Posted September 21, 2016

      We have seen that, beginning in 1994, popular movements in Latin America emerged in reaction to the imposition of the neoliberal project, and that movements proclaiming themselves socialist arrived to power Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua, all of which deepened relations with socialist Cuba.

      An important dimension of this political change was the commitment of the socialist governments, with the support and participation of newly-formed progressive governments in Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, to forge a process of Latin American and Caribbean unity and integration.  They sought a new form of integration, different from neoliberal models of integration.  The new integration sought to develop mutually beneficial forms of trade based of complementary economies, and it sought to include social and cultural as well as commercial relations.  It sought a form of integration that broke the neocolonial relations with the United States and that benefitted the nations and peoples of the region (see various posts in the category Latin American and Caribbean unity and integration).

       Hugo Chávez was the primary protagonist of the new integration.  Drawing upon the vision of Latin American union of Simon Bolívar, he proposed in 2001 the formation of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA for its initials in Spanish), which was conceived as an alternative to the US-proposed Free Trade Area of the America (FTAA, which is rendered as ALCA in Spanish).  The first step toward implementation of the proposal was taken on December 14, 2004, when Venezuela and Cuba signed an agreement establishing ALBA.  Its joint declaration described the FTAA as a mechanism for US domination, and it proposed an alternative form of union and integration, based on cooperation and solidarity, that seeks social transformation and the elimination of social inequalities.  It declared:

​During the subsequent five years, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and a number of Caribbean nations would become members of ALBA.

     ALBA became the basis for the formation in 2008 of the South American Union of Nations (UNASUR), a process that was led by Brazil, where the Workers’ Party led by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had taken power in 2002.  The Constituent Treaty of UNASUR, signed by all twelve nations of South America, proclaims:

UNASUR seeks a form of integration that eliminates poverty, reduces inequality, expands access to education and health services, develops the necessary infrastructure for regional commerce, protects the environment, and addresses the causes and consequences of climate change.

     The process of Latin American and Caribbean unity and integration culminated in the formation of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC for its initials in Spanish).  It was founded in 2010 in Venezuela, and it was formed by the governments of all 33 nations of Latin America and the Caribbean.  At its Second Summit held in Havana on January 29, 2014, CELAC issued a declaration, affirming its fundamental goals, concepts, and values.  The Declaration of Havana affirms a form of integration based on complementariness, solidarity, and cooperation.  It promotes a vision of integral and sustainable development, in harmony with nature.  It calls for the protection of the social and economic rights of all, especially those most vulnerable.  It affirms the principle of the right of nations to control their natural resources.  It recognizes the rights of indigenous peoples to conserve their traditional knowledge and systems of production.  It calls upon the international community to recognize the need for a form of development that places people at the center.  It maintains that foreign investment should promote the development of the region and should not violate the sovereignty of the nations.  

     The Declaration of Havana can be interpreted as an anti-imperialist and anti-neocolonial declaration that symbolizes the collapse of the US directed Pan-American project (see “Pan-Americanism and OAS” 10/2/2013).  

        The full text of the Declaration of Havana can be found at Second CELAC Summit, Declaration of Havana, January 28-20, 2014. 


Key words: ALBA, UNASUR, CELAC, Latin American integration,
2014 Declaration of Havana

Posted September 22, 2016

     South-South cooperation was a central aspect of the radical Third World project of national and social liberation.  It was envisioned that by trading among themselves, the nations of the Third World would be able to break the neocolonial relation with the United States and the European ex-colonial powers.  With the intention of promoting South-South cooperation, seventy-seven nations created the Group of 77 in 1964.

     But the vision encountered many obstacles:  inadequate capital to develop industry, necessary for providing manufactured goods to the nations of the South; a distorted transportation infrastructure, which had been developed by colonial powers to serve North-South commerce; and the hostility of the global powers, which used all necessary means to preserve their structured advantages in the world-system.  The modest gains that were made with respect to South-South cooperation were eliminated with the imposition of the neoliberal project on the Third World by the global powers (see “The fall & rise of South-South cooperation” 7/24/2014).

     In conjunction with the emergence and leadership of five self-proclaimed socialist nations in Latin America, and with the emergence of the project of Latin American and Caribbean union and integration, the concept of South-South cooperation has been retaken.

     South-South cooperation has been given impetus by Chinese foreign policy in recent years.  Recognizing that economic ascent through domination in the form of the classical empires or in the style of modern European colonial domination is no longer a viable option for humanity; and recognizing that a Chinese quest for ascent within the structures of the world-system would create military and ideological confrontation with the United States and the European powers; China has turned to a policy of seeking mutually beneficial commercial relations with the nations of the Third World, on a foundation of cooperation rather than domination and exploitation, thus sidestepping global structures by creating alternative norms and institutions.  The significant increase of Chinese commerce with Latin America is an indication of the new direction in Chinese policy (see “China-CELAC cooperation” 7/25/2014; “China treats Latin America with respect” 7/29/2014).

     The formation of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) in 2009 also has given impetus to the renewal of South-South cooperation.  The five nations of BRICS have never been in the core of the world-system, nor have they ever been among its most impoverished nations.  In different ways, they are at the upper levels of the semi-peripheral region of the world-economy.  Brazil, the largest Latin American nation, combines the dimensions of European settlement, African slavery and indigenous conquest that are central to the story of the formation of the peoples of Latin America.  Russia was peripheralized but never colonized, a dynamic that gave rise to a popular revolution that would inspire popular revolutions in the colonized regions of the world.  India was peripheralized and colonized, and its nationalist leaders (Gandhi and Nehru) became the among the most celebrated in the Third World project of national and social liberation.  China was never peripheralized and only partially colonized, and its revolution led by Mao inspired followers in many Third World lands.  And South Africa was ruled for decades by a white settler minority who exploited and denied fundamental rights of the black majority, until Nelson Mandela was able to emerge from years of incarceration to lead the people to a new South Africa.  The nations of BRICS have the highest levels of industry and technology among the semi-peripheral nations of the world-economy.  They comprise 41.6% of the world’s population, 19.8% of the world GDP, and 16.9% of world commerce.  In recent years, their economies have been growing at a much faster rate than the economies of the most developed nations.

     BRICS was formed for the purpose of developing mutually beneficial trade among its five members, which represents a move toward South-South cooperation.  In 2014, under Chinese leadership, BRICS turned to the expansion and development of mutually beneficial commerce with the other nations of the South.  As an indication of this, it has formed the BRICS Bank of Development, with the intention of providing funds for investment in the nations of the Third World, in projects that are integral to autonomous national projects that seek true development, without the inevitable distortions that are components of interested investments by core governments and banks and core-controlled international organizations (see “BRICS advances to South-South cooperation” 7/29/2014; “The BRICS Bank of Development” 7/30/2014).

      The importance of South-South cooperation was reiterated on January 8, 2014 by Bolivian President Evo Morales, in his capacity as President of the G-77 plus China, which now consists of 133 member nations.  See Speech by Evo Morales, President of Bolivia, on the occasion of the transfer of the presidency of the G77 plus China to Bolivia.  South-South cooperation also was reaffirmed by Rafael Correa, President of Ecuador, in his speech accepting the Presidency of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) on January 29, 2015. See “The eradication of poverty is a moral imperative for our region and for the entire planet.”
      
     At the VII BRICS Summit, held in Ufa, Russia, on July 9, 2015, BRICS reaffirmed its commitment to promoting an international order based on “mutually beneficial cooperation” among nations.  It affirmed the principle of South-South cooperation along with North-South cooperation:  “We are committed to further strengthening and supporting South-South cooperation, while stressing that South-South cooperation is not a substitute for, but rather a complement to North-South cooperation, which remains the main channel of international development cooperation.”  It expressed its “intention to contribute to safeguarding a fair and equitable international order” (see “VII BRICS Summit” 8/13/2015).  We see in this diplomatic language an intention to move toward a more just world-system gradually and cautiously, hoping to avoid confrontation with the global powers; a necessary approach, given the enormous military capacity of the United States.

​
Key words:  South-South Cooperation, BRICS
     

Posted September 26, 2016

      We have seen that the radical Third World project of national and social liberation of the period 1948 to 1979 was formulated by radical Third World governments for the purpose of transforming neocolonial global structures and creating a new international economic order that would: respect the sovereignty of all nations; recognize the right of nations to control their natural resources; accept the right of states to nationalize properties; advance the industrial development of the underdeveloped nations; promote mutually beneficial trade among nations; regulate international financial flows; reduce military expenditures; and eliminate nuclear arms.  It was formulated by the giants of the anti-colonial struggles, who met in Bandung, Indonesia in 1955, inspiring the peoples of the world with the “Spirit of Bandung” (see “The Third World Project, 1948-79” 7/20/2016). 

     We also have seen that the radical Third World project confronted many obstacles, especially the unprincipled opposition of the global powers, who used any and all methods in support of accommodationist Third World leaders, in order to prevent the implementation of the radical Third World project.   And we have seen that modest attainments with respect to the social and economic development of the Third World were eliminated during the implementation of neoliberal project of the global powers.  The global powers set aside Third World hopes, and the IMF assassinated the national liberation states of the Third World (“IMF & USA attack the Third World project” 7/29/2016).

      Fidel, speaking as President of the Non-Aligned Movement, protested the neoliberal turn, and he called for unified struggle among the peoples of the Third World in defense of humanity.  But the 1983 New Delhi Summit marked a definitive turn within the Non-Aligned Movement toward accommodation to the neoliberal agenda of the global powers (“Derailing the Third World project” 7/22/2016; “Fidel proposes new global structures, 1983” 7/27/2016).  

      However, influenced by the rising global popular movement in opposition to neoliberalism, the Non-Aligned Movement began to retake its historic radical Third World project, beginning in 2000, with the presidencies of South Africa and Malaysia.  The return was clear by 2006, when Cuba assumed the presidency for a second time.  At that time, I was writing an editorial column for La Opinión Hispana, a Spanish-language newspaper in Greenville, South Carolina; and on this basis, I was able to obtain a press credential to attend the NAM Summit in Havana.  In my editorial covering the event, I wrote: “During the last two days, presidents and prime ministers took the podium, and they one-by-one expressed their support for the values and principles of the Non-Aligned Movement, their rejection of the established world order, and their appreciation and admiration of Cuba.”  

     The NAM 2006 Declaration of Havana, endorsed unanimously by the 118 member nations, called for a “more just and equal world order,” and it lamented “the excessive influence of the rich and powerful nations in the determination of the nature and the direction of international relations.”  It rejected the neoliberal project as promoting global inequality and increasing the marginalization of countries in development.”  It affirmed the principles of the UN Charter, including the equality and sovereignty of nations, the non-intervention in the affairs of other states, and “the free determination of the peoples in their struggle against foreign intervention.”  It proclaimed that “each country has the sovereign right to determine its own priorities and strategies for development.”  It called for the strengthening and democratic reform of the United Nations, and it proposed South-South cooperation as a complement to North-South cooperation. It rejected the politicization of the issue of human rights, and the double standard used by the global powers, as a pretext for intervening in the affairs of a nation of the Non-Aligned Movement.  It proclaimed its support for the peoples of Palestine, Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia and Iran in their conflicts with the global powers.  This Declaration against the policies of the global powers and the established structures of the world-system was made by Third World governments that represent 80% of humanity.

     Since 2006, the Non-Aligned Movement has maintained its rejection of the established world order, consistent with its founding principles formulated in Bandung in 1955 and Belgrade in 1961.  This was evident at the XVII Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement, held from September 13 to September 18, 2016, in Isla de Margarita, Venezuela. Dr. Hassan Rouhani, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, gave the gavel of the presidency to Nicolás Maduro, President of Venezuela, at the opening ceremony.  Venezuela will hold the presidency of the Non-Aligned Movement, which now has 120 member nations, until 2019.

     The Declaration of the XXVII Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement affirms the principles established at its founding meetings in Bandung and Belgrade, including its call to the peoples of the Third World to struggle against colonialism and neocolonialism and to participate in the construction of a more just and peaceful world, established on a foundation of solidarity and cooperation.  It reaffirms the historic commitment of the Movement to the principles of the sovereignty and equality of nations and the inalienable right of all peoples to self-determination.  It affirms “the right to development as an inalienable, fundamental and universal right.”

      It maintains that states should not interfere in the affairs of other nations, and accordingly, it rejects “the illegal policies of regime change aimed at overthrowing constitutional Governments, in contravention of international law.”  It condemns unilateral sanctions and universal coercive measures as violations of the UN Charter and international law and of the principles of non-intervention and the self-determination and independence of nations.  It maintains that each State has the right to freely exercise its full sovereignty over its natural resources and economic activity.  

      The Declaration recognizes that the implementation of these principles would require “a profound change in the international economic structure, including the creation of economic and social conditions that are favorable to countries in development.”   It recognizes South-South cooperation as an important strategy for sustainable development, as a complement to North-South cooperation, which should be oriented to technology transfer and the promotion of productive capacity. 

     The Declaration calls for the democratization of the United Nations, including the strengthening of the authority of the General Assembly and a reform of the Security Council.  It calls for reform of the international financial architecture and the democratization of the IMF and the World Bank.

      The Declaration calls for the development of an alternative media of communication that is rooted in the history and cultures of the peoples of the world.  It calls upon the mass media of the countries of the North to respect the perspective of the South.  It rejects the use of the media as an instrument of hostile propaganda against targeted countries of the South, with the intention of undermining their governments.
  
       The Declaration calls upon the developed countries to fulfill their responsibilities with respect to the threat of climate change.  It also affirms the principles of “full gender equality and the empowerment of women,” and it asserts its commitment to “fight against all forms of violence and discrimination against women and girls.”  

      Except for the declarations on regime change and the mass media, which are interventionist strategies that have emerged in recent years, these affirmations express the historic fundamental principles and goals of the Non-Aligned Movement.  As it did in the period 1955 to 1979, the Non-Aligned Movement today is formulating the basic principles of an alternative international order.  In the 1970s, it called for a “New International Economic Order;” nowadays, a “more just, democratic and sustainable world” is envisioned.  Then, as now, the Movement calls for a different and more just world-system, and it condemns the global powers for policies that violate the international norms that they themselves have proclaimed.  Representing peoples that have been victimized by colonial and neocolonial domination, the leading governments in the Non-Aligned Movement speak with moral authority in defense of their nations and peoples and in opposition to the structures of a world-system that continues to exist on a colonial foundation.  They call for its structural transformation, in accordance with the values that humanity has proclaimed.

      But unlike the 1970s, the Third World today not only announces its project, but also is taking concrete steps toward its implementation. Today, a number of nations (including China, Vietnam, Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua) have proclaimed themselves to be constructing socialism.  These nations, in addition to domestic social transformations, have developed foreign policies that are dedicated to the principles of South-South cooperation and mutually beneficial relations, as a necessary foundation for a sustainable world-system. In addition, the largest economies of the semi-periphery, the nations of BRICS, have organized themselves to expand South-South cooperation among themselves and with other nations of the South.  And the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) has been formed with a commitment to solidarity and mutually beneficial trade.  In the 1970s, the more radical nations of the Third World proclaimed the need for a new international order; today, concrete steps are being taken in practice, with the proclaimed support of the 120 governments of the Non-Aligned Movement.  The construction of a more just, democratic and sustainable world-system by the formerly colonized peoples of the world has begun.

       Moreover, the Third World is beginning to construct an alternative world-system precisely in the historic moment when the world-system is experiencing a profound structural crisis, and heads of core governments and transnational corporations are demonstrating their moral and intellectual incapacity to understand the sources of the crisis or the steps that are necessary to protect humanity.  The incapacity of the world-system to understand and resolve its systemic crisis gives increasingly greater legitimacy and viability to the alternative being developed in theory and practice by the peoples of the Third World.


Key words:  Non-Aligned Movement, XVII Summit, Isla de Margarita, Venezuela

Posted September 27, 2016

       As we have seen, a new political reality has emerged in Latin America since 1994, characterized by: popular movements in opposition to neoliberalism; the emergence of self-proclaimed socialist governments in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua; the emergence of progressive governments in Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay; the increasing prestige of socialist Cuba; and the establishment of regional organizations of solidarity and cooperation, such as ALBA and CELAC.  What has occurred can be understood as a popular revolution, inasmuch as political parties that seek to represent the interests of the popular sectors, and not the interests of one or more sectors of the elite, have taken power.

       From its outset, the post-1994 Latin American popular revolution has generated a counterrevolution, composed of those who have economic interests or ideological motives to bring down the revolutionary project.  The primary social base of the counterrevolution is the Latin American estate bourgeoisie, which has an economic interest in the preservation of the global core-peripheral relation, by virtue of its role in exporting raw materials to the core.  Import-export trading companies also have interests in the preservation of core-peripheral trade.  In addition, the privately-owned media of communication tend to be opposed to the popular revolution, inasmuch as socialist and progressive patterns of thought historically have expressed the idea that the media of communication ought to be under public control rather than in private hands.  In addition, the middle class and new urban residents, influenced by the ideological messages of the privately-owned media, are participants in protest actions organized by the counterrevolution.
 
     Since 2012, the new counterrevolution of the Right has been able to reverse the momentum that the Left enjoyed in Latin America from 1994 to 2011.  The more favorable situation for the Right has been rooted in three factors: (1) the decline of prices for Latin American raw materials exports, on which the region continues to depend, in spite of the revolution’s long-range goal of breaking the core-peripheral relation; (2) the problem of corruption, which is a persistent problem in all governments, and which the progressive governments of Latin America have been able to reduce but not eliminate; and (3) the tendency for the people to have expectations that are unrealistically high with respect to revolutionary processes, and a related tendency to blame the government for the persistence of any problem. Commentators have identified four strategies that have been used by the Right in its recent upsurge: an electoral strategy of vague promises in defense of popular interests, economic warfare, ideological distortions and attacks of the government through the mass media, and the parliamentary coup d’état.  

     The electoral strategy of the Right is to form new political parties and make vague promises of change, formulating a discourse that sounds progressive.  This is combined with aggressive and distorted attacks on the government in the mass media, owned by corporations that support the counterrevolutionary project of the Right.  This strategy for the most part has not had success in obtaining sufficient electoral support to remove the progressive governments, but it was successful in the presidential elections in Argentina in November 2015, taking advantage of the term limits that precluded a third presidential term for popular and progressive President Cristina Kirchner.  Mauricio Macri, of the rightist party Cambiemos (Let us change), defeated Daniel Scioli, candidate of the Front for Victory (the party of Kirchner) by a vote of 51.32% to 48.68%.   Once in office, Macri ignored his vaguely progressive promises and adopted neoliberal polices; such as eliminating government protection of the national currency, cuts in government employment, and settling the “vulture funds” conflict in a form favorable to foreign capital.  These measures have provoked popular protests (see “The Right takes power in Argentina” 1/4/2016).

     In the case of Venezuela, the electoral strategy of the Right was combined with economic warfare.  The Venezuelan economy is dependent on the importation of food, medicine and other goods, and the importing companies launched a campaign to reduce importation and to horde goods, creating shortages and price increases, in an effort to discredit government economic policies.   In conjunction with a sharp drop in petroleum prices, the strategies of vague electoral promises, economic warfare and a media anti-governmental propaganda campaign were successful in creating the conditions for a victory of the Right in the parliamentary elections of December 2015. The Rightist parliamentary leaders then launched a campaign to end the presidency of the constitutionally-elected President Nicolás Maduras, before the completion of his term of office.  The United Socialist Party of Venezuela has organized popular demonstrations in defense of the constitutionally-elected president, who was able to successfully host the Non-Aligned Movement in September 2016 (see “Economic war in Venezuela” 1/7/2016; “Political polarization in Venezuela” 1/8/2016; “Economic and media war against Venezuela” 6/9/2016).

      In Brazil, the central strategy has been the parliamentary coup d’état.  The Workers’ Party came to power in 2002 as the leading force in a progressive coalition of parties.  It enjoyed fourteen years of rule, under presidents Luis Inácio Lula and Dilma Rousseff, during which time a number of progressive domestic programs were enacted, and the nation played a leading role in the process of Latin American unity and integration, particularly with respect to the formation of the South American Union of Nations (UNASUR).  But with the decline of raw materials prices, the Workers’ Party Coalition feel apart.  The second largest party in the coalition, the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB), broke with the coalition and established a political alliance with the Right, thus converting the Workers’ Party into a minority in the parliament, and positioning Michel Temer, Vice-President of Brazil and head of PMDB, to assume the presidency, if the elected president were to be removed from office.  Under these political conditions, the Brazilian parliament, on August 31, 2016, voted to remove President Dilma from office, on the basis of unsubstantiated charges of corruption.  The vote was declared by the socialist governments of the region to be an illegitimate parliamentary coup d’état (“Parliamentary coups of the Right in Latin America” 5/23/2016; “Parliamentary coup d’état in Brazil” 9/2/2016).

     The resurgent Latin American Right, however, has no viable project to offer.  Thus far, it has indicated its intention to return to neoliberalism, adopting measures that include privatizations, reductions in social programs, and greater opening for foreign capital. But the people previously rejected the neoliberal project.  The resurgent Latin American Right did not express its neoliberal intentions, and there is little indication that the people desire to return to it.  The politicians of the resurgent Latin American Right appear to be opportunists rather than true leaders.  They do not appear to be seeking to develop a sustainable political project; some may be playing a short-term political game in order to further enrich themselves.

      Inasmuch as the Latin American Right lacks a viable political project to propose, there is a good possibility that the popular revolution in Latin American will recover or retain its majorities and proceed toward the construction of an alternative, more just, democratic and sustainable world-system.


Key words: counterrevolution, Right, Argentina, Venezuela, Brazil

October 3, 2016

​      While the global powers take seriously the emergence of socialist and progressive projects in Latin America, the Left in the North does not.  The global powers historically have discerned that the Third World project of national and social liberation is a threat to the neocolonial world-system; and accordingly, they attacked with the Cold War ideology, portraying the Third World project as communist and undemocratic, and downplaying its nationalist anti-colonial character as well as its popular roots.  The Cold War characterization was a distortion, designed to discredit.  But the need to discredit was rooted in the correct discernment that the alternative structures envisioned by Third World revolutionary leaders would be the foundation for the transformation of the systemic unequal distribution of wealth and power that were central neocolonialism.  As a threat to the neocolonial world-system, the projects of national and social liberation in Latin America and the Third World had to be destroyed, by any and all means available, including ideological distortions, economic sanctions, and military aggression.  Rather than dismissing the Third World revolution, the global powers have taken them seriously as potential threats to their power and wealth, both in the period 1948 to 1979 as well as in the present stage of renewal that began in 1994, when the focus more is on supposed violations of human rights rather than communism.

       In contrast, the Left in the North does not take seriously the popular revolution in Latin America or the Third World.  To be sure, it condemns imperialism and gives verbal support to anti-imperialist movements.  But the Left in the North has not appreciated the Third World revolution as a source of further understanding of the world-system or as an experiential base for understanding the meaning of socialism; it has not sought to develop its understanding through study of the speeches and writings of the charismatic leaders of the anti-imperialist Third World movements.  I view this shortcoming as reflecting a subtle form of Eurocentrism.

      As I have been developing this blog from the Third World perspective, I have on several occasions felt compelled to write critiques of Leftist intellectuals and activists, noting the tendency of not taking seriously the Third World movement as a source of knowledge. These blog posts have included critiques of: the important US social scientist Immanuel Wallerstein, who in the formulation of the world-systems perspective has moved social science to a more advanced stage; Harry Targ, Professor of International Relations at Purdue University and author of the blog, Diary of a Heartland Radical; Cliff DuRand of the Center for Global Justice and organizer for many years of an interchange between Cuban and US philosophers; Mitchel Cohen, New York based activist whose Leftist activities date to the 1960s; Alan Spector, former President of the Association for Humanist Sociology; Paul D’Amato, Editor of the International Socialist Review; Jeffrey St. Clair, Editor of CounterPunch; Asin Shivani and Les Leopold, authors of articles published in Alternet; the Green Party; and the Marxist Humanist Initiative. To date, fifty-four such posts have been published, and they are placed in the category Critique of the Left.  

      I summarize here the key points of these critiques, in order to provide examples of what I mean by “the subtle Eurocentrism of the Left,” beginning with Wallerstein.  The foundation of Immanuel Wallerstein’s achievement was his encounter with African nationalism in the 1950s and 1960s, inspiring him to formulate the world-systems perspective, drawing upon the works of the French historian Fernand Braudel and the Polish economic historian Marian Malowist.  But as Wallerstein’s career progressed, rather than continuing on a sustained encounter with the Third World movements of national and social liberation, he increasingly was influenced by French currents of thought, as he participated in the academic world of the West.  Accordingly, he did not sufficiently encounter the socialist revolutions of China, Vietnam or Cuba, with the results that: (1) he could not maintain a consistent distinction in his analysis between accommodationist and revolutionary Third World movements; (2) he underestimated the significance of these three revolutions, which managed to persist and to continue to inspire hope among the peoples of the Third World; and (3) he was not able to appreciate the epistemological implications of the Third World project.  As a dimension of this limitation, he maintained, in the early 1980s, that the peoples of the world had lost faith in the capacity of the state to respond to their needs, but this view has been shown to be erroneous by the renewal of the Third World project in Latin America, where popular movements are seeking to attain or maintain control of the state, with the goal of directing the state to act in defense of the interests of the people.  (See “Wallerstein and world-systems analysis” 3/25/2014; “Wallerstein on liberalism” 4/6/2014; “Liberals or revolutionaries?” 4/7/2014; “Wallerstein on Leninism” 4/8/2014; “Wallerstein on revolution” 4/9/2014; and “Wallerstein, Marx, and knowledge” 4/14/2014).

     In contrast to Wallerstein, some intellectuals maintain a perspective that is close to the classic formulation of Marx.  This is the case with Paul D’Amato, Editor of the International Socialist Review, and with the Marxist-Humanist Initiative.  D’Amato maintains that the Cuban Revolution is not a socialist revolution; but he offers little reflection on the meaning of socialism and little empirical evidence with respect to Cuba.  The Marxist-Humanist Initiative is much more reflective, drawing upon the work of Raya Dunayevskaya to maintain that none of the socialist revolutions in practice implemented the transformations of the productive process that Marx envisioned.  However, the Marxist-Humanist Initiative, like the International Socialist Review, does not take seriously the discourses and writings of Third World charismatic leaders and organic intellectuals as an evolution of Marxist-Leninist theory on a foundation of a constantly evolving political practice.  They thus develop an understanding of socialist transformations in a form inconsistent with the method of Marx, who encountered the working-class struggle in the process of formulating a critique from below of German philosophy and British political-economy (see “Who defines socialism?” 4/20/2016; “Racial inequality in Cuba” 4/21/2016; “A revolution of, by, and for the people” 4/22/2016; “The relation between theory and practice” 9/9/2016; and “Third World socialism” 9/13/2016). 

     Alan Spector also appears to be drawing upon a classic Marxist formulation.  In comments in response to my post, he questions the utility of the nation-state as a category of analysis.  I maintained that an analysis that synthesizes Marxism-Leninism and the Third World anti-colonial perspective sees states as necessary actors in both domination and liberation, but this does not negate the fact that class dynamics within nations are important.  Indeed, when a Third World nation pursues the radical Third World project, it is because the popular sectors formed by the middle class, workers, peasants, women, and ethnic groups have taken control of the state from the estate bourgeoisie and the political actors that represent the raw materials export sector  (“States as actors in the world-system” 7/21/2014).

     Spector believes that China has an imperialist orientation toward Africa.  I maintained that the possibilities for ascent in the world-system by means of domination and exploitation are very limited today, inasmuch as the world-system has overextended the geographical limits of the earth. Any acquisition of new territories would necessarily be at the expense of the core powers, which would react with hostility and aggression.  Recognizing this, China currently is turning to ascent through a strategy of cooperation with other nations, seeking to develop mutually beneficial trade with the nations of the Third World. This is consistent with the strategy of the ancient Chinese empires with respect to territory that was beyond its political control.  Inasmuch as the Chinese strategy is an alternative to the imperialism and neoliberalism of the global powers, it is embraced by the Third World governments that seek true sovereignty (see “China and the alternative world-system” 7/18/2014).

     Harry Targ’s blog post reflecting on the socialist alternative had some good points, including historical consciousness, but its description lacked some aspects that would be included from a Third World perspective.  Accordingly, in my critique of Harry’s post, I maintained that socialists in the United States need to: more clearly identify the socialist revolution as a revolution of the people rather than a revolution of the working class; explain and defend the structures of popular democracy, as a much more democratic alternative to representative democracy; affirm the historic demand of the radical Third World agenda for national liberation and true sovereignty, committing to a transformation of US foreign policy from imperialism and interventionism to North-South cooperation; and affirm that socialism seeks the cultural and spiritual formation of the people   (see “May Day and the socialist alternative” 5/18/2016).

     Harry’s blog post commemorating the 90th birthday of Fidel reviews Cuban history, including Spanish colonial domination of the island. However, the post describes colonialism as essentially a political phenomenon.  In my critique, I maintained that we need to explain to our people the economic foundations of colonialism, for they remain present in the neocolonial world-system (see “Fidel Castro at 90” 8/17/2016). 

     Jeffrey St. Clair maintains that presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is not a revolutionary socialist, because he did not organize protest actions in conjunction with his campaign activities.  Les Leopold maintains that we need a new organization of the Left in order to organize a mass protest demanding a financial speculation tax in order to fund free higher education.  Mitchel Cohen, in What is Direct Action? Reframing Revolutionary Strategy in Light of Occupy Wall Street, advocates direct action as a revolutionary strategy that seeks to construct alternative communities through the direct implementation of demands, thus liberating its participants from capitalist forms of thinking and being.  However, these proposals reflect an exaggerated emphasis on protest and direct action, without seeing them as tactics that are integral to a larger revolutionary plan.  If we observe the socialist revolutions that have taken power in the Third World, we find that they developed alternative political parties or political formations, and they used mass protests and direct action as strategies for the organization and mobilization of the people.  The leaders and parties give priority to popular education, which they saw as necessary for the taking and holding of political power.  Their primary objective was the taking of political power, so that they could subsequently struggle to direct the state in defense of popular interests.  Drawing lessons from the experience of Third World socialism, in my critique of these authors, I maintained that we need a new organization of the Left that has the intention of educating and organizing the people, with the long-term goal of taking power.  (See “What should Bernie Sanders have done?” 5/2/2016; “Progressive strategy after Sanders campaign” 7/1/2016; “Authoritarianism vs. legitimate power” 5/16/2016; “What is direct action?” 5/9/2016; “The vanguard party model” 5/10/2016; “Connecting to the needs of our people” 5/11/2016; and “The New Left and its errors” 5/13/2016).

     The alternative organization or political party that we need must call all of our people, excluding no popular sector.  The Marxist-Humanist Initiative has not discerned the evolution of Marxist theory in practice in the revolutions of national and social liberation in the Third World.  As a result, adapting the classic Marxist formulation of a working-class vanguard to the identity politics in vogue in the United States today, the call to action of the Marxist-Humanist Initiative excludes white middle class men.  In my critique of the Marxist-Humanist Initiative, I maintain that this exclusion is a strategic error, because the degree of participation of white middle class men in a popular revolution in the United States will be a decisive factor (see “Why exclude white middle class men?” 9/16/2016).

     In this vein, Asin Shivani makes some valid criticisms of multiculturalism, pointing to the need to reconstruct the discourse of the Left in a form that reaffirms its historic goals but that does not exclude working and middle class white men.  However, Shivani’s article lacks historical consciousness and ignores the Third World.  It does not endeavor to analyze the origin of neoliberalism; and it describes neoliberalism as a policy that expresses itself in Europe and North America, without attention to the dynamics of its application to the Third World.  Shavani formulates a typology of ideologies without including the radical Third World project of national and social liberation, or the ideology of Third World accommodation to imperialist and neoliberal demands.  (See “Reflections on Neoliberalism” 6/28/2016; “Neoliberalism” 6/16/2016; “What are the origins of neoliberalism?” 6/17/2016; “Ideological frames” 6/20/2016; “Neoliberalism and presidential elections” 6/23/2016; “Neoliberalism, multiculturalism & identity politics” 6/24/2016; and “The future of neoliberalism” 6/27/2016). 

      Shivani maintains that the state no longer exists in the form that we conventionally view it.  Against Shivani, I maintain that states continue to exist and continue to be the principal actors in the world-system: dominating international organizations are controlled by particular states; and when corporations act in their interests, they do so through states that they control.  The history of revolutions demonstrates that the road to popular power is the taking of control of the state, so that the delegates of the people, through their management of the state, can direct military power, constrain corporate power, defend the needs of the people, and protect nature.  Shivani’s view cultivates hopelessness among the people and condemns them to powerlessness, for it leaves the people without a strategy for struggle (see “The nation-state in a neoliberal world” 6/21/2016).

   Harry Targ and Cliff DuRand have been promoting cooperatives in Cuba, which they view as representing a turn in Cuba to “workplace democracy,” seeking to transform the top-down form of socialism represented above all by state ownership of productive and commercial enterprises.  I maintain that Targ and DuRand misinterpret current Cuban dynamics.  The new social and economic model, approved by the Cuban National Assembly of Popular Power in 2012, is not oriented to “workplace democracy,” but to the improvement of production, in response to the demand of the people for greater capacity to attain material necessities and consumer goods.  Moreover, I do not believe that it is appropriate for US socialists to be supporting one tendency over other possible directions in the development of Cuban socialism, inasmuch as such judgments are made by Cubans.  Our focus ought to be the socialist transformation of the United States, using the historically significant example of Cuba of a source of ideas for visions, analysis and strategies.  (See “The role of US intellectuals, Part I” 8/5/2015; “Fidel Castro at 90” 8/17/2016).

     I found the Green Party Platform to be Eurocentric, superficial and unphilosophical.  It demonstrates little understanding of: the colonial foundation of the capitalist world-economy; the role of US imperialism in securing an advantageous position for the United States; and the popular anti-colonial movements of the Third World.  It demonstrates a stunning lack of historical consciousness with respect to the United States, avoiding analysis of class, racial and gender dynamics and the movements formed by the various sectors of the people in response to these dynamics.  Although the Platform calls upon the people to reflection on the meaning of democracy, it does not itself offer an example of such reflection.  (See “The Green Party Platform” 8/26/2016; “Can the Green Party evolve?” 8/29/2016).

     Why have Leftist intellectuals and activists of the North not studied in greater depth the writings and speech of the charismatic leaders of the Third World movements for national and social liberation?  Why have they not seen, in the discourses of the charismatic leaders, the possibility for new understandings of the meaning of socialism and of the evolution of socialist theory on a foundation of practice?  Why do they give priority to the study of the popular movements and currents of thought in Europe and North America?

     No one would want to suggest that racism is the answer to such questions, inasmuch as Leftist intellectuals and activists historically have protested racism.  But there may be a hidden assumption that the future necessary direction for humanity could not possibly be formulated by Latinos, Africans and Asians, a survival of the era in which the peoples of the North were blatantly taught of the inferiority of peoples of color.  Although it would be an exaggeration to call it “racism,” it would be reasonable to call it “subtle Eurocentrism.” It has a profound effect, for it prevents understanding of the global structural sources of the abuses and maladies that define our era as well as the necessary political steps for their resolution. 

       Just as the peoples of European descent in the United States overcame blatant forms of racism during the period 1965 to 1972, they can at the present historic juncture overcome the subtle Eurocentrism that is its legacy.  This will be the theme of my next post.

        In this post, I have been speaking for the most part of the white Left, and its subtle Eurocentrism.  With respect to the movements formed by people of color, another line of commentary is in order. From the period 1917 to 1988, as the working class movement was moving to accommodationist reformism, the African-American movement emerged to formulate a penetrating critique of American society and American imperialism.  And the movement effectively used mass action strategies to transform policy and public discourse with respect to race.  However, the gains of the movement, crystalized in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, did not include affirmation of two historic demands of the movement: domestic policies dedicated to the protection of social and economic rights; and foreign policies that respect the sovereignty of the nations of the Third World.  The proposals of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X with respect to these issues were ignored.  To some extent, the African-American Movement has lost its way since 1972, in part because of increasing class divisions within the African-American community, and in part because of ideological confusion resulting from the post-1980 restauration project of the Right.  It has not been able to formulate a comprehensive plan: for the social and economic development of the black community; and for alliance with other popular sectors in order to protect of the social and economic rights of the people and to transform US foreign policy toward North-South cooperation.  Rev. Jesse Jackson indicated the right direction in his presidential campaigns of 1984 and 1988, but he was not able to develop the Rainbow Coalition as a mass organization (see “Black community control” 5/10/2015; “The unresolved issue of race in the USA” 6/23/2015; “The abandonment of the black lower class” 6/24/2015; and “The need for a popular coalition” 6/27/2015).  

      The Chicano Movement of the 1960s formulated a radical political agenda from an anti-imperialist perspective, but with the post-1980 Latino migration to the United States, Latino organizations have come to focus on the rights of immigrants, distancing themselves from the revolutionary and Leftist proposals and projects that have changed the political reality of Latin America.  US Latino organizations ought to be more fully connected to the political and ideological tendencies in Latin America, as a dimension of its participation in a popular coalition in the United States.

Posted October 5, 2016 

​    From October 1843 to August 1844, having recently arrived in Paris to serve as co-editor of a newly formed German-French journal, twenty-five-year-old Karl Marx encountered the Parisian proletarian movement.  During this time, Marx also obsessively studied the science of political economy, taking him beyond his previous doctoral study of German philosophy.  These experiences were the basis of a profound intellectual and moral conversion.  And they provided the experiential foundation for the insightful imagination of a critique of political economy from the proletarian point of view.  Beginning with the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 and continuing for the rest of his life, Marx proceeded to formulate a critique of political economy and an analysis of human history.  In doing so, he moved European scholarship beyond the limitations of a bourgeois point of view (see McKelvey 1991, especially Chapter Five, “Marx’s Intellectual Development”).

       More important than Marx’s conclusions, which necessarily were shaped by his time and social and geographical place, was his example.  He provided a model for a method of seeking to understand, a model that is particularly relevant for intellectuals and academics who pertain to relatively privileged positions in a social system.  The method involves encounter with the social movements forged from below, by the exploited, superexploited, and excluded sectors.  Marx did not formulate the method explicitly; rather, he expressed it implicitly through his writings on the proletarian point of view and by the example of the approach that he used as he sought to understand.  

     During the course of the twentieth century, the philosophy of social science would arrive to understand that knowledge of social dynamics is rooted in the social position of the person who seeks to understand. The Catholic philosopher Bernard Lonergan moved beyond this formulation.  He showed through study of human understanding in various fields that the limitations imposed by social position can be overcome through personal encounter with persons of different horizons, taking seriously the understandings of these persons.  We can reformulate Lonergan with attention to the example of Marx: persons in relatively privileged social positions can arrive to a universal understanding by encountering social movements that are formed by the excluded and exploited.

        In the 1970s, Immanuel Wallerstein, on the basis of his encounter with African nationalism in the 1960s, came to the insight that what historians and social scientists must understand is not the “society” but the “world-system.”  Taking the world-system as his unit of analysis, Wallerstein traced the historical development of the world-system from its origins in the sixteenth century to the present.  He revealed the colonial foundations of the world-system; and he recognized that the colonized have formed social movements in opposition to the world-system, although he did not systematically encounter these anti-systemic movements during the course of his career.  

     Marx, Lonergan and Wallerstein teach us a fundamental epistemological insight: knowledge of the world-system is attained through personal encounter with the movements formed by the colonized.  The knowledge that we attain through this method, which I call “cross-horizon encounter,” is not certain, because there always is a possibility that relevant questions have not been asked.  Nor is it eternal, because future economic and social development will give rise to new insights.  But it is universal, in that it does not reflect the vantage point of any particular social position, inasmuch as it takes into account relevant questions that emerge to the consciousness of persons of different social positions.  It transcends particular social position defined by one’s nations, class, ethnic group or gender.  As a universal understanding that transcends particular social position, although it is neither certain nor eternal, it represents the most advanced form of knowledge of which humanity is capable in the current stage of human economic and social development.

      With such an understanding of understanding, we can move beyond pluralism and multiculturalism.  These currents of thought rightly exposed European pretensions to universal knowledge as ethnocentrism, central to the justification of European domination of the world from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries, and of the prevailing structures of exploitation that emerged from this domination. But pluralism and multiculturalism left in doubt the possibility of affirming the true and the right as applied to all.  Our people have been ill at ease with its implicit moral relativism, especially with its most extreme form, post-modernism.  So the people fight back, seeking to regain a more secure world in which everyone understands the difference between right and wrong, even if we do not always adhere to it.  

      Like the peoples of the North, the peoples of the Third World were never comfortable with an implicit moral relativism.  As Sara Rosales, founder of a women’s organization in Honduras, said to me in 1996, “Our children do not have enough beans to eat.  This is wrong, and everybody knows that it is wrong.”

     As the Third World project evolved from 1955 to the present, it reflected a practical commitment to the proposition that there are universal truths.  The Third World project formulated principles that ought to guide humanity, based on the self-evident truth that colonial domination has no moral justification, and the equally self-evident truth that no social system can ignore human needs.  These principles that ought to guide humanity include: all nations have a right to sovereignty; all peoples have the right to self-determination; the powerful nations should not interfere in the affairs of the nations of the world; all persons have social and economic rights, including access to nutrition, shelter, security from violence, health care, education and cultural formation; and the state plays an important role in protecting the sovereignty of the nation and the rights of persons.

     For those of us who are academics and intellectuals of the United States, the important contributions of Marx, Lonergan and Wallersein form part of our intellectual legacy, and the dignified behavior of Third World charismatic leaders is part of our global reality.  Our intellectual legacy and the powerful example of the colonized provide a context that makes it possible for us to move social scientific and historical knowledge beyond Eurocentrism.  They enable us to do something like what Marx did, namely, encounter the Third World movement of national and social liberation, and on this basis, formulate a critique of the capitalist world-economy and human history from a vantage point that takes into account the insights of the colonized.

      Such intellectual work, seeking a truly universal understanding, must be tied to practice.  Our goal is to educate our people, so that leaders will emerge among them, leaders who can point to a new direction for our nation and our people, casting aside imperialism and neoliberalism, envisioning a state that acts decisively in defense of the needs of the people, and that works in cooperation with other nations in creating a just, democratic and sustainable world-system.

       Such intellectual work tied to political practice must reject, ignore or get around the rules and assumptions of the bureaucratized university, which has been shaped to serve the corporate class, imperialism, and the national security state.  It requires fidelity to truth and social justice, sustained by the hope that, regardless of what sanctions are applied, one will endure and will continue to develop the capacity for principled intellectual work in service of human need.

      In following fidelity rather than bureaucracy, intellectuals can find freedom to study the various Third World revolutions and their charismatic leaders.  Discovering relevant questions through encounter with the charismatic leaders and national and social liberation movements of the Third World, intellectuals of the North can acquire the capacity to move beyond the theories and assumptions of the societies of the North, incorporating into their understanding the experiences of the Third World revolutions, which constitutes an important part of the experience of humanity.  

     Such cross-horizon encounter can enable intellectuals of the United States to defend the nation, by debunking the false dominant narrative, and formulating and disseminating an alternative narrative that sees the strengths and limitations of the democratic quest of US popular movements, and that understands the search for democracy in the United States as one example of a universal human thirst for social justice.  

       Such is the basic method of intellectuals in privileged social positions in the nations of the core.  For the colonized peoples, it is a question of being organically tied to the movements of one’s own people, ignoring the rules of the bureaucratized university, imposed by colonizer.  Such organic connection of intellectuals of the colonized world includes people of color in the United States.  

     A powerful example of intellectual work tied to the needs of the African-American community is the life and work of Jacob Carruthers, who was my academic adviser in the early 1970s at the Center for Inner City Studies in Chicago, today known as the Carruthers Center for Inner City Studies.  Before being called to the Center to teach political theory and serve as assistant director, Jake spent ten years working in the US Postal Service, a punishment for his previous violation of the rules of the university.  I have never forgotten Jake’s way of calling us to fidelity to our mission as intellectuals in service of humanity: “You always have to be ready to go back to the post office.” 

References
 
McKelvey, Charles.  1991.  Beyond Ethnocentrism:  A Reconstruction of Marx’s Concept of Science.  New York:  Greenwood Press. 

Posted October 10, 2016

      In these reflections on the Third World project, we arrive at the point of understanding that revolutionary popular coalitions that seek to take power in the nations of the North are both necessary and possible.  Let us review and reassess what we have seen in these previous twenty-two posts on the Third World project.

      We have seen that, in reaction to centuries of conquest, colonialism and peripheralization, the colonized peoples of the world have not, for the most part, sought vengeance.  The prevailing concept of justice among Third Word peoples has not been that of just punishment for crimes committed.  Rather, the colonized peoples for the most part have held to a concept of social justice, which has led them, with full consciousness of the past, to project a different future for humanity, leaving behind the legacy of domination and superexploitation.  

      In the period of 1948 to 1979, the leaders of the Third World movement for national and social liberation accomplished a formidable political task: they attained the international organizational unity of the formerly colonized peoples of the world on the basis of a consensus with respect to fundamental principles.  They formulated a vision of a New International Economic Order, characterized by full respect for the equal sovereignty of all nations, the protection of the social and economic rights of all persons, and harmony with the natural environment.  

     But the New International Economic Order was disdainfully cast aside by the global powers.  In reaction to the proposals of the governments that formed the Non-Aligned Movement and the G-77, they aggressively attacked the Third World project.  There was no moral restraint on their methods: they sent the armed forces; they assassinated leaders; they created the phenomenon of the external debt, and used it to impose weak and accommodating states on the formerly colonized peoples of the world.  In the Islamic World, taking advantage of the tension within the Islamic movement between anti-colonial modernism and traditionalism, they supported Islamic radicalism in order to derail national liberation, and without any intention of accepting a world envisioned by the Islamic traditionalist.

      Through their military and economic aggressions and their duplicity, the global powers were able to block movement toward a New International Economic Order and to preserve the colonial foundations of the neocolonial world-system.  But in doing so, the global powers failed to attend to the fundamental contradictions of the world-system.  These contradictions included the economic need to expand without limit, consuming natural resources on a planet whose finite limits had been reached and overextended.  And they included the contradiction between, on the one hand, the democratic ideals of the sovereign equality of nations and the human rights of all persons, and on the other hand, the negation in practice of these ideals, through economic and financial penetration, military intervention, and military dictatorships.

       Third World hopes were deferred by the global neoliberal turn of the 1980s, and the Third World project died; but it was born again.  We can see in retrospect that the first signs of rebirth occurred in 1994.  During the period 1998 to 2012, self-proclaimed socialist governments would appear in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua; progressive governments would emerge in Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay; socialist Cuba would endure and attain respect and admiration throughout the world; China and Vietnam would persist in their historic socialist projects, and they would deepen ties with the socialist and progressive governments of Latin America; popes would applaud the new tendencies in Latin America and would deepen relations with the socialist and progressive governments of the region; the Islamic Republic of Iran would persist in its insistence on its right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, and it would expand economic and cultural relations with the Non-Aligned Movement and with socialist and progressive governments of Latin America; and the nations of the Third World would reaffirm their historic commitment to the Third World project of national and social liberation and to South-South cooperation (see “Hugo Chávez Frías” 8/4/2016; “The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela” 8/5/2016; “The Chávist presidency of Nicolás Maduro” 8/9/2016; “The Movement toward Socialism in Bolivia” 8/11/2016; “The citizen revolution in Ecuador” 9/19/2016; “The Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua” 9/20/2016; “Latin American and Caribbean unity” 9/21/2016; “The renewal of South-South cooperation” 9/22/2016; “The spirit of Bandung lives” 9/26/2016).  

      Meanwhile, as the Third World project renews, the global powers have used all available means to undermine it.  Hypocritically and cynically declaring itself to be defending of democracy and human rights, the United States seeks to delegitimate and destabilize the governments of Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua; and to undermine BRICS.  As in the 1970s and early 1980s, the global powers fail to attend to the fundamental contradictions of the neocolonial world-system, seeking only to defend their particular short-term interests.  They seek to preserve their domination in a world-system that increasingly demonstrates its unsustainability.

      There are numerous signs of the unsustainability of the neocolonial world-system.  Historically, transnational corporations made concessions to popular demands in the core and accepted a certain level of social programs by core states.  The social programs were financially feasible as a result of core exploitation of peripheral regions, and through a strategy of government deficit spending.  But as profits stagnated and the government debt became overextended, the global elite launched in the 1980s an ideological attack on the state, preventing core governments from making adjustments in a form that would have preserved social programs, which were necessary for political legitimation and social control.  As a result, core states are ideologically and financially limited in their capacity to make concessions to popular demands, reversing a tendency that had been evolving since the nineteenth century and especially in the post-World War II period.  Since 1980, the peoples of the nations of the North have been increasingly abandoned by their governments, giving rise to a loss of faith in the state and a delegitimation of the political process of representative democracy.  The lack of structures of popular education in the North facilitate that the peoples of the North do not understand the sources of the global crisis and of their abandonment. But they correctly sense that they have been abandoned.

     In the absence of a proposed political project that defends one or more sectors of the people, the political system of representative democracy has degenerated.  Politics has become the technique of fund raising and political advertising, accompanied by the art of appearing to defend the people while actually defending particular interests that finance electoral campaigns.  In the context of the decadence of the political system of representative democracy, and the limited understanding and anxieties of the peoples of the North, politicians emerge with neo-fascist messages, speaking against immigrants, gays and terrorists.  In this panorama, the Left shows signs of life, but the European and US Left have failed to propose a comprehensive, moral, and historically informed political-economic alternative that would be able to attain the support of the people.

      At the same time, the increasing deterioration of economic and social conditions in peripheral and semi-peripheral zones has provoked an uncontrolled migration to the core.  This structurally rooted peripheral-core migration had been expressing itself since the 1960s, but it has been exacerbated by the neo-fascist wars and military interventions unleased by the global powers in the Middle East.  

      In short, rather than seeking, beginning in the 1970s, a reform of the neocolonial world-system in response to the proposal by the Third World project for a New International Economic Order, the global powers have ideologically, economically and physically attacked the dignified delegates of the colonized, the oppressed and the poor.  As a result, we are left today with a world-system that increasingly shows signs of profound structural crisis: terrorism, violence, social and economic insecurity, environmental degradation, ideological manipulation, political delegitimation, and spiraling financial speculation.  It is a world with spectacular wealth for a few; and increasing poverty, exclusion and vulnerability for the majority.  It is a world in which cynicism reigns.  And it is a world from which many seek retreat; through consumerism, individualism, religious fundamentalism, or various unhealthy or healthy addictions.

     The situation appears to be hopeless, but this is only a matter of appearance.  The Third World vision of a New International Economic Order (of the 1970s) and a more just, democratic and sustainable world-system (today) remains a viable option for humanity, and this is understood by the peoples in movement in the Third World.    

     In the North, however, we continue to act as though the proposal from below has never been made, a tendency found even among organizations and intellectuals of the Left.  So the key to the future of humanity is an awakening of the organizations and intellectuals of the Left in the North, based on an appreciation of the wisdom of the proposal for a more just and sustainable world-system, proposed by the colonized peoples of the planet.  

     We have seen that intellectuals of the North can arrive at universal understanding through cross-horizon encounter, which involves personal encounter with the charismatic leaders and social movements of Third World national and social liberation, taking seriously their insights (“Beyond Eurocentrism” 10/5/2016).  Through cross-horizon encounter with the colonized, we learn fundamental facts about the structures of domination of the world-system: colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism and neoliberalism.  And we learn that colonial and neocolonial domination simultaneously creates development and underdevelopment.

      In cross-horizon encounter, we also learn that the neocolonized peoples have created an international social movement that integrates the major social issues of national domination, class exploitation, racial and ethnic discrimination, gender domination and exclusion, and ecological degradation.  The Third World project has been from the beginning an integrating project.  It appropriated, expanded and deepened the concepts and values of the bourgeois democratic revolutions, seeing in them the basis for defending the rights of the colonized.  It appropriated the concepts and values of the proletarian revolution, adapting them to the conditions of the colonized, thereby creating a synthesis of Marxism-Leninism and the Third World perspective.  When the women’s and ecology movements gained force in the West, the radical Third World project appropriated their concepts, reformulating them in accordance with the principles of the Third World movement.  By the beginning of the twenty-first century, the radical Third World project had attained an integration of issues in theory and in practice.  As a result, the radical Third World project represents a theory and practice more advanced than what is found in the North, where understandings and action are fragmented into distinct issues.

     When intellectuals and activists of the North do not encounter the Third World project, they do not see the integration that the Third World movements have attained.  Looking at the Third World project from a partial perspective rooted in a particular popular sector, they perceive the Third World movement approach to a particular issue (e.g., race, gender, ecology, or sexual orientation) as deficient, not grasping that the essential insights of each have been reformulated in order to accomplish their integration.  They do not perceive that the integrating reformulation is central to the force that the movement has attained in the minds and hearts of the people, each formulated in accordance with the particular ideological, political and social conditions of the nation.  Rather than rejecting Third World formulations from a partial perspective, intellectuals and activists in the North would do better to appreciate the advanced character of the Third World project, and learn from it.  

     When we encounter the integrated and historically conscious international Third World social movements, we learn that, beginning with Vietnam in 1945, it has been taking power in key countries. Charismatic leaders have been nurtured, and alternative political parties and political formations have been created, and they have led the people in the taking of power.  The road to power was made possible by: the formulation and dissemination of a historically and socially accurate explanation of the structures of domination and exploitation, thus delegitimating leaders that accommodated to the colonial-neocolonial powers and foreign corporations; the emitting of concrete proposals that connect to the daily needs of the people; and the demonstration of courage and self-sacrifice by revolutionary leaders, thereby showing their commitment to defending the people and the nation.  

     If intellectuals and activists of the North were to study the speeches and writings of Third World charismatic leaders and the Third World movements of national and social liberation, they would find the fundamental ingredients of the necessary direction for the popular movements of the North: the formation of an alternative political party that educates and organizes the people, with the long term goal of taking political power.  It would be an alternative political party that redefines in practice what a political party is and does.  It would issue concrete demands connected to the frustrations of the people, but it would see the issuance of demands as a tactic for the organization and education of the people.  It also would develop and disseminate materials for popular education, and it would form study groups and popular schools for leadership formation.  It would engage in direct action strategies in order to involve the people in a social and personal quest for liberation from the dominating economic, social and ideological structures, seeing these strategies also as integral to popular education.

     The Third World charismatic leaders have understood the importance of the unity of the people, and so should we.  No popular sector should see its issues and concerns as having priority over those of other sectors of the people.  We intellectuals and activists of the United States need to formulate a comprehensive understanding that affirms the historic demands of all of the sectors of our people.  We need to form a popular coalition that theoretically and strategically unites the various sectors of our people, in a popular movement that seeks to defend the nation and the people, in cooperation with the peoples and government of the Third World.  Such a popular movement would see itself as a component of the movement formed by humanity in defense of itself, seeking to break the power of those who would sacrifice humanity in defense of particular interests (see “A socialist revolution in the USA” 2/1/2016).

       A revolutionary popular coalition that seeks to take power in the United States and in other nations of the North is necessary.  As revolutionary parties have taken power in the South, they have found that the most serious obstacle is the amoral and determined opposition of the governments of the North, through military and/or political interventions, ideological manipulations, and economic warfare. Therefore, the taking of power by the peoples of the North, transforming imperialist and interventionist foreign policies into a policy of North-South cooperation, is necessary for the transition from an increasingly unsustainable capitalist world-economy to a socialist world-system.  And a revolutionary popular coalition is possible.  The intellectual legacy of Marx, Lonergan, Wallerstein and others, and the dignified example of the leaders and movements of the colonized peoples of the earth, establish its possibility.

     The victory of the “Leave” campaign in the recent UK referendum on the British membership in the European Union has been attributed to various factors.  

     (1) Xenophobia.  The debate was dominated by fear of immigration and migrants, an issue that was exploited opportunistically by some leaders of the Leave campaign.    

    (2) A popular protest from the Right and the Left.  The Leave vote was a protest on the part of those who have experienced poverty, lack of economic opportunity, and underfunding of education and health services, and who feel that their voices have been ignored.  In objective terms, Britain benefitted economically from its participation in the European Union.  Unlike most EU nations, it retained its own currency, and it controlled its monetary policy; and as a member of the Union, it could send its goods to the continent on a tariff-free basis. However, the European Union adhered to an anti-popular, pro-elite neoliberal agenda, and many Britons were vaguely aware of this. Robert Kuttner of the Huffington Post notes that “the Brits who voted for Brexit got a lot of facts and details wrong. . . .  But they did grasp that the larger economic system is serving elites and is not serving them.”  The popular opposition to the European Union and its neoliberal policies came from both Right-wing populism as well as the Left.  Kuttner stresses the right-wing component of the anti-neoliberal protest: “Rightwing revolts are always substantially irrational, as was the vote for Brexit. But when downwardly mobile Brits grasp that the EU and the larger model of neo-liberalism aren’t exactly on their side, they are grasping a truth.”  On the other hand, Andrew O'Hehir (Salon) guesses that 20% of the vote for Brexit came from the Left.  He writes that Brexit was, in part, an assault on “the post-Cold War world order of economic globalization and ‘free trade’ agreements, coupled with permanent undeclared war and worldwide intelligence-gathering on an unprecedented scale.”

    (3) Rejection of the political elite and the established political process.  Mihail Evans, International Research Fellow at the New Europe College at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Bucharest interprets the vote for Brexit as a rejection of politics itself.  He maintains that there is something profoundly wrong with Western democracies: the art of politics has been replaced by the technique of politics.  The former involves elected representatives working with one another to address problems in a creative and consensual manner, with sensitivity not only to the interests of the particular locality but also the long-term good of the nation, the region, humanity and the planet; whereas the latter involves effective use of campaign fundraising strategies, political advertising, and soundbites.   

     (4)  National versus cosmopolitan identity.  Lisa Maria Herzog (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main) observes that nationalist politicians blame the European Union for anything that arouses fear and anger among the people, thus stimulating a form of nationalist identity that stands in opposition to identity with Europe.  Regina Rini (New York University) interprets the European Union as involving an attempt to move personal identity from the nation to Europe, and the endeavor has failed.  She writes: “In many ways, the project of the European Union has been an effort to submerge the militaristic undertones of national identity in the cosmopolitan solidarity of a multi-ethnic, multi-national superstate. Europe has all the trappings of political identity: a capital, a flag, an anthem. But Brexit shows that this aspect of the European project has not yet succeeded. For many people, it is still national identity that holds greatest allegiance.” Similarly, O'Hehir maintains that “Brexit was an assault on the cosmopolitan, borderless Pan-European ideal represented by the E.U.”

     (5)  The low quality of the public discussion.  Martin O’Neill (University of York) maintains that “the vote followed the lowest-quality political campaign in recent British history, as newspapers with their own pro-Brexit agenda . . . regurgitated a steady stream of misdirection, obfuscation and outright lies.”  Kuttner laments “the absence of enlightened leadership, either in Britain or on the continent,” and the incapacity of political leaders to propose an option other than remain in or leave the European Union.  Thus, the people voted without a good understanding and without the possibility of reframing the issue, and in their votes they were expressing sentiments with respect to other issues, such as immigration, neoliberalism, inequality, and the cosmopolitanism of elites.  

     Brexit is a sign of the structural crisis of the world-system.  In seeking to understand the meaning of Brexit, we cannot lose sight of the fact that the modern world-system was established on a foundation of conquest of vast regions of the world by seven European nations from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries (see various posts on The origin and development of the modern world-system).  During the twentieth century, as a result of the movements of the colonized peoples, the European colonial empires were abandoned, and a neo-colonial world-system under US hegemony emerged, preserving the essential economic relations established during colonial rule (see posts on Neocolonialism).

     The transition to neocolonialism did not address the fundamental contradictions of the system, of which three are particularly important. (1) The world-economy expanded by incorporating new territories and populations, but by the middle of the twentieth century, there were no more lands and peoples to conquer.  (2) The thirst for social justice among the peoples of the world ensured that popular anti-colonial, anti-neocolonial, anti-imperialist and anti-neoliberal movements could not be satisfied without transforming structures of colonial/neocolonial domination and superexploitation.  (3) The strategy of sowing division among the popular sectors of the world by addressing popular demands in core but not in peripheral zones, financing the strategy through government debt, became unsustainable by the 1970s, as a result of declining margins of global profits and excessive levels of government debts.

      The turn to the neoliberal project in the 1980s was the elite response to these unresolved contradictions.  It turned to economic war against the nations of peripheral and semi-peripheral zones, coercing governments to remove all protections of national currency, national industry, and the social and economic rights of the people; and to a rollback of concessions made to core popular sectors during the twentieth century.  And it turned to neo-fascist wars where its political control was threatened and the value of the natural resources was high.  Both strategies had certain short-terms benefits for transnational corporations and political elites, but they deepened the crisis that results from the unresolved contradictions of the world-system.

     At the same time, the Left of the core nations was unable to explain to the people the structural contradictions that had led to the elite impulse for the neoliberal agenda.  The Left previously had turned to reformism and away from revolutionary transformation; and it has been characterized by a tendency toward Eurocentrism, incapable of analyzing the world-system from below, from the vantage point of the neocolonized.  Accordingly, the Left in the North, although it has protested the neoliberal rollback, has not been able to demonstrate to the people that it understands the roots of the global crisis and would be capable of making the necessary structural transformations, if it were to have the support of the people.

      Without a reasoned and politically viable alternative proposed by the Left, the public debate in the nations of the core has remained trapped in Eurocentric assumptions, and it has become increasingly superficial and conflictive.  Public discourse explains nothing, and it cannot lead to the resolution of any of the contradictions.  Public debate is within the context of assumptions shared by the Right and the political center.  The art of politics has degenerated into the technique of politics, where the strategy is to distort in order to manipulate; and successful politicians increasingly have become masters of a deceptive discourse.  The people are losing faith in the political system, and in the political leaders who have based their careers in maneuvering through the contradictions, without seeking to address them.  No political figures emerge to lead the people to a comprehensive historical and global understanding and that forges multiple layers of identity among the people, thinking of themselves as patriotic citizens of nations but also responsible citizens of the region and the world.  These dynamics have become manifest with the Brexit vote:  the debate was of low quality and characterized by the exploitation of popular anxiety; some voted for Leave because of their lack of confidence in political elites and the political system; some expressed their rejection of EU neoliberal policies, which they do not fully understand, but which they sense are not designed to protect their interests and needs; and some seek revitalization of nationalism, disdainful of the cosmopolitanism of the elites and the upper and upper-middle classes.

      The uncontrollable migration from the periphery and semi-periphery to the core, created by the legacy of underdevelopment and the recent neo-fascist wars, is one of the most explosive dynamics of the systemic crisis of the system.  Neither the politicians of the Left nor the Right can explain the origins of the new migration nor offer a constructive proposal, and opportunistic politicians exploit the fear and anxiety of the people that the migratory crisis creates.  

     The structural crisis of the world-system is not only an economic, financial and ecological crisis.  It is also a political and ideological crisis: The peoples of the core have lost faith in established political institutions; and the opinion makers, including those of the Left, are unable to formulate an alternative ideology.

      But the political and ideological crisis pertains to the core, not to the periphery.  In the neocolonized regions of the world, the peoples are retaking and reformulating the radical Third World agenda of the 1960s and 1970s.  This renewal, provoked by a popular rejection of the neoliberal project and the national political elites who participated in its implementation, is particularly advanced in Latin America, but it is expressing itself throughout the Third World, as is evident by the declarations of the Non-Aligned Movement in recent years.

      Taking into account the advanced nature of the Third World movement, we can only conclude that the renewal of the Left in the core requires encounter with the Third World popular movements for national and social liberation.  They are forging in theory and practice a more just, democratic and sustainable world-system, conceived as an alternative to the unsustainable neocolonial world-system.  The peoples of the South are showing the peoples of the North the necessary road.  If the intellectuals and activists of the Left in the North can learn from the popular movements of the South, they would be able to propose to the people an alternative to neoliberalism, xenophobia, distrust of politicians, and chauvinistic nationalism, all of which forms a breeding ground for fascism.  

​Key words:  Brexit, xenophobia, legitimation crisis, political identities, neoliberalism, neocolonialism, migratory crisis

     In “Bernie’s Next Big Task: Build a Large-Scale National Progressive Movement” (AlterNet June 24, 2016), Les Leopold notes that the unexpected success of the Bernie Sanders presidential election campaign indicates that there exists in the United States significant popular support for a progressive agenda, and that Sanders should now concentrate launching a new organization dedicated to mobilizing the people in support of his democratic socialist agenda.  He writes:

     The progressive tendencies, in conflict and competition with fascist tendencies, in the breast of the people has been evident since the 2008 financial crisis.  Leopold notes that the Occupy Wall Street Movement “changed the dialogue of this country from austerity to inequality,” but the movement “faded because it lacked sustainable organizational structures.”  To prevent this from happening with respect to the energy generated by the Sanders campaign, he calls for a new organization of the Left.

      I am in agreement that the Occupy Wall Street Movement lacked a clear understanding of the need to form a progressive organization.  It was oriented to “direct action,” and had disdain for organizational structures, permitting a fear of authoritarianism to provoke distrust of the legitimate structures of rational/bureaucratic and charismatic authority that a social movement must have for the attainment of its goals (see “Authoritarianism vs. legitimate power” 5/16/2016).

      But when Leopold outlines what the new organization ought to do, I do not find myself in agreement.  He proposes: “Immediately, this new organization would have two goals: 1) defeat Trump; and 2) organize a million people to come to the Washington mall shortly after the inauguration to press for free higher education and a Wall Street speculation tax.”  The proposed mass march on Washington would “demand that Congress pass a financial speculation tax to fund free higher education.”

     I maintain that this strategy of submitting demands and pressuring political elites is an historic strategic error of the Left.  Like “direct action,” it is a strategy that has its place, but it must be part of a larger comprehensive plan that fundamentally involves the taking of power by the people.

     A new progressive organization should indeed be launched, and it should have two fundamental goals.  First, the education and organization of our people.  We must develop schools for the people, centers of popular education, meeting in homes, schools, churches, and organizations where the people have access to space.  The centers would enable the people to arrive to understand: the historic development of structures of domination, exploitation and exclusion; the collusion of the political establishment, including many political figures who pretend to be progressive, in the development and maintenance of domination; and the achievements of revolutionary processes in other lands, where the people, confronting structures of domination and exploitation, formed revolutionary movements that enabled them to remove elites from power and to place it in their own hands.

       Secondly, the progressive organization should lead the people in the taking of power.  The new organization should conceive of itself as a new form of political party.  It would not be a conventional political party, because it would be dedicated to popular education and to the organization of protests, which would be organized as educational tools and as demonstrations of popular support.  The new organization, however, also would engage in conventional political activities, such as nominating candidates for Congress, seeking to take control of the Congress during the course of the next twenty or twenty-five years.  The nomination of a presidential candidate with a democratic socialist agenda would be the culmination of a quarter-century of work in popular education and in attaining ever-growing presence in the Congress.

      In the late 1960s, the Progressive Labor Party had it right.  They stood in the midst of a general confusion of the Left.  On the one hand, there were the proponents of direct action, who erroneously believed that confrontational strategies would catalyze the people to support of the causes of the Left.  On the other hand, there were reformist organizations, confining themselves to particular issues, and offering little more than superficial education.  In this confused panorama, the Progressive Labor Party understood that it was a question of organizing and educating the people, preparing them for the long-term goal of taking power.  But the Progressive Labor Party had a fundamental limitation.  It rigidly applied the concepts of Marx, Lenin, and Trotsky, without creatively adapting their insights to the particular conditions of the United States in the 1960s.  This greatly limited their influence, inasmuch as their discourse was alien to the thinking and the common-sense insights of the people.

      The Left has a legacy of division and confusion.  We have developed direct action strategies, disdaining education and organization; we have organized protests focused on particular issues, without trying to raise the consciousness of the people toward an historical, comprehensive, and global understanding; or we have sought to educate and organize our people for the taking of power, but with a perspective that made no sense to our people.  We have to overcome these errors and get it right.  The challenges that humanity confronts confer upon us this duty.

     The structures of domination of our people have included ideological distortions of all forms, which have bombarded our people through the mass media, and which have pervaded educational institutions.  As a result, our people are confused.  We must develop an organization that responds to this situation, seeking to overcome ideological confusion among our people.  We need to formulate a comprehensive, historical and global understanding that we can effectively teach our people, enabling them to understand why and how they are dominated, exploited and excluded; and enabling them to understand that they can and must take power in their own name, so that they can, in defense of themselves, establish a government that acts in accordance with the universal human values that humanity has proclaimed.  The political elites who profess democratic values but who collaborate with the wealthy cannot be pressured to act in accordance with human values, except in token form.  They must be cast aside by the people, who with a growing understanding, acquire the capacity to delegate their own leaders to act in their name.


Key words: Leopold, Sanders, progressive, progressive alliance, Left