As the Soviet Union successfully accomplished its hara kiri in the most grotesque of styles, for the first time in this world populated overwhelmingly by the have-nots, the market economy — based on the capitalist mode of production — established its unchallenged hegemony on the ‘wretched of the earth’. With the backing of the middle class, the process of altering the language that was already in vogue was hastened. A new lexicon was created; it was inundated with new jargon, rigmarole and balderdash. A few words that lacked the element of conformity were meticulously deleted. Some that blatantly exposed the irrationality of the new order akin to class, false consciousness and surplus value were declared redundant and hence pushed into oblivion. New terminologies such as rationalisation, meaning social cuts and entitlements, indicating the scuttling of the most inalienable human rights such as health, education and unemployment allowances, and rightsizing, that stood for mass unemployment, were introduced. These euphemistic cadences were meant to conceal or mollify the hideous crimes that were about to be committed against humanity. The treachery and caprice hidden right behind these terminologies became evident no sooner was the veil on them lifted. The reality proved atrociously ugly, especially when dearth, deprivation and depredation extracted a heavy toll from the masses. Poverty, hunger and a mass exodus of the working class from workplaces exposed the myth behind this glittering deceit. Globalisation too was part of the same linguistic jugglery marred by deception — a word that creates a fixated structure and demands from the individual to behave in a similar fixated and specific manner. The granger it carries conveys simultaneously a sense of intimidation and glorification. The objective is to insinuate subservience and silent conformism to the newly established reality in which the human being is nothing but a stupefied buffoon, a newly born Lilliputian. In this new reality, “Everyone is under the whip of a superior agency. Those who occupy the commanding positions have little more autonomy than their subordinates; they are bound down by the power they wield” (Horkheimer). Under the banner of internationalism, the idea of globalisation was initially floated by Marx. This claim can be advanced with certainty but contrary to the bourgeois expression it had drastically different connotations than what has been presented by hegemonic powers. In capitalism, the very syntax of the word has been altered. Akin to a merger of two opposites such as ‘mother of evil’ and ‘father of the nuclear bomb’, the word globalisation too carries tacit and tactful ambiguity. The idea related to this world becoming a global village is neither farce nor holds anything unique or utopian. Despite having different colours, creeds and cultures, the people of this world have one thing in common: they are human beings. They share the same feelings, emotions and pathos though with variable intensities. However, vested interests have created artificial boundaries between people. The motive is to check the movement of labour from one official line of demarcation to the other and to foment the hysteria of hatred that could culminate into war for the realisation of capital. Workers of India and Pakistan, the citizens of apparently two hostile nuclear-armed nations, have no reason to keep any grudge against each other. Both are afflicted by the same malady of hunger and poverty. Either one is stymied and stifled by the expropriation and exploitation of its respective native bourgeoisie in collusion with international capitalism. Having a common enemy, their fight can only embrace success if they integrate themselves as a unified bulwark against the highly organised forces of oppression. But here lies the rub; the interaction of the working class could be inimical for the ruling classes that, according to Engels, are the executive councils of the bourgeoisie. In Marxism, globalisation means the ultimate stage of redemption of humanity, when a new human being will be born who, according to Nietzsche, is not “ashamed of himself”. A human being created by a society of free producers, a society that will abandon the concept of free labour in favour of freedom from labour itself, which in all circumstances remains an alienated objectified process. According to Herbert Marcuse, “Marx rejects the idea that work can ever become play. Alienation would be reduced with the progressive reduction of the working day, but the latter would remain a day of unfreedom, rational but not free. However, the development of productive forces beyond their capitalist organisation suggests the possibility of freedom within the realm of necessity. The quantitative reduction of necessary labour could turn into quality (freedom), not in proportion to the reduction but rather to the transformation of the working day, a transformation in which the stupefying, enervating, pseudo-automatic jobs of capitalist progress would be abolished.” Once this society based on exploitation is dispensed with, the new human being will turn the process of production into a process of creation. Work or labour will cease to be a necessity. It will be carried out since the human being is born to work for the advancement and welfare of mankind. Everybody may not become an Einstein, Gorky, Picasso or Mozart but the phenomenon of becoming great — much like these personalities — will not remain so rare. The idea of globalisation propounded and realised by capitalism is altogether different. It is synonymous with the brutalisation of the free market economy. When launched in the early 1990s, its commandments rallied around controlled democracy, free trade, minimised role of the state, an uninhibited transfer of wealth from one corner of the world to the other, labour market flexibility, which meant pushing wages down and workers out, unbridled access to all potential markets, hegemony of the IMF and World Bank. “The most important reforms involved lifting constraints on labour mobility and wage flexibility as well as breaking the ties between social services and labour contracts” (Noam Chomsky). This was a euphuism for absolute privatisation including once tabooed industries of health, education and even the army, airports and security. To avoid any threat to the realisation of capital, institutions such as the Pentagon and NATO became the overseers of this hegemonic arrangement. As Noam Chomsky states, “Cynical slogans such as ‘trust the people’ or ‘minimise the state’ did not call for increasing popular control. They shifted decisions from government to other hands, but not the people.” Once the ‘evil empire’ of the USSR swiftly succumbed, capitalism, in its euphoria, succumbed to the fallacy of resolving all contradictions inherent in its system automatically through market forces. The future appeared to be one having smooth sailing but the Marxist negation of the negation turned out to be reality yet again. Capitalism itself is its own nemesis. Why would it need any other foe? The demise of its erstwhile enemy turned out to be a decisive blow to its own survival. Many seething internal contradictions that in the presence of the Soviet Union lay hidden, came to the fore. The huge military-industrial complex built to counter the enemy on a permanent basis suddenly found its utility outlived. The very idea of shutting down the huge private enterprise producing the means of destruction was impossible for an economy based on war. The control of this ‘destructive’ mafia was so effective that the whole ruling hierarchy, while owning its existence to its mercy, was held hostage to the barrel of its gun. Except for the creation of another immediate enemy, the constant piling up of armaments was becoming a liability both for the capitalists who were constantly producing it and the state that was obliged to purchase it. (To be continued) The writer is based in Australia and has authored books on socialism and history. He can be reached at saulatnagi@hotmail.com