Competitive Emulation: II

Competition emulation may operate subtly even in the absence of direct competition. A citation from Mark Twain will illustrate:

In his essay on "The Late Benjamin Franklin" there occurs the following reminiscence: "When I was a child I had to boil soap, notwithstanding my father was wealthy, and I had to get up early and study geometry at breakfast, and peddle my own poetry and do everything just as Franklin did, in the solemn hope that I would be a Franklin some day. And here I am."

The young Twain was, of course, emulating competitively. His childhood experience exemplifies the hope, basic to the operation of competitive emulation, that one may achieve success by imitating it. Nations cherish this hope no less than individuals.

Nations, too, seek models of competitive success. And in the post-war world the two most influential models are those of the two super powers whose histories read like Horatio Alger stories--the U.S. and U.S.S.R. Hence there is a tendency among lesser nations toward emulation of the two Cold War antagonists. This tendency should not be confused with the passing infatuation which the ex-colonial states have been showing for the trappings of nation-hood. The familiar insistence of every infant state that it be provided with an army, an airline, a steel mill, and a vote in the UN indicates emulation of established states in general rather than the U.S. and U.S.S.R. in particular. Emulation of the Cold War Powers is less demonstrable, but perhaps more influential.

Despite their self-proclaimed differences, the United States and Soviet Union present a common image of national powers. Both are super-states with continental markets, large populations, and gigantic industrial firms. Both give the impression that strength somehow lies in size and massive industrial organization. Both, in short, suggest that an integrated region is the structural key to might.

Imitation of the regionalist pattern has already begun. Economically, regionalism has proceeded farthest in Europe. The European Common Market has completed its third stage of tariff reductions, accepted Greece as an associate member, and indicated a willingness to come to terms with Britain, the leader of the European Free Trade Area. European dreams of an integrated economy and independence in the Cold War may not be far from fulfillment.

Rudimentary economic regionalism is evident in other parts of the world. A year and one-half ago, Argentina organized the Latin American Free Trade Area to improve the economic bargaining power power of member states. A Central American Common Market is also in nominal existence. The Arab League has indicated a desire to exapnd its economic authority beyond the present provisions for boycott of Israel. Under Soviet hegemony Eastern Europe has been a 'free trade' area for over a decade. And the feeble Ghana-Guinea economic union is at least an indication of the regionalist predeliction of the young states of Africa.

"Competitive emulation" is an admittedly dubious term, but "creeping regionalism" is not. For regionalism is spurred on not only by the desire to emulate success but by growing feelings of regional solidarity. New African, Arab, Magreb, and Latin American nationalisms are galvanizers of such solidarity; bloc voting in the United Nations is evidence of it.

To suggest that regionalism will culminate in a universal merger movement would be premature. The world is far from the Orwellian prediction of a globe divided into three continental states. But surely the unconscious emulation of the super-state pattern perceivable in regionalist unions will have more influence on world history than boiling soap had on the life of Mark Twain.