Juggernaut Politics: Understanding Predatory Globalization

Globalization signals the end of the Fordist-Keynsian economic model in force during the three decades of prosperity following World War II. The need for maximum labour flexibility to ensure competitiveness has replaced the old aim of turning workers into productive allies and mass consumers. Jacques Gelinas explains why the owners and chief executives of the new transnational economy no longer need their traditional alliance with the state and the middle classes. Governments, spellbound by the market, are abandoning their obligations to defend civil society. The old left intelligencia no longer has an alternative model, the UN actively promotes the transnationals, the environment is undefended by governments and hard won rights are steadily eroded. Faced with this new tragedy of the commons, Gelinas asks what we can do to protect our shared heritage. As world poverty increases and democracy falters, he suggests a new form of civil society to create genuinely cooperative and social enterprises.