Immanuel Wallerstein

Olympic Diplomacy: Winners and Losers at Pyeongchang

The idea of holding the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea seemed destined to fail. The interests of three key actors – the United States, South Korea, and North Korea – were so different that it seemed impossible to find working compromises between them.

And yet it was an unexpected relative success. Diplomacy won out. This was very largely due to the remarkable and unsuspected diplomatic skills of one person: President Moon Jae-in of South Korea. Let us review the issues about which there was deep disagreement, and spell out the positions of the three governments as of the beginning of the year 2018.

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Twenty-First-Century Geopolitics: Fluidity Everywhere

The most fluid arena in the modern world-system, which is in structural crisis, is arguably the geopolitical arena. No country comes even near to dominating this arena. The last hegemonic power, the United States, has long acted like a helpless giant. It is able to destroy but not to control the situation. It still proclaims rules that others are expected to follow, but it can be and is ignored.

There is now a long list of countries that act as they deem fit despite pressures from other countries to perform in specified ways. A look around the globe will readily confirm the inability of the United States to get its way.

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Who is President Macron of France?

(updated on February 10, 2018)

Politicians everywhere have hidden parts of their political and personal itinerary. Sometimes the exposing of such “secrets” causes disillusionment and/or reduced support of voters who had supported this person. What varies is the extent to which the politicians can keep such secrets obscure.

The recently elected president of France, Emmanuel Macron, has managed maintaining the obscurity better than most. It is therefore useful to try to answer the question of who he (really) is. For one thing, there is a lot of disagreement about the answer. This difference is not only one between supporters and antagonists but also within each of the two.
What do we know about his background? He studied at two of France’s elite institutions – Sciences Po and the École Nationale d’Administration (ENA) – where he performed brilliantly.

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A Discreet Capitalist Collapse?’ The Onset of Pre-Panics

The New York Times has been suggesting that major bondholders – both national and private banks – are discreetly reducing their bond holdings, out of a fear of nominal inflation. How discreet can it be if it is discussed in The New York Times?

Everyone is hoping that no one panics and sells too rapidly. And if someone does that they do it one mega-instant after my discreet withdrawals. Of course, no one wants to withdraw too soon – and not too late. So, when one arrives at a pre-panic moment, no one can be sure, which more or less guarantees the sudden collapse of the bond market.

We know we’re in a pre-panic moment when we are discussing it. But why now and not before? Because so much paper money has been earned in runaway market profits based on no real increase in surplus-value that the market has caught up with the bond market, and therefore one discreetly withdraws from the bond market.

In addition, the paid workers seek higher wages, everywhere. So many workers have been forced out of the labor market that there is now a labor-available shortage. And this makes bonds still a safe haven. Confusion, confusion!

Everyone becomes more protective – of self, of country. And it is self-reinforcing. Even countries using strong anti-protectionist rhetoric like Canada practice it nonetheless or suffer internal political loss.

All this is what happens in a structural crisis of the world-system, in which wild swings of everything is the reality. Pre-panics are one of these wild swings.

Note: A correction was made on January 20, 2018.

Trump, Thump, Trump, Thump, Trump

I was going to write either about the elections in Catalonia, or about debates in Australia on what they should do as a result of U.S.‑Chinese rivalries in southeast Asia. I consider both topics of compelling importance for the immediate future of our capitalist world‑system. But what everyone wants to discuss, it seems, is Mr. Trump ‑ what will he say next, and does it matter?

The question people are asking, friends and foes, is “Can he last?” I didn’t used to think so, but now I do, and here’s why. What is it we know about the present situation? Trump is vastly unpopular and his poll ratings, already extremely low, may well go even lower soon.

Trump claims that the low poll ratings are fake news. And he even seems to believe this himself. Trump acts to satisfy his ego. He measures his success by his ability to stay in office now, win re‑election in 2020, and stay in office until 2024.

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Trump Loses in Alabama: How Important?

By now, the whole world knows that in one of the most conservative states in the United States, a Democrat, Doug Jones, defeated Judge Roy Moore, the Republican candidate, in a special election for a vacant seat.

In the analyses almost everyone is making of the election result, it is being called “stunning,” “a surprise,” and “a miracle,” among a long list of similar summary judgments.

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Left Social Movements: What Electoral Tactics?

The central difficulty for left social movements is determining electoral tactics that will enable them to win both in the short run and in the middle run. On the surface, it seems that winning in the short run conflicts with winning in the middle run.

In the short run, the primary objective of a left movement must be to defend the urgent needs for survival of all the so-called 99% of the population, but especially those of the poorest strata. In order to do this, they have to control state institutions at all levels. This means participating in elections.

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The U.S. Elections 2017: The Unexpected Democratic Sweep

Elections in the United States have one feature that almost no other country shares. They largely occur on mandatory fixed dates. Presidential elections are every four years. Senatorial elections are staggered. One-third of them occur every two years. Both of these elections occur in years ending in an even numeral. Gubernatorial elections tend to occur in the same even years. Local elections are more varied but very many also occur in the even years.

As a result, the so-called off-year elections (that is, years ending in an odd numeral) tend to be considered less important by the national parties. And voters participate at a far lower rate than in the even-year elections

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