FWD: Immanuel Wallerstein

[KXX4493553 at aol.com]

Introduction: I. Wallerstein from "Globalization or the Age of Transition? A 
Long-Term View of the Trajectory of the World-System"

[...]
The capitalist world-economy has long maintained itself, as any system does, 
by mechanisms that restore equilibrium every time its processes move away 
from it. The equilibrium is never restored immediately, but only after a 
sufficient deviation from the norm occurs, and of course it never is restored 
perfectly. Because it requires that deviations go a certain distance before 
they trigger countermovements, the result is that the capitalist 
world-economy, like any other system, has cyclical rhythms of multiple kinds. 
We have been discussing one of the principal ones it has developed, which are 
called Kondratieff cycles. They are not the only ones.

The equilibrium is never restored to the same point because the 
countermovements require some change in the underlying
parameters of the system. Hence the equilibrium is always a moving 
equilibrium, and therefore the system has secular trends. It is this 
combination of cyclical rhythms and secular trends that define a system that 
is functioning "normally." However, secular trends cannot go on forever, 
because they hit asymptotes. Once this happens, it is no longer possible for 
the cyclical rhythms to bring the system back into equilibrium, and this is 
when a system gets into trouble. It then enters into its terminal crisis, and 
bifurcates - that is, it finds itself before two (or more) alternative routes 
to a new structure, with a new equilibrium, new cyclical rhythms and new 
secular trends. But which of the two alternative routes the system will take, 
that is, what kind of new system will be established, is intrinsically not 
possible to determine in advance, since it is a function of an infinity of 
particular choices that are not systemically constrained. This is what is 
happening now in the capitalist world-economy.

[...]
As the world-economy enters into a new period of expansion, it will thereby 
exacerbate the very conditions which have led it into a terminal crisis. In 
technical terms, the fluctuations will get wilder and wilder, or more 
"chaotic," and the direction in which the trajectory is moving ever more 
uncertain, as the route takes more and more zigzags with every greater 
rapidity. At the same time, we may expect the degree of collective and 
individual security to decrease, perhaps vertiginously, as the state 
structures lose more and more legitimacy. And this will no doubt increase the 
amount of day-by-day violence in the world-system. This will be frightening 
to most people, as well it should be.

*********************************************************************

"September 11, 2001 - Why?"



On September 11, 2001, the whole world watched a human tragedy and a great 
drama, and everyone was fixated on it. In the
U.S., four commercial airliners were hijacked in the early morning. The 
hijackers numbered 4-5 persons in each plane. Armed
with knives, and having at least one person among them capable of piloting 
the plane (at least once it was in the air), the
hijackers took over the planes, ousted (or killed) the pilots and directed 
the planes on suicide missions. Three of the planes hit their targets: the 
two towers of the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in 
Washington. 

Given both the amount of fuel aboard and the technical knowledge to know at 
which height the planes should hit the buildings,
the hijackers managed to destroy completely the two towers and carve a big 
hole in the Pentagon. As of now, there are
probably more than 5000 dead (no one has an exact figure) and many more hurt 
and traumatized. The U.S. air network and
financial institutions have ground virtually to a halt, at least for this 
week, and untold short-range and middle-range economic
damage has been done.

The first thing to note about this attack is its audacity and its remarkable 
success. A group of persons, linked together by
ideology and willingness to be martyrs, engaged in a clandestine operation 
that must be the envy of any secret service agency in the world. They 
obtained entry into the United States, managed to board with knives four 
airplanes, which were leaving from three airports almost simultaneously, and 
all of which were heading on transcontinental flights and therefore had large 
amounts of fuel on board. They took over the planes, and managed to get three 
of them to reach their targets. Neither the CIA nor the FBI nor U.S. military 
intelligence nor any one else had any advance notice or was able to do 
anything to stop this group.

The outcome was the most devastating such attack in the history of what we 
call terrorist attacks. No previous attack killed
more than 400 or so persons. Even at Pearl Harbor, to which the analogy is 
being widely made, and where the attack was
conducted by the military forces of a state, many fewer people were killed. 
Furthermore, this was the first time since the Civil
War (1861-1865) that warfare occurred within the boundaries of the 
continental United States. The U.S. has since been
engaged in many major wars - the Spanish-American War, the First World War, 
the Second World War, Korea, and Vietnam
- (not to speak of "minor" wars), and in all of them the actual fighting 
occurred outside these boundaries. The fact that warfare
occurred in the streets of New York and Washington constituted the biggest 
shock to the American people of this attack.

So, the big question is why? Virtually everyone is saying that the person 
responsible for the attack is Osama bin Laden. It
seems a plausible assumption, since he has declared his intention to carry 
out such acts, and perhaps in the near future U.S. authorities will produce 
some evidence substantiating this assumption. Let us suppose this is correct. 
What would bin Laden hope to achieve in attacking the U.S. in this 
spectacular way? Well, this could be seen as an expression of anger and 
revenge for what bin Laden (and others) consider the misdeeds of the U.S. 
throughout the world, and particularly in the Middle East. Would bin Laden 
think that, by such an act, he could persuade the U.S. government to change 
its policies? I seriously doubt that he is so naive as to think this would be 
the reaction. President Bush says he regards the attack as an "act of war" 
and possibly bin Laden, if he is the perpetrator, thinks the same. Wars are 
not conducted to persuade the opponent to change his ways, but to force the 
opponent to do so.

So let us reason as though we were bin Laden. What has he proved by this 
attack? The most obvious thing that he has proved is that the United States, 
the world's only superpower, the state with the most powerful and 
sophisticated military hardware in the world, was unable to protect its 
citizens from this attack. What bin Laden, again presuming he is in fact the 
force behind it, wished to do, clearly, is to show that the U.S. is a paper 
tiger. And he wished to show it, first of all, to the American people, and 
then to everyone else in the world. 

Now this is as obvious to the U.S. government as it is to bin Laden. Hence 
the response. President Bush says he will react
forcefully, and the U.S. political elite of both parties have given him their 
patriotic assent without any hesitation. But now let us
reason from the point of view of the U.S. government. What can they do? 

The easiest thing is to obtain diplomatic support of condemnation of the 
attack and justification of any future counterattack. This is exactly what 
Secretary of State Powell said he would be doing. And it is reaping its 
rewards. NATO has said that, under Article 5 of the treaty, a military attack 
on the U.S. (which they consider this to be) requires all its members to give 
military support to the counteraction, if the U.S. requests it. Every 
government in the world, including that of Afghanistan and North Korea, has 
condemned the attack. The sole exception is Iraq. It is true that popular 
opinion in Arab and Muslim states has not been as supportive of the U.S. but 
the U.S. will ignore that. 

The fact that the U.S. has achieved this diplomatic support, perhaps later a 
U.N. resolution, will hardly make bin Laden quake
in his boots. The diplomatic support is going to seem to be thin gruel for 
the American people as well. They will demand more. And more almost 
inevitably means some kind of military action. But what? Whom will the U.S. 
Air Force bomb? If bin Laden is behind the attack, there are only two 
possible targets, depending on further knowledge about the evidence: 
Afghanistan and/or Iraq. How much damage will that do? In half-destroyed 
Afghanistan, it hardly seems worthwhile. And the U.S. has been restrained 
about bombing Iraq for many reasons, including not wishing to lose lives. 
Maybe the U.S. will bomb someone. Will that convince the American people and 
the rest of the world that the U.S. is too fearsome to attack? Somehow I 
doubt it.

The truth of the matter is that there is not too much that the U.S. can do. 
The CIA tried for years to assassinate Castro, and
he's still there. The U.S. has been searching for bin Laden for some years 
now, and he's still there. One day, U.S. agents may kill him, and this might 
slow down this particular operation. It would also give great satisfaction to 
many people. But the
problem would still remain whole.

Obviously, the only thing to do is something political. But what? Here all 
accord within the U.S. (or more widely within the
pan-Western arena) disappears. The hawks say that this proves that Sharon 
(and the present Israeli government) are right:
"they" are all terrorists, and the way to handle them is with harsh riposte. 
This hasn't been working so well for Sharon thus far.
Why will it work better for George W. Bush? And can Bush get the American 
people to pay the price? Such a hawkish mode
does not come cheaply. On the other hand, the doves are finding it difficult 
to make the case that this can be handled by
"negotiation." Negotiation with whom, and with what end in view?

Perhaps what is happening is that this "war" - as it is being called this 
week in the press - cannot be won and will not be lost,
but will simply continue. The disintegration of personal security is now a 
reality that may be hitting the American people for the first time. It was 
already a reality in many other parts of the world. The political issue 
underlying these chaotic oscillations of the world-system is not civilization 
versus barbarity. Or at least what we must realize is that all sides think 
they are the civilized ones, and that the barbarian is the other. The issues 
underlying what is going on is the crisis in our world-system and the battle 
about what kind of successor world-system we would like to build.(1) This 
does not make it a contest between Americans and Afghans or Muslims or anyone 
else. It is a struggle between different visions of the world we want to 
build. September 11, 2001 will soon seem to be, contrary to what many are 
saying, a minor episode in a long struggle that will go on for a long time 
and be a dark period for most people on this planet.


1. I have made the case for why we are living in a crisis of the world-system 
in Utopistics, or Historical Choices for the
Twenty-first Century (New York: New Press, 1998)



Kurt-Werner Pörtner