Re: some topics

I don't know if this qualifies as well-informed or even informed, but
what the hell:

At 11:54 PM +0800 20/5/00, Jozsef Borocz wrote:

> - since the collapse of European state socialism, has there
> been any discernible sign of upward mobility (toward the
> core of the world economy)?

presumably you're referring to the European ex-state socialist
states? if so, i'd have thought the answer almost self-evident?
virtually every indicator shows a downward shift for those states,
some being worse than others, with possibly the ex-ussr being worst
of all with life expectancy dropping (the other side of saying
mortalities rising), and population decreasing. as for why, i guess
one'd better ask jeffrey sachs :)

but if you are referring globally, then for a while there broadly
east asia ex-japan was moving up; they've been delivered something
like a 30-40% downward trim, excepting TW, HK and SG.

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

why do you think we have an economically tripolar world? is such a
view consistent with your other question:

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

if there is indeed a strategic centre, then tripolarity is only
apparent, isn't it? for the strategic centre -- by your explanation,
that which defines its coherence and survival -- would then be
effectively the pole.

is there such a strategic centre? you seem to almost imply it with:

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

what is "excess prosperity"? a growth rate above the underlying trend
line, roughly defined as something limited by labour force growth
rate + productivity growth rate? if so, has there been such "excess
prosperity" over, say, the last 50 years?

or are you referring to the last ten years, and especially the last
four or five, i.e. the celebrated longest economic boom?

if the last four or five, i suggest the answer is, in one phrase, the
east asian financial crisis.

still, while i do not agree with agf -- not on the basis of the facts
he marshalls, but subjectively from the feeling of my lived world --
on re-orient, perhaps the east asian financial crisis is also the
turning point. the liberalisation drive, specifically financial
liberalisation, has possibly hit a stumbling block, definitely taken
an ideological knock. this is important because financial
liberalisation was/is, i think, the attempt to implant the empire in
all of us -- dominance through institutional and other parameters. in
so far as the implantation process is well advanced in western
europe, and in so far as it may be well underway in japan, then the
notion of tripolarity is all the more appearance. in any case, the
massive dependence of japan (although it may not seem so from the
actual export to gdp proportion) on exports is well-known.

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

i don't think the question is "where" but "to whom"; but the "to
whom" does translate partially into a "where", given the composition
of the "whom".

on that basis, the "peace dividend" accrued to the shufflers of paper
and money, financial capital. sure, there had been a phenomenal
shift/growth with the collapse of bretton woods, but i think it got
one hell of a boost with the collapse of the state socialist system,
not least because tina got a boost.

> - 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?

i don't want to get slammed, but broadly tina does rule for the time
being, and integration into the envelop of the world economy is
probably the only possible avenue of action for small states (small
as defined by population size) if they wish to enhance their status
by the "normal" measures of status in the world economy.

same would be true of corporations, and for tiny corporations to
hitch themselves to those in the envelop -- and here there are no
other than the "normal" measures of profit.

for working classes, ditto -- better be a slave to those in the
envelop, than to those out of it, as a comparison of wage rates
between semicon and textiles should indicate.

large states (again as defined by population size, but have to take
account of geographical size, as large population in small area is a
problem) probably have some other options, such as the old classical
position of developing the home market; but if one looks at china and
india, they don't seem to think so, anymore.

much has been made of the usa export to gdp proportion going up from
the low teens to the mid-twenties -- that's like nothing compared to,
say, a country like malaysia where export to gdp proportion is in the
high 80's reaching into the 90's, and where trade to gdp proportion
is around 180%. this is probably an extreme instance; but just about
all of east asia made their move up the established ladder by either
home-grown investment in exports or by drawing in fdi into export
sectors, or a combination.

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

that would have to be a "yes-no", wouldn't it? there is currently a
world system of knowledge effectively defined by the parameters of
thought set down by the hegemon, as is clear when one thinks of what
is "normally" meant by terms such as development, democracy,
sex/gender, rich, poor, scientific, rational, etc. and there are
attempts to challenge it -- an act which implicitly acknowledges the
existence of such a world system of knowledge. furthermore, the
extent to which many, if not most, find it impossible to imagine what
some other form of rational thought there can be beyond that which we
familiarly know would also suggest the extent to which there is a
world system of knowledge, no matter the disagreements and disputes
over the details.

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

is there a depetion of human immuno-capacities? or is it that (a) we
recognise syndromes which we didn't recognise previously, (b) people
live longer and thus exhibit a range of ailments and illnesses not
seen or recognised previously, (c) people travel frequently, stay
shorter times, hence help convey pathogens from one place to another
in a manner previously not seen -- aside from the mass
near-extinctions resulting from the export of old world pathogens to
the new world, (d) we have pathogens jumping species (both ways: from
non-human species to humans and vice-versa) as humans push the
boundary between human-nonhuman species?

does this greatly alter the situation?

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

i don't think that even in the worst case scenarios are we looking at
extinctions. possibly halving populations in some regions, many of
them already disaster zones, many on the margins of the world system.

stupid optimism: perhaps allow such zones a chance to reconstitute
themselves in new ways?

> - 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?

jb, can you please expand on this? i'm a bit dense on this one, but
don't quite see where/how there is an export of identity politics of
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?

again, can you please expand on this? what other identities are you
thinking of?

but more generally, outside of the core (and perhaps even in the
core), identity politics are still often about the good old issues of
power, wealth and opportunity distribution.

> - 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?

the number of actual functioning/living languages is decreasing all
the time, isn't it? in any case, it does appear that more than even
fifty years ago, english has become predominant and threatens to
become more so. and in so far as states remain major actors, it is
more than likely that the world languages of the future will likely
be english and spanish/portuguese, by virtue of the numbers; while
chinese may have the most number of speakers, it is the language of
only three entities, one of which is recognised as an independent
state, one an autonomous region with no independent representation in
world forums, the third in a semi-limbo. come to think of it, maybe
that's the way to persuade beijing of the wisdom of spinning off a
number of states, each of 200 million or thereabouts -- increase the
number of states using chinese to around 6 or 7, and on that basis
have the weight with which to push chinese as a world language :)


kj khoo