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Davos and Porto Alegre: the shape of the future?




Wallerstein: This has to do with the real crisis. If, as I say, we’re in a period of bifurcation, which means two possible solutions, then Davos represents one possible solution and Porto Alegre the other possible solution, with total uncertainty as to who will win out, but obviously, very different visions. The important thing, which I insist on, is that the people in Davos not try to restore capitalism. They’re trying to find an alternative, that is, how shall I say, which maintains the principles, the inequality, hierarchy, and so forth. We can have another system other than capitalism that does that. The Porto Alegre thrust is for a relatively democratic, relatively egalitarian system. Neither side has a clear image in its own mind what kind of structure this would require. Neither side is totally unified. That is to say, I see the Davos camp split between those who have a slightly longer range vision and those who are only worried about the next three years, and they go in different directions. Porto Alegre is totally unsure of what kind of system this other world that they’re talking about would be. And they are particularly unsure of what kind of strategy they would use to get there. Basically, the next five or 10 years, there’s something going on in the camp of Davos; I call it “the spirit of Davos,” although I don’t mean literally “Davos.” There’s something going on in the camp of “the spirit of Porto Alegre.” At this point I don’t know how it’s going to come out. That is, who is going to have the clearer strategy and what it is, and so forth. So in that sense, we’re in a period of great uncertainty as to what will happen. And that may determine, if one side or the other has a better strategy or clear vision that may win out.

Suh: You’ve suggested that we’re in the terminal stages of the world capitalist economy. Then, those who talk about how to save the current financial crisis or how to institute an oversight mechanism for financial transactions across the border are, in a way, trying to hold on to a system that’s dying out. They are trying to lengthen the life of the dying system with some kind of life support. Their debate is about what the best life support system is, for example whether a bailout of $5 billion or $10 billion is more efficient. But the real competition is about a new historical world system that will eventually replace the current world capitalist economy. Here you have two camps envisioning different worlds, competing to articulate their visions, and struggling to chart new possibilities. One of them wants to create a world system that would more or less replicate the current uneven distribution of power and production in a different way. This world could be based on a developmental role and regulative function of the state and an oversight management role of international institutions that will help to more effectively address the systemic problems of today’s world. The other camp, however, envisions a different world that is more democratic and egalitarian. This is a collection of divergent ideas and visions, but there seems to be a growing convergence on the importance of empowering the local in a way that frees it from the commodification of life. There are many experiments that seek to find a way to free the people and nature from the chains of commodification, and yet free them from the tyranny of parochialism by networking local communities in a mutually reinforcing and mutually nourishing way.

Wallerstein: Well, you know, that’s what people are debating. They’re debating very much what an egalitarian world means. For example, one of the things that is under much debate in the world left for the last 200 years has been Jacobinism. Therefore, it has been basically not only for a state oriented policy but for a homogenizing outcome, like everybody should be the same. We should transform people into the same kind of person. That’s what they’ve been trying to do. That’s what the French Revolution was trying to do. That’s what the Russian Revolution was trying to do. That’s what the Chinese Revolution was trying to do. Now, that Jacobin vision has been called into severe question. There are people who say, I don’t know, we want to allow the flourishing of multiple cultures. Exactly what does that mean?

I’ve argued what makes sense is a two-pronged strategy. On the one hand, always struggle for the lesser evil in the very, very short run because people live in the very short run and they don’t want to postpone to 10 years from now or 20 years from now what needs to be done today. And there’s always a lesser evil. You have to, at the same time, keep your eye on the larger ball of the new kind of world you want to construct, and that’s a matter of constant discussion, negotiation, integration of visions.

Suh: Thank you so much.

Immanuel Wallerstein is a sociologist known for his work as a historical social scientist and world-systems analyst. He is currently a senior research scholar with Yale’s Sociology department. He received the Career of Distinguished Scholarship Award from the American Sociological Association in 2003. He is the author of the three volume series The Modern World-System, his most well-known work, and Historical Capitalism (Verso 1995); The Decline of American Power: The U.S. in a Chaotic World (New Press 2003) and European Universalism: The Rhetoric of Power (New Press 2006).

Jae-Jung Suh is a professor of International Relations at Johns Hopkins and an expert on the international relations of the Korean Peninsula. He is the author of Power, Interest and Identity in Military Alliances.

The Hankyoreh is publishing a series of interviews with foreign scholars examining issues of economic growth and social welfare, international trade and monetary order, the environment and social development, income distribution, and production and consumption.

This interview appeared at The Hankyoreh on January 8, 2009.

This slightly edited version of the interview, one of a series of reports on the economic crisis in the Asia Pacific, is published at Japan Focus on January 8, 2009.

Recommended Citation: Immanuel Wallerstein and Jae-Jung Suh, "Capitalism's Demise?" The Asia-Pacific Journal, 2-1-09, January 8, 2009.

 





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