Globalisation is Science Fiction

In this article, I argue that the liberal discourse of globalisation is science fiction. That discourse, rather than simply reflecting recent trends and transformations, is part of a science fiction/globalisation intertext that encompasses both science fiction and a liberal globalisation discourse spanning the media, state officials, and multilateral economic institutions. After a brief introduction to the notion of an intertext, I examine the defining tropes and narratives of the dominant liberal discourse of globalisation. Using Isaac Asimov's Foundation series as an exemplar, I then show that these tropes and narratives are also central features of 1950s American utopian science fiction. In the fourth section, I argue not only that the narratives and tropes are similar across these two sets of texts, but also that they are animated by a similar problematic, one based on order and stability and legitimating authoritarianism.