Click on the title to link to a Wikipedia entry (use with caution) on the Israeli "Peace" wall.
COMMENTARY
WHAT NEXT? MOATS?
REVISED: NOVEMBER 3, 2006
Over the last generation much has been made of the positive effects of the latter day ‘globalization’ of the international capitalist markets. By this, I assume, commentators mean that kids in Kansas and kids in Katmandu have access to those same pairs of Nike sneakers advertised world wide. Although the outlines of the development of globalization have been known for at least a century, called by less kindly souls like myself- imperialism- apparently the latest devotees of the trend just got the news. Russian revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin analyzed this tendency of international capitalism in 1916 in a little book called Imperialism-the Highest Stage of Capitalism. While Lenin’s analysis could benefit from a little updating, particularly on the effects of the shift of the industrial labor market away from the high cost metropolitan areas to the former colonial areas in the search for lower wage bills and higher profit margins, the basis premises are still sound.
While much of the positive ‘globalization’ rhetoric has been overblown- especially concerning its effects on the demise of the nation-state and its replacement by free-floating multi-national corporations and a multicultural ethic- the chickens are now starting to come home to roost on the down side of the world political situation. Everyone, and their brother and sister, multi-national corporation or local “mom and pop” shoestring operation, is scurrying back to the allegedly safe confines of the nation-state. With their guns drawn outward and cement at the ready.
Cases in point. Over the last several years the Israeli nation-state has been furiously building huge concrete walls to separate itself from the dreaded Palestinians who are fighting over and claiming the same territory and looking for their own nation-state. Additionally, last week, the week of September 10, 2006, saw the democratically elected United States House of Representatives pass an immigration bill that would create a wall, concrete or not I do not know, along several hundred miles of the 2000 mile United States southern border with Mexico. This slap at the dreaded Mexican laborers searching for work is also, like the Palestinian fight, a fight over disputed territory as any Mexican could easily make the argument that he or she was merely going home by crossing the border. But that is a point for another day. (Do not forget the Anglo-Texas and California land grabs or the infamous Gadsden Purchase that expanded the United States southwestward if you are bewildered by the last sentence). Now comes news that the democratically elected government of Iraq, ever so gently assisted by its American sponsor,is planning to fortify, with cement and other materials, the whole city of Baghdad. All of the above are allegedly done in the name of somebody’s or some nation’s security. Since this blog was originally written in September China has been busily building a wall against the threat of refugees from its neighbor North Korea, after the fallout over its nuclear weapons testing. Others are the planning stages of their own wall motifs What gives?
What gives is this. The international capitalist system which after the fall of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the early 1990’s lived in a self-imposed fool’s paradise that the contradictions of the system would flatten out on their own and that everyone had reached the best of all possible worlds. There was even some sentiment for one-world government, from quarters not normally known for such flights of fancy. The events of the last several years have graphically disabused the more cutthroat capitalist elements of this notion.
This retrogression to the defenses of nation-states by physical fortifications reminiscent of the so-called “Dark Ages” apparently is only the vanguard of what promises to be a much more restrictive world. Unless we do something about it, and soon, it will not be pretty. The only walls that make sense in this world are the walls in front of the oceans to protect from their wrath in places like New Orleans. The ruling classes, however, seem unable to put serious efforts in those types of endeavors. Which takes us back to Lenin. He not only wrote that little book on the tendencies of international capitalism as a piece of analysis but he did it for a reason. And that reason was to demonstrate to the militant leftists of his day that the hitherto for progressive nature of capitalist development had run out of steam and the socialist revolution was on the historic agenda. Today, the critics of globalization are much stronger on the effects of the process but weak, very weak, on the way out of the impasse. Lenin knew what to do. Do we?
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