Sugar production was integrally tied to African slavery.  “Immense legions of slaves came from Africa in order to provide for King Sugar the numerous and free work force that he demanded: human fuel to burn” (Galeano 2004:83; 1997:59). 

     Slavery and slave labor provided benefits beyond sugar production.  “According to Sergio Bajú, the most formidable engine of European mercantilist capital accumulation was American slavery; at the same time, that capital became ‘the foundation upon which was constructed the giant industrial capital of contemporary times.'  The resurrection of Greco-Roman slavery in the New World had miraculous properties: the slaves that crossed the Atlantic multiplied the ships, the factories, the railroads, and the banks of the countries from which they did not originate and to which, with the exception of the United States, they were not destined.  Between the dawn of the sixteenth century and the agony of the nineteenth century, several millions of Africans, it is not known how many, crossed the ocean….  From the Potomac to Rio de la Plata, the slaves constructed the houses of their masters, cut down the forests, cut and ground the sugar cane, planted cotton, cultivated cocoa, harvested coffee and tobacco, and dredged the river beds in search of gold” (Galeano 2004:107-8).

     Slavery promoted the economic development of the Northeastern United States, even though the region did not utilize slave labor as a systemic pattern.  By the eighteenth century, the Caribbean islands had developed extensive sugar plantations utilizing African slave labor to produce sugar for export to Western Europe.  To maximize profit, it was rational to utilize the plantation exclusively for the production of sugar and to purchase food, rather than cultivate it.  Thus the slave production of sugar in the Caribbean generated a market for food products.  North American farmers, given their medium-sized farms and their proximity to the Caribbean, were strategically located to respond to this market demand.  The sale of food and animal products to the Caribbean turned out to be a very lucrative market for the North American farmers.  Through this trade, the North American farmers accumulated capital, which was converted into industrial development during the nineteenth century, taking advantage of new possibilities emerging form the peripheralization of the South from 1800 to 1860. During this period of 1800-1860, the slave production of cotton, tobacco, sugar and rice in the South provided cheap raw materials as well as a market for the new and expanding industries of the Northeast, thereby creating possibilities for the industrial and economic development of the Northeast.  Thus, although the northeastern farmers did not themselves utilize slaves as an integral and significant part of their production, they economically benefited from slavery in the Caribbean and in the US South through core-peripheral commerce with these slave regions (Frank 1979:64-68; Shannon 1996:64; Pérez 1995:70-71; Galeano 2004:87; Genovese 1967; Williams 1996:108-18).  Since northeastern manufacturing was central to the economic development of the nation during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, we are recognizing here the importance of slavery in the economic development of the United States. 

     The ascent of the United States was spectacular.  Merely a semi-peripheral nation in the late eighteenth century, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries it ascended to become the hegemonic core power of the neocolonial world system.  No other nation could possibly repeat such an ascent, without finding an equally lucrative commercial relation with a system of forced labor, similar to the relations with systems of slave labor in the Caribbean and the US South, exploited by the North American British colonies and the northeastern region of the United States during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.  The ascent of the United States is a theme that we will discuss in future posts.

     The slaves did not passively accept their condition.  In addition to the Haitian Revolution, there were constant slave rebellions in the Caribbean islands.  In addition, slaves escaped to form their own communities in the mountains.  And they developed a cultural resistance, affirming their identity through religious ceremonies, dances, and magic (Galeano 2004:112-16).  This spirit of rebellion of African-Americans would emerge as an integral component of the social movements of the twentieth century.


References

Frank, Andre Gunder.  1979.  Dependent Accumulation and Underdevelopment.  New York:  Monthly Review Press.

Galeano, Eduardo.  1997.  The Open Veins of Latin America: Five centuries of the pillage of a continent, 25th Anniversary Edition.  Translated by Cedric Belfrage.  Forward by Isabel Allende.  New York: Monthly Review Press.

__________.  2004.  Las Venas Abiertas de América Latina, tercera edición, revisada.  México: Siglo XXI Editores.

Genovese, Eugene D.  1967.  The Political Economy of Slavery.  New York:  Random House, Vintage Books.

Pérez, Jr., Louis A.  2006.  Cuba:  Between Reform and Revolution, 3rd edition.  New York:  Oxford University Press. 

Shannon, Thomas Richard.  1996.  An Introduction to the World-System Perspective, 2nd ed.  Boulder:  Westview Press.

Williams, Eric.  1966 (1944).  Capitalism & Slavery.  New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, Capricorn Books. 

Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, independence, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, capitalism, peripheralization, slavery

      In a commentary to my August 27 post, Dr. Yuri Grigoryan, a professor retired from the Physiology Institute in Yerevan, Armenia, rightly expresses his indignation at a possible US military action against Syria.  He expresses alarm at the unconstrained aspirations of the US military-industrial complex.

      The United States developed its enormous military capacity during the twentieth century, a necessary component of its ascent to economic, financial, military, political and ideological domination of the world-system by the post-World War II era.  Its ascent began during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, fueled by lucrative commercial relations with slaveholders in the Caribbean and the US South, facilitating the development of textile manufacturing and other industries in the northeastern section of the country.  During the first half of the twentieth century, the United States turned its growing capital accumulation to investments in the auto and steel industries, the most profitable industries of the era, which further fueled US ascent.  During World War II, it converted its industries into the service of war needs, thus establishing war industries, a war economy, and the military-industrial complex.  
 
     The United States emerged from World War II with unchallenged dominance.  Its territory had not been affected by the war, and thus it did not experience violent destruction of its industrial infrastructure, as occurred with Germany and Japan.  British industry was still relatively intact, but it had been surpassed by the US ascent.  The Soviet Union had successfully converted its industries to a war economy during the war, utilizing highly effective state planning.  But the Soviet Union, in spite of an impressive industrial growth after 1917, was still significantly less advanced than the United States.  The growing strength of the Soviet Union was not really a threat to the United States, because the Soviet Union sought peaceful co-existence with the United States, in which the Soviet area of influence close to its borders in Eastern Europe and Asia would be secure, leaving to the United States vast areas of Latin America, Africa, and South East Asia for neocolonial exploitation. 
 
     The real threat to the United States was from the Third World revolutions, which challenged the basic structures of the neocolonial world-system.  In response to this global challenge from below, the United States maintained and developed its war industries, using Cold War and anti-communist ideology to justify this turn to a permanent war economy, disdaining a post-war reconversion of its industry to peaceful purposes, as had been envisioned by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. With its enormous military capacity, the United States became the global policeman, claiming to act against “communism” and in defense of “democracy,” when in reality it was defending its neocolonial interests.  Thus the military-industrial complex became solidified as an integral and necessary part of the US economy, a fact noted with concern by President and formerly General Dwight Eisenhower by the time of his retirement in 1960.

     The United States began to decline in the 1960s and 1970s, and it no longer is a dominant economic and financial power.  However, it continues to be the dominant military power of the planet.  Its military expenses are approximately equal to those of the rest of the nations of the world combined.  This high level of military expenditures contributes to the further erosion of its productive and financial capacities.  
 
      As a weakened economic and financial power, but a dominant military and ideological power, the United States can be expected to continue to pursue its interests through military means, inventing any pretext as justification.  The unsubstantiated claim that the government of Syria has used chemical weapons against its own people is far from the first such pretext.  The US dependence on military action to attain economic, financial and political objectives places all of humanity at risk.

       The problem can be resolved only by the people of the United States, who must come to consciousness of the fact that US foreign policy is designed to promote the interests of US corporations and finance capital and to maintain the United States as a neocolonial global power, and not to promote democratic values and protect democratic structures.  In protecting the short-term interests of US corporations and banks, US policy undermines the economic, social, and physical security of the popular classes and sectors in the United States.  So the people must develop alternative political structures that can bring into power alternative political leaders who would be committed to protecting the interests and needs of the majority.  This is a difficult task, but not impossible, because many conditions favor such a political transformation.  And however difficult the task may be, it is our duty in the present historic moment.  These are themes that we will be discussing in future posts.

      I write these words on August 28, 2013, the fiftieth anniversary of the March on Washington, in which Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.  Dr. King was a powerful, articulate, and eloquent critic of the moral evils of racism, poverty and war, and as such was a prophetic opponent of the military-industrial complex. 


 

Posted October 17, 2013

     In 1970, Eduardo Galeano wrote of petroleum:  “No other magnet attracts foreign capital as much as ‘black gold’ . . . .   Petroleum is the wealth most monopolized in the entire capitalist system.  There are no companies that enjoy the political power that the great petroleum corporations exercise on a universal scale. Standard Oil and Shell lift up and dethrone kings and presidents; they finance palace conspiracies and coups d’état; and they dispose of innumerable generals and ministers; and in all regions and languages, they decide the course of war and peace. . . .  The natural wealth of Venezuela and other Latin American countries with petroleum in the subsoil, objects of assaults and organized plundering, has been converted into the principal instrument of their political servitude and social degradation. This is a long history of exploits and of curses, infamies, and defiance” (Galeano 2004:203-6; 1997:156-59).

      During the twentieth century, the transnational petroleum companies exploited the petroleum of Latin America in an abusive form that did not recognize the right of Latin American governments to control their natural resources and to utilize them for the long-range economic and cultural development of the nation.  The oil companies defied efforts of Latin American governments to apply national labor laws to the foreign petroleum companies operating in their countries.  In addition, the foreign companies drained oil deposits rapidly, without concern for the long-term development of the industry.  And they sold Latin Americans their own oil at prices higher than those for consumers in the United States and Europe.  Any effort by governments of Latin America to control their petroleum resources were greeted with aggressive resistance by the companies and the US government.  
 
     In Uruguay, in response to the history of abuse of petroleum resources by foreign companies, a state-owned company was established in 1931, which was dedicated to the refining and sale of petroleum.  It was the first state-owned refinery in Latin America.  Along with the refining of Uruguayan crude oil, the government contracted with the Soviet Union the purchase of cheap Soviet crude oil for refining in the Uruguayan state-owned refinery.  The oil cartel reacted swiftly and aggressively, threatening to impose an embargo on Uruguayan purchase of crude oil or machinery.  In March 19933, a coup d’état occurred, and the new dictator annulled the right of the state company to monopolize the importation of crude petroleum.  The country eventually became obligated to buy forty percent of its crude oil from Standard, Shell, Atlantic, and Texaco, at prices set by the oil cartel (Galeano 2007:208; 1997:160-61).

      In Mexico, twenty years of foreign ownership of the oil industry had left the country with exhausted fields and antiquated refineries by the 1930s.  In response, Mexican president Lázaro Cárdenas “converted the recuperation of the petroleum industry into a great national cause.” In 1938, he nationalized the foreign companies and formed Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex), which assumed control of the production and marketing of Mexican petroleum.  The global powers reacted by imposing an international embargo from 1939 to 1942 on Mexican petroleum exports and on the importation of supplies necessary for wells and refining.  The dispute was resolved by the Mexican government paying compensation from 1947 to 1962.  In spite of these penalties, Pemex became a successful company during its first thirty years (Galeano 2007:207).

     Coups d’état, like the one in Uruguay, were common.  From 1930 to 1966, seven coups d’état occurred in Argentina as governments were about to sign a petroleum agreement in which the interests of the international cartel were at stake.  In Peru as well, one year after nationalizing the reserves and refinery of an affiliate of Standard Oil of New Jersey, the nationalist general Alfredo Ovando was overthrown by a military junta (Galeano 2007:210-14; 1996:162-65).  
 
     The war between Bolivia and Paraguay from 1932 to 1935 was provoked by competition between Standard Oil of New Jersey and Shell.  Standard financed the Bolivian Army, and Paraguay was backed by Shell.  Since Paraguay and Bolivia were among the two poorest countries of South America, the war came to be known as “the war of the soldiers without clothes” (Galeano 2007:210-14; 1996:162-65).

     The US government supported the international petroleum companies in their aggressive pursuit of interests in Latin America.  “The North American government always makes their own the cause of the private petroleum companies” (Galeano 2007:212).  In 1950, the US ambassador in Bolivia, in his report to the White House, expressed pride in his accomplishing the denationalization of Bolivian petroleum industry, which he described as “nationalization in reverse” (Galeano 2007:212-13; 1997:164).

    In our next post, we will discuss the Latin American country that has the largest petroleum reserves, Venezuela.


 References

Galeano, Eduardo.  1997.  The Open Veins of Latin America: Five centuries of the pillage of a continent, 25th Anniversary Edition. Translated by Cedric Belfrage.  Forward by Isabel Allende.  New York: Monthly Review Press.

__________.  2004.  Las Venas Abiertas de América Latina, tercera edición, revisada.  México: Siglo XXI Editores.


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


 

Posted October 18, 2013

     Venezuela has the largest oil deposits in Latin America and the Caribbean.  Prior to 1960, the governments of Venezuela for the most part granted to foreign oil companies the rights to extract the oil, with terms that were favorable to the oil companies and that undermined the potential to use the petroleum to promote the independent economic development of the nation.  The government of Juan Vicente Gómez, a dictator who ruled from 1908 to 1935, was particularly known for granting favorable terms to Shell, Standard Oil, and Gulf, and for enriching himself and his family and friends as a result of the shares granted to him in exchange.  The Venezuelan petroleum law of 1922, edited by representatives of three US firms, established a separate police force, which prohibited entrance to oil lands by anyone not authorized by the companies.  During the period of the initial penetration by foreign oil companies, indigenous communities were dislodged from their lands, and independent family farmers lost their property (Galeano 2004:218-19; 1997:168).    

      In response to this situation, popular movements demanded greater national control of this natural resource, giving rise after 1960 to what came to be called petroleum nationalism, where the state seeks to maximize its income from the exportation of petroleum.  The era of petroleum nationalism culminated with the nationalization of the petroleum companies in Venezuela in 1976.  A state petroleum company, Petróleos de Venezuela, Sociedad Anónima (PDVSA), was formed.  
 
      Ironically, nationalization had the consequence of creating more autonomy for the petroleum industry and more influence for the international petroleum companies.  Distinct from the nationalization of the petroleum industry in Mexico in 1938, the nationalization in Venezuela was gradual, and it occurred with the cooperation of the international petroleum companies in Venezuela.  By the time of the nationalization in Venezuela in 1976, the management of the companies was Venezuelan, as a consequence of Venezuelan pressure during the era of petroleum nationalism.  So the nationalization had the effect of changing ownership from international petroleum companies to the Venezuelan state, but the companies continued to be managed by Venezuelans who had been socialized into the norms and values of the international petroleum companies and had internalized the perspective of international capital.  
 
      After nationalization, the Venezuelan state relaxed its oversight of the petroleum companies, believing that the industry was now securely in Venezuelan hands. But the Venezuelan managers did not seek to utilize petroleum income to promote national development.  With the intention of reducing payments  to the Venezuelan state, PDVSA adopted a strategy of channeling surpluses to investments in production and sales, in order to minimize profits and corresponding payments to the state.  PDVSA bought refineries and distributorships in other countries in order to transfer surpluses out of the country, beyond the reach of the Venezuelan state.  An example is CITGO, a Venezuelan owned company in US territory that consisted of eight refineries and 14,000 gas stations.  Yet the Venezuelan state never received any income from CITGO; all of the profits remained in the United States. Hugo Chávez estimated that Venezuela gave to the United States billions of dollars through “the perverse business of the CITGO Company” (Chávez 2006:142, 321).

      PDVSA, therefore, had emerged as a state within the state, with significant autonomy and with limited effective control by the state.  In 1999, Hugo Chávez became President of Venezuela, bought to power by a popular movement in reaction to the neoliberal project.  Chávez sought to reduce the autonomy of PDVSA and to incorporate its resources into a project of national development.  The Chávez government appointed new directors of PDVSA, replacing the directors appointed by previous governments.  With the new leadership of PDVSA, the income to the state from petroleum became significantly higher, and these funds were directed toward various social projects and toward elimination of the foreign debt.  As Chávez has expressed, “We have stopped being a petroleum colony. . . .  We have begun to sow the petroleum, to utilize the petroleum wealth as a lever for social development and for economic development” (Chávez 2006:318-19).  
 
      The measures taken by the Chávez government generated conflict. The US government and the international petroleum industry as well as the Venezuelan petroleum management were opposed, inasmuch as the measures sought to eliminate control of Venezuelan oil by the international petroleum industry.  To some extent, workers in the Venezuelan oil industry were resistant to change, since their wages reflected international levels in the industry, far above the wages earned by workers in other industries in Venezuela.  From the outset, the US government has engaged in a persistent ideological and destabilization campaign against the government of Hugo Chávez and his successor, Nicolas Maduro.

      The story of petroleum in Venezuela illustrates that nationalization in and of itself does not necessarily contribute to the autonomous development of the nation.  State control of the Venezuelan petroleum industry became an effective tool when it was integrated into a program of national development implemented by a government that was brought to power by a popular movement and that was committed to govern in the interests of the popular sectors.  
 
      At the same time, strategies other than nationalization can be effective, such as the formation of joint ventures, cooperatives and self-employment, if implemented as part of a national plan for the autonomous economic and cultural development of the nation, as the case of Cuba illustrates.  So we learn from experience that various forms of property can be developed along the road to true independence, and that each form of property ought to be an intelligent response to the concrete situation in which the nation finds itself.  The key is not the form of property, but the integration of the various forms of property into a plan for autonomous development, implemented by a government that seeks to promote and defend the rights of the majority, struggling to keep at bay those powerful sectors that act aggressively  in pursuit of their particular interests.


Bibliography

Chávez Frías, Hugo. 2006.  La Unidad Latinoamericana. Melbourne: OceanSur.  
 
Galeano, Eduardo. 1997. The Open Veins of Latin America: Five centuries of the pillage of a continent, 25th Anniversary Edition. Translated by Cedric Belfrage. Forward by Isabel Allende. New York: Monthly Review Press.

__________. 2004. Las Venas Abiertas de América Latina, tercera edición, revisada. México: Siglo XXI Editores.

Guevara, Aleida.  2005.  Chávez, Venezuela, and the New Latin America.  Melbourne: Ocean Press.


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

Posted October 22, 2013

      We have been observing what Eduardo Galeano has called the “open veins of Latin America,” the flow of agricultural products and minerals from the region for the benefit of others.  In the twentieth century, the petroleum and minerals flowing from the region were essential for the US armed forces, inspiring Galeano to refer to them as the “underground sources of power.”  In the posts of 10/17, 10/18 and 10/21/2013, we have observed: the aggressive pursuit of petroleum in Latin America by the transnational oil companies, supPoported by the US government: and the efforts of some Latin American governments, supported by popular movements, to take control of their petroleum resources.  This dynamic of popular movement has been most fully expressed by the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, led by Hugo Chávez, which today constitutes a significant challenge to the neocolonial world-system.

      Conflict between Latin America and the neocolonial power to the north also has expressed itself in Chile, which has the largest copper reserves in the world. During the Great Depression, with the consolidation of US neocolonial domination of Latin America and the final displacement of Britain, Chilean copper fell under the control of the United States.  The two largest reserves were owned by the Anaconda Copper Co. and the Kennecott Copper Co., “two companies intimately tied with each other as part of the same world consortium” (Galeano 2007:187; 1997:144).  And “the owners of copper were the owners of Chile” (Galeano 2007:188).

      From the 1930s through the 1960s, Chilean copper expressed the extreme inequalities that pertain to the world-system.  On the one hand, during this time the two principal companies had remitted four billion dollars from Chile to their corporate headquarters, even though they had not invested more than 800 million dollars, and nearly all of this investment came from profits earned in Chile.  On the other hand, “Chilean minors lived in narrow and sordid cabins, separated from their families, which inhabited miserable hovels on the outskirts; separated also from the foreign personnel, which in the large mines inhabited a universe apart, a mini-state within the state, where only English was spoken” (Galeano 2007:189-90).  “The average salary in the Chilean mines was one-eighth the basic salary of the refineries of Kennecott in the United States, even though productivity was at the same level" (Galeano 2007:189; 1997:145).  The taxes paid by the companies to the Chilean state did not begin to compensate for the exhaustion of this non-renewable resource.  In 1965, the government signed an agreement with Kennecott that supposedly established the government as a partner, but in fact established a new tax scheme that enabled the company to triple its profits (Galeano 2007:190; 1997:146). 
 
      In the 1970 elections, Salvador Allende was elected president.  He had been the candidate of the Popular Unity, a multiple-party coalition consisting of the Socialist, Communist, and Radical parties as well as former members of the Christian Democratic Party who, influenced by liberation theology, had formed a separate organization.  Nationalization was central to the Popular Unity program, and in its first year, the Allende government nationalized copper, iron, and nitrate industries, all of them previously owned by US corporations (Cockcroft 2000; Hart 2009). 
 
     The government of Salvador Allende was brought to an end by a coup d’état on September 11, 1973, during which Allende died.  Army Commander Pinochet was named President, beginning a brutal and repressive dictatorship that lasted nearly 20 years, before it was cast aside by the“transition to democracy” that swept Latin America in the 1980s and 1990s.  Under Pinochet, Chile was the first country in Latin America to impose the neoliberal project.  Much has been written over the role of the United States in trying to prevent Allende from assuming the presidency in 1970, in seeking to destabilize the Allende government, in supporting the September 11 coup, and in supporting the Pinochet dictatorship.  
 
      Salvador Allende will always be with us. He is present in the popular movements that today seek a just and democratic world.  We will write more on Allende and his vision of “revolutionary democratic socialism” in a future post.


References

Cockcroft, James. D., Ed.  2000.  Salvador Allende Reader: Chile´s Voice of Democracy.  Edited with an introduction by James D. Cockcroft.  With translations by Moisés Espinoza and Nancy Nuñez. New York: Ocean Press.

Galeano, Eduardo. 1997. The Open Veins of Latin America: Five centuries of the pillage of a continent, 25th Anniversary Edition. Translated by Cedric Belfrage. Forward by Isabel Allende. New York: Monthly Review Press.

__________. 2004. Las Venas Abiertas de América Latina, tercera edición, revisada. México: Siglo XXI Editores.

Hart Dávalos, Armando. 2009.  “Sobre Salvador Allende” in Fidel Castro, Chile y Allende: Una mirada al proceso revolucionario chileno. México D.F.: Ocean Sur.


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

Posted October 23, 2013

      In the 1870s, Simón Patiño, in a condition half dead from hunger, discovered in the Bolivian high plains the richest vein of tin in the world. The concentration was so high that the tin could be sent directly to the port, without need for a process of concentration.  Patiño became the “King of Tin” and one of the richest men in the world.  “From Europe he for many years lifted up and overthrew the presidents and ministers of Bolivia, planned the hunger of the workers and organized their massacre, and expanded and extended his personal fortune.  Bolivia was a country that existed in his service” (Galeano 2007:191; 1997:147).

     A popular movement in Bolivia first emerged in the 1930s.  By the early 1950s it had become an advanced social revolutionary movement under the leadership of the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement.  Its social base consisted of unions of mine workers, peasants, and factory workers.  It reached its zenith in 1952, when the Bolivian government nationalized the mines and distributed land to peasants.  
 
     However, the nationalization of the tin mines did not change the situation.  In the first place, the tin mines had been exhausted.  In the mountain where the rich vein had been found by Patiño, the degree of purity was reduced 120 times from what it had once been.  For every 156,000 tons of rock, only 400 tons of tin were obtained (Galeano 2007:191; 1997:147).

     Secondly, Antenor Patiño, son of Simón, charged considerable compensation for the nationalization, and he continued to control the price and the distribution of Bolivian tin.  The nationalization “had not modified the role of Bolivia in the international division of labor.  Bolivia continued exporting the crude mineral, and nearly all the tin is refined still in the ovens of Liverpool by Williams, Harvey and Co., which is owned by Patiño.  The nationalization of the sources of production of any raw material, as is taught from painful experience, is not sufficient”  (Galeano 2007:192; 1997:148).

     With Bolivian mining after nationalization continuing to conform to the peripheral role in the international division of labor, the Bolivian workers continued to suffer wages of superexploitation and to live in social conditions characteristic of underdevelopment.  They lived in one-room shacks with dirt floors, with 60% of male youth sharing a bed with a sister.  They lacked bathrooms, having instead small public sheds with latrines; the people preferred the garbage dumps, where at least there was open air.  They had to wait for the delivery of water, collecting it in containers when it arrived.  Meals were limited, consisting of potatoes, noodles, rice, maize, and occasionally tough meat.  During dinner, the minors chewed coca leafs, which function to dull hunger and to mask fatigue (Galeano 2007:194-95; 1997:150-51).

       The worst was the dust, which condemned the minors to death by asphyxiation (Galeano 2007:195; 1997:151).  “The slow and quiet death constitutes the specialty of the mine.  Vomiting of blood, cough, and a sensation of a lead weight on the back and an acute oppression in the chest are the signs that announce it.  After the medical analysis come the never ending bureaucratic pilgrimages.  They give a period of three months to vacate the house” (Galeano 2007:196; 1997:151-52).

     Tin mining destroyed the environment, leaving tunnels as well as accumulated grey mounds from the residue that is left after the tin is separated from the rock.  Rains washed the residual tin and deposited it everywhere.  Everything had the dark color of tin, from the mountain streams to the walls of the minors’ shacks (Galeano 2007:194).   
 
     The exhaustion of tin meant that its exploitation could not remain profitable, so the tin industry in Bolivia declined, to be replaced by the exploitation of natural gas, just as tin had previously replaced silver as the principal raw material for exportation from Bolivia.  But as the exported raw material changed from silver to tin to natural gas, the structures remained  intact: the raw materials export industries were owned and operated by foreign companies who paid hunger wages to Bolivian workers, with the cooperation of the Bolivian government.  The core-peripheral structures contributed to the economic development of the nations to the North even as they guaranteed underdevelopment and poverty for Bolivia.

          But as in Venezuela and Chile (see “Petroleum in Venezuela” 10/18/2013 and “Copper in Chile” 10/22/2013), the people formed movements that sought to take control of the natural resources of the nation and thus to make possible the true and full independence of the nation.  During the course of the twentieth century, the popular movements had significant gains, but they did not accomplish the definitive social transformation that they sought.  The struggle of the people continues today, as we will see in future posts.


References

Galeano, Eduardo. 1997. The Open Veins of Latin America: Five centuries of the pillage of a continent, 25th Anniversary Edition. Translated by Cedric Belfrage. Forward by Isabel Allende. New York: Monthly Review Press.

__________. 2004. Las Venas Abiertas de América Latina, tercera edición, revisada. México: Siglo XXI Editores.

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

Posted October 24, 2013

     In various posts, we have seen the importance of petroleum, copper and tin as underground sources of the power of the United States, and we have seen the aggressive action by the United States to attain control of these natural resources of Latin America (see “The Underground Sources of Power” 10/16/2013, “Petroleum in Latin America” 10/17/2013, “Petroleum in Venezuela” 10/18/2013, “Copper in Chile” 10/22/2013, and “Tin in Bolivia” 10/23/2013) .  Iron also was a part of this dynamic, and it was exploited in Venezuela and Brazil.

     In the classic work, The Open Veins of Latin America, Eduardo Galeano noted the importance of iron:  In 1970, 85% of the industrial products of the United States contained steel, and you cannot make steel without iron.  This explains the interest of the major US steel corporations in the iron of Venezuela and Brazil during the 1950s and 1960s (Galeano 2004:198; 2007:153).

      Galeano also observed that iron and steel reflect the international division of labor between core and periphery.  “Steel is produced in the rich centers of the world, and iron in the poor periphery; steel pays the salaries of the ‘worker aristocracy,’ and iron, day wages of mere subsistence” (Galeano 2004:199; 2007:153).

      US Steel and Bethlehem Steel directly controlled the extraction and exportation of iron from Venezuela.  Since the iron was destined for their own iron and steel works in the United  States, their primary interest was in obtaining cheap iron and not in maximizing profits from the iron-exporting activities.  Nonetheless, in the single year of 1960 they earned more in profits from the exportation of iron than they paid in taxes to the Venezuelan state during the ten years beginning in 1950 (Galeano 2004:198; 2007:153).

     In Brazil, the exportation of iron was a source of conflict.  A 1952 military accord between Brazil and the United States prohibited Brazil from selling strategic raw materials, such as iron, to socialist countries. In 1953 and 1954, Brazilian President Getúlio Vargas ignored the agreement and sold iron to Czechoslovakia and Poland at prices higher than those being paid by the United States.  This defiance culminated in the president being deposed in 1954 (Galeano 2004:200-1; 2007:154). 

      The conflict continued in the early 1960s.  The US company Hannah Mining sought to obtain the rights to mine and export Brazilian crude iron in the late 1950s and early 1960s.  By pressuring the Brazilian government, including the incorporation of high officials of the Brazilian government as directors and advisers of Hannah, the company was able to obtain in 1961 authorization of the right to exploit iron deposits that belong to the government.  However, considering the authorization to be illegal, the President of Brazil cancelled it, restoring the iron deposits to the national reserve. Four days later, the president was forced to resign.  But a popular uprising frustrated the coup d’état, and Vice-President João Goulart assumed the presidency.  The Goulart government put into practice the cancellation of the illegal authorization in July 1962.  However, Goulart was overthrown in a July 1964 coup d’état that was supported by the United States, establishing a repressive dictatorship that adopted economic policies consistent with the interests of the US steel giants.  The decree legalizing Hannah’s authorization was issued on December 24, 1964.  In addition, the military government backed company plans to amplify its port 20 miles from Rio de Janeiro and to construct a railroad for the transportation of the iron. In October 1965, Hanna formed a consortium with Bethlehem Steel for the exploitation of iron.  But US Steel was not left out.  It formed a consortium with a Brazilian state mining company, and by these means it obtained a concession to the iron deposits in the Sierra de los Carajás in the Amazon (Galeano 2004:200-3; 2007:154-56).

      Ultimately, the military government was replaced by civilian governments that cooperated with the United States and US corporations in the implementation of the neoliberal agenda.  And popular opposition to foreign control of natural resources continued. Popular protest led to the overthrow of the neoliberal government of Fernando Collor de Mello in 1992.  And they led to the election of Workers’ Party candidates Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2002 and 2006 and Dilma Rousseff  in 2010.  The Workers’ Party governments have been participating in the process of Latin American unity and integration, which seeks to develop alternatives to the structures that facilitate US control of the natural resources of the region.  The new political reality of Latin America today, established on a foundation of popular movements, will be the subject of future posts.


 References

Galeano, Eduardo. 1997. The Open Veins of Latin America: Five centuries of the pillage of a continent, 25th Anniversary Edition. Translated by Cedric Belfrage. Forward by Isabel Allende. New York: Monthly Review Press.

__________. 2004. Las Venas Abiertas de América Latina, tercera edición, revisada. México: Siglo XXI Editores.

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

Posted October 25, 2013

     In eleven posts beginning August 16, I have drawn upon Eduardo Galeano’s Open Veins of Latin America (see posts in the section on Latin American history).  The book was given to recently-elected US President Barack Obama by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, an indication of the extent to which it is appreciated in Latin America. Written in 1970, the book formulates the Latin American perspective on its role in the world-economy.  It provides a concrete presentation of the core-peripheral relation as seen from the periphery, organizing the presentation according to the various raw materials that played a role in the development of underdevelopment in Latin America and the Caribbean.  In the sixteenth century, the conquest of the indigenous peoples and the forced labor imposed on them established that silver and gold would be the driving engine of the newly emerging world-economy and world-system, promoting the development of Western Europe as it promoted the underdevelopment of Latin America.  During the third stage of expansion of the world-system (1750-1914), sugar and other agricultural monarchs in Latin America were the driving force of the system, incorporating African slaves as forced laborers.  As the world-system entered a stage characterized by imperialism and neocolonial domination during the twentieth century, Latin American petroleum and minerals, underground sources of power, became integral components of the development of the United States.  
 
     Although the world-system has passed through various stages, there has been continuity in its development, established by the Latin American role as supplier of raw materials for the core of the system: gold, silver, sugar, coffee, bananas, petroleum, copper, tin, and iron have played important roles in the development of a Latin American political-economic system in a distorted form, in dependent relation with the core of the world-system.

     This has given rise to movements that seek, not merely formal independence that is negated in practice by a dependent neocolonial relation, but the full and true independence of Latin America and the Caribbean.  Important moments in this quest for independence from the neocolonial world-system include: the Mexican Revolution; the Cuban Revolution; revolutionary democratic socialism led by Salvador Allende in Chile; the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua; and the reform and revolutionary movements that have transformed Latin America today, spearheaded by Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, Evo Morales in Bolivia, and Rafael Correa in Ecuador.  We will be discussing these revolutions that have sought and are seeking to transform the neocolonial world-system in future posts.  
 

References

Galeano, Eduardo. 1997. The Open Veins of Latin America: Five centuries of the pillage of a continent, 25th Anniversary Edition. Translated by Cedric Belfrage. Forward by Isabel Allende. New York: Monthly Review Press.

__________. 2004. Las Venas Abiertas de América Latina, tercera edición, revisada. México: Siglo XXI Editores.


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

     Spain, England, and France attained centralization and unification in the fifteenth century, and these large centralized states were able to mobilize the resources of conquest and unleash a process of European domination of the world from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries. Identification by the masses of these nations with a culturally-defined national community was central to the process of centralization and unification and in the mobilization of the resources of global conquest.  

     If we define patriotism as the sentiments of affection toward the culturally-defined national community, then what we are noting is the importance of patriotic sentiments among the masses in the colonizing nations in the process of European colonial domination of the world. Marx and Engels, and later Lenin, recognized the role of patriotism in domination, and they envisioned a world in which a revolutionary proletariat would replace national patriotic sentiments with sentiments of international solidarity among workers.  However, in spite of the emergence of socialist movements and political parties in the second half of the nineteenth century, the bourgeoisies in the various European nations were able to exploit patriotic sentiments in order to mobilize workers and peasants as soldiers during World War I.  This manipulation of patriotic sentiments by the bourgeoisie, and acquiescence to it by leaders of socialist organizations, was strongly and rightly denounced by V.I. Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg.   As a legacy of this phenomenon, progressive and socialist currents in Europe and North America continue to distrust patriotism, with the consequence that the people, who take to patriotic sentiments naturally, distrust leaders of progressive and socialist causes, suspicious that they are unpatriotic.

     In the Third World revolutions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, patriotism has another dynamic.  Observing the capacity of large, centralized states to mobilize resources, the Third World revolutions understood that they themselves had to form modern nation-states, if there were to mobilize the resources necessary to attain their goals. They envisioned the establishment independent and sovereign nations that could take their place in the community of nations, a world characterized by equality and mutual respect among all nations. Like the concept of the nation-state, these concepts of the sovereignty and equality of nations were appropriated from Western thought by Third World movements, even though such ideals were not followed in practice by the colonial powers.  Third World movements and revolutionary governments expanded the meaning of the nation and of sovereignty and equality, taking them to a depth of meaning that was never intended by the global powers.  Thus they transformed and revolutionized these Western concepts as they appropriated them.  
  
     So in the Third World, revolutionaries do not look askance at patriotism.  The greatest Third World revolutionaries were highly patriotic.  They defended the nation with all of their will and resources. In the Third World, all true revolutionaries are prepared to die for the nation.  This spirit pervades the people, who honor the heroes and martyrs who sacrificed in defense of the nation.  Unlike the European form of patriotism, this is not a patriotism that asks the masses to ignore injustices.  On the contrary, it is a patriotism that remembers.  It remembers colonial and neocolonial domination, and it remembers the universal values that humanity has proclaimed.  It is a revolutionary form of patriotism that seeks to establish an alternative world-system, in which there is mutual respect among all nations, and in which imperialist pretensions by the more powerful nations are universally condemned as morally reprehensible and as damaging to the prospects for the survival of humanity.  Revolutionary patriotism envisions an international solidarity that is based on mutual respect for all peoples and cultures, with their different languages, histories and cultures, and which support one another in a common struggle to sustain and uplift humanity.


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

     The first modern nation-states were Spain, England and France, and they emerged as nation-states during the fifteenth century.  They subsequently became the central actors in the European domination of the world unfolding from the sixteenth through the twentieth centuries.

     Cuban political scientist Armando Cristóbal Pérez (2008) has analyzed the origin and development of the nation-state.  He maintains that modern states differ from pre-modern states, in that pre-modern states attained cohesion through religion, whereas modern nation-states attain cohesion through social and ethnic identity.   During European feudalism, he notes, new nationalities were continually emerging, as a result of invasions and conquests.  Nationalities have self-consciousness, rooted in an “us-them” distinction, and based on a historic memory of the community.  Nationalities have a common language and a unique written literature, and intellectuals play an active role in their formation.  When national self-consciousness aspires to develop organizations, including a state, that encompasses the national territory, the stage is set for the formation of a nation-state.  A nation-state involves a nationality that has a state, and a state that represents the interests of the nationality, or more precisely, the dominant class that pretends to represent the nationality.

     We have seen that the emergence of commerce and cities from the period of the tenth to the fifteenth centuries was undermining the material foundation of European feudalism (see “European feudalism” 8/13/2013).  The monarchs seized the possibilities inherent in this situation.  Supported by the most important members of the emerging urban commercial bourgeoisie, whose interests they promoted, the monarchs centralized the state, overcoming the fragmentation that had reduced their real power.  And they engaged in wars of conquest, establishing control over territories and forging new nationalities to coincide with the conquered territory.  
 
     The modern nation-state, therefore, originated from the decisive political action of the monarch, political action that sought territorial unity, expanding monarchial power and promoting economic development (as defined by the bourgeoisie) in opposition to the interests of an increasingly weak and ineffective class of feudal lords. In this transformation, the power of the Church had to be diminished, because the Church was integrally tied to feudalism.

     Thus emerged during the fifteenth century the modern nation-state, characterized by centralization, a defined political boundary that coincided with the cultural frontiers of nationality, a capital city, income taxes that are used to maintain a professional army and public functionaries, freedom of movement within boundaries, the promotion of the domestic market, and the separation of the monarchy and the Church.  Given the historic human tendency to attain development through conquest, the stage was set for the European domination of the world.

     In the forging of the nationality identity that is the base of the modern nation-state, conflict among the various emerging nation-states was central.  In the case of Spain, the Arab and Islamic invasions of the Iberian Peninsula from the eighth to the fifteenth centuries provoked a resistance among the various conquered Christian kingdoms, which gave impetus to tendencies toward the centralization and unification among the Christian Iberian kingdoms.  In France and England, tendencies toward political and linguistic unification were reinforced by the Hundred Years War of 1357-1453.  
 
     In eastern, central, and southern Europe, however, conflicts among emerging states did not lead to unification and centralization.  There were not natural geographic boundaries that reinforced ethnic and linguistic differences, as in the West.  As a result, Germany and Italy did not attain unification until the nineteenth century.  They entered the process of European colonial domination as latecomers, and their colonial empires were limited. Thus we see the importance of geographical factors as well as military, economic, and cultural factors in the formation of the modern nation-states that would become the central actors in the European colonial domination of the world.

     Above all, we must see that the peoples of Spain, England and France were neither culturally superior nor in some innate sense more intelligent.  They were typical actors in the ten thousand years old human process of conquest.  Particular factors, to some extent accidental, would make them winners for a period.  Other particular factors would facilitate that Spain would later fall, and England and France would continue to rise.  Still other particular factors would facilitate the rise as a global power of a new nation, the United States of
America.  And finally, various factors present today establish the condition that the continuation of the ancient human quest for domination will have the result that all will lose.


Bibliography

Cristóbal Pérez, Armando.  2008.  El Estado-Nación: Su Origen y Construcción.  La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.


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