Globalization and the Global Politics of Justice

Barry K. Gills

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780415495691
• eBook ISBN: 9781317996897
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book brings together a set of distinguished academics and activists to analyze, critique, and debate the global politics of poverty and justice and the contemporary nature of globalization.

It examines the connections between 'really existing globalization', global capitalism, and global poverty, and the idea of and prospects for 'global justice' now and in the future. Identifying continuing contradictions between the stated aims of the reigning global economic orthodoxy and the actual consequences of these policies in relation to alleviation of severe poverty and injustice, the authors engage in a lively critique of the very visible campaigns to end global poverty during the past several years and especially in 2005, the year of the make Poverty History campaign, Live8, the Africa Commission's report, and the Gleneagles G8 summit. Contributions range from consideration of the meaning and definition of global justice, its relation to global ethics and development in both theory and practice, analysis of the new forms of global politics that challenge neoliberal globalization and global injustice, and trenchant critique of the practices and policies of some of the major organizations and agencies deeply involved in global poverty alleviation.

Globalization and the Global Politics of Justice is highly recommended for all those interested in contemporary global politics and the issue of inequality, injustice, and poverty between the North and South.

This book was previously published as a special issue of Globalizations

The Global Politics of Justice

BARRY K. GILLS

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Martin Luther King Jr., 1929–1968

… concern for human well-being does not stop at national frontiers – in particular, those of the fortunate countries. It must extend on to the poor of the planet; hunger, disease and death are equally a source of human suffering wherever and by whomever they are experienced. This all civilized people must accept.

John Kenneth Galbraith, 1908–2006

Plato suggested that our idea of the state should be based upon our idea of justice, for without justice how can we have the ‘good society’ or the ‘good life’? What was once relevant to the polis, to which Plato spoke, may now be relevant to the emergent ‘global cosmopolis’.

This book addresses three main problems. First, we assess how to understand the connections between ‘really existing globalization’, global capitalism, and global poverty, and the idea and prospect of global justice, now and in the future. Second, we pose the question, ‘What is Global Justice?’; how are we to define and understand justice today at the global level? Third, we ask what are the implications of the above for practice? What is our critique, both theoretical and practical, of the global politics surrounding these issues, and in particular the recent campaigns dedicated to ending global poverty?

This critique and our discussions of the above by necessity also address the continuation of neoliberal ideology and policy at global scale and its consequences for poverty alleviation. The pitfalls of a naïve optimism, the co-optation of grass-roots movements by political elites and governments, and the dangers of perpetuating the mentality of ‘charity’ towards the global poor—as against recognising the hard realities of the effects of global structures and the need for their reform or transformation in order to ensure a fairer distribution of the world’s limited resources—all need to be addressed as pertinent issues in the current context.

In relation to the concept of ‘really existing globalization’, we may begin by noting that contemporary neoliberal economic globalization is an historical form of globalization, which attempts to bring all of humanity into a single ideological and material system. Such a system would be or is predicated on the idea of universal competition, in a world bound together by a single market economy and a single hierarchical global division of labour, but which has not yet dispensed entirely with traditional ‘Westphalian’ boundaries and the notion of national sovereignty. The evidence suggests, however, that, rather than engendering a global economic and social levelling of resources and income distribution, such a global system brings some ‘global winners’ and (too) many ‘global losers’. There is an inherent contradiction between the rhetorical promises of neoliberalism to bring prosperity to all the world’s people and the tendencies generated by intensified global competition and market opening, particularly in regard to poverty and inequality on a global scale. A recent study conducted by UNCTAD on the consequences of greater trade liberalisation among 36 poor countries during the decade of the 1990s concluded that ‘The incidence of poverty increased unambiguously in those economies that adopted the most open trade regimes’(UNCTAD 2004). The ‘official’ interpretation, however, represented by World Bank research and repeated by many scholars and commentators, says exactly the opposite. Someone is obviously wrong.

To continue to ignore the evidence of globally persistent and even increasing global poverty and inequality is no longer acceptable. The contemporary harshness of global capitalism towards the ‘global losers’ is perhaps a ‘natural’ reflection of the Social Darwinist undertones beneath the reigning economic doctrine. Yet, nearly everyone, whether grass-roots activist or government official, is publicly outraged and appalled by the statistics on continuing global poverty and the slowness or absence of progress towards its actual elimination despite repeated promises and action plans. These statistics are by now so familiar that they need little repetition, where, for example, ‘the richest 1% of people in the world earn as much as the poorest 57%’, where ‘1.2 billion people are living on less than 70p a day’, and where, even now, ‘For every £1 developing countries receive in grants, they are forced to spend £13 on debt repayments’, while the WTO continues to make rules ‘by the rich and for the rich’, through such mechanisms as massive corporate lobbying influence and grossly unequal negotiating capabilities between rich and poor countries.¹

There are also several persistent problems of attitude or mentality in regard to the ‘solution’ to the problem of persistent global poverty. There is a continuing tendency, among the fortunate and powerful, to ‘blame the victim’, and to insist on a list of stringent pre-conditions for vitally needed assistance, rather than to accept their own responsibility for structural causes of poverty and ‘underdevelopment’ and the reproduction of global poverty, and act accordingly. Moreover, there is a continued tendency to ignore the realities, complexities, and consequences of the very specific historical and structural positions of the poor and poor countries in the existing global economic and political system and therefore to resort to imposing presumably universal and ‘correct’ policy prescriptions believed to be the solution to all problems of development and poverty everywhere.

However, just as historical capitalism was rendered socially acceptable and sustainable only by the application of numerous corrective interventions—including extensive social welfare policies and active measures for the protection of the poor, unemployed, and vulnerable—and so was ‘saved from itself’ (Galbraith 2001), so also global capitalism today can only be rendered stable and socially and morally acceptable by the application of policies inspired by the concept of global justice which will alleviate such widespread human suffering. By bringing into being a ‘single world’, contemporary globalization processes, including not least neoliberal economic policies, also establish the material conditions prerequisite to the application of the idea of justice at the global level. Justice as a concept and as an ideal is of course never fully realised in human affairs and it involves a never-ending process of aspiration and renewed effort, a process of ‘becoming’ justice, rather than ‘being’ justice, but which nevertheless requires the ideal itself. Never is it possible to say ‘now we have perfect justice’, nor to assume that once achieved the quality of justice will simply abide forever. Nevertheless, without the concept and the ideal of justice there can be no real progress towards its realisation nor of ‘the good society’ itself. Thus, the concept of ‘global justice’ historically emerges today as an intellectual and practical necessity which addresses the real material conditions of our time and gives purpose and direction to our common future.

Though there are many definitions of justice, and justice should not be conflated with (perfect) equality, the concept and the practice of global justice today need to address two fundamental concerns, one historical and one contemporary- and future-orientated. The first, the ‘historical’ concern, involves the argument that given the record of historical development of global capitalism and its close intertwining with and responsibility for very particular structures of global wealth and poverty—especially via past colonialism and imperialism—and the resulting global hierarchy of knowledge, production, and consumption, this implies a responsibility by those who still benefit most from these historical structures to relieve this poverty in the present, even to the point of endorsing a global minimum standard of living, which the rich should enable and provide for the poor.²

To further embellish this view, centuries of Western colonialism forced most of the non-Western world into poverty (whereas previously many of these societies had been affluent), and assigned to them the role of primary product producer (e.g. minerals, metals, timber, food, and energy resources), while industrial and financial wealth was concentrated in the rich and powerful countries who controlled the colonial empires. This stage of history in global capitalism was followed by one in which, via the globalization of industrial production, the labour force of the poor countries also came to be directly exploited by global capital, producing at lower costs to service the growing consumption of the rich. However, this relocation of global production to poor countries did not necessarily make them all equally rich, or especially their poor. On the contrary, on a global system wide level, the tendency has been for poor countries to amass ever more colossal debts to service their deficits. Cruelly, this situation of deep and persistent indebtedness among the world’s poorest nations has led to the imposition of harsh austerity policies and cut-backs in many areas of social expenditure which would otherwise support the poor and vulnerable. Moreover, through the imposition of a global regime of ‘structural adjustment’, including ‘liberalisation’ and privatisation of the economy, the rich have created a system of patron–client relations between the global rich and the global poor, a system for the perpetual reproduction of the power of the global rich over the global poor.

The second, contemporary- and future-orientated argument need not rely on historical precedent or even structural causation. This argument rests on the idea that we live in a single global system, and by so doing we should accept responsibility for the poor in the system, and that it is morally and politically reprehensible to ignore or refuse this responsibility and its practical imperatives. It is our common humanity and common membership in a single system and ‘global society’ alone which should compel the fortunate to relieve the suffering of the unfortunate.

Both arguments implicitly invoke an idea of justice, whether historically grounded on structural causes and consequences or simply on the grounds of human compassion and empathy. Indeed, it is both morally and politically reprehensible, and therefore unacceptable, that such enormous and historically unprecedented wealth and affluence as exists in the world today should co-exist side by side with such widespread and agonising deprivation and poverty by so many. As John Kenneth Galbraith argued many decades ago in relation to what he dubbed ‘the affluent society’, it is no longer a technical question about the creation of wealth itself, it is a political question about the distribution of this great wealth that is at the very heart of the issue. It is by this measure—that is, the extent to which we, the people of the world, either tolerate or alleviate global poverty and inequality—that our emergent world civilization will in future be judged, and so should we judge ourselves by this same measure.

However, even if we do accept, as I and others suggest, that we are moving towards the idea and the reality of a single global human community or global society, and on this basis accept our responsibilities and the imperative to act, this in itself does not resolve the question of how to act, of how to realise global justice and reduce or eradicate global poverty and injustice. It does not provide automatic answers to the question of how politically constitute this global community of shared responsibilities nor tell us what policies we should best pursue to these ends.

What it does do, however, is to firmly establish our starting point as we enter the twenty-first century and the ‘era of globalization’, and indicates clearly what the vital next step should be: the opening of a vigorous and self-critical global debate on the meaning of global justice, on the causes of global poverty, and on the appropriate common actions required to finally and effectively put an end to such gross injustice.

The present world order is one of profound global injustice, yet many would agree that a world without global poverty would surely be a world of global justice. Therefore, let Global Justice become an eternal idea in the mind of humanity, and let it be our highest value and common ideal. To imagine Global Justice is to take the first and most necessary step towards its realisation. It is therefore necessary to open a serious discussion on the definition(s) and practice(s) of global justice, a discussion that is global, multi-civilisational, and dialogic in nature and scope. This global discussion, and the actions that follow from it, will give new meaning and direction to the idea of global society and to the role of global citizenship within it, ideas that in my view are historically ripe for activation and application.³ This new arena of global politics, where global society meets global citizenship and both meet ‘global justice’, is one which may serve to sharpen our sense of common purpose and give greater clarity to all. In a truly global society, for justice to exist, it must exist ‘everywhere’, which is to say, its existence must be truly ‘global’. Global Justice and Global Poverty are therefore, in fact, polar opposites. We cannot have the one while the other exists; that is, we cannot know the reality of Global Justice so long as Global Poverty still exists.

Despite the great disappointments of the recent global politics of global poverty, which is a focus of this special issue, we must end on a note of renewed hope and determination. The era of Bush and Blair is fast coming to its close. Soon there will be new political leadership in the wealthiest countries and perhaps a greater desire for moderation on the one hand (especially in regard to the proclivity to use force or go to war to ‘solve’ global problems) and a greater recognition of the urgency of effective concerted action to remove the causes of global poverty, as well as alleviate its immediate suffering, before humanity descends yet further into historical tragedy. We should therefore look beyond recent follies and failures, while also recognising our own positive achievements, and renew the global struggle for justice. On this basis, and this basis alone, can the global community of humanity find its higher purpose and democratically work towards the cessation of the vicious cycle of global poverty and injustice. It is not ‘charity’ that the world’s poor require, but genuine fairness and justice in the world system as a whole. It is time to redefine the responsibilities of citizenship in the context of a global community and a global political economy. It is therefore time to choose, will it be ‘Global Poverty’ or ‘Global Justice’?

Notes

1  See the website of the World Development Movement: http://www.wdm.org.uk.

2  I am indebted to Thomas Pogge for these reflections, in conversation in Stirling, Scotland, October 2005.

3  I am indebted to conversations with John Forrer, Andrew Linklater, and Masoud Mohammedi Alamuti on the relationship between global society and global citizenship.

References

Galbraith, John Kenneth (2001) Foreword: the social left and the market system, p. xiii in Gills, B.K. (ed.), Globalization and the Politics of Resistance (London: Palgrave).

UNCTAD (2004) The Least Developed Countries Report (New York and Geneva: UNCTAD).

Global Justice: A Democratic Perspective

HEIKKI PATOMÄKI

Justice concerns opportunities, positions, rewards and punishments. They are justly distributed if they go to those who deserve them. Beings of one and the same essential category must be treated in the same way. Justice is both a virtue of individuals, and a concept routinely used in social practices, particularly when some of their aspects are discussed or disputed publicly, i.e., politicized. Justice is also a foundational notion within most systems of law, including international law.¹

Abstract concepts such as justice are largely metaphorical. Second generation cognitive science provides critical insights into the metaphorical nature of reasoning.² These insights enable us to grasp the deeper formation of justice, as well as explicate different basic models of justice. The mind is inherently embodied and thought is mostly unconscious (more than 95%). Human reason has grown out of the human sensory and motor systems, and it still uses those systems, or structures, developed from them. The mind is not merely embodied, but embodied in a way that our conceptual systems draw largely upon the universal commonalities of our bodies and the environments in which we live. Philosophy unaided by cognitive science (the empirical study of the mechanisms of the mind; covering all aspects of thought and language, both conscious and unconscious) is insufficient in answering questions about the nature of abstract concepts such as justice.

The concept of justice may be, as an abstract concept, universal. However, morality, and the possibility of making judgements on justice or any other value, depends on the relevant social practices. Our judgements, as well as those of others, and actions produced will reproduce, and sometimes transform, morality. The prevailing morality and its challenges depend on practices. The problem with the conventional, Western normative theory is its tendency to either disconnect values from the world, or to see them only in empiricist or actualist terms (see Patomäki, 1992). Therefore normative theory vacillates between irrealist utopianism (when values are seen as transcendental, i.e., other-worldly) and mere justification of the present (when values are conceived in terms of actual tradition or consensus or something similar). However, in the real world, questions of values, such as justice, are intimately connected to our descriptions and understandings of reality, and our accounts of causality. Value-judgements are based on a descriptive and explanatory understanding of the relevant social realities in question, as well as a sustained dialogue with different others involved or concerned with the same realities. Moreover, moral judgements are also important elements in the political struggles by which the social worlds and relations of power are reproduced, and sometimes transformed. Dialogical and contextual, normative judgements can and should be based on the acceptance of these ideas.

The debate about the nature of justice between Socrates and Thrasymachus that Plato chronicled in the first book of the Republic remains relevant to the globalizing world of...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• 1. The Global Politics of Justice
• 2. Global Justice: A Democratic Perspective
• 3. Global Justice: From Theory to Practice
• 4. Global Poverty: Development Ethics Meets Global Justice
• 5. Globalization and Post-modern Imperialism
• 6. Globalization and Contestation: A Polanyian Problematic
• 7. A Political Analysis of the PRSP Initiative: Social Struggles and the Organization of Persistent Relations of Inequality
• 8. Governing through Empowerment: Oxfam’s Global Reform and Trade Campaigns
• 9. Recasting Neo-liberalism in the Americas: A Critique of the Preliminary Needs Assessment of the Millennium Development Goals in the Dominican Republic
• 10. The ‘Dominican Model’: A ‘Work in Progress’ towards sustainable Human Development
• 11. Commentary on the Report of the Africa Commission A Common Cause? What Cause? A Commentary on Our Common Interest: An Argument
• 12. African Solutions to African Problems? A Critique of Our Common Interest: An Argument
• 13. Commentary on the Politics of ‘Global Justice’ in 2005 Global Poverty: A Perspective from Islamic Political Economy
• 14. Fair Trade and Global Justice
• 15. The Myth of Charity: A 2005 Reality Check
• 16. From Charity to Solidarity
• 17. The G8 Debt Deal: A Commentary
• 18. Was that ‘Charity’? Is this ‘Partnership’?
• 19. Continuity and Change: An Eyewitness Account of The World Social Forum–Caracas 2006
• Index