There's a material component that's answered in works like Divided World Divided Class, but there's also an ideological component as well. Capitalism having a single birthplace has profound consequence since the ideology used to justify capitalism (liberalism) has a single birthplace as well, in this case Western Europe. This was not true for feudalism, where it arose independently multiple times. But the multiple birthplaces of feudalism meant the feudal ideological justification for feudalism had multiple birthplaces as well. In Western Europe, this was Catholicism, in the Abbasid Caliphate, it was a particular school of Islam, and in Song dynasty China, it was neo-Confucianism. But even though all three ideologies uphold feudalism, they aren't interchangeable. Feudal French peasants won't accept their Catholic feudal lords suddenly becoming neo-Confucian bureaucratic-scholars even if neo-Confucianism is also a feudal ideology designed to reproduce feudalism because it's not just to reproduce feudalism but feudalism with Chinese characteristics.
There's no way to universalize these particular feudal ideologies. A de-Sinicized neo-Confucianism just wouldn't be Confucian (Confucian teachings rely on rituals particular to a Chinese cultural context), a de-Arabized Islam wouldn't be Muslim (if you didn't say the shahada in Arabic nor pray in Arabic, can you really call yourself a Muslim?), a de-Europeanized Catholicism wouldn't be Catholic (that would mean not recognizing papal primacy of the Roman pope). The only way towards universalization is through conquest and subjugation of the rest of the world, essentially killing your competitors and being "universal" because it's the only one in town.
Liberalism, as an capitalist ideology birthed from a Western European context, can also not be universalized. But an additional detail is that by the time liberalism was formally developed as an ideology during the Enlightenment, Western Europe had already begun colonizing the world. So, liberalism isn't just designed to reproduce capitalism with Western European characteristics but capitalism with Western European colonizing and imperializing characteristics.
And since capitalism was born in the West, capitalism had more time to crush, purge, and subsume every single illiberal (ie feudal) ideology within Western Europe so that the entire Western European populace had centuries of being marinated in liberal ideology compared with the rest of the world. At this point in time, there isn't anything illiberal left outside of fascism if you don't count fascism as an extension of liberalism. Even things like neo-paganism wind up being an incredibly individualistic (ie liberal) understanding and practice of religion. To be Western is to be liberal and to be liberal is to be Western.
Meanwhile, liberalism was imposed on the rest of the world by European colonizers, so a similar process of destroying native feudal ideologies occurred. The difference is because liberalism isn't designed to serve the interests of the colonized, the populace tacitly reject this in the same exact way feudal French peasants would reject neo-Confucianism. Part of this rejection is trying to hold on to those feudal ideologies and being more eager to find alternatives. This is why even today, the biggest proponents of liberalism in the non-Western world, be it China, India, Nigeria, Mexico, or Russia, are all Westernophiles. There's no such thing as liberalism with Indian characteristics. There's only Indian liberals believing in capitalist ideology with Western characteristics who worship the West too much. To be Western is to be liberal and to be liberal is to be Western.
Principled socialist and anti-imperialist orgs can use this inherent aversion of Westernization/liberalization, expressed in its most vulgar and chauvinistic form as "fuck whitey," towards anti-colonial, anti-imperialist, and anti-capitalist ends with the ultimate goal of building a socialist society where the people there are masters of their own collective destinies. Being anti-Western is by no means sufficient (there are plenty of anti-Western and anti-white dead ends like Black Israelites), so a principled org must be there to steer the people away from those dead ends.
A citizen of the Global South undergoing de-Westernization would, as pointed out by Fanon in The Wretched of the Earth, first attempt to replace liberalism with an ossified version of their native feudal ideology. With political development through class and anti-colonial struggle, the reactionary parts of that feudal ideology get dropped and the emancipatory parts of that feudal ideology get emphasized. Eventually, this progressive form gives birth to a new ideology that's anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist.
To finally loop back to your comment, the process of de-Westernization is far more challenging for Western Europeans. What would a de-Westernized French person or German even look like? Is it even possible? Combating liberalism is fine, but what do you replace it with? "Don't be a cringey liberal lmao" is not enough if there isn't anything to fill the ideological void. The Global South can temporary fill the void with their previous native feudal ideology with the understanding that it will eventually be superseded by a socialist ideology. What does the Global North have?
Liberalism, as an capitalist ideology birthed from a Western European context, can also not be universalized. But an additional detail is that by the time liberalism was formally developed as an ideology during the Enlightenment, Western Europe had already begun colonizing the world. So, liberalism isn’t just designed to reproduce capitalism with Western European characteristics but capitalism with Western European colonizing and imperializing characteristics.
I think multiple books I've read lately touch on this. The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View discusses the origin of Capitalism specifically in the English countryside and how you can see the evolution in social relations reflected in the records of the evolving superstructure. As Wood points out, when you examine Agrarian Capitalist English land speculators and Feudal French land speculators in the same time period, they operate completely differently. The French speculator is trying to find or invent ancient land deeds and titles to allow the aristocracy to coerce more money out of the peasantry (because every mode of production before Capitalism has relied on increasing the ruler's coercive powers rather than systematically increasing production). The English speculator is examining the land on the basis of its cultivation (or lack thereof) and comparing it to the market in Southern England, to charge tenants the highest possible rates (due to Agrarian Capitalism separating people from the means of their own reproduction, and thus imposing the necessity to increase productivity in order to compete with other tenants).
This ideological preoccupation with land and cultivation is then immediately used as justification to steal land from everyone around the globe. "These savages aren't making some parasite like me a shitload of money by working every square inch of the land as efficiently as possible. Really we're doing them a favor by taking it away from them."
There's a material component that's answered in works like Divided World Divided Class, but there's also an ideological component as well. Capitalism having a single birthplace has profound consequence since the ideology used to justify capitalism (liberalism) has a single birthplace as well, in this case Western Europe. This was not true for feudalism, where it arose independently multiple times. But the multiple birthplaces of feudalism meant the feudal ideological justification for feudalism had multiple birthplaces as well. In Western Europe, this was Catholicism, in the Abbasid Caliphate, it was a particular school of Islam, and in Song dynasty China, it was neo-Confucianism. But even though all three ideologies uphold feudalism, they aren't interchangeable. Feudal French peasants won't accept their Catholic feudal lords suddenly becoming neo-Confucian bureaucratic-scholars even if neo-Confucianism is also a feudal ideology designed to reproduce feudalism because it's not just to reproduce feudalism but feudalism with Chinese characteristics.
There's no way to universalize these particular feudal ideologies. A de-Sinicized neo-Confucianism just wouldn't be Confucian (Confucian teachings rely on rituals particular to a Chinese cultural context), a de-Arabized Islam wouldn't be Muslim (if you didn't say the shahada in Arabic nor pray in Arabic, can you really call yourself a Muslim?), a de-Europeanized Catholicism wouldn't be Catholic (that would mean not recognizing papal primacy of the Roman pope). The only way towards universalization is through conquest and subjugation of the rest of the world, essentially killing your competitors and being "universal" because it's the only one in town.
Liberalism, as an capitalist ideology birthed from a Western European context, can also not be universalized. But an additional detail is that by the time liberalism was formally developed as an ideology during the Enlightenment, Western Europe had already begun colonizing the world. So, liberalism isn't just designed to reproduce capitalism with Western European characteristics but capitalism with Western European colonizing and imperializing characteristics.
And since capitalism was born in the West, capitalism had more time to crush, purge, and subsume every single illiberal (ie feudal) ideology within Western Europe so that the entire Western European populace had centuries of being marinated in liberal ideology compared with the rest of the world. At this point in time, there isn't anything illiberal left outside of fascism if you don't count fascism as an extension of liberalism. Even things like neo-paganism wind up being an incredibly individualistic (ie liberal) understanding and practice of religion. To be Western is to be liberal and to be liberal is to be Western.
Meanwhile, liberalism was imposed on the rest of the world by European colonizers, so a similar process of destroying native feudal ideologies occurred. The difference is because liberalism isn't designed to serve the interests of the colonized, the populace tacitly reject this in the same exact way feudal French peasants would reject neo-Confucianism. Part of this rejection is trying to hold on to those feudal ideologies and being more eager to find alternatives. This is why even today, the biggest proponents of liberalism in the non-Western world, be it China, India, Nigeria, Mexico, or Russia, are all Westernophiles. There's no such thing as liberalism with Indian characteristics. There's only Indian liberals believing in capitalist ideology with Western characteristics who worship the West too much. To be Western is to be liberal and to be liberal is to be Western.
Principled socialist and anti-imperialist orgs can use this inherent aversion of Westernization/liberalization, expressed in its most vulgar and chauvinistic form as "fuck whitey," towards anti-colonial, anti-imperialist, and anti-capitalist ends with the ultimate goal of building a socialist society where the people there are masters of their own collective destinies. Being anti-Western is by no means sufficient (there are plenty of anti-Western and anti-white dead ends like Black Israelites), so a principled org must be there to steer the people away from those dead ends.
A citizen of the Global South undergoing de-Westernization would, as pointed out by Fanon in The Wretched of the Earth, first attempt to replace liberalism with an ossified version of their native feudal ideology. With political development through class and anti-colonial struggle, the reactionary parts of that feudal ideology get dropped and the emancipatory parts of that feudal ideology get emphasized. Eventually, this progressive form gives birth to a new ideology that's anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist.
To finally loop back to your comment, the process of de-Westernization is far more challenging for Western Europeans. What would a de-Westernized French person or German even look like? Is it even possible? Combating liberalism is fine, but what do you replace it with? "Don't be a cringey liberal lmao" is not enough if there isn't anything to fill the ideological void. The Global South can temporary fill the void with their previous native feudal ideology with the understanding that it will eventually be superseded by a socialist ideology. What does the Global North have?
Agreed on all counts.
I think multiple books I've read lately touch on this. The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View discusses the origin of Capitalism specifically in the English countryside and how you can see the evolution in social relations reflected in the records of the evolving superstructure. As Wood points out, when you examine Agrarian Capitalist English land speculators and Feudal French land speculators in the same time period, they operate completely differently. The French speculator is trying to find or invent ancient land deeds and titles to allow the aristocracy to coerce more money out of the peasantry (because every mode of production before Capitalism has relied on increasing the ruler's coercive powers rather than systematically increasing production). The English speculator is examining the land on the basis of its cultivation (or lack thereof) and comparing it to the market in Southern England, to charge tenants the highest possible rates (due to Agrarian Capitalism separating people from the means of their own reproduction, and thus imposing the necessity to increase productivity in order to compete with other tenants).
This ideological preoccupation with land and cultivation is then immediately used as justification to steal land from everyone around the globe. "These savages aren't making some parasite like me a shitload of money by working every square inch of the land as efficiently as possible. Really we're doing them a favor by taking it away from them."