W. Warren Wagar. A SHORT HISTORY OF THE FUTURE, 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. xi + 324 pp. ISBN 0-226- 86902-4, $14.95 (paper). Reviewed by Terry Boswell, Department of Sociology, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA Utopian visions of possible new world orders proliferate every 50 to 60 years with the long stagnation of the Kondraetieff economic cycle, according to the research of Edgar Kiser and Kriss A. Drass (ÒChanges in the Core of the World-System and the Production of Utopian Literature in Great Britain and the United Staets, 1883-1975,Ó AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW, 1987). They found that the publication of utopian novels as a percentage of all novels published clusters in the downturn phase of the Kondraetieff wave, peaking during the period when economic conditions turn for the better after a long crisis. Hegemonic decline amplifies the cultural response to the economy. Kiser and Drass use the publication of utopian novels as something of a [Page 2] temperature gauge of the prevailing cultural weather. The relationship between ideological and economic conditions is turbulent at best. But over the long term, the cultural atmosphere surrounding economic conditions shifts with the seasonal pattern of economic stagnation and expansion, and hegemonic stability and decline. One such novel of particular importance for conceiving the future of the world- system is W. Warren Wagar's A SHORT HISTORY OF THE FUTURE. Wagar, a historian at SUNY Binghamton and colleague of Immanuel Wallerstein, has written a utopian vision from a deliberately world-systemic point of view. As a novel, it reads rather like a historian's extrapolation based on an explicit theory. It is full of long treatises on changing world conditions, with only occasional epistolary interludes to add human characters to what is otherwise all plot. While it lacks the literary quality of the H. G. Wells it attempts to emulate, it is nevertheless readable and enjoyable simply as the written imagination of a learned and intelligent author. Viewing a [Page 3] utopian novel simply as a novel misses the whole point. Utopian novels pose new answers to the ideological question of "what is possible?" (Kiser and Drass). Along with answers to "what exists?" and "what is good?," conceiving "what is possible?" forms the basis for any world view. Goran Therborn's classic work on ideology (THE POWER OF IDEOLOGY AND THE IDEOLOGY OF POWER, 1980) explains that defining "what is possible" is the last defense of the status quo. While one may empirically demonstrate that exploitation exists and even that it is unfair, for instance, one cannot prove empirically that a better alternative is possible when that system does not yet exist. Conceiving "what is possible" is an act of extrapolation from what exists. When the world economy has unmistakenly failed to grow at appeasing rates for nearly a generation, people become convinced that the existing forms of organization must be discarded and experiment with new ones to put in their place. Utopian visions, at that time, have a new resonance. They take advantage of the pliable economic conditions to stretch our conception of the possible. [Page 4] Wagar's novel comes at what is, hopefully, the tail of a long stagnation, and at the middle of America's descent from hegemony. As a utopian vision of possible futures, a vision based on world- system theory, Wagar offers scenarios that begin to offer what we must have in order for the theory to offer more than analysis of what exists. Since the end of the Soviet Union in 1990, socialist visions of the future appear to many to be trapped by futility. Despite the long-ago recognition by most Western leftists that the Soviet model was undemocratic and oppressive, its utter collapse brought a surprising recognition that the entire system had long been unreformable. Democratization by Gorbachevs or Trotskys or other would-be true democratic socialists could not reverse the failings of the command economy (Terry Boswell and Ralph Peters, ÒState Socialism and the Industrial Divide in the World-Economy: A Comparative Essay on the Rebellions in Poland and China,Ó CRITICAL SOCIOLOGY, 1990). This recognition is what leaves Marxists in a crisis of purpose, not the trumpeting of Soviet oppression or even of its failures, which were recognizable from [Page 5] applying Marxist theory. This is not to say that Wagar offers a viable alternative model or that his vision is even a prediction of what will happen (the first edition still even had a Soviet Union). The purpose of a utopian novel is not to predict the future but to offer what Wagar calls an "array of possibilities" (p. x). His particular array is not highly probable as an extrapolation. But it does offer a vision of a world socialism that is not constrained by the now suddenly- obvious impossibilities of extending a "reformed" Soviet model. Wagar's vision is feasible within known parameters of the world- system and while an unlikely event to occur by accident, something like it could be made to happen by concerted action. It thus extends the possibility that concerted action would be worthwhile. Wagar actually offers two utopias and one dystopia. Each follows from and requires the previous one to create the conditions for its subsumption. The novel is organized into three "books": ÒEarth Inc.,Ó ÒRed Earth,Ó and ÒHouse of Earth,Ó which chronicle the history of the world form 1995 to 2100. Wagar (p. [Page 6] xiii) modeled his three "books" on the Christian eschatology of "Armageddon, Millennium, and New Jerusalem." The dystopia must come first. It is an extrapolation from existing transnational corporate capitalism to include a corporate world polity, the GTC (Global Trade Consortium). The GTC functions as world hegemon, enforcing a corporate world order through economic boycott rather than military dominance. Initially the GTC is an enlightened despot, maintaining world peace and ushering in a renewed global prosperity at the small price of undemocratic rule, uniform cultural commodification, growing inequality, environmental degradation, and individual subservience. But global capitalist expansion leads inevitably to overproduction and recession. Wagar plays out the next century with dates from the one now ending. Global recession in 2032 lasts until world war breaks out in the 2040s. But in this scenario, the world war is a nuclear holocaust. From the ashes of the war, the states in the Southern Hemisphere (which are now the core) coalesce to form a new world [Page 7] polity based on the principles of the World Party. The World Party is the most interesting and perhaps most important part of the book, which we will return to shortly. This new world state seems to be a democratic version of the GTC, which as a global democracy is driven to redress the problems of inequality and environmental degradation while also managing to restore peace and prosperity. It succeeds a bit too easily, but Wagar does remind us that even in a democratic socialist utopia, resistance will occur against the tyranny of the majority. This resistance takes the form of the Small Party, an anarchist congregation seeking individual and cultural autonomy through community self- sufficiency. In the final and most entertaining "book," a victorious Small Party simply dissolves the world government. The final utopia is a world of self-governing communities small enough to practice direct democracy and enabled by fantastic technology to be both self-sufficient and fully prosperous. Any hierarchy is rejected, or falls away, and the material determination of the [Page 8] spirit is finally reversed. The World Party While the particular scenarios that Wagar presents are built upon an increasing number of "what ifs," the World Party is based on a set of principles that are applicable in a wide array of scenarios. Those principles deserve discussion, regardless of the merits of the scenarios. The Party principles, as I interpret them from various points in the text, are as follows: 1. A World Socialist Commonwealth, including a world state with a military monopoly and public ownership of the megacorporations. 2. Global Democracy with direct elections by department for all offices, global and local. 3. Legal and programmatic provision for equal opportunity, [Page 9] including a worldwide assault on racism and sexism; and state provision of basic needs, including education, health care, child care, and retirement. 4. Incomes based on need, with no more than a 3:1 ratio among individuals for those employed (half share for those unwilling to work) and no more than 2:1 across departments. 5. "Declaration of Human Sovereignty," in which the world state abolishes national sovereignty and eschews national or ethnic identities. 6. "Integral humanism," a philosophical order of public affairs based on rationality, including a secular state and official tolerance for individual beliefs (i.e., no legal enforcement of religious, national, ethnic, or other traditions), and a disdain for commodity fetishism. 7. A global plan for ecological restoration, renewable sources of supply, and population control. 8. A critique of world capitalism as the source of world wars and as oppressive and illegal as a world order (although petty [Page 10] bourgeois capital and markets can operate within departments). 9. A critique of Stalinist style state socialism as oppressie and illegal, with guarantees for democracy and individual liberty. 10. A vanguard party strategy for mundialization, including revolutio, elections, coops, and even conquest of laggards until all states join the world commonwealth. The World Party is modeled on the German Green Party, with a heavy dose of the original Second International and the added twist of being based on world-system rather than Marxist or Keynesian theory. It carries a "New Left" imprint of being socialist and democratic, anti-capitalist and anti-totalitarian, class and individually based. As Giovanni Arrighi, Terence K. Hopkins and Immanuel Wallerstein (Ò1968: The Great Rehearsal,Ó in Boswell, ed., REVOLUTION IN THE WORLD-SYSTEM, 1987) point out, since the world revolution of 1968, such "New Left" conceptions have redefined progressive politics. [Page 11] There are many points that deserve critique, rejection, or revision. We can start with those offered by Wagar himself, by enunciating the principles of the Small Party. It carries an imprint from the other major offspring of 1968 revolution, the "New Age" conceptions that redefined identity and spirituality. To many, "New Age" means hippie wannabes wearing crystals, sleeping under pyramids, and listening to whales sing. It is that, but it is also an umbrella term for a wide variety of lifestyle issues that share a concern for personal autonomy and self-awareness. The most prominent are feminist (and ethnic) conceptions of identity, which, for instance, overlap but still contrast with leftist definitions of feminism as equality in the workplace. Given the anarchistic and spiritual character of the Small Party, its principles are deliberately vague. Perhaps only the following two principles are necessary and shared: elimination of the state or other central authority above the community; and complete autonomy and self-reliance of small communities. Self- [Page 12] reliance is premised on utopian technology that provides for abundant prosperity with little effort. Wagar suggests that most such communities would be governed by town-hall-style direct democracy, although religious and other traditional orders may also proliferate. He assumes that abundance would guarantee a general equality and eliminate any desire for hierarchy or conquest. A missing assumption, which we can add, is that the technology has a diminishing return to scale, and perhaps even to hierarchy, which would make small egalitarian communities the optimal form. But this makes the technological form, and thus the Small Party option, even more fantastical, eviscerating the critique. Perhaps the "New Age" critique of "scientific socialism" is better understood as an alternative set of goals rather than an alternative organizational form that must be premised on utopian technology. Let me below offer a series of contrasts, interpreted from the text, with the Small Party goals listed first: spiritual vs. rational; early Marx vs. late Marx; spontaneous vs. planned; [Page 13] feminine vs. masculine; identity vs. humanity; community vs. individual; individual vs. family; autonomy vs. centralized; self- sufficient vs. interdependent; negotiation vs. law; variety vs. standard; freedom vs. equality; relativist vs. universal; folk vs. classical; play vs. work; and, anarchy vs. state. Not all goals contradict and instead are only a different priority or emphasis. Nevertheless, the contrast is often striking and many do contradict. Wagar offers a stage theory wherein rational scientific world socialism produces the abundance that enables a communal spiritual world. Working class technocrats turn into communal hippies. A strength of Wagar's array of possibilities is that they take account of the slow movement of global time. He lets about 50 years pass, a full Kondraetieff, before one world order slips into the next. Each set of social relations that characterize a period is predicated on the developments that preceded it -- the autonomous community utopia required the equality and prosperity of a world socialism, which in turn was built on charred framework of a capitalist world [Page 14] polity. But are these stages necessary? Wagar's stage conception justifies sacrificing spirituality, spontaneity, femininity, identity, and perhaps even freedom in the short run in order to achieve the same in the abundant future. I doubt that by sacrificing these goals one creates the conditions for their achievement, or even if it might, that many would risk the sacrifice. These are not investments, where a sacrifice reaps a greater reward, but are alternatives. Some may even be complimentary. Yet must we accept either the premise of fantastic technology or that the achievement of goals must occur in stages? Is not a synthesis of goals, requiring only foreseeable technology, a possible option? I not only think the answer is yes, but also think that the world party and world socialism is only worthwhile if the answer is yes. What that synthesis can and should be cannot be answered here. Or what is the same thing, all or at least most of the goals should be included. ÒHow can ÔNew LeftÕ and ÔNew AgeÕ be reconciled or synthesized?Ó is the first of two questions that [Page 15] advocates of a world party and world socialism need to reach an agreed upon answer. The second is question is, ÒHow do we begin?Ó Historically, attempts to organize international parties have succeeded only up to the point of exercising real power. Power is located in states, which have a societal constituency and a physical border that frequently contradicts global concerns. The nationalistic division of the Second International over World War I is the classic example. Yet, ironically, as the national interests in western Europe coalesced after World War II, the Second International revived as a common forum for designing and coordinating (moderately) progressive policies. Could such a forum exist at the world level? Certainly global organizations exist and have been proliferating at a phenomenal rate since World War II. In analyzing data on the establishment of International Non- Governmental Organizations (INGOs) since 1875, John Boli (1994) finds a linear increase interrupted only by war and depression, [Page 16] that after World War II increased geometrically (three times as many in 1990 as 1960). These organizations, along with other global actors and events, constitute and reflect the world polity (despite the absence of a world state). Yet international political parties and labor unions have not been among the organizations on the rise. Most have been industry and trade organizations, that is in class terms, organizations of international capital rather than labor. Capital is laying the foundation for organizing labor globally, as it previously did industrially. If the foundation is there, then the question of how to begin becomes one of deciding where to start, what part of the foundation to build upon first. A utopian perspective is ill- equipped to determine what we should do; it offers only scenarios of what we could do. Wagar offers an alternative scenario to traditional party organizing. He has the World Party evolving out of study groups, salons, and other nonhierarchical interactions. The most important are discussion networks on the Internet, not [Page 17] unlike the World-Systems Network with which most readers of this journal are familiar.