Market Hegemony

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    Reviewof InternationaloliticalEconomy :1Spring1999:27-54

    Contesting the hegemony of marketideology: Gramsci's 'good sense' andPolanyi's 'double movement'Vicki Birchfield

    Department of Political ScienceUniversity of Georgia

    ABSTRACTThis articleargues that the most fundamentalchallenge of globalization(both as a concept and as a sociopolitical process) lies in our need toreassess its bearing on the meaning and potential of democraticpraxis.My purpose then is firstto offera critiqueof neoliberalglobalization romthe vantage point of democratic heory, exposinghow this formof marketideology is inherently antitheticalto democraticprinciples. The secondpartof the articleshows how two central hemesin the thoughtof AntonioGramsciand KarlPolanyi may be usefully combined to producea forcefulcounter-hegemonicmodel to contest the depoliticization,atomizationandcommodification endemic to neoliberal globalization. Whereas Polanyidemonstrated he repercussionsof such domination in the economic livesof people, Gramsci was concerned to show the political dominationthat necessarily precipitated t. I argue that Polanyi's critiqueof the self-regulating market and his discernment of society's 'double movement',when bridgedto Gramsci's heoryof ideological hegemony and his notionof 'good sense', supply vital componentsof a criticaltheorizationof glob-alization as well as practical strategies of resistance to the anti-politicsof market ideology. Ultimately, I submit that this criticalintegrationofPolanyi and Gramsci into the globalization debates produces a muchneeded analytic strategy which maintains a primacyon politicalagency,critically pecifies he national-internationalistinction,and makesa method-ologicalvirtueof radicaldemocraticheory.

    KEYWORDSGlobalization;democratic theory; hegemony; market ideology; 'goodsense'; 'double movement'.

    ? 1999Routledge0969-2290 lR

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    REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMYINTRODUCTION: DEMOCRACY ANDGLOBAL CAPITALISM

    The goals of this articleare twofold. First,I wish to problematizeglobali-zation from the vantage point of democratictheory and, in so doing,expose what I see as its most paralysingconsequence- the hegemonyof market ideology. Second, I propose a frameworkcomprised of twokey theoretical constructs in the work of Antonio Gramsci and KarlPolanyi that I believe offers a powerful contestation of marketideology(orneoliberalglobalization)and formsthe foundation of a much neededcritical and holistic theorization of internationalpolitical economy. Ofcourse, the marriageof these thinkers is by no means a blissful one, norare the ideological divisions between the two entirely unproblematic.However, the advantageof opening up a criticaldialogue between thetwo far exceeds the disadvantage of pairing two otherwise very intel-lectually distinct thinkers.And, unlike other scholars, such as RobertCox and StephenGill,' who have recentlydrawn attentionto the pointsof contact between Gramsciand Polanyi, I illustrate that it is preciselythe differentemphasesof each authorthat makecombiningtheirinsightsso fruitful.

    Any discussion of globalization would be incomplete without anexploration nto the evolving nature of the relationshipbetween democ-racy and capitalism. In fact, I submit that the most fundamentalchallenge of globalization (both as a concept and as a sociopoliticalprocess) lies in our need to reassess its bearing on the meaning andpotential of democraticpraxis. Yet, as David Held has pointed out,neither democratictheory nor the various approachesin internationalrelations theoryoffera satisfactory ramework or rethinkingdemocracyin the global context. The author contends - and I concur- that 'therecannot be an account of the moderndemocraticstateany longer withoutan examinationof the global system and there cannot be an examina-tion of the global system without an account of the democratic state'(1995b: 27). This observation is reminiscent of that made by PeterGourevitch almost two decades ago in his seminal article 'The secondimage reversed', wherein he states that the interrelationshipbetweeninternationalrelations and domestic politics is so important that 'theyshould be analyzed simultaneously as wholes' (1978: 911). Thus, therenewed interest in integratingcomparative politics and internationalrelations- stemming largely from the globalizationdebates- is just that:renewed, not novel.2Held's inclusion of the term 'democratic',however, is distinctive andpoints to what I believe could serve as an empirical and normativeconnector between these two fields of inquiry, which might, in turn,generate fresh perspectives and new theoretical and explanatory

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    BIRCHFIELD:CONTESTING THE HEGEMONY OF MARKETIDEOLOGYstrategies for understanding and explaining the processes and conse-quences of increasing globalization. Assessing the relations betweencapitalism and democracy in the light of globalizationis rendered allthe morepertinentby the recognitionthatexistingwithin a single worldeconomyarediverse models of capitalistpoliticaleconomies,underlyingwhich are competing visions of democracy.3Cognizanceof this diver-sity serves to challenge the myths and exaggerations as well as thethreats and possibilities of globalization. Therefore,no approach tounderstanding the global economy can afford to ignore the valuablecontributions that comparative political economists have made indemonstratingthat capitalismis not a monolithic structurebut ratherone taking on differentqualities in diverse domestic settings reflectingimportant historical and cultural particularities.Likewise, students ofcomparativepolitics must be ever more attuned to the exigencies of theworld economy. I hope to demonstrate why and howinserting democ-ratictheoryat the intersectionof comparativeand internationalpoliticaleconomy provides a framework apposite to the task of studying thelatest phase of the globalizing political economy.The following section is devoted to the why aspect, as it offers acritique of the dominance of neoliberal globalization and its repre-sentation as coterminous with democratization.The motivation forformulatingsuch a position, as I intimatedabove, stems from the needto problematizethe hegemony of the neoliberaldiscourse of globaliza-tion and to expose how this form of market ideology is inherentlyantithetical to democratic principles. The second half of the articleshows howtwo centralthemes in the thought of Antonio Gramsci andKarlPolanyi may be usefully combined to produce a forcefulcounter-hegemonic model to contest the depoliticization, atomization andcommodification of human life endemic to neoliberalglobalization.Inthe Conclusion, I suggest that a critical integration of Polanyi andGramsci nto the globalizationdebates in this mannerproduces a muchneeded analytic strategy which maintainsa primacyon politicalagency,critically pecifieshenational-internationalistinction, nd makes method-ologicalvirtueof radicaldemocraticheory.4 earching out the affinities oftwo great thinkersgoes beyond mere intellectualcuriosityhere:I hopeto demonstrate that Polanyi'scritique of the self-regulatingmarketandhis discernment of society's 'double movement', when linked toGramsci's heoryof ideologicalhegemony andhis notion of 'good sense',supply vital componentsof a critical heorizationof globalizationas wellas practicalstrategiesof resistance o the anti-politicsof market deology.But, first, we must begin by examining more carefullywhat it is thatneeds to be resisted.5Below I examine neoliberal economic globaliza-tion from the perspective of democratictheory.It is importantto pointout that what I wish to critiqueis not the marketeconomy perse, but

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    REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMYrather market ideology and its tendency to paralyse or delegitimatepolitical thinking as a gateway to democratic action.To reiterate,if we have learned anything from comparativepoliticaleconomy, it is that the market economy is not a uniform structure;rather, its heterogeneity can be understood as historicallyconditionedvariations in state-society relations. Moreover, this is why developedcapitalistdemocraciesexhibit differentsizes and forms of welfare statesand contendingmodels of state-market relations.6Theneoliberalmodeland its attendant free market ideology belie this complex reality. AsStephen Gill points out, the political project behind the rhetoricconstitutesan attemptto 'maketransnational iberalism,and if possibleliberal democraticcapitalism, the sole model for future development'(1995:412). Thus, it is important first to expose the implications of thismodel in order to constructa more compelling contestationof it.

    NEOLIBERAL GLOBALIZATION AS MARKETIDEOLOGY: A CRITIQUE

    By now there is a ratherunwieldy literatureofferinga wide variety ofconceptualizations,empirical analyses and theoretical interpretationsof the processes of globalization.Despite this diversity, it is possibleto distil a more or less encompassing definition of what is meant byglobalization.According to Louise Amoore et al., most scholars agree'that globalization encompasses a broad range of material and non-material aspects of production, distribution, management, finance,information and communicationstechnologies, and capital accumula-tion' (1997:181). This inclusive and rathernon-committalperspectiveserves to convey the far-reachingnature of globalization;most of thescholarlywork could be categorizedaccordingto: (1) which processesreceive the central focus; (2) whether or not authors depict globaliza-tion as somethingqualitativelynew and/or inexorable;and (3) whetherit is conceived as a relatively uncertain,positive or negative phase inhuman development and world order.Such varied positions highlight the epistemologicalramificationsandnormativechallenges of the largerglobalizationdebate that areof centralconcern in this article.The approachI take derives from my view ofglobalizationas a dialecticalprocess.7 This entails rejecting the notionthat globalization is an external phenomenon that one may observeobjectively,recognizingourselves as implicatedin and inseparable rom'the world out there',and focusing on the contradictionsextant in anygiven historical moment - not merely for critique,but in order to dispelthe myth of inexorable orcesand therebytheorize and actualizeprogres-sive change.I agreewith RobertCox (1996:66) that this mode of thinkingis employed 'as much to arouse consciousnessand the will to act as to

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    BIRCHFIELD:CONTESTING THE HEGEMONY OF MARKET IDEOLOGYdiagnose the condition of the world'. A practicaldefinition of global-ization will clarify the relevance of this perspective in grounding thefollowing critique. To this end, Held's conceptualization s useful:

    globalization can be taken to denote the stretchingand deepeningof social relationsand institutions acrossspace and time such that,on the one hand, day-to-day activities are increasinglyinfluencedby events happening on the other side of the globe, and on theother, the practicesand decisions of local groups or communitiescan have significant global reverberations. (1995b:20)Such an interpretationmakes the implicationsfor democraticpoliticsquite clear as new forms of power are being created and exercised inways that undermine traditional notions of legitimate authority andaccountabilityas being tied to the territoriallybound state. A tensionemerges, however, from the asymmetrical possession and exercise ofthis new power by what some scholarshave termed the 'transnationalcapital class' (Gill, 1990;Pijl, 1997) or, in otherwords, the relativelyfewwho benefit most from the deregulation of world financial and labourmarkets and increasing trade liberalization.Dani Rodrick put it quite

    cogently: 'globalizationis exposing a deep fault line between groupswho have the skills and mobilityto flourishin global marketsand thosewho either don't have these advantages or perceive the expansion ofunregulated markets as inimical to social stability and deeply heldnorms' (1997:2).Despite such enormous power imbalances,the triumphalist ethos ofmarket ideology seems to prevail. As Gill put it, 'the present worldorder involves a more "liberalized"and commodified set of historicalstructures,driven by the restructuringof capitaland a political shift tothe right. This process involves the spatial expansion and social deep-ening of economic liberaldefinitionsof social purpose and possessivelyindividualist patterns of action and politics' (1995: 399). While I agreewith the authorthat this emerging 'marketcivilization' is contradictoryor even 'oxymoronic', I do not think the ideological dimension hasbeen adequately exposed or problematized in the recent literature.Consequently,I believe its contestationcan be most propitiously wagedon its own terms - that is, by subjectingmarket ideology to the coreconcepts of democratictheory.When marketlogic is applied to more and more areasof human life,as is the case with neoliberal globalization, what essentially results isan increasingsublimation of politics and detachmentfrom social reality.The dominant assumption that human nature and behaviour can becharacterizedas economizing, maximizing utility to secure self-interest,gains acceptanceas an inviolable truth. One result of this is a loss of

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    REVIEWOF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMYan appreciationof other values that are completelydevoid of economicrationale, such as respect, tolerance and social growth - or a deepeningof communityas opposed to merely its spatial expansion.And now, aswe seem to be moving into an era where the marketbecomes a chiefrallying cry (and the key metaphor for world dis/order) and is assertedas the best guarantorof freedom,it is incumbent upon democratic heo-rists and citizens to take stock of its repercussionsfor the democraticexperiment.Those who insist that there is no democracywithout a freemarket need to be reminded that the two forms of human organizationare not entirely interchangeableand do not necessarily coexist peace-fully. As EarlShorrisargues:

    Politicaldemocracy s a relation among humanbeings who controlthemselves. Marketdemocracy is a competition in which peopletry to control each other ... this one is a misnomer, for the controlof one human being by another,no matter how subtle the means,is no democracy. (Shorris,1994:137)When the market mechanism - a method of organizationor socialcoordinationdesigned to render more efficient the exchange of goods

    and services - is associated with a fundamental democraticvalue -liberty8 one necessarilypresupposesa narrow and materialistic oncep-tion of both freedom and the aims of democracyitself. HannahArendtcaptured this effect as she observed, 'the development of commercialsociety ... with the triumphalvictoryof exchangevalue over use value,first introduced the principle of interchangeability, hen the relativiza-tion, and finallythe devaluationof all values' (quotedin ibid.:253).Thiseffectively subordinates actors to rules.For the marketmechanism to function, certainrules must be estab-lished. Privateproperty must be guaranteed and incentives to competefor scarceresourcesareencouragedand describedas natural.Communalvalues and cooperation are not nurtured,because that would under-mine the role of scarcity, which is the idea underpinning the wholesystem. This is one way it weakens the prospects for democracy. Bygiving primacyto rules and, more importantly,veneratingand reifyingproperty to such an extent that it acquires the status of personhood, itexcludes other potential ordering principles of society and diminishesthe importanceof social values, which are vital to democraticpartici-pation and decision making. It should be noted that the hegemony ofthe market is achieved by its representation as an uncontroversialmetaphor for a society at liberty to do with property what it pleaseswithout interference from the state. In the context of globalization,this becomes increasingly convenient for capital as the state mayabdicate its formerresponsibilitiesof regulationand provision of social

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    BIRCHFIELD:CONTESTING THE HEGEMONY OF MARKETIDEOLOGYwelfare by claiming global competitionand marketforces dictate suchaction.It is a rather commonplaceidea that our system is based upon IsaiahBerlin's(1968) negativefreedom'.It is hegemonicfromthe point of viewthat the basic rules of the game, i.e. privilege and protectionof privateproperty and capital above all else, are not seriously contested.Moreover, the market paradigm of human life is entrenched philo-sophically by placing the individual (but primarily the individual asutility-maximizingeconomicagent)at the centre andpositingthe marketas the best and truest terrainof freedom. Yet, if we subjectthis logic todemocratic principles, a major lacuna emerges. First, asserting themarket as the ultimate realm of freedom ignores the possibility thatfreedom is exercised in ways other than producing and consuming.9Furthermore,f we recognizewith Rousseauthat 'rulesmake actorsandactors makerules',we realizethatby privilegingeconomicsoverpolitics,rules have come to dominateand the market process dictatesto societyinstead of the other way round. Marketlogic gives legitimacy to sucha process because freedom is primarilyconceptualized in the privatesphere.This issue raises the deeperproblemof the relationshipbetween capi-talism (which requires supposedly 'free markets')and democracy.Anoverview of the argumentmade by Bowles and Gintis (1986)regardingthis relationship s helpful here in elicitingthe incompatibilityof marketideology with the aims and principlesof democracy.For these authors,the relationshipbetween democracyand capitalism is an uneasy one,as the economic system has as an imperativethe privilegingof a certainset of rights over others. Bowles and Gintisforcefullyarticulate he ideathat the liberal democraticmodel - and what they referto as 'capitalistgovernance' - necessitate that property rights prevail over personalrights.They proceed to critiqueboth liberaland Marxistpoliticaltheoryand propose a theoreticaland practicalagenda for expanding the scopeof both liberty and individual choice, but in a frameworkconsonantwith the notion of popular sovereignty. This comes close to whatI referred to earlier as 'making a methodologicalvirtue of democratictheory'. In other words, the principles of democracymust be broughtto bear on the questionsposed by political economists;in fact, I wouldgo as far as to say that politicaleconomy and democratictheory shouldbe seen as inseparableforms of intellectualinquiry.10What is useful in their argumentfor the development of this critiqueof market ideology is the recognition that both liberal and Marxisttheories have too unitary a conception of power, which ignores thefundamentally political nature of economic life and under-theorizesthe role of the state.11 n other words, in a mannerstrikinglysimilartoKarlPolanyi (1944),they argue that although the economy is a site of

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    REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMYsocial conflict,the underlyingsources of tension are inherentlypolitical.Again, in referenceto the three elementsof a critical heorizationof IPE,this is an example of what is meantby putting the primacyon the polit-ical. Themasking or denial of the deliberatelypoliticalmanoeuvresvitalto the maintenanceof a marketeconomy is what constitutes the essenceof market deology. Whetheror not 'market ogic' is hegemonicdependson how widespread the view is that the marketfunctionsaccordingtoinexorable laws (which incidentally effectively subordinates politicsto less consequential areas of social relations). Given the dominantdiscourse of neoliberalglobalization,Iwould arguethat the marketethosis ascending into hegemonic status.It is worth rememberingthat it is the capitalist wage relation thatnecessitates the conceptual separationof economicsand politics, respec-tively, into privateand publicspheresof activity,which in turnbecomesthe definingfeature of the liberalstate.12The main thrust of the argumentpresented by Bowles and Gintis is that the democratic experimentinvolves the enlargement of popular sovereignty and liberty, but theprocess has been inhibited as capitalism and the liberal creed haveproduced a collision course between two fundamental rights:propertyrights and personal rights. The clash of these rights facilitatedwhat theauthors refer to as an 'institutional modus vivendi' of the two forces,which entaileda series of accommodations fromLockeanto Keynesian)attemptingto resolve the contradictory ogic of capitalismwhile 'simul-taneouslypromoting the processof economicgrowthand containingtheexplosive potential of coexistence of economic privilege and represen-tative political institutions'(Bowles and Gintis, 1986: 34).The above quote contains a very significantinsight into the ambigu-ities involved when relating the market to freedom and democracy,particularlyas it must be sustained in light of increasingglobalization.The economic privilege the authors referto is the status liberal theorygrantsto the capitalisteconomy as a private realm of property. Bowlesand Gintis argue that this is an untenableposition, as a sphere cannotbe considered private if it involves the 'socially consequentialexerciseof power' (ibid.:66-7).13 would add that the whole notion of privilegehinges on this vital segmentation of public and private. For instance,the privatestatus grantedto corporations,despite their enormoussocialpower, effectively removes from political discourse a whole host ofissues thatfromthe democraticperspectiveshould be subjected o publicdebate- not the least of which is the wage laboursystem and the asym-metries between the power of labour and the power of capital. Incountries where free market ideology is not so pervasive, values suchas social justice and worker democracy are a more frequent part ofdiscourse (e.g. Germany,France,the Nordic countries). Yet, as capitalis becoming more mobile and globalized, thereis an even greaterthreat

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    BIRCHFIELD: CONTESTING THE HEGEMONY OF MARKETIDEOLOGYto the idea and practice of social democracy- which at its root has aconception of justice which derides this false separationof economicsand politics - and this is precisely why democratic theorizing mustencompassnon-territorialnotions of popular sovereigntyand solidarityas well as contest the false separationof economics and politics.In some ways praxis is ahead of theory, as we see more and moretransnational ocial forcesagitatingat the global level.14Unless we chal-lenge currentprivate/public distinctions and revive the Habermasiannotion of the public sphere, capital and markets will continue todominate discourse and thus severely delimit social power.15Bowlesand Gintis contributeto this projectby remindingus that 'the capitalisteconomy cannot be judged to be private simply by virtue of theprominent role played by markets' and by prescribing institutionalmechanisms that promote what Hannah Arendt called 'new publicspaces for freedom'(Bowlesand Gintis,1986:2045).16 This is especiallychallenging,however, in the context of the global political economy.Globalcapitalismrenders the dualities of public/private and politics/economics all the more problematic,as nationalgovernmentsmay nowjustifydisengagementsof social welfarecommitments n the paradoxicalterms of preservingnationalsovereignty in an increasingly interdepen-dent world. For example, note the following argument by WolfgangStreeckregardingthe EuropeanUnion:

    Nationalpoliticalsystems embeddedin a competitiveinternationalmarket and exposed to supranationallyungovernedexternaleffectsof competing systems are tempted to protect their formal sover-eignty by devolving responsibilityfor the economy to the 'market'- using what has remained of theirpublic powers of interventionto limit, as it were constitutionally,the claims politics can makeon the economy, and citizens on the polity. ... If citizens can bepersuaded that economic outcomes are, and better be, the resultof 'marketforces',and thatnationalgovernmentsare, therefore,nolonger to be held responsible for the economy, national domesticsovereignty and political legitimacy can be maintained even inconditions of tight economicinterdependence:with the nation-statehaving offloaded its responsibility for its economy to the 'worldmarket', its own insufficiency and obsolescence in relation to thelatter ceases to be visible. (Streeck,1996:307-8)If indeed 'persuading citizens' is effected, then the hegemony ofmarket ideology will be achieved. The significant point is that this isindeed a crucialideological struggle.And, from the dialecticalperspec-tive, it must be emphasized that this period of shifting social relationsis historicallyroducedndpoliticallyontestable.hus, forthose concerned

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    REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICALECONOMYwith contesting the anti-democraticimpulses of an atomized, anti-political global market society, we must propose counter-hegemonicstrategiesof rectifyinga public sphere,where power can be made morevisible and therefore subjected to accountability.To be successful,thesestrategiesmust be omnipresentand take multiple forms in the political,cultural and intellectual realms. In other words, as BarryGills urges,'we must make concretestrategiesand concepts of "resistance" entralto our analyses of globalization'(1997: 11).As this critique of market deology has tried to illustrate,resistancetothe market as the key metaphorand organizingprincipleof our globalsociety requiresboth a rejectionof the market model of society that isgrounded in democratictheory and a recognition that the hegemonicbattle of neoliberal globalizationis - at this stage - primarilyon theterrainof ideology. These two points draw our attention to two keythinkerswhose work (especiallywhen combined) representsa powerfulmodel forunderstandingand explainingthe tensionsin and possibilitiesfor the global political economy. Thus, what follows is a selective pre-sentationof some of the central deas in the writingsof KarlPolanyiandAntonio Gramsci that I believe shed light on contemporaryproblemsfacing the world community and which also elucidate the criticalelementsneeded for constructinga theorythatbridges comparativeandinternationalpolitical economy- that is, offersa trulyholistic approach.

    TOWARDS A RADICAL DEMOCRATIC THEORY FORTHE GLOBAL EPOCH: APPLYING POLANYIAND GRAMSCIOne of the strongest non-Marxistcritiquesof market society was thatofferedby KarlPolanyi writing in the wake of the Second WorldWar.17Challenging Adam Smith and the assumptions of eighteenth-centurypoliticaleconomy, Polanyi argued that the establishmentof laissez-faireeconomics required tate intervention and that market society did notemerge naturallyas a result of man's propensity to 'truck, barterandexchange',nor was marketexpansionimpersonalor inevitable.He notes:'the road to the freemarketwas opened and kept open by an enormousincrease in continuous, centrally organized and controlled interven-tionism. Tomake Adam Smith's"simpleand natural iberty"compatiblewith the needs of a human society was a most complicated affair'(Polanyi,1957:140).The fundamental legacy of Polanyi's work and its relevance to thisarticle is the author's introductionof the idea that the 'self-regulatingmarket'was largely a myth as it requireddeliberatepolitical action topave the way for such an approachto economic organization. Thoughhe wrote from the perspectiveof an economic historian, his account of

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    BIRCHFIELD:CONTESTING THE HEGEMONY OF MARKET IDEOLOGYthe emergence of market society entailed astute, if subtle, politicalanalysis as opposed to understanding t as a strictlyeconomic phenom-enon. Applying Polanyi's perspective to the present situationof globalcapitalism and the neoliberal project,we gain insights into how theprocess of global marketizationunfolds and in what ways it suppressesother importantsocietal values that seem centralto the life of a demo-cratic society - both domestic and international.Two specific places in Polanyi's writing where he grasped the anti-thetical nature of markets and popular sovereignty are his excursuson the rise of the 'self-regulatingmarket' and his account of society's'double movement'. In the former, Polanyi distinguishes the movetowards free marketsor self-regulatingmarketsfrompreviouseconomicsystems and emphasizes thatnever beforehad marketsbeen more thanaccessoriesof economic life, where 'as a rule, the economic system wasabsorbed in the social system', but in contrast the marketeconomy isone in which markets alone direct the production and distributionofgoods' (ibid.: 68). The following excerpt underlines the assumptionsof this system and identifies what Polanyi saw as a harbingerof itsnegative consequencesfor social and moral life.

    An economy of this kind derives from the expectationthat humanbeings behave in such a way as to achievemaximum money gains.It assumes marketsin which supply of goods (includingservices)available at a definite price will equal the demand at that price.... Under these assumptions order in production and distributionof goods is ensured by prices alone. ... Nothing must be allowedto inhibitthe formationof markets,nor must incomesbe permittedto be formed otherwise than through sales. ... Neither price, norsupply, nor demand must be fixed or regulated;only such policiesand measures are in order which help ensure the self-regulationof the marketby creatingconditions which make he marketheonlyorganizingpower n the economicphere. (ibid.: 68-9)WhatPolanyi was driving at here and throughouthis book were themythic proportionsof the assumption of human nature and behaviourunderlyingthe market economy and its centralityto the 'disembedding'of the economy fromsocial relations and institutionswhere values other

    thanprofithad previouslyprevailed.The author structureshis argumentaround an analysis and critique of the commodificationof land, labourand money, which he decries as an artificialprocess producing 'ficti-tious commodities', the consequences of which subordinate thesubstanceof society to the mechanism of the market.The implicationsof this system for democracy are woven throughouthis analysis but are most emphaticallyrelayed in his discussion of the37

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    REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICALECONOMYdouble movement, which he empiricallysubstantiateswith his accountof the Chartist movement. A focal point of his account is the constitu-tional separationof economics and politics and the observationthat thiswas essentially designed to 'separatepeople frompower over their owneconomic life' (ibid.: 225). The Chartistpetition that the disinheritedbeallowed to access the state unleashed the potentialof politicalpower -although their demands were rejectedby the House of Lords in thename of 'the institution of property on which all civilization rested'(ibid.). The key theoreticalinsight Polanyi impartedin his story of theChartistsis summed up in the following passage.

    The Chartistshad fought for the rightto stop the mill of the marketwhich ground the lives of the people. But the people were grantedrights only when the awful adjustmenthad been made. Insideandoutside EnglandfromMacaulayto Mises, fromSpencerto Sumner,there was not a militantliberalwho did not expresshis convictionthat popular democracywas a danger to capitalism. (ibid.: 226)Thus, consistent with my critique of market ideology, Polanyi illus-tratedthat it is the tendencyof marketeconomics to insist that all other

    rights and values be subordinated to the sacral realm of property,andthat it is only through humanity's struggle to protect itself againstthe vagaries of the marketthat civilization is rescued and the realityofsociety rehabilitated.One scholarin a recentanalysis of Polanyi'sworksummed up the moral and social ramifications of the transition tolaissez-faire economics as a shift from Gemeinschafto Gesellschafthat'entailed a loss of a certain vital human quality [replaced with an]atomized society in which the interdependency of individuals was notmediated through political, social, or religious institutionsbut via themarket and contract' (Booth, 1994: 656-7).18Neoliberalglobalizationmight be seen as anothergrand-scaleattemptat laissez-faireeconomicsthatmore thananything else demonstrates hepower of marketideology: why else would its disastrousconsequencesbe risked again? This question is precisely why Polanyi's exposition of'the self-regulatingmarket'as a dangerous myth is so critically nstruc-tive at this moment in history. But Polanyi did more than offer thiscritical interpretationof the fallacies and travesties associated withlaissez-faireeconomics. He also implicitlyplanted the seed of a radicaldemocratictheory that I think is aptly summed up in his idea of the'double movement'.Polanyi's concept of the 'double movement' refers to society's'inevitableself-protectionagainst the commodificationof life' (Mendelland Salee, 1991:xiii). Polanyi writes: 'For a century the dynamics ofmodern society was governed by a double movement: the market

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    BIRCHFIELD:CONTESTING THE HEGEMONY OF MARKETIDEOLOGYexpanded continuously but this movement was met by a counter-movement checkingthe expansionin definite directions'(Polanyi,1957:130).He argued that there were basically two organizing principles insociety at work simultaneously.On the one hand, there was economicliberalism 'aiming at the establishment of a self-regulating market,relying on the support of the tradingclasses and using largely laissez-faire and free trade as its methods', and on the other there was 'socialprotection aiming at the conservation of man and nature as well asproductive organization,relying on the support of those most immedi-ately affected by the deleterious action of the market- primarily,butnot exclusively, the working and the landed classes' (ibid.: 132).The discernment of the double movement intimates how Polanyi'sideas could be employed to invigorate political economy with demo-cratictheory. This is useful not for theoreticalpurposes alone, but alsobecause, as Polanyi has shown, it is the natural, spontaneous responseof individuals and collective society to preserve not only their ownautonomy but their very existence by trying to shape their destinythrougha more democraticallycontrolled, socially embedded economy.Such a view also resonateswith the thesis of Bowles and Gintisthat therights necessary to make capitalismwork and those required to fulfildemocratic deals are often in directconflict. Thus, the most dire conse-quence of the hegemony of marketideology would be that the need tomake market forces conform to principles of democracyis supplantedby a norm that delegitimates political demands that are construed asinfringing on the functioning of the market.StephenGill has invoked Polanyi's'doublemovement' as a metaphorfor the 'sociopolitical forces which wish to assert more democraticcontrol over political life' (Gill, 1995b:67). While in spirit I agree withthis characterization,what I have shown is that Polanyi's account of theChartist movement should be read as something more tangible than ametaphor; t is in fact an explicitly political response to the other partof the double movement - that of economic liberalismand the myriadvoices in service to capital. And, in contrast to the way Gill has put it,perhapsthe emphasisshould be on elucidating ways of assertingdemo-cratic control over economic life. Or the dubious distinction betweeneconomic and political life could simply be dismissed. In this contextPolanyi's model (undergirdedby a broad and rather ambiguous defin-ition of society, hence his underdeveloped sense of agency) is usefullycomplemented by Gramsci'swork.As one scholar astutely observed: Gramsci's ontribution o the notionof civil society was to recognize, for the political dimension, whatPolanyi recognized for the economic:that civil society itself could notsurvive without its own forms of regulation' (Smith, 1994: 14). This isprecisely why adjoining Gramsci's theory of ideological hegemony

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    REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY(which also containswhat I interpretas a theoryof agency)to Polanyi'scritique of 'marketutopia' is so valuable.Though Polanyi laboured to reveal the deliberatelypoliticalnatureofeconomic organization,his main concern was to present the economyas a necessarily embedded social structure,not to articulatea politicaltheory or fully specify the role of agency. Mitchell Bernard refersto these ambiguities generally as 'the problem of agency in Polanyi'shistory' - one aspect of which is a 'technological determinism' (1997:81-2). If there is a technologicaldeterminism(andBernardsuggests thisis how Polanyi explains 'fictitious commodities' (ibid.: 80-1)), I wouldsuggest this is a consequenceof Polanyi's supposed rejectionof Marxianhistorical materialism. Since Marx elaborated the original argumentabout 'the fetishism of commodities' in the opening pages of Capital,Polanyi, perhaps rather than acknowledging his intellectual debt toMarx, distinguisheshis view by treatingcommodificationas a functionof technological change ratherthan (and independent of) the mode ofproduction. This again raises an important issue as to whether it ispossible to reconcilethe non-Marxismof Polanyi with the Marxism ofGramsci. One response is that both thinkerswere concernedwith andcritical of economic determinism and both were radicallycommitted tothe democratic construction of a socialist society. Perhaps if Polanyicould have read Gramsci's Problemsof Marxism'(1971)he would havebeen able to acknowledge his own debt to Marx's ideas rather thandisavowing it because of their horrendous distortionin Stalinist Russia.Moreover,as I hope to show below, merging the insights of these twothinkers is far more productive than reading either author singly ordwelling on the divisions they have in their respective relationships toMarxism.

    Gramsci's conceptualization of the relation between structure andagency, articulatedthroughhis theory of hegemony, provides a deeperunderstanding of the formation and nature of counter-movements(as well as their failure to materialize). Thus, I propose that linkingPolanyi's account of 'market utopia' to Gramsci's more sophisticatedconceptualizationof power and state-society relations will supply amore encompassing conceptual framework for a holistic, critical theoryof globalization.The goal of the following appropriationof Gramsci'spolitical theory,then, is to show how his conceptual schemas of ideological hegemonyand civil society are interrelated and why the two constructs serve asboth theoretical and practical tools for contesting market ideology andits latest incarnation- neoliberal globalization. My interpretation ofGramsci'sradicaldemocratictheory is rooted in the appreciationof hisconviction that 'tutta avita e politica',which alreadyestablishesa strongaffinity with Polanyi. This theme woven throughout his writings

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    BIRCHFIELD:CONTESTING THE HEGEMONY OF MARKET IDEOLOGYstrengthensthe claim of this article that economicorganization s politi-cally motivated and thereforelegitimately contestable in a democraticsociety.

    I argue that Gramsci'svision of civil society is unique in that, unlikeboth liberalism and orthodox Marxism, he described civil society asinherently public, which explains in part his theory of hegemonicpolitics.This public conceptionof civil society will be clarifiedbelow inan effort to illuminate the manner in which ideological hegemony isboth constitutedand contested.In a very compellingand encompassing reassessmentof the legacy ofAntonio Gramsci,Dante Germino portrays the thinker above all else(linguist, philosopher, activist, theatre critic, provincial Sardinian,founder of the Italian Communist Party) as an 'architect of a newpolitics'. The passage below sums up Germino's very insightfulsummaryof Gramsci's ife work.One could say Gramsciaccomplisheda Copernicanrevolution inpolitics by giving the world of political and social relationshipsanew sun. What had previously been described as 'marginal'terri-tory - the everyday lives of the impoverished and the illiteratemajorityof humankind- becomes for Gramscithe center aroundwhich the politicalworld evolves. The whole human world of lan-guage, art, iterature,philosophy,and- yes - architecture s enlistedby Gramsci n the task of overcomingthe oppressive state appara-tus, togetherwith its supporting societal caste,whose raisond'etrehas been to perpetuatethe distinction between the powerful andprestigious few at the expense of the powerless and despised many.(Germino,1990:263)Gramscisaw society as comprisedof a smallbut dominantcentreanda large body of 'emarginati' marginalizedpeople at society's peripherywho are never allowed to penetratethe traditionalpower structure.Thatvision laid the foundation for his 'politics of inclusion' (his formulationof the 'philosophy of praxis' or Marxistpolitical theory) which had asits primary goal the erosion of the boundaries dividing the centre andthe periphery.In the PrisonNotebooks e observes:The cornerstoneof politics and of any collective action whatsoeveris that there are governors and governed, leaders and led. All theart and science of politics is based on this primordial, irreduciblefact, obtaining in general conditions ... the new politics concernsitself with how to attenuate this fact and make it disappear.(quoted in Germino,1990:243)19These excerpts serve as a springboard from which to examineGramsci'sconceptsof hegemony and civil society.As mentioned above,

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    REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMYGramsci depicts civil society as constituted in the public sphere, incontrastto liberalism'sassignmentof civil society to the private realm.Civil society is the site of both domination and consent, conceptswhichGramsci sometimes uses interchangeably depending on whether herefers to old politics or his hope for a new politics where active consentreigns rather than ideological domination exercised through folklore,religious myth, ignorance,contradictory onsciousness,etc. For Gramsci,society is held together by hegemony rooted in civil society.20Thecomplex interplaybetween these two constructs is what distinguisheshis theorization from reductionistMarxism.Gramsci dismissed the rigid separation of base and superstructureand began to describe domination as something congealed in thesuperstructure the cultural, ntellectualand moralrealm - as opposedto the economic base. He effectively introduced human agency and atheory of consciousness here while also retaining the penetratingMarxiancritique of the historicity of social relations embodied in themode of production.Provoking part of Gramsci'squery was the lack of proletarianrevolu-tion in the west. As he began to rethinkand challengeeconomisticandreductionist conceptualizationsof the state,he realized consentwas theonly path towards revolution.21 He went beyond Marx'sunderstandingof civil societyand falseconsciousnesswith his realization hat therewasa meshing of base and superstructure n which a whole social stratumoperated to maintain the system. Two importantsections of his prisonwritingsdetail his analysisof thisphenomenon.First,his chapteron intel-lectuals describesthe relationshipbetween intellectualgroups in societyand the forces of productionas one in which intellectualsappearto serveas deputies of the dominantgroup 'exercisingthe subalternfunctions ofsocial hegemony and politicalgovernment' (Gramsci,1971:12-13).The second point of reference is his section on the state and civilsociety, from which I extracta paragraphcontaining one of his mostfamous sentences:

    We are still on the terrain of the identificationof the State andgovernment- an identificationwhich is preciselya representationof the economic-corporate orm, in other words of the confusionbetween civil society and political society. For it should beremarkedthat the generalnotion of State includes elements whichneed to be referredback to the notion of civil society (in the sensethat one might say State= political society + civil society, in otherwords, hegemony protectedby the armour of coercion.(ibid.: 262-3)This lends support for my claim that he placed civil society in thepublic realm. For Gramsci hegemony functioned in the public sphere

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    BIRCHFIELD:CONTESTING THE HEGEMONY OF MARKETIDEOLOGYnot only throughindirect politicalsupport but throughdepictions of lifein art, in literatureand even in private relations of dominationin thepatriarchal amily structure.WalterAdamson describes this Gramscianconception of civil society as follows: 'By civil society ... I mean thepublic space between large-scale bureaucraticstructures of state andeconomy on the one hand, and the privatesphereof family,friendships,personalityand intimacyon the other' (1987:320).KaiNielson remarksthat for Gramsci, n contrastto Hegel and Marx,'the conflictsof civil society are centrally political' (1995:46). Gramsci'sreflections on Machiavelli reinforce this assertion and provide someclues for overcomingthe problemof hegemony without active consent.In 'The modem prince' Gramsci revealed a deep appreciation ofMachiavelli's insights into the nature of politics and power andattempteda systematicanalysis of The Princeto draw a parallel to therole of the modem mass party. What impressed Gramsci about ThePrincewas the fact that it was what he dubbed a 'live work, in whichpolitical ideology and political science are fused in the dramatic formof a myth' (1971:125).22Although his analysis engaged many aspectsof Machiavelli'sthought, he drew out most powerfully the capacityoftheoretical abstraction and symbolism in representing the notionof 'collective will' and tapping into popular consciousness.In a sense, Gramscicriticallyread Machiavelli'sPrinceas a kind of'politicalmanifesto'.In a subsequententryin his Notebookse continuedto grapple with how the modem prince or the CommunistParty couldtransform society without deception or force. A key strategy andperhaps the clearest example of what Gramsci'spolitics of inclusionwould resemble is contained in the following statement:

    [the modem prince or the revolutionaryparty] is head of a newtype of state which is not exclusive. Rather, t exercises the hege-monic function in civil society. ... It is not possible to create aconstitutional aw of the traditional ype on the basis of this reality,which is in continuous movement; it is only possible to create asystem of principlesassertingthat the state's goal is its own end,its own disappearance, n other words, the reabsorptionf politicalsociety nto civil society. (quoted in Germino,1990:225)Although there is a common threadhere with the classical Marxiannotion of the 'withering away of the state' it must be understood asdistinct from it. In contrast,Gramscirailed against the notion of perma-nence or an end point to politics, and instead envisioned politics asan open-ended, continuously transformativeprocess through whichthought and action become unified. Mark Rupert adds that Gramsci'spolitical objectiveis to:

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    REVIEWOF INTERNATIONAL POLITICALECONOMYtranscendthe division of capitalist society into rulers and ruled,dominant classes and subalterngroups, state and society. Whilesuch a struggle - eventuating in a 'regulated society', thatis, socialism - will necessarily entail the transformation of thecapitalisteconomy, it is neitherdeterminedby 'causes'originatingin that economy, nor are its implications limited to economicchanges. Gramsci's radical politics envisions a comprehensivetransformationof social reality through the effective creation of acounter-culture,an alternativeworld-view and new form of polit-ical organizationin whose participatoryand consensual practicesthat world-view is concretelyrealized. (Rupert,1995:28)To understandhow Gramsci houghtthis processcould actuallycometo fruition,we need to examine more carefullyhis complexformulationof hegemony and, in particular,how ideological hegemony was posi-tively construed.23The positive construction of ideological hegemonyderived from Gramsci's appreciation of the fact that this type ofhegemony was an integral part of politics that is necessary for thefunctioningand stability of any regime. The critical question was whatthe hegemony was actually based on - active or passive consent. Hebelieved, for example, that the bourgeois revolution was hegemonicallyunsuccessful in Italy, thus paving the way for the Fascists, who, inreturn,were not (positively)hegemonic because they relied on forceandimprisoned opponents of the regime (see Gramsci,1971:263).Positive hegemony relies on widespread popular consent derivingfrom a philosophical world-view, for Gramsci preferably that of thephilosophy of praxis, a non-economisticMarxism where 'good sense'reigns over 'common sense', and thus where force, or what he called

    the 'armourof coercion',of the statewas unnecessary.Hence,it is essen-tial to recallhow Gramsciunderstoodideology as underlyingor guidingindividual and collective action. He clearly breaks with hard struc-turalismin 'The study of philosophy', where, I believe, he articulatesastrong individualist-based conception of the role of ideas and theircollectiveexpressionas 'commonsense', which is usually a fragmentaryand uncriticalconceptionof the world.24Showinghis trueradicalismandbelief in the abilityof commonpeopleto be self-determining,Gramsciseems to show here that emancipationmust begin in the ideationalrealm. He notes that it must be shown thatall 'men are philosophers', but what is necessary is to make thisconscious, criticalactivity.25He asks whether it is not

    better to work out consciouslyand criticallyone's own conceptionof the world and thus, in connectionwith the labours of one's ownbrain, choose one's sphere of activity, take an active part in the44

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    BIRCHFIELD: CONTESTING THE HEGEMONY OF MARKETIDEOLOGYcreation of the history of the world, be one's own guide, refusingto accept passively and supinely from outside the moulding ofone's personality.

    (Gramsci,1971:323-4)Ideological hegemony comes into play when there is uncontestedcommon sense, despite the internal contradictionsof any such singleconception of the world which serves the dominant few to the detri-ment of the marginalized many.Yet, as I claim above, Gramscirealized that hegemony was a neces-saryfact of collectivepolitical life; thus,he also conceptualizeda positiveor ethical hegemony.26His idea of 'good sense' is centralhere and isintimately related to his belief in radicaldemocracy.First,Gramscinotesthat 'philosophy is criticism and the superseding of religion and"commonsense". In this sense it coincides with "good"as opposed to"common sense"' (ibid.: 326). Later in this same selection Gramscidefines 'good sense' as 'a conception of the world with an ethic thatconformsto its structure'(ibid.: 346). I believe this is a key location ofGramsci's dialectical understandingof the relation between base andsuperstructure. Furthermore, I think it essentially boils down toGramsci's reformulationof Marx's idea that the point of philosophyshould no longer be to interpretthe world but to change it, and thatthis philosophy or 'good sense' had to be widespread in the everydaylives of individuals in all facets of life if any genuine change were totranspire.The problem of change then hinges on how entrenched ideology orpopular common sense is in terms of its consistencywith the structuralrequisites of society. Market ideology is the necessary corollary toneoliberaleconomic globalization,without which the structuralrequire-ments of increased capital mobility, wage depression, flexible modes ofproductionand accumulation,etc. could not be justifiedand permitted.So 'free markets' has to be the talk of the town in every corner of theglobe. Thus, a contestationof neoliberalismmust begin by a dereifica-tion of the market which would demonstrate the fundamentally socialand, therefore, public nature of economic relations. This reinforces thecontradiction of the liberal depiction of civil society as private and,througha Gramscian nterpretation,t reveals that its depoliticization sideologically necessary to maintain the current structural status quo.Hence, it is vital that the notion of hegemony be seen as constituted incivil society if Gramsci'spolitical theory is to be properly understoodand related to his vision of radicaldemocracy.The problem arises presently, however, in terms of moving fromGramsci'sconceptionof civil society as specific to a national context toone that may need to be expressed and theorized internationally.27 his

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    REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMYproblem directs our attention to the hitherto unaddressed 'interna-tional-national distinction' which I have suggested is an essentialelement of a more useful analytical and theoretical model for under-standing globalization. Below I will briefly identify how this distinctionwas addressed by Gramsci and Polanyi - reinforcing the idea thatcollapsing the distinction of comparative and internationalpoliticaleconomy is integral to a critical theorization of globalization.Both Gramsci and Polanyi had an organic conception of society andwere concemed with how an internationaleconomy and internationalrelations impinged on the 'organic rationality' (Polanyi)or sparked an'organic crisis' (Gramsci)within domestic society. Polanyi devotes hisopening chapterof TheGreatTransformationo an analysis of the inter-national system and draws a complex picture of the workings of thefour key institutions of nineteenth-centurycivilization: the balance ofpower; the internationalgold standard;the self-regulatingmarket;andthe liberalstate. But, of these institutions, Polanyi shows how the mythof the self-regulatingmarket was most disastrous. As shown above,Polanyi thought the spread of the market system had been arrestedthrough its encounter with a 'protective counter-movementtendingtowardits restriction .. such an assumption, indeed, underliesour ownthesis of the double movement' (1957:144). Although the author focusesexclusivelyon English societywhen he describesthis doublemovement,as one commentatorobserves, Polanyi perhaps foreshadowed a neces-sary double movement that transcended national boundaries.

    This nationalisation of politics and markets produces a furtherparadoxical development. The new state becomes embedded in astructureof internationaleconomic competitionand retreatsfrominternal regulation, surrenderingthe principle of ordering socialrelations and distributing resources to the market.(Glasman,1994:61)In a similarvein, Gramsci,as IPEtheoristsusing his work well know,stated that international relations follow rather than precede funda-mental social relations. But a more interesting and often neglectedextension of this idea is Gramsci'sinsight contained in the followingpassage:accordingto the philosophy of praxis (as it manifests itself politi-cally) ... the international situtation should be considered in itsnational aspect. In reality, the internal relations of any nation arethe result of a combination which is 'original' and (in a certainsense) unique: these relations must be understood and conceivedin their originality and uniquenessif one wishes to dominatethemand direct them. To be sure, this line of development is toward

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    BIRCHFIELD:CONTESTING THE HEGEMONY OF MARKETIDEOLOGYinternationalism,but the point of departure is 'national'- and itis from this point of departure that one must begin. Yet theperspective is internationaland cannotbe otherwise.

    (Gramsci,1971:240)Mark Rupert rearticulatesthis dialectical view of the international-national connection as 'second order alienation',which he defines as the'mutual estrangement of political communities which are themselvesconstructedwithin relationsof alienation'(Rupert,1995:33). This rein-forces Gourevitch'spoint that the distinctionbetween comparativeandinternational political inquiry is a rather dubious one. Both Polanyiand Gramsci, despite their narrow concerns for specific national situa-tions, avoid this errorby embracinga holistic view of the expansionarylogic of capitalism in order to clarify the root source of domination.WhereasPolanyidemonstratedthe repercussionsof such dominationinthe economiclives of people, Gramsciwas concernedto show the politi-cal domination that necessarily precipitated it, and neither authorignored the extent to which international-national onnectionscould bemanoeuvred by powerful private forces to undermine popular sover-eignty. I believe such a combinationof insights from these two thinkersserves as a solid foundation for formulatinga radical democratic heoryfor the global epoch.

    CONCLUSIONThe primaryaim of this article has been to demonstratethat ideologicalhegemony, as currently manifested through neoliberalism'schampion-ing of market society, has damaging consequences for democraticpraxis, whether at the local, national, regional or global level. Thegreatest risk is that the market metaphor (for conceptualizing worldorder and for organizing social life) sublimates politics. It debilitatespoliticaldiscourseby maintaining the outmoded distinctions of public/private, politics/economics and national/international. Yet, politics isthe vehicle of public deliberationwhereby genuine social compromisesmay be reachedand those forces beyond the direct control of ordinarycitizens may at least be contested and made accountable. If marketideology prevails, the very ideals of democracy are put into jeopardyas the mythic ideal of the free market trumps the real potential ofpolitics. Thejoint legacy of Polanyi and Gramsci s their common inter-rogationof this phenomenon- albeit from differentvantage points anddistinctive intellectualbackgrounds.As I contended at the outset of this article, a critical integrationofGramsciand Polanyi into the globalizationdebates yields an analyticstrategy which maintains a primacy on political agency, specifies the

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    REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMYnational-internationaldistinctionand makes a methodologicalvirtue ofradical democratictheory. I hope the synthesis I have presented hereserves to persuade readers that, despite the differences between thesetwo thinkers,their majorideas certainlyembody these three elementswhich should also serve to inform a more holistic approachto under-standinginternationalpolitical economy.Further, ogetherthese authorssupply the vital components of a counter-hegemonicmodel whichcontests neoliberalglobalization.To summarize,what is essential is a thoroughgoing critique of themarket model of society which reveals it for what it is - a commodifi-cationof all aspects of social life in which the rights of property prevailover fundamentalpersonal rights- and a theoryof ideology and changewhich enables individuals to theorizeresistanceto this model and actu-alize progressivechange. Polanyi challengedthe assumptionsof marketideology and the market model of society by showing that its segmen-tation of public and private life, its simplistic, ahistorical portrayal ofhumannature,and its illusion of economicsas private activity only maskunderlying privilege and domination.Gramsci showed that the neces-sarily complex but identifiableprocess of hegemony is what seals theendurance of the ideological power exercised by certain social groupsover others;thus, a pivotal point of transformation ies in the realm ofpopular belief. When read jointly in this manner, Polanyi and Gramscipack a powerful punch in terms of determiningwhat is real and whatis myth in the globalization ballyhoo.Gramsci's'good sense' might be seen as the guiding thought behindthe action of the progressive side of the 'double movement'.Obviouslyboth elements are necessary to erode the prevailing hegemony bya socially conscious, intellectual and moral subversion of marketideology's false depiction of human life under consumer- and market-oriented capitalism. Thus, if one is concerned that the hegemony ofmarket society forebodes deleterious social consequences in its privi-leging of capital over people, a rereadingof Gramsci and Polanyi is agood startingpoint forpointingout how the marketperipheralizes argesectionsof humanityand producessystematic inequalitiesthathandicapand underminedemocracy tself. Sucha reading would serve to demys-tify the underlying power asymmetriesof market triumphalismand toreawaken the public and political spirit of civil society in both its globaland its local dimensions.

    NOTES1 See, for example, both authors'contributions o B. Hettne's edited volumeentitled International oliticalEconomy:Understanding lobalDisorder 1995).Here we find two leading Gramscian IPE scholars discussing Polanyi's

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    BIRCHFIELD:CONTESTING THE HEGEMONY OF MARKET IDEOLOGYconcept of the 'double movement', and though both acknowledge thatGramsciand Polanyishare certain ntellectualaffinities,neitheris concernedwith drawingout how each thinker offersan importantconceptual comple-ment to the other. This is the primary objectiveof the second part of thisarticle.2 For a sampling of the recent and burgeoning literature on what GabrielAlmond (1989)referred o as the 'international-national onnection',see thecollectedvolumes of Bergerand Dore,NationalDiversity ndGlobalCapitalism(1996);Boyer and Drache, StatesAgainstMarkets 1996);and Keohane andMilner,Internationalizationnd DomesticPolitics 1996).For review articles ofa number of others see John Kurt Jacobsen's'Are all politics domestic?Perspectives on the integrationof comparativepolitics and internationalrelations theories', Comparative olitics 29 (1) (1996): 93-113; Wil Hout's'Globalizationand the quest for govemance', Mershon nternationaltudiesReview41 (1997):99-106;W. Rand Smith's'International conomy and statestrategies',Comparativeolitics(April 1993):351-71;and James Caporaso's'Across the greatdivide: integratingcomparativeand internationalpolitics',International tudiesQuarterly) 1 (1997):563-92.3 This idea is captured quite nicely in Michel Albert's Capitalismeontrecapitalisme1991).It is worth noting the similarityof Albert'sargumentof'capitalismas threat'in spite of its victory over communismto that of thelater published article by George Soros, 'Thecapitalist threat' (1997).4 I believe these three elements constitute a necessary and effective responseto the challengesand potentialitiesof the currentphase of structural rans-formationhighlighted throughoutthe collected volume edited by Gill andMittelman (1997) entitled Innovationand Transformationn InternationalStudies.Indeed, it seems to me that theoretical nnovation in InternationalStudies must begin by recognizingthe imperativeof these factors orlookingtowards a 'more democraticand just world order'.5 For a collection of similarly concerned academicwritings on this topic, seethe special issue of New PoliticalEconomy (1) (1997) entitled Globalisationand the Politicsof Resistance.6 David Harvey's conceptualizationof this problem is useful here. In TheCondition f Postmodernitye argues:

    The tension between the fixity (and hence stability)that state regu-lationimposes, and the fluidmotion of capitalflow, remainsa crucialproblem for the social and politicalorganizationof capitalism.Thisdifficultyis modified by the way in which the state stands itself tobe disciplined by internal forces (upon which it relies for power)and external conditions - competition in the world economy,exchangerates, and capital movements,migration, or, on occasion,direct political interventions on the part of superior powers. Therelationbetween capitalistdevelopment and the state has to be seen,therefore,as mutually determiningratherthan unidirectional.(1989:109)The various homogenization or 'convergence' theses within the globaliza-tion debates seem to suggest that it is only what Harvey refers to here asthe 'externalconditions'that are eroding state power. It is ironicthat thesearguments emanate from a tradition that was formerly critical of Marxistapproachesfor economic determinism.7 For a broader discussion of the dialectics of globalization see AnthonyGiddens's The Consequencesf Modernity(1990), especially p. 64. Also,

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    REVIEWOF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMYI direct interested readers to the special section, 'On dialectic and IR theory',of Millennium: ournal f Internationaltudies2(2) (1997).8 See for example the writings of Friedrich A. von Hayek, The Road to Serfdom(London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1944); Milton Friedman, CapitalismandFreedom (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1962); and Milton and RoseFriedman, Free to Choose;a Personal Statement (Harmondsworth, Penguin,1980).9 Fredric Jameson suggests 'the affirmation of "the primacy of production"offers the most effective and powerful way of defamiliarizing and demys-tifying ideologies of the market itself and consumption-oriented models ofcapitalism. As a vision of capitalism, then, the affirmation of the primacyof the market is sheer ideology' (1991: 211; see also ch. 8).10 Space here does not permit more than a presentation of the kernel of thisidea; the perspective is more fully elaborated in a chapter of my disserta-tion entitled 'Political economy as applied democratic theory' (University ofGeorgia).11 The authors argue that while liberalism reduces social action to mere meanstowards an end, Marxism denies the relevance of instrumentality andthereby the role of individual choice (Bowles and Gintis, 1986: 19). This isessentially why they argue that neither tradition is an adequate approachto democratic theory. The primary objective of the former is liberty, and ofthe latter equality or classlessness. What Bowles and Gintis seek to constructis both a post-liberal and post-Marxist agenda which acknowledges thatindividual action and social structure are mutually determining. I believewhat these authors are aiming for is something that the whole of Gramsci'sthinking actually achieved. Augelli and Murphy seem to grasp this in theirappropriation of Gramsci for their 1988 work entitled America's Quest forSupremacyand the Third World;see their introduction and especially pp. 4-6where they claim that 'Gramsci's ideas help bridge the gap between Marxistand liberal social science'.12 Mark Rupert reconstructs this crucial element in Marx's thinking (and whatI believe is the core of a Marxian political theory) in order to present a 'radi-calized social ontology' as the basis for critical IPE (1995: 16-31).13 Bowles and Gintis define a socially consequential action as one that 'bothsubstantively affects the lives of others and the character of which reflectsthe will and interests of the actor' (1986: 67).14 For example, in recent years UN conferences have been confronted with acompeting, alternative NGO forum held simultaneously and from whichhave emanated statements challenging governments and publics to movebeyond the rhetoric and empty diplomacy and implement concrete measuresfor tackling problems ranging from sustainable development to familyplanning. Also 'The Other Economic Summit', a counterpart to the G7'sannual meetings composed of radical economists and representatives ofdeveloping nations, presents a challenge to the elitism and undemocraticnature of these high-level meetings in which major economic policies arediscussed.15 By Habermasian I am referring to his argument in The StructuralTransformationf the Public Sphere: n Inquiry nto a Category f BourgeoisSociety, trans. Thomas Berger (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1989), origi-nally published in 1962.16 It should be noted that the authors are concerned with structures other thanthe capitalist economy. They deal quite extensively with other sites of power

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    BIRCHFIELD:CONTESTING THE HEGEMONY OF MARKET IDEOLOGYwhich escape accountability such as the patriarchal family. See specificallych. 4.17 His most important work detailing the rise of market society and its conse-quences for the social fabric of humankind is The Great Transformation:hePolitical and Economic Origin of Our Times (Boston: Beacon, 1957; originallypublished in 1944).18 Another current recapitulation of Polanyi's ideas is Lie (1993: 275-305)19 This passage is from the original Quaderni del Carcere, ed. ValentinoGerratana, 4 vols (Turin, 1975), p. 1752 and translated by Germino.20 Germino notes that civil society and hegemony are indices of the constel-lation of social forces and quotes from Gramsci: 'Civil society is the politicaland cultural hegemony of a social group over the entire society' (Quadernidel Carcere,p. 703, Germino, 1971: 256).21 As Christine Buci-Glucksmann points out in 'Hegemony and consent: apolitical strategy' (in Anne Showstack Sassoon's Approaches o Gramsci(1982))it is critical to note that for Gramsci consent can be either passive and indirector active and direct. In representative bourgeois democracies it is generallythe former; the latter requires a real and active interchange between therulers and ruled. The author characterizes the implications of this complexdefinition as firmly establishing Gramsci as an anti-totalitarian thinker,'designating a point of no return for political reflection: no democratic tran-sition without an "anti-passive revolution", the expansion of active consent'(p. 126).22 For a more detailed discussion of the way myth fits into Gramsci's overallpolitical theory and its sometimes less than fully self-conscious use in criticalIR theory, see Augelli and Murphy's 'Consciousness, myth and collectiveaction: Gramsci, Sorel and the ethical state' in Gill and Mittelman (1997:25-38).23 Gramsci's complex schema of hegemony has produced a vast array of inter-pretations and misrepresentations in the scholarly literature. Those who donot recognize Gramsci's positive usage of the concept are usually guilty ofa limited reading or a manipulative appropriation of the concept to suittheir own agendas (i.e. Perry Anderson (1977); Althusser (1969)). For acritique of this representation as well as a good overview of Gramsci'sdifferent constructions of the concept of hegemony, see Bocock (1986).24 An example of this uncritical or fragmentary form of popular common senseis the reactionary protectionism or anti-globalism of the American right wing(e.g. as espoused by Pat Buchanan). Mark Rupert characterizes this visionas one that 'entails a challenge to corporate power, but it implicitly constructsthis challenge from within the bounds of capitalism's structural separationof politics and economics' (see his chapter entitled 'Globalisation andcontested common sense in the United States' in Gill and Mittelman, 1997:151). I see my interpretation of Gramsci's theorization of common sense asthe terrain of ideological struggle as consistent with Rupert's exposition.Although Rupert does not specifically address what Gramsci's vision of'good sense' entailed, as I do below, I believe his depiction of a left-progressive position that explicitly politicizes the global economy isexemplary.25 This issue of course raises a host of questions as to how this shift is to comeabout and whether it smacks of elitism. Ever the holistic thinker, though,Gramsci provided answers in his elaboration of the role of the party, theorganic intellectual and the historic bloc. One of the great challenges in

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    REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMYapplying Gramscistems from this amazinginterconnectednessof his ideas,despite the fragmentaryand incomplete presentationof them in his prisonwritings. It is beyond the scope of this articleto commentmore extensivelyon this matter, so I will instead refer the reader to a very illuminatingpassage in Gramsci's section on 'Problems of Marxism' where I think heexonerates himself of any potentialcharges of elitism or 'top-down' totali-tarian implications. See particularly his 'Passage from knowing tounderstandingand to feeling and vice versa from feeling to understandingand to knowing' where he calls for an 'organiccohesion'between intellec-tuals and 'people-nation', in which feeling-passionbecomes understandingand thence knowledge (not mechanically but in a way that is alive)'(pp. 418-19).26 For a more in-depth discussion of Gramsci'sdifferentusages of ideology,see the PrisonNotebooks1971:375 -7) and Augelli and Murphy'sexposition(1988:13-34).27 See Kenny and Germain (1997) for a discussion of the interpretativeproblemsassociatedwith this issue as well as references o the largerdebatesabout the various applicationsof Gramsci'snotion of civil society.

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