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1 The New Globalism: Transcultural Commerce, Global Systems Theory, and Spenser’s Mammon
Daniel Vitkus
Why global systems theory? Why apply it to the study of early modern literature? Why now? To answer these questions, it will help to consider, briefly, what has been happening in the world and what is happening in early modern studies. Since the end of the Cold War, neoliberal power and transnational neo-imperialism have enriched the 1% and intensified economic inequality across the globe.1 The worldwide economic crisis of 2008–2009, the recent collapse of our fragile global economy in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the continuing struggle pitting plutocratic elites against the laboring commons, the growing popular awareness of how capitalist forms of consumption and profit-taking have wreaked havoc across the planet – these developments have forced intellectuals and scholars to consider more closely the ways that global systems under capitalism both link and divide the world.
Following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of bipolar geopolitics, a worldwide political pattern gradually took hold: as neoliberal capitalism unfolded throughout the world, we witnessed the rise of a right-wing politics of alarmism, xenophobia, and austerity. We see this very clearly under leaders like Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Narendra Modi, Benjamin Netanyahu, Recep Tayyip Erdog˘an, Jair Bolsanaro, Viktor Orbán, Andrzej Duda, Boris Johnson, and others. Even “moderate” or centrist figures like Justin Trudeau, Barack Obama, or Emmanuel Macron have pushed a neoliberal agenda that has served the interests of transnational plutocrats. In the United States after 9/11, a fear of foreigners has been encouraged in order to deflect attention from domestic sources of oppression. An overextended, profit-seeking militarism abroad has gone hand-in-hand with increased surveillance and militarized policing in the “homeland.” Meanwhile, a pro-corporate, pro–Wall Street political program has dismantled the social safety net, intensifying the exploitation and disempowerment of working people. As we contend with the pandemic and its socioeconomic consequences, we see these fissures and fault lines becoming even more critically exacerbated.
Distracted, divided, and misinformed by the expanding digital mediascape, twenty-first-century America has drifted away from the progressive ideals and goals that depend upon a shared, participatory program of civic activism and governmental action intended to alleviate or minimize the social injustice produced by the capitalist class system. The idea that we are all citizens of the world, participating in an unfulfilled effort to achieve real, universal human progress, has faded from mainstream historical consciousness, though it remains the goal of an embattled left. But even as the