Re: some topics

At 11:54 AM 5/20/2000 -0400, you wrote:
>
>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."

I'll stick my oar in on a couple of subjects.

>- 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?

I may be an optimist, but I think that there are signs of this. Central
Europe, the Southern Cone states, and the islands and peninsulas of East
Asia (Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia/Singapore, arguably Thailand and portions of
coastal China) could be expected to attain Spanish levels of output and
living standards relative to the core over the next generation. I agree that
wouldn't be enough dispersion of wealth to prevent some kind of cataclysm
later in the 21st century. 

What we need is for large Second World countries like Brazil, Mexico,
Ukraine, and Russia to begin making some kind of progress relative to the
core, and for large Third World countries like India, China, and Indonesia
to begin to make the transition to the Second World. If such a variegated
and more egalitarian income structure came into being, the odds of a violent
global revolution/war of any kind would seem less. The evidence for this
suggest that this could go either way.

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

The Americas and the Pacific islands could be said to be located at opposite
ends of a continua.

At one end, the Americas were two densely populated regions with a combined
land area of tens of millions of kilometers. (There were anywhere from 50
million to 100 million inhabitants in the pre-Columbian era.) It was also
beginning to accumulate a fair bit of surplus wealth. When the European
explorers and colonizers arrived in the 16th century, and the diseases that
they brought decimated Mexico and Peru, they (i.e. Spain) were able to take
over the most productive regions of the New World and use their wealth to
forward their European and extra-European aims. Over the centuries, the
conquered territories eventually became assimilated to European cultures,
languages, and religions, through continuing epidemics, through immigration,
and through the assimilative efforts of European colonial officialdom.

The Pacific islands were contacted only in the 19th century. They suffered
the same array of European diseases. Partly as a consequence, the Americans
were to turn Hawai'i into an extension of its metropolitan territories, the
British were to turn Aotearoa/New Zealand into a settlement colony, and the
French were to turn Kanaky/Nouvelle-Calédonie into a smaller settlement
colony. Outside of Hawai'i, Aotearoa, and Kanaky, though, there wasn't any
large-scale European settlement, simply because there weren't any resources
(temperate climate, farmland, mineral resources) that merited any
large-scale European settlement.

If a continent or a region suffers depopulation in the course of the 21st
century, depending on world demography and the needs of the world economy,
then, the choicer areas would probably be promptly recolonized by different
First World states and confederations, perhaps also by larger Second and/or
Third World states. The more marginal and unwanted areas would be left to
the native populations.

>[deletia]
>
>- 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?

A unified world might well look like Wagar's post-Commonwealth or like
modern Switzerland, with different regional and ethnic communities having
little to do with each other. Alternatively, we might see a resurgence of
imperialism, and the creation of integrated multinational communities
centered on different states and/or confederations. Or alternatively, a
world language or culture not particularly associated with imperialism
(Spanish? Chinese?) might come to provide the superstratum which may be
necessary for global democracy.

>Best,
>
>Jozsef Borocz