Following Marx, we can understand ideology as the distortion of reality in defense of the particular interests of the wealthy and the powerful (Lorrain 1983:25-30, 1979:46-52; Althusser 1976:55-56, 154-56; Schaff 1976:137-38).  Ideology is integral to world-systems.  Inasmuch as they are formed through conquest and are sustained through the forced appropriation of goods produced by the conquered peoples, world-systems must generate ideologies that justify conquest and the unequal distribution of goods and that legitimate structures of domination.

      In 2004, Wallerstein gave a series of three lectures at St. John’s College of the University of British Columbia on the theme of “European universalism.”  His words to begin the lectures succinctly express the role of conquest in the the establishment of the modern world-system, the necessity of ideology to legitimate it, and the formulation of an ideology that pretends to represent universal human values.

     The Spanish conquest of the indigenous peoples of America during the sixteenth century was justified on the grounds that the indigenous peoples were “barbaric” and uneducated, and that the Spanish conquest and the Christianization of the indigenous peoples were bringing to an end their barbaric practices.  During the nineteenth century, the process of secularization established the separation of religious claims from politics and public discourse.  This made necessary different language, and thus European colonial domination of Africa and Asia was justified on the grounds that the European powers were undertaking a civilizing mission (Wallerstein 2006:2-11). 

     During the period 1945-70, anti-colonial movements attained the political independence of the European colonies in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean, thus establishing as a principle the right of sovereignty of all nations, including the newly independent nations formed from the colonies by the colonized.  But just as the world embraced this principle, there emerged a new emphasis on human rights in world politics, in which accusations of human rights violations in particular nations came to be used as justifications for interventions in these nations, interventions that functioned to sustain the neocolonial world-system (Wallerstein 2006:16-25).  

            Thus the right, and indeed the duty, of European nations to conquer and dominate other lands and peoples were central to the ideology of the world-system during the colonial area.  It was presumed that Europeans were superior, because they were Christians or more civilized.  When anti-colonial movements formed by the colonized made necessary a transition to neocolonialism, adjustments were made in the political and cultural components of the world-system.  On the ideological plane, it was now presumed that Europeans were superior because they were more democratic. It was believed, and is believed, that Europeans have led the world in the establishment of democratic institutions, and their more advanced understanding and practices endows them with the authority to make judgments concerning the political institutions of the formerly colonized and/or peripheralized peoples.

      Wallerstein maintains that in the history of the modern world-system, it has been assumed that the values that justified conquest and intervention were universal ones.  But in actuality these supposedly universal values have been “the social creation of the dominant strata in a particular world-system;” they form “a set of doctrines and ethical views that derive from a European context,” even though they “aspire to be, or are presented as, global universal values” (2006:27).

      The partial and ethnocentric nature of the supposedly universal values proclaimed by world-system ideology is illustrated with respect to human rights.  Questions of human rights are evaluated on a standard of representative democracy developed in Western Europe and the United States, ignoring alternative forms of democracy that necessarily emerge in the context of the colonial situation, in which neocolonized nations are seeking autonomous development and are striving to establish the protection of the social and economic rights of the people in response to the legacy of underdevelopment, and they are required to move forward in a context shaped by various forms of intervention by neocolonial powers.  In the colonial situation, the unity and the political education of the people, along with protective measures against the interventionist maneuvers of the neocolonial powers, are necessary.  Thus there tend to emerge single political parties led by vanguards and charismatic leaders, popular councils, popular election of delegates, and political control of the mass media.  These alternative structures of popular democracy that emerge in an alternative social, economic, and political context are assumed to be violations of human rights, simply by virtue of their difference from the structures of representative democracy developed in Europe and the European settler societies.  Such cultural myopia is understandable, inasmuch as the purpose is not to stimulate global reflection on the meaning of democracy, but to legitimate interventions in countries that seek true independence, with the intention of maintaining neocolonial control of the nations of the world.  In short, what occurs is a manipulation of the issue of human rights in order to justify intervention.  It no doubt is more sophisticated than the simplistic claim that the colonized are uncivilized, but it has the same ideological agenda, and it is rooted in the same assumption of European superiority.

      For Wallerstein, the supposedly universal values that have justified interventions in the various stages in the development of the world-system are a “partial and distorted universalism” that is a “universalism of the powerful.”  Wallerstein calls it “‘European universalism’ because it has been put forward by pan-European leaders and intellectuals in their quest to pursue the interests of the dominant strata of the modern world-system” (2006:xii).

     Wallerstein seeks a “genuine universalism” or a “universal universalism,” which we will discuss in subsequent posts.


References

Althusser, Louis.  1976.  Essays in Self-Criticism.  London:  New Left Books. 

Lorrain, Jorge.  1979.  The Concept of Ideology.  Athens:  University of Georgia Press. 

__________.  1983.  Marxism and Ideology.  Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press.

Schaff, Adam.  1976.  History and Truth.  New York: Pergamon Press.

Wallerstein, Immanuel.  2006.  European Universalism: The Rhetoric of Power.  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, Wallerstein, universalism, ethnocentrism, ideology, domination

     Immanuel Wallerstein maintains that the world-system has entered a terminal crisis (1999:1, 55, 74-75, 81-83; 2006:52-53; 1982:11, 51-53).

     In arriving at this conclusion, he draws upon complexity theory, and in particular the work of the chemist and Nobel Laureate Ilya Prigogine (1917-2003).  Prigogine maintains that physical reality is for the most part characterized by non-equilibrium processes, in which order exists for a while, but then there inevitably occurs a point of “bifurcation,” in which two directions are equally possible.  Furthermore, there is indeterminacy in physical reality, for it cannot be known in advance which option will be taken (2004:102-3; Cf. Prigagone 1997).  

     Applying Prigogine’s insights to social processes, Wallerstein maintains that all historical systems have a period of normal development, in which the structures and patterns of the system prevail.  As the system evolves, it is characterized by “cyclical rhythms” that are modified as the system adjusts to new internal and external developments, but the system maintains equilibrium.  However, this period of normal development must be distinguished from moments of structural crisis, at which point the system has moved far from equilibrium and is approaching bifurcation, in which the system resolves the disequilibrium in a form that establishes a different equilibrium or a different system.  As the system approaches bifurcation, the world-systems analyst can know that the system is approaching its end, but the analyst cannot know which option will be taken.  The world-systems analyst can only identify possibilities (2004:104).

     Wallerstein has identified a number of “secular trends” that indicate that the modern world-system is approaching bifurcation and has entered a terminal crisis.  First is “deruralization.” Historically, in the conflict of interests between capitalists and workers, capitalists could respond to the increasing demands of workers by relocating to zones of cheaper labor, which often were new areas beyond the reach of the world-system.  But now that the system has reached the geographical limits of the earth, there are no new zones of cheaper labor supply, and capitalists must respond to the demands of increasingly organized workers, thus increasing labor costs.  Secondly, the ecological costs of production are increasing, also as a result of the fact that the system has reached the geographical limits of the earth.  These dynamics mean that states can no longer effectively respond to the increasing demands of the people, leading to a decline in the legitimacy of states, a phenomenon that is made evident by the rise of religious fundamentalism and ethnic separatism, and by the increasing use of private security forces.  At the same time,  the epistemological consensus of the twentieth century, characterized by a faith in scientific knowledge and liberal democratic values, has been undermined, but an alternative epistemological consensus has not emerged (Wallerstein 1982:11-12, 19-23; 1995:40-45, 169-70, 268-69; 1999:1,33, 44-48, 55-56, 71-86, 130-34; 2001:23-37; 2003:57-68, 170-71, 223-33; Hopkins and Wallerstein 1996:221-28).

     Wallerstein maintains that as a result of these dynamics, it is unlikely that the world-system will be able to restore equilibrium, and thus it has entered a terminal structural crisis, out of which something else will emerge.  Different possibilities can be identified: an alternative structure of domination; an alternative socialist project based on the democratic values of the various social movements of the twentieth century; or chaos (1982:51-53).

     In future posts, I again will address the issue of the terminal structural crisis of the world-system.  I share with Wallerstein the belief that the world-system has entered a terminal crisis, but I will express it in a somewhat different way.  And I will address in subsequent posts the possibility of a just and democratic world-system.  Whereas Wallerstein tends to see it as a theoretical possibility, I maintain that it is in fact emerging in theory and practice from below.  The peoples of Latin America and the Third World have begun to construct an alternative world-system.  They are doing what Wallerstein has imagined as a possibility.  They are attempting to make real the dreams of the various social movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, precisely at the historic moment in which the unsustainability of the world-system is made evident. 

     I concur with Wallerstein that the outcome cannot be known in advance.  But I also maintain that we social scientists, historians, and philosophers of the North should be aware that the transformation from below is occurring, and it therefore is a real emerging possibility for the future.  And I believe that we cannot wait until the outcome is secure before giving our sanction to the movements from below.  We must cast our lot with the more just and democratic world-system emerging from below, as against a new form of domination imposed from above, because between the two options, it is the choice that is consistent with human knowledge and with progressive human values.  And we must participate in this process of change, even as the outcome remains in doubt.  It is precisely because the outcome is in doubt that we are called in this historic moment to fulfill our responsibility, which is to do intellectual work that clarifies the choices that humanity confronts and to take an unambiguous political and moral stand.  This will require that we liberate ourselves from the assumptions of the academic disciplines and from the priorities imposed by the academic bureaucracy.


References

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

Prigogine, Ilya.  1997.   The End of Certainty: Time, Chaos, and the New Laws of Nature.  New York: The Free Press.

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

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

__________.  1999.  The End of the World as We Know It:  Social Science for the Twenty-First Century.  Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press.

__________.  2001.  Unthinking Social Science:  The Limits of Nineteenth-Century Paradigms, 2nd Edition.  Philadelphia: Temple University Press. 

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

__________.  2004.  The Uncertainties of Knowledge.  Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

__________.  2006.  European Universalism: The Rhetoric of Power.  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, Wallerstein, world-systems analysis, terminal crisis

     We have seen that Wallerstein arrived at an understanding of the fundamental characteristics of colonialism and neocolonialism as a result of his encounter with the African nationalist movement in the 1950s and 1960s (“Wallerstein and Africa” 3/26/2014).    Wallerstein sought to understand the implications of the colonial situation and the insights of African nationalism for his understanding of the world as a whole.  In this endeavor, he could discern that conventional social scientific concepts and assumptions were not useful.  The term “society,” so fundamental to sociological analysis, generally assumed that the frontiers of societies coincided with national political boundaries, but the colonial situation involved a relation between a colonizing nation and a colonized people consisting of multiple traditional nations that we being formed into a modern nation (Wallerstein 1974:5).  Nor was the tradition of the comparative study of national societies, in which the characteristics of two separate nations are compared, useful for the colonial situation (Wallerstein 2004:86-87). 

      But Wallerstein did not turn to Marx or to Marxism-Leninism, possibly as a result of the African nationalist influence.  In an article written in 2002, Wallerstein writes that he had been reading Frantz Fanon during his encounter with African nationalism, and that Fanon had a “substantial influence” on his work (2004:85).  In a 1979 article, Wallerstein defended Fanon’s reformulation of the Marxist concept of the revolutionary proletariat, in which Fanon maintains that, in the colonial situation, the peasants and the lumpenproletariat play a central role in the revolutionary process (1979:250-68).  In his books on Africa, Wallerstein writes that African socialism rejected Marxism, because of the inapplicability of the concept of the class struggle to Africa, and because of the atheism of Marxism (2005:148-49, II 230-35).  Perhaps Wallerstein’s reading of Fanon, in conjunction with his awareness of the tendency in African socialism to reject Marxism, influenced him to search for ways to understand the global implications of the African nationalist movement that were alternatives to Marxism-Leninism.  It also may have been that Wallerstein did not find Marx to be useful for responding to the questions that he was asking, given Marx’s primary focus on the industrial proletariat and on conditions of capitalism in Western Europe.  It should be noted that Wallerstein in no sense dismisses Marx as Eurocentric; he maintains that Marx was prudent in addressing the global and universal implications of his analysis, unlike subsequent Marxists (Wallerstein 2001b:151-69). 

      The direction in which Wallerstein went was inspired by the French historian Fernand Braudel, who had spent ten years in Algeria and several years in Brazil (Wallerstein 2001a:188-89), and the Polish economic historian Marian Malowisth, who concentrated on eastern Europe but also wrote about colonial expansion.  Wallerstein was reading both simultaneously in the late 1960s.  From their work he came to understand that there had emerged a capitalist world-economy in the sixteenth century, which included an Eastern European periphery that was producing for distant markets rather than for local consumption, a phenomenon that had previously been designated misleadingly as a “second feudalism.”  Wallerstein began to realize that, understood as a world-economy, capitalism had various forms of labor, including wage labor and various forms of coerced labor, with the former more common in central zones and the latter more common in peripheral zones.  This view of the emergence of a capitalist world-economy in the sixteenth century with various forms of labor was an alternative to the conventional view, shared by Marxists and liberals, that defined capitalism with the imagery of the factories and wage workers of Western Europe in the nineteenth century (2004:87-93).

     Wallerstein also drew from Karl Polanyi’s classic work, The Great Transformation, to formulate a distinction between two types of world-systems, namely, world-empires and world-economies.  He used the hyphen to capture Braudel’s meaning, not of a world economy that is an “economy of the world,” but of a world-economy that is an “economy that is a world.”  Furthermore, he believed with Braudel that world-economies were “organic structures that had lives—beginnings and ends” (2004:90), and he thus considered Braudel’s concept of the “long term” to be important, implying the study of the development of world-systems in the long term.  Wallerstein also believes that there have been many world-systems in human history, and that therefore we should speak of “world-systems analysis” and not world-system analysis (2004:87-91).

      Thus we can see that, emerging from his encounter with African nationalism, Wallerstein turned to European thinkers to formulate an analysis of the modern world-system as an historical system with a beginning and an end, one of many world-systems in human history.  He turned not to conventional European thought, which was limited by Eurocentrism and by the bureaucratization of the universities.  Nor did he turn to European Marxism, which was ignoring the qualifications and prudence of Marx and was developing in a Eurocentric form.  He turned to unconventional European historians, who were breaking new ground, freeing European thought from its limitations, and who were beginning to see components of a modern world-system that had expanded through the conquest, colonial domination, and peripheralization of Africa, a phenomenon experienced and understood by African nationalists.

     We therefore can characterize Wallerstein’s world-systems analysis as an advanced form of European thought that takes into account the basic insights of African nationalism into colonial and neocolonial domination.  This appropriation of African nationalist insights gives world-systems analysis a nearly universal character, able to explain many aspects of the neocolonial situation that are enlightening even for the neocolonized of the world, and for this reason Wallerstein is respected as a scholar with important insights by the movements formed by the neocolonized. 

      But I say nearly universal.  Wallerstein’s world-systems analysis has limitations.  It does not fully explore the development of Marxism by Lenin, and the subsequent development of Marxism-Leninism in the Third World, especially by Ho Chi Minh and Fidel Castro, a development that occurred outside the West and beyond the universities, in a form integrally tied with popular movements.  Third World Marxism-Leninism developed in a way that was rooted in the colonial situation and that involved a fundamental break with the prevailing liberal ideology of the neocolonial world-system, which European Marxism ultimately failed to do, as Wallerstein argues in various essays published as a collection in After Liberalism (1995).  And Wallerstein’s work does not fully explore the development of movements of national liberation beyond the case of African nationalism of the 1960s, which confronted numerous internal and external obstacles, which Wallerstein discusses in his two books on Africa.  Particularly important here is the case of Latin America, which experienced colonialism and neocolonialism much earlier than Africa and Asia, and which therefore has a much more extensive experience in the development of anti-neocolonial movements.  These movements are today in renewal, and they are leading the Third World in the construction of an alternative more just and democratic world-system, a phenomenon that Wallerstein has perceived as a possibility and but not as an emerging reality.


References

Wallerstein, Immanuel.  1974.  The Modern World System, Vol. I.  New York:  Academic Press. 

__________.  1979.  “Fanon and the Revolutionary Class” in The Capitalist World Economy, Pp. 250-28.  New York:  Cambridge University Press. 

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

__________.  2001a.  “Fernand Braudel, Historian, ‘homme de la conjoncture’” in Unthinking Social Science: The Limits of Nineteenth-Century Paradigms, 2nd Edition.  Philadelphia: Temple University Press, Pp. 187-201.  [Originally published in Radical History Review 26 (1982).

__________.  2001b. “Marx and Underdevelopment” in Unthinking Social Science: The Limits of Nineteenth-Century Paradigms, 2nd Edition, Pp. 151-69.  Philadelphia: Temple University Press.  [Originally published in S. Resnick and R. Wolff, Eds., Rethinking Marxism (Brooklyn: Autonomedia, 1985).    

__________.  2004.  “The Itinerary of World-Systems Analysis, or How to Resist Becoming a Theory” in The Uncertainties of Knowledge, Pp. 83-108.  Philadelphia: Temple University Press.  [Originally published in J. Berger and M. Zelditch, Jr., Eds.  New Directions in Contemporary Sociological Theory (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002), Pp. 358-76.]

__________.  2005.  Africa: The Politics of Independence and Unity.  Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.  [Combines into one edition Africa: The Politics of Independence (1961) and Africa: The Politics of Unity (1967)].


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, Wallerstein, world-systems analysis, Braudel

      In the public discourses of the North, there is a pervasive tendency to overlook (1) the significance of colonialism in creating development and underdevelopment in the capitalist world-economy, and (2) the role of neocolonial structures in maintaining these global structures of inequality (see “Overcoming the colonial denial” 7/29/2013).  But Immanuel Wallerstein has managed to escape this Eurocentrism. 

     Wallerstein has written that he came to understand the significance of European colonial domination during his personal encounter in Africa of the African nationalist movement during its drive for independence from European colonial rule in the 1950s and early 1960s.  Referring to this encounter in 1974, Wallerstein notes that he listened to “the angry analyses and optimist passions of young militants of the African movements,” and this led him to conclude that Europeans resident in Africa and the African nationalists “approached the situation with entirely different sets of conceptual frameworks.”  The African nationalists, Wallerstein concluded, “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).

      In Wallerstein’s Africa: The Politics of Independence, originally published in 1961, we can see the extent to which his understanding indeed was shaped by an African nationalist perspective.  The first chapter is devoted to what Wallerstein describes as the impressive achievements in African history before the Europeans came (2005: 11-26).  In the second chapter, he turns to the arrival of the Europeans, and he notes that the European powers had a variety of motives in expanding and in establishing “permanent colonial rule,” and first is the “search for markets and resources” (2005:31).  He then proceeds to discuss the importance of the colonial situation: 

      Wallerstein proceeds to describe the multiple dimensions of the colonial situation.  Of primary importance was the economic dimension, involving the importation of manufactured goods and the exportation of raw materials on a base of forced labor, using methods such as the imposition of quotas on village chiefs or the head tax.  This was accompanied by an educational dimension, which created a Western educated elite among the colonized, an educated elite that ultimately would form a nationalist movement that rejected both the traditional authority of the chiefs as well as European colonial authority.  And a transportation infrastructure was developed that linked Africa to the outside world rather than connecting towns and cities within Africa, thus serving colonial interests rather than promoting the development of Africa (2005:31-45).

      Wallerstein perceives the African nationalist movements as revolutionary, because they seek fundamental systemic change, involving an overthrow of the colonial government (2005:58).  He discerns the significance of “national heroes” with charismatic authority, although he sees a rift between the charismatic leader and the intellectuals, and he believes that the leader becomes removed from the people after independence (2005:98-101). 

      Wallerstein was aware in 1961 that political independence did not change the economic relation involving the exportation of raw materials on a basis of cheap labor and the importation of manufactured goods, thus establishing neocolonialism (2005:137-43).  He developed this further in his second book, Africa: The Politics of Unity, originally published in 1967, where he describes not only the preservation of the colonial economic relation but also the declining terms of trade.   He writes:

     Wallerstein noted in 1961 the efforts of newly independent governments to overcome the neocolonial situation through African unity and by seeking a diversity of trading partners (2005:103-7, 142-51).  The quest for unity, from Pan-Africanism to the Organization of African Unity, would become the central theme of his 1967 book.

     Wallerstein discussed in 1961 the emergence of African socialism, a perspective that views socialism in Africa as different from socialism in Europe or Asia.  Especially important is the fact that African socialism rejects the concept of the class struggle, since the great majority of the population are peasants, and inasmuch as the small percentage of property owners, merchants and professionals in the towns had not acquired bourgeois or petit bourgeois consciousness and continued to maintain relations and obligations with extended families in the countryside (2005:148-49).  In 1967, Wallerstein observes that the term “African socialism” was originally formulated by the most radical and revolutionary of the African nationalists, who wanted to distinguish socialism in Africa from scientific socialism, in accordance with their orientation toward the attainment of African intellectual and cultural autonomy.  However, “African socialism” began to be used by leaders and governments that were adapting to neocolonialism and were not revolutionary, so that its meaning became vague.  As a result, revolutionary African nationalists began to reject the term and to speak of scientific socialism applied to the conditions of Africa (2005:II 230-36).

     In the 1961 book, Wallerstein also discerns that Africa is developing an alternative theory and practice of democracy.  He maintains that the African form of democracy is not characterized by liberal freedoms in regard to opposition groups, because in the African context opposition parties tend to undermine national integration, which has not yet been accomplished, inasmuch as the newly independent African nations combined multiple traditional African nations and identities, the so-called “tribes.”  However, the African political process, Wallerstein maintains, is characterized by popular participation and free discussion (2005:153-61).

      Thus, by the 1960s, Wallerstein arrived at an understanding of the fundamental characteristics of colonialism and neocolonialism in Africa as a result of his personal encounter with the African nationalist movement.  His appropriation of African nationalist insights in his formulation of world-systems analysis will be the subject of the next post.


References

Wallerstein, Immanuel.  2005.  Africa: The Politics of Independence and Unity.  Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.  [Combines into one edition Africa: The Politics of Independence (1961) and Africa: The Politics of Unity (1967)].


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, Wallerstein, Africa, African nationalism, African socialism

     In reviewing the process of Latin American union and integration and its implications for the possible establishment of a more just and democratic world-system, we found that Immanuel Wallerstein maintained more than thirty years ago that the world-system has entered a terminal structural crisis, and it is in transition to something else, including possibly a socialist civilizational project (see “A change of epoch?” (3/18-2004).  Wallerstein is the most important Northern intellectual of our time.  He has moved beyond the conventional disciplinary boundaries in the social sciences and history and has formulated an analysis of the historical development and current dilemmas of the modern world-system.  Our grasping of the basic insights of his work is necessary for our understanding of the political and moral choices that we today confront.  I have in previous posts tried to formulate succinctly these important insights (see “Immanuel Wallerstein” 7/30/2014; “What is a world-system?” 8/1/2013; “The modern world-economy” 8/2/2013; “Unequal exchange” 8/5/2013; “The origin of the modern world-economy” 8/6/2013; “Modernization of the West” 8/7/2013; “Conquest, gold, and Western development” 8/8/2013; “Consolidation of the world-economy, 1640-1815” 8/19/2013; “New peripheralization, 1750-1850” 8/20/2013; “The world-economy becomes global, 1815-1914” 8/21/2013).

     When I first read the initial volumes of The Modern World System (1974, 1980, 1989) in the 1980s, I interpreted Wallerstein’s analysis of the historical development of the modern world-system as a comprehensive description that incorporated the basic insights of Black Nationalism, placing them in a broader global and historical context.  (Black Nationalism had formed the basic premises of my scholarship as a result of my study at the Center for Inner City Studies in Chicago in the early 1970s).  In more recent years, reading Wallerstein’s collections of essays (1995, 1999, 2003, 2004, 2006), I discovered that Wallerstein and I have divergent interpretations of the political and epistemological implications of the Third World national liberation movements (see “Wallerstein: A Critique” 7/31/0213).

     I take this difference to be rooted in the different trajectories of our work and in the different social experiences that our work provided.  Wallerstein, as a young sociologist in the late 1950s and early 1960s, encountered African nationalism as it was transforming the political reality of Africa and the world. He discerned that African nationalists looked at the world from a perspective different from Europeans, from a perspective that was rooted in the “colonial situation.”  He appropriated African nationalist insights, and he incorporated them in the formulation of “world-systems analysis,” in which he was influenced by the French historian Fernand Braudel, and through which, as he would later express, he expanded the time scope and space scope of the African independence movements.  Beginning in the 1980s, Wallerstein was influenced by the Nobel Prize chemist Ilya Prigogine.  Wallerstein appropriated Prigogine’s analysis of physical processes, arriving at the understanding that the world-system had entered “bifurcation” or structural crisis.  In addition, Wallerstein drew upon both Braudel and Prigogine to address epistemological issues and to see the need to reunify knowledge, overcoming separation of the social sciences and history as well as the division between science and philosophy.

      But my experience of encounter with Third World movements led me in a somewhat different direction.  I saw the Third World movements as providing a foundation for a reconstruction of the political-economy of the world-system and a formulation of an alternative epistemological consensus that would be integral to a reconstructed world-system.  That is, I viewed the Third World movements as not merely formulating important insights that should be incorporated in a European-based understanding of historical systems and knowledge, but as providing a foundation for a just and democratic world-system and for universal human understanding of the true and the right.  My understanding and conviction deepened as I proceeded to encounter Third World movements beyond the first encounter with Black Nationalism: the popular movement in Honduras; the Cuban Revolution and the speeches and writings of its historic charismatic leader, Fidel Castro Ruz; and “socialism for the XXI century” in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador, observing it from the sympathetic vantage point of Cuba.  All of these manifestations of Third World national liberation movements possessed important common elements: an understanding of the importance of colonialism and neocolonialism in shaping the world-system; a faith in the capacity of social movements formed by the people to create a more just and democratic world; and a conviction that we can know the true and the right.  In addition, these different Third World nationalisms appropriated Western insights and the insights of Marxism-Leninism, placing them in the context of a Third World perspective formulated from the colonial situation.  Thus, I came to understand that the Third World movements of national liberation were developing from below an alternative world-system and an alternative epistemology.  I came to believe that the neocolonized peoples of the world are showing us in the North the way, with respect to political action, understanding the world, and understanding of understanding itself.

      From 1976 to 1978, stimulated by my previous encounter with Black Nationalism, I studied the Catholic philosopher Bernard Lonergan.  I was investigating the question of the possibility of objective knowledge of the social world, given the fact, by then clear to me, that understandings are rooted in social position.  Drawing upon Lonergan’s concepts of “the desire to know,” “personal encounter” and “horizon,” I arrived at the conclusion that we intellectuals of the North are able to arrive at a universal human understanding, if we encounter the social movements formed by the neocolonized peoples of the Third World.  I continue to believe that this provides an important piece to the epistemological dilemmas of our time, particularly in that it provides a methodological guideline for intellectuals of the North in the context of a just and necessary transformation of the world-system from below.

     It seems to me that Wallerstein has arrived at the point of understanding what we social scientists, who are organized principally as social scientists of the North, ought to do: we need to reunify knowledge, and to formulate epistemological assumptions and methodological rules that would be integral to a reunified historical social science; and we need to develop understandings that clarify the structural crisis and contradictions of the world-system, in order to made clear the historical choices that humanity today confronts.  At the same time, it seems to me that Wallerstein has not seen that we social scientists of the North are not in a social position that would enable us to accomplish this task, trapped as we are in fragmented disciplines and academic bureaucratic structures and isolated as we are from the political and revolutionary discourses of the Third World.  And he has not seen that that the fulfillment of this task is in fact occurring among social scientists, historians and intellectuals of the Third World, who are part of a social and political project that is developing an alternative more just and democratic world-system.  The great advances in social scientific understanding, beginning with Marx, have been formulated for most part outside the structures of higher education in the nations of the North; they have been and are being formulated by charismatic leaders and intellectuals of the social movements of the Third World, whose insights have been marginalized by the structures of knowledge in the universities of the North.  Wallerstein’s work is an exception to this general pattern, an exception made possible by his encounter with African nationalism.

      I will address these issues in subsequent posts for the next two or three weeks.  The posts will seek to provide a critical analysis of the work of Immanuel Wallerstein, whose “world-systems analysis” provides a starting point for the necessary reunification and reorganization of knowledge as well as an intellectual foundation for the necessary popular revolutionary transformation of the North.  I will stand with Wallerstein in affirming that we can know the true and the right, or at least important components of it, and that grand narratives are necessary and unavoidable, but I will differ from the master in asserting that the alternative universal understanding of the true and the right is emerging from below, in places that we have been taught to least expect.


References

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.

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

__________.  2004.  The Uncertainties of Knowledge.  Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

__________.  2006.  European Universalism: The Rhetoric of Power.  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, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Wallerstein, world-systems analysis

      Encountering the proletarian movement in Paris in 1843-44, while simultaneously studying British political economy, Marx formulated a penetrating and moving understanding of human history.  He interpreted the social action of workers, artisans and intellectuals connected to the working class movement as the first steps in a revolutionary process that would forge a transition from capitalism to socialism.  The future socialist society, Marx believed, would be built on a foundation of automated industry, and it would be characterized by the abolition of class divisions, inequality and exploitation, because there would not be a functional need for them.  Marx thus envisioned the creation of what we would today call a just and democratic world-system, established by the political action of the exploited class.  (See various posts on Marx in January 2014, particularly “Marx and the working class” 1/6/2014; “Marx illustrate cross-horizon encounter” 1/7/2014; “Marx on the revolutionary proletariat” 1/14/2014; and “The social and historical context of Marx” 1/15/2014).

       We have seen that the process of change occurring today in Latin America and the Caribbean can be interpreted as the beginning of the emergence a post-capitalist/socialist/civilizational project that seeks the establishment of an alternative more just and democratic world-system (see “A change of epoch?” 3/18/2014).  Thus we are able to see in our time the possible fulfillment, at long last, of the transition envisioned by Marx from capitalism to socialism. 

     But the possible transition to socialism of our time has characteristics that Marx did not, and given the time in which he wrote, could not fully anticipate.  The social movements that are its foundation are not the working-class movements of the core but multiple popular classes and sectors of neocolonized regions of the world, movements that have included students, peasants, women, workers, and indigenous peoples, and movements in which the principle leaders have come for the most part from the petit bourgeoisie.  (I have discussed this phenomenon and its implications in different contexts; see: “The social and historical context of Marx” 1/15/2014 “The proletarian vanguard” 1/24/2014; and “The proletariat and the Mexican Revolution” 2/14/2014).

      Another dimension, not anticipated by Marx, has been the role of charismatic leaders, and this also is a phenomenon that I have discussed previously (see “Toussaint L’Ouverture” 12/10/2013; “Reflections on the Russian Revolution” 1/29/2014; “Lessons of the Mexican Revolution” 2/19/2014; “The dream renewed” 3/6/2014).  In the case of the process of Latin American unity and integration, Hugo Chávez has assumed this indispensable function of charismatic leadership.  Discerning that the objective conditions for integration were present, and possessing faith in the Bolivarian vision of sovereign Latin American nations united in La Patria Grande; Chávez was constantly present, proposing and exhorting.  (To read more about Hugo Chávez Frías, see “Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela”).  It is a question of objective and subjective factors being present, from which emerges a charismatic leader who is able to discern what is possible and to lead the people toward its fulfillment.  As we continue in the development of this blog to review various revolutionary processes in various nations, we will see that this combination of objective and subjective factors and charismatic leadership is a recurring phenomenon.

      In addition to the important role of charismatic figures with exceptional gifts of understanding and leadership, another characteristic of the new Latin American and Caribbean political phenomenon, also a characteristic not anticipated by Marx, is the central role of patriotism.  Not the distorted form of patriotism that has a tragic history in Europe and the United States, in which elites manipulate popular sentiments in order to enlist the people in wars against other nations, for the disguised purpose of protecting elite interests.  But a form of patriotism that values the protection of the sovereignty and the dignity of the nation, and that proclaims one’s own nation’s right to sovereignty on the basis of the principle of the sovereign rights of all nations.  In this new form of patriotism, the enemies of the nation are not the peoples of other nations, but the national elite who have dishonorably betrayed the nation in the pursuit of particular interests.  It is a kind of patriotism that would propel Hugo Chávez to proclaim, with reference to the traditional political parties 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 new form of patriotism, which I call “revolutionary patriotism,” is intertwined with a spirit of internationalism and international solidarity (see “Revolutionary patriotism” 8/15/2013).  The new patriotism proclaims the right of all nations to true independence and sovereignty, and it condemns the imperialist policies of powerful nations that seek to maintain the neocolonial world-system.  It expresses solidarity with all nations and peoples that seek true sovereignty and independence.  In his 1982 essay, in which he was contemplating the possible transition to an alternative world-system, Wallerstein wondered, “What kind of ‘nationalism’ is compatible with the creation of a socialist world order” (1982:52)?  The revolutionary patriotic discourses that at the same time are expressions of international solidarity, formulated by Chávez, Morales and Correa, are responses to Wallerstein’s question.

     Revolutionary patriotism is not new.  It has been an integral component of anti-colonial and anti-neocolonial revolutions of the twentieth century.  Patriotism would compel a young Vietnamese socialist in Paris in the 1920s, who later would become known to the world as Ho Chi Minh, to take the name of Nguyen Ai Quoc, which means “Nguyen the Patriot.”  Although clearly a committed communist who believed in a global revolution, Ho was above all a patriotic nationalist.  And patriotism would prompt a young Fidel Castro in the 1950s to conclude a public statement with a phrase from the Cuban national anthem: “To die for the nation is to live.”  When the triumphant revolutionary army entered Havana on January 8, 1959, the comandantes at the front were bearing huge Cuban flags. Subsequently, the revolutionary government did not change either the national anthem or the flag, a decision that was explained by Fidel, in response to a question from a foreign journalist, by saying, “There is a lot of glory under that flag.”  The Cuban Revolution took power in 1959 in the name of popular aspirations for a truly sovereign nation, accusing the established political elite of having violated the dignity of the nation.

      Thus the socialist revolution of our time is developing in a way that Marx did not fully anticipate.  It is a popular revolution formed by various popular classes and sectors, with a principle social base in the neocolonized regions of the world, led by charismatic leaders with exceptional gifts who for the most part have social origins in the petit bourgeoisie, although the leaders have included workers (Nicolás Maduro) and peasants (Evo Morales).  These charismatic leaders have aroused and channeled the anger and the hopes of the people, in part by sound analysis of global dynamics, but also in part by touching the patriotic sentiments of the people, and by naming the treasonous conduct of the national bourgeoisie, for its collaboration with the interests of international capital at the expense of the people, many of whom were already impoverished and ignored by centuries of colonial and neocolonial domination.  Driven by faith in the future of humanity, the charismatic leaders have proclaimed that a better world is possible, and they have found the audacity to lead the people in its quest for a more just and democratic world, in which all persons are treated with dignity, and the sovereignty of all nations is respected. 

     Although the socialist revolution of our time does not have the characteristics that Marx fully anticipated, it is in a broad sense the realization of the socialist revolution that Marx foresaw.  Marx envisioned a socialist revolution on the basis of observing the contradictions of the capitalist system from the vantage point of the exploited class, and from this vantage point, he recognized that the contradictions cannot be resolved without structural transformations that imply the end of the system itself and its transition to something else.  From this vantage point from below, Marx also could discern that one possible outcome was the transformation of the system in a form that would protect the rights of all, and that such a resolution would be consistent with human progress and with advances in natural and social scientific knowledge, thus making such a resolution all the more likely.  In our time, we can see such a possibility unfolding:  A resolution of the contradictions of the capitalist world-economy, which can be discerned from the vantage point from below, through the decisive and informed political action of the exploited and neocolonized, who seek a more just and democratic world-system.

       The post-1995 resurgence of revolution by the neocolonized peoples of the earth provides a clear choice for humanity: a choice between, on the one hand, a neocolonial world-system that places markets above people and the privileges of the powerful above the rights of the humble; and on the other hand, a dignified alternative being led by charismatic leaders whose gifts of discernment, commitment to social justice, and denunciations of the powerful  remind us of the prophet Amos, who condemned the structures of domination and privilege of the ancient Kingdom of Israel as violations of the Mosaic covenant, a covenant that was a sacred agreement between a homeless and marginalized people and a God who acts in history in defense of the poor.

     We intellectuals of the North have the duty to observe and discern what is happening, and to explain it to our people, so that the people, freed from the distortions of the media, can decide what they ought to do.  I believe that, if the people were to know, a consensus would emerge to do what is right.  But the people need the help of intellectuals.  In no national revolutionary context have the people figured things out by themselves.  The role of intellectuals, who created a subjective context from which emerged charismatic leaders, was essential, and charismatic leadership was decisive.


References

Wallerstein, Immanuel.  1982.  “Crisis as Transition” in Samir Amin, Giovanni Arrighi, Andre Gunder Frank, and Immanuel Wallerstein, Dynamics of Global Crisis.  New York and London: Monthly Review 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, Latin American unity, Latin American integration, CELAC, Chávez

     We have seen in various posts since March 4 that a new political reality has emerged in Latin America and the Caribbean, defined by rejection of US-directed integration and by the formulation of an alternative integration from below, with its most recent expression being the Declaration of Havana emitted by the 33 governments of CELAC on January 29, 2014.  The process of Latin American union and integration can be seen as an effort by the neocolonized peoples and nations to by-pass existing exploitative structures of the core-peripheral relation and to gradually replace them, step-by-step, with alternative structures for relations among nations, shaped by complementary and mutually beneficial intraregional commercial and social accords.  The formation of the Bank of the South seeks to provide a financial foundation for this alternative project, undermining financial penetration of the region and the control of the region by transnational banks and international financial institutions. 

      In conjunction with this step-by-step process of establishing alternative commercial and social relations among nations and alternative financial institutions, the new Latin American political process is proclaiming the fundamental principles and values for an alternative world-system: the protection of the social and economic rights of all persons, including the rights to a decent standard of living, housing, nutrition, education, and health; respect for the sovereignty of all nations, even those that are not wealthy or powerful; and the development of forms of production and distribution that are ecologically sustainable.  Thus there exist in embryo the commercial, social, financial and ideological components of an alternative more just and democratic world-system.

      Do these developments mean that we are in a change of epoch, involving a transition from a world-system with a logic of domination and superexploitation to a world-system with a logic of equality, solidarity, and sustainability?  It has been so named by Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, when he observed that we are not in an epoch of change, but in a change of epoch.  In the same vein, Hugo Chávez proclaimed that the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela is constructing “Socialism for the XXI Century,” a socialism different from the socialisms of the twentieth century, “a socialism renewed for the new era, for the XXI century” (Chávez 2006:193).  And this notion of socialism for our era has been invoked as well by Correa and Bolivian President Evo Morales. 

     As early as 1982, Immanuel Wallerstein maintained that the world-system has entered a structural and fundamental crisis and was in transition to something else, possibly, on the one hand, a world-system with a new logic of domination, or on the other hand, a socialist world order and/or a new civilizational project (Wallerstein 1982:11, 51-53).  Can we interpret the process of change in Latin America as the emergence of an alternative civilizational and socialist project that Wallerstein imagined more than thirty years ago as a possibility? 

      I believe that indeed we can, and the principle reason is that the process of Latin American and Caribbean unity integrates values formed by the movements of the peoples of the world during the last two and one-half centuries: the bourgeois democratic revolutions that proclaimed the rights and the equality of all; the socialist and communist movements that expanded these rights to include the rights of workers and peasants to elect delegates who would govern in accordance with their interests and their social and economic rights and needs; the Third World national liberation movements that proclaimed that rights pertain to nations and peoples as well as persons, and that such rights include self-determination and true sovereignty; movements formed by women that proclaimed the right of women to full and equal participation in the construction of the society; and the movements formed by those who could hear the weeping of our Mother Earth, crying out for the beings that she nurtures and sustains.  These movements have formulated what I call “universal human values,” values concerning which there is consensus in all regions of the world, and which have been affirmed by various international organization and commissions, including those of the United Nations.  Based in these universal human values, the process of Latin American and Caribbean unity is developing in practice an alternative civilizational project, one that draws from various political and cultural horizons and that has faith in the future of humanity.  It presents itself as an alternative to the established neocolonial world-system that places markets above people, seeks military solutions to social conflicts, pays insufficient attention to the ecological needs of the Earth, and induces consumerism and cynicism among the people.

    To be sure, CELAC is not in itself a revolutionary organization that seeks to establish an alternative socialist civilizational project: it includes nations where traditional political parties still govern, and it has not arrived to a concept of popular power or popular democracy.  But CELAC does represent progressive reform of the world-system from below, in which alternative practices, incompatible with the structures of the neocolonial world-system, are being developed cooperatively by governments that pertain to the semi-peripheral and peripheral regions of the world-economy (see “The Modern World Economy” 8/2/2013).  Furthermore, CELAC is part of a process of change in Latin America and the Caribbean, in which several progressive/Leftist governments have come to power, adopting reforms from below in defense of the rights and needs of the people, in accordance with universal human values.  In some nations of the region, this process of change indeed is revolutionary, involving the displacement from power of the political representatives of international corporations and national bourgeoisies, replacing them with delegates of the people, who are beginning to adopt policies that defend and protect the rights and needs of the people, in accordance with universal human values.  This revolutionary process is being led by Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia and Ecuador, and by charismatic leaders in these nations.  We will be discussing the revolutionary processes in each of these nations in future posts.

      Both of the possibilities envisioned by Wallerstein are simultaneously emerging from the conflicts and contradictions of the world-system.  Alongside the emergence of Latin American union and integration and the proclamation of “Socialism for the XXI Century,” there also has occurred a turn to the Right of the global powers since 1980.  Confronting a situation in the 1970s in which the modern world-system had reached the ecological limits of the earth; at a time in which the movements of the people, in all zones of the system, had arrived to define the right of all persons and nations to benefit from the blessings the earth; the global elite found itself in a situation in which it could no longer make concessions to the working and middle classes of the core or to the national bourgeoisies (and indirectly to the people) in the semi-peripheral and peripheral zones.  The global elite thus turned to the aggressive pursuit of its interests: the imposition of the neoliberal project on the Third World, in violation of principles of sovereignty and without regard for the social and economic needs of the people; new strategies of interventionism in those Third World nations that seek true independence, making a mockery of established norms of international diplomacy; an attack on the protection of social and economic rights enshrined in Keynesian economic policies in the nations of the North, a process that has accelerated since 2007; the use of the media to distract the people and to generate distorted understandings of social conflicts; and unilateral military action by the United States, setting itself above international regulation and prompting Fidel Castro to refer to a “global military dictatorship.”  In short, the global elite has adopted aggressive measures to preserve its privileges and the structures of the neocolonial world-system on which such privileges depend. 

     But the aggressive policies of the global elite defy the logic of the neocolonial world-system, which requires the protection to some degree of the social and economic rights of the working and middles classes in the core as well as the interests of the national bourgeoisie in the periphery and semi-periphery.  Thus the aggressive measures have undermined the stability of the neocolonial world-system, deepening and accelerating the crisis of the system.  Although the aggressive measures cannot sustain the unsustainable neocolonial world-system, they may turn out to be the first steps in the transition to an alternative neo-fascist and militarist world-system, characterized by: forced access to global raw materials; by repressive control of populations, particularly in the peripheral and semi-peripheral regions; and by the manipulative use of the media to distract and confuse the people (see “The erosion of neocolonialism” 3/17/2014).

      In this historic moment in which two practical possibilities for the future exist side by side, we intellectuals of the North who are committed to universal human values must escape the traps of the logic of domination of the established world-system: the fragmentation of knowledge into disciplines, leaving us with partial understandings of what is occurring; and a distorted concept of scientific knowledge, which compels us to demonstrate our “objectivity” by offering criticisms of the movements from below, criticisms that undermine their legitimate claims and political strategies and that confuse our people.  We have the duty to seek to understand the movements from below, to delegitimate the ideological distortions of the system, and to affirm the possibility that humanity can be saved by virtue of a political process formed by the neocolonized, even when this political process does not have the characteristics that we would have anticipated or would have thought desirable.   I will discuss these unanticipated characteristics in the next post.


References

Chávez Frías, Hugo. 2006.  La Unidad Latinoamericana.  Melbourne:  Ocean Sur.

Wallerstein, Immanuel.  1982.  “Crisis as Transition” in Samir Amin, Giovanni Arrighi, Andre Gunder Frank, and Immanuel Wallerstein, Dynamics of Global Crisis.  New York and London: Monthly Review 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, Latin American unity, Latin American integration, CELAC, Rafael Correa, Chávez, Wallerstein

     We have seen that during the course of the twentieth century, the United States utilized imperialist strategies to impose economic policies that facilitated US economic, commercial, and financial penetration of Latin America and the Caribbean, thus contributing to the establishment of a neocolonial world-system.  And we have seen that the United States developed the Pan-American project, with the intention of obtaining the participation and cooperation of the governments of Latin America and the Caribbean in an inter-American system characterized by U.S. domination (see various posts on U.S. imperialism and Pan-Americanism in September and October 2013 as well as “US policy in Latin America and Venezuela” 2/28/2014).

      The Declaration of Havana, issued by the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) on January 29, 2014 is the most recent expression of the advancing process of Latin American union and integration, initiated by Hugo Chávez in 2001.  The Declaration demonstrates the total collapse of the Pan-American project, a rejection by the 33 governments of Latin America and the Caribbean of US-directed integration of the region and of the objectives and strategies that defined US-directed integration.  As we have seen, the Declaration mentions directly the United States only to condemn its policies in relation to Cuba.  It obliquely criticizes the United States when it invokes the principle of differentiated responsibility and calls upon the nations most responsible for the emission of greenhouse gases to accelerate efforts to control them.  And it adopts positions that are in opposition to U.S. policies: in calling for respect for the patents and knowledge of indigenous peoples; in taking a perspective on development that places the human needs at the center; in insisting that investments be free of conditions; and in affirming the right of all nations to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes (see “The Declaration of Havana 2014” 3/14/2014).

     The evident loss of political influence by the hegemonic nation over its neocolonies is an indication of the erosion of the neocolonial world-system.  Taking into account the various dimensions of neocolonialism (see “The Characteristics of Neocolonialism” 9/16/2013), we can see that some of these characteristics continue to define the US relation with Latin America.  The most important of them, core-peripheral trade on a base of super-exploited peripheral and semi-peripheral labor, remains for the most part intact.  The transformation of the core-peripheral commercial relation is a difficult process, inasmuch as it has been developed on a colonial foundation during the course of 500 years, and existing systems of production, commerce and labor are rooted in it.  And another continuing characteristic of neocolonialism is the fact that the United States has unchallenged military dominance. 

     Nevertheless, there has been erosion with respect to some of the characteristics of neocolonialism.  In the first place, the national bourgeoisies of the neocolonies no longer function as figurehead bourgeoisies in accordance with the requirements of the neocolonial world-system.  Neocolonialism requires that the national bourgeoisie insert itself into the structures of the core-peripheral relation, thus making itself subordinate to transnational capital, and undermining the potential for a bourgeois nationalist project.  But this subordination of the figurehead bourgeoisie must to some extent allow for attention to the economic interests and the political agenda of the figurehead bourgeoisie, for this class plays an important role in maintaining political stability through the channeling of the political objectives of the popular sectors.  This lesson was learned in Cuba in the 1920s, when the interests of Cuban sugar producers and banks were ignored, and high levels of unemployment generated widespread popular unrest, undermining the stability of the neocolonial system.  Adjustments subsequently were made in Cuba in the 1930s, with appropriate attention to the interests of the figurehead bourgeoisie.  But the lesson was forgotten in the 1980s by the core bourgeoisie, which adopted desperate measures in response to the structural crisis of the world-system.  The aggressive imposition by the core bourgeoisie of the neoliberal project in defense of its short-term interests; favoring those sectors of the national bourgeoisies in peripheral and semi-peripheral zones most integrated with international capital, without regard for the interests of the sector of the national bourgeoisie most tied to the national economy, and without concern for the delicate political role of the national bourgeoisie in maintaining social control; has resulted thirty years later in the breakdown of the neocolonial system.  The negative consequences of the neoliberal project with respect to the popular sectors has given rise to popular movements led by charismatic leaders with radical and revolutionary discourses, leading to the political weakening of the national bourgeoisie, which thus could no longer function as a figurehead bourgeoisie, able to manage and control popular demands.

       As a result of the undermining of the role of the national bourgeoisie as a figurehead bourgeoisie, there has been an erosion of the ideological penetration by the neocolonial power, one of the necessary characteristics of neocolonialism.  To be sure, the seductive power of the culture of consumerism and the “American way of life” remains strong, as a consequence of the growing power of the mass media.  But the traditional political parties that represented the interests of the national bourgeoisie have become discredited, such that in many nations even the Right has formed non-traditional parties and has adopted rhetoric similar to the parties of the Left, pretending to be a part of the process of change.  In many nations, representative democracy itself has become discredited, as the people begin to development alternative structures of popular democracy.

     Moreover, in many nations in Latin America today, the military could not possibly play the role assigned to it by the neocolonial system, which is the repression of popular movements when their demands go beyond the accepted limits of the neocolonial system.   Popular rejection of military dictatorships and years of popular mobilizations against the neoliberal project have eliminated repression as a viable option in most of the nations of the region, at least in the present political climate. 

      Thus the neoliberal project has undermined the stability of the neocolonial world-system and has given rise to challenges from below.  But this does not mean that a more enlightened approach by the global elite could have secured the stability of the world-system.  The world-system is based on the superexploitation of vast regions (see “Unequal exchange” 8/5/2013), and thus it necessarily generates opposition from below.  Moreover, it historically has expanded by incorporating more lands and peoples through domination, and this has reached its ecological and geographical limits, inasmuch as there are no more lands and peoples to conquer.  As the result, the world-system has entered a fundamental structural crisis that has given rise to various financial, ecological, social and political crises, revealing its unsustainability.

     Thus, the neoliberal project can be seen as an aggressive attempt by the global elite to sustain an unsustainable neocolonial world-system.  By aggressively seeking short-term profits without regard for the consequences for the world-system, the neoliberal project has deepened the crisis and has increased the probability of (1) a transition to an alternative global neo-fascist and militarist world-system, characterized by forced access to global raw materials and by repressive control of populations in the peripheral and semi-peripheral regions; or (2) the disintegration and regional fragmentation of the world-system, including the emergence of chaos in some areas.

      But while the global elite has acted irresponsibly and has increased the possibility for negative outcomes of the crisis of the world-system, a more positive possibility is emerging from below: the step-by-step construction of a more just and democratic world-system.  The Declaration of Havana and the process of Latin American union and integration are part of this more positive possibility.  We will discuss this theme is subsequent posts.


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, Latin American unity, Latin American integration, CELAC, Chávez

     The process of Latin American unity and integration (see “The rise of ALBA” 3/11/2014 and “Latin American unity and integration” 3/12/2014) culminated in the formation of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC for its initials in Spanish) in 2010, consisting of the governments of the 33 nations of Latin America and the Caribbean.  On January 29, 2014, at its Second Summit held in Havana, CELAC issued a declaration, affirming its fundamental goals, concepts, and values.  (The Summit in Cuba is actually the third, taking into account the “Founding Summit’ in Venezuela in 2011 and the “First Summit” in Chile in January, 2013).  

     The Declaration of Havana affirms the commitment of the 33 governments to continue the process of Latin American integration, to expand intraregional commerce, and to develop the infrastructure necessary for expanding integration.  It affirms a form of integration based on complementariness, solidarity, and cooperation.  It promotes “a vision of integral and inclusive development that ensures sustainable and productive development, in harmony with nature.”

     The Declaration endorses the protection of the social and economic rights of all.  It affirms food and nutritional security, literacy, free universal education, universal public health, and the right to adequate housing.  It advocates giving priority to “persons living in extreme poverty and vulnerable sectors such as the indigenous peoples, Afro-descendants, women, children, the disabled, the elderly, youth, and migrants.”  It calls upon the nations of the world to seek to overcome inequality and to establish a more equitable distribution of wealth.  It calls for the eradication of poverty and hunger.

     The Declaration affirms the principle of the right of nations to control their natural resources:  We “reiterate our commitment with the principle of the sovereign right of States to make best use of their natural resources, and manage and regulate them. Likewise, [we] express the right of our peoples to exploit, in a sustainable manner, their natural resources which can be used as an important source to finance economic development, social justice, and the welfare of our peoples.”

     The Declaration affirms “a more ethical relation between Humanity and Earth,” giving special attention to the issue of climate change.  “Convinced that climate change is one of the most serious problems of our times, [we] express our deep concern about its increasing adverse impact on small island countries in particular, and on developing countries as a whole, hindering their efforts to eradicate poverty and achieve sustainable development. In this regard, and in the context of the principle of shared but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, we recognize that the global nature of climate change requires the cooperation of all countries and their involvement in an effective and adequate global response, in accordance with the historical responsibility of each country, to accelerate the reduction of world emissions of greenhouse gases and the implementation of adaptation measures pursuant to the provisions and principles of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change”

     With respect to indigenous rights, the Declaration recognizes that “indigenous peoples and local communities play a significant role in economic, social and environmental development.”  It affirms “the importance of traditional sustainable agricultural practices, associated with biodiversity and the exploitation of their resources,” and “their traditional systems of land tenure, seed supply systems and access to financing and markets.”  It recognizes “the essential role of the collective action of indigenous peoples and local populations in the preservation and sustainable use of biological diversity as a significant contribution to the planet.”  It reiterates “the need to take steps to protect the patents on traditional and ancestral knowledge of indigenous and tribal peoples and local communities to prevent violation by third parties by registrations that ignore their ownership, and to promote their fair and equitable share of the benefits derived from their use.”

    The Declaration recognizes the urgent need for a “new Development Agenda” that “should reinforce the commitment of the international community to place people at the center of its concerns, promote sustainable and inclusive economic growth, social participative development, and protection of the environment.”

     It proclaims that foreign investment should promote the development of the region, and it rejects the establishment of conditions for investment that violate the sovereignty of nations.  We “express our conviction regarding the relevance of direct foreign investment flows in our region and the need for them to contribute in an effective manner to the development of our countries and translate into greater wellbeing for our societies, without conditionalities being imposed and with respect for their sovereignty, in keeping with their national development plans and programs.”

     The Declaration calls for the nuclear disarmament and the movement toward the elimination of nuclear weapons.  At the same time, it affirms the right of all nations, without exception, to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

    The Declaration’s only direct references to the United States were condemnations of its policy toward Cuba.  We “reiterate our rejection of unilateral lists and certifications by some developed countries affecting Latin American and Caribbean countries, in particular those referring to terrorism, drug trafficking, trafficking in person and others of a similar nature, and [we] ratify the Special Communiqué adopted by CELAC on June 5, 2013 that rejects the inclusion of Cuba in the so-called List of States promoting international terrorism of the United States’ State Department.”  We “reiterate our strongest rejection of the implementation of unilateral coercive measures and once again reiterate our solidarity with the Republic of Cuba, while reaffirming our call upon the Government of the United States of America to put an end to the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed on this sisterly nation for more than five decades.” 

     On the other hand, the Declaration welcomes the continuation of the development of relations between CELAC and China, Russia, and the European Union.

     In short, the Declaration of Havana demonstrates the commitment of the new Latin America to universal human values: respect for the sovereignty of all nations, protection of the social and economic rights of all persons, the protection of the environment, and special measures for vulnerable sectors.  It stands in sharp contrast to the policies of the governments of the North and the transnational agencies controlled by them.  In addition, the Declaration of Havana symbolizes a complete collapse of the Pan-American project of the United States, as we will discuss in the next post.


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, Latin American unity, Latin American integration, CELAC

     In addition to ALBA (see “The rise of ALBA” 3/11/2014), another manifestation of the process of Latin American union and integration is the transformation of the Common Market of the South (MERCOSUR), which occurred in 2005 and 2006.  MERCOSUR was founded in 1991, and it was originally a commercial bloc that included Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay.  Established at the height of the neoliberal project, it had made little progress in increasing commerce among its members, being principally a mechanism that facilitated the penetration of transnational capital.  However, by 2006 the orientation of the association had changed.  Venezuela had entered the association, and Chile and Bolivia had become associated states.  There occurred an expansion of focus beyond commercial accords to the addressing of social, political, and military questions.  During its meeting of 2006, Mexico and Cuba were present as invited countries, and MERCOSUR signed an Agreement of Economic Complementation with Cuba.

     MERCOSUR now has compensatory policies that take into account the particular needs of the members with smaller economies.  It seeks to follow the logic of complementary integration, developing mutually beneficial relations based on the petroleum of Venezuela, the natural gas of Bolivia, the industrial capacity and large markets of Brazil and Argentina, and the advanced knowledge of Cuba in education and health.  And it seeks to develop relations that address the social needs of the peoples.  Thus MERCOSUR, like ALBA, is a project of integration that is fundamentally different from the previous regional associations of integration and from the integration intended by the FTAA proposal of the United States. 

       A MERCOSUR project of important implications is the formation of the Bank of the South.  The project was proposed by Chávez in September 2006 and was formed a little more than a year later.  Seven countries participated in the constitution of the financial entity: Venezuela, Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay.  The Bank is able to supply credit to the countries of the regions without the conditions imposed by the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the Inter-American Bank for Development.  It seeks the repatriation of reserves of capital that the governments of the region have deposited in the banks and government treasury bonds of the United States and Europe.  And it endeavors to promote the autonomous development of the nations of South America. The bank began with initial capital of seven billion dollars.

    MERCOSUR also has undertaken the construction of two gas pipelines connecting the countries of the region.  The Gas Pipeline of the South began with a connection of Venezuelan natural gas reserves to Río de la Plata, crossing Brazilian territory.  Eventually the pipeline will connect Venezuela, Brazil, Bolivia, and Argentina.  A second trans-Caribbean gas pipeline will connect Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, and possibly Nicaragua.  The objective is to establish an infrastructure to support the energy sovereignty of the region and to facilitate that the region’s natural gas reserves will be utilized to supply the energy needs of the region, preventing the region’s natural resources from being exhausted in order to supply the consumerist demands of the industrialized countries. The gas pipeline project is being financed by the Bank of the South.

     Alongside ALBA and MERCOSUR, an integration project that provides energy assistance to Caribbean countries was formed in 2005 through the initiative of Venezuela.  PETROCARIBE is an association of 15 countries of the Caribbean:: Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Belize, Cuba, Dominica, Granada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Saint Kitts and Neves, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Surinam, and Venezuela.  The countries of PETROCARIBE are small countries that are highly vulnerable to the fluctuations of petroleum prices and to the high costs of petroleum.  As a result of the supplying of fuel without intermediaries, it is estimated the countries of PETROCARIBE saved 455 million dollars in the first two years of the association. 

     PETROCARIBE is an agreement of energy cooperation that seeks to reduce the inequalities in access to energy resources by means of an alternative structure of exchange that is more favorable and equitable for the countries of the Caribbean.  PETROCARIBE coordinates the energy policies of its members, including policies related to petroleum and its derivatives, natural gas, and electricity.  It also is developing an infrastructure tied to the refining and storage of fuel that permits the countries to better manage their energy resources.  PETROCARIBE seeks the efficient use of energy and the development of an energy infrastructure as well as the development of alternative sources of energy, such as wind energy, solar energy, and others.

     PETROCARIBE includes mechanisms for the financing of petroleum purchases from Venezuela.   The member states can buy Venezuelan petroleum with a payment of 60% of the price, with the remaining 40% financed at a rate of interest of 1% and a period of payment of 17 to 25 years.  And there is the possibility of making payments in the form of goods and services.

     PETROCARIBE not only seeks energy integration, but also social integration, and accordingly it is developing projects in education, health, and transportation. 

     At the First South American Energy Summit, held on April 16-17, 2007 in Isla Margarita, Venezuela, 11 South American heads of state agreed to form the South American Union of Nations (UNASUR).  This agreement was formalized by the Constituent Treaty of UNASUR, signed by 12 Latin American heads of state on May 23, 2008 in Brasilia.  The member states are Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Surinam, Uruguay and Venezuela.  The Constituent Treaty permits the admission of other states of Latin America and the Caribbean as Associated States of UNASUR, and it established the possibility that Associate States can be admitted as new members after five years.

     The Constituent Treaty of UNASUR proclaims that “South American integration and union are necessary in order to advance sustainable development and the welfare of our peoples as well as to contribute to the resolution of the problems that still affect the region, such as persistent poverty, exclusion, and social inequality.”

     The Constituent Treaty affirms that the principal objective of UNASUR is a comprehensive integration:  “The Union of South American Nations has as an objective the construction, in a participatory and consensual manner, of space for the cultural, social, economic, and political integration and union among its peoples, granting priority to political dialogue, social policies, education, energy, infrastructure, financing, and the environment, among others, with a view to eliminating socioeconomic inequality, attaining social inclusion and citizen participation, strengthening democracy, and reducing asymmetries in the framework of the strengthening of the sovereignty and the independence of the States.”

     The Constituent Treaty established the following objectives:  Social and human development with equity and inclusion in order to eradicate poverty and to overcome inequalities in the region; the eradication of illiteracy; universal access to quality education; energy integration in order to utilize in solidarity the resources of the region; the development of an infrastructure for the interconnection of the region; the protection of biodiversity, water resources, and ecosystems; cooperation in the prevention of catastrophes and in the struggle against the causes and the effects of climate change; the development of concrete mechanisms for the overcoming of asymmetries, thereby attaining an equitable integration; universal access to social security and to services of health; and citizen participation through mechanisms of dialogue between UNASUR and diverse social actors.

    In addition to the formation of the above-mentioned associations, the process of Latin American integration has moved forwarded through the signing of many bilateral agreements by nations in the region. 

     The formation of various associations dedicated to mutually beneficial commercial and social exchanges provided the background for the establishment of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, which we will discuss in the next post.


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, Latin American unity, Latin American integration, MERCOSUR, Bank of the South, PETROCARIBE, UNASUR, Chávez