Historical materialism, ideology, and the politics of globalizing capitalism

This chapter argues that historical materialism needs to rethink some of its more economistic assumptions if it wishes to effectively engage the politics of globalization. Drawing on the resources of historical materialism, it is possible to represent capitalist globalization as a dialectical process: Attendant upon globalizing capitalism have been heightened exploitation and class-based social powers, but processes of globalization also bear the potential for various forms of a progressive transnational politics of solidarity, opening up possibilities for alternative future worlds more democratic and less exploitative. Globalizing capitalism has emerged in a particular historical context, and has been the political project of a transnational historic bloc. Owners of the means of production may be socially empowered as employers and as investors, and both aspects of capitalist class power are enhanced by the reality and the ideological constructions of globalizing capitalism. The global expansion of solidarity networks may be the corollary to the global expansion of production and exchange.