World Orders and Catastrophic Change
* Book: To Govern the Globe. World Orders and Catastrophic Change. by Alfred W. McCoy. Haymarket Books, 2021
URL = https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1742-to-govern-the-globe
Description
"In a tempestuous narrative that sweeps across five continents and seven centuries, this book explains how a succession of catastrophes—from the devastating Black Death of 1350 through the coming climate crisis of 2050—has produced a relentless succession of rising empires and fading world orders.
During the long centuries of Iberian and British imperial rule, the quest for new forms of energy led to the development of the colonial sugar plantation as a uniquely profitable kind of commerce. In a time when issues of race and social justice have arisen with pressing urgency, the book explains how the plantation’s extraordinary profitability relied on a production system that literally worked the slaves to death, creating an insatiable appetite for new captives that made the African slave trade a central feature of modern capitalism for over four centuries.
After surveying past centuries roiled by imperial wars, national revolutions, and the struggle for human rights, the closing chapters use those hard-won insights to peer through the present and into the future. By rendering often-opaque environmental science in lucid prose, the book explains how climate change and changing world orders will shape the life opportunities for younger generations, born at the start of this century, during the coming decades that will serve as the signposts of their lives—2030, 2050, 2070, and beyond."
Discussion
McCoy vs Peter Pogany
Dave McLeod:
"It is quite striking how McCoy's "World Orders" line up with Peter Pogany's "Global Systems." McCoy makes an interesting distinction between World Empires based on power, and World Orders, based on principles. It appears that McCoy's analysis is rooted in power and politics, whereas Pogany's views are rooted in economics, ecology, and energy (thermodynamics), as well as using the framework of systems thinking/complexity/self-organizing dissipative structures.
McCoy's Iberian Age (1500-1805) correlates to Pogany's Global System 0 (though Pogany sees it centered around the Dutch Republic rather than the Iberian world). McCoy's British Imperial World Order (1807-1943) correlates with Pogany's GS1; and Washington's World Order (1944-2030) correlates with the current GS2. Both thinkers share the concept of chaotic transitions between World Orders or Global Systems."
(https://www.facebook.com/groups/p2p.open/posts/5274751452568991/?)
More information
- Video: conversation about the book, https://www.haymarketbooks.org/blogs/398-to-govern-the-globe-world-orders-and-catastrophic-change