In July 1972, while doing research on bird
evolution in New Guinea, biologist Jared Diamond strolled along a tropical beach with a
local politician named Yali. Yali, who had helped his people prepare for self-government,
questioned Diamond about the origins of the people of New Guinea, and about the
commodities that Europeans brought to New Guinea such as steel axes, matches, clothing,
soft drinks, things that people in New Guinea referred to as "cargo." Then he
posed for Diamond they key question: "Why is it," he said, "that you white
people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we Black people had so
little cargo of our own?".
Yali's question, of course, goes to the heart of the condition of
the modern world; how have such inequalities of wealth evolved? Why do some have so much,
and others so little? How have a group of societies clustered largely, but not
exclusively, in the area of northern Europe, east Asia, and North America, come to
politically and economically dominate the societies of the rest of the world?
This book tries to answer Yali's question by taking an
anthropological approach to global issues. Our intent is to provide enough background for
the reader to begin to better understand global problems, such as population growth, world
hunger, environmental destruction, disease, ethnic conflict, rebellion, and social and
religious protest. While the approach is anthropological, we will not hesitate to draw
from other disciplines --history, sociology, geography, political science, and, economics
--when we feel that is necessary to understand first, capitalism, and second, how that
culture contributes to the global problems we will discuss.
We can summarize our approach in this book as follows: there has
emerged over the past five to six centuries a distinctive culture or way of life dominated
by a belief in commodity consumption as the source of well-being. This culture flowered in
Western Europe, reached fruition in the United States and spread to encompass much of the
rest of the world, creating what some anthropologists, sociologists, and historians call
the world system. People disagree on the critical factor in the development of this
system, and whether or not it was even historically unique, although most agree on certain
basic ideas. Among the most important are the assumptions that the driving force behind
the spread of the contemporary world system was industrial and corporate capitalism, and
that the spread of the world system is related in some way to the resulting division of
the world into wealthy nations and poor nations, or into wealthy core, developed, or
industrialized areas, and dependent peripheral, undeveloped, or non-industrialized areas.
The spread of the capitalist world system has been accompanied by
the creation of distinctive patterns of social relations, ways of viewing the world,
patterns of food production, distinctive diets, patterns of health and disease,
relationships to the environment, and so on. However, the spread of this culture has not
gone uncontested; there has been resistance that has taken the form of both direct and
indirect actions --political, religious, and social protest and revolution. How and why
capitalist culture developed along with the reasons why some groups resisted and continue
to resist its development will be some of the questions we will pose in the book.
The book is divided into three parts. Part one (chapters one
through four) will be devoted to understanding the social and historical origins of
capitalism, specifically the social construction of the consumer, the laborer, the
capitalist, and the nation-state. The remainder of chapter one will be devoted to an
examination of the creation of the consumer in America because the desire, indeed the
necessity, of people to consume more and more is what drives the society of perpetual
growth, largely defines the relationships between the core and the periphery of the world
system, and relates to virtually all of the global problems that we shall discuss in later
chapters.
In chapter two we will examine the creation and role of the
laborer in capitalism, and the expansion of capitalism into the peripheral areas of the
world. In chapter three we will outline the evolution of the organization of capital from
around the year 1400 to the present, the ongoing division of the world into poor nations
and wealthy nations, the role of the state in these processes, and the historical
interaction of capitalist, laborer, and consumer. In chapter four we will take a closer
look at the creation of the nation-state, and its role in the creation and maintenance of
capitalism.
Part two (chapters five through nine) will take an
anthropological perspective on the relationship between the spread of capitalism and
various global problems. In chapter five we will examine the much-discussed problem of
population growth. As early as 1799 Thomas Malthus predicted that if the rate of
population growth continued as it was then, human population would soon outstrip its
capacity to feed itself. Malthus predicted disaster; yet today the world produces more
than enough food to feed a population of almost six billion and has the capacity to
produce even more. Was Malthus wrong, or are others who are alarmed at the present rate
of population growth correct in their assessment that overpopulation is responsible for
world poverty, hunger, and environmental degradation?
In chapter six we will examine world hunger and poverty, and how
it relates to the globalization of capitalism. Each year in the world some five million
children die of hunger, and each day from 600,000 to over one billion people--one in every
five--go hungry. Overpopulation does not seem to be the only problem--there is more than
enough food to feed everyone. Why, then, do thousands of people starve to death every
day?
Chapter seven will examine environmental problems. Once again
there are dire predictions of environmental disaster, and once again overpopulation is
often given as a cause. But other forces seem to be at work; the United States, with a
relatively low rate of population growth, is by far the world's greatest contributor to
environmental pollution. Clearly our consumption patterns are responsible for much
environmental devastation. How and why were these destructive consumption patterns
established, and what, if anything, can we do about them?
Chapter eight will examine another worldwide threat--disease. In
the 1960s the World Health Organization set as its goal the complete eradication of
disease. We have certainly eliminated many of them. Smallpox, polio, and plague, once took
millions of lives, and now are virtually forgotten. Yet new diseases keep threatening our
lives--AIDS is the most well known--and others are constantly appearing. Others seem
almost beyond solution; malaria still claims more lives each year world-wide than any
other disease. How does the way we live influence the emergence and spread of disease,
and how does the spread of disease relate to the globalization of capitalist culture?
In chapter nine we will examine the fate of indigenous peoples
and the origins of ethnic conflict in the world. The development and spread of capitalism
has, in general, not been conducive to the maintenance of diverse cultures. Why has its
spread of resulted in the destruction of indigenous peoples and cultures? Furthermore,
cultural or ethnic diversity is often assumed to be the cause of ethnic strife. Yet
diverse cultures have existed side-by-side for centuries without the kind of violence we
find today. Thus we will ask also why in today's world does ethnic diversity seems to
often lead to violent conflict?
In part three of the book we will turn to the sometimes
rebellious reactions of peoples who have not fared as well as others in the expansion of
capitalism. This expansion rarely was uncontested. In chapter ten we will examine the
reactions and resistance of peasant farmers to the expansion of capitalism, and to their
increased marginalization in a world of large-scale agriculture. Why have peasant
farmers often been among the first to protest or rebel against capitalist encroachment?
Chapter eleven will focus on various forms of social protest that
has accompanied the development of capitalist culture, from that of laborers resisting
their conditions of work, to that of women protesting their place in capitalist cultures,
to groups protesting the effects of capitalism on the environment. How has capitalism
created conditions in which people feel compelled to protest and resist?
Chapter twelve will focus on religious protest. Religion has long
been a vehicle for expressing resistance to social and cultural change. We will need to
ask how religion has served as a way to resist or protest the development and spread of
capitalist culture?
Finally, in chapter thirteen we
