Mongolian Heavy Metal & Globalization Woes
Like any cultural interaction, globalization isn’t painless—not by a long shot.
The cheap price of its commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians’ intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilisation into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. –The Communist Manifesto (1848)
Karl Marx astutely recognized the powerful heavy artillery-like force of capital and the capitalist mode of production, and he predicted, somewhat, the era of globalization we are now familiar with. What Marx didn’t recognize, and failed to articulate in his philosophical, political, and economic writing, was the enticing nature of capitalism, both in good times and bad. He also failed to understand the rather adaptive nature of capitalism, especially among those regions of the world where it was a foreign transplant, which developed deep roots and new varieties. Moreover, Marx never foresaw the Leninist bastardization of Marxist thought that would come with Lenin in Russia, and its satellites, and would be adopted (and adapted to specific contexts) throughout the developing world by Leninist parties like the Chinese Communist Party, among others. He would never see the poverty of the so-called socialist/communist world. He would never know the brutal crackdowns, the gulags, the massive famines, the corruption of the Marxist-Leninist elites, and he would never witness the decay and collapse of the Soviet Union and other socialist/communist nation-states and power blocs.
The winds of change, particularly in the communist/socialist world, came in the mid- to late-70s, with a contraction of the Soviet Union’s efforts on the African continent and the beginning of the U.S.S.R.’s brutal war in Afghanistan. China would see the death of Mao and the arrest and trial of the Gang of Four. Deng Xiaoping, a conundrum in communist China, declared, “It doesn’t matter whether a cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice.” The late-80s and early-90s brought serious questions concerning the communist/socialist order. Cracks began appearing, and the façade was beginning to crumble under its own weight.
The era of the hypermobile global economy was the byproduct of rather fringe economists, who would be propped up by conservative politicians across the globe, particularly in the United States and the United Kingdom. After the 1970s stagnation and energy crises, the United States managed to oversee one of the largest transfers of wealth in history, with billions of petrodollars sitting in American banks. Milton Friedman, the Chicago School, Friedrich Hayek, and trickle-down economics were etched into the collective imagination. The hypermobile economy espoused the free market, open borders, unregulated trade, and transfers of wealth once unimaginable in the postwar (i.e., post-World War II) era established under agreements like the Bretton Woods Agreement.
Heavy metal is, originally, seen as a sort of American or at least a Western invention. However, as the global economy spread its tendrils across the planet, so did the cultural artifacts of the Western world. Rap, hip-hop, rock, and even metal began to saturate those societies once closed off to Western or American influences. Like any form of cultural intercourse, there was give and take. The seeds of hip-hop, rap, techno, rock, and metal formed into new varieties, sharing lineage with Western varieties but also a unique blend of indigenous sounds, languages, instruments, and concerns.
One of my first forays into non-Western metal came with a group named The Hu, a Mongolian metal/folk band, who were a huge hit on YouTube, just before releasing their album, The Gereg. (For those looking to get a taste of this band’s work, I have included a video of their song “The Great Chinggis Khan.”) The Hu were a quick realization of Marx’s observations concerning the power of capital and the capitalist mode of production. Mongolia, a little-known place in the world, aside from Chinggis Kahn and his Mongolian armies, too, has succumbed to the power of capital in the twenty-first century. Although wealth and comfort are now staples of some who live in Mongolia, the new Mongolia is a product of the times. Mining in Mongolia has brought unparalleled prosperity, growth, and development. It has brought Western ideas and culture to Mongolia, which, in turn, has influenced the creation of a rather unique brand of Mongolian metal/folk music in the form of groups like The Hu.
As a student of history and political science, I find this fascinating. However, I cannot imagine what has been lost for the Mongolian people. What has history given them? What has been forever lost? What contradictions exist in this society that is both old and respected and reformed by the changes of the last thirty or so years?
TL;DR
What Marx got right is a bit harder to nail down here. Marx, in his ever-nuanced way, showed the power of capital, yes, but he also managed to explain that the spread of capital and the capitalist mode of production is not necessarily a peaceful or painless process. The contradictions and the nostalgia explored in The Hu’s lyrics are indicators that globalization and the hypermobile global economy aren’t as painless and benign as many of us have been led to believe. Moreover, modernization, with all its wonders, is (sometimes) hollow in what it offers to the spirit of a people. It strips cultures of their institutions that generate meaning and purpose. It robs people of their traditional lifestyles, offering up consumerism, financial prosperity of a sort, and a disconnection with the past. When all of that fails, tradition, culture, and history become commodities sold to those who can afford to buy them.
While we must be careful of nostalgia and nostalgic tendencies, The Hu, among others, show us that modern amenities, globalization, and the ever-expanding capitalist mode aren’t always as fulfilling in the end. Sometimes, just sometimes, we seek out meaning and purpose. Although the market, especially with its nostalgianomics, offers a taste of things lost, of lifestyles of yore, all for a price, of course, it also offers the keys to its own demise. The Hu’s music, while not necessarily native to Mongolia, is an example of how people seek out purpose, meaning, and connection with tradition and the past (whether imagined or otherwise) using the market (and its cultural and social assets) to do so. In other words, The Hu are a great example of traditionalism and revivalism percolating to the top of the capitalist mode. While what was lost is (most likely) lost forever, it shows that people, often stripped of their traditions, cultures, and collective past, will seek these things out, despite what the market has done to them. Their pull will be quite powerful, because of the failings of our current politico-economic world order. Their gravity, much like a large black hole, will exert its influence. However, how long will it take for this seemingly subversive act to be absorbed by capitalism and the globalized economy?
One of the failings of traditional Marxism is the inability to account for the adaptive nature of capitalism. While Marx postulated that capitalism would end in what might be termed absolute immiseration, i.e., the depression of wages below that of subsistence level due to increased (cutthroat) competition creating a race to the bottom, evidence of this immiseration, particularly of the absolute variety, has failed to appear. Instead, something often discussed by neo-Marxists is relative immiseration, which is a good deal harder to nail down. With relative immiseration, we can see it playing out in countries like Mongolia, where capitalism and globalization have had a significant impact on Mongolians. Could it be that the development of heavy metal folk music by groups like The Hu is a sign of relative immiseration, the glacial erosion of traditional lifestyles, cultures, languages, and collective histories, which are then replaced with new lifestyles, new cultures, new languages, and collective history? These new things are creating a disconnect, an alienation, of those who have been forced into the heavily globalized economy. Nevertheless, much like previous forms of capitalism, the capitalism that dominates the new millennium will (likely) absorb and commoditize these attempts at finding meaning and purpose. In other words, something that could have been a subversive resistance to the globalized economic order becomes a commodity, a product, manufactured, packaged, marketed, sold, and consumed within the capitalist economic ecosystem.
How do we resist something that has proven so adaptable? Do we simply drop our defenses and succumb to the heavy artillery of capitalist economics? Do we seek out new ways?
While the capitalist system isn’t perfect, it is hard to see what might replace it. It is hard to conceptualize a system, of political, cultural, and economic importance, that would replace it, but that doesn’t mean we should not seek to understand the alternatives and the realities of the politico-economic system that runs the world. Although I am far from what you would deem a Marxist or even a Neo-Marxist, I think Marx, and other like-minded individuals, have brought up important concerns that need to be addressed, so we can understand people, their societies, and their cultures in broader contexts of global history, globalization, and cultural evolution.