Warren Wagar has written a short essay about antisystemic movements that
is relevant for those who are interested in progressive global praxis.
Warren's essay was presented at the ASA PEWS section roundtable on
global democracy at the Toronto meetings. The text is below.
I invite WSN subscribers to join an e-seminar on the issues raised by
Warren, and Warren has agreed to participate. Please contribute your
thoughts over the next week or two. Your contributions will be archived
on the WSN mail archive.
Chris Chase-Dunn
WSN facilitator
ANTISYSTEMIC MOVEMENTS, REAL AND IMAGINARY, IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
by
W. Warren Wagar
History
Binghamton University
(this short paper was presented at the annual meeting of
the American Sociological Association in Toronto on August
11, 1997 at a PEWS roundtable on global democracy)
I have six points to raise.
Point One. I like the expression "antisystemic movements," as
expounded in the oft-quoted 1989 volume of that title co-authored by my
Binghamton colleagues Giovanni Arrighi, Terry Hopkins, and Immanuel
Wallerstein. But I disagree with the way they use this expression. I
think they are too generous, much too generous. Among the older
antisystemic movements they list Social Democracy, Communism, trade
unionism, and movements for national liberation; and they also speak of
the "new" antisystemic social movements, which include the Peace, Green,
and New Age movements, the women's movements, and the minority rights
movements. Now, I submit that none of these was or is antisystemic
except portions of the Social Democratic Second International in its
pre-1914 heyday; and portions of the Leninist Third International in the
period from 1919 to about 1923, together with various small Trotskyite
movements in later years.
"Antisystemic" should mean what it says: against the system,
against the capitalist world-system with its globalized world-economy
and its various sovereign nation- (or rather would-be sovereign,
would-be nation-) states. (Actually, none of them is sovereign and very
few, fewer than 10%, are one-nation-states.) Antisystemic should mean
against thesystem--the whole system, lock, stock, and barrel, the
world-system.
Point Two. Most of the purported antisystemic movements were and
are movements--whatever their ideological trappings--to wrest a share of
power and wealth from the owners and managers of the world-system on
behalf of the segmental interests they represent. This is true whether
we are talking about Indians or Amerindians, women or gays,
trade-union members or Untouchables. They all seek a piece of the
action, but within the system. Within the system. For example, what do
most Palestinians want? They want land, restitution, recognition. They
want full membership in the United Nations, the authority to send and
receive ambassadors, the right to print pretty postage stamps, and have
their own national airline--perhaps PalAir? Is the movement for
Palestinian independence antisystemic? Don't fool yourself. In
the current world situation, and given all that the Palestinian people
have endured since the mid-1940s, I strongly favor the creation and
recognition of an independent Palestinian state. But such a state would
not be, could not be,antisystemic--nor for that matter are the PLO,
Hamas, and Hezbollah. The point is that the modern capitalist
world-system is not intrinsically white, male, straight, and European.
It did historically originate in a white, male, straight, European
milieu (unless you're a disciple of Andre Gunder Frank), but now that it
has been fairly launched, anybody can play. If the population of the
world in the next century should suddenly be slashed to nothing but
parthenogenetic Nigerian Lesbian Buddhists and gay Japanese Presbyterian
clones, the capitalist world-system could nevertheless persist and
flourish.
Point Three. The rest of the so-called antisystemic movements
today--now I'm thinking of the Greens, the Peace folks, and the New
Agers--do not necessarily represent segmental interests and may have a
genuinely global focus, but very few of them are really against the
system as such. Rather, they just want the system to be composed of good
people, with lofty spiritual values, and a vast desire to save the
planet. Most of the members of these movements have no fundamental
quarrel with the system as such, only with its wicked ways, which can be
mended with a good healthy dose of mystical or pacifist or ecological
fervor. The best proof that they have no fundamental quarrel with the
system is that the system shows no fear of them and, by and large, lets
them alone. Even world federalists are immune from surveillance, since
their idea of world government is prosystemic. A world federal
government, as they see it, would simply protect the nation-states and
economic arrangements and cultural differences that already exist. Far
from creating a new world civilization, it would help to stabilize and
perpetuate the old one.
Point Four. There is no possibility of global democracy in the
world of 1997 or of any year or decade soon. The system has been on a
winning streak since at least the mid-1920s, and moves inexorably from
strength to strength. Nothing, not the Great Depression, not the second
World War, not the breakup of the European colonial empires, not the
rise and fall of the Soviet Union and its bloc, has done anything but
strengthen it. And not one authentically antisystemic movement of any
significance exists in the world today to oppose it.
Point Five. The modern capitalist world-system will not enter into
decline or attract significant opposition until and unless it begins to
fail, and fail spectacularly: through such disasters as the wholesale
declassement of its middle classes, a series of global environmental
calamities resulting in the implosion of the world-economy, or an
apocalyptically ruinous North-South total war.
Point Six. Even then, antisystemic movements will prove ineffectual
until and unless they develop a deep cosmopolitan socialist humanism
transcending all segmental creeds and loyalties, and until and unless
they collaborate on a global scale to oppose the force of the
world-system with their own unrelenting force. The notion of a popular
front of all kinds of disgruntled elements linked by no common thread
except dissatisfaction with the status quo is a notion doomed to fail.
We've been there, done that, and it doesn't deliver the goods.
Seular socialist humanism--by which I mean rational faith in democracy,
civil liberties, public stewardship of capital, and the unity and common
destiny of humankind--must lead us out of the cultural anarchy and
reaction of the now-expiring 20th century to a new commonsense global
republic of working men and women. What drags us down is our desperate
allegiance to segmental cultures long outgrown; what can lift us up is
the flickering but persistent flame of reason. Without the psychic
cohesion that only a common world-view can supply, all would-be
oppositional movements are just whistling in the dark. This does not
mean that segmental beliefs and loyalties must be abandoned, if and when
they are compatible with secular socialist humanism. But such beliefs
can never take precedence over our common world-view. We have to
believe, and believe more powerfully and effectually than everybody
else, in our common world-view, or the struggle is lost. So I am not
speaking here of compromises or coalitions or half-measures. I am
talking about a binding rational faith in human unity and destiny
that demands and receives our paramount loyalty.
W. Warren Wagar August 11, 1997 Toronto, Ontario, Canada,
Civitas Mundi