Abstract
Reviewed by: Doug Owram (doug.owram@ubc.ca ), University of British Columbia
This is an audacious and wide-ranging book. As the title indicates, Mason is attempting nothing less than to provide an overview of capitalism on a global scale since the end of World War II. Moreover, he does it not as a unit but geographically, with separate chapters by nation or region. Naturally he deals with the major powers from the “leviathan,” the United States, through China, Russia, and the EU. He goes much further, though, sweeping across Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. Relatively small economies like Syria, Argentina, and even the Congo are given distinct sections. It is a whirlwind tour of the way in which the modern economic system is played out in areas with vastly different political traditions, levels of wealth, and economic prospects. By the time we have finished, we have visited some twenty nations—many more if the EU wasn’t treated as a single entity.
To do this, Mason brings to bear an impressive amount of secondary material and a readable and non-technical style. The book is enlivened by the occasional eruption of vehement judgment, witty asides, and frequent digressions. Most of these contribute to the work, though occasionally I wondered why we were wandering off into a discussion of American religiosity or a comparison of South African and American fundamentalism. Overall, the reader who wants a brief and intelligent history of, say, China’s shift to Chinese-style capitalism, or of the dismal prospects for Pakistan, will find this work extremely useful.
That being said, not all sections of the book are equally successful. Mason’s geographic approach works best when it focuses on major economic entities like the United States, China, or the EU. When he moves into areas where the economies are more fragmented, such as Africa or the Middle East, the geographic approach does not work as well. There are two reasons for this. The first is the simple fact that fragmentation means arbitrary choices have to be made. Why is the Congo selected in Africa while Nigeria is ignored? Why is there nothing on Mexico, or for that matter, Canada? The second is that the relationship between these small economies and capitalism is quite different. It is questionable whether they really are capitalist, and certainly dubious whether neo-liberalism, which Mason sees as the ideology shaping the last thirty years or so, is the reigning force. Religious animosities, cultural practices, and state corruption as much as market forces shape the way economies have evolved in much of the world. Perhaps it would have been better to diverge from the geographic approach and seek some common patterns shaping regions of the developing world.
The narrative and geographic approach may be the reason that there is no single argument that summarizes the book. This is not a work like that of Francis Fukuyama or Thomas Piketty, both of whom sought to wrap up their arguments in one great theory. That being said, the author does have definite viewpoints. Throughout the work is an implicit argument which blames neo-liberalism and what he sees as its version of globalism for many of the world’s ills. The agent behind the neo-liberal agenda is, most of all, the United States, though Britain and other Western powers share some of the blame. Still, it is the American “leviathan” which has since World War II interfered in nation after nation and imposed an international economic order to further its own interests. Corrupt regimes have been propped up and progressive ones undermined if it suited US interests. Even what might be termed the grand international order that emerged at the end of the war, or the aid efforts to poorer countries, are viewed skeptically as American/Western devices to prop up globalization. At one point, looking at the right to protect doctrine, Mason comments cynically that it really means “code for the right to invade. Picture French Paras and American drones flying about with Jeffrey Sachs and Bono hymning in the background about poverty” (193).
Of course, Mason finds many partners in this pattern. He reserves special scorn and condemnation for the petty rulers, whether dictators or corrupt “democracies” that enrich themselves and their cronies at the expense of the people. The type varies depending on the region and history, from the Shah of Iran to the military dictators of Argentina to pretty much anyone in the Congo, at least after Patrice Lumumba was murdered with the support of Belgium and the United States. The Lumumba incident is important to Mason’s argument. Where the exception does arise to these corrupt rulers, he argues, the major powers won’t hesitate to remove them if necessary.
The result of Western intervention and a globalist-neo-liberal agenda leads Mason to a pessimistic assessment of the state of the world. Rising inequality in a wide range of nations, corruption and poverty, the harsh impact of neo-liberal globalization, and the rise of Trumpism as the impact becomes apparent, all point to a dubious future. I said there was no grand theory in the style of Fukuyama, but there is certainly a tone. It is, as he says, “a long way from the America as the terminus of world progress expressed in the ‘End of History’ thesis” (246).