As diverse cultures experience a threat to their values, norms, and practices by globalization, there is a cultural backlash. When the cultural response dose not simultaneously defend economic democracy and create living economies, it takes the form of negative identities and negative cultures.
Culture and economy are inseparable. The neoliberal ideology of development and globalization wishes culture away, yet culture dominates and becomes the surrogate for concerns over livelihoods and economic security. Fundamentalist religion becomes, as Marx so aptly observed, an “opiate of the masses”.
Politicians and political parties that have fully supported the agenda of neoliberal globalization are also increasingly invoking exclusivist religion for gaining political power−and claiming their power comes directly from God, not from corporation and capital. The “divine right of rule” seems to be the epidemic of the day. A concept that died with feudalism is making a comeback thorough representative democracy in the context of globalization….
