Re: a violent revolution?

At 05:04 PM 11/19/99, Richard N Hutchinson wrote:
>
"You would think from recent posts that the list has been transformed into
>a revolutionary organization debating strategy.  As if a loose circle of
>core academics is going to launch a revolution, violent or otherwise...
there will be violent revolution, mainly in the periphery and
semi-periphery, whether we like it or not. In the core, there is not likely
to be, unless and until the next core war" 

I agree. But Hutchinson continues:

The sort of movements coalescing in Seattle are the name of the
>game in the core, not some sort of storming of the winter palace.  The
>action is in the periphery, or semi-periphery.

It seems obvious that 'the wretched of the earth' of the capitalist world
economy are more likely to rebel against 'the system' than the average blue
collar 'factory' worker in the core who is really well off (if one takes
into account the global social structure). Maintaining its status quo (cut
taxes and keep the happy few in the core content with promises of lower
taxes and a balanced budget) is central to the core's policy. But will
violent uproars in the periphery bring the system in disequilibrium?
Violent peasant uprisings against the pre-capitalist feudal system (i.e.
exploitation of the nobility) abound, but did they cause the demise of the
system? Rebellions here and there, causing suffering for millions in the
periphery, does not alter the present status quo. The rebellions in Congo
(ex-Zaire), Algeria, etc. ... or the starvation of the Sahel countries in
the 1980s, nobody gives a damn in the core. It does NOT affect their profit
margins. It may sound horrible, but it's merely a footnote in the history
of capitalist profitability.

Then What? Hutchinson raises the Question-to-Be-Resolved:

 "The lofty moral pronouncements of a few core academics are not going to
affect that one way or another. We are not going to make the revolution, it
is going to happen, and then the question is how do we relate to it."

Indeed. When the capitalist system enters in a crisis because of the
occurrence of multiple significant variables simultaneously, then academics
MAY be able to play a modest role in the core. What variables? For example,
crises caused by increasing problems such as mass migration from the
periphery to the core, or increasing environmental problems (ozon layer
effects etc.) may no longer keep the current profit rate sustainable. After
all, many capitalists firms make their profits due to the 'externalization'
of their costs. The environmental crisis caused by the capitalist system
can in my opinion be one of the few elements that we, as academics, can
raise to galvanize public opinion in the core against the logic of
capitalism (I would not count on feelings of humanity or vague appeals
about brotherhood in the core to the 'mutants' of 2025 in the periphery who
look purple cause they can not afford expensive clean-air masks, although
one can try).
Involving mass migration (ever more refugees from hunger, violence, etc.
will move from the periphery to the core), academics can play a role in
attempting to influence public opinion in the core and attempt to inform
them about who and what  is causing these people to migrate in the first
place. I do not think that the 
environmental crises of the 21st century should be underestimated, and a
global appeal to the self-preservation of the human race, however
self-interested, 
may be able to unite a significant amount of people in the core and in the
periphery alike. After all, self-interest has been at the center of human
history since the Neanderthals were wiped out.  

Sincerely,

Eric Mielants
Sociology Dept.
SUNY-Binghamton