Utopia and World Party

    Interesting to observe as an outsider with all these discussions on
revolutionary strategies, dictatorship of the proletariat, Lenin vs. Marx
etc. how the discussions of the sixties and early seventies still appear to
be kept alive in sociology-departments in the USA -  above all, a tribute to
the power of nostalgia I would say.

    Seriously - I think beyond all the Marxist/Leninist dogmatic
hair-splitting and
faction-fighting already going on on this list, which is more likely than
not to immediately destroy any such party, if the proposed world-party is to
accomplish anything or if it
wants to attain any influence - it better stands for both a highly concrete
and a
very revolutionary target. Much more revolutionary - because immediately
realizable - than a global revolution, `sometime, somewhere, somehow', IMHO
since a global revolution would merely lead to a global nuclear war - not a
prospect I particularly cherish. For - unlike what Warran Wagar argues in
his `History of the Future' - a nuclear war will likely end human life
everywhere; not only in the north.

`    Granted - though - this list has its fair share of prophets of doom,
who
appear to relish in such a nuclear inferno - for what else would the next
core-war
be on which several people on this list like to ramble ?

    Peter Grimes, let's be serious - if you're earnestly that pessimistic
about the present `crisis' and the future why are n't you busy building,
say, a nuclear bomb-shelter  in Oregon instead of sitting before your
computer in Baltimore? During real times of crises one is much too busy
looking for food or staying alive
than with writing papers to be presented at an academic conference - ask
people who have experienced the `hunger winter' here.

    This main demand of a world-party would really be a quite simple demand
and
not even a matter which is confined to the conventional left/right divide,
and unlike the other demands of Wagar's proposed world party, this is not a
thing which is dependent on culture. Thus, most people in Islamic
countries - especially the poor and especially I can assure you poor women -
would oppose any demand for legislation outlawing `sexism' as it would be
anti-Islamic. While 70% of the world's population - including a majority in
the US - would oppose any party, which is avowedly secular. Wagar may not
like it but it is the reality...

    A true World Party should IMHO plead for a comprehensive system of
global social security - mainly to be paid by taxing international
capital-flows; introducing global taxation on transnational enterprises and
investments; and by instituting a world-wide system to tax off-shore
capital. Such a system would free each individual on earth of want,
unemployment (or at least assuring a minimum of unemployment-benefit), lack
of education, squalor and securing a decent old age (that is a pension),
safety of life, sickness-benefit, freedom of opinion and a protected
childhood. Social security is culture-independent (an old man professing
Islam wants a pension or medical care as much as an atheist) and all major
religions have a system of charity - so that it tallies with all religious
system.

    Such a system of social security paid by taxation - which at least
guarantees the poor a minimum-income - already exists in western Europe,
Canada or Australia.
There is no really good reason why it can not be introduced globally or,
indeed, why it would have to be introduced by force. If it could be
introduced in Europe without revolutions or world-wars and has indeed proven
that it
mightily reinforced European security and economic and political stability,
why not plead for introducing it world-wide ? For it seems the best
alternative to avoid
catastrophes (including violent revolutions) much as it has historically
done in Europe. So, why should it be impossible to convince elites social
security is the best assurance of both their survival and their prosperity ?
In Europe social security has after all butressed rather than threatened the
power of elites.

    Sure - this won't fundamentally re-divide power in the world and would
at best merely be a first step towards Wagar's socialist commonwealth but it
would certainly
make the world a much more pleasant and - yes - more civilized place. -
Social security in Europe has not made it a paradise but it did make it a
more civilized, less violent place, while forestalling the redivision of
wealth by violence. European social security has basically not redivided
wealth but has made everybody a bit richer and the very rich perhaps a tiny
bit poorer. But let's face it - if you have 20 billion dollars what are you
conceivably ever going to do with that ? Would n't the rich be willing to
sacrifice some of their wealth for the sake of their own security - for a
very unequal world is also a very dangerous world - they were prepared to do
so in Europe, so why not globally ?

    This is not a political but rather a broad moral appeal (everybody has a
right to a decent existence) which in Europe - as it would worldwide - have
an appeal
across classes as much as across the religious and the political spectrum.
After all - who will ever claim he/she is against pensions or medical care
for the poor ?


    And after all too - in Europe the system of social security was
introduced by
politicians like Bismarck or Winston Churchill who were hardly leftist and
on the moment an active proponent of a system of global social security is
Pope Karl Woytila. Although this side of John Paul II is generally silenced
over by the press. (Yet his anti-communist and `capitalist' credentials are
impeccable I
would say). And, I would say too, while prospects for socialist movements
are extremely dim, there is now  a reasonable prospect for a kind of global
`new deal' - exactly what Roosevelt already envisaged in 1944 - in which the
conditions of the Roosevelt coalition and Roosevelt's (and Truman's) `war
against poverty' can be replicated on a global scale. The bureaucracy in
organizations like the UN, the Red Cross, Unesco or the WHO exists already,
so does the money - just impose slight taxes on international
capital-flows - and ways to control it, and so, finally, does the global
coalition of political forces with the decline of the new right and the
global triumph of social-democracy.

    For social democracy and not the hard capitalism of the New Right - as
against the gloomy arguments of some commentators on this list and in JWSR -
has been the real political winner of the Cold War. The real thing social
democracy
is lacking - to go with its political dominance in Europe, North and South
America, Australasia and many South, Southeast Asian and African countries -
at the
moment is vision and a leader-figure comparable to FDR and to some
extent Kennedy. Mandela could be, but he's of course too old. As Tony Blair
demonstrates with his, I think earnest, quest for the `third way'; what is
needed above all - for a prophetic vision often produces a visionary leader
but rarely
the other way round - is a kind of inspiring vision on the mission of social
democracy for the next century much like the 40-hour day or the general
franchise was hundred years ago.

     I would say a global welfare state would exactly be such a kind of
vision which social democratic or even `moderate' radical parties (like the
SP here or the Gruene in Germany) lack on the moment; their vision being
either to defend the existing national welfare-state - like the moderate
radicals - or the managerial approach to streamline the wellfare-state,
without any global vision of a Schroeder, Jospin or Wim Kok. In spite of
going from electoral triumph to triumph the social democrat have little to
offer but `soft' liberalism. So why shouldn't a small group of intellectuals
like the proposed world party not provide such a vision for which the social
democrats are starving?

    The capitalists would oppose this you would say ? Well - for one thing
we now have hundred years experience with the welfare-state in Europe or
Australia and capitalism has never look healthier. Why should the
capitalists oppose something which has proven to be in their own interests -
if only
because they are citizens of the world too and the world would be a much
better place with a global welfare system. Not much fun enjoying your money
if you have to hide behind walls and security-guards against the poor
criminals, or if you're still threatened by global epidemics caused by
poverty or environmental
degradation.

    Sure - there are bound to be groups and countries resisting such a
global welfare-program, `free riders' offering lower wages because they
offer no social security - much like the state of Texas is in the US, but as
the Texas example shows a few free-riders will not in themselves lead to an
overall lowering of the standard of social security. There's likely to be a
cleavage with low-wage, exploitative industries moving to the `free-riders'
but are these the most desirable industries to have as a country ?
Nevertheless the
free-rider problem is the reason why I would plead for a proposed
introduction on a global scale and for its proposition by a world-party.
States and concerns can not be forced to introduce this - but one can, at
least, try persuading them it's in their own interests.

    For capitalist concerns and capitalist parties have historically not
really strongly
opposed the welfare-state and in Europe in fact big industry has
historically often offered quite good conditions of work - they need to
attract the best laborers - the big offenders in working conditions are
rather found in the `informal sector' and small businesses but unlike big
business small businesses can be controled by national legislation. As to
the parties - most social legislation in Britain historically derived from
Conservative governments for example - and capitalists would conceivably
world-wide not be as opposed to social legislation as one might be inclined
to think for two good reasons.

    Number one: we are now increasingly living in an age of
brainpower-intensive globalized industries where capitalists seek not so
much a cheap but a well-motivated, well-skilled labor-force, rather than a
mass of ill-motivated, unschooled laborers. Capitalists need healthy,
educated workers: quality labor for quality products - not a mass of
under-nourished, hungry and unskilled work-slaves, for robots are in that
case
always cheaper. Elementary - dear Watson: since the price of manufactured
goods is falling due to automatisation people are going to buy something
else; that something being mainly skilled services and to supply skilled
services you need an educated population.

    Number two: you need to sell your products and the only
really untapped global market in need of basic products are not the
populations of the first world but the four million poor of the Third World.
Experience has also shown that the welfare-state has been the main mechanism
for smoothening the impact of
cyclical movements in the capitalist economy, and if capitalism is to
experience steady, certain, growth in the next century, the best mechanism
thereto would be a global welfare-state. Capitalists may want profit but
what they want first and foremost is economic security and the best
safeguard for that is the welfare-state.


    And as to the parties - well ... obviously, people vote for you if you
introduce popular social legislation - I would say even if you do that
globally - for contrary to what is sometimes argued there is a broad feeling
of moral guilt in the west for the Third World and some clever politicians,
such as Al Gore are already trying to cash-in on that. A global new deal
would thus be very popular since, if it would involve some additional taxes
and certainly some inflation, it would also provide many new jobs. There is
anyway no alternative, since there's simply no way you can otherwise curtail
mass-immigration to the center - either workers in the US consent to higher
taxes to raise wage-levels in the Third World or their places are going to
be taken by immigrant-laborers.

    Some may say all this is totally utopian - as it goes against the grain
of the entire world system. Maybe so - but this is a utopia based on what is
realizable - why then, if opposing this as `irrealistic', DO you support a
much vaguer vision of a socialist world revolution in the very, very distant
future - let alone Wagar's, in my view, very unpleasant vision of a
socialist utopia after a nuclear war (for that's sacrificing 2 billion
people including everybody in the US, to be very optimistic, to reach your
utopia),  but do you oppose a utopia, which is well realizable under the
present `correlation of forces'?

    The money is there (and as said the `capitalists' stand to gain as much
as they would lose so I'm not so sure they would vehemently oppose it), the
institutions are there, the parties are there - the only thing lacking is an
inspiring vision. Also - much like people would have said in 1900 that the
comprehensive social security now in existence could never be realized in
Europe I would say it may prove equally well to be a quite realistic vision
world-wide and one for the not too distant future either - And as said, if
it would initially mean somewhat more taxation in Europe or the US, this
would be more than compensated by the increasing demand for products from
the Third World.

    Then it could be said this goes against the environment but remember
that the prime cause for environmental degradation in the Third World
(overgrazing, logging etc.) is poverty - combat poverty and you effectively
combat
environmental degradation too.

    And - finally - of course, the Marxist `fundamentalists' on this list
will certainly ignore this posting as working for a global welfare state
goes against `Marxism'. But I would say this is ignoring the real Marx whose
work in the German Social Democratic Party and the English Workers' Union
was not aimed at achieving a distant `revolution' but the very concrete
demands of
workers for social legislation; a 38-hour day, say, or insurance in case of
accidents etc. Demands which then, though, seemed utterly utopian, however
much we take it for granted nowadays, and to which the anarchists would then
have said they detracted from the more immediate tasks of the `impending
general revolution'. The same thing applies world wide on the moment. But
alas - too many US-intellectuals tend to stick to some dreamed Marx-ism they
acquired in the sixties rather than consider the activities of the real Karl
Marx. The power of nostalgia again?
Probably.

    Best wishes from Holland and an - uncommonly optimistic - no-where-land
    R.J. Barendse