Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog. Views expressed here are mine and mine only.

This third part of my report from the GSA conference (part 1 and part 2 ) was truly the best, from my point of view, because it featured a speech by one of my favorite sociologists (if not THE favorite), William Robinson, of UC Santa Barbara. He is the author of what I consider the authoritative social theory book on globalization: A Theory of Global Capitalism: Production, Class, and State in a Transnational World.

In his presentation, Robinson contrasted his approach to globalization as qualitatively different phenomenon (transnationalism) as opposed to the school of thought he labeled “new imperialism.” Robinson’s view of globalization involves specific features:

• the rise of truly transnational capital with integration of all countries into that system;
• the rise of the transnational state (TNS) where class power is exercised through networks and by the transnational capitalist class (TCC - especially its political / executive component);
• the development of new relations of power and inequalities on a global scale
• the increased power of the transnational corporation (TNC)

So, for the maths-oriented among us: Globalization = TNS + TNC + TCC = true transnationalism.

What we are seeing then, for Robinson, is a reconfiguration of the power of the nation-state as agent of the TNCs, TCC and TNS. The nation-state does not disappear but is displaced in influence. It is one level of power that transnational agents use for their own purposes, for instance, when countries that are members of the EU use their national institutions to implement transnational directives coming from above (the EU level) or when countries again use national institutions to enforce WTO rulings.

This system, though, is in crisis on several levels:

• social polarization on a global scale
• overaccumulation and unloading of surplus
• legitimacy
• social control
• legitimacy
• sustainability

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Apparently the ridicule was too much. Senator Obama has dropped his faux seal. More from Advertising Age’s Campaign Trail.

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Join a global movement to solve the climate crisis.

Únete a este movimiento internacional para solucionar la crisis del cambio climático.

Joignez-vous au mouvement pour résoudre la crise climatique.

Unisciti ad un movimento globale per risolvere la crisi climatica.

Присоединитесь к мировому движению по решению глобального потепления.

Schließe Dich einer globalen Bewegung an, um die Klimakrise zu lösen.

気候の危機に対処する世界的運動に参加しましょう

Please visit 350.org for more information.

350 is the most important number on the planet because that’s the safe line of carbon dioxide in parts per million for life as we know it on this planet. We are currently at 387 PPM and climbing higher at a rate of 2 PPM per year.

Twenty years ago today, NASA scientist James Hansen sounded the alarm in testimony before Congress about a “greenhouse effect” and the build-up of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere. Here’s his full testimony (pdf.) Here’s a few highlights of what he said then:

“The earth is warmer in 1988 than at any time in the history of instrumental measurements”

“The global warming now is large enough that we can ascribe with a high degree of confidence a cause-and-effect relationship to the greenhouse effect … Our computer climate simulations indicate that the greenhouse effect is already large enough to begin to effect the probability of extreme events such as summer heat waves.”

“There is only a 1% chance of an accidental warming of this magnitude. … The greenhouse effect has been detected, and it is changing our climate now.”

The next day, the headline in New York Times read “Global warming has begun.” Twenty years, any real action has failed to take place. Why? In a few words, the oil and natural gas lobby that puts profits before people and their own welfare, short-sighted as that is, before the common good of life on this planet. They are condemning us to a hell on Earth.

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This new Republican National Committee ad asks what Obama’s real position is on trade issues. It’s hard to tell.

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Rebecca Traister this week writing in Salon thinks she knows how 18 million people think:

The attack of the PUMAs, or a dozen reasons why Clinton voters are still too angry to come home.

If you’re a dedicated Democrat — or perhaps even one of those fed-up Republicans we’ve heard about — there’s a good chance you’re pretty stoked right about now. After a grueling but thrilling primary contest, we at last have decided on a history-making, barrier-breaking Democratic presidential candidate. You’re excited! You’re inspired! You’re ready to hit rural Ohio with enough campaign literature to choke a wavering independent!

But why do you keep hearing all these stories about grumpy old ladies still hung up on Hillary Clinton, the ones who’re threatening to make a scene at the Democratic convention in Denver, or vote for John McCain in November?

To be fair, it’s not just women. There are plenty of Clinton supporters of every demographic description who are still ticked. But yes, it’s true that the Clinton base skewed female, and that women over 30 are the most vocal of the malcontents. Some of them are calling themselves “PUMAs” (as in “Party Unity My Ass”), an acronym that makes them sound, appropriately enough, like cougars in a very bad mood. Who are these women, and why are they such buzzkills?

A buzzkill? A buzzkill would be a disasterous Presidency from a dangerously inexperienced 46 year old Senator who misspeaks on issues ranging from the status of Jerusalem to meeting global dictators and sponsors of global terrorism without preconditions and has no core convictions and for whom everything is a matter of political expediency. That’s a buzzkill. And PUMA, at least for me, stands for People United Means Action.

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Enough is enough. Mugagbe must be ousted by force if necessary. A nation is being starved to death. Systematic violence has swept across Zimbabwe for months and not a finger has been lifted in Africa nor the West. We condemn Mugagbe daily in the press and in the halls of power and we watch another genocide develop before our very eyes once again.

The press release from Zimbabwe Movement for Democratic Change:

The MDC won the March 29th elections despite conditions that were far from free and fair. Our party’s message of peaceful, democratic change and rebuilding a New Zimbabwe enjoys the support of the vast majority of Zimbabweans.

Our election victory confirmed this to Mugabe and since that date, he and his supporters have been waging a war against the people of Zimbabwe.

This violent retributive agenda has seen over 200,000 people internally displaced and over 86 MDC supporters killed. Over 20,000 homes have been destroyed and over 10 000 people have been injured and maimed in this orgy of violence.

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Here’s the Monday, June 23rd, 2008 edition of interesting reads and news from around the world.

Tarija Votes for Autonomy
Tarija was the fourth of Bolivia’s nine provinces to approve such a statute in referendums that Bolivian President Evo Morales has called illegal because they were not called by the country’s Congress. The full story in the Miami Herald.

Put Oil & Gas CEOs on Trial for Crimes Against Humanity
James Hansen, one of the world’s leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer. The story from UK Guardian.

Lufthansa To Focus on India & China Markets With a Twist
Eyeing the India, China markets for its future growth, the German air carrier Lufthansa was also planning to enter the market of providing private jets to industrialists, private companies and top CEOs in both countries. Lufthansa is also adding an all business class flight between Frankfurt and Pune. More from The Hindu.

Women in the Japanese Workplace
Canada’s Global and Mail looks at the role of women in the Japanese economy, the second largest in the world.

Japanese women remain second-class citizens in the workplace, underrepresented, under-used and undervalued. Just 0.8 per cent of Japanese chief executive officers are women, compared with 10 per cent in Britain. Less than 10 per cent of managers are women, compared with 43 per cent in the United States. Japan’s female employment rate is 25 percentage points below the male rate, the highest gap for any major industrialized country except for Spain and Italy.

Thai PM Sundaravej Ever More Embattled
The Wall Street Journal reports that Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej, already under pressure from street protests and a looming no-confidence vote, was grilled Monday by the Thai Senate over his management of the economy.

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Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

Via the BBC,

“Christine Lagarde, the country’s first female minister for finance and the economy, says it is time for French people to “roll up their sleeves” and stop thinking about holidays.”

Bon Chance!!!! Good luck with that, Madame Le Ministre for Finance and the Economy. We, lazy French people, have survived attempts at reform from a lot of conservative governments. And you know what, we love our five week vacations and social benefits, so, you know what you can do with your US-neo-liberal-style reform?

Actually, Madame Le Ministre seems quite clueless:

“She says she was struck on her return [from the US] by an “ethical change” in the French. “Instead of thinking about their work, people were thinking about their weekend… organising, planning and engineering time off,” she says.

Not that Christine Lagarde believes that life should be “work and nothing else”.

Looking out from her office window in the huge Soviet-style finance ministry, she points out the barges on the River Seine below - a reminder she says, of how slow things can be when other events are moving at high speed.

Making rapid progress recently has been the minister’s pet project, a bill to modernise the French economy. Last week it passed its first reading in the National Assembly and will shortly go before the Senate.

“More enterprises and more competition” were the objectives, she told parliament earlier this month, in order to obtain three concrete results: “more growth, more jobs and more purchasing power”.

Christine Lagarde’s task is to sell some of the most challenging reforms of the Sarkozy era to the French people. Her call for harder work, as well as the measures contained in the economy bill, can touch a raw nerve.”

Oh yeah, pass that bill and you know what she’ll be seeing next out from her office window? The huge demonstrations that are sure to follow. The French people (like me) can be profoundly (and proudly) annoying but we are not stupid. When we hear reform, we know it means cutting back our social benefits.

Has it occurred to Madame Le Ministre that the French might actually prefer vacations to money? No, of course not, neo-liberals can only conceive that everybody is as soullessly greedy as they are.

Photo Source: AFP from article.

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