[A-List] Civil Society - Progressive or Reactionary

["Henry C.K. Liu" <hliu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The definition provide by Center for Civil Society at the London School
of Economics reads as follows:

Civil society refers to the arena of uncoerced collective action around
shared interests, purposes and values. In theory, its institutional
forms are distinct from those of the state, family and market, though in
practice, the boundaries between state, civil society, family and market
are often complex, blurred and negotiated. Civil society commonly
embraces a diversity of spaces, actors and institutional forms, varying
in their degree of formality, autonomy and power. Civil societies are
often populated by organisations such as registered charities,
development non-governmental organisations, community groups, women's
organisations, faith-based organisations, professional associations,
trades unions, self-help groups, social movements, business
associations, coalitions and advocacy groups.

Established initially as the Centre for Voluntary Organisation, the
Centre has for over 20 years pioneered the study of the voluntary sector
in the UK, development NGOs and civil society organisations throughout
the world.

Thus Civil Society is by definition a devise to deal with externalities
of neo-liberal market fundamentalism through voluntarism, relieving
state failure from criticism.

This neoliberal approach of course was the same argument presented by
the defenders of 19th-century imperialism in which moral rationalization
was used to justify economic exploitation. Neoliberal values, namely
capitalistic democracy and market fundamentalism, become the new smiling
mask for economic exploitation not different from the "white man's
burden" of 19th-century Eurocentrism. The recurring financial crises
associated with financial globalization in the past two decades have
revived economic nationalism worldwide with parallels to the political
nationalism against imperialism of the previous century. The resitence
to this trends is the role assigned by neo-imperialists to the Civil
Society movement, just as the reform movements were tolerate to help
perpetuate imperialism.

Price in fact is the most manipulated component in a market economy.
That is the fundamental flaw of market fundamentalism. Friedrich Hayek's
rejection of socialist thinking is based on his view that prices are an
instrument of communication and guidance, which embodies more
information than each market participant individually processes. To
Hayek, it is impossible to bring about the same price-based order based
on the division of labor by any other means. Similarly, the distribution
of incomes based on a vague concept of merit or need is impossible.
Prices, including the price of labor, are needed to direct people to go
where they can do the most good. The only effective distribution is one
derived from market principles. On that basis, Hayek intellectually
rejects socialism.

The only trouble with this view is that Hayek's notion of price is a
romantic illusion and nowhere practiced. That was how the native
Americans sold Manhattan to the Dutch for a handful of beads.

Globalization based on the rules of market fundamentalism in the past
decade has grossly underprovided public goods. The mostly obvious
examples are environmental protection and poverty elimination. This
correction of this deficiency in public good is now left to Civil
Society thus the state needs not bother with it.

When someone other than the recipient of a benefit bears the costs for
its production, the costs of the benefit are external to its enjoyment.
Economists call these external costs negative "externalities". These
amount to a market failure to distribute costs and benefits efficiently.
Globalization is basically a game of negative externalities, as
evidenced by the infamous Summer World Bank memo on the immaculate logic
of locating pollution in the poorest countries. Inhuman wages and
working conditions, together with unfunded environmental protection and
cleanup, are other negative externalities that benefit the US inflation
rate.  The Civil Society movement is the garbage dump of negative
externalities created by market fundamentalism.

Henry C.K. Liu