Irina Malenkov

Dear comrades!

Everyone now is speaking about "globalization". They use this term, but it is clear that they do not understand its real economic substance. The simplest confirmation of this is that there is in the labour movement and here, a group called "Anti-globalists". So, what does this term mean?

Obviously, it was the big business ideologists who invented this term. Then the trade union bureaucrats and labour aristocrats used it and put into mass circulation.

The big business ideologists tell us that globalization is an economic integration of all national economies and an internationalization of global market, that this is progress and great achievement of capitalism. We have to agree that it is progress for capitalism and the multinational corporations only.

In an age of high commodity production, all commodity producers are forced to develop capitalist production by the power of compulsory law of competition. So, one capital is "devouring" and subjugating another. For capitalism, such "devouring" of a rival, is additional capital to his capital and an achievement of capitalism. The result of such progress – a victory of competition – is that the accumulated capital is rising. This means the exploitation of more workers in order to gain much bigger profits. For the workers, this can only mean the multiple strengthening of exploitation. It is clear that this achievement is only an achievement for only one class – the bourgeoisie.

And since there is such a process of capitalist integration between different capitalist countries – why not call such integration an internationalization of capital? Economic subjugation of one capital over another, which is bigger and stronger, means that the consequences are exploitation of bigger and bigger numbers of workers in the underdeveloped countries and more and more capital gains for the multinational corporations.

Is it correct to ask: did we not see a similar process of globalization in previous times? Was there nothing resembling globalization before the Word Wars?

Big business ideologists allege that earlier, such internationalization was accomplished by political means of imperialist colonization, of wars of aggression and deprivation of underdeveloped nations of their political independence. Now, these ideologists for big business argue, "the process of economic integration is now accomplished by peaceful means only." For them, they say that there is a difference between industrial capitalist colonization before and the present "progressive globalization" in this age of post industrial capitalism. Let us never forget that such arguments on the part of the big bourgeoisie class, are meant to lead the working class from class struggle to class collaboration.

It is the work of capitalist ideologues to convince the workers that capitalism has now become civilized, that capitalism is not based on class antagonisms any more. Yet, the exploitation continues to worsen even more and the sheer existence of world capitalism makes all of the multinationals even more greedy.

The new "idea" promoted by these capitalist ideologues is to have the workers and capitalists establish "democratic control" of all these multinationals. Is this not a call for class collaboration?

So, what does the word "globalization" really mean? To answer this question we must understand what Imperialism is and what it means. Imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism. What economical processes preceded the transition of capitalism to imperialism? There was the merger of industrial and banking capital in advanced capitalist states and the formation of monopoly capitalism and the financial oligarchy.

The process of the transformation of capitalism to imperialism is a process of monopoly financial capital going out across the globe for financial "devouring" of national capital and subjugating of the underdeveloped national economies. Such devouring can be attained both by military and peaceful means. This brings nothing but ruin to the national industries and agriculture of such nations, free exploitation of all their natural resources, the double exploitation of the workers, social degradation and mass extinction of peoples.

So, dear comrades, in this respect, the concept of imperialism and of globalization is the same. They are identical.

This so-called peacefulness of global imperialism is explained simply as the desperate need of global bourgeoisie to counteract in global competition on the global market to the world’s financial oligarchy. The advances made in technological processes in the last while, are forcing the national bourgeoisie of countries to either voluntarily submit to monopoly capitalism or face the dire consequences, and thus, the local oligarchy submits in order of preserving their political power.

And even if the national bourgeoisie and the government would try to impede the subjugating of their state to Western capital, the imperialists would without any hesitation resort to its mighty military power in any corner of the world, in order to secure all of its interests as possible. We can see these acts vividly in the last while in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq and others, that are somehow ignored and not mentioned in the media.

So, we can conclude that the modern process of globalization is a process of re-colonization of the underdeveloped countries and of their full economic dependency on the advanced capitalist states. So, the political independence of these re-colonized states is nothing but fiction, even though they are still formally independent states in name only.

So, is globalization inevitable and a natural effect of competition between financial magnates of advanced capitalist countries? Anyone calling themselves an "anti-globalist" must pay attention to the fact that they are in actual fact taking upon themselves the taming of the powers of spontaneous competition! Does that not mean that one is trying to limit the powers of these corporations by means of establishing "democratic controls" of multinational activities and to abolish their competition? This would be an ideological failure of the anti-globalist movement, because the idea of establishing "democratic control" of multinational activities and imperialist domination of the world is nothing but pure utopia and double-dyed opportunism in the labour movement, and it waters down the real fight necessary to struggle against globalization and the power behind it – imperialism and the domination of the world! The idea that this fight will produce results in limiting capitalism and its commodity production and exploitation, such struggles are like fighting windmills. It is only possible to abolish capitalist competition and its effect on the working class, only by means of abolishing capitalism itself! There is no other answer!

The ideological failure of the anti-globalist movement is a sign of a crisis in the labour movement. And the first step out of this crisis is the establishment of a World Left International of Workers that will take an anti-capitalist stand!

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