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NEWS June 23 2001
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| Naming the Enemy: Anti-corporate movements confront globalization by Amory Starr Starr - an American sociology teacher and activist - has tried to describe the movements against corporate globalisation and show how they can improve their strategy. Initially this looked like an interesting book but as I read further I found it edging ever nearer to the bin – ultimately, this is a lesson in the dangers of lazy scholarship. Starr links social theory from Foucault to Marx to everyday activist struggles to save the world. She rejects fashionable sociological theories that see activism as being about personal identity rather than politics. The first chapter on social theory will probably put off activists and could have been written more clearly, but it raises all sorts of interesting and important questions about how to fight globalisation and is probably worth struggling through. Social theory sees globalisation leading to the destruction of fixed ways of life and identity. Postmodernists celebrate this as a source of freedom and feel that campaigns based on fixed truths, even campaigns for justice, lead to oppression. Equally ‘naming’ an enemy (for them) leads to paranoia and despair. Starr argues that clear economic forces cause problems and resistance will come from developing a new economy and new culture. Naming the enemy means naming McDonalds, Nike, SmithKlineBeecham, Monsanto. It all goes a bit pear shaped after this. First, the way she analyses anti-corporate movements into three chapters doesn’t work. She claims that anti-globalisation movements can be separated into 1) Those who seek to change corporations through direct action and democracy 2) Those who promote globalisation from below 3) Those who promote delinking from the world economy. Yet some of the same people/groups would obviously pop up in all three sections, so Earth First! are seen as seeking to change corporations, People’s Global Action are see as promoting globalisation from below and finally anarchists are pigeon holed as delinkers. Clearly EF! anarchists who go to PGA gatherings would be confused. There are plenty of other ways of analysing anti-corporate movements - in terms of attitude to the state/direct action/economics, the reform or abolition of corporations etc. - which might increase the reader’s understanding. There is also a remarkable amount of superficial crap in this book. Starr is a walking, breathing example of the limits of web based scholarship. The range of topics she knows virtually nothing about is astonishing. She fails to get to grips with the origins of all sorts of groups and ideologies, she rarely explores internal differences and usually fails to back up her very controversial conclusions. Take anarchists, for example - has she ever met any? I suspect not. We are told that ‘A British organization called Class War explains that "At present the capitalists invade all areas of our lives - in turn we will have retrieve every part of our lives from them."’ The very next line (I kid you not) goes ‘One of the major issues for anarchists is the need to distinguish their movement from vulgar stereotypes, such as that anarchists promote chaos and violence’ (p.113). Class War may not be typical of anarchism but their page three ‘hospitalised copper’ feature hardly backs up Starr’s thesis. In fact when Starr comes up with an idea, even if it is fairly easy to justify, she will almost always pick evidence that refutes what she is saying. For example, one of her big (but least-thought through) ideas is that nationalism is a good thing because it allows us to base our identity on a strong community rather than consumerist culture. She believes that protest against corporations is not enough and we need to set up new nations that will boycott international trade and international institutions. She believes ‘anti-nationalism empowers corporations’ (221). Thus portraying nationalism as ‘ethnic, disruptive, short-sighted and exclusionary, or as ‘an exceptional interruption to world peace’ confirms the corporate agenda. She borrows the concept of positive nationalism, arguing that nations should be tolerant and socially diverse but rather spoils things by describing the BJP in apologetic terms. The BJP are the extreme right wing Hindu fundamentalist party whose supporters famously demolished the Ayodha mosque. 2,000 people were killed in the riots that followed. Most people would not consider them a beacon of tolerance and pluralism. Starr is reinventing traditional conservative political thought, though in a rather less convincing manner than Michael Portillo or Edmund Burke. As well as massively over simplifying and distorting anarchism, conservatism and nationalism (anarchists may be surprised to find they are nationalists) she proceeds to maim socialism, religion and green political economy. The section on socialism discusses the Socialist International in positive terms, although she doesn’t seem to realise that its members include Tony Blair’s Labour Party and a range of moderate governing parties who actually quite like globalisation! I can’t really imagine Tony Blair or his ministers on the streets in Seattle protesting against the WTO. She then moves on to the World Socialist Party of New Zealand. I can only assume they were next on the MSN internet search list when you type in ‘international’ and ‘socialist’. The World Socialist Party have quite interesting origins and ideas - not that Starr examines them! They are linked to a group set up in 1904 who advocate a largely green form of Marxism based on William Morris-style ideas - i.e. they are so ancient that their ideology predates Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky. They are however hostile to protest which they tend to view as ‘reformist’, meaning they are unlikely to get strongly involved with anti-corporate protest! The Irish Socialist Party get one line and then we are on to Cuba. A clear analytical discussion of what is useful and useless about socialism for the anti-corporate movement is missing. Starr moves onto even more dangerous ground with the US militia movement, whom she sees as a source of potential anti-corporate protest. They are localists, they are hostile to the new world order and ‘not only are not anti-Semitic but differ little from left wing analyses, emphasising the Trilateral Commission, New World Order and GATT’ (142). Unfortunately many of them are anti-Semitic, as Jon Ronson’s excellent book/TV series on the far right has shown. For example, the main moving force against the New World Order in the US has been Spotlight, who rally against the Trilateral Commission and the Bilderbergs, promote Holocaust denial and were set up after World War II by a fan of Francis Parker Yockey, the Nazi war criminal. My enemy’s enemy is not always my friend. The militias can be seen as product of the insecurity created by globalisation but that doesn’t mean they are either green or good. Religion is another topic that Starr attempts to grapple with. Zionism and the Islamic revolution in Iran are not seen as examples of inspirational anti-corporate protest by most members of the anti-capitalist movement. There may be a lot to be said for looking at the links between religion and ecological concern; Judaism, Islam and Rastafarianism - to take just three diverse examples - contain elements of a green theology that could promote sustainability. Some people may disagree with this analysis and critical debate is necessary but you won’t find it in Starr’s book. There is no mention of green religion yet the index contains many pages dealing with ‘religious nationalism’. Starr sees religion as a source of strong local identity, another flag like nationalism that we can wrap ourselves in to close ourselves from all things global. Christian or Hindu/Muslim/Jewish fundamentalism seem most suited to her intentions. Paganism isn’t even discussed, although I suspect the analysis would be just as poor as the rest of the book and Starr would have a long line of witches on her case along with disgruntled anarchists, conservatives, socialists etc. Starr is obsessed with getting us into small isolated communities that look inwards. She then tries to defend such communities as tolerant, plural, etc., and gets more and more confused. Culturally her vision seems more about being distant from other people than close to the earth. Possibly Starr supports corporations and is trying to discredit their opponents. Possibly the whole book is a post-modern ironic gesture to amuse and provoke. It is more likely that it was written too quickly and with too little thought. Given that capitalism is wrecking our planet to write a book that is so poor, that so fails to deal with how transformation can be achieved is a crime. (And it has the old CW web address!) It is the worst book on politics this reviewer has ever read with the possible exception of some of the works of David Icke. Derek Wall |