Modernity and the Evolution of World Society CONTENTS Proto-globalization Race and colonialism Changes after 1945 and the dominance of the USA Economic growth The Bretten Woods financial system 42 Capitalist modernity: European foundations 44 The nation state system 44 European Enlightenment thought 45 Marx's analysis of capitalism _ 47 The growth of rationality 49 50 53 53 53 US global economic power and political leadership 54 Keynesian national economic management 55 Mass consumption and changes in lifestyles 56 The spread of English as an international language Review If you would like to know more Group work Questions to think about When did humankind first become capable of understanding itself collectively? All early societies fabricated mythologies to explain their origins and to separate themselves from others. For the Sioux, the creator was the 'Great Spirit', for the Yoruba 'Olodumare', for the Jews 'Yahweh' and for the Polynesians 'Maui'. Their human followers would gain protection by the fervour and constancy of their devotion to these different deities. It was but a short step for scattered peoples to understand themselves as distinct 'humans' protected by their own god(s). Other people with whom they came into contact were thought of as potentially dangerous 'barbarians' or 'subhuman'. Through trade, travel and conquest diverse and separated societies across the globe slowly began to relate to each other - although past fears were often not far from the surface. From about the seventeenth century, the European powers began to outstrip the rest of the world in the sophistication of their ideas, the devastating force of their military technology, the strength of their navies and the organization of economic production. This astonishing transformation in Europe's fortunes eventually enabled it to spread its new institutions all over the globe and triggered the phenomenon we call 'modernity', the logical precursor to the current era of globalization. 41 42 GLOBAL SOCIOLOGY In this chapter we examine four successive phases of modernity and global integration: • the development of forms of proto-globalization among a number of civilizations before the modern era commenced • the emergence of capitalist modernity in Europe and the region's rise to global dominance • the colonial and racial domination effected by European powers in various parts of the world • the transformations that have taken place in the world economy since the Second World War and especially the rise of the USA. PROTO-GLOBALIZATION Proto-globalization - early aspirations to universalism that failed to embrace all of humanity or to attain global reach. A number of the threads making up the garment of globalization described in Chapter 2 were already manifest in the world long before the rise of modern nation states. As empires evolved and religious domains spread, forms of proto-globalization developed. Historians of the pre-modern world (Needham 1969; McNeill 1971; Roberts 1992) show how many ancient societies were connected in important ways and how cultural legacigs were bequeathed by declining or conquered civilizations. The ancient civilizations of the Middle East and China, of Greece and Rome, unified large areas. Even from the ninth to the thirteenth century, when Europe consisted of a patchwork of separate, fragile kingdoms and aristocratic fiefdoms, it was held together in relative tranquillity by the overarching framework of Christianity. Christianity provided the following features: 1. The cultural universalism of shared religious belief and ritual. 2. The use of Latin as a common language of inter-state communication in addition to its use in church liturgy. 3. The power and status of the papacy as a mediator between states and a restraining influence on political rulers at many levels. 4. The organizational structure of the Latin Church itself built around various monastic orders, straddling territorial boundaries, and whose members were often drawn from many countries. In short, the Church functioned as a powerful and unifying trans-European body for centuries (Wight 1977: 26-9,130-4). It was assisted by other structures, especially inter-state links based on dynastic marriages, the alliances between Christian royal houses and the system of diplomacy involving rules of mutual recognition concerning emissaries and ambassadors (Bergesen 1990: 67-81). Europe was also involved in multiple relations with other civilizations during this period. The rise and expansion of the Islamic states of the Middle East in the seventh century eventually extended Muslim influence to North Africa and over much of southern Europe. Muslim rulers were finally expelled from their last stronghold in Granada, southern Spain, in 1492. The long struggle to push back the frontiers of Islam helps account for the earlier emergence of powerful monarchies in Portugal and Spain compared with the rest of iL SOCIOLOGY Siiitv and global number of civi-! region's rise to 'aw rers in various omomy since the I lion described in e rise of modern I forms of proto-fceedham 1969; rvvere connected 1 bv declining or ; East and China, to the thirteenth fragile kingdoms íDity by the overflowing features: lal. ■nmunication in een states and a t around various ■bose members 5 trans-European ether structures, Biances between ; rules of mutual : 1990: 67-81). Iier civilizations fes of the Middle ftuence to North Ě finally expelled 1492.'The long the earlier emer-d with the rest of MODERNITY AND THE EVOLUTION OF WORLD SOCIETY 43 Europe. The formation of the Holy Roman Empire in ad 962 - an alliance between Christian states - was also linked to the desire to protect Christendom from external attack (Smith 1991: 59, 62). During this period, Islamic authority, especially on southern Europe, was considerable. Islam made important contributions to the arts and sciences, the establishment of centralized forms of government and innovations in agriculture - especially the introduction of irrigation systems. These agricultural reforms later proved highly beneficial to the semi-arid countries of Spain and Portugal. The long saga of Islamic-Christian conflict, including the Crusades -designed to liberate Palestine, the 'Holy Land', from Islamic control - created a legacy of mutual mistrust and misunderstanding of each other's cultures and intentions that still endures. Europe's economy and trading relations also depended on links with other civilizations. Gold, brought across the Sahara by Arab camel caravans from the mines of West Africa, was Europe's most important source of bullion from Roman times until the sixteenth century. The Spanish conquest of South America opened up silver imports (Hopkins 1973: 46). With European traders tending to run a more or less permanent trade deficit with the Orient, bullion flowed east to pay for such items as Indian textiles of unrivalled quality, silk, indigo and spices. Indeed, this trade provided the principal motivation for the first explorations of the globe by Portugal and Spain starting in the fifteenth century. Colonial conquests followed (Smith 1991: 70). However, it was by no means clear that Christianized Europe would take the lead. Not only had the Islamicized countries provided important sources of knowledge, for example in mathematics, so too had India and Persia. Indeed, other civilizations had long been far ahead of Europe in many spheres. This is especially true of China from where many inventions, ideas and much technological knowledge flowed to Europe during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. According to Jones (1988: 73-84) even before this time the Sung dynasty in China had attained hitherto unsurpassed levels of economic development. China had developed irrigation, terracing and manuring in agriculture; the techniques evolved for manufacturing iron, especially the use of coke in blast furnaces; the harnessing of water power for spinning cloth; the growth of specialized regional markets; and state investment in canals and other public assets. Some of these innovations were not widely adopted in Europe until the early eighteenth century. Despite the significance of these early exchanges between civilizations and the expansionist ambitions of ancient empires like Rome, there are important differences between such forms of proto-globalization and the contemporary situation. This also holds for the universalizing religions of former times, including Islam and Christianity. These were universalizing in the sense that they aspired to reach all people. However, they never attained the influence that globalization and glob-alism have achieved in today's world. There are several reasons for this: 1. The globalizing missions of ancient empires and religions did not incorporate more than a minority of people even within their own limited domains of influence. 2. People everywhere lacked detailed knowledge of other cultures. What knowledge the tiny educated minorities possessed was fragmentary and often distorted by bigotry and reliance on a few travellers' hearsay. 44 GLOBAL SOCIOLOGY Most of these ancient empires and religions viewed the world in terms of a clear division between the 'civilized' and the 'barbarian', between those who had been converted and those who lived without the benefits of a 'true' religion. The ancient Greeks and Romans, Islam and Christianity, the empires of Japan and China and the European expansionists all shared such narrow views. Thus, their mission was to civilize non-believers or foreign barbarians and this involved a one-way transmission of 'culture' from the superior to the subordinate group. The possibility of mutual acceptance and interaction on equal terms was inconceivable. Refusal by foreign migrants to accept submission or conversion often meant exclusion from mainstream society and persecution. CAPITALIST MODERNITY: EUROPEAN FOUNDATIONS A number of significant changes took place in Western Europe between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. This 'nexus of features' is known as 'modernity'. As Albrow (1996: 55) maintains, modernity 'included the combination of rationality, territoriality, expansion, innovation, applied science, the state, citizenship, bureaucratic organization and many other elements'. Here, we want to concentrate on three of these elements: Major Concept CAPITALISM In capitalist economies wealth-producing resources are largely privately owned rather than being subject to family, community or customary control. Most producers depend on wage employment for their livelihoods instead of self-provisioning, while the goods they produce are commodities sold in markets. Moreover, production is organized almost entirely for profit. This is earmarked for re-investment and further wealth accumulation. • the emergence of the nation state • the development of science • the rise of a body of universal secular thought - 'the Enlightenment'. Each of these developments was mutually reinforcing. Each helped create an environment hospitable to the eventual emergence of industrial CAPITALISM and the process of modernity. Drawing on important contributions to historical sociology by writers such as Tilly (1975) and Skocpol (1979), Giddens (1985) argues that the emergence of the European nation state was probably the single most crucial force accounting for the rise of successful capitalism in Western Europe. The nation state system Unlike other world civilizations, Europe consisted of a number of autonomous countries in close proximity to one another, each of more or less equal power. Their survival as independent entities in a climate of nearly continuous war required a long process of internal state-building. This culminated in the rise of a succession of powerful rulers. The state's bureaucratic reach and control over its population was progressively strengthened and deepened through such measures as: • increasing tax revenues • improving communications • partially taming the nobility by making it more dependent on the perks derived from state office 6057 AL SOCIOLOGY porld in terms of a a. between those benefits of a 'true' Christianity, the sts all shared such ;n barbarians and he superior to the Bid interaction on grants to accept lainstream society i lope between the known as 'moder-he combination of ice, the state, citi-. Here, we want to -TtT.:" enť. ich helped create ■strial CAPITALISM tuitions to histor-I (1979), Giddens tale was probably Bful capitalism in er of autonomous less equal power. I continuous war lated in the rise of i and control over ed through such MODERNITY AND THE EVOLUTION OF WORLD SOCIETY 45 lent on the perks Mercantilism - a theory prevalent in the seventeenth to early nineteenth centuries based on the idea that a nation's stock of gold and silver signified its wealth. Major Concept CIVIL SOCIETY This consists of the networks of political groups and voluntary associations emerging in the social space between the individual and the state. These bodies are engaged in expressing their members' interests and in trying to shape national political culture - its values, goals and type of decision-making practices. A flourishing civil society is likely to foster compromise, innovation, vigorous public debate and the minimizing of state interference in social life. Key Moment The Enlightenment The Enlightenment was a body of influential ideas that gradually spread across Europe during the eighteenth century. Its optimistic view of the potential for human progress through the power of reason was considerably assisted by advances in science and philosophy. Enlightenment thinkers saw the importance of critical reason, scepticism and doubt, but were certain that self-realization could be attained through practical involvement in, and attempts to transform, the material world. • centralizing the nation by suppressing regional identities • monopolizing the most efficient means of violence for conducting wars • encouraging and subsidizing technological and craft development • investing in naval and army strength • nurturing local trading classes whose wealth could be taxed or borrowed to help finance state expansion. Alongside all this, many governments pursued a policy of national economic aggrandizement, called mercantilism. European states engaged in naval warfare, amassed gold and silver, gave preference to domestic business and, wherever possible, insisted that goods be carried in nationally owned ships. The key role of actual and potential inter-state violence and competition in stimulating these changes seems clear. What resulted was a fragile balance of power between the various European states and an elaborate system of alliances. No state was sufficiently ascendant to crush its rivals permanently and to create an empire. Had one giant European empire emerged, similar to the Russian or Ottoman empires, internal reform would probably have been stifled as there would have been little external pressure on rulers to tolerate such things as the growth of a vibrant CIVIL SOCIETY of independent entrepreneurs, craftsmen, scientists and intellectuals. Again, in a large empire, high-ranking officials would have bean recruited on the basis of aristocratic privilege rather than merit. Moreover, internal reform undoubtedly contributed to making the process of state- and nation-building more effective, for they generated far more resources of every kind than were generally available in empires. These much-strengthened states also created the momentum for various forms of nineteenth-century state-led industrialization. Moves towards industrialization were further driven by the rise of populist nationalism based on the notion of equal citizenship (an idea we will return to in Chapter 5) generated by the 1789 French Revolution. Other factors were the rapid emergence of an industrial bourgeoisie in Britain and the onset of the world's first major industrial revolution beginning around 1770. In fact, manifestations of industrialism were discernible prior to the 1770s. However, we can usefully date the increasingly widespread deployment of machinery - driven by non-animal sources of power - and full-time wage workers in permanent factories, from around that time. It took about another 70 years for factory production to spread from cotton textiles to most other industries. The technological and economic lead the industrial revolution gave offered Britain military opportunities not available to other nations. Not surprisingly, the British example was eventually followed by other imitative, modernizing governments in Europe and the newly independent American states in the following decades. European Enlightenment thought We have already referred to the Enlightenment. This was a body of influential ideas that gradually spread across Europe during the eighteenth century. Its optimistic view of the potential for human progress through the power of reason was considerably assisted by the scientific discoveries and advances achieved in the previous two centuries by people such as Copernicus (Figure 3.1), Bacon and Newton (Badham 1986:10-20). Their ideas, in turn, contributed MODERNITY AND THE EVOLUTION OF WORLD SOCIETY 45 Mercantilism - a theory prevalent in the seventeenth to early nineteenth centuries based on the idea that a nation's stock of gold and silver signified its wealth. Major Concept CIVIL SOCIETY This consists of the networks of political groups and voluntary associations emerging in the social space between the individual and the state. These bodies are in expressing their members' interests and in trying to shape national political culture - its values, goals and type of decision-making practices. A flourishing civil society is likely to foster compromise, innovation, vigorous public debate and the minimizing of state interference in social life. Key Moment The Enlightenment 77k Enlightenment was a body of influential ideas that gradually spread across Europe during the eighteenth century. Its optimistic view of the potential for human progress through the power of reason was considerably assisted by advances in science and philosophy. Enlightenment thinkers saw the importance of critical reason, scepticism and doubt, but were certain that self-realization could be attained through practical involvement in, and attempts to transform, the material world. m centralizing the nation by suppressing regional identities • monopolizing the most efficient means of violence for conducting wars • encouraging and subsidizing technological and craft development • investing in naval and army strength • nurturing local trading classes whose wealth could be taxed or borrowed to help finance state expansion. Alongside all this, many governments pursued a policy of national economic aggrandizement, called mercantilism. European states engaged in naval warfare, amassed gold and silver, gave preference to domestic business and, wherever possible, insisted that goods be carried in nationally owned ships. The key role of actual and potential inter-state violence and competition in stimulating these changes seems clear. What resulted was a fragile balance of power between the various European states and an elaborate system of alliances. No state was sufficiently ascendant to crush its rivals permanently and to create an empire. Had one giant European empire emerged, similar to the Russian or Ottoman empires, internal reform would probably have been stifled as there would have been little external pressure on rulers to tolerate such things as the growth of a vibrant CIVIL SOCIETY of independent entrepreneurs, craftsmen, scientists and intellectuals. Again, in a large empire, high-ranking officials would have been recruited on the basis of aristocratic privilege rather than merit. Moreover, internal reform undoubtedly contributed to making the process of state- and nation-building more effective, for they generated far more resources of every kind than were generally available in empires. These much-strengthened states also created the momentum for various forms of nineteenth-century state-led industrialization. Moves towards industrialization were further driven by the rise of populist nationalism based on the notion of equal citizenship (an idea we will return to in Chapter 5) generated by the 1789 French Revolution. Other factors were the rapid emergence of an industrial bourgeoisie in Britain and the onset of the world's first major industrial revolution beginning around 1770. In fact, manifestations of industrialism were discernible prior to the 1770s. However, we can usefully date the increasingly widespread deployment of machinery - driven by non-animal sources of power - and full-time wage workers in permanent factories, from around that time. It took about another 70 years for factory production to spread from cotton textiles to most other industries. The technological and economic lead the industrial revolution gave offered Britain military opportunities not available to other nations. Not surprisingly, the British example was eventually followed by other imitative, modernizing governments in Europe and the newly independent American states in the following decades. European Enlightenment thought We have already referred to the Enlightenment. This was a body of influential ideas that gradually spread across Europe during the eighteenth century. Its optimistic view of the potential for human progress through the power of reason was considerably assisted by the scientific discoveries and advances achieved in the previous two centuries by people such as Copernicus (Figure 3.1), Bacon and Newton (Badham 1986:10-20). Their ideas, in turn, contributed 46 GLOBAL SOCIOLOG» to the continuing development of science while boosting the orientation towards modernity. Enlightenment thinkers included such philosophers a« writers as Hume, Diderot, Montesquieu, Condorcet, Voltaire, Kant and Goer, (Box 3.1). II B o / 2. i The central ideas of the Enlightenment 1 The notion that humans are social animals whose cultures and individua! capacities ' for good or evil are not innate or fixed but originate in social relationships and so can be modified and improved. 2. A belief in the importance of critical reason, scepticism and doubt. 3 The human capacity to utilise these resources through observation, empirical testing and the acceptance of the fallibility of all knowledge. 4. A consequent rejection of the intolerant, closed ways of thinking associated with blind religious faith and metaphysical speculation, 5 The notion that ail human beings have a right to self-direction and development - best achieved where governments became constitutional or accountable. 6. The possibility of attaining self~realizati©n through practica; involvement in, and attempts to transform, the material world. Source: Seidman (1983: Chapter l)::':v' Figure 3.1 Copernicus minutely examines the globe MODERNITY AND THE EVOLUTION OF WORLD SOCIETY 47 Key Moment American Revolution Following a war with the British starting in 1775, the USA became the first modern country to win independence from colonial rule. Representatives of the individual states finally agreed at the Philadelphia Convention in 1787 to establish a federal government with limited powers enshrined in a written constitution. Together, the arguments of Enlightenment thinkers added up to a virtual revolution. The ideal modern person was seen as a unique individual with enormous potential for learning and improvement and deserving of the inalienable right to freedom. Implicit in these ideas was the promise of a tolerant, multicultural and secular society engaged in the pursuit of human progress through scientific endeavour and free from unaccountable government, religious bigotry and superstition. Those who wrote the US Constitution of 1787 in the wake of the American Revolution perhaps best exemplified the practical possibilities of the Enlightenment ideals. The Constitution began with the famous preamble: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and have the right to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness.' At the time, it barely entered the heads of the founders of the US state that these rights should also be granted to women, or to Native and African Americans, as these groups' representatives now often angrily point out. We fully concur in their criticisms, but the argument has to be taken one stage further. That the Constitution was proclaimed in universal terms at all meant that representatives of the excluded 'others' could eventually use its provisions in their struggles to join the 'self and the included. This eventually allowed them to mitigate some of the many injustices perpetrated against them. A mode of production was jsed by Marx to describe the iharacteristic social relations that marked particular ways jf organizing production. Slavery, feudalism and rapitalism are all modes of ;roduction in this sense. Marx's analysis of capitalism The Enlightenment provided a powerful intellectual critique of the highly regulated forms of feudal life but, as Marx understood more clearly than did his contemporaries, feudalism was also a spent force in economic terms. Its successor mode of production, industrial capitalism, was a highly dynamic and indeed unstoppable force for generating social transformation. Many preceding changes had paved the way for the emergence of capitalism, but especially significant were: • the creation of a fully commoditized economy in which everything, including land and labour, had a price and so could be bought and sold in a market • the exercise of, often violent, measures to dislodge self-sufficient peasants and craft producers from their farms and workshops - so forcing them in ever greater numbers to live by selling their labour to capitalist entrepreneurs as wage workers. This separation of direct producers from their means of production (from their land, animals and tools) was a crucial precondition for the rise of industrial capitalism. Once self-sufficient producers were brought under the domination of capital, the way was open for three crucial changes to take place in the productive system, changes that had never been realized before on such a scale: 1. Labourers could be organized more efficiently alongside the plant, tools and machinery, for they had in effect contracted to sell their labour for an agreed price to the entrepreneur concerned. The employer, in turn, was therefore'free to decide how both equipment and workers should be utilized, for he (it was nearly always a 'he') and not the employees now owned the means of production. GLOBAL SOCIOLOGY 2. Incorporating producers into the system as dependent wage-workers made them unable to supply their own means of daily subsistence from self-employment. This simultaneously transformed them into consumers who would spend their incomes in the very same markets that were being created by the growing capitalist system. 3. Once in existence, capitalism contained certain internal motors that drove it relentlessly onwards to subjugate the remnants of pre-capitalist craft and peasant production, by out-competing them wherever these were encountered and constantly transforming its own system of business organization and technological capacities. These built-in mechanisms for restless, perpetual change included the drive for profit and business expansion, competition between individual capitalists and firms and the inevitability of class conflict between wage-labourers and entrepreneurs over working conditions and the distribution of profits. Together, these factors impelled capitalists constantly to find ways to cheapen and improve their products so as to capture new markets or to displace their rivals. As the labour force gained in maturity and organizational strength, employers were compelled to raise the productivity of labour by investing in more advanced plant and machinery and adopting more streamlined systems of business organization and marketing. An important consequence was the tendency for capitalism to expand the productive forces by developing ever more advanced technology, harnessing the power of science, increasing the scale of production and developing business arrangements to facilitate greater capital pooling. Thus, as Marx observed, nothing under capitalism ever remains static for long. Rather, constant change, not only in the productive process but at all levels of society, is inevitable. Another consequence, again apparent to Marx, was capitalism's drive to expand globally (see Box 3.2). Box 3.2 Marx and Engels argue that capitalism must expand globally In the passages the dlow Mai> and ľ ei ily anticij - < <• , consequences we have since come v • ■ - ate with capitalism. These are (a) the western di /e to ncorporate the non-westerr world into thf global ecoi...... through imperialist ■:■ inquest (b.) the ne< essity feu independent but baď ward countries to art >pt thPir own local cri i --.,>. ; < • and r -, umenši aspi ^ - e ( '- " (d) tne tendency for capitalism to transform societies in rather similar ways wherever it takes root. 'The need for a constantly expanding market foi its products chases the bourgeoisie ovei the whole surface ot the globe it must nestle everywhere settle ever /where, estab- lisl i .n i ;c ion: ' 'Oi A> iere. The bourgeoisie I as through its exploitation of the world-market given a cosmopolitan charact« r to production and consumption in every country... All old-established industries have beer destroyed oi are daily being destroyed They are dislodged by new becüi o, 'id death questic « ed ii-jtjom (contd) m. SOCIOLOGY ge-workers made istence from self-* consumers who rere being created rs that drove it italist craft and ese were encoun- ness organization ■eluded the drive ividual capitalists fge-labourers and í profits. Together, [lo cheapen and «place their rivals. ertith, employers westing in more d systems of busi- ar. to expand the olo-gy, harnessing developing busi-B Marx observed, ; constant change, ich", is inevitable. "s drive to expand ■ust 11 btfve gl obalizing : (a) the | «------Tnv through j n.";'ies to adopt [ we z~ mi 1 i all iľ ige anc (dl the re.e'ittE ■' lOt s re oo jrgeoisie j »er/iVner e, estáb- | r 5 :osn íopolítan 1 Cr-.- che :d indus- | tS Z D06C by new Hävilizec nations. (COmd' MODERNITY AND THE EVOLUTION OF WORLD SOCIETY 49 lands and cli have intercc material, so edness becc The bourgei immer nations into civilization which it batters down mes In p|£ - ( urse in every dtrectioi also in in' >me more by industries that no longer work no indigeno is raw material but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter ot the globe. In place of tne old wants, satisfied by the products of the country, we find new wants requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant )cal andnet'onal sei I .sou and self sufficiency, we universal interdependence of nations And as in ;ectual production... National one-sidedness and narrow-mind-id more impossible... - ranid a velopment of all instruments of production, by the ||ns of communications dra\ s -\ even the most barbai i The cheap prices of its comn o ' the heavy artillery with .11 Chinese walls witn which n f z i arians' intensely obstinate hatred to foreigners to capitulate It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt tlie bou'geois mode of production; it coi -. em to introduce what it cails civilization in their midst, that is, to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image.' v : .;, facilitated Source: 'stretching' of social relationships aSSTthe world and sustain complex intera tÜ between people situated far apart. Indeed, he explicitly states that modeno an Inherently globalizing' force.(pp. 63,177). Important though this argum, ľii^hayt|obalizatLis simply stató writ large This seems rather a limited view because, as we show m Char* the emergence of a global consciousness^ have called globalism. This and oth^ structures and orientations of modernity. AsRoberteon (1992. 60) insists, glob* I ization has acquired a 'general autonomy' and logklofits own. RACE AND COLONIALISM European countries were able to spread out of their continent precisely^becaJ oľSr economic, military and intellectual lead, often borrowed from other J hzations The decisive advances were in seafaring and navigational technique,-taPMovements in the compass, navigational charts astrolabe and rudder - | the use of gunpowder and firearms, cannons and guns (Smith 1991 56) The Portuguese8 who led the field in navigational exploration reached the tip 1 outiírn Africa in 1489. Vasco da Gama finally entered the Indian Ocean m 149,. | Bra en" pľoL, including the defeat of the Muslim fleet in the Indian Ocean m! 1509 and the creation of a whole series of forts and trading stations across Asia. much of the non-western world and the extension of colonial rule that was even hiallv to follow (Smith 1991: 77-8). ,„,,,, I European explorers met small, scattered societies (like the Khoi-khoi and San in SouľhVicaľas well as large empires like China. There.the^emperor-and hi court believed that theirs was the 'central kingdom' around which all others were scattered. Strange stories abounded. As late as the Opium War (1839-42 waged by the European powers to control the profitable drugs trade, mam Chfnese thought thaf Europeans would die spectacularly of the explosive consequences of constipation if deprived of rhubarb (useeI theni as a purgative). English sailors were depicted in drawings with tails behind their legs. Such depictions were the mirror images of the racial bigotry that was eventu-aUy to chamcterize much of the European colonial expansion. We examine race , SOCIOLOGY MODERNITY AND THE EVOLUTION OF WORLD SOCIETY 51 es ~elf-monitoring lereas 'all forms of .■;it is 'character-• - which of course B, 39). In modern ■ place constantly , as by individuals. preting knowledge ks of reflexivity at nts draw on socio- - a nd social poli-g jr. actions in turn í the reordering or n complex interac- ates that modernity . gji this argument ar and the nation e show in Chapter Bperties, especially ism. This and other tarriliarity with the : cľ insists, global- tt rrecisely because ď from other civi- ional techniques - e and rudder - and -_:.- 1991: 56). The leached the tip of ■ Ocean in 1497. the Indian Ocean in nations across Asia, aig domination over I rule that was even- e the Khoi-khoi and Ere the emperor and ■nd which all others mim War (1839-42), drugs trade, many ■e explosive consent as a purgative). 1 their legs. itrv that was eventu- | \ \'e examine race and racism in more detail in Chapter 6. Here we merely note that the disdainful manifestations of nineteenth-century European power contrasted markedly with earlier European travellers' awed wonder and astonishment at seeing the Taj Mahal (Figure 3.2), the delicacy of the Benin bronzes (Figure 3.3), the palaces of Iztapalapa and the massive pyramids of Egypt. At the time of the encounter with Europe these buildings and artefacts showed that other advanced civilizations had often surpassed any equivalent achievements in Europe. Figure 3.2 The Taj Mahal Figure 3.3 Benin bronze, representing an Oba (late 16th century, Nigeria) 52 GLOBAL SOCIOLOGY Ethnocentrism derives from the Greek word for people, ethnos. Ethnocentrists see their community or nation as the model against which all others have to be judged. This more generous spirit was also shown by the Enlightenment thinkers who regarded humanity as a single species on a gradual path to self-improvement, whatever the dissimilarities and lags between peoples and regions. All were capable of reaching the end-state of 'civilization'. There was an undoubted arrogance in such a view, which implied that what obtained in eighteenth-century France and Germany was the preferred destination of all humanity. However, this ethnocentrism did not approximate later racist postures and, even in the midst of this ethnocentrism, there was some recognition that humanity had forfeited as well as gained something through 'civilization'. Milton's famous poem Paradise Lost and Rousseau's celebration of the 'noble savage' expressed an idea of an Arcadian innocence where minds, bodies and emotions united with the natural world in a symbiotic and healthy innocence. Most European imperialists and colonialists of the late nineteenth century were not troubled by such reflections. The 'Lords of Humankind' strutted around, annexing territories in the name of their monarchs, sending out governors in plumed hats and announcing they had assumed 'the white man's burden' in civilizing the rest of earth. At the Berlin Conference in 1885 the European powers drew lines on maps and parcelled out great chunks of the world to each other. Enlightenment and Arcadian notions were swept aside as imperialists realized that there were massive fortunes to be made by subordinating the rest of humanity. Rubber trees were stolen from Brazil, gold and diamonds mined in South Africa, lumber logged from the Equatorial forests and opium extracted from China. Sugar, cocoa, tobacco and sisal plantations were established using cheap or coerced labour and speculative capital. These imperialist adventurers, the plantations they started and the financiers who propped them up were the early precursors of the transnational corporations (TNCs) discussed in Chapter 7. The cruelty that attached to many colonial occupying forces was legendary. Take the case of South West Africa, now Namibia. After declaring that an immense African landmass now belonged to Germany, in October 1904 the military head of the occupying forces, General van Trotha, issued an extermination order directed at the local population, declaring that: Inside German territory every Herero tribesman, armed or unarmed, with or without cattle, will be shot. No women or children will be allowed in the territory: they will be driven back to their people or fired upon... I believe that the Herero must be destroyed as a nation. Social Darwinism applied, or more often misapplied, to human situations the role assigned by Darwin to the process of natural selection in the evolution of species. Within a year that is virtually what happened. The Herero population dwindled from 60 000-80 000 people to 16 000 - a loss of some 75-80 per cent. Although many peoples put up spirited fights for their independence, the superiority of European guns and military tactics usually won through. The very ease of these brutal victories promoted ideas of Social Darwinism, which European imperialists supposed lent support to the idea that they were inherently superior to the people they colonized. With the legacy of the Atlantic slave trade and the colonial subjugation of all of sub-Saharan Africa other than Ethiopia, it is difficult, even now, for Africans to escape discrimination and prejudice. After the Second World War there was a new balance of international forces, which was to threaten notions of racial superiority. Japan had given the British a bloody nose in the Far East. Through the force of mass protest and led by a MODERNITY AND THE EVOLUTION OF WORLD SOCIETY 53 remarkable leader, Mahatma Gandhi, India persuaded the British to leave, becoming independent in 1947. This was the prelude to the decolonization of the rest of Asia, Africa, the Middle East and the Caribbean. European expansion and colonialism had fulfilled its historic mission. It had drawn far-flung parts of the world into a relationship with the global economy. However, it had done so often with great cruelty and without the consent of the colonized peoples who, after 1945, were ready to enter a new era. CHANGES AFTER 1945 AND THE DOMINANCE OF THE USA To decolonization were added a number of other important changes between 1945-73, which we shall discuss in turn. Each served to enlarge and deepen the extent to which a world society was evolving: • a long period of sustained economic growth • the establishment of the Bretton Woods financial system • the rise of US global economic power and political leadership • the widespread adoption of Keynesian national economic management • the rise of mass consumption and changes in lifestyles • the spread of English as an international language. Economic growth Although estimates vary, during the long boom from 1950 to 1975, the world's economic output is said to have expanded by an unprecedented two-and-a-quarter times (Harris 1983: 30). Using slightly different dates, Hobsbawm (1994: 288) claimed that the 'golden years' of economic growth and technological development from 1950 to 1973 meant that for '80 per cent of humanity the Middle Ages ended suddenly in the 1950s; or perhaps better still they were felt to end in the 1960s'. Although most remained very poor by western standards, even people living in the colonial and ex-colonial countries were caught up in this economic transformation. By the mid-1950s Europe and Japan had recovered from the devastation of war and were achieving new levels of prosperity. In 1959 Harold Macmillan was re-elected as the British Prime Minister with the famous slogan attributed to him, 'You've never had it so good'. Even the poor developing countries had a good decade with commodity prices for their agricultural produce and minerals attaining heights never achieved before or since. During the 1960s, Japanese might and the rising power of the newly industrializing countries (NICs) became evident, along with rapid rates of industrialization and urbanization in countries like Brazil and Taiwan. The Bretton Woods financial system Bretton Woods is the name of a small town in New Hampshire where 44 countries, mainly allies of the USA, met in July 1944 to formulate policies for global economic co-operation. The conference played a major role in stabilizing the post-war financial situation (Brett 1985: 62-79). Here, it was agreed that western countries would operate a system of semi-fixed exchange rates in managing the 54 GLOBAL SOCIOLOGY Devaluation - lowering the value of your currency against that of your competitor countries to cheapen the price of your exports and make their imports more expensive. value of their currencies while minimizing as far as possible their use of trade-inhibiting policies such as currency devaluation, tariffs and import controls. Meanwhile, the USA agreed to stabilize the dollar - already by far the world's strongest currency - tying its value to gold reserves and permitting its currency to be used freely as world money. The Bretton Woods system also involved establishing several key economic international governmental organizations (IGOs). Of these, the most important were: the World Bank, designed to help individual countries finance long-term infrastructural projects through providing loans at favourable rates the International Monetary Fund (IMF) which provided short-term financial assistance the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT), a world forum to facilitate regular discussions between member countries on measures to reduce trade barriers and related issues. Key Moment The Cold War Led by the Soviet Union and the USA, the world was split into two antagonistic camps over the period 1947-89. This involved an ideological battle between capitalist democracy versus socialist planning, a massive build-up of arms and the twin races to achieve supremacy in nuclear and space-age technology. Despite several flash points, for example in 1948 and 1962 (see time line in Box 3.3), the superpowers themselves never engaged in head-on aggression. Rather, conflict was deflected into regional or minor wars involving the developing countries - as in the Korean and Vietnam Wars. US global economic power and political leadership The USA was very powerful economically at the close of the First World War, but periods of isolation and economic protectionism restricted its global role. After the Second World War its economy emerged undamaged with stronger, re-equipped industries. This time it assumed the burden of managing world capitalism, including its central role in the Bretton Woods system. Generously, it kept its own huge economy open to imports while tolerating some protectionist measures by weaker countries while they recovered from war. It also freely permitted the purchase of its technology. The USA became the world's leading creditor nation, supplying grants to Europe (through the Marshall Aid Plan) and Japan. It supplied loans on favourable terms to other countries, although this was something of a Trojan horse, allowing US-located TNCs to penetrate new markets. The East-West Cold War confrontation dominated global politics from 1947 to 1989. It created a bipolar system with each side managed and ruled by its dominant power - the communist bloc by the Soviet Union and the capitalist democracies by the USA. Each side tried to gain the technical lead in a race to acquire supremacy in nuclear arms and space-age technology. President Truman persuaded the US Congress to pour dollars into the national and world economy via arms expenditure and military aid. There were large deployments of troops in Europe and Asia, while the onset of the Korean War helped to encourage the long post-war boom (Arrighi 1994: 273-98). Successive US administrations encouraged further decolonization by France, Britain and the Netherlands. There were political and economic motives for doing so. The USA wished to prevent the spread of communist movements and regimes, especially in the war-torn Asian countries (although it failed to do so in North Korea, China and Vietnam). It also wanted to penetrate the previously closed colonial markets. The European powers had used these markets as captive outlets for their home industries and as key sources of raw materials for metropolitan industries. The USA now wanted 'a share of the action'. MODERNITY AND THE EVOLUTION OF WORLD SOCIETY 55 Box 3.3 Global peace and war 1945 End of Second World War but the onset of the nuclear age when, in August, the US exploded two atomic bombs in Japan. The UN was established and in December it issued the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 1947 Cold War 'officially' began with President Truman's declaration that the USA would protect democracies from the threat presented by totalitarian (communist) regimes, tn Europe, the Iron Curtain - an expression coined earlier by the British war-time Prime Minister, Winston Churchill - divided the communist Warsaw Pact countries from the western NATO (North Atlantic Treaty ;: , Alliance) allies. 1948 From June (until May 1949), the USSR blockaded West Berlin. This triggered extensive air lifts to provide food and fuel to the citizens of West Berlin. 1949 China went communist under the leadership of Mao Zedong and drove the nationalist and pro-capitalist forces into exile in Taiwan. The USSR exploded an atomic bomb. 1950-53 The Korean War began in 1950 when the communist North invaded the South with Chinese support. The USA promised military protection for East Asia. 1957 The USSR launched 'sputnik', the first human-piloted space craft. The space-race began in earnest. 1962 Cuban missile crisis. Soviet nuclear missiles placed in communist Cuba led to a confrontation with the USA. The world was poised for nuclear war but this was narrowly averted when Soviet premier Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles. 1963-75 American military involvement against North Vietnam's largely peasant army. After years of heavy US bombing and escalating conflict, US forces were pushed into a stalemate and withdrew. 1969 Moon landing by US team; the majesty of planet earth became fully apparent to everyone with media access. 1972 Rapprochement between the USA and China following President Nixon's visit. 1980s President Reagan initiated his 'Star Wars' nuclear 'defence' programme. The sheer expense involved highlighted Soviet deficiencies, especially in computerization, and declining ability to fund the arms race. But it also shackled the USA with colossal national debts ($3 trillion by the early 1990s). 1989 Soviet premier Gorbachev relinquished further claims to 'defend' Warsaw Pact countries; collapse of Eastern Europe communist regimes as popular revolutions broke out. Cold War ended. 1992 End of communism in Soviet Union and ancient Russian empire began to dissolve into independent republics. Gulf War to reverse Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and 'safeguard' world oil reserves. Sanctioned by UN, but demonstrated US leadership and power was now unrivalled. Keynesian national economic management John Maynard Keynes was a major twentieth-century economist. In the 1930s, when unemployment brought on by the Great Depression was causing widespread distress, his theories challenged orthodox views on how best to explain and deal with the booms and slumps characteristic of capitalism. They also 56 GLOBAL SOCIOLOGY had important political and social implications. The uncertainties and dÍerSľgexpectations of consumers, savers and investors often worked diverging e p economic decision-making difficult. He agamľnat tft to themľelves, market forces tended to generate widening SSÜ3 m0comemand wealth, making it *^£££%£ \ WpI« sufficient to keep consumption, investment and theretore empioy SSÍSÄ^S levels. He suggested governments play a more proactiveProle in spending on public investment and stimulating demand - so "SIS laf fÍrS a socialist, Keynes thought that governments t. Zftteto system to redistribute income from rich to poor (this s Ä^ÄO. He reasoned that the poor would normally S fľlľhe than save) any increased income and that this would expand Teon^^ World War HÍ only a slight exaggeration to say that Keynesian policies gave üpüal^m'aplease oflife. They also strengthened the long boom and so contributed to globalization. Mass consumption and changes in lifestyles ThP lone boom after the Second World War was triggered by an increasing The long boom arter produced with corresponding demand f or goods ^nd se ^^ethods Pbased on those pioneered by HenľyTorď ľZ motorstembly plants in Detroit (see Chapter 4 for a fn Zession) Prosperity helped fuel important changes m social life, espe SSÍSÄSSitrto. Life expectancy rose and many people were bette" educated than ever before, even in the developing countries The ( c„rV, rhansres first became widely evident m the lVSUs. CTeľSy imost cÍrtľnly generated cumula/ve effects, which by the Me 1960s were giving rise to the demand for, and higher expectation o , SJlrplrľnll freedom of choice in all spheres of life. Meanwhile global-greater Peróna ful influences could not be contained with n rsÄS« u- u - —^ Br»:r through education, the mass media, tourism and TNCs. Box 3.4 provi time line of these changes. The desire for more personal freedom Private leisure and consumption 1954 1950S Dawn of the ÍV age. Thnty per cent of households in the UK had TV (1 his rose to 89 per cent by 1963.) The invention of the Teenager Ycuth cultures became ever more evident „en own markets musical and other cultural concerns (cont'd; BAL SOCIOLOGY uncertainties and bcrs often worked laking difficult. He jenerate widening r mass demand to I therefore employments play a more atina; demand - so governments di to poor (this is r would normally his would expand te interference' in at his arguments 1940s. With wide-t after the Second sian policies gave k:-.c boom and so ! _ V an increasing : corresponding - - rioneered by k Chapter 4 for a in social life, espe- nanv people were ■s countries. The lení in the 1950s. sets, which by the er expectation of, lear.while, global-r.tained within leveloping world 3.4 provides a -ad TV. (This e»er more evident t."s concerns. (cont'd) | MODERNITY AND THE EVOLUTION OF WORLD SOCIETY 57 1956 The new genre of 'rock music' emerged. Elvis Presley achieved inter- national fame with 'Heartbreak Hotel' and the film, Jailhouse Rock. Adolescent rebellion became fashionable. Popular culture became big business. 1960s Age of mass ownership of the motorcar got underway. Suburbanization increased while inner-city zones declined. Spread of supermarket shopping. 1960s The rapid expansion of systems of higher education across the world. 1960s International tourist travel takes off. Action for greater personal freedom and justice 1954 Beginning of Civil Rights Movement in the USA by African Americans. Reached its heyday in the mid-1960s. Mid-1960s Anti-war Movement in the US against involvement in Vietnam began and spread to Europe. Coalesced with drug culture and with the 'hippie' revolt against continuing bureaucratic restraints on sexual/personal freedom. 1968 May 'revolution' by workers and students in France against the materialist v pressures of capitalism. Late 1960s Feminist movement for gender equality took off in the USA and soon spread. 1969 Birth of the Gay Rights Movement in the USA. The spread of English as an international language The use of English as a world language (ironically called a lingua franca) has fostered the emergence of a world society. Historically, spoken English came to occupy this role when Britain emerged as the world's first industrial nation. It controlled the largest empire until well after the Second World War and, until the First World War, was the leading world supplier of investment capital, banking services and commercial shipping networks. When the USA assumed this leading role after 1945, by an accident of history it also happened to be an English-speaking country. Moreover, the USA continues to dominate the various mass media and advertising, which are so influential in shaping global consumer and lifestyle aspirations. As the world economy has grown, so too has its reliance on English as a world language (Table 3.1). Table 3.1 English language-speakers, 1990 Number of countries where English is dominant 75 (out of 170) Number who speak English as a first language Number who speak English as a second language Total English-speakers in the 75 countries 377,132,600 140,000,000 517,132,600 Source: Crystal (1995: 108-9) 58 GLOBAL SOCIOLOGY REVIEW A world society does not drop from the sky like an alien invasion. It has been emerging in a halting way ever since the inhibitions induced by local beliefs and mythology were first questioned by the world religions - particularly through the spread of Buddhism, Islam and Christianity. However, a narrow ethnocentric outlook was challenged more fundamentally by the rise of modernity in Europe. The formation of powerful, well-armed competing nation states provided a basis and a motivation for capitalist industrialization. Meanwhile, the Enlightenment led to new cultural and scientific outlooks that fed into modernizing impulses. Eventually the momentum for change created by the fusion of capitalism and modernity proved to be uncontainable. Empowered by new wealth and technology and energized by capitalist competition for markets and raw materials as well as by national rivalry, the European powers subjected other peoples to their rule. This served to widen markets and spread European languages and social and political institutions. During the twentieth century globalization has been given another massive boost by the emergence of the USA as a giant economic engine and then as a superpower. From the end of the Second World War and at least up to the 1970s, its economic, ideological and military leadership of the West went largely unquestioned. Although the Soviet Union occasionally challenged the USA, state communism was weaker than it appeared. By 1989, it was failing and soon collapsed. In recent decades, other trends have become apparent in the moves towards a world society. Globalizing forces have become largely autonomous and self-sustaining. Less and less does their survival or expansion depend upon the actions of particular nations, even very powerful ones. The ability of nations and states to cope with the problems presented by globalization, for example, worldwide pollution or unaccountable TNCs, is likely to depend upon the active support they receive from a whole gamut of transnational groups, interests and experts. A £aradox has become apparent at the heart of globalization. On the one hand, we see the virtual worldwide spread of certain very powerful universalizing trends. Capitalist modernity generates both similar experiences - for example, in education, health, industry, market exchange, urban life - and common aspirations for greater personal freedom. (Of course, not all of these are beneficial as we will see later in this book.) On the other hand, a more complex, polycentric world of competing industrial economies, each with its ôwrTveŕsioň"of modernity and particular cultural legacy on offer, has replaced the bipolar one of the superpowers. We live in a world of many robust players, transnational and national, state and non-state, and each is determined to influence local and global events. We will encounter these two themes many times in the chapters that follow.