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civilizations accelerates-this crisis of all the military, political, social,
and cultural blocs which are on the verge of being reduced to nothing
more than tools of dangerous power politics. Would that the empires
might decline, so that social and cultural change could progress over
the whole planet instead of being crushed by rival imperialisms!
But let us go on to consider a contradictory thesis. The break-up
of political systems and ideological apparatuses which conceal real
power relationships may liberate forces of change , innovation, and
conflict. But it might also result in fragmented society with only
limited options and defenses against the impersonal power of the
massive economic organizations. Crisis is good if it breaks up the
established order; it is disastrous if it destroys the capacity for collec–
tive action and the will to create and direct a society. The more wide–
spread the popular participation in economic, political, and cultural
exchanges, the less important the state's mediating role becomes,
and the deeper the participatory process penetrates toward the base
of society. The crisis of the national state on the European model is
therefore salutary, and it ought to make possible further progress
in extending democracy . Everywhere, political life is spreading be–
yond government institutions, through labor unions, community
organizations, and
volunt~y
association .
(It
is important not to con–
fuse this progress towards self-governing democracy with the subor–
dination of local populations and collectivities by the multinational
corporations, and by a new empire replacing the old national states .)
More and more , social and cultural life is being organized in
closer coordination with lived experience: on the job; in the particular
region; on the basis of ethnic identity; and even on the basis of age
or sex-those elements of experience furthest removed from the
institution of the state . On the other hand, political power recedes
further and further from each of us as individuals. Today we talk
about economics as
if
we were talking about the weather, as if the
forces on the loose were utterly impersonal and we just had to wait
for the good weather to follow the storm.
It
is not enough to demand new freedoms and to dream about
the withering away of the state . We have to face the state's new role,
which has less to do with integration than it did in the past, and more
