Globalization and Political strategy

Fredric Jameson

Thesis Statement: The current globalization is a form of neo-imperialism and should be rejected at the
technological, political, cultural, economic and social levels.

I.

Globalization is an imperialist force.

A. Globalization has made nations dependent on technology.
1. Communications has a great impact on production, organization and marketing of
goods.
2. This impact has made our dependence on technology irreversible.
B. The US amasses power in the political sphere through globalization.
1. Globalization has led to the deterioration of the nation-state.
2. The influence of globalization is in actuality the spreading economic might of the US.
3. Nationalism is framed as a resistance to US interests which are claimed to be universal.
C. Globalization causes standardization of culture.
1. The influx of American culture has threatened our ethno-national ways of life.
2. Downplaying the influence of western culture allows it to seep into society more easily,
but overemphasizing this influence demonstrates the society as weak, passive and easily
dominated.
D. Globalization has caused a shift on what determines a nation's economics.
1. Economics has become a cultural matter, in which a product is both consumed literally
and aesthetically.

2. Culture has become an economic matter, through the profitability and exports of the
entertainment business, particularly that of the US.
3. International bodies such as NAFTA, GATT, MAI, and the WTO have come to dictate
entire economies of countries.
4. Multinationals have become more powerful than even national governments, and have
disrupted natural labor markets through outsourcing.
5. Developing countries have become dependent on foreign capital in the form of loans,
supports and investments, and the US uses the IMF to make sure this dependence
continues.
E. Globalization caused society to change.
1. The culture of consumption that has evolved threatens to consume alternative forms
of behavior in other cultures.
2. This culture individualizes and atomizes people, eventually leading to money being a
corrosive element to all social bonds.

II.

The US uses free market as a political strategy.

A. The US Absolute Free market is unviable to any country.
1. Cultural conservatism is incompatible with free market policies.
2. Democracy is incompatible with an absolute free market because of the need to support
the impoverished and oppressed by free market.
3. Drastic social polarization and immiseration, the destruction of the middle class, high
unemployment without welfare safety, high incarceration rates and disintegrating
families are the fate of any country that tries towards an absolute free market.

B. Free market globalization is an American phenomenon and tool.

1. Europe tended towards social market of welfare state and social democracy instead of
free market.
2. Police-style military interventions, electoral democracy, the rule of law, human rights
are all expressions of American values rather than universal ones.
3. America brandishes the term modernity as an excuse for the brand of capitalism it
imposes.
4. It is because of technology that the US is able to utilize globalization for its own benefits.

III.

The US Globalization can be resisted.

A. The mindset that all the technological, social, and cultural changes brought by US
globalization are irreversible is the biggest hindrance towards stopping US Globalization.
B. Fighting institutions like the WTO that have been used for US interests is a good step
towards resistance to US globalization.
C. Neutralizing or transforming capitalism by adapting it to the pre-existing cultural or social
cohesions and using technology to spread this resistance are necessary because social
collectivism is crucial in forming an innovative response to an oppressive form of
globalization.