World Party discussion

Beginning tomorrow, November 10, Elson Boles and I will host a
discussion of the idea of a World Party on WSN, the world-systems
network. We have put up a preliminary World Party web page at
http://csf.colorado.edu/wsystems/archive/praxis/wp/index.htm

to subscribe to wsn send the message
subscribe wsn "your personal name"
to
listproc@csf.colorado.edu

Here are the main questions that should be addressed by participants in
the World Party discussion seminar:

1. Is the idea of organizing a World Party in the near future wrong,
premature, anachronistic, too Stalinist, to Napoleonic, destined to
failure, overly compulsive, eschatological, a cabal of intellectuals
mesmerized by their own ideas,  etc.?

2.What should the long run, medium run and short run goals of the World
Party be?:
      a.  is a democratic and collectively rational global commonwealth
a desirable and feasible goal for the next century?  How  might such an
entity be organized?
       b.  should the World Party support or oppose the emergence of  a
global state?
       c.  should the WP make an effort to prevent catastrophes such as
warfare among core powers or global ecological collapse, or should we
rather concentrate on being ready to pick up the pieces after such
catastrophes happen (as in the scenario in Wagar’s Short History).
        d.  what kinds of immediate struggles should the World Party
take on?


3 Who would be the constituency of  a World Party?

4. Who would be the activists?

5. How would a World Party be organized?

6. How can we create a powerful coalition of counter-hegemonic
movements: women, workers, environmentalists, Third World and indigenous
peoples. Who should be in this, and who should not be in it?

8. Where are the persuadibles. What kinds of people will not need much
persuasion? Which kinds will never be persuaded?

9. How can we help to turn the reaction against capitalist globalization
into a movement for globalization from below?

Chris Chase-Dunn