spiral of capitalism and socialism

These are my initial reactions to Terry Boswell and Chris Chase-Dunn's
"The Spiral of Capitalism and Socialism," and I will make no attempt to
be very specific or thorough -- it's a broad-brush summary, and it's 
longer than my norm for an acceptable posting -- I only hope that the
importance of the topic is sufficient justification. 


1)
SCS is an important and impressive work, oriented toward praxis, that
everyone should read and discuss.  It somehow manages to be at the same
time both hard-headed and practical, and visionary.  It is a novel
synthesis, informed by the findings of world-system research at every
turn.  The first chapter is valuable in its own right, a 35-page updated
summary of world-system theory and research.  It leaves me with a rare
sense of optimism.


2)
SCS provokes a dual reaction.  
        On the one hand:  
"But that's just core-centric liberalism/social democracy!"  
        On the other hand:
"What?  Global socialism?  How did they get to *that*?"

B&C-D explicitly adopt analytical marxism's micro-level theory 
(specifically 
Roemer and Przeworski) and use it to inform their proposals for praxis (as
well as their assessment of state socialism's strengths and weaknesses).

From one angle, then, the project looks:

a) conservative (assuming "rational actors" trying to maximize utilities),
b) reformist,
c) committed to non-violence,
        and
d) core-centric (assuming progressive change radiating out from core).

But I'm separating out these elements -- in the book's presentation, they
are dialectically intertwined with these elements:

a) a historic tendency toward a world state,
b) both growing power and a historic tendency toward structural innovation
        in the semi-periphery,
c) the emergence of a progressive world polity, spreading universal values
        of human rights, environmental protection, etc,
        and
d) the European Union as the potential model and actual embryo of
        history's first multi-state hegemon, opening space for movements 
        from below. 

So SCS presents the possibility of transforming the world into One Big
Sweden, if ever so slowly.  The start, though, could come as soon as the
next K-wave A-phase peak in 2015 or 2020, (or perhaps the next one 50
years later if we're still around, I'm not clear) -- this could be the
occasion for the creation of a multi-state hegemon instead of the
horrifyingly typical pattern of world war.


3)
The "trick," as it were, of B&C-D's analysis, is to transpose cycles and
trends.  They basically propose that if progressive forces just keep
pushing (clearsightedly, based on good assessment, and with a catholic
attitude rather than baptist infighting, to use my phrase)) for
democracy and equality (the old slogans of the French Revolution), they
can push the system's secular trends to a point of affecting the playing
out of the cycles.

The ace in the strategy, not quite a deus ex machina, but the lynchpin
or engine without which the mechanism won't work, is the semiperiphery.
The assumption is that the peasants and workers in the periphery have
motivation, but no opportunity, while the core workers have opportunity
but little motivation (see Przeworski for supporting evidence, including
his analysis of the "valley of transition," also discussed on Wright's new
AJS piece -- Jan. 2000).  The workers and peasants of the semiperiphery
have both motivation and opportunity, and thus become the locus for
progressive system-level change.  A key becomes "harmonization
upward," the potential for core labor to join with semiperipheral labor to
enforce global standards that will benefit both.

 
4)
Sorry, I haven't yet summarized the scenario.  In a nutshell, the
capitalists create the rudiments of a world state, partly in response to
pressure from below, as seen today with the opposition to the WTO, and
then progressive forces democratically take over that state and implement
a form of market socialism (which I won't attempt to describe here).

The vision is that the same forces that have led to progress within states
can continue at the global level, a result of the ongoing "spiral" of
capitalism responding to, and often making concessions to, workers and
other progressive forces, mainly through the process of democratization.


5)
A carefully crafted, provocative vision indeed, and not just a vision, but
the solid basis for a coordinated strategy.

In general, my inclination is to say, "I haven't seen anything else that
comes close in terms of strategy, let's adopt it and get to work!"

I do have two reservations, though:

Ai) There is not enough attention to the ecological crisis.  It is
included (as Doom 2 to nuclear war's Doom 1), but addressed using the term
"sustainable growth," which I'm afraid is an oxymoron.  The destruction of
ecosystems and species is a secular trend not addressed by SCS, and the
depletion of fossil fuels is another secular trend that not only is not
addressed, but which may intervene to disrupt the predictable cycles in
ways which B&C-D do not even speculate.

Aii) Related to this, new technologies such as bioengineering and ongoing
computerization, with its interesting potential for "dematerialization" 
are not addressed at all.

B) The conditions of the periphery are also brushed by too fast.  The SCS
scenario may be right if the assumption about the lack of opportunity of
the periphery is right.  But it seems to me that surprises may well be in
store, both good and bad, based on the incredible stresses that are being
and will increasingly be felt.  I wouldn't be so fast to write off the
periphery as the source of innovation -- there will be hundreds of
millions of very young, very informed, and very oppressed people there in
the 21st century, and what *they* may dream of and do isn't, and can't be,
incorporated into anything so rational and well thought through as this
book.

*** *** *** *** *** 

I haven't even addressed the specifics of the World Party idea, or the
implications for the recent discussions of "global keynesianism."

This is enough for now.  I hope this provokes some refocused discussion of
the sort Warren was recently requesting!

Richard Hutchinson
Ogden, Utah