And if you think they'll gracefully accept your proposed new way of doing economics without putting up a major fight, you need a major re-calibration of your reality-o-meter. Remember that these guys can and do buy and sell whole countries out of pocket change.
And at any rate, fighting the last war is a deal better than the protectionist attitudes of much of the anti-globalist movement - 'cause that's fighting the war before last.
Further, I'm skeptical of the notion that the virtual economy has changed the rules fundamentally. So far such claims seem to be smoke and mirrors from where I'm sitting, since - in the end - the real economy trumphs the virtual economy (as the Americans are learning so painfully right now). And while we try to separate the nonsense from the sense, the institutions and regulations that have so far guaranteed reasonable comfort and non-atrocious living conditions are dissolving around us.
I think that you will find, if you take a look at a map, that countries with a history of strong labour unions have a far more equitable distribution of wealth than countries with a history of weak labour unions. Correlation does not, of course, prove causation, and unions are far from the only factor, but I have the distinct impression that they are an important one.
W.r.t. hierarchial dinosaurs, a global union does not need to be a particularly ponderous beast in terms of organisation. The central thing about a union - the heart and soul, if you wish to be poetic about it - is the combination of a lot of pissed-off people on the ground and a big war chest. Everything else is really just scaffolding.
- Jake Ceterum censeo Chicago esse delendam
I don't think many people really appreciate quite what the pervasive spread of the Internet is doing.
Those mega-Corporations and mega-Unions who do not use the collaborative techniques now emerging will be at a disadvantage to those who do. Capitalism will eat itself, and we will see - as Marx put it - the "Abolition of Labour" through the empowerment of connected individuals working towards a consensually agreed common purpose.
I call this process "Napsterisation" since to me the seminal moment - the "Epiphany" - was the realisation that a 19 year old could single-handedly kill off the business model of the global music industry.
Banks are about to go the same way: I give them 2 to 5 years: and when that happens, anything is possible.
Having said all that, in order to get there we do have to start from here, and of course it goes without saying that existing unions should work together globally to a common purpose.
But the last thing they need is global "Organisations": Organisations are the problem, not the solution.
But a framework within which they may self organise? Comrade, I'm right with you.
My only disagreement with Chris is my agreement with you - I think. That is, we have to try to marshal a response, rather than just let history occur. Don't get me wrong, though, Chris is working on the response, too - but I agree with you that we need a broad and deep movement of the most motivated world citizens to change the system. Who's that, you say? Why working people, for sure. What are they going to do? Why dismantle the pyramid, of course. How do you do that? Why remove the top stone first, naturally. paul spencer
JakeS:
Everything else is really just scaffolding
Let's not neglect scaffolding, because it's really important for keeping things standing.
I have little union experience to speak of, but I was a works council member for close to seven years, and in my experience organizations based on cooperative decision making are hard work and require constant maintenance.
Arriving at common goals and strategies is hard work. Learning the ins and outs of issues relating to, say, a working time agreement is hard work. Explaining to your base why you're spending months haggling with the employer over details (and why the details are important) is often very hard work. And works councils are responsible for only a single company. If my experience with works agreements is anything to go by, in a collective bargaining situation 90% of the effort has probably already been expended before the first formal demand is made.
All kinds of things need to be done and created to realize any improvement out of the discontent and the war chest (or even to amass a war chest, much less disburse it!).
Oh dear, I'm starting to rant, aren't I? <wipes foam from lips> Sorry.
You've spent a lot of time thinking deeply about something that's very important, and you make a lot of important points. But please don't sell the scaffolding short, because it holds everything up. And as any construction worker would tell you, when the scaffolding fails people get hurt.
Or to put it another way: "Heart and soul" only go so far if you can't coordinate the fists and feet. "Ideas or the lack of them can cause disease." - Kurt Vonnegut
The day in, day out, slog of explanations, meetings, more explanations, and communication is where any membership run organization succeeds or fails. A doo run-run-run, a doo run-run
And I think that to some extent, the commenter who remarked that traditional organisations will need to change substantially is right - both on account of technological developments and due to the scale of a truly global organisation. But that doesn't mean that I'm not sceptical of the kind of techno-panacea that's so often peddled as an alternative to the hard work of organising labour/limiting GHG emissions/adressing global inequality/etc.
