Both Environmental Science and Sociology are sciences of crisis, both were born to address serious problems facing the world, both are aware of the impact that culture and technology and environment have in the contemporary world, and both seek solutions to problems, many of which we have unwittingly created. This notion of crisis is at the center of these disciplines, even though one could argue that both are multi-paradigmal or, for that matter, pre-paradigmal sciences and thus have no distinct methodological or theoretical identity. That Environmental Science and Sociology have no distinct methodological or theoretical identities points to a crisis of the interpretation of the social and natural worlds and their relationship to each other; however, a strength is that these disciplines have the capacity to draw upon the best from all theories and methods at their disposal. To be inter-disciplinary is to recognize that there is more than one way of knowing about how the world works, problems can be addressed from multiple vantage points, and a range of possible solutions may be implemented. The crisis of interpretation is an important one, one that is hard to avoid when one operates in an interpretive scientific framework, but rising above theoretical and methodological squabbles, the issue of sustainability in light of the transition from one world system to another has taken precedence.

The authors, with other Thiel College faculty, had to develop and team-teach a yearlong sophomore course entitled, Science and Our Global Heritage, a multi-disciplinary course that melds together biology, chemistry, economics, environmental science, geography, literature, political science, physics, religious studies, and sociology. The course looks at four countriesBBrazil, China, India, and NigeriaBin relation to cultural, scientific and environmental issues. The linchpin, which holds the course together, is the notion of sustainability, which incorporates not only the preservation and careful use of natural and non-renewable resources, but also the preservation of world cultures and traditions so that we may draw upon the strengths which they have to offer. When looking at development, often thought of as modernization of production, rationalization of forms of life (bureaucracy) in the name of efficiency and better control of complex societal entities, and moving toward a global capitalist world economy patterned along the lines of The United States of America, we notice several problems. This paper seeks to address some of these problems by looking at World Systems Theory, a neo-Marxist theory that offers a provocative model of the socio-economic and political organization of the globe as developed by Immanuel Wallerstein. We believe that World Systems Theory offers a viable and useful explanation of the world capitalist system and, in so doing, sheds some light on the issue of sustainability. The paper ends with a brief examination of possible future models of development as the current world-system winds down. As Wallerstein puts it:

If Wallerstein is correct that the capitalist world-system is in decline, what will replace it? We speculate alongside Wallerstein on possible future world-systems. In light of this, the problematic notion of sustainable development informs our discussion.

Though the view of the world as an ecological or physical whole is not new to geographers, the notion of the world as a single social system is relatively recent and has developed largely on the foundational work of Immanuel Wallerstein (Terlouw, 1992). Wallerstein views the world as a single world system that exists beyond the boundaries of individual nations, and that is based largely on economic processes. The structure of individual societies must be viewed within the context of the larger system. Wallerstein argues that the modern world system began in Europe in the 16th century, and had encompassed the whole world by the 19th century; however, others such as Frank and Gills believe that it stretches back at least 5,000 years (Frank and Gills, 1993).

The basic economic organization of the world system consists of a single worldwide division of labor that unifies multiple cultural systems into a single economic system (Wallerstein, 1979). Wallerstein suggests that the political framework in which this division of labor exists is not a formal world system but rather an interstate system manifest as a series of sovereign states that is a product of the world economic system (Wallerstein, 1989). And, because of political fragmentation, no single state can dominate the world system. Therefore, the world market with its own internal logic can operate practically free of political control.

According to the model, what has evolved in this liaise-faire, but highly ordered, political environment is a division of economic entities each with a distinctive function and each meeting a specific set of needs of the world system. World system theorists generally refer to these divisions as the core, the periphery and semi-periphery. The core are those economically and politically dominant states in the world system whose capital accumulation is the greatest, are engaged principally in tertiary and quaternary endeavors, whose per capita production of goods and services is the most prodigious, and who consume the bulk of the world=s resources. Economic activity in the periphery, in contrast, is predominantly in the primary sector, is very labor intensive with very low wages (in contrast to the core), and whose technologies are not heavily capital or energy dependent. Lying somewhere in between, is the semi-periphery which has characteristics of both of the former. Brazil and Argentina have been cited as examples of these economically dichotomous states (Shannon, 1996). Though the geographic distribution of the three regimes is open to some interpretation, the regionalizations generally identify the modern core as being Western Europe (including the British Isles, Northern Europe, Japan, and Australia) and North America. The periphery is frequently cast as Africa and the Andean states of South America, Central America and the Caribbean, South East Asia, and several other states sprinkled around the globe. The semi-periphery is perhaps the most problematic because it includes emerging economic giants like Brazil and China, transitional states of the former Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc, South Africa and the so-called economic tigers of the Pacific Rim (i.e., Singapore, South Korea, and Malaysia).

Interchange between the three economic entities is regulated by the core but follows a very structured pattern. Typically, the periphery supplies low cost raw materials, unskilled labor and a compliant political and social regime to both the core and the semi-periphery. The core supplies managerial and organizational skill, research and development, capital, and high cost, high quality, high tech finished goods mostly to itself but also to the periphery and semi-periphery. Additionally, the core provides/induces political stability in the periphery and semiperiphery through direct and indirect economic leverage, and through military intervention, particularly when a critical resource such as oil (i.e., the recent Gulf War) is threatened. The security interest of world powers demand control of the economic system (Modelsky, 1983).

Though there is only one world system, states are incorporated in varying degrees into it (Terlouw, 1992). While there are a number of factors potentially affecting incorporation, it seems that trade potential, economic risk, and political compatibility, and the degree to which the peripheral region can be linked to the internal logic of the world system are the most important. Once incorporated into the system, the region changes to meet the needs of the system. Local industry, indigenous economic, social structures and bureaucracies are subordinated to the interests of the core (Terlouw, 1992). From this perspective, the West=s interest in human rights and other related issues in China becomes a question of compatibility with the system rather than a matter of humanitarian altruism.

Terlouw (1992), Straussfogel (1997) and others are adamant that the tripartite divisions described by Wallerstein not be interpreted as discrete entities but rather as Aplaces along a continuum.@ According to Bergesen (1983) economic zones are the modern equivalent of individuals in the division of labor. Wallerstein=s notion of core, semi-periphery, and periphery in the world system may be seen as analogous to the relationships of inequality between the bourgeoisie, petit-bourgeoisie, and proletariat in one country.

Strengths of World System Theory from the Perspective of Sustainability:

Wallerstein goes to great lengths to deal with the great epistemological debate within the social sciences, and more recently the natural sciences which has been between the universalizers and the particularizers or the theorizers and the empiricists (Wallerstein, 1993). The basic premise of the dominant (structuralist -functionalist) methodology is that scientific analysis proceeds from complex reality (the empiricists) to generalized universal models and theorems. The world-systems approach on the other hand emphasizes a reversal of this methodological strategy in which we begin with general statements and deduce utilizable concrete descriptions of existing structures in politically useful ways (Wallerstein, 1983). Ultimately, Wallerstein calls for the construction of a science that combines both nomothetic and idiographic methods in multi-disciplinary enterprise (Korllos, 1991).

The capitalist system of production and the functions of the capitalist system are fundamental in understanding the contemporary world condition. Under capitalism, economic power rests in the hands of those who control the means of production (Shannon, 1996). The market provides allocation and distribution of goods and services. Individual maximization of profits by corporations and maximum satisfaction of consumers provide the motive force. The role of governments is to provide stable, secure environments in which business may be conducted, regulate aggregate demand in order to produce an acceptable level of inflation and unemployment and to provide a welfare safety net to prevent destitution (Daly and Cobb, 1994). Within the world system, the capitalist orientation, though far from benign, is important primarily because it provides an impetus for events within the system. Its morality or lack of it is not an issue here. From the perspective of sustainability, the important thing is to recognize the constraints of the model.

The world-system is evolutionary rather than a model of linear differentiation. Here the term evolutionary is taken in the Darwinian sense: that is, species evolve by a process of undirected variation and the natural selection of those variations that are best suited to the demands of the environment. The poorly suited variations perish, therefore the better-suited variants will have a better representation in the gene pool and the species will move in that direction (Collins and Porras, 1997). Of course, nations and regions do not behave exactly like biological organisms whose variations are purely chance and entirely unconscious. Human organizations do make conscious selections and when combined with a fortuitous set of environmental and economic circumstances can give a nation an advantage (or disadvantage) within the world system. World systems typically exhibit cycles of centralization and decentralization resulting in rise and fall patterns (Chase-Dunn and Hall, 1994). According to Straussfogel: AThe model maintains that no country=s development can occur in isolation from the global system in which it participates and that each country=s development is unique to its people, resources and institutional structure (Straussfogel, 1997, p. 281). However, sustainable development does not imply the indefinite survival of a particular nation state any more than the persistence of a species depends on the survival of a particular organism.

As the research paradigm for the social sciences and the natural sciences shifts from the reductionist mode of the era of classical science, the need for moving across traditional disciplinary lines becomes an imperative. Because we live in a pluralistic, complex world-system where irreversibility and randomness are the rules, there is the need for broader, more inclusive framework of scholarship that speaks of a Adialogue of man with nature@ (Prigogine, 1984).

From the outset, capitalism has treated nature as unlimited (O=Connor, 1994). More recently, neoclassical economic theory has assumed that resource enhancement will occur due to the market system. AIf capital is sufficient there are no shortages@ (Daly and Cobb, 1994, p.194). In the world-systems view, the availability of high quality natural resources is seen as placing limits on economic, social and political shifts within the system (Korllos, 1991). Straussfogel has drawn from the newly emerging field of ecological economics and suggested a four factor model which adds the dimension of ecological capital to the traditional land, labor and capital triad of neoclassical economics (Straussfogel, 1997).

Perhaps no other discipline has been affected as much by the so-called new science paradigm as has economics. This is due in no small measure to neoclassical economic=s success in emulating the model of classical science. AOutside of the physical sciences no field of study has more fully achieved the ideal form of the academic discipline than economics@ (Daly and Cobb, 1994, p.25). The objective of classical science was of course to formulate laws from which the behavior of every aspect of nature could be deduced. In order to do this it was necessary to develop models that simplified reality. The decision to follow physics has allowed economics to be the most rigorous and perhaps the most successful of the social sciences in that its models and predictive capabilities carry a weight in business, government, and general society matched by no other. Daly and Cobb have summarized the plight of economics as follows:

The problem with economics is that it has succeeded all too well by the standards of the academic world. It is a successful discipline, and it has succeeded better than any other social study in becoming a deductive science. These successes have involved a high level of abstraction, yet the whole ethos of the university in general, and of the department of economics in particular, discourages the full realization of the extent of the abstracting that has gone on. The result is that conclusions are drawn about the real world by deduction from abstractions with little awareness of the danger involved (Daly and Cobb, 1994, p.35)

Daly and Cobb go on to codify this phenomenon as Athe fallacy of misplaced concreteness@ which is the tendency for practitioners of reductionist disciplines to lose sight of the level of abstractness at which they operate and draw unwarranted conclusions about the concrete (real) world (Daly and Cobb, 1994, p. 36). In layman=s terms this is the same as Anot being able to see the woods for the trees.@ Ecological economics meets these concerns with traditional disciplinary economics by encouraging the following features (Goudy and O=Hara, 1995; Costanza, et al., 1997):

The notion of stochasticity is embedded in much of world-system literature. Stochastic processes are those who=s outcome cannot be predicted and where small variations in initial conditions may have a very large and irreversible effect on the outcome of the system (Wallerstein, 1991).

Wallerstein=s prediction of the eventual demise of the capitalist world system may be accurate but not because of any inherent moral flaw in the capitalist model, for capitalism is inherently morally neutral. Rather, the collapse of the core will be due to the inevitable thermodynamic tax levied on all systems and with an exponential vengeance on all highly ordered systems. Since all economies depend on the exchange of high quality energy and material resources, and since the availability of those high quality resources is finite, highly developed economies will falter as the supply of those resources diminish.

Geogescu-Roegen, Herman Daly, and others argue that all resources are characterized by low entropy and, to a degree their economic value lies in their entropic state. For without the entropic flow from nature there can be no production. Economic systems are entropy-increasing mechanisms (Daly and Cobb, 1994). This set of assumptions runs counter to neoclassical economic thought which assumes that the market will always produce high quality alternatives to existing resources; in other words, capital via technology is substitutable for resources. Although socialist economic thought rejects the market mechanism, it assumes that labor through technology will insure an infinite supply of low entropy and unlimited material progress (Rifkin, 1980).

There can be no issue more central to the notion of sustainability than the stock of low entropy resources. The two sources of low entropy resources are solar and terrestrial. Solar energy is assumed to be unlimited in quantity but limited to its flow or rate of arrival on earth. The terrestrial source (minerals and fossil fuels) is limited in supply but is variable in its flow depending upon the economic decisions of those who are in control of the resources. Within the world-systems model, it is the core that controls the rate of flow of the terrestrial supply. The periphery, while it may house the majority of the low entropy stocks, has only a limited ability to control the flow. The periphery, then, is limited to the solar flow that arrives on its surface which relegates it to a subsistence level of economic activity. Though the relationships of economic development are complex, simple resource models show only a marginal relationship between the rich (low entropy) resources and the economic prosperity of the region containing those resources.

There is a second dimension to the entropy law that is even more troubling. When we increase the utilization of a high quality resource the value of the product results in even larger increases in the disorder somewhere else in the environment. Therefore, increased production really means increased flows and greater disorder somewhere in the environment (Rifkin, 1994). Within the world-system model it is the periphery that is the recipient of this increased entropy or disorder.  This disorder may be manifest in many ways: deforestation in order to produce export food crops and animal products, the export of highly polluting and high risk industrial processes to the third world where pollution laws are lax and occupational safety standards are archaic, the transport of hazardous wastes for storage in the periphery, and the extraction of raw materials capitalizing on cheap labor and permissive governmental regulation. Thus, in the world-system model, the periphery is not only a source of low entropy resources for the core; it is also a sink for the inevitable high entropy by-products (Barton, et al., 1998).

It is clear that current accounting systems do not consider the disorder created in a system by the various economic processes. The standard measure of economic welfare, the GNP, measures only production. Daly and Cobb have addresses this problem to some degree with the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW) which factors in the effects of pollution, environmental damage, depletion of nonrenewable resources, income distribution and the value of unpaid labor (Costanza, et al., 1997). Though the ISEW appears to be a step in the right direction toward providing a better measure of sustainable economic welfare it is still based on how much is being produced and consumed. It still does not consider the full effect of entropic forces, especially those resulting social disfunctions like crime, regional wars, and displacements, particularly occurring in the periphery.

Wallerstein has predicted the demise of the capitalist world system and claims that we have now entered into a period of transition which could last fifty years. During this transition period, those in the US will experience a decline in their standard of living and will suffer from the psychological pain of moving from the top of the world system to a lesser role albeit still in the core (Ritzer, 2000). What will be the outcome of the demise of the current capitalist world system? There are many indicators of its impending collapse. Wallerstein points to the dilemmas of accumulation, political legitimation, and geocultural agenda (Wallerstein, 1995). The contradictions in the world system threaten to tear it apart. The motor of capitalism is accumulation to derive maximum profits. To do this wages must be kept low, but it they are kept too low, then the capitalists will not be able to expand their markets for who will then be able to afford their wares? There is a crisis in legitimation as the nation states have been faced with the dilemma of rewarding their cadres for their loyalty and rewarding the masses by giving them a small slice of the economic pie with the promise of increasing accumulation. As the capitalist world-system has run out of markets for expansion, this promise of escalating accumulation has been diminished. The result is a crisis in the legitimation of the system and a rise in cynicism amongst the cadres and the masses. The third dilemma, that of the geocultural agenda has to do with the rise of the individual as the subject of history. This has sparked the rise of self-interest in capitalist accumulation and, simultaneously, the notion of the individual existing in a social hierarchy in which there is a race of all against all. In this world of winners and losers, those at the front of the race often proclaim their superiority over others. Those at the top will do anything to remain there and, in so doing, may use race and sex to assert that not all humans are equal and that there is a cultural or biological hierarchy (Wallerstein, 1995). The contradiction here is that individualism represents creativity and initiative on one hand, and on the other, a justification for social hierarchy on the basis of racism and sexism.

As a result of the systemic crisis of the capitalist world system, Wallerstein believes that there will be increasing polarization of North and South. The countries of the less developed South reject old models of liberation, i.e., socialist revolutions as a result of the crisis of the impending collapse of the world system. Three alternative models of political development emerge in Wallerstein=s estimation: the Khomeni Option, the Saddam Hussein Option, and the @Boat People@ Option (Wallerstein, 1995). All these options threaten the current world system and will work to hasten its collapse.

The Khomeni Option is one of radical alterity whereby a country refuses to play along with the rules of the world-system. By breaking the rules, it threatens its systemic equilibrium. The core can easily contain one country breaking the rules, but what happens when several countries refuse to play by the rules? Disaster looms large in this scenario (Wallerstein, 1995).

The Saddam Hussein Option is one where a country builds up its military forces and then declares war on the North. This seems quixotic and ultimately foolish as in the case of the recent war with Iraq. Hussein lost the war, but he is still in power and still is a thorn in the side of the North. What happens when not one but several countries opt for this tactic? It will be hard to keep a lid on the situation (Wallerstein, 1995). The Gulf War was a collective victory of the North over the South, yet it took many resources to carry out this war and in the future, will it be possible to achieve the same degree of mobilization against another threat like this? Other LDCs have engaged in battles with the MDC=s, i.e., The Vietnam War in which France and then the United States lost or, for that matter, the war between Afghanistan and the former Soviet Union, in which the Soviets lost. It is possible for the Little Davids to take on the Global Goliaths.

Finally, we have the ABoat People@ Option where the South just moves to the North. Illegal immigrants all searching for a better life have invaded the United States and Western Europe. The Third World has begun to increasingly move to the First World. The colonization of MDCs by those from LDCs will lead to economic crises, a vast expenditure of resources to try to stem the tide of illegal immigration, and the rise of a garrison mentality/reality by those in the North who feel threatened by this invasion (Wallerstein, 1995).

From out of his analysis of the capitalist world-system, Wallerstein speculates on the future developmental possibilities for new world systems. As he asserts: "[World-systems] are born; they live long lives according to some rules; and at some point they come into crisis, bifurcate, and transform themselves into something else" (Wallerstein, 1998, p. 88).

What new world system will emerge from out of the ashes of the capitalist one is open to speculation. Wallerstein tosses out three possibilities: world socialism, neo-feudalism (under which heading we will consider as well, bio-regionalism), and democratic fascism (which may be seen as one variant of a continuing capitalist system) (Wallerstein, 1995). We will consider briefly each of these options in the following sections.

Wallerstein has envisioned the possibility of world socialism, a democratic, non-authoritarian world system in which there would be true equality; however, he is too savvy to opt for a utopian model of the future. Instead, Wallerstein talks about utopistics:

A socialist world system is still a possibility, but it is one of many. Given the events of the past two decadesBthe collapse of the socialist systems of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc and the rampant scampering of the Chinese toward capitalist modes of productionBa global collapse of the world capitalist system into world socialism seems rather remote. Of course, one could argue quite forcefully that none of the countries that claimed they were socialist or communist had actually been even remotely close to the ideal-type of socialist or communist society. After all, one would expect a truly socialist society to abolish hierarchical social arrangements and to usher in a non-authoritarian democratic society in which all would benefit. An analysis of the former Soviet Union would point to glaring inequalities and to an authoritarian power structure akin to that of a type of state capitalism.

Although the factors of production may have been under different control under the Soviet Socialism model, the system was in effect, a state capitalist model with the same core-periphery geography as in the capitalist west. Third World clients such as Angola, Mozambique, and Cuba were little more than neo-colonial holdings, and the Eastern Bloc was essentially semi-periphery. The Chinese model exhibits an internal coreBperiphery relationship in that development within the country itself is very uneven, with most wealth and control on the eastern seaboard (core) and the rest of the country being relegated to periphery status (producers of raw materials and markets for finished goods from the eastern coastal region). The majority of China=s capitalist enterprises are in the Pacific Rim coastal zone (eastern seaboard) and in Special Economic Zones (SEZs), such as Hong Kong. Northern China is essentially a ARust Belt@ (De Blij), and the interior of China remains largely rural and underdeveloped.

The continuation (sustainability) of the world system in its present form depends upon the availability of high quality (low entropy) energy and material resources, the substitution of built capital for lost natural capital, and a scheme for the maintenance of natural capital at critical levels. Herman Daly (1991) has suggested three criteria for the maintenance of natural capital in order to insure ecological sustainability:

1. For renewable resources, the rate of harvest should not exceed the rate of regeneration.

Is the ecological rationality of capitalism consistent with the requirements of sustainability? John Dryzek (O=Connor, 1994) has suggested the following contradictions. Capitalism requires economic growth without which distributional inequality, unemployment, and political instability will occur. If there are ecological limits to economic growth, then growth must slow and eventually stop. Of course, neoclassical economics asserts that the market system will produce substitutes for any scarce resource including high quality or low entropy energy. Somewhat more problematic is the potential market response to accumulations of consumer wastes and the pollution of the global commons as exemplified by global warming.

Futurists argue that a shift to economic activities that do not involve consumption of materials or environmental services would dull the impact of the traditional market system=s appetite for natural capital. However, the core states that have moved into the information age have not reduced their per capita consumption of resources or their production of entropy. As the affluence of quaternary and quinary economies has increased so has their level of consumption and the tendency to offload the impact of consumption on the periphery.

Secondly, capitalism is not future oriented. In a market economy capital is not free, therefore, positive rates of interest means that market actors must discount the value of a resource at the prevailing interest rate. If an unused resource has a value of a million dollars today and the interest rate is 7%, then the discounted value of the still unused resource in 10 years would be zero. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. The money obtained from an exploited resource can make more money and the unexploited resource only deprives the owner of a capital gain. The logic of the system is to use the resource as fast as the market will allow and the future be dammed.

Lastly, decentralized systems, such as the world system governed by a logic of self-interest, have poorly developed mechanisms for dealing with the global commons. A system oriented to private profits has no concern about damage to those not directly involved in transactions and no rules for dealing with common environmental resources such as air, water and aesthetics. State and federal governments have addressed some of the issues locally via regulatory statutes, but conventions addressing larger issues such as releases of greenhouse gases, CFCs and international transport of acid precipitation are only in the preliminary stages.

Clearly, for the world capitalist complex to survive, governmental structures beyond the current set will need to develop. Core states will have become so economically, politically, and environmentally interdependent that supranationalist entities resembling the current European Union could be the effective governing structures aided by consortia of multinational corporations. A common currency, the Geo, could serve the core. Currently, there are effectively only three currencies in the world core, the Euro, the U.S. Dollar, and the Japanese Yen, so the transition will be a simple one. All periphery currencies will be tied to or replaced by the Geo. All investment capital will be perfectly mobile and equally available anywhere within the core. There will be no differentials in the cost of capital within the core, and the immobility of fixed or human capital will continue to shape the extent of the core.

What would be the character of this supranational government? The prevailing model for the states of the core is the liberal democracy in which elected officials respond to popular pressure through a range of constitutional mechanisms and interest group politics. Business, because of its wealth and commensurate power, has a disproportionate influence; however, other corporate interests such as those of labor unions, environmental groups and age group organizations like AARP can wield power according to their resources and organizational effectiveness. Juxtaposed on all liberal democracies is a state administrative structure consisting of a non-elected bureaucracy that carries out the day-to-day functions of government and sets and administers regulations that enable the legislation of the elected bodies. According to Dryzek:

What then are the prospects for world government? Dryzek further argues that the ecologically inept capitalist state plus the administrative state leavened by liberal democracy is vulnerable to change in the direction of a more open and discursive democratic alternative along the lines of E.F. Schumacher=s Asocial councils@ or Habermas= public sphere which transcend the Marxist notion of a monolithic proletariat with a plurality of struggles based on consensus and discursive decision making.

Another possibility arising out of this is democratic fascism, a transformation of the capitalist system into one in which the top twenty percent of the population dominates the world-system and among this group there is a high equitable distribution of wealth allowing them to lead comfortable lives. The bottom eighty percent would serve them in the role of a Atotally disarmed proletariat@ (Wallerstein, 1995, p. 162). Hence the world-system would be comprised of two major castes, a model similar to that of South Africa during Apartheid.

Physicist Nicholas Gorgescu-Roegen argues that all economic systems involve the use of energy, and that according to the second law of thermodynamics all energy in a closed system will inevitably decline. Therefore, for economies dependent on energy (and high quality materials), intensive core processes must inevitably decline. The periphery, already in a high entropy state because of its exploitation by the core, will revert to a subsistence condition lower than that of the pre-world system era because of environmental degradation. Existing populations will decline to adjust to the human carrying capacity of the respective regions. The core will collapse into a post-industrial state of production: a collection of highly differentiated bio-regions which emphasize natural capital preservation through technology aimed at increasing the productivity of natural capital through better end-use efficiency. Within the bio-regions, natural capital can be better identified, assigned a specific price and thus be truly integrated into the economy (Costanza, et al., 1997). Substantial reductions in human capital must occur in order to achieve a sustainable level of complementarity. Although, quite different from current core societies, post industrial bio-regional societies will exhibit a high quality of life, will be highly decentralized and heavily dependent upon electronic communication, virtual offices and other low impact, low energy flow modes. All manufacturing will be limited to renewable energy resources and the recycling of nonrenewable materials remaining from the previous era. Because of the ubiquitous pre-collapse distribution of industrial resources within the core, interchange of industrial resources will be limited. Because of environmental differences some exchange of food products will continue in order to maintain dietary balance.

Bio-regionalists are dedicated to the notion of living-in-place and have a high Awatershed consciousness@ (Merchant, 1992, p. 217). The size of a bio-region may be 625 square miles encompassing a watershedBa river and its tributaries:

The bio-regional paradigm, as envisioned by Sale, is one in which the scale is that of the region and the local community. The economy is geared toward conservation, stability, self-sufficiency, and co-operation. Government or polity would be decentralized, compartmentalized, and would promote diversity. Change will be gradual, evolutionary, and will involve education, activism, and organization to achieve a truly viable social transformation of society into one that is based on sustainability and not on the reckless consumption of the world=s resources with no thought for the future. Bio-regionalism suggests a return to a neo-feudal state, but not one based on hierarchical relations along the lines of lord and serf. Wallerstein sees neo-feudalism as a social-system that is based on inequality of social relations. Of course, how this system is legitimated will have much bearing on its composition. A return to natural hierarchies would spell inequality; however, a new set of values such as those promoted by bio-regionalists suggests an affinity with some of the principles of socialism (socialism with an ecological emphasis). Obviously, a neo-feudalist system based on the bioregional paradigm is attractive; however, it seems to be the more utopian variant of neo-feudalism.

When one looks at the current condition of the periphery and asks why the well-being of the majority of the world=s people seems to be deteriorating both in relative and absolute terms it is clear that the trust in managed capitalist economic and social development has borne a bitter fruit. Has it happened as Bergesen has suggested that the emergence of the modern world system has nullified the internal evolutionary dynamics of autonomous societies as they were drawn into the world economy? That Aautonomous societal development has come to a halt?@ (Bergesen, 1983, p. 53). Perhaps, despite the contention of Wallerstein and others that the world system has long, historic tentacles, it seems more reasonable that Athe current global model of production is not the logical successor to any particular stage of development, but rather an emergent phenomenon at an entirely new level of analysis A (Bergesen, 1983, p. 53). To be sure, a world system exists, but its genesis is more likely a product of 17th and 18th century Modernist-Enlightenment thought which provided a fertile soil for the growth capitalist model. The synergism of the two produced a voracious organism, Aa total global system that was mindlessly chewing up the earth, her resources, and her inhabitants and spitting them out as growing gobs of entropy@ (Perelman, 1976, p. 5).

Since we have cast the extant world system as being evolutionary, we must assume that if it is to survive, the world system will have to adjust and that the inevitable thermodynamic tax must be paid. What will the evolutionary system look like? Certainly, the >dysecological= aspect of Western thought that is anthropocentric, linear, discrete, materialistic and simplistic will have to be softened or replaced while the positive aspects such as creativity, love of nature, art, and reason would seem to be necessary for a high quality existence. Eastern models that are cosmic, non-linear, and complex are more congruent with the global mind but are flawed in their, passivity, fatalism, and anti-intellectualism. A sustainable world system must work optimally within the constraints of the global ecosystem and the human value systems the latter of which will be evolutionary rather than a composite of the present (Perelman, 1976). Whatever the path, it is unlikely that the futuristic myth of modernist historical progress will be played out; however, given the stochastic nature of post-modernist thought, neither is it predictable (Jones, Natter, and Schatzki, eds., 1993).