FROM MARXISM TO GLOBALISM PART I

What are the causes of fuzzy definitions? There are many reasons for them, but one is of a special interest to me. Certain theories and ideologies “walk around” like actors in a Kabuki theater of masks. They hold these sticks in their hands, with the masks attached to them: they don’t even have to be subtle. And as soon as you ask them: “Who are you? What are you?” they will bring the mask closer to your face, and demand that you accept the definition of the mask as the real thing. Poor us, the mask is looming large in our face, and we are reluctant to confess that its image is blurred. We accept the fuzzy definition of the fuzzy mask without even a fight. So it is with globalism, one of such theories and ideologies. Some say it is a 19^th century idea. I have actually heard an expert discussing globalism on TV in the most casual terms: oh yes, this is an old idea, but he never bothered to specify what he meant, nor did his host bother to ask him. But which idea is it exactly? There have been several such ideas, you know. I am certain that the real face is hiding somewhere, behind a deceptive mask, or, perhaps, even more than one mask, and the ugly truth is charily concealed behind them! So, why don’t we unmask it now? Why can’t some distinguished academic give us a lecture on the meaning, origins, and genesis of globalism, any volunteers?

Now, how does globalism relate to the concept of globalization? Once again, we find ourselves prisoners of fuzzy definitions. In my book, everything is simple: globalism is an ideology, globalization is a process.

As far as I am concerned, I am ready to quote David Ricardo’s mathematical exploits in defense of the comparable advantage principle in international trade, as the most credible representation of the globalization principle, before the latter had been blown out of proportion by the ideologues of political globalism, which, in my view, is tantamount to classic neo-imperialism, justifiably interpreted by its opponents as a twenty-first century’s world-historical conspiracy of the haves against the have-nots, welcome back, Karl Marx!

Incidentally, here is a short historical excursion, which may serve as our starting point in establishing the connection between old Marxism and modern globalism.

A century-and-a-half ago an international organization came into being, officially chaired by Karl Marx and suggestively named “International.” Without getting into finer points of its history, the International crowd almost immediately broke into two factions. The founding faction consisting predominantly of the European Jewish liberals, had an agenda much more practical than Marx’s pontification about “productive forces” and “industrial relations.” Their intent was to fight the nationalism of European governments, who had reversed the progress of sweeping social reforms, introduced by the liberals’ idol: Napoleon. One way of repudiating their enemy, nationalism, was to promote its alternative, internationalism. That’s where the liberals discovered Marx. Despite some serious mutual animosity (the liberals resented Marx’s “implicit anti-Semitism”), they needed each other enough to reluctantly join forces for at least a part of the way. (As a matter of fact, Karl Marx’s own bitter personal experience, having been denied Jewish support for his self-appreciating genius, and having to bow to a rich Gentile Friedrich Engels for everything denied to him by his own, had to be so maddening and humiliating that Marx had to end up with this chip on his shoulder for the rest of his life, even though he was doomed to spend it mostly among the Jews.)

On the other hand, the dissident Russian faction, headed by Bakunin, very characteristically, loved Marx’s anti-Semitism, which was, of course, his insistence that Capitalism was based on greed, thus being utterly immoral, and, therefore, predestined to be superseded by an ethically superior economic formation. The Russians, whose own goal was to mold a worldwide anti-Capitalist alliance, which they themselves were to lead, tried to wrestle the International away from the main group, but lost and left, forming a separate group of their own. The main European group, apparently unable to survive the separation, moved to America, where it dwindled away. In this fascinating lesson of little-known history, we see Marxism not as a monolithic force that it had never been, but as at least two very different schools of thought: the liberal internationalist and anti-nationalist version, promoted by the European Jewish liberals,--- and the Russian anti-Capitalist version, which did have its own international reach, but was anything but anti-nationalist, being promoted by the Great-Russian Chauvinists, the epitome of hardcore ultra-nationalism.

 

(This is the end of Part I. Part II will be posted tomorrow.)