| ENCUENTROS Filosofía y cultura desde Latinoamérica LATIN AMERICAN PHILOSOPHY AND CULTURE Londres - UK |
| Globalisation and Blair’s philosophers Globalización y los filósofos detrás de Blair By Paul Goulder This article looks at the extent to which the 'Blair' philosophers have contributed to an intellectual base for globalisation. (Note for non-UK readers: Blair has been UK Prime Minister since 1997 leading what is known as a “new- labour”government. This followed an 18-year period of “Thatcherite conservatism”. Some argue that there has been less discontinuity than the labels suggest). Globalización y exclusión Stalwart Latin Americanist philosophers battled the threat of a transport strike on Sunday January 8, 2006 to attend the meeting of the UK-Latin American Café Filosófico in the foyer café-bar of the Queen Elizabeth Hall on London's South Bank. We were prepared in this theme by two articles distributed beforehand from Gloria Jaliff and Claudio Chipana. These can be seen on web page http://www.filosofialatinoamerica-uk.org/cafefilosofico.html - scroll down page. The meeting’s theme was “globalización y exclusión”. When the present UK government party entered into power in 1997 it did so with the policy of “inclusion” - social inclusion was indeed a new-labour buzz-phrase. But so often the forces of globalisation – both at the international and local levels – appear to “exclude”. The meeting’s location enjoys views of the Thames and the UK Parliament dwarfed by the global headquarters of Shell petroleum and the Millenium wheel prompting the thought that London must qualify as one of the (various) seats of globalisation. The rest of Europe probably sees Tony Blair's Britain - with its flexible labour laws, capital markets (the City) and quasi-neoliberal economic policies - as one of the motors of globalisation. So how does all that square with the thinkers behind Blair's policies - or at least the men (yup, they are all men) that Blair cites, claims or mentions as amongst his philosophical mentors (do philosopher's have that much influence?). According to a recent article by Julian Baggini (The Guardian, UK. 12.01.06 – see annexe) the thinkers who arguably have shaped his policies include: Thomas Hobbes, Adam Smith, Karl Marx, RH Tawney, John Macmurray, Amitai Etzioni, Anthony Giddens, Richard Sennett. Some strange bedfellows! (The article may also be downloaded free from the Guardian Unlimited website) Anthony Giddens Anthony Giddens was perhaps the first “shinker” (a shaker and thinker but more a sociologist- thinker than a philosopher) to be cited by the new-labour Blair government. Sometime director of the London School of Economics, inheritor of the mantle of Harold Laski, the Fabians, G.B. Shaw (who wrote for Mariategui's Amauta in the 1920's) - even Ralf Dahrendorf - and precursor of the "third way" school of thought, he now seems to be more popular in Spain and Spanish than in England and in English. Ask the question "Is the Third Way sympathetic to globalisation?" and you get a fuzzy answer. Third way theories are "rooted in a careful analysis of late modernity" (this latter term is preferred to post-modernism: see http://www. sociologyonline.co.uk/post_essays/ for on-line articles), in which socialism is "forced to come to terms with the rise of individualism, globalisation and a new ecological awareness". So how exactly does socialism 'come to terms with' globalisation and with individualism? (The Café Filosófico on 29 January 2006 deals with “GLOBALIZACION Y LA IDENTIDAD INDIVIDUAL”) In the case of globalisation one acid test is whether the process of the international relocation of industry is distributing wealth and income more equitably. In Latin America the forces of globalisation have not been - in the main – benign and the 1980's and the 1990's have been "lost decades" for many countries including Argentina and parts of Peru. Latin America, at least in terms of economic growth, lost out to Asia. Thomas Hobbes Thomas Hobbes had just turned fifty when the English Civil War (monarchists versus parliamentarians / catholic protestants versus puritan protestants etc) broke out. He lived more than 90 years spanning a period of particular turbulence in British history (from roughly the date the Spanish brought the world's largest fleet to invade England (unsuccessfully) after they had consolidated their empire in the Americas almost to the bloodless revolution of one hundred years later which firmly established a protestant constitutional monarchy). Hobbes’s life and his work is seen today as being mainly concerned about the breakdown of civil society into disorder and anarchy. This has been a recurring theme in British political thought and England (but not Scotland and Ireland) since the Civil War and especially since the constitutional "revolution" of 1688 has enjoyed an "ordered" society. The British contribution to "globalisation" - according to one set of arguments - has roots in this hundred years following the birth of Hobbes. The growth of mercantilist globalisation and the re- founding of global cities (New York acquired from the Dutch, Bombay a wedding present to King Charles, Calcutta and later Singapore, Hong Kong expand in the hands of the East India and other trading companies) indicate that globalisation is not a new phenomenon. Already the tensions between Britain and the Anglophone Americas were developing to reveal the ultimate contradiction between the utopian vision of pure democracy, puritan religion and the pure life and that of Britain’s more pragmatic approach. Blair appears to have reclaimed Hobbes for the left! In terms of the “tyranny of a global knowledge”, the founding of the post-scholasticism / secular university funded by the extraction of wealth from one sector of the global economy and the investment in another . . creating a hegemonic university imposing one version of understanding dates back to at least 1688 when John Harvard having made his fortune in Bombay set up Harvard university in Cambridge (Masachussetts, New England), almost as a personal venture. Hobbes underpins the rationalist concept of the global urban society with a Singaporean level of order and later assertions that a "strong state is necessary” during phases of intermediate development. And the roots of the (post) modern global corporation were already being established in the royal charter companies, trading in (bringing order to?) Canada, Virginia, India . . . Is this link between Hobbesian order, international capital, the growth of the global city and new labour not a hallmark of 'Blairism'? It also translates into the renewed emphasis in Blair's third term on order and respect in society. There is also a strong attraction (for Blairites?) of membership of an anglophone global society which keeps the UK distant to Europe but pulls the UK into Irak as a necessary price of membership. Latin America has long been a "guinea pig" in the order versus anarchy debate. So often "strong government" is (mis) interpreted as "strong-man" government both by US (dictator) king-makers, populist politics and even marginalised masses whose experience of anarchy has been much more recent than the Hobbesian period of the seventeenth century. The apparent mass support for Fujimori in Peru even after the "auto-golpe" of 1992 bears this out. Latin American positivism reinjected life into the "orden y progreso" school and August Comte, Darwin and Spenser reformulated order into racial heirarchies. However Anglophone order was by then exporting disorder into peripheral areas via transportation “beyond the pale”. Globalised activity in poor countries by UN agencies, international companies etc can be seen as an ordering element in the world economy. Adam Smith One hundred years on again from the death of Hobbes globalisation is reinvented (at least for the anglophone world) by Adam Smith and the philosophers of the Scottish enlightentment. The international division of labour rather than the global search for specie metal (e.g. gold) can now be the more respectable (and profitable) battle-cry of the globalists (aka international traders). In the very year that Britain loses an empire in North America (the 13 colonies) it gains, in the work of Smith, a rationale for imperial expansion (and economic specialisation) in those areas ceded to it in the Treaty of Paris in 1759. The economics of Adam Smith arrives in the nick of time to release the Anglophone global venture from the chains of mercantalism (which had already hamstrung the Spanish venture). Three years later the French revolution breaks out and by 1799 Napoleon is consul of France, later storming into Spain. Freed temporarily from metropolitan Iberian dominance Latin America is free to search for its soul - its true identity. The criollo elites settle for second best and sup with the devil: British trade, but tap into French culture - much like their Spanish counterparts. Karl Marx Karl Marx figures in the Baggini list almost as an afterthought and in the negative. New- labour's creed of "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his abilities too" appears diametrically opposed to its historically socialist origins and to Marx. However one initially strange critique places the "neoliberal democratisation at all costs" in at least one of the camps inhabited by marxists, that of "utopianism". (Just recently the opposition conservative party has shifted its policy into a "compassionate, libertarian pragmatism"). Nevertheless new-labour has been seduced into supporting the invasion of Iraq where the utopianesque vision of regime change is quoted as one of the justifications. Democratisation is often included as one of the handmaids of globalisation (or vice versa) along with multicultural populations, international financial centres and flexible production platforms. In Latin America Mariategui is credited with 'rejecting' international marxism (or at least the Comintern) in favour of neo-Marxism with a Latin touch. Next week: the remaining four philophers. . . . _________________ Annexe Blair's philosophy In a speech this week launching his 'respect agenda', Tony Blair cited no fewer than three philosophers. So how, exactly, have Tawney, Hobbes and Sennett influenced the PM? And who are the other key thinkers to have shaped his policies? Julian Baggini Thursday January 12, 2006 The Guardian John Macmurray Blair has said that Macmurray (1891-1976) is his favourite philosopher, claiming that he "confronted what will be the critical political question of the 21st century: the relationship between individual and society". The answer to that question requires an acceptance of our essentially social nature, that "human life is inherently a common life". The problem for those who agree is, as Blair stated on Tuesday, that "the self-reinforcing bonds of traditional community life do not exist" as they once did. Blair's pragmatism over abstract principle echoes Macmurray's belief that philosophy should address the practical problems of society. Macmurray was also a Christian who thought that uncovering the proper way to relate religion to politics was "the unsolved problem of our civilisation". Blair's fondness for bringing faith groups into public life, if not praying with fellow world leaders, suggests he agrees with Macmurray that a strict division of faith and state is no solution. Amitai Etzioni Like Macmurray, Etzioni (b 1929) holds that humans are essentially social animals who cannot thrive without strong communities. He was one of the founders of communitarianism, a philosophical movement that sought to find new ways of protecting communal life against the onslaught of individualism, without relying on a too-powerful state. Communitarianism was very influential in the early days of New Labour, and although it is less spoken of today, its echoes still reverberate around many of Blair's pronouncements and policies. For example, launching the "respect agenda", Blair repeated the New Labour mantra, "rights have to be paired with responsibilities", which is one of the core tenets of communitarian thinking. However, he would do well to recall another of Etzioni's teachings: "Our agenda, by necessity, is as complex and encompassing as the problems we face: beware of politicians promising simple solutions." Anthony Giddens Giddens (b 1938) was the architect of the third way, which was once seen as the political philosophy to define New Labour yet which was widely derided as woolly and vague. But Giddens rooted his theories in a careful analysis of "late modernity", in which the left was forced to come to terms with the rise of individualism, globalisation and a new ecological awareness. Central to the third way is the idea that politics can and must transcend the old either/ors that defined traditional left/right politics. Blair has always presented his ideas in this way, and his latest speech is littered with examples. "The measure we are proposing," he said on Tuesday, "is not to debate it at the crude level of 'tough' or 'not tough'; populist or not." For all his talk of "tough choices", Blair's third-way rhetoric often sounds as though we need to make no tough choices at all. Richard Sennett Sennett (b 1943) is more than just the greatest single influence on the "respect agenda" - he more or less set it. Respect is the title of his recent book but also a theme than runs through all his work. Personal happiness and social cohesion require respect for ourselves and for others. Yet the increasingly visible inequality of modern life undermines both. Sennett, however, offers few practical suggestions for how we might restore respect. That, perhaps, is the politician's job. Blair's acceptance that "respect cannot, in the end, be conjured through legislation" is straight out of Sennett, as is his insistence that, none the less, "government can provide resources and powers". In making the restoration of respect a relatively short-term political goal, however, Blair is much more ambitious than Sennett himself. RH Tawney Blair quoted Tawney's comments on "the breakdown of society on the basis of rights divorced from obligations". However, Tawney (1880-1962), a Christian socialist, is more widely noted for his views on the pernicious effects of inequality. For Tawney, equality is not essentially a matter of economics but of our common condition as children of God. Blair's hope, expressed on Tuesday, for a society where "people can make the most of themselves without feeling constrained by their background" sounds like a diluted version of Tawney's call for 'the resolute elimination of all forms of special privilege". Blair would also say that New Labour is in favour of what Tawney called "the conversion of economic power, now often an irresponsible tyrant, into a servant of society": not destroying economic power, but taming it for social ends. Thomas Hobbes Hobbes (1588-1679) was a surprise mention in Blair's speech because he is associated with the sort of pessimism about human nature normally associated with the right. Hobbes saw the "natural condition of man" - without government, that is - as a "war of all against all". A strong state is needed to enable people to live peacefully together. This claim may have a particular resonance given Blair's supposed authoritarian leanings on the one hand, and, on the other, his role in the Iraq war, resulting in its lack of an effective government there. Blair said Hobbes addressed "the central question of political theory: how do we ensure order?". This echoes the Daily Mail view of the world in which our biggest fear is not that the poor and marginalised are left to rot but that civilised society is on the perpetual verge of descending into anarchy. Adam Smith Blair is often portrayed as a reborn free-marketeer, but, in fact, it is his supposedly old Labour colleague Gordon Brown who has spoken most admiringly of the philosopher and economist Adam Smith (1723- 1790), more widely thought of as a darling of the right. Giving the Hugo Young memorial lecture in December, Brown sought to correct the image of Smith as a proponent of unfettered, greedy capitalism. "Coming from Kirkcaldy as Adam Smith did," he said, he had come to understand that the market thrives not on naked self-interest but on "the responsible virtues of industry, honesty, and reliability - and the stable associations in which we accept our responsibilities each to one another, habits of cooperation and trust." In other words, big business isn't all nasty, you know. Karl Marx Right at the start of his premiership, Blair said, "The new Britain is a meritocracy where we break down the barriers of class, religion, race and culture." All well and good, but what exactly does meritocracy - mentioned again in his latest speech - mean? In a nutshell, "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his abilities too". Britain's historically socialist party has become diametrically opposed to Marx (1818- 1883). Religion is not the opiate of the masses, it is a solid foundation for better schools and social services. Revolutions are not the locomotives of history, nationalised railways are. Democracy is the road to Baghdad, not socialism. Yet while Blair is an increasingly unpopular prime minister, Marx remains, according to listeners to Radio 4's In Our Time, Britain's favourite philosopher. |
