Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are synthetic chemical compounds first developed in 1928 to replace the hazardous refrigerants, such as ammonia, methyl chloride, and sulfur dioxide then in use.41 By the 1970s CFCs—nontoxic, nonflammable—had completely transformed the refrigeration industry, replacing chemicals in refrigerators and launching the fledgling air-conditioning industry. Eventually CFCs were adopted as propellants in ubiquitous aerosol spray cans for everything from whipped cream to hair spray.
When, in 1974, two scientists published a technical paper suggesting that CFCs might threaten the environment, the world was producing almost a billion kilograms of CFCs a year, with the amount doubling every five years. These scientists hypothesized that CFCs were slowly drifting upward into the stratosphere where, having broken down molecularly, they were releasing chlorine atoms that destroy stratospheric ozone, causing higher levels of ultraviolet radiation to reach the surface of the Earth. This might lead to a deadly rise in the occurrence of skin cancers.
Robert Kates picks up the story here and sketches the ironic turn of events that ensued:
Urged on by activist scientists and a concerned Congress, U.S. media took the lead in spreading the alarm. They devoted an extraordinary amount of coverage to CFCs in 1975 and helped to fix inexorably in the public mind the image of frivolous spray cans blasting holes in the sky. The prospect of increased cancer risk lurked just offstage. Local political action and consumer boycotts against products containing CFC propellant spread rapidly. By the time the U.S. government officially banned CFC propellants in 1978 the action was virtually superfluous: Domestic use had already fallen precipitously, solely on the basis of an as yet unproved hypothesis…. A decade after the initial surprise, the threat of ozone depletion had been all but forgotten by the media, politicians and the public. After dropping somewhat, worldwide CFC production climbed back above its 1974 level. [It was only] the discovery of a… hole in the ozone layer in 1985 [that] put the issue back onto the public agenda.42
The unnerving aspect of the ozone case lies in its grotesque transformation of something ordinary and benignly mundane into something unexpectedly malignant. Similar shifts have occurred with respect to cigarette smoke, asbestos fibers, and lead in paint and gasoline. In the market-state, there are powerful lobbies with a stake in persuading the public and public officials that there is really nothing to worry about, and a no less powerful media and public interest alliance anxious to detect an alarming new crisis as frequently as possible. The lobbies depend upon companies whose sale of the dubious substance is threatened, but the media and public-interest groups also have a material stake in the matter, because the market-state requires that they make their way on the basis of public contributions,* which requires an ever-escalating hyperbole to stimulate giving. In the ozone-depletion case, public reaction first outran and then lagged behind the science of the matter.
The society of market-states is vulnerable to such threats to the environment and yet in some ways better equipped than the society of nation-states to deal with them. This new society is vulnerable because it places such a high value on the autonomy of the market. CFCs are, after all, a cheap and otherwise safe method of refrigeration and vapor propulsion; there will be some countries that choose to continue their use, noting along the way that because their impact is so minor compared to that of market giants like the United States, little harm will result to the atmosphere. Global marketing will allow the transfer of such products to those countries whose publics are not so sensitive (or who feel they cannot afford to be sensitive) to charges of environmental degradation.
At the same time, the global corporation is itself vulnerable to reports in its major markets disclosing practices it would like to confine to marginal markets. Boycotts, not laws, led to the original decline in CFC use in the United States. The problem is how to organize the actions of the society of market-states in much the way nation-states were able to mobilize multilateral legal regulation. Law will continue to be a resource available to state but it will occupy a very different role in the world of market-states than it did in the world of nation-states.
The Long War was won by strategic innovations that we might nowadays call the development of weapons of mass destruction, the globalization of communications, and the international integration of finance and trade. These strategic innovations have brought with them new challenges that now face the society of states that the end of the Long War is bringing into being. Three fundamental choices confront the society of market-states with respect to each of these challenges. Until they have been made, we will live in a period of transition.
These choices are (1) regarding weapons of mass destruction: (a) whether to attempt affirmatively to check the proliferation of such weapons, through extended deterrence, and to suppress proliferation through ad hoc intervention, or (b) whether to rely on multilateral arms-control agreements, accepting as inevitable that some proliferation will occur outside these agreements, or (c) whether to rely on the wholesome effects of internal liberalization through economic growth and mutual deterrence to contain this proliferation; (2) with respect to the globalization of communications: (a) whether to address the linked issues of immigration and human rights by encouraging a global network of economic growth premised on the transparency of sovereignty, or (b) whether to cultivate the fragmentation of states within “umbrella” megastates, or (c) whether to strengthen the protection of national cultures and the regionalization of international law; (3) with regard to the international integration of finance and trade: (a) whether to increase the absolute wealth of the society of market-states, taken as a whole, without regard for distributional effects, or (b) whether to manage growth with an eye to short- and medium-term distributional effects, or (c) whether to encourage economic stability through growth tempered by a regard for long-term balance.
Some market-states will doubtless attempt to mix and match these alternative policies but as a general matter one or another set of mutually supporting policies—(a/a/a) or (b/b/b) or (c/c/c)—will rise to dominance in each state because these options reflect different views of state sover-eeignty. A state that relies on pre-emption to thwart nuclear proliferation is all the more likely to support transparency in sovereignty when it comes to human-rights violations. A state that is anxious to preserve the cultural integrity of its minority groups is unlikely to pursue economic strategies that shred the social contract. Inevitably, one of these sets of approaches—entrepreneurial, managerial, or mercantile—will dominate the constitution of the society of market-states, because a society of states that pursued policies that were inconsistent with respect to state sovereignty would produce an incoherent and unstable constitution.
Which model of the market-state is best? I would answer by recalling the moving scene* in Act III of Gotthold Lessing's dramatic poem, “Nathan the Wise.” Lessing was a German author of the Enlightenment;† the play is his last major work.
Nathan, a Jew, is summoned before Saladin, the great Muslim warrior. Saladin asks him which religion is the true one—Islam, Christianity, or Judaism—hoping to trap Nathan into either denying his own faith or insulting Islam by implication, in which case his property will be confiscated.
In reply, Nathan narrates the parable of the Three Rings.‡ A wise king possessed a ring, the wearer of which was said to be beloved of God and man. He had three sons, to each of whom he promised the ring. When the king died, each heir was given a ring, and all three rings appeared to be identical to that of the old king. When the sons went to the royal judge and demanded to know which ring was the real one, the judge said to them:
Your father, the king, wore a ring of which it was said that the wearer would be beloved of God and man. Each of you has been given a ring. Wear your rings. Do your best to be beloved of God and man. Let your rings descend to your heirs. Then someday, some future judge will assess your work and know whether you had the right ring.§43
While it is likely, as we will see in the following chapter, that states may choose different forms of the market-state—and experiment with hybrid forms—each state must decide on the basis of the constraints on its resources, its heritage, and its destiny what archetypal form best confers legitimacy.