evolutionary options

"Given the political bargains during such transformatory phases, we should 
expect a multiplicity of alternatives to arise.  Institutional change will 
occur through a twofold process: a stage of institutional emergence and a 
subsequent stage of systemic selection."  This is from Hedrik Spruyt's The 
Sovereign State and its Competitors, mostly devoted to the emergence of the 
state form following the medieval period, but looking to the present and 
future.  Spruyt critiques the numerous weberian, marxist, etc accounts of the 
rise of the state that see it as a unilinear, inevitable development.  In 
fact, there were a number of different forms of social organization at the 
end of the medieval period, and the state won due to historical developments. 
 I think this critique is relevant to the present, and many accounts of the 
contemporary and future world system.  However, whereas unilinear accounts of 
the past at least give overly simplified accounts of what happened, unilinear 
accounts of the present give overly simplified accounts of what their authors 
think is going to happen.

There are three unilinear accounts of the current system that one hears over 
and over:

Neoliberalism--everyone with any common sense now recognizes the virtues of 
the free market.  In any case, the world economy is set up such that you will 
fall hopelessly behind if you try to defy it.  The world is moving towards a 
community of neoliberal states in which goods and capital will freely flow 
between borders.  This is a good thing.   It happened because common sense is 
prevailing. 'Democracy movements' like those in Chile, the Phillipines, 
Eastern Europe, etc facilitate neoliberalism and are generally a good thing.  
Once in a while, however, the masses' fears intrude and threaten to mess 
things up.  Given the choices, it is probably better to have a somewhat 
authoritarian neoliberalism than a democratic anti-neoliberalism.

Disorganized Capitalism--there is no more core and periphery, hegemony, etc.  
Everything is going in all directions at once.  Nations states are 
meaningless as actors in the world economy.  Transnationalism is hot.  this 
happened because of accelerations of speed due to communications and 
transportation breakthroughs.  Efforts to impose world order are no longer 
relevant, and probably a bad thing.  Local, hybrid activity is a good thing.  
Where are we going?  History lacks that sort of coherence.  Its silly to talk 
about things like 'the rise of East Asia' or 'the decline of the US' because 
place no longer means anything much.  But probably networks of global cities 
will be key players in the future.

Empire--The US-led core keeps getting stronger and stronger.  The US is 
strong militarilly, culturally, and economically, especially compared to 
alleged competitors like Europe and Asia. It will impose its rules 
everywhere.  The world it will force through looks a lot like the ones 
neo-liberals describe.  However, far from being the product of common sense, 
it is the result of power.  There are no contradictions to speak of amongst 
the ruling classes that will cause it to weaken.  Thus it should be frontally 
assaulted by the discontented everywhere. 

(note if we line them up like this, we can see how incongruous versions two 
and three seem to be--although two was extremely fashionable only ten years 
ago).

In contrast, an approach like Spruyt's would suggest that the present 
situation--in which we can probably all agree that there is a certain 
exhaustion of the conventional notion of national soveriegnty--will give rise 
to a number of alternatives, that will then go through a selection process 
(i.e. struggles, history, etc)   How would alternatives be generated?  
Probably forces that have access to different kinds of resources--military, 
economic, etc. will try to piece them together into alternatives.  One way to 
do so would be territorially, if a large pool of resources is located in one 
place.  Another would be transnationally, if one could figure out a way to 
pull dispersed actors together under one plan.  I think both the European 
Union and the East Asian regional economy are examples of the former.  They 
both have a lot of economic resources, quantitatively more than the US, 
probably even if one conceives of 'the US'  as a region including not only 
Canada but Latin America (and while the US seems to be incorporating Mexico, 
I'm not sure Brazil is sold on this vision). The EU supercedes the nation 
state by formally combining a bunch of states under a political umbrella.  EA 
has no such formal organization, but is regionally integrated through 
Japanese capital and the Chinese diaspora.  The US 'empire' might be 
considered an example of the latter, i.e. the emergence of a transnational 
alternative through the shared interests of dispersed groups (worldwide 
neo-liberals).  Finally, its also possible that some territorial or 
transnational group may emerge as an alternative due to the power of 
ideology.  This is what happened with the Lutheran principalities, the US in 
the 1780s, Russia in 1917, etc.  None of these places were very strong 
militarilly or economically, but they became extremely important due to the 
impact of their ideological models.   Calvinists and Socialists tried to 
present transnational models, but they were overwhelmed by the logic of the 
state system.  Perhaps a transnational model will have a better chance this 
time.  I should add, however, that the 'swarm' model of mobilization that has 
been so effective in places like Seattle, Prague and Sydney (so why do people 
continue to advocate Leninism?) doesn't quite qualify yet--it is a model of 
mobilization, not a model of social organization.

I think comprehending our position on the cusp of indeterminate change, with 
a number of alternatives emerging, is more useful than fundamentally 
apocalyptic notions in which the power of capital is homogenized, or trying 
to create excessively elaborate notions of cyclical parallels (which was 
never the intention of '1931' in the first place).

Steven Sherman
Greensboro College