Zakaria and Marx

The more I read Zakaria more I think he is essentially a Marxist without Marx's moral framework.  In other words, he looks at the world the same way that Karl Marx and Frederich Engels did but where they saw injustice and unfairness, Fareed Zakaria sees a wonderful new world in which all the world's people are eventually going to be happy middle class consumers living in modern -- though not Western -- liberal democracies.

I support this view with the following evidence:  Both Marx and Zakaria see the "rise of the West" as happening when the European nations went out and created a market in the Atlantic World.  But where Marx says that this is a step in the oppression of workers because the market is now larger and therefore social relations are reduced to economic relations (you're sister is not married to the butcher anymore), Zakaria sees this as the first wonderful step.  "Europe's naval expeditions...energize[ed] it. (p.51). 

Similarly, both see technology as a prime mover, a thing that shapes the world, but Marx sees its negative impacts whereas Zakaria only sees it as a wonderul thing.  The steam engine and mechanized factory enslaved men for Marx; the clock "freed man" for Zakaria (p.56).

What is so sad about this is that Zakaria should know better: 1492 wasn't the start of some wonderful first step in the rise of the West thanks to its cultural superiority over an inward looking China; 1492 was the first step in the European nation's enslaving 12 million Africans, decimating the culture of West Africa; 1492 was the first step in deforesting the Americas, rendering Caribbean islands ecological deserts; 1492 was the first step in the colonization of people's around the globe, transferring their capital -- biological, social, material capital -- to the nations of Europe.

That this system has now been globalized as the Washington Consensus, Neo-liberalism, etc., should not make us thrilled.  (On Neoliberalism, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism#Post-1970s_economic_liberalism.

Instead, it should worry us because we now have no intellectual diversity in our approach to economics, justice, society, and culture.  I don't need to show that there is something inherently wrong in the neoliberal agenda of Zakaria -- though the fact that his "critique" supports the status quo with only small changes at the margins in tone and education spending.  I only need to show that diversity is a good thing.  To do that I would point to nature and say that biological diversity is a sign of ecosystem health, that cultural diversity is a sign of cultural and social health, and that intellectual flexibility is a sign of mental health.  Thus, when we see the whole world marching to one and only one drummer, I worry that there is something we are missing.  It could be we are missing a pending ecological disaster (Global Warming is a mere footnote to Zakaria) or it could be that we are missing a pending cultural disaster (according to the World Health Organization, mental depression will be the second leading cause of disease burden worldwide by 2020, followed by traffic crashes; see, http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/publications/road_traffic/world_report/summary_en_rev.pdf p.2 Table 12.

I'm not saying Marx was right and Zakaria is wrong precisely.  I'm only saying that Zakaria's cheerleading for the status quo and the relative paucity of real alternative voices of the kind Marx represents is worrisome.  Are you worried?