Walter LaFeber. and the New Global Capitalism. and London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1999. 191 pp. $22.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-393-04747-9.

Reviewed by Barbara Keys

Published on H-Diplo (January, 2000)

At frst glance, a book about a basketball star popular culture with an efciency and pervasive‐ might seem like a strange departure for an es‐ ness that represent a quantum leap over earlier teemed historian of American foreign relations methods. Difering from the old multinationals in whose previous works have dealt with late nine‐ their use of foreign labor, dependence on global teenth-century American expansionism, the Cold markets, and reliance on massive advertising War, U.S. involvement in Central America, and campaigns, transnationals are, moreover, so big U.S.-Japanese relations. But in telling the story of and so truly transnational that no single govern‐ Michael Jordan's rise to global marketing icon, ment can exercise more than limited control over Walter LaFeber is driven by the same concerns their activities (pp. 55-57). In his very frst book, that have underpinned much of his earlier work; LaFeber argued that America's search for markets here, too, the central issue is the economically at the end of the nineteenth century was driven motivated expansion of American power. The real by a partnership between businessmen and politi‐ protagonist of this book is not Michael Jordan but cians; his latest book suggests that, a century lat‐ American capitalism -- in the guise of a sneaker er, commercial empire builders have largely out‐ company. grown the need for government patronage.[1] In For LaFeber, the Nike Corporation epitomizes Michael Jordan, media moguls like Ted Turner a new and uniquely powerful agent of capitalism: and corporate executives like Nike's Phil the "transnational corporation," which has har‐ are running the show, directing global fows of nessed the technological developments of the capital and labor with little heed to the feeble ef‐ postindustrial age (like satellites and cable televi‐ forts of governments to control what happens sion) to dominate world markets in novel ways. within their countries' increasingly porous bor‐ Powered for the most part by American capital ders. and bent on spreading the American way of life, Drawing on secondary sources and newspa‐ transnational corporations transmit American per and magazine articles, LaFeber charts the de‐ H-Net Reviews velopment of the "new global capitalism" through age and then to saturate the media with that im‐ the prism of Nike's heady leap to global giant, age. largely through its enormously proftable market‐ Two of the book's six chapters center on the ing of Michael Jordan. From its humble begin‐ critical public scrutiny that Nike's and Jordan's nings in the 1960s, when Phil Knight sold running fame and power eventually engendered. In the from his car and netted about $364, Nike's mid-1990s, Nike came under attack for abuses at sales hit nearly $10 billion in the mid-1990s. Nike its Asian production facilities. Subsistence-level achieved these dizzying heights of success by pig‐ wages, child labor, suppression of eforts to gybacking on the communications revolution of unionize, and physical abuse of workers revealed the 1970s and 1980s: the development of direct- the seamier side of the "new global capitalism."[3] broadcast satellites and fber-optic cables, which Jordan, ever loyal to his corporate sponsors, was allowed media pioneers like CNN's founder Ted criticized for not speaking out against conditions Turner to create truly global television--and hence under which workers were earning less than two truly global markets.[2] dollars per day to produce the shoes he was paid In a series of deft and engaging vignettes, tens of millions of dollars to endorse. LaFeber ar‐ LaFeber sketches out these developments to ex‐ gues that the bad press was the consequence of a plain how Nike and its gifted advertising team ex‐ "Faustian bargain" both Nike and Jordan had ploited this global marketing potential, notably struck with the media: "to live of the media through the clever and innovative marketing of opened the possibility of being damned by the Jordan. Unfortunately, much of the space in this media" (p. 115). But the "bargain" was hardly very short book is devoted to Jordan's profession‐ "Faustian." Relative to the benefts they received, al basketball career, from 1984, when he was the costs of their media dependence were mini‐ drafted by the Chicago Bulls (and signed his frst mal. By suggesting an equivalence between gain contract with Nike), through his (fnal) retirement and harm, and by framing the public outcry over last year. Along the way LaFeber covers the famil‐ Nike's labor practices as an inevitable conse‐ iar stories of the Bulls' frst championship in 1991, quence of fame and power, LaFeber avoids mak‐ the media fanfare surrounding the "Dream Team" ing clear judgments about the efects of global at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, the murder of capitalism. In his telling, the abuse of Asian work‐ Jordan's father, the outcry over Jordan's high- ers is a story about the media's efects on Nike's stakes golf gambling, his stint in minor-league image, not about Nike's real efects on real people. baseball, and his later years with the Bulls. This The dustjacket's breathless declaration that narrative ultimately does not reveal much about "LaFeber's examination of Nike and its particular the "new global capitalism" that the book aims to dominion over the global marketplace is often explore. Jordan, after all, was a symbol, not an ar‐ (and justifably) scathing" just doesn't hold up; if chitect, of global capitalism. He was a spectacular anything, LaFeber is strangely soft on Nike's "soft" athlete, certainly, and his athletic skills (along imperialism. with his good looks and amiable, inofensive per‐ LaFeber does believe that the soft power of sonality) were necessary but are not in them‐ American media and popular culture is danger‐ selves sufcient to explain how he achieved glob‐ ous: by ceaselessly expanding U.S. capital-driven al fame playing a sport that is still marginal in culture, transnationals, he argues, are bound to most of the world. The crucial ingredient was ad‐ provoke violent instability both abroad and at vertising: the tens of millions of dollars that Nike home. "The battlefelds ahead," he predicts, will (and other companies) spent to shape Jordan's im‐ revolve around "capital versus culture....between

2 H-Net Reviews new, technological forms of capitalism versus cul‐ important antecedents to Michael Jordan and ar‐ tures pressured to adjust to changes demanded by guably exercised far deeper infuences, on far the capital" (p. 162). On the specifc ways that Nike more people's aspirations and lifestyles, than any and Jordan have generated global instability or athlete playing an American sport. forced cultural adjustments, however, LaFeber Although the book ultimately raises more can ofer only sketchy and anecdotal evidence. On questions than it answers, it is a signifcant har‐ a topic so recent and so broad, of course, the data binger of the way international relations will be are scarce, and the most meaningful efects of studied in the 21st century. For diplomatic histori‐ Nike's global iconization of Jordan are difcult to ans, the book reinforces the view that important measure. To know the number of countries where subjects of inquiry increasingly lie beyond the na‐ National Basketball Association games are now tion-state. For undergraduates in survey courses broadcast, for example, tells us little about (apparently the book's intended audience), whether the glorifcation of black male stars has Michael Jordan might serve as a provocative fnal afected perceptions of race, or whether Nike's re‐ reading assignment, pointing to some of the ways lentless focus on individual achievement has left foreign relations are being reshaped in the new any trace on social dynamics, or whether the com‐ century. Finally, for "some of the more parochial modifcation and commercialization of sport that members of the U.S. Congress, some academic de‐ Nike pushed to new heights have signifcantly al‐ partments, and a few publishing houses," who tered leisure and consumption patterns--to sug‐ seem to think that foreign relations are unimpor‐ gest just a few areas where the penetration of tant now that the Cold War is over, LaFeber's "Nike culture" might have had important conse‐ book amply demonstrates that the opposite is quences. true: "the nation's overseas infuence and power LaFeber takes the world's passion for modern has only become more fascinating" (p. 14). sport as a given, but it might have been worth ex‐ Notes ploring how it is that sport came to be, as Phil [1]. Walter LaFeber, The New Empire: An In‐ Knight called it, "the culture of the world" (p. 67). terpretation of American Expansion, 1860-1898 The alacrity with which peoples from all over the (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1963), 327. world have forsaken indigenous games in favor of modern sport, with its fetishization of individual [2]. Many of these stories (the rise of ESPN, achievement and records, quantifcation of re‐ CNN, and Nike) are covered more fully in David sults, standardization of rules and facilities, and Halberstam's much longer and nearly hagiograph‐ rationalization of movement, is a remarkable and ic Playing for Keeps: Michael Jordan and the puzzling phenomenon.[4] It is, moreover, a World He Made (New York: Random House, 1999). process that took place largely before World War It, too, makes the argument that Michael Jordan II and was dominated by British sports far more was "the signature commercial representative of than by their American variants. Even today there [a] great new athletic-cultural-commercial em‐ is an odd disjuncture between the world's enthu‐ pire" (p. 131). siastic embrace of much of American popular cul‐ [3]. Nike designs and markets shoes, but does ture and its indiference to America's major team not produce them: it uses independent contrac‐ sports. Soccer is "the world's sport," not football tors to run the production facilities. Nike could or baseball or even basketball. Leaving out this thus argue that it was not responsible for working context lends the book an oddly ahistorical and conditions at factories producing Nike shoes. U.S.-centric favor: international stars of British- origin team sports, like the soccer star Pele, were

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[4]. On the diferences between pre-modern athletic contests and modern sport, see Melvin L. Adelman, A Sporting Time: New York City and the Rise of Modern Athletics, 1820-1870 (Urbana: Uni‐ versity of Press, 1986), pp. 3-10, and Allen Guttmann, From Ritual to Record: The Nature of Modern Sports (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978), pp. 15-55. For a recent look at global‐ ization and sport, see Joseph Maguire, Global Sport: Identities, Societies, Civilizations (Cam‐ bridge: Polity Press, 1999). David Rowe's Sport, Culture and the Media: The Unruly Trinity (Buck‐ ingham: Open University Press, 1999), provides a very useful overview of the contemporary scene from a sociological perspective. Copyright (c) 2000 by H-Net, all rights re‐ served. This work may be copied for non-proft educational use if proper credit is given to the au‐ thor and the list. For other permission, please con‐ tact [email protected].

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Citation: Barbara Keys. Review of LaFeber, Walter. Michael Jordan and the New Global Capitalism. H- Diplo, H-Net Reviews. January, 2000.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=3768

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