RE: evolutionary options

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

[snipped the first two]

> 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.

Just in case, this third unilinear account isn't the one that I, nor others
I think, have been discussing in recent posts.  As noted in our off-list
discussions, this kind of Empire scenario is highly improbable.

> 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 think this conflates states with capital and social movements.  While the
first two are certainly closely tied, that doesn't seem to be the long run
trend, and progressive social movements are increasingly focused on global
problems.

> EA
> has no such formal organization, but is regionally integrated through
> Japanese capital and the Chinese diaspora.

But not only Japanese and Chinese capital.  Europe and the US have huge
investments in the region (including a huge military presence by the US),
and, unlike Japan, have a much easier time of selling Chinese goods in the
US.  China is dependent on the core and sp for markets for their most
profitable goods.

> 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.

[snip on swarm models]

Yet, those ideological models, with the exception of the first (?), were
based on national development, which is now largely delegitimized.  It seems
there are alternative ideological models forming now, some for better, some
for worse.    I would give more credit to the so-called "swarm model."
After all, though it tends to be anti-, it does have many pro- statements:
more equitable, sustainable, multicultural, peaceful, etc.  And the emphasis
of these groups is global, not national.  To the extent that this vision
spreads (or at least awareness of it), becomes more specific in terms of
how-to, and gains legitimacy, it could become an alternative model.  Isn't
that among our best hopes?

Elson
USAO