I will not discuss religious power extensively, although its hold seems recently to have increased dramatically—most of all in so-called fundamentalist communities. Often these communities of faith can reach some compromise on the basis of a balance of confessional power, which is linked to territorial confederalism. Protestants and Catholics did so in Central Europe in 1555 and again in 1648. Eventually Hindus and Muslims as well as Shi’a and Sunni Muslims may achieve a similar equilibrium. Nevertheless, it is clear that arriving at such a balance through decades of bloodshed is a long and discouraging process. And the process should not necessarily be analyzed through the lens of the international balance of power, which can be an ineffective instrument for understanding dynamics of religious power.

Consider, finally, economic institutions and, above all, those of Western capitalism. What makes the role of dark power within our economic institutions so intriguing is that it is usually denied by orthodox theorists who characterize economic activity as taking place through unconstrained exchange that benefits all parties. Power is allegedly irrelevant, since each of the parties in an exchange of goods, labor, or long-term assets believes that he or she will be better off making the exchange. Indeed on pragmatic grounds such an analysis may be justified, and applying it seems to have contributed vastly to economic growth. Market exchange, at least when accompanied by technological advance, has made an ever-expanding body of people better and better off.

But that does not mean that most of those participating in this collective process of material improvement would voluntarily have chosen the conditions under which they interact. Market participants confront arrangements—employers, investors, purchasers—that they are not able to choose or affect. For them, economic life is another great reservoir of dark power. This does not necessarily mean that most working men and women will not derive satisfaction from their labor. But relatively few of the world’s working population get to choose where they work, how they work, and what rewards they can reap. However, even though dark power may pervade the economic world, it might be claimed that this is the precondition for economic growth and prosperity. And few of us can offer any alternative.

Classical and neo-classical economists, at least, rarely make an effort to conceive of alternative structures of economic relations. The great advances in economic theory from Smith through Keynes to the present day depended on a conceptual separation of the ends of economic life (“the wealth of nations”) and its means (the market) from the instruments of political society (power and persuasion). For Smith, of course, all society depended upon natural human instincts—whether the sympathy that facilitated political solidarity or the propensity to truck and barter that helped generate market exchange.

Critics of classical economics often cite its psychological premises as unrealistic; they question the assumption of rationality that underlies market and equilibrium theories. But that, I believe, is not the real difficulty; it is that the theories rarely accommodate what I have termed dark power. The Marxian insight differed from classical economics: ultimately the market was an arrangement of those who held capital, which endowed them with power, and those with less capital, who could not act with autonomy. For Marx, there was no economy that was not a political economy. By the end of the l980s, however, Marxists had been discredited by the collapse of the planned economies and state parties that were allegedly based on Marx’s theories. But the core notion, that an economy is not a voluntary set of mutually advantageous and voluntary transactions, was not necessarily debunked.

The Transnational Struggle Over Globalization

I rehearse these rather familiar ideas because I think the balance between Smithians and Marxians may be changing. From l980 until the century’s end, the Marxians were in disarray and the Smithians triumphant. Francis Fukuyama in effect heralded their victory along with that of democratic liberalism. But the Smithian scenario, even now, is beginning to be contested, a trend that is likely to continue in coming decades. Even as I write this, The Economist magazine frets about the trends of growing inequality. Its editors worry about the backlash of job losses and abusive executive pay, and they summon the businessmen convening at Davos to defend a process “that can do so much good even if its impact can sometimes appear so cruel.”

Indeed this is the balance or conflict that rightly worries the more perspicacious: that between the privileged and the powerless in the world economy. Far more misery is likely to emerge from this confrontation if it is badly managed than from traditional international conflict. The point here is neither to defend globalization nor to critique it. But it does seem reasonable, given contemporary economic circumstances around the world, to suggest that the criticisms and the countervailing pressures against globalization, including populism and protectionism, will probably grow more serious in the years to come. In recent symposia, The Economist has worried not about the great masses of poverty in Central or Latin America or Africa or the vast flows of migrants across international borders, but the fraying of the social compact within the wealthy countries of the West.

Most commentators have debated whether such events can reverse the great trend toward free trade, untrammeled capital movements, and mass migrations that have characterized the past 40 years. They have raised the specter of 1914 and 1929-1931. But this is not the only issue to consider. Globalization and the opposition it generates an international force field in which organized states have less capacity to cope with polarizing social conflicts.

On a global scale, dark power has helped to structure international markets and channel flows of wealth to inventive entrepreneurs in the United States, the advanced industrial and post-industrial societies, and increasingly to East and South Asia. This could bring great disruptive potential to the dynamics between favored and less favored nations. Indices suggest that globalization is reducing inequality among nations, although some countries in Africa and the Caribbean seem to have lost ground in a general process of global development. But the real dispersion of fortunes and incomes is present within countries. Therefore some political leaders will think it advantageous and idealistic to challenge if not a growing inequality, then certainly a growing perception of truly elite enrichment. This tradition is certainly evident in the rhetoric of Latin American populism. And the post-Castro transition in Cuba, as North American developers attempt to transform the Cuban economy, will at least sharpen the rhetorical confrontations.