| Reviews / Comptes Rendus | Labour/Le Travail, 53

Reviews / Comptes Rendus

David McNally, Another World is Possible: Globalization and Anti-Capitalism (Winnipeg: Arbeiter Ring Publishing 2002).

ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE is a compact volume by activist and academic David McNally who states from the outset his solidarity with the new global justice movements which have arisen since the mid-1990s. While most widely known here for their opposition to the World Economic Forums, these movements include uprisings of indigenous peoples over land expropriation and redevelopment (Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador), popular protests against utility privatizations (Puerto Rico, Bolivia, Colombia), and rallies against the debt collection of the World Bank (Thailand, India, New Guinea) in the Southern nations. These popular mobilizations have been joined by urban movements of unemployed workers (Argentina, Dominican Republic, Venezuela) and mass strikes of workers, unemployed, and students protesting attacks on public services and pensions (France), as well as blockades against meetings of the world's elites (Melbourne, Porto Alegre, Quebec City, Seattle). The title for this volume then was inspired by the banner at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre and is written as a guide to a new generation of activists.

While the book is divided into seven chapters, it can be more usefully described as falling into three sections. The first section (chapters one and two) is a handbook to the new social movements listing places, dates of events, and a few lines about the type of action (chapter one) followed by an introduction to the movements' aims (chapter two). The second section (chapters three to five) tries to provide a background to capitalist oppression and responses to it. And the third section (chapters six and seven) is McNally's political analysis of the global justice movements.

McNally's principal argument is that the global justice movements should develop a language of anti-capitalist organizing and elaborate common goals and objectives which fit the specific historical situation. He outlines a list of "modest proposals" (266) that need to be done at this stage: building common fronts; bringing together all anti-capitalist activists around a "common emancipatory project," creating conferences, forums etc. for debate and decision-making; holding large political, educational, and cultural events; producing literature, videos, and CDs; and promoting revolutionary pluralism. His method then is named "socialism from below" by which he means that the emancipation of the working class will be the action of the class itself, citing Rosa Luxemburg. In drawing together socialist and anarchist activities, he says that for him "socialism from below" might also be called "libertarian socialism" and uses the words interchangeably with "revolutionary." (251) His aim is to address the new anti-capitalist activists avoiding characterizations and while there is some strength to this approach, he also avoids some political questions which I will discuss later.

McNally draws on many examples of anti-capitalist organizing from both the past and the present. One movement that he calls on to exemplify this approach is the Unemployed Workers' Movement in Argentina. (244) He characterizes it as a "grassroots movement that is independent of the unions and political parties," (239) and describes a movement which imaginatively embraces a wide range or organization and notions of democracy. Drawing on McNally's source, James Petras, one learns that in August 2001, highly organized unemployed workers numbering over 100,000 (30–80 per cent of Argentineans are unemployed) people shut down over 300 highways, paralyzing the economy, and went on to lead a successful general strike in Buenos Aires in conjunction with sectors of the trades unions against privatizations, job losses, pension cuts, and cuts to social services due to IMF requirements. These workers were armed only with a transitional program of demands and won modest concessions from the government. Petras points out that large numbers of unemployed industrial workers had union experience and were familiar with collective struggle. Thus these actions were not spontaneous, but the product of decades of experience. In footnote 38 to chapter 7 McNally explains that self-activity from below "does not mean that such movements cannot elect organizers and delegates for special purposes. It is to insist, however, that there should be complete democratic control over any elected officers who ought to be accountable to mass assemblies or conventions..." (270)

The second major preoccupation of this volume concerns the political direction of the workers' and unemployed movement. The tactics of revolt (rallies, pickets, demonstrations, strikes, and occupations), according to McNally, should bring people together around a program of common demands and political vision. While McNally's volume tends to describe the actions more than the organizational linkages between activists, he says, in several places, that the point is to spread the struggle from the local to the international. What distinguishes these movements from elitist politics are the methods they employ, those which build the self-confidence of workers through self-organization from below. Quoting Rosa Luxemburg, McNally says "the struggle for reforms is the means; the social revolution its goal." (250)

McNally advocates the mass strike as a means to bring together the workplace, community, and street protests. (253) He does not refer to the sort of strike organized from the top by the bureaucratic caste of business unionism, but one in which workplace committees take control in a system of workers' councils. Here he cites the mass struggles in Chile (1970–73) and Portugal (1974–5) but indicates the weak link in the chain of radical opposition to capitalism are the working-class organizations in the north. He suggests that workers in the north have not been sufficiently radicalized through direct struggles on the streets as they have in the south so that rank-and-file opposition movements in union locals have yet to be built.

My principal criticism of Another World is Possible is the vacuum that exists around the role of the political party in the workers' movement. In this volume McNally avoids discussion of any kind of party building, whether it be the vanguard party, a party formed from the trade unions, or a left-wing electoral party with a mass base. The independence of the working class could be interpreted as independence from the party. Nonetheless it seems a shame not to consider the role of a genuinely left party in the building of a workers' movement. Surely there are countless lessons to be learned globally from the successes and failures of such party building. While McNally is not opposed to building socialist organizations (he is the editor of New Socialist), he does not see it as his central question in this work. He de-emphasizes the question here in favour of other issues about the new radicalization.

I would have wished also for more analysis of the role of organized labour in building the movements. According to Lennist theory, workers need mass organizations, and while the trades unions can never replace the party, it is tantamount that workers participate in the unions. Ultimately the goal is to build radical strike committees, workplace committees, and, finally, workers' councils elected by all the workers. McNally's analysis of the militant Korean Confederation of Trade Unions emphasizes the role a million-strong general strike (1996) can play in radicalizing workers, but he is silent on the problem of why these mass movements in our period so often fail to advance socialist programs. Also, more work is called for on what McNally sees as the weak link with the unions in the northern countries. While McNally praises the Bus Riders' Union and OCAP in Canada as examples of independent working-class action which involves a relationship with the unions, he does not discuss other possibilities. He supports the call for a decisive break from social democratic and Stalinist parties, but he avoids major theories of Leninist party-building. A study of the strengths and ultimate betrayals of the Solidarity Movement in B.C. (1983) and the Days of Action in Ontario (1995–6) would have clarified his call for a break from the bureaucracy of the unions and their social-democratic politics.

My smaller criticism of the book is that it tries to achieve too much in a compact volume. The middle section of the volume on the nature of capitalist oppression is probably the strongest, most interesting, and the most central to understanding the situation today. The first and last sections of the book then are guides to activism and left this reader wishing for fewer examples and more detailed accounts of struggles in different parts of the world. Another criticism has to do with my disappointment that many of the endnotes refer me to secondary sources.

In conclusion, Another World is Possible starts an important debate on the political direction of the social justice movements around the world. Its format makes it an easy reference for a brief survey of recent events and while it may not have been exhaustive enough for this reader, it provokes questions on important developments.


Ellen Ramsay York University

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