On a blue-skied Shanghai afternoon, the second Saturday of the 3-week long Shanghai International Literary Festival, a group of expatriates, mostly Canadian, gathered at Glamour Bar on the Bund to hear Canadian author John Ralston Saul speak on his 2005 book The Collapse of Globalism and the Reinvention of the World. Saul, who has written 6 novels and numerous essays on political philosophy, economic theory and the nature of individualism, has a loyal Canadian following, and rumor has it, Saul fans came all the way from Beijing just to hear him speak. Scheduled the weekend after Gore Vidal and the weekend before Amy Tan, John Ralston Saul was like the Canadian bacon in the middle of an American breakfast sandwich.

Glamour Bar is not the ideal venue for a literary talk. Despite the Bundish wall-sized fixed windows lighting up the podium, the Western-hip main room of the bar has a large column obstructing the view for those to the left of the stage. If you weren't a lit-loving Cannuck who arrived to the show early to get primo seating, then you were relegated (like me) to the back of the room where people stood and sat at Glamour's ovular, mirrored bar looking as though they came to drink, not to attend a literary event. Most every woman at the event had a glass of wine her hand and most every man donned a sport coat. The Shanghai International Literary Festival brings out the city's upper crust.

Saul milled around the bar area talking to attendees prior to taking the stage at just after 4pm. The Ottawan writer, like his audience, was well dressed in a shiny blue shirt and a black jacket. To the left of the podium was a large Canada tourism poster and in one of the front rows sat Canada's Consulate General. Saul began by noting that the last time he visited Shanghai in 1979, the city was not a fraction as developed as it is today. He thanked the Canadian consulate, welcomed his guests, excused his "Canadian finger" (his left index finger was in a cast from slipping on some ice) and launched into his speech on the collapse, not "death" of globalism. Saul noted that using the word "death" to describe a political or economical phenomena usually gets historians in trouble.

The author began by explaining the disconnect between elite discourse and reality when it comes to globalism. Saul prefers the term "globalism" as opposed to "globization" as it describes an idea rather than a process. He criticized the way Western leaders view globalization as an "inevitable" economic outcome and points out that this word is in direct conflict with democratic ideals. In a democracy, nothing is ever economically inevitable. Saul began a bit nervously and took off his jacket about five minutes in for fear that he would get too hot.

In November, Thomas Friedman of The New York Times gave a speech in Shanghai titled "The World Is Flat," the same title of his bestselling 2005 book. Friedman preached the rise of globalization and its inevitability, while interestingly, Saul, four months later, argued the antithesis in front of what many of the same people who came to hear Friedman. In the question and answer period following Saul's talk, the author was asked about Thomas Friedman. Saul replied, "the world is round," at which the audience chuckled, and called Friedman "the Barbara Cartland of global economics." Barbara Cartland was a melodramatic British romance novelist known for being over the top and craving public attention.

The second part of Saul's talk dealt with 20 or so examples of the collapse of globalism. He discussed the rise of nationalism and populism in central Europe, U.S.-imposed tariffs on Chinese goods, a failed globalist agricultural policy in India and a general rejection of globalist policy in Japan among other examples. Saul presented the idea that the movement of economic policy is limited to about 6 economic theories that go in and go out like a tide and sometimes morph with one another. Globalism, according to Saul, is accepted in the present, because those in power currently are products of the globalist economic era. He said, "once an idea has been in place for 25-30 years, all the functioning elite are products of this era."

With regard to China, Saul believes that Beijing is the only place in the world where original and enlightened economic discourse takes place. China supports fresh economic ideas, whereas the West is still married to the globalist economic theory that according to Saul, has not created the type of wealth that it was thought to be capable of producing. In the writers words, "reality doesn't wait around for economic theory."

John Ralston Saul provided the witty and in-depth alternative view to the globalization debate. He noted that he is one of very few writers who believe in the demise of the globalist economic structure. Saul succeeded in captivating the aristocratic Shanghai audience and proved much more likable than Thomas Friedman. Saul's book The Collapse of Globalism is widely considered to be one of the essential modern books on economic thought.

Read more about John Ralston Saul at www.johnralstonsaul.com

-David Flumenbaum


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