The Contest of Rival Capitalisms Mandate for a Global Third Way

A new authoritarian order is taking shape, this time within rather than against the capitalist world order. Globalization, in short, is shedding its liberal cloak. Post–Cold War triumphalism was premature in the funeral it staged for the Second World, defi ned in terms of its autocracy rather than communism. The capitalist character of the new Second World lulls Western globalists into moral as well as geopolitical (hence moral realist) indifference. For many in high places, it is still inconceivable that global capitalism could be a house divided. “Globalization” turns out to be anything but the steadfast ally of democratization it purports to be. It is in fact the greatest gift to a new breed of authoritarian capitalists. The case of China alone is enough to dispel the notion that capitalism and democracy are two sides of the same globalist coin. But Sino-globalization is only unique in that it makes no pretense about its authoritarian ends and means. To revitalize democratization as a global force, a radically different mode of globalization will have to be fostered. We call this the Global Third Way, but what it amounts to is People Power without borders