Trasformismo

The belle epoque of neo-socialdemocracy during the second half of the 1990s and the first half of the 2000s marked the last step in the exhaustion of the utopian energies that had emerged from the 1960s cultural rebellion. Its inscription into neoliberalism and the neoliberal transformation of social democracy has not only severely damaged traditional social democracy, but along the collapse of Eastern and Western communism and the generally declining integrative potentials of former Volksparteien it has also entailed the emergence of right-wing populist parties (or forces within first-past-the-post voting systems) as an almost universal byproduct of neoliberal social restructuring. The rise of the  German Left-wing Party as a transregional German party marks a historical turning point. It is the first left-wing articulation of the contradictions of neoliberalism that has hindered the rise of right-wing populism at the national level, which in 2004 still seemed inevitable, and embodies a new left that is not merely a remainder of the fallen Western new left or Eastern communism. The leftist articulation of the contradictions of neoliberalism, however, do not imply that right-wing populism has been banned for good. This points to the historical responsibility carried by the left-wing party both in Germany and beyond.

A central pillar of contemporary conspiracy theories is the notion that all modern wars were secretely plotted and instigated by the Federal Reserve Bank. In these circles, the founding of the so called "Creature from Jekyll Island" in 1913 is considered a coup d'état of the international haute finance which enabled the U.S.'s entry into World War One a year later and the building of the American Empire. Also right-wing libertarians critical of U.S. foreign interventions like the U.S. Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul have led a long struggle to "End the Fed" (as his 2009 book is called), and signs to "End the Fed" could also be seen at demonstrations of the international Occupy movement leading to heated debates and confrontations. Against these conspiracy theories and drawing on key American historians' debates, this paper scrutinizes the actual historical origins of the 1913 Federal Reserve Act and shows that the founding of the Federal Reserve took place not in a period of defeat but rather the advance of subaltern social forces and that the Federal Reserve Act is an embodiment of a historic compromise between various social classes and class fractions in the political economy of the United States prior to World War One. Drawing on the theoretical tradition of neo-Gramscianism, the paper argues that the emergence of a U.S. variant of a central bank is best understood in terms of Antonio Gramsci's concept of "trasformismo" which, in an historically open-ended process, created the Federal Reserve and a U.S. variant of "social imperialism" as a result of the "law of unintended consequences" of historical social movements. In other words, the American Empire was not the result of a devious plan by an all-powerful American or transnational ruling class, but rather its Making was the consequence of a political process in which subaltern social forces, unable to fundamentally challenge the existing power structure as such, are co-opted, absorbed and inscribe themselves into that very structure.

South Korea’s history of economic development and corresponding political struggle is usually told from the perspective of speculators whose intellectual investment in this nation is rooted in pursuits toward capital accumulation.2 But Korea’s ongoing melee of labour unrest has trans- formed the face of development domestically throughout several stages of what Antonio Gramsci called ‘passive revolution’, which I relate to global political economic struggles for the creation and control of ideas about how to best compete and survive in the rapidly globalising world without complete destruction of national accord. (This is my published PhD and first monograph, published first in 2007 in then in 2012 in paperback)

The belle epoque of neo-socialdemocracy during the second half of the 1990s and the first half of the 2000s marked the last step in the exhaustion of the utopian energies that had emerged from the 1960s cultural rebellion. Its inscription into neoliberalism and the neoliberal transformation of social democracy has not only severely damaged traditional social democracy, but along the collapse of Eastern and Western communism and the generally declining integrative potentials of former catch-all parties it has also entailed the emergence of right-wing populist parties (or forces within first-past-the-post voting systems) as an almost universal byproduct of neoliberal social restructuring. The rise of the  German Left-wing Party as a transregional German party marks a historical turning point. It is the first left-wing articulation of the contradictions of neoliberalism that has hindered the rise of right-wing populism at the national level, which in 2004 still seemed inevitable, and embodies a new left that is not merely a remainder of the fallen Western new left or Eastern communism. The leftist articulation of the contradictions of neoliberalism, however, do not imply that right-wing populism has been banned for good. This points to the historical responsibility carried by the left-wing party both in Germany and beyond.

In this paper, I want to evaluate the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) public transparency and participation reforms as a response to its democratic deficits and legitimacy crisis. Campaigns by social movements and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) have generated this crisis of legitimacy through highlighting, not only the inequalities of policy outputs, but also the undemocratic practices amongst members (internal transparency and participation) and the absence of public oversight and accountability (external transparency and participation). To transform policy outputs and address internal and external democratic deficits (transparency and participation) many NGOs have sought the right to contribute to ‘policy-making, policy-implementation, compliance-monitoring, and dispute settlement’ (Goetz and Jenkins 2005, Van de Bossche 2008). By 2005, the Director General of the WTO applauded reforms aimed at NGOs engagement as ‘important steps towards greater transparency’. Academics from a social constructivist perspective perceive such official NGO accreditation to be responsible for generating new behavioural norms for states (Ruggie 1998; 2002, Park 2006). From a more critical perspective, I outline the democratic deficits at the WTO and assess its response to these deficits through public transparency and participation reforms. I argue current reforms use the language of ‘public access’ (WTO 2005a), ‘public hearings’ (WTO 2005b), ‘public observations’ (WTO 2005b), ‘transparency’ (WTO 2005c), ‘partnership’ and ‘dialogue’ (WTO 2005d) to enhance the WTO’s legitimacy, whilst crucially ensuring these reforms do not allow significant changes to the WTO’s policies, processes or philosophy.

„Er wollte wiedergewählt werden. Gewiß, das wollten sie alle. Aber Keetenheuve wollte wiedergewählt werden, weil er sich für einen der wenigen hielt, die ihr Mandat noch als eine Anwaltschaft gegen die Macht auffaßten […]. Korodin von der anderen Partei, sein Gegner im Ausschuß für Petitionen, nannte Keetenheuve einen Menschenrechtsromantiker, der Verfolgte suchte, Geknechtete, um ihnen die Ketten abzunehmen, Leute, denen Unrecht widerfahren, Keetenheuve war immer auf der Seite der Armen und der Sonderfälle, er stand den Unorganisierten bei und nie den Kirchen und Kartellen, doch auch den Parteien nicht, nicht unbedingt selbst der eigenen Partei, und das verstimmte die Parteifreunde, und manchmal schien es Keetenheuve, als ob Korodin, sein Gegner, ihn am Ende noch besser verstand als die Fraktion, mit der er sich verbunden hatte.“1

Il tema principale del libro è la carenza di senso civico propria degli italiani dovuta a ciò che Altan definisce la storica "arretratezza socioculturale" del Paese, con cui intende soprattutto il clientelismo, il trasformismo nella gestione del potere e il ribellismo anarchico di molti italiani. L'autore ripercorre i principali eventi storici dall'Unità ad oggi cercando in essi la causa dei fenomeni accennati.