Prof. Guoguang Wu in conversation with Can Zhao (Doctoral Candidate, University of Victoria) on his book ‘Globalization against Democracy: A Political Economy of Capitalism after its Global Triumph’ (Cambridge University Press, 2017, in hardcover and paperback).
Zhao: Among numerous publications on globalization, what features does your book have?
Wu: Let me try to answer this big question. I am delighted to have one of my students to be my “committee member” of my oral exams!!
I would like to highlight four of the book’s various features. First, it clearly defines “globalization” from an institutional perspective, namely, globalization as virtually where all nation-states have come to an ideological conciliation and an operational cooperation with the market. It, therefore, distinguishes the latest wave of globalization from earlier waves in world history; it also helps to clarify the starting point of the latest wave of globalization. I think that my notion of globalization has seized the essence of globalization more precisely than many existing publications.
The second feature lies in my structural treatment of globalization which outlines four institutional pillars of the latest wave of globalization. What are these? On page 3 of the book the reader can get a quick glance. Chapter 2 provides elaborations of these grand institutions with which global capitalism lives. These are fundamentally different from those that operated in pre-global capitalism.
Third, the inclusion of the investigations of the global consumption market and the global rise of consumerism into analyses of globalization could be considered another important feature of my book. The book has a special chapter each on capital and labour. Most of the books on globalization do studies on capital, and many of them on labour, while there are few on consumption, and fewer that include consumption into a systematic, institutional examination of globalization. At least one prominent scholar on Chinese capitalism told me that he thinks the chapter on consumption is the most fascinating and an original part of my book – I am of course flattered by this assessment.
In the concluding chapter, I actually summarized ten major points of the book’s argument – but let me finish this question by giving few more details on the fourth feature – particularly the transnational social stratification scheme (especially, pp. 253-260). It is truly a rough, preliminary scheme, but I find it epistemologically amazing though morally sad phenomena in power-wealth distribution that could be enlightening. Many might wonder how I could put China’s so-called Armani communists and North Korean dictators Messrs. Kim together with Wall Street capitalists into one group, as these powerful and wealthy guys seem to stand in confrontation with each other. Contrary to many observers who analyse their confrontations from a state security perspective, mine is a global political economy perspective. It is not simply a light joke to say that by looking at what they consume in their daily lives, be it for eating, drinking, and/or wearing, it is easy to be convinced that they belong to the same world; one that is different from the worlds in which you and I live.
Zhao: How and why does the current wave of globalization pit against democracy? Could you please summarize your key arguments?
Wu: The entire book is written in order to make this argument and, of course, for presenting evidence and analyses to support it. I am afraid that I am not able to summarize the evidence and analyses in a better way than the book per se does. I don’t want to simplify them. What I can say is that the book presents the theme of globalization against democracy at three levels: the level of macro institutions of global capitalism; the level of dynamic operations of capital, labour, consumption, and their interactions; and the level of socioeconomic consequences of these institutions and dynamics.
I like to repeat a caveat that the book mentions, however: while I value globalization; I value democracy more. Globalization-against-democracy is not what I desire; I have simply tried to point out an objective truth that I thought I have discovered through evidence.
Zhao: What are the remedies to this “globalization-against-democracy” pitfall?
Wu: Perhaps this should be a major question for all human societies to ponder, deliberate, and explore in the decades to come – supposing that they agree with the book’s observations and argument. Some “remedies” I suggest include the stationary economy and the consumer’s (rather than the investor’s) stock market, but these might be too novel for a world that continuously and overwhelmingly pursues economic efficiency, fast growth, and luxury consumption. There have been various experiments in social reality for overcoming the pitfalls rooted in what I refer to as “globalization-against-democracy,” though they are mostly marginal and perhaps immature – for example, in the conclusion chapter I briefly discuss the rise of “political consumerism” for this purpose.
Zhao: What will be the topic of your next book?
Wu: A political economy of China’s development in the age of global capitalism.
Zhao: Could you say a bit more about it?
Wu: My initial plan was to write a book on the political economy of China’s development, but I found that in the current world of globalization in which China plays a crucial role, I would not be able to understand China properly without a well-developed understanding of globalization. Thus, this present book had to come out first. By the same token, one cannot fully understand the world of globalization without a comprehension of how China rose quickly with its embracement of globalization. The first book does not deal with China a lot in the empirical sense, but I think that it has developed a theory that can well explain the rise of China. To make it brief: China is a typical case in which its engagement with globalization works against democracy and democratization. My next book project, therefore, focuses on this case.
Zhao: That is why as a China expert you turn to do macro studies of globalization. Back to China, but also with the prediction your book made at the very beginning about Trump’s rise, how can we understand the current Sino-American trade war in light of the arguments made in your book?
Wu: The theory of the economic state I have suggested in the book can help us to understand the current Sino-US trade wars. Last year I wrote a chapter for a globalization handbook to compare the rise of the economic state in the PRC and the USA, which argues that the Trump Administration has represented a recent development of the economic state in the USA. I thus think that Sino-American trade wars are rooted in both states’ employment of coercive power in economic affairs.
Zhao: Many thanks, Professor Guoguang Wu, for this brief summary of your book. I know your book Globalization against Democracy: A Political Economy of Capitalism after its Global Triumph is being read with great interest by the scholarly community interested in globalization as well as China.