In the first section of his book, Barber presents to us, McWorld, the world of global
markets and a global economy that is driven by profit. McWorld is the world of production
and consumption, a world where the main priority is to own "The Company" that provides "The
Product" that everyone wants. McWorld is a world that is counter productive to democracy.
It is a world that turns citizens into consumers. There are no national boundaries in
McWorld. McWorld has no use for the nation-state and the ideologies behind the nation-
state. It undermines democracy.
Barber tells us that McWorld is about fast food and fast computers. McWorld is, in
essence, pushing the nations of the world into one commercially homogenous global network
that is tied together with technology, ecology, communications, and commerce. The goal of
McWorld is to have one market that can be satisfied by one product. The other side of this
struggle is what Barber calls Jihad. This is the side of the coin that fights for the sense
of tradition. The side of the struggle that promotes community and fundamentalism and longs for
a return to the old ways. Here we have this tug of war going on with democracy at the center
and at risk of being torn apart and destroyed by the combination of the two opposing forces.
Barber credits the rise of McWorld to the rise of the advertising industry. Global
advertising has grown a third faster than the world economy and three times faster than the
world population. Global advertising has increased from thirty nine billion dollars in 1950
to two hundred fifty six billion dollars in 1990. The United States leads the way in global
per capita spending with five hundred dollars per person. The trade mark and the image it
reflects has taken over the world. McWorld is a world of consumers that are more interested
in the image that is presented by the product they buy rather than the necessity of those
products or the quality.
Barber tells us that McWorld is not a world where fairness is an option. There will be
winners and losers. The main target is to sell the style and the culture of modernization via
Americanization. Through the use of global marketing techniques that push the idea of freedom
of choice, companies attempt to sell their product at the cost of culture. Barber uses the
example of Coke aiming their product at cultures that are traditionally tea drinkers. When
Coke replaces tea, it replaces a piece of tradition within that culture and forges the way
for the next product to undermine another aspect of that culture. When fast food restaurants
spring up in countries where long, relaxing lunches are the custom, they are undermining a
tradition of that culture and therefore opening the way for more of the culture sucking, fast
food mentality that is associated with McWorld's modernization. This is the driving force of
Barber's Jihad. This tearing apart of deeply rooted cultural traditions for the benefit
of profit.
I see McWorld as a frightening force in the world. I agree with Barber that it is a force
that needs to be reckoned with before it destroys every semblance of democracy. The promise of
McWorld, as I see it, is not a pair of Nike athletic shoes in every home in every country, it is
the promise of a Nike sweat shop in every third world country. McWorld aims its products at
the consumers in order to "better their lives". In the process, the poor get poorer. Globalism,
as I see it, is about deeper issues. Globalism strives to better the world for all inhabitants.
McWorld can never allow this. McWorld needs the poor to provide the cheap labor that ensures the
level of profit the manufacturers have become accustomed to.
McWorld is not only about selling products, it is about selling a culture that has no
national loyalty. The loyalty to the nation-state by the citizens of that nation is the target
of McWorld. Its primary aim is to manipulate citizens into a loyalty to the product. Barber tells
us that McWorld "calls on us to see ourselves as solitary, interacting primarily via commercial
transactions where "me" replaces the "we"; and it permits private corporations whose only
interest is their revenue stream to define by default the public goods of the individuals and
communities they serve."
McWorld sells itself to us through television, the media, films and the styles that are
represented in them. MTV is one form of McWorld that shows itself to us as a form of entertainment
but is actually one huge, ongoing commercial for the culture McWorld wants us to buy into. McWorld
bases its ability to persuade us to buy its products on its ability to get us to give up what is
of value to us. It seeks first to change our attitudes and beliefs, and second, to replace those
attitudes and beliefs with what it deems necessary, namely, its products. This is the basis for
the opposing force, Jihad.
Barber states that where as the old commercialism aimed its products at our bodies, the things
we needed to make our lives livable, now, McWorld aims its products at our souls and our spirituality.
This is the attack on individual cultures that makes Jihad a necessary opposing force. Without Jihad
to oppose McWorld, democracy would crumble. Jihad is the force of community. It is the driving force
to keep the "we" in consumerism. Jihad is the attempt to retain the tradition and cultural uniqueness
that makes the world an interesting place to live. It is the side of the struggle that attempts to keep
community in tact. It does so, however, by creating a different risk to democracy.
Barber tells us that Jihad is not only McWorld's adversary, but is also its child. He says that
the two are "locked together in a kind of Freudian moment of the ongoing cultural struggle, neither
willing to coexist without the other, neither complete without the other." Jihad uses the technology
of McWorld to drive itself into the position it needs to be in to oppose McWorld. So while the
fundamentalists that fight against McWorld use McWorld as a weapon against itself, they also fight
against the sense of nationalism and democracy that has allowed McWorld to penetrate so deeply into
the cultures in which they attempt to hold on.
Barber presents four different versions of the reaction to modernity that he terms Jihad.
They represent four distinct perspectives of Jihad. He talks of Jihad within McWorld, or Jihad
within The Democracies. Here he tells us that Jihad takes two paths that intersect. They are
provincialism, "which sets the periphery against the center, and parochialism, which disdains
the cosmopolitan." He tells us that both of these paths are hostile to the capital city and all
that it stands for. Jihad not only wages its battle against McWorld, but again, it wages battle
against the governments that have sat idly by and watched McWorld consume the culture that Jihad
attempts to save.
Jihad views McWorld as a cause of anarchy and anomie. As McWorld strives for and succeeds
in taking the "we" out of the community, the level of anomie increases. What we then have is a
community where everyone feels isolated from one another. They lose their sense of belonging and
the ties to the community or the nation. Jihad is the force that strives to keep this from happening.
It must oppose McWorld if community and nationalism and democracy have any chance of surviving. In
the same respect, if Jihad were to find itself in a position where there was no control or was
diminished to the restricted world it grew out of, then all of these things would be at risk of
being lost in the isolationism that Jihad represents.
The second perspective of Jihad is represented by Barber as the Jihad that comes out of China
and the Pacific Rim. China has learned to control McWorld in a manner not seen anywhere else.
China dictates to McWorld the rules under which it may enter its domain. China has opened its
doors to the consumerism of McWorld in a manner that allows it to profit from McWorld with minimal
risk to the culture of China. It accomplishes this through brutal oppression of the human rights
of its citizens. China's response to McWorld has been what they call "market socialism". While it
utilizes the trade world to benefit itself, it also restricts trade and advertising that would be
undermining to its core beliefs. China restricts things such as foreign films and advertising that
portrays a culture that doesn't fit in well with its own culture. How long china will be able to do
this is yet to be determined, however, even with its past record of inhumane treatment to its citizens,
China retains its Most Favored Nation status with the United States, a nation that prides itself in
fighting against inhumanity. This is just another example of how McWorld has a way of undermining the
things that democracy stands for.
McWorld enters places like China and Korea and sets up its factories. McWorld makes its presence
known in the labor market. McWorld thrives on the cheap labor in theses countries. It lives off of
the sweat of children and poverty stricken people. It works hand in hand with the government that
allows it to enter its country and live off the sweat of its people. People that can't even afford
to buy the products in which they pour forth their sweat to make.
Here, as in the transitional democracies, Jihad arises out of the struggle for fairness.
The culture that bound these people together is being ripped apart by McWorld and Jihad is the
answer to that attack on their culture. Jihad thrives on the differences between the people.
It binds them together in hatred and dislike. It creates another obstacle in the path of
democracy. The struggle against McWorld is a struggle for the culture that keeps democracy
from occurring here.
Barber lists the fourth perspective of Jihad as that of the Islamic fundamentalists.
This is the place where Jihad is more evident than any other place in the world. Jihad is
the very way of life here. The government is the religion that binds them together. This
is a fight to the finish against modernity here in the Islamic countries. Democracy is in
no danger of being destroyed here. It never existed here.
The Muslim way of life is still very much embedded in tradition. McWorld is extremely
unwelcome in the Muslim world and no where will it meet with such force. Jihad is
traditionally associated with the Muslim countries. It is the name they have given
their holy wars. Barber says that democracy is ancient and may have some basis in the
Koran. He says that if democracy is "an ancient as well as a modern manifestation of the
quest for self-governing communities, then perhaps it can be adapted to notions found in
the Koran such as umma (community), shura (mutual consultation), and al maslaha (public
interest)." As long as the governing powers do not attempt to cross over into the realm
of the will of Allah, they are entitled to rule. This may take the form of a somewhat
democratic society.
The main thing that Islam is opposed to, is not democracy, it is opposed to
modernization. It is opposed to McWorld. Barber states that democracy has always
found a way to accommodate religion. The Jihad battle in Islam is not against democracy,
but against McWorld.
Barber states that "Jihad tends the soul that McWorld abjures and strives for the
moral well-being that McWorld, busy with consumer choices, mistakes for freedom, disdains."
Jihad then strives to protect the tradition and the culture that McWorld must destroy in
order to control the market that is its livelihood. While McWorld strives to open the
borders between nations, Jihad strives to seal them tightly shut. The two forces, while
diametrically opposed , are also intertwined in that they feed off of each other.
Both McWorld and Jihad attack democracy through an attack on citizenship. While
McWorld strives to lower the level of citizenship that is felt and create a homogenous
market, Jihad strives to fragment the world into the tiniest of pieces. McWorld wants
us to believe that choice is freedom. The idea that having fifty different brands of
shampoo to choose from, is McWorld's idea of freedom. Jihad pushes freedom as the right
to be completely and totally unique, however, with this freedom, comes a want for hatred
against anything that is different than the fragment of individuality in which that
sphere of tradition finds one.
McWorld's freedom of choice is not freedom. We may have the choice between
different names on the shampoo, but that is where it is fast ending within McWorld.
With all of the mergers that are in essence nothing more than a legal term for monopoly,
our choices are fast diminishing. With the diminishing of those choices will come a
market in which we as consumers can no longer choose to make a statement by boycotting
or switching brands. If all are owned by one company whether it be vertically or
horizontally owned, the power that we have as consumers to make a statement about what
we believe in will no longer exist. Once that ability is gone, once our choices are gone,
we will be forever at the mercy of the few owners of McWorld.
On the other hand, Jihad strives to isolate us from one another. Though not the
same as the anomie felt through McWorld, it is still isolation. The difference is that
with Jihad, we maintain a connection to the community in which we live or belong, however,
beyond that, we are isolated from the rest of the world.
Globalism needs to incorporate some sort of mechanism that allows for the freedom of
choose in trade but still allows us to retain our cultural diversity. Globalism needs to
be democratized. We need a system that allows each nation to maintain the culture that
makes it unique. We also need a system that creates a fair playing ground for all countries
to participate in global trade. We need something to protect the rights of the people living
in third world countries from being trampled on with slave labor for slave wages in Nike
factories and in the same respect, a system that protects the labor forces of developed
countries from losing their jobs to these third world factories.
Democracy is something that needs to be protected. Our governments need to take a
stand against McWorld ideologies and Jihad at the same time. These opposing forces need
to be controlled from a central form of government that has the power to enforce rules
that will assure that the playing field is equal. Many of the issues that face us today
are global. Working together, we can create a system that works for all of us.
Governments that cater to McWorld assist in the creation of the Jihad forces as well.
There is a great need for global rules that contain these two forces that are tearing
awat at and threatening democracy.
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