Regarding:
>
> Terry Boswell's choice between a democratic world state and an
> authoritarian world state is a false dilemma. Societies do not have to
> have a state any more than they have to have social classes.
>
> Andy Austin
>
If, as Wagar suggests, it will take a revolution (or several simultaneous
revolutions) to bring about a socialist world-state, we (or they,
depending whose side "we" are on) may as well use the revolution to
eliminate the state. The only reason that world-revolution would be
less likely to bring about a stateless society than a socialist
world-state is that it is in no one's particular class-interest to have no
state, while it is in many people's class-interest to have a socialist
state (bureaucrats, politicians, academics . . .). Of course, a
"socialist" state founded on class interests is definitively not a
socialist state.
I would, however, agree with Boswell that a world socialist state is the
more likely outcome (over a stateless society), though itself still
fantastically unlikely.
Salvatore
Salvatore Babones
Sociology Department
Johns Hopkins University
Ph.D. expected Spring '98