I don't understand the anti-globalization thing, I must admit. Sounds like a case of rich First World nations saying to the Third World, "We've got ours, so go away and toil in the fields your whole life. You're not bright enough not to be expoited even though our ancestors soon organized and got themselves better lives, so forget those factory jobs and upward mobility and all that, just stay stuck and isolated like you are." Kind of patronizing.

Gar beat me to the next bit, so I'll just add that in many cases it is not just as simple as 'if we didn't set up factories and production facilities in 3rd world countries then they wouldn't have access to any work' or 'what are they complaining about earning $1 a day, if it wasn't for us they would be earning nothing'. In many many instances the multinational factory or agribusiness or huge mine or whatever actually takes over the land that the natives had been living on, working on, subsisting on. (like the 400,000 Indian farmers who were displaced to make way for a huge agribusiness run by Tesco's, growing snowpeas to can to sell in Sainsburys in London)

In many cases, if any actual serious money changes hands for land and development stuff it often goes straight into the pocket of the corrupt dictator/ruler or ministers and not to the people who are affected the most.

So we take away their ability to actually feed and shelter themselves, even if it is in a hut with a dirt floor on unowned land eking out a subsistance living, by taking away the land (their shelter and their food supply) and often poisoning the water supply and earth as well.

Remember that not all non-western natives live an absolutely miserable existence, poverty does not necessarily equate to misery. I think Fay made this point recently.

And I guess the most telling thing is that many of the original and most vocal proponents of this corporate led economic globalisation have now changed their mind, such as Joseph Stiglitz (ex WB) George Soros (private investor who broke the Bank of England). Even globalisation advocates such as Robert Wade (London School of Economics) and The Economist now admit that many basic assumptions need re-examining because it is glaringly obvious that the gap between the poorest and everyone else is only growing wider.

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Fascinating discussion y'all are having here. I love to see my man Gramsci's name popping up, too.

But I don't have anything substantial to add at this point, so I'm going to sit on the sidelines.

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hands hayden a hotdog

The sidelines are very nice at this time of year, aren't they?

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Aside from admitting that if my state brought up a vote to become Canada's newest province, I'd be in favor of it, I'm trying to stay behind the kegs on the sidelines right now.

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The NY Times obit for Moynihan is here - it's a pretty good overview. Buffista/foamy will get you in the door if you're not registered.

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The sidelines are very nice at this time of year, aren't they?

There's a lovely breeze flapping my anti-IMF banner in a rather patriotic way. And lots of room to duck behind these kegs.

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I love to see my man Gramsci's name popping up, too.

Yeah Hayden I'm into Gramsci, sort of a neo-Gramscian approach distinguished by analysing world order, power and the state in terms of hegemony, the achievement of political stability, not through the use of force, but by persuading the populace to accept the political and moral values of the ruling class.
In addition, I follow Connell’s work in relation to Australian society, which posits hegemony at three levels, the level of individual consciousness and social attitudes, the level of unconscious mental processes, and the level of the practical, material structuring of everyday life and routine interactions. Using these approaches to analyse the impact of globalisation on politics emphasises the reflexive, mutually determining relationship between material capabilities, ideas, and institutions, a la Connell’s notion that ideas and beliefs are additional sources of power to economic factors, and Gramsci’s belief that individuals possess ‘dual consciousness’. Many individual’s ideas derive from the ruling class’s control over civil society and its ability to use such institutions as the church and schools to persuade people to accept that neo-liberal capitalism is, not only, the natural order of things, but, right, proper, and desirable as well.
However, people’s conceptions and beliefs are also produced through their activities and experiences, so that, to some extent, they should be able to see through the neo-liberal rhetoric and propaganda of the capitalist system, recognising that their interests my be best served by changing it.Gramsci described it as a time of political trench warfare in which the revolutionary elements in society attempt to win over the hearts and minds of the subject classes, the masses, in other words, the public.

I'm also into Ghandi's seven social sins,

• Politics without Principle
• Wealth without Work
• Commerce without Morality
• Pleasure without Conscience
• Education without Character
• Science without Humanity
• Worship without Sacrifice

(and I know that last one brings up images of Joss & Tim & Goats)

and David Hume's 18th century assertion that subjective (observed) knowledge can only describe how reality appears to us, an “apparent reality”, rather than the objective “deep reality” that describes the ultimate physical laws and substances that constitute our world, which still stands unrefuted to this day. In fact it seems to be gaining even more credibility with the latest cosmology research and physics stuff.

and Immanuel Kant who warned that a socio-economic order in which whole regions or peoples suffer serious harm and disadvantage independent of will or consent, cannot command widespread support and legitimacy.

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Shit, I hate when you write a long message, then click to somewhere else to check facts before finishing, and click back to find the box empty.

Anyway, I was saying that my familiarity with Gramsci is more from a labor-historical perspective, in that I read some of his works & used his ideas in a paper during my final semester of grad school to illuminate why the hollowing of the CIO after Taft-Hartley was both tragic and inevitable. I'm not familiar with Connell, but I think that your approach of using these models of behavior to describe globalization sounds fascinating.

Using these approaches to analyse the impact of globalisation on politics emphasises the reflexive, mutually determining relationship between material capabilities, ideas, and institutions

I'm not quite sure what you mean by this. Let me see if I can suss it out.

Many individual’s ideas derive from the ruling class’s control over civil society and its ability to use such institutions as the church and schools to persuade people to accept that neo-liberal capitalism is, not only, the natural order of things, but, right, proper, and desirable as well.

This certainly appears true in the US, Britain, and Australia (the rightward democracies). I'm not so sure how this plays out in Europe, South America, or Africa, though, where the individuals appear to have a difficult time accepting the rightness of free-market capitalism, especially when imposed by outside forces (aka the IMF & WB) aligned with the internal ruling class. In the US, neo-lib capitalism is conflated with liberal values of governance, making it an easier pill for the middle & working classes to swallow.

However, people’s conceptions and beliefs are also produced through their activities and experiences, so that, to some extent, they should be able to see through the neo-liberal rhetoric and propaganda of the capitalist system, recognising that their interests my be best served by changing it. Gramsci described it as a time of political trench warfare in which the revolutionary elements in society attempt to win over the hearts and minds of the subject classes, the masses, in other words, the public.

Oops, this is where my conflation point properly belongs. I think that we are in agreement thus far, although Gramsci's view of revolutionary elements is far removed from the current realities of socializing forces in the rightward democracies.

Gandhi is indeed excellent. I was recommending a reading on the Rev. James Lawson yesterday, and I stand by it. After getting out of jail for conscientious objection against the Korean War and before being the catalyzer behind SNCC, Lawson went to India to study Gandhi's method of nonviolent direct action.

David Hume's 18th century assertion that subjective (observed) knowledge can only describe how reality appears to us, an “apparent reality”, rather than the objective “deep reality” that describes the ultimate physical laws and substances that constitute our world, which still stands unrefuted to this day.

This goes back to Kant's Prolegomena on All Future Metaphysics (IIRC), in which he posited the phenomenal, experienced world and noumenal unknowable world, thus creating the subtopic of philosophical phenomenology. After studying correlations in Bohr & Heisenburg's different takes on the meaning of their science with the philosophies of phenomenologists through history, I agree that Bohr was a Hume-follower. Heisenburg had more of a Schopenhauerist take on his work. Many of the people reaching for meaning in quantum physics assume that the odd behavior of subatomic particles does point towards a glimpse of the noumenal world, but this seems to be to be patently impossible. The noumenal world, by definition, is unknowable, a Platonic ideal of a world, thus easy to discard as useless whether "real" or "unreal". It's an intellectual dead-end. The permutations of phenomenal world are more important.

At least, or so I argued ten years ago. I might need to re-think my position on all of this.

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Whoa. I'm feeling uneducated, and I'm arrogant enough that's hard to do. I'm listening with fascinated half-comprehension.

I just found the following in a blog:

the "English dessert or STD?" game beloved by generations of Americans at Oxford. Examples: spotted dick? treacle?

Snerk.

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I'm sorry, Betsy. I'm using a lot of shorthand for bigger arguments, and I should definitely either delineate them or wait for my head to clear before trying to discuss them.

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