I find that many people have no idea as to what globalization actually is or what it means for them. Most Americans I speak to about the subject just express their ire toward subcontinental Indians who are "taking all the telemarketing jobs"; which is, to say, most Americans I speak to on the subject do not know the history of the idea of globalization. I hope they come across my blog today, boy I tell you!
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By the 1800’s, the world had turned upside down.For the grand majority of history, wealth flowed from the prosperous Far East and Near East to the comparatively backwater West – spices travelled long routes through the steppes and mountains from the majestic pavilions of divine China to be sold just off the muddy streets of warlike Europe. Problems did indeed appear: the Islamic sphere, specifically the Ottoman Empire, certainly caused a problem for the Europeans, who required (or at least desired) goods from the East and did not deign to work through Europe’s largest bordering opposing religious bloc, which led to the European entry into a historic system: the Indian Ocean Trade. Trade along the Indian Ocean was the result of much heroic exploration and a major impact in historic rises in power, such as the Portuguese Empire which grew wealthy. It also led to collapses in structure, such as the caravan system across Central Asia.
The Indian Ocean became very important to many powers, especially European or otherwise western ones, for one main reason: trade supremacy. To the Europeans, the Indian Ocean represented a method of avoidance of the Muslim world’s stranglehold on the Far East – using the body of water to travel allowed merchants and diplomats a new way of avoiding conflict with the ummah. Europeans could do their business directly with the rich foreign lands beyond. However, a major aspect of this was that of how to access the Indian Ocean without notable Muslim interaction. As of the thirteenth century, Venice’s trade with the Far East was conducted through the conduit of Alexandria, which throughout its history had been ruled by followers of Islam. The panache of the European powers and their desire for trade dominance can be seen in their ability to take initiative on the subject of Indian Ocean Trade. At one point, the Venetians had planned to outmaneuver the Egyptians and flank the Muslim powers by launching naval military expeditions into the Indian Ocean – a prime example of the importance of the Indian Ocean to westerners, and a display of frustration over the Muslim world’s hold on trade with the East.
To the powers of the East, the Indian Ocean represented the next great trade venture after the fall of the Silk Road, which the armies of Tamerlane severed by conquering many major cities along the historic trade route. This was not just the case for the powers of the Near East such as the Sultanate of Delhi or the Ilkhanate (which was responsible for the end of the Silk Road in the first place as subjects of Tamerlane) but was also the case of Ming China, which grew concerned over its loss of trade revenue with the West and sought to find a new route for trade.
Just months after the collapse of the caravan system across Central Asia, Zheng He was commissioned by the Yongle Emperor to begin his travels along the Indian Ocean to establish trade dominance.
The actions taken by the major regional powers in regards to the Indian Ocean allow for a better understanding of global history in that a major similarity can be made between all powers involved: espite cultural or societal differences, regional powers recognize the importance of trade and react accordingly. The Venetians, craving an open market with the Far East, nearly acted militarily against the Egyptian Sultanate to gain such a benefit. The Ming Chinese saw their trade collapse with the Silk Road and thus sought new ventures to continue on financially. Knowing the importance of trade supremacy and their position within the region, Ibn Battuta reports that the Sultanate of Delhi shunned casual visitors (including foreign traders) to their lands and forced pledges of allegiance and residence upon foreign guests.
These are just examples of what can be seen as a whole chain of reactions as empires and regional powers continuously react to changes made by other powers, in turn making their own changes that must be reacted to; thus, the history of the Indian Ocean can be viewed as a string of historical contingency. This contingency can be linked to the topoi system, which is seen as a long series of recurring and almost cyclical ideas and methods pertaining to history. While the setting may be different, powers will follow familiar ideas in order to achieve their goals.
The end of the Indian Ocean as a prosperous global trading network can be blamed on the discovery of the New World by European powers as well as replacement sources of resources being found outside of the Indian Ocean region. The wealth found in the New World surpasses the resources provided by trade on the Indian Ocean; riches abound began to blow into the Christian and Muslim worlds, and even as far as China did travel silver mined in the mountains of Bolivia. The victories of the Spanish conquistadores over the native Aztec and Incan forces of Mesoamerica provided gigantic amounts of gold, drawing even more attention to the New World and away from the Far East. Spanish silver became common in foreign lands as far as China, the Latin “piece of eight” meeting with newly-discovered Japanese silver to choke the East Europe began to manufacture goods that were once staples of the Eastern economy, even exporting them to the East and effectively destroying economic necessities there such as the once-plentiful textile industries of India and China.
British colonial actions in India, hundreds of years after the abandonment of the Indian Ocean Trade, can be seen as another facet of how European nation-states came to dominate the globe: the power of industrialism and technology. British use of technology allowed for the direct subduing and ruling of a subcontinent of people, consisting of many different cultural groups and identities, by a comparably small group of comparably uniform foreigners. Without technology, there is a good chance that Britain would not have made the immediate ground it did in fighting native forces in India, effectively removing the splendid jewel from the British crown. In general, Europeans were easily able to subdue native peoples into basic servitude due to a massive technological advantage. Following the initial conquering, entire populations were put to work with a specific purpose in mind – British-ruled India worked to gather huge amounts of raw materials that were shipped back to England for production. British subjects worked as local administrators, military leaders and officials in India during time of British imperialism there; they did not arrive in large numbers from the home country like settlers would for a colony, but worked in important overseer positions as the majority of the work was done by conquered Indian subjects. This importation of the British state system reverberated within Indian society – it held enough sway within Britain’s colonial rule of the region that fierce Indian nationalists would later try to work within in to gain their homeland’s freedom from British rule.
The gains made by the British during their occupation of India are important to consider in terms of European superiority over the globe. After the Sepoy Rebellion of 1857, the British began to mistrust the Indians on a base level and decided to remove the administration of the region from the British East India Company in order to place it under direct imperial authority. This led to India becoming the “jewel in the British crown” as India was modernized industrially, transferring the region’s method of business from a place of privatized exploitation to a huge, productive imperialistic colony. British administrators installed dams, allowing for irrigation that farmers used for Raj-approved cotton production and tea production in order to counter Chinese tea importation.
New British territories became sources of huge wealth, India specifically; British businessmen gained much from financing railroads in the East and raw materials made their way back to the Old World for production. The development of new products came at a rapid pace, allowing for a large increase in western imports and even further wealth for colonizer nations. India was forced to become consumer of British exports, such as textiles, due to lack of British protection of local Indian industry. This led to a British dependency and further importance placed on the British Raj, or ruling body in India, due to the large chunk of the British economy for which India accounted; as a result, Britain put a grand amount of effort into maintaining its control of India. The British managed to keep a monopoly on their colonial governments, preventing indigenous residents from reclaiming rights to industry and thus reaping the full benefits of their rule. The lack of non-British or local goods forced India to rely on Britain for its resources. New governmental systems came into use that promoted private industry and property while shelving the rights of the lower classes
To a point, this may have prompted residents from India to fill out the workforces in other parts of the British Empire as they searched for work, increasing levels of production across their territories. The British were thus a force of globalization – its goods were widespread across the world and workers from its colonies found themselves halfway across the globe, still working in the same system but at a different level. Indians were forced to work within the British system due to the power held over their head by their colonial masters due to superior technology and logistics.
The aforementioned examples of globalization in terms of trade supremacy and later colonial rule are examples of why major powers, usually Western in origin, are the world forces which “decide the rules”. Due to the West’s exploitation of the New World and eventually the East – the very pinnacle of the world the West once floundered in – the direction of wealth and, indeed, the origins of wealth switched to Europe and its colonies. India and China found themselves destitute as European industrialization and New World colonization removed the importance placed on goods from the East. Quality Indian textiles were no longer necessary: cheap, easily produced British alternatives were in higher demand than their Eastern counterparts. The same could be said about specific spices and herbs which, while still imported from the East, could be cultivated in European colonies in the New World as well as in British India[14]. At the same time, the East found itself reliant upon the West: through colonial strength, European forces such as the British, French and Dutch had subdued much of the East to garner its resources and strengthen its own markets by limiting what goods their new imperial subjects could obtain from the rest of the empire, let alone outside of the empire. Separate empires did not intermingle in colonial goods, or allow their possessions to interact with the other empires; the British, for example, would not have allowed their Indian subjects to appeal to the Dutch for better rates on food.
European control over the East damaged states greatly – China found itself in dire straits, drowning in New World silver and addicted to European-smuggled opium due to the value placed by Europeans upon Chinese tea. The scattered states of India were in imperial shackles as British forces occupied the entire subcontinent, forcing its subjects to work as glorified slaves in order to produce goods for the British Empire – subjects who were, at the same time, forced to import goods from other British dominions as a means of obtaining resources due to high foreign tariffs and suppressed local industry[15]. Through this sort of manipulation, European powers were able to gain complete control over the world. This did not register well with its inhabitants, however; as seen in the case of India, groups like the radical Swadeshi Samitis became popular due to their outcries against the unjust British system[16]. These organizations promoted local industry and, unlike their more tame National Congress counterparts who attempted to work within the system to free themselves, demanded immediate change due to the unfair practices of the British[17]. India, a land of splintered groups and many cultures, eventually found itself united after a century of harsh, exploitive imperialist control.
Globalization finds its roots in the practices of the European powers and their actions while participating in the Indian Ocean Trade as well as their eventual moves for colonial power over the East. The promises of globalization, according to Benjamin R. Barber’s “Jihad vs. McWorld”, are plentiful: an end to conflicts, economic prosperity and a global community are among its goals[18]. Freedom and peace are major driving forces behind globalization, not for any specific moralistic goal; rather, global cooperation and unity allows for a free, efficient market across the world that can be utilized by all participants – namely large global corporations[19]. This is comparable to a system such as the British Empire at their peak: an internally peaceful, well-ordered empire is supported by a stable, flourishing economy with proper production and consumption as conducted by trade companies. A notable flaw within the world of true globalization is that as long as the leader of a region or people ensures the openness of the market, they can act as brutally as they see fit. According to Barber, a leader who strikes against neighbors and closes up the markets has two black marks against them; Barber provides the example of Saddam Hussein, whose attacks on Kuwait and harsh civil rule made him a detriment to globalization[20]. A historical comparison can be made between Saddam Hussein and the Qianlong Emperor of China, who resisted British globalization as a result of the European smuggling of opium into Imperial Chinese territory. This caused the Emperor to close off Chinese markets and rouse the ire of European powers.
The orderly appearance of contemporary globalization stems from a strong historical basis as well as modern proof that a uniform system is the best type. Without an orderly, rigid system of globalization, the market cannot be as efficient as possible; snags in the process, such as a leader not opening up its markets or a region with a particularly strong cultural, ethnic or religious presence refusing to trade with outside sources, slow down globalization. “Jihad vs. McWorld” states that the four imperatives of globalization are those of the market, resources, information and ecological; working in unity, these four concepts ensure the survival of a globalized system[21]. The “market imperative” requires a transnational market that, while possibly endangering regional markets, caters to all regions by distributing appropriate resources under free trade and the efficient behavior of international financial entities such as banks and trade groups (as seen in the “resource imperative”). Globalized markets remain effective through as much use of “common” aspects as possible – a stark use of common languages, currency and behaviors (cosmopolitan in nature) promote an air of non-conflict and conformity in order for globalization to be so competent. In addition, a free flow of communication and information must exist, as businesses and commerce require these to expedite their work[22].
The alternate to globalization, according to Barber, would be tribalism, which the author refers to as “permanent rebellion against uniformity and integration”[23] – including, but not limited to, the forces of globalization. While globalization stresses the existence of a single (or as few as possible) operating global sphere of cooperation and economic activity, tribalism demands the breakdown of these spheres into as many parts as theoretically possible. Cultural identity is stressed over the concept of national identities, sect beliefs over basic religious practices and dissenting separatist factions over any basic ethnic group. Modern-day examples include French-Canadian Quebecois, Basques in Spain as well as Ossetians and Abkhazians in Georgia while historical examples include Portugal nominating itself as a separate group from the Spanish crowns of the Iberian Peninsula during the Reconquista and the unique Ibadi Omanis who broke free of Seljuk rule and established their own Imamate in 1053 to 1054. All aforementioned groups stressed their own cultural identity as reasons for breaking free of a system which did not properly encompass their existence. However, this leads to a severe prominence of parochialism and exclusion among those who adhere to tribalism. Conflict against outside (and inside) sources is constant within the system of tribalism as groups struggle for recognition and solidarity. India is a fantastic example of this – when the British pulled out of the subcontinent after World War II, the region collapsed in infighting between Hindus, Tamils, Sikhs and Muslims[24].
The perspectives provided in Barber’s “Jihad vs. McWorld” are extremely logical and can be seen as very accurate in most cases; this, however, does not spell a good fortune for democracy. Separating and classifying the actions of the entire world throughout history into two major categories seems extremely daunting; one may find it impossible to avoid the use of “good” and “bad” as headers on this list. Barber does manage to remain as non-biased and impartial toward either globalization (“McWorld”) or tribalism (“Jihad”), speaking on the positive and negative aspects of both systems as fairly as possible. A frightening aspect of Barber’s work is that one of the main driving factors of both tribalism and globalization is that democracy is essentially ignored in both systems, an idea made even more frightening upon the realization of the prominence of both systems in today’s world. Replacing democracy with adherence to global market entities or tribalist leaders is fairly intimidating as the driving force of the modern world has been democracy. Within globalization, democracy is pushed aside to ensure streamlined markets through the use of merit and technology; within tribalism, there is no need for democracy in the face of exclusionary tactics and striking out against strangers.
On the other hand, in some places democracy may not be a desired form of government and globalization may not be a desired way of life – they cannot be pushed upon residents[25]. An example can be seen in British India: the use of a trading company to act as the face of the British Empire in the region as well as the use of traditional British law and legal proceedings did not meet with much satisfaction from British Indian subjects. Barber speaks of Poland as a post-Soviet state possibly pledging allegiance to the Pope and, while joining the global sphere, adhering to its Catholicism; this not only endangers its role in globalization but also democracy[26]. Again, this is not to say that democracy and globalization are intertwined; globalization does not need democracy to exist, and vice versa.
An aspect of Barber’s work that may not be particularly accurate is his belief that, eventually, globalization will overrun tribalism. He believes that “material civilization” has not encountered an obstacle that it could not pass[27]. Berber does not mention how, within all globalized nations and regions, there are many movements for separatism or cultural activity ranging from lingual groups to religious groups with every possible identifier in between. As long as any one tribalist group exists, the system of globalization cannot be complete. This is not to say that a separatist cultural group in Akron, Ohio will collapse the entire system of globalization; however, with its existence, it prevents a globalized system from working at full efficiency. Groups like this cannot be stamped out through the popularization of globalization, which demands uniformity for efficiency, for they are too important an aspect of peoples’ lives to be abandoned. Take the British Empire: despite their strong attempts to turn Indians into “Brown Englishmen” through infusions of culture and religion, Indians still continued practicing their own cultures and belief systems[28]. If the British had been able to transform the Indians into “Brown Englishmen”, their Indian possessions would have worked at a fuller competency. Despite strong attempts, Indians demanded cultural identity; movements proposing the concept became popular and were eventually one of the major reasons as to why India gained its independence, removing itself from a system of globalization in favor of tribalism. As long as the unique qualities of groups of people are recognized, no matter the part of the world or the qualities themselves, globalization can be deferred from victory.
Bibliography
Barber, Benjamin R. "Jihad Vs. McWorld." The Atlantic Monthly Mar. 1992.
Lunde, Paul. “The Indian Ocean and Global Trade”, July-August 2005. http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200504/default.htm (April 28 2008)
Tignor, Robert, Jeremy Adelman, Stephen Aron, Stephen Kotkin, Suzanne Marchand, Gyan Prakash and Michael Ts’in. Worlds Together, Worlds Apart: A History of the Modern World from the Mongol Empire to the Present. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2002. The focus of goods began to shift away from the East and focus on Europe and the New World, between which luxuries and precious minerals were shipped as they had been in the Indian Ocean years earlier. Europe’s declining dependence on the East as a result of the abandonment of the Indian Ocean Trade was the first of Asia’s death knells in terms of global dominance.
[1] Paul Lunde, “The Indian Ocean and Global Trade: Monsoons, Munde and Gold,” Saudi Aramco World, July-August 2005,
[2] Lunde, “Monsoons, Munde and Gold”.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Lunde, “Ibn Battuta”.
[5] Paul Lunde, “The Indian Ocean and Global Trade: The Coming of the Portuguese”, Saudi Aramco World, < http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200504/the.coming.of.the.portuguese.htm> (February 10 2008)
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Robert Tignor…et al, Worlds Together, Worlds Apart: A History of the Modern World from the Mongol Empire to the Present (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2002), 273.
[9] Tignor, Worlds Together, Worlds Apart, 287.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Tignor, Worlds Together, Worlds Apart, 278.
[13] Tignor, Worlds Together, Worlds Apart, 283.
[14] Tignor, Worlds Together, Worlds Apart, 287.
[15] Tignor, Worlds Together, Worlds Apart, 283.
[16] Tignor, Worlds Together, Worlds Apart, 340-341.
[17] Ibid.
[18] Benjamin R. Barber. “Jihad vs. McWorld.” The Atlantic Monthly Mar. 1992, 5.
[19] Ibid.
[20] Ibid.
[21] Barber, “Jihad vs. McWorld”, 1.
[22] Barber, “Jihad vs. McWorld”, 3.
[23] Barber, “Jihad vs. McWorld”, 4.
[24] Barber, “Jihad vs. McWorld”, 6.
[25] Barber, “Jihad vs. McWorld”, 7.
[26] Ibid.
[27] Barber, “Jihad vs. McWorld”, 6.
[28] Tignor, Worlds Together, Worlds Apart, 273.
I hope you enjoyed it.
