PFPC

> I agree with Warren Wagar on two points.  First, any
> political movement, regardless of its beliefs or
> agenda, has an organizational center (or a
> vanguard).
> I also agree that power politics is here to stay for
> the foreseeable future (though its form may undergo
> drastic changes).  It is precisely because I agree
> with these two points that I remain puzzled by the
> bulk of the "Peoples Century" project as laid out by
> Warren Wagar.  First of all, the onset of the
> electronic era and the internet notwithstanding, he
> himself recognizes the "chief initiative" will have
> to
> be taken by certain countries (in the
> semiperiphery).
> I would add that countries taking chief initiative
> also employ factories, use currency issued by
> central
> banks and deploy armies, all three of which are
> located in geographically situated entities, and not
> on the internet.  It has also been pointed out (by
> e.g. Randall Collins) that "live" interaction will
> continue to be key in forming intellectual
> movements.
> In light of all this, regional realities will
> continue
> to crucially effect the way in which particular
> countries conduct themselves in the ongoing process
> of
> systemic transformation.  I am not convinced by
> Chase-Dunn's location of centrality in an amorphous
> semi-periphery - it seems to me far more likely that
> the lead in equalizing global power and wealth will
> be
> taken by countries such as China and India, because
> they are already politically centralized, and
> because
> of their central geopolitical location (there are
> important extraterritorial agents, but they are also
> regionally situated.)  And it is far from clear to
> me
> that movements centered in China and India (or any
> other country that can help it) will be willing to
> cede their sovereignty to any global entity (unless
> such sovereignty is institutionalized in a way which
> allows them to excercise hegemony in their own
> right).
>
>
> Since Chase-Dunn has been invoked, I should note
> that
> he (and Thomas Hall) explicitly disagree with Warren
> Wagar's focus on instituting a centralized global
> state
> in the breach left by the collapse of the current
> system, and leaving the setting up of decentralized
> structures until later.  They see this strategy as
> neither practicable nor desireable.  While some sort
> of global structure will probably be necessary, any
> move in this regard will have to be accompanied by
> decentralization, precisely because no state, no
> matter how benign, will tolerate treason, and
> because
> the definition of treason will probably be quite
> fluid
> in the revolutionary conditions Warren Wagar
> describes.  I have little faith in such a state
> "withering away" on its own (even given some measure
> of success), because the study of world-empires
> (admittedly very flimsy to date) suggests that such
> structures can be very long-lived.  In fact,
> continued
> improvements in computer and genetic technology will
> probably increase its longevity.  Conversely,
> renewed
> revolutions to remove corrupt post-revolutionary
> elites will continue to threaten the planet with
> physical destruction.  It is quite likely that the
> dangers of a world-state (with or without democratic
> pretentions) will outweigh its benefits.
>
> However long the current transition takes, it seems
> to
> me unwise to focus all energies on a particular
> temporality and a particular blue-print of what we
> "all" want the world to look like.  Warren Wagar has
> for many years stressed the "will to agree".  It is
> at
> least equally as important to outline the far more
> numerous areas in which we can agree to disagree
> without blowing each other to bits (in other words,
> to
> parcelling out, rather than absolutizing,
> sovereignty).  Part of utopistics will be centered
> around the construction of institutions which will
> allow us to manage such disagreements in the most
> democratic way possible.
>
> > 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,
>
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