I want to address point one of Wager's essay.
I diverge with Wager over the conceptualization of systemic change and the
notion of "anti-systemic" movement. Clearly Capitalism is the dominant
organizing principle and dynamic around the globe, but the socialization of
the production of goods and services and the establishment of public
authority over private economic activities continues to grow and recede
according to temporal politics. At this point it is difficult to gauge
whether there is a sectoral trend toward the private commodification of all
goods and services, or whether the current fade of industrial privatization
around the world just hides the slow march toward increasing socialization
of goods and services. For our debate I don't think the question of
destroying capitalism is as interesting as changing the direction of
capitalism(market scope and degree of public regulation) under global
development.
Also, Wager's conceputalization of anti-systemic movement implies
intentionality, meaning that such movement's would by definition be the
product of global thinkers, like those associated with this listserv. I
can't go along with this conception, rather social movements "should" be
accorded anti-systemic status when they push to restrict the reach of
capitalism in ways meaningful to the participants of such movements. The
question of intentionality is important here since most social movement
participants do not seek to destroy capitalism, but there actions may
indeed contribute to a larger social process which restricts, and may
eventually replace capitalism. Thus, they are "anti" to the extent that
they prevent the dynamic of capitalism and its human managers from
proceeding on their own.
At 02:03 PM 9/15/97 -0400, christopher chase-dunn wrote:
>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
>
>