REINVENTING SOCIALISM:
Political Economy and Social Justice
in the New World Disorder
Philosophers have only studied the world in various
ways;
the point is to change it.
Marx
INTRODUCTION There are many problems facing
those who want to help build global and national political economy oriented
to social justice. I am charged to reflect upon the papers presented at
the session on Socialism and the World Capitalist System here today and
to critique them, on behalf of the audience, in terms of some vision of
how a people and a global governing body might move toward a more democratic
and responsible political economy. 1
I have to say, at the outset, that I don't care too much
for the term, socialism. Far too much, it conveys the idea of the state
as a central repository of economic wisdom, agency and control. It implies
a vast bureaucratic apparatus hostile to both human agency and variations
on a theme. While the state may one day wither away, still theory and experience
tell us to guard against such readings of our efforts here today. My own
preference is found in the subtitle; what we should reinvent is not state
socialism but a global political economy in which social justice concerns
envelop and constrain extraction of raw materials, global investment decisions,
and relationship to the means of production for diverse ethnic groups which
seek to preserve their ancient heritage.
The papers before us are happily matched to such a project in a number
of ways. Christopher Chase-Dunn (1989; 1991; 1992) provides us with an
overview of the architecture of the global world economy. Any effort to
build the socialisms of the future must consider its many features. Terry
Boswell (1992) reviews some characteristics of the global economy which
have made the building of a democratic socialism difficult while he insists
that democratic socialist institutions are necessary at home and on a global
scale. The other two panelists change scale to discuss the lessons to be
taken from Nicaragua (Paige, 1992) and Vietnam (Murray/Vieux, 1992) today
for a wise and decent economics tomorrow.
Chaos Theory My particular contribution to the session, other than
illuminating the more salient points made here today and offering some
other ideas useful to democratic socialisms for the 21st Century, is to
encourage those in political economy and in the philosophy of science to
consider the implications of a profound transformation reported in scientific
literature variously called nonlinear dynamics, Chaos theory and/or the
science of complexity. I am confident that nonlinear analysis will be foundational
for social policy in three regards: first in describing the nonlinear behavior
of actual economics (Berry, 1991) and in offering ideas about human agency
about social change and thus about social policy--as postmodern science
would see them (Young, 1991, 1992). I offer comment in passing below.
Chaos research reveals a profoundly different architecture of social structure
from that presumed by modern science and its post-structuralist critique.
One's conceptualization of structure is basic to both research agenda and
to social policy. In general, those findings are hostile to central planning,
close control, and monolithic policies. In general, the basic ideas of
Chaos theory speak in favor of gentle intervention at key points on key
variables while suggesting that there are more limits to human agency than
perhaps we care to see. Chaos theory also offers a theoretical tool with
which to understand the great discontinuities in global politics in recent
days a bit better than the linear and totalizing theories of the past.
The difference in architecture of social structures
between that presumed by Euclidean geometry and that uncovered by Chaos
research is pivotal to the reinvention of a socialism which will work to
human purpose. An entirely new vocabulary, loaded with entirely new understandings
is required to grasp this most unusual science and transfer its insights
to social justice concerns. Other essays in the series are available to
that purpose and a large and rapidly expanding literature is in the bookstores.
Brian Berry (1991) offers an overview of Chaos theory and Kondratieff/
Kutznet waves for those interested in developing a socialist economics
geared to the new science of complexity. 2
I want to underscore the theoretical point made in the Chase-Dunn
paper that there is a 'spiral' or interactive effect between global capitalism
and socialist economics around the world. My small addendum to this point
is that most salient point is that these dialectics are nonlinear. By that
I mean that there are quite specific points, there are phase transitions
in economics which bring surprise, renewal and challenge; these points
of transition can be identified by the four Feigenbaum numbers which measure
the rate of change of key parameters in system dynamics (Briggs and Peat,
1989:58).
And, in keeping with a major theme in Chaos work, I want to emphasize the
curious causality found in Chaos work. Causality is fractal (it varies
over a causal field); it is multilayered (there are varying connections
from the microscopic to the macroscopic); and it is dialectic (the observer
somehow enters into the field under study and affects the outcomes. The
connectivity of causality is strange indeed since it appears to work over
a distance in which events apparently unconnected by some direct mechanism
are affected by distant events. I hasten to add that such causality is
entirely natural in the sense that it is a feature of physical matter.
SCALE OF ANALYSIS If we are to build a democratic
socialism, we have to know the shape, reach and run of the larger structures
in which the fates of its parts are partly determined else face failure.
Chase-Dunn and the world system school have made a compelling case that
there are, in fact, macro-structures which, forms and preforms economics
within nations and within blocs of nations. To deny the existence of this
structure(s) is to blind oneself to the mountains and ridges into which
one might fly. A large and growing literature, called post-structuralism,
denies the causal efficacy of such structures referring to theories about
them as 'meta-narratives' of doubtful authenticity. Chaos theory offers
an understanding of structure which reconciles the postmodern critique
to World Systems Theories. The facticity of such structures vary with region
in a causal field and with scale of analysis. 3
Appendix A discusses the problem of structure in more detail than here,
giving both evidence and analysis in terms of Chaos theory.
The global economy, until 1989, was composed of two separate economic blocs
which, together, form a mega-system, the interactional dynamics of which
still have profound impact upon each other. It is the interaction of that
mega-system to which the Chase-Dunn paper speaks so directly. I must say,
it is a pleasure to see a first rate intellect organizing a vast array
of data over the scale of time and space in which Chase-Dunn and others
in world system theories work. Yet it is the very disorderliness of such
data which gives post-structuralists so much room for doubt.
Structures Among the more important 'structures' which Chase-Dunn
invites our analytic attention are:
1. Core-periphery. According to Chase-Dunn and the world system theorists
with whom he identifies (Wallerstein,
there is an interstate capitalist system (1989:41; 1992:1).
2. The Socialist Bloc. Chase-Dunn sees the former socialist bloc as an
important constrain on capitalist expansion. Absent the socialist bloc,
one can expect the internal dynamics of capitalism, mentioned above, to
have full reign.
Connections In the sweep of economic history Chase-Dunn presents
us, socialism shapes capitalism and capitalism preshapes the varieties
of socialism. Socialism has forced capitalism to make concessions to workers
since the spectre of communism always haunts the conservative conscience.
Socialism forces capitalism to share out markets and technology where otherwise
it would tend to stagnate. Chase-Dunn uses Korea as a case in point. The
USA developed Korea as it did not client states in Central America since
Socialist China sat an ominous option for workers and suppliers in that
part of the periphery. Today, it is not the USA government and its direct
intervention into peripheral nations which insert capital and reproduce
market relations; it is private transnational corporate investors who do
so to take advantage of competitive wages; favorable business climate (read
few restraints on profit margins, profit expatriation or pollution controls
along with more or less heavy repression/oppression of populist elements).
In his development of the concept of the Core-periphery system, Chase-Dunn
uses a model most compatible with the fractal structures of Chaos theory.
He notes that the core is comprised of several 'subgroups;' that no one
core state represents the interests of world capitalism as a class. The
multi-centric model of the global does two things for Chase-Dunn; it keeps
the system competitive and capital moving while it presents no stable central
target against which to mobilize working class struggle (1989:42). I have
said that conceptualization is important to social policy since it sets
the pathway of policy. Monolithic conceptualizations ignore the interactive
effect of parallel economic structures. It is the particular virtue of
Chaos theory that different modes of production can occupy the same time-space
continua. The operative question centers around the nature of that interaction;
Chaos theory suggests it is, variably, nonlinear. Sometimes capitalism
smothers other economics; sometimes it parasitizes them; sometimes it augments
and nourishes. This is a very different view of such dynamics found in
orthodox capitalist and marxist literature.
Chase-Dunn utterly rejects the idea that the cold war is over; that capitalism
has won and that all that remains is for capitalism to bring its many blessings
to the undeveloped nations of the world. For both Chase-Dunn, Jeffery Paige,
Terry Boswell and Murray/Vieux, the only interesting question is what form
socialism will now take given the collapse of bureaucratic socialisms.
Let us take a look at what they have to say about past in aid of reinventing
future socialisms. In passing, I will add a few ideas which might be of
value to such discussions.
The comments of both Paige and Murray/Vieux document this mega-structural
dialectic in their review of the difficulties faced by Vietnam and Nicaragua
in building socialism today. Cuba has been sitting at the grinding edge
of these two tectonic plates for the past 30 years. Boswell takes up the
idea to insist that, in order to act effectively within that mega-system,
one must reinvent socialism globally rather than only locally. Boswell's
paper is the most programmatic of the set in terms of a global strategy
for reinventing socialism. I will save those ideas for separate review
later.
ALTERNATIVE FUTURES Chase-Dunn, Paige and Murray/Vieux see the reintegration
of many former socialist economies into the capitalist world system. Chase-Dunn
quotes Gunder Frank's early work on this point which reported increased
sales from socialist nations on the world market (not excluding military
goods); increased imports (mostly for bureaucratic elites) as well as deals
with transnationals for investment within their borders (1989:4). Chase-Dunn
adds that such investments couples socialist economies with that of capitalist.
The recent 'austerity regimes' in the core countries (for the workers,
not the wealthy), privatization (of high profit not low profit lines),
deregulation (of corporations, not unions), and the well received attack
on welfare (for the poor; not for the rich) have had similar expressions
at the same time in the socialist regimes (1989:5).
Import Substitution Chase-Dunn suggests that, given the downturn
on the K-wave and given the coupling of the economies, all these tend to
defeat any collective or common strategy in the mega-bloc of which he speaks
(1989:5). Import substitution is his case in point. Although it worked
out differently in socialist nations contrasted to semi-peripheral countries,
in the end it failed as a development (and hence legitimation) tactic.
It failed in the semi-periphery (Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore
aside) since import substitution required either higher wages to support
local demand or world market success. Trying to compete with established
powers with favored status in client states is difficult; paying higher
wages inimical to profit. In the socialist bloc, exploitation of workers
produced foreign exchange and luxury goods for the bureaucratic elite and
thus delegitimated such economics.
Corporativism It is noteworthy that national
socialism cum corporativism is not feasible given the emergent world economy;
neither Chase-Dunn nor Murray/Vieux mention it. They are right: no state
functionary wants to be excluded from the world market by virtue of its
closed and preferential treatment to local capitalists. Japan, Britain,
and Germany have had some success in such corporativist politics and many
in the USA, H. Ross Perot, for example, think that it is possible to have
access to world markets and to restrict imports as well. That tactic is
just not on given the hegemony of the big Seven and the powerful economic
and political tools with which they have to work. South Africa, Iran, Iraq
and other insular nations have learned to not opt for either a nationalist
or a religious curtain to the flow of capital. 4
Commodification Chase-Dunn reflects on the limits of the commodification
process and, by inference, the limits of capitalism. He says that only
so much can be commodified before political regulation kicks in. In the
USA, surrogate mothers now offer surrogate babies for sale. Body parts
from aborted fetuses are an international commodity. One can buy the political
process in any capitalist economy with judicious and discrete investment
in campaign contributions and in marketing strategy. Religious dispensations
for great crimes and small sins have always been bought and sold. Food,
shelter, health care, education and recreation including sexual services
are everywhere commodified. One can patent forms of life in the USA; Scientific
American (June, 1992:62) celebrates such science. As long as capitalists
are in charge and as long as workers are well paid, they will make and
sell arms, cigarettes, alcohol and other dangerous drugs. Today, Wm. Buckley
and other market liberals want to commodify street drugs.
Murray/Vieux report on the commodification in Vietnam. It is extensive.
The Communist Party leadership in Vietnam instituted a new economic policy
called doi moi (renovation) in 1986. It decentralized decision making,
expanded foreign trade, permitted private profit, recognized multiply property
relationships, and permitted many state enterprizes to respect market criteria
in hiring, buying, selling, and raising capital. These enterprizes included
coal, electricity, steel, chemicals, fertilizers, transport, as well as
communications, textiles, paper and electronics (Murray/Vieux, 1992:10).
The leadership retained control over thirty five state enterprizes including
publishing, gold, alcohol, cigarettes, ports and major roads.
Paige, however, discusses the adverse effects of decommodification
in Nicaragua (see below). Absent market incentives, Nicaragua's economy
suffered greatly. Add corruption and political misjudgment and one has
recipe for the devolution of socialism. Reinvention of socialism requires
some kind of feedback mechanism to coordinate the whole complex, multi-centric
and global process. One can see advantages to market as a feedback mechanism
but capitalist marketing tend to amplify deviancy and lead to the destabilizing
bifurcations inimical to the human project. Chaos theory teaches us that
nonlinear feedback stabilizes while linear feedback explodes the causal
basin in which it is found (Briggs and Peat, 1989:34-27). The lesson is
that markets must be bracketed by politics but gently, lightly and judiciously.
Roemer (1990) and Kenworthy (1990) are working assiduously on something
called market socialism which might be worthy of consideration in reinventing
socialism.
Is It Capitalism Yet? Both Chase-Dunn and Murray/Vieux appreciate
that, at some point, the commodification of goods and services converts
a socialist system into a capitalist economy. The operative question for
Vietnam and other putatively socialist economies is which goods and services
are to be commodified and which to be socialized; or, alternatively, how
are the profits from production to be socialized to common goods. One must
clarify such questions conceptually if one wants an answer.
The essence of socialism is that some part of the surplus value generated
by economic practices is converted to the general community needs. Capitalism
tends to appropriate surplus value to the needs of the capitalist class;
common needs are secondary. Paige will tell us of the many reasons bureaucratic
socialism failed in Nicaragua; two of interest here: the failure to generate
sufficient surplus value due to the rigidity of central planning and the
propensity to appropriate overmuch to nonproductive goods (weapons in the
case of Nicaragua; consumers goods for an elite in East Europe and the
USSR). The operative question is how can a democratic socialism appropriate
surplus value in a way that does not discourage productivity, flexibility,
creativity and cultural diversity.
Murray/Vieux (1992:9) tell us that the Vietnamese Communist Party retained
control over gold, tobacco and alcohol. One assumes they did this in order
to allocate surplus value to the common purpose. Murray/Vieux were too
kind to pass judgement on such tactics but one wonders how extracting surplus
value from tobacco use or alcohol sales answers to the human project. One
wonders what other mechanisms are at work in Vietnam to generate surplus
value and how wise is the party in allocating it to the general purpose
considering the many competing priorities they must balance. One wonders
if the Vietnamese Communist Party appropriates surplus value to its private
use.
Chase-Dunn makes the trenchant point that even if all nations were, separately
socialistic and democratic internally but continued to relate to each other
with competitive commodity production, such productive would 'repenetrate'
domestic institutions (p.14). Boswell makes the same point about former
East European socialisms. There must be mechanisms to socialize surplus
value at the global level else capitalism reproduce itself everywhere.
None of the panelists focus on such mechanisms but the point requires careful
thought. Capitalism has the World Bank, A.I.D. and other transnational
instruments. These are in place and could work to redistribute capital
on less egregious terms. Small user fees for travel and for transnational
transfer of funds add up to large reserves for strategic investment by
global institutions. Chaos theory instructs us that small changes can,
if timed properly, make large differences (while large changes can be absorbed
by the system). It takes a very sophisticated knowledge process in place
to watch for transition points in every cell of the global economy but
something of that sort is required.
A Role for the Market?? Any single country requires economic goods
and services available only on a global market. The global nature of the
market had telling effect on Nicaragua. Nicaragua had little more than
coffee and cotton to sell. Absent market incentives, coffee production
dropped 50% (Paige, 1992:6). Absent foreign exchange generated by coffee
revenues, Nicaragua could not obtain needed goods and services. Jeffrey
Paige allows us to look at the Nicaraguan case through the eyes of coffee
producers. From their point of view, we can see the deep connectivity between
socialism and a global economy dominated by market dynamics and exacerbated
by the hostility of the USA.
From their vantage point, there were several uncertainties for producing
coffee and other export crops. They included:
1. Uncertainty about confiscation.
2. Uncertainty about agricultural inputs (fertilizers, machinery and parts,
labor)
3. Uncertainty about personal safety.
Chaos research suggests that most people can deal with one or two uncertainties
but that far from stable behavior develops when three or more uncertainties
in key parameters accumulate. These uncertainties in key parameters produce
chaotic market dynamics for the producers and without the coffee revenue,
Nicaraguan economy suffered.
Then too, there were low profits and unallocated production costs (depreciation,
interest on loans). Market incentives were largely eliminated (p.4). Allocation
of resources on political grounds is essential to redistributive justice
but, from the vantage of coffee producers, allocation as practiced was
extravagant and wasteful (p.5).
There were political incentives to produce (confiscation, political harangue,
subsidies on interest and inputs, but no incentives to reinvest in either
land or maintenance of equipment. These incentives comprise both positive
and negative feedback; the use of both forms of feedback at the same time
can be helpful if and only if there is care in their use. At the same time,
a cardinal idea of Chaos theory is that nonlinear feedback is the best
means to preserved near-to-stable dynamics. There is no direct evidence
that the Nicaraguan government did this but, in the real world, special
pleading and personal networks institute nonlinear feedback. Whether tailoring
feedback by these means is congenial to stability is quite another question.
Whatever transpires in the future, it would be wise to consider just what
kind of exceptions, omissions, variations and reversals of policy are helpful.
One of the more defeating structural problems lay in the fact that the
coffee growers had little voice in economic policy (p.7). It has always
been a problem in any post-revolutionary time that one confuses between
a class as enemy and a group of individuals as enemy. Marx teaches us that
is social relations of production which are the focus of revolution;
not the villainy of particular individuals. Coffee growers may have been
contaminated by their former class privilege. Yet, absent an effective
voice, their skill, interests and understandings were rendered useless
to the new mode of production (p.8). Absent a voice in politics, prosocial
policy ideas were difficult. Absent a voice, even pro-Sandinista growers
came to believe that the only way to change economic policy lay with the
Contras (p.9).
Paige offers the Conference seven pieces of advice to consider in the reinvention
of socialism which I rephrase for added emphasis as well as generality.
1. Any future socialism has to pay more attention to social position
in a new economy more so than to personal history if it is to mobilize
rather than antagonize key sectors of the economy. It is alienating relations
which must be repressed, not specific individuals who are essential to
production per se.
2. Socialist economies need sound management and accounting practices.
3. Centralized planning may have short term success but it has adverse
effect in the long term as medium and small producers fail and rebel.
4. A rational economics does not use fear, and subsidy to drive an economy.
It facilitates rather than alienates.
5. Cumulative uncertainties lead to disinvestment and disloyalty.
6. One must make a place for every sector of the economy in the political
process; a thoroughly democratic socialism requires interactively rich
and informationally rich politics.
7. Political legitimacy must come from present and future successes rather
than from celebration of past victories and excoriation of former enemies.
A revolution can feed only so long on its villains then it must provide
social justice else become enemy itself.
Globalizing Socialism. Boswell (1992), along with Chase-Dunn
and others offers several reasons why any reinvention of socialism must
have a global and democratic strategy.
1. Boswell notes that capitalism has always evaded political control
by its international mobility. [It can escape political constraints by
'multi-sourcing' of labor, capital, and raw materials].
2. The costs of building socialism in one nation alone are too great; such
efforts are doomed to failure. [If socialism is divided along national
lines or along bloc cleavages, it can be contained by embargo or by military
subversion].
3. Stagnation in the global economy led state socialism to superexploit
workers and thus delegitimate such socialisms. [China still tries to undersell
other third world producers by its extraction of surplus value from workers
by the state or by privately chartered entrepreneurship].
4. By comparison, NICs look good since they benefitted from foreign investment,
low labor costs and US military hegemony. [These conditions work for a
few NICs but will not work for all third world countries since markets
are essential and markets are saturated in core countries. NICs still have
much demand to meet as do socialist economies but profit taking erodes
demand whether by capitalism or by state bureaus].
5. Globalization of capital has and is delegitimating capitalism in the
core countries. [Decline in living standards and job opportunity, environmental
degradation at home, together with the growing bifurcations in health,
housing, and life style combine with crime rates to discredit capitalism
in the core countries].
6. While capitalism has managed to benefit first core industrial workers
then those in the periphery, today workers in both areas face lower wages,
higher exploitation and worsening environmental conditions. [Bifurcations
in wages, health care, housing and personal safety continue to produce
a two tiered society in the USA].
7. National and global democracy is essential to world socialism. Boswell
sets an agenda which includes a global minimum wage, investment in human
capital, and elimination of labor competition. He adds that women's rights
and workers' rights depend upon an adequate minimum wage.
[These can be instituted by a global coalition of progressive labor unions,
feminist movements, environmental organizations, concern for the family
and other such movements are natural allies].
8. Boswell argues vehemently against a world state--preferring smaller
nations which retain autonomy within democratic and global institutions.
He warns that a global state would have the military means to impede socialism.
9. Boswell sees bloc formation (ala the European Community) as an alternative
to hegemonic super-states exploiting indigenous minorities.
10. Boswell highlights the long term costs of racism and imperialism to
workers in core countries. Democratic global institutions not only benefit
all workers and citizens in the short run, but they tend to move capital
away from concern with lowering wages to concern for improving production.
General Guides for Reinventing Socialism I would like to add
to the papers presented here by setting forth other 'givens' which, in
my opinion, might well inform the reinvention of socialism as we enter
the 21st Century. As Boswell insists, the basic given is that socialism
must be democratic or it is not true to the marxian/socialist spirit. This
means that economics be bracketed by a profound humanism in which each
individual is able to reach the fullness of their morality. Markoviç
(1974) has specified a concept of praxis in which sociality, creativity,
autonomy and self-determination combine in ever changing configurations.
Some such dialectic between the acting individual and the integrity of
a cultural whole must be central to a philosophy of human agency and the
economics which facilitate it.
Peace and Justice Then too, we take it as given that one must start
with things as they are and work toward things as they might be in a modality
which minimizes the costs of transition to democratic socialism. Between
us, capitalists and socialists, alike, we have already inflicted too much
pain on the world in coercive efforts to reduce/retain the great inequalities
which continue to beset us. Violence does work but the victims of violence
are, preponderantly, the same victims of class, race, and gender privilege.
It is also counterproductive to try punish those who have benefitted to
date; That sort of punitive game is just not on without still more death
and destruction since those who now benefit have a vast array of political
tools with which they can obstruct peaceable change and inflict much damage.
Allocating blame and deciding guilt are exercises in futility in the first
instance, dangerous in the middle and uncertain in the end. There are enough
uncertainties with which to deal without inventing more. If the Paige analysis
teaches us anything, it is that forgiveness and openness to former enemies
is preferable to vengeance and exclusion.
The embargo around Cuba and Vietnam testify to the moral bankruptcy of
those in the first world who exult at the pain we inflict in the third
world. I do not exclude the Persian war from this indictment. Given peaceful
means as an ideal, the question becomes what existing political tools are
adequate to the task; what new tactics and strategies may we invent in
order to effect peaceful transformations. Bloc formation and other democratic
institutions of which Boswell speaks are important.
Then too, there is the false peace of domination. Domination can be instituted
by ideology and pre-established choices. Religion, art, electronic science
and medicine can be organized to support privilege. These technologies
can generate the false peace of compliance. One does not need Chaos theory
to understand that such false peace cannot long survive. People migrate;
people go underground; people engage in self-destructive behavior and people
strike out in pretheoretic rage at inequalities and iniquities.
Allocating Costs In the future, local capitalists and rich capitalist
nations will have to bear more and more their full share of the costs of
capitalist development. Neither domestic workers nor peripheral nations
can or will absorb the great costs of development of the global economy
as in the past. Demands to reallocate costs in keeping with the principle
of distributive justice is one of the enduring legacies that 19th century
socialism has left us. Whatever its faults and they are many, still historically
existing socialisms have done much to rearrange the politics of economic
development at home and more globally.
Cultural Diversity A third major given which informs our work here
is a profound respect for the integrity of the several hundred cultures
which enrich the human project today. Policies of economic development
which homogenize, massify, or subjugate one cultural complex to another
must be confronted and avoided. A thoroughly democratic socialism tries
to bridge cultures rather than assimilate them to core values and politics.
There are those who will point to the imperfections of this or that culture
and demand some sort of collective effort to force change upon the peoples
involved. The political question is how to respond to oppression within
a given political economy without great harm to the integrity of that culture.
Postmodern sensibility warns us away from such absolutistic and partisan
judgments. The Cuban style is to organize life in such a way that people
desire to emulate it. Emulation is a superior change tactic to coercion
by orders of magnitude. Given the reach of the media and the internationalization
of scholarship which accompanies the globalization of the economy, success
at home offers the best subversion of alienating relations elsewhere.
Positivities of Capitalism From an inspection of the papers that
I have received, we are agreed that there are positivities in market dynamics
which future socialisms must respect; Paige especially, makes the point
as do Roemer and Kenworthy elsewhere. In any discussion of future economic
arrangement, denial or dismissal of the many positivities of market dynamics
would be counterproductive. Socialists need not be instructed on the negativities
of capitalist hegemony but, in order to keep the dialectical nature of
capitalism in full view, I summarize these negativities in Appendix A as
part of the evidence for inferring structure.
To the extent that a capitalist political economy actually respects market
dynamics, capitalism presents the most productive, most flexible, most
creative and most liberating political economy invented to date. It demands
a knowledge process that destroys the ancient myths as well as those folk
theories which deflect and distract from effective agency. It has destroyed
slavery, feudalism and has made great inroads upon racist, gender and ethnic
privilege. Other economic system have been and remain more oriented to
principles of distributive justice but have been burdened by technologic
stagnation, by great inequalities and arbitrary politics. The task facing
such conferences as this is to find a socialism that honors community and
collective needs while it offers room and reward for creativity, change
and renewal.
Those who work in the world system perspective will take as given that
we speak of a totality of which every element is, variably and increasingly,
connected. The concept of the totality embedded in the very idea of a 'global
economy' implies that we may not neglect the part without consequence to
the whole. As both Boswell and Chase-Dunn have told us, the new global
economy '...has made autarchic national planning...anachronistic"
(Chase-Dunn, 1992:5). In very direct terms, it means that we cannot live
at the top of a great economic machine which uses and discards its workers,
its wastes, and its competition--a machine which externalizes its costs--and
still have a democratic socialist economy.
In the crassest way possible, I want to assert that those who are discarded
can now exact a terrible price on even the richest and most protected family
or capitalist nation. Mercy, compassion, equity and justice aside, as the
world becomes more connected, such privatized behavior becomes more consequential
to those who have heretofore evaded the consequences of inequality. We
must live in the cities we neglect and we must breath the air we pollute--or
those whom we love must. While street crime strikes out at the poorest
among us, white collar crime and corporate crime are increasingly focussed
upon the middle class; after all that is where the money is. And then too,
we sleep with those who carry infections from afar. Uncertainties in health,
jobs, and family for underclass individuals bring a larger uncertainty
to politics for the rest of us. We have still to learn that lesson in a
privatized economy.
Environment Boswell illuminates the political potential of a socialist
strategy which husbands the environment and shelters the many species which
inhabit the good earth unto, as the Iroquois put it, the seventh generation.
Since all resources come from the land; food, ores, fibers and ceramics,
it is to the land we must look for guidance in creating a politics and
an economics. There are many lessons to be taken including the most political
of all: that short term affluence for our generation brings long term distress
for generations to come. There are few senior citizens, parents or environmentalists
who will fail to heed this stricture. If we are to enclose economics within
a normative structure at all; it is that we must give to the next generation
at least as much as we received from the last. Simple justice requires.
Other Considerations: I said that I would add a few political considerations
which a global theorist might want to weigh in the reinvention of socialism.
Some are structural; some are cultural. Some derive from the negativities
of capitalism; some from the more positive legacy of East European socialism.
In Brief:
1. Bloc formation in the Global Economy
2. Debt burden in both core and periphery
3. Demographic changes including age grade composition, class structure,
Aids and skin cancer epidemics, as well as migration patterns.
4. Climatic changes, health concerns and food supply.
5. Religion and the Drama of the Holy: recapturing desire and the sanctification
process
6. Postmodern sensibility, Chaos theory and the knowledge process
7. Political leadership and cross cultural comparisons including the unfolding
of creative economics in Europe.
8. Market socialism and the reappropriation of surplus value to collective
needs. Market socialism and the reappropriation of surplus value to collective
needs.
9. War: economic and military
10. Management science
Bloc Formation In the last instance, it is people who will make
the revolution. However structural factors weigh in. The fastest moving
event in the capitalist world economy which will affect the growth of capitalism
and the future of socialism is Bloc Formation. Murray/Vieux (1992:19) mention
three which are in place now: the European Bloc, North American, and East
Asia. I encourage Chase-Dunn and other world systems theorists to reflect
upon the meaning of this new world order for progressive/regressive politics.
I see at least ten blocs forming. These are listed in Appendix B. My own
view is that bloc formation will dominate economic history for the next
20 years; the reinvention of socialism will have to be done in a time of
great disorder and uncertainty. Indeed, the title of the paper is drawn
from this certainty about uncertainty. I suggest a few key parameters in
Appendix B, the interaction of which might will preshape bloc formation.
Debt Burden There comes a time when one can no longer support capitalism
on national or personal debt. Vietnam has a large debt to the former USSR
(Murray/Vieux, 1992:15). Debt service now absorbs 1 dollar in 9 of the
USA federal budget. Personal debt service is in the same range. By the
year 2000, it will increase to 1 in 7 or 1 in 6. At some point, political
legitimacy deteriorates as tax burdens increase. I can envision the World
Bank forcing the USA to adopt the same practices now visited upon 3rd world
countries.
Demographics Age grade composition is very important to both politics
and economics. Murray/Vieux (1992:16) note that some one million students
enter the work force each year in Vietnam. The Party refuses to allow some
unprofitable enterprizes to close since unemployment is already at 20%
and there are discharged soldiers as well as former 'guest' workers from
East Europe to redeploy in the economy. Market logic, in the short term,
ignores disemployment; social justice demands economic justice. Wage based
economic power is important to social justice but there must be nonmarket
mechanisms to redistribute wealth.
In Europe, the concept of the social wage augments wage, salary and fee.
Social wages are paid to those who do socially necessary labor in the unwaged
sector: mothers (they socialize children); children (by learning, they
reproduce a culture intergenerationally); poor people (they stand as a
reserve labor force) and those who are ill (they hinder the spread of disease
when they seek and use medical care).
In the USA, the largest and most progressive union is the AARP. Its membership
is a powerful voice in Washington. It too, is concerned with demographics.
In the first instance, it arose as the successes of market dynamics changed
the demographic pyramid from a broad based demography with lots of young
people to one with lots of older people. Now, those 55 and older constitute
a powerful political bloc in terms of numbers and economic power. No one
fools around with Social Security or health care benefits for the elderly.
Lately its publications have taken up causes broader than pensions and
pain. The President of AARP, Lovola Burgess, has confirmed and extended
AARP policy, Intergenerational Action, to include health care, education
and income security of all age groups.
I have mentioned the shrinking middle class and the growing underclass
in the USA. The middle class is the swing vote for American politics. It
has turned Right in the past twenty years. Given good politics, it may
turn Left again as it did in the 30s and 60s. The AIDs problem and long
term health effects of pollution will weigh in to affect capitalism. The
cost of dealing with AIDs victims is prohibitive to both capitalist for-profit
health insurance. Yet AIDs can infect the sons and daughters of the middle
classes. It is in the objective interest of the middle classes to support
socialized health care...and with it the impetus to appropriate surplus
value from the capitalist class. If health is decommodified, other essential
goods and services may follow.
Global Warming Middle Class students understand global warming and
its meaning for both food supply and health issues. James Burke has a wonderful
video series out that millions have seen. Global warming is a structural
event that capitalism produced by its intrusion into the carbon cycle and
the ozone layer. It will have some small effect on politics. The impetus
to clean up earth, water, and air is an impetus toward socialism since
such efforts are low profit lines yet essential labor.
The Drama of the Holy One should not underestimate the role of religion
in politics. There are four major religious movements which will continue
to mediate all politics in the world capitalist system. First there is
the fundamentalist movement in Christendom which will want to politicize
distribution of many commodities. Some commodities are to be excluded entirely
from the market; others are to be restricted. The Muslim brotherhood is
a powerful actor on the world stage. It will surely mediate economics in
any future Arab bloc and in the global economy. Islam speaks powerfully
to common needs in ways that Protestant Christianity does not. Liberation
theology in its many forms will speak in a more democratic voice for Catholic
Christianity as well as some of the more liberal protestant denominations.
Liberation theology is the natural ally to socialism. Religion may be the
opiate of some people but it is most certainly the hope, joy, and passion
of more.
Then there are the teleministeries which extract wealth from the pious
to uncertain purpose. Some are a dubious 'prosperity theology' which celebrates
private accumulation as evidence of the grace of their god. Some are more
responsive to the biblical charge to look to the children and to minister
to the poor.
The operative point upon which to focus is that capitalism and the media
have been very good at colonizing human desire to the profit needs of capital.
Religion always tries to colonize desire to solidarity purpose. Sometimes
the solidarity has ugly gender and ugly ethnic politics but solidarity
is always enemy to privatization of wealth and power.
Postmodern Sensibility Many in the socialist camp have little patience
with postmodern sensibility; they believe, rightly that it comes with late
capitalism; has conservative impact and speaks against the grand narratives
which describe the journeys of people through history. But there are affirmative
varieties of postmodern sensibility (Rosenau, 1991).
Postmodern critique and Chaos theory together can change the knowledge
process in ways most congenial to progressive politics since it decenters
both modernization theory and the linearity of the modern scientific paradigm.
What we do with postmodern sensibility is open in ways in which a god-hewn
world or one subordinate to grand unified theory are not. Chaos theory
provides an elegant theoretical envelop into which to insert revolutionary
politics. It offers a view of human agency which at once respects structural
factors and yet permits of intervention.
Natural Experiments Mr. Bush and many others look at Eastern Europe
and see the end of history. What I see is a future with a wide variety
of economic experiments some of which will be socialist. There will be,
must be a time of experiment in which the limitations of the market must
again be learned by this generation of Europeans. With all its many virtues,
in the final analysis, capitalism is little more than a gigantic Ponzi
scheme in which those who get there first win great rewards but most lose.
More analytically, the center of capitalism has shifted since 1500 from
Venice to Brussels to London to New York and now to Tokyo. It will continue
to shift; perchance to Hong Kong/China, perchance to Bombay/Calcutta; maybe
to Rio and the Southern cone. Perhaps to the Muslim Arab world. But it
will move. The center of socialism will move as well. I tend to think that
some interesting experiments will come out of Eastern Europe which will
serve to inspire socialists around the world.
The center of socialism has shifted from Moscow.
It is now decentered as, indeed, the logic of democratic socialism requires.
What will come out of Eastern bloc cannot be predicted but one can expect
that some will be a reprise of the ugly ethnic fascist politics which we
saw before the socialist era. 5
Yugoslavia is a tragic case in point. Some will be absorbed into West European
economic bloc as has East Germany. I fully expect some to develop a democratic
socialism which will stand as a model for the rest of the world to appreciate,
adopt and modify to local culture and economics. There is simply too great
a legacy from the past 70 years of socialism to dismiss from national or
bloc economics.
Market Socialism Some of those natural experiments will be informed
by the work of John Roemer, Lane Kenworthy and many others in market socialism
cited above. They bear watching as one thinks about the future global economy.
Market socialism offers a way to retain some of the positivities of capitalism
but yet constrained to collective needs. Market socialism has several mechanisms
build into it by which surplus value can be appropriated to collective
needs of specific firms, of specific communities and of entire societies.
Sources of Progressive Social Change The historic question is who
will make the revolution. Marx and others nominated the workers in core
countries (except that Marx noted that the English workers would never
be free as long as Irish workers were exploited to subsidize them; that
American workers in the South would never rise up as long as slavery existed).
Then there are those who think that progressive politics will come from
the third world. Chase-Dunn agrees that these elements will be important
but says that the semi-periphery is "...the 'weak link in the capitalist
world-system. It is the terrain upon which the strongest efforts to establish
socialism have been made, and this is likely to be true of the future as
well."
Many will recall that Marcuse nominated an alienated/liberated intelligentsia
together with minorities, students and other marginal elements as the repository
of progressive politics of the first world. Boswell would see the nation-state
as an important actor. Chase-Dunn and others look at the transnational
corporation as key players in the future of the global economy. W. E. Deming
and others in management science offer an interactively rich role for workers
under the rubric of quality management.
Paige nominates small producers for a key role in both rebelling (p.1)
and rebuilding (p. 11). He urges policies from what he calls the Zimbabwe/Costa
Rican approach be included in the reinvention of socialism. Added support
for such ideas is bracketed.
1. High prices for agricultural products. [All civilizations are built
upon agricultural surplus].
2. Technical assistance to small producers. [That's were flexibility, creativity,
and productivity is found; more so than in large producers].
3. Infrastructure development. [Singapore offers an interesting example
for consideration].
4. Preferential credit. Paige implies that some credit subsidy close to
market rates is desirable (p.11).
5. Control over intermediaries. [Middlemen and women may have a role to
play in absorbing uncertainty but it should not be a role so strong that
the market effect is lost to their semi-monopoly].
6. Coöps have a large role to play in the future of a democratic socialism.
[They socialize profits for both workers and consumers. Other mechanisms
are needed which redistribute wealth to low profit but essential activities
(such as child care, education, health care, pollution abatement and such)].
7. Land reform has proven helpful. [Economies of scale are lost but economies
of energy, concern and reinvestment are gained].
White Collar Revolutionaries I want to suggest two other sources
of progressive politics; one tied to a specific class sector and the other
more structural in nature. It seems to me that, as opportunities for profit
abroad diminish for American capital--and as capital loses its distinctly
American identity, the agents of capitalism will begin to squeeze white
collar workers in terms of 1) wage reductions, 2) job opportunity, 3) increased
tax burdens to pay for the many externalized costs of production and 4)
in terms of deindustrialization. Some say the present recession is a white
collar recession as corporation trim their workforce. Whatever the case,
the occupational character of the American work force and that in the core
countries is rapidly changing toward information production, value addition
and mass market redistribution.
Wage reductions in the form of reduced health and pension benefits continue
in the USA. Job opportunities disappear as US corporations automate middle
class managerial tasks and hire 'temps' to replace tenured white collar
workers. Regressive tax burdens have extracted about as much as they can
from the lower working class and the underclass (lotteries remain a lively
source of state revenue). There is only the middle class or the capitalist
class left to tax--of the two, I nominate the middle class (which includes
most of the American philosophers here). The flight of jobs to the 3rd
world hurts the middle class directly since it is their sons, cousins,
brothers and daughters who are disemployed. All in all the future is not
rosy for the middle class. Some will turn against minorities as 'unfair'
competitors; some will turn toward petite bourgeois fascism, however some
will turn against the excesses of capitalism if we do two things right:
first, we must continue critique of the many negativities of capitalism;
white collar workers will listen. Then we must offer counsel of the sort
given by Boswell, Paige, and Chase-Dunn; by all those who point toward
democratic pathways.
Whatever we do, we must not exclude socialist economies from constructive
critique as did so many in past years. It would be helpful to have concrete
models of successful socialist activity; worker coöps, ESOPs, successful
programs of social justice as well as well run socialist cities and states
should be made very visible to the national and international press. Kerala
state is virtually unknown in the media while the cities of Italy which
do well compared to other Italian cities on so many measures are seldom
mentioned. White collar workers look for and weigh such examples.
White collar workers have many values and understandings upon which to
build programs of social justice. Most have taken liberal arts courses.
Most have seen their own lives and values corroded by competitive and unregulated
capitalism. All have brothers and sisters in the underclass who, in better
times, did better. They read widely, talk politics avidly and, for the
most part, embrace humanitarian values. All this is mixed with national
chauvinism, with gender preference, with racist beliefs and with personal
needs and desires but nonetheless, there is much potential in the middle
sectors of core countries.
Macro-Collective Needs. To date there is no dependable mechanism
for extracting and distributing surplus value to the collective needs of
economic blocs or to isolated 'mini-economies.' Floods, droughts, famines
and epidemics often are call forth great generosity from the people as
people apart from their economic orientation. But such relief is post hoc
and most uncertain. Many calamities go neglected. Often the tragedies themselves
are produced by global economics; hunger in Africa comes, in part from
the export of foods to Europe. Refugees are generated by the millions from
the easy military ventures of the West or pretheoretic revolutions of the
East. As the best land is privatized by wealthy firms and families, people
settle into flood plains and die or are rendered homeless.
In the USA, homelessness itself is a consequence of state policy. Urban
renewal has reduced affordable housing. States empty out asylums and populate
the streets. Unskilled jobs which used to pay living wages are disappearing
as corporations disinvest in the USA. Families and single women with children
are a growing portion of the homeless in America. The S&L scandal has
tighten loan requirements forcing families and generations to live together
or to deny kinship obligations. Migrants by the thousands follow the food
and profits North from Central America and live in sub-standard housing
while they build $300,000 dollar homes for S&L executives.
Warfare There are many ways to wage war in post-industrial society.
Military intervention is but one. I tend to think that warfare will continue
to be vicious but it will constrained to the ancient animosities of clan
and national chauvinism. Nuclear warfare between mini-powers is, in my
opinion, far more likely than in the service of global capital.
Technology for other forms of warfare; largely economic and fiscal, continue
to improve every day. Murray/Vieux report on the embargo Japan and the
US place on Vietnam in order to contain and discredit socialism (1992:18).
Communication satellites facilitate embargoes and the movement of money.
World Bank, IMF and the Asian Development Bank along with other such fiscal
institutions mediate more and more third world finance. Private banking
form lending cartels which can withdraw credit. The C.I.A. has a large
budget to destabilize 'unfriendly' countries and do not scruple to do so.
Management Science Actually existing socialisms tend to dismiss
management science as a capitalist tool. Historically, that has been the
case. However there are democratic versions of management science available
today. The work of W. E. Deming (1986) and others have much to offer a
fully democratic socialism. In any case, there is no point in making the
revolution only to lose it to sloth, incompetence, ignorance and venality.
L. Douglas Kiel and I have given some thought to how Chaos theory might
serve for a postmodern and democratic management science (1992).
All future socialisms will have to give time, effort and resources to management
science. In the past, management science was seen, rightly so, as a political
tool working more on behalf of owners than oriented to quality, efficiency,
and rationality. The chief contribution of Deming to postmodern management
science has been his ability to get workers to invest their rare genius
in setting and meeting production goals. This democratic self management
approach has taken some of the prerogatives of ownership away and has redistributed
profits but those firms which want to succeed in a global economy must
look to the workers as does Deming and all those who follow his ways.
Wildcards There are several wild cards in all this; small changes
can undo great nations and ruin whole economic blocs. Natural catastrophes
can do the same: flood, fire, drought, and disease defy human agency. A
resurgent militarism in CIS or any one of a hundred small nations can unsettle
probabilities. Racism and the ugly politics of those who suppose ethnic
superiority continue to simmer close to the surface of national politics.
Religion can be progressive and encompassing or it can be vicious and exclusionary
when linked to such narrow views of fellowship and confined to such narrow
forms of compassion. New technologies appear daily which change the nature
of the knowledge game. One wonders what effect a fiber optics network will
have on global economics and politics. Such technologies, when mediated
by class privilege do little to redeem their great costs. Yet with wisdom,
patience, judgment and compassion, it is possible to move toward human
dignity and social justice with such new events.
The end of history is not yet upon us. Nor will it ever end. There will
always be nonlinear transformations which bring entirely new conditions
for people to meet. In a fundamental way, each generation sits on the edge
between several histories and several futures. If we are bright and creative
enough, we can find and exploit those moments in history when change is
possible. If we are wise and courageous enough, we can minimize the amount
of pain which must be endured. If we are sufficiently compassionate, we
can ensure that the unavoidable pain and travail which awaits is shared
out more fully than is now the case; that the vast wealth in goods, services
and cultural tradition is preserved to the human estate. The people gathered
here in Cuba today embody some of that intelligence, courage, wisdom, judgment
and compassion. It is my enduring pleasure to be a small part of all of
this. I thank the organizers for their efforts and, in particular, salute
Cliff Durand for all his energy and effort in bringing us together. Most
of all I want to thank our Cuban colleagues for their most gracious hospitality.
APPENDIX A
Chaos and the Problem of Structure
THE PROBLEM OF STRUCTURE. It is the Chase-Dunn paper which gives
the greatest attention to the postmodern critique of structural as a theoretic
problem for the conference. It is a powerful critique and demands an answer;
Is there a 'structure' out there which preshapes human behavior or, Is
every economic act an idiosyncratic act made out of the raw will and desire
of the single producer in autonomous exchange with each individual consumer?
Conservatives argue that the market is the citadel of freedom by which
they mean that there are no background structures which preshape the exchange
act other than, perhaps, 'government interference.'
Class Structure The post-structuralists insist, along with capitalist
theoreticians, that there are not classes as such. Feminists insist that
patriarchy is the organizing structure. Minorities point to racism and
the structure of racist privilege which permeates social relations. Without
the concept of class structure, class analysis and class politics are irrelevant.
Some post-structuralists point to the many diverse forms of exchange within
a given society and claim that there is no such thing as capitalism. How
can one speak of a capitalist society when there are so many other economic
forms at work. For them, capitalism is merely a meta-narrative which has
no more truth value than any other story about a society or history; all
are equally partisan and partial accounts of a much more complex and much
denser reality. Chaos theory offers much of value with which to deal with
such post-structural arguments. The case is complex and there are references
below which explicate Chaos theory but the short version is that, in Chaos
research, one finds several variously connected structures occupying the
same time-space continuum. Modern science and its critics all assume euclidean
geometry; Chaos research reports fractal geometries of great complexity.
Structural Dynamics Marxist and other socialists speak of the tendential
laws of capitalism which work to shape economic acts apart from individual
volition and effort. Capitalism, they will claim, is a structure and its
has its own life apart from and largely independent from the will of any
given producer or user. The case they make is also powerful and supports
an inference of structure:
A. Capitalism tends to concentrate wealth. Wealth is, in fact, concentrated.
In the USA, 10% of the population own 90% of the wealth and that portion
has not changed greatly in the past 100 years. In the world capitalist
system, wealth continues to accumulate in the banks and financial instruments
of the wealthy leaving much of the world bereft of the wealth produced.
B. Capitalism tends to economic cycles. There are economic cycles; Kondratieff
cycles (30-50 years), Kutznet cycles (15 years), mini-cycles (3-5 years)
and others still to be discovered.
C. Capitalism tends to disemploy workers. An underclass grows in direct
proportion to the success of capitalism. Peasants are torn from the land
by agribusiness with capital intensive technology. Workers are dispossessed
of the means of production as new technologies arise to replace them. Entire
communities are discarded as capital wanders around the world seeking higher
rates of return. If one considers the world as a global economy, the case
for the immiseration of the working class looks powerful. More and more
people flock to the cities of the world looking for the basics of life
and fail to find them; all this in the midst of great wealth.
D. Capitalism tends to parasitize other economic systems. There are several
parallel economic system to which capitalism externalizes costs. Without
such transfer of costs, capitalism could not reproduce itself.
1. There is the unpaid labor of the family which reproduces the workforce
daily and generationally. Women, children and the elderly clean, wash,
cook, launder, repair, nourish and comfort the present working class that
they may go off to work each morning. They labor and comfort that the next
generation of workers are strong, willing and capable. Perhaps as much
as 50% or more of the productive activity found in any economy are comprised
of exchanges freely given by women and poorly paid by those who benefit
directly or indirectly.
2. There is the vast army of urban volunteer workers who pick up the human
debris discarded and work to make them whole again. Community volunteers;
many middle class women as well as a great many clerics give food to the
hungry and arrange shelter for the homeless. One cannot gauge the value
of such labor but it is part of the national account and it is invisible
on the accounting ledgers of the corporation.
3. Then there is the welfare state which grows ever larger. The state,
using its political license, taxes and redistributes. Many are taxed and
few benefit; more often than not it is the friends and sponsors of the
state functionaries who receive tax benefits.
4. Some would say crime is an economic system outside the logics of the
market. The essence of crime is that there is little or no mutuality in
the exchange act; often no reciprocity at all. The many forms of crime
found in a capitalist society all work to supplement market dynamics and
enrich some at the expense of many; it is the wealthy who steal the most.
In the USA, estimates vary but crime accounts for between 8% and 25% of
the gross national product; this includes grey market activity, street
drugs, theft by street thugs, white collar fraud and corporate price fixing.
5. Then too, there is the vast legacy of former economic systems upon which
the market can thrive for a while. Vast properties were built with slave
or indentured labor; they can and have been used to fuel capitalism. Innumerable
works of art crafted by patient and anonymous artisans fuel the recycling
of industrial goods as rich people collect the wealth of the ages. African
tribes produce the young men who work the mines in South Africa; Asian
villagers produce the young women who sit for long hours assembling electronics
to sell at Bizmart or OfficeMax. Latin American peasants feed, shelter,
and socialized the growing army of Maquiladores in northern Mexico. None
of the costs of production of this wealth is registered on the graphs and
charts of national income.
Again, Chaos theory offers a conceptual apparatus with which to understand
how it is possible that diverse economies can occupy the same time-space
dimensions. And, as it turns out, Chaos theory instructs us that it is
nonlinear feedback which prevents the amplification of inequality. Parallel
economic systems provide that nonlinear constraint which prevents capitalism
from exploding to fill the market space available to it--and thus fully
discredit itself.
F. Capitalism tends toward oligarchic politics. In the USA, most of the
more significant policy decisions are in the private sector. Effective
control in that sector resides in some few hundred thousand high level
capitalists while campaign donations pattern many decisions in the public
sector.
These dynamics permit one to infer capitalism as a really existing structure.
It is, perhaps, war and its dead soldiers which offers the most compelling
evidence of structure. In his review of that literature, Chase-Dunn (1989:162)
singles out the correlation between war and Kondratieff waves (K-waves)
as compelling evidence of macro-structure. In nine of ten K-waves since
1500 a.d., world war occurred near the end of an upward price cycle. His
conclusion bears repeating; in discussing just when war is most likely,
Chase-Dunn opts for the period just after the peak of the investment cycle
and just before a downswing. He explains it thus:
This is simultaneously a period in which states have a lot of resources
available for war and capitalist investors have begun to slacken investments,
presumably because they perceive limitations on profit-taking. Increasing
competition for markets and investment opportunities is due to overproduction
by producers of core goods for the world market relative to effective demand,
and this kind of competition leads to pressure for the use of...state power,
to protect and/or expand market shares and investment opportunities.
Chase-Dunn notes that most of us who look at such data tend to think
in terms of WWII. That War, however, occurred at a downswing in the price
cycle rather than on an upswing or at the peak as have the other nine.
The case is crucial since, if war occurs at more than one point on the
K-wave, it can occur on any point on a K-wave. Then the causal connection
between economic cycles and war disappears and, with it, some of the case
for macro-economic structures which preshape human behavior. Chaos theory
offers quite a different view of both causality and of structure (see Berry,
1991 for his work on K-waves and Chaos theory).
Chaos theory tells us that the structures in question are neither linear
(hence causality opens and closes depending upon which dynamical regime
is at hand) nor does structure have a euclidean geometry. This point is
epochal to the philosophy of science since it denies the need to speak
for or against 'totalizing' meta-narratives as do post-structuralists.
They are, to coin a phrase, beating a dead horse. The geometry of a Chaotic
regime is much more open than that of an euclidean structure. How open
depends, as I have said, within which of five chaotic regimes a given system
is to be found and, upon which scale of observation one wishes to speak.
In Chaos theory both structural and facticity depend upon scale of observation.
Those who believe in individualism are predisposed to conceptualize at
a scale of magnitude in which structures are, in fact, not found. But that
does not mean that such structures do not exist. It simply means that our
vision might not be oriented to such macro-structures. Conversely, those
macro-structures might not, in fact, be there. The facticity is always
an empirical question; Chaos theory provides both the techniques and the
concepts with which to look for and to quantify the fractal value of such
putative structures.
For near to stable nonlinear regimes, structure is fairly tight in mathematical
terms; tight enough to speak of structures at ordinary human scales of
observation. In more chaotic regimes; say one with an eight or sixteen
basin outcome field, geometry is very loose and structure much more local.
Beyond a 16n outcome field, structure disappears at human scales of observation
and one needs good solid time series data over decades or centuries in
order to 'see' structure.
APPENDIX B
Bloc Formation in the New World Disorder 6
I. Emerging Economic Blocs in the Global World Economy 1992-2025
A. NAB--The North America Bloc (Toronto, New York, Denver, Dallas and
Mexico City Anchor points?)
B. WEB--The Western European Bloc (Berlin, Paris, London anchor points:
Sidney and Wellington on the periphery--these could join the PER)
C. PER--The Pacific East Rim Bloc (Tokyo, Taipei?, Manila?, anchor points)
D. SEAB--The South-East Asian Bloc (Singapore, Manila, Ho Chi Minh City,
Phnom Penh).
E. SSEB--The former Soviet Socialist Economic Bloc (St. Petersburg, Moscow,
Kharkov, Novosibirsk?)
F. CEEB--The Central European Economic Bloc (Stockholm, Warsaw, Prague,
Vienna, Budapest, Sofia, Athens, Ankara?)
G. BBIS--The Burmese, Bangladesh, Indian, Sri Lanka Bloc (Bombay, Calcutta,
Dhaka?, Yangon)
H. MEB--The Muslim Economic Bloc (Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur? Karachi, Tehran,
Baghdad, Mecca, Damascus, Cairo, Tripoli, Algiers, Rabat)
I. SSAB--The sub-saharan African Bloc (Lagos, Tel Aviv? Nairobi, Dar es
Salaam, Pretoria, Luanda, Kinshasa)
J. SAC--The South American Cone
K. Other?
II. Key Factors Affecting Bloc Formation:
A. Cultural Factors:
1. Language, Religion, Ethnicity.
2. Colonial past; present economic ties
B. Geopolitical Factors:
1. Proximity
2. Past Alliances (and enmities)
3. Resources
4. Strategic Location
C. Other?
III. Factors affecting Social Justice within blocs.
A. Politics: Research capacity, Public Policy Processes. Locations of
Moral and Social Power: Race, Gender, Class.
B. Economics: Resources, Means & Relations of Production Infrastructure:
roads, communications, technology
C. Cultural Factors: Religious ideas about 'Being' and about the "Other."
Expressions of Dramas of the Holy (below)
D. Demographic Factors: Growth rates, Age grade composition, morbidity
rates. E. Other?
IV. Social Justice Indicators:
A. Infant Mortality Rates
B. Inequality patterns:
1. Racism, ethnocentric privilege
2. Class size and income ratios
3. Gendering patterns and power relations:
4. Bureaucracy and hierarchy
5. Core vis a vis periphery
C. The labor process and prosocial work opportunities
D. Literacy rates and computer literacy
E. Suicide, Depression, Morbidity rates
F. Crime rates; violence in homes and streets
G. Geometry of Political Participation: thin and remote vs. strong and
direct; narrow and concentrated vs. broad and dispersed throughout a membership.
H. Quality of life indicators: art, travel, music, drama, housing, cuisine,
recreation, architecture
I. Communal amenities: parks, public spaces, landscape, street life, evening/night
activity.
J. Other?
V. Repositories of Morality/Transcendent Critique
A. The State?
B. Transnational politics esp. the United Nations
C. The various religions and other Dramas of the Holy
D. Social movements and street politics (Los Angeles?)
E. The University: postmodern scholarship and critical theory
F. Other
VI. Dramas of the Holy
A. Situated Dramas of Solidarity: Baptists, weddings, Confirmations,
Confessions, Funerals, Sunday Worship services, Festivals and Holy days,
and meditations.
B. Dramas of 'Being itself' in Everyday Life: Parenting, Friendship, Mentoring,
Community Service, Citizenship.
C. Dramas of Social Praxis: Authentic Social Knowledge, Honest Social Criticism,
Change and renewal in social life; Institution of Social Justice Programs
which enhance and expand 'Being Itself' for all citizens. Expansion of
the Universal Other.
D. Sanctification Processes which reach out to join with other religions;
to reach across generations, and to cherish other species as part of 'Being
Itself.' International Law, Atmospheric Accords, Protected Lands, Species
and Seas, Equitable Economic Agreements within and across blocs.
E. Other?
VII. Surprises and Discontinuities??? in Technology, Religion, Politics,
Education, Demographics, other
REFERENCES
Berry, Brian J.L. 1991 Long-Wave Rhythms in Economic Development
and Political Behavior. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
[About Chaos theory and Kondratieff/Kutznets waves]
Briggs, John and F. David Peat. 1989 Turbulent Mirror: An Illustrated
Guide to Chaos Theory and the Science of Wholeness. New York: Harper
and Row.
Chase-Dunn, Christopher. 1989. Global Formation: Structures of the World
Economy. Oxford: Blackwell Press.
Chase-Dunn, Christopher. 1991. Core/Periphery Relations in Precapitalist
Worlds. Boulder: Westview Press.
Chase-Dunn, Christopher. 1992. The Spiral of Capitalism and Socialism.
A paper presented at the 4th Conference of North American and Cuban Philosophers.
Havana, June.
Deming, W. Edwards, 1986. Out of the Crisis. Cambridge, MA: The
MIT Press.
Gleick, James, 1988. Chaos: Making a New Science. New York: Penguin
Books. [A good introduction and social history of the development of Chaos
theory]
Holden, Arun. 1986. Chaos, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1986. [Applications in natural science].
Kenworthy, Lane 1990 What kind of Economic System? A Leftist Guide, in
Socialist Review, V.20, No.2: 102-124.
Markovic, Mihailo 1974 From Affluence to Praxis. Boston: Beacon.
Paige, Jeffery. 1992 Agrarian Policy and the Agrarian Bourgeoisie in Revolutionary
Nicaragua. A paper presented at the 4th Conference of North American and
Cuban Philosophers. Havana, June.
Prigogine, Ilya and Isabelle Stengers 1984 Order out of Chaos: Man's
New Dialogue with Nature. New York: Bantam Books. [Overview of Chaos
theory and emergence of new forms of order]
Roemer, John 1990 Market Socialism. A paper presented at the Conference
of Radical Scholars and Activists in Chicago, August.
Rosenau, Pauline. 1992 Post-modernism and the Social Sciences. Princeton:
Princeton University Press. [A fine overview of postmodern literature by
a progressive scholar].
Young, T. R. 1991 Chaos theory and Symbolic Interaction. The Journal of
Symbolic Interaction, 14:3, Fall.
Young, T. R. 1991 Change and Chaos Theory. The Social Science Journal.
28(3). Fall.
Young, T. R. 1991 Part I: Chaos and Crime: From Criminal Justice to Social
Justice. The Critical Criminologist. V. 3., No., 2. Summer.
Young, T. R. 1992 Chaos Theory and Human Agency. Humanity and Society.
November. Nov.
Young, T. R. 1992 Chaos Theory and Management Science: Control, Prediction
and Nonlinear Dynamics. With L. Douglas Kiel. Forthcoming J. Management
Inquiry.