The Political Sources of Crisis

The inequalities and recurrent upheavals which characterize the world-system have always generated opposition from various groups; groups which world-systems theorists have termed anti-systemic movements. Such movements have played a some­what schizophrenic role within the world-system in that they 'simultaneously undermine and rein­force' the dominant structure (Wallerstein 1991a: 268). This apparently contradictory situation becomes clearer when it is realized that successive waves of anti-systemic movements have been co-opted and incorporated into the system. Through this process, the interest groups which the move­ments represent have developed a stake in the con­tinuation of the prevailing order and social cohesion has been maintained.

However the co-option of anti-systemic move­ments has costs which are becoming increasingly onerous. In particular, the pacification of labour movements in the core has been achieved through the development of increasingly elaborate, and expensive, state-based welfare provision. However, a combination of economic stagnation and demo­graphic trends means that it will be increasingly dif­ficult for governments to maintain present levels of welfare provision without undermining the process of capital accumulation. However, failure to protect welfare levels will inevitably seriously undermine the legitimacy of the dominant political and eco­nomic order amongst those who are currently pro­tected from the worst effects of the world-economy. It will also make it almost impossible for these gov­ernments to incorporate marginalized groups within their own societies or proffer assistance to the marginalized majority in the rest of the world.

Therefore the intensifying problems of the world-economy will not only help create more anti-systemic forces, but it will also make it increasingly difficult to deal with them. All this is compounded by the growing sophistication of contemporary anti-systemic movements. Unlike their predeces­sors, they recognize that seizing state power solves very few problems. So rather than attempt to con­struct centralized and disciplined political parties, new social movements are characterized by decen­tralized forms of political organization allied together in diffuse, so-called 'rainbow coalitions'. These types of organization, because of their very nature, are very difficult to co-opt.

Further intensifying these problems is the fact that the global communications revolution has made it harder to conceal the glaring inequalities which characterize the modern world-system. Wallerstein speculates that this may well aid the development of a global political awareness which could, in turn, lead to the forging of global political mobilization (1994).

The Geocultural Sources of Crisis

Wallerstein also points to what amounts to a tec­tonic shift in geocultural underpinnings of the modern world-system. Specifically, he argues that the dominant position of liberalism has been fatally eroded, with the revolutionary turmoil of 1968 signifying as a major watershed. In 1968, rad­ical students united with workers in a series of strikes and demonstrations which Wallerstein regards as having fundamentally undermined some of the main pillars of the world-system. For although the upheaval was largely centred on a few centres—with Prague, Paris, and Mexico City among the most prominent—its significance was much broader.

1968 was above all else an attack on the statism of the prevailing order. States—including both the welfare states of the West and the so-called socialist states of the East—were rejected as bureaucratic, paternalistic, and fundamentally inimicable to human freedom. Although the turmoil was short-lived, and in some cases repressed with great bru­tality, the statism so fundamental to liberalism was permanently tarnished. No longer are citizens will­ing to entrust themselves to the state—a develop­ment with far-reaching implications for the future stability of the world-system.

Furthermore, 1968 was also a fundamental chal­lenge to the traditional anti-systemic movements. The protests took place outside the framework of such movements, and were as much a reaction to their quiescence as they were to the iniquities of the system itself. As a result, 1968 signalled the emer­gence of new forms of anti-systemic movement unwilling to accept traditional forms of politics and thus far less amenable to co-option by the political structures of the world-system.

In addition to the growing crisis of liberalism, Wallerstein also points to what he regards as the fundamental challenges currently undermining the whole system of knowledge which underlies the world-system, that is scientism. These challenges emanate in particular from the natural sciences, where scholars are increasingly calling into question the ideal of absolute truth so central to scientism, and stressing in its place such notions as ' contingency and uncertainty. The result is that another central plank of the dominant geoculture is inexorably being eroded.