Alan Freeman (3)

Alan Freeman uses Tony Benn as a symbol to shine a light upon the left in British politics during the 1980's. Benn was blamed in many quarters for the failure of the Labour Party to beat the Conservatives in a string of elections right up until 1997. Time has shown this to be a simple transference of fault to an easy target.

The over-riding impression that this work left upon me, was of great waste. Benn was never going to be Prime Minister; he could not behave in a sycophantic way towards people that he needed but did not respect: his views were, however, an important counter-balance to the o'er leaping ambition of some on the right of the party. He was the Labour Party's conscience and, although extinguishing his power seemed to make Labour electable, it also lead to a party that believes in little but getting into power and has now been rumbled by the electorate. It is depressing to realise how many of the problems, anticipated by Benn, have come to affect the party, the country and the world.

Benn believed that capitalism is in its death throws. In light of recent events - the financial collapse and the failure of the recovery to trickle down to the average citizen - it is difficult not to agree with him. The death of capitalism does not mean that things will get better, only that they will change. This is a time when his ideas are desperately needed but, will anyone as charismatic come forth to enunciate them? The book ends with an interview with Benn in which, he is at his most erudite, which only emphasises what we have lost.

This tome was released in 1982 when Tony Benn was at his peak. He was considered by the establishment, and consequently by the mass, to be a dangerous radical who, given half a chance, would destroy Britain, which was in the process of being saved by "the great Margaret Thatcher". It is interesting to note the divergence of opinion when both passed away. Mrs Thatcher was given respect for being the first female Prime Minister, but there were few (very few) signs of affection: in contrast, the respect and warmth felt towards Tony Benn, by both political comrades and opponents, as well as the general public, was plain to see. Wouldn't it be great were we to be able to see the truly inspired people at the time, rather than with hind sight?… (mais)

This collection, edited by Alan Freeman and Boris Kagarlitsky, provides an analysis of globalization from a Marxist point of view, focusing particularly on the large-scale economic processes visible in the world today, and on comparisons with earlier periods of capitalism.

The collection itself is quite useful in terms of data and statistics, providing ample evidence for any doubter to refute such liberal ideas as that markets lead to convergence, that unified markets tend to create political unification, that liberalization of the economies has led to greater prosperity in the Third World, and that a freer market explains why the United States generally does better than continental Europe and Japan.

Nevertheless, there are some serious problems with this book. The main one, immediately apparent, is the annoying rhetorical tone adopted throughout and the general anti-American sentiment in it. Hardly a paragraph goes by or phrases such as "bellicose imperialism", "New World Order hegemons", etc. etc. are used to describe America. Some of it might be deserved, but nevertheless the constant tone reminds one of the stupidest aspects of modern-day radical leftism, and suits the Michael Moore crowd much better than a critical Marxist reader. The book would have gained enormously if this tone had been abandoned and they had stuck by the facts, which are bad enough as is. This goes in particular for the idiotic conspiracy article by Turkish Marxist Sungur Savran in this collection.

The second major problem is that the book argues, in the (otherwise quite good) introduction that globalization can essentially be considered a new form of the old imperialism of the 19th Century. Strangely enough, hardly any evidence of this is further given, and none of the articles in the collection itself are a defense of this particular view. One certainly gets the impression that it might be true from all sorts of circumstancial evidence given in the context of other analyses in the book, which are fine on their own, but the actual connection is never made. This is odd to say the least.

What saves the book are the exceedingly good articles by the book's editors themselves, Freeman and Kagarlitsky. Freeman's article shows both the reality and the causes of the inequality of nations today, and establishes irrefutably that liberalization in the past decades has not improved the lot of those not already best off to begin with. Kagarlitsky in turn gives a socialist view of the current international relations between the various Western states, including Russia, in particular focusing on the European Union. This is very well done and one wishes it were longer. Of some additional interest is also the article by Patrick Bond about "global apartheid" (another such rhetorical flourish) which gives a good overview of the issues facing developing nations in combating the power of the IMF, World Bank etc.

On the whole, I would advise to buy this book to read the articles by Freeman and Kagarlitsky, as well as the one on South Africa. Unfortunately, I wouldn't bother reading any of the rest.… (mais)