Flatness

I recall my reaction to watching Tom Friedman promoting his new book, The Earth is Flat, on Ben Wattenbergs show. As he is explaining in his inimitable, smarmy style how the concept came to him in "an epiphany" (a modern Joseph Smith) Im thinking what a slimy huckster. On an excellent new website put up by the International Forum on Globalization Dr.Vandana Shiva gives his epiphany a sound thrashing ending up with: "'Flatness' is a symptom of the absence of real freedom, fascism is flatness."Coincidentally, Friedmans neo-liberalist co-horts want to install a "flat-tax" in Iraq, their new playground for Washinton Consensus economic policies. It is flat wrong.

On the same site we find Randy Hayes ,the IFG exec.director writing "I know of no coherent alternatives gaining momentum. Capitalism is the ruling system", therefore we can only ask "can capitalism be radically improved, humanized and ecologized? ...We have to wrest control of global economic rule making away from the tiny ,powerful clique of WTO and transnational corporate executive powerbrokers "and " democratize the process." Well hell, if thats all there is to it we should be able to "git er done" by Superbowl Sunday. Sorry to sound flip but this to me is a total misunderstanding of the objective forces of global power structures and a perfect demonstation of the liberals inability to think dialectically. By this casual rejection of Marxism and revolutionary consciousness or even "socialism for the 20th century" as Chavez puts it, they relegate change to the world of conferences, marches, and think-tank punditry. If we are going to "wrest control" of something, lets make it the means of production and let's not delude ourselves into thinking those now in power will in any way be willing to simply surrender any part of it just because it is the "just" or even reasonable thing to do. History is a record of the force they are perfectly willing to use to hang on. Hegemony is the ability to disguise and soften this "extra- economic" force but if you were in Seattle or Miami for anti-FTAA demonstrations you got a sneak peak behind the curtain.