Book Review: “G8 – Summit of Injustice” by Katja Kipping and Christine Buchholz
Two weeks ago, I announced the G8-publication “Summit of Injustice” by Katja Kipping and Christine Buchholz. Katja Kipping send me the book for a review and I am glad to write a few lines on the book.
The title and the subtitle of the book (“How eight governments govern over six billion people”) indicates the general direction of the book: it serves as a collection of critique of the G8 politics. The publishers have assembled a remarkable list of authors, such as Elmar Altvater,Alex Callinicos, Hugo Chávez, Oskar Lafontaine, Chantal Mouffe or Peter Wahl.
Kipping and Buchholz claim that they want to deliver arguments and ideas against the ruling of corporations. The book clearly gives a good overview over the debate within the leftwing-scene in Germany. Some articles are remarkably well-researched, some articles are simply reprinting of propaganda leaflets. Some articles give great insight, some are obscenely bland.
Nevertheless, as a documentation for the public debate and for all those who want to have the arguments against the G8 summit summarized in one book, the publication will serve a useful purpose. For others who want to look behind the often-repeated arguments of proponents and opponents of the G8 summit, the book can only serve as a starting point. Some of the political or the economic analysis given by authors is incorrect, but most articles are thought-provoking and through their radical approach quite interesting to read.
The general structure of the book makes sense: the first part covers the general system of the G8, the second part covers strategies of the left, the third covers specific topics of the G8 agenda, the fourth collects claims of various NGOs and why they support the Anti-G8 movement. However, not all authors could be pressed into this scheme.
What would be missing is a part on alternative models to the G8, how the left-wing scene would like to see global cooperation to happen and how they would like to solve the global economic and political problems, something that projects like the Vision-07-Summit , the Global Marshall Plan, or the Model G8 Youth Summit are trying to achieve.
The glossary and the given literature is good, but still not sufficient. Many relevant scientific institutions, such as the G8 Research Centre in Toronto are not mentioned. Also I think the importance of energy politics in the G8 framework is grossly neglected, even though a lot of factors indicate that energy politics has been the most important informal discussion at the G8 summits.
In following I want to give a few comments on each of the articles in the book:
Introduction: The authors claim that the book wants to bring together the various G8-critical organisation. What I found interesting is that they claim that the intellectual property rights of the book belong to the reader. I wonder how the publishing house sees this if somebody simply copies the whole book and sells it under their own name.
First Part: What are the G8 – Power and Counter-Power
- Peter Wahl (WEED) explains in his article “Like the spider in her net” the history, function and structur of the G8. His critical analysis gives a good account of the historical development of the G8 and the change in the public agenda. He also explains correctly that the G8 should neither be over- nor underestimated. He divides the G8 summitry into three phases: economic reorganisation (1975-81), rise of neoliberalism (1981-1996) and imperial global governance (1996 until now). Why he choses these separations is very unclear to me.
- Joachim Bischoff (WASG) discusses in his article “Progressive Regulation looks differently” how the G8 has withdrawn itself from international regulation and how the private capital markets have used this regulation gap for their own prosperity. His article and his proposed solution deserve more attention by me. His article is one of the best articles in the book from a scientific point of view, but should have centered more on the G8′s impact on the financial market.
- Oskar Lafontaine (WASG) writes about “Privatisation and Freedom – a false promise.” His account have almost nosthing to do with the G8, nevertheless it gives a good re-collection of anti-neoliberal philosophy.
- Walden Bello (Transnational Institute) article “Irak and the global equilibrium” is despite its origin in 2004 quite up-to-date and discusses in detail the failed strategy of the USA in Iraq. What I found interesting is that he also discussed how a pacifist, left-wing movement should see the resistance in the Iraq: “Anti-hegemonial movements around the world are in debt towards the Iraqi resistance because it has worsened the over-expansion-crisis of the American Empire”.
- Katja Kipping (Linkspartei) replies to Bellos idea in her short article on “Multilateral policies of detente instead of distanceless heroization of violence”.She cautions against an increasing spirale of violence.
- Osvaldo Calle Quinonez (Bolivia) history of the people’s movement in Bolivia is interesting. His supports his claim that “The people’s movement can overcome neoliberalism” by discussing the politics of Bolivian president Morales. Even though his account at times sounds like government-led propaganda, from an economic point of view his article shows that property rights are negotiable even in the international context. It shows that even if a government regains public control over private property such as oil fields, it does not necessarily mean that all private investors will be discouraged – which is a standard argument of economists.
- Hugo Chavez (Venezuela) has contributed a speech from the 2006 World Social Forum in Caracas called “For the anti-imperialistic fight of the people”. It certainly reads like an enthusiastic speech and is quite entertaining, from a scientific point of view, this as most of the other articles so far has nothing directly to do with the G8.
- Wolfgang Gehrcke (Linkspartei) has written an article called “A World after its own image”. As the speaker on foreign politics in the German Leftwing fraction he comments on the G8 and its role as global governance. This article deserves also more attention by me, for right now I just want to say that Gehrcke commits the same fallacy as most authors in the lefit-wing scene: over-attributing functions of global governance to the G8 – in other words expect more from the G8 than it can realistically do.
Second part: Where do we want to go – Strategies of the Left
- Chantal Mouffe (Belgium, “Are there serious politics far from left and right?”) and Alex Callinicos (“Like in El Alto”) are both discussing whether the anti-hegemonial movement can be discussed in the framework of the left-right-paradigm. Mouffe argues for, Callinicos against it. I will discuss both articles further in later posts.
- Wolfgang Methling (Linkspartei) writes about why the Left-Wing-Party in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern reluctantly agreed to host the G8 summit there. After the change of government in this state, his article “Yes to the strategic triangle” seems to be a little bit out of date.
- Katja Kipping (Linkspartei) writes about “The art of sustainable protests” is in my eyes one of the most thought-provoking articles – despite its shortness. Together with the article of Christine Buchholz (Linkspartei, “Courageous to take a stance”) they portray the debate within the left-wing scene on the most visible, most effective and at the same longest-lasting protests against neoliberalism. Kipping concept of “Ethics to Mention” and Buchholz accounts on the relations between party and movement will need more attention by me.
Third Part: The Agenda of the G8 and its alternatives
- Elmar Altvater (FU Berlin) and his article on “Petroimperalism” have really opened my eyes, even though my background knowledge on energy politics is already quite good, he has given me interesting food for thoughts on the relation of financial and energy markets. Especially his summary of what energy topics will be relevant in the future of the G8 is very interesting.
- Sevim Dagdelen (Linkspartei) writes about “Precariasation and Migration” and discusses the perspectives of young migrants in the current job market. Even though the article is not very much related to the G8 discussion, it gives some new details on the link between difficult job-situations and difficult citizenship-situations of especially migrants.
- Heike Hänsel (Linkspartei) focusses on the War against Terror. She argues that war is in fact a “Terror of the Rich and Powerful”. I personally think her argumentation is very one-sided, but her accounts of failed security policies by the G8 states is impressive.
- Heike Wieters and Max Henninger (Fels, Arranca!) take up the topic of precariasation again in their article “Existence Money instead of fight against poverty”. However they discuss it from the perspective of the basic income concept. The article is too short to discuss this concept in length, so the authors mention just a few concrete examples on how the Basic Income was realized.
- Jürgen Kaiser (erlassjahr.de) writes about the debt relief policies of the G8. Again this is one of the best-researched and thought-inspiring articles on the system of international inter-state debts and the G8 impacts on it.
- Rolf Künnemann (FIAN) writes about “Nutrition Security as a Human Right”. His article is interesting for everybody who is interested in International Law and Human Rights Development. I will try to discuss his article in a later posts, because I have some comments on his concept of Intellectual Property Rights.
- Michael Leutert (Linkspartei) writes about the relation of G8 protests and the reactions of the public authorities. When I read his article(“Genua Never Again”) , I remembered my own feelings at the G8 summit in Genua very well and I agree with him that public security needs transparency on both sides.
- Werner Ruf (University of Kassel) discusses “Islam – the new threat for the West” and gives an interesting account of the Economics of Public Attention. I will discuss his article in a later post.
- Bernd Riexinger and Werner Sauerborn (both WASG) write about the challenges to the classic European Union System in their article “How to stop someone who understands himself?”. They advocate for a better research on the new structures and roles of unions.
- Monika Knoche and Ute Watermann (IPPNW) are writing about “The Colonialisation of Knowledge” and intellectual property rights. I will review their article in detail soon.
Part Four: Why we mobilise for the summit
- Sabine Leidig (Attac), Jessica Heyer (DGB-Youth), Detlef Baade (Verdi), Christoph Lüdecke (fzs), Christoph Kleine (Interventionistische Linke) are all presenting statements for their organisation – but often the connection is not quite clear and the argumentation is not always as strong.
- Nabil Rachid (Arabian Organisation, Linkspartei) adds an interesting perspective from the Middle-East to the discussion and emphasizes the “Strategic importance of the Middle-East”.
- Peter Strutynski (Friedensratschlag) discusses the role of the peace-movement in “Power or Powerless?”.
- Susanne Luithlen (Gerechtigkeit Jetzt!) highlights the role of the WTO in her article “Worldwide deaf ears”, but again the arguments remain rather on the surface due to small size of the article.
- Andreas Geiger (BAG-SHI) writes about the German unemployment movement, but the relation to the G8 summit remains unclear.
The glossary and the list of literature remain short and are rather biased. Again can only serve as starting point, but the whole book does not aim to give a fair and unbiased view. Nevertheless for everybody interested in the G8 framework it is worthwhile to read.
The book can be bought at the Attac Webshop. Publishing House: VSA-Verlag, ISBN: 3-89965-200-2
