10/02/97, Bill Schell wrote:
>1. the world system is
>evil, exploitive and must be swept away and replaced and 2. the world system
>is deeply flawed but has within it tools that can be used to reform it.
My posting was along these lines...
>What I find structurally interesting about the post-Soviet experience is
>the variety and intensity of destabilization tactics (from devolution to
>mafia infiltration, from political funding to economic pressure) that have
>been employed, and the success of the media in attributing each episode to
>this and that sundry cause.
.... which isn't making any general claims about the world system.
As regards your dichotomy...
This is more usefully discussed, allow me to suggest, if we include ALL
global systems - including communications, finance, transport, etc. - not
just some political system-slice such as "core-periphery". This suggeston
is not so outrageous, given that you invite discussion of "has within it
tools".
>From this perspective, 90% of the world system is simply machinery
(including staffs of organizations, routine corporate and government
operations, air travel, etc.)
This 90% is certainly reformable and would be immediately responsive to
radical policy changes from above, if they were to come. It would be to
everyone's disadvantage to radically destabilize the global machine -
better to keep the trains running while organizing systemic reforms.
The top "10%" of the world system is another matter. To use a biological
metaphor, the top 10% is the higher cognitive functions - the place where
the overall system perceives its historical situation and plans its next
move.
This is the level that includes G7 meetings, the Council on Foreign
Relations, the Bilderbergers, the Tri-Lateral commision, corporate think
tanks, etc etc.
This is the level that plans how US-NATO is to be installed as the official
global police force, decides what the UN will and won't be allowed to do,
and figures out how best to phase in the globalist regime so as to minimize
resistance. (EU as Trojan Horse, etc.)
It is only the top cognitive 10% that is inherently "evil, exploitive and
must be swept away and replaced". The other 90% is "deeply flawed but has
within it tools that can be used to reform it".
But sweeping away that 10% amounts to a radical lobotomy, presumably
leading to rapid and major observable changes in system macro-behavior.
Such a revolution might be perceived emotionally as "the whole system was
swept away", but it is just a matter of putting someone else at the
controls.
rkm