Jihad vs. McWorld: How Globalism and Tribalism Are Reshaping the World

By universalizing and misusing the term "Jihad" the book overlooks the specificity of each fundamentalism: "As the Muslim Brotherhood saw in Christianity a crusading corruptor, Know-Nothing American Protestants back in the 1880's saw in Mediterranean Catholic immigrants a grave peril to the American Republic, just as nervous Californians today worry about illegal Latino immigrants . . ." (212). The careless linking of these three disparate "fundamentalisms" (or "Jihad," as Barber would prefer to write) overlook, respectively, issues of decolonization, commerce and immigration, and racism / cultural imperialism. But perhaps the most careless omission in this book is a lack of engagement with Zionism and the formation of the state of Israel, which inform so much of the global fundamentalist motivation and rhetoric, while at the same time having implications for the nature and scope of "Americanization" and global capital (or, "McWorld"). In fact, Zionism is never mentioned in the text as an example of fundamentalism, and Israel is rarely alluded to. It would seem that any discussion of globalization, the modern nation-state, fundamentalism, and democracy would have to engage with the formation of Israel. In addition it would have to recognize the specificty of fundamentalisms, especially those arising in ex-colonial countries. Imperialism, colonialism, and decolonization are also issues noticeably absent in "Jihad vs. McWorld," a book which claims to discuss global themes without taking into account the way in which most of the globe is engaged in various processes of decolonization.


This book is a must-read for the world's citizenry.   May 11, 1998
warrendr@arrowsmith.net
41 out of 45 found this review helpful

Well-respected political scientist and prolific writer Benjamin Barber's "Jihad vs. McWorld" illuminates probably the most profound and compelling argument facing us today, tribalism vs. mass consumerism. Jihad vs. McWorld is the pulling of two major socia-political forces upon the citizenry of the world, jettisoning democracy precariously towards extinction.

"Jihad" as articulated in the book represents extremist tribalist nature of fundamentalist cultures. It is the study of self-serving groups, whether they be of religious factions, nation-states, or various political ideologues. Their only goal is to secure the preservation of their culture and to influence those from outside their belief system. The result is warring tribes, i.e. the feuding ideologies of the Serbia-Croat battles, the plight of the Middle East, Northern Ireland's "religious" war, and the bombing of the Oklahoma Federal State building. "Jihad" leaves no room for a free-thinking civil democracy and absolutely abhors influences from outside it's realm, hence it's ardent distrust of Western consumerist ideology - McWorld.

McWorld is the term coined to define the mass consumerist ideology of global marketing. McWorld is not so much a place but is a consumerist behavior. McWorld crosses all cultural boundaries whether they be open free markets or closed sacrilegious cultures. McWorld has not a human face but a bullish influence. McWorld's ultimate goal is to integrate every nation, every country, every person, every thing into a global market, whether they be mass consumers as pompously displayed as the obesity of the "West" or as manufacturers such as in the Nike corporation's child-labour sweatshops in Thailand. Jihad vs. McWorld provides profound insight into the use of multi-media and global communications for McWorld to spread it's influence.

Jihad vs. McWorld is eloquently written and provides hard, factual insights without becoming alarmist. Benjamin Barber provides the reader with though! t-provoking questions that we as a society have been too lax in addressing and bold solutions that our present political systems can't seem to accommodate. An excellent book, I strongly recommended it.


Relevant Today   August 23, 2001
K. Johnson (US/Asia)
28 out of 32 found this review helpful

Benjamin Barber wrote this book which has become the foundation of Globalization awareness for many of us today. Barber has an extensive and well-put vocabulary. One does not have to read this from beginning to end, but by various chapter by chapter throughout the entire book. There are tons of empirical data, research, and historical footnotes in "Jihad Vs. McWorld." He provides and accurate and objective picture of what our world is transforming into today: the world is becoming smaller and more culturally homogenous. Barber doesn't focus on negative or positive aspects but on the over-all ramifications. What are the motivations? The causes? This book lists many. Transnational corporate makeups, international job allocation, and consumerism in many areas of the world, can lead to diminished liberty and political and cultural autonomy, and lesser quality of life. "Robert Murdochization," the daily extinction of languages, and massive destruction of our environment are occurring. Overpopulation is one of the major causes.

One of hundreds of examples is the 1994 Chinese auto-mobilization policy of 1994. what would be the effects of a nation of 1.3 billion people acquiring mass ownership of cars? The global mineral and fossil fuel supply would be exhausted in about 5 years. Can developed nations tell LDNs not to acquire automobiles when they themselves produce, export, and use them daily? Who is the biggest energy user, and waster in the world? The United States. Yet we must however, tell other nations' what they "should and should not do," because of the negative effects on the environment. Those in former Communist countries risked their freedom to read certain works to forsake them for MTV, Coca-Cola & Baywatch. It shows that the needs and wants have changed now that "freedom" is more available. This book is not anti-consumerist nor anti-mass consumption. Read it.


Capitalism is Evil   February 3, 2003
David W. Nicholas (Montrose, CA USA)
28 out of 49 found this review helpful

I bought this book after September 11 because the cover describes it as being about the clash of cultures that culminated in September 11. If you've read any of the other reviews, you know that it's not that at all, really, certainly not specifically with regards to Islamic terrorism, in spite of the title. The book is instead about consumerism and capitalism (McWorld) penetrating to the far reaches of the globe, and the response from indigenous traditional cultures (Jihad). This jargonizing of the two movements he sees in the world are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the problems this book has.

For one thing, while the author takes a great deal of time praising democracy, he clearly despises capitalism, though he denies this in the afterword (written the year after the book was originally published). Since he despises Western consumerism so much, he asks such profound inanities as "We are free to choose, but are we free to choose not to choose?" The problem with this is that Barber and those like them believe fervently that consumers are helpless before the advertising media, and that most people are therefore hypnotized into eating at McDonald's or Burger King because they saw a TV commercial. My guess is most of the customers of such places go there because of convenience and price.

You get the idea that Barber's a closet communist, or at least a socialist. He includes chapters towards the end of the book on the advance of "McWorld" into two former Communist countries, East Germany and Russia. In both cases there are sly references to people deciding that things were better when the communists were running things, and of course no one is happy with capitalism because some of the people will fail economically, and wind up bankrupt or impoverished.

Barber's disdain for McWorld and consumerism in general is highlighted by his penchant for jargonizing everything to do with the movement. So we have Hollyworld, videology, and my favorite, the dread infotainment telestructure. When he writes of Jihad (traditional culture) challenging McWorld, he jargonizes nothing beyond the movement, and is much more sympathetic. There's much of the old "we need to understand them and their culture, so we can learn from them" attitude when he discusses how McWorld is corrupting the culture that's currently for the most part run by dictators and corrupt monarchs. It's all a bit much.

The sad part is that some of the material here is actually intelligently presented, and I believe Barber makes a few good points. His general observations about the clash between consumerism and culture are sometimes good, if left-leaning. The problem is that he's so relentlessly opposed to capitalism that, towards the end of the book, he insists that he's not anti-capitalist, recounts one thing modern capitalism has done in world society, and then turns around and goes back to bashing it for despoiling the world, almost in a single sentence. That one thing (the amount of money capitalism generates) he has no idea how to replicate without capitalism, though of course he and every other socialist needs money if they're to pay for all the neat stuff they want to do for society.

One last word: the prose here is very dense. Barber has a good vocabulary, and isn't at all afraid to use it. I'm a very well-read individual, and I had a merry time getting through this book. I would recommend it only for those who are deeply interested in the topic.


Alarmist but relevant   June 20, 2001
Edward Bosnar (Zagreb, Croatia)
25 out of 28 found this review helpful

This is something of an alarmist book in many ways, but it is nonetheless valuable, not least because five years after it was first published many of the author's arguments still stand. Barber can probably be additionally criticized for employing two catchy but overly simplified buzzwords to describe the complex problems surrounding globalization and the reaction to it. Also, even though he by no means exclusively or even primarily singles out Islamic fundamentalism as a peril to the world order, just his use of the term `Jihad' as a metaphor for the new, anti-modern nationalisms and religious intolerance seen worldwide nevertheless indicates a measure of Orientalism. Most of the shortcomings derive from that fact that the author is a political scientist who specializes in issues of democracy and civil society rather than fractious nationalism and global economics - the two main topics of the book. Thus, in his discussion of the post-communist states of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, he often resorts to the now tired and superficial platitudes of `tribalism' or `ancient hatreds' to explain the rise of recent ugly incarnations of intolerant nationalism in this region (he even goes so far as to echo the mass media's favorite `Balkans expert' Robert Kaplan by citing Dracula-writer Bram Stoker in a description of modern Romania). Barber makes the additional mistake of assuming that the nationalist movements are driven by simplistic ideologies aimed solely at tearing apart existing nation-states; even if this is often the end result, most if not all of these movements claim as their objective the overthrow of foreign tyranny as they see it and the creation of some form of popular democracy. Even so, Barber correctly points out the danger of new or renewed nationalisms and divisive calls for self-determination (a very loaded and ambiguous concept), a danger that's still very prevalent in international politics. Barber is best when he points out that free markets do not necessarily mean democracy, in contrast to free market gurus, Cato Institute libertarians and Jeffrey Sachs, the chief proponent of `shock therapy' in transitional economies. He offers the examples of market economics failures in Russia and the former East Germany as damning evidence to support his argument. "Jihad vs. McWorld" has a number of flaws, but the author's arguments are coherent and it is an often useful cautionary text.