World Party Discussion

This is Wagar's attachment.  I'm posting it because it is easier to read 
and respond as part of an email.

        Here are a few responses off the top of my head.  By the way, the
idea of a World Party as delineated in A SHORT HISTORY OF THE FUTURE
originated with me thirty years ago, but it's really just an updated
version of the "Open Conspiracy" proposed in 1928 by the English novelist
and futurist H.G. Wells in a book entitled THE OPEN CONSPIRACY: BLUE
PRINTS OF A WORLD REVOLUTION.  It's out of print, but I have a new edition
in press (Praeger), which is due out soon.


> 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.?

        Probably all of the above.  It's almost certainly premature,
because there is still not enough world-wide consciousness of the
impending collapse of the modern world-system or, what amounts to the same
thing, its transformation into a quasi-fascist technocracy.  Nevertheless,
it would do no harm to test the waters. 

> 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?

        Yes.  The task of the World Party would be to seek election of its
members in legislatures world-wide and when the time is right, proclaim
and establish a federal or confederal world state.  I would prefer a
unitary world state, but this seems out of reach unless preceded by a
catastrophe so overwhelming that it would break the power of all the
political and economic special interests now propping up the modern
world-system.

>        b.  should the World Party support or oppose the emergence of  a
> global state?

        It should support such a state, which is the only instrumentality
that will have the authority and the power to clean up the environment,
impose rational limits to growth, and redistribute wealth and resources in
the service of worldwide social justice.  But for me there is no
functional difference between a "global state" and the "global
commonwealth" mentioned in 2.a. above.

>        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).

        This is not an either-or situation.  The World Party in A SHORT
HISTORY OF THE FUTURE was not waiting around to pick up the pieces.  It
was ready to do so, if necessary.  Meanwhile it made strenuous efforts to
prevent warfare and ecological collapse.  So the answer is, obviously, it
should do both.

>         d.  what kinds of immediate struggles should the World Party
> take on?

        The immediate task would be to gather a worldwide membership and
define goals, not necessarily in that order.  This will be struggle enough
for the next few years!
  
> 3 Who would be the constituency of  a World Party?

        Rational people in all countries:  but especially students,
intellectuals, and workers (= everyone who derives most of her/his income
from paid labor of any kind or color of collar).  The bulk of the
membership might well come from people in semi-peripheral and
peripheral countries who have managed to transcend parochial political and
religious loyalties and are looking for a wider vision and a higher goal.   
  

> 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?
        
        Everyone should be in it who agrees that the crisis of the modern
world-system demands a totalizing response at all levels--environmental,
economic, political, cultural.  The goal is not to save the planet or
build socialism or secure the independence of oppressed nations or smash
imperialism or liberate women but all this and much more:  the creation of
a collectively rational and democratic world civilization under the rule
of a common world law.  The World Party, as I see it, would BE a coalition
of counter-hegemonic movements.

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

        All this remains to be seen.  But I would not rule out anybody.
Even people on corporate boards or in ecclesiastical hierarchies or in
national bureaucracies might turn out to be vulnerable to rational
persuasion.

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

        Build the World Party!  Globalization from below is a marvelous
phrase, which sums up everything I think the World Party should be about.


        W. Warren Wagar
        Department of History
        SUNY at Binghamton