Conquerors have long sought the prize of global dominion. Hitler, Napoleon, Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan and many others have aspired to that extraordinary and elusive goal, only to fall short. No single general, no matter how powerful, cunning or determined, has ever managed to consolidate global suzerainty. Indeed, even nations and empires have self-destructed before claiming final victory. Yet, by the conclusion of the twentieth century, and without the kind of pomp and celebration historically accorded to a returning hero, mastery of the planet had been secured. The dearth of celebration over this prodigious achievement is arguably due to the fact that the conqueror lacked an ego to be assuaged, being neither an individual, nor a nation. Rather, the earth’s new master was a political-economic system: global industrialism (Hardt and Negri, 2000; Crook, 2001).
Although there might still be some small corners of the globe that remain untrammeled by global industrializing forces, they are few, and besieged. While previous global campaigns often fizzled due to insuperable obstacles, industrialism has only gained momentum as it has subsumed the globe. Its victories have not exhausted its strength because global industrialism implements conquest a new way. Whereas conquerors of old were forced to overcome their foes through violence, global industrialism has secured new territories by invigorating a passion for industrial products—automobiles, clothing, fast food, Hollywood, etc.—amongst an endless stream of eager new customers (McGettigan, 1999; Ritzer, 2000). The Trojan Horse has been strategically supplanted by home pizza delivery.
Clearly, industrialism has its historical roots in the Industrial Revolution that spread from the Old World to the New (Heinrich, 2002). Further, much of the machinery and iconography that has made globalization so compelling is purely American in origin. Still, US-centered globalization is distinguishable from other forms of conquest. Hitler’s demise and the dissolution of Great Britain’s sun-drenched empire evinced that established formulas for global conquest had become untenable in the twentieth century. Via the Marshall Plan (Vickers, 2000) and other programs, the US assumed the mantle of “global protector,” and orchestrated the transformation of its devastated allies and vanquished foes into wealthy trading partners. Of course, despite Walt Rostow’s (1960) optimism, not every member of the global community became a rich, strategically valued ally (Gundar Frank, 1966; Wallerstein, 1974).
Thus, ensued an era of global ideological maneuvering. Throughout nearly five decades of détente, adherents of capitalist industrialism vs. Marxist socialists partitioned the globe in a deadly earnest struggle for supremacy (Loth, 2001). In 1991, on the heels of improbably peaceful political revolutions throughout Eastern Europe, George Bush declared the Cold War over. Gorbachev’s Perestroika had transformed the Soviet Union from an arch nemesis into one of many key players in a new world order dominated by a single superpower (McKenzie, 1999).
The resultant open atmosphere for global investment laid the groundwork for an intoxicating decade of massive economic expansion. The Clinton Administration benefited enormously from the termination of the Cold War; the floodgates opened to previously unheard of international deals and capital flows. Yet, while euphoria predominated for investors, at the same time, the 1990s were not without their difficulties. Thawing Cold War antagonisms did not produce similarly warm sentiments among other historical antagonists. In Bosnia, the Middle East, Belfast, Zimbabwe and elsewhere, longstanding cultural conflicts flourished.
Beyond demonstrating an inability to resolve intractable cultural hostilities, global market economics also generated additional dilemmas. During a decade of extraordinary economic expansion, the distribution of wealth in the 1990s became increasingly and ironically polarized: the rich became super rich, and the bottom dropped out on the poor (Berner and Galbraith, 2001; Wolff, 2002). Alas, the market has never guaranteed fairness or equality, it is a context in which the most sophisticated dealmakers stand to net the greatest gains—often, and especially, at the expense of inexperienced newcomers.
However, industrially developing countries are not the only economic actors who should be wary of the market’s shortcomings. While the globalized industrial marketplace has, for the moment, swept aside its foremost rivals, the fact that the market tends to produce many more losers than winners (Bradshaw and Wallace, 1996) has generated much vitriolic anti-market sentiment throughout the world. It was no accident that the World Trade Centers, the physical embodiment of US centrality in the global economic system, were subjected to repeated terrorist attacks during the past ten years. Those who felt swindled by the global market lashed out at what they perceived to be the most visible of source of international economic, cultural, and political insult. Repugnant as their tactics happen to be, the enemies of the global market industrialism certainly have not struck a deathblow to its hegemony. Nevertheless, history demonstrates amply that no empire has ever been invincible. While global market industrialism has achieved unprecedented dominion, its durability will be sorely tested.
History also teaches that conquest comprises only half of a conqueror’s struggle: territory that is mastered also needs to be maintained—and empire maintenance generally calls for substantially different forms of diplomacy than conquest (Machiavelli, 1996). Citizens of an empire must be appeased lest their enthusiasm should waver: if the market promises prosperity and self-sufficiency, but instead produces a superabundance of poverty and cultural violence, then there is bound to be trouble. Can the market appease its dissenters as effectively as it has conquered new territories? As for all dynasties, the key to its longevity will be global industrialism’s capacity to transform its antagonists into allies. Therein lies the potential for long-term cultural, political, and economic stability.
May the conqueror beware.
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