Globalization. George Ritzer

rule are very different from the long-lasting democracies in the West. Furthermore, the nitty-gritty of the way democracy works on a day-to-day basis is wildly different from one part of the world to another. There are also non-Western areas of the world – most notably China – that have been able to resist democratization totally and remain totalitarian. Finally, even electoral democracies vary greatly in how well they represent the broader population. For example, while the US is a democracy, there is much empirical evidence that shows it is largely dominated by wealthy elites (Domhoff 2013). Examples like this have led some critics to question to what degree such a form of democracy should be exported throughout the world.

      Similarly, the market economies of the West are seemingly triumphant throughout much of the non-Western world, but the ways in which those markets function elsewhere differs greatly from one location to another. In the West in general (although there is great variation within the West, as well) the market is typically quite open and free (hence the term the “free market”), but in other parts of the world such a market is partly or greatly circumscribed. The best example is China in the early twenty-first century which in some cases has an open market, but in others the market is dominated by state-run enterprises and/or controlled by the state.

Westernization goes beyond politics and economics to include a wide variety of other exports to the rest of the world including its technologies, languages (English as the lingua franca [see Figure 3.2 for map showing significant use of “Global English” in the world today] in much of the world; French is still spoken in many places in the world), law (this is especially important in Hardt and Negri’s view of the origin of the Empire’s “constitution” in the West, especially the US Constitution), lifestyle (the centrality of consumption), food (the global proliferation of Western-style fast food), and so on. Some of the latter is associated more specifically with the US and therefore with Americanization, but before we deal with the latter we will discuss a process with the same magnitude as Westernization, at least in terms of point of global origin, “Easternization.”

Figure 3.2 Global English. Places where English has one or more of the following roles: as the national or as an official language, as a language in which more than 50% of the general population has fluency, as the lingua franca of government, higher education, and commerce in plural societies, and as an outpost dating from colonial times. Source: Data from English Speaking Countries 2020. Retrieved from: http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/english-speaking-countries/.

      However, we close this section with three broad criticisms of Westernization. First, globalization is much more complex than the one-way flow implied by Westernization. Instead, it must be understood “as a process of mutual, if uneven, infiltration: with West permeating the rest and vice versa” (Inda and Rosaldo 2008: 24). Second, Westernization implies homogenization, that the rest of the world comes to resemble the West, but globalization involves both homogenization and heterogenization. Finally, Westernization “neglects those circuits of culture that circumvent the West – those which serve primarily to link the countries of the periphery with one another” (Inda and Rosaldo 2008: 25). Thus, for example, for Taiwan, the links with China and Japan may be far more important than those with the West. The growth of other power centers (such as the East, especially China) leads to the view that “there is not just one global cultural power center but a plurality of them, even if the West stands out among these” (Inda and Rosaldo 2008: 29).

EASTERNIZATION

      Globalization is often equated to a large extent with Westernization, and more specifically with Americanization. However, this is clearly a very narrow view of globalization that ignores all sorts of processes (e.g. the role of regional powers such as Japan and increasingly China in East Asia). Among the many things that it ignores are many counter-flows and one that is of particular interest is what Colin Campbell (2007, 2012) has recently called Easternization, especially the “Easternization of the West.” While this process will be discussed here from the point of view of globalization, it is important to point out that the Easternization of the West has, in Campbell’s view, far more to do with factors internal to the West than it does with flows from the East. In that sense, it is very different from Westernization which has more to do with flows from the Western parts of the world. Nonetheless, Campbell does accord some importance to the flow of various influences from the East to the West. In other words, Easternization is, at least to some degree, another process that can be differentiated from, but related to, globalization.

      It is probably the case that most Westerners would not think of Easternization as a major influence on their lives. The most obvious influence is undoubtedly the presence and popularity of various ethnic restaurants and cuisine in the West – most importantly Chinese, Thai, Indian, and Japanese food and restaurants. But Campbell points to a wide array of other phenomena that are Eastern in origin and that are increasingly visible in the West. Among them are yoga, a “Zen” outlook on life, various beliefs (e.g. reincarnation), vegetarianism, I Ching, Tarot, Runes, and so on. Then there is the impact of Eastern music and musical instruments on the change in the music of the Beatles in the 1960s as well as the Beatles’ growing interest in the East in general and Eastern spirituality in particular.

While Campbell does not discuss this, we could also add the powerful impact of Eastern manufacturers on the American market, especially the market for automobiles (Toyota, Nissan, and Honda from Japan and now Hyundai from Korea – with the likelihood of a growing impact from the newly rising Chinese auto industry) and electronics (Sony and Panasonic, in particular). It could be argued that Eastern manufacturers are not exporting “Eastern” products to the West (there is nothing “Eastern” about automobiles or video recorders; they were Western inventions), but they have made distinctive innovations in production that greatly enhanced their ability to compete successfully in the West. For example, Toyota introduced the Japanese focus on the collectivity into the production process by, for example, developing “quality control groups” (Ritzer 2001: 230–1). These are groups of workers that discuss the production processes and their work routines, weaknesses in them, and ways of improving them. Meritorious ideas are accepted by management and used to improve the production process. The result is not only improved production processes, but also heightened morale as employees see their ideas taken seriously. By “Easternizing” the production of automobiles (and many other things) in this and many other ways (e.g. the ringi system of collective decision-making), Toyota (and the other major Japanese manufacturers) was able to catch up with, and vault ahead of, the Western, especially American, manufacturers and capture a major portion of the American (and European) market. They also can be said to have Easternized American manufacturing techniques since when the American companies realized what was happening, they sought to adapt by incorporating many Japanese techniques. For example, some tried to utilize versions of quality circles.

      Easternization can extend further into areas that readers might not immediately consider. For example, despite the tremendous financial investments in the West, some major health innovations have come from under-resourced areas of the East. In India and Nepal, community ophthalmology professionals pioneered a new eye surgery to address blindness (Williams 2018). Developed through a process of social entrepreneurship (rather than the for-profit model championed throughout the West) and against prevailing scientific norms, the new procedure has transformed how cataract surgery is conducted. It has quickly spread outwards not only to other countries in Asia and Africa, but to the US, Australia, and Finland. Thus, it is clearly legitimate to discuss Easternization as an important process that is related to globalization. Further, as China continues to explode as a global power, especially economically, we can expect its influence on the West to grow, ushering in a new and expanded form of Easternization. For example, China already has huge reserves in Western currencies, especially American dollars, as a result of its hugely positive balance of trade (far more exports than imports). It possesses the ability, an ability that will grow exponentially in the coming years, to