Sigma: Journal of Political and International Studies Volume 20 Article 7 12-1-2002 Jihad vs. McWorld: How Globalism and Tribalism are Reshaping the World by Benjamin R. Barber Fred Donaldson Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/sigma Recommended Citation Donaldson, Fred (2002) "Jihad vs. McWorld: How Globalism and Tribalism are Reshaping the World by Benjamin R. Barber," Sigma: Journal of Political and International Studies: Vol. 20 , Article 7. Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/sigma/vol20/iss1/7 This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Sigma: Journal of Political and International Studies by an authorized editor of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. BOOK REVIEW: JIHAD VS. MCWORLD AND DEMOCRACY FRED DONALDSON JIHAD VS. Me WORLD: How GLOBALISM AND TRIBALISM ARE RESHAPING THE WORLD. Benjamin R. Barber, New York: Ballantine Books, 1996. 389pp. The cover of the book Jihad vs. Me World, Illinois (25). Through the process of economic by Benjamin Barber, shows a veiled Muslim globalization, "American" cars can be built in woman holding a can of Pepsi. This photograph Japan, while "Japanese" cars are built in Amer­ illustrates the stark contrast between two simul­ ica. Anecdotal statistics, cited by Barber, bolster taneous and very active global forces: Jihad, or his evidence regarding the occurrence of tribalism, and McWorld, or economic globaliza­ McWorld. McDonald's restaurants serve 20 mil­ tion. Barber successfully shows the occurrence lion customers around the world every day, of McWorld and Jihad through the use of which is more than the people in Greece, ire­ examples, statistics, and observations. Barber land, and Switzerland combined. Furthermore, explains that Jihad is a backlash against the $2.4 billion's worth of pizzas sold in 1991 by McWorld and explores, in the pages of this Domino's alone was enough to fund the collec­ book, the interactions between these two global tive government expenditures of Senegal, processes. Uganda, Bolivia, and Iceland (24). These figures Barber uses automobile manufacturing show the power and size of some of today's and anecdotal statistics to describe McWorld, multinational corporations. which represents economic globalization. He According to Barber, McWorld under­ notes that in the new global economy it has mines democracy because it advocates business become difficult to trace automobile genealogy. interests that conflict with state goals, increases For example, labels required by a 1994 U.S. law interdependency, and disconnects citizens from reveal that Chrysler Corporation's Dodge public matters. Barber posits that McWorld does Stealth is manufactured in Nagoya, Japan, while not recognize full employment as a public good. the Mitsubishi Eclipse is produced in Normal, Business efficiency leads to capital-intensive SIGMA· 59 .JIHAD VS'. MCWORD AND DEMOCRACY production, resulting in labor-minimizing job A diluted version of Jihad can be seen in a policies. For example, technological innovations tendency to resist modernity in Western Europe. and developments of new farm machinery have "Provincialism, which sets the periphery against changed the nature of American agriculture. the center, and parochialism, which disdains the Though still a dominant world producer, Amer­ cosmopolitan ... are hostile to the capital city and ica now employs just 2% of the workforce to all it stands for." Small-town citizens are less grow crops, compared to 80% previously (27). threatened by decentralized power; they embrace Barber also believes that at the same time the concept of town or ward government. By this that McWorld increases global interdependency, reasoning, residents of Barcelona or Lyon feel it threatens democracy by moving nations freer than those of Madrid or Paris and so on. away from self-sufficiency. Barber shows the exis­ Parochialism objects to cosmopolitanism and tence of global interdependency by analyzing commercialism, forces that corrupt human asso­ U.S. reliance on foreign oil and arguing that ciation. Shying away from modernity, supporters most countries import a large amount of the of Jihad bunker-up in local communities, seek­ mineral, agricultural, and other resources they ing a return to tradition and ways of the past use (35). (169-70). McWorld damages democracy by causing Barber believes that Jihad is at war with citizens to lose interest in public affairs. McWorid. An example of this war can be seen in Uncomfortable with what they see in a self­ the criticism offered by Hasan al-Banna, the absorbed private sector and an unsympathetic founder of the Islamic group known as the Mus­ government, consumption-weary people find lim Brotherhood. AI-Banna criticized Westerners themselves politically alienated (280). This for "importing their half-naked women into problem is rooted in the way McWorld views these regions, together with their liquors, their people: citizens are nothing more than con­ theaters, their dance halls, their amusement, sumers. The economy, rather than democratic their stories, their newspapers, their novels, their participation, controls policy. Without citizens, whims, their silly games, and their vices." Barber democracy is impossible. McWorld, rather than notes that al-Banna believed that the culture of pursuing equality and justice, entertains a the West was "more dangerous than political and "bloodless economics of profit" (8). Citing military campaigns" (210). This quote and other Robert Putman, Barber states, "when people examples are used as evidence that Jihad is a start bowling alone instead of together in backlash against McWorid. leagues this [is a sign of] trouble for democ­ In Barber's opinion, the Christian Right's racy" (275). The resulting lack of citizenship campaign for a return to family values is an weakens the community institutions on which American example of Jihad. The American Jihad a civil society must rest. exists in the Protestants who rebel against the The second section of the book discusses culture generated by McWorid in their midst. In Jihad. Barber states that even while McWorid is this McWorld, despised "liberal" politicians bringing the world closer together through undermine their belief systems with textbooks economic connections, Jihad is fragmenting that preach evolution and schools that bar prayer it through tribalism. Jihad manifests itself in (212). many forms: from provincialism, parochialism, Barber states that although Jihad and and religious struggle to bloody wars on behalf McWorid are opposing forces, they can be of partisan identity and resistance to modernity. observed in the same country at the same Barber uses the term Jihad to suggest extreme instant. "Iranian zealots keep one ear tuned to dogmatic devotion applied to any group, the mullahs urging holy war and the other whether religious, political, or ethnic. Jihad cocked to Rupert Murdoch's Star television identifies the self by contrasting it with an alien beaming in Dynasty, Donahue, and The Simp­ "other" and makes politics an exercise in exclu­ sons from hovering satellites" (4-5). Other sion and resentment. examples include fundamentalists in the United 60· SIGMA DONALDSON States plotting virtual conspiracies over the Inter­ globalization actually facilitate CIVIC partICIpa­ net and the Russian Orthodox Church teaming tion, thus bolstering democracy. The amount of up with California businessmen to bottle and information available at the touch of a button for sell natural waters blessed by Patriarch Aleksy II. individual consumption and analysis is stagger­ Barber argues that Jihad is detrimental to ing. Economic globalization often increases civic democracy within the country where it manifests participation by creating a more-involved and itself because it destroys the mind-set that allows better-informed citizenry. This in turn results in democracy to function. Jihad's demand for greater government accountability and improved extreme devotion also limits its access to real democratic processes. power in a centralized independent world. In the last chapter of the book, Barber Although tribes and religious clans have demo­ offers a radical solution to the problem of erod­ cratic possibilities, Jihad does not lead to the ing global democracy caused by Jihad and democratic values and institutions of the nation­ McWorld: the establishment of a global confed­ states they fragment (233). His assertions are eration with a single civil society. This organiza­ confirmed by historical facts, such as the military tion would resemble the loose unit set up by coup that ousted the formerly democratic gov­ the original American colonies in the Articles ernment in Pakistan. of Confederation. Such a confederation would While Barber shows that Jihad is detrimen­ allow current nation-states to "create, bottom­ tal to democracy, his conclusions about the nega­ up, a global association" (289). According to tive impact of globalization on democracy are Barber, this new organization would offer a start­ debatable. Barber himself admits that economic ing place to defend against the depredations of freedom eventually leads to democracy. In a both Jihad and McWorld. regrettable choice of examples, he uses the for­ Barber's failure to consider economic pros­ mer Soviet Union to show that economic free­ perity, a result of globalization, more desirable