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Wallerstein on liberalism

3/31/2014

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Posted April 6, 2014

​     Defining ideology as “a comprehensive, long-term political agenda intended to mobilize large numbers of people” (1995:94), Immanuel Wallerstein maintains that since the French Revolution there have been three ideologies that have dominated public discourse in the world-system: conservatism, liberalism, and radicalism (although radicalism did not differentiate itself from liberalism until 1848).  All were reacting to the French Revolution, which established the principle that all citizens have equal rights, and the society should evolve toward the protection of the rights of citizens in practice.  Conservatives advocated a slow process of change toward equality, controlled by traditional elites.  Liberals advocated a reasoned change, not too fast and not too slow, directed by technicians and specialists; liberals believed in a “conscious, continual, intelligent reformism” that would lead to the good society (1995:76).  Radicals advocated rapid change directed by worker’s organizations.  All three ideologies had rhetoric of hostility to the state, but all three in practice strengthened states structures, because they found the state necessary for the implementation of their projects (Wallerstein 1995:75-85, 95-100, 148-49, 235, 255-56).

     Wallerstein maintains that conservatives came to recognize that some concessions to the popular classes of workers, peasants, and migrants were necessary for political stability, thus they moved toward liberalism, forming a conservative version of liberalism.  At the same time, radicals came to understand the wisdom of the more reasoned approach, and thus they came to adopt a radical variant of liberalism. Thus, all three ideologies ultimately represented liberalism, characterized by a belief in gradual change toward the protection of the rights of all citizens, expressed in the two variants of conservative liberalism and radical liberalism (1995:96-101, 235-37). 

     Liberalism, with its two versions, was the dominant ideology of the world-system from 1789 to 1968, with organizations, leaders, intellectuals, and academics sharing in its premises, whether they called themselves conservatives, liberals, or radicals (Wallerstein 1995:89, 240, 273).  Liberalism succeeded during this period because its program of concessions to core popular classes was financed by the appropriation of surplus value from peripheral and semi-peripheral regions, a super-exploitation that was justified by a belief that the peoples of these zones were “barbarians,” different from the “civilized” nations (1995:153).

     On the international plane, liberalism came to mean the protection of the equal sovereign rights of all nations, and there was here too a vision of a gradual process of change in which the world would move in practice toward equality among nations.  The liberal vision applied at the world level was most fully develop developed by Woodrow Wilson, with his call for self-determination, and by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who envisioned the economic development of peripheral and semi-peripheral zones.  This vision was embraced by newly independent nations in Africa and Asia in the 1960s, which envisioned national development that would enable them to catch up to the nations of the West.  However, liberalism on the world scale could not be nearly as successful as liberalism in the nations of the core, because the capitalist world-economy functioned on the basis of the super-exploitation of labor in peripheral and semi-peripheral regions. Concessions could be made to the demands of core workers, but this could not be duplicated on a world scale (Wallerstein 1995:102-4, 113-15, 162-63, 238-39, 259-62). 

     In accordance with his interpretation of the ideologies of the world-system, Wallerstein considers Leninism to be a variant of liberalism. Wallerstein concedes that Lenin criticized social democracy for its evolution toward liberalism, and he sought to return to the genuinely radical roots of Marxism.  But, Wallerstein maintains, in the evolution of the Soviet Union, there was an evolution toward liberalism, a process accelerated with Stalin and culminating with Gorbachev.  This can be seen in the fact that the Soviet Union sought to industrialize and to become a powerful state in the world-system.  On the international plane, Leninism evolved from world revolution to anti-imperialism and the construction of socialism in particular nations, which Wallerstein interprets as consistent with the liberal vision of the gradual economic development of the nations of the world.  Although Wallerstein acknowledges that there are significant differences between Lenin and Wilson, he maintains that we should not be blind to the similarities, and he thus refers to the Wilson-Leninist reform package for the Third World, which he sees as the application of liberalism on a world scale (1999:13-14, 102-3, 109-16, 49, 137-38, 156, 239-40).

     Wallerstein maintains that liberalism has lost legitimacy, thus establishing a crisis of ideology in the world-system.  He describes the fall of liberalism as involving a decline of faith in the capacity of governments to adopt policies and develop programs that bit by bit improve the conditions in which people live.  In the case of the working and middle classes of the core, this loss of faith was driven by the decreasing capacity of states to respond to the increasing demands of the people.  In the case of the Third World, it was established by the failure of Third World national liberation governments to overcome the underdevelopment that was a legacy of the colonial era.  Wallerstein maintains that the “Revolution of 1968” was a significant factor in undermining the legitimacy of liberalism, for it criticized the three types of movements against the system: communism in Eastern Europe and Asia, social democracy in Western Europe and North America, and national liberation in the Third World (1996:64-65, 89, 106, 116, 240-41, 265-66). 

     Wallerstein notes that there were four exceptions to the prevailing pattern of radicalism converting itself into liberalism.  Four nations refused to accept the rules imposed by the United States: China, Vietnam, Algeria, and Cuba.  These nations fiercely pursued political autonomy (1995:51-53).  Wallerstein maintains, however, that the four exceptions operated within the framework of the eighteenth century Enlightenment world view.  They were against the system but of the system (1995:189). 

     For the Third World, Wallerstein sees three possibilities.  First is the “Khomeini option, which he describes as anger and denunciation of the West.  Secondly, there is the “Saddam Hussein option,” or economic transformation through acquiring larger states by military force.  And the third option is migration (1995:21-22, 189-90, 243-45). 

        In subsequent posts, I will endeavor to critically analyze Wallerstein’s view of the ideologies of the world-system and the possibilities that exist today for the Third World.


References

Wallerstein, Immanuel.  1995. After Liberalism. 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, liberalism
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Liberals or revolutionaries?

3/28/2014

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Posted April 7, 2014

​     In his essays on liberalism, published as a collection in After Liberalism (1995), Wallerstein presents a panoramic view of the ideologies of the modern era, using ideology here not in the sense of legitimations of domination (see “Domination and ideology” 3/31/2014), but in the sense of the formulation of a long-term political agenda (see “Wallerstein on Liberalism” 4/6/2014). 

     I am not in agreement with Wallerstein’s overview of ideological developments in the modern world-system.  Our differences in interpretation lead us to divergent interpretations concerning the significance of ideological and political developments in the Third World today.

       In critiquing Wallerstein’s panoramic overview of ideological developments, I begin by maintaining that a distinction must be made between Third World national liberation movements that are revolutionary and those that are moderate.  In his second book on Africa, published in 1967, Wallerstein discusses the differences between revolutionary and moderate nationalist movements and nations with respect to the concept of African socialism, presenting presidents Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Ben Bella of Algeria, and Modibo Keita of Mali as outspoken representatives of the revolutionary camp (2005:II 230-36).  But in an article on the social roots of different tendencies in African nationalism originally published in 1970, he does not mention revolutionary African nationalism (1986:13-35).  In his later essays on liberalism, Wallerstein does not consistently maintain a distinction between Third World nationalist movements that are moderate and those that are revolutionary.

      But in analyzing the significance of Third World national liberation movements, the distinction between moderate and revolutionary movements is necessary.  The former are oriented toward cooperation with the neocolonial powers, which includes above all the maintenance of the core-peripheral relation established during colonialism, and as a result, governments with a moderate nationalist orientation have limited possibilities for the improvement of the standard of living of the people.  In contrast, revolutionary leaders have sought to break the neocolonial relation and to place the nation on a path of autonomous development.  Their political agenda has not been the promotion of the interests of the elite within the neocolony. They violated the rules of the system and were declared anathema by the global powers.  They therefore had to maintain the support of the people in order to survive.  Thus, the protection of the social and economic rights of the people was in their interests, reinforcing their personal commitment to revolutionary values, a commitment that brought them to the head of the revolutionary movement as it was unfolding. 

      Some revolutionary projects did not last long or could not succeed in breaking the neocolonial relation: Nkrumah in Ghana, Ben Bella in Algeria, Nyerere in Tanzania, and Allende in Chile.  Others have endured: Mao in China, Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam, and Fidel in Cuba.  In our analysis of the world-system, both short-lived and long-lasting revolutionary governments should be placed in a separate analytical category, distinct from moderate Third World governments.  Whereas the latter at most challenged the global powers in order to defend national projects of ascent within the structures of the world-system, the former challenged the structures of the system itself.  With respect to Third World revolutionary governments, we must ask questions such as: What theories, methods, and strategies did they have?  What constellation of forces made it possible for them take power and/or to maintain themselves in power?  What obstacles did they confront?  What achievements did they have?  To what extent have they been able to maintain popular support?  What lessons can we learn from their experiences?  What are the implications of their achievements for the development of a more just and democratic world-system?  

      Viewing the revolutionary Third World governments as a distinct category, some general observations can be made.  China, Vietnam and Cuba have persisted in their socialist revolutions, each making changes as they adjusted to dynamic national and international forces and conditions.  They are joined today by other nations that have proclaimed socialism for the twenty-first century: Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador.  Domestically, all have attained high levels of political participation and political stability.  All have significant gains in the protection of the social and economic rights of the people. Internationally, all have developed foreign policies that reflect independence from the demands of the neocolonial powers.  All are developing relations with nations that have progressive governments, such as Argentina and Brazil.  They are forming mutually beneficial economic, commercial, social, and cultural relations, based on respect for the sovereignty of all nations.  They are self-consciously developing in practice an alternative model for relations among nations, fundamentally different from the exploitative relations that characterize the neocolonial world-system.  In a historic moment in which the world-system experiences structural crisis and bifurcation, the domestic and international policies of the revolutionary governments suggest a possible option for a resolution of the crisis and a restoration of global equilibrium: the development of an alternative more just and democratic world-system.  Whereas Wallerstein sees the emergence of an alternative socialist civilizational project as a possibility, I take this further.  I maintain that an alternative project is in fact emerging in the Third World, that this can be seen through cross-horizon encounter (see “Universal philosophical historical social science” 4/2/3014), and that intellectuals of the North have the duty to engage in cross-horizon encounter and to do intellectual work that contributes to the theoretical development and political advance of the alternative project.

      Wallerstein maintains that the four fiercely autonomous nations are against the system but of the system.  Indeed so.  One of the characteristics of Third World national liberation movements has been their appropriation of Western values that are consistent with their interests, transforming and adapting them to the colonial situation.  Like Thomas Jefferson, they believe that there are self-evident truths.  They declare that no nation has the right to conquer peoples and nations and to impose forced labor; and no nation has the right to intervene in the affairs of others, manipulating its political processes in order to protect particular interests.  Thus, they share epistemological premises and basic values with Jefferson, but they have transformed his ideas, expanding and deepening the meaning of democracy, in accordance with the requirements of the colonial situation.  So Third World revolutionary nationalist leaders are of the system, in that they have appropriated its most humanistic values.  But they are against the system, in that the changes that they seek, if implemented, would imply a change in fundamental structures, converting the world-system into a different world-system.  And they envision this transformation as being carried out by the peoples of the world in movement, who have taken control or will take control of various governments in peripheral and semi-peripheral regions.  They therefore possess the defining characteristics of revolutionaries: they seek a fundamental structural change carried out by popular sectors that yesterday were excluded from power but that now have taken control of the state.  Like liberals, they envision this transformation as occurring step-by-step, reflecting a realistic understanding that neither the nation nor the world can be transformed in a day.  But unlike liberals, their aspirations are not constrained by a desire to preserve the privileges of a minority.  They are constrained only by a sensibility toward what is politically possible in a given situation and by respect for universal human values. These characteristics of revolutionary Third World nationalists differentiate them from liberals.

     The unfolding Third World movement does not seek concessions to the popular classes in order to promote the stability of the world system; it seeks to replace governments controlled by representatives of international corporations with governments formed by delegates of the people.  It seeks not the ascent of a peripheral or semi-peripheral nation in the world-system; it seeks the abolition of the core-peripheral relation and the establishment of an alternative logic of cooperation among nations and solidarity among peoples.  It is lifting up charismatic leaders who are not liberals but revolutionaries.


References

Wallerstein, Immanuel.  1986.  Africa and the Modern World.  Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press.

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

__________.  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, liberalism
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Wallerstein on Leninism

3/27/2014

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Posted April 8, 2014

      We have seen that Wallerstein considers Leninism to be a variant of liberalism, basing this conclusion on analysis of the development of the Soviet Union after Lenin (see “Wallerstein on liberalism” 4/6/2014).  But I approach an analysis of the role of Marxism-Leninism in the world-system with a different method.

     I think it important to maintain a distinction between the Russian Revolution under Lenin and the Soviet Union after Lenin.  This of course is a complicated subject.  I am influenced by Trotsky’s writings on the Russian Revolution and by the analysis of the subsequent development of the Soviet Union by the British Trotskyite Ted Grant.  In my view, the October Revolution led by Lenin fell to a petit bourgeois bureaucratic counterrevolution that put Stalin at the head, a counterrevolution that had significant implications for the subsequent internal development of the Soviet Union and the conduct of its foreign policy (see “Reflections on the Russian Revolution” 1/29/2014). 

     Meanwhile, the Russian Revolution inspired revolutionaries throughout the world.    It established as a concrete historical fact the possibility of the taking of control of the state by the popular classes. Inasmuch as revolutionaries were politically active in particular conditions that were different from those of the Russian Revolution, they found it necessary to formulate, often in response to competing interpretations within the nationalist movement, what insights and strategies should be appropriated from Lenin and the Russian Revolution and what new concepts and methods were necessary for the particular conditions of their movement.  In adapting Lenin to particular national conditions, various revolutionary leaders were fostering the evolution of Marxism-Leninism.  So my approach is to analyze the evolution of Marxism-Leninism as it was developing in the revolutions of the world, each emerging in a particular historical and social context.  

      Evolving Marxism-Leninism has provided an alternative moral and intellectual tradition and an alternative political practice that has sought to place popular sectors in control of the political-economic system and the development of its ideology.  Marx’s analysis of human history had envisioned the revolutionary transformation to an alternative socialist system led by the industrial working class.  Lenin appropriated Marx’s insights and adapted them to the conditions of the Russian Revolution, giving emphasis to popular councils formed by workers and peasants.  The insights of Marxism-Leninism did not come to fulfillment in the Soviet Union after 1924, and they were ignored by the social democratic movements as well as the universities of the West.  But Marxist-Leninist insights were subsequently developed, with creative adaptations, by charismatic leaders in other social contexts: the Chinese Revolution, which gave special emphasis to the peasant; the Vietnamese Revolution, which forged a revolutionary process through the united political action of a traditional scholar-gentry class and the peasantry; revolutionary African nationalism, which envisioned a modern reconstruction of socialism and political practice on a foundation of traditional African values; the Cuban Revolution, which forged united political action of various political sectors in opposition to U.S. imperialism; and the Chavist Revolution in Latin America today, which has formed alternative political parties supported by various popular sectors in order to establish new constitutions.

       The evolution of Marxism-Leninism in Third World revolutionary nationalism has led to an understanding that differs in important respects from the formulations of Marx and Lenin.  Third World revolutionary nationalism today envisions a revolutionary transformation led not by an industrial working class vanguard but by a vanguard consisting of informed and committed persons from all popular classes and sectors, representing the various popular organizations and tendencies.  It is led by a charismatic leader who plays a critical role in unifying the various popular tendencies.  It seeks to develop structures of mass participation in order to establish popular control over the state.  It envisions a decisive role of the state in formulating a national development plan and in obtaining control of production and of natural resources, utilizing a variety of forms of property, in accordance with the particular conditions of the nation.  It expresses a form of international solidarity that is based on patriotic sentiments toward the nation as well as respect for the patriotic symbols and national cultural traditions of all nations.  It understands the moral values of the revolution as similar to the morality and spirituality of religious traditions, and it promotes tolerance with respect to personal religious beliefs and practices.

        This alternative tradition of revolutionary Third World nationalism is seeking the development of an alternative just and democratic world-system.  It embraces certain Enlightenment values: the democratic rights of all, the development of scientific knowledge for the improvement of the human condition, and faith in the future of humanity.  But at the same time, it seeks a world that is fundamentally different from the modern world-system.  It seeks to protect the social and economic rights of all persons in the world and the sovereign rights of nations, political goals that are impossible under the existing core-peripheral economic relation as well as the existing inequality of power between the capitalist class and the popular classes and sectors. 

     Having formulated a political agenda that is incompatible with the interests of the global elite, the revolutionary processes are attacked by the global powers and their representatives.  There has emerged a global political and ideological battle between the global elite, which seeks to maintain its control over the unsustainable neocolonial world-system, and a global revolutionary process with historic social and ideological roots, which proclaims that nations should be governed by delegates of the people and not by representatives of the elite.

      Leninism did not die with Lenin nor was it buried under the weight of the Soviet bureaucracy.  It continued to live and to evolve in different historical and social contexts, where charismatic leaders, stimulated by its insights and moved by its commitment to the rights of the humble, instilled it with new life.  It is alive today, and in battle, condemning the indifference of the global powers to the sufferings of the poor, and proclaiming faith in the future of humanity.

      For further reflections related to this theme, see “Revolutionary patriotism” (8/15/2013); “What is revolution?” (11/14/2013); “Lessons from the Haitian Revolution” (12/18/2013); “The social & historical context of Marx” (1/15/2014); “Reflections on the Russian Revolution” (1/29/2014); “Lessons of the Mexican Revolution” (2/19/2014); “A change of epoch?" (3/18/2014); and “Is Marx today fulfilled?" (3/20/2014).


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, liberalism

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Wallerstein on Revolution

3/26/2014

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Posted April 9, 2014

     Wallerstein maintains that the revolution of the 1960s critiqued not only the world-system but also the Old Left movements that had emerged against the system.  The movements were of three types: communism, consisting principally of the Soviet Union and the communist parties of the West; social democracy, including social democratic parties and labor unions of the West; and Third World national liberation movements.  According to Wallerstein, the revolution of the 1960s was critical of states controlled by social movements, maintaining that these states failed to deliver on their promises.  This had the long-term consequence of undermining faith in the capacity of the state to gradually make improvements in the social and economic conditions of the people.  Reflecting this loss of faith in the state, the social movements of the Left beginning in the 1970s became focused on particular issues (women, ecology, ethnic rights and gay rights), and for the most part they were oriented to pressuring states and international organizations rather than seeking to take control of states. More recent movements that are more comprehensive (e.g., the Zapatistas and the World Social Forum) likewise do not seek to take control of national states (Wallerstein 1995: 53-54, 89, 117-18, 187, 214-15; 261-65; 1999: 42-43, 71-72; 112-13; 2003:263-69; 2005; 2008).

     We can understand today why the three types of social movements in opposition to the world-system were limited in their achievements and were viewed as failures by the revolution of the 1960s.  (1)  The communist movements were distorted by the fact that the Russian Revolution had fallen to a petit bourgeois bureaucratic counterrevolution.  To be sure, the Soviet Union represented an alternative to the capitalist world-economy, because it was characterized by state control of the economy under the direction of a bureaucratic petit bourgeoisie.  But it was not a state directed by delegates of workers and peasants, as envisioned by Marx and Lenin.(2) Social democracy in Western Europe, although rooted in the revolutionary proletarian and popular movements of the nineteenth century, was reformist.  It had been coopted by the capitalist class, which took advantage of the super-exploitation of semi-peripheral and peripheral regions to make concessions to working class organizations.  (3)  For the movements of anti-colonial national liberation, the power of neocolonialism directed by the United States and supported by the European ex-colonial powers was a fundamental structural obstacle.  The United States had acquired considerable experience in the development of neocolonial structures in Cuba during the period 1902-59, and it drew upon this experience and utilized its overwhelming economic, financial and military dominance in the post-World War II era to establish neocolonial structures world-wide.  These were significant obstacles to newly independent governments in Africa and Asia. 

      The revolution of the 1960s to some extent grasped the world-system dynamics that were undermining the attainment by the movements of their announced goals of full equal rights for all persons and equality among all nations.  To be sure, its understanding was preliminary and not fully developed, and the revolution was full of confusions and contradictions.  But one can reasonably assert that the revolution rejected the strategies of cooperation with the global powers that had been adopted in different ways by the three types of movements; it stood against the movements, as well as the world-system, as Wallerstein has argued.  It also can be reasonably asserted, in my view, the revolution of the 1960s made a distinction between Third World national liberation movements that were moderate and those that were radical.  It criticized the moderate Third World governments for their adaptation to neocolonial structures.  But it supported without reserve revolutionary Third World governments that sought to transform neocolonial structures.  The revolution of the 1960s identified with Che, Fidel, Cuba, Ho, the NLF, and Vietnam.  As I have maintained (see “Liberals or revolutionaries?” 4/7/2014), Wallerstein does not consistently maintain a necessary distinction between moderate and revolutionary movements and governments.

     The revolution ended during the 1970s.  But Vietnam and Cuba persisted.  And since 1995, there has been a renewal of Third World revolutionary nationalism.  The renewed movements identify with Cuba and Fidel, who have supported the new revolutionary manifestations, establishing continuity between the revolutionary national liberation movements of the 1960s and the process of change in Latin America today.  The renewed revolution today recalls all of the revolutions of the past.  It remembers Bolivar, Martí, Marx, Lenin, Ho, Che, and Fidel.  It sees itself as carrying forward the revolutions of the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries.  As Chávez has said, “We are making real the dreams of Bolívar and Martí.” 

     The renewed revolutions have faith in the state.  Not the state as an instrument of exploitation or domination, nor the state that failed to challenge neocolonial structures, but a state formed by the people and taking decisive steps in defense of the people.  For the renewed movements, democracy is above all the development of political processes that establish that the popular sectors control the state and direct it to act in its interests.  It is a concept of government formed by the delegates of the people and in the interests of the people.  And the renewed movement sees the state as playing a central role in the economy, formulating plans for development and developing economic policies in accordance with the plan.  These plans typically include state ownership of a sector of the economy.

     The renewed movements have learned lessons from the defeat of the 1970s: avoid sectarianism; each nation must develop policies in accordance with its particular situation; and mixed economies are often the way.  The critical issue is not what particular policies are adopted, but who makes the policies, and in whose name. 

       Wallerstein portrays the people of the world as having lost faith, faith in the liberal promise of gradual improvement, faith in the capacity of states to improve the conditions of the people, and faith in hope of national liberation for the Third World.  But I see a different spirit among the peoples of the world. There was, to be sure, considerable confusion and disillusionment in the period of 1980 to 1995.  But symbols of hope endured, in the form of the charismatic leaders of revolutionary movements: Mao, Ho, Nhrumah, Bella, Nyerere, Lumumba, Allende, and Fidel.  When the movements renewed after 1995, new charismatic leaders invoked the memories of the heroes of the earlier stages of struggle.  They sought to take control of the state in order to bit by bit transform the world-system and to improve the social and economic conditions of the people.  They have received the support of the people, and they are beginning to construct an alternative world-system.  The global movement for a just and democratic world is today more advanced than it was in the 1960s, taking into account the number of nations that belong to the revolutionary camp, the degree of cooperation and/or support from progressive nations of the Third World, and the greater maturity of Third World charismatic leaders today, having reflected on the factors that led to the reverses of the revolution in the 1970s.

     Faith in future of humanity has not died.  The struggles of the peoples of the world continue.  They establish a definite possibility for humanity in this historic moment in which the world-system is in terminal crisis: the road that seeks a just and democratic world-system, characterized by mutually beneficial relations of trade and commerce; respect for the social and economic rights of all persons and for the sovereignty of all nations; and the quest for ecologically sustainable ways to produce goods necessary for human life.


References

Wallerstein, Immanuel.  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.

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

__________.  2005.  “The Zapatistas: The Second Stage.” Commentary No. 165, July 15, 2005.  [Available on Fernand Braudel Center Website].

__________.  2008.  "What Have the Zapatistas Accomplished?" Commentary No. 224, Jan. 1, 2008.  [Available on Fernand Braudel Center Website].


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, 1960s, New Left
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Wallerstein, Marx, and knowledge

3/25/2014

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Posted April 14, 2014

​      World-systems analysis developed by Immanuel Wallerstein provides a foundation for understanding the modern world.  It enables us to understand the role of European colonial domination in creating the world-system and its inequality between developed and underdeveloped regions.  And it enables us to understand the role of neocolonialism and imperialism in maintaining the economic relations established during the colonial era.  In addition, Wallerstein has described European justification of its domination with ideas that it presented as universal, but in fact represent a “European universalism.”

       I have maintained in previous posts that cross-horizon encounter, where we encounter the social movements of the dominated, is the key to overcoming the assumptions and distortions of European ethnocentrism, and that such personal encounter involves meeting people and taking serious their interpretation of reality (see “Universal philosophical historical social science” 4/2/2014; “What is personal encounter?” 7/25/2013; “What is cross-horizon encounter?” 7/26/2013; “Overcoming the colonial denial” 7/29/2013; “Wallerstein and world-systems analysis” 3/25/2014). 

     Wallerstein’s experience in developing world-systems analysis illustrates the process of cross-horizon encounter.  In Africa, Wallerstein encountered African nationalism during its movement that culminated in the political independence of most African nations.  He took seriously the passionate claims of African nationalists that their social condition was that of the “colonial situation.”  He recognized that the fundamental truth of this claim could not be denied, and that the responsibility of the scholar was to seek to understand the forces that gave rise to its development.  He realized that conventional sociology, with its use of “society” as a unit of analysis, was inadequate for this task.  He read the Martinican intellectual Frantz Fanon, the Guinean revolutionary Amilcar Cabral, and Black Panther co-founder Huey Newton.  Fanon, Cabral, and Newton, and African nationalism in general, expressed in one form or another that conventional Marxism was not applicable to the colonial situation, and this may have led Wallerstein to conclude that conventional Marxism, like conventional sociology and political science, was not able to address the questions he was asking.  Wallerstein found key insights in the works of European scholars who were not in the mainstream of European scholarship.  From the French historian Fernand Braudel, he took the pivotal concepts of the world-economy, which expanded his space-scope beyond the “society” of conventional sociology; and the “long term,” which provided him with a time-scope that was longer than the contemporary and shorter than eternity.  The Polish economic historian Marian Malowist enabled him to deepen his understanding of the concept of periphery and to understand that Eastern Europe had become a peripheral region of an emerging capitalist world-economy in the sixteenth century.  Karl Polanyi’s differentiation of three types of economic behavior enabled him to formulate a distinction between two types of world-systems: world-empires and world economies.  Thus, he came to understand that the modern world-system was one of many world-systems in human history, and that the African “colonial situation” was established by the incorporation of Africa into the periphery of an expanding European capitalist world-economy after 1750 (Wallerstein 1986a; 1986b; 1986c; 2004a; 2004b).

   There is similarity between Wallerstein and Marx.  Marx encountered the working class, and he combined this personal encounter with a study of political economy and his previous study of German philosophy to formulate the new theory of historical materialism. Wallerstein arrived at new insights by virtue of encounter with African nationalism, and he combined this with a study of Braudel to formulate world-systems analysis.  Both illustrate the importance of cross-horizon encounter, that is, encounter with the social movements formed by a dominated class.

      In formulating historical materialism, Marx placed socialist thought on a scientific foundation.  He formulated a transition to socialism based on empirical observation of the possibilities contained in existing economic and political conditions.  Socialism no longer was a utopian and idealist vision for humanity, but a projection of a real possibility through the practical resolution of contradictions in the existing political-economic system.  But historical materialism was not only an advance for socialist theory and practice.  It also was an advance for science, for it brought the science of political-economy beyond its bourgeois perspective, and it brought the study of philosophy beyond its idealism.  But the university did not take advantage of Marx’s achievement.  The disciplines of history and the social sciences were organized separately from one another and on a basis of scientistic (but not scientific) epistemological assumptions, thus ensuring that social scientists, historians, and philosophers would not have understanding of the insights of Marx.  Such exclusion of Marx was functional for the world-system, inasmuch as historical materialism was a formulation from below with implications for the political, economic, and cultural transformation of the world-system.  However, the achievements of Marx were not left in abeyance.  They were appropriated by Lenin and subsequently by revolutionary Third World charismatic leaders and intellectuals, who reformulated and transformed his insights in accordance with particular national conditions in relation to the colonial situation.  Thus, there occurred an evolution of Marxism-Leninism outside the universities in the form of the formulation of insights by revolutionary charismatic leaders and intellectuals of the Third World.  This in effect meant the evolution of scientific knowledge apart from and independent of the universities.

      Wallerstein pertains to the world of the universities, and his initial formation led him to internalize some of its misguided assumptions (Wallerstein 2004:87-88).  But his personal encounter with African nationalism in the 1960s (combined with his study of Braudel) enabled him to break through this limitation and to formulate world-systems analysis.  His achievement represents, on the one hand, an important advance for the science of the universities, for it creates a foundation for universal philosophical historical social science (see “Reunified historical social science” 4/1/2014; and “Universal philosophical historical social science” 4/2/2014).  At the same time, Wallerstein’s achievement represents an advance for the evolution of Marxism-Leninism connected to revolutionary Third World movements, for it enables movement leaders and intellectuals to understand liberation struggles in a broader historical and global context.  In effect, world-systems analysis contributes to the continuing development of Marxism-Leninism in the Third World movements.

       But Wallerstein’s achievement has its limitations.  Wallerstein encountered the Third World evolution of Marxism-Leninism in one of its important manifestations, namely, African nationalism.  But it was not based on a sustained encounter with other significant manifestations of the evolution of Marxism-Leninism in the Third World: the Chinese Revolution, the Vietnamese Revolution, the Cuban Revolution, and the popular revolutions in Latin America today.  The formulation of universal philosophical historical social science that can further advance scientific knowledge and contribute to the making of a more just and democratic world-system will require sustained encounter with the evolution of Marxism-Leninism in the Third World revolution in all of its manifestations. 

      This limitation in the development of world-systems analysis up to now is, in my view, the reason that Wallerstein sees the emergence of an alternative socialist civilizational project as a theoretical possibility but not as a real emerging possibility.  This real possibility is expressing itself in the Third World today, where movements and governments are demanding a more just and democratic world-system.  This movement from below has been provoked by the terminal structural crisis of the world-system.  Led by Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Cuba, it has taken concrete steps toward the creation of an alternative more just and democratic world-system.  This will be the subject of my next post.


References

Wallerstein, Immanuel.  1986a. “Africa in a capitalist world” in Wallerstein, Africa and the Modern World.  Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, Pp. 47-76. [Originally published in 1973].

__________.  1986b. “The Lessons of the PAIGC” in Wallerstein, Africa and the Modern World.  Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, Pp. 37-45. [Originally published in 1971].

__________.  1986c. “The Three Stages of African Involvement in the World Economy” in Wallerstein, Africa and the Modern World.  Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, Pp.101-37. [Originally published in 1978].

__________.  2004a. “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.]

__________.  2004b. “Time and Duration” in The Uncertainties of Knowledge, Pp. 83-108.  Philadelphia: Temple University Press.  [Originally published in Thesis Eleven 54 (Sage Publications, 1998).


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, knowledge, epistemology, philosophy of social science
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The alternative world-system from below

3/24/2014

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Posted April 15, 2014

     Immanuel Wallerstein maintains that Third World national liberation movements were able to obtain political independence, but they were not able to improve social and economic conditions.  In general, this is true.  I maintain, however, that we must distinguish between moderate and revolutionary national liberation governments.  The former have cooperated, to some extent through coercion, with the neocolonial world-system, and therefore they have limited possibilities for the improvement of social and economic conditions.  The latter, on the other hand, are seeking to construct an alternative more just and democratic world-system.

     But are the concrete gains of the revolutionary Third World national liberation governments sufficient to justify the claim that they are constructing an alternative world-system?  In addressing this question, some general observations can be made concerning six nations that claim to be developing socialist projects: China, Vietnam, Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador.  First, these six nations have in different degrees developed structures of popular democracy.  The first three, which came to power through armed struggle, have developed popular power, in which the people form local popular councils that elect delegates to serve in higher levels of authority, which in turn elect delegates to a still higher level.  These structures are an alternative to representative democracy, in which the people elect, not a delegate from among the members of a council that regularly meets, but a representative, chosen from competing candidates whom the electors have never met, making the choice on the basis of television news sound bites and political advertising.  Representative democracy is experiencing a crisis of legitimation in the world-system, but in Cuba, popular power has high levels of participation and legitimacy (see “The Cuban revolutionary project and its development in historical and global context”).  In the second three countries, in which revolutionary governments came to power utilizing structures of representative democracy, there are continuing efforts to develop structures of popular participation and forms of integrating popular councils into the process of representative democracy.  In addition, all three have held constitutional assemblies with broad popular participation and have created new constitutions, which have increased the level of political legitimacy, in spite of on-going efforts by the United States to generate conflict and political instability.  We will be examining further the alternative political structures that have been developed in the socialist nations in future posts.

        The six nations with self-proclaimed socialist projects have had significant gains, in varying levels in different historical periods, in the protection of the social and economic rights of the people.  These gains include reduction or elimination of illiteracy as well as significant increases in access to education, health care, art, and sport.  We also will be looking at these gains in future posts.

     On the international plane, the six nations have insisted on their sovereignty.  Indeed, Wallerstein has described China, Vietnam, and Cuba as fiercely independent.  They take seriously the principle of the sovereign rights of all nations, a principle affirmed by the United Nations and other international agencies but disregarded by the global powers, which continually intervene in various forms in the affairs of Third World nations.

      As we have seen, Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia and Ecuador are the leading nations of ALBA, which seeks to develop mutually beneficial commercial, financial, social and cultural relations among the participating nations, thus developing an alternative practice in international relations, based on the principle of solidarity among all peoples.  The member nations of ALBA are developing commercial and cultural accords with China and Vietnam (see “The rise of ALBA” 3/11/2014).

      And we have seen that the nations of ALBA and their approach to international relations enjoy support from all of the nations of Latin America and the Caribbean.  The progressive and leftist governments of the region, such as Argentina and Brazil, have significant relations with the nations of ALBA, and to some extent, they are participating in the construction of an alternative world-system.  Moreover, the recent Declaration of Havana by the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) shows that all of the nations of the region affirm fundamental principles of ALBA, even the few nations that continue to be strong allies of the United States and its neoliberal project (see “The Declaration of Havana 2014” 3/14/2014).

       The alternative principles formulated by the leading nations of the alternative socialist civilizational project have been affirmed not only by the nations of Latin America and the Caribbean, but also by the nations of the Third World.  This can be seen in the 2006 Declaration of the Non-Aligned Movement, an international movement organization whose membership consists of 118 governments of the Third World, which together represent 75% of the nations of the earth and 80% of humanity.  The Declaration asserted that the collective desire of the movement is to establish a more just and equal world order, but various obstacles exist, including “the permanent lack of cooperation and the coercive and unilateral measures imposed by some developed countries.”  The Declaration rejected the neoliberal project, maintaining that the liberalization of commerce perpetuates and increases inequality among and within nations, and it increases the marginalization of countries in development.  The Declaration also praised Cuba for its dignified example of independence, and it expressed support for Cuba, Venezuela, and Bolivia in their conflicts with the global powers.

      The development in practice of an alternative ethic for international relations is emerging at a time in which the world-system has entered a terminal structural crisis.  The economic, financial, ecological, political, and social crisis of the world-system has been caused fundamentally by the fact that it has reached the geographical limits of the earth, taking away its historic method of expanding by conquering new lands and peoples.  The global elite has responded to the crisis with the imposition of the neoliberal project, which functions to accelerate and deepen the global crisis.  The neoliberal project demonstrates that the global elite is morally and intellectually unprepared to respond to the systemic crisis in a constructive form, and it has been an important factor in the emergence of the alternative project from below that proclaims socialism for the twenty-first century.

      Wallerstein writes of the loss of faith in the capacity of the state to improve the social and economic conditions of the people.  To be sure, there is a tendency for the people to speak of the need to decentralize, to overcome the historic problem of all administrative structures, be they political or economic, or be they under private or public ownership, to be vertically directed from above.  Thus, in the emerging socialist world there is a tendency to speak of “socialism from below” in opposition to “socialism from above.”  But this is understood as a movement to improve socialism, to bring it to a more advanced stage by seeking to overcome an historic problem of all administrative structures.  It is a movement for the improvement of socialism that continues to affirm the historic socialist project, that continues to affirm the importance of the state in the development of the economy and in the providing of human services, that continues to defend the historic nationalizations by socialist governments as necessary and desirable, that sees local action as necessary but also as part of a national plan and project, and that above all continues to have faith in the capacity of an organized and politically conscious people to take control of states and convert them into actors in the construction of a just and democratic world-system.

      We should take seriously the discourses of the charismatic leaders of our day: Hugo Chávez, Evo Morales, and Rafael Correa.  They maintain that a more just and democratic world-system is possible through a process in which a politically conscious and unified people take control of the state in order to transform it into a mechanism that defends the rights, interests, and needs of the various popular sectors.  They have affirmed the legitimacy of the historic charismatic leaders in Latin America, from Bolívar to Fidel, as well as the historic revolutionary charismatic leaders of Africa and Asia.  They have obtained the support of the majority of the people, in spite of the hostility and divisive maneuvers of the global elite and the national bourgeoisies. 

       The just and democratic world-system emerging from below is a real possibility for the future.  And so is a neofascist global military dictatorship implied by the new forms of ideological manipulation, interventionism, and militarism being developed by the global powers.  Humanity confronts a choice between these two real possibilities as the world-system experiences bifurcation.


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, ALBA, CELAC, Non-Aligned Movement
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Universal human values

3/23/2014

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Posted April 16, 2014

​     In the emergence of the Third World revolution during the course of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the Third World movements of national liberation have repeatedly formulated the fundamental characteristics of the good society.  One aspect of their political action has been to pressure the United Nations and other international organizations to adopt resolutions that affirm fundamental principles that ought to govern human conduct, both within and among nations. Because of the success of this political action, many international documents and declarations proclaim basic moral principles.  These declarations are so extensive, and the principles that they express have been so frequently repeated by leaders of all regions of the world, that I like to call them “universal human values.”

      What are the “universal human values” that have been affirmed repeatedly by humanity?  They include the principles: that all persons ought to possess social and economic rights, including free education and health care and adequate nutrition, housing, clothing, and transportation; that the state ought to act definitively and decisively, to the extent that national resources permit, to protect the social and economic rights of its citizens; that special attention should be given to the needs of vulnerable populations and to sectors that historically have been victimized by discrimination, such as children, women, the elderly, indigenous populations, ethnic minorities, and migrants; that all persons have the right to meaningful political participation; that all persons have the right to cultural formation and to the development of political consciousness; that women have the right to full and equal participation in the society; that all peoples and nations have the right to self-determination; that all nations have the right to sovereignty and to autonomous national development; that all peoples have the right to the preservation of their cultures and their languages; that production should be directed toward the satisfaction of human needs, and it should not be driven by the market or by profits; that ecological forms of production should be rapidly developed; and that states should act definitively and decisively to protect the environment.  The proclamation of these principles has often been accompanied by denunciations of the global powers for their repeated violation of them.  Thus the peoples of the earth have denounced colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, interventions in the political affairs of nations, and the imposition of the neoliberal project.

        Whereas the European-centered world-system formulated what Wallerstein (2006) calls a European universalism, the Third World national liberation movements during the past seventy years have formulated a universal universalism.  The Third World formulation has drawn upon the popular movements of all regions of the world: the bourgeois democratic revolution, which affirmed the rights and the equality of all men; the socialist movements that sought to defend social and economic rights; the communist movements that developed workers’ and peasants’ councils and the principle of popular democracy; the Third World movements of national liberation, which proclaimed that not only individuals but also nations and peoples have rights, such as those of true sovereignty, self-determination, and cultural preservation; the women’s movement, which affirmed that democratic rights pertain fully and equally to women; and the ecology movement, which proclaimed the necessity of a harmonious relation with nature.  In appropriating Western moral values, the Third World movement transformed their meaning, expressing them in a complementary form with one another and in a context that was defined by colonial and neocolonial domination. 

      Many of the universal human values, but not all, have been affirmed by governments and political leaders of the North.  But often governments and political leaders of the North behave cynically.  They often see universal human values as something that should be proclaimed but not implemented.  They often view such proclamations as useful for pacifying the rebellious South or for satisfying demands of certain popular sectors in the North, but they avoid putting them into practice.  But in the Third World, the affirmation of universal human values in the formal declarations of international agencies is taken seriously.  It is seen as an important step in the construction of a more just and democratic world-system.  Third World governments and movements repeatedly call upon governments of the North and international organizations to respect the principles to which they have given formal approval.


References

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, universal human values
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An alternative epistemology

3/22/2014

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Posted April 17, 2014
  
​     In various posts, I have discussed the significance of the Catholic philosopher Bernard Lonergan in enabling us to understand a method through which we can arrive at an understanding, if we desire to understand.  I have called this method cross-horizon encounter, which involves personal encounter with the movements of the dominated, where personal encounter consists of meeting persons and taking seriously their understandings.  Cross-horizon encounter enables us to discover relevant questions that previously were beyond our horizon and our consciousness.  Such discovery empowers us to liberate ourselves from ethnocentric cultural assumptions and beliefs.  The knowledge that we collectively develop through cross-horizon encounter is not eternal truth, because new developments in reality or in theory can lead to new understandings; but it is the most advanced understanding of which humans are capable in a given historical period.   Neither is this knowledge characterized by certainty, because there always exists some probability that not all relevant questions have been asked.  But when persons seeking to understand find that the answers to relevant questions are reinforcing the insight, they are in a position to know that the insight has a high probability of being correct.  And they are therefore in a position to make the judgment that the insight is correct and to take the decision to act, to commit themselves to political and social action on the basis of the judgment that the insight is correct (see “What is personal encounter?” 7/25/2013; “What is cross-horizon encounter?” 7/26/2013; “Overcoming the colonial denial” 7/29/2013; “Universal philosophical historical social science” 4/2/2014; “We can know the true and the good” 4/3/2014).

      For Lonergan, the human capacity to make judgments that go beyond ethnocentrism and that possess a degree of certainty, and to take decisions to act on the basis of these judgments, pertain to the realms of both fact and value.  That is, they pertain not only to judgments concerning what is, but also to judgments concerning what ought to be done.  They involve not only descriptions of what in fact has happened in human history, but also evaluations concerning the characteristics of the good society.  As I have previously expressed, we can know both the true and the good.

      We have seen that during the course of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Third World movements have proclaimed universal human values (see “Universal human values” 4/16/2014).  These universal moral values could be considered self-evident truths.  Thomas Jefferson considered that there are self-evident moral truths. He arrived at this understanding on the basis of the experience of the British settlers in North America, on whom taxes and duties were imposed by the British Parliament in order to pay debts accumulated during the Seven Years War (see “The US popular movement of 1775-77” 11/1/2013).  This seemed to the Americans as an injustice, and it seemed to them that as citizens they possessed certain rights.  Jefferson’s formulation of the notion that “all men are created equal” and possess “certain inalienable rights” advanced human understanding of the good and the right.

      Similarly, the colonized peoples of the Third World have emerged to proclaim certain rights, formulated in the context of their systemic denial.  Experiencing colonial domination and consequent underdevelopment, they moved to demand universal respect for social and economic rights and for the right of all peoples to self-determination.  Confronting the neocolonial world-system as politically independent nations, they moved to demand universal respect for the rights of all nations to sovereignty and true independence.  They moved to condemn the processes that denied these rights: colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, and neoliberalism.  They are formulating what appear to them to be self-evident moral truths that can provide a foundation for a world-system that is more just and democratic.

       Thus, we can understand universal moral values, or self-evident moral truths, as an important component of human knowledge.  They have been developing as an integral dimension of a dialectical relation between theory and practice that has been advancing human knowledge.  In various posts reflecting on the work of Immanuel Wallerstein, I have discussed some of the key moments in this unfolding dialectical process:  Marx, encountering the proletarian revolution, formulated a critique of the science of political economy and placed socialism on a scientific foundation; Lenin, on the basis of the Russian Revolution, advanced further the understanding of social dynamics; the universities, however, marginalized the insights of Marxism-Leninism; but Marxism-Leninism continued to evolve in popular revolutions, such as the Chinese Revolution, the Vietnamese Revolution, the Cuban Revolution, and revolutionary African nationalism, thus establishing the development of knowledge of social dynamics outside the institutions of higher education; in the context of awareness of the uncertainties of knowledge and the multicultural character of the social world, Lonergan formulated a cognitional theory that explains the process through which humans can understand the true and the good; on the basis of encounter with African nationalism, Wallerstein formulated world-systems analysis, partially reconnecting the knowledge of the universities with the knowledge of social dynamics emerging in the revolutionary movements; and since 1995, Third World revolutionary movements have renewed, a process particularly advanced in Latin America.  These are the key moments in the development of an emerging universal philosophical historical social science.

     The emerging universal philosophical historical social science seeks not only to understand what has happened and what is happening; it also seeks to understand the characteristics of the good society and the essential components of right conduct.  It seeks to understand not only the true, the good and the right, but also the process of understanding itself, providing methodological guidelines for the human quest for understanding.  And it appreciates the wisdom of charismatic leaders who have been lifted up by peoples whose tremendous thirst for social justice has established a democratic option for humanity.

     The formulation of universal philosophical historical social science is an unfinished collective work, a work still in process.  It seeks to not only advance human knowledge of social dynamics but also to contribute to the creation of a more just and democratic world-system. 


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, Lonergan, epistemology
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The dream of La Patria Grande

3/20/2014

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Posted March 4, 2014

     The Second Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC for its initials in Spanish) was held on January 28-29, 2014, in Havana, Cuba, marking the conclusion of Cuba’s presidency of the organization.  CELAC consists of the governments of the 33 nations of Latin America and the Caribbean.  The presidency rotates annually, with the first three held by Venezuela, Chile, and Cuba, and the next two to be held by Costa Rica and Ecuador.  

      CELAC 2014 represents a further development of the renewal of the nineteenth century Latin American concept of the federation of the Latin American republics or their union into a single nation, “La Patria Grande.”  It was an idea that was central to the process of Latin American independence from Spanish colonial rule, which occurred from 1810 to 1824. 

     The Latin American revolution of 1810-24 sought not only independence from Spain but also envisioned a republican society characterized by equality, in which the democratic rights and human needs of humble people of modest resources, including indigenous peoples and persons of African descent, would be addressed.  The revolution envisioned a profound social transformation, including the abolition of slavery, the elimination of large plantations and the distribution of land through agrarian reform, the development of national industry, and the protection of indigenous communal lands (López 2009:25, 38-39).

     The Latin American revolution sought a true sovereignty for the new republics, and it believed that true independence would be best protected through their union in the form of a federation of Latin American republics or the formation of a single nation.  In 1824, Simón Bolívar emitted a call for a Congress that would establish an assembly that: would be formed exclusively by republics that had been Spanish colonies; would be a permanent association of a supranational character with permanent institutions; would recognize the borders formed during the colonial process as establishing the frontiers of the independent republics; and would be a commercial and military confederation.  The conference was held in Panama in 1826, with representatives from Colombia (which then included Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, and Panama), Peru (then Peru and Bolivia), Central America (then Guatemala, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Honduras) and Mexico.   The delegations met for three weeks and produced a treaty with 32 articles, providing a foundation for Latin American confederation.  However, the governments of Peru, Central America, and Mexico did not ratify the treaty.  It was undermined by the lack of support by the Latin American estate bourgeoisie and by the open opposition of England and the United States, which will be discussed further in the next post (López 2009:51-55, 121; Guerra 2006:149-59).


References

Guerra Vilaboy, Sergio.  2006.  “Antecedentes históricos de la Alternativa Bolivariana para la América” in Contexto Latinoamericano: Revista de Análisis Político, No. 1 (Sept.-Dec.), Pp. 149-62.

López, Horacio A.  2009.  Anfictionía en América: La lucha por la Patria Grande en el siglo XIX.  Habana: Ediciones CEA.


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, Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, CELAC
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The dream deferred

3/18/2014

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Posted March 5, 2014

     The political independence of the Latin American republics was attained definitively in 1824 with a decisive military defeat of the Spanish army in Ayacucho.  However, after 1824 the newly independent republics were not able to unify, integrate or federate, nor were they able to carry out the profound social transformation that revolutionary leaders had envisioned.  The agreements attained at the Panama Congress of 1826 (see “The Dream of La Patria Grande” 3/4/2014) were never ratified by the respective governments. 

      The failure of union and integration was a consequence of the pursuit of particular interests by powerful actors.  Throughout the region, revolutionary leaders encountered opposition from the local estate bourgeoisie, owners of large tracts of land who utilized systems of forced and super-exploited labor to export raw materials to the core nations.  The local estate bourgeoisie not only was able to prevent federation and unity; it was able to facilitate disintegration and fragmentation of the colonial provinces, leaving a greater number of smaller and therefore weaker states.  Political fragmentation was in the interest of local elites, inasmuch as it facilitated greater local control.  Local elites were supported in this by the United States, since smaller and weaker states were more beneficial for U.S. designs to economically penetrated the region, the possibilities for which were greatly enhanced with the collapse of Spanish colonialism (López 2009:52, 55-59, 83-84; Guerra 2006:149-59).

     For the Cuban scholar Roberto Regalado, there was not an adequate economic basis for the implementation of the revolutionary ideal of integration and union (2007:108).  The principal economic activity was raw materials exportation to the core, with land concentrated in the hands of a small but powerful estate bourgeoisie, which had an interest in the preservation of the core-peripheral relation (see “The modern world-economy” 8/2/2013).  Urban manufacturing was limited, and the domestic market was weak.  There was limited commerce within the region, and a limited transportation infrastructure to facilitate this commerce.  Therefore, the economic conditions to sustain the ideal of integration were not present.  Neither did the political conditions for union exist:  once the war against Spain was won, the landed estate bourgeoisie was no longer constrained by the need to enlist popular support for the independence struggle, and it could act decisively to protect its interests in opposition to the interests of the popular classes and sectors. 

     Although deferred, the dream did not die.  The concept of Latin American union and integration as a strategy for social transformation and true independence was taken up by a number of Latin American political leaders and intellectuals during the second half of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, most notably the Cuban revolutionary José Martí (López 2009:81-116).  But the economic and political conditions that would make possible the implementation of such a vision were not present. 

    Pan-Americanism emerged in the 1880s, and it represented a contrasting concept of American union under U.S. direction.  A Pan-American system was first proposed by James Blaine, Secretary of State during the presidency of Benjamin Harrison (1889-93).  “It was the start of a long-term strategy to convert the Latin American governments and peoples into co-participants in the domination exercised over them” (Regalado 2007:123).  Twelve Inter-American conferences were convened from 1889 to 1942, but there was considerable resistance by Latin American governments to the Pan-American project.  However, following World War II, with the attainment of hegemonic maturity, the United States was able obtain the cooperation of Latin American governments in forming in 1948 the Organization of American States (OAS).  On the basis of a 1954 anti-communist declaration of the OAS, socialist Cuba was expelled from the organization in 1961 (Regalado 2007:123-27; see “Pan-Americanism and OAS” 10/2/2013).

    For the most part, however, OAS was not highly effective as an instrument of neocolonial domination, which was imposed unilaterally by the United States on the region, country by country.  On the other hand, the Organization of American States never functioned as a forum for a challenge by the governments of Latin America and the Caribbean to U.S. imperialism and neocolonial domination.  And it served a legitimating function in relation to U.S. unilateral imposition of neocolonial rule.

     Following 1980, under the impact of the emerging dynamics of the relative decline of the United States and the structural crisis of the world-system, the United States began to act aggressively in pursuit of its short-term interests, imposing the neoliberal project on Latin America.  This would deepen the poverty of the popular sectors and would undermine the position of the national bourgeoisie, giving rise to a retaking of the idea of Latin American unity and integration, as we will discuss in subsequent posts.


References

Guerra Vilaboy, Sergio.  2006.  “Antecedentes históricos de la Alternativa Bolivariana para la América” in Contexto Latinoamericano: Revista de Análisis Político, No. 1 (Sept.-Dec.), Pp. 149-62.

López, Horacio A.  2009.  Anfictionía en América: La lucha por la Patria Grande en el siglo XIX.  Habana: Ediciones CEA.

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

Suárez Salazar, Luis.  2008.  “La integración independiente y multidimensional de Nuestra América” in Contexto Latinoamericano: Revista de Análisis Político, No. 7, Pp. 103-9.


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, Organization of American States, OAS, Pan-Americanism
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    Author: Charles McKelvey

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

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