Among the most powerful constraints limiting the imaginations of conflicting parties and would-be conflict resolvers are those that prescribe considering substantial changes to the existing structures of modern oligopoly (\u201clate\u201d) capitalism.\u00a0 The for-profit system is considered sacred.\u00a0 In the United States, proposals to redistribute wealth or income, to give workers a more decisive role in production, or to increase government power over corporations and capitalist markets are labeled \u201csocialist,\u201d and socialism is equated with totalitarian communism.\u00a0 In Europe and elsewhere, reforms advocated by moderate social-democrats are not necessarily tabooed, but more radical suggestions (e.g., that public institutions take control of industrial sectors or prioritize collective rights) tend to be dismissed out of hand as \u201ccommunist.\u201d\u00a0 As a result, proposals to solve problems such as climate change, mass migration, and endemic poverty by subordinating the interests of great capital to those of worker- or community-controlled institutions are considered utopian and are seldom thought about seriously, much less discussed.<\/p>\n
The Ethno-Political and Imperial Nation Taboos<\/em><\/p>\n Once, to be politically \u201cprogressive\u201d meant to imagine and advocate the development of international entities, political, economic, and cultural, that would transcend the nation-state and move in the direction of a universal human community.\u00a0 As Karl Marx (among many others) put it, our collective destiny as human beings was to resolve resolvable social conflicts by developing a \u201cspecies consciousness\u201d that would relativize (not necessarily eliminate) more limited forms of group consciousness, including nationalism, and put an end to interstate warfare.\u00a0 Instead of a globalized consciousness, however, we have witnessed the globalization of capital, the rise of imperialist super-states, and a worldwide surge of ethno-nationalism.\u00a0 Challenging the political and moral primacy of the nation is now taboo; not even the political parties described as \u201cfar Left\u201d are willing to run the risk of being called traitors to the national tribe.\u00a0 As a result, solutions to the problems that, unsolved, generate terrorism and war are considered unthinkable if they challenge national sovereignty or subordinate the alleged \u201cnational interest\u201d to some broader interest based on social class or human rights.<\/p>\n All this raises the inevitable question: cui bono?\u00a0 <\/em>Who gains from maintaining these taboos?\u00a0 Clearly, their chief beneficiaries are the elites who dominate both the late capitalist and ethno-political systems \u2013 in the case of imperialist states or associations, an interlocking elite of oligarchs, top politicians, and military leaders.\u00a0 Nevertheless, since taboos do not resolve problem-driven conflicts, something like a law of diminishing returns undermines even elite authority.\u00a0 \u00a0As systems continue to fail and social problems worsen, aggrieved members of the community desperately seek targets for their increasing anger and frustration, and demagogic leaders are happy to offer them \u201cacceptable\u201d (non-tabooed) scapegoats.<\/p>\n Some Examples:<\/em><\/p>\n When wages continue to stagnate or fall, if the source of problem is not the late capitalist market system, the villain must be an influx of immigrants or some other \u201cenemy within.\u201d\u00a0 When oligarchs become multi-billionaires by investing in military-industrial companies while civilian public services deteriorate, if the source of the problem is not the imperialist ethno-state, the villain must be an aggressive foreign power or some other \u201cenemy without.\u201d \u00a0And if de-industrialized communities are stricken by broken families, personal violence, and drug addiction, if the sources of violence are not systemic, the villain must be some combination of enemy within (anti-Christians, say, or \u201cantifa\u201d activists) and enemy without (foreign drug cartels).<\/p>\n The taboos thus produce scapegoats \u2013 but scapegoating vulnerable populations is no more effective than taboos are in resolving the systemic problems that generate conflict.\u00a0 The inevitable outcomes, if nothing else changes, are further radicalization of aggrieved groups, more intense polarization of conflicting parties, governments that appear both authoritarian and ineffective, and an increased likelihood of civil and interstate violence. \u00a0To arrest this downward spiral requires challenging the taboos that currently prohibit us from thinking about proposed changes in existing systems of power and value.\u00a0 It is vital to understand that overcoming these taboos does not<\/em> mean adopting specific system-altering changes.\u00a0 It does mean that ordinary people, as opposed to elites, get to decide what changes, if any, make sense to them, and to make decisions based on that understanding.<\/p>\n We know that economic, political, and cultural institutions are changing constantly.\u00a0 Transformation has become the norm.\u00a0 But \u201cdemocracy\u201d is defined so restrictively that, even in societies that consider themselves democratic, decisions about system transformation are reserved to those Johan Galtung referred to as the \u201ctop dogs\u201d: the masters of the major systems.\u00a0 Sustainable peace and long-term conflict resolution depend upon the rest of us asserting our right to participate decisively in determining how the systems that now generate want, violence, and despair can become generators of prosperity, peace, and joy.\u00a0\u00a0 Moving democracy to the system level could be the next step in our social and political evolution.<\/p>\n __________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n A fundamental principle of conflict resolution is \u201cMultiply the options for agreement.\u201d\u00a0 To maximize the chances of achieving sustainable peace, the parties need to consider the widest possible range of choices.\u00a0 In practice, however, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[2628,680,2768,276,92],"class_list":["post-306217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial","tag-conflict-mediation","tag-conflict-resolution","tag-conflict-studies","tag-democracy","tag-violent-conflict"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306217"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":306223,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306217\/revisions\/306223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Richard-Rubenstein-scaled-e1592126260707.jpg\")
<\/a> Richard E. Rubenstein is a member of the <\/em>TRANSCEND Media Service<\/em><\/a> Editorial Committee, of the <\/em>TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/em><\/a>, and a professor of conflict resolution and public affairs at George Mason University\u2019s Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter Center for Peace and Conflict Resolution. A graduate of Harvard College, Oxford University (Rhodes Scholar), and Harvard Law School, Rubenstein is the author of nine books on analyzing and resolving violent social conflicts. His most recent book is <\/em>Resolving Structural Conflicts: How Violent Systems Can Be Transformed (Routledge, 2017). <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"