MARKET GLOBALISM

BY
MANFRED B. STEGER
• Steger: “Globalization refers to the expansion and
intensification of social relations and consciousness across
world-time and world-space”.
• Steger’s definition of globalization must be differentiated
from “globalism”.
POLITICAL IDEOLOGIES AND THE GLOBAL IMAGINARY

• IDEOLOGY
• A system of widely shared ideas, patterned beliefs, guiding norms and values,
and ideals accepted as truth by some groups
• Serves as guide and compass for social and political action
• Structured based on “core” claims
• First coined by Antoine Destutt de Tracy in the late 18th century
 PAUL RICOEUR (French philosopher, 1986)

Functional Level of ideology

• Distortion
• the production of contorted images of social reality
• assemble a picture of the world that both represents and distorts social
processes
• Legitimation
• The claim to legitimacy by the ruling authority and the belief in the
authority’s legitimacy granted by its subjects.
• Integration
• Provides the society with stability as it creates, preserves and protects the
social identity of persons and groups
THE FIVE CORE CLAIMS OF MARKET GLOBALISM

• The term “globalization” gained in currency in the late 1980s.

• Globalization occur in different physical and mental dimensions
• Arjun Appadurai (1996), global flows occur in different physical and
mental dimensions which he divided into
• Ethnoscapes
• Technoscapes
• Finanscapes
• Ideoscapes
• Mediascapes
Globalism managed to achieve discursive dominance in less than two
decades.
• FACTORS
1) the information revolution;
2) the collapse of Soviet-style communism;
3) the 9-11 attacks; and
4) the ensuing US-led global War on Terror

Power elites concentrated in the global north stepped up their ongoing

efforts to sell their version of “globalization” to the public in ideological
form of “market globalism”.
Power elites – the rise of market globalism
• Corporate managers
• Executives of TNCs
• Corporate lobbyists
• High-level military officers
• Prominent journalists
• Public relations specialists
• Intellectuals, writing to a large public audience
• State bureaucrats
• State politicians
 THE FIVE CORE CLAIMS OF MARKET GLOBALISM

1. GLOBALIZATION IS ABOUT LIBERALIZATION & GLOBAL

INTEGRATION OF MARKETS

• Globalization is about the triumph of markets over the governments

• The driving force of globalization is market, the free-market capitalism
• The neo-liberal ideal of the self-regulating market
• The best and most natural way for realizing individual liberty and material
progress in the world
2. GLOBALIZATION IS INEVITABLE & IRREVERSIBLE
• Neo-liberals portray globalization as a natural force
• Technological innovations make the global integration of national
economies inevitable
• States and interstate systems serve to ensure the smooth working
of the market place
• People must adapt to the discipline of the market if they are to
survive and prosper
• Neo-globalists simply carry out what is ordained by nature
• Resistance is unnatural irrational and dangerous
• Bill Clinton, “Globalization is irreversible.”
• Frederick Smith(FedEX), “Globalization is inevitable and inexorable; it
is accelerating; and it is happening.”
• Manny Villar(Speaker of the House of Representatives), “Globalization
is a reality of a modern world. It is an irreversible process
3. NOBODY IS IN CHARGE OF GLOBALIZATION
• Self-regulating market is pre-ordained
• Globalization is “leaderless”
• It does not reflect the arbitrary agenda of a particular group or
social class
• Robert Hormats(1998), “The great beauty of globalization is
no one is in control. It is not controlled by any individual, any
government, any institution. ”
• Thomas Friedman, “The most basic truth about globalization
is this : No one is in charge.”
4. GLOBALIZATION BENEFITS EVERYONE (…….In the Long Run)
• Globalization provides great opportunities for the future and for
all societies (G7)
• Globalization is linked to material terms like economic growth and
prosperity
• John Meehan (1997), “ the episodic dislocations such as mass
unemployment and reduced social services are necessary in the
short run, but in the long run, they will give way to quantum leap
in productivity.”
• Television, radio and internet place existing economic, political
and social realities within the neo-liberal framework
• George Bush, “Free-trade and free-market have proven their ability to
lift whole society out of poverty.”
5. GLOBALIZATION FURTHERS THE SPREAD OF DEMOCRACY IN THE
WORLD
• Globalists treat freedom, free-markets, free-trade and democracy as
synonymous terms
• Francis Fukuyama (2000) asserted that there is a clear correlation
between a country’s level of economic development and successful
democracy.
• Globalization is conducive to the creation of a complex civil societies
with a powerful middle class. It is the middle –class and societal
structure that facilitate democracy.
GLOBAL IMPERIALISM : GLOBALIZATION REQUIRES A WAR ON TERROR

• Robert Kaplan, “ You also have to have military and economic power
behind market globalism or else your ideas cannot spread.”
• Globalization is actually Americanization or McDonaldization
• USA must demonstrate herself as the most powerful military power
and foremost market-economy in the world capable of leading a
greater number of developing nations to a more prosperous and
stable future( Robert McFarlane & Michael Bleyzer)
 THOMAS BERNETT
• Author of the book The Pentagon’s New Map (2004)
• Professor in US Naval War College
• Argues that the Iraq war marked US real ownership of strategic security
• Breaks the globe into 3 distinct regions :
• Functioning Core or Core (globalization thick like North America, Europe, Australia,
New Zealand and small part of Latin America)
• Seam states ( Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, Morocco, Algeria, Greece, Turkey,
Pakistan, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia)
• Non-integrating Gap or Gap (globalization is thinning or just plain absent plagued by
repressive political regimes, regulated markets, mass murder, widespread poverty
and disease like Caribbean Rim, Africa, Balkans, Caucasus, Central Asia, Middle East
and Southeast Asia)
Thank you for listening.