Jihad vs. McWorld: How the Planet Is Both Falling Apart and Coming Together and What This Means for Democracy [Hardcover]

Benjamin Barber (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 1995

Barber offers a bold lens through which to understand the chaotic events of the post-Cold War world and, in the tradition of Alvin Toffler's Future Shock and Paul Kennedy's The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, explains the forces at work, why democracy is under siege, and what the consequences are for citizenship.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

As soon as you hear the conceit of this book--that there are two great opposing forces at work in the world today, border-crossing capitalism and splintering factionalism, and that they are the two biggest threats to democracy--you know it rings true enough to be worth reading. Although capitalism could have only grown to current levels in the soil of democracies, Benjamin Barber argues that global capitalism now tends to work against the very concept of citizenship, of people thinking for themselves and with their neighbors. Too often now, how we think is the product of a transnational corporation (increasingly, a media corporation) with headquarters elsewhere. And although self-determination is one of the most fundamental of democratic principles, unchecked it has lead to a tribalism (think Bosnia, think Rwanda) in which virtually no one besides the local power elite gets a fair shake. The antidote, Barber concludes, is to work everywhere to resuscitate the non-governmental, non-business spaces in life--he calls them "civic spaces" (such as the village green, voluntary associations of every sort, churches, community schools)--where true citizenship thrives.

From Publishers Weekly

Expanding on a 1993 article in the Atlantic, Rutgers University political scientist Barber offers a stimulating, tartly written survey of two paradoxical world trends: the looming balkanization of nation-states (Jihad) and the inexorable force of integration by technology (McWorld). The trends are in dialectic, not opposition. In McWorld, Barber notes, national boundaries become less significant in the face of multinational corporations and resource interdependence. World culture, he observes, is driven by the "infotainment telesector," characterized by American advertising, film and MTV. Noting that McWorld can serve Jihad, Barber sketches the rise of nationalism in European democracies, in central Europe's emerging democracies, in Islam and, intriguingly, in the American Christian right. McWorld, he writes, threatens democracy by deadening debate and accepting inequalities, while Jihad threatens democracy by sacrificing tolerance and deliberation. "[T]hey both make war on the sovereign nation-state and thus undermine the nation-state's democratic institutions." Barber believes each culture must build its own institutions of civil society. More wishfully, he suggests that a form of confederalism?not that of the European Union but of pre-1800 Switzerland?might serve to knit both regions and states.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 381 pages
• Publisher: Crown; 1 edition (August 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812923502
• ISBN-13: 978-0812923506
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.7 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (75 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,225,034 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

56 of 64 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is a must-read for the world's citizenry., May 10, 1998

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[e-mail] - See all my reviews

This review is from: Jihad vs. McWorld: How the Planet Is Both Falling Apart and Coming Together and What This Means for Democracy (Hardcover)

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.

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Analysis, Dubious Solutions, June 29, 2003

By 

Travis Rumans (Silver Spring, MD USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Jihad vs. McWorld: Terrorism's Challenge to Democracy (Paperback)

The subtitle of the book is a bit incorrect; it might be more aptly described as terrorism's challenge to capitalism. Barber sees an interdependent human civilization with two emerging powers, the power of global capitalism (McWorld) and reactionary tribalism (Jihad). He correctly sees both of these forces as antidemocratic and indeed anti-nation state. Essentially, the main conflict is between the emerging postmodernity and its critics. Some of what I thought were the most fascinating sections were where Barber describes as "Jihad via McWorld" were motifs of tribalism become sucked into the market machine. He does seem a little bit down on capitalism in general, although he does stress that it works very well within the confines of a democratic nation-state. Barber does seem to lean left, if only because he seems to tackle his discussion of McWorld with much greater energy than his discussion of Jihad (although I concede that may just be my rightward bias).
I think this is superior in many ways to competing explanations that emphasize political culture (such as the Clash of Civilizations) because it stresses economic factors and, more importantly, stresses the interdependence of the modern world. Barber aptly describes how the world becomes more united even as it becomes more divided.
I would give this 5 stars, but I am unsatisfied with Barber's solutions. He's keen on democratizing world institutions, but such institutions have proven to be ineffective against both McWorld and Jihad.
Many reviewers have already pointed out that despite Barber's use of the word "Jihad" his focus is not Islam. In fact, the chapter ostensibly devoted to Islam focuses more on reactionary tribalism in the United States (which is worthy of discussion, but deserves its own chapter). It is disappointing he doesn't deal with the Middle East, not only for the obvious instances of Jihad but also the elites striving to be players in McWorld (notably in Saudi Arabia).

28 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Alarmist but relevant, June 20, 2001

By 

Edward Bosnar - See all my reviews

This review is from: Jihad vs. McWorld: Terrorism's Challenge to Democracy (Paperback)

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.