3. A New Phase in Global Imperialism-the Centrality of the Struggle for Common Public Goods
Over the past year there has been a significant shift within the global reality. In particular, the posture and stance of the US has become more aggressive, more militarised, more unilateralist, more protectionist, less nuanced in its imperialist ambitions. This shift is NOT a rupture with the underlying and persisting realities of a century-and-a-quarter of imperialism, but it does mark the end of a particular phase within imperialism.
The previous phase, lasting just over a decade, began around 1990, with the end of the Cold War and the disintegration of the Soviet bloc. It was dominated by the illusion of "benign globalisation" and two major ideological discourses-an economic discourse of limitless growth through neo-liberal alignment (the Washington consensus); and a political discourse of "transitions to democracy". These discourses shared a common set of assumptions-they were essentially about "convergence", the East (i.e. the formerly Soviet bloc) was becoming the West. The "anomaly" of communism and, on a lesser note, the "anomaly" of apartheid had disappeared. It was the "end of history". The world was essentially now a "normal" place, and all it required was for various formally aberrant and "authoritarian" societies to normalise their economic policies and their political systems in order to prosper.
There were always more conservative intellectual think-tanks and voices within the US challenging this consensus-arguing, notably, about the intractability and "clash" of "different civilisations" (Islam, especially, but also "African traditionalism"). They correctly challenged (but from a right-wing "realist" perspective) the assumptions of a relatively homogeneous world, evolving in the direction of a benign globalisation. These currents are now ascendant, partly because of the many failures of the Washington Consensus and transitions to democracy, partly because of electoral shifts in the US (and in the EU), partly because of a new slow-down in the main centres of capitalist accumulation, and the time-honoured recourse to militarisation to spur profitable growth, partly because of critical geo-political concerns, especially related to the control of Middle East oil, and partly because of active but diverse resistance to US-dominated globalisation (including, of course, the reprehensible terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001).
Quite naturally, the South African breakthrough of 1994, born in the midst of the "benign globalisation" phase, was heralded globally as one of the iconic confirmations of the global trend towards "convergence". Also, quite naturally, the dominant ideological discourses had a profound impact upon our own movement, and about how we tended to understand our own democratic transition.
Through the 1990s the SACP, perhaps more consistently than most forces within our country, systematically challenged the economic and political discourses of convergence. While supporting the negotiated transition, we systematically critiqued the "elite pacting" models that called for popular demobilisation, and the consolidation of the centre within the incumbent regime and within the liberation movement, while marginalizing the "right" (about which we had no problem), and the "left" (which meant and still means-us). While accepting the need for economic realism, we critiqued the principal illusions of the Washington consensus.
The advent of a new phase, and new globally dominant discourses (notably "the war on terrorism") has had a contradictory impact on our country and our movement.
On the one hand, the word "imperialism" and the need for an anti-imperialist posture, which had all but fallen into disuse within our movement (as we noted, for instance, at our 9th and 10th Party Congresses), have now begun to resurface more confidently. On a number of key issues the ANC and ANC-led government have increasingly taken excellent and consistent stands (Palestine, Iraq, the critique of unilateralism and protectionism).
The failure of Washington consensus strategies to overcome the crisis of underdevelopment in the South has resulted in several notable outcomes-in particular, the important electoral victory of the left presidential candidate in Brazil. We should not over-burden the new government in Brazil with excessive expectations in a situation in which there a many severe constraints, but the Workers' Party in Brazil has consistently critiqued the "convergence" economic policies of former President Cardoso, policies which have been much admired within our own government circles. The Workers' Party has also actively mobilised around and experimented with (in metros and councils it has controlled) revolutionary-reform measures of the kind that the SACP has been advocating.
The "Asian Contagion" crisis in 1997-8 created external conditions in which we were able to constructively raise questions about neo-liberalist assumptions, after more than a year of great difficulty within our alliance. However, when the crisis appeared to blow away, we found less engaged interlocutors within the alliance. The advent of the new phase of imperialism should, in principle, offer even more sustained possibilities for advancing a systematic critique of imperialism.
However, there is still a tendency to hanker after the phase of "benign globalisation" and to see the new realities as "anomalies", rather than systemic features of imperialism.
On assessing this reality, discussed extensively at the 2nd plenary session of the 11th Congress Central Committee last weekend, the SACP reaffirmed the critical importance of international solidarity. Ours should be a struggle to swim against the tide of imperialist globalisation, whilst simultaneously building on the common struggles of progressive forces across the globe. This requires focus on a number of issues.
The first common struggle around which we need to co-ordinate is that of defending and extending the public sector and protecting the role of the state in the delivery of basic services. This is related to what the Ekurhuleni Alliance Summit in April 2002 referred to as the "struggle for common public goods." This includes, for instance, the struggle over the current patent regime, where essential medicines become common public patent rights rather than rights owned by multinationals. These are concrete struggles that are already taking place around the globe, as illustrated by the recent anti-privatisation strike by public sector workers in France.
The Central Committee took a decision that over the next five years of its term, the SACP should intensify its contacts and links with progressive forces on the African continent. Given that there are only a few, relatively small communist parties on the continent, these contacts should be broadened to include a range of progressive mass organisations, NGOs, progressive intellectuals and sectoral organisations. The challenge of rooting NEPAD amongst the people and the need to bring to bear the weight of progressive forces in driving this programme necessitates a much more systematic focus on building an even wider network of contacts and engagements on the continent. It is our considered view that the whole issue of peer review should not only be restricted to the governmental level, but its foundation should be building mass based and participatory democracies as the only guarantor of progressive democratic transformations in our continent. It is around some of these perspectives that the SACP will seek to engage with progressive forces on the continent.
One of the ironies of some of the left's responses to imperialist globalisation has been the tendency not to focus adequate theoretical and practical attention on the place and role of the nation state in the current global order. There seems to be a de-emphasis on the role of the nation state and an assumption that nation-states are no longer that important since their sovereignty has been eroded by globalisation. Whilst there is truth in the gradual erosion of the sovereignty of nation-states in the developing world in particular, the nation-state still remains an important site of struggle. In essence, one of the fundamental preconditions for building international solidarity and the struggle against capitalist globalisation is the reclaiming of the nation-state as a site for implementation of progressive policies responsive to the needs of the workers and the poor in each nation-state.
Embedded in our programmatic slogan of "Socialism is the Future, Build it Now", is a dialectical understanding of the relationship between imperialist globalisation and the nation state. Globalisation seeks to erode the sovereignty of nation states and subject them to the rule of transnational corporations, whilst simultaneously seeking to strengthen those aspects of nation states necessary for the successful implementation of neo-liberal policies.
Perhaps a better way of understanding the nation state today, particularly in the developing world, is that it is simultaneously weakened and strengthened, thereby being transformed into a site for implementing neo-liberal policies while remaining a bulwark against addressing the social deficit facing ordinary people. Hence, the global neo-liberal discourse of characterising developing countries primarily as "emerging markets"-sites for extraction of mineral resources, capital accumulation for the "metropolis" and financial speculation-rather than as societies inhabited by human beings facing extreme poverty and joblessness. It is for these reasons that the SACP emphasises the absolute need for constant struggles to win space for building developmental states responsive to the needs of the overwhelming majority of their peoples.
Building international solidarity requires, amongst other things, a conscious dialectical link between global struggles and national struggles. This is further underlined by the sheer reality that whilst capital has become globalised and knows no boundaries, the workers and the poor remain domesticated within the boundaries of nation-states, bearing the brunt of marginalisation by capitalist globalisation. Perhaps this also points to the weaknesses of current "global struggles against globalisation" that, important as they are, they bear little relation to progressive struggles and forces within nation states. These global struggles are still largely limited to demonstrations around major international events. One of the challenges is to transform this energy to concretely link up with national struggles around the globe.
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