An Unbreakable Bond: Final Paper

Bond – the man men look up to, the man women want. He idolizes the essence of the Britain, and thus portrays what Britain has come to think of itself. “The novels and early films charted a period when Britain was making adjustments to her world status…” (Black). Fleming’s Bond was a Bond to protect Britain from the evils of the world. He filled the void of a much needed hero for their time, which is why Britain connected to his image easily. But Bond has changed since the 1962 release of Dr. No. Today Bond represents something bigger – more universal. He’s transcended Fleming’s intended image and become a hero for the entire western civilization. He is now not only a protector to Britain, but he defends the western way of life.

James Bond is the ideal symbol of the West’s grandeur simply because he is unbreakable. Geoffrey Peterson said in a paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association that “always cutting edge, the Bond films have never shied away from the salient, even trendy, issues of their time.” Bond captivates his audience with his good looks, wry humor, cunning wit and the illustrious Bond girl we have come to expect and know in each novel and film. If it is true that Bond films emulate current world issues and represent an image of the West, the West should be seen as conceited and self-absorbed. An unbreakable Bond is an homage to our unbreakable Western force seemingly “conquering the world” as James Bond does.

Nowadays, the West, can be represented (stereotypically) as corporate nations. How did this negative look upon western culture come about? The answer could be neoliberalism.

Neoliberalism is "the suppression of a people by the privileged (upper class) in the name of freedom," (Harvey). Under neoliberalism corporations are under no governmental restrictions and are allowed to pursue their motives of expanding and gaining profit without limitation. It “is the desire to intensify and expand the market, by increasing the number, frequency, repeatability, and formalisation of transactions,” (Treanor). Originally conceived in Latin America, this not only economic philosophy, but political and social philosophy, has spread rampant across the West.

In Marc Forster’s 2008 Quantum of Solace, James Bond returns to the screen under a new guise and new story, not of Ian Fleming’s novels. Why create a new story? Possibly to continue Fleming’s perceptive series to a modern issue, so as to relate to the current audience. Fleming’s audience of a Cold War nation no longer holds any grasp or full appreciation of the issues he submerged into his novels and their then-current film adaptations. The movie deals with Dominic Greene, the chairman of an ecological organization, helping put a general in power of Bolivia in trade of a spot of desert. The audience comes to find out the land holds a fresh water river deep below its surface, and that Greene’s organization intends on blockading it and selling it back to Bolivia which was beforehand a free resource. Since Greene put this new general in power, there’s no way of prohibiting him from carrying out his plan. In steps Bond and suddenly Greene and the general are assassinated and all problems are therefore solved.

The interesting aspect of this movie is the fact that an event very similar to the conflict in Quantum of Solace took place in Bolivia called the Cochabamba protests of 2000, also known as "The Cochabamba Water Wars," because of the privatization of the city’s water supply (Schultz). This adds a tremendous amount of current world culture and issues to the movie, which then carries out with the audience.

The corruption of Greene’s company in the movie can easily be linked to neoliberalism. Within the free market, the government has no control over the boundaries of a corporation. Therefore, they’re able to expand and profit perpetually even at the cost of putting a city’s people into poverty. “Although usually done in the name of greater efficiency, which is often needed, privatization has mainly had the effect of concentrating wealth even more in a few hands and making the public pay even more for its needs,” (Martinez, Garcia). In the movie, Greene’s actions nearly identically mirror those of a corporation under neoliberal law.

Quantum of Solace portrays Bolivia as an abundantly poverty stricken country. With neoliberalism, the poor become poorer, and the rich become richer. According to the United Nations Development Program of 1996, the 358 richest people’s net worth was “equal to the combined income of the poorest 45% of the world’s population – 2.3 billion people.” Again in 1999, the United Nations Development Program’s Human Development Report said “the world’s 200 richest people more than doubled their net worth in the four years to 1998, to more than $1 trillion. The assets of the top three billionaires [were] more than the combined GNP of all least developed countries and their 600 million people.”

We can now see that neoliberalism affects those who are not the successful bourgeoisie in a negative way. Normally, the bullying of the neoliberalists comes from outsourced companies to already deprived countries. This connects to why the West can now be stereotyped into big businesses destroying the world. Globalized companies such as Coca-Cola, Nike, Wal-Mart, Exxon, Toyota, and possibly hundreds of others outsource their product. Some would argue it creates more jobs for the poor in those countries, who would otherwise have no job at all. But it’s difficult to sympathize with that argument when the working conditions they provide are distressing compared to the pay they offer. Sure someone can now afford a diminutive dinner for their family, but I doubt the company heads are considerate towards this outcome.

Neoliberalism and globalization can also affect those of us within the United States. “Outsourcing hurts Americans. It takes away real jobs- both blue and WHITE collar jobs,” (Tek). Neoliberalism also creates a greater divide between the upper class and lower class, eradicating the middle class altogether. Some could blame neoliberalism for the current economic crisis we’re facing. Without any government barriers for the banks, they were able to give loans to people unable to afford the payoffs (Tanneeru). This in turn causes banks to crash, businesses to go bankrupt, and jobs to be lost. Being the slippery slope it is, it ends up affecting people personally as jobs become scarcer and money becomes harder to come by.

Another thing to consider when analyzing our country’s current situation is the oil companies, as they could possibly be the best example of neoliberalism and globalization. Outsourcing their company to the Middle East for free reign on their product (Smith), without the restrictions of our government imposed on them. Meanwhile, they can drive the cost of gas upwards for the consumers, creating more profit for them and causing our money to diminish from our pockets. This widens the gap between the rich and poor – perfecting the definition of neoliberalism linked to these oil companies.

Neoliberalism, then, mustn’t continue as our (or any nation’s) government philosophy. It drives the poor into desperation – stealing and murdering others. Bruce Weinberg, co-author of the study and associate professor of economics at Ohio State University said the reason crime rate is so high amongst the poor is because it “increases the relative payoff of criminal activity…Wage declines are responsible for more than half of the long term increase in both property and violent crime,” (Grabmeier). The longer neoliberalism lingers in our country, the deeper parts of it will fall into desperation and poverty. The gap will continue to widen, and crime will continue to rise.

The government needs to regulate some of the market for it to be successful without driving some of it into the ground. David Harvey, author of A Brief History of Neoliberalism, called neoliberalism “…a case of senseless pursuit of a false utopia…”

Thinking back to James Bond in Quantum of Solace, we can analyze his attack on Greene’s company as an attack on neoliberalism. Could Bond represent a message to the West, telling it to rid itself of this philosophy? It’s quite possible Marc Forster, et al, had alternate motives in the message behind their movie. It might not just be Bond defending a country for the better good of the world, but attacking the tradition the world is currently in. Think of it as Bond representing the West, attacking the West, for the better good of the West – a critical look at ourselves from a hero’s point of view.

Works Cited

1. Black, Jeremy. The politics of James Bond: from Fleming's novels to the big screen. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2001.
2. Grabmeier, Jeff. “Higher Crime Rate Linked to Low Wages and Unemployment, Study Finds.” Ohio State University. 10 April 2002. 14 May 2009. .
3. Harvey, David. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
4. Martinez, Elizabeth and García, Arnoldo “What is "Neo-Liberalism?” Global Exchange. 28 October 2007. .
5. Peterson, Geoffrey, Wrighton, J. and Sitzman, Elise. "Policy Galore: How The Films Of James Bond Tells The World What Issues Really Matter" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association 67th Annual National Conference, The Palmer House Hilton, Chicago, IL. 2009-05-14
6. Schultz, Jim. “Bolivia’s Water War Victory.” Third World Traveler. Autumn 2000. < http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/South_America/Bolivia_WaterWarVictory.html>.
7. Smith, David. “Outsourcing Trends in Oil and Gas.” EDS. 24 July 2006. 14 May 2009. < http://www.eds.com/news/features/3130/>.
8. Tanneeru, Manav. “How a ‘perfect storm’ led to the economic crisis.” CNN.com. 29 Jan. 2009. 14 May 2009. < http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/01/29/economic.crisis.explainer/>.
9. Tek. “More Dangers In Outsourcing US Jobs.” Blog Critics. 20 Feb. 2004. 14 May 2009. .
10. United Nations Development Program. Human Development Report, 1996 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996).
11. United Nations Development Program. Human Development Report, 1999 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999).
12. Watt, Stephen and Willman, Skip. Ian Fleming and James Bond: The Cultural Politics of 007. Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2005.