Governance in the age of global markets: challenges, limits,and consequences

Lawrence Busch

Accepted: 21 April 2014

� Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Abstract We live in an age defined in large part by

various facets of neoliberalism. In particular, the market

world has impinged on virtually every aspect of food and

agriculture. Moreover, most nation-states and many inter-

national governance bodies incorporate aspects of neolib-

eral perspectives. Multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs),

with their own standards, certifications, and accreditations

are evidence of both the continuing hegemony of neolib-

eralism as well as various responses to it. Importantly, to

date even attempts to limit neoliberal hegemony through

MSIs have been largely within the parameters established

by those same neoliberal agendas. However, neoliberalism

is itself in crisis as a result of climate change, the contin-

uing financial crisis, and rising food prices. The founding

myths of neoliberalism are still widely held, having the

effect of closing off alternative paths to the future. Yet, this

need not be the case. Alternatives to the current MSIs that

promote justice, democracy, and equality can still be

constructed.

Keywords Multi-stakeholder initiatives � Standards �Certification � Governance � Neoliberalism

Abbreviations

ESOP Employee Stockholder Ownership Plan

MSI Multi-stakeholder initiative

NGO Non-governmental organization

RSPO Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil

RTRS Roundtable on Responsible Soy

SQF Safe Quality Food

WIETA Agricultural Ethical Trade Initiative

WTO World Trade Organization

Unable to provide a concept of community higher than shared material

gain or a concept of morality higher than adherence to procedural rules,

[neo]liberalism has turned western and, increasingly, world society back

toward not merely the state of nature which Locke postulated, but the state

of war of each against all which haunted Hobbes. The myth of the

beginning is converted into the reality of the end.

– (Ferkiss 1974, p. 155).

Introduction: building a singular world

Today, the market world impinges on everything. As the

articles in this special issue clearly illustrate, while con-

cerns as diverse as worker rights, community concerns,

environmental protection, farm production conditions and

fair trade were once largely the subject of State or inter-

national legal frameworks, they are now commonly

addressed through ‘market solutions’ including multi-

stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) such as the Roundtable on

Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), Fairtrade, the (South Afri-

can) WIETA Agricultural Ethical Trade Initiative (for-

merly the Wine Industry Ethical Trade Association) and

the Roundtable on Responsible Soy (RTRS). This is not an

accidental phenomenon that arose as a result of a series of

random or unrelated events. Nor is it the consequence of

some sort of plot or conspiracy launched by neoliberals and

their supporters. Instead, it is the result of the promotion,

planning and execution of a particular theory of action—

one that has been promoted, planned, and enacted some-

what differently in different parts of the world. It is not a

neat, well-ordered world of neoliberal capitalism, but

rather a messy, ill-ordered, sometimes contradictory world

L. Busch (&)

Department of Sociology, Michigan State University,

East Lansing, MI 48824, USA

e-mail: Lbusch@msu.edu

123

Agric Hum Values

DOI 10.1007/s10460-014-9510-x

in which different versions of neoliberal rules have been

enacted in different ways at different times.

Mirowski and Plehwe (2009) have argued that the

adherents to neoliberal theory are best understood as

members of a ‘thought collective.’ But perhaps they do not

go quite far enough. Were neoliberalism merely a thought

collective, its impact would have been negligible. It is

important to remember that neoliberals have also acted on

Marx’s (1969 [1845], p. 15) well-known critique of phi-

losophy: ‘‘The philosophers have only interpreted the

world, in various ways; the point is to change it.’’ From the

Colloque Walter Lippmann, held in Paris in 1938 (Centre

International d’Etudes Pour la Renovation du Liberalisme

1939), where Louis Rougier first coined the term ‘neolib-

eralism,’ through the formation of the Mont Pelerin Society

(2006) in 1947 to the enactment of neoliberal institutions

[e.g., the World Trade Organization (WTO)], neoliberals

have been concerned not merely to interpret the world but

to change it. Put differently, neoliberals have successfully

enacted a truth in Foucault’s (2008, 19) sense, that is they

have made ‘‘… something that does not exist able to

become something. It is not illusion since it is precisely a

set of practices, real practices, which established it and thus

imperiously marked it out in reality.’’

And, change it they have! Like the medieval Church and

the Soviet communists of the last century, the neoliberals

have attempted (with varying degrees of success) to enact a

single set of values and associated actions—what Boltanski

and Thevenot (2006 [1991]) call a world [monde] and what

Walzer (1983) calls a sphere—that would dominate all

aspects of daily life.

Below, I first compare neoliberalism to the medieval

Church and Soviet communism. I examine the central

tenets of neoliberalism in that context, showing how it has

enacted, paying particular attention to their consequences

for MSIs. Then, I examine some of the forms of resistance

that have emerged, noting how MSIs are often both neo-

liberal enactments and points of resistance. Following that,

I discuss the contradictions that have emerged from the

neoliberal project. Finally, I ask what might be necessary to

envision and enact a post-neoliberal world.

Attempting to build a singular world

Neoliberalism shares a great deal with the medieval Church

and Soviet communism, in approach if not in substance.

For the medieval Church, the central goal was to subject all

aspects of daily life to what Boltanski and Thevenot call

the world of inspiration, to interpret all human and non-

human actions in religious terms, and to turn all selves into

inspired, religious selves, to save all souls. Hence, canon

law preempted civil law, schools were increasingly under

the control of the Church, the Church hierarchy trumped

civil hierarchies, Charlemagne was crowned by the Pope,

and monks were sent out to convert all of Europe to

Christianity (Bark 1958). Those found to be in violation of

Church laws and customs were excommunicated, or con-

demned as heretics and frequently tortured or killed. In

addition, attempts were made to interpret all action in terms

of maintenance of the Church. By the late Middle Ages

there was extreme attention to Church rituals. All events,

no matter how trivial, were related to Christ and Chris-

tianity, while religious thought permeated all actions

(Huizinga 1954, p. 46). The very attempt to permeate all

aspects of daily life with religious meaning brought with it

corruption, decay and decline. Indulgences were freely

sold. Usury, though prohibited, was frequently engaged in

by the Church. Church officials frequently engaged in

activities clearly proscribed by the Church. Ultimately, the

Church began to crumble, and various attempt were made

to build civilization, civility, and an alternative civic order

(Elias 1994 [1939]).

For the Soviets the approach, if not the goal, was the

same. As Boltanski and Thevenot (1991, p. 114) suggest,

‘‘[i]n the civic polity, persons are more or less worthy

depending on whether they are viewed as individuals or as

citizen members of the sovereign, that is, depending on

whether the will that drives them to act is particular or on

the contrary directed toward the general interest.’’ The

Soviets took this to the extreme, subjecting all aspects of

daily life to the world of the State, to (a particular version

of) the civic world, and attempting to turn all selves into

Soviet citizens. The Soviet State rapidly took over most of

the means of production, suppressed the Russian Orthodox

and other churches, attempted to replace most markets with

planned exchanges, and supplanted the class structure of

capitalism with one based on party membership and the

privileges that came therefrom. In the sphere of production,

the ideal was the Stakhanovite worker, who allegedly

exceeded all production targets. Countless posters, statues,

flyers, and radio and television shows promoted the ideal

Soviet citizen for whom service to the State was valued

above all else. On the one hand, the Soviet State attempted

to make the civic world hegemonic both within the Soviet

Union and throughout the world, in the form of Statism,

claiming that it would resolve the contradictions of capi-

talism. On the other hand, its leaders developed various

means for spying on citizens and summarily imprisoned

dissidents. Like the Church centuries before, the Soviet

civic order collapsed of its own weight as official corrup-

tion, privileges of the party elite, and the fulfillment of plan

goals with shoddy goods became the rule rather than the

exception.

L. Busch

123

Creating a neoliberal world

The neoliberals, like the medieval Church and the Soviet

State, desire to make one world or sphere hegemonic: the

market.1 Their approach, from Hayek (1973–1979) to

Friedman (2002 [1962]) to Becker and Becker (1997), is to

insinuate the competition of the market, or a particular

enactment of the market, into all aspects of social life.

Although this transformation is still far from complete, and

like all such projects is likely to remain incomplete, it has

been accomplished with more or less success by (among

other things):

1. Attempting to dissolve all forms of social solidarity

including nation-states, cultures, and labor organizations

(Bourdieu 1998).

In particular, the General Agreement on Tariffs and

Trade and the eventual creation of the WTO have pro-

foundly increased world trade by suppressing national and

cultural differences. In addition other international insti-

tutions (e.g., the World Bank and the International Mone-

tary Fund) now have the ability to enforce ‘global’ market

rules and override both democratically elected bodies and

many cultural differences. These institutions have imposed

a form of market discipline on virtually all the nations of

the world, in each case breaking up local and national

solidarities as they have radically reduced expenditures for

health, education, and welfare in the name of the so-called

Washington consensus (cf. Williamson 2004–2005).

On the positive side, the nations of the world are now

linked together in ways that would have been unthinkable

three or four decades ago. For example, the American,

Western European and Chinese societies are now inter-

twined as goods, services, people, and cultural practices are

exchanged across borders. Among many other ties, tens of

thousands of Chinese young people studying at American

and European universities bring with them parts of Chinese

culture and bring parts of Western culture back to China.

And, the number of Westerners studying in China is

increasing as well. But on the negative side, the particular

type of globalization that is enforced by the WTO demands

that many cultural differences be suppressed, reorganized,

standardized, flattened in order that market exchanges be

maximized. In addition, the very speed and instability of

global trade has increased the precariousness of modern

life nearly everywhere in the world. As Ulrich Beck (1992)

notes, we now live in a ‘risk society,’ in which we are to

embrace risk and to develop the (individual) means to cope

with it.

2. The creation of various sorts of quasi-markets by

encouraging privatization and competition in all institu-

tions including education, health care, prison management,

the maintenance of public facilities—even global climate

change.

Since ‘the market’ is said to have logical properties that

always guarantee the optimal outcome,2 turning everything

into markets is claimed both to optimize wealth and liberty

as well as to reduce the realm of the political. It should be

emphasized that marketization thereby tends to undermine

the civic world. Its proponents wish to establish a kind of

purity; no space exists for hybrids (Latour 1993). Indeed,

Friedman (2002 [1962], p. 15) made this point quite

clearly: ‘‘What the market does is to reduce greatly the

range of issues that must be decided through political

means, and thereby to minimize the extent to which gov-

ernment need participate directly in the game.’’

But just as the medieval Church and the Soviet State

required a structure of governance, so does the neoliberal

market world. Governing from a distance, focusing on the

conduct of conduct (Foucault 2008), in no way eliminates

the necessity of governance. However, governance has

gradually shifted from democratic institutions where

ordinary citizens have the potential to participate, and

where the Montesquieuian3 division of powers is institu-

tionalized (Nelson et al. 2013, forthcoming) to large private

corporations and private voluntary organizations, where

governance usually goes on behind closed doors and where

popular participation is severely curtailed or restricted by

invitation (Hospes this issue) (Gereffi et al. 2001). The

various MSIs discussed in this issue (e.g., RSPO, RTRS)

are illustrations of this neoliberal dominance in that they

shift governance from the State to ad hoc private entities

that govern at a distance. The politics behind Friedman’s

argument does not disappear but it is made invisible.

3. The reenacting of all of us as entrepreneurs of our-

selves (Rose 1996).

Arguably best illustrated by the work of Becker (1993),

Becker and Becker (1997), the older liberal definition of

labor has been split in two. Each of us, it is argued, has

both our available labor as well as various forms of capital.

1 One might also argue that they adopt parts of the industrial world

(e.g., Boltanski and Thevenot 1991; Raynolds this issue). However,

they do so largely to the extent that it supports marketization.

2 Ludwig von Mises (1978 [1933], p. 13), Hayek’s mentor, explained

it thusly: ‘‘The science of human action that strives for universally

valid knowledge is the theoretical system whose hitherto best

elaborated branch is economics. In all of its branches this science is

a priori, not empirical. Like logic and mathematics, it is not derived

from experience; it is prior to experience. It is, as it were, the logic of

action and deed.’’3 Montesquieu (1914 [1752]) developed the modern notion that

representative democracies can only be considered democratic to the

extent that the executive, legislative and judicial functions remain

separate.

Governance in the age of global markets

123

We can invest our capital, through education, home own-

ership, pension plans, savings, and the like, thereby

increasing our net worth. However, doing so involves

taking risks and the possibility that we may have made the

wrong choice—the one that will reduce capital assets rather

than increase them. So rather than the discipline of stan-

dardization and homogenization that Marx identified in the

nineteenth century, we find differentiation, whereby each

of us is encouraged—no required—to define ourselves as

an entrepreneur, worker and consumer at the same time;

each of us is engaged in a great game of competition,

making endless choices. And, when we make poor choices,

we are told that we have no one to blame but ourselves. In

short, what appears to be individual freedom is in fact the

regulation of social practices.

Hence, we are free under neoliberal rule only to the

extent that we have internalized the discipline provided by

the marketplace, that we have developed a calculating self

that considers all decisions, all choices in terms of market

outcomes. As Langley (2007) explains, ‘‘[o]n the one hand,

(neo)liberal government respects the formal freedom and

autonomy of subjects. On the other hand, it governs within

and through those independent actions by promoting the

very disciplinary technologies deemed necessary for a

successful autonomous life.’’ And, lest we forget, there are

severe consequences—financial and otherwise—for failing

to comply. As Bauman (2007, p. 31) puts it, those who fail

‘‘are people with no market value; they are the uncom-

moditized men and women, and their failure to obtain a

status of proper commodity coincides with (indeed, stems

from) their failure to engage in a fully fledged consumer

activity.’’

Multi-stakeholder initiatives promote this entrepreneur-

ialism in a variety of ways as they attempt to develop new

means to relate to consumers. As the articles in this issue

document, internal to each MSI there is constant compe-

tition among various actors, often with the poorest on the

losing side. At the same time, there is competition external

to each MSI as the notion of a personalized or domestic

relation with consumers (e.g., as perhaps in a local farmers

market) is replaced by branding and labeling in an effort to

increase market share (Raynolds, this issue) and/or to

provide reputational protection for retailers and large cor-

porations (Nelson and Tallontire this issue; Kohne this

issue). Whereas in the past these issues would have been

addressed largely through State and international law,

MSIs provide market incentives to producers to behave

‘appropriately’ as well as posing ever more choices for

consumers.

4. The financialization of everything.

The range of human activities subject to financial cal-

culation has grown markedly over the last several decades

(Harvey 2005). Previously social actions have been indi-

vidualized as financial calculations. Hence, increasingly

education, health care, leisure activities, pension plans,

religion—even marriages—are seen as investments in

future profits by our entrepreneurial selves. Put differently,

the grammar of markets has become hegemonic in both

social life and individual selves. Hence, they must be

subject to financial calculation. Risks must be compared in

monetary terms to expected benefits. And, as noted above,

there are often severe consequences for those who make

the wrong choices.

But financialization also means that industrial capital is

now overshadowed by financial capital. While in the past

banks have been sources of investment for production,

more and more they are places where capital is invested so

as to maximize short term returns, e.g., through currency

trading. ‘‘Additionally, financialization has transformed the

pension funds of wage earners and public employees [in

relatively wealthy nations] into a fiscal resource…’’ (Laz-

zarato 2009, p. 112). Hence, large firms that participate in

MSIs are constantly under pressure to produce rising

quarterly earnings for shareholders, who are often the very

same persons concerned about fair trade, environmental

degradation, and working conditions. And, the volatility of

world financial markets means that shifts in the values of

currencies have nearly immediate consequences for pro-

ducers in the global South. This is particularly the case

when consumers’ incomes are declining; they are likely to

seek out the lowest price regardless of claims about fair

trade, the environment or working conditions.

5. The New Industrial Discipline.

In order to enact the neoliberal model, as markets have

expanded choices with respect to consumption, work for

most people has become more and more subject to audit, to

surveillance, to a growing collection of rules that have

proven necessary to keep competition in these quasi-mar-

kets from collapsing. Hence, even as we are inundated with

choices in the marketplace—to the point of their becoming

a duty, a devoir—we are finding that we are constantly

under increasing surveillance and checking in the public

workplace through New Public Management in education

(Head 2011; Lorenz 2012), health care (Cambrosio et al.

2009), policing and social work, among other professions

(Travers 2007). Similarly, in the private sector, including

food and agriculture MSIs, we see the rise of various forms

of auditing—of suppliers, of workers, of downstream

actors (Holt et al. 2007) in order to achieve standardization

(Busch 2011; Higgins and Tamm Hallstrom 2007).

Consider some of the cases noted in this special issue:

Each of the MSIs described is obsessed with setting formal

standards for the behavior of people, processes and pro-

ducts. Each requires not merely that producer firms

L. Busch

123

comply, but that workers in those firms and small farmers

behave in certain ways. Nearly all claim that their stan-

dards are ‘global’ in character. Each claims to enhance

sustainability. Yet, by virtue of the combination of mark-

etization and the enforcement of ‘global’ standards, they

fail to take local differences into consideration and often

decrease sustainability. In addition, some MSIs such as

Fairtrade depend on a label or logo that its designers hope

will attract consumers willing to pay more to purchase the

item in question. Some control from a distance using

‘reference tools’ on the web (Nelson and Tallontire this

issue). None conform to democratic principles of gover-

nance; none have a Montesquieuian division of powers in

place.

Resistance to neoliberalism

Neoliberalism has been enacted through the effective use

of two strategies: First, neoliberals have taken advantage of

crises, such as the crisis of Keynesianism in the 1960s

(Boyer 1997), the Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s

and the recent financial crisis, to transform the social role

of the State and to restructure institutions to make them

‘competitive.’ They have argued that competition solves all

problems—even those of the market itself. Second, they

have been quite content to employ force to impose neo-

liberal market institutions when necessary, as in Chile and

Iraq (Klein 2007). In sum, although neoliberalism has been

enacted differently in different places with different his-

tories, its various manifestations tend to share the five

contradictions noted above. Together, they open spaces for

resistance and change.

It is important to note that the hegemony of the propo-

nents of these worlds—the medieval Church, the Soviets,

and the neoliberals—has not only influenced and encour-

aged certain actions on the part of those who adhered to

them—the vast majority of parishioners, or of Soviet offi-

cials and nomenklatura—but also the actions of those who

dissented. Thus, during the Middle Ages the preferred

mode of dissent was what the Church termed religious

heresy, which was ruthlessly suppressed until it burst forth

and destroyed Church hegemony in what became known as

the Protestant Reformation. Similarly, many of the Soviet

dissidents challenged the Soviet regime by fulfilling the

formal obligations required of them while decrying the

increasingly obvious ways in which Soviet Statism failed

to live up to its utopian claims. Even Gorbachev, with his

talk of perestroika, proposed alternatives that were well

within the confines of the Soviet system. Finally, the Soviet

State collapsed and was replaced—with a considerable

degree of ‘help’ from neoliberals in the West (Bockman

and Eyal 2002; Sachs 1993)—by something quite different.

The same might be said for those who oppose neolib-

eralism and its emphasis on turning all human actions into

markets and quasi-markets. This is particularly clear with

respect to the changed policies and expanded scope of non-

governmental organizations (NGOs). Under neoliberalism

NGOs have become more visible globally (Cheyns and

Riisgaard this issue). Yet, as Guthman (2008) and others

(e.g., Brown and Getz 2008; Gill 1997; Kamat 2004) have

noted, NGOs have shifted their focus from lobbying the

State to lobbying large corporations (e.g., Oxfam America

2013). This has occurred in part because NGOs have been

disillusioned in dealing with ever more distant States, but

also because they have recognized that governing at a

distance has not eliminated the need for governance; it has

only shifted it to the corporate world. Moreover, some

NGOs tacitly accept the governance rules established by

MSIs despite the dominance of large corporate actors,

while others are able to challenge and modify those rules.

Put differently, the political literacy (Tallontire et al. 2010)

of NGOs varies considerably. This is evidenced by their

different tactics in dealing with MSIs (cf. Nelson and

Tallontire this issue; Hospes this issue).

In addition, both within and outside MSIs, NGOs have

both joined with others (e.g., RSPO) and promoted their

own forms of standards—from Fairtrade (see Raynolds this

issue) to organic to environmentally friendly. In short,

seeing the focus of the State shift from the welfare state to

the neoliberal state, they have taken to responding to

neoliberalism on its own terms. All the MSIs discussed in

this special issue have been at least initially embraced by

NGOs. In so doing, those organizations have to a consid-

erable degree (a) encouraged further integration of small-

holders and others into global markets, (b) assisted in the

suppression of local cultural differences, and (c) perhaps

unwittingly helped to undermine the civic world. Hence,

the (partial and incomplete) enactment of neoliberalism as

well as resistance to it has led to a number of

contradictions.

The contradictions of neoliberalism

Neoliberalism, like the medieval Church and Soviet com-

munism, is first and foremost a project. It is a program for

change differently enacted in different places. Moreover,

its enactments have led to various contradictions:

1. An explosion of standards, certifications, and accred-

itations in virtually every sector of society, thereby

replacing trust with conformity.

Although quantitative data are virtually impossible to

find, there is little doubt that there has been an explosion of

standards, certifications, and accreditations not just in the

Governance in the age of global markets

123

agrifood sector, but in virtually every realm of social life.

As I have argued elsewhere (Busch 2011), everyone and

everything is now subject to the new industrial discipline of

non-State standards, certifications, and accreditations. As

the technical literature proclaims, they are subject to

‘conformity assessment.’4 This has occurred as the State

has withdrawn from direct intervention in governance and

has instead acted at a distance. Thus, the neoliberal dream

of individuals who are free to act in a market world without

State interference has been eclipsed by the growing power

of non-State actors to establish their own—sometimes

conflicting, always conforming—forms of governance.

MSIs are among the many (and newer) standards-setting

and certification-requiring bodies.

These forms of governance replace trust with incessant

and often ritualistic checking, based on multiple (and often

competing) layers of audits. Such checking up on people

permits easy ‘comparability’ across multiple sites, facili-

tating competition that allows those further down the value

chain to buy undifferentiated products and sell differenti-

ated ones at a premium. It also suggests mistrust (Strathern

2000). Indeed, the use of the term ‘conformity assessment’

is itself indicative of the problem; rather than trusting

others to provide the products or services requested, or

providing them with knowledge that would allow them to

reinvent their product or service, what is asked for is their

conformity to a set of predefined indicators. Trust is shifted

from people to measures and sources of information which

may or may not be valid measures of ‘conformity.’ Indeed,

despite its ostensible goal of promoting personalized rela-

tions between final consumers and producers, Fairtrade has

put into place a set of measures that depersonalizes and

limits the actions of producers and workers (Raynolds this

issue). Similarly, GlobalGAP (2013), an association of

supermarkets, provides extremely detailed requirements for

its suppliers that focus on formal aspects of conformity. For

example, its audit checklist includes the question: ‘Is a

member of management clearly identifiable as responsible

for workers’ health, safety and welfare?’ What it fails to

ask is whether that person is easily approachable, has the

ability to act on worker concerns, or is competent to do so.

Moreover, given concerns about liability, GlobalGAP tends

to conflate sustainability with food safety and define it in a

purely technical manner (Nelson and Tallontire this issue).

Likewise, the development of sustainability metastandards

by the ISEAL Alliance (2013), an organization of organi-

zations consisting of MSIs and accreditors among others,

also emphasizes conformity. Both Bain (2010) and Tal-

lontire and Nelson (2013) have observed that this focus on

legalistic rules can have a perverse effect on those who are

audited. As O’Neill (2002, p. 6) suggests: ‘‘There is no

complete answer to the old question: ‘who will guard the

guardians?’ On the contrary, trust is needed precisely

because all guarantees are incomplete.’’5

Moreover, certifications and accreditations as presently

constituted replace situated concern about particular forms

of behavior with de-situated concern about adherence to

formal rules and procedures—in accordance with neolib-

eral concerns for formal equalities.6 For example, in the

provision of fresh produce GlobalGAP and Safe Quality

Food (SQF) have competing food safety standards. Yet,

each claims to be universally applicable. And, indeed they

are—as long as what is required is compliance with formal

rules. Yet, all the papers in this special issue emphasize the

importance of place in such decisions.

In participating in the enactment of the neoliberal mar-

ket world, NGOs have literally bought into this contra-

diction. Numerous studies have illustrated that NGO

governance of smallholder production tends towards pre-

cisely the same problems that are encountered when cor-

porations engage in that activity—even if their goals are

quite different. Hence, for example, Hatanaka (2010)

shows how several NGOs imposed formal rules developed

in the Global North to monitor the conduct of fishers in

Indonesia; unfortunately, those rules made no sense what-

ever to the fishers. Similarly, Daviron and Ponte (2005)

show how Fairtrade and other sustainable coffee initiatives

tend to support (or are neutral with respect to) existing

market relations. And, Raynolds (2009) notes how even

Fairtrade’s commitment to fairer trading arrangements and

producer empowerment is often interpreted by large cor-

porations to mean formal compliance with producer price

standards.

2. The continuing financial crisis.

Despite the insistence that markets will take care of

themselves, the recent financial crisis and its aftermath

demonstrate the contrary. The virtually universal solution

to the financial crisis has been a combination of Keynesian

strategies (varying from nation to nation) and shifting the

financial burden from the banks to the State to ordinary

4 As explained by the International Organization for Standardization

(ISO 2012): ‘‘Conformity assessment is the process used to show that

a product, service or system meets specified requirements.’’

5 In a recent article, Rahman (2012) proposes a solution to the

problem drawing on the principles of game theory. Essentially, the

idea is to provide incentives to those who monitor the behavior of

others such as to encourage them to do their jobs. Whether this might

work in practice remains to be seen. It seems unlikely given that there

are many layers of audits, each of which imposes requirements on

other actors, as well as competitions among auditors trying to capture

various markets for auditing.6 The neoliberal conception of ‘rule of law’ emphasizes the formal

equality of all under the law, ignoring the actual inequalities that

might be remedied or ameliorated with civic action. See, for example,

Hayek (2007 [1944]).

L. Busch

123

citizens who had little or nothing to do with it. Neoliberal

theorists may argue that these are violations of neoliberal

theory, but neoliberal practice certainly undermines that

argument.

On the surface, the consequences for both agrifood

standards setting organizations and MSIs would not appear

obvious. Yet, as noted above, one clear consequence of

declining incomes in affected nations is a decline in the

ability of consumers to pay a premium for such things as

organic or fair trade production; in those MSIs where no

premium is paid, lower demand usually means a greater

squeeze on producers This has and will undoubtedly con-

tinue to have negative consequences for producers in the

global south as supermarket chains redefine sustainability,

worker safety and other concerns even as they maintain the

same formal requirements. In contrast, when the same or

similar standards take the form of State regulations, they

are not so easily changed or abandoned.7

3. The environmental crisis including climate change.

The focus on neoliberal solutions to environmental

problems—especially climate change—is analogous to the

neoliberal solution to all other problems: turn the problem

into a market and the market will do the work. Yet, to date

neoliberal claims have not withstood the test of practice.

When enacted, they have been widely manipulated,

resulting in a spate of ‘greenwashing,’ measures that fail to

measure what they claim, and often worsening environ-

mental problems (e.g., British Broadcasting Company

2007; Elgin 2007; Green and Capell 2008; Green 2008).

Sandy, the recent storm that hit the US east coast and

caused massive devastation never seen before is a case in

point. Regardless of whether this particular storm can be

attributed to climate change, similarly damaging storms are

likely to hit coastal cities around the world over the next

several decades (Hulme 2009), affecting exports including

those of commodities subject to MSIs. Inland, climate

change will increase variation in rainfall and temperatures,

with drought and flooding among the catastrophic conse-

quences. Preparing for this new challenge will require

government planning; it cannot be accomplished by wait-

ing for the market to make the necessary upgrades to

infrastructure. Indeed, MSIs often contribute to these

problems by legitimizing unsustainable and unequal access

to land and water (Bain this issue) or by promoting large

scale monocultures (Bain this issue; Cheyns this issue;

Kohne this issue). That said, regardless of the effectiveness

of MSIs in ameliorating environmental degradation,

improving working conditions, or empowering workers,

without increased governmental investment in infrastruc-

ture that will mitigate the effects of climate change, all is

likely for naught.

Moreover, it is important to emphasize that global

environmental problems pose limits to the notion (shared

by both neoliberal and neoclassical economists) that eco-

nomic growth is without limits. The heart of the problem is

that the planet’s natural sinks can only cleanse so much

pollution (Smith and Max-Neef 2011). After that, nasty

things begin to happen—ranging from the damage done by

hurricane Katrina (largely the result of destruction of the

marshes south of New Orleans for development) to rising

temperatures and decline in species diversity. While heroic

measures such as pumping carbon into the ground can

temporarily reduce pollution, they are at best short term

palliatives.8

4. The food crisis.

An important consequence of the financial crisis has

been the entry into food commodity markets by financial

institutions. Given the generally low returns on conven-

tional investments, those looking for higher returns have

increasingly found agricultural commodities to be worth

consideration (Burch and Lawrence 2009). Moreover, in

some nations such as the United States the legal frame-

works have been changed such that persons or firms that

have no intention of taking delivery can participate in the

market. Such speculation tends to raise market prices as

well as to make these markets far more volatile (Wenzlau

2013).

When the rising use of ethanol from maize and sugar

cane (as described by Selfa, Bain and Moreno in this issue)

and the increasingly volatile weather patterns—witness the

widespread drought in the United States in the summer of

2013 and in Russia the summer before that—are added to

the financialization of food, the consequence is rising food

prices. This is especially true in poor nations and among

the poor in middle income nations, where rising food costs

have resulted in rioting and political instability. Indeed,

since food is always a necessity for life and not a choice

among alternatives, rising market prices demand non-

market solutions. Such solutions involve interventions that

violate neoliberal principles, but faced with civil unrest and

starving populations, most regimes will defenestrate neo-

liberal principles, lest they be defenestrated themselves.

5. Democratic decline.

Neoliberalism survives in large part by promoting

insecurity and risk (Beck 1992). The responsible neoliberal7 This is not to suggest that States always enforce the law adequately;

in many instances corruption and laxity limit State protections.

However, in democratic nations, such issues are at least addressable

by the populace.

8 For alternative approaches see, e.g., Dietz and O’Neill (2013) and

Jackson (2009).

Governance in the age of global markets

123

self is one who welcomes risk and adjusts her or his actions

to calculate the best possible path of investment. Moreover,

since the market is claimed to operate in a purely technical

manner, Friedman’s claim noted above is made true. The

direct role of democratic government declines even as

markets cannot function without State-enforced property

law, anti-fraud law and contract law. Furthermore, the role

of the State in designing markets, and thereby determining

the rules of competition and who is likely to win or lose

(Ayres 1957), is obscured. What was a clearly political

process is now interpreted (by both winners and losers) to

be merely the ‘magic of the market.’ Therefore, ‘‘…there is

nothing to bind ordinary citizens to the notion of demo-

cratic governance and a social state. Instead, the state

becomes an object of both disdain and fear’’ (Giroux 2011,

p. 593; cf. Revault d’Allonnes 2010).

MSIs, knowingly or not, participate in this process. As

Raynolds (this issue) notes with respect to Fairtrade,

despite shifting toward working with firms rather than

individual producers, and requiring the formation of

Workers’ Committees in each firm, little training time is

provided to enable workers to have voice in the organiza-

tions that employ them, especially as compared to training

to meet GAP and food safety issues; moreover, even when

training is provided, it is doubtful that the organizations for

which they work become more democratic. Indeed, most

MSIs are rarely if ever democratic either in the direct,

representative or deliberative sense. In Kenya’s HEBI it

was assumed from the start that NGOs would represent

workers; many smallholders are even unaware of the

standards themselves (Nelson and Tallontire this issue).

Some producers associations have resigned from mem-

bership in MSIs as a result of a lack of voice in delibera-

tions which they see as dominated by European actors

(Hospes this issue). In many instances there is a vast social

distance between the various parties to the MSI, ranging

from poor communities to national and international elites,

to huge corporations to various NGOs; not surprisingly,

those with greater resources usually have greater access to

the MSI (Kohne this issue). In other instances, those dis-

enfranchised, finding little likelihood of justice at the hands

of the State, have taken matters into their own hands,

responding to violence with violence (Kohne this issue).

6. Planning a neoliberal society.

Neoliberals pride themselves on the rule of law, on the

establishment of stable processes for the development of a

market society rather than specific outcomes which are the

result of planning. Neoliberals complain frequently about

laws that seek to benefit certain persons, classes, or groups.

Yet, neoliberals fail to note that for the last half century

they have been involved in the technocratic planning of a

neoliberal world, a world in which market decisions and

freedoms trump all others. Put differently, the neoliberal

claim of neutrality with respect to outcomes is simply false;

the enactment of neoliberalism favors (a) those who are

already wealthy or powerful, (b) those who have entre-

preneurial skills and the wherewithal to put them into

action, and (c) those who promote the neoliberal world as

the only legitimate and feasible world. MSIs are no

exception to this rule. Moreover, neoliberalism punishes

those who find the (over)extension of the market world

unacceptable, by forcing them to participate in it through

police and court action. As Wacquant (2012, p. 74) puts it,

‘‘[a]ctually existing neoliberalism extolls ‘laissez faire et

laissez passer’ for the dominant, but it turns out to be

paternalist and intrusive for the subaltern, and especially

for the urban precariat whose life parameters it restricts

through the combined mesh of supervisory workfare and

judicial oversight.’’ We might add that the same paternal-

ism and intrusiveness can be found with respect to the rural

‘precariat’ often associated with MSIs.

The MSIs discussed in this special issue are good

examples of neoliberal planning. Even if they are suc-

cessful on their own terms, and the various papers suggest

that they are not, at best they are islands of success in the

midst of poverty, environmental degradation, and growing

inequalities. Indeed, it is quite possible that some MSIs will

succeed on their own terms while others fail. Some will

improve conditions, while those will contribute to further

degradation even as they paper over conditions on the

ground.

7. The final contradiction: inequalities and neoliberal

development.

While neoliberalism demands formal equality for all, it

has been enacted in ways that bring increasing inequalities

in income and wealth. The land grabs by sugar producers in

Columbia (Self, Bain and Moreno this issue) and of palm

oil producers in Indonesia (Kohne this issue) are cases in

point. These are arguably classic cases where what is good

for capitalists is not good for capitalism. Put differently, the

growing concentration of income and wealth at the very

top, both within nations as well as globally, only works as

long as there is a middle class with the wherewithal to

purchase products and services derived from investments

made by those at the top. Henry Ford understood this well

when he decided to pay his workers what at the time were

considered extraordinarily high wages. In so doing, Ford

made it possible for those workers to purchase the very

products they were producing in his factories.

To clarify the problem, consider the situation in the

wealthier nations of the world right now. While incomes

for those at the middle or bottom of the economic ladder

have stagnated or even declined, to some degree their

purchasing power has been augmented by cheap imports

L. Busch

123

from low income nations. Hence, firms such as Starbucks,

Hershey, and Wal-Mart have been built by sourcing cheap

goods produced with ill-paid labor and selling those goods

to middle and lower income citizens of richer nations at a

considerable markup.

But the political stability of nations such as China

heavily depends on continuing to raise incomes for their

own populations. China has done that in part by achieving

phenomenally high rates of economic growth. This has led

to the creation of a large urban middle and upper class that

supports the current regime, even as rural incomes stagnate

and inequalities increase. It also comes at a price in terms

of rising wages and, therefore, rising prices for goods

produced there. For example, China has already been

squeezed out of parts of the textile industry as firms shift to

lower income nations such as Bangladesh in an effort to

keep costs down. Similarly, the entry of Vietnam into the

coffee market has squeezed traditional producers such as

Ivory Coast and Brazil. Ultimately, these shifts in costs

combined with growing inequalities may lead to declining

consumption among the masses of the population world-

wide. Thus, what appears to be good for neoliberal capi-

talists may be highly problematic for neoliberal capitalism.

Multi-stakeholder initiatives tend to depoliticize

inequalities by making them appear as technical concerns

addressed by market ‘mechanisms’ (Cheyns this issue; Bain

this issue; Nelson et al. 2013, forthcoming; Tallontire et al.

2010). Yet, the political acts of creating global markets and

cheap transport mean that primary product producers are

now in fierce competition with each other to serve the needs

of processors and retailers. While the worst conditions may

be ameliorated by some MSIs, price competition for undif-

ferentiated products will tend to depress prices to producers.

Processors and retailers will continue to seek the cheapest

sources. Only in rare cases, where producers have an

advantage for reasons of varieties, climate or seasonality are

they likely to see their incomes rise.

Next steps: envisioning and enacting a post-neoliberal

world

Any alternative to the neoliberal project we currently

inhabit and co-produce must involve rethinking and re-

enacting the world. Whether MSIs are part of that re-

enactment remains to be seen, but the articles in this special

issue suggest otherwise. Moreover, since compulsive,

excessive competition in all spheres of social life is the

driving force of neoliberalism, other approaches must be

developed to contain competition, to limit its spread and,

when appropriate, to substitute cooperation for competi-

tion. In addition, since individual autonomy has become a

means of governance under neoliberalism, alternatives

cannot be based solely on individual autonomy. Since most

assertions of rights by MSIs emphasize individual rights, or

the protection of individual workers, appeals to rights

cannot be the sole basis of alternatives.

Instead, any alternatives must emphasize social soli-

darities, collective autonomy, cooperation, and group

rights. And, they must use the diversity and incompleteness

of enactments of neoliberalism to create spaces where

alternatives can flourish (Gibson-Graham 2006). These

spaces include household activities, cooperatives, barter,

non-profit organizations, informal markets, ritual

exchange, and other forms of governance. In short, alter-

natives must involve inventing and enacting new forms of

democracy—forms that go beyond the ‘thin’ democracy of

voting for representatives (Barber 1984). We already have

some glimpses of what such forms of democracy might

look like in the Mondragon cooperatives, in Via Campe-

sina, in credit unions, in producer cooperatives, and in

Employee Stockholder Ownership Plans (ESOPs) (e.g.,

Hansmann 1990). We have other examples of how tech-

nologies might be decided upon democratically (e.g.,

Sclove 1995; Callon et al. 2009). None of these examples

suggests that markets are irrelevant or unnecessary. Yet,

each has the potential to give voice to all and to promote

justice and democratic governance. And, each will require

reworking existing institutions or creating new ones in light

of local conditions.

With respect to MSIs and roundtables, we must ask the

difficult questions: Can these initiatives be made part of a

larger program to enhance social justice (e.g., Gibson-

Graham 2006)? How can we ensure that these initiatives

are inclusive of and give greater voice to all? How might

they be organized in a manner that prevents one group from

imposing its views on others? How can we recognize the

often subtle ways in which a dominant group imposes its

views on others? How can we prevent merely papering

over existing injustices? How can we avoid merely pro-

moting a form of consumerism that comforts consumers

(Richey and Ponte 2011)? How can we contain the neo-

liberal entrepreneurial self, while allowing a multitude of

other social selves to form through local but globally linked

social action? What constitutional and statutory changes

are needed to accomplish their goals? How can we take

advantage of the contradictions and crises of neoliberalism

to enact not one alternative, but a multiplicity of alterna-

tives that promote social justice, greater equality, and

social solidarity? The papers in this special issue provide

glimpses into the problems and perhaps partial answers to

these questions. But unless we propose multiple answers

that recognize the multiplicity of the world and that reso-

nate with local needs and conditions rather than some

totalizing answer, we are far too likely to naively advance

the neoliberal agenda.

Governance in the age of global markets

123

Acknowledgments I would like to thank Emmanuelle Cheyns,

Michiel Kohne, Lone Riisgaard and Anne Tallontire for their

insightful and helpful comments on earlier versions of this article.

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Lawrence Busch is University Distinguished Professor of Sociology

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