cj#828> request for references re/sustainable societies

1998-09-05

Richard Moore

Dear rn & cj,

Thanks to those of you have been following the gri-book series
("Globalization and the Revolutionary Imperative") and sending in comments
and critique.

As I begin Chapter 4, "Sustainable economics: a realizable necessity", I
find I am short of reference material. I've got lots of books that document
how globalization makes things worse, but nothing on hand that looks at the
quantitative problem of dealing with today's (or tomorrow's) population
sizes with sustainable approaches.

Surely this topic must have been dealt with -- any leads??

Below is a one-page summary of the book, FYI, with the sentence needing
corroboration marked **-> thusly <-**.


thanks in advance,
rkm

------------------------------------------------------------------------

One page description of contents
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Part I traces the origin of today's global system from the perspectives of
national power, political elites, and the evolution of capitalism.  The
dynamics of capitalism are analyzed, revealing that periods of growth are
punctuated by intentional changes in the societal regime, aimed at creating
new investment vehicles and a new round of capital growth.  The dynamics of
capitalism thus lead to the rise of elites who, by necessity, regularly
engage in societal engineering and hence drive societal evolution.
National rivalries, expressed as competitive imperialism, have served to
increase elite wealth while at the same time creating a de facto
partnership between capitalism and popular nationalism.  Post-1945
decolonization, I argue, was actually the collectivization of Western
imperialism under an updated regime protected by the pax-Americana
umbrella. This collectivization severed the nation-capital bond, led to the
development of TNC's, and established the foundations of globalization.
Globalization is shown to be an elite project designed to jettison
democracy (limited though it is), disempower Western societies, and
consolidate elite power in a global regime dominated by a handful of
mega-TNC's.  My analysis anticipates that capitalism will be ultimately
abandoned by the elite and replaced by a more feudal form of elite tyranny.

Part II begins with the premise that capitalism and elite power must be
replaced before it is too late, and surveys historically proven
alternatives.  **-> The myth of global scarcity is debunked and I argue
that sustainability and environmental integrity are immanently obtainable
<-**  -what is needed are economic and political systems which will not
degenerate into a rebirth of capitalism.  Robust democracy and sustainable
economics, I argue, must be based on models of localism, consensus, and
collaboration rather than centralization, competition, and factionalism.
Contrary to marxism, I argue that different models are appropriate to
different societies, and a spectrum of models are recommended.  Chapter 6
investigates the question of post-capitalist world order. The origins of
international conflict are analyzed historically and aggressive nationalism
is shown to arise from non-democratic regimes and non-sustainable
economics. International collaboration, I argue, arises naturally from the
democratic process within nations, and strong world government is shown to
be inherently counter-democratic and prone to giving rise to new forms of
elite power.

Part III tackles the problem of how to bring about the global
transformation of societies.  I argue that the transformation must come
from within Western societies and that the traditional avenue of party
politics is both inaccessible and inappropriate for this purpose. The
history of social movements is examined, and factors are identified which
determine their success and failure.  Resistance to globalization is
widespread and these efforts are shown to be a sound basis for building a
transformative mass movement.  But factionalism must be overcome and the
movement must be informed with a deeper understanding of democracy,
sustainability, capitalism, and elite stratagems-especially that of
cooption.  The movement must be based on localism, consensus, and
collaboration, and as it develops I argue that it will itself become the
basis of a strong civil society and a robust democratic process.  Chapter 9
deals with the implementation of societal transformation-making a smooth
transition from capitalism to democracy and sustainability.

book maintained at: http://cyberjournal.org/cadre/gri/gri.html
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