‘Globalists’ versus ‘nationalists’ is a hopeless way to understand politics
Both the far right and the liberal establishment claim the political map has been redrawn. Gone are the days of the “left-right” division: the main political divide now, we are told, is between “globalists” and “nationalists”.
In one respect, they are correct. The parties of the centre left and centre right have become all but indistinguishable from each other. This is because of the consensus politics that characterises our political era. As Tariq Ali put it, “A dictatorship of capital has reduced political parties to the status of the living dead”.
But left and right are terms with meaning. For the greater part of the 19th and 20th centuries, they broadly indicated (leaving aside the confusions introduced by Stalinism) which side of the class struggle you identified with. To be on the left was to side with the struggles of workers; to be on the right was to side with capital.
The political divide between left and right was based on a real antagonism – indeed the fundamental antagonism of modern society, that of class.
“Globalists” versus “nationalists” obscures more than it clarifies because it is not based on any fundamental material conflict. What the two offer are simply competing versions of capitalist ideology.
The “open”, “tolerant”, “internationalist” order that globalists such as French president Emmanuel Macron and German chancellor Angela Merkel wish to defend is in reality a closed, intolerant barbarism for the majority of ordinary people. Their championing of “multiculturalism” and “freedom of movement” is a sick joke when we consider the refugees and Muslims rotting in concentration camps under their watch.
Money and commodities circulate freely across borders, backed up by a series of treaties and institutions that subordinate workers to capital across the globe. These institutions – the IMF, the World Bank and the EU to name a few – are used to carry out ruthless class warfare against workers and the oppressed.
But the “close the borders” nationalism that figures like Donald Trump and failed French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen champion hardly represents an alternative. Their scapegoating of immigrants is designed to galvanise supporters against foreign enemies, an us-versus-them competition in which patriots, from the bottom to the top of the economic ladder, are all in it together. Their opposition to free trade agreements is simply about changing which sections of capital benefit from the spoils of labour.
This narrative presents the “nationalists” as the defenders of workers who have lost out to the “globalist” order. In reality, their radical promises to stand up for the “little guy” are lies to camouflage their own rule-for-the-rich agenda.
And for people who identify with the rights of the oppressed, the racist ideology of the right serves as an argument that there is no alternative but to get behind the “globalists”.
But the political crisis of recent years has also presented politics with another alternative. Bernie Sanders’ campaign last year demonstrated it is possible for a self-proclaimed socialist candidate to capture an audience of millions in the US.
In the UK, Jeremy Corbyn has demonstrated that the ideas of social democracy – large scale wealth redistribution, nationalisation of public services and protections for the most vulnerable in society – are alive and well.
And in France, Jean-Luc Mélenchon won 19 percent of the first round vote on a platform of imposing a 100 percent tax on income above €400,000.
These campaigns, though far from perfect, show it is possible to build an alternative to the right that doesn’t fall in behind the discredited liberal centre. It’s called the left.
