OWOLABI/GLOBALIZATION, AMERICANIZATION AND WESTERN IMPERIALISM 
Globalization, Americanization and 
Western imperialism 
KOLAWOLE A. OWOLABI1 
ABSTRACT 
This essay argues that globalization, as it is currently being 
orchestrated by America, is essentially aimed at the promotion of the 
imperialistic interests of Western society. This hegemony is sustained 
by propagating the philosophy of liberalism. Liberalism and its defence 
of individual autonomy necessarily promotes self-interest, whether at 
the level of the individual or the state. To avoid the injustice and 
possible anarchy that may arise as a result of this the philosophy of 
liberalism must be reviewed, based on criticisms by communitarians. 
The only way that globalization can attain a just integration and 
global peace is by jettisoning the individualism of liberalism for the 
altruism and sense of community of communitarianism. 
Introduction 
THE CRUMBLING OF COMMUNISM in Eastern Europe ushered in a new world 
order, characterized by the end of hostilities between the two dominant 
ideologies: communism and liberal capitalism. Since the beginning of 
the 1990s this new world order has encouraged the interpenetration of 
ideas, in the form of exchanging ethos and values along former cultural 
and ideological divides. This apparent integration of world societies 
has been described as globalization. Globalization refers to the 
homogenization of ideas, images and institutions, making the global 
community appear so united as to warrant the metaphor of a global 
village. But globalization, as the basic defining element of the new world 
1 Department of Philosophy, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria. 
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order, presents us with a paradox. The apparent integration of global 
cultures exists along with its antithesis: the prevalence of fragmentation 
in many areas of the same world. This tension between integration and 
fragmentation in the new world order necessitates the description of 
the present age as the age of extremes (Hobsbawm, 1994). 
Nothing demonstrates so poignantly the stark contrast of the new 
world order and the embedded contradiction of the process of 
globalization as the "prevalent divide between a cohesive, prosperous 
and peaceful bloc of liberal states and the instability and chaos of the 
rest of the world" (Hurrel and Woods 1995:454). By analysing this tension 
we can reveal the realities and possibilities of the globalization project. 
A close study of the process of cultural diffusion that constitutes 
globalization shows that the entire situation is a result of the age-long 
desire of Western society to propagate its culture and ideology of 
liberalism. Globalization may therefore be considered as a new way of 
sustaining Western domination of global society. At the centre of this 
Western hegemonic project, according to critics, is American society. 
Globalization is Americanization, in as much as Americanism symbolizes 
the good and the bad not only of Western culture, but also of the liberal 
philosophy that guides the entire operation. 
The objective of this present paper is to analyse the project of 
globalization within the context of the popular criticism that it is an 
imperial enterprise. To what extent does this process of homogenization
—globalization—engender the dominance of the ideology 
of liberalism and to what extent does this ideology encourage the 
subjugation of other cultures and societies by Western society? What 
role does America, as the bastion of Western civilization, play in the 
project of globalization and its attendant hegemonic desires? This essay 
argues that the ideology of liberalism, acting as the catalyst for the 
prevailing process of integration of global society, can be an instrument 
of imperialism, as well as a vehicle for global peace. In essence, the idea 
of communitarianism that is presently emerging in the West as an 
improvement on orthodox liberalism can be deployed to promote the 
mutual integration and cooperation of world ideas and values, in such 
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a way that globalization will begin to shed the garment of imperialism. 
With this reorientation, the ideal of the global community, guided by 
the pursuit of common interests rather than the myopic idea of national 
interests, will be sustained and a genuine integration of the peoples of 
the world will become a reality. 
The idea of globalization 
LET US NOW EXAMINE the idea of globalization and grasp its real essence 
for a more detailed analysis. Globalization as it is today is a complex and 
fluid concept. Precise definition will therefore be difficult. The idea of 
globalization today refers to the interpenetration and interdependency 
taking place among the divergent peoples of the world due to 
technological advances in the areas of communication and transportation. 
These innovations render ineffective the traditional barriers of 
space, time, national borders and sovereignty. As a result a sort of 
uniformity can be identified among the divergent groups that occupy 
the global space. Arjun Appadurai, in his often-cited essay, "Disjuncture 
and difference in the global cultural economy", discusses the idea of 
globalization within five frameworks; as the interchange of finance, 
technology, ideas, peoples and information. But Appadurai's analysis, 
popular as it is, fails to capture all the features of the idea. This is 
because of its bias towards and emphasis on the economic aspect of 
globalization (Appadurai 1990:2). His analysis therefore fails to recognize 
the holistic and complex nature of the idea of globalization. 
Globalization can be defined more appropriately as a process of 
cultural interpenetration, in which "culture" designates, not a narrow 
artistic sensibility, but rather the totality of ideas that sustains a group. 
Economic 
FIRST, GLOBALIZATION CONNOTES the prevalence of liberal economic values 
and ideology. This introduces a uniform global economy as a result of 
the process of deregulation and liberalization policies, as many nations 
lay themselves open to the free-market economy. This remark is 
supported by the claim that we do not have nations in today's world, 
but only markets (Sivandan 1999:6). 
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Political 
SECOND, THE IDEA OF globalization is employed to define the triumph of 
the political ideology of liberal capitalism. The collapse of communism 
and the failure of authoritarianism to realize material development—the 
very reason for which it was tolerated, despite its shortcomings, in 
many Third World countries—made liberal democracy the only viable 
option. It therefore became the universal ideal and standard of assessing 
the worth and competence of all societies. Because of its moral claims, 
particularly its defense of human rights, liberal democracy was easy to 
sell to all nations. 
International interdependence 
THIRD, THE RECOGNITION of the interdependence of the world's societies 
due to environmental factors is an important characteristic of the 
globalization era. The realization that everyone in the world stands to 
lose by environmentally-unsustainable modes of production made 
environmental sustainability a universal value. International relations 
became more concerned with environmental issues and the management 
of a nation's population and resources is now the concern of other 
nations, since the mismanagement of the environment has serious 
consequences not only for the abuser of the environment, but for all 
who occupy the global space. 
Communication and technology 
THE REDUCTION OF THE barriers of space, time, national boundaries and 
sovereignty due to advances in communication and transportation 
technologies is another important feature of global integration. A 
prominent development in this respect is the introduction of the Internet. 
This has facilitated the freedom of humans to interact and communicate 
without the restrictions of the state. This fluidity of national boundaries 
also encouraged massive migration, which resulted in the emergence of 
global cities such as London, New York and Tokyo. 
National sovereignty 
FIFTH, GLOBALIZATION ALSO features the undermining of the sovereignty 
and autonomy of nation states. This has led to abandoning the principle 
of self-determination which hitherto guided relations among states. The 
ability of the international community, not only to influence political 
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actors, but also to sanction them, has become a reality. This situation 
encourages insurrection by marginalized groups and reinvigorates 
traditional cleavages and conflicts. It is in this respect that globalization 
is said to encourage fragmentation. 
Globalization: an enterprise that favours Western values 
As A RESULT, the integration going on is a lopsided one favourable to the 
ethos and values of Western culture. This may be due to simple historical 
reasons as West has had many centuries in which to assert dominance 
over other societies. But critics go further: they regard the present 
situation as a result of a centuries-old mission of Western society to 
bring other societies closer in order to dominate and exploit them (Hall 
1998:20). It is for this reason that certain scholars regard globalization 
as an imperialist project. For them the universalization of the values of 
liberal capitalism in the name of globalization is the consolidation of 
Western imperialism (Sivandan 1999:5j. Globalization is purely and 
simply another form of the coercive socialization of non-Western 
societies into the Western cultural system for the sake of the hegemony 
of the latter (Hurrell and Wood 1995:451). 
Homogenization and hegemony 
THE REASON WHY the globalization process generates its antithesis— 
the disintegration and serious crisis in other parts of the world is now 
clear. This disintegration is due to the trauma that the forced adoption 
of foreign values induces in the receiving society. It should not be 
surprising that this homogenization has no significant negative effect 
on the Western society compared with other societies. As the 
beneficiary of unification Western society will grow at the expense of 
marginalized nations, while the latter will continue to manifest the 
symptoms of societies in bondage. 
"Globalization" is not a neutral, apolitical effort to integrate, and it is 
not merely the product of many centuries of intermingling. Many non- 
Western scholars believe that globalization is a Western-orchestrated 
enterprise. Paul Gilroy explains that it is the same old imperialism with a 
new tool. The "accumulation of capital is no longer fed by mere 
exploitation of the labor force. It depends increasingly on the 
VOL 16 NO 2 JULY 2001 JOURNAL OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA 75
manipulation of complex organizational and informational systems" 
(Gilroy, 1995:225). 
The domination of global integration by the values of Western 
liberalism confirms the claim of the proponents of the imperialist thesis. 
In his popular essay, "The end of history", Fukuyama confirms that 
liberal ideology and, by implication, the dominance of the Western 
society that produced it, will continue to extend its sway on the present 
world order. According to him, the uniformity that we witness today is 
not only the end of mankind's ideological evolution, but also the 
"universalization of Western liberal government" (Fukuyama 1989:3). 
Similarly Van-Laue argues that global culture, being wholly Western, 
will be dominated by Western society. He says:".. .global civilization is 
Western because science, technology, global trade and democracy it 
advances, is originally Western and it is promulgated most by Western 
nations" (Van-Laue 1987:3). There is a growing body of literature that 
shows how Western society has propagated her culture for imperialistic 
ends. Edward Said, for instance, has persistently argued that Western 
knowledge and its cultural variant is always employed as an instrument 
of domination of other societies. In Orientalism (1978) and Culture and 
Imperialism (1994), he argues that some aspects of Western scholarship 
and Western culture are deliberately fashioned for the objective of 
subjugating other people. In the latest of his books Said confronts the 
theme of globalization; maintaining that, like any other cultural effort 
initiated by the West, the motive behind it is ulterior: imperialism. These 
are his words; 
One of imperialism's achievements was to bring the world close 
together and although in the process the separation between 
Europeans and natives was an insidious and fundamentally 
unjust one. (1994:xxi-xxii) 
Globalization and Western philosophy 
SAID'S POSITION THAT knowledge serves hegemonic interests can be 
verified by an examination of how philosophy has been employed to 
serve the imperialistic interests of the West. Philosophical knowledge, 
by its position as the queen of the sciences, plays a significant role in 
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the evolution of Western society as the master of nature and the entire 
world society. 
The problem of social order, which has been at the centre of the 
social discourse of the West since the time of the Greeks, produced 
competing ideologies; of which liberalism became the most prominent. 
How can society reconcile the tension between the one and the many; 
between individual interests and social cohesion; between selfautonomy 
and the authority of the State? These are the clusters of 
questions behind the philosophical reflections that produced the 
political and economic ideology of liberalism and capitalism. 
Liberalism and the autonomy of the individual 
LIBERALISM IN ITS many variants; economic, political, or social, affirms 
the autonomy of the individual. Politically, it argues for a democratic 
mode of governance in which the rational being will employ rational 
faculties to participate in the process of negotiation in order to realize 
the common will that guides policies and acts of government. 
Economically, it is assumed by liberalism that the self is capable of 
competing with others in the pursuit of private business interests. The 
victor in this competitive enterprise will not be determined by arbitrary 
standards but by market forces. Economic liberalism pursues the 
passionate defence of individual rights, maintaining the Tightness of 
individual ownership and the limited participation of the state in business. 
All these have become the cardinal principles of liberal capitalism. 
Economism and imperalism 
IN ESTABLISHING A competitive society with maximum freedom for 
individuals to pursue their interests, liberalism puts in place a social 
order that encourages efficiency and the daring spirit. This engenders 
the production of novel knowledge and ideas, which constantly elevates 
the competitive society in comparison with others. In this way Western 
society has become the paradigm of progress and technological 
advancement. But liberalism also generates a negative tendency, which 
we will call—as there is no better word—economism. By economism we 
refer to the excessive pursuit of the individual's private interests in 
such a way that the interest of others, the good of the society and the 
overall welfare of humanity, is completely discountenanced. It is the 
VOL 16 NO 2 JULY 2001 JOURNAL OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA 77
degeneration of liberalism to gross economism that has generated the 
imperialism that has tainted Western liberalism. This negative tendency 
has manifested itself in diverse forms and its manifestations are 
conditioned by the demands and the moods of the various epochs 
throughout the history of the West. 
Moralism and scientism 
BUT WHILE WESTERN society, supported by the ideology of liberalism 
and economism, is notorious for engendering imperialism, it continues 
to be tolerated, if not admired, by the very peoples and societies which 
it undermines, due to the fact that this ideology contains two enviable 
characteristics which we will call: moralism and scientism. These two 
assets at the base of liberalism are always deployed to legitimize and 
disguise the hegemony of the West and also to make case for the 
universalization of liberal values. By the moralism of liberalism we refer 
to its ethical claims. These surround the affirmation of the rights, freedom, 
dignity and so on, of the individual. The argument at the base of 
liberalism—that the individual ought to be free and unconstrained by 
the State—will always appeal to minds whose limited capacity does not 
allow them to reflect on how this position can degenerate into the 
excessive pursuit of selfish interests by the privileged at the expense of 
the less privileged. 
The idea of scientism, on the other hand, refers to the epistemological 
feats that the human mind can attain as a result of its liberation by 
liberal ideology from any form of authoritarianism. The transformation 
that the scientific spirit has generated in the West becomes an object of 
envy to all societies, so much so that the development of liberal society 
is seen to be a product of its technological rather than its hegemonic 
capacity. The paradox is that even the periphery proclaims the wisdom 
and the capacity of the metropolis, forgetting that progress is not a 
product of the epistemological ability of the centre. In essence, the 
strength of the West rests on the ideology of liberalism. It survives on 
the ability of the ideology to promise a moral order when there is no 
such prospect; in its pretence of possessing the magic for development, 
when actually it relies on the sweat of others. In promising a new moral 
order where individuals and human dignity will be defended and for 
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possessing the technological knowledge that can improve living 
conditions, Western liberalism appeals to all societies, including even 
the same non-Western societies that it has undermined and 
underdeveloped throughout history. 
In her drive for hegemony, the West has constantly sought ways of 
bringing other societies nearer so that exploitation could be total and 
permanent. With technology, this is nearing realization. Today the West 
has been able to construct what Hannertz calls a "global ecumene of 
persistent cultural interaction and exchange" (Hannertz 1987:107). But, 
as much as other societies may delude themselves that the interaction 
is mutual, the truth is that the real beneficiary is the West. As Van-Laue 
puts it, integration is not neutral but merely pretends to be so (Van- 
Laue 1987:5) 
The prime mover behind this pan-human replication of humanity 
is late Western capitalism equipped with technology, forever hiring 
more communities into dependency on the fringes of an expanding 
world-wide consumer society. The transnational cultural apparatus 
is an instrument of hegemony (Hannertz 1989:70) 
Americanism, Americanization and neo-imperialism 
The reconciliation of different cultures 
EVER SINCE AMERICA led her allies in the two world wars her leadership of 
the Western world has not been in doubt. Even the leadership of the 
entire world was potentially hers. Only Soviet competition prevented 
her from gaining actual leadership. The moment the Cold War ended 
with the victory of liberal capitalism, America immediately took over the 
leadership of the world. The claim that every power organizes "hegemonic 
space in terms of its own interests and purpose" (Gilpin, 1971:153), is 
true of America. The structure of the world today is to a significant 
extent defined by American assumptions and aspirations. The 
homogenization process is a visible manifestation of America's 
dominance, since its history has been that of reconciliation of different 
cultures. As a nation, America has always been a melting pot of 
divergent peoples from all the continents of the world. Her attempt to 
make the integration global should have been expected. 
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The American leadership of the present world is warranted, not 
necessarily because she is the heir of the West, but mostly because of 
her experience in cultural homogenization, technological management 
and control of people for imperialistic ends. All these qualify her for the 
mantle of leadership of Western imperialism in the present order. It is 
indeed true to say that "the world is becoming Americanized just as 
America has become globalized" (Iriye, 1993:215). If it is a legitimate 
claim that globalization is Westernization, then it is also appropriate to 
say that globalization is Americanization. 
World culture 
To THE EXTENT that a free marketplace exists in the international system, 
it is American culture and the American language that are accepted as 
the closest we have to the world culture. From Moscow to Beijing, from 
Johannesburg to Tokyo, it is the example of American institutions that 
is consciously reshaping the world. Common people, idealistic youths, 
industrial and artistic communities and scientists all look to America for 
the blueprint to design progress and to maintain order and freedom. 
They choose a world culture of the future which is essentially American 
(Feuer 1991:22). 
But what, then, is the intellectual foundation of this American culture 
that is beckoning all of us? What type of philosophy or philosophy of 
culture produces this American civilization that is becoming a world 
culture? Or, to put it in another way, what is the Americanism motivating 
the Americanization project? What we intend to do now, following the 
advice of Ralph Gabriel, is "to see the United States as a cultural system, 
not to see America in its entirety, but to abstract from the complexities 
a pattern to formulate guiding meanings (ideas, values, symbols) that 
tend toward a coherent and autonomous system" (Gabriel 1974:25). 
American philosophy and hegemony 
IN THE AMERICAN DEMOCRACY, Harold Laski made this statement about 
American society: "In no country in modern times has philosophy been 
so intimately related to the foundation of a national culture as in the 
United States"( Laski 1948:431). The import of Laski's statement will 
register only if one understands that the motivating spirit behind 
Americanism is perpetually to reconcile the gap between ideas and 
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action or reality. It is the spirit that made pragmatism the popular, if not 
official, philosophy of America. The pragmatism of William James, John 
Dewey, C. S. Pierce and other American thinkers is just an expression of 
the American impatience with ideas that are too remote from reality; or 
a theoretical position that cannot generate action. This American desire 
for immediacy characterizes the entire American culture and reflects the 
history of its origination as basically a product of economic exigencies. 
It is incontestable that American society came into being as a result 
of the desire to solve certain immediate economic and material problems 
of the first generation of settlers. Only extreme desperation could have 
made people take the risks they did of leaving the known for the 
unknown, which was the situation of the early immigrants in America. 
Americanism, as the entire culture of the Americans, reflects this 
immediacy, adventurism and pragmatism. But by far the most influential 
idea on American public life is the idea of liberalism. Even this idea itself 
reflects the demands of American historical and cultural experience. 
Liberalism, as an idea that affirms human freedom, economically and 
politically, appeals to people who desire unrestricted freedom to be able 
to pursue economic success, the realization of which provides the only 
justification for their enormous sacrifice and deprivation. The pretext to 
moralism at the base of liberalism is also needed to attain the social 
order necessary for the pursuit of economic interests. Liberalism 
emphasizes the various ideals and aspirations that we earlier identified 
in the American experience. It contains adventurism, in the sense that 
the humans are not inhibited in pursuing their interests. Finally, liberalism 
is pragmatic, recognizing that politics and the economy should be 
operated in strict respect for social realities. 
If Americanism is essentially the synthesis of liberalism and 
pragmatism, then we can as say that American public philosophy in its 
entirety is reducible to the title of Max Weber's book, The Protestant 
Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. It is not reductionist to say that all 
the values embedded in Americanism find a place within this Weberian 
framework. Americanism and its liberalism is about the interplay of 
scientism and moralism; and American public philosophy emerged as a 
celebration of the moral code of Protestantism and the need to maintain 
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the individual rationality and autonomy at the base of Western 
capitalism. The failure of Americanism to live up to these moral demands 
may be due to the intrinsic contradiction between the idealism of 
Protestantism and the realism of capitalism. 
In shaping the public philosophy of America, the founding fathers 
relied on the Western heritage of liberalism, particularly the rigorous 
and vigorous development of the idea during the Enlightenment. This 
public philosophy of liberalism thus emerged as the official ideology of 
the West, a product of the Western heritage. It should not be surprising 
if American philosophers carried over the vices and liabilities of liberalism 
into the philosophy. As Gabriel says, 
The very fact that the Jefferson found it useful to write the 
declaration [of independence] in terms of Lockean philosophy 
suggests that the men of the American frontiers were conditioned 
by and were bearers of a tradition. This tradition ran back not only 
to the great English philosopher of the seventeenth century but 
past him through the Middle Ages, through Rome, Greece to Asia 
Minor Gabriel, 1974:3 3). 
Liberalism and imperialism 
BY VIRTUE OF ITS origin, conception and objectives Western liberalism 
necessarily engenders imperialism. It is therefore logical to note that 
American liberalism, by the very fact that it is based on its Western 
heritage, will necessarily catch the disease of its progenitors and 
degenerate to an instrument of imperialism. But before explain this, let 
us first analyse the liberalism at the base of Americanism. Americanism 
as the public philosophy of American society assumes that the individual 
is the primary social agent, whose capacity for appropriate cognitive 
judgement is not in doubt. As a political philosophy this basic idea 
informs the spirit of liberty, equality, human rights and dignity and 
popular sovereignty, enshrined in the American constitution. In the 
philosophy of science, the individualism at the base of American 
liberalism generated the uninhibited, critical and adventurous mind that 
produced the scientific achievements for which America and some other 
Western countries became renowned in the last century. 
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Whether in politics, science or any other area of American life, 
individualism as the ultimate ideal manifested in four ways, which are; 
human rationality, human freedom, human responsibility, and the 
mutuality and cooperation of humans. The four manifestations of 
liberalism have influenced the norms of American politics in many ways. 
The ideas of human rationality and freedom inform the democratic 
exercise of the electoral system and the freedom of all to participate in 
public discourse that eventually determines the direction of policies 
within the American society; while the ideas of individual responsibility 
and mutual trust are the reasons for the patriotism of the average 
American citizen. 
Globalization and American liberalism 
OUR ARGUMENT SO FAR is that the globalization project orchestrated by 
American society has degenerated into imperialism because the liberal 
ideology of Americanism will always lead it to that end. But how has 
America been able to manage her imperialism on such a grand scale 
without attracting condemnation? We have shown that America 
employed her historical experience to forge her imperial order. Her style 
does not include direct empire building or outright colonialism. She 
realizes that this may not be necessary, given her technological capability. 
Through the mastery of electronic technology America can pretend to 
be the leading opponent of imperialism rather than the leading imperialist. 
Her history, as a former colony and a one-time victim of colonialism, 
supports this false propaganda. So successful has this propaganda 
become that the Americans themselves "find it particularly hard to 
abandon their embedded image of themselves as inveterate liberals and 
anti-imperialists" (Strange 1989:177. The reason for this delusion, as 
Said puts it is that "the rhetoric of power all too easily produces an 
illusion of benevolence when deployed in imperial setting" (Said 
1994:xvii). Although America's imperialism may appear subtler than that 
of her predecessors, the obsession for capital accumulation which the 
economism of liberalism generates has created an American form of 
imperialism, subtle but effective, and damaging to the victim. 
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THE NEOIMPERIALISM propagated by America, as we have emphasized, 
depends not only on mere use of power like her predecessors, but on 
the tools of technological materials and ideas. First, America was able 
to make her society the envy of all others. The role that the media, in so 
many forms, play in this respect cannot be underestimated. With the 
triumph of liberal capitalism in the Cold War, America could step up the 
campaign that produced the image of America as a paradise and the 
land of opportunity. Second, America's control of international 
organizations, particularly the Bretton Woods institutions and the 
financial market, was used to lure other countries into the debt trap. 
Remaining in the background, the creditors push poor nations into 
dependency, while America acts as helpless sympathizer. Having got a 
strong grip on non-Western societies, America's control tightened. The 
debt situation and the continued reliance of most nations on Western 
capital allowed America to decree the adoption of policies unfavourable 
to poor states. Through the International Monetary Fund and other 
creditors and by taking the advantage of her technological capacity to 
monitor the activities of vulnerable countries, America enforced the 
institutionalization of liberal measures such as deregulation, the 
devaluation of currency, privatization and the withdrawal of subsidies 
from public utilities. 
The crises of legitimacy and neo-imperialism 
THE EFFECT OF these policies forced on non-Western societies has been 
devastating. Apart from making an already bad situation worse, it 
brought about social and political crises. In African states a crisis of 
legitimacy resulted. Having lost sovereignty to their creditors they could 
no longer be relied upon by their people for the provision of the good 
life—the very reason why they were initially supported. The new 
imperialism is thus strongly implicated in the multidimensional crises 
facing most Third World countries, especially in Africa where the 
problems are so acute as to warrant Afro-pessimism. The neoliberal 
order, rather than bringing the goods of modernization which American 
propaganda promises, merely wetted the appetite of non-Western people. 
For America and those in the West who set the machinery in motion, 
good markets have opened up. Deregulation has finally removed all 
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tariffs, preventing easy access to the rest of the world. The devaluation 
of these countries' currencies opened them up for exploitation by 
transnational organizations controlled by the West. While the new global 
order has led to social crisis, instability and disintegration in non- 
Western societies; in the West it has brought economic development 
since the West remains the sole beneficiary of the unification. 
Globalization is therefore marked by the deepening of the centreperiphery 
configuration (Marshall 1996:196). 
Intensification of inequality 
GLOBALIZATION AS AN American project has thus deepened the differences 
in the world. The unification that it appears to be the main achievement 
of globalization is a negative one. The paradox is that societies of the 
world may appear to be close in terms of access to one another; but 
they are far away as the extreme affluence of the West stands in 
embarrassing antithesis to the poverty of the rest. What is more, the 
wealth of the West is the explanation for the pathetic situation of others. 
Globalization therefore, rather than encouraging integration, has 
produced implosion (Hymans 1995:196). 
Trauma at the margin 
WHETHER THE PROCESS is called globalization or Americanization, the 
enterprise of integration has brought nothing but trauma to the people 
at the margin. There is no way by which America can be exonerated 
from the global crises that will soon occur as a result of the injustice and 
inequality of the American-controlled world order. In engendering 
imperialism, Western liberalism and the American State have seriously 
compromised their own essences. It has "paradoxically generated the 
seed of its own dissolution (Huymans 1995:472). Whether as a public 
philosophy or as an idea that defines the prevailing order, liberalism is 
subjected to severe criticism mainly because its immanent immorality. 
We are all aware that liberal capitalism was subjected to critique by Karl 
Marx and his disciples. The summary of their critique is that liberal 
capitalism will polarize society along class lines. Applied to international 
relations, the elitism and stratification of liberal capitalism has manifested 
itself in polarization between the oppressive and wealthy nations of the 
North and the impoverished and oppressed nations of the South. 
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An alternative to individualistic liberalism 
OUR ARGUMENT IS not going to follow the Marxist approach which is 
already common knowledge. Instead we claim that within the same liberal 
orientation, within the same American intellectual tradition, there is an 
alternative to the individual liberalism that engenders imperialism. This 
is the communitarian position. It is today used to question the 
individualism of traditional liberalism and to claim that, only when 
liberalism is based on the idea of individualism, does it necessarily 
generate the hegemonic control of one group by anther, whether in 
national politics or in world affairs. 
Beyond imperialism to communitarianism 
COMMUNITARIANISM is an attempt to repair liberalism and avoid its inherent 
pitfalls, particularly its extreme assumption that individuals can be 
autonomous. This idea developed out of the social crises of American 
society, manifested in the form of racial violence, group conflicts, and 
other forms of protest against the modernist ethos in contemporary 
American society. This social malaise brought into the open the full 
implications of liberalism's emphasis on individual autonomy. The 
immorality that the liberal tendency generates informs the arguments of 
communitarianism. The objective of the communitarian version of 
liberalism is to produce a new political philosophy concerned with how 
to attain cohesive relationships between individuals within the society, 
in order to attain a viable social order. 
Communitarianists see liberalism's failure to defend the role of virtue 
in public life as a crucial flaw. Without a sense of the connectedness of 
communal duty and belonging, they believe our lives lose meaning and 
society degenerates into a battle ground of competing interests 
(Frohnen, 1996:5) 
The idea of communitarianism has been developed by philosophers 
such as Armita Etzioni, William Galston, Charles Taylor and Robert 
Nisbet, among others. Taking the communitarian position as the point 
of departure, our argument is this: If liberalism engenders crises in 
American domestic activity, then it it should not be adopted in 
international relations, because the crises it creates in American society 
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will be transferred to the world stage due to America's dominant 
influence. In the same way that liberalism encourages individual 
autonomy, thus legitimating the immoderate pursuit of selfish personal 
interest within each nation, it has also generated the blind pursuit of 
selfish interests in the international terrain; without considering the 
overall welfare of the global community. 
Communitarianism presents itself as the path to a new global order 
that will avoid the injustice of liberalism. If America continues to maintain 
hegemonic control, this may eventually become a threat to her survival 
as a world power and the civilization that she represents. After all, 
civilization survives or ends depending on how consistent it is with its 
moral principles as Gabriel remarks: 
Civilization is a manifestation and a proof of progress of course, 
but at the bottom, of ethical progress. For civilization is the fruit of 
an understanding of the moral law and of the founding of human 
institutions (Gabriel 1974:22) 
Gabriel enjoins the American culture to "rediscover a morality that 
proclaims that some types of behaviors are always wrong" (Gabriel 
1974:22). It is this type of strong commitment to morality, according to 
him, that prolongs the lifespan of a civilization and therefore it is only 
when America's leadership is guided by strict adherence to consistent 
moral principles that it can last. 
A sketch of the communitarian position 
IT IS DIFFICULT to capture the positions of the communitarians in very 
precise terms, since their argument is developing in reaction to the 
views of orthodox liberalism. But since our present essay is a critique of 
liberalism in international relations, a brief insight into the disagreement 
of the two will be an appropriate starting point. The communitarians 
object to the individualism of liberalism. To them, the affirmation of the 
autonomy of the self easily degenerates into the blind pursuit of selfish 
interests. Self-interest and selfish interests, according to them are too 
closely related to be manageable. When people becoming obsessional 
in their drive for personal interests, any consideration for the feelings 
of others will be drowned in a sea of egoism. The absolute liberty that 
VOL 16 NO 2 JULY 2001 JOURNAL OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA 87
liberalism pursues leads to the complete neglect of virtue, if virtue is to 
be accepted as the altruistic consideration of the wishes and desires of 
others. 
From this perspective liberalism emphasizes right at the expense of 
good; self at the expense of society. The essential problems of politics 
is not a person's rights but, how to reconcile these rights with those of 
others in order that each can enjoy to the maximum his or her social 
essence. Communitarians argue that any conception of rights without 
its corollary—duties—will always generate crises and chaos. 
The idea of the common good 
THE IDEA AT THE centre of communitarianism, which is fundamental to its 
critique of classical liberalism, is the idea of the common good. All 
societies need the idea of common good or common interests and must 
constantly sustain the common good or it will collapse. It is a cardinal 
aspect of human relations. But the idea of the common good is difficult 
to describe although we all grasp it intuitively—the notion of a desirable 
situation such as access to clean water, that benefits everyone equally 
and is the responsibility of everyone, though of no one person in 
particular. Every society must constantly discuss this concept and strive 
to attain the common good in practice. 
The question then arises: how do we attain social justice when the 
idea of common good cannot be clearly defined? Liberals argue that 
common interests constantly emerge through the interaction of 
divergent interests in any society. It is for this reason that contemporary 
liberals like Rawls still feel that social justice is feasible only when there 
is minimal control of the individual by the State. The weakness of this 
assumption is that it is just as likely that the interaction of different 
peoples in the struggle to realize their interests will generate chaos 
rather than social order. Both social order and justice will compromised 
if the freedom of the individual is limitless. This is the point that the 
communitarians seek to make. 
Egotism and the community 
COMMUNITARIANS BELIEVE that the ideals of order and justice in the society 
can be realized only if the egoism of liberalism is replaced with a sense 
of community and altruistic feelings. Members of a society need to 
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possess the idea of the common good to unite their society and promote 
altruism, because the pursuit of the common good entails an indirect 
pursuit of each individual's good. Communitarians believe that the only 
type of society able to realize the wishes of the individuals through the 
realization of common good is the community. And a community, 
according to them, is a social structure where all members see themselves 
as belonging to one family. 
From this discussion, it is clear why the adoption of liberal principles 
by the American State and her Western allies will always lead to Western 
imperialism. Liberalism and its concomitant principles of unregulated 
freedom, individual autonomy, competition and a deregulated economy 
will always generate, conflicts leading to the hegemony of the strongest. 
This ideology will always be favourable to those obsessively pursue 
their own egoistic interests. Taken to its logical conclusion liberalism is 
simply a case of "farewell to ethics." But the survival of any society 
depends on how it is able to manage and control the drive for power 
with ethical norms. The failure of liberalism in this respect is part of its 
history. 
Translated to international society, liberalism has generated egoistic 
tendencies in the name of national interests. For the sake of its national 
interest America has turned global society into an imperial estate. The 
disregard which the West, led by America, has for the rest of the world 
manifests itself in its treatment of the debt crisis and its overall reaction 
to the very pressing problems of humanity in the developing world. 
Even despite the fact that servicing the debt has turned the people in 
the developing world to destitutes, the policy has scarcely been altered. 
The post-Cold War adoption of neoliberal ideologies has now 
brought into open the moral poverty of liberalism. Deregulation and 
liberalization are imperialistic and unjust. Forcing open competition on 
an unequal world and compulsorily opening up the economies of the 
Third World in the name of structural adjustment programmes are 
measures that characterize the immorality of the liberal doctrine. 
Recognizing that liberal ideology has turned world society into a crisisridden 
one, the adoption of the communitarian argument is necessary 
for the salvation of the world. Immanuel Kant envisaged a rational ethics 
VOL 16 NO 2 JULY 2001 JOURNAL OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA 89
founded on the golden rule, together with a world federation; a global 
community ruled, not by might but by standards to which all must 
abide. Western liberalism cannot realize this ideal. But within the same 
intellectual tradition the idea of the society as a community of people 
with common interests is developing. The globalization of the world for 
hegemonic ends can be changed to serve the genuine interests of 
humanity. After all the lessons that the problem of environmental 
pollution has taught us is that we cannot avoid one another. Human 
problems are the problems of us all. This should make appreciate the 
fact that we are all in more or less the same situation and in turn lead to 
our accepting body of common interests as binding on us all. 
Globalization can be an instrument of reconciliation, if we jettison the 
egoism of liberalism and adopt the morality and cohesive vision of 
communitarianism. 
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