Re: Praxis

When do world hegemonies emerge?  when things have gotten so chaotic, due to 
increased economic and  geopolitical competition and class and cultural 
conflict (loosely defined) that a coalition of states and classes with 
sufficient weight endorses the leadership of a 'hegemon' (adding to the chaos 
is the reluctance of the declining hegemon to let go).  the hegemon then sets 
up a new order, enjoys 'something extra' (as Wallerstein puts it) for itself, 
and eventually witnesses its own demise due to increased geopolitical 
competition and class conflict etc.  In theory hegemons could proceed in any 
number of manners to secure their new order, but as Arrighi (underline!) 
makes amply clear in his account, historically there is a tendency for each 
hegemon to further erode the meaning of state sovereignty.  The US went to 
such extremes, setting up vaguely world governmental organizations like the 
IMF and the World Bank, as to call into question the continuing viability of 
a state system in the traditional sense.   Bo
ris, Negri, and anyone else--I refer you to 'The Three hegemons of historical 
capitalism', re-published in the Long Twentieth Century, where this point is 
explicitly made.  

Are the conditions present today for a hegemonic transition?  It seems as if 
there is economic competition.  I think there is plenty of evidence that, for 
the most part, capitalists continue to be based either in Europe, the US, or 
the major East Asian players, and utilize existing state and regional 
structures for their advantage--protectionism here, rallying for investment 
rights there...  Had the core capitalist class spoken in one voice, the 
Seattle WTO talks probably would not have collapsed.  

Geopolitical competition is more debatable.  Arrighi places great importance 
on the fact that the US is the only military power in the world.  
Wallerstein, on the other hand, seems to expect the EU and Japan to rearm, 
thus eliminating this US advantage.  I think this sounds more plausible, but 
it should be said at this point that geopolitical competition is not 
particularly intense.  Challenges from the South have to date been 
ineffectual and fairly easily contained.  On the other hand, they are 
present, and it seems likely that more Southern states will become nuclear 
powers, adding to tensions.

Is class conflict present?  Wagar thinks its realistic to believe there is 
'no movement' in the larger world.  I couldn't disagree more.  There are more 
movements, more global than ever.  Recall that only eighty years, the 
socialist movement was so miniscule that an Indian socialist represented 
Mexico to the Third International!  Socialism was born of a situation where 
the world geoculture had barely penetrated the surface of many societies.  As 
a result of its successes, the geoculture of literacy, universalism, rights, 
etc has penetrated so deeply that socialism as unifying movement is now 
impossible.  We have dozens, hundreds, thousands of movements, continually 
talking to each other learning, but no more handful of vanguardists ready to 
lead the peasants and workers to socialist modernity (okay, the vanguards are 
still out there--but no one pays them any attention anymore).  I am thinking 
of the millions of people worldwide who affiliate themselves with global 
movements such as environmentalism, feminism
, gay rights, indigeneous rights,unions etc.  But it should also be said that 
in terms of militancy--riots, strikes, protests, boycotts, etc.  I am not 
sure that we are not at an historical high over the last twenty years 
(obviously with dips and peaks from year to year).  Furthermore, the 
movements are now targeting the institutions of global governance.  More 
ominously for the stability of the system, class polarization in most 
countries has greatly increased, and ways in which the 'subaltern' classes 
were incorporated into the ruling coalitions have been torn up, likely paving 
the way for more intense and chaotic forms of class conflict.

Finally, there is cultural conflict.  There is quite a bit of that.  Various 
versions of multiculturalism, consumerism, fundamentalism, vie for the role 
of leading values all over the world.  And this is I think the key to why 
some form of territorialism is likely to continue.  Quite simply, 
territorialism has been an effective way for social/cultural movements and 
their foes to resolve their antagonism.  We will take the Soviet Union--you 
take the US.  Protestants get various northern European 
territories--Catholics take the South.  Everyone gets to persecute those in 
the minority.  It seems to me much more plausible that the present day 
cultural conflict will be solved in this way than by a global government that 
can impose any one of the alternatives on everyone.  Presently the US is tied 
to a kind of multicultural consumerism.  This is not at all the 'clash of 
civilizations' vision, which I think hasn't proved particularly popular among 
US elites.  Look at how excited the US media got when it seemed, a c
ouple of years ago, like Iran might turn into just another free market, 
consumerist 'democracy'.  Look at how much fun the US media had celebrating 
the alleged demise of 'Asian values' a few years ago...  These are the 
central 'civilizational' alternatives which have been out there. The US 
doesn't like them.  The US wants every country in the world to adopt free 
markets/consumerism/electoral democracy (although the latter is admittedly a 
lower priority). Where the clash of civilizations thesis has taken off is 
China and its diaspora.  I'd refer you to Aihwa Ong's Transnational 
Citizenship for a discussion of this.  Its the Chinese, more than the 
Americans (I'm referring to intellectuals with the ear of policy makers) who 
like the idea of 'just let everyone take care of their own problems in their 
own way' (as historical social science, of course, Huntington's thesis is 
nonsense--although he deserves some credit for identifying the relationship 
between the overbearing power of the US and fundamentalisms (what
 he calls 'civilizations') revolting.  Many of his critics--most recently F. 
Jameson, have missed this aspect of his argument).

Okay--this is getting too long.  I would just end with the thought that any 
new hegemon, like every previous hegemon, would develop its own ways of 
instituting hegemony--nobody would claim that it will be some sort of carbon 
copy of American or British (two quite different animals) hegemony.  The 
possibility that a regional hegemony would work through existing and new 
world governance institutions cannot be altogether ruled out.