I. Economic liberalism and global unipolarity

The dynamics of the Western system of political liberalism, as expressed in the “free market,” or laissez faire, economy, have led to an ever more intense polarization of the globe along the lines of the North-South divide between the industrialized and the “developing” world (a division dating back to the era of colonialism). Since the end of the East-West Conflict at the beginning of the Nineties, the ideological model of liberal capitalism has found virtually no rival capable of challenging its quasi-missionary drive towards international hegemony. The dogma of “profit maximization” has gradually relativized all other criteria by which economic activity is evaluated. Even human labor, knowledge, values and spiritual orientations have become commodities in the global competition for economic advantage. As aptly described by Samir Amin (1996),[1] polarization of the world between the rich North and the impoverished South is the inevitable result of the inherent dynamics of capitalism in a constellation where there are no checks and balances to restrain the economic egotism of the major transnational players. The era of economic globalization creates new forms of hegemony that are no longer determined by political and military power alone. As one can clearly see from the working paper prepared for the 1999 Economic Forum in Davos (Morrison 1999), the ideologues of this self-declared era are trying to make us believe that globalization is an inevitable historical process that cannot be stopped or modified but must instead be embraced by all states and economic players in order to avoid losing out completely in a quasi-Darwinian survival struggle.[2] This became even more obvious in US President Bill Clinton’s dictum of the “inexorable logic of globalization” which figured prominently in his recent foreign policy address in San Francisco (The White House 1999).

In the present euphoria over the removal of all geographical, political and legal limits to economic activity in the framework of an idolized market – or of “free market fundamentalism,” to use the words of international speculator George Soros – one of the basic questions of the philosopher is that of the definition of the moral limits by which economic competition is bound on the national as well as on the transnational level. If we proclaim the “rule of law” as the supreme goal of a civilized polity, we cannot ignore the need for establishing general norms for the economic activity as well. If we reject the law of the jungle on the political level we cannot tolerate that very law in the exercise of economic freedom. The highly cherished possession of freedom in whichever domain is linked to basic duties that cannot themselves be seen as a “commodity” in an instrumentalized economic context. The application of double standards is not only to be avoided in the field of international politics; the universal application of ethical norms is a basic requirement in all areas of human activity, whether political, cultural or economic.

The basic human rights that have been proclaimed by the member states of the United Nations as guidelines for all public action are to be seen as the general norms by which economic activity is bound – in the same way as in national or transnational politics. In summary: in a way similar to the present-day recognition of a jus cogens in the field of relations between states, we have to acknowledge general norms of a binding nature for the exercise of economic freedom on the international level. Free market forces have to be channeled along the principles of the dignity and the inalienable rights of the human being.[3] Social and economic rights must never be at the disposal of the “market.” Special responsibility rests with the religious institutions, whether Muslim, Christian, Hindu or Buddhist, to emphasize the aspect of moral responsibility in the pursuit of economic freedom. To a large extent, it is due to the failure of religious institutions in the secularized societies of the industrialized world that what Susan Strange (1986) had much earlier aptly termed “casino capitalism”[4] has been able to spread not only within the ideological vacuum of the former socialist societies, but also within the heartland of the Western free market economy (the ideology of which is based, to a considerable extent, on the logic of gambling).

A basic aspect of this kind of economic activity is the creation of artificial wealth through unproductive, highly speculative financial transactions of which currency trading has been a major factor. Money, the abstract means of determining the value of material goods and services so as to facilitate economic transactions, has itself become a commodity and an object of large-scale speculation. The drastic consequences of this type of economic transaction have become obvious through the recent economic meltdown in South-East Asia. Even one of the key figures of present day casino capitalism, George Soros (1999), recently acknowledged the totally amoral nature of an unrestricted free market. So far, national governments and transnational institutions (whether established inside or outside the framework of the United Nations) have equally failed to restrain the global market forces and to channel them into a framework of civilized economic exchanges. Institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the newly created World Trade Organization (WTO), the successor of GATT, have proven to be incapable managing the dynamics of the global financial markets. The WTO is even aggravating the problem by trying to enshrine the American dogma of extreme economic liberalism under the slogan of removing all barriers to free trade. Even free market ideologues such as the organizers of the World Economic Forum are sensing the social and political frustrations over the negative effects of free market fundamentalism and have now begun speaking of “responsible globality.”[5]

In reality, what is termed economic globalization, in the present context of the unrivaled rule of the Western industrialized countries over the rest of the world, has become the major challenge to the emergence of an international civil society. This situation is even more grave in the era of political unipolarity, which is shaped exclusively by the United States as the major political and military power and social and cultural trendsetter. Contrary to the earlier impression based on the euphoria over the spread of modern technologies, the margin of independent action of the often idealized “global citizen” in an economically globalized world is becoming narrower and narrower. The citizen’s real choices are becoming more and more limited because of the constraints of the economic conditions under which he has to act and under which he has to offer himself in an ever more “competitive” environment. He is forced to offer his skills on the market under terms which are defined in the same way as the prices of commodities in the international markets. Democratic procedures and legal safeguards of workers’ rights are becoming more elusive in an environment in which purely economic considerations of how to achieve competitive advantage in the global markets determine even the policies of national governments. National sovereignty has been not only eroded, but has become to a large extent obsolete, because of the primacy of the economy in the international struggle for power and influence.

Decisions on economic transactions, particularly on investments, employment policies, etc., are more often than not taken outside the traditional democratic framework by actors such as the transnational corporations. Those actors are themselves not democratically legitimized, but their actions often predetermine or prejudice the decisions of national governments. Therefore, because of the global dynamics of the free market, politics has become a function of the economy. Sovereignty, in this context, is redefined as economic sovereignty, i.e., as the unrestricted freedom of the international entrepreneur who intrudes into the previously exclusive domain of governments and triggers political and social developments for the results of which he declines all responsibility. Ironically, the responsibility in the legal-political sense rests with the political institutions, which, to a great extent, have lost the capability of independent action on their countries’ economic policies. The events in South-East Asia that were initiated by a carefully orchestrated speculation against the Thai Baht,[6] as well as the earlier speculations against the British Pound and the Italian Lira (both of which led to a major crisis of the European monetary system at the time) are clear proof of the dangers associated with the primacy of the economy over politics.[7] This is particularly true in a closely interrelated global society comprised of competitors for an ever bigger share of the world’s wealth and resources.

II. Globalization, the “End of Democracy” and the question of uniformity

This state of affairs makes the lack of international democracy in a globalized environment even more acute. Transparency of the decision-making processes and accountability vis-à-vis the public are the pillars of a truly democratic polity in which the exercise of power is strictly regulated and controlled by the participation of the citizens. These basic conditions of democracy and the rule of law are not met in an international setting where an ever larger area of decision-making is being moved away from national governments (whether democratically legitimized or authoritarian) and towards transnational economic actors who are accountable to their shareholders alone. The bonum commune, the “public good,” as the basic norm of democratic decision-making, has no place in international investment strategies; it simply cannot be defined in terms of profit maximization. The ethical dimension is alien to the doctrine of the primacy of the market, the freedom of which has more to do with the arbitrariness resulting from pursuit of selfish interests than with goals jointly defined by a community of citizens.

 The increasing role of lobbies and interest groups not only on the national level (particularly in the industrialized countries), but in the transnational sphere, has led the world closer to anarchy and political instability. Many of us know it by now: in spite of all the lofty declarations of “development decades” and the like by the United Nations, on a global level, this competitive system has not produced prosperity. On the contrary: it has led to the impoverishment of large sectors of the population and to a dramatic widening of the gap between rich and poor, not only along the North-South divide but within the industrialized countries themselves. The total lack of democratic legitimization on the part of the transnational economic conglomerates and the international capital and investment groups makes them “immune” to any moral scrutiny of their decisions, even though those decisions often have a direct and adverse impact on the living conditions of the populations concerned. This is true particularly in the developing world; but those decisions increasingly affect the populations of the industrialized countries as well, especially in regard to the employment situation and workers’ rights.

Globalization, because of the laws of free market competition, gradually leads to plutocracy on the global level, i.e., to the expansion of the scope of action of financial oligarchies beyond the confines of the traditional capitalist world. It is no exaggeration to speak of a new phase of colonization of the Third World under the slogan of “globalization.” This slogan has become the keyword in the ideological discourse on how to secure economic progress under the conditions of the unchallenged rule of the “market.” The American model of democracy (in its connection with the oligarchic rules of the “free market,” as most characteristically embodied in Joseph A. Schumpeter’s (1942, 1946, 1991) theory, which has been embraced by the American establishment[8]) is being prescribed to the rest of the world[9] by means of old-fashioned power politics resembling the traditional methods of colonial or imperial rule. Political blackmail and economic sanctions have become the favorite tools in the hands of the self-declared political elite of the Western world for imposing the economic interests of the financial oligarchies upon the unruly Third World.[10] Since the collapse of the bipolar order of the post-war era, a new global discourse is being introduced by the holders of power. The slogans of the “New World Order,” the “End of History,” and the “Clash of Civilizations” were meant to prepare the international public for the launching of the globalization project.

Under these conditions of the international power constellation, globalization specifically means the unfettered rule of the free market economy over the entire globe, under the auspices of the World Trade Organization, the most essential legal and political tool available for protecting the unhindered pursuit of economic interests on a worldwide scale. In the globalized unipolar system of power, there are no geographical borders and no moral limits to the forces of the free market. As stated above, these forces, in the present constellation, coincide with the economic and financial conglomerates of the industrialized world.[11]

Undoubtedly, there is a structural connection between the traditional ideology of capitalism – or of old-fashioned economic liberalism (in the sense of unrestricted economic activity for the sake of profit as defined by Friedrich August von Hayek [1985, 1994] and the high priests of liberalism)[12] – and the present wave of globalization. The primacy of the economy over politics that is characteristic of this form of global competition, has serious anthropological implications. While human labor is becoming a commodity like any other and man, as an autonomous subject (as universally defined in Kant’s practical philosophy),[13] is instrumentalized for the benefit of his fellow “cosmopolitans,”[14] the centers of production are being shifted from one region to the other according to expectations of profitability alone.[15] This tendency will lead not to the “End of History,” as hoped for by the propagandists of the international oligarchies[16] – for there will be more virulent conflicts as a result of the increasing economic imbalances – but rather to the “End of Democracy,” in the sense of a global system in which the nations of the world can participate fairly and on an equal basis in the exploitation of the world’s resources and in the shaping of the international political, legal and social order. The “New International Economic Order,” proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in 1974,[17] has never been more elusive than under the present conditions of a global economy and an unchallenged, unipolar power structure.

This leads us to the question of whether political unipolarity and universal economic “accessibility” of the globe as a marketplace without borders, the characteristics of globalization in the post-Cold War era, necessarily bring about uniformity in other fields of human life too, particularly in regard to life-styles, social habits and cultural identities. Does globalization – because of the dynamics of the free market economy that are affecting the social identity of the human being in general – create a new cosmopolitan awareness; or does it provoke the retreat of the citizen to specific areas in which he may try to protect his identity and where he may seek refuge from his instrumentalization as a mere factor of production, i.e., as a “commodity” in a global market competition, the course of which he has no chance of influencing? Will globalization, as described in terms of a unipolar power constellation and unfettered rule of the “market,” finally strengthen, or even – under certain conditions – provoke “rejectionist” forces that otherwise might not have been able to articulate themselves? Will ethnic, religious, and cultural identities be strengthened because they are perceived to be the only possibilities for defining and safeguarding one’s identity and dignity in a world without borders? A “globalized” world is often perceived as one where the individual’s basic interests, rights and his integrity as a human being can no longer be protected by governments that are themselves subjected to the complex interaction of internationally unregulated economic interests and oligarchic processes of decision-making.

Does the “dialectics of globalization” consist in the reciprocity, or antagonism, of  economic uniformity in a world that has become one global market, on the one hand, and the diversity of the social, cultural and religious forms of retreat from the “dictatorship of the economy” on the other?[18] Are, in a certain sense, the movements that are polemically characterized as fundamentalist a mere function of the process of globalization? Do they authentically express the frustration of large sectors of the population over the fact that the governments of nation-states have been unable to channel the globalization process into forms of economic exchange that would be acceptable in terms of basic human values and of the status of man as an autonomous subject?

III. The “metaphysics” of globalization

Whatever the relationship between political unipolarity, economic “borderlessness,” and cultural and social multipolarity may be – the rapid spread of the information technology and the emergence of the Internet have not led to the cultural unipolarity that was feared by many critics of technological development! – : in philosophical terms, there is undoubtedly a trend towards “metaphysical unipolarity,” if we follow Martin Heidegger’s critique of technical civilization and the objectivistic perception of reality associated with it. There seems to be an intrinsic connection between the voluntaristic nature of a “life-world” (Lebenswelt)[19] in which the primacy of the “economic” is established over all other spheres of life, and what has been called by Heidegger, in his far-reaching critique of Western (or technical) civilization, “forgetfulness of being-in-itself” (Seinsvergessenheit).[20] In Heidegger’s comprehensive analysis of the modern life-world under the conditions of the unlimited exploitation of nature in a strictly technical-functionalistic context, “metaphysics” becomes the keyword for the ever-increasing alienation of the human being from the absolute reality (or reality-as-such, Sein) that is beyond the reach of the finite human will. In Heidegger’s (1962) perception, this tendency is experienced in the virtually never-ending process of  the “mechanization” (Technisierung) of nature, i.e., in the objectivization of the life-world for the sake of creating the illusion of quasi-absolute mastery of the natural environment (even though this intention may not openly be declared or recognized as such).[21]

In the framework of this philosophical approach that tries to understand how man “constitutes” reality, i.e., how he realizes his “being-in-the-world”  (In-der-Welt-sein) under the conditions of a subject-oriented Western civilization, economic globalization can be seen as the latest and most intense consequence of man’s collective “drive for power” (Wille zur Macht), inherent in a merely technical approach towards reality. Nature, in this context, becomes an object of exploitation for the sake of the self-realization of the human being. Further, in such a framework of universal “objectivization,” man degrades himself, as subject, to the status of an object, a commodity in the collective drive for the mastery of nature.[22] The objectivistic approach characteristic of technical civilization goes hand-in-hand with the voluntaristic orientation of an economy without geographical borders or moral limits. Against the background of a universal philosophical-historical analysis of the development of modern civilization’s perception of reality (Seinsgeschichte), Heidegger (1961) expresses a sublime form of “philosophical resignation” vis-à-vis the dynamics of an absolutely posited human will that accepts no restrictions on its self-realization as master of a narrowly perceived universe. In real fact, this universe is identical to the realm of technical and economic activity of the human race; it does not extend beyond and, in strictly philosophical terms, it can never be a surrogate for reality as such, or being-in-itself (Sein).

The human race, in the “metaphysical” epoch of technical civilization (Technik),  with its distinct economic-materialistic approach towards reality, is led to believe in the illusion of a reality gradually coming under the control of the human will. While traditional metaphysics, since the times of classical Greece, tried to objectivize the absolute reality in the form of a concise conceptual framework of ontology (created out of the desire of the human being to clearly and authoritatively define his own position in the κόσμος), modern “secularized“ metaphysics tries to replace the merely conceptual mastery of the universe with a virtually unlimited objectivization of the natural environment. Man tries to “recreate” himself by subjugating nature, exploiting its potential without any ethical constraints and, in this process, he objectivizes himself, both individually and collectively, as a means of production, without even being aware of it.

It is exactly this secularized metaphysics that is being articulated in the slogan of globalization, having replaced the dogmata of traditional metaphysics. Globalization, in our philosophical analysis, means an extreme form of alienation of the human being from reality as such, i.e., from the “being-in-itself” (Sein) that cannot be brought under the control of the human will, whether individual or collective. To describe the metaphysical predicament of modern man under the auspices of his globalized self-realization, Martin Heidegger has coined the term Seinsvergessenheit (“forgetfulness of being-in-itself”). Quasi-unintentionally, man makes himself the object of this absolutely posited self-realization. He becomes the victim of the purely economic drive towards profit maximization that has been triggered by the dynamics of the free market in conjunction with the rapid progress of technology.

The technical-objectivistic approach towards reality – in the sense of Heidegger’s (1962) definition of Ge-stell[23] – and what we witness today as economic globalization are two sides of the same coin: namely of mankind’s secularized metaphysical project driven by the unrestrained will towards self-realization. A “metaphysical critique” of globalization along the lines of what Heidegger (1967) described as Verwindung der Metaphysik (the “overcoming of metaphysics” in the sense of a non-objectivistic approach towards reality),[24] a sketch of which I tried to present here, has to come to grips with the unfinished project of modernity and has to establish the critical distance towards this project that is required in order to define the basic social and economic realities of our time in the context of a fundamental “critique of civilization” (Zivilisationskritik).

A phenomenon can be defined only if one is able to identify its limits, to draw the borders as clearly as possible. Globalization, in its philosophical meaning, can be fully understood only if it is put into the context in which the limits that its propagators insistently deny are visible: namely, the basic norms that underlie the dignity of the human being as a subject that is fully aware of the non-objectifiable character of the nature (reality) in which man lives, and of the subsequent metaphysical futility of any project of “global rule” (prematurely perceived as “mastery of the universe”), under the pretext of the universal exploitation of nature for the sake of  a betterment of the conditio humana.

IV. Conclusion

This undoubtedly abstract and nearly esoteric philosophical awareness of the inner structure and contradictions of the globalization project may not have a direct impact on power politics or economic strategies. It may, however, help to clarify the reasons why the “citizens of the world” should resist the One World ideology of the propagators of a new order in which, for the first time in history, there are virtually no limits to the pursuit of economic interests. What is urgently needed in a forcefully globalized world is not the removal of all restrictions to economic activity but a globalization of moral awareness in regard to the basic rights of each individual and each nation, and of the obligations resulting from the mutual recognition of those rights. The peoples of the world, in clear distinction from their governments and from the ever more powerful international economic conglomerates and pressure groups, have to make clear that the advent of a global economy dominating all other aspects of life (including the political one), is not the “End of History,” and that any such “metaphysical” assumptions are philosophically baseless.

The present ideological discourse on globalization has to be exposed as what it really is: a rather crude tool in the hands of the power centers of the industrialized world to gradually impose – under the disguise of economic liberalism – global hegemony and a neocolonial order upon the rest of the world. The toll of such a reshaping of the international order in the interest of the most powerful economic pressure groups will be heavy. The process may well lead to the political destabilization of entire regions and to hitherto unseen forms of resistance. Retired political leaders in the West are well aware of the potentially devastating consequences, as can be seen from the recent statement of Henry Kissinger at the World Economic Forum (1999) in Davos.[25] Increasing global anarchy and the disappearance of the state may be the price of an economic world without geographical, political, legal, or moral borders. All declarations on social and economic rights may become obsolete in an environment where politics are defined in strictly economic terms and where the human being is not seen as an autonomous subject, i.e., as a citizen of the world, but as a competitor for economic advantage and for the exploitation of resources on a global scale.

In stark contrast to what the dogma of economic liberalism would claim, the major economic actors are not contributing to the global expansion of prosperity, but are globalizing poverty[26] in a way that, with growing intensity, affects the working population in the industrialized countries themselves. Under the logic of globalization, entire nations are placed at the disposal of the international markets. As we have seen in the case of the previously acclaimed “Asian Tigers,” the fate of millions may be determined by the decisions of speculators who do not accept any accountability (or moral  responsibility, for that matter) for the social consequences of their decisions. In the words of the prominent American columnist William Pfaff: "To millions in Asia, Russia and Latin America, deregulation of the international economy must look like a vast swindle. It was not, in fact, a swindle. It was something perhaps worse. It was an irresponsible and, in crucial respects, disastrous experiment, inspired by ideology, promoted by Western groups that expected to profit from it, backed by the power of the US government." (Pfaff 1999)

In this unprecedented situation, the governments of the world should agree not merely on the rights of transnational investors (which are at the top of the WTO agenda) but on a set of rules, i.e., of duties and responsibilities for transnational economic activities, limiting the often aggressive pursuit of economic interests and controlling the dynamics of the highly volatile markets in a careful and socially responsible manner.[27]

In simple philosophical terms: a mere “time-out” for globalization in order to cure some of its symptoms (as advocated by some “free market fundamentalists” trying to address the Asian crisis on an ad hoc basis)[28] is definitely not enough. The belief in the miraculous self-regulatory capacity of the market should by now have been identified as a myth no different from the false assumptions of previous totalitarian ideologies. Globalization, in our analysis, is nothing more than the latest dogma by which the ideology of political and economic liberalism tries to impose itself, in an environment where its competitors in terms of power politics seem to have disappeared. It is wishful thinking when the self-declared “world elite of Davos” now coins the static term of globality so as to make us believe that the process of globalization (undoubtedly accelerated by the West’s “victory” in the Cold War) has already been fully achieved, that the global market has become an undisputed reality and that there is no alternative to it any more.[29]  It is up to the philosopher to demonstrate that such conclusions are premature.

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