"Comentarios" de I. Wallerstein

[Shevek]

Immanuel Wallerstein es un sociólogo y científico social histórico estadounidense, y es el principal teórico del "análisis de sistema-mundo".

La perspectiva del sistema-mundo (World-systems approach) es un desarrollo de la crítica post.-marxista que intenta explicar el funcionamiento de las relaciones sociales, políticas y económicas a lo largo de la historia en el planeta Tierra. Es una teoría historiográfica, geopolítica y geoeconómica con gran vigencia y aplicación en las relaciones internacionales.

Wikipedia:
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Wallerstein
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sistema-mundo

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Wallerstein es un autor bastante particular en el sentido de que

1) por un lado, tiene una "teoría del todo" de la estructura de las relaciones geo-(politicas/económicas/sociales) tanto a escala global como a distintas subescalas.

2) Escribe regularmente una columna quincenal desde hace aproximadamente una década donde intenta analizar desde esa perspectiva algunos eventos seleccionados de la actualidad mundial.

Su principal idea-fuerza es que nos encontramos a mitad de camino (40 años, desde los años 70) de una "transición de fase" desde un sistema-mundo capitalista a "otra cosa", pero que las turbulencias que se producen en este período pueden afectar en gran medida al resultado final y, además, hacen muy difícil hacer previsiones/predicciones a largo plazo (je, je, el sueño de toda bruja lola que se precie: si me equivoco, las reclamaciones al maestro armero)

Mi intención es postear los comentarios en inglés según vayan saliendo a principios y mediados de mes (aquí), y después ir cambiándolos por la versión española cuando aparezca (por ejemplo aquí, en Rebelión.org). También iré ampliando este primer post de vez en cuando.

Personalmente me resulta muy atractivo su marco conceptual global. Además, muchos de sus análisis son similares a los que se hacen en este subforo. Espero que este hilo ayude al debate sobre la evolución de la geo-(política/economía/sociedad) mundial, y no se convierta sólo en un hilo "de leer".

Saludos

[Shevek]

"Commentary No. 344, Jan. 1, 2013: Global Turmoil in the Middle Run"

la Crisis Global en el Medio Plazo

EDIT: Versión traducida: La Jornada; Rebelión.org

Making predictions in the short run (the coming year or two) is a fool's game. There are too many unpredictable twists and turns in the real political/economic/cultural world. But we can attempt to make plausible statements for the middle run (a decade or more) based on a workable theoretical framework combined with a solid empirical analysis of trends and constraints.

What do we know about the world-system in which we are living? First of all, we know that it is a capitalist world-economy, whose basic principle is the ceaseless accumulation of capital. Secondly, we know that it is an historical system, which like all systems (from the universe as a whole to the tiniest nano-systems) has a life. It comes into existence, it lives its "normal" life according to rules and structures it creates, and then at some point the system moves too far from equilibrium and enters into a structural crisis. Thirdly, we know that our present world-system has been a polarizing system, in which there has been a steadily increasing gap among states and within states.

We are in such a structural crisis right now, and have been for some forty years. We shall continue to be in it for another twenty to forty years. This is quite an average length of time for a structural crisis of a historical social system. What happens in a structural crisis is that the system bifurcates, which means essentially that there emerge two alternative ways of ending the structural crisis by "choosing" collectively one of the alternatives.

The principal characteristic of a structural crisis is a series of chaotic and wild fluctuations of everything - the markets, the geopolitical alliances, the stability of state boundaries, employment, debts, taxes. Uncertainty, even in the short run, becomes chronic. And uncertainty tends to freeze economic decision-making, which of course makes things worse.

Here are some of the things we can expect in the middle run. Most states are facing, and are going to continue to face, a squeeze between reduced income and increased expenditures. What most states have been doing is to reduce expenditures in two ways. One has been to cut into (even eliminate) a great many of the safety nets that have been constructed in the past to help ordinary people deal with the multiple contingencies they face. But there is a second way as well. Most states are cutting the money transfers to subordinate state entities - federated structures, if the state is a federation, and local governments. What this does is simply to transfer the need to increase taxes to these subordinate units. If they find this impossible, they can go bankrupt, which eliminates other parts of the safety nets (notably pensions).

This has an immediate impact on the states. On the one hand, it weakens them, as more and more units seek to secede if they think it economically advantageous. But on the other hand, the states are more important than ever, as the populations seek refuge in state protectionist policies (keep my jobs, not yours). State boundaries have always been changing. But they promise to change even more frequently now. At the same time, new regional structures linking together existing states (or their subunits) - such as the European Union (EU) and the new South American structure (UNASUR) - will continue to flourish and play an increasing geopolitical role.

The juggling between the multiple loci of geopolitical power will become ever more unstable in a situation in which none of these loci will be in a position to dictate the interstate rules. The United States is an erstwhile hegemonic power with feet of clay, but one still powerful enough to wreak damage by missteps. China seems to have the strongest emerging economic position, but it is less strong than it itself and others think. The degree to which western Europe and Russia will draw closer is still an open question, and is very much on the agenda of both sides. How India will play its cards is very much undecided by India. What this means for civil wars like that in Syria at the moment is that outside interveners cancel each other out and internal conflicts become ever more organized around fratricidal identity groups.

I shall reiterate my long-argued position. At the end of a decade, we shall see some major realignments. One is the creation of a confederal structure linking Japan, (a reunited) China, and (a reunited) Korea. The second is a geopolitical alliance between this confederal structure and the United States. A third is a de facto alliance between the EU and Russia. A fourth is nuclear proliferation on a significant scale. A fifth is generalized protectionism. The sixth is generalized world deflation, which can take one of two forms - either a nominal reduction in prices, or runaway inflations that have the same consequence.

Obviously, these are not happy outcomes for most people. World unemployment will rise, not fall. And ordinary people will feel the pinch very severely. They have already shown that they are ready to fight back in multiple forms, and this popular resistance will grow. We shall find ourselves in the midst of a vast political battle to determine the world's future.

Those who have wealth and privilege today will not sit idly by. However, it will become increasingly clear to them that they cannot secure their future through the existing capitalist system. They will seek to implement a system based not on a central role of the market but rather on a combination of brute force and deception. The key objective is to ensure that the new system would guarantee the continuation of three key features of the present system - hierarchy, exploitation, and polarization.

On the other side will be popular forces across the world who will seek to create a new kind of historical system, one that has never yet existed, one that is based on relative democracy and relative equality. What this means in terms of the institutions the world would create is almost impossible to foresee. We shall learn in the building of this system in the decades to come.

Who will win out in this battle? No-one can predict. It will be the result of an infinity of nano-actions by an infinity of nano-actors at an infinity of nano-moments. At some point, the tension between the two alternative solutions will tilt definitively in favor of one or the other. This is what gives us hope. What each of us does at each moment about each immediate issue matters. Some people call it the "butterfly effect." The fluttering of a butterfly's wings affects the climate at the other end of the world. In that sense, we are all little butterflies today.

by Immanuel Wallerstein

[Shevek]

Commentary No. 345, Jan. 15, 2013: "The Structural Crisis: Middle-Run Imponderables"

La Crisis Estructural: imponderables a medio plazo

Una reflexión sobre cómo algún posible cisne negro puede afectar al resultado final de la Transición Estructural Global.

I have previously laid out why I think the capitalist world-system is in a structural crisis, and why this leads to a worldwide political struggle over which of two alternative outcomes will prevail: one that results in a non-capitalist system that retains all the worst features of capitalism (hierarchy, exploitation, and polarization); or one that lays the basis for a system that is based on relative democratization and relative egalitarianism, a kind of system that has never yet existed.

There are however three imponderables in the process of systemic transition. These are three phenomena whose roots are in the historical developments of the modern world-system, and which could "explode" in some sense in the next twenty to forty years in an extremely destructive manner, with very uncertain consequences for the worldwide political struggle.

These three imponderables are climate change, pandemics, and nuclear warfare. They are not imponderable in the dangers they pose for all of humanity. They are imponderables in terms of the timing of any disasters. Our knowledge about each of these is extensive but there are enough uncertainties and differences of views among those who have studied seriously these issues that I do not believe we can be sure what exactly will happen. Let us discuss each in turn.

Climate change seems an unquestionable reality, except for those who reject this reality for political or ideological reasons. Furthermore, everything that has been causing climate change is actually accelerating rather than slowing down. The political differences between wealthier and less wealthy states as to what should be done about climate change make an accord that would mitigate the risks appear unattainable.

However, the earth's ecological complexity is so great, and these changes so extensive, that we do not know what kinds of readjustments will occur. It seems clear that water levels will rise, are already rising, and this threatens the drowning of vast land areas. It also seems clear that the average temperatures in various parts of the world will change, are already changing. But this can also result in shifting the location of agricultural production and energy sources to different zones in ways that might in some sense "compensate" for the acute damage to other zones.

The same thing seems to be true of pandemics. The enormous "advances" of world medicine in the last hundred or so years that have seemed to bring so many diseases under control have simultaneously created a situation in which humanity's ancient enemy, the germ, has found new ways to be resistant and to create new kinds of maladies that our medical forces find extremely difficult to combat.

On the other hand, we seem to be beginning to learn that germs can sometimes be humanity's best friend. Once again, our knowledge seemed great but, when all is said and done, turns out to be pitifully small. In this race against time, how fast will we learn? And how much must we unlearn, in order to survive?

Finally, there is nuclear war. I have argued that there will be significant nuclear proliferation in the decade or so to come. I do not see this as a danger in terms of interstate warfare. Indeed it is almost the contrary. Nuclear weapons are essentially defensive weapons and therefore reduce, not increase, the likelihood of interstate wars.

However, there are several imponderables. The motivations of non-state actors are not necessarily the same. And there are some no doubt who would like to get their hands on such weapons (as well as on chemical and biological weapons) and use them. In addition, the limited ability of many states to protect such weapons from seizure or purchase may facilitate their acquisition by non-state actors. Finally, the actual use of such weapons is necessarily in the hands of some individuals. And the possibility of a "rogue" state agent, a Dr. Strangelove of fiction, is never to be ruled out.

It is perfectly possible that the world weathers the global transition to a new world-system or systems without any of these catastrophes occurring. But it is also possible that it doesn't. And, if it does weather the transition, it is also possible that the new world-system will take the kinds of measures that will reduce (even eliminate) the likelihood of any of them coming to fruition.

Obviously, we cannot simply sit back and see what happens. We need to pursue whatever measures we can in the immediate present to minimize the possibility of the "explosion" of any of these three imponderables. However, as long as we find ourselves in the modern world-system, what we can accomplish politically is limited. That is why I call them imponderables. We cannot be sure what will actually happen and what effect it will have on the transition.

Let me make myself clear. None of these dangerous occurrences would end the process of structural transition. But it could affect seriously the balance of political forces in the struggle. It seems already clear that one major way in which many people react to these dangers is to pull inward in a heavily protectionist and xenophobic way, thereby strengthening the hand of those who are seeking to create an oppressive system (even if it be a non-capitalist one). We see this tendency already almost everywhere. It means that those who seek a system that is relatively democratic and relatively egalitarian have to become clearer about what is happening and work harder at developing political strategies that will counter this trend.

 

by Immanuel Wallerstein