Cosmopolitan Capitalists

At midnight on June 30, 1997, Hong Kong became part of the People’s Republic of China. The transfer of Hong Kong sovereignty from Great Britain to China was an extraordinary historical event, signifying the end of the West’s colonial presence in Asia and the rise of China’s hegemony. In 150 years as a British colony, Hong Kong changed from a barely inhabitable colonial entrepôt to one of the world’s leading financial and industrial centers. Faced with a new social and economic order under Chinese law, many Hong Kongers moved to a new country; others decided to stay; but many chose to maintain their lives and livelihoods in Hong Kong, while spreading their assets and their family members around the world. They bought apartments in London and condos in Vancouver, invested in firms in Guangzhou and Thailand, and sent their children to schools in Europe and Australia. These new up-market migrants have transformed a cosmopolitan outlook into a global presence. Cosmopolitan Capitalists focuses on the people of Hong Kong and how they are defining themselves under altered circumstances. It is a broad multi-disciplinary view of Hong Kong’s transformation, written for a general audience by some of the world’s foremost scholars on the region.

This thought-provoking book analyses the process of labour commodification, through which the individual’s ability to earn a basic living becomes dependent on the conditions of the market relationship. Building on the premise that the separation of a group of individuals from the means of production is an intrinsic element of capitalism, Fausto Corvino theorises that this implies a form of domination in a neo-republican sense.

This treatise introduces the figures of shareholder, stakeholder, index tracker, bondholder and options trader as cosmopolitan financial actors in order to describe and explain the development of global capitalism with regard to a series of more or less different capitalisms. The terms shareholder and bondholder are generally known. Stakeholders appear less frequently although the economic players have taken over the role of stakeholder mostly without realising it. Options traders are chiefly professional stock exchange players but, in view of the enlargement and democratisation of global financial capitalism, more and more knowledgeable laymen also develop into options traders. The figure of index tracker is relatively new. However, he does not act as a capitalist maximiser of profits, but contents himself with reaching an index. His behaviour can be characterised as being “watchful waiting”. These figures emerging everywhere form a cleverly designed pattern in order to outline the mechanisms and institutions of global capitalism. A typology of capitalisms is introduced for its “diversity in uniformity”, illustrated by the Ferris Wheel of capitalism. This treatise deals with the modern essentials of cosmopolitan capitalist economy: free trade and mobility of capital, direct investments, migration, global labour arbitrage. The capitalist development and time analysis ranges from laissez-faire capitalism, from speculation and corruption to principal-agent relations and from the world economic crisis to irrational exuberance. The international policy differences are illustrated by the hawks and doves of economic policy. Finally, the Epilogue develops the political economy of cosmopolites in the Global Village into the ten commandments of capitalist civil religion. The author of this treatise is a social economist, financial sociologist, social philosopher and obviously also an insider of practised financial capitalism. He has an excellent command of standard economy without surrendering to it. This enables him to deal with a great many economic problems in an unorthodox manner and to introduce a large portion of innovation into the scientific and political discussion.

Liberty and freedom are frequently invoked to justify political action. Presidents as diverse as Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush have built their policies on some version of these noble values. Yet in practice, idealist agendas often turn sour as they confront specific circumstances on the ground. Demonstrated by incidents at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay, the pursuit of liberty and freedom can lead to violence and repression, undermining our trust in universal theories of liberalism, neoliberalism, and cosmopolitanism. Combining his passions for politics and geography, David Harvey charts a cosmopolitan order more appropriate to an emancipatory form of global governance. Political agendas tend to fail, he argues, because they ignore the complexities of geography. Incorporating geographical knowledge into the formation of social and political policy is therefore a necessary condition for genuine democracy. Harvey begins with an insightful critique of the political uses of freedom and liberty, especially during the George W. Bush administration. Then, through an ontological investigation into geography's foundational concepts space, place, and environment he radically reframes geographical knowledge as a basis for social theory and political action. As Harvey makes clear, the cosmopolitanism that emerges is rooted in human experience rather than illusory ideals and brings us closer to achieving the liberation we seek.

The contributors argue that the Westphalian influence on international relations has blinded the analysis that would awaken our awareness of the increasing erosion of state boundaries. It has in effect retarded our recognition of the common condition we share.

Cosmopolitan Film Cultures in Latin America examines how cinema forged cultural connections between Latin American publics and film-exporting nations in the first half of the twentieth century. Predating today's transnational media industries by several decades, these connections were defined by active economic and cultural exchanges, as well as longstanding inequalities in political power and cultural capital. The essays explore the arrival and expansion of cinema throughout the region, from the first screenings of the Lumière Cinématographe in 1896 to the emergence of new forms of cinephilia and cult spectatorship in the 1940s and beyond. Examining these transnational exchanges through the lens of the cosmopolitan, which emphasizes the ethical and political dimensions of cultural consumption, illuminates the role played by moving images in negotiating between the local, national, and global, and between the popular and the elite in twentieth-century Latin America. In addition, primary historical documents provide vivid accounts of Latin American film critics, movie audiences, and film industry workers' experiences with moving images produced elsewhere, encounters that were deeply rooted in the local context, yet also opened out onto global horizons.

In the turbulent period following the First World War the young Count Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi founded the Pan-European Union, offering a vision of peaceful, democratic unity for Europe, with no borders, a common currency, and a single passport. His political congresses in Vienna, Berlin, and Basel attracted thousands from the intelligentsia and the cultural elite, including Albert Einstein, Thomas Mann, and Sigmund Freud, who wanted a United States of Europe brought together by consent. The Count's commitment to this cooperative ideal infuriated Adolf Hitler, who referred to him as a "cosmopolitan bastard" in Mein Kampf. Communists and nationalists, xenophobes and populists alike hated the Count and his political mission. When the Nazis annexed Austria, the Count and his wife, the famous actress Ida Roland, narrowly escaped the Gestapo. He fled to the United States, where he helped shape American policy for postwar Europe. Coudenhove-Kalergi's profile was such that he served as the basis for the fictional resistance hero Victor Laszlo in the film Casablanca. A brilliant networker, the Count guided many European leaders, notably advising Winston Churchill before his 1946 Zürich speech on Europe. A friend to both Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and President Charles de Gaulle, Coudenhove-Kalergi was personally invited to the High Mass in Rheims Cathedral in 1961 to celebrate Franco-German reconciliation. A provocative visionary for Europe, Coudenhove-Kalergi thought and acted in terms of continents, not countries. For the Count, the United States of Europe was the answer to the challenges of communist Russia and capitalist America. Indeed, he launched his Pan-European Union thirty years before Jean Monnet set up the European Coal and Steel Community, the precursor to the European Union. Timely and captivating, Martyn Bond's biography offers an opportunity to explore a remarkable life and revisit the impetus and origins of a unified Europe.

The history of the 20th century was dominated by the state - nationalism, national economies, national wars. Professor Nigel Harris argues that such a global structure is unthinkable in the 21st century. Why? As the world opens up, and barriers between countries come crashing down, so the powers of nations, nationalisms and the state have begun to dissolve. He argues that the notion of national capital is becoming redundant as cities and their citizens, increasingly unaffected by borders and national boundaries, take centre stage in the economic world. Harris deconstructs this phenomenon and argues for the immense benefits it could and should have, not just for western wealth, but for economies worldwide, for international communication and for global democracy.