Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 00:11:13 +0100
From: Jan Straathof <janstr-AT-chan.nl>
Subject: BHA: [fwd] World Government


from: wsn-list <wsn-AT-csf.colorado.edu>
by: <Arno.Tausch-AT-bmsg.gv.at>

......

Scenario (2) starts from the assumption, that anyway, Europe is not in a
position to become a global challenger. Our scenario is a radical,
socio-liberal, and globalistic approach, directed against nationalism,
protectionism, and social decay. Instead of accumulating world power, Europe
should accumulate competence in problem solving, in modeling the future, and
in treating better the tormented environment. Thus, the enlarged European
Union should concentrate it's still existing, considerable economic and
world political energies on creating the conditions for global governance
and global innovation. Thus, Europe at last would show a real greatness -
foregoing the concept of power in benefit of the concept of global
well-being and welfare. The scenario shares with the German Foreign Minister
Joschka Fischer the vision of a fully democratic Europe, presented in his
speech at the Humboldt-University in Berlin on May 12, 2000 (see for the
official version, http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/6_archiv/2/r/r000512a.htm).
Of course, a European constitution is necessary, as well as a true European
constitutional and administrative court, that would substitute and enlarge
the present legal bodies. Our federal and socio-liberal vision is
incompatible with the vision of a Europe of nations, which - in the ultimate
instance - leads to the distribution coalition building at the level of the
European institutions. A Europe of nations will always, in one way or the
other, lead to a blockade of the European institutions - the small nations
versus the big ones, the South against the North; the Euro ins against the
Euro outs, the wine drinkers against the beer consumers, the friends of
pasta and salami against the adherents of sausage and so on. The number of
combinations is infinite, and a Europe of 21, let alone many more member
states is simply ungovernable on the basis of the present institutions.
Ideas of a 'small reform', with some shifting going on between the small and
the large states, using endless number games in terms of commissioners,
voting rights and what have you do not resolve the basic conflict and are
simply idiotic: Parliament must be the locus of politics, and not the
counting of the numbers behind the scenes, and trading - as before - measure
x for support of measure y in coalition with z. Parliament must be
strengthened, and there should be a second chamber of the European
parliament as well - one 'House of Representatives' based on roughly equal
electoral districts, with 1 million inhabitants electing 1 MP (for the
smaller states with a population of less than 1 million, there must be an
exception), and one 'upper house', a European Senate, giving each member
country exactly 2 seats, irrespective of the population size of the country.
To avoid the kind of distribution coalition building so typical for many
European political systems, based on proportional representation, there
should be at least a mixture of proportional and direct representation,
based on the present German electoral model, if not an outright copy of the
British electoral system altogether.

By allowing for full-fledged democracy on the European level, combined with
a socio-liberal social policy, based on a market economy, an active human
capital formation, gender empowerment, an economic policy, that largely ends
state subventions for energy misuse and private transport, and an open
system of migration policy, generally modeled around the existing patterns
of migration policy in countries like Australia, Canada, and the United
States of America, there would be enough room for a real economic and social
recovery on the level of the European states. It goes without saying, that
the insane agricultural policy of the European Union and all forms of other
protectionism must be ended, in favor of a large-scale policy of 'negative
income taxation' and a basic social minimum, that at the same times
abolishes most other forms of state intervention in the economy. The
horrific indirect tax burdens, existing in Europe, must be ended in favor of
a system of regressive direct taxation, that - on the other hand - is not
too regressive, and would foresee a tax burden of around 35% for the top
20%, 25% for the next quintile, 15% for the middle income group, 10% for the
next income group, and no taxes at the bottom and a negative income tax for
the unemployed, Europe-wide. It goes without saying, that knowledge
production and knowledge consumption should be fully opened to
privatization, with the abolition of the state monopoly on Universities as
the most urgent reform measure for the coming decade, and a full system of
Universities on the market in place, as in the United States of America. The
central European state would receive a limited amount of the financial
resources, raised, with 7.5% of European government revenue concentrated in
the center. This is very much above the present resources, but very much
below the centralism of states like Belgium, that controll over 50% of the
national economy. The 7.5% proportion should be fixed on a permanent basis.
Since federalism is one of the most important preconditions of a successful
long-term development strategy, the new European constitution would have to
be approved by a European-wide referendum and the national parliaments.

The establishment of a European democratic federal state would be the first
and most important step in the direction of a socio-liberal world democracy,
to be modeled pretty much on the same two-chamber pattern (with the UN
General Assembly becoming the World Senate, with only two elected Senator
from each state sitting in the World Senate). The executive organs of the
United Nations become the world government, with the main agencies becoming
the world ministries. The World House of Representatives could be modeled
around the same pattern as the European House of Representatives, with 10
million inhabitants electing 1 representative; and in the smaller states, 1
representative from each country. Needless to say, that the same arguments
that we used for the European case, should become valid on a world level.
The world state should finance itself at the beginning by a symbolic flat
0.5% direct tax on all incomes, irrespective of their size. The highest tax
level, that the world legislature could impose, would be 3% of incomes.

I send this paragraph also to colleagues, working on the volume, and to
friends and colleagues around the world - for comments. The most beautiful
ones I will consider to include as a fully signed footnote in the article.
It sort of continues a debate that Anton Pelinka and I had recently in the
Café Landtmann in Vienna on global governance, a theme which is also dealt
with in the magnificent Kimmo Kiljunen article for the volume.

If you wish to receive the entire article, I can send it to you, but it is
above 1 MB and contains many graphs etc.

The summary is reprinted here:



This paper starts from the assumption that there are two basic scenarios for
the future of an enlarged European Union in the Tsunami world system. One is
an enlarged EU that would be a global challenger, a scenario which would
amount to the repetition of the cycles of global challenges, this time on
the part of the European Union. Such a scenario might sound very distant at
the moment, both culturally and politically, but it would correspond to the
logic of world capitalism over the last 500 years, re-analyzed in this
paper. Although such a scenario is not applicable to the present EU-15 or,
at any rate, an EU-15, enlarged by the two island economies of Malta and
Cyprus, and the present 10 Central and East European candidate countries, an
EU comprising up to 40 nations of the third and fourth enlargement wave
indeed would be a major change in the structure of the international system
and could be driven by its own internal deficient dynamics, characterized by
low innovation and high government spending, and by the pressures of the
world system, into such a position. Again, the European landmass, united
under one leadership, would then be in the challenging position, - as
happened under the Hapsburgs, the French under Richelieu and later under
Napoleon, and under Germany in World War I and II, while the dynamics of
flexible, sea-power oriented world leadership again would be happening
somewhere else. 13 hypotheses, presented here, speak in favor of such a
pessimistic scenario.

A large section of the paper is thus dedicated to show, that a global
challenge option - which might be implicit in the thinking behind the
trilateral competition between Europe, America, and Asia - is not only not
feasible, but that it is world politically dangerous. A second scenario is
the European Union as the driving force behind a movement towards global
governance, the only and reasonable alternative to the workings of the
capitalist world system and it's tendencies towards inequality and conflict.
This scenario is the policy-option and practical end-result of the
assessment of future trends in the world system, presented by Boswell and
Chase-Dunn (2000). Although there is wide agreement in the literature on the
need of a transition of the world system to a system of global governance
(see Kiljunen, 2000, in this volume), the ways to achieve this are more or
less a theme for speculation. In their world-systems-based analysis of the
spiral of capitalism and socialism, Boswell and Chase-Dunn (1999) arrive at
the conclusion that the European Union would be best fitted to become an
engine of socially progressive transformation of the world system. Such an
analysis would find lots of sympathy among labor-oriented or social-movement
oriented circles on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond, and is also
reflected in various other 'denominations' of the world systems profession,
like in the statements by Samir Amin, who - although very critical of the
Union in its present form - speaks about the necessity for Europe to become
an alternative pole in the world economy, characterized by the tendencies
towards unfettered globalization.

Our first scenario is somber in nature, it enjoys a high kind of
probability, and it has dire consequences. It shows that there is a
recurrent, and shortening cycle of conflict in the international system,
linked to the long cycles of economics and politics. According to Arrighi,
the usual, recurrent slumps in the long, fifty year economic (Kondratieff)
cycles are called signal crises; while the interaction between the end of
hegemonies (1340, 1560, 1750 and 1930) and the regular Kondratieff slumps
are called terminal crises or - Tsunami waves, because they have
catastrophic and devastating effects on the world system and have a high
probability of leading - in a shortening time period - to major power wars.
Our analysis first shows, that the danger of such a more, but not too
distant, Tsunami cataclysm after 2030 is real. First of all, the social
consequences of the ongoing phase of globalization already have the
character of a Tsunami wave in itself. This leads us to expect sharper and
even deeper social effects, should a terminal crisis - like during the 1930s
- hit the world economy again. The present phase of globalization is but the
continuation of earlier globalization tendencies in the world system before
the major power wars. Our analysis shows that the European Union repeats the
errors of the import-substitution policies like those in Latin America in
the late 1950s and early 1960s, so well known to dependencia theory, and
becomes - like Brazil at that time - a technologically very dependent zone
of the world economy. Europe is also facing the danger of repeating the
fatal errors of the land-mass based attempts at world systems hegemony, like
Venice, the Hapsburgs, France and Germany. The societal and economic
contradictions of technological dependence and rent-seeking interact and
increase, most probably leading towards a deepening of the unequal relations
between the European center and the European periphery. Migration from the
periphery to Europe, partially the result of these unequal exchange
mechanisms with the European center, will increase the adaptation and
globalization pressure on the European economy. Unlike America, whose
economy is more open and thus adapts itself to migration much faster,
Europe's structures are too inflexible and technologically dependent. The
predicted downward cycle of the European position in the world system
threatens to lead to a more assertive and authoritarian pattern of action
vis-à-vis migration and vis-à-vis the other big trading blocs. The
increasing societal role of corruption and organized crime as well as the
lack of democracy within the European Union will increase, and not decrease
with EU enlargement.

Our assessment of the alternative that Europe could present in the
transformation of the world towards a more humane and global governance
should thus contribute to showing the dangers of a repetition of the
hegemonial challenge scenario, that already was practiced by the Hapsburgs,
by France and by Germany. A scenario, that was characterized each time by
the combination of

protectionism + imperialism.

An imperial path for a United Europe would be the last thing, that the world
needs, although there are - from past experiences - lots of indicators that
would warn us, that Europe will follow precisely this path. Social science
has the imperative to face up to existing dangers: thus, an early
socio-liberal and democratizing reform of the European Union would be the
(last) alternative to renewed global power rivalry, and conflict in the 21st
Century, involving the European landmass.



Kindest regards


MR Univ. Doz. Dr. Arno Tausch

Pr./D/13 - Federal Ministry of Social Security and Generations
Department for Bilateral Relations and International Organization
Stubenring 1
A-1010 Vienna Austria

Phone: ++43 1   711 00-2272 or 6232
Fax: ++43 1 711 00-6591
electronic fax: ++43 1 718 9470 1350

http://www.bmsg.gv.at

websites of possible interest:

http://www.rferl.org/
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Gives access to RFE/RL daily newsline,
special weekly reports like Balkan Report, Russian Federation Report,
(Un)Civil Societies, Security Watch, Poland, Belarus & Ukraine Report; East
European Perspectives, European Union Expands Eastwards, Weekday Magazine
...

http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/GSSI/eu.html.
European Union Server, UC Berkeley

http://wiiwsv.wsr.ac.at/Countdown
EU Enlargement Countdown, Vienna Institute for Int Ec Comparisons

http://www.undp.org/hdro
Human Development Report Office, UNDP: social reports from over 100
countries (window: National HDRs); analyses of global social policy; very
recent social and health data from 174 countries

http://www.worldbank.org/poverty/index.htm
World Bank Poverty Net. Social Statistics and Analyses from around the
world; links and search engine to/for social policy and health documents

http://www.eurochild.gla.ac.uk/documents/monee/welcome.htm?
UNICEF Transmonee data-bank Eastern Europe + CIS; statistical social and
health policy country profiles

http://www.bcemag.com/statistics/index.html
Business Central Europe data-bank Eastern Europe + CIS

http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/
Le Monde Diplomatique. Current issues and full, free electronic archive with
access to several years of LMD editions. German language edition under
http://www.taz.de/tpl/.nf/home

http://www.bbc.co.uk/search
BBC World Service News search engine; free access to several months

http://www.nzz.ch/books/nzzmonat/0/search
Neue Zürcher Zeitung - search engine (one month archive)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/
The Guardian (with search engine; one year archive)

http://www.state.gov/www/outreach_publications.html
United States Department of State - Outreach. Analytical reports from United
States States Embassies around the world - free access to US informations on
practically all countries of the world. Social policy and health are
contained in 'Country Background Notes'; 'Country Reports on Human Rights
Practices' (Chapters 4 ff: disabled, gender issues, labor issues etc.);
'International Narcotics Control Strategy Report'; 'International Religious
Freedom Report' etc.

http://csf.colorado.edu/wsystems/wsarch.html
University of Colorado World-Systems Archive, editor: Chris Chase-Dunn,
Department of Sociology, University of California at Riverside. Free access
to documents on global social policy, inter alia the 'Journal of World
Systems Research',  to the 'Books - Web Documents' Series, to 'Working
Papers' on global social policy etc. etc.




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