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182 pages

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The book shows how wealth and power are concentrated in the hands of a transnational elite while ever increasing numbers of people are being marginalised. Institutions such as the World Trade Organisation and the International Monetary Fund are intent upon exercising a new hegemony over individuals as the role of the traditional nation state is transformed. At the centre of this power shift is a group of high-tech robber barons who dominate the Information Age and exploit the technologies of globalisation for their own narrow interests.

Roger Burbach explores the rise of the new grass roots oppositional movements around the world. Manifest in such diverse struggles as the uprising of the Zapatistas in Mexico and the battle of Seattle against the World Trade Organisation, this new postmodern politics is 'de-centred' and has little interest in the old ideologies that dominated much of the twentieth century.

The final section of the book contextualises postmodern politics by drawing on contemporary examples. The authors discuss the demise of socialist and protosocialist experiments in Chile, Grenada, Nicaragua and Cuba and the emergence of postmodern movements in Latin America. The final two chapters take a specific look at the Zapatista movement and its significance for revolutionary struggles around the world.
Acknowledgements

Introduction: Globalization, New Resistances and the Postmodern Age

Part One: Globalization

1. The Epochal Shift: Co-Authored with William I. Robinson

2. Epochal Clashes: Third Worldization and the New Hegemony: Co-authored with William I Robinson

3. High Tech Robber Barons

Part Two: Politics in a Postmodern Age

4. Shades of Postmodern Politics

5. The (Un)defining of Postmodern Marxism

6. The Virtually Existing Global Revolution

Part 3: Zapatistas and the Latin American Context(ualization)

7. Socialist and Postmodern Politics in the Americas

8. Roots of the Postmodern Rebellion in Chiapas

9. Zapatismo and the Intergalactic Age: Authored by Fiona Jeffries

Epilogue: The Millennial Cracks

Footnotes

Bibliography

Sujets

Politique

History

General

Theory

International relations

General officer

Histoire

POLITICAL SCIENCE

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Publié par	Pluto Press
Date de parution	20 janvier 2001
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781849640954
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

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Extrait

Globalization and
Postmodern Politics
From Zapatistas to
High-Tech Robber Barons
Roger Burbach
Pluto P Press
LONDON • STERLING, VIRGINIA KINGSTON, JAMAICAFirst published 2001 by Pluto Press
345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA
and 22883 Quicksilver Drive,
Sterling, VA 20166–2012, USA
www.plutobooks.com
and Arawak publications
17 Kensington Crescent, Kingston 5, Jamaica
Copyright © Roger Burbach 2001
The right of Roger Burbach to be identified as the author of this work has
been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Burbach, Roger.
Globalization and postmodern politics : from Zapatistas to high-tech
robber barons / Roger Burbach with Fiona Jeffries and William I. Robinson.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0–7453–1650–6 (hardback) — ISBN 0–7453–1649–2 (pbk.)
1. Political development. 2. Postmodernism—Political aspects. 3.
Government, Resistance to. 4. Elite (Social sciences) 5. Globalization. 6.
Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (Mexico)
I. Jeffries, Fiona. II. Robinson, William I. III. Title.
JC489 .B87 2001
327.1—dc21
00–009741
Cataloguing in Publication Data (University of the West Indies Library – Mona)
Burbach, Roger.
Globalization and postmodern politics : from Zapatistas to high-tech
robber barons / Roger Burbach ; with William I. Robinson and Fiona Jeffries.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 976 95047 7 7 (A r a w a k publications)
1. Globalization. 2. Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (Mexico). 3.
Postmodernism—Political aspects. 4. Government, resistance to. 5.
Postcommunism. I. Robinson, William I. II. Jeffries, Fiona. III. Title.
JZ1310.B87 2001 327.1 27
ISBN 0 7453 1650 6 hardback (Pluto Press)
ISBN 0 7453 1649 2 paperback (Pluto Press)
ISBN 976 95047 7 7 (Arawak publications)
10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Designed and produced for Pluto Press by Chase Publishing Services
Typeset from disk by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton
Printed in the European Union by TJ International, PadstowContents
List of Abbreviations vi
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction: Globalization, New Resistances and the
Postmodern Age 1
Part One: Globalization
1. The Epochal Shift 21
co-authored with William I. Robinson
2. Epochal Clashes: Third Worldization and the
New Hegemon 38
3. High-Tech Robber Barons: Heisting the Information Age 51
Part Two: Politics in a Postmodern Age
4. Shades of Postmodern Politics 69
5. The (Un)defining of Postmodern Marxism 82
6. The Virtually Existing Global Revolution 92
Part Three: Zapatistas and the Latin American
Context(ualization)
7. Socialist and Postmodern Politics in the Americas 105
8. Roots of the Postmodern Rebellion in Chiapas 116
9. Zapatismo and the Intergalactic Age 129
by Fiona Jeffries
Epilogue: The Millennial Cracks 145
Notes 150
Bibliography 162
Index 169List of Abbreviations
AFL-CIO American Federation of Labor-Confederation of
Industrial Organizations
ANCIEZ Spanish acronym for National Independent Campesino
Alliance Emiliano Zapata
ASEA Association for Social and Economic Analysis
CAFOD Catholic Agency for Overseas Development
CIOAC Spanish acronym for Independent Center for
Agricultural Workers and Peasants
CNC Spanish acronym for National Confederation of
Campesinos
CONAIE Spanish acronym for Indigenous Nationalities
Confederation of Ecuador
ESOP Employee Stock Ownership Plan
EZLN Spanish acronym for Zapatista National Liberation
Army
FDI Foreign Direct Investment
FPEI Foreign Portfolio Equity Investment
GOP Grand Old Party (US Republican Party)
ILO International Labor Organization
IMF International Monetary Fund
IWW International Workers of the World
NACLA North American Congress on Latin America
NAFTA North American Free Trade Agreement
OECD Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development
OSCE Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
PGA People’s Global Action
PRI Institutional Revolutionary Party
SAPs Structural Adjustment Policies
SPD German acronym for Social Democratic Party
UCLA University of California at Los Angeles
UNCTAD United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
WTO World Trade Organization
viAcknowledgements
Many people have helped me as I traveled, researched and wrote the
different parts of this book over the past half dozen years. My early
writings on the Zapatistas are the result of my participation in a
delegation to Chiapas organized by Medea Benjamin of Global
Exchange that took place a few months after the Zapatista uprising
in early 1994. Ben Clarke, a member of the delegation, was especially
helpful in getting me around in my wheelchair as I got on and off
buses, went through military checkpoints, and even had the good
fortune to visit the Palenque ruins in Chiapas. In these early years
Raymond Barglow was also very helpful in going over some of my
initial writings and ideas on globalization.
Peter Rosset and Food First pushed my early work along by
encouraging me to write an article on the history of capitalist agricultural
development in the state of Chiapas. Carmen Diana Deere and Jack
Amariglio helped arrange my participation in the Conference on
Politics and Languages of Contemporary Marxism at the University
of Massachusetts in Amherst in 1996. They, along with David
Ruccio, the editor of an article of mine that appeared in Rethinking
Marxism, helped me develop some of my ideas on the relationship
between Marxism and postmodernism that are found in this book.
I would also like to thank Fred Rosen for asking me to write an essay
for NACLA on socialism in the Americas. That essay, along with his
comments and suggestions, are a central part of the chapter on
socialism and postmodern politics in Latin America.
In late 1997 I visited Nicaragua where I discussed many of the
ideas of this book with my old friend, Orlando Nunez. He as usual
provided critical insights that helped me sharpen many of the
concepts presented in the pages that follow. Carlos Fernando
Chamorro, another comrade from Nicaragua, kept challenging me
with his thoughts and ideas, particularly while he was teaching in
the journalism school at the University of California in Berkeley.
Throughout the process of writing this book my good friends Karen
Judd,RobertArmstrongandHankFrundtprovidedmewithpersonal
and intellectual support. Glenn and Marilyn Borchardt also gave
freelyoftheirtime,particularlyoverextendeddinnerconversations
viiviii Globalization and Postmodern Politics
at their home. Glenn was also very helpful with his expertise on word
processing. My sister Miriam Burbach provided her usual personal
support during the course of writing this book. She put me up in her
house and helped with the logistics of participating in the “Battle of
Seattle” in late 1999,which shaped the introduction for this book.
And I would like to thank Cathy Schneider for sharing her apartment
and her ideas on the state of the world while I participated in the
“Battle of Washington D.C.” in April 2000.
David Parkhurst provided the technical support for me to master
the information age with my laptop computer. He also tried to get
me to present my ideas on postmodernism in a more accessible form.
Fred Goff of the Data Exchange in Oakland was always willing to
help with specific research requests. Michael Watts of the University
of California at Berkeley arranged for my appointment as Visiting
Scholar at the Institute of International Studies, enabling me to tap
into the research facilities of the university.
The comments of my editor at Pluto Press, Roger van Zwanenberg,
were invaluable in compelling me to refine and develop the ideas
for this book. I would also like to thank Bill Robinson and Fiona
Jeffries for their collaboration in writing several chapters. Aside from
their chapters, the concepts and ideas presented in the rest of the
book are my responsibility alone.
Thanks for support or help in one form or another from Kevin
Danaher, Eric Leenson, Cecile Earle, Monica Marini, Paul Chin,
Sharon Pastori, Elizabeth Farnsworth, Dr Miciyo Kawachi, Patricia
Flynn, Fiona Dove, Carol Berstein Ferry, Walden Bello, Anuradha
Mittal, Antonio Prieto, Paul Rice, Diana Bohn, Claudio Duran, Peter
Utting, Amalia Chamorro, Hermione Harris, Susan Browne, Dick
Walker, Peter Waterman, Melissa Tuggle, Elias Padilla, Judith Brister,
Susan Meiselas, Lea Guido and Ileana Rose Marie Pisano. Finally,
thanks to Tim Draimin for his last-minute help and to Mohamed
El-Doufani for his editorial work.
The support and accompaniment of my two children, Matthew
and Alexandra helped me survive the challenges of writing this book.
It has been especially heartening to see my son reach intellectual
maturity and show an active interest in discussing some of the drafts
and ideas presented here. This book is dedicated to the new
generation of global activists who are intent on transforming the
world they inherited from the century past. Introduction:
Globalization, New Resistances
and the Postmodern Age
In the waning days of the old millennium,tens of thousands of
demonstrators gathered in the city of Seattle to protest the meetings
of the World Trade Organization (WTO). They held workshops and
forums,staged marches,occupied the streets of downtown Seattle
and blockaded the entrances to the WTO gatherings. The
demonstratorscalledfor“fairtrade,notfreetrade,”andanendtothe“new
tyranny”oftheWTO,anorganizationtheydenouncedasafrontfor
multinational corporations and “profits uber alles.” As a French
farmer in Seattle who had previously pulled off the roof of a
McDonald’s restaurant in France with his tractor proclaimed,
“resistance,resistance,andresistance,thatistheonlywaytostopthis
global machine from consuming and destroying our ways of life.”
WhydidtheWTO,anorganizationbarelyfiveyearsold,provoke
the Battle of Seattle? For many from aro