Collapse
of Globalism and the Reinvention of the
World
John Ralston Saul
Viking Press Canada 2005
The
world seems an increasingly unsafe place,
and needless to say more and more people
thirst to know why. Hence John Raulston
Saul's "The Collapse of Globalism
and the Reinvention of the World"
is timely. After all, there are increased
uncertainties in the technologically hyped
cross border connectedness of the present
period in which we are living and the
fashion to lay blame there. However, given
the complexity of the subject, the title
is pretentious given the less than 300
large print pages and and the excruciatingly
simplified prose and analysis in parts.
The list of the problems goes on despite
this possibly being a good first effort
at a genre for which Ralston Saul may
not use to writing at least in a book
form.
Further,
there are frequent meandering off sub-topic
and overly convenient use of statistics.
If that is not bad enough then add a Cassandra
like thesis of collapse. Fear of course
sells. Nevertheless ,despite a host of
poor reviews, Raulston Saul draws out
some important injustices which seem to
have a global dimension.. He further stimulates
our thinking about the need to significantly
refashion the world order beyond a solely
'slouch potato' American inspired consumerism
and corporatism -all the rave it would
seem for too long.
Sadly
a book that offers some degree of promise
given its topic and Professor Saul's stature
as a leading scholar is very short on
mapping out any particular vision or sufficient
concrete solutions to what ails the world
because of the supposed direct cause-effect
relationship of globalism and societal
imbalances. In fact, it is this large
assumption behind his thesis, which may
need reexamination and deinvention. The
author might well have better dealt with
the various definitions and histories
as to what entails globalism beyond the
free trade and open markets one. For globalism
has not always been a Western led corporate
and capitalistic one or at least has contained
strong veins of non-western influence
and non-capitalist influences. Some of
these variants have had their own virulence
one might well argue in making the world
a worse place.
Could
one for example argue that globalism has
been impacted from the liberal left -to
which he seems fond- of Eurocentric environmentalism,
feminism, multiculturalism, United Nations
penned universal visions of human rights,
often hand in hand with the red tape creep
of too much useless government interventionism.
Curiously, Saul seems to mention insufficiently
that it is this globalism that many local
communities - even marginalized ones-
are/have been increasingly questioning.
For Saul, regulators have fallen out of
favor primarily because they conspire
with corporate collaborators Then why
does the author trust a new injection
of government?
Even
Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem, the
mothers of modern day feminism are wondering
whether power plays to disenfranchised
groups have in some instances gone too
far. This globalism of big government
with a rainbow coalitions as solving so
much has largely had its time and should
be put to rest as an all encompassing
solution. It has not worked either as
a permanent end. But throughout the book
one scents a form of a tiresome and neo-
socialist nostalgia back to the 1960's.
This is a period that coincides largely
with Ralston Saul's education formation
as well as the leftist leaning London
School of Economics - which he attended.
Saul in fact comes from Ottawa where Government
is central and where Pierre Trudeau may
have been a "mentor" to him.
That Prime Minister was referred to as
Philosopher King in that very same decade.
Yet even Trudeau in his second phase abandoned
his delphi towards big government.
The popular scholarly and institutional
thought in much of the West, East and
Third World in the 1960's also encapsuled
giving large amounts of aid to decolonized
country governments as part of a globalism
restitution that can be argued was also
subject to significant failure. Coincidentally,
Canada's current Prime minister -with
or without the pressure of throwback bands
to the 60's or early 70's such as U2.-
says he has no intention of repeating
wasted spending excesses to the Third
World dictatorships with a nonproductive
spending bent. The younger public may
not remember that period but many economists
do as one of leading to stifling deficits,
debt, inflation, and failing Third World
states. It is this globalism that Professor
Saul has largely left out. It is no surprise.
It would greatly weaken his thesis that
the corporation is the main bad guy. Of
course imperial powers provided at times
little solid personnel infrastructure
when they departed. The worse globalism
may have been in fact European colonialism
whose negative legacy predates many of
these large American corporate births.
In
the end, the statue being pulled down
as shown on the front cover could also
be of Ralston Saul's conceptualization
of a globalism version alternative of
the 1960's past. That being said, the
more current capitalistic version 'statute'
is definitely showing cracks. Saul rightfully
and with zeal also refers to the the lack
of sufficiently solid spiritual and holistic
underpinnings in so much of the Western
world. This parallels Pope Benedict's
description of the West as a spiritual
wasteland. Other examples of crack presented
in the book include the pharmaceutical
industry's late efforts to jump on the
band wagon to get those in destitute circumstances
access to HIV fighting drugs. Merger mania
excesses and Enron to which Saul draws
attention make one wonder to what degree
Wall Street can get out of control, and
the extent to which the global economy
is phony in generating real sustainable
wealth for the many.
Yet
Professor Saul's underscoring of how there
are too many examples of destructive collusion
between corporations and government agencies
on which to blame the globalism of today
again seems ideologically skewed if not
passe. Contrastingly, he might have better
listened to the new creative and energetic
generations that incidentally from surveys
by the likes of Ronald Inglehart at the
University of Michigan indicate that politicians
rate very low as (global) political saviors
including the ones no doubt on the centre
and left - if not to the the right at
times too. This may indicate that younger
people want to go beyond refighting Marxian
and classical liberal framed conceptualizations
of how to make the world a better place.
There is indeed a need to listen to students
and for professors to act as such as said
by the other great philosopher - Confucius.
The East indeed offers many holistic insights
as Saul points out in a number of places.
Some
attention still is required on corporate
irresponsibility and it sometimes less
than socially imaginative approach to
profit realization by playing one part
of the World excessively against another
to the drain of the middle class an general
tax base. For Saul makes us better think
as to whether some corporations and sectors
need to be reigned in from monopolistic
and pilfering practices consistent with
the trust busting republicanism of Theodore
Roosevelt ." It is hard to fully
swallow the view by neo-conservatives
that says Enron is but one of a few bad
apples. At least that bust a trust past
may not be completely passe. Could something
be learned from the early nineteenth century
Republicanism that still let many a business
prosper?, Saul indicates the affirmative
and that there are growing dangers that
corporate control will become problematic
in an ugly form of letting Houston and
New York be the new axis -along with the
almighty as America's next public enemy.
Taken with a healthy grain of salt this
represents a positive critique of what
needs to be avoided. Swallowed as the
current state of affairs as Saul does
at times it approaches more of the anarchistic
ruminations of Noam Chomsky.
In
the final analysis, given that so much
of this book's discourse is all over the
map on so many issues, most of the audience
may be also left with a greater sense
of incoherence than enlightenment. This
includes a final thirst by the reader,
pray tell, as to what this global reinvention
is to look like in some specific form.
Certainly the reader is catalyzed to ask
meaningful questions and to critically
examine assumptions to the Western life
style and the corporate global projection
of it. While that may be of some benefit
to a discrete number of readers, this
book leaves one with the thought that
it could and should have been much more.
