Areas external to historical capitalism have on the whole been reluctant purchasers of its products, in part because they didn't 'need' them in terms of their own economic system and in part because they often lacked the relevant wherewithal to purchase them. To be sure there were exceptions. But by and large it was the capitalist world that sought out the products of the external arena and not the other way around. Whenever particular loci were militarily conquered, capitalist entrepreneurs regularly complained of the absence of real markets there and operated through colonial governments to 'create tastes'.; N" Z6 E# |8 q/ G- K  y
The search for markets as an explanation simply does not hold. A much more plausible explanation is the search for low-cost labour forces. It is historically the case that virtually every new zone incorporated into the world-economy established levels of real remuneration which were at the bottom of the world-system's hierarchy of wage-levels., \( T4 i) J! C. C. |

The economic arena of feudal Europe was going through a very fundamental, internally generated, crisis in this period that was shaking its social foundations. Its ruling classes were destroying each other at a great rate, while its land-system (the basis of its economic structure) was coming loose, with considerable reorganization moving in the direction of a far more egalitarian distribution than had been the norm. [...] Things were indeed falling apart. Had Europe continued on the path along which it was going, it is difficult to believe that the patterns of medieval feudal Europe with its highly structured system of 'orders' could have been reconsolidated. Far more probable is that the European feudal social structure would have evolved towards a system of relatively equal small-scale producers, further flattening out the aristocracies and decentralizing the political structures.* Z8 z2 r& K9 e0 i: U8 L8 \

8 v* _, M$ @& V! F; }7 s6 o& O- U* Z... But it is clear that the prospect must have appalled Europe's upper strata --- appalled and frightened them, especially as they felt their ideological armour was disintegrating too. Without suggesting that anyone consciously verbalized any such attempt, we can see by comparing the Europe of 1650 with 1450 that the following things had occurred. By 1650, the basic structures of historical capitalism as a viable social system had been established and consolidated. The trend towards egalitarianization of reward had been drastically reversed. The upper strata were once again in firm control politically and ideologically. There was a reasonably high level of continuity between the families that had been high strata in 1450 and those that were high strata in 1650.
# }: G: q- A7 i9 v" ywww2.tvboxnow.com

Sometimes, however, they have been over larger 'constitutional' issues which determine the rules governing the conduct of shorter-run struggles, and thus the likelihood of one fraction or another prevailing. Whenever these struggles were 'constitutional' in nature, they required greater ideological mobilization. In these cases, we heard talk of 'revolutions' and 'great reforms' and the losing sides were often given opprobrious (but analytically inappropriate) labels. To the extent that the political struggles for, say, 'democracy' or 'liberty' against 'feudalism' or 'traditon' have not been struggles of the working classes against capitalism, they have been essentially struggles among the accumulators of capital for the accumulation of capital. Such struggles were not the triumph of a 'progressive' bourgeoisie against reactionary strata but intro-bourgeois struggles.
0 P  n8 H8 P. c
: M! k: O4 }6 O, ]0 hOf course, using 'universalizing' ideological slogans about progress has been politically useful. It has been a way of associating class struggle mobilization to one side of intra-accumulator struggles. But such ideological advantage has often been a double-edged sword, unleashing passions and weakening repressive restraints in the class struggle.tvb now,tvbnow,bttvb2 \; @: m: ^$ N8 X+ U9 q

...generally speaking, rebellion as a technique has worked only at the margins of central authority, particularly when central bureaucracies were in phases of disintegration.www2.tvboxnow.com, f7 g- H- F6 \  T* A8 J& D

The fact that states were located in an interstate system meant that the repercussions of rebellions or uprisings were felt, often quite rapidly, beyond the confines of the immediate political jurisdiction within which they occurred. So-called 'outside' forces therefore had strong motives to come to the aid of assailed state-machineries. This made rebellions more difficult. On the other hand, the intrusion of the accumulators of capital, and hence of state-machineries, into the daily life of the work-forces was far more intensive in general under historical capitalism than under previous historical systems.tvb now,tvbnow,bttvb5 C  u( c; O; N6 h9 M

The key to the problem may in fact lie in the basic strategic decision to make the seizure of state power the pivot of the movement's activities. The strategy had two fundamental consequences. In the phase of mobilization, it pushed each movement towards entering into tactical alliances with groups that were in no way 'anti-systemic' in order to reach its strategic objective. These alliances modified the structure of the anti systemic movements themselves, even in the mobilization stage. Even more importantly, the strategy eventually succeeded in many cases. Many of the movements achieved partial or even total state power. These successful movements were then confronted with the realities of the limitations of state power within the capitalist world-economy. They found that they were constrained by the functioning of the interstate system to exercise their power in ways that muted the 'anti-systemic' objectives that were their raison d'etre.6 t" j" e: j" o. B6 h# h

This seems so obvious that one must then wonder why the movements based their strategy on such a seemingly self-defeating objective. The answer was quite simple: given the political structure of historical capitalism, they had little choice. There seemed to be no more promising alternative strategy. The seizure of state power at least promised to change the balance of power between contending groups somewhat. This is to say, the seizure of power represented a reform of the system. The reforms in fact did improve the situation, but always at the price of also strengthening the system.
9 s7 |8 _& u. I8 T7 h4 n) ftvb now,tvbnow,bttvb

...the so-called post-revolutionary regimes continue to function as part of the social division of labour of historical capitalism. They have thereby operated, willy-nilly, under the relentless pressures of the drive for the endless accumulation of capital. The political consequence internally has been the continued exploitation of the labour-force, if in a reduced and ameliorated form in many in stances. This has led to internal tensions paralleling those found in states that were not 'post-revolutionary', and this in turn has bred the emergence of new anti-systemic movements within these states.& W1 [& g4 r8 H/ N- c9 {

What we mean by racism has little to do with the xenophobia that existd in various prior historical systems. Xenophobia was literally fear of the 'stranger'. Racism within historical capitalism was the mode by which various segments of the work-force within the same economic structure were constrained to relate to each other. Racism was the ideological justification for the hierarchization of the work-force and its highly unequal distributions of reward.TVBNOW 含有熱門話題，最新最快電視，軟體，遊戲，電影，動漫及日常生活及興趣交流等資訊。2 [& s& e. U3 T2 E

The ideological statements have been in the form of allegations that genetic and/or long-lasting 'cultural' traits of various groups are the major cause of differential allocation to positions in the economic structures. However, the beliefs that certain groups were 'superior' to others in certain characteristics relevant to performance in the economic arena always came into being after, rather than before, the location of these groups in the work-force. Racism has always been post hoc. It has been asserted that those who have been economically and politically oppressed are culturally 'inferior'. If, for any reason, the locus in the economic hierarchy changed, the locus in the social hierarchy tended to follow.www2.tvboxnow.com5 X/ v7 E4 ]0 j& n" u: t2 a: b$ ^5 b

[Racism] has served to socialize groups into their own role in the economy... Racism, just like sexism, functioned as a self-suppressive ideology, fashioning expectations and limiting them.
9 E4 u& \+ m$ Qwww2.tvboxnow.com

[Racism] served to keep low-ranking groups in line, and utilize middle-ranking groups as the unpaid soldiers of the world police system. In this way, not only were the financial costs of the political structures reduced significantly, but the ability of anti-systemic groups to mobilize wide populations was rendered more difficult, since racism structurally set victims against victims.
* u1 ]" z, F  _6 f8 i, Rtvb now,tvbnow,bttvb

Work-forces could not be expected to perform efficiently and continuously unless they were managed by cadres. Cadres too have had to be created, socialized, reproduced. The primary ideology that operated to create, socialize, and reproduce them was not the ideology of racism. It was that of universalism.www2.tvboxnow.com. [7 D. @5 @& L! E, d

Whereas racism served as a mechanism of world-wide control of direct producers, universalism served to direct the activities of the bourgeoisie of other states and various middle strata world-wide into channels that would maximize the close integration of production processes and the smooth operation of the interstate system, thereby facilitating the accumulation of capital.
& i$ i1 o( w+ c5 E0 Y2 f8 `www2.tvboxnow.com

Scientific culture... was a form of socialization of the diverse elements that were the cadres of all the institutional structures that were needed. As a language common to cadres but not directly to the labour-force, it became also a means of class cohesion for the upper stratum, limiting the prospects or extent of rebellious activity on the part of cadres who might be so tempted.
  x- Q3 t5 \  {8 S% d  ], x9 P  ytvb now,tvbnow,bttvb

...we never seriously discuss how much knowledge we have lost in the world-wide sweep of the ideology of universalism. Or if we do, we categorize such lost knowledge as mere (?) wisdom. Yet, at the simple technical levels of agricultural productivity and biological wholeness, we have been discovering of late that methods of human action discarded a century or two ago (a process enforced by enlightened elites upon backward masses) often need to be revived because they turn out to be more, not less, efficacious.
9 _6 C5 h, d9 h" S# E. d5 gwww2.tvboxnow.com

Each input of human energy has been rewarded with steadily greater outputs of products, which is surely true as well. But we do not calculate to what degree this has meant that humanity has reduced or increased the total inputs of energy that individuals separately, or all people within the capitalist world-economy collectively, have been called upon to invest, whether per unit of time or per lifetime. Can we be so sure that the world is less burdensome under historical capitalism than under prior systems?, @- z/ E6 k$ T" f0 T

...doubts in this domain have grown steadily throughout the twentieth century, as our now frequent references to 'quality of life' and mounting concern with anomie, alienation, and psychic maladies indicate.
3 [7 Y, \1 b) X公仔箱論壇

Once again this is incontestable at a micro level... But has this really been true at a macro level, even up to now, and even omitting the Damoclean sword of nuclear war?
& F( `2 f. V8 R* R5 r5 [! z" Gtvb now,tvbnow,bttvb

Surely you can't be serious; surely you mean relative immiseration? Is not the industrial worker strikingly better off today than in 1800? The industrial worker, yes, or at least many industrial workers. But industrial workers still comprise a relatively small part of the world's population.
8 l3 B+ Q. y# ~4 U7 ^; `公仔箱論壇The overwhelming proportion of the world's work-forces, who lives in rural zones or move between them and urban slums, are worse off than their ancestors five hundred years ago.2 ]+ v! M. Q( i+ w; w# O  _# B% r

They unquestionably work harder -- more hours per day, per year, per lifetime. And since they do this for less total reward, the rate of exploitation has escalated very sharply.
9 f" J' y9 j4 a, R公仔箱論壇

In many areas, and for long periods, the prior role of the community structures has been assumed by 'plantations', that is, by the oppressive control of large-scale politico-economic structures controlled by 'entrepreneurs'. The 'plantations' of the capitalist world-economy -- whether based on slavery, imprisonment, share-cropping (forced or contractual), or wage-labour -- can scarcely be said to have provide more leeway for 'individuality'.
+ Y3 J" s/ }7 w/ G公仔箱論壇

Even where one form or another of direct authoritarian control of agricultural activity (what we have just labelled 'plantations') was not substituted for the prior laxer community structure of control, the disintegration of the community structures in rural zones was not experienced as a 'liberation', since it was inevitably accompanied, indeed frequently directly caused, by a constantly growing control by the emergent state structures which increasingly have been unwilling to leave the direct producer to his autonomous, local decision-making processes.www2.tvboxnow.com1 h3 W; _( l; L8 J

A good deal of the 'progressive' politics of the past several hundred years of historical capitalism has resulted in the steady diminution of the unequal distribution of the world surplus-value among that small group who have shared in it. The shouts of triumph of this 'middle' sector over the reduction of their gap with the upper one per cent have masked the realities of the growing gap between them and the other eighty-five per cent.
) @$ L! |/ N9 @$ ?. W# b4 [3 d; mTVBNOW 含有熱門話題，最新最快電視，軟體，遊戲，電影，動漫及日常生活及興趣交流等資訊。
( A: [. K  K- E9 h) K; ^  S* j

Progress is not inevitable. We are struggling for it. And the form the struggle is taking is not that of socialism versus capitalism, but that of a transition to a relatively classless society versus a transition to some new class-based mode of production (different from historical capitalism but not necessarily better).公仔箱論壇0 O7 r" D; a/ M2 a1 s% r

The choice for the world bourgeoisie is not between maintaining historical capitalism and suicide. It is between on the one hand a 'conservative' stance, which would result in the continued disintegration of the system and its resultant transformation into an uncertain but probably more egalitarian world order; and, on the other hand, a bold attempt to seize control of the process of transition, in which the bourgeoisie itself would assume 'socialist' clothing, and seek to create thereby an alternative historical system which would leave intact the process of exploitation of the world's work-force, to the benefit of a minority.
8 s$ J; O; G( b7 h# Mwww2.tvboxnow.com

The first and most important thing to remember in any such assessment is that the world socialist movement, indeed all forms of anti-systemic movements, as well as all revolutionary and/or socialist states, have themselves been integral products of historical capitalism. They were not structures external to the historical system but the excretion of processes internal to it. Hence they have reflected all the contradictions and constraints of the system. They could not and cannot do otherwise.+ m4 b% b7 e: Y! u6 ]( ^

Their faults, their limitations, their negative effects are part of the balance-sheet of historical capitalism, not of a hypothetical historical system, of a socialist world-order, that does not yet exist. The intensity of the exploitation of labour in revolutionary and/or socialist states, the denial of political freedoms, the persistence of sexism and racism all have to do far more with the fact that these states continue to be located in peripheral and semi-peripheral zones of the capitalist world-system.TVBNOW 含有熱門話題，最新最快電視，軟體，遊戲，電影，動漫及日常生活及興趣交流等資訊。% i8 D& e' Z: j6 k" @$ w3 {8 E; I

They can only be sensibly evaluated by asking how much they have contributed to the world-wide struggle to ensure that the transition from capitalism is towards an egalitarian socialist world-order.TVBNOW 含有熱門話題，最新最快電視，軟體，遊戲，電影，動漫及日常生活及興趣交流等資訊。; G0 [% I& p' J) r: a$ Y# x2 F3 T

...the massive, relentless drive of households to migrate illegally to wealthier climes, to escape from the South to the North. [...] Over the coming twenty-five years, we may expect enormous numbers to succeed in this South-North migration. The double reality of the material conditions gap and the demographic gap makes it highly improbable that any state policy in the North can be seriously effective in stemming the flow.
. f( T  u+ ]8 W' j" H7 C

The phenomenon of the 'Third World within' in the core zones of the capitalist world-economy will become massive as the demographic balance shifts.tvb now,tvbnow,bttvb6 I, }" [% ]2 {3 E" P% q

The demographic transformation, caused by weakening state structures, will in turn weaken them further. Social disorder will once again become normal in the core zones. In the last twenty years there has been much discussion on this under the false label of increased crime. What we shall be seeing is increased civil warfare. This is the face of the time of troubles. The scramble for protection has already begun. The states cannot provide it. For one thing they do not have the money; for another they do not have the legitimation. We shall see instead the expansion of private protection armies and police structures, by local communities, by religious bodies, and of course by crime syndicates.TVBNOW 含有熱門話題，最新最快電視，軟體，遊戲，電影，動漫及日常生活及興趣交流等資訊。3 @" q3 \5 B  X2 W7 X

One is a sort of neo-feudalism that would reproduce in a far more equilibrated form the developments of the time of troubles --- a world of parcellized sovereignties, of considerably more autarkic regions, of local hierarchies. This might be made compatible with maintaining (but probably not furthering) the current relatively high level of technology. Endless accumulation of capital could no longer function as the mainspring of such a system, but it would certainly be an inegalitarian system. What would legitimate it? Perhaps a return to a belief in natural hierarchies.5 V/ {  A. a( K. f2 ~

A second formula might be a sort of democratic fascism. Such a formula would involve a caste-like division of the world into two strata, the top one incorporating perhaps a fifth of the world's population. Within this stratum, there could be a high degree of egalitarian distribution. On the basis of such a community of interests within such a large group, they might have the strength to keep the other 80 per cent in the position of a totally disarmed working proletariat.tvb now,tvbnow,bttvb1 @: f/ _4 C& _7 H9 k$ W/ b

A third formula might be a still more radical worldwide highly decentralized, highly egalitarian world order. [...] The increased political sophistication and technological expertise we now have makes it doable, but not at all certain. It would require accepting certain real limitations in consumption expenditures. But it does not mean merely a socialization of poverty, for then it would be politically impossible to realize.
/ a1 k) _; A9 D# S0 ]  B