The possible transition to a socialist world-system

An option forged by humanity in defense of itself

     During the course of the twentieth century, two fundamental contradictions of the world-system expressed themselves.  First, the system historically has expanded economically by conquering new territories and transforming them into peripheral zones of the capitalist world-economy; but during the twentieth century, it reached the geographical limits of earth and ran out of new lands to conquer.  Secondly, the world-system, as a system of imperial domination, is inherently characterized by the resistance of the conquered, colonized, and peripheralized; during the twentieth century, the resistance became increasing advanced, such that by the 1970s, it had attained global organizational unity and ideological coherence.

      During the 1970s, with consciousness of the fundamental geographical and political contradictions of the world-system, the corporate elite was at an historic crossroads.  At that critical historical moment, the corporate elite demonstrated its moral and intellectu…