Global Learning
  • Home
  • Defenders of Cuban Socialism
    • UN Charter
    • Declaration of Human Rights
    • Bandung
    • New International Economic Order
    • Non-Aligned Movement
  • Substack editorial column
  • New Cold War articles
  • Friends of Socialist China articles
  • Global Research articles
  • Counterpunch articles
  • Cuba and the world-system
    • Table of Contents and chapter summaries
    • About the author
    • Endorsements
    • Obtaining your copy
  • Blog ¨The View from the South¨
    • Blog Index
    • Posts in reverse chronological order
  • The Voice of Third World Leaders
    • Asia >
      • Ho Chi Minh
      • Xi Jinping, President of China
    • Africa >
      • Kwame Nkrumah
      • Julius Nyerere
    • Latin America >
      • Fidel Castro
      • Hugo Chávez
      • Raúl Castro >
        • 55th anniversary speech, January 1, 1914
        • Opening Speech, CELAC
        • Address at G-77, June 15, 2014
        • Address to National Assembly, July 5, 2014
        • Address to National Assembly, December 20, 2014
        • Speech on Venezuela at ALBA, 3-17-2015
        • Declaration of December 18, 2015 on USA-Cuba relations
        • Speech at ALBA, March 5, 2018
      • Miguel Díaz-Canel >
        • UN address, September 26, 2018
        • 100th annivesary, CP of China
      • Evo Morales >
        • About Evo Morales
        • Address to G-77 plus China, January 8, 2014
        • Address to UN General Assembly, September 24, 2014
      • Rafael Correa >
        • About Rafael Correa
        • Speech at CELAC 1/29/2015
        • Speech at Summit of the Americas 2015
      • Nicolás Maduro
      • Cristina Fernández
      • Cuban Ministry of Foreign Relations >
        • Statement at re-opening of Cuban Embassy in USA, June 20, 2015
        • The visit of Barack Obama to Cuba
        • Declaration on parliamentary coup in Brazil, August 31, 2016
        • Declaration of the Revolutionary Government of Cuba on Venezuela, April 13, 2019
      • ALBA >
        • Declaration of ALBA Political Council, May 21, 2019
        • Declaration on Venezuela, March 17, 2015
        • Declaration on Venezuela, April 10, 2017
      • Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) >
        • Havana Declaration 2014
        • Declaration on Venezuela, March 26
    • Martin Luther King, Jr.
    • International >
      • Peoples’ Summit 2015
      • The Group of 77 >
        • Declaration on a New World Order 2014
        • Declaration on Venezuela 3/26/2015
      • BRICS
      • Non-Aligned Movement
  • Readings
    • Charles McKelvey, Cuba in Global Context
    • Piero Gleijeses, Cuba and Africa
    • Charles McKelvey, Chávez and the Revolution in Venezuela
    • Charles McKelvey, The unfinished agenda of race in USA
    • Charles McKelvey, Marxist-Leninist-Fidelist-Chavist Revolutionary
  • Recommended Books
  • Contact

Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Recommended books on Amazon.com; click on image of book to connect

A narrative on morality in international affairs

2/24/2017

0 Comments

 
Posted March 10, 2017

    In his Inaugural Address, Trump declared that “it is the right of all nations to put their own interests first.”  True enough.  However, no nation has the right to defend its national interests in a form detached from internationalist consciousness.  All nations have the moral obligation to seek mutually beneficial trade with other nations, and to defend their interests in the context of negotiations based on mutual respect and respect for the sovereignty of other nations.

     Moreover, those nations that have benefitted from colonial domination have a historic and social debt to those nations that have been victimized by it.  There can be no moral justification for the United States, having economically benefitted from trade with slave states and slave nations and from inserting itself into semi-colonial structures established by Spanish conquest and colonial domination of Latin America, to now proclaim that it has a right to protect the advantages and privileges that have been accumulated at the expense of other peoples.  As Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa asserted at the 2017 Summit of CELAC (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States), the protection of their economies by nations historically colonized is necessary for their sovereignty, and it is fundamentally different from economic protection by a superpower, the exercise of which will have serious negative repercussions for the nations of the world (read more on Rafael Correa).

       The dominant school of thought in foreign relations during the twentieth century has maintained that nations must be guided primarily by interests rather than moral considerations, and that a nation does not have a right to sacrifice its interests in the name of a moral principle (see Morgenthau 1973:3-15).  This indeed has been the guiding principle of the major powers throughout the history of the modern world-system.  But the belief that each nation should pursue its economic interests, leaving moral considerations aside, ensures the unsustainability of the world-system in the long term.  No world-system could be sustainable, if the political entities that compose it, in the conduct of foreign policy, were to ignore the values that are shared by all. In the case of the modern world-system, universal values have been articulated and enshrined in important documents and declarations of international associations, and they include moral concepts such as the rights of all nations to sovereignty and to economic and social development.  All nations have the obligation to respect these rights and to develop their foreign policy accordingly. The global elite does not understand this moral duty, and as a result, they are leading humanity to chaos, violence and possible extinction. In an earlier stage, the amoral conduct of the global elite was sanctioned by historians and social scientists.  Today, however, it is increasingly evident that philosophers, historians and social scientists have the duty to condemn policies that ignore universal human values.

       The possibility and the necessity of a U.S. foreign policy of North-South cooperation, in accordance with the universally accepted principles of the sovereignty and equality of nations, the social and economic rights of persons, and the duty of humanity to defend itself and to defend nature, must be declared and explained to the people. It is the duty of the Left to formulate and proclaim this explanation, so that the people, who are increasingly rejecting neoliberal globalization, will have a concrete alternative to the neofascism of Trump.


Reference
 
Morgenthau, Hans J.  1973.  Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, Fifth Edition.  New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author: Charles McKelvey

    Retired professor, writer,  and Marxist-Leninist-Fidelist-Chavist revolutionary

    Categories

    All
    American Revolution
    Blog Index
    Bolivia
    Charismatic Leaders
    China
    Critique Of The Left
    Cuban History
    Cuba Today
    Ecuador
    Environment
    French Revolution
    Gay Rights
    Haitian Revolution
    Knowledge
    Latin American History
    Latin American Right
    Latin American Unity
    Marx
    Marxism-Leninism
    Mexican Revolution
    Miscellaneous
    Neocolonialism
    Neoliberalism
    Nicaragua
    North-South Cooperation
    Presidential Elections 2016
    Press
    Public Debate In USA
    Race
    Religion And Revolution
    Revolution
    Russian Revolution
    South-South Cooperation
    Third World
    Trump
    US Ascent
    US Imperialism
    Vanguard
    Venezuela
    Vietnam
    Wallerstein
    Women And Revolution
    World History
    World-System
    World-System Crisis

    Archives

    August 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    December 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    January 2013

    RSS Feed

    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture

More Ads


website by Sierra Creation