The Poverty of Globalization

REVIEW BY BRIAN MCCORMACK

School of Interdisciplinary Studies, Arizona State University

Globalization and Its Enemies. By Daniel Cohen. Translated by Jessica B. Baker. Cam-bridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006. 192 pp., $27.95 (ISBN: 0-262-03350-X).

In Globalization and Its Enemies, Daniel Cohen challenges his readers to considerglobalization not only for its real and perceived harmful effects, but alsoFandperhaps more importantlyFfor its promise of prosperity, which the enemies ofglobalization either oppose on cultural grounds or do not recognize as being eco-nomically possible. The problem is that poverty truly exists, but not for the reasonsthat globalization’s enemies believe. Cohen crafts a fascinating argument centeringon the point that the world’s poor are not poor because they are being exploitedthrough processes of globalization. Rather, they are poor because they are beingneglected.

Central to Cohen’s argument is the idea that the poor want access to the systemeven more than to the material things that the system produces. In Cohen’s words,‘‘the world will never be ‘just’ as long as people do not have the conviction that theyall contribute to discovering and molding a shared human destiny’’ (p. 169). Thegreater difficulty for these peopleFwho cannot fail to see the chasm that dividesthem from their wealthy counterparts because of modern communication tech-nologyFis that ‘‘everything that will allow them to become fully vested participantsin globalization remains to be done’’ (p. 166). What is more, within the currents oftoday’s globalization, which is quite different from previous manifestations, fewopportunities seem to exist to even begin achieving greater access. Much of Glo-balization and Its Enemies is an examination of representative examples of mistakenideas about how the world’s economy works, or more precisely how it fails to work.

Drawing upon Jared Diamond’s (1996) Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of HumanSocieties, Cohen points to a crucial failure of capitalism. Specifically, ‘‘what is striking[about capitalism] is its poor capacity to diffuse technical progress rather than itspropensity to impose progress everywhere’’ (p. 22). In other words, capitalism hasbeen good at building dams, but it has not been proficient at teaching others how tobuild dams. Cohen agrees with the commonly held assumption that globalizationhas always been around, citing Diamond’s analysis of the early diffusion of agri-culture. Cohen uses the point to sustain his own argument about the dispossessionof today’s poor. He observes that the innovations that diffused during earlier pe-riods of globalizationFfor example, agriculture and the alphabetFcame from thepeople who might be called the ancestors of today’s poor. Thus, the diffusion ofthose innovations have failed to pay dividends to their descendants in today’s glo-balization. This significant difference between the globalization of the present andthe globalizations of the past is one of several such anomalies that Cohen explains.

The current globalization’s imposition of progress obtains a new face when oneconsiders the experience of colonialism. By Cohen’s reading, however, colonialismwas a dismal failure as a means of economic exploitation. Cohen quotes AlbertMemmi (1965:70): ‘‘In order for the colonizer to be the master completely it is notenough for him to be it objectively. He must believe in his legitimacy’’ (p. 43). The

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International Studies Review (2007) 9, 143–145

false sense of superiority required to establish this legitimacy reveals the chief errorin Arghiri Emmanuel’s (1972) idea of unequal exchange. Cohen argues that ‘‘un-equal exchange’’ was not a matter of the economic exploitation of workers of theSouth by workers of the North. Rather, it was the integration of the workers of theNorth into the capitalist system, which increased productivity and profit.

Cohen provides a useful summary of the ‘‘new economy’’ in order to explain thekey differences between yesterday’s and today’s globalization. According to Cohen,the shift from the production and exchange of goods, which was based on relativelyclear and measurable value, to the new economy of information and services, whosevalue is less clearly measured, ‘‘does not induce entry into the reassuring world ofpure and perfect competition; it uproots us from it’’ (p. 63). The world’s poor todaycan see wealth, but they cannot experience it. The problem is that the poor are leftto imagine the source of their misery, which can lead them to rely on the myths ofthe past. Those myths inevitably turn to explanations based on exploitation andcultural difference.

In examining the claim that ‘‘cultural differences’’ are what divide the world intorich and poor, Cohen adds the ‘‘clash of civilizations’’ to the set of theories hecritiques. Cohen offers convincing evidence that Samuel Huntington (1996) iswrong in assuming that civilizations are essentially immutable by virtue of theirbeliefs. For example, ‘‘over the course of the twentieth century, no statisticallysignificant differences existed between Muslim nations and their neighbors in mat-ters of economic growth’’ (p. 91). Taiwanese, Japanese, and Korean success storiesround out Cohen’s rebuttal. Far from being a problem, cultural difference shouldbe seen as a virtue.

Nonetheless, the extent of the difficulty facing the world’s developing nations ismade clear in a chapter on ‘‘Indigenous Growth.’’ Cohen argues that there arethree ‘‘levers’’ of growth: human capital, physical capital, and ‘‘global efficiency’’(which is a function of technology and organization). If any of these levers is lack-ing, it can spell failure for a developing nation’s economy. The road to endogenousgrowth must also confront all three of these levers. Moreover, given the roadblocksto creating each of these levers of growth, the effort may require the sacrifice ofother values, such as freedom. On this point Cohen follows Amartya Sen (1999).The chapter ends with the Korean success story, which developed all three levers ofgrowth, but not at the expense of freedom. It, thus, serves as the precedent uponwhich Cohen makes his case that it is possible for developing countries to achieveboth freedom and innovation.

According to Cohen, the list of ‘‘enemies of globalization’’ includes Europe, spe-cifically his own country: France. With fits and starts, the United States has retainedits characteristic of innovation. Cohen notes that the United States has 75 compa-nies in the new economy, whereas Europe has only six. Using a distinction ofgrowth types conceived by Joel Mokyr (1990), Cohen explains that the UnitedStates, intent on developing its huge domestic market in the nineteenth century,grew in the Smithian sense, on the basis of a division of labor. By contrast, Francewas Schumpeterian, that is, innovative. As Cohen explains, ‘‘whereas ‘Smithian’growth necessarily ends by exhausting itself, Schumpeterian growth is a prioriwithout limit’’ (p. 129). In the twentieth century these patterns became reversed. Inthe new economy, it is better to be Schumpeterian. As a result, Europeans are bothcritical and admiring of the United States, that is, of ‘‘Americanization’’ as global-ization. Indeed, the Europeans have become a test case for an approach to glo-balization that aims at achieving an ‘‘economic integration that is also respectful ofcultural diversity’’ (p. 137).

An analysis of two of the developing world’s greatest problemsFhealth care andforeign debtFcompletes the argument. Cohen advocates both debt cancellationand reduced prices for medications. ‘‘Poor countries already do not pay for theirmedicinesFthey are too poor to buy them in the first place. Neither do they repay

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their debtsFthe amounts are excessive’’ (p. 157). Yet, Cohen is also clear thatglobalization must be practical and beneficial to the banks and pharmaceuticalcompanies as well as being just. Moreover, he argues that cancelling debt andproviding affordable health care will accomplish little unless the world’s poor arethemselves contributors to the processes of reform, innovation, development, andgovernanceFin short, unless they become contributors to globalization.

Because Globalization and Its Enemies is brief, it sacrifices some substance for thesake of argument. One of its strengths is that it is succinct, but this brevity is also itsweakness. For example, the two-page account (pp. 162–163) of how postcolonialscholars view globalization is all too brief. Given that the main subject of the book isthe world’s poor, it would have been helpful to hear more from those scholarscloser to the source. Nevertheless, Cohen has made a wonderful contribution to thegrowing scholarship on globalization.

For North American readers, Globalization and Its Enemies, originally published inFrench, brings a different, albeit a rather Eurocentric perspective to the table.Cohen also accomplishes an interdisciplinary fusion of a number of literatures. Indoing this, he offers an important argument about how the world’s people mightachieve a greater sense of involvement in their own humanity. As such, the bookshould appeal to scholars and workers scattered all over the globe.

References

DIAMOND, JARED. (1996) Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. New York: Norton.EMMANUEL, ARGHIRI. (1972) Unequal Exchange: A Study of the Imperialism of Trade. New York: Monthly

Review Press.HUNTINGTON, SAMUEL P. (1996) The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New York:

Simon and Schuster.MEMMI, ALBERT. (1965) The Colonizer and the Colonized. New York: Orion Press.MOKYR, JOEL. (1990) The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress. Oxford: Oxford

University Press.SEN, AMARTYA. (1999) Development as Freedom. New York: Knopf.

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