Re: PFPC

     Boris has raised a number of entirely fair questions, which should also
be put to Dr. Rojas and Dr. Prugovecki.  My own responses are interleaved.

> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Sat, 10 May 2003 13:31:39 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Boris Stremlin <bstremli@binghamton.edu>
> To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK <wsn@csf.colorado.edu>
> Subject: PFPC
>
>
> Warren Wagar writes:
>
> > As an incorrigible utopographer, I applaud Dr.
> > Prugovecki's draft
> > statement of principles.  The goals he sets for
> > humankind are probably
> > shared by most of us in this list.  I would only
> > suggest that we cannot
> > make the transition from the new American century now
> > emerging to a
> > people's century without concerted efforts at the
> > planetary level (as well
> > as locally and regionally) to disarm national military
> > establishments
> > and dispossess corporate oligarchs.  Dismantling the
> > modern world-system
> > and replacing it with a new, quite different, and more
> > just world order
> > cannot be achieved without the disciplined
> > coordination of all progressive
> > elements everywhere.  Nor can the biosphere be rescued
> > without the
> > adoption and enforcement of a global plan that takes
> > the needs of all
> > peoples into account.  This would require, at the very
> > least, the
> > transformation of the United Nations, to which the
> > draft statement assigns
> > great responsibilities, into a democratic world
> > government elected
> > directly by the people.  In such a government
> > Luxembourg would not be the
> > "equal" of China, nor, for that matter, would the
> > United States be the
> > "equal" of India.  The size of national delegations
> > would be proportionate
> > to national populations.
> >
> >         But none of these tremendous deeds can be
> > accomplished, in my
> > judgment, without a well integrated planet-wide
> > movement of progressive
> > forces.  Only after the modern world-system is no more
> > will it be safe
> > to transfer, steadily and with increasing speed, the
> > exercise of
> > sovereignty from global authorities to local
> > communities practicing
> > participatory democracy as envisaged in the draft
> > statement.

> I ask:
>
> Any suggestions as to where the "well integrated
> planet-wide movement of progressive forces" would be
> headquartered?

    Thanks to the wonders of the electronic era, it would not have to be
headquartered anywhere.  I think Chris Chase-Dunn is probably correct in
his feeling that the chief initiative would be taken by various people in the
semiperipheral countries, but to be successful it would need extensive
support from many inhabitants of core and peripheral countries as well.

> Of what groups/individuals will the
> organizational center/vanguard be composed?

    We all know the Braudelian phrase "la longue duree."  The duration of
the modern world-system is not knowable, but I fear that it will persist for
several more decades, at the very least.  Perhaps even for a century or two,
if the already well-stretched natural resources of our planet allow.
Speculation about the composition of the "center/vanguard" is futile.  I am
only reasonably sure that there will be a "center/vanguard."  Hundreds of
millions of people cannot talk and listen to one another simultaneously.  A
few people here and there have to acquire the respect and confidence of the
rest to build a consensus and coordinate action.

> How shall
> it be funded, given the unicameral set-up of the world
> government (considering the richer countries are
> unlikely to be interested)?  Relatedly, how will the
> UN be made into democratic world-government,
> considering that all power resides with the highly
> undemocratic Security Council?

        I do not see any possibility of funding such a movement or transforming
the present-day United Nations into a democratic world-government any time
soon.  We can publish all the progressive declarations we like.  The fact
remains that the overwhelming majority of human beings at the beginning of
the 21st Century think only in terms of the self-interest of given national,
ethnic, corporate, and/or religious entities (at best--when they are not
thinking still more narrowly in terms of their individual self-interest).
The only imaginable circumstance that could prompt large numbers of human
beings to forswear these segmental allegiances is the catastrophic breakdown
of the world-system itself--chaos bred by war, economic collapse,
environmental challenge, whatever.  I am not being cynical.  I think it is
perfectly understandable that people cling to the institutions and mores
that frame and sustain their daily lives.  The problem is that the modern
world-system, despite its short-run virtues, is an inherently unstable and
unjust contrivance that will almost certainly self-destruct.  When and if it
does, will enough of us be ready to work in concert to replace it?

> Assuming this problem
> is somehow taken care of, how will such a UN proceed
> to "disarm national military establishments and
> dispossess corporate oligarchs"?
>
    "Such a UN" will not proceed.  Only a planet-wide revolution, programmed
and timed to seize the initiative in the wake of catastrophe, can create a
radically different United Nations with the resolve, the teeth, and the
support of the masses to disarm national armed forces and redeem the wealth
of the world from its corporate malefactors.

> Will it have its own
> army?  Who will fund it (and how?)

     Yes, it will establish a global militia, funded by the tax payers and
electorate of the world-government, to disarm any local force that defies
its authority.

> When all is said
> and done, how will we know that "the modern
> world-system is no more", and that it is "safe to
> transfer, steadily and with increasing speed, the
> exercise of sovereignty from global authorities to
> local communities practicing
> participatory democracy as envisaged in the draft
> statement"?

        We will know that the modern world-system is no more when the old
national states recognize the sovereignty of the democratic world-government
or disappear in a failed effort to defy it, and when all capital has been
transferred from private entrepreneurs to co-operative associations of
workers and consumers.  We will know that it is safe to decentralize when
local communities accept their responsibility to tolerate difference, grant
civil liberties to everyone, and work harmoniously with all other
communities to ensure the peace, preserve the planet, and abjure the
exploitation of "man by man."

> Will the center concede voluntarily?

    If the center remains true to its democratic principles, it will.
If not, another revolution may be necessary.

> Will it be permissible to criticize the center in
> any way prior to reaching this point?  Who shall be
> empowered to do so?

     The center will retain power only so long as it has the support of the
global electorate.  Systematic suppression of criticism would probably
forfeit that support.  But dissent aimed at replacing the democratic
world-government with an autocracy or theocracy, if backed by enough of the
electorate, might well lead to civil war and the failure of the whole
experiment.  No government, however benign, can be indifferent to outright
treason.

      Once again, let me say.  I am not talking about the arrival of utopia
in time for commencement or my next birthday or yours.  The real-world
deconstruction of the modern world-system is a project for the centuries.  I
think it needs to begin with the formation of a rough consensus among
progressive groups and individuals in all countries that an authentically
new world order, emphasis "world," is imperative, and worth fighting and
dying for.  I do not believe that such a consensus now exists, despite
agreement on certain values and parameters.  I fear that we have been
derailed by perfectly legitimate but in the long run secondary segmental
priorities that may obscure the final objective:  the equal empowerment of
all our kind, of all tribes, and the final overthrow of class and privilege.

     Respectfully,

     Warren