Culture, Power and Resistance in Twenty-First Century - Research Paper Example

 Culture, Power and Resistance in Twenty-First Century Neoliberalism is a term used in both international relations and economics. The concept supports the principles of free trade, privatization of businesses, reduction of both expenditures on public services and government intervention. It seems like that the ultimate goal of neoliberalism is to make every action of the world look like a business transaction. It aims at achieving unlimited market expansion. It is not only an economic structure but a complete philosophy of creating a new world order. Neoliberalism has triggered the most significant policy shift of the twenty first century in which the nations have moved towards giving freedom and centrality to their markets and market processes, and to the capital interests [Dav05]. We are witnessing the overhauling of the twenty first century politics and culture, and the renovation has been and is being carried out in the capitalist style. As Harvey puts it, neoliberalism is simply an elevation of capitalism. And capitalism is not a twenty first century invention; therefore, Neoliberalism is merely an intensification of capitalism as well as its rebirth in a new avatar after facing a prolonged opposition, spanning over several decades, from the Keynesian welfare states. Neoliberalism claims to be a philosophy or way of life in itself because neoliberalism views market exchange as ethics that supersede all other human ethics. It seeks to make this world a huge market where every action is a market transaction, a value that maximizes market value or capital is a good value and everything else either does not matter or is probably bad. The use of liberalism in the word neoliberalism is not used in its usual meaning of freedom; rather it specifically embodies only that freedom which relates to big corporations, multi-nationals, private property owners and financial capital. Neoliberalism has gained more popularity due to the protests against it rather than the publicity for it[Ley01]. Consumerism is an economic movement that aims at increasing the purchase and consumption of goods and placing emphasis on consumption while formulating public policies. It is the belief that the pattern of free choice of consumers should be the basis of the economic structure. Consumerism is a predominantly western phenomenon, like capitalism[Tor04]. The western culture has become increasingly materialistic in outlook. The rise of twenty first century has seen a radical shift in people’s perception of their surroundings, especially since 2001; the recession and post-recession period. Every move is judged for its market value. Children no longer seek education to earn a respectable post or to gain knowledge or authority; they rather seek education to sit on posts that would make them a lot of money. Here we can see that this attitude is fueled by consumerism and gives fuel to the neoliberal and capitalist ideology. The modern trends show that the western society is in a mad rush to emulate the people of the higher status, and the people of the higher status want to be like the ones of an even higher social ranking and have their own individual existence. It has given root to the concept of individualism[Bec01]. The rest of the world is trying to emulate the western society as a whole, and therefore, have indirectly adopted consumerism as well. The biggest evidence of it is the endorsement of products by celebrities and stars. Why has it become such a hit concept? Why do people need to buy things that they do not need but they want because a celebrity has it? They want it because the consumerist mindset tells them to do so; it forces them to follow the lavish lifestyles of glamorous people. In today’s world, the media advertisements provide us with products as an alternative to a fulfilling experience. The corporate world makes money through the consumption instigated by the media advertisers. The governments of the world, especially western capitalist democracies, depend heavily upon the corporate cash and the image projected by the media. Therefore, an intricate web of connectivity exists between all three of these elements. The defenders and propagators of the consumer culture justify themselves by saying that the consumer is the only one who should decide what is he wants to buy. They negate the view of the anti-consumerists saying that whether a luxury is wasteful or a necessity should be based solely on the decision of the consumer and nobody itself. But somehow it seems that the advocates of consumer culture forger that they take away the freedom of the very consumer they want to give the freedom to. The products are advertised in such glamorous ways that the people are literally coaxed and forced into believing that they would indeed make their lives better. If the corporations are made to advertise only the product in a one liner advertisement specifying the real function of the product , would the consumers still buy the products. They surely would not until they think it is a requirement. It is a well-known reality of the modern times that the advertisements have handicapped the people instead of giving them the freedom to choose. The connection between neoliberalism and consumerism is therefore, a very clear one. The neoliberals want an unlimited and tremendous increase of economy, and the consumerist converts the buying and consumption of goods as the satisfaction of his ego and soul going on buying stuff and making large capital flows into corporations and businesses. Consumer culture is exactly what a neoliberal economy would need. Today, the patterns of consumption are neglecting the environmental resource base. Not only this, but these consumption trends are also increasing the magnitude of the problem of inequality in the world. This has shifted further power into the hands of the already powerful ones and has snatched it away completely from the grasp of the poor ones. If we fail to redistribute wealth from high income consumers to those who figure quite low in the scale, and fail to take action against those giants that are hindering the process of reducing pollution and taking action in context of climate change, then we are surely looking forward towards a disaster. Consumption is not the real issue here, but its patterns and effects are. There are stark inequalities in the pattern of consumption among the labyrinths of todays stratified society. 86 percent of the total world consumption made privately is accounted for by only 20 percent of the world’s people in the rich economies. The poorest consume a mere 1.3 percent. According to the Selfish Capitalist by Oliver James, the capitalist view, which is the base for both neoliberalism and consumerism, is bent upon making us belief that the possession of more and more goods can provide us with happiness. This materialistic approach has damaged the western society specifically to a great extent[Jam08]. The prevalence of depression and anxiety in these societies despite the accumulation of wealth is a proof of the fact that these goods cannot and will not provide us with the peace of mind they promise. The youth’s ideological position configures significantly in the fact that the neoliberals of the commercial culture have been heavily targeting the young, so much so that some say that they are engaged in a war with the young. The neoliberal coalition is based on a free market system circulating in the economies of the world that depend upon the consumer spending and at the same time, they continue to project the young people as the ideal spokespersons for instigating consumer desires. There are many forms of consumerism, like popular commercial culture consumerism and ethical consumerism. The ethical consumerism uses a very attractive way; it attaches ethical value to products by saying that if you buy a certain product, it will generate funds for some good cause. There are questions raised on whether or not ethical consumerism is just another face of reified neoliberalism[Gil08]. The clever management of cloaking consumerism in ethical garb signifies that the market oriented world has realized the fact that people have started seeing the emptiness in the promises of fulfillment that the attainment of goods and commodities that they make. I the opposite of that would have been the case, the western societies would have been one of the most satisfied societies, but it is not so. They are the societies plagued the most with ills like depression and anxiety. Neoliberalism has been attached with specifically with the US culture. The consumer culture is also pre-dominantly prevalent in the United States. The giants that have powered the world through the recession were also US and China. This is where the thematic of hegemony come in. In hegemony, the hegemon or the leader state keeps the rest of the states in a sub-ordinate level by implying suppression indirectly, using means other than military might. The US is undoubtedly the only hegemon of the world right now, keeping all other nations in its circle of influence by using the monetary card on them. IMF and the World Bank literally dictate the internal policies of nations that have become entangled in their web. And the influence of the US over these institutions is undeniable. Some argue that the US is not a proper hegemon as it cannot impose a proper hegemony over the world due to lack of such tremendous resources that would be required to do so. But that is not true; the vast majority of the nations have succumbed to the neoliberal consumerist approach that the US has intentionally transferred to the world. This is another precious gift of globalization. No nation is immune to this effect. People want to buy beyond their capacities and they do, becoming heavily indebted. Same is the case of the nations who have become victim to the policies of IMF and the World Bank because they are in their debts and sinking deeper into the quagmire by the minute. On the other hand, if we critically analyze the concept of neoliberalism that Foucault developed, we can better understand the ‘global world’ today from a standpoint of the possibility of bringing a change to the present conditions. The world is facing a monetary crises, which some see as the failure of the neoliberalization. The ‘global world’ is also approaching its threshold on fundamental issues like that of climate change and the fast depleting natural resources. As such, Foucault’s analysis of the relationships between political economy, power and governmentality can help us understand the changing dynamics of our times and the role of neoliberalism in it. The approach of Foucault is shown clearly when at the start of his diatribe on neoliberalism he states that neoliberalism is not a market society. By stating this, Foucault aimed at distinguishing his position from the general approaches taken towards neoliberalism, which are: The sociological approach that says that neoliberalism is a way of introducing and maintaining strictly market relations in the global society, The political approach that claims neoliberalism to be no more than a generalized administrative intervention by the state, And the economic point of view that asserts that it is simply the renovation of old out of date economic theories. Foucault’s departure from the conventional left analysis, marked by the above distinction, opens up a position that shifts the focus to the conditions of possibilities and to the practices that make up the actual state of affairs. We can say that for him the problem of neoliberalism consists of modeling the overall exercise of political power on the principles of a market economy in order to discover the extent to which the formal principles of market economy can be utilized to index a general art of government. The answer led to the analysis of the way neoliberalism transformed classical liberalism to achieve formulation of a new framework for the modern new world. Every person who works today does not think of what he is working for but rather how much he is working for. We want to earn more so that we can have more. We are consuming like we have unending non-depleting resources. It seems that there is no realization of what this attitude is costing our planet. Our collective response to this dilemma is apathy and confusion. The economics of money making, it seems, is more overwhelming than the economics for conservation and sustainability. The world, America included, is experiencing recession and the slackening of the world’s buying machine has caused a domino effect on industries that rely on US's massive consumerism[Lit08]. It is high time that we re-evaluate and reassess what we really want from ourselves and this world. The concept of consumerism in light of neoliberalism has become the root of many social and environmental problems in the twenty first century. If we analyze the data of a single year of this century, 2006, we would come to know that people around the world spent 30.5 trillion dollars on services and goods in this year alone. Although a large chunk of these expenditures consisted of basic necessaries like shelter and food, but as incomes rose on the graph, the amount of spending on consumer goods rose as people bought richer foods and luxury apartments, larger houses and cars and televisions, advanced technologies and the air travels increased. Fast forward to two years later and we see that the world bought 68 million transport vehicles, 297 million computers, 85 million refrigerators and 1.2 billion mobile phones[Nea09]. The current state of the social and ecological costs that consumerism has caused is an indicator that the need for a new cultural paradigm is imperative and inevitable. In this context, it makes sense to think of an environment that would instigate people to buy just enough to ensure their well-being while directing greater efforts to restore our planet’s environment back to normal and stable. We sure are seeing the initiation of reorientation of cultural mindsets towards sustainability, instead of a frenzied consumption, of resources. After the wests experimentation with materialism, the values and norms are being shifted back to old traditional ones, where happiness and satisfaction were derived from human relations and nature, rather than manufactured products and tangible luxuries. A move towards ecofriendly products is being encouraged with more and more companies going green. Traditions that were lost, like the wise guidance of elders, are being rediscovered and being used to support the shift to sustainability. Perhaps in a century or two, we wouldn’t need extensive efforts to pioneer and formulate a new world order because people would have internalized and individually implemented many of these ideas realizing the need of sustainability and considering it the natural way instead of blinded consumerism. Until then, we need international organizations and forums to realize the need of the hour and initiate an intentional and proactive shift towards sustainability. As they say that never doubt the ability of a small group of thoughtful committed citizens to change the world. Infact, it is indeed the only thing that ever has! References Dav05: , (Harvey, 2005), Ley01: , (Leys, 2001), Tor04: , (Tormey, 2004), Bec01: , (Beck, 2001), Jam08: , (James, 2008), Gil08: , (Gilbert, 2008), Lit08: , (Littler, 2008), Nea09: , (Lawson, 2009), Read More