Babylon and Beyond: The Economics of Anti-capitalist, Anti-Globalization and Radical Green Movements by Derek Wall

First my first book review on this site, I will be reviewing Derek Wall's new book. Derek Wall is a major player in the English Greens and is currently serving as the Principal Speaker of the Greens in England. He also teaches classes on economics and is the author of Earth First! and the Anti-Roads Movement: Radical Environmentalism and Comparative Social Movements (2002). He has three blogs: Another green world, Ecosocialists, and Babylon and Beyond all of which are good sources for red-green folks.

His new book Babylon and Beyond is an attempt to map out the current anti-globalization folks and provide a primer on their economic beliefs. He looks at: liberal criticism (George Soros and Joseph Stiglitz), the greens, different strands of 21st century Marxism, and Anarchista and Autonomists. The book does a wonderful overview of the mainstream major players (Soros, Klein, Hardt and Negri) but is very weak when it comes to any of the anarchist or "third world" strands of anti-globalization. The section on Soros and Stiglitz was the one I knew the least about and provided useful commentary on these die-hard wealthy liberals who have come to reject neo-liberal globalization. Both of these individuals are supports and early followers of philosopher Karl Popper. Popper was a philosopher and professor at the London School of Economics and became well known as a rationalist, an empiricist and as a positivist. Popper's most famous book, The Open Society and It's Enemies is a philosophical attack against state-communism and authoritarian regimes and a defense of liberal open societies.

Soros is a billionaire who made the majority of his fortune in the futures market, often buying and selling currencies. Since became a billionaire Soros has become the largest contributor to left-leaning liberal organizations, such as move on and the Daily Kos. Soros took from Popper the concern over an open society and created his philanthropic organization, the Open Society Institute, and turned his attention away from communist (though still attacked them) to unrestrained neo-liberal capitalism.

My main problem with Walls account of this section is his willingness to see these two figures as real critics to the current order and overstating their radical stances. He quotes Stiglitz as saying "For decades, people in the developing world have rioted when the austerity programs imposed on their countries proved to be too harsh…what is new is the wave of protest in developed countries" (quoted in Wall, 25). In response to this quote, which appears to be nothing more than descriptive and provides no normative opinions from Stiglitz, Wall states, "Stiglitz comes closer to endorsing violence against economic repression than any other commentator outside of autonomist anarchism" (Wall, 25). This sort of language permeates this section, with Wall constantly quoting and over-analyzing the statements of Soros and Stiglitz, making them more radical and more of a threat to the neo-liberalism then they are. Though Wall does question their radicalism, he does so by just positing that their policies might be a way for capitalism to save face in an uncertain time (just like the New Deal programs in the 1930s).

In addition, Wall contends that Popper and Karl Polanyi have influenced all the strands of the anti-globalization movement, if intentional or not. I find this very hard to believe, especially with the position of the autonomists and anarchists (especially green anarchists) who reject market systems and the conception of rational actors.

The other major section, for me and probably the people who read this blog, was the chapter on Autonomists and Anarchists. As a quick background, autonomists are followers (in a very loose sense of the word) of autonomists Marxist theories that became popular throughout Italy in the 1970s. The most well known autonomist theorist is Antonio Negri, who with Michael Hardt, wrote the seminal book Empire. The autonomists generally rejected the workerism of the communist parties, traditional Marxism, electoral politics, and rejected the Marxist belief that the worker is the revolutionary agent. To them almost anyone could be included as revolutionary agents, including intellectuals, feminists, queer-rights activists, squatters, workers, etc. Their expansion of the revolutionary category, combined with their rejection of legislative politics and political organization, makes them close allies with anarchists (and it is often impossible to tell the difference). The Autonomists became incredibly influential throughout Europe during the 1980s as black-clad squatters in Germany, Holland, and Denmark all started engaging in street fights and uprisings against neo-Nazi and police agencies (See George Katsiaficas The Subversion of Politics: European Autonomous Social Movements And the Decolonization of Everyday Life.

The lasting, tactical, legacy from this theory is the concept of the black-block. In the black bloc people dress entirely in black - originally black was chosen since that was the color most squatters had - with bandanas, baklavas, or gas masks covering their face. The outfit makes it impossible for the authorities to tell people apart and limits their ability to identify those involved. The goal of the black bloc is to "break the spell" and through acts of violence, often against property (can you be violent against property?) lull people out of the complacency of everyday life. Their tactics are meant to demystify the power of the state, the sanctity of private property and empower individuals to take action into their own hands.

In this chapter, Wall spends the vast majority discussing the Autonomists and Hardt and Negri's Empire. Wall seems rather sympathetic with this work, and though he disagrees with the tactic of property damages, seems to be a fellow traveler with them. What Wall show is his contempt for eco-anarchism, especially neo-primitivism by stating that,

The most extreme green anarchists, who reject civilization and see a society rooted in the primitive, draw heavily upon the work of John Zerzan. Zerzan, originally an autonomist, has argued that even such institutions as written language and agriculture function as instruments of social control (Zerzan 1999). The great refusal demands that we re-create a primitive society. Although suchtheorizing appears insanely extreme, primitivists point to studies such as Marshal Sahlin's The original Affluent Society (1972)" (Wall 135)

In this quote, Wall, first off compares all anti-civilizational anarchists with John Zerzan, something I am sure that Dave Watson and the fifth-estate folks would disagree with, and also creates a shallow argument/Strawman for Zerzan. He does not go into detail and explain why Zerzan opposes civilization or modern technology. Though I disagree with Zerzan on many issues, most importantly the issue of language, I feel that Wall did not give much credence to Zerzan and simply glossed over the primitivist argument without any reason.

From here Wall uses the works of Bookchin and other, more traditional anarchists, to criticize Zerzan and seems to be more willing to accept Bookchin or Goldman's rationalist approaches to anarchism then the more openly "irrational" and individualistic.

Either way, the section on Anarchism is very short and other then the small criticism of Zerzan and anti-civilizational anarchism, he spends no time talking about of anarchists activists in popularizing and motivating the anti-globalization movement. He does give some respect to the Spanish anarchists in the 1930s and their use of affinity groups (and its importance on modern day social movements) but at no point supported their perspective. He even failed to mention the selling out of anarchists by Marxists - Leninist, Stalinists, or Maoist- that happened throughout the 20th century.

Overall, Walls book is a decent overview of different strands of globalization and does a good job discussing the green movement and 20th century Marxist theories. His big weakness comes in discussing the Anarchist influences in the globalization movement and his unquestioned support for the red-green activists (he gives a glowing review of Foster's book Marx's Ecology and almost every other eco-socialist out there). He also appears to have a profound support for Zen Buddhism and believes that by combining Zen teaching with green-socialist perspectives that you can provide a theory that is both local and universal.

I give this book 2 power fists out of 5. I would use it for a class as an intro to anti-globalization beliefs but but I feel that it does not provide much depth at all and tries to cover too much in a short space (less than 200 pages). I would recommend Walls book on Earth First and the Anti-Roads movement over this one any day.