Global Economy, Global Justice: Theoretical and Policy Alternatives to Neoliberalism (Routledge Stud

Global Economy, Global Justice: Theoretical Objections and Policy Global Justice: Theoretical Objections and Policy Alternatives to Neoliberalism 1st Edition. by . Paperback: pages; Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (February 10, ).
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I argue that future agri-food studies of neoliberalism should focus research efforts on these aspects because the consequences of protectionism of US agri-industry in GEG, in particular, have been negative on multiple levels. A clear example of the problematic issues arising from the insertion of agri-food into GEG can be found in the delayed methyl bromide phase-out of the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, hereinafter the Montreal Protocol.

The Montreal Protocol is oftentimes, and rightfully, described as the most successful global treaty designed to protect the environment of all time, and in this case, to protect the stratospheric ozone layer [ 1 ]. Utilizing the precautionary principle, the global community agreed that measures needed to be taken to avert the effects of a depleting ozone layer on humans and natural ecosystems For recent discussion and analysis of the Montreal Protocol, see special issue of the Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences 5: Through the Montreal Protocol, chlorofluorcarbons, hydrochloroflurocarbons, methyl bromide, and other ozone-depleting substances have all been put on phase-out schedules designed to lead to their eventual extinction.

Thus, with the guidance of capable leadership, including scientists, government officials, corporate buy-in, and vested civil society groups, the Montreal Protocol was ratified in and entered into force on 1 January , and has steadily been strengthened via amendments and decisions designed to speed up ozone layer recovery [ 8 , 9 ].

While global climate change presents a great deal of uncertainty with regards to predicting recovery rates of the ozone layer, the Montreal Protocol has indeed worked: Small wonder that the Montreal Protocol is often written off as a completed success story. Global environmental governance is an area that has received relatively little attention from sociologists when compared to other scales of environmental governance relative to other disciplines in the social sciences as well, such as political science and human geography.

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Yet, what studies exist have brought fresh insights, contributing alternate ways of understanding social ties e. Importantly, a growing body of literature in global sociology and the social sciences in general investigates the effects that protectionism of particular industries and economies is having on global governance and environmental protection in particular [ 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 ].

This article contributes to this literature in its concern for the deleterious effects that protection of US agri-industry via the delayed the phase-out of the toxic substance methyl bromide—a neurotoxin used as a pre-plant fumigant and for quarantine treatment, and an ozone-depleting substance—had on ozone layer protection during the s. It draws on the sociological literature on power and social control in order to show how actors at one scale in this case, actors operating in the agrarian networks of California can influence outcomes at the global scale.

The paper joins a growing raft of scholarship investigating protectionism in a neoliberal global agri-food system. Neoliberalism is almost a hackneyed term at this point, but it is used by scholars for good reasons. In the case of global environmental governance, its usage helps us understand the central role that the market and profit motives have come to play even here, a realm quite literally designed to protect ecological conditions from destruction caused by human activities, including economic activity.

In the process, governance is insulated from normative interventions which extend beyond the well-defined institutional bounds of market-oriented consideration. This has the effect of empowering those that are deemed to possess expert knowledge, including market actors, while often marginalizing lay people and their context-specific concerns.

Therefore, global environmental governance has turned increasingly toward market-based conditions in order to gauge how protection of the environment should rightly occur. Yet, at the same time, we can understand neoliberalization as a process by which certain forms of knowledge and powerful actors are protected. In this way, neoliberalism is a contrasting process that calls for marketization whilst protecting the economic conditions and ideologies of certain groups.

This can lead to a disconnect between the short-term interests of well-connected actors in GEG processes and the long-term goals of environmental protection, a temporal disconnect. Additionally, there is a growing social disconnect that has shifted instances of GEG towards the protection of a small groups of stakeholders whilst endangering society [ 11 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 ]. Yet the protection of certain market actors does not happen equally across countries.

Scholarship in global sociology has studied the uneven effects of neoliberalism as a process of opening markets in the global south to transnational corporations in the north, but not necessarily vice versa. The same levels of inequity are felt in GEG, where powerful countries have the leverage to shape governance in ways that support their interests over those of less powerful countries For a glimpse into the unequal exchanges among state actors found in GEG from sociological, geographical, and environmental law perspectives, respectively, see [ 35 , 36 , 37 ]. The protection of national economies can often conflict with the goals of GEG.

For instance, protectionism of US agri-industry has stalled progress in some heretofore relatively successful global environmental agreements, such as the Montreal Protocol, the subject of the case study below. But protection of the US economy is also a well-known reason for lack of buy-in on global climate agreements over the years [ 38 ]. Oftentimes touted for its precautionary measures to protect the ozone layer i.

Moreover, US protection of its agri-industry deterred the emergence and extension of more ecologically-oriented alternatives, such as organic strawberries. These are serious issues affecting the planet that are currently rather understudied in the sociology of global agriculture. For some notable exceptions, see [ 15 , 39 ]. In a broader context, complementary studies of labor and agriculture in global governance, as well as GEG and biotechnology, see notably [ 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 ]. As a hegemonic political discourse, neoliberalism is seen as shaping the opportunities made available to reformulate agriculture.

They have shown how these doctrines can become engrained in the projects of social movements and the everyday practice of individuals. Thus, we can think of neoliberalism as representing a great challenge facing alternative agriculture schemes today See also [ 39 , 51 , 52 , 53 ]. In a Geoforum issue devoted to neoliberalization of food, for instance, Harrison shows how the regulation of pesticides has gradually decreased in the US since the s, and funding of alternative forms of pest management has been all but eliminated [ 50 ].

Such nation-state responsibilities have largely devolved to the state level, where local regulation of pesticides is often contradictory to local needs to remain competitive. In other words, while neoliberal policies are embedded in agriculture worldwide, such policies have often occurred as manifestations of protectionism in US agriculture, both locally and at the global scale of environmental governance. In the US, for example, much research and extension is still provided through land grant institutions for agriculture. For instance, in addition to the liberalizing global trade agreements like the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs GATT and the World Trade Organization WTO , some global environmental agreements remain highly protectionist of various US agri-food sectors, albeit with increasing pressure to liberalize coming from less-developed, yet powerful, nations [ 58 ].

Such protectionism has found its way into an important instance of global environmental governance, the Montreal Protocol. My arguments here are based mainly on my observations of agriculture operating at the global scale of environmental governance from a global environmental sociological perspective [ 3 , 4 , 14 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 ]. GEG is designed to seek ways to make social organization more ecologically sustainable. In the neoliberal era of GEG, however, scholars recognize that it has often been made to maximize profit of North-based agri-industrial firms and other corporate actors, improving ecological conditions only secondarily For examples of neoliberalization affects in various areas of GEG, see [ 12 , 59 , 60 , 61 , 62 , 63 ].

GEG incorporates a multifaceted decision-making process involving international organizations, governments, scientific experts, corporate interests, non-governmental organizations NGOs and other pressure groups representing civil society in a relatively decentralized way. However, studies in critical geography, sociology, and elsewhere reveal that such forms of governance often end up supporting powerful countries and their corporations at the expense of the environment, fair trade, and the well-being of the global south Some notable pioneering cases include [ 15 , 29 , 64 , 65 ].

The stalled phase-out of methyl bromide, a pre-plant fumigant used in US conventional strawberry production up until , which was called for predominately by the US in the Montreal Protocol, is a case in point. The case typifies the degree to which the agriculture of powerful countries is protected at the global scale in the neoliberal era of GEG. In conclusion, I will suggest a possible way forward from a sociological perspective. Education is seen as a sorting and grading process, natural to a class society Rustin Neoliberalism has turned higher education into a precious commodity to which individuals aspire and hope to gain access Naidoo This approach to education more often than not encourages rote learning and the application of mechanical modes of instruction Welch Learning is re-rendered as 'cost-effective policy outcomes' and achievement as a set of 'productivity targets' Ball The curriculum is more practical and utilitarian Welch The students are assumed to be more interested in qualifications, grades and credentials than in true academic learning Sparkes The purpose of education is essentially to provide the workforce needed by the capitalist economy.

Acculturation is defined as the acquisition of social and human capital Rustin People are cast as human capital and hence constantly expected to tend to their own present and future value Shenk Research is subject to competition through regulatory structures such as the National Research Foundation in South Africa Rustin This is exacerbated by moves to rate and rank institutions of higher learning and university departments according to research excellence and then tie a proportion of the institution's overall grant to this rating Welch In the process, these structures avail themselves of 'impersonal, other-directed measures of value' Rustin Many institutions of higher learning have adopted an entrepreneurial and enterprise culture Rustin It is clear from the above that neoliberalism has deprived education in both senses, as mentioned of its distinctive status as an interpersonal relationship that forms, guides, equips and unfolds less mature people for their life-task by morphing it into an enterprise intended to prepare people for the labour market, and in doing so, serving the interests of business, trade and the economy.

A critical appraisal of neoliberalism and its views on institutions of higher learning and education.

A few critical remarks about neoliberalism are in order since they pave the way towards understanding the rise of the anti-neoliberal developments that will be discussed below. Firstly, schools and other institutions of learning may not be reduced to business corporations and run according to business lines. The true meaning of education as forming, equipping, guiding and leading towards a higher purpose is sacrificed for the purpose of making education serve the economy, promote membership of a global community and serve as a sorting and grading process.

Education is seen as a commodity, reduced to rote learning and memorisation, and inculcated through mechanical modes of teaching, aimed at measurable and cost-effective outcomes, mapped to productivity targets, with overemphasis on utilitarian subjects to the detriment of those aiming at forming the young person to be a fully developed person able to fulfil his or her calling in life, resulting in a view of students as merely chasing qualifications, grades and credentials.

Secondly, its view of reality is not only skewed but also reductionist: Its view of the human being is similarly skewed and narrow: Thirdly, of great importance are the shortcomings of the theoretical underpinnings of neoliberalism, which can only be mentioned in passing. Its ignorance of the twin principles of sphere sovereignty and universality and its confusion of value for true meaning in life and education can only be explained in terms of the theories in which neoliberalism has come to be grounded through the years: Important as these background theories are, we have to leave them by the wayside to attend to some of the new developments and incidences that have in recent times emerged in response to neoliberalism.

Some recent anti-neoliberalist developments and incidences. While neoliberalism still seems to dominate the economic, social, academic and political scene, there are signs of a strong resistance to it all over the world. However, the opposition to neoliberalism is still so tentative and unorganised that one could hardly describe it as a 'movement', as some observers have done cf. There is, however, reason to suspect that such a 'movement' is beginning to take shape, if one took into account all the recent events, opinions and publications in this regard.

In what follows, an effort will be made to suture together some of these new developments and incidences that can be discerned in our life-world at this point in time. By , the national student organisations in South Africa had already changed from political protest-oriented structures to structures focusing on economic issues.

Higher education fees had by that time already been identified as a stumbling block that required a national solution. Cele and Koen According to Naidoo This caused the movement to give up any hope of attaining the goal of free education. By , however, the forces of disobedience to the neoliberal agenda have substantially grown among students to such an extent that most universities in South Africa were brought to a standstill in both and as a result of ' FeesMustFall' and other '-MustFall' campaigns.

When so many young people today are faced with such vulnerable and precarious living situations, disobedience and struggle are not a choice but a necessity … the spirit of disobedience, refusal and rebellion embodied in the struggles of youth against apartheid no longer finds resonance within the neoliberal Congress movement. By , the student movement in South Africa had signalled the beginning of the end of South African youth's subservience to neoliberalism. Significant here is the fact that the students demonstrated at important seats of power: Plaut and Holden The poor and ordinary people clamoured for their voices to be heard but up to had had little hold over the mighty: A new social movement … a popular groundswell in support of the constitutional order or greater electoral success are just some of the things that could dramatically influence the balance of power.

The ordinary people, including the students, are beginning to fight for their rights, to question authorities including the university vice-chancellors and councils; cf. By , Solomon He saw very little emancipatory rationale in the movement. In his opinion, nothing has prepared university managers to deal with the likes of the current 'fallists' 3 when they view compromises on the part of university management as weakness and push for ever more concessions without giving anything in return Solomon In Cloete's opinion, the dissatisfaction because of the high university tuition fees formed part of the dissatisfaction about inadequate service delivery by authorities.

Christie recently summarised the situation as follows: People, including students, have taken to the streets in vast numbers to protest against poor service delivery. Similar anti-neoliberal sentiments have risen elsewhere. Businessmen such as Donald Trump realised that the task of marketing is to spot the latest trends such as the availability of social media by means of which half-truths in the form of 'fake news' can be spread [Huntington Political scientist Anthony Gaughan is convinced that Trump's election represents a populist revolt against immigration and free trade policies; there is increased and widespread public hostility to the political, media and business establishments that have governed the United States up to Trust in institutions is at an all-time low and a majority of Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction.

In saying this, he confirms an observation by political scientist Samuel Huntington who wrote: Globalisation, multiculturalism, cosmopolitanism, immigration, sub-nationalism and anti-nationalism have battered American consciousness. Ethnic, racial and gender issues came to the fore … Corporate executives, professionals and Information Age technocrats espoused cosmopolitan over national identities.

Their neoliberal statements and sentiments reflected the extent to which some people in American elite groups, business, financial, intellectual, professional and even governmental, were becoming denationalised and developing transnational and cosmopolitan identities superseding their national ones.

This was not true of the American public, and a gap consequently emerged between the primacy of national identity for most Americans and the growth of transnational identities among controllers of power, wealth and knowledge in American society. Trump saw and took this gap. While she feels this to be necessary, she sincerely hopes - in accordance with the neoliberal policies of the International Monetary Fund - that there would be no moves towards 'deglobalisation'.

Lagarde also expressed concern about right-wing tendencies in Europe. She feared that political tensions about globalisation and trade could lead to negative or slow world trade Bloomberg Her fears were partially realised when Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's pro-European constitutional amendments were defeated in a referendum on 4 December Indian activist Arundathi Roy recently wrote in an anti-neoliberal vein: The good news is that people have had enough and are not going to take it anymore. The Occupy Movement has joined thousands of other resistance movements all over the world in which the poorest of people are standing up and stopping the rich corporations in their tracks.

This struggle has reawakened our imagination. Somewhere along the way, Capitalism reduced the idea of justice to mean just 'human rights', and the idea of dreaming of equality became blasphemous. We are not fighting to tinker with reforming a system that needs to be replaced. The anti-neoliberalist 'movement' does not as yet have a fixed form or agenda, apart from the fact that it is in essence anti-neoliberal.

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The following can be discerned, however, as items that will be captured on an anti-neoliberal agenda somewhere in the near future: Everything that neoliberalism has stood for during the past four centuries will be heavily criticised and discarded, if and wherever possible. Internationalism, globalism and cosmopolitanism will be replaced by nationalist ideals in the form of trade protectionism, an inward-looking tendency and isolationism. Burundi and South Africa's intended withdrawal from the International Criminal Court is a step in this direction; cf.

Immigration will be curbed, resulting in xenophobic incidents, intolerance, inhospitality, patriotism, nationalism and populism. The economy might take a turn to the left, resulting in socialist policies with the concomitant forms of inequality that it breeds , a turn away from utilitarianism and economism the absolutisation of the economic aspect of reality and life.

Labour will be seen in a different light. Most importantly, education will be seen in a different light , certainly not as ancillary to neoliberal ideas. It is doubtful, however, whether education will be approached as all-embracing forming, equipping, guiding, nurturing and unfolding of the young.

Besides International Political Economy, also interested in links between art and economy and innovative teaching. His research focuses on the relationship between labour and development in Latin America, exploring the centrality of work and workplace resistance to the constitution of firm- and state-led development strategies. He is interested, also, in alternative forms of development and radical politics in the region and beyond. His research focuses on international political economy. Interested in all aspects of Marxist political economy and especially the labour theory of value and Marxist crisis theory.

Her research interests include NGOs and social movements, alternatives to neoliberalism and imperialism, and politics and development in Nepal and South Asia. His current research focuses on the crisis and austerity varieties of, and alternatives to , and labour restructuring. Her research interests centre on: Her research focuses on the political economy of international development, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa. His research interests are institutional change, sustainable development, social movements, state-society relations in development, and South Asian politics.

Ternyik , social science economist.

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