John Ralston Saul: "The End of Belief"

Ideologies resemble not very good theatre of the romantic sort. That is why Coleridge's formula - the willing suspension of disbelief - applies so neatly to the natural life of any ideology. In defence of the poet, he had in mind a far nobler use of the human ability to choose to suspend our disbelief -- a nobler idea of theatre and of the romantic ideal. but you could argue that the more flimsy the theatrical device -- a romance novel, a Schwarzenegger adventure -- the greater the demonstration of our ability to suspend our critical faculties.

How we arrive at the decision to suspend our disbelief when it comes to ideologies is mysterious. Historians and social scientists spend their lives trying to explain the phenomenon. Creative writers usually do a better job at explaining this sort of politics, because in a curious way they are in the same business as the ideologues. Both are dealing with the human heart.

Less mysterious is how we decide to drop our suspension. The inevitable -- and here the word is accurate -- failures of any ideology gradually build up. A growing number of people notice. The propaganda of triumph evolves into one of denial. Language that was once enthusiastically received by the public is increasingly treated as the equivalent of elevator music, then as an actively annoying noise, and finally as inadvertent comedy. When the voice of power is heard by the public with irony, skepticism and, at last, as if from a farce, our willingness to suspend our disbelief has seeped fully away. The ideology may go on for a time because its advocates hold so many of the mechanisms of power. But this is simply power.

While the true believers continue to insist -- sometimes enthusiastically, but more often angrily these days -- on global inevitabilities, you will hear, if you listen carefully, a rising babble of contradictory sounds. A growing number of nation-state leaders, along with the more interesting businessmen, have changed their vocabulary, gradually weeding out the global assumptions. The new discourse is more complex, sibylline, less grandiose. Much of it is built around the idea of citizens and society. On the other hand, some of it suggests an accelerating political meltdown matched by rising levels of disorder. There is a growing incidence of old-style nationalist violence. Our memory has changed again.

Ralston Saul, John. (2005) "The Collapse of Globalism." Penguin, New York. pp.171,172

John Ralston Saul on Trade vs. Wellbeing of People

"There is one free trade issue that is rarely mentioned in the context of Cobden and the great movement. During the eighteenth century, the British, followed by the French and the Americans, wanted to buy high-quality Chinese goods - tea, silk, porcelain. The West could not produce these goods, or at any rate could not match the Chinese level of excellence. The problem was the the Chinese didn't want any Western goods. There being no two-way trade, the West had to pay cash. The British used silver they received in trade with Spain. In 1781 there was no silver, so Warren Hastings, the first governor-general of India, sent off Indian opium to be sold in China to pay for British imports. This eventually led to two Opium Wars in which the West - pretending to be at war over the treatment of their traders - fought China to force the country to go on importing opium, thus addicting its citizens. By 1830 this trade was probably the largest single commodity business in the world. The same House of Commons, so enthusiastic about the moral virtues of free trade, defeated motions to ban the opium trade in 1870, 1875, 1886 and 1889. The trade ended in 1913 as part of the winding down of the first free trade experiment.

Put bluntly, Britain in particular and the West in general asked themselves whether the moral principle of fair trade trumped the well-being of a people. They answered that it did.

This is a question valid for all time; even if we refused to raise it at appropriate moments, history will, when the time comes to describe our actions for future generations. In what possible context could a question relevant to the opium trade be raised today? What about the pharmaceuticals essential to combat AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in the developing world and the way in which their prices are artificially kept high by the Trade-Related aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) regime in the WTO? Or what about Western industrial agriculture and its effect on gragile societies? Or the destructive effect of unregulated financial markets on weaker economies?"

p.43,44 John Ralston Saul, "The Collapse of Globalism." (2005) Penguin, New York.