The world we live in has raised social production to unimaginable levels. Ordinary people and social scientists don’t realise this despite all the literature on globalisation. This is because the literature and discourse on globalisation is tainted with an ideology that denigrates social empowerment and encourages individualism. In so doing globalisation is explained with concepts like, financial integration, the vertical and horizontal integration of production, the division of labour, mobility of capital and so on. What is not highlighted is the fact that what we eat and wear, where we stay, the transport we use, the schools we attend and almost everything we consume all embody the labour not of one or two people but of thousands and millions of people across the world. Even when the depth and breadth of this is recognised, companies are given the credit and the workers they exploit are relegated to the status of a mere factor of production. It is only with the realisation that women and men workers throughout the world – whether in the formal or informal economy – are the life source of society that the prospects of different futures can be imagined and the shackles of the dominant individualistic paradigms – now best epitomised by neo liberalism – can be broken.

While production is socialised, wealth and its accumulation is private. There are a few multinational companies (MNCs) in which this wealth resides and those in control of the major MNCs decide how much to reward the rich, how little to give those it employs, how much it will contribute to social welfare. They even dictate how much government will get from taxes through various institutional means. And they prop up institutions that propagate how necessary their survival is for society to develop and escape poverty, especially when their legitimacy is put into serious question.

For this reason the Equator School, hosted by SEATINI and the The Other Canon from 21-30 March 2004 in Entebbe (Uganda), will be a thorn in the side of the ruling classes. It left no stone unturned in exposing the atrocities of a system that is based on profit – profit at any cost. In careful detail it outlined the main features of this system today, it provided a critical analysis of this system and helped develop an enabling synthesis of the vast experience in Africa of how to resist and challenge the dominant forces of exploitation based in the North. The papers by presenters are too rich in theoretical and historical detail to do justice to in a short article and in any case are worth reading and engaging on their own terms. To encourage this reading it is worth capturing the general thrust that emerged from the various presenters: Yash Tandon, Eric Reinert, Kieth Nurse, Krishan Kapoor, Annalisa Primi, Joy Kimemia, Shireen Essof, Jan Kregel, Rashid Kaukub, Helene Bank, Odour Ongwen, Jane Nalunga, Patrick Bond and Okello Oculli.

Features of a System in Crisis
Through the various presentations key features of the capitalist system emerged:

• The divide between the rich and poor in every country has become socially immoral and is getting worse as wealth is diverted from the poor to the rich.
• The division between rich countries in the North and poor countries in the South has become untenable as rich countries accumulate surpluses that cannot be consumed and poor countries are robbed from basic means of sustenance through the finance, trade and investment structures.
• Women throughout the world face extreme economic and social hardships despite the major role they play in economic production and social reproduction.

• Companies amass huge profits while their employees receive declining real wages and worsening conditions of employment.

• Technological advancement, instead of enhancing the quality of life, has reproduced inequality within and between countries on a greater scale as workers are thrown out of steady employment.

• Culture has become a source of exploitation rather than enlightenment through its commodification by the music and art industries.

• The state has been further alienated from its citizens through institutional means often under the guise of “good governance” in which there is no room for the basic concerns of citizens to be dealt with and their human dignity maintained.

Analysis
While the features above present a bleak picture, the analysis emerging in the Equator School revealed that it is indeed a system in crisis of great proportion. Local, national, regional and global markets are distorted by monopolies, threatened by speculation and often destroyed through war in recurring cycles.

This crisis begs alternative approaches to development and these have been forthcoming from different experiences and struggles. Alternatives that range from the human rights approach to the neo-Keynesian approach, including Marxian and feminist approaches, have emerged. A key component of the analysis was the interrogation of power and identity – and how identity can both construct and decentre power and vice versa. These different approaches all have their own strengths and weaknesses, nevertheless they all present a formidable challenge to the neo-liberal approach, which in its defence can only claim: “there is no alternative”.

Synthesis
Through critical debate and discussion, participants and presenters of the Equator School reached a common synthesis that outweighs the remaining differences and disagreements. The synthesis is one of alliance building on the principle of opposing neo-liberal policies and the neo-classical economic philosophy it is based on because of the horrendous consequences it is having on the world we livein.

The alliance building process should be based on lessons learnt from the development experience in Africa: self-reliance, self-sustainment, democratisation and equitable distribution of development. The endeavour to resist and provide alternatives to neo-liberal policies needs also to take on a mass character and the practicing and promotion of democracy, transparency, tolerance and the building of an intellectual and critical culture within organisations and movements that will comprise this alliance.

This challenge to build an alliance is a noble one and with the continued effort of the organisers of the Equator School and from the numerous organisations from which participants were drawn, there is no doubt that strides will be made sooner rather than later.

*Saliem Patel is with Labour Research Service, Cape Town, South Africa and was a student at the Equator School.
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