NAME

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpDLDWts_Ow

DATE
May 6, 2023

DURATION
22m 30s

3 SPEAKERS
Speaker1
Speaker2
Speaker3

START OF TRANSCRIPT

Speaker1
Oportunidad de poder dos Estados Unidos torno los Ultimos tiempos Hoy Anunciado Pelo Sociologo. Immanuel Wallerstein O
Declinio do Império Americano. Wallerstein. Mais Influencias Sociologo Mas Décadas. No limita A Vaticina Americana Anunciar a
desintegracion do sistema capitalista Exemplos in toda parte, no soy de economia Americana mas também la época de esperavam
do projeto europeo. Next millennium in Escritorio Universidade de Yale Wallerstein fala do periodo estamos entrando descrito por el
como de Caos total dando Lugar, a un novo sistema similar o pure atual e mismo por el pais vivimos numa época privilegiada na
qual pequenas individuais podem ter consequencias historicas.

Speaker2
So do you think your main contribution is creating world systems analysis?

Speaker3
Yeah, I would say that's my main intellectual contribution, yes.

Speaker2
And is there a short way to explain to the public what that is?

Speaker3
Well, there's not a short way, but let me underline the essential elements of it. Well, for one thing, most of 19th and 20th century
social science assumed that the state was the unit within which things happen. World system analysis comes along and says this is
not the unit within which reality has been occurring in the modern world. The unit is a much larger unit, which we call the world
system, and in particular the modern world system is a capitalist world economy. So that's one basic element. And the second basic
element is the insistence on the importance of temporality. And this we get a bit from Braudel. It's, it's the longue durée the. So these
two elements, the the sort of geographic element that the that the unit of analysis is a world economy which is not the whole world,
but a world because it begins as part of the world and by its inner logic expands until by the end of the 19th century it incorporates the
entire globe. But that's so spatially and then temporally. So we say it's very controversial that this modern world system began more
or less in the long 16th century and is still in existence today. So I think that that captures the the heart of it. And then it says that I
suppose there's another element, which is that the artificial distinction which was created in the 19th century between the political
sphere, the economic sphere and the socio cultural sphere, as though they were autonomous and separate from each other is just a
piece of propaganda of classical liberalism.

Speaker3
But it isn't the reality and the, the, the the intimate interrelations between all these spheres and the fact that we all operate
simultaneously in all of them is, is part of any sensible way of looking at the world. Okay. And I suppose there's a final element, which
is we take this one from Prigogine, which is that systems all systems, all systems from the universe to the most micro possible
system have lives. They don't go on forever. So you have to figure out how they came into existence, what their rules are while they
go on what I call their normal life. And then because they always move far from equilibrium, they come into a a crisis, a structural
crisis, and that that has it bifurcates the system, bifurcates it will go in one direction or another, but it won't keep going as is. And I'm
claiming that the capitalist world economy is in fact now in that structural crisis and won't won't survive very much longer. But we
don't know what's going to replace it. That's the big issue before us.

Speaker2
So after 500 years of capitalism, why is it.
Speaker3
Coming to an end? Well, then you have to trace the processes by which the system runs into trouble. First of all, you have to talk
about how capitalists make money. Capitalists, capitalists can't really make a lot of money out of production anymore, and that's
undermining the value of capitalism to capitalists. Okay, So that's one thing. And the other thing is the political stability of the system
was guaranteed for a reasonably long time by the the Senate, the dominance of centrist liberalism, which assured people that slowly
but surely everything would get better. They just had to be patient and leave things in the hands of specialists. And that was
exhausted in 1968. People don't believe it anymore, so they don't believe in the stability of the system. They don't believe in the
inevitable future. You see this now very much around the world, and you have a system in which capitalists aren't really making
money anymore. The only thing they can do is speculate. And speculation has its limits. We're running into that right now and every
everywhere. So it's bifurcating. But bifurcating means. It can be. You see, it's very important to understand intrinsically impossible to
predict how it will come out because it's the result of an infinity of decision making by an infinity of people and an infinity of moments.
No one could possibly. It's impossible. However, we can say it'll go in basically one direction or another. And I call that I give it just a
code name for me. I call it the Spirit of Davos and the Spirit of Porto Alegre, which will appeal no doubt to Brazilian audiences.

Speaker3
But basically I say the spirit of Davos is that the capitalist system has been a system which has been hierarchical, exploitative and
polarizing. It's not the only way to do it. You could find another way to do that. So the spirit of Davos is to find another way to do it that
isn't capitalism. And the spirit of Porto Alegre is to say, Well, we want a world that's relatively democratic and relatively egalitarian.
They don't know how to do that institutionally, but that's the direction in which and this is the bifurcation. This is the two possible ways
in which the world is moving and it's moving constantly. It'll take another 20, 30, 40 years. And suddenly one day, as though by magic
it'll flip and one or the other path will be taken, and then we'll be into a new system. I don't know its name. It's not important. What's
important is, is it the type that I call the Spirit of Davos, or is it the type that I call the Spirit of Porto Alegre? And I can hope for the
best, but I can't assure you, and I don't I don't often history is on nobody's side. I keep repeating that mantra because too many
people believe history is on their side. History is on no one's side. It's the result of what we do and what we do in this moment of
structural crisis.

Speaker2
What do you think of that? Occupy Wall Street?

Speaker3
Well, I think Occupy Wall Street is a fantastic success. Absolutely no one predicted the moment seemed to be just right. And what it's
done is suddenly people found it, responded to to what they were uneasy about or unhappy about. And of course, it's not the only
thing. There's the so-called Arab Spring. There's the indignados in Spain, there's Oxi in Greece. There are even things in China,
Russia now. And, well, you know, no place is safe, let me put it that way, because no place fear, there is no sense of certainty.
What's happened, what's happening right now is a kind of paralysis because people feel so uncertain about what will happen. They
do nothing. I'm talking now in the in the that's what the banks are doing. They're not lending money. Right. Because banks want to
make money and they're not sure that they lend money. They've got to have that kind of minimal, minimal certainty of the next couple
of years and they don't have it. So and that's, of course, a self-reinforcing thing. If they don't lend the money, then, you know, then
somebody else can't start a project. And then. Et cetera. Et cetera. Et cetera.

Speaker2
But if I understand well, what you write, what is certain is that we are entering a period of chaos. Yes, it's going to be very hard and
much worse than it is now. Right? Right.

Speaker3
So what.

Speaker2
Is this? Sometimes you write a hell on earth. Dark times, troubled times. So what is coming ahead?

Speaker3
Well, look, first of all, I mean, hell on earth. Why is it hell on earth? First of all, there is physical insecurity. I mean, if I compare the
world to the world I knew 50 years ago, there are just a lot, a lot of places. I mean, I used to feel secure moving around in most
places, not everywhere. But you knew there were a few zones here and there that were dangerous. But here now, I don't feel secure
anywhere personally, and I think many people feel like me. So that that's that's terrible. Secondly, I don't feel secure about money.
Right? I have X number of years to live. I want to live them not in desperate poverty. So I'm worried about the money I have invested
here and there just at a personal level. Right. And this terrible uncertainty leads me, to be sure, unsure what I should do. Then I have
to worry about my children and my grandchildren because the things look miserable for them. You know, when I was, let's say, 15
years of age, I pretty well knew that I was going to live. Of economically and financially better than my parents and certainly better
than my grandparents. And now it's the opposite, isn't it? The children are going to live less well than I, and the grandchildren may
live still less well.
Speaker3
Well, that's not very not very comforting. So and then there's the geopolitical turmoil. I mean, we're definitely at the end of US
hegemony. The US is just one major power in the world with a lot of others, of which Brazil or Brazil. Leading South America is
certainly another major power. There are 8 or 9. Well, that's an awful lot. And when you have a situation where you have 8 or 9
strong powers, strong enough to sort of make their own policy and make their own alliances, what happens is they keep shifting
alliances. They try to figure out, you know, is South America going to ally with Europe? Is it going to ally with East Asia? Is it going to
ally with South Africa or and they play games. They all play games, right? They move. They they and they keep. So you want to tell
me where the world will be? Let's say let's not take it very long, 2015 or 2020. Who who will be allied with whom? Not clear at all.
That's a very uncomfortable situation.

Speaker2
From the point of view of Brazilians. We are we are finally getting out of poverty. That's right. We are becoming this new power. We
are growing. And while the main power is the US, Europe and Japan are declining, we are going up with China and India. So what
will happen to us in this well period of chaos at the end of capitalism?

Speaker3
Look, you're certainly doing better than you were doing 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago. Not to speak of 100 years ago, no question. And
basically, the the a chunk of the surplus value created in the world has shifted to you away from the US or from Western Europe or so
forth. Nonetheless, how shall I say? It's a bit of an illusion, I think, for the so called emerging powers or the BRICS to assume, well,
okay, now it's our turn and we'll be on top. The US and Western Europe will be somewhere down there because that would have
been true 100 years ago or 150 years ago, when because there's always been movement within the world system, who's on top and
who's in the middle and and so forth. But because the world system is in such crisis, structural crisis, you in a sense, make the
structural crisis worse, you see, because what you're doing is you're including more still more people in the division at the top that
lowers the profits, it lowers the profits overall, and therefore, you're all and furthermore, you need customers, right? That is to say, it's
not just you can't just produce. You've got to find people to buy that stuff. And China is now worrying about that and India is now
worrying about that. And Brazil is just maybe it's the last of these to begin to worry about that. But it's a real problem, you know, I
mean, it's all well and good to say we have X, Y and Z, but who's going to buy them? Do they have enough money with which to buy
it? I wouldn't sit back comfortably if I were a Brazilian or a Chinese or an Indian and simply say, well, the future is with us. Come back
and see us in 20 years and you'll see how well we're doing. I don't think that's really what's going to happen.

Speaker2
Well, an interesting thing is that because of all this total uncertainty, individual action makes a huge difference. Right. Explain that.

Speaker3
Well, you know, we have had for 2 or 3000 years in the Western world, this philosophical debate. Is the world a determinist world or
is there free will? And the sides are the same. And the argument has been made constantly, certainly since the Greeks and so forth. I
say historicize that debate. It isn't a question of one or the other, but when one and when the other. Okay. So my argument is when a
system is in its normal, a historical system is in its what I call its normal phase of operation for a couple of hundred years, things are
relatively determinist, meaning no matter how hard you try to change it, things get pulled back to equilibrium. And I. A good example
are the two most famous revolutions in the modern world, the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution, and how after X
amount of time it got pulled back to equilibrium. It wasn't a lack of energy put into it of social attempts to transform the world, but they
didn't transform the world. Now, then, I say, when you come to the structural crisis because things are fluctuating so wildly. Free will
prevails. That is to say, every little action, every nano action by every nano person at every nano moment affects the outcome. That's
what I call free will or the prevailing of free will. So, you know, that's from my point of view, an optimistic way of looking at it. We can
really affect the world in a way that our grandparents or our great grandparent couldn't. However much they tried really affect the
world. But I also say it's 5050, right? And that's a lot. Not a little. Okay. 5050 is a good chance. Not a bad chance. But there's the
other 50, you know, and they may the other side, I think of them as the other side may win out.

Speaker2
I can't. That would mean a world with more inequality, probably.

Speaker3
At least as much and maybe certainly more. It could be a world with a much, how shall I say, tougher, hotter hand in which people get
hit on the head much more quickly. Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker2
You know, and the alternative would be a more democratic and egalitarian world. But but what kind of individual action now can help
this this more egalitarian, the spirit of Porto Alegre world to win?
Speaker3
Well, I see. On the one hand, I think, you know, the kinds of things that the all these world social justice movements are doing in
terms of trying to awaken people to the reality of what kind of world are we living in. Okay. And I think that that has an impact. I think
there's no question that people learn on our learning and cutting through what shall I call it, the the the official lines which we all
incorporate into our into our mentalities. And now we're trying to get them out of our minds. And I call this unthinking. They're trying to
unthink the things that we have been taught in our schools, by our parents, by the governments, by everybody. I think we can try to
decommodify by the world. Capitalism is a system which tries to commodify everything bit by bit by bit, turn everything into a
commodity. These days, you know, the latest things have been water, the body. But you know, we can we can try to create economic
processes which are decommodified and so forth. We can refuse to participate in all kinds of commodified structures. So that's
another thing we can do. And we can protest vigorously. You know, protests actually, they work up to a point. There are people do
who are in power do back down at various points when when when faced with with enough protests.

Speaker3
So, you know, try one thing try another thing. I'm very empirical about this I there aren't a list of perfect solutions. Keep trying. See
what happens, see what works. If it works, keep doing it. If it doesn't work, stop it. Do something else. And this then is linked also with
what's our philosophy, right? Is this a civilizational crisis? In other words, do we want is growth an objective per se, which not only
capitalists said, but the classical Marxist parties in effect said or is buen vivir buen vivir? But what does that mean and how does that
relate to other issues like the rights of women and and so forth. So it's not an easy I'm not arguing these are easy things. I'm arguing
they have to be talked about and they have and some attempt. To create. Because if we are the 99%, there's no point in defining
ourselves in such a way that we end up being the 10% politically. If we're the 99%, then we want to pull groups together without
diluting it entirely. Okay? And that is the political problem for all these movements right now.

Speaker2
So a final question. So we are answering this long period of increasing chaos. It's going to be very hard. We have already entered it
and it's going to get much worse. But you're still so optimistic. Why?

Speaker3
Well, how should I say? What alternative do I have?

Okay. Thank you.

Speaker2
Thank you very much. Okay.

END OF TRANSCRIPT

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