Introduction 2 Classical Liberalism: Globalization As the Logic of Freedom
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Notes Introduction 1. Held and his colleagues also introduced the useful mapping of the globalization debate in terms of three tendencies: ‘hyperglobalist’, ‘sceptical’ and ‘transformationalist’ (see Held et al. 1999: 2–10 and Held and McGrew 2000). 2. Many other theorists defined ideology following a logic akin to Seliger’s con- ceptualization (for example Christenson et al. 1971: 5; Goodwin 2007: 28–9; Heywood 2007: 11–12; Vincent 2010: 18); a useful synthetic discussion of inclusive and restrictive definitions is provided by Mathew Humphrey (Humphrey 2005). 3. The concept of globalization was not in common use until the 1960s; two early appearances of the term are usually mentioned: in the 1961 edition of Webster Dictionary and in a 1962 issue of the Spectator magazine (Waters 2001: 2). 4. One concession that can be made on this question is to accept that ideology may take different forms – ‘esoteric’, where it ‘requires study and meditation’, and ‘exoteric’, where ‘a certain measure of simplification, translation (faithful or otherwise), omission, and addition is necessary’ (Hagopian 1978: 401). Still, in those different appearances political communication remains committed to particular ways of reading political reality and to given sets of values and priorities and so is susceptible to ‘ideological infection’ (Goodwin 2007: 15). 2 Classical Liberalism: Globalization as the Logic of Freedom 1. That disputes arise with regard to the parameters of liberalism is, of course, an unsurprising exemplification of the fact that ideological morphologies are volatile. But in the case of liberalism the matter is complicated further by differences based on distinct geographical conventions. In the United States the term is understood as denoting a belief system that, to use the crude spa- tial metaphor, is located to the left in relation to what passes for liberalism in continental Europe. The American way of thinking about liberalism may imply an unusual view represented by, for example, Noam Chomsky: ‘[i]f you take the ideals of classical liberalism seriously [...] it leads to opposi- tion to corporate capitalism’ (Chomsky and Otero 2003: 398). This position clashes with claims presenting the liberal ideology as inextricably linked to the priorities of the capitalist system (see for example Arblaster 1984: 7; Goodwin 2007: 42) and the latter opinion squares with how liberalism is understood in most of Europe (Cerny 2008: 5–6). 182 Notes 183 2. It should also be noted that neoliberalism is undergoing a process of transformation whereby it increasingly adopts more complex and nuanced positions. Some analysts insist that it is important to discern this inter- nal variety. For example, Cerny suggests a distinction between ‘regulatory’, ‘managed’ and ‘social’ neoliberalism (Cerny 2008) and Andrew Gamble distinguishes between ‘laissez-faire’, ‘anarcho-capitalist’ and ‘social market’ strands within the neoliberal discourse (Gamble 2009b: 71–2). Moreover, neoliberalism intermingles with other liberal positions thus enriching its own morphology and influencing other conceptual configurations in the process (Crouch 2011: 23). 3. For a more extensive critique of globalism as ideological category, see Soborski (2009). 4. In Freeden’s model ‘thin’ ideologies are also ideological types and so the question remains if the six claims of globalism might meet the criteria of a partial, issue-driven, ideological current. Freeden poses a similar question with regard to nationalism and explains that ‘[a] thin-centred ideology is [...] limited in ideational ambitions and scope’. However, for a concep- tual cluster to qualify as a thin ideology it still needs to offer a set of decontestations absent from other ideologies. On the other hand, ‘if [it] is not an ideology, we would expect to find its conceptual arrangements as a component in another, broader ideological family’ (Freeden 1998: 750). Accordingly, since there are reasons to doubt the regular occurrence of most of ‘globalism’s claims in its would-be paradigmatic exemplification and since (as I will show) they are instead recognizable as elements in broader ideological segments, the existence of even a thin ideology is put into serious doubt. 5. The fellow-feeling between several variants of classical liberalism and Anglo-American conservatism is nothing new. In fact, market-orientated, laissez-faire currents of classical liberalism have long enjoyed the warm sympathy of some conservatives. Moreover, many prominent thinkers – Hume, Burke, Spencer, Hayek, Berlin or Oakeshott, to mention just the most important among them – combined liberal and conservative ideas (see Femia 2012). The more recent continuities between neoliberalism and ‘conserva- tive ideology of authoritarian moralism’ are discussed by Nederveen Pieterse in his account of the ‘osmosis’ of neoliberalism and imperialism (2004: 46, 45–52). 6. It is true that some evolution of positions regarding the state has taken place even within the hard core of neoliberalism. For example, Francis Fukuyama (2004) has called for ‘state building’ and even Milton Friedman expressed some reservations à propos privatization (Saul 2005: 251). Never- theless, the acceptance of the state remains qualified and its competencies are usually defined as delimited to guaranteeing social stability as a pre- requisite for a business-friendly environment. Even following the financial crisis most neoliberals have reaffirmed their unconditional faith in the market and their distrust of government, warning against state-led solu- tions to the turmoil and ultimately blaming states for the credit crunch (see Conclusion). 7. A penetrating account of Kant as a global theorist avant le mot has been provided by Gary Browning (2011: 22–41). 184 Notes 3 Socialism: Globalization as the Fulfilment of History 1. For an engaging insider’s overview of the intellectual history of the Marxist left in the twentieth century, see Goran Therborn’s (2008) From Marxism to Post-Marxism. 2. An informative discussion of Marx’s insights into the role of communication technology is provided in Yves de La Haye’s (1980) Marx & Engels on the Means of Communication. 3. There is, however, an important exception to this way of thinking within a broadly conceived Marxist paradigm, namely in dependency theories (for example Frank 1996). As Anthony Brewer explains, while mainstream Marxism maintains that capitalism introduces modernization and indus- trialism to backward countries and so ‘creates the material preconditions for a better (socialist) society as well as the class forces that will bring it about’, dependency theories suggest that capitalism prevents progress and produces ‘development of underdevelopment’ (1990: 16, 18; this may imply that the solution is ‘delinking’; for a critique of this assump- tion in the work of Samir Amin, see Nederveen Pieterse 2010: 54–63). Barbara Goodwin uses examples of African socialism to point out another exception: socialists in countries that have never experienced capital- ism may altogether challenge the necessity of the capitalist stage (2007: 115–17). 4. See also Hardt and Negri’s more recent book in which they continue this thread, borrowing a military term to describe the ‘full-spectrum dominance’ exercised by the current ‘bio-political’ capitalist regime (2005: 55). 5. Some commentators have suggested that Marx’s globalism was not with- out reservations for Marx backed the nationalistic aspirations of Poles and Hungarians (for example Van Ree 2003). In my opinion, this stance of Marx should be interpreted as supportive of the peoples struggling against partic- ularly reactionary absolutist monarchies and therefore it does not invalidate Marx’s overall radically globalist stance. More generally, it is true that Marx accepted that the struggle of the working class has to begin at the level of the nation-state (Bronner 2011: 179; Schweickart 2011: 194–5); again, this assumption is not necessarily in contradiction with his globalism. 6. As I argue in the Conclusion to this book, the financial crash has not come as a surprise to observers of a Marxist persuasion who generally perceive the current turmoil as merely a symptom of a long-term and ultimately terminal decline of the system of capitalist accumulation (see for example Amin 2011; Callinicos 2010; Harman 2009; North 2012; contributions in Panitch et al. 2011). 7. For an account highlighting the often unacknowledged socialist threads in the ‘alternative globalization movement’, see Chapter 5 in Chamsy El- Ojeili’s and Patrick Hayden’s book Critical Theories of Globalization (2006: 178–213). 8. This shift away from the free-market orthodoxy is exemplified by increase in public interest in critiques of the neoliberal status-quo and by the rise of left-libertarian think-tanks in the region. For instance, Poland’s New Polit- ical Critique group works to promote the ideas of pre-War Polish socialist thinkers as well as familiarizing broader readership with the writings of Notes 185 the leading left-wing dissidents active in the ‘communist’ Polish People’s Republic. 9. Reservations about the practicality of globalist measures in the pursuit of socialism may actually be articulated in conjunction with the prevail- ing dynamics of contemporary globalization. In an assessment by Stephen Bronner, ‘[t]he possibility of forging an internationalist response to inter- national capitalism seems remote’. While committed to the ‘ideal of internationalism’, Bronner describes the current situation as one where ‘[a]n increasingly