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"Giano" n. 37 publishes the proceedings of the Seminar
held in March 2001 at the University of Pisa with the Coordinamento
dei Collettivi Universitari. The theme of the Seminar was aimed
at promoting interaction between the problems of our times –
economic, ecological, social, political, juridical – and the
notion of "globalisation", which is still far from finding
its ultimate definition. The depth and interest of the ensuing debate,
which the readers can see for themselves, led to the need for further
opportunities for discussion and more research into the specific
problems. A fresh project is in the pipeline, while local groups
could set up others with the support of "Giano".
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The subjects indicated in the Seminar’s title were at the centre
of the debate in Pisa, which was organised and "hosted" by the
University’s Coordinamento. The main focus of interest on the opening
day was the contrast between economic and ecological themes (lectures
by Michele Nobile, Maria Turchetto, Riccardo Bellofiore, Vittorio Sartogo).
The analysis of capitalism in its present phase of development, driven
as it is by the phenomenon of "globalisation" (a term criticised
by all the speakers) and by the permanent role of the State, led to comments
expressing concerns over the risks of such development, with further fears
over the relationship between the practices of a technological civilisation
and the physical wellbeing of the planet. The second day of the meeting
dealt with war and its place in history, so closely connected as it is
to the Institute of State (Domenico Di Fiore). NATO intervention in Yugoslavia
under the pretext of a humanitarian and universal civil rights operation
was dealt with specifically (Danilo Zolo). The importance of all these
lectures of course goes without saying. Each address led to a wealth of
debate, with numerous comments and opinions, recorded and edited for "Giano".
The special insert also includes the presentations on specific themes,
that were in various ways linked to the overall question of "State,
globalisation, war" (authors: Angelo Baracca, Claudio Del Bello,
Fabio Marcelli, Ignazio Masulli, Andrea Panaccione).
"Giano"’s usual format also remains. We would like to mention
in particular Giampaolo Calchi Novati’s essay on a "new political
way forward" for those countries with the greatest tension between
the Islamic grass roots and the political class (the countries under scrutiny
are in this case Sudan and Algeria); the analysis of the situation in
Macedonia by Tommaso Giovacchini; and Mario Ronchi’s article on G.
Bush Jr.’s presidential debut. In the wake of the elections of May
13th an extensive and contentious comment on the victory of the Centre–Right
and on the responsibility of the Centre–Left, especially that of
the DS, was inevitable. While the hub of thedebate remains close to "Giano’s"
usual themes, the editorial assumes a general position concerning the
problems that accompanied, and are destined to follow, the election campaign
and its outcome. The director of this review invites both regular and
external contributors, militants, academics and politicians to send us
their thoughts, in the hope of launching a productive debate and a positive
influence on the formation of an alternative cultural and political force.
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Editorial. A minority in power, an opposition
in crisis, the need for a new alternative (Dir.)
This review has always worked to bring critical analysis and political
commitment together under one roof. This article by the director of "Giano"
on the results of the Italian general election and their future consequences
is one more example of this approach.
Cortesi points out that the political Right gained power through anti–democratic
electoral legislation that transformed a social minority into a majority
of seats in government. This was made possible by the huge economic investment
of the leader of the Centre Right formation, Silvio Berlusconi, for whom
the author reserves some of his cutting sarcasm and accusations concerning
the vast amounts of wealth accumulated through the parasitic exploitation
of public concessions.
The article also makes a critical analysis of the ideology and attitudes
of the Centre Left groups, in particular the "Democratici di Sinistra".
The DS has not only backtracked on representing the lower classes and
the newly forming ranks of the poor, but has also renounced its patrimony
of the internationalist struggles of the proletariat tradition and the
elaboration of an alternative strategy to the systems of war, hunger and
pollution.
A number of risks come hand in hand with the political power of Forza
Italia and the Destra Nazionale. These forces have their own authoritarian
vocation, but we must not ignore the possibility of an "Italian–style
transformist process", which could lead to the consolidation of a
single political class ever more distant from popular demands. Looming
large on the horizon, however, is the new leader’s tendency to aim
for the farthest limits of international affairs. His objective appears
to be the promotion of a privileged relationship with the USA and the
acceptance and approval of the bellicose and pro–nuclear projects
of President Bush.
On this ground "harsh battles between political thought and morals"
will no doubt be fought. But– the article concludes – a far–reaching
debate is what is needed on these themes and on the positions to be adopted
both within and outside "Giano". A debate keenly aware not only
of the gravity of the Italian political crisis, but also of the fact that
humanity is teetering on the edge of an abyss.
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Michele Nobile, Statehood
and States in the World’s changing Economy
The author’s premiss is that capitalism has always had a world–wide
dimension, whose forms are historically determined. The notion that the
present historical phase is one of nomadic, de–territorialized and
global capitalisms distorts reality, and constitutes the global projection
of neo–classicism. The "Fordist" era is thus reduced to
the sum of national economies, while the world–wide dimension is
now supposed to be an immediate, reified datum. The world–wide dimension
is, on the contrary, an uneven and unstable process, generated by the
articulation of different spatial levels, by the contradictions, crises
and conflicts shaping them. That is why one should also pinpoint the internal,
class–conflict related reasons which drove the dominant States down
the road of financial and commercial liberalization, of a re–definition
of social and economic policies, and of the creation of regional areas.
The reason why "globalisation" is neither an absolute nor an
irreversibly total datum is also related to contradictions surviving in
liberalisation processes and between major States and areas. Due to unequal
and combined development, "Nation"–States are still the
main arena of social conflict: there is still room for politics, precisely
because capitalism is not an abstract, de–territorialized and immediately
global quantity.
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Maria Turchetto, State
and market
In this paper, based on abundant material on globalisation provided by
the "virtual" journal "Intermarx", the author refutes
on the one hand Marxist interpretations portraying globalisation as a
further "supreme stage" of capitalism, following the stages
of monopoly capitalism and State–monopoly capitalism; on the other,
those political theories characterizing globalisation as a new departure
in the bi–secular trend of the growing role of the Nation–State,
as a process leading to the latter’s marginalisation and as the emerging
of new "global" functions of control and regulation. The author
proposes a cyclical interpretation of capitalism’s dynamics, shaped
by phases of deep restructuring and phases of stabilisation and diffusion
of new relationships, periods marked by different roles played by the
State ant its machinery. Recent developments in US economy are highlighted
in order to pinpoint different functions carried out by the State: today’s
alleged free–market ideology proposed and imposed by the United States
in international economic relations grows out of a number of years which
saw a far–reaching public involvement leading to a re–organisation
of North America’s economy.
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Riccardo Bellofiore, The State and globalisation’s
metamorphosis: from the crisis of Fordism to the "new economy"
This paper summarises the main aspects of recent debate on present–day
capitalism, from the mid–Nineties discussion on globalisation and
post–Fordism to more recent arguments on the "new economy"
and pension–fund capitalism. The author highlights both elements
of continuity and dramatic differences in this form of capitalism compared
to its precursors, and speculates whether and to what extent the crisis
of Fordism is now over. He refutes some exceedingly superficial prophecies
on the end of work and the vanishing of politics’ role in this stage
of capitalist accumulation, stressing how State involvement changes, and
criticizing some recent post–labour interpretations.
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Vittorio Sartogo, Ecology
and the inadequacies of politics
The author deals with the crisis of politics and ecology caused by the
capitalist system which, in pursuing increasing rates of return on capital,
tends to ignore the Planet’s physical limits, thus breaking the tight
link between mankind and its abode: that is the origin of the present–day
world’s typical trait, the social construction of environmental disaster,
the other side of a coin consisting in far–reaching processes of
social marginalisation and exclusion affecting most of mankind. The failure
of alternatives attempted so far by politics, on the other hand, led the
latter to ignore the nexus between economy and ecology, delegating the
search for possible solutions to science or to technological invention,
which are now taking on the functions of a modern ideology of legitimisation
of the existing social order and modes of production and consumption.
In a Post–scriptum the author criticizes president Bush’s decision
to ignore the Kyoto protocols on climate change and return to nuclear
generation of electric power.
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Domenico Di Fiore, The State
as subject of violence. A genealogical approach
"War made the State, the State made war": this acerbic account
by Charles Tilly summarises the event and its consequences which marked
the European West during the age of "modernity" and moulded
the whole planet. Belief in the natural quality of the capitalist mode
of production and development was generated by the joint action of State,
war and taxation, such trends being strengthened by the systems of law
and economics introduced by the French Revolution, which led to an increasing
role of consent, rather than coercion, in the role of the State. This
is where its sovereignty seems to reach a bifurcation, its "internal"
aspect tending to decrease to the point of reaching the rarefied form
of the Constitutional State, whereas "external" sovereignty
tends to become ever sharper in the Hobbesian nature of international
relations. The main actor in this divergence is Right, specifically Public
Law, which by legalising politics (class conflict) effectively leads to
its neutralisation. That is precisely the objective of the new science,
economics, with its dilution of the historically determined reality of
oppression into the allegedly irrefutable power of "nature".
Unfortunately, the idealism and determinism which were believed in the
past to provide useful tools for facing the "formal subsuming"
of society in the State, are once again used in today’s "real
subsuming", whether separately or in conjunction, to support theories
about "the end of the State" born of a discourse of the "post"
whose main trait is its vacuity.
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Danilo Zolo, International law
and "humanitarian warfare"
This paper deals with recourse to "humanitarian warfare" in
its historical and political premiss, with special attention to the strategy
of the New world order worked out during the 1990’s, and in its strictly
legal aspects, as well as with the relationship between the universalist
approach implicit in the doctrine of "Humanitarian intervention"
and the present international order based on the sovereignty of the nation–State
and the principle of non interference in its national jurisdiction. Subjective
rights certainly require today international, rather than merely national,
safeguards: the question is, how can such safeguards be made compatible
with cultural diversity, peoples’ identity and dignity, and the integrity
of freely chosen legal–political structures. From this perspective,
no approval is possible of the ambition expressed, by single powers or
militaryalliances such as Nato, to set themselves up as custodians of
human rights as universal values outside the rules of international law
(which, in any case, are at present better respected on paper than in
normative institutional practice). Effective international protection
of human rights should be entrusted to a quite different set of international
agents. It should also be stressed that Europe will never exist (other
than as a mere geographical and economic expression) unless it becomes
less Atlantic but more "Eastern" and, above all, more Mediterranean.
Similarly, it would be an important success for Latin America to avoid
being incorporated by Nafta while strengthening Mercosur as a measure
of independence from the ominous domination from the North. Asia also
deserves attention, and particularly China, the immediate future’s
most important quantity. In short, any attempt at building a less monocentric
world would in itself be a significant success.
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COMMENTS
Ignazio Masulli, The "microelectronics
revolution" and the "industrial reserve army"
During the last three decades a far–reaching process of crisis and
change took place in the "world economy". Significant change
also occurred in the international labour market, the most important aspect
being the emergence of a new "industrial reserve army", consisting
firstly of the unemployed, under–employed, and casually employed
workers in the developed countries; secondly, of the workforce exploited
in the underdeveloped countries where an increasing number of American
and European companies are setting up production facilities; and, finally,
of the new migrants to the more industrialised countries. Even in the
age of globalisation, thus, capitalist entrepreneurs are still using the
old device of the "industrial reserve army" in order to have
full control of the labour market.
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Andrea Panaccione, State
and society in the Breznev era
Breznev’s era is marked by a deep crisis in the legitimacy basis
of a political system increasingly weighed down by bureaucratic stagnation
and corruption, and faced by a society affected by massive and extremely
speedy processes of change and by new and contradictory requirements.
The paralysing outcome of this relationship between society and the political
system, in a context of completed transformation of the party into an
economic and State structure, and growing exposure to the challenges of
the outer world, is the final stage of a long historical period whose
conclusion is marked by a decisive need for control and self–conservation
by the Party–State.
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Fabio Marcelli, The International
Criminal Court: is justice possible in the Global Era?
The International Criminal Court is one thing, attempts by the US Government
at using prosecution of (real or alleged) crimes against mankind as an
instrument of their own imperialist penetration are quite another. A case
in point is the recent filing of charges against former Yugoslav president
Milosevic by the ad hoc tribunal headed by Swiss magistrate Carla Dal
Ponte. This development emphasizes the need for a really impartial international
judiciary on the one hand, and on the other the inadequacy of such tools
as ad hoc tribunals, whose legal foundation (a UN Security Council resolution)
is at best questionable. Ad hoc tribunals should therefore be absorbed
into a general – and hence less subject to charges of partiality
– jurisdiction. It must be no coincidence that the US, among the
staunchest supporters of such tribunals whenever they can be used to provide
political mileage or manipulated to suit their convenience, have long
refused to sign the Convention instituting the International Criminal
Court.
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Angelo Baracca, Scientific
research and social control
Economists and environmentalists are divided by a dispute on the foundations
and perspectives of today’s world–wide economic, energy and
environment crisis. On both sides the role and contribution of science
and technology is underestimated. The ideology of an alleged superior
and absolute power of scientific knowledge and achievement conceals the
collusion of scientists with power. Modern science has consistently afforded
concrete and crucial support to capitalist society, mainly in times of
crisis, and to its exploitation of labour and natural resources. Unless
some form of control of scientific activity and development by social
forces is worked out, with the object of instituting a new, different
relationship with nature and natural resources, the illusion of solving
environmental problems will prove vain.
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G. Calchi Novati –
S. Bellucci, Governing with Islam: a "third way" to Institutional
development in North Africa
African politics needs to be re–structured within a framework of
governmental efficiency that can guarantee democratic development. The
"governance" called for from various sides must represent all
social interests and not just those of a restricted economic oligarchy.
The "Islamic question" can also be examined in this light and
the authors of this article take the cases of Sudan and Algeria. Sudan
has been working towards "Islamic governance" since at least
1989, pursuing this path uninterrupted by the political upheavals of 1996,
whereas in Algeria the concept and perception of modernisation, and the
type of reformism that can actually be applied still have to be unravelled.
At the end of the anti–colonialist protest, Islam did not give up
its role as a focal point for identity. It is still fuelled by a concept
of State and democracy that does not match that of the West. The fact
that this difference has never been fully appreciated has brought about
the gradual collapse of the political system that evolved from the war
of liberation. The refusal to recognise the Islamic Front’s election
victory in December 1991 was "a catastrophe for democracy".
There is however some hope for resolving the crisis. It lies – as
in the case of Sudan – in a form of democracy that will respect Islam’s
ideology and history and that can agree upon an internationally recognised
"Islamic governance".
