#immanuel_wallerstein

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Elections irrelevant to the world-system

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Creator of the world-systems approach to political science, Immanuel Wallerstein, argues that anxiety-based electoral campaigns in the US and elsewhere will have no impact on the crisis of the world-system.

While noting that wise elections of more humane leaders can "minimize the pain" of the world's impoverished social classes and regions, Wallerstein stated that nothing can change the crisis of the modern world-system and the need to replace the current world order with a better one. Wallerstein terms the alternate economy he is referring to as a "post-capitalist" one, and has referred to it in past essays as a "socialist" world government of sorts. Immanuel Wallerstein is not a radical left-wing philosopher and is actually the world's top sociologist, who sees the current world economy as unsustainable and destined to replaced by the aforementioned global alternative. Commentating on the candidacy of Donald Trump in the US 2016 elections, as well as Bernie Sanders, Wallerstein described both of them as campaigning on the basis of "anxiety" that comes from growing global unemployment - although in their cases they focus on the US's part in it. Wallerstein characterized Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric as something that will be unavailing, with geopolitics and the forces of the world-system in the end dooming this rhetoric to fail as any kind of policy. Wallerstein dismissed that the most Trump could accomplish through his anti-immigrant rhetoric is "there is some tightening on the entry of migrants and some tightening of welfare state expenditures for the poorest sectors of the population. There is some increased anti-minority violence within the country." While labeling such possibilities as "negatives", Wallerstein stressed that the real battle is not about elections or who wins them, and rather we "have to fight the longer middle-run (20-40 years) battle of transforming the capitalist system into the kind of post-capitalist one that will be better and not worse than the present one. If Wallerstein's sociology is credible, the futuristic alternative would be a world where authority is diminished significantly, ownership and rent are nonexistent much as the Venus Project advocates, and the world is governed as a single human community rather than a set of protectionist nation-states.

'UK constitutional #monarchy should be abolished': @Dissident_News http://t.co/RFrbbXdFR6 pic.twitter.com/r7RX4gLq07

— The clubof.info Blog (@ClubOfInfo) September 2, 2015

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Greece: long vs short-term poverty?

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Explaining the dilemma facing Greece on whether to continue austerity to pay off debts, or to fight for "debt forgiveness", Immanuel Wallerstein offered the following commentary.

In order to put things in perspective, Wallerstein gives the following breakdown of the two sets of political actors and their arguments dueling over Greece's economic future:

The "reform" camp (i.e. the EU)

"Greece’s difficulties are self-created because successive Greek governments and Greek citizens have spent recklessly money they didn’t have in order to sustain a collective life style beyond their level of collective income."

Greece must cut "collective expenditures in order for it to repay its extensive loans."

"Over time Greece will emerge stronger."

Reform camp's "most vocal and uncompromising spokesperson has been Germany’s Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble. He has been making two main arguments: Greece should leave the Eurozone “temporarily” and Greece should be held to the strict payment of all outstanding debts."

Greece's problems started "essentially when the military dictatorship was overthrown in 1974 and a left party, PASOK, led by Andreas Papandreou, emerged as a major force on the scene. This date puts the blame solidly on Greece itself for adopting the social-democratic policies of successive governments."

Anti-austerity camp (i.e. Syriza's supporters)

“Austerity” is "cruel and heartless, forcing an ever-growing part of the Greek population into abject poverty." 

"A regime of austerity will not, cannot lead to an end to the present acute depression in Greece."

"Each successive loan has increased, not decreased, the rate of unemployment and has made it less possible to achieve its ostensible goal of restoring Greece’s “competitivity” in the world market."

"Call instead for substantial debt forgiveness and a reversal of the demands of creditors that Greece make cuts in pensions and other parts of the social security net."

Debt forgiveness has "increasing support from prominent economists like Joseph Stiglitz and from Christine Lagarde, the president of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)."

Greece's problems started "earlier, somewhere in the 1930s, when the West European governments, and particularly Germany, imposed a subordinate quasi-colonial system in Greece. This puts the blame squarely on capitalist and imperial forces."

Once it came to power in 2015, the (formerly) radical left party Syriza "had to face up to the dilemmas of being the government, which does not allow the easy positions of being a radical opposition movement".

Syriza betrays the Greek people?

Syriza promised voters it would not deal with the troika (IMF, The European Central Bank, and the European Union). However, Varoufakis found that no one would talk with him if he didn’t talk with the troika, and had no choice but to break this promise

Referendum ended in victory for no (OXI) vote against the terms of further austerity

Greek government committee voted down Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis' "Plan B" or "Grexit on Greece's terms" prompting Varoufakis to resign, despite that he had promised he would resign if the aforementioned vote resulted in a Yes, when in fact it resulted in a No (this confused many people)

Many now see Syriza leader Tsipras as a "traitor" for agreeing to even harsher reforms than Greece had faced at the beginning of the negotiations

According to Wallerstein, Syriza has proven to disappoint the Greek people through no fault of its own but because of the constraints on any national government that come from the world-system. Any national government has to behave a certain way within the international community and Greece is no exception to this.

Syriza never envisaged any alternative plan than seeking state power, and now that it is in government, it has found that it has almost no options at all. Of the options that do exist, all appear to be bad for Syriza and are likely to result in resentment and a sense of betrayal among Greeks.

The choice facing Greeks can now be narrowed down to the long-term poverty imposed by the terms of loans that Greeks feel they will never be able to repay, and the short-term poverty of leaving the Eurozone. Leaving the Eurozone will have disastrous effects on the standard of living within Greece but will free Greece from the chains of debt. According to Wallerstein, that is the choice facing the Greek people at this juncture.

An alternative economy for the #Greek people and for the whole oppressed world http://t.co/UGE1yG7jZp pic.twitter.com/zMkiCDgwd9

— The clubof.info Blog (@ClubOfInfo) July 22, 2015

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Evil symbol vs. evil symbol?

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While the elimination of symbols of the Confederacy may be a necessary, if belated, way of combating injustice, we must be careful not to be drawn into a battle of symbols that is ultimately as superficial as the symbols themselves.

That is the warning issued by top social scientist Immanuel Wallerstein. Alluding to the apparent distinctions between the flag of the US federal government and the former Confederacy, Wallerstein wrote, "It is all too easy in the struggle against one noxious set of symbols to install in our collective value system another noxious set of symbols". Included was of course the recognition that "symbols matter", but what matters more is changing what the symbols stood for. The absence of Confederate flags would have done nothing to prevent the numerous police killings of unarmed Black people that continue to stain the reputation of the United States as a supposedly multiracial and tolerant society. Removing the Confederate flag does not guarantee "less racism" as racism is a deeper problem than the allegiance to a flag (a contagion that exists everywhere today including among government officials and is not unique to racists in any way). Wallerstein reminds us that symbols, as with many institutions of the modern state, are designed to exclude and even kill people on an arbitrary basis. Dislike of something as trivial as women's headwear in Europe is now the basis for much discrimination and also political discussion in western countries now, which represents a fascination with superficial cultural trappings and scapegoats. Ultimately, all people in the human family are part of multiple and overlapping groups and we have to make compromises about symbols rather than getting into some kind of match where one symbol of a murderous state is pitted against another symbol of a murderous state, as if one is really the antithesis of the other.

Dying, #EricHarris yelled he was losing breath. An officer responded, “F*ck your breath.” http://t.co/h68DMCqiit pic.twitter.com/jfJPFKWOLX

— The clubof.info Blog (@ClubOfInfo) July 1, 2015

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Wallerstein: "Brexit" may collapse EU

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Despite winning the UK election, PM David Cameron faces a bitter future for the United Kingdom, world-systems theorist Immanuel Wallerstein predicts.

In a commentary at his widely syndicated column, titled "Post-Britain", Wallerstein uses his famed world-systems analysis to look at the UK as a former "hegemon" of the world-system. It compares with the former United Provinces, now the Netherlands, whose empire similarly dissolved anticlimactically to give way to a new superpower. The last of the Netherlands' power in the world from its days of global dominance was financial, much as the last of Britain's power today is financial. Wallerstein wrote that David Cameron's government is faced with difficult scenarios and is extremely unlikely to get its way:

Step (a) is to press the EU to “defederalize” further, allowing Great Britain to exempt itself from even more requirements of membership. Step (b) is to call the referendum he has promised the Conservative Party by 2017, but as late as possible. Step (c) is to defeat the referendum, and thus remain in the EU. 

... 

Cameron’s step (a) of further exemptions from EU requirements is unlikely because of strong resistance from other EU members, and notably Germany. Step (b) of defeating the referendum thereby becomes even more unlikely. And therefore step (c) of a Brexit becomes highly likely.

In Wallerstein's analysis, Cameron's government - and its desire to keep Britain as a major financial power - represents the interests of what he calls Britain's financial elite.

The consequences of Britain leaving the EU, an outcome Wallerstein concluded to be likely under the Cameron government, would be severe for the European Union at such a delicate time in its history:

Adding a Brexit to this mix of difficulties might be just too much for the EU. The EU and the eurozone are a house of cards, which might simply collapse.

And of Cameron's fate, Wallerstein concludes:

To go back to the beginning of this analysis, Cameron should savor his unexpected victory in the British elections because he (and Great Britain’s financial elites) may actually come to regret it – quite soon.

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