Editors' Introduction

Abstract

In this issue we have assembled three incisive commentaries on George DeMartino’s important book, Global Economy, Global Justice, along with a response by the author himself. Initially presented in a symposium that was organized by Jack Amariglio for the Marxism and the World Stage conference, these essays explore the resonance and reach both of DeMartino’s critique of the social ethics associated with contemporary neoliberalism and of the alternative approach to economic and social justice he advocates. William Milberg, in the first essay, outlines the major changes that have taken place during the postwar period in neoclassical economists’ analyses of international trade. According to Milberg, mainstream academic economics has largely abandoned its highly abstract, welfare-oriented model-building in favor of a more empiricist approach, thereby creating a theoretical void that ironically has been filled by a return to the market-celebrating claims of neoliberalism. Milberg then credits DeMartino with making explicit, and posing fundamental criticisms of, the ethical norms inherent in contemporary claims concerning the welfare-enhancing effects of free global markets. For Milberg, the task that must accompany contemporary expressions of justifiable outrage concerning the failings of global neoliberalism is precisely the one taken up by DeMartino: to think ‘‘carefully through the logic of neoliberalism, its moral underpinnings and its alternatives.’’ Julie Graham, for her part, applauds DeMartino’s ‘‘courage’’ and ‘‘strength of vision’’ in confronting a series of difficult issues*/affirming a workable model of social justice in the face of the grandiose claims of neoliberalism, identifying and avoiding the pitfalls of both moral objectivism and cultural relativism, and elaborating a concrete policy alternative even when using an antiessentialist framework of analysis. But Graham also expresses her misgivings concerning DeMartino’s proposal for a Social Index Tariff Structure, particularly the ‘‘dreary actualities’’ and violence of institutionalizing and universalizing such a system. The alternative, she suggests, is to see DeMartino’s proposal less as a final outcome and more as an initial attempt to interpellate the ‘‘subjects of global justice,’’ calling into being a politics that can constitute a new global order. DeMartino’s critical approach to the ethical claims of global neoliberalism explicitly draws on the ‘‘functionings’’ and ‘‘capabilities’’ approach of Amartya Sen. But, suggest Maliha Safri and Eray Düzenli, it also embodies a latent politics of radical democracy along the lines proposed by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, albeit with a ‘‘sexy twist.’’ Extending radical democracy into the economic realm and to the global level, DeMartino offers a new ‘‘suture,’’ a criterion of economic and social