Posted August 5, 2015

      In a June 19 post in his blog, “Diary of a Heartland Radical,” on the occasion of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States, Harry Targ wrote:

     Although I generally like what Harry writes in his blog, I have difficulties with the above paragraph.  First, I do not believe that people in the United States, including those of us who support the Cuban Revolution and/or consider ourselves socialists, should be encouraging one or another direction in the evolution of the Cuban revolutionary project.  We should have full respect for Cuban autonomy and their right, as a sovereign people and nation, to decide on the future development of their socialist project of national liberation, in accordance with their principles, needs, and historical experiences.  Moreover, they have a far greater understanding of their problems and issues than we do.  And by virtue of their historical experiences, they also have a far greater understanding of the meaning of revolution and socialism, and of the pitfalls confronting a nation seeking true independence in a neocolonial world-system.

      Secondly, the paragraph implies that the Cuban revolutionary project did not have a commitment to the empowerment of workers and workplace democracy prior to the adoption in 2012 by the National Assembly of Popular Power of the new economic and social model.  But this is not at all the case.  Since the 1960s, in state enterprises and in cooperatives, workers have been organized, freely electing their leaders, who serve in joint committees with managers in the decision-making process and in the development of the enterprise.  Moreover, the workers’ federation, along with parallel mass organizations of women, students, and neighborhoods, have a constitutionally-mandated voice in the commissions of the National Assembly, itself formed by structures of popular democracy.  The agricultural cooperatives formed in the 1960s have been among the most successful enterprises, in terms of productivity as well as the development in practice of a process of participatory democracy from below, and this is one of the reasons that the new model encourages the expansion of cooperatives to other sectors.

     The changes underway in the new economic and social model are significant, but change is not new in revolutionary Cuba.  The Cuban scholar Jesus Arboleya describes seven stages since 1959 prior to the adoption of the new economic and social model.  See “The Cuban revolutionary project and its development in historical and global context” for a description of the stages in the evolution of the Cuban socialist project as well as for a description of Cuban structures of popular democracy, which are distinct from representative democracy.

      The motivation behind and the characteristics of the new economic and social model are complex.  I would say that above all it is driven by a desire to increase productivity, in order to comply with the expectations of the people.  The policies adopted in the early 1990s in response to the collapse of the socialist bloc have been successful in providing for the needs of the people.  The difference in the material conditions of the people between 1993 and now are stunning.  But the recovery has not kept pace with the expectations of the people, and there is an undercurrent of dissatisfaction with material conditions, leading to an erosion in revolutionary fervor (but not opposition to the revolution).  So the revolutionary leadership, always in tune with the pulse of the people, is committed to improving productivity and material conditions, in order to keep the people on board in support of the revolutionary project.  To this end, they have adopted many strategies, such as expansion of cooperatives and self-employment, a loosening of restrictions on foreign investment, and encouragement of criticism of customs and procedures that create problems or inhibit productivity.

     In the conclusion to his post, Harry asserts that we have “an opportunity to educate Americans to the reality that the United States is not ‘the indispensable nation,’ but one among many with virtues and flaws.”  I would go further in describing our task of educating the people of the United States.  We should teach that the US government is a government of, by and for the corporations and the wealthy, and that we should follow the example of our brothers and sisters in Latin America, who have used electoral processes to cast aside traditional political parties that represent the elite and to put into power new parties that serve as delegates of the people.


Key words: Cuba, socialism, US intellectuals

Posted August 6, 2015

    In response to my critique of Harry Targ’s blog post (see “Role of US intellectuals", Part I), Cliff DuRand wrote:

I am in agreement that, as persons committed to a fully democratic and just society, we US intellectuals of the Left should criticize Obama and all twentieth century presidents for the continuous application of imperialist policies, which have been integral to the development and maintenance of the neocolonial world-system.  I have written several blog posts on US imperialism and neocolonialism, including a post on April 22 on “The imperialist discourse of Obama.”  (See View from the South: Imperialism and View from the South: Neocolonialism).

     But in addition to critiques of the dominating structures of the world-system, we intellectuals of the Left should critically reflect on our perspectives.  I believe that the discourse of the Left is an important factor in our limited influence, and that we need to reconstruct our discourse on the basis of the assumptions and values of the revolutionary movements of the Third World.  

     I was critical of a paragraph that Harry wrote, because it seemed to reflect a tendency in the US Left to assume that we know what should be done around the world.  But we in the US Left really do not have the credentials that would qualify us to know what courses of action Third World revolutionary governments should take.   Although progressive popular movements in the United States have registered impressive gains in making the nation more democratic, they have accomplished far less than popular movements in Cuba, Latin America and Southeast Asia.  The Cuban movement, for example, managed to overcome internal divisions and to take control of the government, and to maintain control of the political, economic and cultural structures of the nation for more than fifty years, in spite of the hostility of its powerful neighbor to the north.  We progressives in the United States have not accomplished anything close to this.  In this situation, there are fundamental questions that we should ask: How did the Cuban popular movement do it?  What are lessons that we can learn from their achievements?  How can we apply these lessons to our reality?  I think that we should do a lot less suggesting concerning what they should do, and much more listening and learning.

     How do we arrive at an understanding of what should be done or what the characteristics of a just society are?  The most insightful ideas emerge from popular movements forged from below, fueled by a collective experiential understanding of the structures of domination and exploitation, and by a tremendous thirst for social justice.  The yearnings and spontaneous action of the people establish fertile ground for the nurturing of leaders and intellectuals, and charismatic leaders who are both leaders and intellectuals.  This process of popular movement from below in response to domination is the source of advances in human understanding with respect to the dynamics of domination and the characteristics of a just society.

     We relatively privileged intellectuals of the middle class of core nations can advance our understanding by encounter with the popular movements from below, listening to the teachings of their charismatic leaders, and carefully observing their dynamics and strategies.  Our understanding emerges from this continuous observation of and listening to the movement unfolding from below.  In arriving at an understanding of imperialism and neocolonialism, for example, my thinking has been shaped by years of encounter with organic intellectuals of the Third World, specifically the African-American community, Africa, Central America, and Cuba.  I believe that listening to the voices of the Third World, seeking thereby to deepen our insight, is central to advances in understanding in the political culture of the North.

     Accordingly, I believe that we should not be oriented to suggesting to the movements of the South what they ought to be doing.  In more than forty years of encounter with organic intellectuals of the Third World, I have arrived at the conclusion that they have a more advanced understanding than we do.  In these years of encounter seeking understanding, I have not forgotten the criticism of white liberal paternalism by African-Americans during the period 1966-72, and I have sought to listen and learn, rather than to instruct.

      When we do not sufficiently encounter Third World revolutionary movements, we do not fully understand the structures of domination nor the necessary processes and strategies for their democratic transformation.  This severely limits our capacity to politically act effectively.  Our people are confused, manipulated by the ideological distortions of the elite and their puppets; but the people know enough to know that we intellectuals of the Left do not know.  We support revolutions in other lands, without seeking to develop one in our own nation.  We are content to “speak truth to power” on behalf of the people, rather than seeking to take power in the name of the people.  Of course, our support for revolutions in other lands is critical; we offer criticisms of revolutionary projects in other nations on the basis of abstract concepts that are informed by our cultural and intellectual context and that are disconnected from real social movement.

     I have not forgotten the teachings of Malcolm X, who counseled sincere whites to dedicate themselves to the political education of white society.  Our task as US intellectuals, on the basis of the understanding that we form through encounter, is to strive to create the subjective conditions that would make possible the emergence of a revolutionary popular movement in the United States that would seek to take power in the name of the people and that would cooperate with the nations and movements of the world in the creation of a more just, democratic and sustainable world-system.  This is not an easy task, but it is our duty; with the privilege to study, comes obligation.


Key words: Cuba, socialism, revolution, intellectuals

     Cliff DuRand of the Center for Global Justice has written an article on cooperatives in Cuba.   It presents a contrast between a twentieth century state socialism from above in Cuba and a twenty-first century socialism from below, most clearly exemplified by the expansion of cooperatives in the Cuban social and economic model adopted in 2012.  In contrast to DuRand’s view, I interpret the evolution of the Cuban revolutionary project in terms of continuity, a constant evolution in response to a continually changing national and international situation.  

     To be sure, there were some tendencies prior to 2012 toward passive acceptance among the people to direction from above, in spite of the efforts of the leadership to develop structures of popular power and popular participation.  A few Cuban academics have written of the phenomenon.  But neither the Cuban leadership, journalists, nor people have demonstrated much awareness or concern with the problem.  In my view, it is a normal phenomenon.  In the best of circumstances, some 25% or 30% of the people will be creative, dynamic, and hardworking; but most people will support the society in a more passive form, except for particular moments of national challenge, when sacrifice and commitment will soar.

     DuRand’s article suggests that there was popular dissatisfaction with the decision-making process prior to 2012.  But I have not found dissatisfaction in Cuba with the decision-making process developed by the revolution, or a belief that Cuba had a top-down form of socialism prior to 2012.  Indeed, there is a fair amount of national pride with respect to the alternative structures of popular participation and popular democracy that have been developed in revolutionary Cuba, institutionalized in the 1970s.  

     Without question, the overwhelming and principal dissatisfaction since the 1990s has been with respect to the level of production, the limited resources of the country, and the low income of most people.  This material dissatisfaction has become stronger in the last five years or so, and it has arisen because of an increasing popular tendency to use the consumer societies of the North as a frame of reference, a phenomenon that has emerged as a result of the growing number of tourists, and because of emigration to the societies of the North by Cubans who support their families in Cuba.  Tourism and emigration have been central to the economic recovery since 1993.  But they have contributed to a material dissatisfaction among the people, even as material needs have been increasingly met.  The rising expectations of the people include desires for necessities (better housing and transportation), items that are not necessary but useful (cell phones and Internet access), and false needs (designer clothes and jewelry).

      The Cuban leadership has responded to this new situation with a concerted national campaign to increase production in order to satisfy the expectations of the people.  The campaign includes decentralization of decision-making, accompanied by exhortations that the people should openly identify sources of problems in production, so that the problems can be addressed and efficiency improved.  It includes an expansion of cooperatives to non-agricultural sectors, with the hope that this will expand work incentive and improve efficiency. And it includes changes that can be seen as movements toward capitalism or a capitalist attitude:  expansion in self-employment, expansion of small-scale capitalism, less restrictions with respect to foreign investment, and the connection of wages to productivity. These capitalist-like measures, it should be understood, are not concessions to a national bourgeoisie or to foreign capital; they are concessions to the people, and they are made with the belief that they will improve production to the benefit of the people.  And they are made with recognition that the people have suffered and sacrificed much, and their needs and desires should be met.

      The concessions to the people with respect to self-employment and small-scale capitalism is a dynamic that has been unfolding for many years.  In poor societies, people invent concrete ways to survive and/or improve their material circumstances.  These include working as small-scale retail traders and independent service providers in such trades as carpentry, plumbing, house repair, hairdressing, taxi driving and cafeteria services.  In Cuba prior to 2012, there was limited space for such individual entrepreneurship in the formal economy, so people engaged in it “on the side.”  When they needed materials for their crafts, they often would acquire them illegally from state employees who had access to them.  Inasmuch as the materials were destined to some other purpose in state planning, this form of corruption contributed to inefficiency in government projects.  This dynamic had been present in socialist Cuba from the beginning, but with the economic difficulties following the collapse of the socialist bloc, it increased significantly, becoming a serious problem.  

      The new social and economic model of 2012 seeks to address this problem.  In expanding self-employment in 2012, the government was recognizing small-scale entrepreneurial work as legitimate and as part of the formal economy, so that people now can much more readily attain licenses in these trades and services.  And the same time, the government is making necessary materials available for purchase in state stores, so there is no need to buy them on the side; a reform that is coupled with government clampdown on corruption, so that state projects can be carried out more efficiently.

       In significantly expanding small-scale entrepreneurship, the party and the government have taken a decision that goes against the classic socialist view that work should be collective.  But the view of the Cuban government is that dignified individual work has a place in a socialist society, insofar as the workers are organized into labor organizations, and they are part of a society in which the principal institutions of the economy and the media are managed by the state, which is controlled by structures of popular democracy.  The concession of small-scale entrepreneurship by the revolution to the people is consistent with the notion that socialism is defined by the people in practice.

      From a socialist point of view, the desire of the people for dignified individual labor is not as challenging as the growing consumerism of the people, stimulated by tourism and emigration, which is in tension with the view of the new socialist person formulated by Che Guevara in the 1960s.  In my view, the Cuban revolutionary experience of the last twenty years shows that it is very difficult to cultivate and maintain a purely socialist attitude among the people in the context of a capitalist world-economy and an international consumer society.  

     But at the same time, Cuba has been able to develop the new socialist person among a significant minority, comprising 25% to 30% of the people.  Formed by socialist educational institutions and the media, with the support of families with revolutionary traditions, these socialist persons have a solid understanding of national and international dynamics, and they have a strong commitment to universal human values.  They serve as dedicated professionals in health, education, journalism, and other fields; and they serve as leaders in the mass organizations and in the political structures of popular power.  They form in practice a revolutionary vanguard, and they are central to the survival and continued growth of the revolutionary project.  They are of the people, for they come from all sectors of the people, and they are connected to the people, by blood, emotion and spirit.  But a distinction can and should be made between the vanguard and the people.  

       The recent national congress of the Union of Communist Youth, covered on national television, provided clear evidence of a youth vanguard with advanced understanding and commitment to socialist values, a youth vanguard that has been formed in spite of the fact that its members were born in the depths of the Special Period.  One of the delegates eloquently expressed the view that a “war of thought” is on the horizon, as US ideas and presence will increase in the next years.  He called upon the delegates to be effective in explaining to the people the virtues and benefits of socialism.  Another delegate described it as a battle between a society that calls people to a form of being, and a society that manipulates people to acquire things.  In his address to the Congress, Cuban Vice-President Miguel Díaz Canel expressed it as a struggle between a society guided by universal human values and a society ruled by the market.  The vice-president also noted that the proceedings of the Congress clearly demonstrated that the revolution had succeeded in forming the new socialist person that Che envisioned.

     I am confident that the Cuban vanguard is winning and will prevail in the “war of thought,” which Fidel has called the “Battle of Ideas,” because of the high moral and intellectuals qualities of the youth vanguard, and because there is a deep fund of respect for the revolutionary project and the revolutionary leadership among the people, even if they do not fully embody the new socialist person.

      The evolution of the socialist project in Cuba parallels the evolution of the popular movements in Latin America, where “Socialism for the Twenty-First Century” has been declared, with Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador at the vanguard.  Today’s Latin American socialism distances itself from twentieth century socialism in Eastern Europe, but it has embraced twentieth century socialism in Cuba, considering Cuba to be the model of Latin American dignity.  Like twentieth century socialism, Latin American socialism sees the state as playing a central role in economic development, but it recognizes multiple forms of property as legitimate, including private property, cooperatives, and joint ventures with domestic and foreign capital, in addition to state ownership.  Like twentieth century socialism, Latin American socialism today is led by charismatic leaders and a vanguard in each nation; however, the vanguard is not conceived as being formed from the working class, but from multiple popular sectors, including workers, peasants, students, women, the middle class, indigenous persons, and ecologists.  

       Revolutionary and progressive governments in Latin America have changed the political reality of the region during the last twenty years.  They provide important lessons for Leftist activists and intellectuals of the North.


Key words: Cuba, socialism, vanguard, cooperatives

Posted August 10, 2015

​     In reflecting on Cliff DuRand’s support of cooperatives in Cuba (see “Cooperatives and social change in Cuba” 8/7/2015), it seemed to me that DuRand’s view reflects a subtle form of utopian socialism.  In formulating historical materialism, Marx endeavored to place socialist thought on a scientific foundation.  He envisioned a transition to socialism on the basis of empirical observation of possibilities contained in existing economic and political conditions.  After Marx, socialist thought could move beyond a utopian and idealist vision for humanity and project a real possibility through the practical resolution of contradictions in the existing political-economic system.  But DuRand, in advocating the expansion of cooperatives and the reduction of state property and small-scale private party, is advocating a direction for the future of the socialist project on the basis of idealist conceptions and not on the basis of real challenges and possibilities in Cuba.

     To be sure, cooperatives are a part of the Cuban socialist project, developed in agriculture in the 1960s, expanded in the agricultural sector in the 1990s, and expanded to non-agricultural sectors in the new economic and social model of 2012.  But DuRand’s idealist view of cooperatives causes him to exaggerate the role of the cooperatives in the new social and economic model, and to misinterpret the evolution of the Cuban revolutionary project from 1959 to the present.  In my last post, I attempted to describe the new social and economic model in a form that is more consistent with the constantly evolving Cuban empirical social reality (“Cooperatives and social change in Cuba” 8/7/2015).

     Utopian socialism has a long history in the United States.  During the nineteenth century, concentration of ownership of the means of production led to growing popular awareness that that the US economic system functioned for the benefit of the few and ignored the welfare of the people.  In this economic and ideological context, Robert Owen, a Welsh factory owner, and Charles Fourier, a French entrepreneur, proposed the development of cooperative communities, which would remove ownership and control from a handful of capitalists.  They and their followers in the United States believed that capitalists could be persuaded to invest in cooperative communities, since it was the best way to avoid a revolution from below stimulated by the working class (Foner 1975:170-72).

     Robert Owen came to the United States in 1825.  He addressed the House of Representatives on two occasions, which included the attendance of the president, the president-elect, and heads of departments.  His frequent addresses across the nation were fully reported in the US press.  From 1825 to 1827, nineteen Owenite communities were established in New York, Ohio and Indiana (Foner 1975: 173).  

     Fourier’s ideas also had significant influence in the United States.  His greatest disciple in the United States, Albert Brisbane, disseminated his ideas in various books and articles and in the columns of the New York Tribune, founded by Horace Greeley, in the early 1840s.  Fourierism had thousands of adherents, and forty Fourierist communities was established across the nation.  The most famous of them, Brook Farm, counted among its associates the intellectual giants of the time, including Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne (Foner 1975:174-77).

      The Owenite and Fourierist communities failed.  Their principle problem was the inability to attract sufficient capital for investment (Foner 1975:173, 177-78).  During the 1840s and 1850s, in spite of the practical failure of their project, the utopian advocates of cooperative communities had significant influence in the working class movement.  Utopians were opposed to the reform of capitalism, and thus they were against the strategy of striking to increase wages and reduce labor hours, even when this was understood as integral to a long-term transition to socialism.  They tried to convince workers that anything less than the total and immediate abolition of capitalism would have no positive effect.  Middle class reformers often entered the working class organizations and took control of them, undermining political and social action in defense of workers’ needs (Foner 1975:188-90, 206, 211).

      But middle class utopianism was on the decline, unable to deliver on its promises, as a result of the refusal of the capitalist class to cooperate in its vision.  At the same time, producers’ cooperatives, formed from below by workers, were economically impossible, as a result of the ruthless competition practiced by the largest capitalist enterprises, as we will see in the next post.  

     But another approach was emerging.  During the 1840s, a permanent class of factory workers began to develop.  Permanent factory workers began to forge a movement that sought to bring the advances of industrialization to workers through political and economic struggle and united action.  Against the utopians, they understood that the interests of capitalists and workers were in conflict, and that the organization by workers was necessary for the attainment of a better life.

      The working class organizations formed by workers, seeking improvement in conditions through the strike, was a force that, distinct from cooperative communities, could not be ignored; and distinct from workers’ cooperatives, could not be defeated and eliminated.  During the course of more than a century, the factory owners were compelled to make reformist concessions to this force from below, which, however, preserved the essence of the capitalist system.

      We can understand today that the reformist concessions in the United States and other core nations were made possible by the superexploitation of vast regions of the planet, which would become politically unsustainable by the 1960s.  And they were in part financed by government deficit spending, which reached its limits during the 1970s.  Thus the reform of the capitalist system in response to the demands of organized workers ultimately would not be a sustainable resolution of the contradictions of the capitalist world-economy.

     That US capitalists would not support a transition from concentrated private ownership to cooperative communities could not be known in the 1840s.  It could be imagined as a reasonable option, emerging as a resolution of the contradictions of the capitalist system, which generates a permanent class war.  But during the second half of the nineteenth century, in the era of the Robber Barons, the capitalist class demonstrated that it was prepared to use all methods, legal or not, peaceful or not, in its quest to stabilize a high margin of profits, even at the expense of the good of the nation in the long run.  And since 1980, the capitalist class has demonstrated that it is prepared to put the survival of humanity at risk in the aggressive pursuit of short-term profits.  So at the present time, it would be idealist and utopian to believe that the capitalist class would possibly cooperate in the development of a more just and democratic world-system.  We can only conclude that the capitalist class must be dislodged from political power by popular movement, if political stability in the world-system is to be attained and the survival of humanity ensured.

     Although utopianism and cooperatives demonstrated their lack of viability in the nineteenth century, they continued to survive in the form of idealist hopes of the people.  They were manifest in the hippie communal movement of the late 1960s and in the localism of the Occupy Movement today.   We must, however, follow the example of Marx.  We must seek to overcome the temptations of utopianism and to be scientific in our understanding, basing our projections on real possibilities.  The example of Cuba is instructive in this regard.  In Cuba, the popular revolution first took control of the state, and then proceeded to develop cooperatives along with other forms of property, both private and state, in accordance with real needs and possibilities, as we will discuss in the next post.  Rather that supporting cooperatives in Cuba as against the other forms of property developed by the Cuban Revolution, we should follow the example of Cuba: we should form in our own nation a popular movement that seeks to take power and to subsequently develop forms of property that are real possibilities and that respond to the material and cultural needs of our people.

Posted August 11, 2015

​     In the aftermath of the failure of the cooperative communities in the United States (see “Utopian socialism in the USA” 8/10/2015), a movement for the formation of workers’ cooperatives emerged.  These were different from the Owenite and Fourierist cooperative communities, which were to be organized by enlightened capitalists who recognized that capitalism is not politically sustainable in the long-term.  The worker’s cooperatives were organized by workers; they were cooperatives from below.  However, in spite of this evident virtue, the workers’ cooperatives also were utopian, in the sense that they did not have real possibility for economic survival in the context of the capitalist system in which they were located.

     The first workers’ cooperative was formed by striking iron molders in Cincinnati in 1848, who established a cooperative foundry to support themselves during the strike.  The venture was initially successful, and by 1850, the venture was chartered by the State of Ohio, and it had forty members.  Inspired by the example, a host of producers’ cooperatives were established by workers across the country (Foner 1975:178-81).

     However, the cooperatives were destroyed by capitalists through the strategy of “ruthless competition.”   The strategy involves selling at a price below cost in order to eliminate competition, a maneuver that can only be adopted by a large company with sufficient capital to engage in an economic war against targeted companies.  In the era of the Robber Barons, ruthless competition was employed against both workers’ cooperatives and small-scale private property, and it was central to the emergence of large-scale and concentrated capitalism in the second half of the nineteenth century in the United States.  Once a few concentrated companies emerge in an industry, they are in a position to cooperate with one another in establishing high prices and stability in high profit margins (Foner 1975:180, 183; Josephson 2011).

      The destruction of workers’ cooperatives and small-scale private enterprises demonstrates the need for popular control of the state, which can establish effective legislation against ruthless competition and price fixing.  At the end of the nineteenth century, there was legislation against monopoly capital, but inasmuch as the state remained in the control of the capitalist class, the legislation was full of loopholes, and it was inconsistently enforced (Josephson 2011).  In contrast, a state truly under the control of the people, and not merely in rhetoric, can effectively eliminate capitalist practices that are attacks on the people in the pursuit of profit.  It also can nationalize companies, if the economic and political conditions are appropriate; and it can provide technical and financial support to workers’ cooperatives.     

     In the case of Cuba, real possibility for cooperatives has existed both politically and economically since the triumph of the revolution in 1959.  In the 1960s, cooperatives were formed voluntarily by independent small scale farmers, encouraged by the state and with ample structures of state support.  These cooperatives still exist today, and they have been very successful economically, politically, and culturally. However, the judgment of the revolution during the 1960s was that the formation of workers’ cooperatives in the large-scale sugar and coffee plantations would introduce a host of practical problems.  So the revolutionary government, having nationalized privately-owned plantations, converted them into state-managed enterprises, combining state management with structures of popular democracy from below.  With the collapse of the socialist bloc in the 1990s, the state-managed farms were converted into cooperatives, with the intention of stimulating greater worker incentive and making the plantations economically independent and viable.  The results have been mixed.  At the present time, taking into account the desire by the people to improve the standard of living and the energy of an informal entrepreneurial class, the social and economic model of 2012 is expanding the possibilities for cooperatives in the non-agricultural sector, hoping that this will improve productivity.  Thus, in each moment, steps toward cooperatives were taken in response to real needs and a real possibilities, based on analysis of economic and social conditions.

     What role should the cooperatives play in the development of the Cuban socialist economy in the future?  What should be their weight relative to small-scale private entrepreneurship or state companies?  The answer to these questions should not be driven by utopian or idealist expectations.  They should be based on actual needs and real possibilities.  In fact, the revolutionary government sees possibilities not only with respect to the expansion of cooperatives, but also in the expansion of small-scale private property and joint ventures with foreign capital.  Cuba is not so much moving toward cooperatives at the present time but toward the development of a mixed economy, under state direction and regulation, in a manner consistent with the new forms of socialism that are emerging in Latin America.  In this historic moment, the meaning of socialism is being redefined in Latin America by governments whose authority rests on a foundation of popular movements.

    For those of us who are intellectuals of the core nations, our task is not to suggest one or another direction in the evolution of socialism in Third World nations, but to reflect on the possibilities for the development of popular revolutions in our own nations, revolutions that would seek to take power in the name of the people and that would develop forms of property that respond to the needs of the people.

References

Foner, Philip S.  1975.  History of the Labor Movement in the United States, Volume I: From Colonial Times to the Founding of the American Federation of Labor.  New York: International Publishers.

Josephson, Matthew.  2011.  The Robber Barons: The Great American Capitalists, 1861-1901.  New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Publishers.  Originally published in 1934 by Harcourt, Brace, and Company.


Key words:  Cuba, cooperatives, socialism, utopian

Posted July 18, 2014

​     In response to my post and announcement that mentioned the participation of China in the development of alternative international structures by the governments of the South, Alan Spector, Past President of the Association for Humanist Sociology, posted the following message to the Progressive and  Critical Sociologist Network discussion list.

    The position taken by most Cuban scholars is that China has exploitative commercial relations to the extent that the commercial partner accepts it, as had occurred with respect to Chinese relations with some African nations, but that China accepts more equitable terms of exchange, if required by the partner nation, as has occurred with respect to progressive Latin American governments.  The latter tendency has been more prominent in the last ten years, as an increasing number of nations are beginning to search for mechanisms of autonomous development.  Thus, Chinese foreign policy is fundamentally different from US policy, which seeks to overthrow governments that insist upon exchange that is more equitable.

      An analogy between the United States 100 years ago and China today is interesting.  Certainly, both the USA then and China today can be seen as in the early stages of a project of ascent.  But the historical and global context is different.  The United States had begun its ascent in the eighteenth century on the basis of geographical expansionism, super-exploitation of slave labor in the Caribbean and the US South, and the beginnings of US imperialist penetration in Latin America and the Caribbean (see “Slavery, development, and US ascent” 8/30/2013; “Cotton” 9/9/2013; “The origin of US imperialist policies” 9/18/2013; “US Imperialism, 1903-1932” 9/19/2013).  At the dawn of the twentieth century, the United States could envision its continuing ascent through the deepening of imperialist penetration in colonized and neocolonized regions, and thus imperialism emerged as the foundation for US foreign policy during the twentieth century.

       But the possibilities for ascent through imperialist penetration are much more limited today, as a result of the fact that the world-system has reached its geographical limits, and thus is itself facing a structural and possibly terminal crisis (see “The terminal crisis of the world-system” 3/28/2014).  As a result, China sees a different road to ascent:  relations with semi-peripheral nations that also are seeking ascent, on the basis of the more equitable relations upon which all insist.  China, although a larger and more powerful nation that has never been colonized, has in common with other semi-peripheral nations the persistent struggle for autonomy in the face of European expansionism.  For China, the most practical strategy in the present global context is to cast its lot with other semi-peripheral nations seeking ascent, who see the defense of their national interests as requiring the democratic transformation of the world-system. Recognizing that there is strength in unity, the semi-peripheral nations also are inviting the poorer peripheralized countries to participate, nations that also have been victimized by the same process of Western colonialism and imperialism. 

     In following a different road, the emerging semi-peripheral nations are redefining the meaning of ascent.  Rather than pursuing national interests through superexploitation of labor in other lands and at the expense of other nations, the emerging nations seek national development through cooperation with other nations, seeking to identify forms of economic, commercial, and cultural exchange that are mutually beneficial, and to develop political alliances on this basis. They are following a logic of national development that is integral to a process of change that seeks a more just and democratic world, recognizing that the neocolonial world-system has reached the geographical limits of the earth and has surpassed its ecological limits, and appreciating that the utilization of structures of neocolonial exploitation as a basis of ascent is no longer possible.  In the present historic moment, advances in development for any nation have to occur on a foundation of cooperation with other nations.  Not recognizing this fundamental fact of our time, the established global powers continue to aggressively pursue interests through super-exploitation of the peoples of the earth, and in the process, they are establishing the foundation for a new form of fascism or an era of chaos.

     So there is emerging a global project from the South that seeks to develop an alternative to the North American-European-centered neocolonial world-system.   China, Russia, Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina and others are among the principal actors in the creation of alternative international structures (see “A change of epoch?” 3/18/2014; “Is Marx today fulfilled?” 3/20/2014; and “The alternative world-system from below” 4/15/2014).

     Alan is not necessarily among them, but many people believe that “power corrupts,” and to believe that every powerful nation will be imperialist is perhaps a social application of this maxim. The notion that persons with power and governments of powerful nations invariably ignore universal human values is a cynical and pernicious belief, for it implies that a more just and democratic world cannot be created. Against this notion, I maintain that the Third World revolution of the last 200 years shows that there are persons who possess power in the form of charismatic authority who are committed to universal values, and that there have emerged governments controlled by popular social movements that have acted in accordance with international norms and democratic values.  And I maintain that the structural and possible terminal crisis of the world-system is establishing conditions that favor this possibility.  Today, as the neocolonized peoples of the earth are in movement, proclaiming that a more just and democratic world is possible and necessary, we intellectuals of the North have the duty to recognize and support this process, helping our peoples to cast aside cynicism and to embrace hope.


Key words:  Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, China, ascent

July 21, 2014

​     In response to my post of July 18 (“China and the alternative world-system”), Alan Spector has posted the following message in the Progressive and Critical Sociologist Network discussion list.

     In using the phrase “commercial partner,” I was referring to the government of a nation that signed a commercial agreement with China.  Most of the governments of Africa and Asia do not represent superexploited workers; rather, they represent the national bourgeoisie or a sector of it, such as the landed estate bourgeoisie, and they often represent the interests of international capital.  This reality, inherent in the neocolonial situation, is being challenged by the Third World popular revolution that has emerged with a renewed force since 1995.

     China does not use coercive measures, the threat of force or sanctions to induce governments to accept commercial agreements, and for this reason, Cuban scholars tend not to view China as an emerging imperialist power, even though some of these agreements, particularly with respect to Africa, are in opposition to the interests of workers and to the autonomy of the nation.  Certainly, neocolonized nations are not truly independent, and the neocolonial situation is itself coercive; but China takes no particular aggressive action, and in this respect, it departs from the conduct of the global powers, which also have historic responsibility for the establishment of the neocolonial world-system.  At the same time, China has increasingly moved toward the signing of agreements with progressive governments in Latin America that are controlled by popular sectors or a coalition of forces that include the popular sectors, agreements which have positive consequence for the people and for national development.  Such cooperation by China with progressive and Left governments contrasts sharply with the hostility of the United States and Western Europe toward these governments, and for this reason, China is held in high regard by the popular movement in Latin America.

       I take the notion of states as central actors in the modern world-system from the world-systems perspective of Immanuel Wallerstein, which was formulated in the 1970s on the basis of Wallerstein’s personal encounter with the African nationalist movements of the 1960s (see “Immanuel Wallerstein” 7/30/2013; “Wallerstein: A Critique” 7/31/0213; “Wallerstein and world-systems analysis” 3/25/2014). The idea makes a great deal of sense from the Third World perspective, inasmuch as states were the principal actors in the imposition of colonialism and neocolonialism; and to the extent that Third World movements have been able to reduce the effects of colonialism and neocolonialism, or to transform the colonial reality into a more democratic situation, it was accomplished by national liberation movements that took control of governments and implemented alternative policies.  So in the modern world-system, states have been central actors in domination and liberation.

       When we take the modern world-system as our unit of analysis and seek to understand its origin and development, we arrive at the understanding not only that nation-states are the principal actors in the world-system, but also that there is a fundamental division between colonizing and colonized nation-states (see “Overcoming the colonial denial” 7/29/2013; and “Dialectic of domination and development” 10/30/2013).  And we see that this colonial divide effects the character of exploitation.  In the colonial situation, the workers are not only exploited in Marx’s sense, receiving wages that are less than the value of the products that they produce; but they also are “superexploited,” receiving less than what is necessary for life (“Unequal exchange” 8/5/2013).  In contrast, in the core region of the world economy, where colonizing nations are located, workers were superexploited during an earlier phase, but as the capitalist world-economy developed, the capitalist class was able to utilize profits from the exploitation of the colonies to make concessions to workers’ movements in the core, thus creating a situation in which core workers, for the most part, are exploited but not superexploited (see “The modern world-economy” 8/2/2013).  The colonial divide also created a difference with respect to the characteristics of social movements.  In the core, the first movements to emerge were formed by workers, artisans, and intellectuals tied to them, leading Marx to formulate the concept of the proletarian vanguard (“Marx on the revolutionary proletariat” 1/14/14).  But in the colonies, the movements from the outset were formed by multiple classes seeking independence from colonial rule in addition to the protection of the social and economic rights of the people, as was illustrated in the Vietnamese Revolution (see ““Ho reformulates Lenin” 5/7/2014).  These national liberation movements were able to attain political independence, but the economic function of labor in providing superexploited labor was preserved in most of the newly independent nations, creating a global neocolonial situation (see “The characteristics of neocolonialism” 9/16/2013). 

      Recognizing the role of the nation-state as the principal actor of the modern world-system in no sense involves overlooking class division in the colony or the neocolonized nation.  Class divisions are central to the dynamics of colonies and neocolonies, and they are the principal factor in shaping the action of states.  The national bourgeoisie typically is composed of an estate bourgeoisie dedicated to the export of agricultural products to the core; and an emerging national industrial bourgeoisie tied to the domestic market.  Mining and banking are generally under foreign ownership, but national ownership also exists in these sectors.  The popular classes include the petit bourgeoisie, industrial workers, artisans, agricultural workers, peasants, and the lumpenproletariat.  During the independence struggle, the popular classes and the national bourgeoisie are allies; but when political independence is attained, their opposed interests become manifest. As the Cuban scholar Jesús Arboleya has noted, during the struggle for independence, the national bourgeoisie represents the interests of the emerging nation before the colonial power; but once independence is attained, the national bourgeoisie represents the interests of the former colonial power within the newly independent nation.  In most cases, the national bourgeoisie controls the “independent” government of the neocolony, and it governs in accordance with its interests and the imperialist interests of the global powers. 

     These social dynamics are generally understood by Third World intellectuals tied to popular social movements.  Knowledge of social dynamics is rooted in social position, and what Third World intellectuals are teaching us is the possibility of combining the vantage point of the worker and the vantage point of the colonized.

     Popular revolutions in the Third World reached an earlier zenith in the 1960s, and since 1995, they have experienced renewal and have reached their most advanced stage.  They seek to take control of governments and to govern in defense of the popular classes and sectors.  When popular revolutions have succeeded in taking control of the state, they typically have engaged in an ideological attack against the national bourgeoisie, accusing it of betraying the nation by virtue of its complicity with imperialism.  As Hugo Chávez would say of the Venezuelan bourgeoisie after the triumph of the popular revolution in Venezuela, “They were on their knees, there is no other way to say it, they were on their knees before the imperial power.” 

     The Third World popular revolutions are anti-imperialist revolutions, seeking to abolish neocolonialism; and they are class revolutions, seeking to dislodge the national bourgeoisie from power and to place the state under the control of delegates of the people, who are charged to govern in defense of the interests and the needs of the people.  The Third World popular revolutions are at the vanguard of the global socialist revolution; they are redefining the meaning of socialism, and they are making significant contributions to the evolution of Marxist-Leninist theory and practice. 

      Recognizing the important role of Third World popular revolutions in constructing an alternative to the neocolonial world-system does not imply support for repressive Third World governments.  Repression is normal in the neocolonial situation, for in representing the interests of the national bourgeoisie and international capital, Third World governments must repress popular movements.  The great majority of repressive Third World governments have been allies of imperialism. The Third World popular revolution seeks to displace them with governments that defend popular interests and needs, and that therefore do not have need of repression.  When in power, Third World popular revolutions have developed structures of popular democracy and/or representative democracy, and have succeeded in ending repression and establishing citizen participation.  The global Third World popular revolution does not support Third World governments that repress popular movements, even when such governments have anti-imperialist dimensions.

Key words:  Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, China, world-systems perspective

Posted July 22, 2014

     In his post to the Progressive and Critical Sociologist Network (see “States as actors in the world-system” 7/21/2014), Alan Spector writes, “The limits to the capitalist world system are indeed getting squeezed.  Whether the historical pattern of capitalism's limits will be resolved by ‘democratic’ alliances of semi-periphery forces or whether it will be resolved by inter-imperialist war is the question.”

      I do not think that there are signs that the world is moving toward an inter-imperialist war, which I understand as a war between imperialist powers.  Inter-imperialist conflict was a normal tendency of the world-system during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and it culminated in World Wars I and II, which Wallerstein describes as a thirty-year war (1914-45) between two rising imperialist powers, the United States and Germany, fought in the context of the fall from hegemony of the United Kingdom (Wallerstein 1995: 48, 253; 2003:14, 32).  The inter-imperialist war of 1914-45 culminated in US hegemonic domination in a world-system in transition to neocolonialism.

     But the wars since 1990 have a character different from the inter-imperialist conflagrations of the twentieth century.  The wars since 1990 have been directed by the United States, with the support of Western European imperialist powers, against semi-peripheral nations that were violating in some way the rules of the neocolonial world-system and/or challenging the interests of the imperialist powers, although the governments of the attacked nations were not necessarily defending the popular sectors. 

     The US directed wars since 1990, which also can be understood as a continuous war, point not to inter-imperialist war but to the possible emergence of a new form of global fascism, characterized by: military intervention by the global powers in semi-peripheral and peripheral regions to attain economic and commercial goals; repression of radical popular movements by governments in semi-peripheral and peripheral zones allied with the global powers; efforts to destabilize progressive and radical governments in semi-peripheral and peripheral zones, through various means, including ideological manipulation, attacks on production and commerce, and the formation of violent gangs that attack leaders and the people in popular organizations; and within the core, attacks on gays, immigrants, affirmative action programs that defend women and minorities, and social programs that protect the unemployed and the middle and working classes, which have the effect of diverting the attention of the people by creating scapegoats.  With reference to these dynamics, Fidel Castro recently used the phrase, “global military dictatorship.” 

       But an alternative possibility to global neo-fascism and global military dictatorship is the construction from below of a more just and democratic world-system, a process that has been unfolding since 1995, in the form of a global popular movement in opposition to neoliberalism and neocolonialism.  This possible option is represented by the Non-Aligned Movement, the Group of 77 and China (see “The nations of the Global South speak” 6/19/2014), the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC for its initials in Spanish) (see “The Declaration of Havana 2014” 3/14/2014), and the Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) (see “The rise of ALBA” 3/11/2014).  The leading countries in the emerging alternative world-system include Russia, China, Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Cuba, Uruguay, and South Africa, all of which have strong traditions of socialist movements.  In Latin America and the Caribbean, the popular movement for an alternative world-system has acquired such force that governments that are still controlled by the national bourgeoisie and the traditional political parties and allied with the United States are compelled to make concessions, such that one may speak of a new political reality in Latin America and the Caribbean.

     A third option is chaos, indicated by growing levels of crime and criminal violence, the increasing use of private security, uncontrolled international migration, the reemergence of religious fundamentalism, and the emergence of ethnic separatist movements.  The neocolonial world-system is characterized by increasing disorder, and it could fragment into regions, each ruled by a regional neo-fascist military dictatorship or by local war lords.

      These three projections for the future of the world-system are observable.  They are emerging in the present, each being pushed by particular political forces and dynamics.  In response to the structural crisis of the world-system, the global power elite is moving core governments toward the development of a neo-fascist global dictatorship.  Various social movements in the core have criticized this turn of the global elite, but the core social movements are limited in depth, and they do not address the systemic problems that are provoking the turn to neo-fascist global military dictatorship.  The core movements, therefore, slow the march toward global dictatorship, but they do not to redirect it.  But another kind of opposition to the global project of the elite is emerging in the Third World, where the movements and governments are seeking to develop an alternative world-system with more just and democratic norms among and within nations.  However, chaos increasingly emerges in social and territorial space where neither the elite nor the popular forces have control. Chaos can emerge as the prevailing global tendency, if neither the bourgeois-fascist adjustments from above nor the anti-colonial and democratic political forces from below can consolidate control. 

     We cannot know or predict the future.  But we can understand the future possibilities that are emerging in the present, and that the final resolution of the structural crisis of the world-system will depend on the mobilization of global political forces.  Inter-imperialist wars have occurred in the past, because colonialism and imperialism have been central to the development of the world-system, and thus competition among imperialist powers is a normal tendency.  But we are now in a new situation.  The world-system has entered a structural crisis, provoked by the fact that it has reached the geographical and ecological limits of the earth.   As a result, new dynamics are emerging; and the world-system is moving toward either a neo-fascist global dictatorship, or a transformation to a more just and democratic world-system, or world-wide chaos.

     Our task as intellectuals of the North is to understand these emerging possibilities and to explain them to our peoples, who are confused by the ideological distortions of the media and the false assumptions of “democratic” political cultures, and they are distracted by consumerism.  The fulfillment of this duty confronts obstacles that we must overcome.  To some extent, we who are intellectuals, like the people, are confused by ideological distortions and false assumptions. Moreover, for those of us who are academics, the development of our understanding is limited by the epistemological assumptions and the fragmented organization of the bureaucratized university.  I believe that the key to an emancipation that would enable understanding is personal encounter with the Third World revolution of national liberation (see various posts in the section on Knowledge).

       The Third World Revolution is the third revolution of the modern world-system.  The first was the bourgeois revolution of Western Europe and North America, which ultimately protected its own interests, sacrificing the rights and needs of the people.  The second was the European proletarian revolution, which in Western Europe and North America became reformist, seduced by the concessions made possible by colonial domination; and which in Eastern Europe became bureaucratized, ultimately collapsing as a result of its limitations and contradictions.  The third revolution is of the Third World, and it is now reaching its most advanced stage, offering for humanity the only viable alternative to the militarist project of the global power elite.  The Third World revolution has accumulated more than 200 years of experience, having begun in 1791, when Toussaint L’Ouverture, a 45-year-old slave with administrative experience, gave political direction to a slave rebellion in the French colony of San Domingo, today known as Haiti (see “Toussaint L’Ouverture” 12/10/2013).


References

Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1995. After Liberalism. New York: The New Press.

­­­­__________.  2003.  The Decline of American Power: The U.S. in a Chaotic World.  New York: The New Press.


Key words:  Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective,

Posted July 23, 2014

     In yesterday’s post, which is part of a dialogue with Alan Spencer, Past President of the Association for Humanist Sociology, I maintained that the militarist foreign policies and the conservative domestic policies of the global elite since 1990 point to the possible emergence of a neo-fascist global dictatorship (“The future of the world-system” 7/22/2014).  This leads to the question, how are the US-directed wars since 1990 different from the US imperialist wars of the period 1945 to 1990?

     The US imperialist wars and interventions of 1945 to 1990 had precedents in various military occupations, military interventions, and diplomatic maneuvering in Latin America and the Caribbean during the first half of the twentieth century.  They included military occupations of Cuba (1898-1902 and 1906-9), Haiti (1915-34) and the Dominican Republic (1916-24); and numerous military interventions in Central America from 1906 to 1932.  And they included the sponsoring of the secession of Panama from Columbia in 1902, in order to facilitate construction of the Panama Canal on US terms; and the establishment of military dictatorships through diplomatic maneuvering during the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Regalado 2007:116-18; Arboleya 2008:105-7; “The origin of US imperialist policies” 9/18/2013; “US Imperialism, 1903-1932” 9/19/2013; “Imperialism and the FDR New Deal” 9/20/2013).

     The pre-1945 interventions involved imperialist interventions by a rising imperialist power in the context of an expanding world-system.  Imperialism had emerged as the foundation to US foreign policy in the 1890s, as a result of the need of industrial and agricultural producers to find new markets beyond the frontiers of the United States.  Public debates concerning imperialism were provoked by the acquisition of territories through what US historians call the Spanish-American War, and various perspectives were taken with respect to the implications of US interventions in other lands.  But in these debates, all parties assumed that Africans and persons of African descent, Latin-Americans, indigenous peoples and Asians belonged to “inferior races,” and thus they were incapable of self-government.  This prevailing racist belief made unnecessary any ideological justification of military interventions in Latin America or of European colonial domination of vast regions of Africa and Asia.  It was assumed that all such interventions by the United States and the European colonial powers had a civilizing and beneficial effect (Arboleya 2008; Weston 1972; Wilson 1973).   

     National liberation movements in the Third World and the African-American movement in the United States challenged and overcame the assumption of white superiority.  The movements led to a fundamental change in political culture with respect to “race,” and they made necessary the protection of political and civil rights of all citizens and respect for the sovereignty and equality of all nations and peoples of the world.  Thus, there occurred the political independence of the colonies of Asia and Africa, and a transition to a neocolonial world-system, in which the formal political independence of nations is recognized.  However, the neocolonial world-system would be characterized by structures to facilitate economic, commercial, and financial penetration by the global powers, thus preventing true independence or sovereignty (see “The characteristics of neo-colonialism” 9/16/2013).

     The United States emerged from World War II with unchallenged productive, commercial and financial dominance, and thus the transition to a neocolonial world-system roughly coincided with the emergence of the United States as a hegemonic core power.  In the post-World War II era, US public discourse no longer debated the question of whether or not the United States should intervene in other lands.  A liberal-conservative consensus in support of imperialist policies emerged, with disagreements confined to debates concerning the practical wisdom of a particular intervention.  But US imperialist policies could no longer be based on a presumed assumption of “inferior races.” Justifications would now have to be made on the basis of democratic principles, and thus the Cold War ideology emerged as a powerful ideological weapon, for its portrayed Western “democracies” as threatened by an international communist conspiracy directed by the Soviet Union and China, making necessary US interventions to protect democracy.

      Thus, during the period of 1945 to 1990, the United States undertook a number of imperialist wars, military interventions, and covert actions, designed to protect US control of the natural resources, labor, and markets of the vast peripheral and semi-peripheral regions of the world-economy.  The Cold War ideology presented the United States as a defender of democracy, obscuring its true character as a hegemonic power seeking to preserve structures of imperialist penetration and neocolonial domination. In spite of its democratic claims, US military interventions and covert actions were designed to impede any social movement that sought to act politically to reduce the US economic advantage, which had resulted from the historic capacity of the United States to insert itself in an advantageous manner in the evolving structures of the colonial and neocolonial world-system (see “Slavery, development, and US ascent” 8/30/2013; “Cotton” 9/9/2013; “The military-industrial complex” 8/29/2013).

     But by 1990, the world-system had entered a new situation.  It had reached the geographical limits of the earth and had surpassed its ecological limits, thus constraining profits, expansion and growth.  Meanwhile, the United States had experienced a relative productive, commercial and financial decline, a process that began in the late 1960s as a result of various factors, including its being overextended economically and financially by the Vietnam War.  By 1990, the United States no longer possessed unchallenged productive, commercial, and financial advantage, but it continued to have unchallenged military advantage, a legacy of its earlier hegemony.  In this new situation, the United States intervenes militarily in order to achieve economic and commercial objectives that it no longer has the economic and commercial capacity to attain. 

     Fascism has various components: military expansionism in order to fulfill economic goals through military means as part of a nationalist project of ascent; repression of popular movements, including assassinations, imprisonment, and torture; the formation of violent gangs for the attack of popular organizations; concessions to moderate workers’ organizations; and a nationalist and populist rhetoric that celebrates popular culture.  Fascism has been present as a component of military dictatorships in the Third World that have been tied to imperialism.  And since the Western democracies are based on colonialism and neocolonialism, fascism can be understood as an integral component of the world-system.  Nevertheless, in the evolution of the political culture of the world-system, there has emerged a form of representative democracy that stands against fascism and that affirms the civil and political rights of all citizens and the rights of all nations to sovereignty and independence.  But in the context of the structural crisis of the world-system, the global powers are moving away from these principles of representative democracy and are beginning to move toward a new form of fascism.

     Thus, the US directed wars, interventions, and covert actions since 1990, carried out with the support of Western European imperialist powers, are like the imperialist interventions of the period 1945-90, in that they have been conducted against semi-peripheral nations that were violating in some way the rules of the neocolonial world-system and/or challenging the interests of the imperialist powers, although the governments of the attacked nations were not necessarily defending the popular sectors.  But the wars and interventions since 1990 are also different from 1945-90, because they are being carried out by an economically declining power that still has military dominance, and it is using its military strength to attain economic objectives, and thus they are beginning to acquire the characteristics of fascism.

     The emerging neo-fascist global dictatorship is structurally different from the neocolonial world-system.  Neocolonialism seeks to control ideologically rather than through force, even though its foundation lies in force, conquest, and colonialism.  Neocolonialism endeavors to give the appearance of democracy, and thus it requires providing support to key actors, such as the middle and working classes in the core and the national bourgeoisie in the periphery and semi-periphery.  But the world-system has reached the geographical limits of the earth, creating a situation in which it is not sustainable.  Confronting this reality, the limited forms of democracy and sovereignty allowed by the neocolonial world-system have been increasingly abandoned by the global elite since 1980, as it turns to a new form of fascism. 

     The emergence of a neo-fascist global dictatorship would not mark the end of the world-system but the evolution of the world-system to a new stage.  It would mean the end of the dominance of the idea of democracy, which emerged during the eighteenth century, but which, under the constraints of the established structures of the world-system, could go no further than representative democracy and formal political independence.  The world-system was established on a colonial foundation of force and conquest, and by turning to fascism in its hour of crisis, it is returning to its roots. 

     But the other possibilities projected for the future, namely, an alternative more just and democratic system and the emergence of chaos and fragmentation (see “The future of the world-system” 7/22/2014), would represent the end of the world-system itself.  A just and democratic world-system established by popular movements from below would emancipate the world-system from its colonial foundation, thus establishing a different world-system.  Perhaps we should call it something to help bring it about, something like “Socialism for the twenty-first century.”  It was so named by Hugo Chávez, and he is present, calling on all of us to participate in its construction (see “Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela.”

      From the vantage point of universal human values, the transformation of the world-system to a different and more just and democratic world-system is the best option for humanity.  It would represent a fulfillment of the hopes of Marx and the hopes of the peoples of the Third World, who have demonstrated that, in the words of Fidel, “this humanity has a tremendous thirst for social justice.”


References

Arboleya, Jesús.  2008.  La Revolución del Otro Mundo.  La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.

Regalado, Roberto.  2007.  Latin America at the Crossroads: Domination, Crisis, Popular Movements, and Political Alternatives.  New York: Ocean Press.

Weston, Rubin Francis.  1972.  Racism in U.S. Imperialism: The Influence of Racial Assumptions on American Foreign Policy, 1893-1946.  Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press.

Wilson, Willam J. 1973.  Power, Racism, and Privilege: Race Relations in Theoretical and Sociohistorical Perspectives.  New York: The Free Press.


Key words:  Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, fascism, dictatorship

Posted July 30, 2013
     
     In the Introduction to Volume One of The Modern World-System, Immanuel Wallerstein writes that his experiences in colonial Africa during the time of the African anti-colonial movements enabled him to see that European and African Nationalist conceptions are fundamentally different.  

“I went to Africa first during the colonial era,” he writes, “and I witnessed the process of ‘decolonization,’ and then of the independence of a cascade of sovereign states.  White man that I was, I was bombarded by the onslaught of the colonial mentality of Europeans long resident in Africa. And sympathizer of nationalist movements that I was, I was privy to the angry analyses and optimist passions of young militants of the African movements.  It did not take long to realize that not only were these two groups at odds on political issues, but that they approached the situation with entirely different sets of conceptual frameworks”  (1974:4; italics added).
 
African nationalists, Wallerstein noted, “saw the reality in which they lived as a ‘colonial situation,’” fundamentally different from and opposed to the “colonial mentality” of the Europeans (1974:4).

     Wallerstein saw in Africa what Bernard Lonergan describes as the formulation of opposed understandings in the context of different culturally-based horizons (see “What is cross-horizon encounter?” 7/26/13).  Moreover, Wallerstein’s scholarship shows that cross-horizon encounter is the key to social scientific understanding, for Wallerstein’s encounter with the African nationalist movement stimulated a process of reflection that enabled him to understand that the use of “society”as the unit of analysis, common in the Western social science of that time, established false assumptions for understanding the “colonial situation.” This understanding led Wallerstein to the conclusion that “the correct unit of analysis is the world-system” (Wallerstein 1974:7).  Driven by what Lonergan calls the “pure desire to know,” Wallerstein committed himself to the task of describing the historical development of the modern world-system (Wallerstein 1974, 1980, 1982, 1989, 2000, 2011 and Hopkins and Wallerstein 1996). His important and groundbreaking work ignores the disciplinary boundaries among history, economics, sociology, and political science in order to formulate the world-systems perspective, an alternative to the dominant Western social scientific paradigm and an alternative that takes into account the insights of the twentieth century Third World national liberation movements. 
 
      Wallerstein has identified four stages in the development of the modern world-system:  (1) the origin of the system on the foundation of the Spanish and Portuguese conquest of vast regions of the American continents, establishing a world-economy, with Western Europe as its core and Latin America and Eastern Europe as its periphery (1492-1640); (2) a stage of stagnation, characterized by competition among core powers, during which the basic structures of the system were preserved and reinforced (1640-1815); (3) the expansion of the system from 1815-1917, made possible by the conquest of vast regions of Africa and Asia by European powers; and (4) 1917 to the present, characterized by the development of imperialism and neocolonialism as new forms of core domination and by the emergence of anti-colonial and anti-neocolonial movements in the Third World.  

     In future posts, we will draw upon the insights of Third World intellectuals and leaders, and we also will often find Wallerstein’s formulations to be helpful as we seek to understand.

     Scroll down to find posts that critically analyze the work of Immanuel Wallerstein:
“Wallerstein: A Critique” 7/31/0213
“Wallerstein and world-systems analysis” 3/25/2014
“Wallerstein and Africa” 3/26/2014
“Wallerstein: Europe-centered or universal?” 3/27/2014
“The terminal crisis of the world-system” 3/28/2014
“Domination and ideology” 3/31/2014
“Reunified historical social science” 4/1/2014
“Universal philosophical historical social science” 4/2/2014
“We can know the true and the good” 4/3/2104
“How can knowledge be reorganized?” 4/4/2014
“Wallerstein on liberalism” 4/6/2014
“Liberals or revolutionaries?” 4/7/2014
“Wallerstein on Leninism” 4/8/2014
“Wallerstein on revolution” 4/9/2014
“Wallerstein, Marx, and knowledge” 4/14/2014
“The alternative world-system from below” 4/15/2014
“Universal human values” 4/16/2014
“An alternative epistemology” 4/17/2014.


 Bibliography
 
Hopkins, Terence K., and Immanuel Wallerstein.  1996.  The Age of Transition: Trajectory of the World System, 1945-2025.  New Jersey: Zed Books.

Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1974.  The Modern World System, Vol. I. New
York:  Academic Press.  
 
__________. 1979.  The Capitalist World Economy. New York:  Cambridge University Press.  

  __________. 1980.  The Modern World System, Vol. II.  New York: 
Academic Press.

__________. 1982.  “Crisis as Transition” in Samir Amin, Giovanni Arrighi, Andre Gunder Frank and Immanuel Wallerstein, Dynamics of Global Crisis.  New  York: Monthly Review Press.

__________. 1989.  The Modern World System, Vol. III. New York: Academic Press.

__________. 1990.  "Antisystemic  Movements:  History and Dilemmas" in Samir Amin, Giovanni Arrighi, Andre Gunder Frank and Immanuel Wallerstein, Transforming the Revolution:  Social Movements and the World-System.  New York: Monthly Review Press.

__________. 1995. After Liberalism. New York: The New Press.

 __________.  2000. “Long Waves as Capitalist Process” in Immanuel Wallerstein, The Essential Wallerstein (New York: The New Press), Pp. 207-19. [Originally published in Review VII:4 (Spring 1984), Pp. 559-75.]

__________. 2000.  “The Three Instances of Hegemony in the History of the Capitalist World-Economy” in Immanuel Wallerstein, The Essential Wallerstein (New York: The New Press), Pp. 253-63.  [Originally published in International Journal of Comparative Sociology XXIV:1-2 (January-April 1983), Pp. 100-8).

__________.  2003.  The Decline of American Power: The U.S. in a Chaotic World.  New York: The New Press.

__________. 2011.  The Modern World System IV: Centralist Liberalism Triumphant, 1789-1914.  Berkeley: University of California Press.

 
Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, Lonergan, cognitional theory, epistemology, philosophy, Wallerstein, world-system