IDEOLOGY OF GLOBALISM
DRIVES THE PROCESS OF GLOBALIZATION Manfred B.
Steger.
GLOBALISM: THE
NEW MARKET IDEOLOGY. NY: Rowman
& Littlefield, 2002. UC:
337/St32.
Manfred
Steger writes
a tight little study aimed at separating the ideology
of what he labels "globalism"--a
"rhetorical package" (13)--from the actual
"globalization" of the material resources
of the world. He gives us a rigorously reasoned
presentation of this distinction.
In the end, his
study leads him to criticize the ideology that he
analyses. He advocates an educational campaign to
reform the self-serving advocacy of the ideology of
globalism pushed forward by the Western powers, which
hold hegemonic control. He would put academic power
to work against the prevailing political power of
neoliberalism residing predominantly in the US.
Steger finds the
roots of the ideology of globalism in nineteenth
century free market liberalism derived from Adam
Smith, David Ricardo, and Herbert Spencer. Globalist
ideologues simply have repackaged the classic liberal
model of capitalism within the "global framework
of our times." (12) They have just poured
"old philosophical wine into new ideological
bottles." (12)
The push behind
this ideology preoccupies Steger. Why does the West
so vehemently advance it as the only accurate way to
describe the globalizing dynamics that are reshaping
today's world? Steger seeks the answer by applying
three conceptual tools: (1) The concept of
"ideology"; (2) the concept of
"hegemony"; (3) and the concept of
"critical theory."
THE CONCEPT OF
"IDEOLOGY"
To define the
concept of ideology, Steger draws on the work of
Terrel Carver, who linked ideology and politics. He
looks also to the ideas of French philosopher Paul
Ricoeur, who devised a comprehensive conceptual
framework for the notion of ideology. Ideology,
Carver said, is an "agenda for things to
discuss" in the political realm (7) (not to
mention that it is also a means for avoiding
discussion of other things).
Applying
Carver's ideas, Steger suggests that the ideology of
globalism supports the political agenda of neoliberal
globalists in four ways. (1) It purports to explain
globalization as a natural force
outside human will. (2) It asserts a standard
of normative evaluation and
finds that globalization is good. (3) It functions as
a guide for action
in support of globalization. (4) And it simplifies
complex reality so that
globalization appears in a favorable light. (6-7)
Following
Ricoeur, Steger observes that an ideology so
identified distorts
social reality, legitimates the
ruling authority that asserts it, and integrates
persons into the collective identity of globalizers
through "symbols, norms, and images." (8)
THE CONCEPT OF
"HEGEMONY"
Steger turns to
the theories of Antonio Gramsci to get at the concept
of hegemony. A hegemony is "a power relationship
between social groups and classes in which one class
exercises leadership by gaining the active consent of
subordinate groups." (8) The consent of
subordinate groups, in Gramsci's theory, was not
normally coerced; rather, it came from their
acceptance and internalization of "the social
logic of domination that is embedded in hegemonic
ideology." (8) (Steger might have found further
support for the notion of hegemony by referring to
the work of Foucault on the structure of power and Michael Hardt and Antonio
Negri on the rise of Empire.)
Steger holds
that neoliberal globalists in the last two decades or
so have become the hegemonic leaders of the West by
persuading others that their ideology of globalism
offers the best hope for them and the world. (12)
Hegemonic globalists proclaim that free market
capitalism on a global scale will produce social,
political, and technological progress for the most
people. They use "quasi-religious language that
bestows almost divine wisdom upon the market."
(12) Religious overtones to the contrary
notwithstanding, the notion of the beneficent market,
as Steger sees it, grows out of the distortions and
oversimplifications of the hegemony's ideology of
globalism.
THE CONCEPT OF "CRITICAL
THEORY"
Steger turns to
the strategies of "critical theory" to
spell out how the ideology of globalism relates to a
hegemonic political agenda. (He thereby associates
his method with that of the Frankfurt School, the Institute of Social
Research, which played a significant role in the
critique of modernity.) This turn to "critical
discourse analysis" enables him, he believes, to
explore effectively the role of
ideas as such in the process of
globalization. For he emphatically sees
globalism--"the rhetorical package"--as an
active agent in the broader phenomenon of
globalization, the material process, distinct from
its economics, its politics, or its culture.
"Globalization is also a linguistic and
ideological practice," he says. (14) This
practice, this ideological talk about globalization,
in itself contributes to the development of the
phenomenon of globalization. (40)
So, the ideology
itself, he believes, demands analysis in its own
right. In a chapter on the academic debate over
globalization, he finds "no scholarly agreement
on a single conceptual framework for the study of
globalization." (39) In particular, he sees the
role of ideas falling between the cracks of
conventional analytical strategies in political,
economic, and cultural disciplines. (14)
Steger
critically interprets spoken and written statements
about the ideology of globalism as it arises in five
central claims:
--"Globalization
is about the liberalization and global integration of
markets." (47)
--"Globalization
is inevitable and irreversible." (54)
--"Nobody
is in charge of globalization." (61)
--"Globalization
benefits everyone." (66)
--"Globalization
furthers the spread of democracy in the world."
(73)
Steger contests
these five claims by carefully analyzing the language
that globalists use to assert them. Together,
nonetheless, they constitute in his view the new
ideology of globalism. (79) Because of their limits
and contradictions, these claims, which make up the
hegemonic story, are provoking contradictory stories
from both the Right and the Left. And Steger outlines
the main anti-hegemonic positions, ranging from Pat
Buchanan's economic nationalism to Ralph Nader's
leftist populism. He looks into the
anti-globalization disturbances in Seattle and
elsewhere and into the corporate responses to them
for indicators of future prospects.
He sees an
attractive vision in an anti-hegemonic
"globalization from below" program,
advanced by several activist writers (Jeremy Brecher,
Tim Costello, and Brendan Smith). This would initiate
a "global new deal" based on principles
such as upward leveling, democratization, localized
decision-making, reduction of the rich-poor gap,
environmental regulation, anti-recession programs.
(146-147).
Such visions,
Steger acknowledges, are still no match for the
powerful narrative of globalism that still
predominates. That is why he would like the academic
world to take up the task of contesting and revising
"the script of globalism" (149) being
trumpeted by the hegemony. This impulse is true to
his initial focus on ideas.
Change the ideas of youth about the virtues of
globalization and you will change the world. You will
show that globalization is not the
"inevitability" that the ideology of
globalism says it is. You will show that the
"irreversibility" of free markets is no
more than an ideological myth.
Although
this
is a brief study, dominated by its
methodology, it successfully reminds us how untamed
so far the topic of globalization is in the
traditional academic spaces. It is a useful footnote
to Fredric
Jameson's observations on the ubiquity of
globalization in all our intellectual endeavors of
the years ahead. Steger has done well to devise a
method of inquiry that looks directly at the
rhetorical strategies serving globalization. The
sense that globalization is inevitable and
irreversible permeates academic discourse as well as
political discourse in the seats of power. The need
to clarify definitions and differentiate processes
remains compelling. Steger's work helps us meet that
need.
At the same
time, Steger's attempt at discourse analysis remains
at an elementary level, and it leads him perhaps too
hastily to advocate future scenarios that would work
against globalist hegemony.
The complex
international scene that emerged out of the 9-11
attack on America does not come under Steger's
scrutiny--he presumably completed the book before the
world changed. The rise of Al Qaeda--and Islamist
extremists of all stripes--to threatening prominence
has presented us with a different and more lethal
form of ideological opposition to globalism. Though
he does not treat it, Steger helps us separate out
the issues for future reference.
Al Qaeda's
violent attack on the bastion of Western
globalization has resulted in the violent response of
the US and others. This necessarily violent agenda in
the near term obscures cultural antipathies inherent
in the law-abiding Muslim world. When the shooting
subsides, the West and Islam have a rendezvous with
global destiny, so to speak. They will have to
confront the hegemonic reality of the ideology of
globalism that keynotes policy in American and other
Western nations.
Among other
things, the US in this confrontation will have to
take account, as it has not done before, of the
cultural boundaries that Islam will doubtless want to
maintain in a 21st century world peace project. The
assertion of these boundaries will contradict our
arguments for an ideological globalism. So, we may
quell the worst of the terrorist threats with our new
Bush doctrine of pre-emptive warfare. But ideological
conflicts at the diplomatic table are almost certain
to be intense and prolonged.
It will be
particularly interesting to see whether rhetoric from
anti-globalists in the West will in any way converge
with the anti-globalism that will emerge from the
Muslim world. As improbable as it sounds in this
moment of mounting war fever, there would seem to be
a natural affinity between the two groups, since they
both takes stands against the ideology of globalism.
Finally, I hear
in Steger's analysis of globalism the overtones of
John Gray's criticism in False Dawn. Gray too saw serious
flaws in the ideological arguments for global free
markets. He held that "the
freedoms of the market are not ends in themselves.
They are expedients, devices contrived by human
beings for human purposes. Markets are made to serve
man, not man the market. In the global free market
the instruments of economic life have become
dangerously emancipated from social control and
political governance." (False
Dawn, 234)
The Stegers and
Grays have not argued down the hegemonic voice that
continues to proclaim the ideology of globalism. But
they have found a foothold on the platform. The
ideological argument over globalism
is being joined. Meanwhile, communication
technologies continue to drive the far corners of the
globe into ever closer contact, making the material
process of globalization
a reality for people nearly everywhere.
The need for
social control and effective political
governance--the need for civil society to mediate the
lives of individuals--grows increasingly compelling
as the world community tries to find a viable system
to replace that of the bi-polar Cold War in a
technologically connected world. One can imagine
these needs rising so greatly that they might
precipitate a new ideology of global community, the
small seeds of which already exist in the several
anti-globalist movements. The ideology of hegemonic
globalism may yet hear a voice to rival its own.
As I write,
however, the Bush administration is beating the drum
for invading Iraq. War, if it comes, will put new
pressure on all the relationships and systems that
currently hold the global community in tenuous
balance. I am hoping that Paul Wolfowitz and other
brain trusters in the administration can see better
than I can how that pressure will play out for the
good of the world--though I fear that their ability
to see the near future is more limited than they
allow. It seems clear that, whatever happens,
military and political ideology are going to
determine outcomes in the near future, not the
ideology of globalism.
But it seems equally clear that a war with Iraq, if
it comes, would occur in the context of the globalization
that Steger and Gray acknowledge as the reality of
our times.
26 September 2002 Copyright © 2002 Richard P.
Richter
