How Globalization Undermined The Case For Western Values

“Go into the Exchange in London, that place more venerable than many a court, and you will see representatives of all the nations assembled there for the profit of mankind. There the Jew, the Mahometan, and the Christian deal with one another as if they were of the same religion, and reserve the name of infidel for those who go bankrupt.” — Voltaire (1734)

The words expressed by Voltaire above have been the modus operandi of so-called neo-liberal economics since at least the 1980s. In the Cold War era, free markets and free societies were thought to be indissolubly bounded. Voltaire is perhaps most famous for advocating religious toleration, but here he speaks of economic toleration as a universal good; the unimpeded pursuit of profit, be it with Jews, Muslims, or Christians, was to Voltaire a sign of economic enlightenment and societal harmony. In Wealth of Nations (1776), Adam Smith would similarly argue against the guilds and state monopolies of trade that dominated the mercantile colonial trading policies of state capitalism. The British and the Dutch East India Companies, for instance, monopolized the trade in spices with Southeast Asia; competition was simply not allowed. In this context, allowing for free trade was indeed enlightened. Instead of blessing from government—the privileged redoubt of an oligarchic few–competition and innovation would drive commerce. And what does our globalized economy look like today, but the picture painted by Voltaire of economic mulitculturalism? Saudi oil sheikhs with penthouses in London, Chinese firms investing in America and vice-versa. Profit and market-capitalization truly is the religion of the world!