STWR - Share The World's Resources

Prof. Sidney Gluck

Professor Emeritus (Specialising in Marxism)
New School of Social Research
Former President, New York Chapter
U.S.-China Peoples Friendship Association

“Peace and the 21st Century”

The 21st century can be the first without a World War. There has never been such a world at peace before.

This does not mean there will be no conflagrations. The distortions of national development from time immemorial through the imperialistic colonial system have left wounds, dislocations, conflicts and fragmentation within every nation. While the danger of a major war has diminished, it is ethnic, nationalist and/or fundamentalist movements which threaten mass destruction. Unless major powers take responsibility as honest brokers to encourage unification of fractured peoples and assist in improving the standard of living of their masses, the coming century will mirror the inhumanity of the past.

Technology has brought us together. Globalization has fostered a world division of labor making inter-dependence a positive imperative. Progress has been as much a result of cooperation and social development as has the competitive drive for market share and profits. Technology is a two-way street, reducing the number of working hours require to produce the material needs for human survival on the one hand, it opened vast possibilities for improvement of standards of living on a world scale and, at the same time it provided weapons of mass destruction in competitive and often clandestine trade. The 21st century, to fulfill its destiny of peace, will have to provide decent jobs for workers throughout the world and tame, control or eliminate instruments of destruction. The alternative would beckon triage, making scapegoats of those least able to cope.

Unfortunately, major weaponry and mercenaries have become available to those who would settle differences through force and carnage. But the age of imperialistic conquest and military invasion is over. Only the economic might of supra-national corporations, spawned in developed countries and outgrown national confines, still dominate the development of the rest of the world. Economic competition will tend to take advantage of conflicts in the under-developed world, but nation-states will be compelled to mitigate civil wars or face terrorism in their homelands.

Those who would profit by war seek an enemy. In our own country, China is becoming a scare-word in much of the media and among members of Congress who tap the basest instincts of racism in our culture. Even the lands of Socialism, which promised peace but ruled by dominance, have yet to learn self-rule in a post-Cold War world.

The emergence of China with two systems, capitalism and “market socialism,” is another turning point in history. As we enter the 21st century, its economic success appears to be inevitable. The coming century will unveil not just “one country with two systems,” but will learn to live in peace as “one world with two systems.” The socialist challenge, which dominated politics and war in the 20th century, has changed; but it remains a legitimate goal for achieving democratic rights, economic, and political. Class struggle has emerged as the battle over regulations and decision-making, for or against public and social interests or primarily for personal and private gain.

Peace in the 21st century will find a balance and accommodation between public and private interests without resort to self-destruction.

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