A Parliament of the Not-So-Foolish. OpenDemocracy conducts a transgenerational debate between two radical writers assessing the prospects and problems confronting the self-described global justice movement.

Todd Gitlin represents the hard-won wisdom of the 60s in the US. George Monbiot represents the thinking going on in Britain iand Europe today.

Monbiot proposes a World Parliament ginned up from an international melange of radical NGOs in the hope it can "bust the straitjacket" of conventional national politics and create a new way of planetary governance.

Gitlin is more of a "work within the system" type, who suggests diversity can also be diffusion, which is not necessarily the best thing to have when trying to focus attention on compelling change.

Here is a sample:

Todd Gitlin: My question concerns one of its central proposals, a world parliament. This would be a new entity, elected on a one-person, one-vote basis on a global scale. The idea is to jump-start a process so that the moral authority and spirit of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) becomes institutionalised, and acquires a legitimacy which the United Nations cannot have because so many of its member states are undemocratic. As a uniquely elected world body it will have biggest possible claim to legitimacy. This, ultimately, will give it real power. Furthermore, George, you propose it can be done pretty much on the cheap, that it can be done simply by doing it.

This is as radical in its way as the founding of a more or less democratic republic in the American Revolution. It’s an extremely bold notion. Can a critical mass of organisers be brought together for a period of, perhaps, decades? I don’t know. It’s certainly worth a hard look. I’m enough of a believer in the power of organisation.

George is as sceptical of populism as I am. But successful revolutionaries of whatever kind are those who start to hum the right song at the right time, and then discover that lots of other people are singing along. Is this the right song at the right time? Can you make a case, George, that enough people are ready for this move?

George Monbiot: I cannot put my hand on my heart and say, yes, this revolution is imminent. As you suggested it will be a very long process if the process is going to take place at all.

But I do have a strong impression from around the world that two things are happening. First, large numbers of people are waking up to the idea that things just cannot carry on the way they are, both for environmental reasons such as climate change, and for economic and financial reasons such as debt and the increasingly predatory attentions of the IMF and the World Bank. This gives us a good starting point for action. If people say, well, your alternatives can’t possibly work, we can turn round and say, well, your existing system can’t possibly work.

Second, there is a great hunger for new ideas, a way forward, a new political programme. Wherever I’ve spoken so far – even in Britain, which is one of the most backward countries as far as the global justice movement is concerned – there has been a far more enthusiastic reception than I’d anticipated.

Read it all here.