A New Internationalism is Needed

There is much discussion over whether or not globalisation has actually happened, and how much effect it has had on reducing the sovereignty of states. I take it to be a rather reasonable belief that a measure of globalisation has occurred. While distance does still matter, being a cause for the formation of regional trade blocks; we can look at how information, culture and security has been globalised. To a certain point, it is undeniable that economic issues have been globalised. While the decrease in the sovereignty of the nation-state is much exaggerated, in my opinion, issues have become global, and solutions will likely have to have an international or global aspect. It is on these grounds that I want to suggest a new form of internationalism.

In Britain, as in other countries across the world, former forces for internationalisation have begun to question this path. The Blue Labour current, which Ed Miliband does not completely disregard in his leadership of the Labour Party (UK), responds to the 2010 general election defeat by being harsher on immigration and international institutions, while focusing more on local communities. Recently, we have heard news of how the EU is facing an unprecedented crisis of confidence, with trust in EU institutions across several major countries being at its lowest. Likewise, the egotism of the West in avoiding voting power reforms in the IMF and the World Bank are leading to efforts by the emerging world economies to form alternative international credit & development institutions.

History shows us that economic crises such as the one we live in promote feelings of economic nationalism, which we can understand as mere self-interest. To economic nationalists, foreigners take away jobs. To economic nationalists, international institutions are meaningless. Unfortunately, international institutions have been greatly useless in the recent past, showing a complete failure to deal with the popular revolts in the Middle East, as well as other security threats around the world. If our earlier hypothesis that the world’s problems have become global, both in security as, to a degree, in economics, then correcting this failure is essential to solving problems, and thus reigniting the economy and reinspiring hope to people around the world.

A globalised world needs globalised institutions. Image Credit: Pixabay

In a globalised world with globalised problems, international institutions are, particularly in the social and economic sphere where these are as of now less developed, of the utmost importance. If they are to be successful, they cannot be a force for domination and subjugation. The Washington Consensus, followed by the IMF and the World Bank for years, has been shown to be unquestionably unsuccessful in Africa (government debt crisis, 1970s), the transitional economies and the Asian tigers (90s). The conditionality imposed on these countries, and now imposed on the peripheral European nations, is of a quasi-colonial nature. In the face of growing economic nationalism, force is not the way to re-inspire hope in international solutions to international problems.

A new brand of internationalism must combine the largely consensual ideal of effective international institutions with an uncompromising commitment to the values of human dignity and global solidarity. These two ideas complement each other, in fact, and are important to preserve the central tenets of human civilization. Just as the horrors of two World Wars, with all the loss of human lives and damage to infrastructure that it meant, compelled the world to take international cooperation on security and world peace seriously, so should the field of cooperation expand to economic and social issues, as a result of the social tragedies occurring around the world, to which we owe special thanks to the mutually destructive policy of austerity.

In my view, and disregarding any more academically established preconditions for cooperation, I believe that for international cooperation in social and economic issues to be successful we must keep to three core principles: Dialogue, Common Action and Solidarity.

It is now time that we elevate the discussion of social and economic issues to bodies such as the United Nations Security Council. After all, economic and social security are also forms of security, and ones that ordinary people hold far closer in their quotidian life. We must learn to have valued, constructive and structured discussion on the issues faced by one and all in this sphere. We need to look at events, as well as the macrostructures that cause it – just as the UN doesn’t just look at human trafficking in Ukraine, but at the causes of human trafficking globally. The UN needs to tackle greed and unethical practices in global finance. It must discuss how to put an end to the race to the bottom caused by social and environmental dumping. And it needs to act.

For this new paradigm of international institutions to be successful, we need a framework through which the international community can legitimately intervene to protect Man from self-destruction. To do this, we must have definitions of international economic and social crises – definitions that must be broader than GDP, but should also consider thresholds for unemployment, inequality and poverty. Just as with global peace, securing a dignified life for all people across the globe must be not only a priority, but a responsibility of all, and one under which the United Nations must act.

This shared responsibility and commitment to act to protect people from the horrors of poverty and the abuses of global plutocrats is perfectly described by the word ‘solidarity’. It is an admission of our equality as human beings and of the interdependence of our lives. Our grievances are often rooted in greater problems. In all situations, some may win and some may lose. But we need to be willing to make sacrifices for the greater good of others. By bringing problems to the world stage, we can only hope that it is no longer the weakest and least able who will have to bear the brunt of the sacrifices, as the current anarchical world order delivers.

A new brand of internationalism will not be easy to conceive or to implement. Realists will tell us, unfortunately with a measure of reality, that nations will continue to look at their own self-interest. Let’s hope the trauma of the current world economic crisis proves them wrong, and gives new impact to the international institutions of our world. But more than hope, let’s rise to demand international institutions capable of addressing the global problems the world faces today. We have nothing to lose. We have a world to gain.