As we enter the new millennium, the long-range issues are quite straightforward. The capitalist world-economy has never been so smoothly functioning, so seemingly successful as an historical social system, and so fast-moving. As a result, the polarization (economic, social, and political) of the world-system increases by leaps and bounds. The effort to commodify all social transactions is incredibly far-reaching, coming to include all the arenas that it was once thought impossible or unimaginable to commodify. But as the capitalist world-economy accelerates its breakneck pace, it is probably close to careening off course and heading towards self-destruction. We are living in an historic bifurcation that will lead us over the next 50 years into a new social order, which may be better or worse than the one in which we now live, even far better or far worse, but will certainly be different.

However, people living now cannot simply wait and see how it all comes out 50 years from now. We all live inevitably in the present. And what is of most immediate concern are the critical decisions that we shall be required to make in the next few decades, largely via our governments, but not only. There seem to me four issues that will frame our collective political lives in the immediate future. Each of these issues will arouse enormous controversy (each already has), and none of them has a simple or clear solution. But each must be confronted, and there are undoubtedly better and worse ways to handle the dilemmas each poses.

1) Movement of people. From time immemorial, humans have wandered the globe. Even after the agricultural revolution, which pushed humans towards being sedentary, there was still constant migration - fostered by war, famine, persecution, and the search for a better life. Such movement has not at all slowed down in the modern world; quite the contrary. The frequency and quantitative scope of movement is greater than ever.

Current residents of any area (especially in areas that are privileged) tend to be hostile to the in-movement of other people. They fear loss of privilege, loss of identity, loss of land and jobs. They erect barriers, especially legal barriers. But the barriers are increasingly inefficacious, and "illegal" migration is a growth stock. The ever-increasing polarization of the world-system augments the pressure to migrate and raises the stakes for everyone. And of course there are many employers who welcome the flood of immigrants as a mode of keeping down the cost of labor.

Anti-immigrant sentiment, working-class racism, and right-wing extremism have always been intimately linked. This is even truer today. Up to now, the response of Establishment forces in the major centers of immigration in the world (especially in North America and western Europe, but even in Japan) has been to "handle" this time bomb by means of ad hoc measures that seek to palliate discontent by trying to reduce (never eliminating) immigration and mollifying all and sundry.

It is unlikely that ad hoc palliative measures will continue to work at all if the rate of movement escalates further, as it most probably will, in the next few decades. The debate which we face will be about whether it would not be easier, less abrasive, and ultimately wiser to lift all (or almost all) barriers to movement, and let people flow where they wish. In a capitalist system run amok, such freedom of movement certainly fits in with the ideology of a free market. Conservative parties might be tempted to respond in this way to the needs of the large enterprises that support them, but if they do, will they be able to hold the voters of the "social right," whom they need to win elections. As for movements on the left of the political spectrum, they find themselves caught between pressures from the actual and potential immigrants to the wealthy zones and those from their working-class supporters (of the dominant ethnic groups resident within these zones) who tend to favor a restrictive policy. Will anyone be willing to cut the Gordian knot, and if not, will a corrosive political debate simply allow racist demagogues to flourish, with all the political consequences that would flow from such a development?

2) Armed interventions. In the coming decades, a war between major powers is extremely unlikely. But "smaller" wars - between countries of the South and of the North, or among countries of the South, or civil wars - are not only likely; they are virtually certain to be extensive. We hear two kinds of rhetoric about responding to these wars, not only within the powerful states of the North but in the rest of the world as well. One call organizes itself around the slogans of "national interest" (narrowly defined) in the North and "non-intervention" in the South. The second call organizes itself around the slogans of "human rights" in the North and (local) "liberation" in the South.

All these slogans are heavily inflammatory, and the true motivations are most often consciously and unconsciously quite other. But the two sets of slogans do tend to have different results. The first set tends to reduce interstate violence but simultaneously to maintain the status quo. The second set tends to maximize all kinds of violence and destruction, but does tend to result in changing who is in power everywhere. Neither set represents a "one size, fits all" program for political decision-making.

What can be said is that the U.S. may be now moving nearer to the first option (under Bush and Colin Powell) and away from the second. Europe may be moving in the other direction. And governments in the South are not sure which option they wish to encourage as a general principle. It usually depends on whose ox is being gored.

3) Internalization of costs. This turgid phrase refers to the degree to which productive enterprises pay the bill for preventing their productive activities from having toxic effects on the environment (short-run and long-run). Forcing internalization, which is the major effect of legislation to ensure a positive earth ecology, necessarily raises costs. The ability to pass costs on to the consumers depends on the elasticity of demand. But in the long run, higher prices reduce demand, which gives producers the choice of smaller total sales at the higher price or lower profit per sale in order to restore or increase total sales. A Hobson's choice.

Once again, the battle lines are both fierce and confused. This is because the costs of internalization are different for different groups, and they are different in the short run and the long run. Just as in the case of freedom of movement, even though there exists a basic left-right cleavage on this issue, there are also strong tensions within each side of the political spectrum. Nonetheless, the issue cannot be swept under the carpet, as it has been up until the last 20 years, because the costs of toxic decisions have become too great, and our margin of error increasingly small.

4) Women and religion. This may seem a strange way to pose the issue of gender. But two facts seem clear. On the one hand, the demand of women for their rights (whether this is defined as legal equality or as self-empowerment) has pushed itself to the forefront of the world political agenda. On the other hand, all the major world religions, and especially the more "traditionalist" versions of these religions, include a large component of gender hierarchy.

Up to now, decisions on gender issues have been made by religious institutions issue by issue, and reluctantly. The "liberalization" of mores generally in the last 100 years has steadily eroded some of the hierarchical features of the world's religions. But, in the last 25 years, "liberal" religious practices have found themselves under attack, and there has been increased resistance and pushback by the advocates of more "traditionalist" or "orthodox" views. Hence feminists can no longer count on a steady secularization process to aid their campaigns, which are nonetheless ever more vigorous and extensive.

We are coming to crunch time for the major religions on issues of gender hierarchy. It is not at all certain what will happen. What is quite clear is that this is a major locus of social debate for the next few decades, which will occur outside and inside the political arena.

The plate is full. But the battlelines are not as clearly drawn as they might be.

Immanuel Wallerstein

[Copyright by Immanuel Wallerstein. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to download, forward electronically or e-mail to others and to post this text on non-commercial community Internet sites, provided the essay remains intact and the copyright note is displayed. To translate this text, publish it in printed and/or other forms, including commercial Internet sites and excerpts, contact the author at iwaller@binghamton.edu; fax: 1-607-777-4315.

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

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