determinism. The transition from feudalism to capitalism, a key test of productive force determinism … [shows] ... the redundancy of theories based on it. [2]

Finally, Colin Barker‟s criticisms of myself in the pages of this journal for holding „base‟ and „superstructure‟ to be „a necessary distinction‟ rely to a great extent on a view of the transition derived from Brenner. [3] The argument, then, is one that is too important just to be left to those few Marxists who are professional historians.

Two of the most recent books to deal with elements in the transition, although from opposite ends of it, are Jacques Le Goff‟s Medieval Civilisation and Dave McNally‟s Political Economy and the Rise of Capitalism. Le Goff deals with the development of feudalism, from the 6th to the 15th century, from a standpoint which is not Marxist but which is not afraid to borrow insights from Marx. McNally is a Marxist (and a frequent contributor to this journal) whose study of the way in which political economists in England and France saw society changing in the 17th and 18th centuries is very much influenced by Brenner‟s arguments.

I hope to show by looking critically at these two books and others that have appeared in the last decade – notably Peter Kriedte‟s Peasants, Landlords and Capitalists, Europe and the World Economy 1500– 1800 and Industrialisation Before Industrialisation – that Marx‟s account of the interrelation between the development of the forces and relations of production can be used to explain the transition, indeed, that is the only account that provides such an explanation. [4]

The scope of the transition

Before the argument can begin it is necessary to spell out what the ‟transition‟ was about. There has been a tendency in the recent discussions among Marxists to see it in terms of the change from the organisation of society (or at least of the economy) of the 14th century to that of the late 18th century. [5] But the scale of the ‟transition‟ is best grasped by comparing feudalism in its ‟classic‟ form, that of the 10th century, with capitalism in its classic form, that of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Tenth century feudalism was an overwhelmingly rural society. Almost the whole of the population lived off the land, in more or less self contained manorial villages. Control of each manor lay with the feudal lord – either a warrior or an ecclesiastical body – exercising political and juridical as well as economic power in the locality. The mass of peasants were serfs, unable to leave the manor, where they tilled strips of land for themselves but also provided for the livelihood of the feudal lord, either by forced labour on his estate („demesne‟) or by payment of rent in kind. Money played very little role in rural life, with the feudal lords using serf labour to produce non-agricultural produce in demesne workshops.

Towns were few, far between and small, with many town dwellers themselves tilling plots for part of their livelihood. Trade was carried out by despised travelling peddlers who provided those few essential goods (for instance, salt) which the local serfs could not produce. Because land was the only source of substantial wealth, control of it was the motive force behind the behaviour of the ruling class – and the cause of repeated armed conflicts within it.

The feudal lord exploited the peasants, often forcing them into abject poverty. Yet he could not exploit in order to amass profits. The aim of production was consumption (including conspicuous consumption), not accumulation. As Marx put it, „the limits to the exploitation of the feudal serf were determined by the walls of the stomach of the feudal lord‟. Contrast capitalism at its height. Urban life dominates, so that even owners of agricultural land are based in towns. The great majority of the population work in industry or „services‟. Money plays an absolutely central role. Everyone depends on selling something in order to get the means of livelihood – even if all most people have to sell is their labour power. Most importantly, there is no limit to the accumulation of wealth. Everything can be turned into money and members of the ruling class can own endless amounts of money. What drives the system forward is not the consumption of the ruling class, but what Marx called self-expansion of capital, the endless pursuit of accumulation for the sake of accumulation.

The differences between 10th century feudalism and modern capitalism are not, of course, just economic. The economic transformation has been accompanied by enormous change in attitudes, in what are sometimes called „mentalities‟ or „spiritualities‟. In classic feudalism everyone was born into a fixed hierarchy of ranks (even if a few people did manage to climb from one to another). The great majority of people never moved more than a few miles (on average about five) from their birthplace, and their knowledge of the world was very much restricted to this locality. They spoke a local dialect, virtually incomprehensible to someone living only 40 or 50 miles away. They had virtually no conception of the world as it was before they were born. There was no notion of the nation. The state was whoever exercised physical power over you at a given point in time – and that could change very rapidly. Everyone assumed things would be done more or less as they had been done by parents and grandparents.

Again things could not be more different under capitalism. Everyone, at least in theory, has equal political and judicial rights with everyone else. Everyone is born into a nation and speaks a language spoken by millions or even hundreds of millions of other people. Everyone assumes life will be very different for them than it was for parents and grandparents.

Explanations for the transition There are two main sorts of theories of the transition. First there are those which see it as following from the growth of trade, of a powerful class of merchants, and of towns as the centre of both. The best known version of this theory is that developed by the Belgian economic historian, Pirenne. He claimed that feudalism arose as Europe‟s Mediterranean trade was disrupted by the rise of Islam. This led to European society turning in on itself. As long distance trade virtually ceased, the towns, as the trading centres, declined, and money lost its role. The ruling class became dependent for its consumption upon production in virtually autarkic manors because of the lack of alternatives.

All classes of the population, from the Emperor, who had no other revenues than those derived from his landed property, down to the humblest serf, lived directly or indirectly on the produce of the soil, whether they raised them by their own labour, or confined themselves to collecting and consuming them. Moveable wealth no longer played any part in economic life. All social existence was founded on property or the possession of land ... [6]

But from the 11th century onwards a new growth of trade began around the edges of Europe – from Byzantium and Venice in the south, and from the Baltic coasts in the north. The crusades drove the Muslims from strategic points in the Mediterranean so that it was „opened, or rather re-opened, to western navigation. As in the time of Rome, communications were established from one end to the other ... The exploitation of its waters by Islam was at an end.” [7]

The revival of maritime commerce was accompanied by its rapid penetration inland. Not only was agriculture stimulated by the demand for its produce and transformed by the exchange economy of which it now became part, but a new export industry was born. [8]

What happened in the Mediterranean was matched in the north as Scandinavian trade brought the countries bordering the North Sea into contact with those bordering the Baltic and gave a stimulus to the growth of towns like Ghent, Bruge, Lille and London. Soon, too, rivers like the Rhine and the Rhone were being used to link the commerce of northern Europe and the commerce of the Mediterranean – and in the process giving a forward push to towns and cities in between.

These changes led to the transformation of the humble and despised peddlers of the 9th century into the powerful merchant class of the 13th and 14th centuries, a class protected from the feudal lords by the fortifications of its towns and adopting a new set of attitudes based upon endless profit making.

A range of thinkers have held a similar view to Pirenne, stressing the external impetus of the growth of export trade as leading to an internal transformation of European feudalism. Paul Sweezy, for instance, writes:

Long distance trade could be a creative force, bringing into existence a system of production for exchange alongside the old feudal system of production for use. [9]

Immanuel Wallerstein puts the decisive change a couple of centuries later than Pirenne and Sweezy, stressing the importance of the conquest of American colonies in the transition. „Europe‟s upper strata‟, he argues, responded to a crisis of feudal society in the 15th century by overseas expansion and the creation of colonies and politically dependent zones with which trade could take place on the basis of „unequal exchange‟, transferring surplus products from „the periphery‟ to „the core‟ of the system. [10] The equation of capitalism with profits from trade is also to be found in the work of the non-Marxist economic historian Braudel [11], and in some of the writings of the sociologist Max Weber [12].

What can be called for short the Pirenne-Sweezy-Wallerstein view has one great strength. It focuses on the contrast between production for use, characteristic of pre-capitalist societies, and production simply in order to expand exchange value. As Wallerstein puts it, what characterised capitalism was that:

Capital ... came to be used with the primary object or intent of self expansion. In this system past accumulations were „capital‟ only to the extent that they were used to accumulate more of the same ... It was this relentless and curiously self disregarding goal of the holder of capital, the accumulation of still more capital ... which we denominate as capitalist ... [13]

But there are problems with such accounts of the rise of capitalism which other theorists have been quick to focus on.

(i) It doesn‟t explain the patterns of trade it points to. Pirenne, for instance, simply asserts that the new Islamic states on the eastern and southern shores of the Mediterranean could not trade with Christian western Europe in the 7th-10th centuries – even though he recognises that they continued to trade with Christian Byzantium and its dependency, Venice. [14]

Wallerstein has no explanation as to how it was that Europe was able to seize control of other parts of the world and impose „unequal exchange‟ on them, given that he insists Europe was, „in terms of the forces of production, the cohesion of its historical system and its relative state of human knowledge‟, more backward than some other parts of the world, even if not as „primitive‟ as others. [15]

(ii) The great merchants of the medieval period might have originated from backgrounds quite different to those of the feudal ruling class and have adopted different attitudes at first. But they tended very quickly to forget those differences and to join with that ruling class, using the profits from trade to buy manors. Braudel suggests that families rarely remained in trade for more than three generations before buying their way into the old ruling class. This was what happened to the great German merchant family, the Fuggers, and to the most powerful families in the Italian city states by the 16th century. Even where wealthy merchants remained in trade they soon put the stress on establishing ties with the old ruling class in order to establish monopoly control over their line of business, rather than on revolutionary subversion of that class.

Far from pushing for a new system of production in opposition to feudalism, the wealthiest merchants often became a conservative forces defending the status quo.

(iii) Those involved in the handicraft trades of the towns could be just as conservative. The rights which the towns obtained for themselves in the „interstices‟ of the feudal order were often used to establish guild organisations of trades which sought, not to transform old methods of production, but to preserve them against competition from newcomers. In this way they aspired to guarantee the guild members an assured livelihood, even if this meant holding back the growth of the towns. [16]

(iv) Merchants might have been involved in making money for sake of making money – the self expansion of capital. But they had not developed a way of doing this systematically over a long period of time. This was only possible if they established a new organisation of production, capable of continually expanding the surplus obtained from the labour force. This could not happen so long as agriculture was cramped by feudal relations of production and industry by guild regulation. The merchants could buy in order to sell, and so expand their wealth – in the notation used by Marx, they could go through the cycle M–C–M. But they did not control an intermediate stage of production and exploitation, that is M–C–[P]–C–M.

This meant the long term possibilities for any individual merchant family were very limited. It could take advantage of existing discrepancies in prices between different countries or regions (e.g. for spices from the east or grain from Poland), but could not find a mechanism for systematically creating such a discrepancy. Then those gains could easily be wiped out – by competition from rival merchants raising buying and cutting selling prices, by the accidental loss of a ship at sea or by the looting which was an inevitable accompaniment of feudal wars.

This could not change until forms of production came into being based upon wage labour. As Marx put it:

Value, the objectified labour which exists in the form of money, could only grow by exchange with a commodity whose use value itself consisted in the ability to increase exchange value ... But such use value is only possessed by living labour capacity ... Value, money, can therefore only be transformed into capital through exchange with living labour capacity. [17]

This cannot happen unless workers are both able and willing to sell their labour power – able because it does not belong to slave owners, willing because there is no other way they can turn it into the commodities they need in order to subsist. Again, as Marx puts it:

Money can, in general, be transformed into capitals, or the money owners turned into capitalists, only to the extent that the free worker is available on the commodity market: free in so far as he, on the one hand, has at his disposal his own labour capacity as a commodity, and on the other hand has no other commodity at his disposal, is free, completely rid of, all the objective conditions for the realisation of his labour capacity ... and therefore, as a mere subject, a mere personification of his own labour capacity is a worker in the same sense that the money owner is a capitalist, as subject and repository of objectified labour ... [18]

But this condition is not brought about just by an increase in external, market pressures on a pre-capitalist society. In fact, the growth of markets in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries did not just lead to the rise of capitalist production based on wage labour in places like Britain and the low countries; it also led to the growth of plantation based slave labour in the Caribbean and the American South, and to a renewed growth of feudalism in much of eastern Europe. [19]

The arguments of Dobb

The inadequacies of the Pirenne-Sweezy-Wallerstein view have led to a different range of theories which stress the growth of capitalist production within feudalism between the 15th and 18th centuries. Maurice Dobb‟s Studies in the Development of Capitalism, first published in 1946, argued that the breakdown of feudalism and the development of capitalism had to be understood in terms of factors internal to the western European societies, not to external trade. He dealt at length with the growth of merchant capital and, alongside it and often subordinated to it, of handicraft production in both the towns and the countryside. But he concluded that the merchants were too much part of feudal society to have played a central role in its transformation. The key to this transformation lay within the old mode of production itself. As he later put it: „What I am asserting is the growth of trade exercised its influence to the extent that it accentuated the internal conflicts within the old mode of production.‟ [20] The central conflict within feudalism Dobb saw as being between „the petty producers‟ and the feudal exploiting class:

No one is suggesting that the class struggle of peasants against lords gives rise, in any direct and simple way, to capitalism. What this does is to modify the dependence of the petty mode of production upon feudal overlordship and eventually to shake loose the small producer from feudal exploitation. [21]

In England:

By the end of the 15th century the feudal order had disintegrated and grown weaker in a number of ways. The peasant revolt of the previous century, it is true, had been suppressed. But it had left its ghost to haunt the old order in the form of the standing threat of a peasant flight from the manor into the woods or hills or to swell the growing number of day labourers and artisans in the towns. The ranks of the old nobility were thinned and divided; the smaller estates, lacking sufficient labour-services, had taken to leasing or to wage labour... Merchants were buying land, estates were being mortgaged and a kulak class of improving peasant farmers were becoming serious competitors in local markets and as rural employers of labour. [22]

The old feudal ruling class survived these changes in so far as it was left in control of the state and of a substantial portion of society‟s income. But it was decisively weakened by them, a full two centuries before the capitalist mode of production had established itself:

Between the 14th and the end of the 16th [centuries] ... the petty mode of production was in the process of emancipating itselffrom feudal exploitation, but was not yet subjected (at least to any significant degree) to capitalist relations of production which were eventually to destroy it. [23]

The capitalism which finally develops is different to the merchant capitalism of the medieval towns: „We cannot date the dawn of this system from the first signs of large scale trading and of a merchant class ... We must look for when changes in the mode of production occur, in the sense of a direct subordination of the producer to the capitalist.‟ [24] This Dobb does not see as happening until the second half of the 16th century.

The two hundred year period which separated Edward III and Elizabeth were certainly transitional in character. A merchant bourgeoisie had grown in wealth and influence ... it stood in a position of co-partner rather than antagonist to the nobility, and in Tudor times partly merged with it. Its appearance exercised little direct effect on the mode of production ... In the urban handicrafts and the rise of the well to do and middling well to do free hold farmers one sees a mode of production which had won its independence from feudalism: petty production of the worker owner, artisan or peasant type ... [25]

There are two main problems with Dobb‟s argument. First, he insists that the collapse of feudalism must be mainly due to internal factors. But he does not specify what they are, apart from his references to peasant revolts and a crisis among the nobility. He does not connect either of these to the development of productive forces within feudalism.

In Studies he depicted these as virtually stagnant, arguing that „it was the inefficiency of feudalism as a system of production, coupled with the growing needs of the ruling class for revenue, that was primarily responsible for its decline ...‟ [26] and that where a growth in output did occur under feudalism, it was a result of an increased labour force taking new lands into cultivation. [27]

In his debate with Sweezy (written in 1950) he recognised that „the feudal period witnessed considerable changes in technique and the later centuries of feudalism showed marked differences from those of early feudalism‟. [28] But he does not draw any connection between such changes and the crisis of feudalism, and can still, in the same piece, simply refer to feudal methods of production as „relatively primitive‟. [29] This led him to a second problem – that of the two century period between the collapse of feudalism and the rise of capitalism in which a mode of production not to be identified with either predominated. Marx recognised that there was such a transition period, but insisted, „the economic structure of capitalist society grows out of the economic structure of feudal society. The dissolution of one sets free the elements of the latter.‟ [30] Dobb, by contrast, stresses the gap between the collapse of feudalism and the rise of capitalism.

This, of course, did not prove Dobb wrong. Marx was only human and could easily make mistaken judgments. However, Dobb‟s own position raised all sorts of awkward questions as to the nature of the ruling class in that period – as Sweezy and others pointed out in the debate in the 1950s. Dobb was only able to answer such questions by saying it must have been „feudal‟ otherwise the English Revolution of the 1640s cannot have been a bourgeois revolution. He may have been able to get away with that sort of argument in the 1950s, when those in Moscow presided over a Stalinised caricature of Marxism and could pass decrees on what was and what was not be regarded as a bourgeois revolution. But today the most likely response to the argument would be: „OK, the English Revolution had nothing to do with the rise of the bourgeoisie.‟

However much Dobb twisted and turned in presenting his case, he could not avoid interposing a huge gap between the decline of one mode of production and the rise of another, which makes it seem as if the two were not connected and were both historical accidents.

Brenner’s arguments

The debate of the 1950s resumed in the mid 1970s with the publication of two articles by Robert Brenner. One was an onslaught on the Pirenne- Sweezy-Wallerstein position and appeared in New Left Review. [31] The other, in the academic journal Past and Present, concentrated its fire on attempts by non-Marxist economic historians such as Postan and Hatcher to explain the crisis of feudalism through the impact of a rising population upon limited food resources – a theory Brenner describes as „neo-Malthusian‟. [32] Both articles put forward the same argument, although from different angles.

What Brenner does, essentially, is to take up Dobb‟s argument, but simplify it in a way which gives it greater polemical power. To this end he takes up and expands just one of the elements Dobb sees at work in this period, the leasing of estates by former feudal lords to farmers who employ wage labour. He ignores the mass of other material which exists in Dobb‟s Studies – on merchant capital, handicraft production, rural and urban manufacturing, the putting out system, and the class struggle in towns.

Brenner gives added emphasis to Dobb‟s argument that it is the struggle between agricultural exploiters and agricultural producers which brings about a great crisis of feudal relations of production in the 14th century. But he then goes further than Dobb and insists that it was on the land that capitalism was born in the following period – again as a result of the balance of forces between the two great landed classes of feudalism, the lords and the peasants. Capitalism emerges, for him, neither as merchant capitalism nor as industrial capitalism but as agrarian capitalism.

It was, indeed, in the last analysis an agricultural revolution, based on the emergence of capitalist class relations in the countryside, which made it possible for England to become the first nation to experience industrialisation. [33]

This could only happen because of the outcome of the class struggle under feudalism:

The original breakthrough in Europe to a system of more or less sustaining growth was dependent upon a two sided development of class relations: first the breakdown of systems of lordly surplus extraction by means of extra- economic compulsion, second the undermining of peasant possession or the abating of any trend towards full peasant ownership of the land. [34] Agrarian capitalism involves the ex-feudal lord, faced with a shortage of cash needed to meet the requirements of military conflict with other feudal lords [35], renting out land to big peasants who in turn employ wage labour. The lord will then have an interest in improving the productivity of the land, so as to raise the rents he can demand (transforming traditional feudal rents into market determined capitalist rent). And the big peasant will seek to exploit those poor peasants who have been forced to sell their labour power to him, in as efficient manner as possible – to determine his levels of productivity and production in relation to the demands of endless accumulation, not of consumption.

But before this can happen control over the land has to develop in two ways. First, the peasants have to rebel on such a scale as to free themselves from the main burden of feudal services and dues. This prevents the lords from using unpaid labour to till demesne land and so raise their incomes (as happened in eastern Europe). Second, the lords have to retain enough power to prevent peasants getting control of land themselves and tilling it as independent small proprietors (as happened in France, according to Brenner).

Brenner claims that his account roots the transition from feudalism to capitalism in production and in the class struggle, while the account of Sweezy and Wallerstein does not and is „neo-Smithian‟ rather than Marxist. But there are as many problems with his explanation as with theirs:

(i) It rests upon the unsatisfactory notion that the future society is determined by the struggle between the lord and an undifferentiated peasantry in the countryside. For him there has to be an intermediate outcome to this class struggle. If the peasants win everything, as he claims happens in France, then capitalism does not develop. Likewise, if the lords win everything, as in eastern Europe, it does not develop either. What is required is what Brenner says happened in England, for the lords to lose some of their power, but not all of it. [36] History, it seems, is made by those exploited classes who fight but don‟t fight to the end. Now, of course there are situations in which the outcome of historical events is completely different to the intention of those who take part in them. But was this true of all of those engaged in the great social and political struggles of the transition period? Or did not some at least of the leading participants feel that they were fighting for a new form of society, a form which had certain features we could identify as capitalist?

If the poor peasants in Britain were only half victorious, might this not be connected with the influence on them of other social classes who were already setting themselves goals which pointed to a society based upon capitalist forms of exploitation – even if they described these goals in religious terms?

Brenner‟s formulations imply a complete separation between the ideological objectives of the social forces involved in conflicts and the outcome of these conflicts. But this makes it very difficult to see what connection there is between the transition from feudalism to capitalism and the huge social, political and ideological conflicts of the period. People rarely enter into battle with the goal of only half winning, yet according to Brenner‟s arguments only those who did so could advance society. So it is that wars, revolutions and civil wars (as opposed to peasant rebellions) have no place in Brenner‟s account of the period. Nor do the huge changes in human attitudes associated with the Renaissance, Reformation and Enlightenment. It seems simply a great coincidence that the centuries of the transition were also centuries which saw huge revolutionary upheavals. It is hardly surprising that his account has led one of his disciples, Comninel, to accept the argument of „revisionist‟ historians that the English and French Revolutions had nothing to do with the rise of the bourgeoisie.

Brenner claims his account puts class struggle at the centre of the transition in a way that other accounts do not. But his is a very narrow view of class struggle, restricted to the immediate struggle at the point of production between peasants and feudal lords and excluding any reference to the global social changes which one or other class would like, in however confused a way, to bring about. Accounts of the class struggle under capitalism in these terms are usually described as „economism‟ and the apolitical methods of struggle based on them as „syndicalism‟. Brenner has transmitted this notion of the class struggle back into the rural class struggle of the late medieval period. His approach has been described by critics and supporters alike as „political‟ Marxism [37]; it would be more accurate to say he has given birth to a sort of rustic economism. [38]

(ii) Brenner does not even try to explain why this intermediate outcome to the class struggle should occur after the crisis of feudalism in the 14th century but not earlier. The struggle between the exploited and the exploiting rural classes was, for him, a constant feature of feudalism. So why did not previous demographic crises – for instance that at the time of the collapse of Charlemagne‟s empire – lead to a transition? Indeed, on his reasoning it is difficult to see why the collapse of the Roman Empire should have led to feudalism and not to „agrarian capitalism‟. For he never even attempts to locate any dynamic in feudalism which could account for differences between one period and another.

(iii) Separating the direct agricultural producers from control over the means of production does not produce a drive towards the self expansion of capitalism on its own. There is no reason why it should not simply lead to the landowners using hired labour to provide for their own consumption. [39] The only thing which rules out this sort of production for use on the basis of hired labour is the existence of the market and commodity production. Brenner takes this for granted when he writes of the improving landlords and their tenants producing crops for cash, but does not explain where this market came from.

(iv) Brenner‟s account simply ignores the role of towns. For him the classes based in the towns seem to play a thoroughly reactionary role. The essence of the urban economy, based on luxury production for a limited market was economic restriction – and in particular control over the labour market. [40]

The urban artisans could be anti-aristocratic, but were just as frightened of labour market competition from a free peasantry as they were of the feudal lords. And:

The urban patriciate would tend to align themselves with the nobility against the peasantry. Both these classes had a common interest in maintaining social order and the defence of property and in protecting their mutually beneficial relationships of commercial exchange. [41]

He claims that examples show that „the towns rarely aided peasant resistance to serfdom, nor was the success of such resistance apparently dependent on such aid.‟ [42] He dismisses the old argument that the towns presented a way of escape from serfdom for the rural peasants, on the grounds that the towns never accounted for more than 10 percent of the population.

Yet there is a mass of empirical material which at least partially contradicts his argument. Capitalist economic development in the countryside would have been impossible if urban based classes had not existed to buy the products of agriculture. This buying did not simply occur. It was encouraged by the merchants, however much they might have politically accepted feudalism. F.J. Fisher long ago pointed to the role of London based merchants in encouraging the development of the English countryside.

During the century before 1650 London was large enough to exercise a great influence upon the agriculture of the surrounding counties, causing a rapid spread of market gardening, increasing local specialisation, and encouraging the wholesalers to move back up the chain of production and exchange to engage directly in the production of food, or to sink capital in the improvement of agricultural facilities. [43]

Poulterers made loans to warreners and themselves bred poultry. Fruiterers helped to establish orchards and leased them when established. Butchers themselves became graziers. [44] It has often been pointed out that individual peasant families living on the verge of subsistence bought very little from the towns or from itinerant traders. But they did buy some essential things (for example, salt, the small amounts of iron used in their ploughs, leather for horse harnesses, occasionally the cheapest sorts of cloth, the services of blacksmiths). [45] Silvia Thrupp has gone so far as to state, „The popular notion that peasants bought only farm tools and salt, relying on their wives to make everything else, is ... no longer tenable‟, pointing to evidence from late 11th century documents of local trade in „feathers, wool, tables, bedrolls, skins of cats, lambs, wedding outfits, rings, knives and harnesses‟. [46] Georges Duby has noted that: „A widespread popularisation of aristocratic usage reached even into the peasant world by the 14th century.‟ [47] And, of course, the richer peasants who did develop in the direction of capitalist farming were much more dependent on industrial products and market networks run by urban-based merchants than the average.

At a minimum, the towns – and not just the large cities, but the many smaller towns [48] – provided a market for the output of the improving farmers and some of the inputs that made improvement possible. These inputs were not necessarily just physical: also of importance was the spread of knowledge about how improvement was possible. One contributing factor to the economic advance of Bohemia in the century before the Thirty Years War was the circulation of books detailing the most productive agricultural methods: „Printers disseminated ... technical books, especially in the sphere of agriculture.‟ [49]

Le Goff writes, with reference to the period which Brenner sees as the taking off point of „agrarian capitalism‟ in England: „A network of [small towns] set up a kind of fine weft under the stretched and loosened warp of a population decimated by the plague and thinly scattered because of deserted villages.‟ [50] It was this „fine weft‟ that enabled production for the market to penetrate into the countryside and the separation of direct producers from the means of production to lead to the self expansion of value. There were certainly some occasions on which the towns did loosen the hold of the feudal lords over the serfs. Le Goff, for instance, points to out that:

The town could force rural lords to free their serfs, as happened on a large scale in 13th century Italy, at Vercelli in 1243, Bologna in 1256–57, and Florence in 1289. [51]

The famous Peasant Revolt of 14th century England did not just involve peasants, but also urban journeymen, even if the London oligarchy helped crush it.

For some peasants at least, flight to the town was a way of escaping serfdom: hence the well known German saying ‘Stadtluft macht frei’ (the town air makes you free). Hence too the clashes which could occur between small English towns and the feudal lords who had first established them. [52]

As for Brenner‟s claim that the towns contained too small a proportion of the population to influence what happened on the land, this begs the question of what happened when the towns grew bigger. And this happened in the two countries which did make the breakthrough to capitalism: in 1650 in Holland 8 percent of the total population lived in Amsterdam alone, and in England 7 percent lived in London, while in France only 2.5 percent lived in Paris. [53] One estimate suggests that in the century after 1650 one in seven of England‟s population lived in London at some point in their life. [54] It is a strange coincidence that the towns should have this influence precisely where the chains of feudalism were successfully smashed, while in the countries of eastern Europe, where the towns were much smaller and more dispersed, feudal relations could strengthen their grip over agriculture.

Again, Brenner‟s picture of all the urban classes cohabiting peacefully with the feudal lords hardly fits with the facts. For the towns were centres of ideological ferment within feudal society.

In the late 12th and 13th centuries the growth of new religious orders based in the town – one founded by a Lyons merchant Peter Waldes, another by the son of an Assisi merchant, Francis – were seen by the church as a dangerous ideological threat. Le Goff tells how the heretical movement of the late 13th century „joined together heterogeneous coalitions of social groups, in which sections of the nobility, of the new burgess class, and of the artisan class, combined ...‟ in which „men‟ displayed „an attitude of complete rejection‟ of „the world, with its social organisation (feudal society) and its guide, the Church of Rome ...‟ [55]

Two hundred and fifty years later the Protestant ideas which were to plunge Europe into a century of religious wars and revolutions were disseminated from towns. And in the great revolution of 1789–94 the intervention of the urban sans culottes was of major importance in providing a central, national, political focus for the bitter class struggle waged in the countryside. The towns may, on average, have made up only a tenth of the population, but this tenth was decisive as the focal point for agitation and propaganda in opposition to the old feudal attitudes. An account of the transition from feudalism to capitalism which does not, as a minimum, integrate the role of the towns cannot be an adequate account.

(v) Brenner more or less ignores the changes taking place in production techniques, both in town and countryside, in the centuries before the transition. Amongst these were the advances in printing and papermaking, the development of mechanical clocks, advances in textile manufacture, the development of guns and gunpowder, and the advances in shipbuilding and navigation that made sea trade with the East Indies and the conquest of the Americas possible.

Brenner writes:

The feudal socio property system established certain distinctive mechanisms for distributing income... which led to economic stagnation and involution.

It ... imposed upon the members of the major social classes strategies for reproducing themselves which, when applied on an economy wide basis, were incompatible with the requirements of growth. [56] Yet, as we shall see, the feudal period saw quite considerable economic advance.

(vi) Brenner makes no attempt to integrate the development of agriculture with the development of industry. In fact, in the 16th century, for him a century of rising „agrarian‟ capitalism in Britain, the majority of woollen exports were manufactured exports. By the end of the 17th century, although not more than 20 or 30 percent of England‟s population was outside agriculture, 44 percent of national income was non-agricultural and textiles accounted for 70 percent of exports. As one history of the industry tells, „By the beginning of the 17th century the western cloth industry had long been a field in which large capitals had been employed...‟ „The large capitalists dominated the industry‟, even if „the small clothiers formed a large element in it‟. [57] At least one maker of white cloth claimed to employ nearly 1,000 persons. [58] It is rather bizarre to call a society in which such things occurred agrarian capitalism!

Brenner can write, „Quite possibly the spectacular rise of the English cloth production for export from the late 15th century was what set off the overall process of English economic development ...‟ [59] and of „the unique symbiotic relationship between agriculture and industry‟ [60] in England. But he makes no attempt to investigate the impact of industry on agriculture.

The rival theories: the unity of opposites

Both sets of theories have something in common. They both try to explain the transition without talking about the development of the forces of production under feudalism. The Pirenne-Wallerstein-Sweezy position as change as being external to feudal system. Brenner claims to disagree with this. But in his analysis the only thing he is concerned to study in the feudal system is „the class structure‟. The way in which this changes under the impact of the great social classes is, for him, the factor which explains the transformation of society as a whole. There is little or no room in his account of social change for giving any causative role to the development of the forces of production. [61] What matters to him is class struggle, and he shows little concern with changes in the material setting within which it takes place, except in so far as demographic developments lead to shortages of foodstuffs and increased struggle between classes. [62]

Sweezy, Wallerstein and Brenner all claim to be Marxists. Yet Marx‟s own version of historical materialism was based on the claim that to understand the development of any mode of production you have to look at the interrelation between the development of forces of production and the relations of production. Changes in the forces of production lead to small scale, cumulative changes in the relations between people which, eventually, throw into question whole organisation of society. [63]

This is as true of feudalism as of any stage in the history of human society. Feudalism is a very slowly changing form of society. But it is not a static one. Sylvia Thrupp suggests that „the best medieval rates of general economic growth, if they could be balanced by decades to balance the effects of good and bad harvests, would come to perhaps half of 1 percent‟. [64] This is very slow by capitalist standards. But it still implies that massive advances occurred over 500 or 1,000 years. Estimates of population growth point to the scale of the change. The medieval period saw four great demographic crises. Three of these, in the 6th, 13th and 17th centuries, were associated with famines and plagues and led to cuts in the total population of up to 50 percent (the other one, in the 9th century, seems to have been less acute and only to have brought to an end a period of population growth). [65]

Yet the total population at the end of this one thousand year period was much higher than at beginning. It was three times larger after the plague of 14th century than it was after the plague of the 6th century. Or, to put it another way, the number of people in Europe at the dawn of the Renaissance was more than twice that at the peak of Roman civilisation.

The period from the 10th to the 13th century in particular saw considerable economic growth. This is a key part of the Pirenne argument and is accepted by Brenner. But the Pirenne school locates this growth simply as a response to external market stimuli, and Brenner sees it as based simply on the clearing of new land on which old agricultural techniques are applied – „quantitative economic growth‟ was possible for peasant based production, but „it could not sustain a qualitative breakthrough into economic development‟. [66]

Yet historical research in the last two or three decades has shown that there were considerable advances in the forces of production during the feudal period, both in industry and agriculture. As Lynn White has pointed out:

The growth of technology is the least developed and most rapidly shifting part of economic history ... The state of records and the tastes of historians have combined to distort past activities. Today our view is being somewhat rectified by a surge of interest in studying, with what evidence is available, improved methods of production and transportation, the emergence of new types of goods, and changing ways of living and thinking ...‟ [67]

Expansion rooted in feudal mode of production

The view that feudalism was a stagnant mode of production is linked to another contention that has become almost a commonplace among many Marxists: that because it was based on extra-economic coercion rather than the „economic‟ interaction between buyers and sellers of labour power to be found under capitalism, it had no economic roots. [68]

But, as Marx and Engels always pointed out (read, for instance, Engels piece The Role of Violence in History [69]) the ability of one class to coerce another class itself depends on prior economic developments, on the development of the forces of production. Feudalism arose in the first place because it could maintain and develop production at a time when the preceding mode of production was in terminal crisis.

The slave society of ancient antiquity which dominated the Mediterranean area until the 4th and 5th century AD collapsed through its inability to develop the forces of production after the 2nd century. The wealth of the Roman Empire was created by slavery [70] and the ruling class of the empire sought to increase its wealth through increasing the number of slaves, to be obtained by warfare, rather than by any concern with increasing the productivity of labour.

Rome exploited its empire without creating anything. No technical innovation had occurred since the Hellenistic age. Rome‟s empire was fed by pillage. Successful wars provided slave manpower and precious metals drawn from the hoarded treasures of the East. [71]

On this basis it was able to build a civilisation centred on a series of great towns, where the ruling class that exploited the countryside resided. But a point was eventually reached, as early as the second half of the 2nd century, where the source of the surplus for maintaining this urban civilisation began to run out: the supply of slaves began to decrease. Incessant wars could more or less hold the boundaries of the empire for some two or three centuries more, but they could not overcome the economic stagnation – and with it the proliferation of famines, plagues, intra-ruling class civil wars and, on occasions, revolts from below. Finally the empire as a whole collapsed in the face of „barbarian‟ tribes, initially invited into its boundaries in a desperate attempt to fight off other barbarian tribes. The whole superstructure of urban civilisation came crashing down, as the „base‟ of slave based production ceased to be adequate to support it.

But even while the old mode of production was falling apart, a new one was emerging to supplant it. It did so in two ways. First, it emerged within the boundaries of the empire itself as a way of preserving production and exploitation. A section of the ruling class discovered that they could protect themselves from the collapse of the economy of the empire as a whole by granting land to former slaves or former soldiers in return for produce in kind and/or labour services.

Meanwhile, a similar structure of exploitation was also arising out of intrinsic developments in the Germanic tribes which settled in the lands in and around the old empire. Formerly free peasants often found that the only way they could get military protection from marauding bands (whether „barbarian‟ or Roman) was to accept a similar serf-type arrangement with a powerful local lord. It was military strength, violence, which enabled the new feudal exploiters to protect holdings from armed raiders and to force the exploited class to accept the status of serfdom. But military strength in turn depended on the fact that the new system of exploitation enabled local, more or less self contained, economic units to survive the disintegration of the old mode of production. And not just survive – the new arrangement was soon more productive than the old.

The new serf peasant was necessarily more attentive to his own plot of land than the slave had been to his master‟s. And the new feudal lord had to pay some heed to the needs of peasant based production. It was the only source by which he could seek to protect his living standards in the midst of the collapse of the old slave economy and protect himself from marauding warrior bands.

Kriedte quite rightly notes that:

The logic of the manorial system based on serf labour demanded that the lord had to preserve the peasant holding at all cost because of its role as a supplier of labour power and draft power. Therefore he had to assist peasants in emergencies which arose from harvest failures and other causes. [72]

It was not only a question of preserving existing levels of production. In the early feudal period the „walls of the feudal lord‟s stomach‟ were by no means full. His diet, though more plentiful, was hardly more varied than that of the serfs: he lived on bread, meat and, in northern climes, ale. He clothed himself in rough and uncomfortable peasant spun garments. He lived in a cold and draughty rough built castle. In such circumstances he had every incentive to encourage the planting of new crops and increases in output which could be exchanged for specialised luxury goods to be obtained from outside the manor. Duby tells how: „The [lord‟s] steward, anxious never to find himself in short supply, naturally tried to increase output, especially of corn.‟ [73] There was „no wish to accumulate goods‟, but always „to have something in hand to provide for the “family”.‟ [74] Le Goff notes:

From the moment when the ruling class established itself in the countryside and became a class of great landowners, the landed aristocracy encouraged progress in agricultural production. Not that the aristocracy took a direct interest in managing its estates, although some ecclesiastical lords and high Carolingian functionaries did so, but the dues and services which it extracted from the peasant masses must have stimulated the latter to improve their methods of cultivation to some extent to pay the dues ... [75]

Precisely because all the wealth of the feudal lord came from land, he could develop an interest in building up productivity – in encouraging „his‟ serfs to use new techniques of production (often, in fact, old techniques known during antiquity but not used because they did not fit in with slave production). Of course, many feudal lords did not behave in this way. They were prepared to push their serfs below the subsistence level as they squandered their output or devoted it solely to military adventures against other feudal lords. But at the end of the day, the most effective feudal lords, even when it came simply to military adventures, had to be those who maintained an adequate material base from which to operate. And that meant some concern with maintaining and improving serf productivity.

So after the „invasions‟ of the 10th century:

Once the barbarian tribes had settled the new masters were forced to form a real policy of land development. The history of the earliest dukes of Normandy, written by the canon Dubdo of St Quentin in the 11th century, shows how the Normans, during the 1st century after they had installed themselves in Normandy, turned themselves into cultivators under the leadership of the dukes, who put farming tools made of iron, especially ploughs, under their protection. [76]

Far from being concerned solely with violence, it was individual feudal lords who organised and financed the colonisation of new lands throughout the feudal period. Again, the feudal lords were the driving force in the spread of the first, and for a long time most important, form of mechanisation, the water mill. The feudal lord wanted it built so as to force the peasants to use it and release more surplus for himself (usually obtained by making peasants hand over dues for the use of contrivances which had, in the last resort, been produced out of their labour); the fact of the well documented resistance of serfs to the water mill – they preferred to keep the dues themselves and use the old hand mill – does not disprove the point at all. Indeed, it shows that even feudal lords‟ violence could on occasions raise general productivity.

The abbots and monks who collectively exploited the peasants in those manors in ecclesiastical hands were the only literate group in early medieval society. As such they could play a role in spreading knowledge of improved techniques which neither the illiterate warrior class nor the illiterate peasant class could.

If one is looking at the earliest mills, watermills or windmills, or for progress in farming techniques, one often sees the religious orders in the vanguard. [77]

This section of the feudal ruling class could also do something that no one else could – gain access to the writings on technology of the Greek and Roman worlds and of the Byzantium and Arabic empires which existed alongside feudal Europe.

It is characteristic of medieval Christiandom that it put to industrial use technical devices which in classical society had been known but left almost unused or regarded simply as toys. [78]

The important point was that on the ecclesiastical demesnes a literate group of exploiters were responsible for supervising the labour of the mass of direct producers. This seems to have given a boost to developments in technology through to the 13th or 14th century. Recent investigations of medieval science and technology have emphasised the extent to which thinkers previously thought of as „scholastic‟ were, in fact, deeply concerned with providing solutions to practical problems. [79] The feudal lords, lay and ecclesiastical, were a very wasteful ruling class, absorbing much of the hard won produce of a poor society through their own parasitic consumption, and despoiling much more with their endless wars. [80] They did, however, preside over a certain development of production.

The investment in agriculture which did occur must be viewed as resulting largely from the activities of the landlords and others who cultivated and produced on a large scale. Four to 5 percent of revenues went into gross investment and a level of 1 to 2 percent for net investment is probably quite representative. [81]

This is a very low level of investment compared to that found under modern capitalism. But nevertheless, it was still investment, and it is wrong to give the impression, as many commentators have, that no investment at all took place, that „feudal lords did not have the option of increasing their incomes through capital investments that would raise the productivity of labour ...‟ [82]

The growth of the feudal forces of production

Our knowledge about the organisation of production in early medieval times is very scant. But that does not justify claims that there was no advance. [83]

The prime event in Europe‟s history during the early middle ages was the development, between the 6th and the late 8th centuries, of a novel system of agriculture appropriate to the northern lands. As the elements of it emerged, consolidated into a new pattern of cultivation and spread, it proved to be the most productive agrarian method, in relations to manpower, that the world had seen. [84]

The first major innovation was the use of a heavy wheeled plough which could deal with heavy soils instead of the light scratch plough of the ancient world. The new plough spread from the Slavs in the 6th century to the Po Valley in the 7th century, Germany in the 8th century and Britain in the 9th century. Its spread revolutionised both agricultural techniques and the relations among cultivators in manorial communities: the new plough was most efficiently used if peasants tilled strips of land rather than squarish fields, and, needing eight, rather than two, oxen to pull it, encouraged peasants to pool their resources through a new emphasis on communal co- operation. The spread of the heavy plough was followed by further major innovations – the adoption of a three field system, in which only a third of the land was left fallow at any point in time, a new emphasis on the use of animal dung to reinvigorate the soil, the planting of pulses which raised the protein content of people‟s diet and the cultivation of oats which enabled some peasants at least to replace the slow ox with the much faster, although more expensive, horse.

The heavy plough, the open fields, the new integration of agriculture and herding, three field rotation, the modern horse harness, nailed horse shoes, and the whipple tree [for pulling horse drawn vehicles – CH] had combined to into a total system of agrarian exploitation by the year 1100 to provide a zone of peasant prosperity stretching right across Northern Europe from the Atlantic to the Dnieper. [85]

These changes produced a considerable increase in productivity per head and in the yield of seed corn. Georges Duby estimates grain yields as being only 2 : 1 in the 9th century – so that half the grain harvested had to be saved for planting the following year, however many people were starving. But yields had reached 3 : 1 or 4 : 1 in in the 12th century. [86] „There is reason to believe that a general rise in productivity occurred between the 9th and 12th centuries ... of 100 percent‟ [87] George Duby‟s study of medieval agriculture goes so far as to claim:

A great change in productivity, the only one in history until the great advances of the 18th and 19th centuries, occurred in Western Europe between the Carolingian period and the dawn of the 13th century. [88]

The feudal mode of production was characterised by a slow development of the forces of production, but not by stagnation.

Apologists for feudalism – as for all class societies – claim that the exploiting class by deserved the thanks of the exploited class by developing production in this way. Socialists reject this claim. The innovations and investments of the feudal period were based upon the labour which the feudal lords had stolen from the peasants. But Marx and Engels were quite right to point out that each form of class society does play a certain „progressive‟ role for a period. While the productivity of labour is low, the mass of the population must live so close to subsistence level as to be unable to sustain through their own volition the investments needed to increase productivity and to provide for the development of culture and civilisation. This will only occur when one small section of society gains control over that surplus over and above what is needed to keep the mass at the subsistence level. Then, although it may well waste much of the surplus, it will enable some as least to be invested.

Under feudalism the waste, particularly on the continual warfare between the feudal lords, was enormous. Nevertheless, the mode of production was dynamic enough for western European society, over a thousand year period, to recover from the economic collapse of late Roman times and to outstrip, in terms of technology and productivity societies like those of China and the Islamic empires that had initially been far in advance of it.

Trade, the towns and medieval industry

Early feudalism was, as we have seen, an almost entirely rural society. But the rise of towns was not something extraneous to this society but a result of its internal development. The growth in the productivity both land and labour in the 10th and 11th centuries provided the lords with a growing surplus of agricultural products. They could use this surplus either for personal consumption or for waging war against other lords. In either case, it was to their advantage to exchange some of it for products from outside their own demesne – for more specialised foodstuffs and non-agricultural products such as weapons, fine clothing or building materials. And so they encouraged the growth of new centres of trade and handicraft production – new towns. While most Roman cities disappeared or declined into simple religious and administrative centres, a whole range of new cities emerged. As Le Goff writes:

Venice, Florence, Genoa, Pisa, even Milan, Paris, Bruges, Ghent and London, let alone Hamburg or Lubeck, were essentially creations of the middle ages ... The towns were born not only out of the reawakening of trade, but also out of the growth of agriculture in the west, which was beginning to supply urban centres with a better supply of food and manpower.

Of course, the towns attracted new men who had escaped from the land... Yet they were joined by members of the ruling class, who helped notably by lending money which they alone had at the outset ... [89]

The towns, then, were initially an outgrowth of the rural society around them. They were a product of feudalism. Yet at the same time they contained new ways by which a minority in society could gain control of the surplus. Merchants could cream off some of the surplus previously in the hands of the feudal lords through trade, and in the process transform themselves into a new class, with different interests to the old rural ruling class. And the towns also contained new ways of creating wealth, through handicraft production, again quite different to the agricultural production of the countryside. Even while non-agricultural production had been concentrated in the feudal demesnes, there had been some technical advance. The new, growing medieval towns witnessed much more advance:

From about the 6th century, Europe began to show innovations in technology more significant than those found in the more elaborate, neighbouring and kindred cultures of Byzantium and Islam. By the middle of the 14th century, after the invention of the mechanical clock had increased the number of artisans skilled in making intricate metal machines, Europe surpassed China and seized global leadership in technology. Some inventions were borrowed, notably from China, others were internally generated. The end result of medieval developments was the physical equipment of the early modern capitalist world. [90]

Among the most notable innovations of the feudal centuries were the crank (enabling much wider use of the water mill), the spinning wheel, the lathe, the development of dyes, printing and paper making, the invention of eyeglasses (so enormously extending the active life of the literate minority), new shipbuilding technologies, and the compass. All of these led to big leaps in productivity. In villages for every five people the water mill freed about one person day‟s labour a week. [91] In towns the use of the mill for fulling, ie beating cloth to finish it, saved even greater amounts of labour. And as time went on the mill was applied to an increasing number of purposes – to iron working, for example. The use of the compass doubled the number of journeys a ship from Venice or Genoa could make to the Levant in a year.

The increases in productivity associated with the spinning wheel, more advanced looms or new techniques of metal working may seem small compared with the 10,000 percent increases seen in the industrial revolution. But they could bring about a doubling or trebling of productivity, an enormous gain for people whose labour barely enabled them to rise above the subsistence level. This gain is significant enough not to be simply ignored as all sides in the Sweezy-Wallerstein- Brenner debate tend to be.

Town, country and feudalism

As centres of trade and manufacturing the towns began to develop according to a dynamic different to the rural feudal society which had given birth to them. Whereas 10th century feudalism was bound to the logic of autarchic manors which produced the subsistence of both the exploited and the exploiting class, the towns were bound from the beginning to the logic of the commodity, of goods which had to be exchanged if their owners were to feed themselves. The means of exchange, money, which had been of marginal significance in the feudal society of the early 10th century was of central significance to the towns which had grown up within it by the 12th century. Le Goff summarises the whole process very well:

In order to come into existence the towns needed a favorable rural environment, but gradually as they develop they exercise an ever larger attraction over the surrounding area extending in proportion to their demands. The urban population was a group of consumers who only took part in farming as a sideline and who needed to be fed ... Around the towns more land was cleared and yields rose, the more so since towns not only drew food from their surrounding areas but also took away people. Emigration from the countryside to the town between the 10th and the 14th century was one of the most important events which took place in Christian Europe. What is certain in any case is the towns forged a new society out of the varied human elements which they took in. [92]

The towns were part of feudal society, and the urban classes shared many of the attitudes prevalent in society at large. Urban ruling groups often turned themselves into feudal proprietors in surrounding rural areas. The feudal lords often lived in and influenced the towns. The urban upper classes imitated the lifestyles of the feudal nobles. „Yet little by little urban society succeeded in substituting its own impulse for the catchwords of the countryside.‟ [93]

This was shown by an important shift in the ideological centres of the feudal world. While until the 12th century the dominant ideas were pumped out from monasteries which were themselves based on rural manors, „in the 13th century the spiritual leaders, the Dominicans and Franciscans, established themselves in the towns and governed souls from their pulpits and their university chairs‟. [94]

From now on the towns took over the role of directing, inspiring, and developing ideas. At first this manifested itself in the economy. Even if the town initially had been a trading centre, a commercial nexus, a market, its basic function in economic terms was production. Towns were workshops, more importantly, it was in these workshops that the division of labour originated. In the countryside in the early middle ages all forms of productions were concentrated within the manor, even if some skilled craftsmanship did find a home there too ... However, in the towns such specialisation was carried to its limits. The craftsman had ceased to be primarily, or even additionally, a peasant, and the burgess had ceased to be primarily or additionally a landowner. [95]

The medieval towns could not have developed without the prior advance in techniques and productivity in the countryside. But in the towns the possibilities for further growth of productivity were much higher than in the countryside. Whereas the productivity of agricultural labour took two or three centuries to double, the productivity of urban craftsmen could be increased much more quickly by adopting new techniques – or often old techniques developed, but not used, in Roman times. The basis existed for the owners of urban workshops to expand their wealth at a faster rate than the initially much wealthier rural lords. What was required for them to do so was to find a workforce which itself had no control of the means of production and therefore would work for little more than a subsistence wage. Such a workforce was to be found among recent arrivals from the countryside, from ex-serfs and their families. From the beginning there was, therefore, the potential for turning means of production in the towns into capital and, with it, the potential for the self expansion of capital.

This potential was mostly not realised. There were objective obstacles. Handicraft production was still at the stage where it depended upon the much bigger agricultural sector of the economy to feed its workforce and buy much of its output. A succession of bad harvests could destroy its markets, at least temporarily, and with them the ability of the urban workforce to get the money to pay for food. A military campaign in the locality could have very much the same effect. In either case, an urban economy which had previously been flourishing could suddenly be devastated. Many a new shoot of urban handicraft production wilted in such a harsh environment.

There were other obstacles as well. The ideology of feudal society was not favourable to technical advance, even if it could not block it entirely. And the new urban classes, growing up within feudalism, more often than not adapted to its conservative attitudes. The owners of workshops would often seek to use political influence in the towns to provide a guaranteed income for themselves by imposing guild regulations which restricted competition. The journeymen who laboured in the workshops would fight against the introduction of new techniques which might threaten their jobs. Nevertheless, there were occasions in which new techniques of production were combined with new methods of employing „free‟ wage labour on a big enough scale to create the beginnings of industry of a distinctly capitalist sort. This was true by the late 13th century in the two most economically advanced areas of Europe – in Flanders and in northern Italy. In the early 14th century the belt of land which corresponds with the western part of modern Belgium and the north west corner of France contained a number of towns whose inhabitants lived on a highly developed woolen cloth industry. Bruges, Ghent, Ypres ... Brussels and Mallines, and Douai and Arras ... were some of the most important. There are thought to have been at least 4,000 weavers alone, apart from other allied trades, in the city of Ghent in the mid-14th century. Industry on this scale led to the existence of substantial capitalists ... The cloth towns, nearly all pure industrial centres ... developed on a large scale the characteristic physiognomy of the modern city: commercial wealth contrasting with the relative poverty of the numerous artisans and paid workers for whom the city bell rang out the beginning of the working day. [96]

A contemporary chronicler claimed that in Florence, in Northern Italy, the city‟s wool guild had over 200 workshops supporting 30,000 people in the 1330s. [97] It is quite correct to stress that these were embryos of a new mode of production, and that like many other embryos they were often aborted. But every embryo, whether aborted or not, influences the metabolism of the body in which it finds itself. An important part of the reason that feudalism in the 15th and 16th centuries was very different to feudalism in Charlemagne‟s time was because of the way in which the embryonic capitalist features of the towns had reacted back upon the overwhelmingly rural societies from which they had sprung.

Merchants and capitalism

Industrial capitalism made fleeting appearances during the medieval period – appearances which were significant because they occurred in the most economically advanced regions and because they gave a foretaste of the future. But much more important in general was merchants‟ capital. This has made the question of the relationship of merchant capitalism to both feudal and capitalist production a central one in all the debates over the transition. [98]

The growth of towns arose from the growth of trade, which was only possible with the marketisation of some production in the countryside. But the growth of the towns in turn encouraged further marketisation creating as it did a section of the population which could not physically survive without trading its output for food. The rise of the towns is thus synonymous with the rise of commodity production.

Commodity production is not itself capitalism. It can grow up on the surface of non-capitalist societies, leaving old methods of production and exploitation intact. This, for instance, was true of trade in the Roman and Chinese empires. And even during the period of the ascendancy of capitalism as a world system, non-capitalist forms of exploitation could survive – in the latifundia of Latin America, in the slave plantations of the southern states of the United States, and in the vast labour camps of Stalin‟s gulag. So commodity production alone did not bring the feudal mode of production to an end. But that does not mean commodity production – and the class which organises the exchange of commodities, the merchant class – has no impact at all on the underlying forms of production and exploitation. The latifundia, the slave plantations and the labour camps were in fact products of the impact of a global system of commodity production. [99] So too was the transformation of the way in which feudal society was organised between the 10th century and the 14th century.

The rise of the market and the merchants in feudal society did not bring about an automatic transition to capitalism. But it did bring about transformations within feudalism which meant that, when the mode of production entered into deep crisis, capitalist development was one possible option. The merchants of the middle ages were concerned with the self expansion of their wealth (with m–m′). The easiest way for them to achieve this was by taking advantages of the imperfect development of the trading system, of the fact that there were substantial price differences from region to region. They could do this within the confines of a system of production run by other classes. But these differences in prices could not be relied on to provide substantial profits indefinitely. If other merchants entered the ring, then prices in the final market would fall and the self expansion of wealth would come to an end. It was this which led the merchants to fight for political power in the towns and then to use this political power to rig the feudal market in their own favour – via monopolies, encouragement of wars against rivals, piracy, and so on. It was this too which led successful merchants to try to protect their accumulations of wealth by moving them from the cities and trade into land. They would usually end up trying to guarantee their future well-being by buying themselves into the feudal ruling class. They developed all sorts of interests in compromising with the ruling powers of feudal society. To this extent there was a powerful conservative trend built into merchant capital. In the great revolutions of the 17th and 18th centuries most of the great merchants stood for „moderate reform‟ and a few sided with the out and out defenders of the old order.

Yet at the same time the growing marketisation of the economy provided merchant capital with a way of expanding itself on a surer long term basis than through trade alone, a basis that was in contradiction to the feudal mode of production. For the impact of marketisation was to deprive growing numbers of people both in town and country of direct access to the means of production and to turn them into a potential pool of wage labour. Peasants who could not pay their rents sold their land and sought paid employment, journeymen who could not afford to set up as independent tradesmen were forced onto the urban labour market. Capitalist exploitation, based on „free labour‟ became possible, but often this did not appear in its full form.

As Marx noted long ago [100], the first fleeting appearances of a way of achieving the self expansion of capital which did not depend on accidents or monopolies were short-lived. The Flemish cloth industry declined after the late 14th century, the North Italian industries a century later. But that was not the end of merchant capital‟s attempts in this direction. The decline of urban industry in the face of general economic crisis and the resistance of the urban lower classes to increased exploitation were followed by the rise of rural handicraft production, very much under the direction of urban based merchants. This was not usually fully capitalist production. The handicraft producers mostly owned their own means of production – the cottage in which they worked and the spinning wheel or loom they worked on. This enabled them to work at their own speed and to restrict their output to what was needed to provide themselves with their own basic needs – that is, to avoid being pulled into the endless treadmill of production for the sake of production, of the pursuit of the self expansion of their capital. But the merchant would control both the supply of raw materials to them and the marketing of their output. In this way he would be able to force them to surrender to him a portion of the value of their product.

As Jurgen Schlumbohm has pointed out [101], it was a short step from this system (known in German as the Kaufsystem, i.e. buying system) to the putting-out system (in German Verlagsystem) in which the merchant capitalist loans the direct producer raw materials in return for a guaranteed level of output. Once this has taken place, the direct producer is only in part his own master. He depends on others for some of his productive resources – and this enables them to dictate to him his tempo of work, to force him to accept in part at least subordination of the self expansion of capital. From here it is another short step to capitalist production proper, with the capitalist providing both the means and the materials of production.

In practice these three stages were always combined in various ways. In cloth manufacture, for instance, spinning and weaving might take place under the buying system, but certain finishing processes were carried out in workshops directly owned and supervised by the merchant capitalist. So for centuries there were hybrid, bastardised forms of production, in which elements of capitalist exploitation were mixed with elements of non-capitalist commodity production by individual craftsmen. But the tendency was for the element of direct capitalist control to grow over time:

The putting out system did not entail an increased labour productivity. Yet the management of the different stages of production by a single entrepreneur opened up important opportunities for innovations. [102] Since some of these innovations could only be achieved with the use of more expensive equipment that only the capitalist could buy, the buying system tended over centuries to give way to the putting out system, and the putting out system to capitalist production proper.

The development of industry in the countryside was no more an automatic or a smooth process than the earlier development in the medieval towns had been. Industry could only grow in rural areas to the extent that marketisation was already destroying the bonds which tied the whole rural population to agricultural production and forcing some of them to seek new sources of livelihood. Those urban classes who lost out by rural industrialisation tried to prevent it – for instance, using their political influence to press for state wide controls over production methods. The narrow base of the market for industrial output and the precariousness of the ability of the rural economy to provide food at prices which the new handicraft workers were able to afford could force expanding areas of rural industry into sudden crisis and even obliteration. The merchant capitalists could lose interest in productive activity and move their capital into speculative venture or land.

Yet by the late middle ages „centres of dense rural industry developed in England, the southern low countries and southern Germany.‟ [103] Whereas in the 14th century only 4 percent of English wool was manufactured into cloth before export, with the rest serving as raw material for the Flemish and Italian urban based industries, by the mid-15th century 50 percent was manufactured and by the mid-16th century 86 percent. [104]

Proto-industrialisation, on the one hand was kept in check by rural relations of production, and on the other it acted as a powerful ferment in the gradual disintegration of those relations. While feudal ties maintained their strength to varying degrees, relations of dependence that were essentially of a capitalist nature arose besides them in industrial regions. Often it was only a matter of time before merchant capital would shake off the remaining fetters of feudalism and enforce the formal freedom of labour. [105] Where rural industries took off, they had an immediate impact on agricultural production. The demand of the handicraft producers for foodstuffs encouraged marketisation of agriculture, while the need of the urban based merchants to retain the services of the proto-industrial workforce led them to help it protect the rural producers against pressures for feudal services by the lords. The rulers of the towns, and the armed forces at their disposal, had a direct interest in undermining ties of feudal dependency in parts of the countryside.

That industrial commodity production in the countryside was integrated less directly and less comprehensively into the feudal system than was agrarian production is most clearly illustrated by the fact that rent in kind and labour services could remain viable in agricultural production for the market, but rarely did either of them form of the base of industrial commodity production.

While in the eastern half of Europe, the production of grain for the market was dominated by the feudal system until the 19th century, it was much less widespread in industrial commodity production. [106]

What is more, the spread of rural industry served to create direct social relations between the urban merchants and a rural middle class:

Wealthy, business minded peasants ... and members of the village „bourgeoisie‟ often assumed a strategic function in the proto-industrialisation process ... [as] the middle men between domestic producers and merchants. They constituted the personnel of the putting out system‟s infrastructure ... [107]

The products of rural industry were not merely used in local trade, but in inter-regional and international trade. By the late 16th century trade in north and west Europe „comprised mass consumption goods, above all cereals, livestock and copper from eastern Europe, and textiles and metal goods from western parts of the continent.‟ [108] Merchant capital might have grown up within feudalism and might continually try to liquidate itself back into the feudal mode of production, but such developments also gave at least a section of it a powerful interest in identifying with a new mode of production, organised on quite a different basis to feudalism. And not only in relation to industry.

Brenner is right to say, following Marx, that there was growth of capitalist relations of production in parts of the countryside in this period. Sometimes this took the form of full blooded capitalist exploitation, the form which came to predominate in England. Sometimes, as in parts of France, a bastardised form prevailed: metayage, in which the landowner (often a bourgeois from the town) advanced half the stock and received half the crop which he would then market. In either case, what happened in the countryside was not something distinct from the development of the towns and of merchant capital. The growing specialisation of production in the countryside could only occur if there were growing trading networks, influencing the direction of agriculture as well as industry. A key role in these networks was played by a growing number of small towns, where new groups of traders could operate without any impediment from the guilds of the bigger towns. R.H. Hilton has shown how important these could be in medieval England, clashing with feudal lords even though these had often helped establish them. [109]

Georges Duby tells how changes in the system of husbandry:

were symptomatic of the opening of the country economy to exchanges, and went hand in hand with the gradual penetration of money and credit. They stimulated the growth of a host of small market towns inhabited by dealers in wine, grain, and cattle, and moneylenders. And these changes went deepest in regions close to towns and to lines of communication. [110]

Agriculture was beginning to be transformed even before the demographic crisis of the 14th century – and long before the twofold outcome of the class struggle which Brenner claims alone could permit any development of the productive forces. After the first quarter of the 13th century, „among those in charge of agricultural production appeared many men well versed in the rational methods of management and who were as attentive to the operations of the market as they were to the theories of agriculture.‟ [111] The tendency to production for exchange „rapidly intensified in the 13th century... The play of commercial operations in the countryside on the eve of the 14th century was astonishingly widespread and vigorous.‟ [112] This turn to commodity production was accompanied by changes in production methods:

Towards the end of the 13th century some remarkable changes in regions where economic expansion was taking place come to light. They all bear testimony to the desire to work the cultivated lands in a more rational manner and for greater profit. [113]

By the 15th century „every town had its butchers, who were at the same time entrepreneurs, cattle merchants, meat merchants and leather merchants, all of them prosperous, the new men of the pastoral economy and its absolute masters.‟ [114] No wonder Le Goff describes the „small towns‟ as the „new active element‟ giving direction to society as a whole as Europe recovered from the black death in the 15th century. [115]

It is wrong to see merchant capital, as Pirenne, Sweezy and the others tend to do, as the unambiguous agent of a new mode of production within feudalism. Merchant capital was bound by a thousand ties to the system out of which it grew and therefore continually tended to sink back into that system. But it is also wrong to see it, as Brenner does, as simply a force cementing feudal ties. It fact, it both perpetuated the society it grew out of and tended to undermine that society. It was, as Kriedte puts it, „Janus-faced‟, looking to the future as well as the past. This enabled it (or at least sections of it) to play a very important role in dissolving feudal ties. But it also meant that it was an obstacle to the full development of industrial capitalism which had, in the 18th century, to wage a struggle with it for hegemony before full blooded capitalist development could take off. [116]

The crisis of feudalism

Pre-capitalist class societies have known crises just as deep as any known by capitalism. This is clearly the case if you just look at the demographic devastation which occurred with the collapse of the Roman Empire in the west, at the height of the medieval period in the 14th century, or across continental Europe in the 17th century. But the cause of the crises was quite different to that under capitalism.

Capitalist crises have occurred every ten years or so as accumulation and production, both in industry and agriculture, outstrip the source of profits to the capitalist class. Feudal crises, by contrast, occurred every few centuries rather than every few years, and arose because society‟s demand for resources went beyond the capacity of the existing forces of production, especially in the countryside. Put crudely, the number of mouths to be fed grew more rapidly than the food supply and mass hunger resulted. This crisis has sometimes been called a ‟Malthusian‟ or „Neo-Malthusian‟ crisis, after the English clergyman who insisted at the beginning of the 19th century that humanity could never improve its lot because starvation would always result. The title is a poor one, because it was a particular, class directed way of organising production which led to the shortages of food, not any innate feature of human society.

Feudalism, as we have seen, advanced the forces of production, but in a very wasteful and therefore a very slow way. The advance of the forces of production was accompanied by a growth in population: conditions of relative prosperity led people in the countryside to marry earlier and have larger families; the growth of an exchangeable surplus encouraged the growth of the towns and with them a new urban population. Since there were large areas of untilled countryside (forests and swamps) under early feudalism, the growing number of people were easily fed at first as the expanding peasantry cleared and cultivated new land and as the slow spread of improved techniques increased yields on old land. But a point was eventually reached (towards the end of the 13th century and again towards the end of the 16th century) at which the supply of uncleared land began to run out. At this point the only way for the increased rural population to make a living was either to work marginal, relatively unproductive bits of land or to try to increase the output of other land without worrying about exhausting its fertility. In this way it was possible to keep output rising for a period, but not for very long. As yields on over-farmed land began to fall, it only required a poorer than average harvest to plunge the whole of society into famine. The crisis was not simply a „demographic‟ one. It was intensified by the very feudal relations of production which had enabled production to rise in previous centuries. From being a spur to the development of the productive forces in the early feudal period these were now increasingly a drag on them.

A huge portion of the output of their serfs went into providing a rising level of the conspicuous consumption for the feudal lords. Technical advances meant that armies could be larger and wars more far ranging than before – a further drain on society‟s resources. The rise of the towns provided a source of borrowing which allowed feudal lords to consume and fight beyond their means, at least up to a point: „the poorer and middling members of the knightly class ... got into debt faster than they could get out of it.‟ [117]

In the towns themselves a growing urban upper class itself consumed conspicuously, with its own retinues of servants, its own private armies, its own dependence on a proliferation of luxury trades, all of which had to be paid for and fed. The growth within the framework of feudalism of the new, exchange oriented, forms of economic activity exacerbated the crisis, although in a contradictory way. It led, as we have seen, to increased concern with the productivity of labour and land. It provided opportunities for wage labour for the poorest section of the peasantry and so put off the moment at which they were driven to starvation. But it also diverted land from producing the staple foodstuff, grain, into providing marketable luxuries for the towns and the upper classes – wool, wine and meat.

The entrepreneurs succeeded in building up units directly linked with trade; they went on improving their tools and perfecting techniques. In order to intensify grain production they applied more complex rotational systems and engaged more labourers to till the soil more thoroughly. Nevertheless, their special interests were the vineyards, the woodland, the grassland and the management of their flocks, which yielded the larger part of their profits. [118] This intensified the factors leading to crisis while concealing them from view:

Between 1275 and 1330 ... arable land ceased to grow at the expense of the waste. This did not prevent the rural economy as a whole from wearing at this moment an air of solid prosperity. But nevertheless we notice that the antagonism between the small country people and the increasing band of entrepreneurs becomes sharper ... [119]

While all this was happening, the ideology of the ruling class was less and less capable of coming to terms with the changes which were taking place. It increasingly came to reflect the pampered position which the feudal lords had attained, divorced from the world of production, concerned only with rank, honour and the defence of hereditary position. The creative period of medieval thought gave way to the sterile phase of scholasticism proper. The superstructures which had once overseen the growth of social production became more expensive to maintain – and ensured that, once social production began to falter, the crisis that resulted was on an immense scale.

Economic crisis could rapidly have political effects which made the economic crisis worse. In the countryside the different members of the feudal ruling class sought to protect their incomes by increased pressure on the peasants (which pushed the poorest peasants into ever greater poverty) and by increased military activity as each attempted to seize land from the other. In the cities there were increasingly bitter conflicts between the mass of the population, hard hit by rising food prices, and the handful of very rich families who held power. Wars and civil wars brought military devastation to an already impoverished society. And in the wake of hunger and war came diseases, above all the bubonic plague, which cut a huge swathe through the population. The crisis pushed society backward. The population halved in the space of a few years. Whole villages were deserted as their inhabitants died or fled. Vast tracts of countryside passed out of cultivation. Urban industry declined as the demand for its products fell. To this extent the crisis of the 14th century had some features in common with the crisis of the late Roman Empire and the less demographically disastrous crisis of the Carolingian 9th century. But there was a difference. The development of the forces of production meant that towns did survive, even if in a weakened form. The trade networks remained intact. And so did industry, although it often moved to the countryside in search of cheaper labour. Indeed, once recovery from the immediate demographic catastrophe of the mid 14th century took place, industry was helped by its effects: the supply of foodstuffs, especially grain, was now greater than the demand from a diminished population, food prices fell relative to those of manufactured goods, and the poorer peasants could make a better living through rural handicrafts than through tilling the land.

All this meant there that a new alternative could emerge from the crisis of the 14th century to the feudal cycle of expansion and collapse. The alternative lay in carrying to its logical extreme the marketisation of output that had emerged in the previous centuries, so that not only goods but also labour power became a commodity. So it was that the period of recovery from the crisis of the 14th century saw in parts of western Europe the growth of rural industries controlled by merchant capitalists, on a greater scale than ever before. This period also saw in certain towns the growth of new industries, organised on capitalist lines in a much more sophisticated way than previously – most notably printing, paper making, shipbuilding and coal-mining. It also saw the spread of the organised market system (controlled by merchants, big or small) which encouraged better off peasants to employ wage labour to produce much more than they needed for their own immediate consumption, so encouraging some feudal lords to protect their revenues through leasing lands to such peasants rather than through feudal dues.

Capitalism began to emerge not as merchant capitalism (the Pirenne-Sweezy version) or as agrarian capitalism (the Brenner version) but as a network of productive units in both handicrafts (in town and country) and agricultural production using free labour separated to varying degrees from real control over the means and materials of production, a network bound together by the activity of a section of merchant capital which itself was centred on the towns.

The transitional society and the absolutist state

There has been much debate about the character of western European society – and English society in particular – from the 15th century onwards, with Dobb and Anderson [120], for instance, insisting it remained feudal, and Sweezy arguing it was based on a „petty commodity producing mode of production‟. [121] But the important point was that it was a society in transition, with both feudal and capitalist forms of exploitation existing side by side, and in many cases intermingling.

The two forms were both complementary (as when a feudal lord used some of his wealth to take part in commercial ventures using some waged labour, or when a merchant used the profits from the putting out system to set himself up with a manor) and contradictory (as when merchants and feudal lords fought physically for political dominance of great cities). What is more, they operated according to different dynamics. The relatively slow growth of the forces of production under feudal forms of exploitation compared with the faster growth under capitalist forms meant that the balance between the two was continually changing. Whereas the balance of the economy in France, say, was overwhelmingly towards feudalism in the 15th century, by the late 18th century it was much more tilted in a capitalist direction.

This changing balance had strong effects on the politics of the period. One element of feudal society, the monarchy, tried to strengthen itself by balancing between the feudal lords and the different urban classes. The feudal monarchy had been a weak central force, exercising power only insofar as it could persuade the nobles who held real power in each locality to accept its rule. In the late 15th and early 16th centuries both old monarchs (as in France, and England) and new rulers (like the Medicis in the Italian city state of Florence) began to construct absolutisms, in which their power overrode that of the local nobles and urban oligarchies alike. They were able to do so because they used the towns to counterbalance the power of the rural lords – and, if necessary, the middle classes in the towns as a counterbalance to the oligarchies. Symbolic of the change was the construction by the French monarchy alongside the old feudal lords (the nobles d’épée) of a new aristocracy to man its state bureaucracy (the noblesse de robe) drawn from bourgeois families.

None of these changes could have occurred had recovery from the crisis of the 14th century not been associated with a rise in the importance of the urban ruling and middle classes compared to the feudal lords, a rise dependent upon a further spread of commodity production and within that of elements of capitalist production.

The industrial and commercial world does not present the same picture of general decay as the seigniorial world ... Cities such as Florence, Venice, Bruges, London or Nuremburg acquired a prominence apparently greater than they had enjoyed earlier, even though they were smaller communities ... [122]

Perry Anderson quite rightly stresses:

It is significant that the years 1450 to 1500, which saw the emergence of the first prodromes [fore-runner – CH] of unified absolute monarchies in the west, were also those in which the long crisis of the feudal economy was surmounted by recombination of production factors in which for the first time specifically urban technological advances played a leading role. [123]

But the logical inference to be drawn from this observation is that absolutism was not simply a changed „form of feudal exploitation‟ and its function was not simply „the repression of the peasant and plebeian masses‟. [124] It was rather a political form which, in Engels‟ words, could arise in a period when „the warring classes balance each other so nearly that the state power, as ostensible mediator, acquires for the moment a certain degree of independence of both‟. [125]

The state administrators had an interest in the continuation of feudalism: after all part of their own income came from direct feudal exploitation of peasants on the monarchy‟s own lands. But they also had an interest in the further development of trade and of direct capitalist forms of exploitation: these provided them with a expanding urban tax base. Finally, they had an interest in maintaining the balance between the two: then they could use the power of the feudal lords to deal with any town which stepped out of line, and they could use the power of the towns to force the feudal lords to let them have (through taxation) part of the surplus product of the peasantry which otherwise would have been absorbed completely by feudal dues. So it is in this period that the state does not simply adjust to advances in capitalist forms of production which had already taken place, but encourages such advances itself, sometimes from scratch.

It was as Janus-faced as merchant capital. Like the great merchants, those who rose to eminence and wealth out of administering the state were continually caught between two facts: the quickest way to make wealth was to identify with the anti-feudal forces, but the best way to preserve it was to sink it back into land.

So, even when the administrators themselves were bourgeois in origin, as with the noblesse de robe in France, they tended over time to revert back to feudal forms of exploitation. Similarly, in England key figures in running the Tudor state came from non-lordly backgrounds, yet 100 years later their descendants were well established as landowners.

Even this was not the end of the matter. For if merchants and state administrators were continually falling back into the methods of the feudal ruling class, this class itself was also beginning, in part, to adapt to methods of capitalist exploitation. Few feudal lords themselves became either capitalist farmers or capitalist industrialists. But many began to see their future as better assured if they were landlords to capitalist farmers than to feudal peasants, and many began to see the advantages of doing deals with merchant capitalists.

The contradictory role of the state in this period is shown most sharply by looking at how it used its „bodies of armed men‟. For the feudalists their function was to fight for land, the source of feudal wealth. Where this land was did not really matter to the feudal lord. So the typical feudal war was part of a dynastic struggle to secure scattered territories for one or other monarchy – as with the battles between German princes, French kings and the popes for control of Sicily in the 13th century, or the Hundred Years War between French, English and Burgundian rulers in the 14th and early 15th century.

By contrast, merchant capitalists were concerned with securing a hold on their trading networks. As urban and rural industry developed, and with it capitalist agriculture, this meant trying to bind together adjacent geographic regions within a single, stable political framework: in short, seeking to establish some sort of national state. Wars, for them, should be national wars, aimed at consolidating the territory of the nation and opening new markets for trade. The degree to which the rulers of the absolutist state looked backwards to feudalism or forward to capitalist methods of exploitation was shown by the degree to which they fought one kind of war or the other. There were absolutisms (Spain, for example) where dynastic wars predominated. But there were more advanced cases (England in the 16th century, France in the 18th) in which commercial and „national‟ considerations came to predominate.

The class struggle and the transition

The growth of capitalist forms of exploitation at the expense of feudal forms was not some automatic process. The old feudal ruling classes‟ power was weakened by the crisis of the 14th century. While land had been in increasingly short supply under pressure from a growing population, it had been able to keep a land hungry peasantry subjugated without too much resort to physical coercion. Now suddenly, with the rural population halved, discontented peasants could flee one lord and easily find land elsewhere unless faced with vicious repression.

But this did not mean the feudal ruling classes just sat back and watched their power decline. As Brenner quite rightly emphasises, they attempted to use force to make up for their economic losses. The result was a series of large scale and violent clashes between the exploited and the exploiters, starting with the Jacquerie, a huge and bloody peasant rising in the Paris region in 1358. Then there was the revolt of the ciompi (wool carders) in Florence in 1378, the risings of weavers in Ghent and Bruges of 1379–82, the peasants‟ revolt in England in 1381, and the rising of the maillotins (the lower classes, so called because they armed themselves with mallets) of Paris in 1382. [126]

None of these struggles was victorious in the sense of immediately breaking the power of either the lords in the countryside or the oligarchies in the towns. But they did show there were limits beyond which the old feudal ruling classes could not go in their attempt to make up for their losses as a result of the crisis. Within the next half century there was a decline in direct feudal authority over both peasants and townspeople right across western Europe. [127] The most extreme expression of direct lordly control, the demesnes tilled by serf labour, virtually disappeared in this period. By the beginning of the 16th century Europe had recovered from the crisis. Population was growing right across the continent, and lands which had been abandoned 150 years before were now once more beginning to be cultivated. Grain prices stopped falling and began to rise in what has been called the „inflation of the 16th century‟.

If the weakening of feudal ties had simply been an automatic response to the crisis of the 14th century, then there should have been a regrowth of feudal ties in the 16th century. This did occur in much of eastern Europe – where there was a return to demesne production using forced labour – and in parts of Italy and the Iberian peninsular. But it did not occur in much of western Europe.

How is the difference to be explained? Not simply in terms of the growth of marketisation, since much of the output of the east European landed estates was sold. Brenner argues that what matters is the different outcome to the class struggle in the two regions. But this begs the question as to why the anti- feudal forces were more successful in the west than the east and, in the west itself, more successful in England than in France. [128] We cannot explain the difference without reference to the simple fact that urban development and rural industrial development were more pronounced in the west than in the east. This did not mean that either the urban oligarchy or the urban middle and lower classes always supported the peasants against the feudal lords. [129]But they did represent centres of power independent of the feudal lords which made it more difficult for the latter to impose their interests on the whole of society or, one expression of this, to always bend the state bureaucracy to their will. In eastern Europe, where the towns and the urban classes were relatively weak, the state did indeed function simply as the expression of a centralised feudalism, helping the nobility to crush the peasants, reimpose serfdom and extend its demesnes. In western Europe, faced with a different balance of forces in society as a whole, the state did not give such unambiguous backing to the forces of feudalism, thus aiding the peasantry to retain much of their freedom. Caught between the past and the future, the monarchical states facilitated the growth of capitalist forms of exploitation, but also became a drag upon them at key moments in history. Then bitter class struggles alone could determine whether society moved forwards or backwards. And these struggles involved bitter clashes between rival exploiting classes as well as between the exploiters and the exploited classes.

The transition and ideology

These transformations in society necessarily found expression in the realm of ideas. People began to try to come to terms with the changes which were taking place in their lives, with some trying to slow down these changes and others to speed them up. It is hardly surprising that the late 15th and 16th centuries saw the spread of ideas which challenged, at first implicitly and then explicitly, the ideological centre of feudalism, the .

The Reformation was not, of course, a simple adoption of pro-capitalist ideas by people opposed to feudalism. The transition period involved the emergence of a range of classes and social groups – the urban oligarchies, the middle ranking urban merchants and handicraft proprietors, the urban poor, the new layer of rich, labour-employing peasants, those they employed, the administrators of different states – alongside the old classes of feudalism. Each of these groups could only achieve its goals by making and unmaking alliances with other groups, and each, in the process, fell to some degree under the influence of other groups. There was no clear notion of what was to replace medieval society amongst any of these groups. But there was a sense that things were changing, that the old religious conceptions and institutions no longer fitted.

So, Jan Hus, Luther, Calvin or John Knox could preach doctrines which meant different things to different social groupings. But such ideas also provided at least temporary basis for uniting such groupings in opposition to the old order of things to such an extent that people were prepared to fight and die for what they believed. Those who were most radical in their religious reinterpretation of the world tended to be those who wanted it changed most – whether, as with the radical Hussites or the anabaptists, to an egalitarian classless society, or, as with the more sober minded Calvinists, to a society based upon commodity production and the relentless attempt to accumulate capital.

These new ideas were the product of urban based preachers. But they had an impact on rural as well as urban classes. This is not surprising. The market networks which had grown up, under the control of big and small merchants, to unite producers and consumers in town and country were also networks through which ideas could travel. Verbal intercourse accompanied commercial intercourse – between the merchants of a city, the nobles, wealthier peasants, rural handicraft manufacturers and small town traders of its hinterland. Single languages replaced hotchpotches of local dialects within each regional trading network. The more trade developed, the more this took written forms. Part of the ideological challenge to the medieval world lay in people putting across their ideas in these new languages, asserting them as national languages as opposed to the Latin of the feudal Church. The networks which carried trade were soon also carrying dissident ideological works of various kinds, from the tracts of Martin Luther or Thomas Münzer to the satirical books of Rabelais. The town united the countryside (or at least part of the countryside) behind it in presenting an ideological as well as an economic alternative to the feudal world – something which is inexplicable if you see the transition, as Brenner does, as originating purely in the countryside.

The transition and the first great revolutions

The transitional society combined contradictory forces, between which monarchical states tried to balance. But however high the state raised itself for a certain period, it could not stop the forces moving so far in opposite directions as to bring it crashing down eventually. There were elements in old feudal ruling class which looked back to old methods of exploitation whenever society entered into crisis. And this happened on a European scale in the 17th century, in much the same way as it had done three centuries before.

The feudal looking elements had already reorganised themselves with the ideology and institutions of the counter- Reformation (for example, the Jesuits and the inquisition) in the second half of the 16th century. They had enormous financial backing from the Spanish monarchy, a feudal state which nevertheless controlled most of the gold flowing into Europe from Latin America. In the first half of the 17th century they sought to preserve society as they knew it from the contagion of the new ways and the new ideas by waging a war across half of Europe – the Thirty Years War.

The two epicentres of this struggle were Holland and Bohemia. Neither was by any means a pure capitalist state. Far from it. In both, elements of the old nobility retained considerable influence. They were ruled by Estates – representatives of both the lords and the towns – not by revolutionary assemblies. But in both, a substantial section of the nobility identified with new ways of producing wealth, through trade and through urban and rural manufacturing, and through agriculture in which feudal dues played a very little part. [130] The Estates in neither country were keen for the great struggles in which they found themselves. The Bohemians tried to avoid war, and the Dutch waited 12 years before joining in. But the sheer scale of the feudal reaction gave them no choice. Polisensky has described the conflict as of „two civilisations in ideological conflict‟. [131] But he has gone on to insist:

It would be a crass oversimplification to contend that the war was collision between the champions of capitalism and the bourgeoisie on the one hand, and the representatives of the „old regime‟ on the other. These two models were only the poles in whole complex struggle, the centres around which were forged two powerful political camps. [132]

By the time the war ended in 1648 the issues which had led to it were half forgotten. Absolutist Catholic France became the main obstacle, for its own great power reasons, to the all out victory of the reactionary forces. Bohemia had long since been conquered for feudalism, and the devastation of the war‟s main battleground, Germany, halved its population and set back its economic development by a century. Only in Holland did the forces standing for a new, thoroughly bourgeois, organisation of society survive intact.

Even before the Thirty Years War was over, a similarly decisive but confused struggle was taking place in England and Scotland. A section of the old ruling class was inspired by the general reactionary ideology emanating from Spain. The king, Charles I, tried to go against the foreign policy interests of those social forces associated with the new ways of making wealth and to rule in an arbitrary manner in opposition to their desires. He was soon confronted by an armed coalition, made up of sections of the aristocracy, much of the rural gentry, many (but not the topmost) merchants and the middling classes of both town and country.

As in Bohemia and Holland, this coalition did not want to push the struggle to the limit. But also as in those cases, the old order did not give them much choice. As the king ratted on compromise after compromise, the leadership of the oppositional camp fell into the hands of those who no longer looked for a slightly reformed version of the old transitional society, but to one which had gone much further on the way towards capitalism. The crisis of the 17th century meant that all the different elements which made up the transitional society were thrown into conflict with each other – aristocrats, gentry and rural manufacturers in the countryside, big merchants and small merchants and manufacturers in the towns, the monarchy and the classes between which it had previously balanced. In the confused battles which followed no class was initially clear on its own long term interests. But the very severity of the political crisis forced people to try to see through the fog to some resolution of the crisis. And for those who did not want a reversion to feudalism, there was only one such way – by a policy with would steadfastly develop the new forms of production and exploitation as opposed to the old. The genius of Cromwell in the English Revolution lay in his instinctive grasp of the direction in which society had to go and in his ability to mobilise a coalition of forces which could achieve this.

But the precondition for such a coalition was precisely the networks of people committed to the new ways – the lesser merchants, yeoman farmers employing wage labour, the promoters of urban and rural handicrafts and industries. Interestingly, the strongest support for the revolution came from London, the seaports and those rural areas which produced agricultural and/or manufactured goods for the market. Cromwell could build out of these a coalition which could beat the king and, in presenting a programme to unite them in struggle, push the development of the sort of society they represented further forward.

Wherever such leadership was not able to construct a coalition of forces capable of victory in this way (whether for objective or subjective reasons), the result was that society was pushed backward. This had already happened in late 15th century Italy, where the forward development of the city states came to an end with the French invasion of 1494. It happened, as we have seen, in Bohemia and Germany in the Thirty Year War. And it happened in France in 1648, when a confused revolt, the Fronde, drove the monarchy from Paris but did not coalesce into a force with any programme for developing French society.

Capitalism and colonies

In the period of the first great revolutions capitalism proper, based on the routine exploitation of „free labour‟ in industry and on the land, was still overshadowed by merchant capitalism. And merchant capitalism was increasingly identified with the carving out of colonial empires from which enormous riches flowed back into Europe, riches which made it much easier for the rising bourgeoisie to buy over or subvert the old ruling classes. It is this which has led Sweezy, Wallerstein and other authors such as Gunder Frank to see the secret of capitalist development as lying in the „unequal exchange‟ established between western Europe and the rest of the world. But that leaves two vital questions unexplained. First, why were western European states able to exercise such a stranglehold over the rest of the world? Second, why did some states experience successful capitalist development based upon such „unequal‟ trade, but not others? Spain and Portugal were, after all, in advance of Britain, Holland and France in establishing colonial empires, but suffered impoverishment, not growth, in the 17th and 18th centuries. And Holland was a greater trading centre than England in the mid 17th century, but thereafter fell behind in the advance to full blooded capitalist development.

It is only possible to answer these questions by recognising that the key to international influence lay in developments in the domestic economies, which were then further enhanced by colonial control and „unequal exchange‟. Western Europe‟s rulers and merchants could only impose their will elsewhere in the world because already, after the crisis of the 14th century, the means of production were more advanced in Europe than in the parts of the globe they subjugated. The growth of the new empires led to economic advance in Holland and England precisely because more productive capitalist and semi- capitalist forms of exploitation were beginning to emerge there rather than in Spain and Portugal. England overtook Holland because Dutch merchant capitalism was not able to establish networks of rural manufacturing under its control as its English rivals did. [133] There is an additional factor which also has to be taken into account. From the 17th century onwards a form of production developed which yielded large and regular profits, but which was not based on „free‟ labour. The slavery on the plantations of the new world could be a very efficient form of production and yield huge and reliable profits, most of which ended up in the hands of the merchant capitalists who supplied the slaves and sold the plantations‟ products. [134] These profits could give a big boost to capitalist development. But slavery could never supplant free labour as the motor of that development. Slavery was only an efficient method of exploitation in certain cases: where the labour process itself was such as to be easily subject to detailed supervision without much reliance on the initiative of the labourer – as on sugar and cotton plantations – and where the market for the product was virtually guaranteed to expand, so that the owner would not lose money through having to keep his „property‟ alive through periods of idle production. These conditions could apply in the case of certain very important crops, but not to the huge range of different products needed for sustained industrial and agricultural expansion.

It is important to remember that the period was still one in which the demand for the products of industry fluctuated wildly from one time of the year to another and could be badly hit by natural occurrences. In industry, .the typical unit was small, with numbers of workers fluctuating markedly over the year, varying with the state of demand according to the seasons, at the mercy of water power, affected by floods and droughts.‟ [135]

„Free labour‟ was much more profitable for the employers under such conditions than slave labour could ever have been. Both British and French merchant capitalism reaped huge profits from hundreds of thousands of slaves. The growth of the new mode of production would have been much slower without them. But slavery itself was only possible in certain sectors of a much wider international division of labour in which the mode of production based upon the exploitation of „free labour‟ predominated. The whole system rested on wage labour, for it was this which gave it its great advantage over previous modes of production.

Between two revolutions

The struggle between the old and the new did not end with the crisis of the 17th century, any more than with the crisis of the 14th century. In Germany, Italy and Bohemia the forces of production declined as old feudal forms of exploitation reconsolidated their hold. In France absolutism under Louis XIV recovered from the upheavals of the late 1640s to establish a stronger base than ever. The monarchy forced the great feudal families to accept centralised control by the state, although this meant that taxation increasingly competed with old feudal payments and dues in creaming off the surplus from peasant production. At the same time, it was able to persuade the richest sections of the bourgeoisie to expend much of their wealth on buying their way into existing society – through paying the monarchy itself for the right to noble status and the old aristocracy for feudal landholdings.

Even in Britain the revolutionary dictatorship of the army under Cromwell gave way to a series of compromises with the great landowners and merchants, the restored monarchy of 1660 and, when this began to show absolutist pretensions, the settlement of 1688. The new groups of exploiters who based themselves on forms of capitalist exploitation, pure or bastardised, urban or rural, were still too weak to impose their will on the rest of society without some reliance on forces below them which they came to fear [136], and most were prepared to put their trust in the aristocrats and gentry to keep order. By 1660 their attitude was that without a monarchy there could be no growth of trade. [137]

The defeats and compromises of the mid 17th century did not, however, destroy the trend towards capitalist development. In Britain it proceeded at a steady, if at first slow, pace in town and country for more than 100 years before accelerating massively at the end of the 18th century. The population of London increased 50 percent between 1650 and 1750, so that it became easily the biggest city in Europe. [138] Although 70 to 80 Percent of the population still worked in agriculture, it now „generated no more than 56 percent of the national incomes. Next to agriculture, textiles made the largest contribution to the national income.‟ [139]

The putting out system still dominated in textiles, but took on increasingly capitalist characteristics as big clothiers advanced at the expense of small ones, so that „the bulk of workers had no other resources but their labour.‟ [140] Meanwhile „more modern modes of production‟ were to be found in other industries which grew in this period, such as „brewing, glass manufacture, paper manufacture, refining of salt and sugar.‟ [141] Symbolic of the changes which were taking place was the growth of coal production as coal replaced wood in „soap making, brick manufacture, brewing, refining of salt, alum, and sugar and glass making.‟ [142]

In the early decades of the 18th century a seven fold increase occurred in the collier population of the southern area [of Lancashire] and in the maximum size of collieries there ... In the third decade in the neighbouring south western area an „industrial revolution‟ occurred in mining: massive growth, greatly increased scale of the units of production, technological innovation, increased productivity of labour, capital infusion, and fierce competition ... [143]

Across the whole range of industries innovation in terms of new ways of marketing and the production of new commodities was widespread. [144] The invention and spread of new technologies took place at a slower pace. Nevertheless, Schlumbohm can estimate rises in productivity for particular industrial processes ranging from 30 to 1,000 percent. [145]

In agriculture, the growth of capitalist methods of exploitation continued at an accelerating pace, here symbolised by the enclosure of land: in Leicestershire only 10 percent of land was enclosed in the 16th century; the crisis of the 17th century increased the pressure on poorer peasants to sell land to the landlords who could then rent it out; and where „voluntary‟ methods did not work, compulsion could be used – in 1721–1750 there were 100 parliamentary bills of enclosure, in 1750–1760 156, in 1760–1770 424, in 1770–1780 642. [146] The change in the methods of exploitation was accompanied by innovation in farming techniques: farmers responded to the price changes of the crisis years by growing crops like sainfoin, clover and turnips as well as grain, using new systems of rotation which enabled them to keep larger and better nourished herds. [147] The overall productivity of agriculture rose by between 13 and 25 percent [148], a „formidable achievement‟ [149] in a pre-industrial society.

Under French absolutism neither industry nor capitalist agriculture developed nearly as rapidly as in post- revolutionary Britain. As we have seen, the successful merchants very often used their wealth to try to buy their way into the old ruling class. Nevertheless, the shift was not all in one direction. The French bourgeoisie had not been nearly as damaged by the outcome of the wars and civil wars of the 17th century wars as had the German and Italian bourgeoisies. And the intelligentsia, including advisors to the monarchy and individual members of the aristocracy, were sufficiently impressed by the ability of the smaller British state to challenge French military might as to its way of running the economy as superior to their own. McNally shows in detail how the dominant economic school of mid 18th century France, the physiocrats, was concerned with how to push capitalist development forward in overwhelmingly agricultural France [150] – although his reliance on Brenner‟s ideas leads him to understate the degree to which capitalist development was already occurring in industry and agriculture.

By the end of the 18th century there were a million people involved in the rural textile industry:

Cloth was the country‟s foremost export, taking pride of place over grain and wine, enabling France to get the precious metals she herself did not produce ... The dispersed yet massive strength of the textile industry played a far more important role than its output (apparently not even 5 percent of the CNP) and the workforce (probably not much more than 5 percent of the population) would suggest. [151]

In addition, shipbuilding, iron and steel, coal mining, all advanced: „The overall rate of expansion (of industry) must have worked out at 60 percent for the 18th century as a whole.‟ [152] In a number of regions of the country capitalist and semi-capitalist agriculture began to develop, and with it the adoption of new forms of cultivation. [153]

Despite Brenner, France was not moving in the opposite direction to Britain, but in the same direction, at a slower pace. If France seemed relatively backward economically, this was not because it saw no advance in agriculture and industry, but because its global output targets were only about the same as its British rival which had only a quarter of its population. So it was that France saw the growth of both a big, merchant capitalist bourgeoisie and a host of smaller independent producers exploiting a few wage labourers in a capitalist or semi-capitalist manner. So it was that sections of the nobility began to invest in trade and, occasionally, large scale industrial production, just as merchants were investing in land. So it was, too, that a whole ideology could develop within mid-18th century French absolutism which saw capitalist forms of exploitation as more advanced than feudal ones. Braudel has quite correctly summarised the development:

The whole revolutionary ideology of the enlightenment ... was directed against the privileges of the leisured aristocratic class, defending by contrast, in the name of progress, the active population – including merchants, manufacturers and reforming landowners ... The idleness and uselessness of the high and mighty was compared to the industry and social usefulness of the active class. [154]

The French economy entered into a new period of crisis in the 1770s and 1780s. The collaboration between old and new exploiting classes was suddenly subject to same strains it had experienced throughout Europe in the crisis of the previous century. Once again a section of the old ruling class tried to protect itself by turning society backwards, and once again those associated with the new methods of exploitation were compelled, often despite themselves, to fight. A century and a quarter of continuing economic advance meant that the class alignments in the revolution that followed were less complex than those in the first half of the 17th century. But it still required leadership of genius, this time of the Jacobins, to construct a coalition of forces committed to reorganising society on the basis of the new, capitalist methods, in face of opposition from those bourgeois interests which had become most incorporated into the old society.

Conclusion

I have attempted to provide an overview of the transition from feudalism to capitalism. Marx‟s writings should never be regarded as holy writ by Marxists. He never had time to work out many of his ideas, he was quite capable of making mistakes in his reasoning and there have been considerable advances in historical knowledge since his time. But it is worth noting when he was right. In Capital he points to a four-fold origin of capitalism: in the growth of trade, in the use of free labour in manufacturing, in separation of the peasantry from the land, and in the „primitive accumulation of capital‟.

For Marx there was an interrelation between the four elements. They all arose from the way in which the growth forces of production within feudalism threw up new relations of production, relations which came into collision with the old society when it entered into crisis. These new relations did not displace feudal exploitation immediately, but ensured a longer or shorter transition period, in which periods of peace and even co-operation between old and new exploiting classes were interspersed with bitter conflicts, revolutions and civil wars. This enabled him to see how the bourgeois revolution is centred in the towns but is reinforced by the revolt of rural classes. It also enabled him to incorporate into his account the insights he had made 20 years before, when in The German Ideology he connected the rise of capitalism with the development of forces of production and when in The Communist Manifesto he traced the history of the bourgeoisie back to the medieval towns.

Marx never fully completed his account. As Schlumbohm has correctly noted, „Marx never really analysed ... the inner logic of pre-capitalist and transitional relations of production‟ [155], and so there are many gaps in his argument that need to be filled. That is no reason to retreat into counterposing one element in his approach to the others, as, in their own ways, both the Sweezy-Wallerstein school and the Brenner school do. Each ends up by revising parts of Marxism: the Sweezy- Wallerstein school by focusing on the „peoples‟ of the Third World rather than the international working class; the Brenner school by separating off the struggle between the classes from the material circumstances in which it takes place.

3/23/2020 https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/917990-print

emedicine.medscape.com

Gender Identity

Updated: Mar 16, 2015 Author: Shuvo Ghosh, MD; Chief Editor: Caroly Pataki, MD

Definitions

Gender identity and gender role

Gender identity is defined as a personal conception of oneself as male or female (or rarely, both or neither). This concept is intimately related to the concept of gender role, which is defined as the outward manifestations of personality that reflect the gender identity. Gender identity, in nearly all instances, is self-identified, as a result of a combination of inherent and extrinsic or environmental factors; gender role, on the other hand, is manifested within society by observable factors such as behavior and appearance. For example, if a person considers himself a male and is most comfortable referring to his personal gender in masculine terms, then his gender identity is male. However, his gender role is male only if he demonstrates typically male characteristics in behavior, dress, and/or mannerisms.

Thus, gender role is often an outward expression of gender identity, but not necessarily so. In most individuals, gender identity and gender role are congruous. Assessing the acquisition of this congruity, or recognizing incongruity (resulting in gender- variant behavior), is important in the developing child. It is important also to note that cultural differences abound in the expression of one's gender role, and, in certain societies, such nuances in accepted gender norms can also play some part in the definition of gender identity.

In order to understand gender identity development and related issues, definitions must be emphasized for clarity. The topic of gender identity is often discussed merely in terms of dysfunction, and the diagnosis of gender identity disorder is a known phenomenon in both children and adults.[1] However, physicians should remember that all individuals possess a gender identity and that the process of becoming aware of it is an important part of the psychosocial development of a child. In the realm of pediatrics, recognition of gender identity is a process rather than a particular milestone, and variance from societal norms can cause distress to both the child and the child's family. It is necessary to understand the varied pathways that lead to a mature and congruent gender role in order to fully assess a person's behavioral health.[2, 3]

Sex and gender

In the English language, the terms sex and gender are often used interchangeably in the vernacular. However, in a medical and technically scientific sense, these words are not synonymous. Increasingly, the term gender is being accepted to define psychophysiologic processes involved in identity and social role. Therefore, it is not uncommon to hear references to "gender" by professionals from numerous disciplines, including medicine, psychology, anthropology, and social science. Gender comes from the Latin word genus, meaning kind or race. It is defined by one's own identification as male, female, or intersex; gender may also be based on legal status, social interactions, public persona, personal experiences, and psychologic setting.

Sex, from the Latin word sexus, is defined by the gonads, or potential gonads, either phenotypically or genotypically. It is generally assigned at birth by external genital appearance, due to the common assumption that this represents chromosomal or internal anatomic status. When an intersex condition is noted in a newborn, one sex is often chosen with the intention of simplifying social interactions and rearing.

A person's sex is a primary state of anatomic or physiologic parameters. A person's gender is a conclusion reached in a broad sense when individual gender identity and gender role are expressed. An often-used phrase to point out the difference, while an oversimplification, has some merit when dealing with these definitions: Sexual identity is in the perineum; gender identity is in the cerebrum. Increasingly, the more subjective sense of gender identity takes precedence in evaluating patients’ needs. In instances when a discrepancy exists between sex and gender, compassion and empathy are essential to foster better understanding and an appropriate relationship between the physician and the patient. Conceptually, professionals dealing with development may fairly state that sex is biologically determined, whereas gender is culturally determined.

Note that just as gender and sex are not interchangeable terms, neither are gender development and sexual development interchangeable. Physiologic sexual development progresses through distinct stages from the neonatal period through infancy, childhood, puberty and adolescence, and adulthood. Such physiologic change is distinguishable from gender-related behaviors https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/917990-print 1/11 3/23/2020 https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/917990-print during each of these stages. The sexual identity that emerges beyond childhood is very clearly a separate entity from gender identity. Aspects of physical sexual growth, eroticism, and eventual sexuality, although closely related to gender, should not necessarily be used to draw conclusions about a patient's gender definitions.

Development of Gender Identity - Usual Patterns

Prenatal influences

A child's gender development, meaning maturation of gender identity, clearly begins in the intrauterine stage. Hormone-induced sexual dimorphism in the growing fetus probably plays a primary role. This is apparent in the fact that, most commonly, female sex corresponds with female gender, just as male sex and male gender are commonly linked.

Initially, all human fetuses are primed to have a female sex, in that the default pathway for development is toward female anatomy. During the eighth week of gestation, fetuses with a Y chromosome and a functional locus for the SRY gene product, also called the testes determining factor (TDF), undergo testicular development. This process converts the inherently female fetus into a male one, as a steadily increasing surge of testosterone is then produced by the testes. Much of the testosterone is converted to dihydrotestosterone, which is the key virilizing hormone during gestation. Along the biochemical pathway of hormone production, other recently identified gene products likely play an additional role in the masculinization of the fetus.

Further progression toward the eventual male phenotype occurs as antimüllerian hormone is produced, inhibiting the formation of müllerian ducts, which would lead to female genital development. The fetal brain is also affected by this process. MRI studies in human and animal models reveal that the corpus callosum, amygdala, cerebellum, and portions of the preoptic area of the hypothalamus are larger in brains exposed to intrauterine testosterone. Corresponding parts of the brain are smaller in female, or testosterone-deprived, fetuses. Indeed, in the absence of testosterone, the fetus continues its progression in the female state. Development of the ovaries and the female genital tract is likely triggered by follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), which is present in both male and female fetuses, but whose effect is superseded by the testosterone surge in males.

The gender identity of a fetus, and later of an infant, is still incomplete by definition. Until a self-conceptualization of such an identity can take place, it remains in flux. At the same time, current research indicates that, because of the expected hormonal exposure secondary to genetic sex, all newborns probably have a certain gender bias toward a particular gender identity. Predicting this based on external anatomy or on other factors is not completely accurate because no specific means exist to verify the presupposition. In a small minority of newborns, it is also possible that the gender bias is neutral, in which case it may remain so or may be modified via environmental and epigenetic (or other gene-influencing) mechanisms.

Rudimentary gender identity at birth, although incomplete, is an important determinant in gender development. The dimorphism of the brain itself suggests a strong biologic underpinning to eventual gender development in the vast majority of individuals. Nevertheless, variations may occur when endogenous or exogenous factors create a fetal environment in which hormone levels do not follow the genetically predetermined pattern. In such situations, the gender bias of these infants may be tilted away from one that correlates with the genotype. Such variations are discussed below.

Early gender development

The environment in which a baby is reared with respect to gender begins to take shape prior to birth. Prenatal ultrasonography now allows the sex of a fetus to be determined quite accurately by the second semester of gestation. Families who receive knowledge of the child's biological sex often use this information to tailor parental planning and reactions. Gender-specific names, items of clothing/toys, and even aspirations for the soon-to-arrive baby may differ depending on the anticipated sex. Thus, a preformed idea of the child's preferences is in place even before the child is delivered.

Upon assignment of sex at birth, a significant environmental role begins in gender development, as the parents usually rear the child as either male of female, with all of the associated social interactions. In recent years, the prevailing notion once fostered by John Money of Johns Hopkins University, that gender identity is malleable during the first years of life, after which it becomes irreversible, has been challenged. Whether particular gender identity is truly an inborn characteristic, or even if it remains unchangeable through the course of an individual's lifetime, has not yet been determined.

Several studies by Milton Diamond of the University of Hawai'i indicate that gender development reaches a critical point during childhood, after which it becomes extremely difficult to modify in most individuals. While there may be a number of children who do not clearly fit into a neat binary model of gender in which the polar extremes of behavior are reserved for those with clear sex and gender congruence, it is increasingly clear that gender identity is at the very least an intrinsic characteristic that emerges during early development.

For the moment, a number of proposed theories appear to have some validity. Note that these theories are neither mutually exclusive nor universally applicable, given the latest evidence. An epidemiologic approach to the human population as a whole cannot be reconciled with the very personal, and often unique, experience of gender development. As such, the current state of knowledge remains somewhat incomplete. https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/917990-print 2/11 3/23/2020 https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/917990-print Quite possibly, the multifactorial nature of mammalian development allows the inherent brain bias toward a particular gender identity to be molded during the first few years and, in some cases, perhaps even in later years. Clearly though, as gender development progresses in children, an acceptance and personal expression of a gender identity occurs. Traditionally, this has been called the core gender identity. Evidence suggests that this expression usually takes place by age 2-3 years. The gender role may not necessarily be well defined until age 5 years, although, in some cases, it is evident earlier. Although this concept and these reference-age ranges have been accepted for several decades, the full plasticity of gender identity has not yet been fully elucidated. Whether an absolute final point truly exists after which a gender identity is irrevocably fixed is still unproven.

During infancy, gender identity probably remains in the same incomplete stage in which it exists at birth. At this point, the parents create the gender role, and parental decisions play the largest part in determining environmental influences. Theories of social learning describe differing types of reinforcement in families. Opportunities to experience a variety of activities or restriction to sex-stereotypical ones may have some effect on gender development. Scientific evidence describes behavioral changes that occur when parents of either sex interact with male babies versus female babies. Females are touched and cuddled more; males are encouraged to play assertively with toys and balls. The disparity seems to be greater with fathers than with mothers.

Eventually, the concept of gender constancy develops in the growing child. This refers to the ability of a child to concretely differentiate between the genders, frequently occurring by age 2 years, at which time the first expressions of gender identity are commonly made. Gender constancy is thought to be achieved by age 6 years in nearly all children, barring those with specific variations from the usual pattern.

Continuing gender development

Throughout the rest of childhood and school years, a child's gender identity is typically reinforced by gender role. A preference for same-sex playmates usually manifests by age 3-4 years, and the gender role is better defined by subsequent interactions. A general assumption has been that boys typically prefer more rough-and-tumble activities, often involving physical aggression. Conversely, girls have been thought to prefer quieter activities, with greater reliance on fantasy and imagined situations. Research by Money, among others, seems to indicate that these assumptions are largely true in the examination of school-aged children. The school environment often serves as a model for society, and ascription to either a male or a female gender role is often presented there, as well as at home.

In recent years, significant strides have been made in the awareness of gender-variant behaviors in both boys (male anatomic sex) and girls (female anatomic sex). Typically, female gender variance has been well-tolerated in Western society, with "tomboys" faring reasonably well in school activities. However, male gender variance ("sissy boys") have not been looked upon favorably by families or society and have been more easily recognized. That such gender variance is biologically equivalent in boys and girls, and that it is not necessarily an indicator of gender identity disorder in childhood, is growing clearer. However, the converse is also true; insofar as such behaviors have associations with confusion or incongruence of gender identity, both girls and boys may experience such symptoms.

In adolescence, the influential factors of sexuality, personality traits or disorders, peer interaction, and anxieties are most important in gender development. The nascent gender identity, fostered from infancy to childhood by parents, is first strengthened by playmates, schoolmates, and others. It is usually enhanced by the pubertal development of a child who progresses into adolescence, with its accompanying physical confirmation of the internal self-image. Although many believe that gender identity is fixed in early childhood, it is more certain that, by late adolescence and early adulthood, an established gender identity is unquestionably in place. In the usual case, an accompanying gender role is well defined, and gender identity in the context of one's sexual identity is also clear.

Development of Gender Identity - Unusual Patterns

Conditions Resulting From Genetic or Hormonal Influences

Changes to the usual process of fetal development cause numerous differences in the resulting fetus. When levels of prenatal hormones are altered, phenotypic progression is also altered. The inherent brain bias toward one sex may be discordant with the genetic makeup of a fetus, or even with its external anatomic presentation. Other variations lead to psychologic stressors in later development but have their origin in the prenatal stage. A number of such conditions may ultimately affect a child's gender identity.

Chromosomal alterations

Two very well-described syndromes involving sex and gender, Turner syndrome and Klinefelter syndrome, result from chromosomal abnormalities.

Turner syndrome https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/917990-print 3/11 3/23/2020 https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/917990-print In Turner syndrome, one sex chromosome is missing, causing a single X karyotype (a solo Y chromosome is not compatible with life). Little evidence exists to suggest that hormone levels in utero are markedly lower than in the case of XX fetuses. The resultant XO individual is born with female external genitalia; however, in many such individuals, ovarian development is anomalous. Other characteristics usually include short stature, neck and chest anomalies, and cardiac defects.

A significant percentage of individuals with Turner syndrome have varying levels of mental retardation. This is clearly not true for all XO individuals. Many XO physicians practice in the United States. Female secondary sex characteristics often do not occur, and patients require exogenous estrogen intervention at the time of puberty. The vast majority of individuals with Turner syndrome are infertile.

Although gender identity is usually female, many XO individuals have significant psychologic stress because of their infertility, their appearance, and, in some, the awareness of their genetic profile, which may make them feel inadequate or incomplete as females. This, in turn, may cause some to feel confusion about or to question their gender role.

Klinefelter syndrome

Klinefelter syndrome occurs when the fetus possesses a sex karyotype of XXY.[4] Because of the presence of the Y chromosome and its components, fetal development is that of a normal male. However, as the child grows and approaches puberty, he experiences excessive gynecomastia, with low serum testosterone levels. Infertility is common, and general appearance is tall and thin. Gender identity is affected by these factors. In most cases, the gender role is, in fact, male; activities and rearing typically are also male.

A higher-than-expected percentage of individuals in the XXY cohort have been reported to have emotional disorders. Preliminary data indicate that a higher number of cases of gender identity disorder are specifically associated with Klinefelter syndrome; more research into this phenomenon is required.

Other chromosomal abnormalities

Many other chromosomal findings are described in the literature, including XYY individuals (the extra Y chromosome has been linked to excessively aggressive or antisocial behavior, with no question of confusion about gender identity, which is male). Mosaicism of sex chromosomes can also be present, including XX/XY persons who may present with the anatomic features of either sex or who may present as intersexed (with characteristics of both sexes). Another condition is termed gonadal dysgenesis, with partial formation of testicular and ovarian tissue. Each of these very uncommon situations requires a separate assessment of the patient's gender identity.

Hermaphroditism

People with anatomically intersexed conditions are at times referred to as hermaphrodites (or true hermaphrodites). The word was coined by John Money and has been popularized by him and other workers in the field such as Harry Benjamin. It stems from the Greek god Hermes (Roman Mercury) and goddess Aphrodite (Roman Venus) and parallels the name of their son, Hermaphroditos.[5] The term is now commonly used to describe those with specific gonadal or genital aspects of both sexes.

In the past, almost unequivocally, one sex was chosen for rearing, with all the advantages and disadvantages brought on by that process. Now, increasingly, some suggest allowing hermaphrodites to remain in the intersex state until self-determination can be made to either continue as such or choose a male or female gender role. The brain bias is a matter of conjecture until adequate research studies are completed. The plasticity of gender identity is most apparent in intersexed patients. Some consider themselves both male and female. Others, believing hermaphrodeity, or hermaphroditism, to be a unique third gender, consider themselves to be neither male nor female. Still others begin life comfortably in one gender role with no sense of incongruence, but during puberty begin to find themselves most comfortable with another gender role that is more consistent with a fully developed gender identity.

Congenital adrenal hyperplasia

Congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) is the classic prenatal variation to female fetal development and, in North America, has an incidence of 1:12,000-14,200 population. In patients with CAH, the fetus is exposed to abnormally high levels of cortisol produced by its own adrenal gland. An enzyme defect exists in the pathway by which cortisol is produced; any one of several particular defects can occur. This leads to a greater amount of androgenic adrenal hormone production. For normal XX female fetuses, the prenatal exposure to androgens results in virilization of female genitalia, in what has been called female pseudohermaphroditism.

At times, virilization is complete, with substantial clitoromegaly. In such cases, the genitalia are so masculine that male sex is mistakenly assigned to the newborn at birth. Soon, clinical findings and symptomatology reveal the defect in the adrenal gland and the true female genotype of the child. Serious salt-losing nephropathy may be the presenting problem in certain infants with definable biochemical defects with this disorder. Exogenous adrenocorticoids, as well as mineralocorticoids, in some instances, are used to treat patients once the diagnosis is known. https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/917990-print 4/11 3/23/2020 https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/917990-print Both the gender identity and gender role of females with CAH are controversial issues. Exposure to virilizing hormones would seem to cause a male brain bias, and evidence exists that this may be true. Several cases from the mid 20th century, when this diagnosis was more difficult and sometimes was not made until puberty, show that such infants were sometimes mistakenly raised as males, and their later gender identity and role were reportedly male.

Whether these cases truly constitute a diagnosis of gender identity disorder is not clear because of the hormone-induced changes and additional environmental influences involved during rearing. For the most part, gender identity in patients with CAH seems to remain consistent with the genetic profile. Genetic females with this condition have ovaries, so gonadal sex would be congruent with a female gender identity. The gender role can be more stereotypically masculine, with rougher play and a preference for male activities and dress. Further longitudinal studies are needed to assess the real impact of CAH on gender development.

Androgen insensitivity syndrome

When a normal Y chromosome with a fully functional SRY locus is found in a patient with dysfunctional androgen receptors, as is the case in androgen insensitivity syndrome, which has an incidence rate of 1 per 20,000 population, virilization of the fetus does not fully take place. Although testosterone is produced in utero, it cannot change cells that lack normal receptors. In complete androgen insensitivity, the fetus has a total absence of functional androgen receptors. Therefore, progression in the default path toward female genital structure continues uninterrupted. It is growing more common, and such individuals are referred to as XY females.[6, 7]

In such situations, genetically normal XY males have female external genitalia and appear to be normal females at birth. The testes are undescended, although the vagina is blind-ending with no uterus or ovaries. Subsequent gender identity and gender role are typically incongruent with the biologic sex of the patient. The diagnosis is rarely made in early life, and both brain bias and environmental influences in infancy and childhood generally create a female gender identity.

During puberty, the testes produce testosterone, some of which is converted to estradiol. Given that circulating testosterone is unable to exert any virilizing effects, unopposed estradiol allows female secondary sex characteristics to develop. Because of the lack of even the relatively few functional androgen receptors that genetic females possess, body hair and other androgen- induced changes that normally occur in females are absent.

The eventual appearance of these individuals is usually tall, devoid of body and facial hair, with a low percentage of body fat, thin hips, and fully developed breast tissue. The testes may be removed because of the risk for malignant conversion in undescended testicles. Some literature now suggests that surgery may be avoided if consistent and close surveillance of the testes by ultrasonography and serum levels of typical tumor markers (eg, alpha-fetoprotein) are monitored. If the testes are discovered and removed prior to puberty, hormone replacement therapy is required to induce the described changes, since no source exists for the secretion of sex hormones.

Apart from infertility from the female standpoint, this condition has no clinical sequelae. It must be noted that the testes may be a source for spermatozoa, but it is quite unlikely that XY females will ask for this intervention. As mentioned above, despite the incongruity with the genetic profile, almost all such individuals express a female gender identity and assume a normal female gender role. For many, their appearance is perhaps even closer to a media-idealized female form than typical XX females. Thus, the presence of a Y chromosome is frequently accepted as a biologic quirk rather than the source of psychologic distress.

In partial androgen insensitivity, on the other hand, variable degrees of receptor function result in differing degrees of hypoandrogenization, virilization, and phenotypic presentation. In this less common variant of receptor dysfunction, micropenis may be present, as may hypoplastic labia (given an external female appearance). Because anatomic clues are often used for gender assignment, the degree of masculinization (or lack thereof) often determines recommendations for child-rearing. However, long-term studies appear to support a significant level of gender dysphoria in individuals with partial androgen insensitivity. Unlike the complete androgen insensitivity syndrome, this variant has proven to be difficult to manage in terms of gender congruence.

5-Alpha-reductase deficiency

This, too, is an enzyme defect with effects during prenatal development. The incidence in North America is roughly 1:40,000. Lack of 5-alpha-reductase prevents the conversion of testosterone to dihydrotestosterone in normal male (XY) fetuses. Virilization is incomplete; the infant at birth appears female, although the external genitalia may be somewhat abnormal in size, shape, and color. The feminized phallus appears clitorislike, but the internalized gonads are normal and male, and androgen receptors are also fully functional. When the testes produce a surge of testosterone at puberty, bodily changes occur. A full conversion to male appearance is noted, with growth of the phallus. At this point, a female gender assignment quickly comes into question and then becomes clearly inappropriate.

Interestingly, the most striking cases of gender plasticity are observed in this patient population. Some of those who are raised as girls and who seemingly possess a female gender identity turn into males with puberty, converting to a male gender identity. Perhaps the brain bias for a male identity does occur with testosterone exposure prenatally, despite the inadequacy of genital virilization; it remains suppressed until puberty affirms it. https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/917990-print 5/11 3/23/2020 https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/917990-print Others have undergone orchiectomy and have been raised as girls, with exogenous estrogen in adolescence to induce female pubertal changes. Some of these patients express and retain a female gender identity. Still others are raised ambivalently and are given the knowledge that, at puberty, they will differentiate into male status. Some do require slight androgen supplementation to fully complete the virilizing process. No consensus yet exists as to which choice is preferable, and many professionals are equivocal about this population, advocating a case-by-case evaluation of circumstances to decide on intervention.

Genital Abnormalities and Related Phenomena of Gender Variance

Several rare conditions result in anomalous genitalia, either in form or function. Gender identity can be affected in some of these patients for a variety of reasons. One such situation is micropenis, in which a normal male is born with extremely small genitals. A small cohort of patients undergo botched circumcisions, causing phallic mutilation. Many parents in the past have been advised to allow these children to undergo surgery to construct female genitalia and raise them as girls. Case reports indicate that this is not necessarily the best option because most of such patients assigned a female gender develop a gender identity of male and wish to play a male gender role.

A similar situation is observed with cloacal exstrophy, in which intrauterine development of the urogenital structures is incomplete. Cloacal exstrophy has a North American incidence of 1:400,000. Males with this condition are born without a phallus, although testes are present. Reassignment of these children as females (earlier deemed appropriate because of a belief in neonatal neutrality of gender) has not been entirely successful because most demonstrate a desire for a male gender identity. Surgical and medical management, including orchiectomy, construction of a vulva, and exogenous hormone therapy to induce puberty, have classically been recommended for these patients. However, the gender role is frequently more masculinized than in their genetically female counterparts. Notably, this population appears to be very unpredictable in terms of later gender identity; therefore, a consensus recommendation for child-rearing has not yet been reached.

Even the relatively common condition of cryptorchidism may play a part in gender development. Cases exist of patients with undescended testes whose gender identity was questioned and development did not follow the normative path until psychologic intervention in later years. Such instances show that self-perception, personal knowledge about sex and gender, and comparison to societal standards can all be significant in the formation of a person's gender identity.

Subgroups of individuals also exist whose genitals have been deliberately altered. One such group consists of women who undergo female circumcision, a practice that is often termed female genital mutilation. This practice is found in many parts of Africa and sporadically in other areas of the world, as well as in the United States in the past. Severe alterations to the female external genital tract are performed as part of ritual tradition. In many of these individuals, the procedures are performed well after the expression of gender identity. Gender role is only confirmed by the practice, despite the injury to the genitalia.

Another subgroup is the hajra of India, who are eunuchs, males castrated during childhood and reared as neither male nor female. Lacking testes to induce pubertal development and through adherence to custom that effectively equals behavioral modification therapy, their gender role is mostly female. However, because of their prominent and unique status as a separate subgender, they are easily identified as such. This relegates them to a distinct role in society, and they are considered mystical creatures, to be kept apart. Their existence has been recorded for many centuries, with little information as to the origin of this practice. Whether their gender identity remains male is not well known, although most reported practices seem to indicate that their identity is in flux even in later years.

From a societal standpoint, reports also exist of tribes in both Africa and in Papua New Guinea where male individuals are raised for several years in a more typically female gender role, only to switch into a masculine gender role at the time of puberty. These individuals do not experience any alteration of genitalia but purely shift roles, which may or may not correspond to their gender identity. The shaman in North American aboriginal populations was often a gender-neutral or "bi-gendered" individual, and, in the ancient Middle East, there have been numerous reports of "third gender" persons who contributed to society in various specialized roles. Although, in some societies, there has been and remains outright ostracism for any type of gender atypicality or divergence from a strict male-female dichotomy, in many cultures throughout human history, gender variance has been recognized, tolerated, accepted, and even celebrated.

Gender Identity Disorders of Childhood

Overview

The collective synonym for these conditions is gender dysphoria or gender incongruence, and it occurs in both children and adults; the term transsexualism has also been used for those whose sexual identity is altered to match the gender identity. Transgenderism is gaining favor as a term to describe those who take on a gender role to match their gender identity, when it is at odds with their anatomic sex. Transgender also refers to the concept of being "between" genders, which may indicate either a pretransitional phase in which gender incongruence persists or a phase in which gender congruence is achieved by remaining undefined or androgynous in terms of gender identity. https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/917990-print 6/11 3/23/2020 https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/917990-print A number of other distinctive subtypes of gender identity presentations exist. Currently, there is debate about classification of these subtypes. Historically, gender identity disorder of childhood has presented with the greatest challenge for clinicians. Many discussions of gender development focus on this particular pathway for comparison with more common pathways.

As research in this field broadens and deepens, gender dysphoria is increasingly recognized as just one of the several atypical patterns of gender development. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) and International Classification of Diseases 10 (ICD-10) categorization of gender dysphoria as a purely psychiatric disorder is a difficult one because recent evidence has pointed to brain bias as a major determinant of gender identity. If, indeed, patients with gender identity disorders often have a brain bias consistent with their personal gender identity, then a reclassification is necessary. Ever-greater evidence seems to be mounting for this view, particularly in light of the extremely early age at which most cases of gender incongruence present.

At this point in time, most discussions of gender dysphoria remain in the realm of psychiatry; however, a valid argument can be made for more rigorous examination of these phenomena in terms of child development and behavior. These disorders are defined by a strong and persistent preference for the status and gender role of another gender. In the most fully expressed cases, this desire is manifested in transsexual behavior, where an adolescent or adult pursues hormonal and surgical sex reassignment to achieve phenotypic congruence with gender identity.

Physicians should distinguish all aspects of gender dysphoria from transvestism, or cross-dressing. The specific act of cross- dressing, in the absence of any true confusion about gender identity, is classified as a fetish or simple gender-variant behavior and, like many such behaviors, it may have no particular associations other than increased family anxiety. It is quite common to see school-aged children or teenagers who engage in varying degrees of cross-dressing, sometimes in relation to peer group activity or for creative expression. This behavior cannot be equated to gender dysphoria unless other specific criteria are met. Therefore, while most children with gender dysphoria do in fact cross-dress, the act of cross-dressing alone does not qualify a patient as gender dysphoric or suggest a specific diagnosis of any kind. It may be thought of as a distinct behavior that may sometimes be related to an underlying gender incongruence.

In the diagnosis of gender identity disorder of childhood, a referral for mental health assessment is made to address cross- gender behaviors. Most such children wear clothes of the opposite sex, play with toys typically preferred by the opposite sex, and have difficulty in same-sex peer interaction. Age of onset usually is in children younger than 5 years. Psychologic testing can be useful but is not used alone to make a diagnosis for children.

The etiology of this complex diagnosis is not clear. Several theories have been proposed, all associated with variation from the normative pathways described above. Because the current presumption is that gender dysphoria is a mental condition that occurs in otherwise genetically and hormonally normal individuals, psychologic explanations continue to play a major role in theories of causality.

Because of current societal intolerance of cross-gender behavior in general, most children with gender incongruence experience severe levels of distress as they grow. Many parents and relatives show little acceptance of any signs of gender dysphoria. As mentioned above, girls fare somewhat better than boys in this regard. Tomboyish behavior, or male stereotypical behavior in a girl, is often tolerated and even celebrated in some families. Boys who are inherently effeminate in appearance, behavior, or attitudes are often humiliated, teased, and hurt by peers and family members alike. However, as the behavior patterns progress into later childhood, an equal amount of distress is noted among male and female gender dysphorics.

Gender identity disorders of childhood or gender nonconformity of any type has been associated with increased risk for physical or sexual abuse, and post-traumatic stress in youth. It is important to properly explore these issues when evaluating or following a child with issues of gender identity.[8]

A number of studies suggest that most children with gender identity disorder do not grow up to have the diagnosis as an adult. Many develop a gender identity consistent with their anatomic sex. Some become homosexual or bisexual, while others may not. In spite of these suggestive findings, the numbers involved in all such studies are too small to allow any conclusive statements to be made. In order to counsel families and patients about the condition, a very individualized approach must be taken. The entire spectrum of possibilities ought to be discussed, and few predictions about prognosis or outcome should be made quickly or decisively.

Some psychologists offer behavioral treatment for cross-gendered children. Unfortunately, if brain anatomy is truly a crucial factor in a particular individual's gender identity and subsequent gender dysphoria, behavioral therapy designed to alter cognitive feelings and beliefs is likely not the optimal therapy. In fact, it may be harmful to the child's self-esteem and serves only to convince the child that his/her feelings are wrong, mistaken, or even evil. Special care must be given to the child in question, and again, a full and open presentation about gender identity must be provided to the parents.

Adolescents with gender identity disorder usually present similarly to adults. Their movement toward full transsexualism is often much clearer, and they no longer demonstrate initial childhood findings that are subsumed by family environmental issues. Those who present themselves honestly to physicians should be credited for their courage because the condition of gender dysphoria remains profoundly stigmatizing. Many retreat into closeted life-styles, and a significantly higher incidence of suicide has been linked with transsexualism. https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/917990-print 7/11 3/23/2020 https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/917990-print With greater awareness, tolerance, and acceptance of these individuals as part of society, some adolescents are able to take first steps into transgenderism, progressing to gender congruence either with or without surgical/medical interventions. In each case, a thorough evaluation of gender identity, preferred gender role, and a complete psychosocial history is needed to assess the situation. Standards of care have been outlined and modified by Harry Benjamin, MD, and these continue to be a well- respected management tool in evaluating and managing transsexualism. Decisions regarding hormonal or surgical management are made after a mental health assessment is completed.

ICD-10 Diagnostic Criteria for Gender Identity Disorder of Childhood

For girls

The individual shows persistent and intense distress about being a girl and has a stated desire to be a boy (not merely a desire for any perceived cultural advantages to being a boy) or insists that she is a boy.

Either of the following must be present: (1) persistent marked aversion to normative feminine clothing and insistence on wearing stereotypical masculine clothing, eg, boys' underwear and other accessories; (2) persistent repudiation of female anatomical structures, as evidenced by at least one of the following: an assertion that she has (or will grow) a penis, rejection of urinating in the sitting position, or assertion that she does not want to grow breasts or menstruate.

The girl has not yet reached puberty.

The disorder must have been present for at least 6 months.

For boys

The individual shows persistent and intense distress about being a boy and has a desire to be a girl, or, more rarely, insists that he is a girl.

Either of the following must be present: (1) preoccupation with stereotypic female activities, as shown by a preference for either cross-dressing or simulating female attire or by an intense desire to participate in the games and pastimes of girls and rejection of stereotypical male toys, games, and activities; (2) persistent repudiation of male anatomical structures, as indicated by at least one of the following repeated assertions: that he will grow up to become a woman (not merely in role), that his penis or testes are disgusting or will disappear, or that it would be better not to have a penis or testes.

The boy has not yet reached puberty.

The disorder must have been present for at least 6 months.

DSM-5 Diagnostic Criteria for Gender Dysphoria in Children

The DSM-5 criteria for gender dysphoria is as follows:[9]

A marked incongruence between one's experienced/expressed gender and assigned gender, of at least 6 months duration and manifested by a strong desire to be of the other gender or an insistence that one is the other gender or some alternative gender different than the assigned gender.

In addition, at least five of the following must be present:

In boys (assigned gender), a strong preference for cross-dressing or simulating female attire; or in girls (assigned gender), a strong preference for wearing only typical masculine clothing and a strong resistance to wearing of typical feminine clothing

A strong preference for cross-gender roles in make-believe or fantasty play

A strong preference for toys, games, or activities stereotypically used or engaged in by the other gender

A strong preference for playmates of the other gender

In boys (assigned gender), a strong rejection of typically masculine toys, games, and activities, and a strong avoidance of rough and tumble play; or in girls (assigned gender), a strong rejection of typically feminine toys, games, and activities

A strong dislike of one's sexual anatomy

A strong desire for the primary and/or secondary sex characteristics that match one's experienced gender

The condition is also associated with clinically significant distress or impairment in social, school, or other important areas of functioning. https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/917990-print 8/11 3/23/2020 https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/917990-print

Summary of Gender Development in Children

As stated above, clinical evidence seems to indicate that babies are indeed born with at least a basic underlying sense of gender identity. Early life provides cues and influences that may affirm or alter this brain bias. The usual course allows the later assumption of a congruent gender identity and role. Gender-variant behavior occurs when gender identity manifests itself in later life and is at odds with the child's sex. This is often a source of great distress because of caregiver fears of later homosexual or transsexual behavior.

The subject of gender assignment or the need for gender reassignment continues to cause heated debate among experts. Reassessment of current guidelines and recommendations continues. Reliance on many of the pioneering theories in the field without consistent follow-up research has allowed the study of gender identity to fall behind that of other psychiatric and human developmental topics. For the time being, the established recommendations, ie, individualized personalized counseling for patients and families, must remain until a broader set of guidelines can be recommended.

As interest in gender identity grows and further research into genetic, hormonal, and environmental factors that affect gender identity is undertaken, a better definition of what exactly makes a person male or female (or both, or neither) hopefully will be found. Increasingly apparent is the fact that greater information about gender identity as an integral part of personality serves only to help in understanding the human condition as a whole. Unusual variations have been described for centuries. Findings and observations over the past 50 years have allowed these variations to be more properly identified. In time, perhaps all the tangible elements of gender development will be known, and all variations, usual and unusual alike, will be comprehended fully.

Contributor Information and Disclosures

Author

Shuvo Ghosh, MD Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrician, Child Development Program, Division of General Pediatrics, McGill University Health Centre, Montreal Children's Hospital

Shuvo Ghosh, MD is a member of the following medical societies: Quebec Medical Association, Society for Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, Canadian Paediatric Society, Federation of Medical Specialists in Quebec, Society for Research In Child Development, American Academy of Pediatrics, Canadian Medical Association, Physicians for

Disclosure: Nothing to disclose.

Specialty Editor Board

Mary L Windle, PharmD Adjunct Associate Professor, University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Pharmacy; Editor-in- Chief, Medscape Drug Reference

Disclosure: Nothing to disclose.

Chief Editor

Caroly Pataki, MD Health Sciences Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, David Geffen School of Medicine

Caroly Pataki, MD is a member of the following medical societies: American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, New York Academy of Sciences, Physicians for Social Responsibility

Disclosure: Nothing to disclose.

Additional Contributors

Chet Johnson, MD Professor of Pediatrics, Associate Director and Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrician, KU Center for Child Health and Development, Shiefelbusch Institute for Life Span Studies; Assistant Dean, Faculty Affairs and Development, University of Kansas School of Medicine

Chet Johnson, MD is a member of the following medical societies: American Academy of Pediatrics

Disclosure: Nothing to disclose.

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Research Article Article OpenOpen Access Access Globalisation and Media Vineet Kaul* Department of Communication and Media, DA-IICT University, Near Indroda, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India

Abstract Whether we like it or not, whether we are ready for it or not, the phenomenon of globalization is more actual than ever. Needless to say that there are different ways to approach this hot topic, different levels of debate, different points of view. What is certain is that globalization is intimately connected to sharing information, media (especially new media) often being regarded as the main vehicle for its rapid expansion. Without gainsaying, globalization has impacted tremendously on the media and this article discusses a critique of globalization theory from the viewpoint of media. First it highlights the overall importance of media for the core argument of globalization’s far pervading effects and then it argues that unhistorical treatment of globalization lacks a critical materialist analysis of new media sphere. With the expansion and extension, the debates of impacts, effects and influences of globalization inevitably divide the world into centers and peripheries. This paper addresses the assumed functions of media in the backdrop of economic, cultural, technological and new media spheres developed in the recent decades. The paper also highlights some of the challenges that media has to face in a globalised world. This all is in the context of the rise of neoliberalism that overlaps with the development of globalization theory.

Keywords: Globalization; Media; New technology; Neoliberalism; the critics portray this term as a world with permeable borders. The Internet concept of globalisation is global and dominant in the world and it was not handed down from heaven, it was not decreed by the Pope, it did Introduction not emerge spontaneously. It was created by the dominant social forces In both scholarly work and public debate on globalization, the in the world today to serve their specific interests. Simultaneously these influence of media and particularly electronic media on social change is social forces gave themselves a new ideological name the - “international considered to be of paramount importance. In sociological and cultural community” - to go with the idea of globalisation (Madunagu 1999). analyses of globalization [1,2], media such as satellite television, the The critics argue that today’s globalisation is only superficially different Internet, computers, mobile phones etc. are often thought to be among from the old fashioned colonialism. Resistance to globalization is the primary forces behind current restructurations of social and cultural also not new; China has been resisting globalization since the Opium geography. Electronic media facilitate an increased interconnectedness War in which Britain arm-twisted the Middle Kingdom for the right across vast distances and a temporal flexibility in social interaction. to sell Indian opium in the mainland. How is this any different from Furthermore, development, imperialism and globalization are three US pressure on Beijing on WTO? The British saw India as a source of ideas which have been designed to interpret and change the world. raw materials for the empire, and a market for cotton. Today India is a They can frequently be seen rubbing shoulders in discussions of source of cheap labor in the sweatshops of the information technology international questions in the social sciences but what they mean to industry, and a huge market for consumer goods. Globalization is just each other is often anything but clear.The concept of globalization is imperialism in disguise, it has the same motive: control over resources one of the most debated issues since the collapse of communism. Most and the right of might. discourse on globalization acknowledges that it is an ‘uneven’ process. Some “anti-globalization” groups argue that globalization is Its effects and consequences are not uniformly experienced everywhere necessarily imperialistic, is one of the driving reasons behind the in the world and there is a ‘power geometry’ of globalization in which Iraq war and is forcing savings to flow into the United States rather ‘some people are more in charge of than others; some initiate flows than developing nations; it can therefore be said that “globalization” is and movement, other’s don’t; some are more on the receiving-end of another term for a form of Americanization, as it is believed by some it than others; some are effectively imprisoned by it and there is going observers that the United States could be one of the few countries (if not to be an imbalance of power when dealing with two nations. The the only one) to truly profit from globalization [6]. rapid acceleration of globalization has for long been associated with technological advancement and the international market. On the one hand there is the tendency towards homogeneity, synchronization, integration, unity and universalism. On the other hand, there is the *Corresponding author: Vineet Kaul, Department of Communication and Media, DA-IICT University, Near Indroda, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India, Tel: 091- propensity for localization, heterogeneity, differentiation, diversity 9825934642; Fax: 26831400; E-mail: [email protected] and particularism detrimental to development. These processes are Received November 28, 2011; Accepted December 21, 2011; Published intricately interwoven and represent - in reality - two faces of the same December 23, 2011 coin. Thus the term “globalizations” is sometimes used to indicate that Citation: Kaul V (2011) Globalisation and Media. J Mass Communicat Journalism globalization is not an ubiquitous or uniform process, but involves 1:105. doi:10.4172/2165-7912.1000105 various terrains, manifests differently in various contexts and has Copyright: © 2011 Kaul V. This is an open-access article distributed under the different effects for people in different contexts [3-5]. terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and The modern epoch opened as an era of globalization. Most of source are credited.

J Mass Communicat Journalism ISSN: 2165-7912 JMCJ, an journal Volume 1 • Issue 1 • 1000105 Citation: Kaul V (2011) Globalisation and Media. J Mass Communicat Journalism 1:105. doi:10.4172/2165-7912.1000105

Page 2 of 6

We see globalization as the extension of trends and influences media and particularly electronic media on social change is considered (such as ideas, concepts, knowledge, ethics and technology as well to be of paramount importance. In sociological and cultural analyses as behaviors) across erstwhile barriers (ethnic, linguistic, cultural, of globalization [1,2], media such as satellite television, the Internet, religious, political or environmental). It must be emphasized that computers, mobile phones etc. are often thought to be among the globalization is not merely a homogenizing and integrating force but primary forces behind current restructurations of social and cultural it is also blamed for problems plaguing nations and individuals. We geography. Electronic media facilitate an increased interconnectedness see that the global environment is being threatened on a number of across vast distances and a temporal flexibility in social interaction. fronts, from global warming and the deterioration of the ozone layer Furthermore, a handful of media enterprises and media moguls such to the extermination of species and the poisoning of the world’s water as Time-Warner-AOL, Disney, Rupert Murdoch, and Bill Gates have supply. Other economic consequences as a result of globalisation are become icons of globalization. These media companies and actors the loss of jobs to developing countries such as China and India, where both have ambitions of global market domination and serve as the labour costs are cheaper. A lot of American and British based countries messengers of a new global era. Particularly the transnational news opt to have their products manufactured abroad to save money and services with a global or regional reach, such as CNN, BBC World, hence increase profits. The globalisation of the world is stimulating Euronews, Sky News, and Star News, have come to be regarded as the massive amounts of investment by the transnational corporations town criers of the global village. Their continuous, on-line, and live which are “acting like a dynamo to produce more jobs and higher distribution of news to all corners of the world has become emblematic profits world wide”. Often workers rights are not agreed and working of a world in which place and time mean less and less. conditions of those in developing countries manufacturing work out There is a well defined second tier of media conglomerates which sourced by that of developed countries is poor. Everyday life has been are increasingly competing on the international level through foreign Disneyfied, McDonaldized and Coca-Colonized (see Ritzer, 2004 and investment, mergers, and acquisitions. Half of these corporations are Barber, 1996). The iconography associated with global brands such as based in North America while the others are based in Western Europe Microsoft, McDonald’s, Nike or Pizza Hut transcends both space and and Japan. Second tier corporations include, Dow Jones, Gannett, language. Branded goods are manufactured in the far-east in ‘sweat Knight-Ridder, Hearst, and Advance Publications, and among those shops’ where employees work for very low wages. Millions of people are from Europe are the Kirch Group, Havas, Media-set, Hachette, Pisa, unable to sustain their families since jobs are often moved from country Canal Plus, Pearson, Reuters and Reed Elsevier. Then, merger mania to country by large trans national organisations so therefore employees seems to be the rule of day when it comes to multinational corporations. are often only employed on a temporary basis, money therefore flows It is noticed that sixty or seventy first and second tier multinational from one country to the next as factories and jobs are transferred from corporations control a major portion of the world’s media in the one to country to the next, with investment being given and taken areas of publishing, music, broadcasting, television production, cable, away. Many of us have a gut feeling that the global economy has gone satellite distribution, film production, and motion picture theater awry essentially calling for wholesale murder and maiming of innocent exhibition. The effect of the spread of multinational media corporations populace. has resulted in cultural imperialism, a loss of local cultural identity. The Global media systems have been considered a form of cultural global commercial-media system is radical in that it will respect no imperialism. Cultural imperialism takes place when a country dominates tradition or custom, on balance, if it stands in the way of profits. others through its media exports, including advertising messages, films, According to researcher George Gerbner, the most successful and television and radio programming. America’s dominance in the television programs are no longer made for national consumption but entertainment industries made it difficult for other cultures to produce rather for international distribution. Gerbner further noted that content and distribute their own cultural products. Supporters of American is affected by the desire to increase the marketability of international popular culture argue that the universal popularity of American media television program distribution. Programs that contain violent material products promotes a global media system that allows communication are considered to “travel well” according to Gerbner (Jhally, 1994). to cross national boundaries. American popular culture in addition In contrast, comedy programs which may be quite successful in the challenges authority and outmoded traditions. Critics of American United States do not necessarily do well in other countries. Comedy culture contend that cultural imperialism prevents the development is culturally defined, and what is deemed funny by one cultural group of native cultures and has a negative impact on teenagers. There has may in fact be offensive to another. In comparison, violent material has been much debate in international fora, in academia and among media a very simple story line of good versus evil. It is universally understood professionals over the question of the potential threat to indigenous and in many ways culturally transparent. culture by the unprecedented global penetration of the new media technologies resulting from the enormous capacities for information The trends and effects of media globalization will continue to be access, transmission and retrieval, referred to by Rex Nettleford as ‘the both observed and debated by communication scholars, sociologists, hijacking of the region’s media, the invasion of the people’s intellectual economist, and politicians alike. With the fall of communism in the space and the cultural bombardment of the entire region by every means USSR in August of 1991, private investment and the proliferation of possible from North America….’. In the past decades, international multinational corporations has continued to march across Europe aspects of mass media were being discussed by scholars and intellectuals and the other continents of the world. The trend of continuing media under the auspices of UNESCO. Today, the Media has transformed into globalization has showed no recent signs of retreat. Both critics and a business that is dominated by mass-media corporations promoting advocates of media globalization agree that there is fierce competition their own interests at the level of individual administrations. In both taking place between the first and second tier corporations. The smaller scholarly work and public debate on globalization, the influence of regional second tier corporations don’t want to lose market share to

J Mass Communicat Journalism ISSN: 2165-7912 JMCJ, an open access journal Volume 1 • Issue 1 • 1000105 Citation: Kaul V (2011) Globalisation and Media. J Mass Communicat Journalism 1:105. doi:10.4172/2165-7912.1000105

Page 3 of 6 the larger multinational corporations. It seems that market forces and investment, portfolio investment, and rapid and widespread diffusion shrewd political maneuverings on the part of multinational media of technology. Proponents of globalization argue that it enhances corporations will determine the competitive landscape of the future. economic prosperity and leads to more efficient allocation of resources, While this fierce battle is taking place in the corporate boardrooms of which, in turn will result in higher output, more employment, lower some of the world’s largest multinational corporations, communication prices and higher standard of living. However, some critics worry researchers search for a theoretical basis to interpret various phenomena about the resulting outsourcing and off-shoring, which have destroyed related to global mass media. What follows is a variety of theoretical the American manufacturing sector. perspectives from scholars that are addressing these questions. Economic aspects of globalising trends always have an impact on all other subcategories–cultural and technological aspects. The latest The globalisation of media, primarily since the Second World War, economic trends are closely bound up with politics; and among them we has had an unprecedented impact on the structure of power relations can mention implications of the neoliberal economic theory in general, within the media sector and the way in which culture is produced, concentration of the media and their ownership and the rationalizing reproduced and disseminated globally. The immense concentration of processes associated with the so-called McDonaldisation. The cultural media ownership as a result of media globalisation through deregulation aspects include commercialisation, the so-called Disneyfication and privatisation of media markets and the proliferation of new media (analogously to McDonaldisation–the nexus between culture and technologies have centralized power amongst media organisations. consumerism) and especially cultural imperialism. Regarding the The concentration of media ownership has resulted in the creation of technological aspect, we have to stress the process of digitalisation and a global media oligopoly; this process has reordered power relations the increasing multimedialism. within the global media system almost exclusively toward this group. According to many scholars, one of the pillars of today’s economic Due to the creation of this oligopoly the diversity of media content order Neoliberal economic theory and its implications are one of the disseminated through global media flows has been diminished, with pillars of today’s economic order. Neoliberalism, as the appellation huge cultural implications. A dialectic has emerged whereby the global indicates, is new liberalism. Liberalism in its classical form was media flows have two, seemingly contradictory, effects on culture. developing from the 18th century onwards, and its essence was “laissez While the global media system disseminates capitalist consumer culture faire– laissez passer”, to let things progress freely. Although the so-called globally and uniformly having a homogenizing effect, it simultaneously invisible hand, as the guiding principle of the economy was designated has the effect of creating new hybrid cultures as a result of global as an elementary premise of primal economic theory and political flows of people and the interpretation of media flows. However, economy, it proved to have some questionable implications and impact neither homogenisation nor hybridisation attempt the preservation of on the developments in society. In the period after World War II., traditional cultures, homogenisation attempts to suppress them whilst since when the outset of current globalisation dates, a new movement hybridisation may subvert by incorporating them into new hybrid has been evolving, one that allows state intervention in the economic cultures. It is the future of traditional cultures to which the proliferation process. The rejection of state intervention in the economy, one of of media globalisation poses the greatest threat and how such cultures the basic liberal principles, remains in place–when that intervention can be preserved will be an important question for future theory on takes the form of the welfare state. But state intervention is allowed to media globalisation. promote the effective functioning of the market mechanism and the Although news media increasingly transcend national borders, this related maximization of profits. does not in itself create a public sphere at a transnational or global level. But neoliberalism is much more than just an economic theory. It is As a starting point, the following paradox can be observed regarding a political and social theory as well, one that has its social impact, and the relationship between the development of the news media and the this impact is of course felt in the field of mass-media communication as public sphere: Due to the growth in transnational and global news well. Everything has to be directed to the satisfaction of the demands of media, public opinion formation occasionally transcends national the media-conglomerates owners. This reality does not have to manifest borders and acquires a political momentum of its own at a global level. itself as a direct intervention in the form of censorship; what is decisive However, compared to the globalization of politics, economy and is the manner in which the journalists operate or in which the print, TV, culture, the public sphere and the formation of public opinion are still audio, film or multimedia production occurs in general. Neoliberals very much tied to a national level and oriented toward national political promote the opening up of international markets and borders and institutions. This seemingly contradictory development has provided consequently, support the uncomplicated flow of capital (including that support for very different interpretations of current media changes. The of communication). These phenomena result in the steadily advancing idea that the rise of global media has instituted a global public sphere concentration of media ownership, enabled by the breaking up of the has both been proclaimed and denounced by media scholars, and both barriers in the process of the creation of media mega-conglomerates– sides have actually been able to provide some empirical support for the process of de-regulation (although this process itself goes against their interpretations. However, the apparent inextricability of these the primary postulates of neoliberalism, as it disrupts the basic principle opposing viewpoints may – at least to some extent – be due to a lack of of market mechanism, namely competition). Closely related to this theoretical consideration of how current transformations in the social is a tendency of media owners towards monopolisation, integration geography of media may be conceptualized and establishment of immense media enterprises. Moreover the fewer players there are on the market; the easier it is to dictate prices. But with Economic Aspects less competition, the quality of production and the products themselves In economics, globalization engages in various aspects of cross- could decrease. Owners of monopolies are acquiring an even greater border transactions, free international capital flows, foreign direct economic, political and social power.

J Mass Communicat Journalism ISSN: 2165-7912 JMCJ, an open access journal Volume 1 • Issue 1 • 1000105 Citation: Kaul V (2011) Globalisation and Media. J Mass Communicat Journalism 1:105. doi:10.4172/2165-7912.1000105

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The third most common economic trend is the so-called members and the widening of the competencies of the Union, McDonaldisation. In brief, it can be defined as a process of enterprise seems an especially opportune moment to bring together the rationalization in capitalistic societies that is driven by material and measures which promote diversity, a real characteristic of the economic interest. McDonaldisation means comparatively lower European culture, with the necessary strengthening of identity. expense with higher gains. This system is directly connected to the U.S. Of course globalization has many impacts on local culture worldwide. system of market economy. It is clear that the principles of efficient One of the positive aspects is that there is a spreading of information, production in a consumer society are higher revenues. One of the there is cultural exchange and this can lead to a cultural growth symbols of this phenomenon is a system of economizing production worldwide. But there also is another aspect of cultural globalization: invented by the U.S. fast-food restaurant chain McDonald’s and has many see globalization of culture as an Americanization of different influence on many sectors of the U.S. and other societies. cultures. We can come up with Disneyfication (some authors call this Cultural Diversity phenomenon of “Disneyisation”), which is parallel to McDonaldisation, mainly in the cultural and the artistic field of consumer society. It is believed that commercialisation and an oligopolised media According to this trend the world resembles a Disneyland-style theme structure are definitely a threat to diversity and sovereignty of any park more and more. It is a nice, sweet, entertaining world without nation. The porosity of cultural boundaries engendered by media problems, a world without real life. Everything looks the same as if it globalization has given rise to concerns over cultural sovereignty and was produced from a single assembly line. It is similar for today’s mass cultural rights. While such concerns have been dismissed by proponents culture. of globalization as unfounded, for developing countries, the economic reality of which preclude the development of strong local productions Critics mention some aspects of Disneyfication: a) the concentration and so foster reliance on imported programming, these concerns and growth of the power of Western popular culture (the relevance are quite relevant. Research has shown that where local productions of the regional and smaller cultures is decreasing); b) everything is are weak, inroads made by foreign media can be dangerous. Media stereotyped, looks similar; c) exporting the Western perception of exacerbates this reliance and encourages the inflow of entertainment to the whole world and supporting consumerism under imported content on the principle that within a free market system, the slogan “buy, buy, buy!”; d) it has implications not only in culture but there should be no barriers erected against the free flow of cultural in architecture and society in general. products across borders. Most importantly, as private media rely heavily The other phenomenon in this category is commercialization which on advertising money for economic viability, there is a constant stream means the adaptation of media content to the wishes of the popular of cultural goods that inundate the local scene by way of paid television audience and to the wishes of advertisers. The volume of advertising commercials. These cultural products are rife with images reflecting in the context of globalisation is close to 350-400 billion dollars, the cultural values and expectations concordant with the countries of financial volume of the whole media business is much greater. Now, the origin and are at odds with the cultural and economical realities of advertising market is at the same time controlled by only a few “super- receiving countries. ad agency-owning companies”. New media contents and formats are The media have become the chief transmitters of culture. The being produced and they are the face of this commercialization (reality traditional showcases of culture – museums, theatres, art galleries shows, series and movie production).The primary principle is to or libraries – have handed over part of their functions to the cinema produce a successful product aimed at a large audience. screens, television or computers; media where culture has greater Similarly, youth are the subject of a massive cultural assault from distribution and scope, since the images reach broader, more the unending flow of American television, magazines, books, films and heterogeneous and widespread audiences. Cultural diversity is music which bombard them daily. Here, culture is defined as ‘a learned recognized externally and internally, both by the prevailing institutions system of meaning and symbolizing which defines the unique identity of civil society and by the awareness of the group itself as different to the of a people’. whole in some expressions. The preservation of this diversity is one of the challenges with the homogenizing risk of a globalized world, where The last process that changes the face of media and culture in uniform cultural patterns are present. The following measures should these times at the turn of the millennium is the so-called cultural be adopted in defense of cultural diversity: imperialism. In assessing this The Latest Globalisation Trends in Media phenomenon, we can start with the encyclopedia definition–it is the • The political-social context itself, which plainly requires practice of promoting the culture and language of one nation or country recognition on the part of cultural minorities, recommends the in another country. The smaller culture is to be absorbed by the bigger, adoption of measures favouring and facilitating the expression economically, militarily or politically stronger one. Since the 18th and of the different social groups through the media. 19th centuries we can highlight the promotion of the English language culture and the growing power of corporations as the most distinct • The rapid expansion of the new technologies, especially manifestation of cultural imperialism. Even so, during the course of the digitalization of the audiovisual media and Internet, the 20th century other cases of cultural imperialism occurred as well. offers opportunities for production, distribution, access and We can mention the Chinese repression of the Tibetan culture or the participation of the media products which must be urgently actions of the Soviet Union in the former Eastern bloc states. We should exploited. stress, however, that these processes were based on completely different • The present situation of the process of European integration, premises and were executed in a violent way without the consent of with the prospects of the expansion of the number of its these nations. Today the largest exponents of the “new form of cultural

J Mass Communicat Journalism ISSN: 2165-7912 JMCJ, an open access journal Volume 1 • Issue 1 • 1000105 Citation: Kaul V (2011) Globalisation and Media. J Mass Communicat Journalism 1:105. doi:10.4172/2165-7912.1000105

Page 5 of 6 imperialism” are the countries of the West and the U.S. The principle of and represents great challenges, as well as hopes for the future of the this phenomenon is the spread and the “gate-keeping” of information as electronic media. Part of digital broadcasting will be, besides audio and well as the entertainment industry. video, other data in the form of text, other audio channels etc. Through digital television you can choose from what camera angle you would Technological Aspects like to watch Formula 1 championships, with just a click you can vote Technological change has always been the principal force shaping the in a question poll about the popularity of a government or choose from evolution of the media. Each of the past revolutions in communications the eight screens of the Sky News channel. technology created distinct media forms that evolved into their own Technologically promising is the growing multimedialism industries. In the last few years, technological achievements in the (connecting several types of media on one platform) and the context of globalisation of media environments, gained in prominence. interactivity of the whole spectrum of today’s media. It touches Right now the process of digitalisation is one of the fastest moving television, multimedia web broadcasting and even print (for example trends of the current media and represents great challenges, as well in the online editions of dailies, where there are constantly growing as hopes for the future of the electronic media. . However, content is demands on the quality of the work of journalists. They have to write becoming increasingly digitalised: whatever the type of signal, it can for print editions and online editions, they have to take photos and all become undifferentiated bits of data converged onto the same record audio files). platform. This trend is bringing sweeping changes and unprecedented levels of complexity to the current media business model. Part of digital The technological innovations of the last decade have also permitted broadcasting will be, besides audio and video, other data in the form of the appearance of thematic channels distributed by cable, satellite or by text, other audio channels etc. Through digital television you can choose hertzian waves. In this way, the television companies from the US have from what camera angle you would like to watch with just a click you introduced their most international models; news and finance (CNN, can vote in a question poll about the popularity of a government or MSNBC and Bloomberg), music (MTV), documentaries (Discovery and choose from the eight screens of the Sky News channel. National Geographic) and cartoons (Cartoon and Disney). These “niche” channels, although not reaching huge audiences, can have an influence Technologically promising is the growing multimedialism on the mentality, values and culture of European citizens. (connecting several types of media on one platform) and the interactivity of the whole spectrum of today’s media. It touches television, multimedia The United States also holds a position of leadership in the web broadcasting and even print (for example in the online editions of advertising industry, to the point that a communication company dailies, where there are constantly growing demands on the quality of cannot consider itself truly global if it does not have an important the work of journalists. They have to write for print editions and online presence in that market. The report World Advertising Trends 2001 editions, they have to take photos and record audio files). Interactivity is provides some interesting figures: in 1990, advertising spending in the more dynamic in the new media, which are technologically developed United States and Canada reached a quota of 43.5% of the world market; to consider the feedback of recipients. Interactivity in the new media is the European percentage was set at 32.6% and that of Asia/Pacific at closely connected with the decentralisation of media communication 21.2%. Ten years later, the figures showed a similar picture: the market as the recipient is taking an active part in content production. A crucial quotas of USA/Canada, Europe and Asia/Pacific were of 43.7%, 29.8% interactive medium is the -the Internet. Trends in and 19.2% respectively; the rest of the countries slightly increased their internet journalism and environment can be generally characterized market quota during the decade at the expense of Europe and Asia/ with three processes: diversification, convergence (merging of several Pacific, whilst North America consolidated its leadership. types of media, electronification, computerization and digitalisation of Interactivity is more dynamic in the new media, which are all media–print and audiovisual) and integration within the framework technologically developed to consider the feedback of recipients. of the Internet. All of these processes create entirely new media with Interactivity in the new media is closely connected with the added content value. The technology goes further: the Internet is decentralisation of media communication as the recipient is taking available on your cell phones, mobile phone operators offer live TV an active part in content production. A crucial interactive medium feeds, radio broadcasting etc. Internet combines audio, video, text and is the World Wide Web-the Internet. Trends in internet journalism the communicant (recipient) can, with his feedback, make up the web and environment can be generally characterized with three processes: content. diversification, convergence and integration within the framework Technological Innovations of the Internet. All of these processes create entirely new media with added content value. The technology goes further: the Internet is Media convergence is not just a technological shift or a technological available on your cell phones, mobile phone operators offer live TV process; it also includes shifts within the industrial, cultural, and social feeds, radio broadcasting etc. Internet combines audio, video, text and paradigms that encourage the consumer to seek out new information. the communicant (recipient) can, with his feedback, make up the web Convergence, simply put, is how individual consumers interact with content. others on a social level and use various media platforms to create new experiences, new forms of media and content that connect us socially, Impact of the New Technologies and not just to other consumers, but to the corporate producers of media Digital technology multiplies the possibilities for the transmission in ways that have not been as readily accessible in the past. In the last of contents, offering new opportunities for the promotion of few years, technological achievements in the context of globalisation of cultural diversity. The analysis of the situation cannot be based on a media environments, gained in prominence. Right now the process of technological determinism dealing exclusively with technical and digitalisation is one of the fastest moving trends of the current media industrial considerations, and the way in which the new technologies

J Mass Communicat Journalism ISSN: 2165-7912 JMCJ, an open access journal Volume 1 • Issue 1 • 1000105 Citation: Kaul V (2011) Globalisation and Media. J Mass Communicat Journalism 1:105. doi:10.4172/2165-7912.1000105

Page 6 of 6 can influence culture in the countries must be taken into account. important to stress that the Internet is providing an endless list of Without attempting to cover everything, the main tendencies are options in the development of local media environments. The blogs considered as under: are also a phenomenon that already leads to the growth of diversity, which is enabling free speech and defending the independence of • Despite the fact that, in the midterm, traditional media will media content. The Internet is increasingly a part of our media and probably continue to have the greatest incidence in the spreading our telecommunication systems. Real technological convergence is of cultural values, the digitalization of the media opens up taking place. It is the time of mergers between the traditional media perspectives for the distribution of contents which will mean an and telecommunication companies, as well as by each of these with the increase in the cultural diversity of the media. However, there is Internet and computer enterprises. Internet can be a catalyzer for social a tendency towards the implantation of pay media which could mobilisation within a digital space in which the individual experiences mean that access to the contents is restricted for a great part of a frame to a cognition state in which they become more passive and the society, who do not have sufficient resources. This tendency receptive to the message. Remediation is a new theory characteristic must be counteracted especially by the public ownership media. of internet meaning it constantly includes other forms of media and • The digitalization and convergence of the media offer new audiences expect transparency which on the contrary transforms in possibilities for increasing cultural diversity, such as the number double-remediation. Should citizens become aware of this specific of channels, the user’s direct access to the contents, the greater nature of Internet, communication is immediate possibility for subtitling or dubbing and the new routes for the The electronic media and communication sector, which ranges distribution of contents. from telecommunication networks and the Internet, through to radio, • The Internet is an especially appropriate medium for the television and film, is itself among the most active in the current drive for transmission of cultural contents, including that for even the the globalization of production, markets and trade. Although varying smallest minority, given that it notably increases the possibilities among the subsectors, its rate of expansion has been phenomenal, the for choice for the public and offers immediate access. The centralization of ownership has been among the most marked, the Internet can facilitate the presence in society of universities, transition from national public ownership to global private ownership cultural associations and other organisations of diverse nature, is almost total and international trade (facilitated by the rebranding of which develop interesting cultural activities. telecommunication services as “tradable goods”) has expanded apace. This has been accompanied by the reorganization of hardware, software • In the area of multimedia contents (Internet, DVD and and content production, and the global redistribution of activities. videogames), as well as the digital television channels, the present situation of dependency of European markets with New technologies have significant influence on traditional respect to North American and Japanese production, is a electronic media, print publishing and the work of journalists in all the serious risk for the restriction of cultural diversity in Europe. media. The whole media production is dependent on new technologies: In order to confront this situation, the European audiovisual books, newspapers, broadcasting etc.-all of them are accessible not only sector must be involved as a priority in the development of in the original form, but on a PC, a notebook or a cellular phone as well. contents for this medium, especially of those which include It helps to create McLuhan’s “global village” and allows the globalisation interactive applications based on connection to the Internet. of media culture. The current predominance of North American contents – as a Policy and Research Recommendations consequence of their leadership in the cinema industry, implies a serious Taking into account new perspectives of reflexive-modernity and risk of the deterioration of European cultural diversity. In order to the individualization of the society [7-9] it can be recommended the confront this situation, the European audiovisual sector must especially creation and promotion of ‘tailored policies’ to consider individual influence the development of contents with interactive applications needs and allow feedback. That is following the understanding of the for DVD, based on connection to Internet, whilst promoting the citizen as a consumer for the neoliberal consumption society that consolidation of strong companies, which use all the Net’s potential for frames most of global citizenship digital activism. the distribution of audiovisual works. • Research shows there are global concerns about forms of • European leadership in the area of digital television offers social inequality and their impact on public services. Access to favourable ground for the development of home-grown cultural “public services tend to reproduce patterns of social inequality” contents which enjoy public preference. This situation can also especially in issues of race, ethnicity and gender. encourage the development of multimedia contents related to the most successful television programmes. • Media reinforces and reproduces meanings of ‘otherness’ without policies to reduce and if possible eliminate inadequate A New Phase–the Internet messages. Citizens need to “be aware of how television and Although, regarding the freedom of speech, the Internet was for Internet control the barriers of meaning” and thus to manage a long period of time a very promising medium, this is not such a the messages mediated by mass media. Audience ethnographies straightforwardly acceptable view today. Yes, it is true that everyone is has researched the influence of television as a socializing agent allowed to create his own or blog, but it is open to question of the Asian diaspora. Thus, media can reproduce the local whether anyone else will visit it. The loss of freedom and the aspect cultural hegemony; policies need to address the global reality of cultural imperialism bring about the result that the most popular of a multicultural and hybrid society respecting cultural are of U.S., western and corporate origin. However, it is differences.

J Mass Communicat Journalism ISSN: 2165-7912 JMCJ, an open access journal Volume 1 • Issue 1 • 1000105 Citation: Kaul V (2011) Globalisation and Media. J Mass Communicat Journalism 1:105. doi:10.4172/2165-7912.1000105

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• In the context of the global crisis, there is a growing scholarly societies. The discourse of media can be analysed in basic debate about for the end of the nation-state and the benefits terms: sacred/profane, the right/wrong following principles of of the welfare state. Government budgets need to plan and sociology. This can decision-makers and information officers consider the future of the citizens that lack a global institution from a language based on exclusion that can create ‘otherness’ to provide support including resources for global citizenship. as a social value, as excerpt from analysis of media contents [10]. • In the current global governance scenario, there is no institutional framework to address the needs of a potential global Conclusion citizenship. However Internet and mass media are producing a Considering the advantages and disadvantages of globalisation global identity and promoting global cooperation aside. There in the light of the analysis that has been done in the context of this are growing numbers of migrants holding no citizenship. paper, my argument is that much as globalisation may be inevitable, its National policies need to address governance gaps and also consequences are devastating. It is therefore, my contention that, there participate in multilateralism and international agreements. is the need for an appropriate response in a view to understanding the This includes the recognition the human rights of migrant dynamics that will hopefully help to evolve measures that will reduce workers and their social vulnerability in the new countries. It the devastating effects of globalisation. In recent decades, media recommends a follow-up of legally-binding conventions and rhetoric has promoted the vision of a world in process of unification, cooperative bodies and further research on the condition of recently-settled communities that move to Britain. largely as a result of technology’s power to dissolve borders and speed communication. However, perspectives on globalization differ sharply, • Decision-makers need to have the same global perspective and these differences have been well defined by numerous analysts, as its citizens. Learning from foreign development, public- some of whom have pointed to flaws in some of the more optimistic private partnerships are required to meet budgets, and become scenarios. A consideration of the role of media is highly important successful especially when the local consensus is implemented. for the whole concept of globalization, but in theoretical debates these In countries were internet is used by the majority of its citizens, fields are largely ignored. The blindingly obvious point that there is no it can serve as direct access to citizen’s views towards more globalization without media has not been articulated or analysed clearly democratic relations. enough. The role of media is often reduced either to an exclusively and • In a neoliberal context embedded in the political economy self-evidently technological one or to individuals’ experiences that are of globalization, citizens need to be addresses as socially unconnected to the media industries. Nevertheless, the two approaches constructed citizen-consumers. Globalizing Internet also are not mutually exclusive, because the production of media and the allows local and national governments to provide more experience of them are linked, often in highly subtle ways. formulae for participatory democracy and policy-making. In Despite such dystopian warnings, it can be argued that the possibly the dichotomy of existing states and markets, dual formulae can dire effects of globalization are often concealed by glib rhetoric and be recommended as well as to promote new forms of govern powerful mythologies. Whatever facts may qualify it, the idea of a mentality. New ‘tailored’ public services can be provided. i.e. single interconnected world has become a necessary article of faith, Britain, the dichotomy of state and markets is yet relevant to an uplifting vision. Or, to put it another way, old dreams of a world- policy-making as it was launched in New Labour. wide Utopia seem now to have meshed with opportunistic economic • Considering that media has become a policy actor in its own factors and to have been made fully realizable by the new technologies. right and the linkages between public opinion and the mass However, mundane the reality of the trends, there is little theoretical media strengthened, National and Local Governments can use interaction between globalization and media scholars. On the one hand, media not only to disseminate messages but to participate in the most globalization theorists come outside media and communication agenda-setting with relevant information to bring-up consensus studies and have not studied media per se. On the other hand, most in matter that do not require ‘fabricated debates’. Internet can media scholars themselves have been occupied mainly with media help to negotiate subjective decision-making processes (gate economy and questions of power and inequality, as numerous books keeping filters) to promote the adequate messages and clear on international communication show. These issues are important but feedback. In specific issues such as environmental media are not the only ones: globalization theorists have raised many issues products and news, producers and consumers in the ‘circuit of which cannot be reduced solely to questions of economy and which culture’ should be able to work closely in the processes related most international communication scholars have ignored. to the production and consumption of meanings. The world as a global village has come to stay. An institution that • To some extent, globalization is altering local and national fails to meet the challenges of globalization shall remain irrelevant. imagined communities into a shared global identity. Among There is no other lexis. This is the prize of globalization. its consequences, it is public diplomacy and the need to invest References in development programmes, including cultural exchange 1. Giddens A (1991) The Consequences of Modernity. Polity Press, Cambridge. programmes between citizens of the countries in conflict. 2. Tomlinson J (1999) Globalization and Culture. Polity Press, Cambridge. • In multicultural society, how civil society and citizens in general 3. Braman S, Van Staden C (2000) Globalisation and culture. Study guide for Unit react to social phenomena it is framed by media information 12 of the Postgraduate Diploma in Telecommunications and Information Policy. flows which unveil the symbolic structures of the secular Department of Communication, UNISA: .

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4. Kloskowska A (1998) The responses of national cultures to globalization and its communication sector: Some Strategic Consideration’, Policy Integration effect on individual identity. Polish Sociological Review 1: 3-19. Department Word Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization, Geneva. 5. Tehranian M, Tehranian KK. (1997) Taming modernity: towards a new paradigm, in International communication and globalization, Sage, London 119 -167. 14. Ainger K (2001) Empires of the Senseless, New Internationalist.

6. http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/International_Relations/War_and_Peace_in_a_ 15. Artz L, Kamalipour K (2003) The Globalization of Corporate Media Hegemony Globalised_World . (ed.) State University of New York Press, New York.

7. Bauman Z (2007) Liquid times: living in an age of uncertainty. Polity, London. 16. Anthias F (2005) New hybridities, old concepts: the limits of culture. Ethnic and Racial Studies 28: 619-638. 8. Beck U (1992) Risk Society: Towards a new modernity, Sage, London. 17. Haiderali KK (2003) The Media of Diaspora. Routledge, New York. 9. Giddens A (1991) The Consequences of Modernity. Polity Press, Cambridge 70-78. 18. Lyons J (2005) Media Globalization and its Effect upon International Communities: Seeking a Communication Theory Perspective. Global Media 10. Barker C (1999) ‘Global Television Culture’ in Television Globalization and Journal 4 . Cultural Identities, Open University Press, Buckingham. 19. Head SW, Spann T, McGregor MA (2001) Broadcasting in America. (9th 11. McChesney R (1999) The New Global Media, The Nation, USA. Edition)Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston

12. McChesney R (1997) The Global Media Giants, Extra, USA. 20. Serra S (2000) The killing of Brazilian street children and the rise of the 13. Siochrú S (2004) Social consequences of the globalization of the media and international public sphere, In Curran, James (ed.) Media Organisations in Society, Arnold, London.

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Globalisation: It’s Impact on Functions of State!

Globalisation has been producing a subtle change in the functions of the State. Its role in the ownership and production of goods has been getting reduced. However, this does not in any way mean a return of the Laisses faire state.

In the era of globalisation, the functions of the State began undergoing a change. With the increasing of public sector, privatisation was encouraged. Public sector was made to compete with the private sector, and as a whole open competition, free trade, market economy and globalisation were practiced. State ownership of industries came to be rejected. The role of state began emerging as that of a facilitator and coordinator. The exercise still continues.

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Globalisation has been producing a subtle change in the role of the State. Its role in the ownership and production of goods has been getting reduced. However, this does not in any way mean a return of the Laisses faire state.

http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/essay/globalization-essay/globalisation-its-impact-on-functions-of-state/40329 1/6 1/10/2019 Globalisation: It’s Impact on Functions of State Under Globalisation the state continues to be a welfare state. However, its economic activity is getting confined to two main areas:

(i) Activities which are essentially needed for the operation of economy. It now acts as a facilitator and coordinator and refrains from acting as an owner and regulator. It acts to ensure a smooth and orderly functioning of the market. It tries to secure stability in the market through macro-economic policies.

(ii) Activities aimed at providing essential social services such as education, healthcare, and social security to the people.

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The state continues to be a welfare state performing all the protection functions as well as several socio-economic development functions. It continues to act as a regulator and coordinator of economy. It continues to regulate the economy in the interest of social justice and welfare of the people. . It has been, however, coming out of the field of production of goods. Private sector has now started acting as the major owner of business and industry in each state.

In this era of Globalisation, several changes have been taking place in the functions of the State:

1. Decreased Economic activities of State:

The process of liberalisation- privatisation has acted as a source of limitation on the role of the state in the economic sphere. Public sector is getting privatized.

2. Decrease in the role of the State in International Economy:

The emergence of free trade, market competition, multinational corporations and international economic organisations and trading blocs like European Union, NAFTA, APEC, ASEAN and others, have limited the scope of the role of state in the sphere of international economy.

3. Limitations on External Sovereignty of State:

http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/essay/globalization-essay/globalisation-its-impact-on-functions-of-state/40329 2/6 1/10/2019 Globalisation: It’s Impact on Functions of State Increasing international inter-dependence has been compelling each state to accept limitations on its external sovereignty. Each state now finds it essential to accept the rules of international economic system, the WTO, the World Bank and the IMF.

4. Growing People’s Opposition to their Respective States:

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Globalisation has encouraged and expanded people-to-people socio-economic-cultural relations and cooperation in the world… IT revolution and development of fast means of transport and communication have been together making the world a real Global Community.

The people of each state now deal with people of other states as members of the World Community. The loyalty towards their respective states continues, but now the people do not hesitate to oppose those state policies which are held to be not in tune with the demands of globalization.

5. Reduced Importance of Military Power of the State:

The state continues to maintain its military power as an important dimension of its national power. However, the strength being gained by movement for international peace and peaceful coexistence as the way of life has tended to reduce the importance of military power of the state.

6. Increasing Role of International Conventions and Treaties:

Several international conventions and treaties have placed some limitations upon all the states. All the states are now finding it essential to follow the rules and norms laid down by such conventions. The need to fight the menace of terrorism and rogue nuclear proliferation as well as the shared responsibility for protecting the environment and human rights, have compelled all the states to accept such rules and regulations as are considered essential for the securing of these objectives. Thus, Globalisation and several other factors have been together responsible for influencing a change in the role of State in contemporary times.

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http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/essay/globalization-essay/globalisation-its-impact-on-functions-of-state/40329 6/6 oafpr vkSj ldkjkRed bdkbZ 28 jkT; vkSj OkS'ohdj.k dk;Z bdkbZ dh :ijs[kk 28-0 mís'; 28-1 ifjp; 28-2 OkS'ohdj.k vkSj mldk lanHkZ 28-3 OkS'ohdj.k ds vk;ke 28-3-1 vkfFkZd OkS'ohdj.k 28-3-2 jktuhfrd OkS'ohdj.k 28-3-3 OkS'ohdj.k ,oa laLÑfr 28-4 jk"Vª-jkT; vkSj laizHkqrk 28-4-1 jkT; dh ifjHkk"kk vkSj vFkZ 28-4-2 laizHkqrk 28-4-3 laizHkqrk dks [krjk 28-5 OkS'ohdj.k] jkT; vkSj cgqjk"Vªh; fuxe 28-6 OkS'ohdj.k] jkT; vkSj {ks=h;rk 28-7 OkS'ohdj.k vkSj }Srokn ¼Dualism½ 28-7-1 fo'o dk nks dSEiksa esa foHkktu 28-8 ,d ewY;kadu 28-9 lkjka'k 28-10 dqN mi;ksxh lanHkZ 28-11 cks/k iz'uksa ds mÙkj 28--- 0 mís'; bl bdkbZ esa jkT;-OkS'ohdj.k vUrjlaca/k ¼interface½ dh tk¡p dh xbZ gSA bl bdkbZ ls xqt+jus ds ckn] vki fuEu ds ckjs esa l{ke gks tk,¡xs % • OkS'ohdj.k ds vFkZ dks ifjHkkf"kr djuk vkSj mldh foospuk djuk( • OkS'ohdj.k ds fofHkUu vk;keksa ij ppkZ djuk( • jkT; dks ifjHkkf"kr djuk vkSj OkS'ohdj.k ds n~f"Vxr bldh laizHkqrk ds [krjksa ij ppkZ djuk( • OkS'ohdj.k ds lanHkZ esa cgqjk"Vªh; fuxeksa dh Hkwfedk ij ppkZ djuk( rFkk • OkS'ohdj.k ds ifj.kkeLo:i jkT; ds Hkfo"; ij fVIi.kh djukA 28--- 1 ifjp;

OkS'ohdj.k ds lanHkZ esa] vk/kqfud jkT; Hkkjh ifjorZu ds nkSj ls xqt+j jgk gSA OkS'ohdj.k izfØ;kvksa ls eqDr vusd cyksa us tufiz; dYiuk ds dsUnz ds :i esa jkT; dks izHkkfor fd;k gSA jk"Vª-jkT; fofHkUu Lrjksa ij viuh turk ds lkFk vius fj'rksa dks iquHkkZf"kr 5 lkef;d eqís djus ds fy, lkeus vk, gSaA ;|fi jkT; dh laizHkqrk vHkh Hkh egÙoiw.kZ gS] ;g LFkkuh; Lrj ij foHkktu rFkk Hkwe.Myh; Lrj ij ,dhdj.k ls cqjh rjg ladqfpr gqbZ gSA

fo'o ds fofHkUu {ks=ksa esa jk"Vª-jkT; ds fo:i.k ls {ks=h; fojpukvksa dh fof'k"Vrk ij fuHkZj djrs gq, fofHkUu :i izxV gksrs gSaA bl ikB esa OkS'ohdj.k ds dbZ vFkks± vkSj izFke Hkkx esa jk"Vª-jkT; gsrq blds fufgrkFkks± ij foospuk dh xbZ gSA ckn esa] ;g jk"Vª-jkT; ds fo:i.k ds fofHkUu vk;keksa dks izdV djrk gSA

28--- 2 OkS'ohdj.k vkSj mldk lanHkZ

gekjs Li"Vhdj.k ds fy, leku /ofu okys 'kCnksa] OkS'ohdj.k vkSj Hkwe.Myokn dks oxhZÑr fd;k tkuk pkfg,A OkS'ohdj.k 'kCn ,d izfØ;k dk gokyk nsrk gS] tcfd Hkwe.Myokn ,slk 'kCn gS tks fopkjksa] ewY;ksa] izFkkvksa ds ,sls lewg dk gokyk nsrk gS tks vktdy OkS'ohdj.k ds uke ij gksus okys ifjorZuksa dh opuc)rk ds leFkZu dh ek¡x djrk gSA laf{kIr esa] Hkwe.Myokn dk vFkZ gS] OkS'ohdj.k ds fy, ,d fopkj/kkjk vFkok mldks U;k;ksfpr Bgjkus dk ÝseodZA

vk/kqfud ;qx ds OkS'ohdj.k dh dqN xyrQgfe;ksa dks nwj djuk Hkh egÙoiw.kZ gSA dqN {ks=ksa esa] OkS'ohdj.k dks blls lEcfU/kr Hkko esa bl izdkj le> ldrs gSa fd OkS'ohdj.k vfr izkphu le; ls ,d fopkj vkSj ,d izFkk ds :i esa vfLrRo esa jgk gSA ;g tkudkjh mfpr ,sfrgkfld vFkks± esa de tku iM+rh gS] D;ksafd ;g fo|eku lanHkZ esa OkS'ohdj.k dh fof'k"Vrk dks ekU;rk iznku ugha djrhA OkS'ohdj.k ,d tfVy ,sfrgkfld izfØ;k ls izdV gqvk gS] ftls iw¡thoknh foLrkj ds ihNs nyhyksa ls [k+rjk cuk gqvk gSA ;g Hkwe.Myh; Lrj ij fof'k"V izdkj ds jktuhfrd vkSj lkaLÑfrd i;kZoj.k esa Qyus- Qwyus dh ek¡x djrk gSA blls Hkwe.Myh;] jk"Vªh; vkSj {ks=h; Lrj ls ysdj LFkkuh; Lrj rd Hkkjh ifjorZu gq, gSaA blus ,d ;k nks n'kd ds nkSjku fo'o dks iwjh rjg cny fn;k gSA

vius vkfFkZd Lo:i esa OkS'ohdj.k mu jk"Vªh; vFkZO;oLFkkvksa ds lkFk ,d lesfdr vUrjjk"Vªh; ckt+kj dk leFkZu djrk gS tks lkeus vk jgh gSaA ;g lkaLÑfrd Lrj ij ewY;ksa vkSj laLÑfr;ksa dk lekaxhdj.k ¼homogenisation½ pkgrk gS vkSj ;g bl 'kCn ds jktuhfrd vFkZ esa jk"Vª-jkT; laizHkqrk lÙkk dks gkf'k, ij ykus vFkok de djus ds fy, Hkwe.Myh; jktuhfrd O;oLFkk ds izfr ;ksxnku djrk gSA vUrfoZjks/k ds rkSj ij] OkS'ohdj.k LFkkuh; Lrj ij fofo/krk vkSj foHkktu dks Hkh lgh ekurk gSA ,d pkfjf=d y{k.k ds :i esa Hkwe.Myh; Lrj ij lkoZHkkSfed vkSj LFkkuh; Lrj ij foHkktu OkS'ohdj.k dks ftruk lekaxh cukrk gS] mruk gh fojks/kkHkklh cuk nsrk gSA

izR;{kr% nks fojks/kkHkklh izo`fÙk;k¡ gSa] ftUgsa fo|eku Hkwe.MyhÑr gksus okys fo'o es ns[kk tk ldrk gSA izFke] jkT; {ks=h; O;kikj vkSj jktuhfrd le>kSrksa ij gLrk{kj djus dh nkSM+ esa viuh laizHkqrk dks NksM+rs izrhr gks jgs gSaA nwljs] fo|eku jkT;ksa ds Hkhrj Lora=rk ds dqN mik;ksa ij nÙkfpÙk gksdj fofHkUu lewg vf/kd laizHkqrk ds fy, mÙksftr gks jgs gSaA D;k fo'o vf/kd lesfdr gks jgk gS vFkok blds vkSj vf/kd VqdM+s gks jgs gSa\ D;k ge vkSj vf/kd vUrjjk"Vªh; vFkok vkSj vf/kd LFkkuh; gks jgs gSa\ lHkh ekeyksa esa mÙkj Li"Vr% LohÑfr esa feysxkA mÙkj vesfjdh eqDr O;kikj djkj (NAFTA)] ,dek= ;wjksih;u ckt+kj vkSj uoksn~Hkwr cgqik'ohZ; ,tsUlh] fo'o O;kikj laxBu (WTO) lHkh vkSj vf/kd lesdu ds izfr mBus okys dne gSaA Hkwe.Myokn ds izfr vUrjjk"Vªh; 6 gypy viz'kkE; gSA miHkksDrkoknh iw¡thokn ges'kk foLrkj djus okys ckt+kjksa rFkk oafpr vkSj ldkjkRed lkeku ,oa lsokvksa dk mRiknu vkSj mudk forj.k djus okys ges'kk vf/kdkf/kd n{k dk;Z rjhdksa dh vis{kk djrk gSA laØkeh dEifu;k¡ lLrs Je vkSj dPps eky rFkk lalkf/kr lkexzh ds fy, viuh ryk'k esa jk"Vªh; lhekvksa ds ifjxeu ds rjhds [kkstus ds fy, vf/kdkf/kd fuiq.k gksrh tk jgh gSaA blh izdkj] nf{k.k ,f'k;k vFkok fo'o ds vU; {ks=ksa esa iztkrh;] tkfr] oxZ] fyax] tutkrh; vkSj ikfjfLFkfrdh; lewg fo|eku jkT;ksa ds Hkhrj vf/kd Lok;Ùkrk ds fy, la?k"kZ dj jgs gSaA LFkkuh; nkos okLro esa Hkwe.Myh; dkj.k cu pqds gSaA lkaLÑfrd rkSj ij] O;f"V;ksa vFkok lewgksa ds fy, jk"Vªh; igpku dk fopkj iztkrh;] {ks=h;] tkfr vkSj /kkfeZd igpku dh fdyscUnh ds i{k esa rst+h ls lekIr gksrk tk jgk gSA cks/k iz'u 1 uksV % i½ vius mÙkj ds fy, uhps fn, x, fjDr LFkku dk iz;ksx djsaA ii½ vius mÙkjksa ds lq>koksa ds fy, bdkbZ dk vUr ns[ksaA

1½ OkS'ohdj.k ls vki D;k le>rs gSa\ ------

28--- 3 OkS'ohdj.k ds vk;ke 28--- 3--- 1 vkfFkZd OkS'ohdj.k vkt OkS'ohdj.k dk D;k vFkZ gS\ pkyw lanHkZ esa] vkfFkZd :i ls ckr djus ij bldk vFkZ gS ewY;ksa] mRiknksa] osruksa] C;kt njksa vkSj ykHkksa dk lekaxhdj.k ftlls fo'o esa lHkh cjkcj gks tk,¡A eqDr ckt+kj] ikjnf'kZrk vkSj yphysiu ds cgkus rFkkdfFkr ^^bySDVªkSfudh gMZ** esa ns'kksa esa vkSj ns'kksa ls ckgj fo'kky iw¡th jkf'k;k¡ ik'pkR; ns'kksa ds jktuhfrd vkSj vkfFkZd ykHk ds fy, gLrkUrfjr gksrh gSa( ftlls fons'kh iw¡th vk, rFkk vkt vkSj dy dh izkS|ksfxdh dk ykHk fey ldsA 28--- 3--- 2 jktuhfrd OkS'ohdj.k jktuhfrd 'kCnksaa esa] OkS'ohdj.k dk vFkZ gS jk"Vª-jkT; dks bl rjhds ls vfHkys[kc) ¼reorder½ djuk tks Hkwe.Myh; ,drk ds vuqdwy gksA jk"Vª-jkT;ksa dh laizHkqrk dh mEehn gh Hkwe.Myh; Lrj dh laizHkqrk ds i'pkr~ dh tkrh gSA ,d Hkwe.Myh; jkT; O;oLFkk gh okafNr y{; ekuk tk ldrk gSA fo'o ds OkS'ohdj.k dh izfØ;k esa jk"Vª- jkT; dks gkf'k, ij j[kuk lcls cM+h pqukSrh gSA fo'o dk OkS'ohdj.k fof/k;ksa vkSj fofu;euksa dh ,d tfVy O;oLFkk }kjk leFkZu izkIr gSA vUrjjk"Vªh; eqnzk dks"k (IMF)] fo'o cSad vkSj vU; vUrjjk"Vªh; foÙkh; laLFkk,¡ 7 lkef;d eqís (IFIs) ds fu;ked {ks=] xSV (GATT) vkSj fo'o O;kikj laxBu (WTO) fo'oHkj esa leku uhfr;k¡] ck/;rk,¡ vkSj izfrcU/k ykxw djus ds fy, ,d u, fo'o 'kklu ds :i esa rst+h ls mHkj jgs gSaA ;s laLFkk,¡ bl O;oLFkk dks iw.kZ cukus esa fu.kkZ;d gSa] ftlls O;f"V jk"Vª-jkT;ksa dks vkc) jguk gSA bl izfØ;k dk vU; egÙoiw.kZ jktuhfrd vk;ke ;g gS fd jk"Vªh; ljdkjksa ij vius dkuwuksa dks cnyus ds fy, fujUrj ncko Mkyk tk jgk gS] ftlls os Hkwe.Myh; 'kklu dh mHkjrh O;oLFkk esa vf/kd Li)kZRed gks ldsaA vUrjjk"Vªh; eqnzk dks"k] fo'o cSad vFkok fo'o O;kikj laxBu tSlh laLFkkvksa ds fu;ked {ks=ksa dks det+ksj jk"Vª-jkT;ksa dh vkifÙk;ksa ls dHkh-dHkkj QdZ iM+rk gSA 28--- 3--- 3 OkS'ohdj.k ,oa laLÑfr

OkS'ohdj.k dh izfØ;k dks le>us esa vU; eq[; {ks= laLÑfr gSA vius ekSfyd :i esa OkS'ohdj.k dk vFkZ ewY;ksa dk lkoZHkkSehdj.k Hkh gSA ewY;ksa dk lkoZHkkSehdj.k lkoZHkkSfed ewY;ksa ds vuqlkj cnyrs gq, fy;k tkuk pkfg,A ewY;ksa ds lkoZHkkSfedhdj.k esa iwoZdfYir gS fd ,d fuf'pr izdkj dh Hkwe.Myh; O;oLFkk gks] ftlds izfr cnys gq, jk"Vªksa] {ks=ksa vkSj LFkkuksa ds lHkh ewY;ksa] izFkkvksa vkSj ijEijkvksa esa cnyko fd;k tkuk pkfg,A OkS'ohdj.k ewY;ksa vkSj laLÑfr;ksa ds fujis{k lekaxhdj.k dh ek¡x djrk gSA lkaLÑfrd Hkwe.yhdj.k fujUrj LFkkuh; vkSj jk"Vªh; laLÑfr;ksa dks eq[;r% if'pe ds vkf/kiR; okyh Hkwe.Myh; laLÑfr ds lkFk lesdu djus dh ek¡x djrk gSA tc ge vkfFkZd OkS'ohdj.k ds lkFk lkaLÑfrd OkS'ohdj.k ij n`f"Vikr djrs gSa] ;g Li"V gks tkrk gS fd iw¡thoknh ckt+kj dk foLrkj LFkkuh; laLÑfr;ksa ds Hkwe.Myh; cnyko dh lgwfy;r ls LFkkuh; ckt+kjksa ds lesdu ij yVdk gqvk gS@fuHkZj gSA

,d izfl) lektoknh] ,saFkkuh fxM~MUl eglwl djrs gSa fd fo'o iw¡thokn] m|ksxhdj.k vkSj vk/kqfud jk"Vª-jkT;ksa ds lanHkZ esa laxBukRed lewg Hkwe.Myh; usVodZ dk lkoZHkkSehdj.k djrs gSa vkSj le;-LFkku Qklys dks Hkh c<+k nsrs gSa] ftlls LFkkuh;- Hkwe.Myh; vUrjlaca/k ,d tfVy leL;k cu tkrk gSA ^^rc OkS'ohdj.k dks fo'oO;kih lkekftd lEcU/kksa esa o`f) ds :i esa ifjHkkf"kr fd;k tk ldrk gS] ftlls nwjLFk LFky bl izdkj tqM+ tkrs gSa] rkfd LFkkuh; ?kVuk,¡] dbZ ehy nwj dh ?kVuk,¡ vFkok mlds izfrdwy ut+j vk,¡**A

lkaLÑfrd vfHkO;fDr ds :i esa OkS'ohdj.k fo'o ds fldqM+us vkSj dqy feykdj lEiw.kZ fo'o dh psruk ds foLrkj dk gokyk nsrk gSA lwpuk ;qx ds mRFkku dks Hkwe.My ds vkjikj laLÑfrdj.k izfØ;k dh lgorhZ ?kVuk ds :i esa ns[kk tkuk pkfg,A OkS'ohdj.k ds lHkh vk;ke i;kZIr :i ls fuEu y{k.k lEiUu gSa & ^^lkexzh vknku-iznku LFkkuh; gksrs gSa] jktuhfrd vknku-iznku vUrjjk"Vªh; gksrs gSa rFkk lkadsfrd vknku-iznku HkweaMyh; gksrs gSaA**

cks/k iz'u 2 uksV % i½ vius mÙkj ds fy, uhps fn, x, fjDr LFkku dk iz;ksx djsaA ii½ vius mÙkjksa ds lq>koksa ds fy;s var esa ns[ksaA

1½ vkfFkZd vFkok jktuhfrd OkS'ohdj.k ij laf{kIr fVIi.kh fy[ksaA ------

8 ------oafpr vkSj ldkjkRed dk;Z ------

2½ OkS'ohdj.k-laLÑfr vUrjlaca/k dh tk¡p djsaA ------

28--- 4 jk"Vª-jkT; vkSj laizHkqrk vk/kqfud ;qx esa jk"Vª-jkT; dh jktuhfrd 'kfDr] lEiUurk ds vk/kkj dks le>uk vkSj mlds lkis{kr% laf{kIr bfrgkl ij ppkZ djuk egÙoiw.kZ gSA jk"Vª-jkT; dk mu ukxfjdksa vkSj 'kklu ds :i esa o.kZu fd;k tkrk gS] tks HkkSxksfyd :i ls fof'k"V lhekvksa ds Hkhrj dk;Z djrs gSaA bl la;kstu dks vfHkfuf'pr djus ds fy, jk"Vª-jkT; dks vius ukxfjdksa dh rjQ ls Lor%pSrU; fo'okl dh vko';drk gS] tks lkewfgd :i ls ns'k dh iznÙk tula[;k ds ek= k;k tk ldrk gSA rhljs] jkT; dk vius {ks= ds Hkhrj dkuwu cukus dk ,dkf/kdkj gksrk gS] ftls ge laizHkqrk dgrs gSaA ;g lHkh ukxfjdksa }kjk lg;ksftr ,d lk>k jktuhfrd laLÑfr ds xBu ds izfr vfHkeq[k gksrh gSA 28--- 4--- 2 laizHkqrk jkT; dk dkuwu@ fu;e cukus dk vuU; vf/kdkj izk;% laizHkqrk ds :i esa tkuk tkrk gSA vk/kqfud fo'o vkSj lEiw.kZ 'kfDr'kkyh jk"Vª-jkT; ds fodkl esa ladYiuk dh /kkj.kk 9 lkef;d eqís ,d izeq[k@ewy fopkj gSA vkjaHk esa] O;oLFkk cuk, j[kus ds fy, fof/kekU; fgalk djuk Li"Vr% jkT; dk vf/kdkj FkkA ijUrq /khjs-/khjs laizHkq jk"Vª-jkT; us lkekftd U;k; tSlh ladYiuk viuh {ks=h; lhekvksa ds Hkhrj 'kkfey djds vuU; izkf/kdkj ds Åij vkSj vf/kd fof/kekU; nkos fd,A bl izdkj] ukxfjdksa us viuh leL;kvksa ds lek/kku ds fy, vius jk"Vª-jkT;ksa dh {kerk ls mEehnsa fodflr dh gSaA izkf/kdkj ykxw djus esa mís'; ijdrk jk"Vª-jkT;ksa ds dk;ks± dks oS/krk iznku djrh gSA jkT; Lok;Ùk vkSj laizHkq gksrk gS] vkSj ,d iznÙk jk"Vªh; lekt esa lkoZHkkSfed izfrfcEc izLrqr djrk gSA 28--- 4--- 3 laizHkqrk dks [krjk

rFkkfi] jk"Vª-jkT; chloha 'krkCnh ds var esa OkS'ohdj.k ds vkus ls ladViw.kZ fLFkfr esa Q¡l x;k gS] D;ksafd jk"Vª-jkT; dh Lora= :i ls dk;Z djus dh {kerk dks Hkwe.Myh; Lrj ij ckg~; cyksa }kjk rFkk LFkkuh; Lrj ij vkUrfjd cyksa }kjk {kfr igq¡pkbZ xbZ gSA blus jk"Vª-jkT; dh rjg mlds vfLrRo ds cgq-vk;keh gksus dh oS/krk ij iz'ufpg~u yxk fn;kA jk"Vª-jkT; Hkwe.Myh; lesdu vkSj LFkkuh; fo?kVu ds cyksa }kjk chpksa chp Q¡lk fy, x, gSaA

yksxksa ds thou esa lokZf/kd egÙoiw.kZ fj'rs dh jpuk jk"Vª-jkT; ds lkFk mudk lEcU/k gSA jk"Vª] yksx ftuds vc rd jkT;ksa ds lkFk fo'ks"kkf/kdkjiw.kZ lEcU/k Fks] ds ikl ,sls lEcU/k vc ugha jgs D;ksafd jkT; futh rkSj ij u rks Hkwe.Myh; 'kfDr;ksa ds lkFk ckrphr djus ds fy, l{ke gS vkSj u os vius mu ukxfjdksa ds e/; ,drk dk cks/k dk;e djus dh fLFkfr esa gSa] tks vuU; igpku cukdj jguk pkgrs gSaA r`rh; fo'o ds ns'k bls vf/kd xaHkhjrk ls eglwl djrs gSa] D;ksafd nksuksa lhekvksa ij jkT;ksa dh ¼v½ ;ksX;rk vf/kd izcy gSA ukxfjd laxBuksa ds u, Lo:i ryk'k dj jgs gSa] ftuesa fofHkUu rjhdksa ls mudh igpku@vfLrRo ds nkos vUrxzZLr gSaA blds izHkko dbZ xqus gSaA LFkkuh; leqnk; tks vf/kd lalk/kuksa dh ek¡x dj jgs gSa] dHkh-dHkh ns[ksaxs fd muds fgr jk"Vª-jkT;ksa dk vkJ; ysus rFkk fdlh nwljs le; mudk fo/oa'k djus esa vUrfuZfgr gSaA vUrjjk"Vªh; laxBu vf/kd oS/krk dh ek¡x djsaxs vkSj bls lqfuf'pr djus dk ,d rjhdk ;g gS fd leFkZd ns'kksa dh viuh futh oS/krk gSA

fo'o f'k[kjokrkZvksa dh gky dh fLFkfr esa ;g le>kuk iM+sxk fd LFkkuh; leqnk; fdl izdkj lhek ikj dh gfLr;k¡ cuus dh ek¡x dj jgsa gSaA ekuo vf/kdkj xzqiksa dh fo;kuk f'k[kjokrkZ] efgyk xzqiksa dh chftax f'k[kjokrkZ] ikfjfLFkfrdh xzqiksa dh fj;ks f'k[kjokrkZ] tkfrokn ds fo#) Mjcu f'k[kjokrkZ vFkok fo'o lekt Qksje] lHkh iztkfr] tkfr] fyax] ikfjfLFkfrd eqíksa ds vk/kkj ij jk"Vª dh lhekvksa ls ijs LFkkuh; leqnk;ksa dks vius i{k esa djus ds fy, iz;kljr gSaA os jk"Vª-jkT;ksa ds nk;js ls ijs lkekftd U;k; dk iz'u mBkrs gSa] vkSj mUgsa Hkwe.Myh; izfØ;k ls tksM+rs gSaA mnkgj.kkFkZ] ekuo vf/kdkjksa dks fdlh ns'k ds Hkhrj vkd"kZd fjdkWMZ fdlh m/kkj nsus okyh Hkwe.Myh; ,tsalh vFkok nkrk ,tsalh ls _.k] lgk;rk vuqnku ysus ds ;ksX; cuus ds fy, dkQh csgrj gksuk pkfg,] D;ksafd ekuo vf/kdkj ds fjdkWMZ vUrjjk"Vªh; m/kkjh laO;ogkjksa esa ,d fu.kkZ;d eqís ds :i esa Nk, gq, gSaA blls irk pyrk gS fd jk"Vª-jkT; fdl izdkj ?kjsyw vkSj Hkwe.Myh; rkdrksa nksuksa ls fdruk vf/kd ncko esa gSA

10 cks/k iz'u 3 oafpr vkSj ldkjkRed dk;Z uksV % i½ vius mÙkj ds fy, uhps fn, x, fjDr LFkku dk iz;ksx djsaA ii½ vius mÙkjksa ds lq>koksa ds fy;s var esa ns[ksaA 1½ vius futh 'kCnksa esa jkT; dh ifjHkk"kk nsaA ------2½ OkS'ohdj.k ds eísut+j jkT; laizHkqrk ds [k+rjksa ls voxr djk,¡A ------

28--- 5 OkS'ohdj.k] jkT; vkSj cgqjk"Vªh; fuxe mRiknu] foÙkiks"k.k vkSj okf.kT; ds {ks= esa Hkwe.Myh; ,drk lokZf/kd n`';eku gSA jk"Vªh; lhekvksa ls ijs dk;Zjr cgqjk"Vªh; fuxe (MNCs) Hkwe.Myh; vFkZO;oLFkk dks vkf/kdkf/kd izHkkfor dj jgs gSaA ekudrkoknh QSDVjh-ladsfUnzr mRiknu ftls jk"Vª- jkT;ksa dh laj{k.kkRed uhfr;ksa ds vk/kkj ij viuk;k x;k Fkk] ls fHkUu] fo|eku foÙkh; fØ;kdyki ftls ekudrkokn ds ckn ds fof'k"Vxq.k ;qDr crk;k x;k gS] cgqjk"Vªh; fuxeksa }kjk fu;af=r gSaA vkjafHkd vUrjkZ"Vªh; i)fr ds vlQy gks tkus ls rFkk rRi'pkr~ vleatu] futhdj.k vkSj mnkjhdj.k ds vk/kkj ij ubZ-mnkjoknh lksp dh Hkwe.Myh; LohÑfr gks tkus ls] vfUre rhu n'kdksa esa cgqjk"Vªh; dEifu;ksa dk oLrqr% izlkj gqvk gSA lelkef;d nzk{kk lap;u ¼contemporary visage½ dk OkS'ohdj.k lokZf/kd n`';eku gS vkSj bldh ehfM;k rFkk vkfFkZd ekspsZ ij ?kks"k.kk dh tkrh gSA jk"Vªh; vFkZO;oLFkkvksa dh c<+rh gqbZ la[;k dk ,d egÙoiw.kZ vkSj o/kZeku {ks= Hkwe.Myh; cktkj esa lesfdr gks 11 lkef;d eqís jgk gSA foÙkh; cktkj vkSj iw¡th izokg vUrjjk"Vªh; lhekvksa ds ikj tkus dh fLFkfr esa gSa rFkk bPNkek= ls laizHkq jkT; ds fu;a=.kksa dks rksM+ ldrs gSaA vUrjjk"Vªh; O;kikj Hkwe.Myh; mRiknu ds 20 izfr'kr ds cjkcj gS vkSj izfro"kZ yxHkx 5 [kjc MkWyj vuqekfur gSA lhek ikj ds laO;ogkj] izR;{k fons'kh fuos'kksa (FDIs) vkSj cgqjk"Vªh; fuxeksa dk egÙo jk"Vªksa ds vkfFkZd HkkX; dk vofu/kkZj.k djus esa mÙkjksÙkj c<+rk tk jgk gS vkSj bldk vf/kdka'k] jkT; fu;a=.k ds vuqdwy ugha gSA

ik¡p lkS mRÑ"V vUrjjk"Vªh; dEifu;k¡ HkweaMyh; mRiknu ds ,d fo'kky vkSj o/kZeku fgLls ds fy, mÙkjnk;h gSaA o"kZ 2000 esa ik¡p lkS mRÑ"V fuxeksa ds {ks=h; forj.k ls ,d jkspd izo`fÙk dk irk pyrk gSA fuxeksa dh vf/kdka'k la[;k ¼56½ cSafdax vkSj foÙkh; {ks=ksa ls tqM+h gqbZ gSA blls gky ds o"kks± esa vUrjjk"Vªh; cSadksa vkSj foÙkh; laLFkkvksa dh c<+rh gqbZ la[;k vkSj foÙkh; iw¡th esa peRdkfjd o`f) dk Li"Vr% irk pyrk gSA foÙkh; {ks= esa cgqjk"Vªh; dEifu;ksa ds izos'k dh ;qfDrlaxrrk Li"V gS] vFkZO;oLFkk esa nh?kZdkfyd fuos'k dh rqyuk esa Hkwe.Myh; foÙkh; ckt+kjksa esa lV~Vsckth ¼vO;ogkfjd½ fuos'kksa ls Rofjr ykHk mBk;k tk ldrk FkkA tgk¡ rd cgqjk"Vªh; fuxeksa dk lEcU/k gS] isVªksfy;e 'kks/ku] vkWVkseksckby] nwjlapkj] [kk| vkSj vkS"kf/k HkaMkj rFkk bysDVªkWfud m|ksx cSadksa dk vuqlj.k djrs gSaA

cgqjk"Vªh; fuxeksa }kjk o/kZeku vkfFkZd vkf/kiR; us Hkwe.Myh; iSekus ij fuxfer 'kklu dh LFkkiuk dh gSA ;|fi cgqjk"Vªh; fuxe jk"Vª-jkT; laizHkqrk dks iwjh rjg lekIr ugha dj ldrs tSlk dqN {ks=ksa esa fopkj fd;k x;k gS] ;g fuf'pr :i ls bu jkT;ksa ds le{k] fo'ks"kdj fodkl'khy vkSj vfodflr ns'kksa esa uhfr fodYiksa dks ewÙkZ :i ns jgs gSaA cgqjk"Vªh; fuxe vHkh Hkh bu jk"Vªksa esa viuh izfof"V ds fy, jkT;ksa ls fu.kZ; ysus dh vis{kk djrs gSaA jkT; dks bu jk"Vªksa esa bu cgqjk"Vªh; fuxeksa ds lqxe laO;ogkj ds fy, lqfo/kk,a eqgS;k djkuh iM+rh gS vkSj jktuhfrd] lkekftd vkSj vkfFkZd fLFkjrk lqfuf'pr djuh iM+rh gSA futh rkSj ij] Hkwe.Myh; vFkZO;oLFkk dk vius i{k esa eksM+s nsus ds fy, u rks muds ikl 'kfDr gS vkSj u {kerkA vfirq] cgqjk"Vªh; fuxe lelkef;d HkweaMyh; vFkZO;oLFkk dks ewÙkZ :i nsus ds fy, jk"Vª-jkT;ksa vkSj vUrjjk"Vªh; 'kkldh; laxBuksa ds leFkZu dh ek¡x djrs gSaA

28--- 6 OkS'ohdj.k] jkT; vkSj {ks=h;rk

vkfFkZd mnkjokn ds izfr bl izR;{k ifjorZu ds jktuhfrd fl)kar dgha vf/kd tfVy cu jgs gSaA ;fn 1980osa n'kd ds vfUre o"kks± esa izek.kkad ckt+kjksUeq[k Fkk] jktuhfr esa jk"Vªoknh rukoksa dk cM+s iSekus ij rFkk fo'o vFkZO;oLFkk dks leqfpr :i ls iz;qDr o djus esa laLFkkvksa dh det+ksjh dk iqu% izorZu gqvkA ubZ jktuhfrd lajpukvksa tks jk"Vªh; lhekvksa ls ijs tk lds] ds xBu ds fy, dqN iz;kl fd, x, gSaA 1992 ds var esa ;wjksih;u la?k us vius ckjg lnL; ns'kksa ds Hkhrj ,dek= ckt+kj dh LFkkiuk dhA blds vfrfjDr ;g vkfFkZd lg;ksx ds cqfu;knh leFkZu ls ,d jktuhfrd la?k ds xBu ds fy, la?k"kZ dj jgk gSA nwjLFk iwohZ ;wjksi dh ljdkjsa mu ;kstukvksa ij fopkj dj jgh gSa tks] c<+rs gq, vkfFkZd xBca/ku dh rjg {ks= ds Hkhrj jktuhfrd lg;ksx esa o`f) djsaA la;qDr jkT; vesfjdk ftldk dukMk vkSj esfDldks ds lkFk eqDr O;kikj djkj LFkkfir gks pqdk gS] vc ,Q-Vh-,- ¼FTA½ dh ladYiuk dks nf{k.k vesfjdk esa ykxw djus ds fy, rS;kj gSA

12 gky ds o"kks± esa n{ksl ns'kksa ds vuqHko ls ge ftruk tkurs gSa] nf{k.k ,f'k;k eqDr O;kikj oafpr vkSj ldkjkRed djkj (SAFTA) bu ns'kksa dh vksj ls] muds chp erHksnksa ds ckotwn vkSj fo'ks"k :i ls dk;Z blls Hkh vf/kd] ikfdLrku vkSj Hkkjr ds chp 'k=qrk] ,d ck/;dkjh iz;ksx cu x;k gSA nf{k.k ,f'k;kbZ eqDr O;kikj djkj nf{k.k ,f'k;k ds ekSfnzd la?k ls Hkh ,d dne vkxs gSA ;g rF; fd ns'kksa ds ekSfnzd la?k dh laHkkouk ij bLykekckn esa tuojh] 2004 esa vk;ksftr n{ksl f'k[kjokrkZ esa xaHkhjrk ls fopkj fd;k x;k gS] bl ckr dk lwpd gS fd n{ksl fdl fn'kk esa tkuk pkgrk gSA bu O;kikfjd xBtksM+ksa dks jktuhfrd :i nsus ds fy, iz;kl fd, tk,¡xsA fodflr vkSj fodkl'khy ns'kksa ds chp bu mnkjoknh fl)karksa dks ykxw djus ds iz;kl {ks=h; vkfFkZd fudk;ksa dh vU;Fkk O;kfIr ¼emergence½ dks vklku cuk nsaxsA ;s {ks=h; fudk; mÙkjksÙkj c<+rh gqbZ vkfFkZd vFkZO;oLFkk ds vuq:i cgqjk"Vªh; jktuhfrd Hkzw.k ds :i esa ns[ks tk ldrs gSaA cks/k iz'u 4 uksV % i½ vius mÙkj ds fy, uhps fn, x, fjDr LFkku dk iz;ksx djsaA ii½ vius mÙkjksa ds lq>koksa ds fy;s var esa ns[ksaA 1½ OkS'ohdj.k ds lanHkZ esa cgqjk"Vªh; dEifu;ksa dh Hkwfedk dh foospuk djsaA ------

28--- 7 OkS'ohdj.k vkSj }Srokn (Dualism)

OkS'ohdj.k dk fofHkUu izdkj ds fgr j[kus okys xzqiksa }kjk bruk vf/kd izfrjks/k D;ksa gks jgk gS\ buesa lcls vkxs i;kZoj.koknh] Jfed usrk] lkaLÑfrd ijEijkoknh] fofHkUu vkxzgksa okys /kkfeZd usrk vkSj x+Sj-ljdkjh laxBu gSaA blls c<+rs gq, fojks/k ds ckotwn] if'pe ds usr`Ro vkSj mldh vkfFkZd lEiUurk ds lkFk OkS'ohdj.k vlhfer xfr ls vkxs c<+ jgk gSA

OkS'ohdj.k esa vkS|ksfxd Økafr ds ckn lkekftd-vkfFkZd vkSj jktuhfrd lEcU/kksa dk lokZf/kd ekSfyd fodsUnzhÑr iquxZBu varx`ZLr gSA fQj Hkh bu ifjorZuksa ds xaHkhj fufgrkFkZ 'kk;n gh dHkh xaHkhjrk ls lkoZtfud laoh{kk vFkok cgl ds fy, lkeus yk, x, gksaA fo'o dh cM+s iSekus ij iquO;ZoLFkk ds ckotwn] u rks fo'o ds usrkvksa] u 'kS{kf.kd laLFkkvksa vkSj u fo'kky ehfM;k us dHkh ;g tkuus ds fy, fd ftldk lw=ikr gks jgk gS vFkok] fo'sk"k :i ls fodkl'khy ns'kksa ij blds izHkkoksa dh cgqvk;kferk dk irk yxkus ds fy, Hkh dksbZ fo'oLr iz;kl fd, gSaA foxr n'kd esa] ge vizR;kf'kr ?kVukvksa dh ,d Üka`[kyk ds lk{kh jgs gSa % 'khr ;q) dk var] ckt+kj esa egÙokdka{kh lq/kkj ftUgsa igys vFkZO;oLFkkvksa ds :i esa fu;ksftr fd;k 13 lkef;d eqís x;k Fkk( vkSj if'peh ;wjksi] mÙkjh vesfjdk rFkk iwoZ ,f'k;k esa vkfFkZd lesdu dh izfØ;k vkSj vf/kdka'k izeq[k foØsrkvksa }kjk laj{k.koknh mik;ksa ds c<+rs gq, iz;ksx ¼fo'ks"k :i ls fodkl'khy ns'kksa ds fo#) vkS|ksxhdj.k ds ckn izxfr'khy ns'kksa }kjk½ dh xfr esa rhozrk ykukA

bldk ewy fl)kar izfrfuf/kd vkfFkZd o`f) dh fujis{k izkFkfedrk vkSj vfu;af=r eqDr O;kikj ds bnZ-fxnZ ?kwerk gS] ftlls o`f) esa xfr ykus ds fy, eqDr O;kikj fd;k tk ldsA eqDr O;kikj fu;kZr izfrLFkkiuk ds mu vojks/kksa dks gVk nsrk gS] tks vkfFkZd Lo;a- larqf"V dh izksUufr ds fy, vfHkeq[k gksrs gSaA ;g yksd m|eksa ds Rofjr futhdj.k rFkk miHkksDrkokn dh vkØked izksUufr okyh fu;kZr-vk;kr ewyd vFkZO;oLFkkvksa dk i{k/kj gS] tks Hkwe.Myh; fodkl ds la;ksftr fd, tkus ij ik'pkR; n'kZu dks lgh vFkks± esa izfrfcfEcr djrk gSA blls Hkh vf/kd u, vUrjjk"Vªh;

if'pe ls bl izdkj ds ncko dk ,d vPNk mnkgj.k ckaXykns'k gSA ckaXykns'k esa] cSafdax dk futhdj.k dj fn;k x;k gS vkSj ;g ns'k chek {ks= esa vc izR;{k fons'kh fuos'k dh vuqefr ns jgk gSA cSad tks vkjaHk esa t+:jrean vkSj xzkeh.k {ks= dh lgk;rk ds Li"V iz;kstukFkZ jk"Vªh;Ñr fd, x, Fks] futhdj.k dh vksj c<+ jgs gSaA

fodkl'khy ns'kksa ds fy, OkS'ohdj.k dks vfuf'prrk ds lkFk vkfyaxuc) djuk ladViw.kZ gks pqdk gSA blds udkjkRed ifj.kkeksa dh ppkZ dHkh-dHkkj dh tkrh gSA bldh ctk,] vkfFkZd fodkl esa deh ds fy, fo'ks"k izdkj ls dq'kklu] Hkz"Vkpkj vkSj i{kikriw.kZ O;ogkj nks"kh gSA OkS'ohdj.k ds fopkj dh vU/kh LohÑfr fodkl'khy ns'kksa ds ut+fj, ls vLohdk;Z] uSlfxZd vkSj loZFkk Hk;kud gSA 28--- 7--- 1 fo'o dk nks dSEiksa esa foHkktu

OkS'ohdj.k dh izfØ;k fo'o ds nks dSEiksa esa foHkktu ds fy, vxzlj gSA if'pe dk rdZ gS fd OkS'ohdj.k dk ykHk O;kid gS vkSj blls fodflr vkSj fodkl'khy] nksuksa jk"Vªksa dks ykHk gksrk gSA fodkl'khy ns'k OkS'ohdj.k dks vf/kd lansg dh n`f"V ls ns[krs gSaA ;fn ugha] rks vuisf{kr nks"knf'kZrk cuh jgrh gSA gesa OkS'ohdj.k ij mudh lkis{k fLFkfr;ksa ij fopkj djuk pkfg,A

OkS'ohdj.k ds ykHkksa gsrq if'peh nkos bl izdkj gSa % ;g ¼1½ laLFkkxr rFkk O;fDrxr fodkl nksuksa izdkj ds fodkl ds fy, izpqj iw¡th fuos'k eqgS;k djkrk gSA ¼2½ fodkl'khy ns'kksa ds ukxfjdksa dks jkst+xkj ds c<+s gq, volj iznku djrk gS ¼3½ f'k{kk ds ek/;e ls tu leqnk; ds dY;k.k ds fy, lq/kkj dh ladYiukvksa esa o`f) djrk gSA ¼4½ voLFkkiuk fodkl dks xfr iznku djrk gS tSls] lM+dsa] 'kfDr la;a= vkSj vk/kqfud bysDVªkWfud lapkjA ¼5½ izxfr'khy jk"Vªksa }kjk fodkl'khy ns'kksa dks fcuk fdlh ykxr ds izkS|ksfxdh 14 dh O;oLFkk djrk gSA bl izfØ;k ls laHkor% lkoZHkkSfed rkSj ij dk;Zdkjh 'krs±] ekud] oafpr vkSj ldkjkRed vfHko`fÙk;k¡ vkSj ewY; leku gks tk,¡xsA dk;Z blds izfrdwy] fodkl'khy ns'kksa dk rdZ gS fd OkS'ohdj.k opuc)rk ds eqdkcys izpqjrk ls dkQh de eqgS;k djk jgk gSA muds vuqlkj % ¼1½ OkS'ohdj.k us fodkl'khy ns'kksa dks muds }kjk bu ns'kksa esa fd, x, fuos'k dh vis{kk ykHkksa ls vf/kd /ku fy, tkus ds dkj.k iw¡th jfgr dj fn;k gSA ¼2½ fuos'k esa iw¡th vf/kd yxkus dh ctk,] dbZ cgqjk"Vªh; dEifu;k¡ LFkkuh; nsunkjksa ls m/kkj ysrh gSa vkSj bl izdkj mu nqyZHk iw¡th lalk/kuksa dk {k; dj jgha gSa] ftUgsa ns'k ds dkjksckfj;k¡ }kjk mi;ksx esa yk;k tkuk pkfg,A ¼3½ ubZ izkS|ksfxfd;ksa ls ykHkksa dh opuc)rk laHkor;k fudV Hkfo"; esa fujk'kktud fl) gksxh] D;ksafd blds dkj.k gksus okyh fuHkZjrk ls fodkl'khy ns'kksa esa uohuhdj.k vo#) gks tkrk gSA ¼4½ OkS'ohdj.k vkSj cgqjk"Vªh; fuxeksa ls foKkiu dh ,d csgrjhu] ifj"Ñr czk.M lkeus vkrh gS tks miHkksDrkokn vkSj foykl oLrqvksa ds vk;krhdj.k dks c<+kok nsrh gSA cgqjk"Vªh; dEifu;ksa ds mRiknksa vkSj lsokvksa ds foi.ku esa lQyrk ls ?kjsyw fuos'kksa tks ?kjsyw vkfFkZd o`f) dh tku gSa] esa deh vkrh gSA ¼5½ OkS'ohdj.k esa] cgqjk"Vªh; dEifu;k¡ fons'kksa esa vkfFkZd lgk;rk nsdj O;kikj ij okf.kfT;d izfrcU/kksa dk izfrdkj dj ldrh gSaA okLro esa] ;g mUgsa O;kikj vojks/kksa ij dkcw ikus] mRiknu tkjh j[kus vkSj fodkl'khy ns'kksa dh ykxr ij ykHk dekus dh vuqefr nsrk gSA vkt dh rjg] mHkjrs gq, fo'o iw¡thokn ds fdUgha iw.kZ fodYiksa ds fy, cgqr gh de vk'kk izrhr gksrh gSA fo'o O;kikj laxBu tSlh cgqik'ohZ; laLFkkvksa ds mHkjus ls] izR;sd ns'k oLrqr% fo'o vFkZO;oLFkk esa Q¡l x;k gS vkSj /khjs-/khjs viuh vFkZO;oLFkk dks eqDr dj jgk gSA eSfDldks tSls ns'k tks ,d n'kd igys jkT; ds fu;a=.k vkSj LokfeRo ij fo'okl j[krs Fks] cqjh rjg ls futhdj.k dj jgs gSaA FkkbyS.M vius ctV dk larqyu cuk jgk gS( is# VSfjQ nj de dj jgk gSA nf{k.k ,f'k;kbZ {ks= esa Hkh ns'k] ftUgksaus uCcs ds n'kd ds izkjEHk esa ;|fi foyEc ls 'kq#vkr dh Fkh] mÙkjksÙkj mnkjhdj.k dks viuk, tk jgs gSa vkSj viuh vFkZO;oLFkkvksa dks eqDr dj jgs gSaA chloha 'krkCnh dk vkfFkZd mnkjokn futh LokfeRo] dkjksckj esa jkT; ds fy, ?kVrh gqbZ Hkwfedk] U;wurj O;kikj vojks/k] djksa esa deh] vkSj iznÙk vkfFkZd O;oLFkk esa lokZf/kd n{k forjd ds :i esa ckt+kj ij vke fo'okl ds fy, mÙkjnk;h gSA

OkS'ohdj.k dks le>us dh leL;k mlds ml }Srokn esa lfUufgr gS] tks fo|eku vFkZ- O;oLFkk dks fu;af=r djrk gSA ;fn OkS'ohdj.k ,dhÑr fo'o dk gokyk nsrk gS] ;g Hkh mruk gh lR; gS fd fo'o nks vle; fgLlksa & xjhc vkSj vehj] jk"Vªksa esa mÙkjksÙkj foHkktu dh vksj vxzlj gS] ftlesa vf/kd izxfr'khy ik'pkR; jk"Vª rFkkdfFkr eqDr O;kikj vkSj ubZ Hkwe.Myh; O;oLFkk }kjk odkyr dh xbZ eqDrrk dk ykHk mBk jgs gSaA jk"Vªh; lhekvksa dk Hksnu mUur ns'kksa ds i{k esa dk;Z dj jgk gSA bl nqo`Ùk vFkZO;oLFkk ds fHkUu-fHkUu ns'kksa ds fy, fHkUu-fHkUu fufgrkFkZ gSaA dbZ xgu v/;;uksa ls irk pyrk gS fd vlekurk vkSj U;k; ds eqís mHkjrh gqbZ Hkwe.Myh; vFkZO;oLFkk dh lokZf/kd fpUrk dk fo"k; cuus tk jgs gSaA tSlh fd Åij ppkZ dh xbZ Fkh] OkS'ohdj.k us jk"Vª-jkT;ksa dks] fo'ks"k :i ls r`rh; fo'o esa] vkfFkZd] lkaLÑfrd vkSj lkaLÑfrd :i ls izHkkfor fd;k gSA if'pe ds opZLo esa vUrjjk"Vªh; ckt+kj O;kikj dh 'krks± ij ckrphr djus ds fy, nf{k.k ns'kksa ¼xjhc ns'kksa dk i;kZ;okph½ ds fy, cgqr de xqatkb'k NksM+rk gSA ;|fi cgqjk"Vªh; dEifu;ksa ds 15 lkef;d eqís fØ;kdyki lhekvksa ls ijs gSa] rFkkfi muds fgr vkt Hkh muds iSf=d ns'kksa ls tqM+s gq, gSa tks vDlj mUur if'peh ns'k gSaA cgqjk"Vªh; fuxe vius fgrksa esa brus cgqjk"Vªh; ugha gSaA

lwpuk ;qx ds vkus ls] fo'o fldqM+dj tSlk fd ek'kZy eSdyqgku us dgk gS] ,d Hkwe.Myh; xk¡o cu x;k gS tgk¡ jktuhfrd vkSj lkaLÑfrd vFkks± esa] jk"Vªh; lhekvksa esa vkSj vf/kd jU/kz ¼porous½ gks x, gSaA bl izdkj] vkSj vf/kd ijkts; r`rh; fo'o ij if'pe }kjk jktuhfrd vkSj lkaLÑfrd ?kkrd izgkjksa ds ckjs esa blls vkSj vf/kd O;xzrk rFkk ltho fpUrk,¡ izLrqr gksrh gSaA ubZ lwpuk ds lkFk la;ksftr gksdj Hkwe.Myh; vkfFkZd O;oLFkk ls mUur ns'kksa esa jk"Vª-jkT; dks et+cwr gksus rFkk r`rh; fo'o esa jkT; ds det+ksj gksus dh laHkkouk gSA ;g }Srokn vkSj fojks/kkHkkl mHkjrh gqbZ Hkwe.Myh; O;oLFkk esa jk"Vª-jkT; dks fof'k"V y{k.k nsus tk jgs gSaA

cks/k iz'u 5 uksV % i½ vius mÙkj ds fy, uhps fn, x, fjDr LFkku dk iz;ksx djsaA ii½ vius mÙkjksa ds lq>koksa ds fy;s var esa ns[ksaA 1½ fodflr vkSj fodkl'khy jk"Vªksa ds lan'kZ ls OkS'ohdj.k dh foospuk djsaA ------

28--- 8 ,d ewY;kadu

Hkwe.Myh; vFkZO;oLFkk ds {ks= esa jk"Vª-jkT; dh laizHkqrk ds lkis{k iru ls izeq[kr% r`rh; fo'o ds ns'kksa esa tgk¡ jkT; dh vis{kk,¡ cgqr mRÑ"V gSa rFkk jkT; dh {kerk,¡ de gSa] ,d yksdrkaf=d ijkHko ¼deficit½ iSnk gks jgk gSA ukxfjd mu eqíksa ij ftuds Åij jkT; dk dksbZ Lok;Ùk fu;a=.k ugha gS] viuh jk"Vªh; ljdkjksa dks mÙkjnk;h cuk, gq, gSaA vius ukxfjdksa }kjk okfgr fu"Bk ds izfr izcy cks/k tks mifuos'kokn fojks/kh la?k"kZ ls fodflr gqvk] jk"Vªh; ljdkjksa dh Lok;Ùkrk ds iru ds vuq:i det+ksj ugha gqvk gSA ^Hkwe.Myh; xk¡o* ds vkxeu ds ckotwn O;f"V vHkh rd mHkjrs gq, ijejk"Vªh; fudk;ksa tSls ^;wjksih;u la?k* ds izfr cgqr de fu"Bk eglwl djrs gSaA ;g dqy feykdj ,sls ijejk"Vªh; fudk;ksa ds izfr nf{k.k esa ukxfjdksa dh lEc)rk dh vkSj vf/kd nwjxkeh mEehn gSA blh izdkj] ,d jk"Vª ds Hkhrj jkT; dh rjg ukxfjdksa dh oQknkjh ij HkyhHkk¡fr fu;a=.k j[kus ds fy, mHkjrh gqbZ igpkuksa dh dYiuk djuk dfBu gSA fQj Hkh ge ns[k ldrs gSa fd r`rh; fo'o esa yksdrkaf=d ijkHko cM+s iSekus ij ruko iSnk djus tk jgk gSA OkS'ohdj.k if'pe dh viuh vU;k; O;oLFkk dh rqyuk esa vkfFkZd] jktuhfrd vkSj lkaLÑfrd eqdkcyksa ij r`rh; fo'o ij vkSj vf/kd d"Vdkjh ruko dk;e j[krk gSA

16 Hkwe.Myh; izfØ;kvksa ds ifj.kkeLo:i u rks jk"Vª vkSj u gh jkT; xk;c gksus okys gSaA oafpr vkSj ldkjkRed 'kq#vkrh rkSj ij ,slh dksbZ izfrLFkkuh lajpuk ugha gS] tks jk"Vª-jkT; ls tqM+s gq, lHkh dk;Z ijEijkxr dk;ks± dks lEiUu dj ldsA blh ds lkFk yksd jkT;-ladsfUnzr jk"Vªh;okn dks iw.kZ:is.k NksM+us dks rS;kj ugha gS] D;ksafd jk"Vªh;okn ,sfrgkfld :i ls var%LFkkfir gS vkSj lkaLÑfrd :i ls vuqHko fd;k tkrk gSA fQj Hkh bls ugha le>k tk ldrk gS] D;ksafd igpku ds fy, jkT; dk fo[kaMu jk"Vª-jkT; dk izfrLFkk;h ugha gks ldrk gSA fu"Bk ds vFkZ cny jgs gSa vkSj vfuok;Zr% ifj.kkeLo:i fofo/k oQknkfj;k¡ n`f"Vxkspj gksxhaA fuf'pr rkSj ij] ;|fi jk"Vª-jkT; xk;c ugha gksxk] ijUrq bl rjhds ls ugha gksaxs tSls ;s vc gSaA ukxfjdksa dh fu"Bk ds Lo:i vkSj fLFkfr;ksa esa cnyko vk,xkA cks/k iz'u 6 uksV % i½ vius mÙkj ds fy, uhps fn, x, fjDr LFkku dk iz;ksx djsaA ii½ vius mÙkjksa ds lq>koksa ds fy, bdkbZ dk var ns[ksaA 1½ OkS'ohdj.k dh orZeku vkSj Hkkoh izÑfr;ksa ij lekykspuk fy[ksaA ------

28--- 9 lkjka'k bl bdkbZ esa] vkius OkS'ohdj.k ds lanHkZ esa jkT; ds ckjs esa v/;;u fd;k gSA nksuksa 'kCnksa dh ifjHkk"kk@vFkZ dks le>k;k x;k gSA HkweaMyhdj.k ds fofHkUu vk;keksa] vkfFkZd] jktuhfrd vkSj lkaLÑfrd & dks Li'kZ fd;k x;k gSA OkS'ohdj.k dh fLFkfr esa jkT; laizHkqrk dh vk'kadkvksa ij bl bdkbZ esa foLrkj ls ppkZ dh xbZ gSA cgqjk"Vªh; dEifu;ksa dh Hkwfedk ij Hkh ppkZ dh xbZ gSA bl bdkbZ esa] OkS'ohdj.k ds ifj.kkeLo:i fo'o ds nks dSEiksa esa c¡V tkus ds fufgrkFkks± dk Hkh mYys[k fd;k x;k gSA vk'kk dh tkrh gS fd vc vki 'kCn OkS'ohdj.k dks mlds vusd lw{e Hksnksa] fo'ks"k :i ls vk/kqfud jkT; ds lkFk mlds vUrjlaca/k dks HkyhHkk¡fr le> ik,¡xsA

28--- 10 dqN mi;ksxh lanHkZ vIiknksjkbZ] vtqZu] ekMfuZVh ,V yktZ % dYpjy MkbZesU'kUl vkWQ Xykscykbts'ku] fefu;kiksfyt+] feuslksV~Vk] 1996A fxMsUl] ,sUFkuh] dkWUlsD;wUlsUl vkWQ ekWMfuZVh] dSfEczt] ikWfyVh] 1990

17 l kef;d eqís 28--- 11 cks/k iz'uksa ds mÙkj

cks/k iz'u 1 1½ ns[ksa Hkkx 28-2 cks/k iz'u 2 1½ ns[ksa mi-Hkkx 28-3-1 vkSj 28-3-2 2½ ns[ksa mi-Hkkx 28-3-3 cks/k iz'u 3 1½ ns[ksa mi-Hkkx 28-4-1 2½ ns[ksa mi-Hkkx 28-4-2 vkSj 28-4-3 cks/k iz'u 4 1½ ns[ksa Hkkx 28-5 cks/k iz'u 5 1½ ns[ksa Hkkx 28-7 ,oa mi-Hkkx 28-7-1 cks/k iz'u 6 1½ ns[ksa Hkkx 28-8

18 4/30/2018 SM: UNIT-VII GLOBALIZATION, STATE SOVEREIGNTY AND CIVIL SOCIETY Globalization

SM

7 UNIT-VII GLOBALIZATION, STATE SOVEREIGNTY AND CIVIL SOCIETY

UNIT-VII

GLOBALIZATION, STATE SOVEREIGNTY AND CIVIL SOCIETY

--Inder Sekhar Yadav

1. Globalization and State Sovereignty

Globalization refers to the integration and interaction between different people, nation and regional and international markets. It includes the exchange of goods, services, capital, and labour between different nations for their mutual benefit. Today, globalization is defined in a very wide notion, which includes the social, cultural, and political interdependency of states. Further, it also refers to the absence of the walls that every country had, between themselves based on suspicion, mutual distrust and ambition. Globalization has primarily become an economic term but its impact is not limited to the economy of the countries only, the term globalization actually refers to every aspect of life like cultural, social, psychological and political. For example, in European Union all the member states share the same democratic values and norms, or the convergence and similarities of the constitutions of the member states, which could lead to a European law or constitution. It is true that the impact of globalization is visible and affects largely the politics and the economy of the country but its effect on the mindset and the culture is noticeable gradually in the way people think and react. An essential link between globalization and the nation state is the concept of sovereignty. Sovereignty is the central organizing principle of the system of states. Sovereignty is the quality of having supreme, independent authority over a territory. It can be found in a power to rule and make law that rests on a political consensus in a nation. The notion of state sovereignty is laid down on the basic principles of territorial integrity, border inviolability, and supremacy of the state. A sovereign is a supreme lawmaking authority. The notion concept of state sovereignty refers to the three-fold capacity of a state, which is the “absolute supremacy over internal affairs within its territory, absolute right to govern its people, and freedom from any external interference in the above matters. So a state is sovereign if it has the ability to make and implement laws within its territory, and can function without any external power and assistance, and doesn’t acknowledges any higher authority above itself x in the world of independent states. From the above, one can draw the conclusion that either Please a state Ask https://sol.du.ac.in/mod/book/view.php?id=1245&chapterid=911 ( कृ पया पछू 1/ 9) can4/30/2018 be sovereign or not, sinceSM: sovereignty UNIT-VII GLOBALIZA is definedTION, STATE as SOVEREIGNTY the absolute AND CIVIL supremacy SOCIETY and right of the government in a given state. At its core, state sovereignty is typically taken to mean the possession of absolute authority within a bounded territorial space. There is essentially an internal and external dimension of sovereignty. Internally, a sovereign government is a fixed authority with a settled population that possesses a monopoly on the use of force. It is the supreme authority within its territory. Externally, sovereignty is the entry ticket into the society of states. Recognition on the part of other states helps to ensure territorial integrity and is the entree into participating in diplomacy and international organizations on an equal footing with other states. The question of sovereignty is a controversial issue mainly because in the era of globalization the national sovereignty is under attack as there was a golden age when the states possessed some kind of absolute control over the their territory, and the movement of resources, people, and cultural influences across their borders. This sovereignty of a nation is believed to be no more ever since the globalization process started. This is partly because the sovereignty of any one nation has usually depended on recognition by other nations within the inter-state system, and partly because the states have never been able to achieve, absolute control of transnational movements of people and resources across the borders. Therefore, if a nation’s sovereignty is not absolute and unconditional some attention is needed in assessing the argument that the contemporary process of globalization undermines national sovereignty. Today, globalization implies the worldwide, virtually instantaneous interdependence of a growing number of aspects of economic and cultural life. Today, it not only refers to economic interdependence of trade, finance, direct investment but also to the interdependence of educational, technological, ideological, cultural, as well as ecological, environmental, legal, military, strategic and political impulses that are rapidly propagated throughout the world. Since, globalization is the spread and intensification of economic, social and cultural relations across international borders it has its effects on almost everything: politics, economics, technology, society, communication etc. With such an all-pervasive nature of globalization, how can the institution of the state remain unaffected? The most important effect of globalization is being felt on the very basic characteristic of the state sovereignty. With an increasingly dependent economy, issues that cross borders there is considerable interference on the powers of the state. The newly imposed constraints on the sovereignty of the state has seen emergence of the different forms of co-operation amongst states. Countries bargain about influence on each other internal affairs. Further, economic globalization has made it difficult for countries to control economic developments within their own borders. Very often how the impact of globalization is felt depends on the nature of the state. In an increasingly interdependent world, isolation is not good for the country as seen in the case of North Korea. Advanced industrialized democracies tend to benefit the most from globalization. It is the developing countries, where the state faces considerable challenges to make globalization work in tandem with its welfare goals. Weak states face the threat of being ‘colonized’ by the forces of globalization. This state failure may translate into domestic disorder as seen in many African countries.  For example, globalization has forced the state in developing countries to get out of activities in which the private sector can play a better role. These areas include tourism, hotels, production of consumer durables. The state now has to concentrate only on building up of economic and social capital, e.g. infrastructure, education etc. Globalization entails more open economies, which in turn x involves exposure to risks of uncertainty of global markets. The state, in this changed scenario, Please has Ask to https://sol.du.ac.in/mod/book/view.php?id=1245&chapterid=911 ( कृ पया पछू 2/ 9) take4/30/2018 proactive steps to provide securitySM: UNIT-VII and GLOBALIZA safetyTION, net ST toATE the SOVEREIGNTY labour and AND CIVILdomestic SOCIETY industries. The operation of states in an ever more complex international system both limits their both autonomy and sovereignty. There is a huge debate in world order and politics, whether globalization has led to the loss or weakening of sovereignty and autonomy of the nation states in their international strategic and economic relations. According to some theorists there is a constantly growing dependency and interconnectedness between the nation states, and the governments have become weaker and less relevant then ever before. For example, the sum total of the various elements of globalization has left the individual sovereign state less and less a locus of policy and control as the WTO, the EU, NAFTA and other supranational organizations become more significant players. Further, the economic policies of economies is also tot a large extent influenced by the international financial institutions such as IMF, World Bank and WTO, as evidence of a new international system with new centers of power. These institutions tend to point the rise of global institutions of governance. Indeed, it will be increasingly difficult for the future civil servant to draw meaningful distinctions between national and international dimensions of problems. In the process of globalization the nation state is not going to disappear. However, the nature of the nation state sovereignty is changing dramatically due to globalisation. It is been perceived by many that globalization is reducing the sovereignty of the nation with respect to global events. Globalisation also has a push-down effect which promotes local autonomy and local cultural difference. This has a double impact. On the one hand, it creates somewhat noxious forms of local nationalism. On the other hand, it also opens new opportunities for civic participation and it is not accidental that there is a renewal of participatory democracy around the world, partly a result of globalisation itself but partly a result of new technologies, which make it easier to have local interactions, or even, in some cases, national interactions organised through electronic media. Taking the increasing growth of interdependency between the states, the emergence of transnational institutions, multinationals and benevolent organizations and the integration of international laws under consideration, one can say that there is a declining process to perceive in the sovereignty of the nation states. Nation states are also domestically under attack of the high rate of criminal and terrorist events. Since nation states no longer can grantee the security of their citizens and cannot independently act in order to solve their domestic problems, there is a lack of sovereignty. Therefore, globalization may gradually lead to the demise of nation state and its sovereignty if proper policy on state autonomy and sovereignty is not maintained. 2. Globalization and Global Civil Society Globalization is broadly viewed as a contemporary process of increasing intense interconnectedness, interactions, inter-dependence, integration across borders, state and communities both local and national in different spheres of human life economic, financial, technological, social, cultural, and political. This process, it is stated, is leading to the emergence of one world, a global society. The driving force of this is in the central nature of the capitalist world economy. The new technology has been considered as the transformative factor that has promoted the interdependence of local, national and international communities. Also, some consider the logic of globalization as having interlocking ‘institutional dimensions’. The main elements here are capitalism, the inter-state system, militarism and industrialism. Each one of these has a separate role in the creation of the global-world. Moreover, all these dimensions have interactions and intersections in the multi-causal x process of globalization. Please Ask https://sol.du.ac.in/mod/book/view.php?id=1245&chapterid=911 ( कृ पया पछू 3/ 9) 4/30/2018 Generally, civil society SM:has UNIT been-VII GLOBALIZA referredTION, to STasA TEa SOVEREIGNTYpolitical asso ANDciation CIVIL SOCIETY governing social conflict through the imposition of rules that restrain citizens from harming one another. In the classical period, the concept was used as a synonym for the good society, and seen as indistinguishable from the state. For instance, Socrates taught that conflicts within society should be resolved through public argument using ‘dialectic’, a form of rational dialogue to uncover truth. According to Socrates, public argument through ‘dialectic’ was imperative to ensure ‘civility’ in the ‘state’ and ‘good life’ of the people. For Plato, the ideal state was a just society in which people dedicate themselves to the common good, practice civic virtues of wisdom, courage, moderation and justice, and perform the occupational role to which they were best suited. The political discourse in the classical period, places importance on the idea of a ‘good society’ in ensuring peace and order among the people. The philosophers in the classical period did not make any distinction between the state and society. Rather they held that the state represented the civil form of society and ‘civility’ represented the requirement of good citizenship. Moreover, they held that human beings are inherently rational so that they can collectively shape the nature of the society they belong to. In addition, human beings have the capacity to voluntarily gather for the common cause and maintain peace in society. As the forces of countries reconstituted themselves to re-affirm their global dominion in the era of globalization, the forces of community found parallel expression through a series of popular movements that drew inspiration from earlier national liberation movements. These included the civil rights, women’s, peace, human rights, environment, and gay rights movements among others and most recently the resistance against corporate globalization. Each sought to transform the relationships of power from the dominator model of empire to the partnership model of community. These movements emerged in rapid succession in response to an awakening consciousness of the possibility of creating truly democratic societies that honor life and recognize the worth and contribution of every person. Each sought deep change through non-violent means in the tradition of Gandhi and Martin Luther King. They challenged the legitimacy of dominator cultures and institutions, withdraw cooperation and support, and sought to live a new reality into being through individual and collective action. Each contributed its piece to an emerging mosaic that is converging into what we now know as global civil society. Global civil society is a social expression of the awakening of an authentic planetary culture grounded in the spiritual values and social experience of hundreds of millions of people. The power of authentic culture gives civil society the ultimate advantage. Global civil society is a manifestation of social energies released by an awakening of human consciousness to possibilities for creating societies that nurture and rejoice in a love of all beings. Like globalization, the emergence of global civil society is also a recent global phenomenon. It is hypothesized that there is a mutual interaction between global civil society and globalization and it is considered that global civil society is an aspect of globalization. Moreover, global civil society contributes to globalization. Further, it has been proposed that global civil society both feeds on and reacts to globalization. Globalization provides the foundation for global civil society. This seems to be reflected in a ‘strong and positive correlation’ between ‘clusters of globalization’ and ‘clusters of global civil society’. The high concentration of global civil society is found in north-Western Europe which is also high on globalization in terms of presence of Transnational Corp[orations (TNCs), Internet usage, importance of trade and foreign investment. It is observed that global civil society also reacts to x globalization, especially to the negative consequences of the expansion of global capitalism Please and Ask https://sol.du.ac.in/mod/book/view.php?id=1245&chapterid=911 ( कृ पया पछू 4/ 9) interconnectedness.4/30/2018 GlobalizationSM: isUNIT not-VII GLOBALIZAfound toTION, be STanATE even SOVEREIGNTY process. AND It CIVIL has SOCIETY yielded benefits to some and caused deprivations and exclusion of others. The victims of globalization have reacted in an increasingly organized manner which is reflected in the growing strength and activities of global civil society. Global civil society comprises diverse set of organizations, individuals, and ideologies. It does not take an unified or single stand on globalization. Its responses are widely varied that have been classified into different categories. For example, Anheier and others in 2001, placed global civil society position on globalization into four main categories viz., Supporters, Rejectionists, Reformists and Alternatives. The supporters are those groups and individuals in global civil society, who advocate globalization and are enthusiastic about it. They are in favour of the expansion of global capitalism and interconnectedness or global rule of law and global consciousness. They are allies of transnational business, and also of governments that want globalization to move ahead. This category also includes the advocates of ‘just wars for human rights’ and the enthusiasts for new technology. Rejectionists those who reject globalization and want to return to a world of nation-states. The rejectionists are of different types in terms of politico-ideological perspectives. It has the ‘new right’ who support global capitalism but oppose open border and a global rule of law. There are leftists here who are opposed to global capitalism, but do not oppose the spread of global rule of law. Moreover, there are traditional leftist anti-colonial movements or communists who oppose infringement of state sovereignty. This category of global civil society also comprises nationalists and even religious fundamentalists. They consider globalization harmful and hence oppose it with all their might. Reformists are said to be the largest segment of global civil society. They welcome the spread of global capitalism and global connectedness which is considered potentially beneficial to all. But at the same time, they feel the need to ‘civilize’ the process of globalization and give it a ‘human face’. So, they want reform of international and multilateral economic institutions, and a global rule of law. They are in favour of greater social justice and a fair and participatory procedure in case of new technologies. Two sub-groups are identified under this category. These are ‘incrementalists’ who favour a slow and gradual reform, and ‘radicals’ who demand bigger and more substantive change. Finally, ‘alternatives’ group does not oppose globalization, but does not support either. Rather, it prefers to opt out and adopts its own course of action independent of government, international institutions and TNCs. Their main aim is to develop their own way of life and create their own space without any kind of outside interference. This is reflected, for instance, in their preference for growing and eating organic food, opposition to brand names, efforts to reclaim public space, capitalism in local money schemes, and non-military ‘civil society interventions’ in conflicts. The reality and significance of the emerging group began to come into focus at the International NGO Forum at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. This gathering engaged some 18,000 citizen of every nationality, class, religion and race in crafting citizen treaties articulating positive agendas for cooperative voluntary action to create a world that works for all. This was an initial step in forming the complex web of alliances committed to creating a just, sustainable, and compassionate world we now know as global civil society.  In the late 1990s global civil society gained public visibility primarily as a popular resistance movement challenging the institutions and policies of corporate globalization. Less visible was the on going work of articulating and demonstrating positive alternatives. This more positive and proactive face of the movement came to the fore in 2001 at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre Brazil nine x years after Rio. It was the first major convocation of global civil society in the third millennium Please and Ask it https://sol.du.ac.in/mod/book/view.php?id=1245&chapterid=911 ( कृ पया पछू 5/ 9) reflected4/30/2018 a new stage in the movement’sSM: UNIT-VII GLOBALIZA self-confidenceTION, STATE SOVEREIGNTYand sense ANDof itsCIVIL historic SOCIETY role in light of the failing legitimacy and increasing public awareness of the failures of the institutions of empire. The foundation of the change ahead is the awakening of a cultural, social, scientific, and spiritual consciousness of the interconnections that bond the whole of life including the human species into the living web of an earth community. 3. The World Social Forum The World Social Forum is not an organization, not a united front platform, but it is an open meeting place for reflective thinking, democratic debate of ideas, formulation of proposals, free exchange of experiences and inter-linking for effective action, by groups and movements of civil society that are opposed to neo-liberalism and to domination of the world by capital and any form of imperialism, and are committed to building a society centered on the human person. The World Social Forum brings together and interlinks organizations and movements of civil society from all the countries in the world. However, it does not intend to be a body representing world civil society. The World Social Forum is an annual meeting, based in Brazil, that defines itself as an opened space, plural, diverse, non-governmental and non-partisan that stimulates the decentralized debate, reflection, proposals building, experiences exchange and alliances among movements and organizations engaged in concrete actions towards a more solidary, democratic and fair world. It is a permanent space and process to build alternatives to neoliberalism. It is held by members of the alter-globalization movement also known to as the global justice movement who come together to coordinate world campaigns, share and refine organizing strategies, and inform each other about movements from around the world and their issues. It tends to meet in January at the same time as its "great capitalist rival", the World Economic Forum's meeting in Davos, Switzerland. Originated by Oded Grajew, the first World Social Forum was held from 25 January to 30 January 2001 in Porto Alegre, Brazil, organized by many groups including the French Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions for the Aid of Citizens. The World Social Forum was sponsored, in part, by the Porto Alegre government, led by the Brazilian Worker's Party. The town was experimenting with an innovative model for local government which combined the traditional representative institutions with the participation of open assemblies of the people. About 12,000 people attended from around the world. The second World Social Forum, also held in Porto Alegre from 31 January to 5 February 2002, had over 12,000 official delegates representing people from 123 countries, 60,000 attendees, 652 workshops, and 27 talks. The third World Social Forum was again held in Porto Alegre, in January 2003. There were many parallel workshops, including, for example the Life After Capitalism workshop, which proposed focussed discussion on non-communist, non-capitalist, participative possibilities for different aspects of social, political, economic, communication structures. Among the speakers was American linguist and political activist Noam Chomsky.  The fourth World Social Forum was held in Mumbai, India, from 16 January to 21 January 2004. The attendance was expected to be 75,000 and it shot over by thousands. The cultural diversity was one notable aspect of the forum. A notable decision that was taken was the stand on Free Software. One of the key speakers at the World Social Forum 2004 was Joseph Stiglitz. x Please Ask https://sol.du.ac.in/mod/book/view.php?id=1245&chapterid=911 ( कृ पया पछू 6/ 9) 4/30/2018The fifth World Social ForumSM: UNIT for-VII 2005 GLOBALIZA wasTION, held ST AinTE PortoSOVEREIGNTY Alegre, AND Brazil CIVIL SOCIETY between 26 January and 31 January. There were 155,000 registered participants at the Forum, with most coming from Brazil, Argentina, the United States, Uruguay, and France. A number of participants in the forum released the Porto Alegre Manifesto. The sixth World Social Forum was "polycentric", held in January 2006 in Caracas (Venezuela) and Bamako (Mali), and in March 2006, in Karachi (Pakistan). The Forum in Pakistan was delayed to March because of the Kashmir earthquake that had recently occurred in the area. The seventh World Social Forum was held in Nairobi, Kenya in January 2007. There were 66,000 registered attendees, and 1,400 participating organizations from 110 countries, making it the most globally representative World Social Forum so far. It was criticized as being 'an Non-Government Organizaton (NGO) fair' and movements of the poor in Kenya and South Africa mounted vigorous protests against some of the NGOs that attended and, in their view, dominated the forum in the name of the African poor. The eighth World Social Forum in 2008 was not organized at a particular place, but globally, which means by thousands of autonomous local organizations, on or around January 26. They are also known as the Global Call for Action. The ninth World Social Forum took place in the Brazilian city of Belém, located in the Amazon rainforest, between January 27 and February 1, 2009. More than 100,000 people descended on the city of Belem at the mighty Amazon river to debate proposals and plan strategies for making a new and better world. Since 2001, the United Nations has had a presence at the World Social Forum through UNESCO, showing the institutional credibility achieved by the forum, seen by UNESCO as a prime opportunity for dialogue and a laboratory of ideas for the renewal of public policies through critical reflection on the future of societies we want to create and for elaborating proposals in search of solidarity, justice, peace and human rights. The World Social Forum has prompted the organizing of many regional social forums, including the Americas Social Forum, European Social Forum, the Asian Social Forum, the Mediterranean Social Forum and the Southern Africa Social Forum. There are also many local and national social forums, such as the Italian Social Forum, India Social Forum, Liverpool Social Forum and the Boston Social Forum. The first-ever United States Social Forum took place in Atlanta in June 2007. Regional forums have taken place in the Southwest, Northwest, Northeast, Midwest and Southeastregions of the United States. Most, though not all, social forums adhere to the World Social Forum Charter of Principles drawn up by the World Social Forum. Charter of Principles of World Social Forum The committee of Brazilian organizations that conceived of and organized the first World Social Forum, held in Porto Alegre from January 25th to 30th, 2001, after evaluating the results of that Forum and the expectations it raised, considered it necessary and legitimate to draw up a Charter of Principles to guide the continued pursuit of that initiative. The principles contained in the Charter are  supposed to be respected by all those, who wished to take part in the process and to organize new editions of the World Social Forum. The Charter of Principles is a consolidation of the decisions that presided over the holding of the Porto Alegre Forum. The Charter of Principles of World Social Forum were approved and adopted in Sãƒo Paulo, on April 9, 2001, by the organizations that make up the World Social Forum organizing committee, approved by the world social forum international council on x June 10, 2001. The following are the Charter of Principles approved by the organizations Pleaseof World Ask https://sol.du.ac.in/mod/book/view.php?id=1245&chapterid=911 ( कृ पया पछू 7/ 9) Social4/30/2018 Forum on April 9, 2001. SM: UNIT-VII GLOBALIZATION, STATE SOVEREIGNTY AND CIVIL SOCIETY 1) The World Social Forum is an open meeting place for reflective thinking, democratic debate of ideas, formulation of proposals, free exchange of experiences and interlinking for effective action, by groups and movements of civil society that are opposed to neo-liberalism and to domination of the world by capital and any form of imperialism, and are committed to building a planetary society directed towards fruitful relationships among Mankind and between it and the Earth. 2) The World Social Forum at Porto Alegre was an event localized in time and place. From now on, in the certainty proclaimed at Porto Alegre that "Another World is Possible", it becomes a permanent process of seeking and building alternatives, which cannot be reduced to the events supporting it. 3) The World Social Forum is a world process. All the meetings that are held as part of this process have an international dimension. 4) The alternatives proposed at the World Social Forum stand in opposition to a process of globalization commanded by the large multinational corporations and by the governments and international institutions at the service of those corporations' interests, with the complicity of national governments. They are designed to ensure that globalization in solidarity will prevail as a new stage in world history. This will respect universal human rights, and those of all citizens - men and women - of all nations and the environment and will rest on democratic international systems and institutions at the service of social justice, equality and the sovereignty of peoples. 5) The World Social Forum brings together and interlinks only organizations and movements of civil society from all the countries in the world, but intends neither to be a body representing world civil society. 6) The meetings of the World Social Forum do not deliberate on behalf of the World Social Forum as a body. No one, therefore, will be authorized, on behalf of any of the editions of the Forum, to express positions claiming to be those of all its participants. The participants in the Forum shall not be called on to take decisions as a body, whether by vote or acclamation, on declarations or proposals for action that would commit all, or the majority, of them and that propose to be taken as establishing positions of the Forum as a body. It thus does not constitute a locus of power to be disputed by the participants in its meetings, nor does it intend to constitute the only option for interrelation and action by the organizations and movements that participate in it. 7) Nonetheless, organizations or groups of organizations that participate in the Forum's meetings must be assured the right, during such meetings, to deliberate on declarations or actions they may decide on, whether singly or in coordination with other participants. The World Social Forum undertakes to circulate such decisions widely by the means at its disposal, without directing, hierarchizing, censuring or restricting them, but as deliberations of the organizations or groups of organizations that made the decisions. 8) The World Social Forum is a plural, diversified, non-confessional, non-governmental and non- party context that, in a decentralized fashion, interrelates organizations and movements engaged in  concrete action at levels from the local to the international to build another world. 9) The World Social Forum will always be a forum open to pluralism and to the diversity of activities and ways of engaging of the organizations and movements that decide to participate in it, as well as the diversity of genders, ethnicities, cultures, generations and physical capacities, providing x they abide by this Charter of Principles. Neither party representations nor military organizations Please shall Ask participate in the Forum. Government leaders and members of legislatures who accept the https://sol.du.ac.in/mod/book/view.php?id=1245&chapterid=911 ( कृ पया पछू 8/ 9) commitments4/30/2018 of this Charter maySM: be UNIT invited-VII GLOBALIZA to participateTION, STATE SOVEREIGNTYin a personal AND capacity. CIVIL SOCIETY 10) The World Social Forum is opposed to all totalitarian and reductionist views of economy, development and history and to the use of violence as a means of social control by the State. It upholds respect for Human Rights, the practices of real democracy, participatory democracy, peaceful relations, in equality and solidarity, among people, ethnicities, genders and peoples, and condemns all forms of domination and all subjection of one person by another. 11) As a forum for debate the World Social Forum is a movement of ideas that prompts reflection, and the transparent circulation of the results of that reflection, on the mechanisms and instruments of domination by capital, on means and actions to resist and overcome that domination, and on the alternatives proposed to solve the problems of exclusion and social inequality that the process of capitalist globalization with its racist, sexist and environmentally destructive dimensions is creating internationally and within countries. 12) As a framework for the exchange of experiences, the World Social Forum encourages understanding and mutual recognition amongst its participant organizations and movements, and places special value on the exchange among them, particularly on all that society is building to centre economic activity and political action on meeting the needs of people and respecting nature, in the present and for future generations. 13) As a context for interrelations, the World Social Forum seeks to strengthen and create new national and international links among organizations and movements of society, that, in both public and private life, will increase the capacity for non-violent social resistance to the process of dehumanization the world is undergoing and to the violence used by the State, and reinforce the humanizing measures being taken by the action of these movements and organizations. 14) The World Social Forum is a process that encourages its participant organizations and movements to situate their actions, from the local level to the national level and seeking active participation in international contexts, as issues of planetary citizenship, and to introduce onto the global agenda the change-inducing practices that they are experimenting in building a new world in solidarity.

REFERENCES Appadurai, Arjun, Modernity at large: Culture dimensions of globalization, New Delhi, Oxford Univ Press, 1997. Jose Correa Leite, The World Social Forum: Strategies of Resistance, Haymarket Books, 2005 Featherstone, Mike, Ed, Global culture: Nationalism, globalization and modernity: A theory, culture and Society special issue, London: Sage Publications, 1990. Robertson, Roland, Globalization: Social theory and global culture, London: Sage Publications, 1992.  Sen, Jai, Anita Anand, Arturo Escobar and Peter Waterman (eds), The World Social Forum: Challenging Empires. New Delhi: The Viveka Foundation, 2004

x Please Ask https://sol.du.ac.in/mod/book/view.php?id=1245&chapterid=911 ( कृ पया पछू 9/ 9) 3/23/2020 The Impact of the Internet on Sovereignty: Real and Unfounded Worries | Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability

The Impact of the Internet on Sovereignty: Real and Unfounded Worries

Recommended Citation

Saskia Sassen, "The Impact of the Internet on Sovereignty: Real and Unfounded Worries", Information Technology and Tools Global Disclosure Project, December 10, 1999, https://nautilus.org/information- technology-and-tools/the-impact-of-the-internet-on-sovereignty-real-and-unfounded-worries/

Saskia Sassen University of Chicago

DRAFT – Please do not quote or cite – DRAFT

Internet and International Systems: Information Technology and American Foreign Policy Decision-making Workshop Nautilus Institute, San Francisco, December 10, 1999

THE IMPACT OF THE INTERNET ON SOVEREIGNTY: UNFOUNDED AND REAL WORRIES

There is a growing debate about the Internet and its impact on sovereignty. A good example in the legal scholarship is the recent special issue of the Indiana Journal for Global Legal Studies. The major lines of the debate are increasingly polarized among those who believe that the Internet undermines state sovereignty and those who believe that it strengthens liberal democracy. Not unrelated to these two positions is the parallell debate between those who assert that it is impossible to regulate the Internet versus those who maintain that there are various legal instruments available to states for regulating Internet transactions.

I want to argue here that one of the reasons for the polarization in views evident in these debates has to do with, on the one hand, misconceptions about the architecture of the Internet and, on the other, an uncritical assumption that national sovereignty is a given, an unchanged feature of national states. In short, part of the problem is that both the conception of the Internet and that of sovereignty fail to incorporate the finer grain of each and their recent transformations. What has happened in this debate to some extent is a shaping of the interpretation of the Internet’s impact on sovereignty in terms of two major long-standing positions in the political theory and legal scholarship on the nature of state power –the Realist and Liberal conceptions of state power. Left out of this debate are the specific features of the Internet, let alone the fact that the Internet itself is a dynamic entity. Left out also is the possibility that these two major theories are themselves inadequate to understand state power and national sovereignty in today’s context of globalization.

I am concerned about the broader theoretical and political implications of the faulty characterization of the two fundamental concepts in the debate. Among the key issues I want to focus on concerning the Internet are a) the confusion between privately owned digital networks and public digital space, b) the multiple meanings of commercialization of the Net, and c) the possibilities for regulating the Net. Very briefly, my argument will be that it is the enormous growth of private digital networks– especially the case of the global financial markets– rather than the Internet, which is having the greater impact on national sovereignty and indeed transforming it. Secondly, the rapid growth of commercial uses on the net is not necessarily a democratising dynamic, as is often argued under the assumption that markets are a condition for a free society. Commercialization may well create new forms of inequality in digital space –what one could think of as cybersegmentations. Finally, there are features of the Internet today which suggest that regulation is possible, and that it is not necessarily a space https://nautilus.org/information-technology-and-tools/the-impact-of-the-internet-on-sovereignty-real-and-unfounded-worries/?view=print 1/11 3/23/2020 The Impact of the Internet on Sovereignty: Real and Unfounded Worries | Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability of total freedom, a sort of new wild west. But it is a radically different version of regulation from what we have associated with the modern state over the last half century.

When it comes to sovereignty, we see a tendency towards a somewhat unproblematicized acceptance of this category. Taking sovereignty as if it were a fundamental given is particularly inadequate in the current period when we are seeing some rather important transformations in that specific form of power and legitimacy we call state sovereignty. The uncritical acceptance of sovereignty as a given is evident both in so called Realist conceptions of the state, with their emphasis on the power of the state, and Liberal conceptions, with their emphasis on democratic mechanisms as explaining the power of the state. My argument is that economic globalization and technology have brought with them significant transformations in the authority of national states. Especially important here is the growth of new non-state centered governance mechanisms which have transformed the meaning of national territorial sovereignty independently from whatever impact the Internet has so far had, and furhter, the formation of partly digitalized global financial markets which can deploy considerable power against the will of national states.

In brief, we cannot take either of these two categories– the Internet and sovereignty– as givens. They are dynamic conditions subject to a variety of pressures. Even the Internet, with its young history, can already be thought of as having had two phases and entering a third one. Making problematic the two basic categories in the debate–the Internet and sovereignty– introduces a number of qualifyers into some of the dualities running through the debate, notably the realist/liberal opposition in theories of the sovereign state and the interpretation of the Internet as representing either a fundamental revolution or basic continuity in technologies of communication. Liberals have tended to view it as a revolution with enormous potential while Realists tend to take the second view and argue that the state will find ways of regulating the Net and indeed is already capable of doing so. This duality in a way misses the point: the specificity of the Internet in terms of sovereignty is going to have to do in good part with the kinds of uses and practices enacted in the Net and the extent to which commercialization and privatisation, including copyrighting, create new forms of concentrated power and inequality on the Net.

I.THE INTERNET’S THIRD PHASE: NOVEL IMPLICATIONS FOR DEMOCRACY.

There is little doubt that the Internet is an enormously important tool and space for democratic participation at all levels, the strengthening of civil society, and the formation of a whole new world of transnational political and civic projects.1

But it has also become clear over the last few years that the Internet is no longer what it was in the 1970s or 1980s; it has become a contested space with considerable possibilities for segmentation and privatisation. We cannot take its democratic potential as a given simply because of its interconnectivity. We cannot take its “seamlessness” as a given simply because of its technical properties. And we cannot take its bandwidth availability as a given simply because of the putative exponential growth in network capacity with each added network.2techical developments over the last two years raised the carrying capacity of fiber optic cable from 20 gigabits per second in 1996 to 400 in 1998.

This is a particular moment in the history of digital networks, one when powerful corporate actors and high performance networks are strenghtening the role of private digital space and altering the structure of public digital space, that is, the Internet. Digital space has emerged not simply as a means for communicating, but as a major new theater for capital accumulation and the operations of global capital. Yet much of the writing about electronic space and network power has been shaped by the properties of the Internet, more precisely what one can think of as its first two phases.3

To recap a familiar story, the first phase of the Internet was confined largely to a community of insiders–scientists and select government agencies. That community invented communication standards and communication protocols that ensured access for all the members of that community. The second phase of the Internet, centered in the decade of the 1980s, strengthened the democratic and open character of the Net and made it a space of distributed power that limits the possibilities of authoritarian and monopoly control. It is by now well known that the particular features of the Internet are in part a function of the early computer hacker culture which designed software that strengthened the original design of the Net –openness and decentralization– and which sought to make the software universally available for free.

But with the establishment of the World Wide Web in 1993, and its large scale discovery by business by 1995, we can say that the Net has entered a third phase, one characterized by broad-based attempts to commercialize it.4emergence of firms that sell access services to speed up access. This is not an essential service to gain access, but it is a convenience, and an option for those with the income to pay for it. Another is the possibility of adding value (including commercial value) to Net https://nautilus.org/information-technology-and-tools/the-impact-of-the-internet-on-sovereignty-real-and-unfounded-worries/?view=print 2/11 3/23/2020 The Impact of the Internet on Sovereignty: Real and Unfounded Worries | Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability features through the incorporation of voice and image, which consume enormous bandwidth and hence will eventually probably be more easily subjected to premium pricing mechanisms than is e-mail for instance. When we consider the enormous amount of software design effort that is right now going into producing programs that can ensure safe credit card processing and other types of electronic payment, then we can see that commercialization is likely to increase even though today it is minor. This could stimulate the creation of Web sites that incorporate the latest developments of voice and image and could charge for access. I think of the growing use of voice and image for non-essential uses as a de-greening of the net. E-mail is a system of astounding efficiency and “ecological soundness.” Voice and image with their enormous consumption of bandwidth are much less so. Commercialization is often regarded as an extension of the positive aspects of the Net. But if carried too far it may in fact have negative consequences for the civic and political potential of the Internet, and in that regard, negative impacts on Liberal state agendas. This commercialization is pursued through the development of software that can simultaneously capitalize on the Net’s features and implement billing/payment systems, and it is pursued through the extension of copyrights–in other words, the opposite of the early hacker culture. There is insufficient recognition of the tension between some of the features of the Internet which promote openness and interconnectivity, on the one hand, and, on the other, the rapid growth since 1995 of software that seeks to facilitate and expand private appropriation and use of the Net and that would allow for the implementation of copyrighting on a scale we have never seen before.

Yet much of the thinking about digital space and about questions of power and democracy, has been shaped by the properties of the Internet’s first two phases. What stands out especially in the second phase is the condition of the Internet as a space of distributed power that limits the possibilities of authoritarian and monopoly control. While this remains a feature of the Internet, too many other dynamics have also been set in motion for us to just stay with this rather utopian view. In this regard, it seems to me that we need to re-theorize digital space and uncouple it analytically from an exclusive focus on the properties of the Net which have so sharply shaped our understanding.

The polarization between Internet romancers, on the one hand, and the logic of business and markets, on the other, is contributing to a parallel polarization in the discourse about digital space, quite independently from the Realist vs. Liberal view when it comes to the state. There is a utopian approach that emphasizes the decentralization and electronic democracy of the Net, and a dystopian approach that emphasizes the global power of the large corporations.

Neither account is adequate today. While corporate forces have immense power in the shaping of digital networks, it is also a moment when we are seeing the emergence of a fairly broad-based civil society–though as yet a minor share of world population– in electronic space, particularly in the Net, which signals the potential for further developing democratic features of the Net. Further, each of these accounts rests on assumptions that limit the possibility of critical appraisals and future potentialities.

The assumptions that run through much of the discourse of the Internet romancers veil the existence of new forms of concentrated power that may undermine the better features of the Internet; nor do these assumptions help us understand the limits of such new forms of concentrated power, an important political issue. One assumption is that it will always be the open, decentralized space it was designed to be; this makes it ahistorical. John Perry Barlow’s 1996 “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace” probably epitomizes this view. Besides this political utopian vision there now is also an economic utopian view, especially strong in the U.S., which sees the Net as offering the possibility of a whole new type of market economy, one truly open and democratic. The California based Wired magazine is a key axis for this line of thought. The second assumption, tightly interlinked with the first, is that digital space is a purely technological event, and in that sense an autonomous space to be read in technical terms. One implication of such a technological reading is the notion that it can escape existing structures of power and inequality in the wider society.

The dystopian view of the Internet has its own limiting assumptions: Big capital will take over and the new high-income transnational class will also become a virtual class, with its spatial mobility further enhanced by digital mobility. Most people will be left out and at best reduced to passive consumers of Internet commerce. 5on questions of subjectivity: the transformation in the conditions through which our subjectivity is formed due to the overwhelming presence of technology intermediated sociability. This is a cultural pessimism derived from a notion that the new digital technologies will replace all other technologies through which people connect: the telephone replaced by e-mail, work in office buildings by tele-work from home, social visits by on-line chat clubs, business travel replaced by video conferencing, actual experiences by virtual reality games.

https://nautilus.org/information-technology-and-tools/the-impact-of-the-internet-on-sovereignty-real-and-unfounded-worries/?view=print 3/11 3/23/2020 The Impact of the Internet on Sovereignty: Real and Unfounded Worries | Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability Both the utopian and the dystopian view of the Internet rest on assumptions that limit our understanding of current conditions and developments. The utopian view excludes the fact that electronic space is embedded in actual societal structures and is internally segmented, both conditions with enormous implications for current and future developments as well as for the theorization of networked space and power. The dystopian view excludes the limitations and complementary dependencies of the new digital technologies –no technology is an absolute: it cannot replace all other technologies aimed at similar functions, in this case communication and interactivity. And it excludes the fact of growing contestation between powerful economic actors and civil society in public electronic space, a fact which in itself may lead to new forms of political engagement and in that sense be a force for strengthening political activity.6

The Internet, then, has not only undergone significant transformations, but also is caught up in polarizing representations about its key features.

II. PUBLIC DIGITAL SPACE: CONTESTED AND THREATENED

In my research I have come to regard the Internet as a space produced and marked through the software that gives it its features. There are significant implications attached to the fact that the leading Internet software design focus in the last few years has been the design of “firewalls” and, more recently, of so-called virtual business networks that operate over the Net via “tunnelling” and/or encryption.7 Both of these represent private appropriations of a public space.8 The rapid growth of this type of software and its use in the Internet does not necessarily strengthen the public-ness of the Net. This is especially significant if there is less production of software aimed at strengthening the public-ness of the Net.9 Further, this type of software also sets up the conditions for copyrighting, particularly the possibility of copyrighting use/access, including every single use/access.

In my reading, far from strengthening the Internet’s democratic potential as many liberal and neo-liberal commentators maintain, excessive commercialization can threaten it. Much of the commercial potential and economic activities often attributed to the Internet, are actually part of private digital networks or firewalled (i.e. privatised) sites in the Internet, a subject I return to later. But even the currently far more limited world of commercial uses possible on the Net, as compared to private digital networks, can bring some problematic consequences to the democratic potential of the Net.

Although the Net as a space of distributed power can thrive even against growing commercialization, and today’s non- commercial uses still dominate the Internet, the race is on. Considerable resources are being allocated to invent ways of expanding electronic commerce, ensuring safety of payment transactions, and implementing copyrighting. These are not easy tasks. At last year’s Aspen Roundtable on Electronic Commerce, an annual event that brings together the CEOs of the main software and hardware firms as well as the key venture capitalists in the sector, it was once again established by these insiders that there are considerable limits to the medium and that it probably will always cater to a particular niche markets, with a few possible exceptions.10

The Internet may continue to be a space for de-facto (i.e. not necessarily self-conscious) democratic practices. But it will be so partly as a form of resistance against overarching powers of the economy and of hierarchical power, rather than the space of unlimited freedom which is still part of its representation today in many milieux. The images we need to bring into this representation increasingly need to deal with contestation and resistance, rather than simply the romance of freedom and interconnectivity or the new frontier. In this regard the reawakened interest among non-commercial digital organizations and digital activists in open-source systems, notably Linux, is worth noting. We are seeing the rapid growth of a new generation of alternative organizations and of individuals knowledgeable about digital technologies who are working on the public dimensions and free access questions.11

There is an incipient literature that enacts this negotiation. Among the more important is the ongoing work of the recently created collective Nettime (1997; Lovink 1998) formed by people who are very knowledgeable about the Internet, many of whom are Net activists, but at the same time critical of the romancing of the Net I described above.

One aspect important to the positive democracy effect of the Net, is that there has been a proliferation of non-commercial uses and users. Civil society, whether it be individuals or NGOs, is a very energetic presence in cyberspace. From struggles around human rights, the environment, and workers strikes around the world to genuinely trivial pursuits, the Net has emerged as a powerful medium for non-elites to communicate, support each other’s struggles and create the equivalent of insider groups at scales going from the local to the global. https://nautilus.org/information-technology-and-tools/the-impact-of-the-internet-on-sovereignty-real-and-unfounded-worries/?view=print 4/11 3/23/2020 The Impact of the Internet on Sovereignty: Real and Unfounded Worries | Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability The political and civic potential of these trends is enormous. It offers the possibility for interested citizens to act in concert. Several authors have examined the possibility of enhancing democratic practices through the formation of communities on the Net and the possible role of governments in supporting them.12 The possibility of doing so transnationally at a time when a growing set of issues are seen as escaping the bounds of national states makes this even more significant. We are also seeing a greater variety of subcultures on the Net in the last few years after being dominated by young white men, especially from the US. The growth of global corporate actors has also profoundly altered the role of governmemt in the digital era, and, as a consequence has further raised the importance of civil society in electronic space as a force through which a multiplicity of public interests can, wittingly or not, resist the overwhelming influence of the new global corporate world.

III. STATE REGULATION AND THE INTERNET

A different issue about sovereignty is raised by the possibilities of regulating the Net. It seems to me that if there is to be some kind of regulation it is going to be very different from what we have usually understood by this term. It is certainly the case that in many ways the Net escapes or overrides most conventional jurisdictions.

Here I would like to focus briefly on a fact that is too often left out of the discussion: there is a kind of central authority overseeing some of the crucial features of the Net having to do with addresses and numbers granting.13 This does not mean that regulation is ipso facto possible. It merely signals that the representation of the Net as escaping all authority is simply inadequate. 14 The nature of this authority is not necessarily akin to regulatory authorities but it is a gate keeping system of sorts and raises the possibility of oversight capacities. Even though these oversight capacities would entail considerable innovation in our concepts about regulation, they signal that there are possibilities overlooked in a faulty characterization of the architecture of the Net.

This centrally managed function of the Internet involves the control and assignment of the numbers that computers need to locate an address.15 It therefore can instruct all the top “root servers” of the Net –the computers that execute address inquiries– and these will accept these instructions. This is, clearly, a power of sorts. For a long time it was not formalized, in good part because its origins lie in the first phase of the Internet. It is the power held by the group of computer scientists who invented the communication protocols and agreed on the standards that make the Net work today. They worked at debugging the systems over the last twenty years and did so not necessarily under contract by any agency in particular. It is a de-facto group which worked at making the Net workable since its beginnings. The particular function of assigning addresses is crucial and was for many years under the informal control of one particular scientist who named this function the “Internet Assigned Numbers Authority.”

In the summer of 1998, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), now the group assigned to oversee the Net’s address system, was established. It represents a formalization of the earlier authority.16 It was basically started as a group of insiders with fairly lose and ineffective by-laws. By early 1999 it had implemented conflict-of-interest rules, opened up some board meetings, and worked towards developing a mechanism to elect board members in an effort to build in more . It is today the subject of growing debate among various digital subcultures (e.g.see Nettime for summaries of the debates).

As the Net has grown and become more international there appears to be growing concern that a more organized and accountable system is necessary. This signals the presence of sectors with the will to strengthen and develop this central authority.

The US government’s “Framework for Global Electronic Commerce,” a blueprint for Internet governance, argues that because of the Internet’s global reach and evolving technology, regulation should be kept to a minimum. It also suggests that in the few areas where rules are needed, such as privacy and taxation, policy should be made by quasigovernmental bodies such as the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) or the OECD.

One of the issues with this type of proposal is the absence of transparency and the problems it brings with it. These become evident in one of the first big Net policy dilemmas: cybersquatting. (Private speculators seizing valuable corporate brand names on the Internet and selling them back, at an enormous price, to the firms carrying those names.) Net addresses are important for establishing an identity online. So companies want to establish a rule that they are entitled to any domain names using their trademarks. But the Net is used for more than e-commerce, so consumer advocates say this rule would unfairly restrict the rights of schools, museums, pol. parties and other noncommercial Net users. However, in the deliberations that https://nautilus.org/information-technology-and-tools/the-impact-of-the-internet-on-sovereignty-real-and-unfounded-worries/?view=print 5/11 3/23/2020 The Impact of the Internet on Sovereignty: Real and Unfounded Worries | Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability have taken place at WIPO, it is largely the large firms who are participating, in meetings that take place mostly behind doors. This privatizes the effort to design regulations for the Net.

While the purpose of these governing mechanisms is not about regulation as we have know it, their existence and, perhaps more importantly, the necessity of some such bodies, represents a significant operational opening for some sort of regulation/governance. This is often overlooked in many discussions about the Net and its freedoms.

IV. DISTINGUISHING PRIVATE AND PUBLIC DIGITAL SPACE

The Internet is only one portion of the vast new world of digital space, and many of the dramatic features attributed to the Internet’s power to neutralize sovereignty are actually features of private digital networks, such as those used in international finance. Many assertions about economic processes, dynamics and potentials are happening in private digital space and have little to do with the Internet. I consider this a serious, though fairly common, confusion.17comes to the broader subject of network power, most computernetworks are private. It might be worth repeating that even if we just consider Internet Protocol compatible networks and we take the figures for the period preceding the explosion of business interest in the Net, also then most networks were private: Just counting networks as opposed to traffic volume, in 1994 there were about 40,000 IP compatible networks, but the Internet itself accounted for about 12,000 of these. That leaves a lot of network power that may not necessarily have the attributes of the Internet. Indeed, much of this is concentrated power and reproduces hierarchy rather than distributed power. Most financial activity and other significant digital economic activities take place in private digital networks.18 Further, as I already mentioned, much of the use firms make of the Net today asumes the form of firewalled web sites and, increasingly, privatized “tunnels” — the new citadels on the Net. This is not likely to strengthen democratic practice.

Further, we must recognize that private digital networks are also making possible forms of power other than the distributed power made possible by public digital networks. The financial markets illustrate this well. The three properties of electronic networks: speed, simultaneity and interconnectivity have produced orders of magnitude far surpassing anything we had ever seen in financial markets.

Before the financial crisis in Asia hit the global market, turnover value was estimated at US$ 75 trillion –a figure that dwarfs the value of cross-border trade and investment. The consequence has been that the global capital market now has the power to discipline national governments, as became evident with the 1994-5 Mexico “crisis” and the 1997-8 Asian crisis, when investors were capable of leaving en masse taking out US$55 billion, and the foreign currency markets had the orders of magnitude to alter exchange rates radically for some of these currencies.19

It also may be significant that although in some ways the power of these financial electronic networks rests on a kind of distributed power, i.e. millions of investors and their millions of decisions, it ends up as concentrated power. The trajectory followed by what begins as a form of distributed power may assume many forms, in this case, one radically different from that of the Internet. It signals the possibility that digital network power is not inherently distributive. Intervening mechanisms can re- shape its organization. To keep it as a form of distributed power requires that it be embedded in a particular kind of structure.

Digital space, whether private or public, is partly embedded in actual societal structures and power dynamics: its topography weaves in and out of non-electronic space. In the case of private electronic space, this feature carries enormous implications for theory, for the results of the digitalization of economic activity, and for the conditions through which governments and citizens can act on this new electronic world of the economy and power. The embeddedness of private economic electronic space entails the formation of massive concentrations of infrastructure, not only worldwide dispersal, and a complex interaction between conventional communications infrastructure and digitalization. The notion of “global cities” captures this particular embeddedness of global finance in actual financial centers.20

There is no purely digital economy and no completely virtual corporation. This means that power, contestation, inequality, in brief, hierarchy, inscribe electronic space. And although the digitalized portions of these industries, particularly finance, have the capacity to subvert the established hierarchies, new hierarchies are being formed, born out of the existing material conditions underlying power and the new conditions created by electronic space.

V. BEYOND THE INTERNET’S IMPACT: SOVEREIGNTY RECONFIGURED?

https://nautilus.org/information-technology-and-tools/the-impact-of-the-internet-on-sovereignty-real-and-unfounded-worries/?view=print 6/11 3/23/2020 The Impact of the Internet on Sovereignty: Real and Unfounded Worries | Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability The growth of the Internet as a significant space for practices of various kinds is taking place at a time when we see a number of major transformations in national sovereignty. I find it quite impossible to consider the impact of the Internet on sovereignty as if sovereignty itself were a stable condition.

There are two issues here. One is the historicity of the character of sovereignty located in the state–that particular kind of intermediary. Over the last few years we have seen a shift of some components of this sovereignty to other entities–supra and sub-national as well as non governmental. Who gains legitimacy as a claimant under these new conditions? There are different capacities in different sectors. The Net could become an extremely important public space for strengthening the claims of non-state actors that lack the resources of globally oriented corporations or of other sectors with considerable resources.

The second issue is the need to examine the assumption about the state as the exclusive representative of its people.21 It is no longer simply a matter of the Liberal vs. the Realist interpretation. I find this frame confining in much of the debate about the Internet and sovereignty, even though I would agree with one of the lines of argumentation which holds that different states can be characterized either way and that depending on this they will be more or less affected by the Internet. Different intermediaries may emerge between the state and what it represents (I.e. the people), including private bodies in arenas where it used to be public bodies that governed.22 Seeing the rise of markets and of transnational corporate actors, I cannot help but ask whether Liberal theory and its enactment in political or state practice necessarily imply a liberal state: we have historically perhaps seen this, but today the elements are there to reconfigure this association. At least some scholars argue that we are seeing the neo-liberal rather than the liberal state coming out of liberal policies.23

Further, if we are going to consider issues of sovereignty and democracy, then we must ask a critical question about what actors are gaining influence under conditions of digitization and whose claims are gaining legitimacy. For instance, it could be argued (and it is my argument) that private digital space has had a far sharper impact on questions of sovereignty than the Internet. The globalization and digitization of financial markets have made these markets a powerful presence. Indeed, the logic of the global capital markets is today not merely a condition of raw power but one with normative potential. The logic of these markets has contributed to the elaboration of a set of criteria for what is proper government conduct on the economy. This new power of the financial markets is partly a consequence of the orders of magnitude they have reached in good part through their digitalization and the fact that they are globally integrated, two conditions that are mutually reinforcing. The capacity of these markets to affect existing meanings of sovereignty is considerable and in my view, thus far has been greater than that of the Internet.24

New transnational regimes and institutions are creating systems that strengthen the claims of certain actors (corporations, the large multinational legal firms) and correspondingly weaken the position of smaller players and of states.25 Ruggie has pointed out that the issue is not whether such new institutions and major economic actors will substitute national states but rather the possibility of major changes in the system of states: “global markets and transnationalized corporate structures… are not in the business of replacing states” yet they can have the potential for producing fundamental change in the system of states.26

What matters here is that global capital has made claims on national states and these have responded through the production of new forms of legality.27There is a growing consensus among states to further the goals of economic globalization, to the point that some see in this a constitutionalizing of this new role of states (See Panitch 1996, Cox 1987, Mittelman 1996).28 The new geography of global economic processes, the strategic territories for economic globalization, had to be produced, both in terms of the practices of corporate actors and the requisite infrastructure, and in terms of the work of the state in producing or legitimating new legal regimes.29

One possible reading of recent developments in the earlier Mexico crisis and in the current Asian crisis, but also in a more structural context–the adoption of neoliberal economic principles by governments wanting to join the global economic markets– is that these markets have emerged as nonstate “actors” whose claims have acquired legitimacy.30

This then invites us to raise a whole set of questions about how certain actors have gained this legitimacy in their claims, and in the case of the specific concerns here, how has the development of digitalization favored some over other actors. Put this way, it still leaves unadddressed the question about the future impact of the Internet. And here I would say that commercialization as discussed earlier may well dampen the impact of the Internet in terms of political practices. I return to https://nautilus.org/information-technology-and-tools/the-impact-of-the-internet-on-sovereignty-real-and-unfounded-worries/?view=print 7/11 3/23/2020 The Impact of the Internet on Sovereignty: Real and Unfounded Worries | Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability my earlier point about the importance of strengthening the variety of cultures active on the Net, the importance of struggles for greater bandwidth for civil society actors and for those organizations who cannot pay for increasingly scarce bandwidth.

In my reading the risk on this particular issue is self complacency about the democratic potential of the Internet. The potential is there but we cannot take it for granted, nor can we assume that commercialization is simply going to strengthen this democratic potential. It may well be the case that in the context of the former centrally planned economies of Central Europe and the former Soviet Union, commerce on the Internet is a democratizing practice–at least for a while. But the growing practice of privatising portions of the Net, electronic commerce and the –almost inevitably associated– strengthening of intellectual property rights on the Internet are to be taken seriously. If uses by civil society multiply, grow, strengthen, raise the interconnections among various nonstate actors in various locations across the globe, then there is probably less to worry about. But right now, there is not enough of this, and the risk that we are left with a poor man’s Internet, with slow connections, in competition for bandwidth with entities that can pay for expensive, or for that matter not so expensive but still involving costs that often cannot be afforded by many community organizations or underfunded sectors of civil society.

VI.CONCLUSION.

The Internet is only one portion of the vast new world of digital space, and many of the dramatic features attributed to the Internet’s power to neutralize sovereignty are actually features of private digital networks, such as those used in international finance. Similarly, the key about many of the current transformations and their potential to limit sovereignty may not be the elimination of sovereignty but its unbundling and partial relocation to other supra-, sub and non-national institutions.

REFERENCES CITED.

ADILKNO. 1998. The Media Archive. World Edition. New York: Autonomedia, and Amsterdam:ADILKNO.

Cox, Robert. 1987. Production, Power, and World Order: Social Forces in the Making of History. New York: Columbia University Press.

Franck, Thomas M. 1992. “The Emerging Right to Democratic Governance,” American Journal of International Law, vol. 86, 1: 46-91.

Calabrese, Andrew and Mark Borchert. 1996. “Prospects for elecronic democracy in the United States: rethingking communication and social policy.” Media, Culture and Society, vol. 18:pp.249-268

Calabrese, Andrew and Jean-Claude Burgelman (eds). 1999. Communication, Citizenship and Social Policy. New York: Rowman & Littlefield.

Dencker, Klaus Peter (ed) 1997. Labile Ordnungen: Netze Denken. Hamburg:Verlag Hans Bredow.

Garcia, Linda. 1995. “The Globalization of Telecommunications and Information.” Pp. 75-92 in Drake, William J. (ed) The New Information Infrastructure: Strategies for U.S. Policy. New York: Twentieth Century Fund Press.

Graham, Stephen and Simon Marvin (1996). Telecommunications and the City: Electronic Spaces, Urban Places. London and New York: Routledge.

Kroker, Arthur and Marilouise.1996. Hacking the future: stories for the flesh-eating 90s. New York: St,Martin’s Press.

Lovink, Geert. 1997. “Grundrisse einer Netzkritik.” In Dencker (ed) op. cit: pp. 234-245.

Nettime. 1997. Net Critique. Compiled by Geert Lovink and Pit Schultz. Berlin: Edition ID-ARchiv.

Munker, Stefan and Alexander Roesler (eds). 1997. Mythos Internet. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.

Rapp, L. 1995. “Toward French Electronic Highways. The New Legal Status of Data Transmissions in France.” Pp. 231-246 in L.Rapp (ed) Telecommunications and Space Journal. Vol. 2 (Annual Edition). https://nautilus.org/information-technology-and-tools/the-impact-of-the-internet-on-sovereignty-real-and-unfounded-worries/?view=print 8/11 3/23/2020 The Impact of the Internet on Sovereignty: Real and Unfounded Worries | Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability Rotzer, Florian. 1995. Die Telepolis: Urbanitat im digitalen Zeitalter. Mannheim: Bollmann.

Jacobson, David. 1996. Rights Across Borders: Immigration and the Decline of Citizenship. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press.

Mittelman, James. (ed). Globalization: Critical Reflections. Yearbook of International Political Economy. Vol. 9. Boulder, Colo.:Lynne Riener Publishers. 1996.

Panitch, Leo (1996) “Rethinking the Role of the State in an Era of Globalization.” In Mittelman (ed) op cit.

Ruggie, John Gerard. 1993. “Territoriality and beyond: problematizing modernity in international relations.” International Organization 47, 1 (Winter): 139-174.

Sassen, Saskia. 1998. Globalization and Its Discontents. Selected Essays. New York: New Press. —————1996. Losing Control? Sovereignty in an Age of Globalization. The 1995 Columbia University Leonard Hastings Schoff Memorial Lectures. New York: Columbia University Press. ——— 2000 The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo. Princeton University Press. (New Updated Edition).

Stiftinger, Edeltraud and Edward Strasser (eds) 1997. Binary Myths:Cyberspace-The Renaissance of Lost Emotions.

Vienna:Zukunfts- und Kulturwerkstatte (In English and German).

ENDNOTES

1 In the broadest sense the Internet consists of the technologies that support TCP/IP. In speaking about the Internet as a public space the reference is more specifically to the uses made through software design and distribution of those technical capacities.

2 Indeed carrying capacity has grown enormously, probably surpassing Moore’s Law exponential growth rate.

3 I have developed this specific argument in Globalization and its Discontents (1998) chapter 9.

4 Commercialization can enter the Net in several ways. One is the

5 A different type of dystopian view is centered

6 For instance, the development of so called “insular technologies” centered on low-cost high frequency radios rather than depending on the fiber optic network and hence on the telecoms that control it. For a full description see the archival material and ongoing debate on Nettime. The idea is the possibility of a world-wide build out of TCP/IP connectionless networks as a low-cost and effective option to the multi-trillion US$ PSTN worldwide dominated by large telecoms.

7 This saves companies the cost of private computer networks, with the requisite staffing and servicing, and the cost of frame relay connections.

8 An additional issue, one which I am not referring to here, is the privatisation of infrastructure that has also taken place over the last two years.(see Globalization and its Discontents, chapter 9).

9 See for example the failure of Digital City Berlin and of Digital City Vienna. The original Digital City, Amsterdam, remains a lively and dynamic public space. It has taken enormous work and time on the part of a group of dedicated founders and members to ensure its survival.

10 The Global Advance of Electronic Commerce. Reinventing Markets, Management and National Sovereignty. A Report of The Sixth Annual Aspen Institute Roundtable on Information Technology. (Aspen, Colorado, August 21-23, 1997) David Bollier, Rapporteur. Washington, D.C.:The Aspen Institute, Communications and Society Program 1998.

11 See for instance the recent (March 1999) Next Five Minutes metings in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, especially the technical workshops, and the upcoming Wizards of OS meeting in Berlin (July 1999). https://nautilus.org/information-technology-and-tools/the-impact-of-the-internet-on-sovereignty-real-and-unfounded-worries/?view=print 9/11 3/23/2020 The Impact of the Internet on Sovereignty: Real and Unfounded Worries | Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability 12 Digital City 1997; Calabrese and Borchert 1996; Calabrese and Burgelman 1999; Rheingold 1993. See also my review of various web sites of this type in Artforum November 1998 p.30

13 There are also more specific issues that may affect the regulation of particular forms of digital activity through a focus on infrastrucutre. There are different types of infrastructure for different types of digital activities, for instance, financial markets versus consumer wireless phones. This a subject I have elaborated elsewhere. See “The State and the Global City” in Globalization and its Discontents.

14 For the most extreme version of this representation see John Perry Barlow’s “Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace.”

15 One could consider the community of scientists who have worked on making the Net workable and who have had to reach many agreements on a broad range of technical matters, as a sort of informal central “authority.” In most other cultural settings they would probably have become a formal, recognizable body –with, one might add, considerable power. There is an interesting sociology here.

16 With the growth of business interest in the Net, the de-facto authority of the early pioneers of the Net and their logic for assigning addresses began to be criticized. For instance, firms found that their names had already been asigned to other parties and that there was little they could do; the whole idea of brandnames and intellectual property rights over a name was not part of the early Net culture.

17 When it

18 The growth of direct online investment does often use the Internet. It is mostly retail and represents a minor share of the overall global financial market. Even factoring in its expected tripling in value over the next 3 or 4 years will not give it the type of power of the global financial market I am discussing here.

19 The other half of this argument has to do with questions of normativity –the fact that the global financial markets are not only capable of deploying raw power but also have produced a logic that now is seen as setting the criteria for “proper” economic policy. IMF conditionality has some of these features. There is an emerging literature on this. I have discussed this issue and some of the literature in Losing Control? chapter 2.

20 I examine some of these issues in “Global Financial Centers” Foreign Affairs, Vol.78, January/February 1999. The growth of electronic trading and electronic netowrk alliances between major financial centers is allowing us to see the particular way in which digitalized markets are partly embedded in these vast concentrations of material resources and human talents which financial centers are.

21 See, for example Franck 1992; Jacobson 1996

22 For instance, the new public voice of some NGOs and of First-Nation people in international fora. For a more general discussion see Losing Control? chapters one and three.

23 See, e.g. Cox, 1987; Panitch 1996.

24 I develop this in Losing Control?, chapter 2. See also The Global City. (Princeton University Press 1991).

25 I discuss this in Losing Control? chapter one.

26 Ruggie(1993: 143)

27 In many ways the state is involved in this emerging transnational governance system. But it is a state that has itself undergone transformation and participated in legitimating a new doctrine about the role of the state in the economy. Central to this new doctrine is a growing consensus among states to further the growth and strength of the global economy.(See, e.g. several chapters in Mittelman 1996).

https://nautilus.org/information-technology-and-tools/the-impact-of-the-internet-on-sovereignty-real-and-unfounded-worries/?view=print 10/11 3/23/2020 The Impact of the Internet on Sovereignty: Real and Unfounded Worries | Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability 28 29 Representations that characterize the national state as simply losing significance fail to capture this very important dimension, and reduce what is happening to a function of a putative global-national duality–what one wins, the other loses. I view deregulation not simply as a loss of control by the state but as a crucial mechanism to negotiate the juxtaposition of the inter-state consensus to pursue globalization and the fact that national legal systems remain as the major, or crucial instantiation through which guarantees of contract and property rights are enforced.

30 There are two distinct issues here. One is the formation of new legal regimes that negotiate between national sovereignty and the transnational practices of corporate economic actors. The second issue is the particular content of this new regime, one which contributes to strengthen the advantages of certain types of economic actors and to weaken those of others.

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Knowledge System

Related terms: Ontology, Expert Systems, Digital Libraries, Semantics, Commensurability

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Expert Systems in Cognitive Science

F. Schmalhofer, in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2001

Knowledge systems are viewed as artificial agents that have (assigned or attributed) goals, knowledge, and may interact with other agents in a rational manner. As an alternative to this anthropomorphic view of knowledge systems, similar systems may also be characterized not only as a new sophisticated medium that allows humans to publish static knowledge (such as in a traditional book) but also knowledge that becomes active and via the computer performs actions in an environment that may be remote to the environment of its author (i.e., the human expert of a given subject domain). The human expert may nevertheless remain responsible for these actions. The area of expert system research has become much larger over the years, and philosophical and methodological variety has been added. In combination with the mobility and omnipresence of computers and related new information technologies, such as multimedia systems, inter- and intranets as well as telematics, the field of expert system research continues to enjoy a broad interest from different disciplines and application areas. Expert systems, intelligent artificial agents, or knowledge-management systems, in short knowledge systems, have thus not only become an integral part of modern work environments with businesses attempting to leverage their knowledge by artificial reasoning systems, but may indeed be one of the key factors that is shaping the knowledge society of the twenty-first century.

Quantization of Knowledge

Syed V. Ahamed, in Next Generation Knowledge Machines, 2014 4.4 Knowledge Systems and Current Sciences Knowledge systems have a decisive role in the ongoing impact of current sciences and Internet technology. Knowledge sciences encompass the energy that drives human activities. The roles of humans and their behavior in the use of current technologies become crucial to solve, resolve, and optimally iterate the solutions. Knowledge science can only facilitate the integration of existing technologies into a coherent discipline. We illustrate this ongoing synergy between current technologies and human efforts in Figure 4.3.

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Figure 4.3. Three current scenarios (1), (2), and (3) are identified for the humans and machines. From a historic perspective, human effort and activities have been shifted to programmable machine functions. This tendency of human beings points in the direction that the next-generation machines (4) will integrate more and more human functions, especially those dealing with concepts, wisdom and long-term ethics and merge them with need for power to implement, the energy to exercise the power over a period of time and to cause a change within the society. B, D, I, K, C, W, and E symbolize binary streams, data structures, information, knowledge, concepts, wisdom, and ethics that form the significant strides of human thought in the modern information age.

On the left side of Figure 4.3, the merge of human measures of practice, skill and caliber are superposed on knowledge in its most rudimentary representations binary, data, and information. The major feature of humans is the capacity to learn by iterations (i.e., practice). The major feature for the machines is its AI, rapid, and robotic response. In a closed loop, humans learn fast and force the machines via their conceptual foothold, wise decisions and ethical attitude toward being knowledge oriented. Knowledge, social, humanist machines, and social support systems are just around the corner in a new generation of machines ready to explode in the next few decades. Machines will become much more human and human will become much more creative and tackle the problems facing society and the entire humankind (e.g., global warming, world poverty, hunger, malnutrition, and diseases). The society has moved for eons before the current society and the new phase of sciences that has evolved and enhanced by the Internet in this direction. In order to orient sciences into an integral role with the current machines, we have proposed a set of nodes and directionality (Figures 4.2 and 4.3) to move into the numerical framework. In a sense, the knowledge scientists need the highways of progress from the past and integrate them into a workable platform so that knowledge science can be quantitative, systematic and integrated as a hard science. We investigate the roles of physics and electrical engineering because of their highly evolved state and have become integral segments of communication, VLSI, and network technologies. The role of thermodynamics is especially desirable because it provides a methodology to incorporate the variations of human personalities and skill sets that are a part of Figure 4.3 (depicted as (2) in the figure). The role of economics and utility theories that form a foundation of human behavior will help the futuristic machines. The ability for the machines to predict statistically, the reaction of human beings in making rational decisions forms the basis of estimating and allocation of resources and energies to maximize the derived utility in situations that faces human beings in their daily lives. The machines can only serve as intelligent calculators that help accountants to make wise financial decision. The priming of the machines with appropriate knowledgeware becomes as necessary as the loading of software into the modern machines. In a perceptual framework, there is ample correspondence between thermal, electrical, and knowledge systems. The laws of fluid mechanics also bear some analogies. If the three systems are closely examined, the three modes of the transfer of energies can be detected. The conduction, convection, and radiation modes of heat transfer are readily evident in the electrical circuits, EM and ES field distributions, and in wave propagation modes. With a little fine tuning, these can be extended into the knowledge domain by considering the flow of kenergy (i) to alter and rearrange noun objects (n’s), (ii) to alter the verb functions (v’s), and (iii) to alter the nature of their convolutions (*’s). This would perhaps lead to the question4 if (I«»K) exhibits the properties of flow through metallic materials with mass with conduction properties or of liquids with convectional properties or of gaseous/vacuous media with radiation properties. If all the three variations are possible, then the conductive transfer is most obvious. Knowledge science retains its own distinctive features. Some laws in electrical engineering (e.g., the Ohm’s law in case of two objects with suitable modifications) appear to hold ground while the simplistic Kirchhoff’s current law does not appear valid unless the energy equations are expressed as thermodynamic equivalencies. The second law of thermodynamics is not directly applicable in the knowledge domain unless the energy-entropy relations are modified to suit the particular knowledge flow. In a sense, knowledge science becomes more intricately interwoven with behavioral science rather than with the precise physical sciences but borrows the principle that incremental https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/computer-science/knowledge-system 2/9 4/1/2019 Knowledge System - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics kenergies can bring about corresponding changes in kentropies of interacting objects depending on their individual characteristics. This is the major contribution of Rudolf Clausius (Clausius et al., 1850, 1856), but in the realm of thermodynamics.

The meaning of meaning: alternative disciplinary perspectives

Liam Magee, in Towards a , 2011 Knowledge systems can also be studied through yet another disciplinary lens, that of knowledge management. Knowledge management approaches tend to discuss ontologies less as kinds of classification systems or standards, and more as a kind of intangible organisational asset (Volkov and Garanina 2007). This perspectival shift brings about yet further distinctions which can be used to compare and contrast ontologies. Moreover, the literature review now moves closer to dealing with ontologies as a subject proper—increasingly knowledge management has co-opted ontologies as an exemplary kind of knowledge representation, with numerous studies explicitly proposing or examining frameworks, processes and systems for handling ontologies in knowledge management journals (Bosser 2005; Härtwig and Böhm 2006; Lanzenberger et al. 2008; Lausen et al. 2005; Macris, Papadimitriou and Vassilacopoulos 2008; Okafor and Osuagwu 2007) Much attention in knowledge management studies is devoted to describing the relationship between tacit and explicit knowledge in an organisational context. Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) put forward a widely adopted model for describing this relationship, which follows a four-step process of ‘socialization’ (tacit-to-tacit), ‘externalization’ (tacit-to-explicit), ‘combination’ (explicit-to-explicit) and ‘internalization’ (explicit-to-tacit). Hafeez and Alghatas (2007) study how this model can be applied to learning and knowledge management in a virtual community of practice devoted to systems dynamics. They also demonstrate how discourse analysis of online forums can be employed to demonstrate a process of knowledge transfer between participants—a method increasingly used to capture features of ‘virtual’ communities generally. These communities are an increasingly prevalent cultural setting for knowledge dissemination, as Restler and Woolis (2007) show; similarly, discourse analysis is used in several of the case studies in this work. Other studies extend similar knowledge diffusion models to the whole organisation life cycle (Mietlewski and Walkowiak 2007), or examine the application of such models as specific interventions into organisations, in the form of an action research program aimed at improving knowledge elicitation processes (Garcia-Perez and Mitra 2007). Al-Sayed and Ahmad show how expert knowledge exchange and transfer is facilitated within organisations by ‘special languages’— limited and controlled vocabularies—which represent ‘key concepts within a group of diverse interests’. As the authors point out, while use of such languages can serve to further the political aims of a specialised group within an organisation, the primary aim is one of parsimony ‘for reducing ambiguity and increasing precision’ within a professional context (Al-Sayed and Ahmad 2003). Such ‘languages for special purposes’ can serve to reify a given set of lexical items into discourse, giving rise to particular conceptualisations within a knowledgeable community of practice. In turn, these are frequently codified into knowledge systems; understanding the practical generative conditions of such languages is one way, then, towards understanding and describing the assumptions behind these systems. Several authors (Detlor et al. 2006; Hughes and Jackson 2004; Loyola 2007; Soley and Pandya 2003) have sought to analyse the specific roles played by context and culture—two notoriously ill-defined concepts—in the formation, elicitation and management of knowledge. Acknowledging the resistance of the term ‘culture’ to easy definition, much less quantification, Soley and Pandya (2003) suggest a working definition: culture is a ‘shared system of perceptions and values, or a group who share a certain system of perceptions and values’, which would include ‘sub-groups, shared beliefs and basic assumptions deriving from a group’. This working definition arguably ignores an important dimension of shared or collective practice which, following Bourdieu (1990), would seem constitutive of any culture. Nonetheless the authors point to important ways in which various cultural attributes—technical proficiency, economic wealth, as well as linguistic, educational and ethical characteristics—impact on knowledge sharing, and suggest, anticipating some of the same points made in this study, that a certain degree of sensitivity and comprehension of culture has material consequences—although, in their case, these consequences are subject to the overall ‘game’ of corporate competition. Both Detlor et al. (2006) and Loyola (2007) seek to understand the role that a similarly vexed concept, context, plays in knowledge management. Detlor et al. (2006) provide a structural account of the relationship between a ‘knowledge management environment’ and organisational and personal information behavioural patterns, using a survey-driven approach to show that indeed a strong causal relationship exists. In their analysis, four survey items relating to ‘environment’ (used interchangeably here with ‘context’) reference terms like ‘culture’, ‘organisation’, ‘work practices, lessons learned and knowledgeable persons’ and ‘information technology’—as well as ‘knowledge’ and ‘information’—which suggests the notion of ‘context’ here is synonymous with the modern organisational bureaucracy. Loyola (2007), on the other hand, surveys approaches which seek to formalise context as a more abstract ‘feature’ of knowledge descriptions. Building on earlier work in this area (Akman and Surav 1996; Bouquet et al. 2003), Loyola (2007) argues these approaches strive to describe context either as part of a logical language, or as part of a data, programming or ontological model. Recognising that context is frequently https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/computer-science/knowledge-system 3/9 4/1/2019 Knowledge System - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics tacit in knowledge representations—that it ‘characterises common language, shared meanings and recognition of individual knowledge domains’—Loyola examines attempts to make it explicit as a kind of knowledge representation itself. After a comparative review, he concludes that an ontology developed by Strang, Linnhoff-Popien and Frank (2003) is best suited to describing context, and sees the explicitation of context as itself a vital part of facilitating interoperability between conceptual, informational and social divides. While no studies address the specific question posed here about the commensurability of multiple ontologies, the relationships sketched in this literature between knowledge assets, on the one hand, and cultures, contexts and processes of knowledge management, on the other, constitute a useful conceptual rubric for the model of commensurability presented in Chapter 12, ‘A framework for commensurability’. Moreover, these studies bring forward several further salient dimensions which can be applied to ontologies: ■ whether the ontology represents a relatively small and insular, or large and variegated ‘community of practice’ ■ whether the ontology uses ‘expert’ or ‘lay’ vocabulary ■ what sorts of cultural beliefs, values, assumptions and practices impact on an ontology’s design ■ what sorts of contextual factors can impact on an ontology’s design, and how those factors can be best rendered explicit.

As the literature review moves from an engagement with various forms of understanding social semantics towards examining computational approaches to representing and reasoning with meaning—in particular how to align different systems of meaning—the following complaint, ostensibly concerning the cognitive dissonance between ontology and broader knowledge management processes, provides a convenient segueway into the challenges at the intersection of these two fields: Currently, none of the ontology management tools support social agreement between stakeholders, or ontology engineers. They most often assume one single ontology engineer is undertaking the alignment, and no agreement is therefore necessary. However, the whole point in ontology alignment is that we bring together, or align, ontologies that may have been created by different user communities with quite different interpretations of the domain. Social quality describes the relationship among varying ontology interpretations of the social actors. Means to achieve social quality are presentations of the alignment results in such a way that the different alignment types are explicitly distinguished and the location of the alignments from… a detailed and global perspective are highlighted (Lanzenberger et al. 2008, p. 109).

Anonymous Remailers

Peter Wayner, in Disappearing Cryptography (Third Edition), 2009 10.4.1 Freedom Network Zero Knowledge Systems designed and built the Freedom Network, a collection of servers joined by a sophisticated protocol for encrypting packets. The network lasted until 2001 when the company shut it down for financial reasons. The network remains one of the most ambitious tools for providing privacy on the Internet. The network consisted of a collection of Anonymous Internet Proxies that would decrypt and encrypt messages while forwarding the data on to other proxies. If a computer wants to establish a path to the Internet, it takes these steps: 1. At the center of the network is the NISS or the Network Information Status Server, a central computer that maintains a list of operating AIPs and their public keys. 2. The computer takes a list of these machines and chooses a random path through a collection of machines. This may use information about distance and load to optimize the process. Shorter chains offer better service while longer chains offer more resistance to detection. Chains running through different countries may offer some extra legal protection. 3. The computer uses Diffie-Hellman key exchange to negotiate a key with each AIP in the chain.

4. The data going out the chain is encrypted with each key in turn. If fk is the encryption function using key k, then fk 1 (fk 2 (… fkn (data))) is

sent down the chain. ki is the key for the i — th AIP in the chain. 5. Each AIP receives its packet of data and uses the negotiated session key to strip away the top layer before passing it on. 6. The last AIP in the chain sends the packet off to the right destination. 7. The return data follows the same chain in reverse. Each AIP uses the session key to encrypt the data. 8. The computer strips away the n layers. Zero Knowledge refers to this process as telescope encryption. The actual process is more involved and sophisticated. Providing adequate performance while doing so much encryption is not an easy trick. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/computer-science/knowledge-system 4/9 4/1/2019 Knowledge System - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics An historical introduction to formal knowledge systems

Liam Magee, in Towards a Semantic Web, 2011

Analysts discussing knowledge systems typically distinguish their logical (or procedural) and ontological (or data) components (Smith 1998; Sowa 2000). To employ another related distinction, the logical part can be termed the formal component of a system—what preserves truth in inferential reasoning—while the ontological part can be considered the material component—or what is reasoned about. Usually challenges of interoperability focus on the explicit ontological or material commitments of a system—what is conceptualised by that system. This is of course understandable; it is here where the authorial intent is to be divined, where the system design is manifest. However, as the history of knowledge systems demonstrates, the line between logical/ontological or formal/material is often blurred; as the mechanics of systems have evolved to provide different trade-offs between features and performance, so too have the kinds of implicit ontological assumptions embedded within the logical constructs of those systems. In less arcane terms, even the austere, content-less world of logic remains nonetheless a world—bare, but not quite empty. And since logics themselves are pluralised, it therefore makes sense that their worlds be plural too, with slight variations and gradations of difference between them. The next two chapters explore these differences, through the lens of the historical development of formal knowledge systems. This history stretches back beyond the information age to the earliest musings on the potential to arrive at conclusions through purely mechanical procedure; to deduce automatically and unambiguously.

Postcolonial Geography

J.M. Jacobs, in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2001

Geographical practitioners, institutions, knowledge systems, and pedagogies of various kinds have succumbed to the scrutiny of this autocritique. Particular attention has been given to the systems of knowledge used to understand, order and benefit from the often exotic nature found in the new worlds. These knowledge systems made meaningful peoples and lands that, from a eurocentric worldview, were so radically different they could at first only be understood as ‘savages’ or ‘wastelands.’ Two showcase collections of studies detailing diverse examples of geography's relationship to various imperialisms (old and new, European, and other) appeared in the mid-1990s (Godlewska and Smith 1994, Bell et al. 1995).

Implementation of a knowledge management centre at a special library

Eva Semertzaki, in Special Libraries as Knowledge Management Centres, 2011 Communities of practice Firms are regarded as knowledge systems. In companies, communities of practice are heterogeneous networks, socially constructed in the frames of learning (Davies and Mabin, 2001: 859). In Chapter 3 we described communities of practice extensively. They include people in an organisation or in peer organisations who help identify, share and transfer practices (O’Dell, 2004: 19). Communities of practice are informal human networks consisting of staff members with similar interests that record and transmit their valuable knowledge within the organisation. They are actively involved in the implementation phase of the knowledge management centre because they are called upon to include their group into the system. As knowledge workers, the members of communities of practice play an important role in the creation, exchange and transfer of knowledge within the boundaries of the firm. For example, communities of practice derive from the research and development, the marketing, the new product development or the customer support teams (Chase, 1998: 19). Via communities of practice, internal and informal learning is accomplished in the organisation, because each member enhances and augments existing knowledge as well as gains experience from others. Informal learning is an advantage for the organisation because it costs less than the formal learning in courses and seminars but has momentous value.

Contemporary dilemmas: tables versus webs

Liam Magee, in Towards a Semantic Web, 2011 Knowledge systems in social context To round out the discussion of knowledge systems, the following summary also teases out what was an underlying thread in the account above—the relationship between technological innovation and broader social shifts. These shifts exhibit a complex network of causal https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/computer-science/knowledge-system 5/9 4/1/2019 Knowledge System - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics relationships to the general processes of technological design, development and innovation, and hence to the question of commensurability between rival systems that emerge from these processes. These relationships, tenuously charted in this study, are more explicit in the studies that follow. In the last quarter of the twentieth century the development of formal knowledge systems has been precipitous. The preceding discussion showed how this ascent was premised on the foundational work in mathematical logic in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Leibniz’s dream—of a single symbolic language in which thoughts and argument could be conducted without ambiguity—was a constant motif throughout the evolution of this tradition. Symbolic logic, then, represents a pristine formal component of a long-ranging historical epistemological ideal, while an endless accumulation of ‘sense-experience’ supplies the matter. The semantic web represents a modern-day recasting of this ideal, in which precise agreement about meaning forms the underlying substrate for sharing information and deducing inferences. It receives its most emphatic expression from Ayer, who envisioned philosophy and science of ardent empiricism: ‘The view of philosophy which we have adopted may, I think, fairly be described as a form of empiricism. For it is characteristic of an empiricist to eschew metaphysics, on the ground that every factual proposition must refer to sense-experience’ (Ayer 1952, p. 71). The unfolding of this tradition in the account above describes three key phases—classicism, modernism and postmodernism. These phases show an increasing impulse towards the development of ‘taxinomia’—indexable, searchable and interoperable knowledge systems which span from the globally networked enterprise down to the fragmentary of commercial and social interactions managed by individual consumers. By tracing this tradition through a purely intellectual history, it is possible to suggest several causal factors internal to the tradition itself: the production of particular fortuitous mathematical results, or a sense of exhaustion with the preceding metaphysical speculations of Kant and Hegel, for example. It is equally possible, though, to plot lines of concordance between this intellectual history and broader transitions in economic and political history. Is it purely fortuitous that the search for logic formalisms coincided with a reciprocal drive towards standardisation, in a host of technological, communicative and legal fields, that is related to modern capitalism—specifically, of its relentless need and demand for predictability and efficiency? For Foucault, the modern taxonomic impulse originates alongside the great social and political shifts of the Enlightenment: What makes the totality of the Classical episteme possible is primarily the relation to a knowledge of order. When dealing with the ordering of simple natures, one has recourse to a mathesis, of which the universal method is algebra. When dealing with the ordering of complex natures (representations in general, as they are given in experience), one has to constitute a taxinomia, and to do that one has to establish a system of systems (Foucault 2002, pp. 79–80). By the time of the emergence of formal logic in something like its rigorous modern form in the nineteenth century, the world was also undergoing a period of rapid economic expansion, industrialisation, scientific endeavour and technological innovation (Hobsbawm 1975). Already the opportunities of standardisation were being considered in a host of practical contexts—rail gauge standardisation, currency exchange, scientific notation, legal charters and academic disciplinary vocabularies. The counterweight to international and inter-corporate competition was the beneficial network externalities—greater efficiency, information transparency and intelligibility—these standards would bring. Since these first standards emerged, their growth has been rapid— the ISO website alone currently advertises 17,500 separately catalogued standards (ISO 2009). While standardisation might rightly seem, then, to be an inextricable feature of modernity, coupled with economic globalisation and cultural homogenisation, it can equally be argued that capitalism also harbours countervailing trends towards systemic differentiation. Most notably in the case of the quintessential capitalist organisation, the company, product or service differentiation forms the foundation for market share, profit, and thus for increasing shareholder value. To take one metric of the extent of differentiation, at the level of invention and innovation: the US Patent Office has filed over seven million utility patents alone since 1836 (US Patent and Trademark Office 2009), with an average rate of increase in the number of patent applications between 1836 and 2008 of 23.5 per cent. There were 436 patent applications filed in 1838, and 158,699 applications filed in 2008, an overall increase of 36,399 per cent over 170 years (the raw data has been taken from the US Patent and Trademark Office (2009), while the percentile calculations are my own). Whatever explanation of drift towards standardisation can be drawn from modern capitalism, there is an equivalent burden for explaining a similar level of hyper-activity towards proprietary protection of intellectual capital and assets. Equivalent, if more tenuous motives for differentiation can be found in other organisational types—political affiliations, methodological distinctions and sublimated competitive instincts exist in government, scientific and academic institutions as much as in corporate ones. The development and coordination of knowledge systems—formalised representations of meaning—has its origins, in one side of modern capitalism, in the impulse to order, organise and predict. The proliferation of multiple systems represents, then, another facet of capitalism —the need for differentiation and competition. Schumpeterian ‘creative destruction’, describing the process by which capitalism continually cannibalises its own monuments with successive waves of technological and procedural innovation, captures something of these apparently

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/computer-science/knowledge-system 6/9 4/1/2019 Knowledge System - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics contradictory impulses towards both standardisation and differentiation at the level of systems of meaning. However, as this and the following studies show, other, less tangible vectors can also be seen influencing the mutations of these systems. At this stage, though, it is perhaps sufficient to draw out the coincidental tendencies between the specific phenomenon of the emergence of knowledge systems and the much broader chameleonic shifts of capitalism, without pursuing too strong an attribution to determining causes. The following studies bring out other complicating and more fine-grained features of the contexts in which these systems emerge, and of the factors which influence their respective differentiation.

User needs and search behaviors

Iris Xie PhD, Krystyna K. Matusiak PhD, in Discover Digital Libraries, 2016 User personal infrastructure User personal infrastructure, consisting of domain knowledge, system knowledge, information retrieval-knowledge learning/cognitive styles, and self-efficacy, has been demonstrated as one of the key factors affecting IR system use. Among the three types of knowledge, domain knowledge has influenced information search tactics, information search success, and information-seeking behavior (Bilal, 2001; Hirsh, 1997, 2004; Hsieh-Yee, 2001; Marchionini, 1995). In particular, domain knowledge affects the selection of search tactics, change of search tactics, the creation of complex queries versus ineffective search strategies, and making physical moves (Hembrooke et al., 2005; Hsieh-Yee, 1993; Shiri and Revie, 2003; Wildemuth, 2004). Kelly and Cool (2002) state that as users’ familiarity with a topic increases, their searching efficacy increases and their reading time decreases. Research has shown that domain knowledge has a particular impact on children’s information searching and their outcome. Hirsh (1997, 2004) finds that children with high domain knowledge perform better in information searching than children with low domain knowledge. Hirsh (2004) notices that children with high domain knowledge are able to modify their search queries based on the retrieved results. These same children prefer keyword searching, while children with low domain knowledge favor using the browsing strategy. One plausible explanation is that the limited domain knowledge of children causes difficulties in formulating queries via keyword search (Gossen et al., 2013). Despite the work of some, not all researchers generate the same results. Bilal (2001) emphasizes that the influences of children’s domain knowledge are not significant based on her research results, but “this finding was mainly due to the unequal distribution in the number of children who had high ratings on these variables and those who had low ratings” (p. 130). In the environment, user studies yield similar results regarding the impact of domain knowledge. Albertson (2010) investigated how users’ familiarity with visual search topics influenced their interactions with interactive video digital libraries. The variables associated with user interactions consist of the keyword, title browse, color, shape, texture, all visuals, textual promote, and details. The results show that topic familiarity affects users’ use of details, use of promotes, use of color, and use of textual promote. Information- retrieval knowledge and search experience also influence users’ search behaviors. The number of pages, task solution time, and types of items accessed are different between novice and expert users (Saito and Miwa, 2007). Just as those with domain knowledge, expert users are better at searching than novice users, whereas the novice users tend to browse (Lazonder, 2000). Users who have advanced digital library knowledge create advanced queries (Trieschnigg et al., 2013). In most of the cases, different types of user knowledge codetermine users’ behaviors in searching a digital library. Users, who have better knowledge in searching digital libraries and their topics, use more complex structures, and more specialized and informative access points. Moreover, user behavior changes over time. Users decrease the number of operations in their sessions, as they get more experienced with digital libraries (Sfakakis and Kapidakis, 2002). Collecting data from 120 subjects, Xie and Cool (2009) identify 15 types of help situations which can be further characterized into seven categories: (1) inability to get started, (2) inability to identify relevant digital collections, (3) inability to browse for information, (4) inability to construct search statements, (5) inability to refine searches, (6) inability to monitor searches, and (7) inability to evaluate results. Sixteen factors lead to the 15 types of help situations that subjects encounter in their interactions with digital libraries. These 16 factors represent four categories: personal knowledge structure, task dimensions, system design, and interaction outcome. Personal knowledge structure is composed of knowledge related to the digital library that users interact with, retrieval knowledge related to how to search for information, users’ past experience in searching for information in different types of IR systems, as well as their preference in searching for information. Each type of knowledge either determines or codetermines different types of help-seeking situations. Based on the data collected from 60 subjects constituting different academic disciplines, Huang (2014) explored how learning styles affected novice users’ help-seeking behaviors in searching digital libraries. The results indicate that novice users with different learning styles select different types of help features. Quantitative data supports the finding that learning styles have an effect on help-seeking interactions. Fifteen help-seeking approaches occurring in users’ interactions with digital libraries are identified. Self-efficacy is another factor that plays a role in users’ interactions with digital libraries. Tang and Tseng (2013) investigated the relationships between https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/computer-science/knowledge-system 7/9 4/1/2019 Knowledge System - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics distance learners’ self-efficacy and their information literacy skills in using digital libraries. The results show that learners with high self- efficacy in information searching in digital libraries demonstrate higher self-efficacy in online learning. In addition, learners with high self- efficacy show better skills in selecting digital resources than learners with low self-efficacy.

Books and journal articles: the textual practices of academic knowledge

Bill Cope, Mary Kalantzis, in Towards a Semantic Web, 2011 Conclusions Whatever the models of sustainability that emerge, knowledge systems of the near future could and should be very different from those of our recent past. The sites of formal knowledge validation and documentation will be more dispersed. They will be more global, in the lingua franca of English and also, as machine translation improves, not necessarily so. The knowledge processes they use will be more reflexive and so more thorough and reliable. Knowledge will be published more quickly. Through semantic publishing it will be more discoverable and open to aggregation and reinterpretation. There will be much more of it, but it will be much easier to navigate. The internet provides us these affordances. It is our task as knowledge workers to realise the promise of the internet and to create more responsive, equitable and powerful knowledge ecologies. An information revolution has accompanied the digitisation of text, image and sound and the rapid emergence of the internet as a universal conduit for digital content. But the information revolution does not in itself bring about change of social or epistemic significance. is a case in point. The internet-accessible PDF file makes journal articles widely and cheaply available, but its form simply replicates the production processes and social relations of the print journal: a one-way production line which ends in the creation of a static, stable text restricted to text and still image. This change is not enough to warrant the descriptor ‘disruptive’. The technological shift, large as it is, does not produce a change in the social processes and relations of knowledge production. There is no deterministic relationship, in other words, between technology and social change. New technologies can be used to do old things. In fact, in their initial phases new technologies more often than not are simply put to work do old things—albeit, perhaps, more efficiently. At most, the technological opens out social affordances, frequently in ways not anticipated by the designers of those technologies. So what is the range of affordances in digital technologies that open new possibilities for knowledge making? We can see glimpses of possibility of new and more dynamic knowledge systems, but not yet captured in the mainstream academic journal or book publishing systems. For instance, in contrast to texts that replicate print and are structured around typographic markup, we can envisage more readily searchable and data mineable texts structured around semantic markup. In contrast to knowledge production processes, which force us to represent knowledge on the page, restricting us to text and still image, we can envision a broader, multimodal body of publishable knowledge which would represent objects of knowledge that could not have been so readily captured in print or its digital analogue: datasets, video, dynamic models and multimedia displays. The stuff that was formerly represented as the external stuff of knowledge can now be represented and incorporated within the knowledge. And in contrast to linear, lock-step modes of dissemination of knowledge, we can see signs of possibility for scholarly knowledge in the more collaborative, dialogical and recursive forms of knowledge making already to be found in less formal digital media spaces such as wikis, blogs and other readily accessible website content self- management systems. Even when it has moved to PDF or e-book reader formats, most book and journal content is still bound to the world of print-look-alike knowledge representation. However, a reading of technological affordances tells us that we don’t have to be using digital technologies to replicate traditional processes of knowledge representation. If trends can be read into the broader shifts in the new, digital media, they stand to transform the characteristic epistemic mode of authoritativeness of the heritage scholarly publishing. The historical dichotomy of author and reader, creator and consumer is everywhere being blurred. Authors blog, readers talk back, bloggers respond; wiki users read, and intervene to change the text if and when needs be; game players become participants in narratives; iPod users create their own playlists; digital TV viewers create their own viewing sequences. These are aspects of a general and symptomatic shift in the balance of agency, where a flat world of users replaces a hierarchical world of culture and knowledge in which a few producers create content to transmit to a mass of receivers (Cope and Kalantzis 2007). What will academic publishing be like once it escapes its heritage constraints? There will be more knowledge collaborations between knowledge creators and knowledge users, in which user commentary perhaps can become part of the knowledge itself. Knowledge making will escape its linear, lock-step, beginning-to-end process. The end point will not be a singular version of record—it will be something that can be re-versioned as much as needed. Knowledge making will be more recursive, responsive, dynamic and, above all, more collaborative and social rather than it was in an earlier modernity, which paid greater obeisance to the voice of the heroically original author. These, then, are some of the potentially profound shifts that may occur in the knowledge regime reflected in the representational processes of today’s academic publishing. They could portend nothing less than a revolution in the shape and form of academic knowledge ecologies. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/computer-science/knowledge-system 8/9 4/1/2019 Knowledge System - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics If it is the role of the scholarly knowledge system to produce deeper, broader and more reliable knowledge than is possible in everyday, casual experience, what do we need to do to deepen this tradition rather than allow it to break, falling victim to the disruptive forces of the new media? The answer will not just be to create new publishing processes. It will entail the building of new knowledge systems. This inevitably leads us to an even larger question: how might renewed scholarly knowledge systems support a broader social agenda of intellectual risk taking, creativity and innovation? How is renovation of our academic knowledge systems a way to address the heightened expectations of a ‘knowledge society’? And what are the affordances of the digital media which may support reform? Whatever the models that emerge, the knowledge systems of the near future could and should be very different from those of our recent past. The sites of formal knowledge validation and documentation will be more dispersed across varied social sites. They will be more global. The knowledge processes they use will be more reflexive and so more thorough and reliable. Knowledge will be made available faster. Through semantic publishing, knowledge will be more discoverable and open to disaggregation, reaggregation and reinterpretation. There will be much more of it, but it will be much easier to navigate. The internet provides us these affordances. It will allow us to define and apply new epistemic virtues. It is our task as knowledge workers to realise the promise of our times and to create more responsive, equitable and powerful knowledge ecologies.

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https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/computer-science/knowledge-system 9/9 1. Core Elements Marxist Political Economy (MPE) denotes a range of political economy perspectives that are broadly connected to and in the tradition of the writings (notably The Communist Manifesto, Grundrisse and Capital) and insights of Karl Marx. Although this research tradition is very diverse and heterogeneous, it is nevertheless possible to identify some common key tenets. Generally, MPE comprises an integrative analysis of the economy, society and politics. These three fields are not considered as isolated but as interdependent structures that evolved historically. The analysis of class struggle, involving the exploitation of labour by capital within the capitalist mode of production, is fundamental to the understanding of dynamics within this analysis. From this perspective, capital and labour represent two antagonistic classes. The former is primarily characterized by ownership of the means of production, while the latter comprises free wage labourers in a double sense. They are free from control over the means of production and free – compared with the feudal system – to sell their labour power. Capital is central to this and is primarily organized to ensure the profitability of invested money. This is why the famous notion of capital as money which begets money is formalized as M–C–M‟. An integrative economic analysis, in this context, involves moving beyond a sole focus on the functioning of the economy. Thus, under capitalist conditions, labour is not only exploited but also faces alienation. This means that wage labourers are not the directors of their own work. Instead, s/he is employed in the capitalist mode of production, performing specialized tasks in commodity production, without owning the products. Moreover, the capitalist mode of production is not limited to an isolated sphere in society but structures the latter in various ways. For example, through the process of commodification, social relations that were formerly untainted by market logic, are transformed into commercial relationships, relationships of exchange, and relationships of buying and selling. MPE has the explicit aim to change the current state of economic and societal organization, with an emancipatory perspective to establish a more just society by overcoming capitalism. Although this school of thought is generally marginalized in economics faculties at large, it has gained renewed attention over the past decade. Much of the interest is due to Marx‟s analysis being relevant to the analysis and explanation of the global financial crisis of 2007/2008; it has also been relevant to various other crisis movements that are linked to the economic system and seem to converge with it, e.g. the climate crisis. Moreover, new forms of protests and social movements, and intensifying social conflicts in the presence of crisis, have also created both a need and a challenge for radical academic analysis.

2. Terms, Analysis, Conception of Economy “Fundamental to any Marxist analysis is its understanding of the economy, how capital is reproduced, how profitability is maintained, and how crises develop” (Gamble 1999, 140). MPE perceives the economy as a continual process of transformation of nature and society by production. The mode of production is the historical form in which the two core dimensions of any economic organization of society are united. These two central elements are the productive forces – phenomena that enable production, like technology and infrastructure – and the relations of production, referring to the class-based organization of production, distribution and consumption in society. Accordingly, MPE argues that the socio-economic character of different societies in history is characterized by the specific mode of production, like slavery, feudalism or capitalism. The historical configuration of productive forces and relations of production is a crucial point of departure for MPE. Particular emphasis is given to the analysis of class struggles and the different forms of exploitation of labour power, as well as to contradictions and crisis. Thus, the economy is not conceived as a neutral platform of exchange and cooperation, but as historical and political constitution primarily characterized by asymmetric power relations, ideology and social conflicts. To understand the contemporary world economy, proponents of MPE claim that Marx‟s core analysis of the capitalist mode of production in the eighteenth and nineteenth century remains a useful starting point. „Commodities‟ are at the core of Marx‟s analysis of the capitalist mode of production; they are defined as products or services sold on markets and produced by human labour power. The peculiar characteristic of commodities is their dual character – they exhibit both use value and exchange value. The capitalist mode of production is primarily defined by the neglect of the use value, while the exchange value – potentially translating into higher return on investments – is paramount. Thus capitalist societies do not primarily produce for the needs of the population but for the sake of realizing a high exchange value – simply put, profit. MPE argues that this profit is rooted in the exploitation of labour power, more specifically the wage labourer. Capitalists only pay the workers the wage they need to reproduce their labour power even if workers generate a higher value. This surplus value is then appropriated by capitalists and then reinvested. The amassing of money as capital in the hands of the capitalist class is also defined as capital accumulation. It presents the core dynamic of the capitalist mode of production and thus implies a structural imperative of the capitalist economy to grow. Yet, as was mentioned above, the capitalist mode of production is not free from contradictions and from an MPE perspective crisis play a prominent role as recurrent patterns in capitalist development. Generally speaking, crises emerge from various contradictions that exist in the basic constitution of the capitalist mode of production, but more specifically consist of a specific conjuncture of tendencies and triggers. Thus, each economic or financial crisis has links to the general contradictions of capital and to specific political, ideological and cultural circumstances. Different lineages of MPE also stress the importance of different aspects of contradictions and many argue for multiple causation, including, for example, credit insufficiency, scarcities of or political difficulties with labour supply, resistance or inefficiencies in the labour process, excess capital and wages squeezing profits. Currently, many MPE scholars argue that the tendency of the over-accumulation of capital since the 1970s is key to understanding the various financial and economic crises of the past decades throughout the globe. In this situation too much money capital is searching for profitable investment opportunities. Since investments in financial assets have become increasingly profitable in the past decades, money capital is disproportionately subtracted from industrial production and employed as fictitious capital. This form of money capital is fictitious because it is without any material basis in commodities or productive activities. Although not generating any surplus value in the labour process, fictitious capital can reproduce itself (M–M') through the representation of a claim on the realization of future surplus value. While these investments may be profitable for some money holders, the general economy suffers from rising economic inequality, lack of effective demand (which is temporarily supported by credit-funded consumption), and recurring inflation of asset prices that translate into „bursting bubbles‟. A prime example for this process is the global financial crisis of 2007–2008 which was triggered by excessive derivatives trading (fictitious capital) in subprime mortgages. 3. Ontology The central problem addressed by MPE is the exploitation of workers by capital, i.e. the dominance between classes and the power of capital. Thus, the unit of analysis is classes, not individuals and collective interests are determined within classes rather than between individuals. This does not mean that individuals are unable to make their own choices. However, within a certain mode of production there are powerful material and social structures (e.g. competition) that induce people to behave accordingly. Hence, MPE does not propose a universalist view of humans as being necessarily competitive or collaborative but emphasizes the effects of the historically specific mode of production on the way humans behave. Within a certain mode of production, MPE historically has sought to isolate some tendencies and laws of motion in the economic, the social and the political spheres. In the capitalist mode of production, examples would be the increasing accumulation of capital and its concentration, as well as the recurring crises of capitalist production. These laws of motion are thought to be ontologically real and some MPE scholars have argued that the laws determine the behaviour of societies. Some strands of MPE have however put emphasis on over-determination, highlighting that even though laws of motion can be discerned, their interconnectedness and multiplicity makes it more difficult to make accurate statements about the behaviour of human societies (see also Methodology). Theorizing in the field of Critical Political Economy has emphasized the concept of hegemony, stressing the historical nature of processes of societal change and the constant struggle of ideas and movements (the war of position in the words of Antonio Gramsci) for temporal and spatial dominance. According to these theorists the laws of societies and economies are more dependent on historical and cultural junctures, thus making a case against determining theorizing. A possible bridge between these two traditions is offered by critical realist theorists: they assume a real world, both in the natural and the social world, but this is subject to changes and actualizations that can originate in the actions of historical and spatially confined actors. With Marx one could restate that: „Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.‟ (Marx 1852) Notwithstanding these theoretical differences, MPE theories do generally agree that the world is not made out of particulars that can be isolated for the purpose of analysis. Instead entities like classes, firms, states, and institutions exist within a context, which is essential to their existence. By disaggregating these bigger components to their constituent part one cannot do justice to their real nature, since at each stratum or level of organization (from subatomic particles to complex systems such as human societies) there are emergent powers that are ontologically real in their own right (Sayer 1992, 119). Also, MPE gives importance to dynamic processes like e.g. class conflict or accumulation that are historically embedded and change over time. An important aspect of MPE is furthermore that Capital is not defined ontologically as a material asset (like money, machinery, etc.) but as a social relation and hence only acquires ontological existence and significance in the capitalist mode of production and the corresponding class relationships.

4. Epistemology MPE theories do explicitly identify themselves as normative and performative and regard the positivist position of descriptive and value-free science as false and ideologically motivated. Hence, the goal of scientific analysis is to create knowledge that fosters the emancipation of those who are dominated and oppressed. According to Andrew Sayer, many proponents of critical social science (of which MPE forms part) conceive emancipation as proceeding in the following manner (Sayer 1997, 474):

1. Identify problems, unmet needs, suffering and false beliefs 2. Identify the sources or causes of these, i.e. a particular form of domination 3. Pass a negative judgement of these sources of illusion and oppression 4. Favour (ceteris paribus) actions that remove these sources

As Sayer notes, there are, however, some problems with this linear progression from the scientific identification of problems towards the conclusions, particularly with respect to what constitutes emancipatory practice and which values and norms can be considered better than others, since they are backed by scientific evidence. Sayer‟s critique specifically points to the need for concrete and feasible alternatives (in general terms or as thought experiments, not as detailed blueprints), which are necessary for evaluating whether a removal of a problem and replacement by something else would indeed mean an improvement or an emancipation for a certain group. Secondly, he problematizes the new emergent interrelationships that might arise once a practice is replaced by another and hence emancipatory practice in one part of society might lead to repression in another. For example, Western women integrating into the paid workforce by contracting reproductive labour to women from the global south; and workers taking over a coal mine that otherwise would have to be closed might emancipate themselves but this can have negative repercussions on the environment or other communities inhabiting the area, as these may be negatively affected by pollution. MPE theorizing that operates in the philosophical tradition of critical realism holds that the link between the real world and scientific inquiry is not straightforward. They reject positivism and „naïve‟ empiricism, which argues that the real world speaks to the scientist, who then without intermediation can represent it. Strong constructivism, the view that the scientist makes the real world by coming up with conceptions or by self-referentially talking in ways that previous scientists have come up with, is also rejected. Instead, the fallible nature of science as well as its theory-laden and standpoint-dependent character is acknowledged but still, judging whether the theory is good or bad is considered to be possible by reference to the real world. This means that social science research can be diverse, depending on the theory applied as well as the personal biography and biases (e.g. class, gender, habitus) of the researcher. Still, a judgement as to whether a particular piece of research draws valid conclusions is possible and as such objective statements about the causal mechanisms that were responsible for concrete social phenomena are feasible. The test for what is a true statement in critical realism is however somewhat more complicated than in other traditions. Given the emphasis on causal mechanisms rather than on regularities and correlations, simple statistical testing will not suffice to establish the validity of a hypothesis. Instead, from the observational evidence, abstractions have to be made in order to check the validity of a supposed causal mechanism. As such, for example, counterfactual case studies or thought experiments might have to be performed in order to check the explanatory power of a hypothesis. On the other hand, with regards to theory validation, there is great scepticism towards prediction. This is because, in over-determined and evolving open-systems conditions, for mechanisms to work as theorized they might change during the process and hence new mechanisms might emerge.

5. Methodology MPE neither works deductively nor inductively but assumes that there are multiple causalities and thus multiple ways of undertaking research. These depend on the situation, for example, the particular point of capitalist development. A central element of Marxist analysis is dialectics. Dialectics claims to transcend the classical logic of direct causation and linear relationships and replaces it with a dynamic understanding of processes as well as with different categories that would sometimes be considered to be contradictory in classical terms. An example of dialectical reasoning is given in Figure 1 (Sayer 1992, 141), where simple and abstract concepts are combined with the complex, specific and contingent characteristics of a concrete situation.

Figure 1. An Example of Dialectical Reasoning Regarding a typical research method, MPE theories are quite eclectic:

 Mathematical models exist (e.g. the Temporal Single System Interpretation (TSSI) of Marxian value theory) alongside  discourse analysis (e.g. Hay‟s 1996 analysis of the British media‟s construction of the „winter of discontent,‟ which paved the way for Thatcher‟s union busting) and  detailed case studies (e.g. Jessop‟s 2014 historical analysis of the Eurozone and the Euro Crisis).

Since a lot of research in MPE often makes reference to abstract concepts such as financialized capitalism or accumulation regimes, these conceptualizations have to be meaningful and justified by having analytical value rather than being ad hoc. As a negative example of bad or chaotic concepts, Sayer refers to the aggregate concept of the „service sector‟, which throws together economic activities as unrelated as street cleaning, computer programming, and financial accounting. As such, statements attributing causal powers to the service sector (e.g. „a service-sector-dominated economy contributes to x‟ or „a drop in service-sector productivity affects y‟) appears rather nonsensical. As to whether the theoretical perspective or the research object drive research within MPE, historically the theoretical perspective has been more important. Thus, the object (e.g. different societies, economies, and economic sectors) has been analysed from the theoretical perspective of, for example, the labour theory of value, theories of power and hegemony or dialectical materialism. For those working in the tradition of critical realism, this reliance on methods is however somewhat less pronounced, since critical realism claims that different layers or strata are ontologically existent and hence have to be identified by different branches of science. Hence each object – for example, „the economic,‟ „the cultural,‟ or „the biological‟ – would require a distinct scientific approach, thus giving more prominence to object-driven research vis a vis method-driven.

6. Ideology & Political Goals Marxist political economists have the explicit aims to first critique and second transform society. It can be conceived as performative and reflexive. Thus, it is not only the aim to describe, but to transform society. The role of critique is central to this. After all, Marx‟s critique of political economy was as much a critique of classical political economy as it was a critique of the existing economic and social conditions. This emancipatory perspective aims at a more just society that combats dominance, exploitation and inequality, and hence aims to radically reform or overcome capitalism. Emancipation does not only concern inequality in terms of income, property or alienation, but also concerns gendered or racial dominance. Income and wealth distribution are structurally unequally due to the capital–labour relations. Yet, although distributional equality and capital are incompatible, different capitalist phases were characterized by different degrees of inequality. For example, the post-World War II era was characterized by a more equal distribution of income and wealth in industrial economies, whereas since the 1980s/1990s economic inequality has massively risen across the globe. In contrast to Keynesian approaches, MPE does not stress the need to go back to „the golden age‟ through reducing income and wealth disparities by means of the state (e.g. through taxation). Rather, it suggests tackling inequality at its roots. Thus, worker-control initiatives, solidarity economies and communitarian and cooperative structures of production are frequently promoted, because they alter the very conditions of productions which are foundational to existing inequalities (see also Harvey 2014, 164–181). For instance, in the aftermath of the financial crisis, the concept of the Commons – the communal organization and use of goods and resources – was highly debated within social movements (see e.g. Federici 2011). The Commons are considered as a way to encounter consequences of alienation, land grabbing, property and income inequality and the marketization of life and knowledge and build on movements especially from Latin America. Like the Commons, most of these ambitions are not political goals set in party platforms, but rather are formulated as claims by various social movements or put into praxis by existing alternatives. Perhaps one of the most extensive practical alternatives in this sense is the autonomous region controlled by the Zapatistas in Southern Mexico. Another powerful normative motif for MPE‟s critique of capitalism is constituted by the alienation that is experienced by wage labourers in a capitalist economy. The capitalist structure of production – in which the organization and type of economic activity is determined by the holders of capital by separating workers from the decisions how to put their productive energy into use – contributes to a psychological condition in which workers are deprived of the meaning of their labour and reduced to nothing more than an instrument in the production process. This dire condition, alongside the tendency to create poverty and huge inequalities in spite of the huge potentials of production unlocked by capitalism, provides (amongst others) a rationale for the Marxist argument that capitalism is something that has to be overcome.

7. Current debates and analyses In the past decades, MPE has contributed to a large body of literature studying such diverse topics as the class constitution and socio-economic consequences of neoliberal globalization, the financialization of the world economy, the power of transnational capital, and the potential for post- capitalist formations in the convergence of various crisis moments. To map all of these debates and insights would go far beyond the ambitions of this section. Instead, a short review of the narrative linking convergent crisis, left strategy and transformation towards post-neoliberal or even post- capitalist societies will be further explored, because these themes are mirrored in almost all of the current MPE debates (see contributions and special issues in the journals listed below). The advent of the US subprime crisis in 2007–2008, which quickly evolved into a financial and economic crisis for most of the world economy, signalled a comeback of Marxian analysis and critique of capitalism. Even mainstream and conservative newspapers propagated that „Marx is back‟ (Fuchs 2014, 9-10). Perhaps the biggest and first fundamental search for alternatives in the aftermath of the financial crisis was the Occupy Movement. Their slogan „We are the 99%‟ is not just a rhetorical figure but resonates with existing inequalities of wealth and political representation in the US and much of the world economy. Many MPE scholars claim that this crisis may represent a large or structural crisis for capitalism, potentially changing the structure of the world economy for the upcoming decades. In this context, an increasing strand of interdisciplinary research has broadened the debate by highlighting that the crisis is not limited to finance or the economy, but is best understood as multiple crises, including the climate and environmental crisis, a crisis of representative democracy and global governance, and a crisis of social reproduction. Ultimately, the convergence of these crisis dynamics calls for a fundamental transformation of the social organization of global production, distribution and consumption. In this regard, current contributions intensely debate strategies, and the strengths and weaknesses of transformative politics and social movements in the face of the crisis. Debates about post-capitalism, new forms of socialism or communism have been prominent in recent years. To what extent these debates will translate into effective social change will depend much on the configuration of the balance of forces in society – and not on the speed and scope of academic debate. Yet, the latter can offer an interesting starting point for students to fundamentally rethink society and social change, not the least reason why many economics students have become interested in understanding and employing MPE (see e.g. Barkin 2009; Harvey 2014; Rethinking Marxism 2010).

8. Delineation: subschools, other disciplines, other economic theories MPE, like most other academic paradigms, has experienced different waves of renovation, reception and magnitude over the past 150 years (for an overview of Western Marxism see also Anderson 1976). While the first generations were almost exclusively political activists, party strategists and academics, at the same time MPE institutionalized strongly as an academic paradigm (with less party affiliation) in the US and Europe during the Cold War – especially in the 1970s and 1980s. Part of this renewal since the 1970s is also reflected in the emerging field of International Political Economy (IPE). From utopian socialism to classical (or orthodox) Marxism, from Neo- or Post-Marxism to Analytical Marxism and Critical Political Economy, a wide range of historical and contemporary perspectives have been associated with MPE. In an attempt to provide a typology, Stephan Resnick and Richard Wolff (2006) have classified these perspectives into the following six broad categories. Property theories emphasize the unequal distribution of wealth and ownership of the means of production. Class conflict, exploitation and other dynamics inside the capitalist system arise as a consequence of the distribution of property. Power theories emphasize power and authority structures and the possibility of some classes (e.g. capitalists) mobilizing power (such as physical violence or institutional power wielded by the state) to, for example, induce and threaten labourers to work under exploitative conditions. Accumulation theories stress the relentless drive for accumulation that is internal to capitalism as the driving force of capitalism and hence reproduces all other dynamics and social relations. Forces of production theories emphasize productive technologies as the determinants of the way a society is structured and the relations that are formed amongst its constituents. Consciousness theories emphasize the importance of culture and shared ideas. A prominent example is the Gramscian tradition that theorizes about „hegemony‟, where the domination of workers by capitalists can only be maintained if the former accept this class relation, which is justified on the basis of ideas and theories. Over-determination theories do not privilege any of the aforementioned explanations in a deterministic fashion and instead consider them to be partial explanations. Still, the emphasis on class relations and a critical, emancipatory stance are maintained whilst theorizing the capitalist system.

Some current noteworthy traditions Regulation School Economists in the Regulation School (e.g. Michel Aglietta) research stability and continuity despite recurring crisis in the capitalist mode of production. They examine the historical and spatial existence of regimes of accumulation (such as post-war Fordism), which have a distinctive set of institutions, and a mode of regulation, that allows for their continuous reproduction in the sphere of production, consumption, politics, and international context. The regulation school combines aspects from Marxian theory with Institutionalist approaches. World Systems Theory (e.g. Immanuel Wallerstein, Giovanni Arrighi, Beverly Silver, Jason W. Moore) World Systems Theory economists (e.g. Immanuel Wallerstein, Giovanni Arrighi, Beverly Silver, Jason W. Moore) emphasize the exploitative nature of production relations and the unequal power distribution not within a capitalist state but on a global scale, between industrialized countries (the core), the „developing‟ countries (the periphery) and interim countries (the semi-periphery). Neo-Gramscian and Hegemony theories (Antonio Gramsci, Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Mouffe, Robert Cox) Neo-Gramscian economists (e.g. Antonio Gramsci, Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Mouffe, Robert Cox) emphasize the political, cultural, and identitary aspects in the struggle for a dominant structure of production and class relations (hegemony). Ideas and discourses alongside institutional and material power determine the existence of hegemony, which always stays contingent and is both historical and spatial. Eco-Marxism (e.g. John Bellamy Foster, Paul Burke, James O‟Connor) Eco-Marxism evolved as a critique of a lack of class analyses in ecological thinking, and the absence of ecological writings in Marxism in the late 1980s (O'Connor 1988). These scholars were inspired by the so-called new social movements and ever since try to combine Red and Green thinking. Key to this approach is a re-reading of Marx in the light of the ecological dimensions of capital's reproduction. One of the most prominent arguments refers to the second contradiction of capitalism, namely the one that continued capital accumulation feeds upon its own conditions of existence („nature‟). Moreover, eco-Marxists claim that nature–society relations should be understood as a metabolism, consisting of the exchange of matter between society and nature, which is mediated through different modes of production. Similar to the alienation of the wage labourer, humans are alienated from nature, referring to an imbalance between the natural and economic cycle. This imbalance is deepening with the expansion of capital accumulation and is referred to as metabolic rift (Foster et al. 2011). In the midst of the present ecological crisis (of resources, energy, climate, etc.), the vision of eco-socialism is a viable vision for these scholars (see e.g. Löwy 2005). Feminist-Marxism (e.g. Maria Mies, Silvia Federici, Frigga Haug) Feminist Marxists address the oppression of women within capitalism and patriarchy. One important aspect is the organization of work and unpaid caring activities. Thereby, they point to omissions in Marxist analysis, in particular the reproductive work of women. In Marx‟s theory on the exploitation of labour, capitalists pay the labourers a wage for the reproduction of their workforce – but this reproduction only accounts for the consumption of goods, not for caring activities. The „wage-for- housework‟ debate raised by Feminist Marxists in the 1970s (Mariarosa Dalla Costa, Silvia Federici) addressed this blind spot and served as a starting point for further feminist analysis on reproductive labour. Overlap with other disciplines Since most traditions of MPE reject the reduction of the analysis of capitalism to an economic realm only, there are many relations with other disciplines. Critical and Marxian analysis are to be found in Sociology, Political Science, International Relations and International Political Economy but also in Linguistics, Geography, Psychology (especially with regards to Freud and Lacan), social theory, and Philosophy. Current special issues of the Global Labour Journal: precarity; unionism; decent work; labour standards.

9. Delineation from the mainstream Resnick and Wolff (2006) contrast Marxists and Neoclassical Economics by showing that they have different entry points for the analysis of society and economy: Neoclassical Economics begins with the assumption of rational, self-interested individuals who interact via the market in a world of scarce resources, whereas MPE‟s entry point is the analysis of classes, be it in terms of power or in terms of ownership. The different entry points have vast implications for how to analyse the economy, for example, on how to analyse the income of individuals. According to MPE, individuals' income does not depend on their free decision on how much labour to supply or their marginal productivity but on the capitalists' appropriation of the surplus value. MPE criticizes neoclassical economics for ignoring the power relations between classes, as for Marx, these determine the behaviour and decisions of individuals. According to MPE, individuals are related by multiple societal, economic and political structures, not only via the organization of supply and demand within the market. Those socio- economic relations are determined by the mode of production – capitalism – which is characterized by hierarchies and conflicts. Thus, the economy is not a mere platform of exchange between equal individuals. For MPE, capitalism is one mode of production which evolved historically. Other forms (slavery, feudalism) existed and other modes of production may evolve (namely socialism). The historical analysis and the dynamic conception is necessary in order to understand current configurations of the economy. Moreover, Marxist and Neoclassical Economics have different conceptions of capital, a central category of Marxist analysis. The neoclassical conception of capital is very broad, including money, means of production, but also knowledge or social networks (human and social capital). For MPE those things are perceived as capital if they are employed in the production process by the use of wage labour. Capital is a social relation, a relation which is determined by the exploitation of labour power. Even if MPE does highlight certain laws of motion, it states that there is not one perception of the societal and economic reality, but that perceptions may vary. Thus, there is not one objective reality that needs to be analysed. Instead, the „reality‟ that is discovered also depends on the perspective of the researcher and the methods used. Moreover, the political character of academia is stressed because science plays a crucial role in legitimizing and normalizing certain policies and social orders, while rendering others impossible. In this sense, Marxist political economists highlight their societal responsibility (real-world economics). The Relevance of Marxist Political Economy

The question as to whether Marxist political economy is still relevant today is as important a question to address as ever before. In the current age of advance capitalism we find many of the conditions and trends that Karl Marx outlined in his critique of capitalist political economy. More so even than the earlier capitalism of the 20th century. The rise in inequality and the level of concentration of wealth since the 1980’s parallels the rise in the same statistics before and during 1920’s.

The advancement in military weapon systems, the ecological crisis, the industrial pollution induced climate crisis, and the ongoing inherent instability of the capitalist system punctuated by recessions and stagnation point to the irrefutable relevance and importance of a Marxist analysis. Given that all of the issues mentioned stem directly or indirectly to the material conditions brought about by private property and class relations only serves to impart the vital importance of bringing into the public discourse the analysis of Karl Marx a leading figure in the analyses of materialist conceptions, private property, and class relations.

If one understands Marxism’s relevance the next question one may ask is whether it requires a significant revision — to which I would argue fundamentally “no”.

The reason is that the notion of a revision would imply some flaw in his basic analysis and categories utilized to explain and critique the existing political economy: capitalism. Later we will show that such flaws — in their basic analyses — do not exist.

I would, however, argue that rather than a revision, Marxist theory should instead include additional qualifications. Additions that serve only to outline responses and plans of actions based on its own analyses. There could be a number of qualifications or additions to a Marxist theory informed by contemporary research and experience, I will however, focus on only a few, that could be argued to be necessary as a foundational base from which to carry out a praxis of Marxist theory.

One important addition that Marx never fully developed would be a concrete blueprint as to how the forces of production should be organized within the economic base. To this I would say that a full notion of worker owned productive enterprises or cooperatives is in order. Something that was never fully outlined in the past (as in the Soviet era) due to usual and often necessary focus on the political superstructure in labor and worker movements. In essence this would be what many would call a paradigm shift in how an economic system is composed, from one of privately controlled enterprises, whether State owned or individually owned, to one that in which enterprises are inherently, thus structurally democratically controlled. As Marx himself famously said: “Democracy is the road to socialism”. An economy having such a composition could be called Economic Democracy. The other addition I would include is the scientifically informed importance of the interplay between production, energy, and natural ecosystems — such as the climate. Given the ongoing disaster, in the making, that is climate change and its possible civilization ending prognosis steeped in capitalist production.

Going back to Marxism’s relevance due to the structural contradictions inherent in capitalism — giving rise as of late to popular unrest across the world. We should consider that today’s economic reality was outlined and predicate in Marxist theory. What is this reality? To name a few of its contours we need only to look at the statistics. Case in point consider Oxfam’s report of inequality and concentration of wealth, that earlier in the year reported eight individuals having as much wealth as the bottom half of the world’s population coming down from 62 individuals in the previous report — now, as of February 17, 2017 that figure has thus come down to just six individuals holding the equivalent wealth ($412 billion) as the world’s bottom half [1]. This is the result of the assault on regulations and policies stemming from the New Deal era by those who Michael Joseph Roberto in his essay — The Origins of American Fascism — calls the fascist finance monopolists starting in the late 1970’s primarily in the US but paralleled globally. In fact a 2011 publication by the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality, stated that: “Over the last 30 years, wage inequality in the United States has increased substantially, with the overall level of inequality now approaching the extreme level that prevailed prior to the Great Depression.” [2] In that study the authors quantified the growth of inequality measured in various ways such as the ratio of CEO pay, homelessness, child poverty, Intragenerational Income Mobility etc. Each statistic points to the fact that inequality and its source — the concentration of wealth and income — have increased and are continuing to increase exacerbating the precarious stability of class relations vis-à-vis labor and capital. This occurred because of another crisis of capitalism during the 70’s referred to as stagflation, the response was neoliberalism: a further entrenchment of capitalism’s tenets of free markets, private property, and limited government intervention of capital. This response and inadequate understanding by liberal politicians to the series of crises that has plagued capitalism is what has led to the current levels of inequality and the popular unrest that has followed it — especially since the 2008 recession. This is of course the reality of an economic system such as capitalism that is composed of various private interests competing with each while exploiting, for profits, the rest of society and its political system. What many call crony capitalism — a euphemism for real and existing capitalism — is really the natural evolution of the competition between private interests in which the so called “cronies” are just the winners of the free for all competition that is capitalism. This bleeds over into the growing concerns regarding the rise of far-right groups across the globe, especially in the core centers of global capitalism, that many are calling rightfully so neofascism. However, this trend of neofascism is also, if traced dialectically, the natural progression of the inherent contradictions within capitalism such as that between labor and capital, the falling rate of profit, and the rise of monopolistic economic actors who seek to maintain their dominance and continue their drive for capital accumulation. As John Bellamy Foster succinctly states in his essay — This Is Not Populism — ”Today’s neofascism is the inevitable product of the crisis of monopoly-finance capital”(Foster, p.21). The clincher in this is that Marx predicted and outlined the conditions from which all of this has emanated in his analysis of political economy as many commentators and leading Marxist scholars have pointed out. Marx warned about the monopolistic tendencies within capitalism due to its competitive mode and basis in private property. He stated its danger to human society and its association with centralization of power between capital and the state apparatus, and even a non-Marxist like Roosevelt warned of this same tendency as quoted in Roberto’s essay: “the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism — ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling power”(Roberto, p.34). Roosevelt’s error, as is the same for today’s liberals, was in thinking that legislation could curtail this intrinsic property of the capitalist mode of production. Thus Marx’s analysis of our economic system is as relevant and potent as it ever was, if we are to ever overcome its contradictions.

As shown above Marxist theory does not need a revision in its basic analysis since economic and social data collected since his time leading up to the present have validated his analysis to the letter. However, we should provide additions to his basic analysis. Such as incorporating blueprints on how a post-capitalist society could be organized without resorting to old conceptions such as a Soviet styled system. The core of such a post-capitalist society should be derived directly from Marx’s analysis of the inherent contradictions within the capitalist mode of production. Central to this is the antagonistic relationship between capital and labor which has played out with disastrous effects throughout history. As Marx himself characterized the evolution of economic systems through feudalism, slavery, and capitalism as structurally similar though varying in their social and political configurations. This was due to the fact that in each there has persisted the dichotomy of the few exploiting the many for economic gain — in other words a class based structure of exploitation. So any successor system should absolve this inherent contradiction that continues to exist in capitalism. How would this take form? The only logical conclusion would be having an economic system not composed of antagonistic relations of production but rather cooperative and democratic relations in terms of ownership and management of the means of production. This therefore can only be practically realized in having the productive enterprises owned and managed — directly or indirectly dependent on size — by its very own workers. Thus worker cooperatives would form the microeconomic unit of a successor system. Furthermore having an economic system composed of cooperatives would allow the eventual abolition of markets themselves. This would be possible by the gradual monopolization, as in capitalism, of worker cooperatives joining together into one large conglomerate of worker cooperatives in the various industries along with the rise of one large consumer cooperative working in tandem, since members of each would also be members of the other. Thus, a form of decentralized State planning would emerge, facilitated unlike in the Soviet days by the advent of big data and super computers to assist in their management. Not only would markets cease to exist in the practical sense — ending turbulent competition — under such conditions there would emerge a truly democratic economic system in unison with a real political democracy producing for the first time in human history a truly democratic society.

One other addition that would be necessary given the reality under which we exist, is the inclusion of the importance of maintaining a healthy natural ecosystem and of curbing the emissions that cause climate change. This is necessary because climate change is a civilization ending process for which the scientific evidence is irrefutable. One of the problems with our current system’s inability to really deal with the issues is the existence of industries, financial institutions, and wealthy individuals who profit from maintaining our current trajectory of fossil fuel use. The other problem is capitalism’s dictatorial control of society’s surplus manifested in the privately owned excess capital sitting hidden and in plain sight across the globe. Capital that can be used to transition to a different energy infrastructure but is not utilized for that purpose because it is under the control of private entities who have no incentive to do so — due to the lack of short term returns on the capital that would be invested. This is symptom of the natural structure of the capitalist system. Given the importance of this issue: strategies to combat climate change should be at the forefront of any Marxist based prescription to the ills of capitalism. Not only that but Marxists should make the investment in and procurement of alternative and renewable energy sources central to any social plans envisioned. Particularly, in the short term the focus should be on implementing solar, wind, and tidal energy systems and in the long term the focus should be on obtaining the holy grail of energy research: Nuclear Fusion. A dialectical approach to the environment and its ecosystems should also be at the forefront of any Marxist analysis, since their maintenance is directly connected to the survival of the human species and to the achievement of the higher level communism that Marx envisioned.

The reality of living in today’s world is that everything that is occurring or that we are experiencing is the direct or indirect by product of the capitalist mode of production. All of the data and outcomes that have occurred since Marx’s publication of Das Kapital point to and support overwhelmingly his broad analysis. The multiple crises that humanity now faces makes the general realization of this fact ever more important, not only to overcoming the negative effects of capitalism, but for our very own survival and that of the planet’s ecosystem. One notion that Marx would agree with is that — Money or Capital is the alienated potential of humankind — that rings truer today given the host of problems we face and bourgeoisie society’s inability to address them, in light of the fact that technologies now coming into being are the keys to the post-capitalist society that Marx saw. Those technologies being: automation, AI, and renewable energy. Such technologies coupled with expanded space exploration/colonization offer humanity the pieces to achieve a truly post scarcity society — the question remains will humanity consider then, the relevance of Marxism today or will it be consumed by the contradictions of capitalism?

Endnotes [1] https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/02/20/morbid- inequality-now-just-six-men-have-much-wealth-half-worlds- population

[2] http://inequality.stanford.edu/publications/20-facts-about- us-inequality-everyone-should-know

References: Foster, John B. “This Is Not Populism.” Monthly Review, Vol. 69, №2: June 2017, DOI: https://archive.monthlyreview.org/index.php/mr/article/vi ew/MR-069-02-2017-06_1

Roberto, Michael J. “The Origins of American Fascism.” Monthly Review, Vol. 69, №2: June 2017, DOI: https://archive.monthlyreview.org/index.php/mr/article/vi ew/MR-069-02-2017-06_3

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MEDIA, SOCIETY, CULTURE AND YOU

CONTENTS

5

TELEVISION THROUGH TIME

“I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.” — Groucho Marx

TELEVISION REVOLUTION

When you talk to a parent, grandparent or great- grandparent about life at home before television, they will probably tell you that they listened to the radio and read books, magazines and newspapers. They may also Previous: Film and Bricolage mention spending time together telling old stories and listeningNex tto: M umusicsic Rec oonrdin ag , record“Sharing ”pla andyer. the Information Economy https://press.rebus.community/mscy/chapter/chapter-5-television-through-time/ 1/11 3/23/2020 Television through Time – Media, Society, Culture and You

Groucho Marx portrait, from It is no wonder that when television was first becoming user Insomnia Cured Here, America’s medium of choice in the 1940s and ’50s,  CCBY. Source: Flickr. plenty of thoughtful people questioned the influence it could have on society. Television’s least-common-  denominator sensibility concerned many, and some thought the entire entertainment industry was trying to turn the country Communist. Concerns about propaganda abounded. The previous chapter briefly covered the powerful cultural impact films can have. Of concern during the Cold War was that television would take that same power into people’s homes on a platform that was constantly updated and sometimes broadcast live. Just as with film, the battle for control over the influence of television has existed as long as it has been a mass medium. It is difficult to underestimate television’s cultural impact.

Besides those who saw television as a threat to spread Communism throughout the West, there were others who were not so radically against television but who preferred to talk about the importance of reading instead. They saw television not as a tool of the intellectual, global left but as anti-intellectual. You will still encounter people who voice with pride — and often an air of superiority — that they do not own a television. They imply that everyone else may be rotting their brains, but not their family. Condescension about the television and its content dates back to the dawn of the medium. Groucho Marx, depicted above, was an early film and TV star, and even he joked about the lack of quality programming. Of course, television isn’t all bad. At every stage of the medium’s development, there have been thoughtful, intelligent shows and there has been dreck — that is, waste or trash that serves to fill time but not to inform meaningfully.

This chapter discusses the nature of television content as the medium evolved throughout the second half of the 20th century. It then briefly discusses the role of the television industry in society by examining the ways we watch TV and its possible impacts on our health. Finally, this chapter covers the medium’s influence on popular culture and explores how the 2000s and 2010s may have brought about the golden age of television while simultaneously opening up pathways for audience collaboration and shared cultural influence in what is perhaps the most culturally influential medium in human history.

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This is a not dichotomy between the good old days of quality mass-market  television and the modern garbage made to fill airtime on hundreds of digital channels. Rather, there has always been a dichotomy between informative  programming and shows made purely for entertainment and distraction. As with all dichotomies, the boundary between the two is blurred.

Not every show on the low end of the intellectual spectrum is dreck. Even intellectually stimulating programs have moments of pandering. Television content generally strives to be popular and profitable first, entertaining second, and informational third, if at all. Consider some of the top-rated shows of each decade in the 20th century after television became popular. There were informative, educational programs and there was silly and mundane fare in each decade. The 1940s saw the debut of Meet the Press, a news discussion show that is still on the air, as well as Howdy Doody, a children’s puppet show that set the tone for future children’s programming but lacked some of the educational elements that came with Sesame Street and similar shows. In the ’50s, the masterful journalist Edward R. Murrow led a journalistic team of titans with See it Now, a classic news documentary show. But he also hosted Person to Person, a celebrity profile show that bordered on tabloid TV. In the 1960s, Murrow made Harvest of Shame, a revolutionary television documentary about the oppression of farm workers. In the same decade, Mister Ed featured a talking horse that cracked jokes through a barn door. Producers persuaded the horse, a gelding named Bamboo Harvester, to “talk” by putting peanut butter on his teeth. At issue is not the existence of silly shows but their relative popularity. For every major in-depth documentary about poverty in America or some other heady topic, there were at least a dozen sitcom series that portrayed a peaceful, suburban, consumption- driven life even as American society underwent cultural and social upheaval.

In the 1970s, the sitcom M*A*S*H gained great critical acclaim. It showed that a television show could entertain and inform. It satirized the Vietnam War through comedy, although it technically was a depiction of the Korean conflict. The show discussed war propaganda, PTSD, the honor of service and camaraderie in battle. It ran for 11 years, longer than the Korean and Vietnam Wars put together. M*A*S*H can be compared to another classic ’70s sitcom, Three’s Company, a farcical Previo ushows: Film aaboutnd Bric othreelage single people living together as roommates in post-60s sexual revolution Santa Monica, California. Both shows depicted social and Next: Music Recording, “Sharing” and the Information Economy https://press.rebus.community/mscy/chapter/chapter-5-television-through-time/ 3/11 3/23/2020 Television through Time – Media, Society, Culture and You

cultural change, and both aired successfully for decades in  reruns, but M*A*S*H represents television in rare form, both entertaining and poignant.   In the 1980s, Hill Street Blues was a serious, police drama that demonstrated the difficulty of fighting crime in an unnamed modern American city by tackling deep subjects and showcasing a gritty production style. In contrast, Married… with Children was a purposefully shallow show designed to offend by depicting a grotesque caricature of an American family. Hill Street Blues ran for seven seasons. Married…with An antique television Children ran for 11. In the 1990s, Homicide: Life on the displays an episode of Street depicted grit, violence and crime fighting in Baltimore The Munsters, a 1960s in the vein of Hill Street Blues. Homicide was based on a non-

sitcom. Image by Michel fiction book titled Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets by

Curi, CCBY. Source: Flikr David Simon. Simon went on to create The Wire, one of the top-rated television shows of all time that also depicted crime and crime fighting in Baltimore. While Homicide was popular, Friends dominated American pop culture and had a global influence. Friends showed an imaginary version of New York where six twenty-somethings, some of whom had no discernible employment, could afford spacious apartments and daily lattes. This is not to take issue with shows that paint a rosy picture of life. Instead, the point is that popular television content is made to entertain, not inform. The most entertaining and popular shows of the 20th century were not poorly made, nor were they necessarily detrimental to society as mainstays of the culture. They were, however, usually of thoughtful social content. Television, the most popular mass medium in the world, often serves to distract.

Television and Society

The shallow nature of some of the most popular television content in the 20th century raises a broader question about mass-media content in capitalist society. Can we expect a media system based on profit-making to focus on serious issues? Perhaps we should not expect the majority of television content to be informative or to treat social issues with nuance. After all, in the chapter on film, it was noted Previous: Film and Bricolage that hard working people attended movies in part because they craved instant gratification and movies were affordable.Next: Music RInec otherdin gearly, “Shar idang”ys an dof th television,e Information theEconomy https://press.rebus.community/mscy/chapter/chapter-5-television-through-time/ 4/11 3/23/2020 Television through Time – Media, Society, Culture and You

television set was expensive, but the content was free and delivered over the  airwaves from broadcast towers to antennas. To make money in this media environment, producers considered popularity first. Advertisers supported the  medium and cared above all else how many “eyeballs” they could reach. 

Scholars will often suggest that a “balanced” television diet is best. In other words, we should not expect for-profit television producers to forego revenues to deliver mostly informational content. Rather it is on us as consumers to seek out quality programming and limit our “guilty pleasures” when viewing TV. Ratings suggest most people are just fine watching shallow television, and many will binge-watch TV for days. As consumers, we will probably have more success holding ourselves to better consumption standards than we will have trying to hold producers to more positive social standards. In a crowded marketplace of broadcast, cable, satellite and streaming television, quality content stands out.

Industry Shifts

Cable television started as a way to reach rural consumers and grew, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s, into a nationwide service delivering paid content. It presented more options and a trustworthy wired connection — but at a cost. As cable networks consolidated into monopolies, costs went up and service quality often declined. Still, most Americans continue to consume broadcast and cable television. Market penetration of some form of television service, including over- the-air TV, stands at almost 96% according to Nielsen, the television ratings specialists.

According to industry estimates, pay television services (such as cable and satellite TV) are now in fewer than 80 percent of U.S. homes as people begin to “cut the cord.” Broadband internet service now reaches more than 80 percent of homes, suggesting that it is displacing paid television service. American cable consumers may be comfortable transitioning to broadband because so much television content is now available online. Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, HBO GO and other broadband-based streaming services deliver television content with high production value. YouTube, Vimeo, Twitch and other streaming services deliver niche video content. Certain platforms for television delivery may be in decline, but P rconsumptionevious: Film and Bofric ovideolage content remains strong.

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Television’s impact on society is debated by scholars. Long-term studies have  associated higher rates of television viewing with lower rates of high school completion. Watching television has been shown to make attention spans shorter. Media studies scholars do not agree on whether television “cultivates” a sense that the world is a violent, scary place, even when crime rates are low. Findings for that hypothesis seem to depend on how each study is carried out and how data analyses are structured. Alternatively, educational television can have a positive impact as an intervention for children in poverty. Too much television has the potential to affect us negatively. Doctors often recommend limiting screen time, particularly for children. The way we consume television has changed a great deal since the medium was introduced.

Appointment Viewing versus Binge-watching

Appointment viewing refers to the phenomenon of people watching television shows at the same time each week or each day. When most people watched television broadcast over the air or on cable, they generally had two options. They could watch the show live as it aired, or, once the VCR was invented, they could record programs to watch later. A major concern during the mid-20th century when appointment viewing was most popular was that people might not watch serial narratives on television because they would have to wait a week between episodes. If they missed an episode or two, they could feel lost and stop watching the show.

Thus, appointment viewing and episodic TV went hand in hand for a majority of shows during the 20th century. Episodic television shows usually featured a different story with each episode. Soap operas, however, were serialized. They told an ongoing story with several threads, and each episode picked up where the last one left off, but they aired almost every weekday, and the stories were not known for being complicated.

The logic against making serial television dominated the 1980s and 1990s, but in the 2000s dramatic shows such as Previous: Film and Bricolage An image of a cartoon mouse The Sopranos, The Wire, Breaking Bad, MadMen, crated by Keith Haring Deadwood, Dexter, Boardwalk Empire,Next: M uSixsic RFeeetcor dUnder,ing, “Sharing” and the Information Economy https://press.rebus.community/mscy/chapter/chapter-5-television-through-time/ 6/11 3/23/2020 Television through Time – Media, Society, Culture and You

Lost, 24, Homeland, Game of Thrones, Westworld, Stranger photographed by Alexandre Things, and The Handmaid’s Tale became increasingly Dulan, CCBY. Source: Flikr popular. DVRs (digital video recorders) and streaming  services contributed to the popularity of these dramas and to the habit of binge-  watching — consuming several hours of video content in a single viewing or in a very limited time frame.

The upside is that many shows now present intricate plots with long-building character arcs. Many former filmmakers, screenwriters and actors now prefer to do television rather than film because television allows for more intricate storytelling. Not everything in popular television needs to have the potential to reach a global audience interested in action, superheroes and sexy, simplistic love stories. While it is true that many independent films pursue visual storytelling as an art form, such releases are limited. In many ways, television (including shows broadcast on streaming services) now leads the way in attempting to make cultural and social impacts. Of course, instant gratification television still exists. So-called “reality television” is still popular, as are game shows and myriad live sporting events, but it can still be argued that the highest form of the visual storytelling art may now be seen on the small screen.

Television and Health

Streamable television content may be as socially relevant as ever, but it encourages binge-watching, which can contribute to health problems. The content itself might not harm your health, but binge-watching and general overconsumption lead to unhealthy sedentary lifestyles. Researchers have found links between increased television viewing and obesity, smoking rates, and generally low fitness levels. Netflix, Amazon and Hulu are engaged in a fierce competition to create the most binge-worthy content, which means that binge- watching is not going away any time soon. Again, mitigation of the social impact of television will fall on the consumer’s shoulders.

Socially, television is an incredibly powerful medium. Most media studies scholars agree that it has the potential to enable shared social understanding. Televised images of atrocities helped encourage the Civil Rights Movement and the end of the P Vietnamrevious: Film W anar.d B rEducationalicolage and informational programming is required of

broadcasters, and many consumersNext :find Musi cvaluable Recording, shows“Sharing ”amidst and the Intheform informationation Economy https://press.rebus.community/mscy/chapter/chapter-5-television-through-time/ 7/11 3/23/2020 Television through Time – Media, Society, Culture and You

glut; however, the future of television might be darker than the present age of  quality and variety.  As television content moves online and streaming services become more popular,  there is a massive corporate push to give internet service providers (ISPs) the kind of control over content that cable television providers have had in the past. The end of net neutrality could make streaming services more expensive, and though it is not likely to happen rapidly, internet access could be divided into tiers of websites and web services with ISPs charging more for the most popular sites. If the most binge-worthy, least intellectually valuable content becomes the affordable option for most people, the social impact of the new internet-television regime could be negative for generations to come.

Television and Culture

The cultural impact of television could be implied from the discussion of content through the decades. Regular television viewers make connections with storylines and characters. We can consume an eclectic mix of video content or focus only on the genre that interests us most. There are hundreds of digital channels and seemingly endless amounts of streaming content available at all time. The question is not whether there is something interesting to watch but what type of content interests us the most. There is more to the medium than the dramas and distractions of the 20th century. There is no single television culture emerging in the 21st century since mass audiences have an incredible variety of choices; however, for children of the 20th century, there are many shows that millions of people hold in common. Thus, we are transitioning from a time of a shared “TV culture” to a time of various digital content cultures.

For children of the 20th century, television is so ingrained in our culture there are shared references to shows that have not aired for 20 years, and there have even been shows about watching TV. Specifically, the HBO show Dream On depicted a grown man who recalled old television shows when his short attention Previous: Film and Bricolage A viewer uses an iPad while viewing the span sent him off into daydreams. Popular television version of “Hannibal.” Next:television Music Recor dshowsing, “Sha inrin g20th-century” and the Informa Americantion Economy https://press.rebus.community/mscy/chapter/chapter-5-television-through-time/ 8/11 3/23/2020 Television through Time – Media, Society, Culture and You

culture were so familiar to mass audiences  that there are still common tropes from as many as 50 years ago that most viewers would recognize. The image of the dull husband and his feisty wife echoes  through the decades from The Honeymooners through The Simpsons, King of  Queens and Family Guy. The crime procedural has been so popular for so long, it often seems as though an entire generation of TV stars have made at least one appearance on Law & Order. Other tropes are noted in “The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular,” another example of television culture referencing itself.

We now use all manner of devices to connect to television content. Over-the-air television is gaining in popular support as people cut the cable cord. Streaming services, as stated, are beginning to dominate the landscape. and tablets offer ways of consuming streaming television as well as amateur video programs as well as the opportunity for a second screen experience, which refers to watching something on television and interacting with the show or with fans of the show on social media and other Web platforms. The convergence of media platforms opens up new ways of engaging with video content and the people who produce it.

The cultural implications of participatory or collaborative television — the phenomenon in which content producers work with the audience to produce, alter or enhance content, including to decide the outcomes of televised competitions — are not yet known. It is expected, however, that the practice will continue to grow. Audiences often enjoy having a say in the direction or the outcome of a program. Digital platforms measure audience engagement as something they can market to advertisers, which encourages the practice. This also puts some responsibility on the part of consumers to positively influence the content they help shape.

As television and broadband internet services merge, it is worth noting that the prediction of the union of television and computers is as old as the personal computer. Internet-ready televisions might have become more popular than add- on streaming devices such as Amazon Fire, Apple TV, Roku, or Google Chromecast, but television manufacturers hesitated to add full internet functionality for fear of viruses. Also, consumer demand for connected TVs was not strong enough for Previous: Film and Bricolage manufacturers to offer built-in technology. For the consumer, it matters little whether the television connects directlyNext: Musi cto R ethecord interneting, “Sharin org” a whethernd the Infor ma arelativelytion Economy https://press.rebus.community/mscy/chapter/chapter-5-television-through-time/ 9/11 3/23/2020 Television through Time – Media, Society, Culture and You

inexpensive add-on is needed. In whatever manner you connect to converged  digital video content — that is, the media products formerly known as television — you have access to perhaps the most influential cultural tool in  history. 

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https://press.rebus.community/mscy/chapter/chapter-5-television-through-time/ 11/11 UNIT 5 NEO-LIBERAL PERSPECTIVE

Structure

5.0 Learning Outcome 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Background of Neo-liberal Perspective 5.3 Neo-liberalism: Emergence 5.3.1 Troika of Hayek, Nozick and Friedman 5.3.2 Thatcherism 5.4 Neo-liberal View of the State 5.5 The Impact of Neo-liberal Perspective on Public Administration 5.6 Conclusion 5.7 Key Concepts 5.8 References and Further Reading 5.9 Activities

5.0 LEARNING OUTCOME

After going through this Unit, you will be able to:

• Explain the meaning of Neo-liberalism and trace its evolution as a concept

• Discuss its situational context, especially with reference to Thatcherism and Reaganism

• Enumerate and discuss the key tenets of the Neo-liberal view of the State

• Examine the Neo-liberal impact on the discipline of public administration; and

• Provide an overview of the Neo-liberal framework

5.1 INTRODUCTION

The Neo-liberal perspective or ‘New Liberalism’, as it is generally called is currently the reigning deity of social science discourse. Other perspectives including the fairly popular one of State Welfarism have retreated in the face of consistent and persistent assault of the Neo-liberals. Possibly, the most poignant irony of the situation is that post-1989 (disintegration of the former Soviet Union), even the erstwhile communist countries (excluding Cuba and North Korea) have no qualms in singing the Neo- liberal tune. In this Unit, therefore, you will be reading in some detail about Neo-liberalism and its contemporary context. It is important to mention right at the outset that some of the concepts and themes that are currently in vogue, viz., the New Right, Neo- , Public Choice theory, and ‘globalisation’ itself, are all closely related to and arguably, a part of the Neo-liberal thinking. Of course, there are subtle differences among these which you will read about in the other Units of this Course.

1 In this Unit, we shall touch upon them only to the extent that the ethos of Neo-liberal thought becomes clearer to you.

5.2 BACKGROUND OF NEO-LIBERAL PERSPECTIVE

The Neo-liberal perspective is not something that has suddenly come upon us. It is, on the contrary, the latest stop in a long journey going back in time to ‘pure’ or ‘Classical’ (negative) Liberalism, onwards to positive Liberalism, Welfarism (Welfare State) and then only, we have reached where we have, today. In a way, the wheel has come a full circle. The Neo-liberal’s conception of the minimalist State approximates Classical Liberalism’s emphasis on the State being a mere protectionist (law and order) outfit leaving the individuals free to pursue their self-interest in a manner deemed the best possible by them. Just as early positive Liberalism and its later variant, the Welfare State, were a reaction to the ‘excesses’ of Classical Liberalism, Neo-liberalism has come about as a consequence of disenchantment with the Welfare State. About roughly, a little over two decades ago, liberal democracies the world over (India included) started voicing disillusionment and, in fact, outright frustration with the hitherto dominant paradigm of the Welfare State. It was increasingly perceived that the liberal democratic Welfare State had not really achieved what it had initially set out to do. Income disparities and other socio-economic inequities had become the general scenario. Rising unemployment and under-employment had led to a spiralling crime graph. The gulf between the elite and the masses had become too noticeable and could no longer be brushed under the carpet. The rulers, comprising both the political executive and the bureaucracy, had become too corrupt, bloated, lethargic and manifestly insensitive to the common citizens’ aspirations. To make matters worse, the State’s tentacles had spread everywhere and this had made life claustrophobic for the masses. Countries such as the United Kingdom (UK), the United States of America (USA), France, India and the like were, in fact, said to be suffering from ‘over-statism’. At the same time, a parallel and no less significant development was the fact that the State concretely speaking, those in positions of public office came to strongly believe that the vast array of welfare measures had only vetted the appetite of the general public for more and more of populist sops without any commensurate obligations and duties towards the State. Politics of competitive populism had thus, come into being, overloading the governments of the day. Those exercising political power also felt that welfare schemes such as the social security system (Safety Net) in countries such as the UK and France were being abused by the citizens. A related fact compounding the problem was that the State viewed welfare measures such as the Unemployment Dole (a vital component of social security) as an unnecessary and avoidable drain on its limited financial resources. The idea implicit here was that the citizens should take personal initiative to improve their lot in life rather than expecting the State to bail them out all the time. Thus, by the late 1970s to the early 1980s, a bewildering situation had emerged wherein the citizens had become disenchanted with the State and the State with the citizens. It was against this intriguing background that Neo-liberalism emerged as a powerful idea and practice, especially in the United Kingdom. It is to the emergence of this new perspective on Liberalism that we turn our attention now.

2

5.3 NEO-LIBERALISM: EMERGENCE

In the preceding Section, we pointed out how by the mid-1970s and extending upto the middle of the 80s, a situation had emerged where there was an extreme degree of anger and disenchantment with the Welfare State in liberal capitalist democracies and that the State too was angry and perplexed with the citizens’ seemingly never ending demands and disinclination towards improving their lot through private initiative. It was against this general background that Neo-liberalism emerged as a theory and practice in the UK, the USA and other western democracies. Here, we deliberate in detail about the coming into being of the Neo-liberal or the New Right paradigm.

5.3.1 Troika of Hayek, Nozick, Friedman The Neo-liberal State, largely came to be seen as a concrete manifestation of the New Right philosophy that emerged in Thatcherite England in the late 1970s. (Alternatively, one can say that the New Right was a version of Neo-liberalism as it emerged in the UK under its Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher). Now, regarding the origins of the New Right, Heywood (2000) has argued that “Its origins and ideas can be traced to the 1970s”. “The New Right’s growth occurred in conjunction with the apparent failure of the Keynesian Welfare State, signified by the end of the post-war economic boom and increasing concerns by the political elite over social breakdown and the decline of authority. The term ‘New Right’ was first attached to a group of monetarists from Chicago University, who were inspired by the writings of three eminent economic and political thinkers. Friedrich von Hayek, Robert Nozick and Milton Friedman”. Although the seeds of New Right thought can be traced back to the 18th and 19th century classical political economists such as David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, and most notably, Adam Smith, author of The Wealth of Nations (1796), it is the trinity of Hayek, Nozick and Friedman that is most fundamentally associated with the New Right. We discuss these three here:

Friedrich von Hayek Hayek was an ‘anti-modernist’ who severely critiqued planning and collectivism in his most famous work, The Road to Serfdom (1944). Hayek’s work is centred on four core ideas. These are: i) Wrongness of Planning Hayek argued against planning on the grounds that it was ‘both politically dangerous and economically inefficient’. This was so because ‘centralised economic planning by the government reduced individual and group liberty, upset the balance between political institutions by making the executive too strong, and undermined the rule of law’.

3 ii) Society’s Complexity Hayek strongly believed that State intervention in the form of measures such as social engineering (focused social security measures for the disadvantaged), as advocated by the Left would upset the ‘spontaneous natural order’ that existed in society and ‘which was the outcome not of a plan or of a design, but of human behaviour’. iii) Primacy of the Market Hayek attached primacy to ‘the markets and prices for the allocation of resources’ as he believed ‘that the spontaneous interaction of buyers and sellers was more efficient than the activity of the planners’. iv) A Framework for Socio-economic Activity and Upholding the Rule of Law Hayek was for a framework in which the ‘government had an important but limited role’ and this was ‘to uphold the rule of law, to enable conditions in which the market could prosper’. It is important to mention that a major part of Hayek’s writings were done after 1945 and that ‘he attracted controversy in Britain because he challenged the belief in the so-called ‘middle way’ which combined both freedom and planning, prevalent in the moderate ‘One Nation’ wing of the Conservative Party and among the Labour Party elite such as Clement Attlee, Hugh Gaitskell and Harold Wilson’.

Robert Nozick Nozick was one of the late 20th century’s most influential thinkers. His last major work was Invariances: The Structure of the Objective World published in October 2001. He was a leading American intellectual whose two main works Anarchy, State and Utopia (1974) and Philosophical Explanations (1981) did much to give a boost to the New Right. He was inspired by John Locke and “his position advocated such themes as a minimal State and a low-tax threshold, and were seen as a direct attack on social democracy, welfarism, collectivism, social justice and ‘big government’. Nozick’s offbeat and challenging views made him known beyond the narrow and specialised confines of academia. His first and perhaps, most famous work Anarchy, State and Utopia, was a reasoned critique of his Harvard colleague John Rawls’ Theory of Justice (1974). Rawls’ book provided a philosophical underpinning for the bureaucratic Welfare State, a methodically reasoned argument for why it was right for the State to redistribute wealth in order to help the poor and the disadvantaged. Alternatively stated, Rawls’ main argument was that ‘inequalities must at least make the worst off better off in order to be morally justified’. Nozick, in contrast, argued ‘that the rights of the individual are primary and that nothing more than a minimal State sufficient to protect against violence and theft, and to ensure the enforcement of contracts is justified. In other words, a distribution of goods is just so long as the distribution was brought about by free exchanges by consenting adults, even if large inequalities emerge from the processes. It may interest you to know that Nozick won the National Book Award (1975) for his work and the book was named by the Times Literary Supplement as one of the ‘hundred most influential books since the war’.

4 Nozick, in fact, started off as a radical left ‘who was converted to a libertarian perspective as a graduate student, largely through his reading of conservative economists Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman’. We should, however, mention that Nozick ‘was never comfortable with his putative status as an ideologue of the Right’. He explained his position in an article in The New York Times in 1978: “Right- Wing people like the pro-free-market argument, but don’t like the arguments for individual liberty in cases like gay rights – although I view them as an interconnecting whole …” The political and social philosophy of Nozick comprised the following components: 1) Entitlement Theory 2) The Wilt Chamberlain Argument (the Self-ownership Argument) 3) Absolute Property Rights and Self-ownership 4) The Lockean Proviso, and 5) Beyond Self-ownership. It is beyond the scope of this Unit to go into the details of these integral constituents of Nozick’s basic theoretical framework. A few lines about each of the five would suffice. Starting with his ‘Entitlement Theory’, this is premised on the core idea ‘that only free market exchanges respect people as equals – for him as ‘ends in themselves’. In other words, ‘even if a free market did not, for instance, produce the most overall well-being in Nozick’s view, it would be justified’. The ‘Self-ownershp Argument’ takes off from Nozick’s ‘Entitlement Theory’. The Argument for example ‘is supposed to show intuitively that no “patterned” theory of just distribution is defensible’. The ‘Self-ownership’ Argument is an elaboration clarification of the ‘Wilt Chamberlain’ arguments. The ‘Self-ownership’ thesis is based on the idea that every human being is unique and an end in him/her self. ‘To say that a person is an end in herself is to say that she cannot be treated merely as a means (emphasis added) to some other end. What makes a person an end is the fact that she has the capacity to choose rationally what she does. This makes people quite different from anything else, such as commodities or animals’. The importance of the ‘Self-ownership’ Argument is that it ‘tries to show that redistributive taxation (advocated by Rawls and his ilk) is equivalent to using people as mere means, that is, not consistently with their self-ownership, since it uses them without their consent’. ‘The Absolute Property Rights’ and ‘Self-ownership’ component of Nozick simply follows from the above. Simply stated, ‘if we own ourselves absolutely, then we own what we produce absolutely’. The Lockean Proviso is an intellectual device by Nozick to tackle the issue of legitimacy of an initial acquisition made by a person. ‘The Proviso’, is essence, is that ‘natural resources, such as land, come to be rightfully owned by the first person to appropriate it, as long as she left “enough and as good” for others’. The ‘Beyond Self-ownership’ component of Nozick’s theorising concerns itself with ‘what further sorts of arguments are there for unrestricted property rights that go beyond mere self-ownership’. As we have mentioned already, we need not go into a fine combine of Nozick’s admittedly complex theoretical formulation. His socio-political philosophy must have

5 given you an insight into the Neo-liberal perspective, whose another major advocate has been the economist Milton Friedman.

Milton Friedman Friedman, a 1976 Nobel Prize winner for excellence in economics has been one of the foremost advocates of economic freedom and free enterprise. He rose to prominence from 1960s onwards and is known most for being an unabashed champion of the free market economy. His ideas are chiefly outlined in his Free to Choose (1980). Friedman attacked the inefficiency of Keynesian driven Western governments and pointed to the glaring failure of State sponsored welfare measures. He stood for the benefit of low taxes; the need to denationalise (private) and deregulate industry and services; and the abolition of rent controls, minimum wages, regional and industrial subsidies and employment legislation. All the above were seen as barriers to the efficient working of a market economy. Friedman argued that government’s role should be limited to providing law and order, defence and of essential services. Capitalism, the voluntary interaction between buyers and sellers of goods and services, created economic freedom, which in turn was essential for political freedom. Friedman advocates limited government. Friedman shares Thomas Jefferson’s view that the government which governs the least is the best. As per this framework, any government should have just three primary functions; that is, (1) a country’s military defence, (2) enforcing contracts between individuals; and (3) protecting citizens against crimes against themselves or their property. Friedman observes that when government – in pursuit of good intentions – tries to rearrange the economy, legislate morality, or help special interests, the costs come in inefficiency, lack of innovation, and loss of freedom. The government should be a referee not an active player. His position will become clearer from the following extract from his memoirs Two Lucky People. “My central theme in public advocacy has been the promotion of human freedom. It is the theme of our books Capitalism and Freedom and Free to Choose, it underlines our opposition to rent control and general wage and price controls, our support for educational choice, limitation of government spending, privatising social security, free trade, and the deregulation of industry and private life to the fullest extent possible. The public has increasingly recognised that government is not the universal cure for all ills, that governmental measures taken with good intentions and for good purposes often, if not typically, go astray and do harm instead of good. We are close to being enmeshed in that ‘network’ of petty, complicated rules (regulations) that Tocqueville conjectured might be the inevitable effect of an excessive drive to equality. There are doubtless many causes for the loss of freedom, but surely a major cause has been the growth of the government and its increasing control of our lives. Today, government, directly or indirectly controls the spending of as much as half our national income. Judged by practice, we have been, despite some successes, mostly on the losing side. Judged by ideas we have been on the winning side. The public in the limited States has increasingly recognised that government is not the universal cure for all ills. The growth of government has come to a halt and seems on the verge of declining as a fraction of the economy. We are in the mainstream of thought, not, as we were fifty years ago, members of a derided minority.”

6 It will not be out of place to mention here that Milton Friedman’s influence was ‘most apparent in the U.S. during the Reagan era, as U.S. government growth (especially the federal component of total government), for the first time since the end of World War II, ceased to grow faster than the general economy and government growth thereafter has not yet regained its prior upward thrust, except during a brief period 1993-94 (although the expansion of the State and local government growth continues and needs to be addressed). Indeed, the Neo-liberal agenda pursued by the late President Reagan was clearly a handiwork of Friedman. In 1980, Reagan appointed Friedman to the select Economic Policy Coordinating Committee headed by George Schultz to develop an action programme once he was elected. Subsequent to the election, Friedman along with Schultz received their ‘Economic Strategy for the Reagan Administration’ with President Reagan who gave his approval and largely acted along the recommended lines. Afterwards, Friedman was on the ‘President’s Economic Policy Advisory Board’ (PEPAB) which regularly interacted with the late President to run the new economic programme. Thus, the triumvirate of ‘Hayek, Nozick and Friedman is regarded as providing the core for the intellectual growth of New Right ideas’. These ideas were pursued most vigorously, as already mentioned, in the UK under the Conservative (Party) premier Margaret Thatcher and in fact, got so much identified with this Iron lady of British politics that they came to be collectively known as ‘Thatcherism’ (Likewise, it was Reaganonomics pursued by Thatcher’s good friend, the late President of the USA).

5.3.2 Thatcherism In the USA, Thatcherism prospered in a climate of ‘delegitimisation of the Keynesian Welfare State’ and very easily filled in the political vacuum created by the breakdown of Welfarism in the UK. As indicated, the Thatcherites symbolising the Neo- right/Neo-liberal philosophy-advocated ‘the State’s withdrawal from both the economy and society and the pursuit of a monetarist, supply side economic strategy’ and towards this end, the administration of Margaret Thatcher launched an all out attack ‘on what it perceived as an ever-extended, uneconomic, over-bureaucratised State. It pursued a wide-scale privatisation programme, reduced its contacts with actors in civil society and reformed the public sector … through financial cuts and the implementation of managerialism and market testing’. The Thatcherites aimed at creating an “Enabling State” ‘in which business could prosper, but in which the rights of the consumer would be better protected against the demands of the producer’. Thatcherism, like all the ‘isms’ before it and after it attacked the prevailing social- economic structures and the State apparatus. With regard to the economy, it was all for a free market economy, now popularised greatly under the twin impact of liberalisation and globalisation. It is not out of place here to go back in time a little bit, i.e., before the assumption of power by Margaret Thatcher. After the quite obvious failures of the then Labour government and the multifarious economic problems facing United Kingdom, the Conservative government of Prime Minister Edward Heath ‘was elected on a promise of reducing government intervention in the economy, reducing taxation, cutting public expenditure and

7 reducing subsidies. However, aced with continuing economic problems and by 1972, the collapse in economic growth and the prospect of unemployment reaching one million, Heath abandoned (emphasis added) his proto-Thatcherite policy … The point is that whilst Heath was prepared to adopt some of the New Right’s Policy prescriptions, he was still attached to the principles of the Keynesian Welfare State’. Ultimately, however, the failure of the Heath government to table the economy and to control the trade unions led to ‘unmodified New Right thinking’ taking a firm hold among the conservatives like David Howell, Keith Joseph, Geoffrey Howe and Margaret Thatcher. ‘From this group, we can see the first real challenge to the dominant, orthodox thinking within the Conservative Party … When in 1975 Thatcher became the leader of the opposition, monetarist and New Right thinking had a much more consistent impact on party policy, as a response to the perceived failure of the Heath era. The situation before the Conservative Party was that if it ‘was to thwart the steady drift in British politics in an increasingly collectivist direction, then it needed to provide an alternative political programme which would win over the hearts and minds of the nation’. This was Thatcherism. Apart from the focus on a free market economy, a key element of Thatcherism was State reform, especially civil service reform. For reforming the State, the Conservative governments drew on many elements of New Right thinking and Managerialism. There were concerted attempts to privatise and hive off organisations, to increase the role and impact of markets, to de-layer management and to increase the role of target setting and auditing. Specific to the civil service reforms was ‘a belief that officials spent too long on policy-making to the detriment of efficient management (Adonis and Hames 1994). ‘There were three pay reforms targeting the civil service: (1) Raynerism (after Derek Rayner, the joint MD of Marks and Spencer); (2) the Financial Management Initiative; and (3) the Next Step Reforms of 1988. It is not necessary for us to go into the details of these reformist measures except to say that they all aired at making the British bureaucracy less bloated, citizen-friendly and attuned to the dynamics of a free market economy. The New Right epitomised by Thatcherism of the Conservative Party, first under Margaret Thatcher and later, under her successor John Major (though with modifications) gives a good insight into Neo-liberalism and the Neo-liberal view of the State. These have been more explicitly set out in the Section that follows.

5.4 NEO-LIBERAL VIEW OF THE STATE

Neo-liberalism is premised on four basic postulates. These are: i) Market Driven Economy Neo-liberalism believes in restoring the market to its position of primacy, which was lost during the era of Keynesian Welfare Economics. It believes in ‘principles of laissez-faire economics’ and ‘in the sanctity and supremacy of

8 market mechanisms’ for ‘equitable outcomes’. In other words, ‘the morality of the market’. ii) Premium on Individual Liberty/Freedom Neo-liberal ethos is all for ‘the maximisation of individual liberty and freedom through the rolling back of the State from the economy’. iii) Monetarism Neo-liberalism, at least, in the context of the UK held ‘that inflation, not unemployment, was the major problem’ and could be rectified by regulating the money supply. iv) Relegation of the Welfare State Neo-liberalism believes in ‘cutting back of the Welfare State, which was regarded as shifting the potential of free market and encouraging a culture of dependency’. It is relevant to mention here that Neo-liberalism as a concept, encompasses the Neo-liberal view of the State, and it is for this reason that we are giving a separate sub-section to the latter.

The Neo-liberals are the advocates of a ‘Minimalist Role for the State’. They are ‘inherently suspicious of the State. They regard State activity as interfering in the natural order of life – be this in relation to the functioning of the market or the way in which social relations within society are formed and played out’. The basic tenets of the Neo-liberal State are as follows:

• Focus on Individual Liberty The principle of individuals not having the right to coerce each other should be extended to the State, ‘which after all is only an amalgam of individuals.

• Greater Innovation Greater freedom greater innovation and progress; innovation would not occur where the State owns or controls the means of production.

• Importance of Incentive Incentive is greatly motivating, while State intervention leads to ‘caution and inertia’.

• Significance of Free Markets Free markets are conducive to ‘social coordination’. ‘Unlike a totalitarian State, a market economy evolves unconsciously, without depending on coercion, by relying on millions of individual actors constantly responding to price signals’.

• More Freedom

9 Planned societies are less free. They involve social engineering – the (former) Soviet Union being a classical example – but social engineering in whose interests? Free markets promote freedom.

• Social Justice The Neo-liberal view of the State perceives ‘social justice carried out by the State to be inherently unfair’. This is because ‘certain individuals enjoy rewards they do not deserve, while others have rewards removed that they should be entitled to’.

• Pro-consumer Stance State power can be unfairly monopolised, as interest groups form and are granted special treatment. The natural workings of the market are then upset. Monopolised State power adversely affects consumers. ‘They pay more and get less, as agencies of the State become increasingly captured by the individual interests of particular interest groups’. The above, then, is the essence of Neo-liberalism and the Neo-liberal view of the State. Our discussion of the Neo-liberal perspective will, however, not be complete without some reference to Neo-liberalism impacting upon the discipline of Public Administration in the last two decades. We will discuss this now.

5.5 THE IMPACT OF NEO-LIBERAL PERSPECTIVE ON PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

In the earlier Sections, we have made references to the disillusionment with the bloated, lethargic government and heavy Welfare State in capitalist democracies from the 1970s onwards, and how this led to the rise of the New Right philosophy manifested in Thatcherism in the UK and Reaganomics in the USA. The discipline and practice of public administration was also touched by these new developments and is mainly reflected in Civil Service Reforms going by the jargon of New Public Management. The breakdown of the Keynesian Welfare State was in a large measure, attributed to the monster-like civil service of post-war Great Britain. It was recognised that unless the civil service was reformed from within and without, there was not much hope for either the State as an institution or the citizens. The civil service had to be pruned down (made less flabby) and simultaneously, it had to develop a new mindset and work culture. This cognisance of the need for reforms in the civil service led eventually to what is now established as the New Public Management or the NPM. We will read about the paradigm of NPM in our later Units 14, 15 and 16 of this Course. Suffice is to say over here that those who propagate NPM stand for superiority of the market, and responsive administration, new parameters for performance evaluation, result-orientedness, new technology, consumer-orientedness and enhanced audit. The object is to make public sector receptive to the markets, responsive to the people, flexible in structures, adaptive to new technology and capable of accountable and transparent processes.

10 So now that we have deliberated upon the Neo-liberal perspective, what do we make of it? Has the Neo-liberal State come to stay for good? If we take the whole world as our stage, it certainly looks that Neo-liberalism and the Neo-liberal State are firmly entrenched and cannot be simply wished away, not even by diehard leftist radicals. The world over, the State seems to be ‘retreating’, ‘withdrawing’ becoming ‘minimalistic’. However, this retreat or whatever other expression we may choose to call it by, is highly nuanced. This nuancing needs to be taken due cognisance of, as it seems to have been missed by many, including those in the know of it. And this is that while the State is distancing itself from Welfarism, in a lot of respects, it still has an overwhelming presence in our lives. Of course, there is admittedly less of the government than say it was two decades ago, but the overarching reach of the government is still very much there. In other words, the Neo-liberal State seems to be steering in the direction of government minus Welfarism. A state of affairs that ‘pure’ Neo-liberals would not really approve of. For governmental (including bureaucratic) heaviness is against the very tenets of Neo-liberalism. Coming to the desirability of the Neo-liberal creed, certainly less of State in the sense of less of the government is something worth trying hard for. However, the State’s total withdrawal from welfare measures should be unacceptable. In a number of countries around the world, including India (which also is seemingly, if not yet fully, on the Neo-liberal path) millions of the deprived and the marginalised are still not in a position to undertake private enterprise for self-development. In such a situation, a ‘reluctant bridegroom’ attitude on the part of the State is a sure-shot recipe for widespread deprivation and worse, social anarchy. The State’s argument of limited financial resources (needed for subsidising the poor) does not carry weight, when viewed against the fact that it has failed to proportionately tax the rich – a flexible strategy for raising finances for developmental activities. In developing societies, the political left, especially, has been vociferous against the State’s apparent withdrawal. Witness the Indian Communist parties’ strong opposition to the disinvestment issue (The sale of 10 per cent government stake in BHEL, for instance). The recent accent on New Public Service, Democratic Citizenship, and Community Participation is providing different dimensions to the New Right philosophy. We will be reading about New Public Service, Organisational Humanism and all the related concepts in Unit 15. Neo-liberalism can then become a viable and potent ideology if it adopts a human face. That is, its goal should be less and less of government in an administrative-bureaucratic sense, but the reverse should apply with regard to the welfare aspirations of the common citizens. This is a challenging task, but Neo- liberalism’s success or failure in the long-run centres on meeting this curious challenge.

5.6 CONCLUSION

In this Unit, we have read about the Neo-liberal perspective. The meaning of Neo- liberalism has been explained at length. We have also discussed how the Neo-liberal State has emerged. The influence of three leading thinkers – Friedrich von Hayek, Robert Nozick and Milton Friedman has been brought out. The arrival of the New Right with special reference to the UK has been touched upon in the Unit. Thatcherism – the practice of Neo-liberalism in the UK under the Conservative Prime

11 Minister Margaret Thatcher – has been discussed. The Unit also briefly refers to New Public Management (NPM), the concrete manifestation of Neo-liberalism in the arena of public administration. Finally, the Neo-liberal view has been critiqued and evaluated. We hope that now you will be in a better position to comprehend the different shades and hues of Neo-liberalism and apply your knowledge to grasp the working of contemporary liberal democracies.

5.7 KEY CONCEPTS

Free Market It is an economic situation where forces of supply and demand are allowed to work without any restraints. It is a set of arrangements where people can voluntarily buy and sell goods and services without interference from the government.

Next Step Agencies In the U.K. in 1986, an Internal Report by the Efficiency Unit to the Prime Minister criticised the time spent by senior officials on policy matters and the effectiveness of unified civil service to conduct government business. This Report was referred to as ‘Next Steps’. As a response to this, semi-autonomous agencies known as Next Steps Agencies were set up to undertake executive functions of the government. A broad range of agencies were created, with an accountable chief executive, entrusted with the provision of making the civil service function like a business enterprise. The objective of creating this was to improve policy implementation by separating it from policy making.

Public Choice Theory It is a branch of economics that studies the decision-making behaviour of voters, politicians and government officials from the perspective of economic theory. A basic argument of Public Choice is that an individual actor, be it a manager or a client, is a utility maximiser who is always in search of increasing net benefits. It stresses on methodological individualism, decentralisation, democratic administration and organisational competitiveness. (Mohit Bhattacharya, 1999, Restructuring Public Administration, Jawahar, New Delhi), and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/public-choice-theory Rawls’ Redistributive Taxation John Rawls believes that democracy is required by justice, because as a procedure it complies with the tenets of justice. Rawls argues for inheritance taxes on the basis that an unregulated transfer of wealth from people to their children would result in the entrenchment of wealth in particular segment of society. Ignoring the right that people have to bequeath wealth to whomever they want, Rawls contends that society should equalise the prospective of the least well off by taxing the undeserved inherited gain of children of rich persons and using the tax proceeds to aid the least well off. solohq.com/articles/younkins/john-rawls-theory-of-blind-justice.htm.

12 Safety Net The health care system of each State that provides care to people, even if they do not have health insurance or money to pay for the health care. Safety Net comprises doctors, nurses, public hospital staff, non-profit community hospital, community- based and school-based health centres, public health clinics and private practitioners. The definition of Safety Net has broadened over time to include old age security, unemployment roles, minimum mandays of work in a year for the workless, compensation for downsized employees, pension schemes etc. In an organisation, especially a safety net provides professional and financial security to the employees. It could include insurance, pension and financial benefit schemes. www.mtpca.org.bphc.gl.htm.

5.8 REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING

Adonis, A and M. Hames, 1994, The Thatcher-Reagan Revolution, Manchester, University Press, Manchester.

Dearlove and Saunders (Cited in) David Richards and Martin J. Smith, Governance and Public Policy in the Untied Kingdom, 2002, OUP, New York.

Dhameja, Alka, 2003, Contemporary Debates in Public Administration, Prentice-Hall of India Private Limited, New Delhi

Gray, John, 1995, Liberalism, Open University Press, Buckingham

Ling, T, 1998, The British State Since 1945, Polity Press, London.

Rhodes, R.A.W, 1977, Understanding Governance: Policy Networks, Governance, Reflexivity and Accountability, Buckingham Open University Press, Buckhingham.

Walsh, K, 1995, Public Services and Market Mechanisms, Macmillan, London.

Websites:

www.mwhodges.home.att.net/friedman.html www.news.harvard.edugazette/2002/01 www.missouri.edu/philrnj/nozick/htm

5.9 ACTIVITIES

1. Review the available literature on Neo-liberalism and then, examine whether the contemporary Indian State can be considered a Neo-liberal State.

13 2. Try to interview some government/public sector officials on the implementation of New Public Management approach in their organisation and make a note of their experiences.

14

3/23/2020 Non-governmental Organizations

Roles of NGOs

Among the wide variety of roles that NGOs play, the following six can be identified as important, at the risk of generalization:

Development and Operation of Infrastructure:

Community-based organizations and cooperatives can acquire, subdivide and develop land, construct housing, provide infrastructure and operate and maintain infrastructure such as wells or public toilets and solid waste collection services. They can also develop building material supply centres and other community-based economic enterprises. In many cases, they will need technical assistance or advice from governmental agencies or higher-level NGOs.

Supporting Innovation, Demonstration and Pilot Projects:

NGO have the advantage of selecting particular places for innovative projects and specify in advance the length of time which they will be supporting the project - overcoming some of the shortcomings that governments face in this respect. NGOs can also be pilots for larger government projects by virtue of their ability to act more quickly than the government bureaucracy.

Facilitating Communication:

NGOs use interpersonal methods of communication, and study the right entry points whereby they gain the trust of the community they seek to benefit. They would also have a good idea of the feasibility of the projects they take up. The significance of this role to the government is that NGOs can communicate to the policy-making levels of government, information bout the lives, capabilities, attitudes and cultural characteristics of people at the local level.

NGOs can facilitate communication upward from people tot he government and downward from the government tot he people. Communication upward involves informing government about what local people are thinking, doing and feeling while communication downward involves informing local people about what the government is planning and doing. NGOs are also in a unique position to share information horizontally, networking between other organizations doing similar work.

Technical Assistance and Training:

Training institutions and NGOs can develop a technical assistance and training capacity and use this to assist both CBOs and governments.

Research, Monitoring and Evaluation:

Innovative activities need to be carefully documented and shared - effective participatory monitoring would permit the sharing of results with the people themselves as well as with the project staff.

Advocacy for and with the Poor:

In some cases, NGOs become spokespersons or ombudsmen for the poor and attempt to influence government policies and programmes on their behalf. This may be done through a variety of means ranging from demonstration and pilot projects to participation in public forums and the formulation of government policy and plans, to publicizing research results and case studies of the poor. Thus NGOs play roles from advocates for the poor to implementers of government programmes; from agitators and critics to partners and advisors; from sponsors of pilot projects to mediators.

Source: Abstracted from - Cousins William, "Non-Governmental Initiatives" in ADB, The Urban Poor and Basic Infrastructure Services in Asia and the Pacific". Asian Development Bank, Manila, 1991 www.gdrc.org/ngo/ngo-roles.html 1/2 3/23/2020 Non-governmental Organizations

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Comments and suggestions: Hari Srinivas - [email protected]

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