The Next World Order.

Who will rule as U.S. domination diminishes? Look East, say the authors of Chaos and Governance in the Modern World System.

The future is created in the present, but the present was created in the past. Some futurists apply this truism in simple trend analysis; others have a more complex

Strongly influenced by Marxism and the "world system" school of sociologist Immanuel Wallterstein, principal authors Giovanni Arrighi and Beverly J. Silver argue that there have been three stages (so far) in the type of globalism that is characterized by the hegemony of one state over the interconnected world. At the onset of the modern era, the Dutch led the world through their power over commerce. Then they were displaced by the British, who ruled by means of industrial power. Finally, after World War I, the United States became the world leader because of its financial dominance.

Now the world is entering a new period of instability. America is still the most important single state, but it is also the world's greatest debtor nation. This anomaly cannot endure forever, but the authors are neutral about the final outcome of "the present transition from U.S. hegemony to a yet unknown destination."

Arrighi and Silver do not consider themselves futurists (they are by profession academic sociologists), but they paint a sweeping picture of global social change, challenging most of the models of tomorrow that many futurists hold and promulgate. Their theoretical models are quite complex, and their prose is sometimes turgid. But within this book are numerous startling insights, and serious students of globalization--which the authors rightly note is hardly anything new--can learn much from it. The authors' conclusion that each stage of world hegemony is part of an onward evolution of world society is grounded in extensive historical, economic, and sociological research.

The authors argue that each successful hegemony creates a backlash against itself, as other groups and nations copy the leader. They hold that each ruling group quells social unrest within its core power base by cutting dissidents in on the spoils at the expense of the outsiders they ruled. Thus the nineteenth-century British elite pacified the demands of the trade unions at the expense of the workers and peasants of India. Throughout history, the poor and out-of-power groups have borne the brunt of the inequalities in society. Clearly the recent protests of organized American labor against the rising tides of cheaper imports fit in with the authors' perspective.

The book provides few clues as to what the authors think the future holds. Having defined the present world as one that manifests economic concentration without centralization, they believe that this is how the Asian economy operated before it was disrupted by Western military and political power. Now that this Western hegemony is in decline, Asia will rise again to a central position in the new world: "The emergent system will bear the social and cultural imprint of a non-Western civilization." The most significant event of our age, they hold, is "the rise of East Asia as the most dynamic center of world-scale processes of capital accumulation."

The authors are bullish on Japan as well as China. They believe that the United States has greater ability than Britain did a century ago to withdraw from hegemony gracefully and to accommodate the rise of the new power of East Asia so that the change of hegemony will be a "non-catastrophic transition." They end their book with the hope that a new leadership will arise in East Asia "willing and able to rise up to the task of providing system-level solutions to the system-level problems left behind by U.S. hegemony."

Though most of the book is the work of Arrighi and Silver, who contributed the introduction and conclusion and coordinated the research, numerous other scholars worked on the various chapters. Though sometimes slightly tough to read, the book will give you not only new ideas, but much new information about the modern world as well. There is a comprehensive index and a fine bibliography. One may not always agree with the authors' views, but the effort to deal with them is rewarding. Any serious student of contemporary and future society should read this book.

About the Reviewer

Victor Ferkiss is a former professor of government at Georgetown University, a member of the World Future Society board of directors, and the author of Nature, Technology, and Society (New York University Press, 1993)

"There are no credible aggressive new powers that can provoke the breakdown of the U.S.-centered world system, but the United States has even greater capabilities than Britain did a century ago to convert its declining hegemony into an exploitative domination. If the system eventually breaks down, it will be primarily because of U.S. resistance to adjustment and accommodation. And conversely, U.S. adjustment and accommodation to the rising economic power of the East Asian region is an essential condition for a non-catastrophic transition to a new world order."

From Chaos and Governance in the Modern World System