"From World Order to Global Disorder" - A Review

I was lucky to get a new paperback version of this book for a bargain – the going rate for a hardcover is $75.00 which should tell you something about the book’s considered value, despite its title, the focus of which is not quite the “world” (but close enough for our purposes). From World Order to Global Disorder: States, Markets and Dissent (2007) was written by Dorval Brunelle, a Sociology Professor at the University of Quebec at Montreal. Translated by Richard Howard and published in English by UBC Press, the book addresses the shift in world “order” established more than 50 years ago at the end of the Second World War – Keynesianism, the mixed economy, the welfare state - and compares it with the so-called “disorder” established by the forces of globalization, deregulation and “liberalization”. Property rights and all the legal elements consistent with them have been strengthened, while the legal outlook protecting, say, the unemployed (and the planet itself) has been diminished. Overall, collective rights (and things “public”) have been weakened because neoclassical liberalism and the Chicago school (mentored by Milton Friedman) have difficulty seeing beyond the individual – and, indeed, transnational corporations. Some of this, of course, has been questioned since the Wall Street collapse of 2008.

Despite his penchant for sociological jargon, “horizontals” and “verticals”, Brunelle offers some interesting nuggets of Canadian history (mostly economic and political) and a good summary of the history of liberalism(s) over the past half century. He points out, importantly, that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was “essentially inspired by old-style philosophical liberalism” (the spirit of 1789, if not the letter), and that it was introduced in part to correct the abuses of provincial legislatures, both East and West. However, it spelled doom for parliamentary supremacy in Ottawa, bringing us closer to the U.S. model, where the judiciary reigns. Brunelle’s point is that the Canadian Charter, because it deepened the continental paradigm, made Free Trade all the more easy to advance.

Brunelle also asks an interesting question: why did Canada and the U.S. opt for Free Trade “when they already had the most integrated economies on the planet”? He answers that such closeness in the first place allowed Canada and the U.S. to negotiate an agreement with sweeping implications, keeping in mind the Recession of 1981-82 (considered at that time to be the worst since the Depression era), which affected Canada more than its neighbour to the south. Moreover, Free Trade was the central recommendation of the Macdonald Commission (begun in 1982 and tabled three years later). It aimed at reworking our economy, allegedly “balkanized” (the common bane of Canada, one way or another), and creating instead an “economic union” (minus our vulnerable populations) – following the historic recipe of the world’s first modern economies, nineteenth-century Britain and Germany, combined with the late twentieth-century example of the European Union.

However, the notorious Chapter 11 of the Canada - U.S. Free Trade Agreement (the number “11” being the “symbol of sin” to St. Augustine’s “legal 10”) guarantees investor rights, and allows them to challenge governments in court if nationalization were to be considered, placing government in a secondary position vis-à-vis corporations. In other words Ottawa ceded sovereignty to multinationals (unlike Mexico) under NAFTA; and what was once considered legislative or public power has further shifted out of the House of Commons and into the executive, or Cabinet (which abides by secrecy), the end result being an occasional meeting of heads – governmental and corporate, the latter backed by agreements outside the Canadian judiciary. What was public has been privatized, and our civil society suffers the loss of a responsible and accountable forum – save perhaps (I might add) for our Senate, our churches and our non-governmental organizations. Brunelle also looks for some help from our global social movements.

Keep in mind that this book was originally published in French in 2003. It does not focus much on people or prime ministers (it is in fact sociology) – and what stands for the era of Jean Chrétien is perfectly suited for Stephen Harper, perhaps even more so, given his dominance of the Cabinet and ideological predilections. Brunelle offers a penetrating analysis of our democratic deficit without being doctrinal; his book is a worthy and succinct read, and the fact is our legislatures are now poorly equipped to protect the collective rights of our own people – the public. No wonder I feel a sense of (philosophical) “liberty” (mixed with shame and compassion) each time a church offers up a little space for the homeless. One feels empowered by expressing dissent with the reeling consequences of globalization that knows neither home nor social justice.