Barnett's essay is focused on the interests of the Pentagon and the United States government. Though the globalization of democracy and capitalism is its preeminent desire, such a state is interested in using its military power to define how that will happen for the rest of the world. Barnett insists that that "the Gap" between states like the Iraq(Non-Integrating) and the United States(Core) is the "standard of living". What standard is this supposed to represent? Is it clean water and enough food? Does it include healthcare and education? Is this standard of living a right or an earned privilege?
Globalization is an interest of state entities like the Pentagon and the World Bank. Although I too rely on money to exchange for food and education, shelter, et al, Barnett wants me to believe that the violence committed by foreign entities are kept in the "non-integrating Gap" by the gallant efforts of the United States government in "exporting security". This means trading arms for cooperation/oil/democracy. Even Barnett knows that total peace is not possible under this globalization, but that national borders must give way to security. I must admit, my money is good only as long as the base of the American economy, this exporting of security, continues unabated. My interests in getting more money are ultimately founded on maintaining my own "standard of living". It is rooted in violence. Cooperation.
Oil will run out. American democracy is corrupt and not really democracy, it is representative. Cooperation is based upon the interests of a few decision making representatives. Those people who are suffering in Barnett's Gap are not offered any other assistance by the forces of the United States except when it reacts to "system perturbations". Politics does not function is these environments, especially when the policies of this globalizing force are antithetical to peace. "Fight fire with fire"? This is the true face of globalization.
Alex, thank you for this brilliant summary and critique. Great point about problematizing "standard of living." It operates in the Barnett like other hyper-abstract terms: "freedom,""democracy," etc. The contradiction, of course, is that when considering the "standard of living" that neoliberalism produces, the theory of "economic globalization" is that it asks for a stingy state that renege on the delivery of social services.
ReplyDeleteYour insight that politics are not functioning in Barnett's conceptualization is in line with Arendt's distinction between violence as an instrumentalization of force and politics as cooperative social spaces outside of violence. While I think you can also trouble this distinction, it is productive to note how much violence is at the border of that liminal space between the "Core" and the "Non-Integrating Gap." Have you had a chance to read Arendt for any rhetoric course? She is rarely read in sociology. : (
I have been able to read some Arendt. I don't think she deals with the apolitical very much in her writing, though I am sure she would be commenting on reductive nature of modern interests on human agency amidst the desire to globalize economic and political interests.
ReplyDeleteOne can never read Arendt enough it seems. Any suggestions outside of her work on fascism and politics? Her brief history of rhetorical theory in the beginning of "The Human Condition" should be mandatory reading for all rhetoric majors.
The Arendt text I was recommending is "On Violence," which we discussed in class. It directly engages the politics of Franz Fanon around page. 65 of the Harvest Book edition, available at Moe's Books. Thanks for the hap-tip to The Human Condition. I own it, but didn't know there was an account of rhetorical theory there. I'll just search my shelves to remind me to read at least the beginning section!
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking of Chapter 2 from The Human Condition, the "Public and the Private Realm". It is not a direct history of rhetorical theory but a history of the political. Still, it offers a great perspective for those interested in understanding the changes in private property. I would venture to say that modern (western) rhetorical theory expands out of this.
ReplyDelete