Blessing for West, curse for rest
RAGHU DAYAL
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The book’s objective is to “examine the political responses to globalisation”
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POLITICS OF GLOBALIZATION: Edited by Samir Dasgupta and Jan Nederveen Pieterse; Sage Publications India Pvt. Ltd.,
B 1/I-1, Mohan Cooperative Industrial Area, Mathura Road, New Delhi-110044. Rs. 850.
Integrating contributions from 18 writers on disparate aspects, the two editors set the real agenda of the book, Jan Pieterse by way of the Prologue and Samir Dasgupta through the Introduction. Their avowed objective, as Dasgupta explains, is to “empirically examine the political responses to globalisation.” In the backdrop of what Daniel Bell writes — “the nation-state is becoming too small for the big problems of life, and too big for the small pr
oblems of life” — neoliberalists view globalisation as a deregulated freedom for economic activities. Capitalism in all its varied forms in the 20th century are explored in this book and globalisation itself is viewed as the latest hegemonic expression of capitalism.
Blessing
Carrying the argument further, Dasgupta asserts that globalisation is a blessing to the “West”, while it is a curse to the “rest”; and now to the people of the world it is a mixed blessing. This may well be juxtaposed with the generic refrain against globalisation — as Leslie Sklair says — that all accept that the rich are getting richer, some of the poor are getting poorer, and the gaps between the rich and the poor are widening in the globalising world.
Maintaining the thrust of his argument, Pieterse points to the shift today from the United States and other western financial centres to what he calls, “the autocracies of the Middle East and east Asia”. Emphasising the disproportionate levels of consumption in the U.S. relative to the rest of the world, he traces the American hegemonic march that followed the era of British hegemony. It is Manfred B. Steger who explores the shifting dynamics between the national and the global by focussing on attempts by the U.S. neoconservative thinkers and policymakers to solve the paradox by universalising ‘America’ or ‘American values’, which, to him, is “historically incorrect, culturally insensitive and politically foolish.”
Multipolarity
In spite of Paul Krugman believing in 1994 that the ‘Asian miracle’ was a myth, the axis of globalisation is turning from North-South to East-South relations. Again, the 1990s architecture of globalisation has been found to be fragile, and the disciplinary regime of the Washington Consensus has been slipping away. Instead, what is taking place is global repositioning and realignments toward growing multipolarity. In 2006, Phillip Stephens called it a cliché to say that “the next phase of globalisation will most likely have an Asian face.” The ongoing “re-Asianisation” is, today in particular, led by China and India, with the former’s GDP expected to surpass Japan’s in 2016 and the U.S.’s by 2025 (Pieterse). Some of the Chinese corporate behemoths are already at the top globally — for example, the $1 trillion PetroChina, and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.
Dasgupta, in the introductory chapter, explains how globalisation is most often understood purely as an economic agenda, albeit it is, in fact, a package of economic interests and socio-political ideologies seeking to re-enact colonialism. Concomitantly, cultural capitalism is termed as an engine of “corporate imperialism,” trampling over the human rights of developing societies. No longer can globalisation be thought of only in economic and social terms. It has a “very seminal role in the ecological context.” Steven Best pleads for a shift from an economic fetish to an ecological ethic as “a revolution in human consciousness.” Well aware of the spectre of growing pressure on world resources and asymmetrical demand-supply syndrome of humans on the planet, he expresses deep concern at the looming prospect of the poor nations that have contributed the least to climate change being the most affected.
Inflence
The book incorporates some of the aspects that are shaped and influenced by globalisation — for example, workers’ unions and women’s empowerment. William K. Tabb maintains that globalisation in the contemporary conjuncture has undercut the bargaining position, while Biswajit Ghosh analyses how the existence of a large pool of unorganised labour has made the unions inherently weak, the economic liberalisation process having caused more harm to the unions through job losses in the organised sector. For him, the ‘New World Order’ has made the ‘Liberalisation, Privatisation and Globalisation’ (LPG) model of development almost irreversible.
Samir Dasgupta finds globalisation presenting opportunities to some women but causing marginalisation of many others. He seems to stretch the point rather too far and his logic is less than convincing. It is difficult to appreciate the reasoning behind the conclusion that globalisation makes women ‘sexy’ and uses them as sex-commodities. Issues discussed in the last few chapters bear little relevance to the central theme of the book, which otherwise makes a compelling reading in the context of emerging global concerns.
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