Globalisation - an American perspective

By C. T. Kurien

AS A student of globalisation for over a decade one of my main observations has been how divergent perceptions are about the phenomenon. One is reminded of the fable of the blindmen who went to study the elephant. Not only that each had a different version of what the animal was like, but according to John G. Saxe who converted the Indian fable into English verse, ``they disputed loud and long, each in his own opinion exceeding stiff and strong''. Surely, the blindmen could have been academics too!

One of those men who recently set out to study the animal called globalisation (which incidentally no one can see, and hence there is no distinction between blindmen and other men) is an American named Friedman. Thomas L. Friedman is no ordinary American, though. He is the winner of the Pulitzer Prize, one of America's most prestigious literary awards and, as the foreign affairs columnist for TheNewYorkTimes he interprets, if not influences America's global policies. On the basis of his global explorations of globalisation he published a book in 1999 with the catchy, though somewhat intriguing title, ``The Lexus and the Olive Tree'' (updated and revised edition, Anchor Books, New York, 2000). The book received rave reviews in practically all leading dailies in the country, and has been highly commended by professional journals such as the Harvard Business Review and the National Law Journal. It has also become highly recommended reading for those who wish to understand the complex phenomenon of globalisation.

There is reason for it too. Friedman's style is appealing. The book provides a great deal of researched factual material as also anecdotal narratives from virtually all countries of the world on the basis of conversations with people in power and those in the streets. Above all, Friedman has the ability to communicate difficult themes in simple, beautiful prose. Listen to this: ``Globalisation is everything and its opposite. It can be incredibly empowering and incredibly coercive. It can democratise opportunity and democratise panic. It makes whales bigger and minnows stronger. It leaves you behind faster and faster and it catches up to you faster and faster... It enables us to reach into the world as never before and it enables the world to reach into each of us as never before'' (p.406). How can one react to such passages, except with a tinge of envy?

The title of the book is the every day language version of the deeply philosophical theme, ``globalisation is everything and its opposite''. Friedman, on one of his many global tours, visited the factory producing the Japanese luxury car Lexus where 66 human beings and 310 robots worked together to perfection to turn out 300 Sedans each day. He was struck by the latest in technology, luxury, aesthetics, and organisational sophistication that Lexus seemed to represent. On the way back to his hotel he happened to read about a feud between the Arabs and the Israelis over who owned which olive tree. How primitive, he thought and how very boorish. And yet the mental juxtaposition of the Lexus and the olive tree had the same impact on him as the falling apple had on Newton. Olive trees, he thought, represent ``everything that roots us, anchors us, identifies us and locates us in this world'' - family and home, community and nation. He arrived at the conclusion that globalisation must hold together the Lexus and the olive tree.

It is unavoidable, says Friedman, for globalisation is a fact as the cold war was till a decade ago. Indeed, globalisation is the new international system emerging after the cold war, a complex dream of which the final act is yet to be written. It calls for new balance between nation states, between nation states and global markets, between nation states and individuals. It is also a great process of democratisation based on rapid economic progress. One of Friedman's global laws is that every country with a per capita income of $15,000 is a liberal democracy, except Singapore. The process may put you in a golden straitjacket with the economy growing and politics shrinking. What to do, because that is what capitalism does, and let there be no mistake about it, the driving force of globalisation is free market capitalism. One has to live with capitalism's law that ``winners take all''. It will create some minor problems such as social inequalities. Friedman quotes figures that the incomes of the poorest fifth of working families in America dropped by 21 per cent between 1979 and 1995, while the incomes of the richest fifth jumped by 30 per cent during the same period. And in 1998 America had 170 billionaires compared with 13 in 1982. Friedman warns the winners that if the have-nots are not allowed to survive they will eventually produce a backlash that can virtually choke off the system and the country.

Globally too, inequalities have increased with globalisation, and may continue to do so. But not to worry. Friedman has his ``The Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention'' to offer - once again an empirical generalisation. ``No two countries that both had McDonald's had fought a war against each other since each got its McDonald's'' (p.248). Did you know that? It does not matter if immediately after the Law was stated war did break out between McDonald's countries, as it happened for a while in Kosovo. There is always the U.S. and the NATO countries who can deal with it.

That is the Friedman thesis. The U.S. may not be in charge of globalisation, but ``it is the country with the greatest ability, for the moment, to shape the coalitions that can manage globalisation geopolitically'' (p.204). And why is it so? First and foremost because ``as the country that benefits most from today's global integration ... it is our job to make sure that globalisation is sustainable'' (p.437). Globalisation may be an American dream, but it is meant for everyone, everywhere. How else can it be claimed to be global?

Friedman has a long list of qualities that make America truly ``the ultimate benign hegemon and reluctant enforcer'' of globalisation. America has a strategic geophysical location. America's population is multicultural, multiethnic and even multilingual, all other tongues yielding to the superiority of American English. America has a rapidly adjusting capital market, bankruptcy laws, honest legal system, democratic and flexible polity, malleable labour market, an open policy towards immigrants of high skills and a deeprooted entrepreneurial culture.

Friedman reserves his final comments for all who proclaim - academics, administrators, business people - that the ``free market'' works on the basis of its own power. The state matters more, not less under globalisation, points out Friedman. But it has to be a smaller, better state. ``If your market is all stoplights, and no free ways, it breeds corruption. If it is all free ways and no spotlights, it breeds chaos'' (p.159). There is more to come, towards the very end of the opus. McDonald's spreads across the world, and countries with McDonald's do not go to war partly due to economic integration. ``But it is also due to the presence of American power and America's willingness to use that power against those who would threaten the system of globalisation - from Iraq to North Korea.'' On this hard-core empirical observation comes Friedman's final Global Law: ``The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist ... And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies to flourish is called the U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps'' (p.464).

From the time Adam Smith wrote more than 200 years ago about the mysterious invisible hand of the market many have tried to challenge it, but this is the first substantive modification of that dictum that I have come across. And I am inclined to agree with Friedman because he is an honest and honourable man.

(The writer is Professor Emeritus, Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai.)

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