Civilising Globalisation?

During his scientific socialist phase Karl Marx predicted the inevitability of capitalism’s demise. He predicted that logic of capital was such that capitalist’s drive for ever-increasing returns would result in a spiralling reduction in wages. The increasing squeeze of capital from workers, who would eventually be unable to purchase the products of their own labour, would result in revolt and the seizure of the means of production. This self-defeating nature of capitalism would lead workers to reorganise the social relations of production such that wealth would be distributed more or less equally. Marx was of course writing about 19^th century international capitalism not 21^st century global capitalism characterised by the increasingly free flow of goods and services across national borders. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s Empire argued that with the growth of the power of transnational corporations and global financial institutions, power has been taken out of the hands of the state and dispersed. As globalisation decentres power, resistance too is decentred. Today, capitalism’s discontents don’t simply seize government buildings or factories. They destroy McDonald’s, Starbucks, and other powerful symbols of transnational capital. Thanks to globalisation, it no longer makes sense to talk of the ‘1^st world’ and ‘3^rd world’ as fixed, national, geographical categories. Within the same cities we have pockets of economically prosperous, socially mobile, and aesthetically pleasing districts surrounded by residential areas with stagnating growth, high rates of crime, unemployment, and poor standards of health (Ealing Green/Ealing, Kelvinside/Parkhead, Beverly Hills/South Central). The World Health Organisation’s 2008 report found that in Glasgow, the postcode lottery is such that life expectancy for men living in Calton is as low as 54 years old but for those living in Lenzie, a 15 minute car ride away, life expectancy is 82. There are worlds still far away from what Michael Camdessus, the former director of the IMF, described as the civilising forces of Globalisation.

Recent events across England have led many people ask what is the rioters’ ‘cause’ and indeed many politicians to insist that we do not even ask such questions; it is criminality, end of story. Yet ask we must. It may be that these are rebels without causes for there were no attempts to seize the means of production. But where and what are the means of production today in a globalised economy? Ford makes more money from insuring cars than building and selling them. Pieces of paper which symbolise wealth lead to a greater accumulation of other pieces of paper which symbolise wealth; much more so than actually producing anything in today’s global economy. Wealth is primarily generated through services so seizing factories would be senseless. In the age of globalisation we have seen major protests at every G8 gathering with highly symbolic sites of transnational capital, such as Starbucks and McDonalds, bearing the brunt of the anger. As power becomes globalised and decentred so too has resistance. Today resistance focuses on attacking these global nodes of power, these symbols of transnational capital. What we have seen across England in August 2011 may have started as a response to police brutality but it spiralled rapidly and morphed into something we can’t yet understand. What we saw was different to the transnationally organised protests at G8 meetings. This was not an attempt to seize the means of production or resist the transnationalisation of capital. Through the looting of clothes stores and electrical appliances brands, goods deemed to be of high status or symbolic value, we see attempts to seize the products of capitalism and bathe in the status they bestow. We don’t see a revolution to radically restructure social order. We see attempts of individuals to reposition themselves in more favourable positions within it. The seemingly chaotic mode of resistance reflects the seemingly chaotic mode of power and of social organisation we enjoy today.

One response to this is of course to reject the very possibility of meaning behind these acts, file them under irrational, focus solely on punishment, and get back to business as usual. Another counter-argument is that not all participants are poor or even particularly socially marginalised as the prosecution of primary school teachers and the “millionaire’s daughter” attest. However, the chaotic events and the participation of individuals from various sectors of society cannot conceal that every city affected saw young, angry men who see themselves as disenfranchised take to the streets to steal and destroy high status symbols of consumerism. Are we really surprised that generations who have been encouraged to be selfish and have been told by Margaret Thatcher that “there is no such thing as society” feel little moral responsibility towards people outside of their personal, social network? If there is no such thing as society, then outside of the family and the personal network, there can be no bonds and no restrictions regulating the relationships between human beings other than legal ones. Time and time again we hear interviews with participants saying things like “we’re taking from the rich” or “we’re doing it because the government can’t stop us” (Radio 5 Live, 10/8/11, 13:07). If you tell children you have no responsibility to other people unless you can be legally stopped, then when those restrictions disappear as happened when the police lost control, people will indeed steal, rob, and hurt other people. This selfishness is not a disease of any “underclass” or a “sick” section of society as David Cameron lamented. It is everywhere. Next time you are waiting on a train, notice how half the people around you are waiting to jump in front of you. Or in the supermarket, when people park their trolleys in front of what you want to buy and don’t seem to care that you are standing waiting. These are minor, anecdotal examples but I would argue they reflect a self-centredness that is allowed and encouraged. As long as you can get away with it, anything goes- business is business after all. We normalise and we encourage selfishness into norms of behaviour such that those with power are allowed to be selfish but we call it business or profit maximisation. Most people in the UK will tell you, when bankers steal they are given bonuses and when members of parliament steal they only have to pay half of it back.

David Cameron thankfully acknowledged that this is not simply about all young people in Britain simply being bad. In his terms, many young people live in fear from these supposed ‘bad’ people. But why this sudden admission? What political party has seriously addressed violence and its causes on our streets in the UK? Most young people I know have witnessed assaults on young men by other young men in our city centres whereby police stand on the other side of the road and wave away people’s calls for something to be done. I have visited casualty wards after being the victim of assault and all the medical staff wanted to know was how much I had to drink and then placed me at the back of the queue. This is not because I am marginalised, I am not. Nevertheless, it belies an assumption that as a young male in Britain you will be subject to violence and you are likely to cause it. It’s what young men do. However, as David Cameron admits, this is not just what young men do and often violence is impossible to avoid if one wishes to socialise in Britain’s city centres. One has to ask, why is violence against young men tolerated? It is very telling that when Miss Selfridge’s on Market Street in Manchester is in flames moral outrage is not simply expressed but demanded. However, when young men are assaulted usually by other young men every night in our cities, we hear little outcry. Is it simply that those who are morally outraged don’t see this violence with their own eyes so they leave it be? Are we morally outraged now because it interrupted our selfish desire to go shopping in our city centres and acquire more high status goods from the global economy?

What we become outraged about and choose to label as violence reflects our values. When a young man sets fire to a chain-store we call it violence. These same chain-stores, which most of us buy from, operate in “Export Processing Zones” across the developing world. This strategy is in place to bypass national laws which regulate labour conditions, wages, and indeed safety standards to prevent violence in the workplace. So why do we call it “profit maximisation”? What is ‘violent’ about stealing an ipad but not so when apple uses microchips produced under slave-like conditions in the South of China and which irreparably damage the environment? The important difference is not material, it’s ideological. It’s called socially constructed values. A young man taking a mobile phone from a looted Carphone Warehouse is theft because it is called theft. When Vodafone forego £4.8 Billion in tax payments it’s called the “maximisation of shareholder value” because it was permitted by HMRC. Stealing from apple is theft because it is called theft. However, when Apple bypass the rule of law in order to pay South East Asian workers a low wage it is called “outsourcing”. This is because we encourage people to make lots of money more than we encourage them to consider human rights. Angry young men stealing stereos is theft because it is called theft but when bankers steal, it’s called business because we value banks more than we value young men. This is normalised, permissible, and ‘civilised’ theft but it is still theft. This hypocrisy has produced a widespread, popular perception that there is one law for them and another for us. It de-legitimises the very idea of equality before the law, a central principle of democracy, such that people start to believe there is indeed no such thing as society- you take what you can unless you can be stopped. The chaotic and unpredictable power relations of our so-called global age have no written rules and have produced resistance that is equally chaotic, unpredictable, and without rules. If people wish to see ‘civilised’ resistance they had best work towards ‘civilising’ power.

Boris Johnson: We need less rational enquiry and more moral outrage!

Mayor of London, Boris Johnson announced to the assembled crowd in devastated Clapham that he had “heard too much sociological explanation and not enough condemnation”. That is too much “explanation” of the protests, riots, looting, and violence in the wake of the as yet unexplained shooting of Mark Duggan by Metropolitan police officers. This belied an emerging dichotomy in popular media and everyday discourse in England. We are being told that the ‘Right’ are condemning violence, while the ‘Left’ are justifying it. The ‘Right’ want law and order back and they blame the individual and bad parenting for these events. As David Cameron tells us, “this is a moral problem” and it illustrates the “lack of responsibility” shown by individuals. On the other hand, the ‘Left’ in their efforts to find causes for and meaning behind seemingly random and meaningless chaos are being labelled apologists on 'neutral' radio phone ins and the notorious online comments now widely attached to newspaper articles. Presumably the ‘Left’ then includes Emeritus Professor at Leeds university and pre-eminent Sociologist Zygmunt Bauman who claimed that in today’s Britain our identity revolves round the mantra “I shop therefore I am” such that “these are riots of defective and disqualified consumers”. The participants are not starving but many are the disenfranchised in a society where status and prestige are acquired through displays of spending and consumption (Social Europe Journal, 9/8/11). Dr Sean Carey, research fellow at Roehampton University argues that “what we are witnessing is a significant symbolic statement about the way power -- the power of life and death exercised by police officers as well as the power to consume -- is arranged in British society” (New Statesman, 9/8/11). Carey is not claiming that the individuals involved necessarily or consciously seek to make symbolic statements but that the overall patterns of these actions nevertheless do.

In one sense these diverse responses reflect the understanding of human beings by the ‘Right’ and the ‘Left’- atomistic individuals versus social creatures. The ‘Right’ thus need not look far for causes of behaviour because all responsibility lies with the individual. The ‘Left’ on the other hand look for social origins, primarily the socio-economic, in seeking to explain why we do what we do. However, in another sense this can also be framed as a straight-forward categorical error pitting two ideas against one another which are not about the same issue and cannot be compared. Seeking to understand why people do what they do does not amount to condoning it. Otherwise all social scientists are of the ‘left’ and I dread to think what that would say about myself, a student of authoritarian politics and ethnic boundaries in China’s north-west. One can be an existentialist when it comes to morality but still seek to understand why people do what they do. Sociological explanation and moral evaluation are not mutually exclusive. Or as Professor John Brewer put it, sociologists seek to explain social behaviour not explain it away (The Guardian, 12/8/11). If we want to solve problems in our society, and presumably everyone now admits there are many, we have to devote time and resources trying to understand, explain, and address their causes. Moral outrage and calls for retributive punishment are understandable, particularly towards those who destroyed small scale family-run businesses. However, rising passions should be the spark of a rational enquiry not the end. Boris Johnson's outrageous call that he has heard enough "sociological explanation" is tantamount to saying it is wrong to enquire into the causes of these events.

Since the first night of rioting the phrase ‘mindless criminality’ has been heard across the airwaves, in print, and on the street. As have statements such as “this is not political, it’s just pure opportunism”. We certainly have seen a lot of opportunism and criminality in the last few days but we still have to ask why. Why is this happening now? What makes it happen at all? And what can we do so it doesn’t keep happening? The answers won’t come overnight and certainly not in dismissals of further enquiry. Whether we explain social phenomena in terms of atomistic individuals or social groups, or a plethora of other alternatives which will hopefully emerge in the coming days,months, and years, we still have to explore why people do what they do. That is indeed if we are serious about addressing such problems rather than releasing media-friendly sound-bites in a political game to be elected. The answer that “because they are bad people” or “their parents are bad people” is not enough. Why are they bad people and what has made them behave in that way? These events have involved different types of people doing different things for different reasons. This seems evident in the first convictions including a primary school teaching assistant, an undergraduate student, and the “daughter of a millionaire” to quote the tabloids. However, there are patterns already emerging that are highly symbolic- every city affected had their centres of consumerism, their shopping centres attacked by gangs of young men wishing to seize what they understand to be high status goods.

We also have to ask why we are encouraged to immediately and without equivocation condemn the actions of un-convicted individuals. The shooting of Mark Duggan and the nature of the police involvement remain under investigation and as was reiterated on Radio 5 live (10/8/11) whenever the subject was breached, “we can’t talk about that”. Of course this is couched in terms of respect for an ongoing investigation and how we are yet to have the full facts but this respect is not accorded to ordinary people. It belies the hypocrisy and inequality inherent in social relations in Britain today which is certainly not the only problem here but it is a particularly glaring one. Bonuses for bankers, Vodafone’s tax scams, and unaccountable tabloids are all topics which have recently provoked great anger across the UK and all which threaten the legitimacy of the very idea of equality before the law. Is there anyone left who actually thinks that material wealth and political power don’t afford people greater legal rights?

Educated at Eton and Oxford David Cameron will have little if any first-hand experience of the social environment in Britain’s most deprived areas or those where gangs are as much social safety networks as they are a form of ‘criminality’. This in itself is not necessarily a problem but he like all of us ought to listen to those who do live in such areas if we want to understand them. However, our Prime Minister is yet to show that he wants to listen to the big society he claims is his “passion”. He is yet to respond to the claims of inequality and police brutality on our streets. Riots on the scale we have seen reflect deep-rooted problems. If you want them to go away, the carrots of inclusion are as crucial as the sticks of exclusion. So Minister of State for Housing and Local Government Grant Shapps will have to seriously think through the consequences of his proposed plan to evict from social housing any family who had a single member involved. It seems unlikely that making rioters homeless will make them less likely to steal or make Britain safer.

An anonymous 25 year old involved in rioting in Liverpool shows us how the supposedly mindless participants understand the causes behind these events as nothing new. This is despite the political drive to represent these events as something no one could have predicted: "Fuck the police, man. They are not all bad but most of them are. No-one around here has got any liking for the police. Fuck them. Police patrol these streets every night of the week and we only get to riot every few years. They can't come here laying down the law like they do all year round. People are rioting because the riot is finally here" (The Guardian, live feed, 10/8/11). Let us ask those who commit such crimes why they do what they do not because we need to ‘pander’ to their every whim but because their perspectives will help us understand what is happening more than those of people whom have never even been to where they live.