The End of the Clash of Civilizations and Laissez-Faire

The Clash of Civilizations, published in the 1990s by Samuel Huntington, a political scientist in Harvard who passed away not long before, causes lot of disputes. The Clash of Civilizations was first published as an article in Foreign Affairs Magazine in 1993, and then printed as a book in 1996.

What Huntington stated in his book is not complicated. He thought that with the end of the cold war, the new international tension would be dominated by eight major civilizations -West, Orthodox Church, Latin America, Islam, Chinese Confucianism, Japan, India and Africa. The conflict between the Islam and West is written home about in the Clash of Civilizations. Recently, the supporters of civilization clashes tends to invoke the September 11 attack to strengthen the Huntington’s theory and this produces or enhances some cultural and political effects, among them, the recent farce of the on-board rejection by an American airways to Moslem is a small one while the rationalization of the American forces’ stay in middle east and the air raid by Israel in Gaza a strong one. The opponents pointed that Huntington’s though is careless because it not only disregard the richly indigenous cultures all over the world, but also integrate the Israel culture into western civilization and ignore the vast area where the Buddhism is popular.

Why only conflicts are left for the civilization?

Edward Said, a passed professor in Colombia and the author of Orientalism, and Culture and Imperialism, criticized Huntington for his inattention on the exchange, share and inter-gestation between “civilizations” as he only set his eyes on the conflicts between the “civilizations. Edward wrote in an article titled The Clash of Ignorance that:

“We are all swimming in those waters, Westerners and Muslims and others alike. And since the waters are part of the ocean of history, trying to plow or divide them with barriers is futile. These are tense times, but it is better to think in terms of powerful and powerless communities, the secular politics of reason and ignorance, and universal principles of justice and injustice, than to wander off in search of vast abstractions that may give momentary satisfaction but little self-knowledge or informed analysis. ‘The Clash of Civilizations’ thesis is a gimmick like ‘The War of the Worlds,’ better for reinforcing defensive self-pride than for critical understanding of the bewildering interdependence of our time.”

Turning back to history, it is clear that the exchange, share and inter-gestation between “civilizations” mentioned by Said is not insignificant, and in the so-called “globalization” age that we are now living in, the interpenetration between “civilizations” is ubiquitous. So the question is: how should we understand the clash between “civilizations” Huntington set his eyes only on? And why this judgment that focuses only on civilization clash could receive a strong concern and attention in 1990s? To answer these two questions, it is necessary to put Huntington’s theory into a certain historical context.

Huntington, once worked for the National Security Council of the Carter government in 1977 and 1978, brought forward the clash of civilization theory after the cold war and the collapse of socialist camp in former Soviet and Eastern Europe, which can be seen as a try to look for a new enemy for the U.S. The efforts to set up a new enemy to replace the “evil Soviet Empire” for the U.S., might be actions to continue the rationalization of American’s military expansions and a strategy in diplomacy and politics to take Latin America and East Europe in to counter Middle East and East Asia, so the American political and military hegemonies will continue. For both the Democracy and Republic, Huntington’s theory helps the domestic and diplomatic manipulations of populism politics.

Just like what Ernesto Laclau points out in a book named On Populist Reason (2005), knowing the manipulation of populism, is the key to understand the operation of contemporary politics. The manipulation of populism, as a political logic, relies on a diametrically opposite structure of friend and foe to turn the miscellaneous “people” into a collective with same appeal (and enemy), and build a unity (e.g. ‘western civilization’) that is impossible to reach in reality with an empty signifier as medium.

Borrowing Laclau’s populism idea to analyze Huntington’s “theory”, we might understand more why he just focused on the “conflicts” between “civilizations”. The “threats” from the “civilizations” that build pagan Islam and China is the very stopgap to fill up the blank left by the passed Soviet Communist Party as the “evil enemy”, so a collective identity for the American (even the “west”) “people” is set up, and the equivocal, empty “eight major civilizations” as well as the “clashes” between them are used to bear the various anxieties and appeals that American “people” formed in cold war and social polarization. It is afraid that this is the true cause for the popular Clash of Civilization since 1990.

Reread Keynes and Polanyi

If it is an illusion of trees for forest to use the September 11th attack run by few to “prove” the conflict between Islam and western “civilization”, then this financial tsunami that sweeping the globe seems to be more evident for the damage by laissez-faire. In the last 30 years, the rampant laissez-faire and thereof policies not only produced a serious global polarization but a financial tsunami with deep impact, through these, what is uncovered should be the contradictions of powerful and powerless social groups, of political powers between intellect and ignorance, and of universal principles between justice and injustice, rather than abstractive and equivocal “clash of civilizations”. To understand “the complicated interdependence in this era,” it seems that we have to say good bye to the theory of clash of civilization first, then seriously analyze the historical factors that caused this financial tsunami and review the laissez-faire that dominated this world in the past.

In his book The End of Laissez-faire, written in 1920s, J.M. Keynes warned that history of opinion is the premise of emancipation of mind. So rereading Keynes and Polanyi’s judgments on the rise and fall of laissez-faire between 19 century and early 20 century will help us understand our situation in the financial tsunami.

Keynes pointed out that the concept of laissez-faire that was dominating in 19 century is not from the political economics masters like Adam Smith and Ricardo but from political philosophers, and then it was copied by some secondary economic authorities and copied again by some educational machine before it eventually became a copybook maxim rampant in a time. Laissez-faire was so popular in 19 century, Keynes thought, was because it was a counteraction against the inefficient and greedy governments in 18 century, it got helps from vulgar social Darwinism popular at that time, and it was simple and easy to be understood while its opponent, the protectionism and national socialism, were out of reality.

Coincidently, in his masterpiece The Great Transformation, Polanyi also talked about the rise and fall of the laissez-faire. He pointed out that the laissez-faire and economic liberalism had created a social (including natural, human and monetary) self-protection when they damaged a traditional social and cultural life, and this led to a dead end for the laissez-faire and economic liberalism.

Both Keynes and Polanyi criticized laissez-faire advocators for their chaotic thoughts and unrealistic economic liberalism theory. They actually revealed the empty signifiers of “laissez-faire” and “economic liberation”—no concrete and positive contents but a try to buckle a variety of appeals by “people” that can be really united. Also, the “protectionism” and “socialism” with the same emptiness in contents were just in a right time to become the very good enemy for “people”, and this successfully created a great populism cause that pushed the society toward capitalism. In other words, same as the theory of “clash of civilizations,” the “laissez-faire” that was popular between 19th century and a time 30 years back, clearly illustrated the overrun of populism rather than the penetrating judgments from political scientists or economists.

Economic Depression in 1930s witnessed the fall of “laissez-faire” and “economic liberalism” that dictated the whole 19th century. And following the impact of financial tsunami in 21st century, up-to-date laissez-faire tone is also fading out. Along with the death of Milton Friedman, the advocator of laissez-faire, and the pass away of Huntington, the author of Clash of Civilizations, the Bush government that favored plutocrats and dared warring steps officially down the historical arena and the U.S. eventually got its first black president with the supports from minorities. Whether or not all these changes are predicting that the theories of laissez-faire and clash of civilizations, which provided theoretical basis for the polarization and racial hatred/discrimination, are formally pacing to a termination?