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tortion at the hands of nobles and kings, but helped liberate the wider
populace from their malevolent control through their contribution to the
development of bills of exchange31 and obliterating the shackles on com-
merce imposed by prohibitions on interest:
. . . and through this means commerce could elude violence, and
maintain itself everywhere; for the richest trader had only invisi-
ble wealth which could be sent everywhere without leaving any
trace. . . . In this manner we owe . . . to the avarice of rulers the
establishment of a contrivance which somehow lifts commerce
right out of their grip. Since that time, the rulers have been com-
pelled to govern with greater wisdom than they themselves might
have intended; for, owing to these events, the great and sudden
arbitrary actions of the sovereign have been proven to be ineffec-
tive and . . . experience itself has made known that only good
government brings prosperity.32
But as globalization has its discontents, celebrated in Stiglitz s post World
Bank confessional,33 the Enlightenment most surely had its own. Perhaps
none of these encapsulated the rejection of Enlightenment and cameralist
cultural values as robustly as Justus Möser (1720 1794). A central political
and intellectual figure in the 125,000-inhabitant west German town of Os-
nabrück, Möser condemned the growing German commercial culture and
foreign trade that were undermining the traditional guild-based modes of
46 THE ANTI-PHILOSOPHY OF ANTI-GLOBALISM
production and the rigid and hierarchical social and political structures
in which they were embedded. He despised itinerant peddlers, eigh-
teenth-century agents of globalization, for spreading foreign ideas, creat-
ing new wants, and undermining  the good morals 34 of rural peoples.
Möser scoffed at the notion that law could be derived from simple princi-
ples, and eloquently argued that capitulating to demands for universal law
would  depart from the true plan of nature, which reveals its wealth
through its multiplicity, and would clear the path to despotism, which
seeks to coerce all according to a few rules and so loses the richness that
comes from variety. 35
A century after Möser wrote, conservative writers in imperial Germany
continued to express the same fears, only writ larger the fears  that the
German soul would be destroyed by  Americanization [ Amerikanisierung,
in late nineteenth-century German writing], that is by mammonism,
materialism, mechanization and the mass society. 36 And today, two cen-
turies after Möser wrote, Naomi Klein, in a remarkable exhibition of
plus ça change, plus c est la meme chose, declares that  market-driven glob-
alization doesn t want diversity; quite the opposite. Its enemies are na-
tional habits, local brands and distinctive regional tastes. Fewer interests
control ever more of the landscape. 37 Similarly, William Greider decries
 commerce . . . disturbing ancient cultures with startling elements of
modernity. 38
Justus Möser passionately defended the illiberal and inegalitarian val-
ues of his native Osnabrück serfdom; discrimination against illegiti-
mate offspring; protection of artisans against importing shopkeepers and
peddlers; an indelible bond between ownership of land, which could not
be sold, and political power applying the touchstones of Enlighten-
ment thinking, happiness and utility, to argue against Enlightenment val-
ues. As Stiglitz s hero-discontents rail against local culinary tastes being
sullied by McDonald s, Möser similarly condemned the supplanting of
indigenous tastes by international ones. The market, for Möser, created
wants that disrupted custom and expectations, and thereby undermined
respect for the traditional social order. It was the very duty of those such
as himself, who wielded political power in the public interest, to protect
the people against the terrible temptation to acquire what they clearly did
not need.
THE ANTI-PHILOSOPHY OF ANTI-GLOBALISM 47
Whereas Möser s social and political values will be an affront to most
modern readers, it is important to recognize that the values being de-
fended against globalization today by developing country rulers are rarely
those which Western supporters of such  sovereign rights would ever
wish to live under. We, and we include Professor Stiglitz in  we, take it
for granted that the market should and will bring us foods, gadgets, fash-
ion, music, art, literature, and lingo from foreign shores. Lowbrow and
high. Yet defenders of sovereignty in developing countries are all too fre-
quently seeking to keep these out specifically to sustain politically congen-
ial barriers to social change, abetted by widespread local ignorance of
alternative ways of life. Their agendas are backed by Western supporters of
cultural  diversity who, paradoxically, oppose the increase in diversity
within countries that naturally arises from the growth of trade with for-
eigners. Tyler Cowen trenchantly chastises the desire of rich Westerners
for poorer societies to serve as  diversity slaves, allowing the former, as
 collectors and museum-goers, to enjoy more of the latter s cultural
products by denying them diversity of choice.39
Stiglitz s claim that in the cultural realm  contrary to Adam Smith s
claims, especially in this arena, individual choices may not lead to socially
desirable outcomes, 40 proffered in his case against globalization advo-
cates, is an open invitation to authoritarianism. It is, not surprisingly,
heartily endorsed by Chinese state censors. As one such official explained
to Reuters after banning a popular weekly journal, the intervention was
necessitated by an article that had  severely hurt the national feelings of
the Chinese people, creating malicious social consequences. 41
 When politicians complain that globalization is changing society, they [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]