> (1) thermonuclear weapons, which ensure that noone would survive,
> let alone win,
I don't know if you were alive, or aware of world events, during the so-called "Cuban Missile Crisis," but I can remember a week of walking around the streets of New Haven wondering whether everything would blow up in the next 10 minutes. In fact, we narrowly missed just that happening.
I am rather surprised, frankly, that someone on this list would buy the old "nukes keep the peace" line. What is preventing all-out thermonuclear war at this point is that no other country can challenge the U.S. on that level. OTOH, Russia still has lots of nukes, if I'm not mistaken. And unless the U.S. and China can keep making nice, there will inevitably be tensions between those countries as China becomes increasingly powerful, with Japan somewhere in the middle. It's not at all clear at this point whether that country will side with the U.S. or China in the end.
> (2) the cultural integration of the planet, via tourism,
> the Web, the mass media, etc.,
That was another hoary myth -- the telegraph and the telephone, plus the wonderful opportunities for travel provided by the steamship, would prevent war forever. Right!
You can look up any Web site you want, if you live in a country that doesn't control access to the Net. What do you see? Thousands of sites calling for death and destruction against some one or other.
> and (3) the long-term interests of the
> rising semiperipheries and metropoles are aligned.
"In the long run, we're all dead." Presumed long-term interests don't mean very much if, as looks increasingly likely, oil runs out and there are wide-spread climate shifts in the next few decades.
> The EU and Japan are investing heavily in alternative energy, no?
I don't know how heavily they are investing, but the U.S. is still the big cheese, and it's investing crumbs.
In any case, it looks as though it's already too late for even heavy investments to make much difference. If you consider the huge current dependence of the world's economy on oil, how could all of it be shifted to solar, wind, etc., before the oil ran out? And global warming is already melting the Arctic ice -- it won't be long before the oceans' currents are considerably rearranged.
> My point is that multinational capitalism is inconceivably more
> ubiquitous
> and totalizing than its monopoly-era predecessor. The mass media,
> tourism,
> textiles and financial flows -- the damn thing is everywhere. There's a
> saturation of social space nowadays, which goes far beyond the
> observation
> that the urban workingclass communities of Keynes' day just don't
> exist in
> that fashion anymore. There's a sort of convergence of geopolitics and
> micropolitics happening, which in many ways is a good thing (Hardt &
> Negri's insight, not mine).
You're assuming that "multinational capitalism" is stronger than national capitalisms. Could be true, but my point is that a lot of people thought that was true before WW II. Will multinational capitalism be able to arrange a nice, peaceful sharing out of the dwindling oil and handle a climate shift that will probably see Europe turning into Greenland and large parts of the agricultural parts of the world ceasing production?
You're projecting current trends as though they will last forever, and I'm suggesting that in our children's era, if not our own, conditions will change radically.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ Had I been present at the Creation, I would have given some useful hints for the better ordering of the universe. -- Attr. to Alfonso the Wise, King of Castile