some topics

Dear World System Net:


We seem to be struck by an attack of the killer meta-messages. Therefore I
suggest that we re-orient (pun intended) our discussion. Below please find
some possible topics for discussion. I am listing them there because I
would appreciate comments on them by people who actually know something 
about
those issues or at least have what is commonly called "informed opinions."


- since the collapse of European state socialism, has there been any
discernible sign of upward mobility (toward the core of the world economy)? 
--> if no, why is that? if yes, where?

- can an economically tripolar, militarily unipolar world be stable?

- what is "just enough" military capacity?

- is there a global peace dividend (due to the end of the cold war)? if yes,
where did it accrue? of now, why not?

- how do you interpret the secular downslide of the Euro?

- how do you explain the excess prosperity in the U.S.?

- are there any specific strategies of bloc-building discernible? is the EU
it? how about NAFTA?

- what is left by way of possible avenues of action to enhance their
status in the world economy for
        - individual states
        - corporations, tiny to huge
        - classes and class segments?

- given a technological shift toward computing, what is the role of
knowledge & education in global position?

- is there a world system of knowledge in the old fashioned sense (I
mean, you know, it's like people exchanging well-informed views)?

- what are the global and regional effects of the depletion of human
immuno-capacities and other effects of human technological intervention?

- what are the world-systems effects of the possible extinction of humans in
entire regions due to viral infections of one sort or another?

- where is the strategic center of the world economy (on which its coherence
and survival all hinges)?

- what are the effects of the exportation of identity politics, developed
from the core along a small number of identity dimensions to the detriment 
of
other identities, on politics outside the core?

- what are the chances of other identities--ones developed from the
historical experiences of societies other than the U.S. and western 
Europe--being meaningfully recognized as worthwhile?

- what are the chances of global democracy in 6700 languages? if a
functioning institutional system of democracy is predicated on a shared
language, and if the acquisition of such shared language is widely seen as a
colonial trick, is global democracy possible at all?

et c.

Best,

Jozsef Borocz