Wallerstein's 'two large camps'

Wallerstein writes in "Globalization or the Age of Transition? A Long-Term View of the Trajectory of the World System," International Sociology, vol 15, no 2, June 2000, p.265:

 

"We can think of this long transition as one enormous political struggle between two large camps: the camp of all those who wish to retain the privileges of the existing inegalitarian system, albeit in different forms, perhaps vastly different forms; and the camp of all those who would like to see the creation of a new historical system that will be significantly more democratic and more egalitarian. However, we cannot expect that the members of the first camp will present themselves in the guise that I used to describe them. They will assert that they are modernizers, new democrats, advocates of freedom, and progressive. They may even claim to be revolutionary. The key is not in the rhetoric but in the substantive reality of what is being proposed.
 The outcome of the political struggle will be in part the result of who is able to mobilize whom, but it will also be in large part the degree to which who is able to analyze better what is going on and what are the real historical alternatives with which we are collectively faced. That is to say, it is a moment at which we need to unify knowledge, imagination, and praxis. Or else we risk saying, a century from now, plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. The outcome is, I insist, intrinsically uncertain, and therefore precisely open to human intervention and creativity."

 

How does this differ from Marx/Engels CM?

 

M-E write (quoted from Kamenka p. 203-4):
"In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a complicated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold gradation of social rank ... The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. ... Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinctive feature: It has simplified the class antagonisms. Society is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other -- bourgoisie and proletariat."

 

Similarity:
Both IW and M-E speak of "two great camps" which are in a relationship of "antagonism" or "struggle".

 

Differences:
(1) M-E call the two camps "classes"; IW does not.
(2) M-E conceive of the two camps as either "national" (i.e., classes within a territorial unit called state or nation-state) or "international"; IW conceives of the two camps as worldwide.
(3) M-E attach names to the two camps (classes) - i.e., "bourgeoisie" and "proletariat"; IW does not attach names to the two camps.
(4) M-E observe a simple dichotomy in the objective social structure; IW is also dichotomizing, but the criterion is more subjective - namely,  "all those who wish to ...." (sc., defend or challenge privileges  in the world-system).

 

Observation:
In M-E the "two camps" are relatively clearly identified entities. In IW the scope and composition of the "two camps" is relatively fluid. The reason for that appears to arise from reality itself, in the sense that the structure of a European society in 1848 differs from the structure of world society in the year 2000. It was fairly correct (or, at least, plausible) to describe a European society in 1848 by saying, as M-E do, that: "Our epoch . . . possesses . .  this distinctive feature: It has simplified the class antagonisms. Society is more and more splitting up . . . into two great classes directly facing each other." The same could not be said about the structure of world society in the year 2001. There may be one great class (global corporate class), but the other side is not one great class but, rather, many classes, countries, ethnic groups, NGOs, etc. (with additional conflicts between each other). However, the fact that observers like Wallerstein speak of "two large camps" suggests that it might make sense to conceptualize this situation as a "global class conflict", with the understanding that a "global class conflict" is more complex than a "class conflict" a la M-E.

 

With greetings from Canada,

Gernot Kohler