Another world was possible?

Another world was possible?

by Susanne Rohland

[This article posted on 4/9/2025 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.lunapark21.net/eine-andere-welt-war-moeglich/.]


Criticism of globalization revisited

Another world is possible, it was once said. And indeed, it felt like a new beginning. Of course, there were also the cynics: that “different” does not initially specify a direction. And that everything could get even worse. And in a way, that's how it turned out.

But back then – the protests against the WTO Ministerial Conference in Seattle in 1999, against the G8 summit in Genoa in 2001, or in this country in Heiligendamm in 2007 – the images went around the world. Not least because of the police repression, which even claimed a life in Genoa. But the fight seemed justified. And it was. Today, the upheaval seems very far away. What happened? And above all: How can we move forward from here?

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There has been plenty of reason for outrage. It was impossible to overlook the fact that the amenities in the Global North had been bought with blatant injustice in the Global South, even if we probably still cannot grasp all the details today. It also did not go unnoticed that by no means everyone in the Global North benefits from the conveniences of the global networking of goods and financial flows. Nevertheless, this outcry was apparently needed: “Empört Euch” (Be outraged). Well, literally, this outcry only occurred in 2010, when Stéphane Hessel made a statement to that effect. The founding of the quintessential globalization critique, the network Attac, in 1998, was the result of an editorial by Ignacio Ramonet, who, in an article titled “Defusing the Markets,” revisited the idea of the Tobin tax to regulate the financial markets and proposed a plan to attempt a worldwide implementation by founding a network of NGOs.

Tax as a form of control

The idea of a Tobin tax dates back to the 1970s and is named after its inventor: the US-American economist and Nobel Prize winner James Tobin (1918 – 2002). His goal was to “throw a spanner in the works” of global financial markets in order to increase their stability. The Tobin tax envisages a small levy on every currency transaction. This would make speculative, short-term trading more expensive, while long-term investments would hardly be affected. When it was founded, the Attac network set itself the task of implementing this tax at the global level. Incidentally, however, here Attac's critics of globalization go beyond the inventor's proposals: the tax would open up new sources of revenue for public investment and development aid.

Larger-scale implementation has not yet been successful. A sufficient number of national governments would have to agree and act together for the benefit of the world's population. One may suspect: if that were to succeed, it could set a precedent. And suddenly we would have nothing but appointments for the benefit of the world population. Apparently, there are forces for which such a prospect spoils the good mood. And apparently, these forces are still well positioned.

Freedom of movement for whom?

Criticism of globalization has not stopped at financial market instruments. The problems associated with globalization are not limited to the financial markets either.

The problematic effects of the policies of the IMF, World Bank and WTO, which are dominated by the governments of the particularly influential industrialized nations of the Global North, are still an issue. Their structural adjustment programs trap developing countries in debt and exacerbate economic dependencies as well as social inequalities. The power structures of transnational corporations, which blackmail states and undermine democratic decision-making processes, are still an issue. It is undisputed that globalization is not neutral, but is shaped by economic and political power relations that exacerbate inequalities.

Since the early 2000s, the conditions for social change have changed. After the 2008 financial crisis, criticism of globalization was briefly back at the center of the debate, but capitalism has proven to be extremely adaptable. New crises – from the pandemic to the war in Ukraine – have diverted political attention to other issues. Digitization has created new, well-financed companies that largely escape democratic control. Tech giants such as Amazon, Google, Facebook, and the Musk empire influence not only the market but also political processes, opinion-forming and social movements. In addition, authoritarian, nationalist currents have gained influence, responding to social inequality not with a more just globalization, but with isolation and protectionism.

In the run-up to the early parliamentary elections in February, the defining campaign issue for most parties in this country was the extent to which migration should be combated. We can state that on closer inspection, it is nonsense to discuss the question of flight and migration while leaving the rest of the world – which, after all, produces the causes of flight – unchanged. The structure of world trade in favor of the Global North and to the detriment of the Global South, with all the consequential damage on the ground, plays a role here that should not be neglected.

Outrage II

The question of a better world need not be treated as an altruistic one. You could also formulate it in a very, very selfish way: precisely because I want things to go well and better for me and mine, I must want things to go well and better for everyone else; I must want struggles over distribution to be no longer necessary. The only reason to see it differently would be if I thought my own greed was limitless, and therefore had to think the greed of others was limitless too. In that case, distribution struggles would be inevitable. It is hard to overlook the fact that boundless greed exists. But to assume that it is the norm, the basis for the world we live in – can we talk about that again?

We live in a time when the richest man in the world can buy a US president. At the same time, we talk about overburdened state and national budgets as if the distribution of resources were a law of nature. Utopias are a tricky thing. They don't automatically get closer just because time moves forward. But hope begins with our ability to imagine a better future at all. In this sense: another world is possible.