Evolving Bond: From Neoliberalism to Globalization

There has been plenty of discussion whether the James Bond Project can be used as a kind of social barometer. As a piece of art and literature, both the novels and movies can certainly be used as measuring sticks for the various eras of their creations. In fact, Ian Fleming’s portrayal of James Bond and the various villains presents a more prescient view of the world than many give it credit. Ian Fleming was ahead of his time with the James Bond character and his use of villains displays an understanding of international relations, especially the basic principles of globalization. Fleming was far ahead of his time and training.
The majority of Ian Fleming’s novels are the same basic story line. James Bond, his iconic spy hero, is called into action by his government controllers to save the day against an evil arch-villain hell bent on taking over the world. This boiled down version of the plot points to the basic formulaic principle of the novels, making them mostly the same. In this vain, a literary critic is given his heaviest ammunition against the relevance of a Bond novel and gains him the upper hand in a snooty discussion of literature. The formulaic novel is low-class, pop culture fluffery, if you will. But more than simple entertainment lies within the Bond Project.
Consider the Bond stories in tandem with global politics and economic theory. The relations between international states are strained by the efforts of multinational corporations to influence in any way they can the governments in said countries. In an article originally printed for Buddhist Christian Studies, author Judith Simmer-Brown quotes Noam Chomsky:
[T]he strategies employed by the transnational network are designed to consolidate this control:
1. Buy the executive branch of the states involved;
2. Own the legislative branch through lobbyists, campaign contributions, and term extensions, or whatever else may work;
3. Set the conditions in which policy is determined, asserting the power of global capital;
4. Control the doctrine and information systems, especially to invent new needs in order to bolster a culture of fashionable consumption (31-2).
What Chomsky is illustrating is a framework that a corporation can work within, using nothing more than money, to get the favorable decisions in legislation they require to operate their overly large companies.
Breaking down each of these steps, a subsequent Bond plot can be derived. Take Step 1: Buy the executive branch. This is the basic supposition of Quantum of Solace (2008), along with Step 3. The arch villain Mr. Green is buying the services of the military dictator, then setting the terms by which he must deal. At the same time, the backroom dealing Mr. Green engages in with the US government and others is yet another larger piece of Step 3. Step 2 is a broad swathe of controlling devices. Any number of Bond films and novels involve the lobbying of governments. Think of the services rendered from General Urimov in Goldeneye (1995). As far as the audience can tell, he has received only payment for said services, rather than being threatened by the kidnapping of a favorite grandchild or other such motivator. Add to this the fact that the Goldeneye device is then used to hold the governments of the world hostage unless the demands of the operators are met and one can see that this is yet another way, albeit a very extreme example, of using “whatever else may work” to control legislative power.
States are no longer autonomous agents. The days of isolationism, such as existed under the Woodrow Wilson administration, are long gone. Beginning with the entrance into the First World Wart but certainly not ending there, the United States has engaged in an ever-increasing role on a global stage. As World War Two came to a close and the governments of the Allies were faced with the reconstruction of Europe, a further step away from isolationism occurred. Now, one can’t go to the grocery store without seeing cheese and beer from Switzerland or Japan. The economies of the world have become so intertwined that it is hard to see where one ends and another begins.
Gone too are the days where the majority of the manufactured goods bought in any given country are actually manufactured there. Different pieces are made in different parts of the world. Each is transported to separate places for full assembly. This creates jobs in different regions, but also creates competition for the same resources. Even though there may be more companies to supply, creating the illusion of more diversification of producers, it is nonetheless an illusion. There are only so many raw materials on the planet. Due to this, according to Norberg-Hodge,
“[G]lobalization creates efficiency for corporations, but it also creates artificial scarcity for consumers, thus heightening competitive pressures… Globalization means the undermining of the livelihoods and cultural identities of the majority of the world’s peoples” (13-14).
When the peoples of the world are underdeveloped, an atmosphere rife with opportunity for the outlaw is spawned, whether in reality or in the mind.
The novels of Ian Fleming create an outlet for this spirit. This escapist attitude is in the original vein of the writing by Fleming. According to Tony Bennett and Janet Woollacott, Fleming originally wrote Casino Royale to take his mind off his impending nuptials. That the outlet produced such a popular hero is indicative of the role of James Bond as social barometer. The masses were ready for a spy taking down the arch villain. The fact that he has stood the test of time is proof that he has evolved along with the world around him.
Next, let us look at the beginning of globalization. We have taken a look at where the end of isolationism may have been, so this is the logical next step. The principles of neoliberalism provide the perfect platform for globalization to launch from. As the barriers to free trade topple, so to the restraints on employer location and power of the union lobby. On top of this is the positive pressure created for an employer to move. In other words, employers are driven to find the lowest-cost labor market while at the same time this move is easier for the employer.
Neoliberalism brought a new opium to the masses. The promise of new individual freedoms via a more open market with freer trade and potential for unlimited growth would be the godsend for an American population embroiled in the tumult of an oil embargo and the insecurity of both rising inflation percentages and unemployment numbers. By releasing the stops on trade, a “‘a trickle down’” (Harvey pg 64) effect would bring prosperity across the board. The reality of the unchecked free-trade market is anything but this get-rich idyllic image. The average American has seen the exportation of jobs as the need for lower bases of labor has driven the bottom line lower and lower. The need for profitability has usurped the need to protect the American labor force.
Used to be that a man could provide for his family in a middle class existence with employment at a nominally working-class job such as factory worker. The trade unions for which he paid dues looked after his well being in an ever-growing global community of international work forces being used in tandem to create the objects of everyday use. As profitability became the goal, an honest work day for every American was no longer the prevalent mode of conduct, and in the late seventies and throughout the eighties, those factory jobs lost their protection and were exported to countries without wage protections and wages so low a company could again be made profitable without changing the perhaps low-quality of the work.
The belief that “a rising tide lifts all boats” (Harvey pg 64) precludes the idea that an economy can be viewed as a metaphor: money as water. Flood the market with money and there will be a “trickle down” effect, where the money will start at the upper classes and trickle down through various economic mechanisms to the lower classes. This monetary flow must find the cracks that those on top miss, for in a reality that views profitability as the number one tenet, money is not easily wrested from the coffers of the wealthy. What does happen is the finding of the lowest level, another property of water. In this case, the labor force used to generate the profits finds the lowest level, not the flow of cash from the top to the bottom. In other words, the house always wins.
Again, from Simmer-Brown:
One hundred forty years ago, Abraham Lincoln wrote in a prophetic voice:
I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country… Corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed (31).
What Lincoln was predicting is the essence of globalization: the corporation at the forefront of governmental policy as the shift towards profits ushers in a new paradigm of influence, one in which the one with the most money controls the government.
The plot of You Only Live Twice can give us a glimpse of what it means to be globally connected, and just how complicated the story gets when both sovereign and non-sovereign entities, plus international conspiracy, are all thrown together. A Swiss businessman has immigrated to Japan. England wants to know what Japan knows. Japan has already allocated their resources to the US. All of the information from Japan goes through the director of Security named Tanaka. So England sends James Bond to get Tanaka’s information and help him out with the Swiss businessman. Bond’s contact in Japan is an Australian national named Dikko Henderson. To top this all off, the Swiss businessman is none other than Ernst Stavro Blofeld, a man Bond has much history with.
Blofeld is the quintessential Bond arch villain and a great example of the single great mind attacking the states. In a great description by Earnest and Rosenau, Blofeld and SPECTRE: “this sovereignty-free actor seeks to squeeze money from states and to humiliate governments, either to create fissures in international alliances or to spark popular unrest and political instability” (89). At the heart of this plot is the “inability of states to cooperate and maintain control of transnational technological, financial, commercial, and migratory flows” (89).
Now, although the voice of a narrator should not be confused with the voice of the author, a poem or story is a piece of art, which is necessarily creative and expressive. For one reason or another, an author has been prompted to express what is on paper, and that can be triggered by the social and cultural situations around him. James Bond is still a culturally viable character, even though the style of Ian Fleming would be seen as rather boorish by today standards. In other words, the character has transcended the author in a way unattainable unless the character has the means to adapt and evolve in the cultures present. Today’s Bond is capable of entertaining audiences not just by explosion quanta increases, but also by perceptive writers creating villains that portray current economic models. That older Bond films and novels stand the test of time is a testament to Ian Fleming’s own genius.

Works Cited
Bennett, Tony, and Janet Woollacott. "The Moments of Bond." The James Bond
Phenomenon: A Critical Reader. Ed. Christoph Lindner.Manchester: Manchester UP, 2003. 13-33.
Earnest, David C. and James N. Rosenau. “The Spy Who Loved Globalization.” Foreign Policy September 2000: 88-90.
Fleming, Ian. You Only Live Twice. London: Penguin Books, 2003.
Fleming, Ian. Casino Royale. London: Penguin Books, 2002.
Goldeneye. Dir. Martin Campbell. Perf. Pierce Brosnan, Sean Bean. Eon Productions, 1995.
Harvey, David. Neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Norberg-Hodge, Helena. “Buddhism and the Global Economy.” Turning Wheel, Spring 1997, 13.
Quantum of Solace. Dir. Martin Campbell. Perf. David Craig, Judi Dench. MGM, 2008. Simmer-Brown, Judith. “Remedying Globalization and Consumerism: Joining the Inner and Outer Journeys in “Perfect Balance”.” Buddhist-Christian Studies 22 (2002): 31-46.

Annotated Bibliography

Black, Jeremy. The Politics of James Bond : from Fleming's Novels to the Big Screen. Westport, Conn. : Praeger, 2001.
Jeremy Black describes the relationship of James Bond and his author, Ian Fleming, have had throough the years. Black looks at the character and author from a historical viewpoint, accepting that Bond is a representation of Fleming, and that both exist in a post-Imperial Britain.

Britton, Wesley. Spy Television. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2004.
Wesley defines a genre through several different angles: the roots of a family tree: 1900 to 1961 -- Bond, Beatles, and camp. He also analyzes the men from U.N.C.L.E. -more British than Bond, the agency, and twenty-first-century spies. His conclusion involves the past, present, and future of TV espionage, finally asking the question: why spies?

Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Novato, CA: Joseph Campbell Foundation, 2008.
In this seminal work by Joseph Campbell, he details his theory of the monomyth. The detail and research is amazing, with examples from all over the globe, including ancient Persian, Native American, and aboriginal Australian myths. He also combines these myths with the analysis and records of men like Sigmund Freud and C. G. Jung.

Campbell, Joseph, and Bill Moyers. The Power of Myth. New York: Random House, 1988.
Bill Moyers is a journalist that has interviewed many famous and influential people. In this interview originally aired on PBS, gives an arena for Campbell to answer detailed questions about his theory.

Cork, John and Collin Stutz. James Bond Encyclopedia. London: DK Publishers, 2007.
This is a fully comprehensive look at James Bond and his creator, Ian Fleming. The hardcover is 336 pages of full-color pictures to accompany the well-written text.


James Bond and Philosophy (Popular Culture and Philosophy series) by James South and Jacob Held. (Borrowed from Morgan Shaner)
This book offers a perspective on Bond from the study of philosophy – the hard logic behind Bond. By looking at the reasoning behind Bond’s controversial attitude, Bond characters are explained and criticized.

Parker, Barry. Death Rays, Jet Packs, Stunts & Supercars: The Fantastic Physics of Film's Most Celebrated Secret Agent. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005.
While going the usual array of James Bond history and analysis, this book separates itself by taking a scientific tangent. By analysing the Bond genre through the eyes of a physicist, author Barry Parker creates a unique view of the series.

Streitmatter, Rodger. Sex sells!: The Media's Journey from Repression to Obsession
Cambridge, Mass.: Westview Press, 2004.
This is a look at 1950s America where shouts of “ No sex, please, we're American”, are heard and uses it as a jumping off point for the rest of the discussion. Some of the topics covered are: he pill and the media: spawning a revolution, Playboy magazine: taking pornography into the mainstream, James Bond: bringing sex into the movies, and Cyberporn : bringing sex to the World Wide Web.

The Karate Kid: Neoliberalist Liberated

Neoliberalism brought a new opium to the masses. The promise of new individual freedoms via a more open market with freer trade and potential for unlimited growth would be the godsend for an American population embroiled in the tumult of an oil embargo and the insecurity of both rising inflation percentages and unemployment numbers. By releasing the stops on trade, a “‘a trickle down’” (pg 64) effect would bring prosperity across the board. The reality of the unchecked free-trade market is anything but this get-rich idyllic image. The average American has seen the exportation of jobs as the need for lower bases of labor has driven the bottom line lower and lower. The need for profitability has usurped the need to protect the American labor force.
My basic premise for much of what I have written and how I like to interpret what it is that an author is writing down is to take their ideas as a viable view of the pieces contemporary society. As it is, any piece is to varying degrees "good" or "bad", but always expressive and creative, to an extent. Take movies, for instance.
The Karate Kid (1984) can show us a bit of what it was like in the early 80's. We can also learn from the basic plot. Neoliberalism tends to leave the door open for business to set up shop elsewhere. We can see this in Daniel Larusso's mother, who loses her job on the East Coast, New Jersey, and heads west to California to find work.
Once they get their, Daniel is enraptured by the upper class Ali Mills played by Elisabeth Shue. This gets him into trouble with the other upper class bullies, and he is only aided with the help of Mr. Miyagi, an old Japanese man who teaches him karate. Here is a metaphor for the results of neoliberalism. Job loss leads to longing for the upper class, but the upper classes don't want you in, and only with the aid of a foreign entity may you achieve your lofty goals.

Work Cited
Harvey, David. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
The Karate Kid. Dir.John G. Avildsen. Perf. Ralph Macchio, Elisabeth Shue. Delphi Films, 1984.

A Hero's Helpers

James Bond is a character of prodigious charm and wit, a man that can rely on only these traits to carry the day. Yet, for all of his panache and moxy, Bond still has a Q department to lend a hand. Steven L. Goldman asserts in “Images of Technology in Popular Films”, that “In the Bond series, victory is never determined by the super-duper gadgetry with which Bond is invariably invested” (279). True, Bond must be stripped of his gadgets and gizmos, as he is in “Goldfinger” and matched against the arch villain, to show his true abilities. But the use of the gadgets should not be so easily shrugged off. They are the aid to the hero of the story, just as so many heroes have been helped throughout the ages.
Q represents a significant character in the mythos of the hero adventure. In folk narrative, a supernatural helper typically comes to the aid of the hero. “The hero to whom such a helper appears is typically one who has responded to the call” (Hero, pg. 61). Since Bond has hailed the call for Queen and country, help will be provided.
According to Joseph Campbell, the “hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself” (Power of Myth, 151). By this definition, James Bond is definitely a hero. He has given up much of his personal life to ‘the job’, as he calls it, and has lost many things because of it, as well. In the end, it is his devotion to ‘the job’ that gets him back to it. Not until he is put on another assignment does he get over the death of his wife in “You Only Live Twice,” for instance.
One particular scene comes to mind, one from “You Only Live Twice,” in which Bond is piloting Little Nellie, a small hand-built gyrocopter through the airspace above a mostly unpopulated island. Suddenly, the air is filled with helicopters on the attack. Double-0 Seven is able to defeat the invading helicopters with the much smaller and awkward looking Little Nellie, presumably because it is so soundly engineered and equipped, and because he is James Bond. The gizmos he is entrusted with do not bring final victory to the story, but they do keep the hero, Bond, alive long enough to save the world.
Q Branch is able to channel the creative energy of their engineers into a channel that is making the world a safer place. This avenue is a way for a capitalist society to make viable gains in the fight against evil. In this light, Q Branch is in contrast with Goldman, when he states:
Even as their technical knowledge increased in sophistication, and even as that knowledge became increasingly indispensable to the conduct of industrial capitalism, engineers individually and as groups held less and less power over the conduct, policies, and values of the industrial enterprises made possible by their expertise. (Goldman 283)
The operators of the government organization of MI-6 have seen fit to produce a branch that will help its agents in their most dire of needs, when it may be quite literally the agent against the world.


Works Cited
Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Novato, CA: Joseph Campbell Foundation, 2008
Campbell, Joseph, and Bill Moyers. The Power of Myth. New York: Random House, 1988.
Fleming, Ian. You Only Live Twice. New York: Penguin Books, 1964.
“Goldfinger.” Dir. Guy Hamilton. Perf. Sean Connery. 9 January 1965
Goldman, Steven L. Images of Technology in Popular Films: Discussion and Filmography. Science, Technology, & Human Values, Vol. 14, No. 3 (Summer, 1989), pp.275-301. 23 March 2009.

Presentation: Cold War Bond

Our group presentation is on the links between the Cold War Era and James Bond. Temporally and aesthetically the two match. At the core of the James Bond story is a fight between good and evil, where the good and the evil are painted both by the perceptions of the author and the perceptions of the reading public. If not for the views of the public at the time, James Bond could not have existed with such success. Our presentation about all we could fit in to a thirty-minute presentation about these topics and others that derive from these basic theses.
What I have done in the group is attempt to paint a picture of what the Soviets (Russians) are and what the perception of them was. Much of what we are taught in schools or in the movies is either exaggerated or completely untrue. Much like what happened to the Germans after Hitler and the Nazis, the Russian people were held to believe in all the doctrines and dogmas of their leaders. This just is not true. Fear held them under the control of the leading ranks, and dissension against the upper echelon meant interrogation for you, sometimes for those around you, time in the camps (Gulag), and possibly death. “Suddenly she remembered. What about the spoon she had stolen? Was it that? Government property!” (Pg. 71) Here Tatiana is trying to figure out why she has been summoned to the apartment of the head of the Department of Interrogation and Execution, or referred to by her as the Department of Torture and Death.
The Soviets instituted a program of propaganda to help prop up the legitimacy of their leaders beliefs. I have brought in some examples of this, mostly from World War II, or the Great Patriotic War, as the Soviets and now Russians refer to it. As a people, the Soviets are constantly portrayed as the enemy, and I think this is key to the James Bond/ Cold War connection. The stories play up the fact that the Russians are evil. “The are hard people. With them, what you don’t get from strength, you won’t get from mercy. They are all the same, the Russians.” (Pg. 176) Not only are the Russians demonized, but they are all lumped together, removing individuals from the equation.
The Russians were made to play a part in the Cold War Era. Not to say that all of the information is dishonest and untrue, but more designed to illicit a certain reaction. The Terrors and the Five Year Plans and the Gulag are all true, but they were actions taken against the people of the Soviet states, not designed by them. The leaders terrorized them.
Work Cited
Fleming, Ian. From Russia with Love. New York: Penguin Books, 2003.

Bond: Britain at His Finest

Great Britain circa 1950: five years removed from World War II, the country is decimated, and soldiers are returning home from the battlefield. A great empire is beginning to crumble. This island nation has been globally linked with the US through war, and it is not an equal partnership. Great Britain is going to have to learn how to deal in this emerging global climate, nestled between the two super powers of the US and the Soviet Union. James Bond is the foil to Ian Fleming’s Great Britain, a character that helps exemplify the traits of his beloved country.
Bond’s sense of duty and loyalty are key to his character. His loyalty is to queen and country while his sense of duty drives and compels him to finish out the mission. The plot of many a Bond book and flick hinge upon the battle between Bond the man of duty and loyalty, and Bond the man. This is an example of Fleming and other ex-soldiers coming back from war and dealing with the problem of fitting into a ‘normal’ life.
A very basic fact from World War II is the victory achieved by the Allies. James Bond is a winner. The two traits go with each other like ham and eggs. Both have overcome adversity to achieve the final victory. Bond’s tenacity is akin to the tenacious spirit that Ian Fleming sees in the British people.
Ian Fleming was looking for more than just a cheerleader for Britain or a poster boy of the essential British elements. No, James Bond was something more to Fleming. In essay their essay The moments of Bond, Tony Bennett and Janet Woollacott say that Mr. Fleming wrote Casino Royale as a way to take his mind off his impending nuptials. What better way to escape the thought of marriage than by creating a character that goes gallivanting around the globe with a cavalier attitude? Sound distraction, to be sure, but here again Fleming has himself more than a simple ploy for fun.
One of the conflicts in Casino Royale is man versus himself. Bond is torn between his sense of duty and his love for Vesper. In fact, the two cannot exist in the same space. Bond is prepared to resign from the service of the Queen in order to serve another, Vesper. In a way Fleming is exploring his own future, no longer the soldier in the service of the Queen, but a man readying his life for marriage.
Ian Fleming first wrote these stories and created James Bond in the aftermath of World War II. As Jeremy Black puts it, “That it was idealized did not detract from his presentation of Britain at a particular moment.” The Britain of today is more than fifty years removed from those dreary days and Fleming would have to account for these changes in his character. The values of the country and the place in history are drastically different. The Empire is long gone, the reconstruction of the war-ravaged country is complete, and the central enemy to the story, the Soviet Union, is gone as well.
In this sense, one can see that if the country is different then the character who personifies it must be different, too. Ian Fleming could not write the same Bond. James Bond would have to reflect a society that has embraced violence and shirked more social constraints than the comparatively conservative ‘50s and ‘60s would have been wrapped in. Something like the Bond of today.


Works Cited
Bennett, Tony, and Janet Woollacott. The moments of Bond. Information missing
Black, Jeremy. The Politics of James Bond: From Fleming’s Novels to the Big Screen. Westport: Praeger, 2001.
Fleming, Ian. Casino Royale. New York: Penguin Books, 2002.

Casino Royale

So, I can't remember what my very first Bond experience was, but I do know that it occurred at the behest of my father. Two reasons: my father is a Bond geek, and my mother hates Bond, and has never seen a whole movie. I vaguely remember seeing Dr. No, and I definitely saw the Timothy Dalton films in the theater from the 80's. I must have been 5 or 6, some where around there. Even those bad Dalton movies had cool gizmos, hot Bond girls, and things exploding for no apparent reason. Yes, you could say I liked the Bond flick right from the git go. Here goes the first bad word play of this blog: I found it a bonding experience between father and son. Here was something other than our knowledge and love for Niner football that we could enjoy together. It wasn't long before we were discussing our favorite Bond girls, and why. (Daniela Bianchi, From Russia with Love)

I have read Casino Royale and was surprised at the violent, dark mind of Ian Fleming. He refered to making love to Vesper (in the form od Bond's imagination) that it would be akin to the sweetness of rape. Rape? Really? If I wasn't so opposed to looking like a ninny I would have been repulsed by the thought, but as it is, you have to hand it to Fleming and his flare for the written word...
Anyway, the next surprise would be the violence that had to be added in order to make this a legit Hollywood contender. As if a gnarled rug beater to the nuts isn't enough, a knotted length of what looks like a hauser ought to do the trick. Say hello to your little friends!