—Edward
A while ago a commenter on another blog argued to me that Globalism needs to precede Multiculturalism—that it’s better to bring people of other cultures "up to" our cultural standards (i.e., buy our products and want our lifestyle) before we mix among them, open our borders to them, let them benefit fully from globalism, etc. Implicit in this opinion is the notion that people of other cultures are fine as laborers for our corporations (and totally desirable as loyal consumers of our products), but until they’re Westernized to a (conveniently undefined) degree, it’s rational to consider them undesirable next-door neighbors.
Now culture clashes will happen. In multi-culti NYC you see it in different forms everyday. Hip-hop-loving teens swearing up a storm and happy to be out of school run through the subway bumping into suited Wall Street warriors making their way home. Ultra-ambivalent hipsters wear next to nothing at the outdoor cafe on the corner of an ultra-serious Hasidim neighborhood where women and men are well-covered at all times. Sometimes these clashes lead to serious confrontations.
And often all these people were born here. They are Americans. Despite that, though, they’re culturally different enough that clashes will continue to happen. One cannot rationally/legally argue that they should be quarantined or sent somewhere else. They simply must co-exist. And they do co-exist via a combination of ignoring each other, compromise, and genuine tolerance. That tolerance comes, in part, from exposure. Very few New Yorkers haven’t experienced the embarrassment of judging another person because of the way they are dressed just to have their rash opinion proved wrong by an unexpected act of kindness or overheard anecdote.
In other words, multiculturalism works just fine where there’s simply no other choice, and in fact, when enhanced, helps build the tolerance needed to make it work. Therefore, resistance to it seems based on desire (read: laziness, xenophobia, etc.) not need. The essence of valuing multiculturalism is recognizing the worth/equality of people of other cultures. By insisting they must first become more like you, one dismisses that equality. Within the context of Globalism, however, the consequences of such dismissals leads to all kinds of seemingly rational justifications for robbing people of other cultures blind.
Let me elaborate….
A while back I wrote a piece on how anti-Americanism could develop in Equatorial Guinea because of how Exxon is doing business there. Someone just recently responded to that post by email (I won’t identify him here, but if he reads this and says it’s OK, I’ll update this to include his name). Although much of what that writer criticized in my post was clarified in the comments and/or the follow-up post, one part of the critique struck me as the heart of what’s wrong with the idea that Globalism should precede Multiculturalism:
The Equatorial Guinea area has always been and still is nothing more than a bickering bunch of tribes. All the oil companies did was make the current tribe cement its position over the others. There is no progress. There is no growth. There is no prosperity… except for the "president" and his friends. Despite the new revenues, electricity is faulty, water pressure is periodical, pavement is a rarity, corruption is rampant.
That last bit… corruption is rampant… that is a perception from a Western point of view. To the people there, it is a way of life. it is no different from how things have been forever in that region. Everyone pays tribute to the ruling gang, and the ruling gang makes the rules. It’s simple, but since EG was squeezed into the form of a country for the sake of international identification, we feel it is corrupt because their rulebook does not mesh with ours. It is not a country for any other reason that it has boundaries and a flag. Everything else is a non-sensible farce, put in place only for the purpose of procuring more international loans, which they
never intend to pay.There is a mentality in places like these that western thinkers can not understand, because western thinkers are rational. […]
To me one of the strangest things about your post is how you explain that the ruling thug wastes all of the countries wealth on himself and his family, but then you go on to say that they should have been given more. 60 minutes thinks they should have been given more. EG now thinks that they should have been given more. Many Americans (thanks to 60 minutes) believe that they should have been given more. But nobody can explain why giving them more is a good idea. Will anything good come of them getting more? If yes, then what are those things? If you believe that Obiang will ever do anything to empower people of another tribe, then you simply do not understand life in that region.
I can think of some good reasons for not giving them any of it. 1) Prevent military buildup which, in that region, will lead to genocide campaigns. 2) Give the people and government something to work for. If the government can be faced with the idea that the only way they can make more money is to grow the economy, then it is more likely that steps will be made to do that. As it stands, they don’t have to do anything but sit back, collect checks, and go on international shopping sprees whenever they want to. Oil money is one of the worst things that could have happened to EG.
The idea advanced here seems rational in this context. The problem is that it boils down to a justification for just taking the oil (presumably for free) until such time EG proves it can handle the profits responsibly. In other words, inflict the costs of globalism on them but not the rewards until they’ve earned them by conforming to our cultural standards. To me that’s morally backwards. Of course, I can imagine convoluted scenarios whereby the money is put into escrow and monitored by the World Bank or whatever until such time the UN determines EG’s government responsible or whatever, but that’s just a more sophisticated form of stealing IMO, and besides, such scenarios argue for strengthening the International Courts to resolve differences, and who wants that?
The writer notes "[N]obody can explain why giving them more is a good idea." I tried, actually, by explaining that when EG does get its governmental act together and investigates the corruption of Obiang’s regime, Exxon wants to come out smelling clean to avoid accusations that could lead to anti-Americanism. But there’s a much simpler answer: it’s their money and taking it is stealing!
If EG is not ready for that money, Exxon shouldn’t be taking their oil. In other words, if cultural problems argue against equality within globalism, then globalism should be put on hold. Or, in yet other words, multicultural efforts must precede globalist ones.
“Give them more money” is the answer to many people because the language of ethics and morality has been discarded in our culture. Instead, we have the language of the market and of economics. It’s a perfectly fine vocabulary, but it’s a very limited one: it only knows ‘more’ and ‘less’, not ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ or ‘good’ or ‘bad’. ‘Exploitative’ does not exist in the language of economics, only ‘badly negotatied.’
How would you suggest EG be handled though, Jeff?
Equatorial Guinea can’t be handled.
This is why Africa is so screwed. We can’t force good government on them because too much pressure from the West and they’ll start shouting about colonialism. If we do something like what Exxon is doing, the money will be thrown away in ways that don’t make the country any richer and simply mean it sinks further into poverty when the oil runs out. If we follow your plan, and Exxon stops pumping oil and we somehow stop everyone else from pumping oil, EG has nothing else (that I know of) which can provide a source of capital to get the development of the country under way. If outside banks loan them money, they’ll just waste it like the oil money gets wasted.
The only real hope is for the rise of a movement for honest government strong enough to overcome the corruption. But EG lacks the forces which created the Progressive movement in the US and began the process of ending governmental corruption. And only oil can provide them the capital, but the oil money isn’t used in a way that would build up an educated middle class with an interest in honest government.
It’s taken Latin America two centuries and they’re still struggling with the legacy of colonialism and governmental corruption. I think our odds of influencing EG for the better are pretty much slender to none.
Especially since the US, in general, can’t be bothered to expend meaningful resources on Africa anyway.
Unfortunately, I tend to side more with John on this one. I don’t think that altering the nature of our business dealings — more regulation, less regulation, more loans, different loans, fewer loans — will help at all.
I believe that we should either leave the place alone entirely, or treat it and large portions of Africa as emergency zones, like a post-tornado trailer park. If we want to help, we should acknowledge the severity of the situation and stop pretending that letting large conglomerates in will solve their problems.
That raises loads of *additional* questions, like how legitimate it is to expect another tiny country’s government to follow the first world’s orders. But, yeah, it’s a mess. Treating it as a charity case is better than pretending the ‘country’ is in a position to bargain.
This is another interesting question and I’m off to work.
A quick comment. One of the problems with Africa (and other traditionally based economies) is that the requirements of helping out the extended family strongly mitigate against individual advancement. When I got the Guardian, there was a regular column from Africa and other writers have often echoed his point, which is that when a person ‘makes it’, that sinecure is an invitation for the person’s extended family to take up residence. Unfortunately, globalization crucially depends on the breaking down of such a culture, such that areas which maintain it (note that phrases like ‘cling to it’ automatically assume a narrative of progress, relegating the traditional culture to a lower status) are going to be excluded from globalization. Some cultures have been able to turn that family based culture into an advantage (think Korean immigrants) yet for the most part, to accept the strictures of such a culture is to decline the advantages of globalization as it is currently constructed.
I don’t think this absolves large conglomerates from doing what is right (I have some thoughts about the EQ situation, and will hopefully write about that late tonite) but I’ll leave it there for now
Put me down in the ‘it’s a mess’ camp, but with the additional caveat that I don’t think that they can ever be raised to a first-world standard because the current world market is too asymmetrical and too efficient at extracting resources from vulnerable states for less than they can get it from a state where the people stand to benefit.
Truth be told, I can’t see anything but misery and poverty for pretty much everyone who is not already industrialized (China and India being maybe the last) and a whole lot of genocide for states who want to make that leap (concentrating power in totalitarian hands)so long as the global economy runs the way it does. I’m not sure how to change this, either, without some sort of structural change to the shape of the global market coupled with a new paradigm of sovereignty and an enforceable standard of human rights something like the economic courts of the WTO.
How to get there? Excellent question.
Sounds like nanotech hand-waving time, eh?
Japonicus’ comments are very interesting. I don’t think that globalism must break down more tribal family structures. It seems to me that those cultural forms just make the traditional ’employment climb’ of capitalist societies more difficult to handle… ‘Globalism’ works at a higher level in the economic machine, and doens’t necessarily require that mechanism…
Great comments all!
Back to whether or not Exxon can buy the oil in a way that isn’t stealing though. If the “state” is a sham, then who owns the oil?
What about paying each citizen individually?
I’ll put these comments here rather than in the EG (sorry about the mis abbreviation) post. I agree with Jeff that globalism doesn’t have to break down family structures, but as it is currently conceived (where increased individual buying power increases consumerism which then lowers barriers), I don’t think it can help but cause problems for cultural structures that are supposed to operate in the absence of government programs to protect the welfare of a state’s population. In fact, one could argue that nationalism, where the state became the ‘family’, is an enabling factor for globalism, which accounts for many of the features that we see.
At any rate, though this doesn’t relate directly to the facts in EG, my feelings are best exemplified by an anecdote that Alex Kerr relates in his great book _Dogs and Demons_. He writes about his employer during the bubble who went into a negotiation and really drove a very hard bargain. Then, after they had basically finished the negotiation, he went and said that he was returning 15% because he didn’t want them to resent the negotiation. This earned him the goodwill of the company and the negotiators.
One could object and say that the money was simply going to line the pockets of the corrupt officials, though it strikes me that this is a bit of a ‘well, it’s just that everyone will pay a few cents more’ sort of argument.
It should be noted that the idea of paying but not letting anyone know about it (and I feel relatively certain that the needs of those in power in EG were not ignored or forgotten) is fraught with perils. For example, concerning the recent anti-Japanese protests in China, the Japanese government is feeling pretty stupid because while they were stonewalling and ruling against comfort women and POW labor suits, they were supplying China with grants and cheap loans, and they are really surprised that the Chinese government is not clamping down on the rallies. A measure of their surprise is the fact that the Japanese Foreign Minister Machimura basically got kicked in the teeth when he went to China for talks to defuse the situation:
“The Chinese government has never done anything for which it has to apologize to the Japanese people,” Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing told his visiting Japanese counterpart, Nobutaka Machimura.
There are any number of ways that a company can ‘pay back’ and a little out of the box thinking would go a long way. But as long as the driving force is economic, that ain’t going to happen.
LJ–“In fact, one could argue that nationalism, where the state became the ‘family’, is an enabling factor for globalism, which accounts for many of the features that we see.”
I think this is a key point, but I think a second factor is that the idea of ‘nationalism’ arises out of the historical idea of shared language/culture/history as identity, and in Europe this only arose after the breakdown of tribal and local forms of government (which is, I think, where Jeff is coming from).
[theory]–This only happens after the tribal family structure is broken down. In Europe the primary vehicle of that breakdown was Christianity. The top-down state develops in the space created by the breakdown of the bottom-up nation (think Iceland and pre-Christian Norway and Roman family structures). Hegel provides a myth of historical progress in this shift from nation to state, and nationalism is the re-inscription of the national identity in the state to recreate the illusion of continuity.
In order to have this happen in Africa, something will have to do violence to kinship structures of identity. We no longer colonize in the name of religion or politics, so all that is left is economics. Only economics leaves no institutional structure behind to take the place of the tribal identity it supplants.[/theory]
Sorry for the long ramble here.
We no longer colonize in the name of religion or politics, so all that is left is economics.
Which would seem to support the idea that Globalism must come first.
There must be a better way.
nous_athanatos, I think you’re onto something interesting. I’m not sure how related it is, but I’ve always been fascinated by small business networking groups. There are hojillions of them, little pockets of companies and individuals who cooperate with each other to share references and resources and so on in order to leverage their collective knowledge. It seems like the ‘tribe/family’ concept eventually emerges even in a pure economics-driven system that’s left to itself.
Perhaps the future lies in out-of-box thinking about how tribal and family networks can participate in a legitimate global economy.
Edward–Which would seem to support the idea that Globalism must come first.
I think that Globalism will come first, whether it must or should. What will follow in its wake is likely what Achille Mbembe calls Private Indirect Government (in his On the Postcolony), i.e. a state with no power over its own economy and a large underclass receiving little benefit from it but which it must nonetheless try to control.
a state with no power over its own economy and a large underclass receiving little benefit from it but which it must nonetheless try to control
That more or less ensures violence for decades, no?
Yes, but only ‘local’ violence. And the corporations operating in the country have their own security forces in place to protect their property.
Perhaps we should take the initiative and set up an ownership society — funds from the sale of natural resources are distributed equally into private accounts for each citizen?
Heh.
Jeff–Perhaps we should take the initiative and set up an ownership society…
LJ mentions one such example upthread in the Korean immigrant model. It’s not on such a large scale as a whole national economy, but it does work to leverage new members into an ownership society over the long term even if it makes for some sacrifice in the short term.
Is there some way to work this on a larger scale than a small business association of sorts?
To address Edward’s question of who owns the oil and how to pay the populace:
Probably the most effective way to pay the population would be to basically require Exxon to use the money to supply the services that the government ought to supply with the money, but won’t–roads, schools, power infrastructure, etc. African nations typically lack the infrastructure necessary to build up their economies. Setting up agreements where Exxon basically subsidizes these activities in return for getting to take the oil would benefit the nation and Exxon. And even when the oil runs out, things like schools, etc, will still be there, providing future benefits to EG.
Furthermore, providing these services would further stimulate the EG economy, providing jobs for construction workers, teachers, etc.
Even just using some of the oil to provide enough electrical power for the whole country would be a good step.
I like the spirit of that solution John, but I’m weary of setting corporations up as governments in that sense. If some farmer is killed driving over a bridge Exxon built, is Exxon liable? So many problems like that, no?
thanks for the comments, a lot of things to think about. nous_athanatos‘ observation about the state supplanting the family in Europe is especially interesting. Some other things to point out are that our theory of ‘ownership’ all relates to the individual, and it is hard to imagine it being changed and that the liberal viewpoint (as in post Enlightenment) is that it is not good to coerce someone. A guy I went to grad school with was a member of a British Columbia tribe and when he graduated, he went back to his tribe to the their linguist. In fact, when he was in high school, the elders said ‘you are good at languages, you have to go to school and learn about languages and then come back and work for the tribe’. He was happy with that, but I think it is that kind of loss of control that we as individuals lose that makes it problematic. And if there is an ‘opt-out’ system, the system is meaningless.
The example of the Korean families comes at a price, (and this is true for a lot of Asian families) and that is that children are often expected to fulfill roles their parents set up. Sometimes, it is just funny, other times it is tragic. I know people who have submitted totally to what their parents wanted and those who have completely rebelled and I have sympathy for both sets. But any solution we adopt for dealing with Africa only takes the notion of family based capital as a intermediate step to a system where the individual is completely in charge of his/her decisions. You can’t salt half the pot.
Doesn’t every system have an opt-out, though? YOu said that Korean kids sometimes rebel… aren’t they, in effect, sacrificing network benefits for increased autonomy?
Wow, I feel cold putting it in terms like that…
Sorry about the bold.
Yes, I suppose that every system has an opt-out, and it is just at what price it kicks in. One of the prices of Korean kids deciding to rebel against their parents is having their parents ostracized in some form by others in the community. (This is just a very general observation, and is true with practically any family based system, I think) I think this is one source of problems with a family based system and one reason why we acknowledge the strengths of a system that allows individuals to choose, largely because talents are not distributed strictly according to genetics, but we often overlook what we are losing, which is a connection to a place. While I can’t imagine not having the opportunities and diversity that I’ve had, I have to wonder what it is like to really be part of a place for several generations such that you are part of that place.
I think my hope is that we can find ways in future to bring the benefits of globalization to a country without using them as a ‘carrot’ to break up existing family-tribal-network structures. It could certainly open up more possibilities for those who previously depended exclusively on the tribal network effect for survival, but…
Well, I don’t know, really. I’m just tossing around ideas. It seems that a lot of thinking on this seems to put ‘individual vs. tribe’ into the equation as an integral component of globalism. I think it’s only a component of the particular way we have allowed/encouraged globalism to spread.
I’m wary of setting up corporations as governments myself. However, in the case of a nation like EG where the government is likely to waste the nation’s resources, I can’t think of a much better solution.