Representation Is Not Difference

Abstract

In this article, we put forth the argument that globalization represents a Durkheimian mechanicalization of the world via the Protestant Ethic and the spirit of capitalism under American hegemony. The latter (America), we conclude, serves as an imperial agent, an empire, seeking to interpellate and embourgeois the masses or multitudes to the juridical framework of the Protestant Ethic and the spirit of capitalism, and in the age of capitalist globalization and climate change this is done within the dialectical processes of two forms of fascism or system and social integration: right-wing neoliberalism and identity politics masquerading as cosmopolitanism. Identity constitution within such a society leads to representation without difference of purposive-rationality as all social actors are interpellated and embourgeoised to fulfill their economic role in the social structure with representation, without difference, as the means of generating surplus-value for global capital.