Framing Policing in the Secular Trend of Accumulation: from the State-Centric View of Globalization towards the Household in the Modern World-System

Abstract

Abstract Mainstream interpretation segments globalization as: (a) a self-regulating-market neoliberal reincarnation; (b) an innovative regime of information communication technology; or (c) a reorganization of production on a world scale. This segmented view, however, is predicated on the state and the police in the background. In contrast to the mainstream view, which fits globalization in a state-centric prism of the police, we argue that what is referred to as globalization is policing. Policing is founded on household structures that are in turn instituted in the global commodity chains. Accordingly, it is the most crucial element integrating social-identity, social control, and social relations in the modern world-system. Hence, the unfolding prominence of globalization is actually the increasing saliency of policing. It reflects the terminal crisis of the capitalist world-economy, putting pressure on the household structures and the secular trend of accumulation. It is in view of this that policing, under the guise of globalization, is the re-intensification of social control, isolation of social-identities, and reification of social-relations.