NGOs: In the Service of Imperialism by James Petras

Throughout history ruling classes, representing small minorities, have

always depended on the coercive state apparatus and social institutions to

defend their power, profits and privileges. In the past, particularly in the

Third World, imperial ruling classes financed and supported overseas and

domestic religious institutions to control exploited people and deflect

their discontent into religious and communal rivalries and conflicts. While these practices continue today, in more recent decades a new social

institution emerged that provides the same function of control and

ideological mystification - the self-described non-governmental

organizations (NGOs). Today there are at least 50,000 NGOs in the Third

World receiving over $10 billion in funding from international financial

institutions, Euro-US-Japanese governmental agencies and local governments.

The managers of the biggest NGOs manage million dollar budgets with salaries

and perks that are comparable to CEOs. They jet to international

conferences, confer with top corporate and financial directors and make

policy decisions that affect - in the great majority of cases adversely -

millions of people ... especially the poor, women and informal sector

working people. The NGOs are significant world-wide political and social actors operating in

rural and urban sites of Asia, Latin America and Africa and frequently

linked in dependent roles with their principle donors in Europe, the US and

Japan. It is symptomatic of the pervasiveness of the NGOs and their economic

and political power over the so-called "progressive world" that there have

been few systematic Left critiques of the negative impact of NGOs. In a

large part this failure is due to the success of the NGOs is displacing and

destroying the organized Leftist movements and co-opting their intellectual

strategists and organizational leaders. Today most left movement and popular spokespeople focus their criticism on

the IMF, World Bank, multi-national corporations, private banks, etc. who

fix the macroeconomic agenda for the pillage of the Third World. This is an

important task. However, the assault on the industrial base, independence

and living standards of the Third World takes place on both the

macro-economic and the micro-socio-political level. The egregious effects of

structural adjustment policies on wages and salaried workers, peasants and

small national businesspeople generates potential nationalpopular

discontent. And that is where the NGOs come into the picture to mystify and

deflect that discontent away from direct attacks on the corporate/banking

power structure and profits toward local micro-projects and apolitical

"grass roots" self-exploitation and "popular education" that avoids class

analysis of imperialism and capitalist exploitation. The NGOs world-wide have become the latest vehicle for upward mobility for

the ambitious educated classes: academics, journalists, and professionals

have abandoned earlier excursions in the poorly rewarded leftists movements

for a lucrative career managing an NGO, bringing with them their

organizational and rhetorical skills as well as a certain populist

vocabulary. Today, there are thousands of NGO directors who drive $40,000

four wheel drive sports vehicles from their fashionable suburban home or

apartment to their well-furnished office or building complex, leaving the

children and domestic chores in the hands of servants, their yards tended by

gardeners. They are more familiar and spend more time at the overseas sites

of their international conferences on poverty (Washington, Bangkok, Tokyo,

Brussels, Rome, etc.) then at the muddy villages of their own country. They

are more adept at writing up new proposals to bring in hard currency for

"deserving professionals" than risking a rap on the head from the police

attacking a demonstration of underpaid rural school teachers.

The NGO leaders are a new class not based on property ownership or

government resources but derived from imperial funding and their capacity to

control significant popular groups. The NGO leaders can be conceived of as a

kind of neo-compradore group that doesn't produce any useful commodity but

does function to produce services for the donor countries - mainly trading

in domestic poverty for individual perks. The formal claims used by NGO directors to justify their position - that

they fight poverty, inequality, etc. are self-serving and specious. There is

a direct relation between the growth of NGOs and the decline of living

standards: the proliferation of NGOs has not reduced structural

unemployment, massive displacements of peasants, nor provided liveable wage

levels for the growing army of informal workers. What NGOs have done, is

provided a thin stratum of professionals with income in hard currency to

escape the ravages of the neo-liberal economy that affects their country,

people and to climb in the existing social class structure. This reality contrasts with the self-image that NGO functionaries have of

themselves. According to their press releases and public discourses, they

represent a Third Way between "authoritarian statism" and "savage market

capitalism": they describe themselves as the vanguard of "civil society"

operating in the interstices of the "global economy." The common purpose

that most resounds at NGO conferences is "alternative development." The phrase-mongering about "civil society" is an exercise in vacuity.

"Civil society" is not a unitary virtuous entity - it is made of classes

probably more profoundly divided as ever in this century. Most of the

greatest injustices against workers are committed by the wealthy bankers in

civil society who squeeze out exorbitant interest payments on internal debt;

landlords who throw peasants off the land and industrial capitalists who

exhaust workers at starvation wages in sweatshops. By talking about "civil

society" NGOers obscure the profound class divisions, class exploitation and

class struggle that polarizes contemporary "civil society." While

analytically useless and obfuscating, the concept, "civil society"

facilitates NGO collaboration with capitalist interests that finance their

institutes and allows them to orient their projects and followers into

subordinate relations with the big business interests that direct the

neoliberal economies. In addition, not infrequently the NGOers'

civil society rhetoric is a ploy to attack comprehensive public programs and

state institutions delivering social services. The NGOers side with big

business' "anti-statist" rhetoric (one in the name of "civil society"

the other in the name of the "market") to reallocate state resources. The

capitalists' "anti-Statism" is used to increase public funds to subsidize

exports and financial bailouts, the NGOers try to grab a junior share via

"subcontracts" to deliver inferior services to fewer recipients. Contrary to the NGOers' self-image who see themselves as innovative grass

roots leaders, they are in reality the grass root reactionaries who

complement the work of the IMF by pushing privatization "from below" and

demobilizing popular movements, thus undermining resistence. The ubiquitous NGOs thus present the Left with a serious challenge that

requires a critical political analysis of their origins, structure and

ideology. Origin Structure and Ideology of the NGOs NGOs appear to have a contradictory role in politics. On the one hand they

criticize dictatorships and human rights violations. On the other hand they

compete with radical socio-political movements, attempting to channel

popular movements into collaborative relations with dominant neo-liberal

elites. In reality, these political orientations are not so contradictory as

they appear. Surveying the growth and proliferation of NGOs over the past quarter of a

century we find that NGOs emerged in three sets of circumstances. First of

all, as a safe haven for dissident intellectuals during dictatorships where

they could pursue the issue of human rights violations and organize

"survival strategies" for victims of harsh austerity programs. These

humanitarian NGOs however, were careful not to denounce the role of US and

European complicity with the local perpetrators of human rights violations

nor did they questions the emerging "free market" policies that impoverished

the masses. Thus the NGOers were strategically placed as "democrats" who

would be available as political replacements for local ruling classes and

imperial policy makers when repressive rulers began to be seriously

challenged by popular mass movements. Western funding of the NGOs as critics

was a kind of buying insurance in case the incumbent reactionaries faltered.

This was the case with the "critical" NGOs that appeared during the Marcos

regime in the Philippines, the Pinochet regime in Chile, the Park

dictatorship in Korea, etc. The real boost in NGO mushrooming however, occurs in time of rising mass

movements that challenge imperial hegemony. The growth of radical

socio-political movements and struggles provided a lucrative commodity which

ex-radical and pseudo popular intellectuals could sell to interested,

concerned and well-financed private and public foundations closely tied with

European and US multi-nationals and governments. The funders were interested

in information - social science intelligence - like the "propensity for

violence in urban slum areas" (an NGO project in Chile during the mass

uprisings of 1983-86), the capacity of NGOers to raid popular communities

and direct energy toward self-help projects instead of social

transformations and the introduction of a class collaborationist rhetoric

packaged as "new identity discourses" that would discredit and isolate

revolutionary activists. Popular revolts loosened the purse strings of overseas agencies and millions

poured into Indonesia, Thailand and Peru in the seventies; Nicaragua, Chile,

Philippines in the 80s; El Salvador, Guatemala, Korea in the 90s. The NGOers

were essentially there to "put out the fires." Under the guise of

constructive projects they argued against engaging in ideological movements

thus effectively using foreign funds to recruit local leaders, send them to

overseas conferences to give testimonials, while effectively encouraging

local groups to adapt to the reality of neo-liberalism. As outside money became available, NGOs proliferated, dividing communities

into warring fiefdoms fighting to get a piece of the action. Each "grass

roots activist" cornered a new segment of the poor (women, young people from

minorities, etc.) to set up a new NGO and take the pilgrimage to Amsterdam,

Stockholm, etc. to "market" their project, activity, constituency and

finance their center - and their careers. The third circumstance in which NGOs multiplied was during the frequent and

deepening economic crises provoked by free market capitalism.

Intellectuals, academics and professionals saw jobs disappear or salaries

decline as budget cuts took hold: a second job became in necessity. NGOs

became a job placement agency and consultantships became a safety net for

potentially downwardly mobile intellectuals willing to spout the civil

society-free market-alternative development line and carry on the

collaborative policies with neo-liberal regimes and international financial

institutions. When millions are losing their jobs and poverty spreads to

important swaths of the population NGOs engage in preventative

action: they focus on "survival strategies" not general strikes; they

organize soup kitchens not mass demonstrations against food hoarders,

neo-liberal regimes or US imperialism. While NGOs may have initially had a vaguely "progressive" tincture during

so-called "democratic transitions" when the old order was crumbling, and

corrupt rulers were losing control and popular struggles were advancing.

The NGOs become the vehicle for transactions between old regimes and

conservative electoral politicians. The NGOs used their grass roots

rhetoric, organizational resources and their status as "democratic" human

rights advocates to channel popular support behind politicians and parties

which confined the transition to legal-political reforms not socio-economic

changes. NGOs demobilized the populace and fragmented the movements. In

every country that experienced an "electoral transaction,"

in the 1980s and 90s, from Chile to the Philippines to South Korea and

beyond, the NGOs have played an important role in rounding up votes for

regimes which continued or even deepened the socio-economic status quo. In

exchange, many ex-NGOers ended up running government agencies or even

becoming Ministers with popular sounding titles (women rights, citizen

participation, popular power, etc.). The reactionary political role of NGOs was built into the very structures

upon which they were (and are) organized. NGO Structure: Internally Elitist, Externally Servile In reality NGOs are not "non-governmental" organizations. They receive funds

from overseas governments, work as private sub-contractors of local

governments and/or are subsidized by corporate funded private foundations

with close working relations with the state. Frequently they openly

collaborate with governmental agencies at home or overseas. Their programs

are not accountable to local people but to overseas donors who "review"

and "oversee" the performance of the NGOs according to their criteria and

interests. The NGO officials are self-appointed and one of their key tasks

is designing proposals that will secure funding. In many cases this requires

that NGO leaders find out the issues that most interest the Western funding

elites, and shaping proposals accordingly. Thus in the 1980s NGO funds were

available to study and provide political proposals on "governability" and

"democratic transitions" reflecting the concerns of the imperialist powers

that the fall of dictatorships would not lead to "ungovernability" - namely

mass movements deepening the struggle and transforming the social system.

The NGOs, despite their democratic, grassroots rhetoric are hierarchical -

with the director in total control of projects, hiring and firing, as well

as deciding who gets their way paid to international conferences. The

"grassroots" are essentially the objects of this hierarch; rarely do they

see the money that "their" NGO shovels in; nor do they get to travel abroad;

nor do they draw the salaries or perks of their "grassroots" leaders. More

important none of these decisions are ever voted on. At best after the deals

have been cooked by the Director and the overseas funders, the NGO staff

will call a meeting of "grassroots activists" of the poor to approve the

project. In most cases the NGOs are not even membership organizations but a

self-appointed elite which, under the pretense of being "resource people"

for popular movements, in fact, competes with and undermines them. In this

sense NGOs undermine democracy by taking social programs and public debate

out of the hands of the local people and their elected natural leaders and

creating dependence on nonelected, overseas officials and their anointed

local officials. NGOs foster a new type of cultural and economic colonialism - under the

guise of a new internationalism. Hundreds of individuals sit in front of

high powered PCs exchanging manifestos, proposals and invitations to

international conferences with each other. They then meet in well furnished

conference halls to discuss the latest struggles and offerings with their

"social base" - the paid staff- who then pass on the proposals to the

"masses" through flyers and "bulletins." When overseas funders show up, they

are taken on "exposure tours" to showcase projects where the poor are

helping themselves and to talk with successful micro-entrepreneurs (omitting

the majority who fail the first year). The way this new colonialism works is not difficult to decipher. Projects

are designed based on guidelines and priorities of the imperial centers and

their institutions. They are then "sold" to the communities.

Evaluations are done by and for the imperial institutions. Shifts of funding

priorities or bad evaluations result in the dumping of groups, communities,

farmers and cooperatives. Everybody is increasingly disciplined to comply

with the donor's demands and their project evaluators. The NGO directors, as

the new viceroys, supervise and ensure conformity with the goals, values and

ideology of the donors as well as the proper use of funds. Ideology of NGOs Versus Radical Socio-political Movements NGOs emphasize projects not movements; they "mobilize" people to produce at

the margins not to struggle to control the basic means of production and

wealth; they focus on the technical financial assistance aspects of projects

not on structural conditions that shape the everyday lives of people. The

NGOs co-opt the language of the Left: "popular power," "

empowerment," "gender equality," "sustainable development," "bottom up

leadership," etc. The problem is that this language is linked to a framework

of collaboration with donors and government agencies that subordinate

activity to non-confrontational politics. The local nature of NGO activity

means "empowerment" never goes beyond influencing small areas of social life

with limited resources within the conditions permitted by the neo-liberal

state and macro-economy. The NGOs and their professional staff directly compete with the

socio-political movements for influence among the poor, women, racially

excluded, etc. Their ideology and practice diverts attention from the

sources and solutions of poverty (looking downward and inward instead of

upward and outward). To speak of micro-enterprises instead of the

exploitation by the overseas banks, as solutions to poverty is based on the

false notion that the problem is one of individual initiative rather than

the transference of income overseas. The NGOs "aid" affects small sectors of

the population, setting up competition between communities for scarce

resources and generating insidious distinction and inter and intra community

rivalries thus undermining class solidarity. The same is true among the

professionals: each sets up their NGO to solicit overseas funds.

They compete by presenting proposals closer to the liking of the overseas

donors for lower prices, while claiming to speak for more followers. The net

effect is a proliferation of NGOs that fragment poor communities into

sectoral and sub-sectoral groupings unable to see the larger social picture

that afflicts them and even less able to unite in struggle against the

system. Recent experience also demonstrates that foreign donors finance projects

during "crises" - political and social challenges to the status quo. Once

the movements have ebbed, they shift funding to NGO - regime

"collaboration," fitting the NGO projects into the neo-liberal agenda.

Economic development compatible with the "free market" rather than social

organization for social change becomes the dominant item on the funding

agenda. The structure and nature of NGOs with their "apolitical" posture and their

focus on self-help depoliticizes and demobilizes the poor. They reinforce

the electoral processes encouraged by the neo-liberal parties and mass

media. Political education about the nature of imperialism, the class basis

of neo-liberalism, the class struggle between exporters and temporary

workers are avoided. Instead the NGOs discuss "the excluded,"

the "powerless," "extreme poverty," "gender or racial discrimination,"

without moving beyond the superficial symptom, to engage the social system

that produces these conditions. Incorporating the poor into the neo-liberal

economy through purely "private voluntary action" the NGOs create a

political world where the appearance of solidarity and social action cloaks

a conservative conformity with the international and national structure of

power. It is no coincidence that as NGOs have become dominant in certain regions,

independent class political action has declined, and neo-liberalism goes

uncontested. The bottom line is that the growth of NGOs coincides with

increased funding from neo-liberalism and the deepening of poverty

everywhere. Despite its claims of many local successes, the overall power of

neo-liberalism stands unchallenged and the NGOs increasingly search for

niches in the interstices of power. The problem of formulating alternatives has been hindered in another way.

Many of the former leaders of guerrilla and social movements, trade union

and popular women's organizations have been co-opted by the NGOs. The offer

is tempting: higher pay (occasionally in hard currency), prestige and

recognition by overseas donors, overseas conferences and networks, office

staff and relative security from repression. In contrast, the

socio-political movements offer few material benefits but greater respect

and independence and more importantly the freedom to challenge the political

and economic system. The NGOs and their overseas banking supporters

(Inter-American Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the World

Bank) publish newsletters featuring success stories of micro-enterprises and

other self-help projects-without mentioning the high rates of failure as

popular consumption declines, low price imports flood the market and as

interest rates spiral - as is the case in Brazil and Indonesia today. Even the "successes" affect only a small fraction of the total poor and

succeed only to the degree that others cannot enter into the same market.

The propaganda value of individual micro-enterprise success, however is

important in fostering the illusion that neo-liberalism is a popular

phenomenon. The frequent violent mass outbursts that take place in regions

of micro-enterprise promotion suggests that the ideology is not hegemonic

and the NGOs have not yet displaced independent class movements. NGO ideology depends heavily on essentialist identity politics, engaging in

a rather dishonest polemic with radical movements based on class analysis.

They start from the false assumption that class analysis is "reductionist"

overlooking the extensive debates and discussions within Marxism on issues

of race, ethnicity and gender equality and avoiding the more serious

criticism that identities themselves are clearly and profoundly divided by

class differences. Take for example, the Chilean or Indian feminist living

in a plush suburb drawing a salary 15-20 times that of her domestic servant

who works 6 1/2 days a week. Class differences within gender determine

housing, living standards, health, educational opportunities and who

appropriates who's surplus value. Yet the great majority of NGOs operate on

the basis of identity politics and argue that this is the basic point of

departure for the new (post-modern politics).

Identity politics does not challenge the male dominated elite world of IMF

privatizations, multi-national corporations and local landlords. Rather, it

focuses on "patriarchy" in the household, family violence, divorce, family

planning, etc. In other words, it fights for gender equality within the

micro-world of exploited peoples in which the exploited and impoverished

male worker/peasant emerges as the main villain. While no one should support

gender exploitation or discrimination at any level, the feminist NGOs do a

gross disservice to working women by subordinating them to the greater

exploitation of sweatshops which benefit upper class men and women, rent

collecting male and female landlords and CEOs of both sexes. The reason the

feminist NGOs ignore the "Big Picture" and focus on local issues and

personal politics is because billions of dollars flow annually in that

direction. If feminist NGOs began to engage in land occupations with men and

women landless workers in Brazil or Indonesia or Thailand or the

Philippines, if they joined in general strikes of mainly female low-paid

rural school teachers against structural adjustment policies, the NGO spigot

would get turned off- by their imperial donors.

Better to beat up on the local patriarch scratching out an existence in an

isolated village in Luzon. Class Solidarity and NGO Solidarity with Foreign Donors The word "solidarity" has been abused to the point that in many contexts it

has lost meaning. The term "solidarity" for the NGOers includes foreign aid

channeled to any designated "impoverished" group. "Research" or "popular

education" of the poor by professionals is designated as "solidarity." In

many ways the hierarchical structures and the forms of transmission of "aid"

and "training" resemble nineteenth century charity and the promoters are not

very different from Christian missionaries. The NGOers emphasize "self-help" in attacking the "paternalism and

dependence" of the state. In this competition among NGOs to capture the

victims of neoliberals, the NGOs receive important subsidies from their

counterparts in Europe and the US. The self help ideology emphasizes the

replacement of public employees for volunteers and upwardly mobile

professionals contracted on a temporary basis. The basic philosophy of the

NGO view is to transform "solidarity" into collaboration and subordination

to the macro-economy of neo-liberalism by focusing attention away from state

resources of the wealthy classes toward self-exploitation of the poor. The

poor do not need to be made virtuous by the NGO for what the state obligates

them to do. The Marxist concept of solidarity in contrast emphasizes class solidarity

within the class, solidarity of oppressed groups (women and people of

color) against their foreign and domestic exploiters. The major focus is not

on the donations that divide classes and pacify small groups for a limited

time period. The focus of Marxist concept of solidarity is on the common

action of the same members of the class sharing their common economic

predicament struggling for collective improvement. It involves intellectuals who write and speak for the social movements in

struggle, committed to sharing the same political consequences. The concept

of solidarity is linked to "organic" intellectuals who are basically part of

the movement - the resource people providing analysis and education for

class struggle and taking the same political risks in direct action. In

contrast, the NGOers are embedded in the world of institutions, academic

seminars, foreign foundations, international conferences speaking a language

understood only by those "initiated" into the subjectivist cult of

essentialist identities. The Marxists view solidarity as sharing the risks

of the movements, not being outside commentators who raise questions and

defend nothing. For the NGOers the main object is "getting" the foreign

funding for the "project." The main issue, for the Marxist is the process of

political struggle and education in securing social transformation. The

movement was everything the objective was important in raising consciousness

for societal change:

constructing political power to transform the general condition of the great

majority. "Solidarity" for the NGOers is divorced from the general object of

liberation; it is merely a way of bringing people together to attend a job

retraining seminar, to build a latrine. For the Marxists the solidarity of a

collective struggle contains the seeds of the future democratic collectivist

society. The larger vision or its absence is what gives the different

conceptions of solidarity their distinct meaning. Class Struggle and Co-operation The NGOers frequently write of "co-operation" of everyone, near and far,

without delving too profoundly on the price and conditions for securing the

co-operation of neo-liberal regimes and overseas funding agencies.

Class struggle is viewed as an atavism to a past that no longer exists.

Today we are told "the poor" are intent on building a new life. They are fed

up with traditional politics, ideologies and politicians. So far, so good.

The problem is that the NGOers are not so forthcoming in describing their

role as mediators and brokers, hustling funds overseas. The concentration of

income and the growth of inequalities are greater than ever, after a decade

of preaching co-operation and micro-enterprises, and self-help. Today the

banks like the World Bank fund the export agro-businesses that exploit and

poison millions of farm laborers while providing funds to finance small

micro-projects. The role of the NGOs in the micro projects is to neutralize

political opposition at the bottom while neo-liberalism is promoted at the

top. The ideology of "co-operation" links the poor through the NGOs to

neo-liberals at the top. Intellectually the NGOs are the intellectual policemen who define acceptable

research, distribute research funds and filter out topics and perspectives

that project class analysis and struggle perspective.

Marxists are excluded from the conferences and stigmatized as "ideologues"

while NGOs present themselves as "social scientists." The control of

intellectual fashion, publications, conferences, research fund provide the

post-Marxists with an important power base - but on ultimately dependent on

avoiding conflict with their external funding patrons. Critical Marxist intellectuals have their strength in the fact that their

ideas resonate with the evolving social realities. The polarization of

classes and the violent confrontations are growing, as their theories would

predict. It is from this perspective that the Marxists are tactically weak

and strategically strong vis-a-vis the NGOs. Alternative NGOs One could argue that there are a great many different type of NGOs and that

many do criticize and organize against adjustment policies, the IMF, debt

payments, etc. and that its unfair to lump them all in the same bag. There is a grain of truth in this but this position belies a more

fundamental issue. Most peasant leaders from Asia and Latin America that I

have spoken to complain bitterly of the divisive and elitist role that even

the "progressive" NGOs play: they, the NGOs want to subordinate the peasant

leaders to their organizations, they want to lead and speak "for"

the poor. They do not accept subordinate roles. Progressive NGOs use

peasants and the poor for their research projects, they benefit from the

publication - nothing comes back to the movements not even copies of the

studies done in their name! Moreover, the peasant leaders ask why the NGOs

never risk their neck after their educational seminars? Why do they not

study the rich and powerful why us? Even conceding that within the "progressive NGOs" there are minorities that

function as "resource" people to radical socio-political movements, the fact

is that the people receive a tiny fraction of the funds that go to the NGO.

Furthermore, the great mass of NGOs fit the description outlined above and

it is up to the few exceptions to prove otherwise: a major step forward for

the "progressive NGOs" is to systematically criticize and critique the ties

of their NGO colleagues with imperialism and its local clients, their

ideology of adaptation to neo-liberalism and their authoritarian and elitist

structures. Then it would be useful for them to tell their western

counterpart NGOs to get out of the foundation - government networks and go

back to organizing and educating their own people in Europe and North

America to form social-political movements that can challenge the dominant

regimes and parties that serve the banks and multi-nationals. In other words, the NGOs should stop being NGOs and convert themselves into

members of socio-political movements. That is the best way to avoid being

lumped with the tens of thousands of NGOs feeding at the donor's trough. Conclusion: Notes on a Theory of NGOs In social structural terms the proliferalism and expansion of NGOs reflects

the emergence of a new petit bourgeois distinct from the "old"

shopkeepers, free professionals as well as the "new" public employee groups.

This subcontracted sector is closer to the earlier "compradore"

bourgeoisie insofar as it produces no tangible commodities, but serves to

link imperial enterprises with local petty commodity producers engaged in

micro-enterprises. This new petty-bourgeois at least its "middle age

variants" is marked by the fact that many are ex-Leftists and bring to bear

a "popular rhetoric" and in some cases an elitist "vanguardist"

conception to their organizations. Situated without property or a fixed

position in the state apparatus it depends heavily on external funding

agencies to reproduce themselves. Given its popular constituency however, it

has to combine an anti-Marxist, anti-statist appeal with populist rhetoric,

hence the concoction of the Third Way and civil society notions which are

sufficiently ambiguous to cover both bases. This new petty bourgeois thrives

on international gatherings as a main prop of its existence, lacking solid

organic support within the country. The "globalist" rhetoric provides a

cover for a kind of ersatz "internationalism" devoid of anti-imperialist

commitments. In a word, this new petit bourgeois forms the "radical wing"

... of the neo-liberal establishment. Politically the NGOs fit into the new thinking of imperialist strategists.

While the IMF - World Bank and MNCs work the domestic elites at the top to

pillage the economy, the NGOs engage in complementary activity at the bottom

neutralizing and fragmenting the burgeoning discontent resulting from the

savaging of the economy. Just as imperialism engages in a two pronged

macro-micro strategy of exploitation and containment, radical movements must

develop a two prong anti-imperialist strategy. The mass of NGOs have co-opted most of what used to be the "free floating"

public intellectuals who would abandon their class origins and join the

popular movements. The result is a temporary gap between the profound crises

of capitalism (depressions in Asia and Latin America - collapse in the

ex-USSR) and the absence of significant organized revolutionary movements

(with the exception of Brazil, Colombia and perhaps South Korea). The

fundamental question is whether a new generation of organic intellectuals

can emerge from the burgeoning radical social movements which can avoid the

NGO temptation and become integral members of the next revolutionary wave. James Petras, Dept. of Sociology, Binghamton University, NY

Publication Information: Article Title: NGOs: In the Service of Imperialism.

Contributors: James Petras - author. Journal Title: Journal of Contemporary

Asia. Volume: 29. Issue: 4. Publication Year: 1999. Page

Number: 429. http://baclawa.blog.co.yu/

www.neue-einheit.com