As we have seen, in moving to the “normalization” of relations with Cuba, the United States is changing its methods, but it maintains the objective of promoting change in Cuba, in order to attain its economic interests.  The sovereignty of Cuba, the rights and necessities of the Cuban people, or the meaning of global social justice are secondary considerations, at most (see “Cuba’s high-quality public discourse” 10/29/2016).

     The new direction in US policy with respect to Cuba brings to mind the concept of “soft power.”  The term was coined by Joseph S. Nye, Jr., in 1990, and he further developed and explored the concept in Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics, published in 2004. Nye was former dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and he was Chairman of the National Intelligence Council and an Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Clinton Administration.  

      Nye defines soft power as the ability to influence the behavior of others and get want you want through attraction and cooptation rather than by coercing with threats or inducing with payments.  A country possesses soft power when people are attracted to it because of its values, political institutions, cultural products, exemplary conduct, advanced technology, prosperity, openness, and far-sighted foreign policies.  A country with soft power can coopt people and institutions in other countries, getting them to do want it wants, because they find it attractive (Nye 2004:x, 2, 5-8, 14, 44-62).

      In contrast to soft power, hard power attains the interests of a country through coercion, which can be military or economic, and economic inducement.  In Nye’s formulation, economic hard power includes coercing through economic sanctions or inducing through economic aid and bribes (Nye 2004:5, 8, 31). 

     Nye criticizes the overreliance on hard power in the foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration.  He contrasts the policy of the Bush administration with the Cold War era balance of hard and soft power in the formulation of “smart policies,” enabling the United States to prevail in that conflict and to maintain its global primacy.  He calls for a return to a balance of hard and soft power in US foreign policy (Nye 2004:128-35, 144-47).

     Although Nye criticizes the strategies and policies of the Bush administration, his objectives are the same.  He assumes that the purpose of US foreign policy is to promote and defend the power and economic interests of the United States.  For Nye, the purpose of US foreign policy is not to contribute to the development of a more just and sustainable world-system, cooperating with other governments toward this end.  He sees cooperation with other governments as a smart strategy for attaining US political and economic interests.
     
     The new direction of the Obama administration with respect to Cuba is fully consistent with Nye’s recommendations.  Essentially, the new policy, as announced, is a move from hard power to soft power, which goes beyond what Nye proposes.  However, as implemented, it is a mixture of hard and soft power, crafted to attain US interest in change in Cuba.  To date, the changes that have been announced remove those aspects of the blockade that are seen as the greatest obstacles to the new US strategy of strengthening small private entrepreneurship.  The expectation is that this sector, attracted to US values and institutions, will have the interest and capacity to promote change in Cuba, making the Cuban system more compatible with US economic interests.  But the many dimensions of the blockade that damage several important economic sectors in the Cuban socialist system remain intact.  So economic hard power remains in place.  Moreover, during his visit to Cuba in March, Obama indicated that the Congress likely would eliminate the blockade more rapidly if Cuba were to initiate reforms.  Thus, the policy continues to be the use of economic hard power in order to induce change, even though it has announced that it desires the elimination of economic coercion.

       In addition, the Obama directive of October 14 declared the future continuation of subversive radio and television programs, which violate international and Cuban broadcasting laws; and of programs that are designed to “promote democracy,” which violate international diplomatic regulations concerning non-interference in the internal affairs of other nations.  The continuation of these programs could be considered as the implementation of political hard power, because only a superpower can get ignore international laws and regulations with impunity.

      The move toward soft power with respect to Cuba is necessary. The United States has little choice, as a result of the capacity of the Cuban Revolution to endure.  The blockade has been condemned by the nations of the world, and it undermines the attainment of its objectives in Latin America, without producing any benefit to the United States.  

       Although the United States is compelled to move a balance of hard and soft power in the particular case of Cuba, the United States will find this approach increasingly difficult as a general guideline for US foreign policy, inasmuch as US soft power and economic hard power have deteriorated in recent decades.  Nye recognizes that rejection by the peoples of the world of US wars in the Middle East has provoked anti-Americanism and a decline in US soft power.  But he completely overlooks the negative reaction of the peoples of the Third World to the US imposition of the neoliberal project, causing him to underestimate the profound loss of US soft power.  Moreover, he does not take into account the commercial decline of the United States since the 1960s, so that he does not discern the declining capacity of the United States to exercise economic hard power.  Nye does not see that the United States, with its soft power and economic hard power in decline, will have to increasingly resort to unilateral military action, if its goal is to preserve the structures of superexploitation of the Third World.  His proposal for a balance of hard and soft power is idealistic, inasmuch as it is not informed by the real economic, political and social conditions that establish limited possibilities for the United States as well as the world-system.  Given these conditions, if the United States wants to maintain its power and wealth, accumulated during its ascent to hegemony in a world-system in transition to neocolonialism and during its hegemonic dominance in a neocolonial world-system, it will have to increasingly resort to unilateral military action and unilateral wars of aggression, ultimately culminating in a US-directed global military dictatorship.

       But a more dignified road is possible for the United States.  It could base its foreign policy on the recognition that US hegemony is no longer possible, that the world-system is no longer sustainable as a neocolonial world-system, and that a more just and sustainable world-system is possible through the cooperation of all the nations and peoples of the world.  Since 1973, the US elite has demonstrated that it is incapable of recognizing these realities.  Therefore, the future of humanity and the good of the nation require the taking of power by the people, taking political power from the hands of the corporations and their political representatives.  The changed political reality in Latin America teaches us that the people take power by forming alternative political parties that patiently and effectively organize and educate the people to defend their interests and the dignity of the nation.

​

Reference
 
Nye, Joseph S., Jr.  2004.  Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics.  New York:  Public Affairs.

     On October 17, nine days before the historic vote on the Cuban resolution against the blockade in the UN General Assembly (see “The pride and the glory of Cuba” 10/27/2016), Cuban youth organizations, including the Federation of University Students, organized a day of activities in protest of the blockade in all of the provinces of the country.  At the central plaza of the University of Havana, Josefina Vidal spoke to a large crowd of students.  Vidal is the General Director of the US Section of the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Relations, and she is the chief of the Cuban delegation in the on-going negotiations between Cuba and the United States in the process of the “normalization” of relations between the two countries.

      Vidal’s speech, followed by thorough responses to six questions from students, is a perfect example of the high quality of public discourse that prevails in Cuba.  It was clearly articulated and succinct, yet thorough.  It was objective, identifying the positive and negative aspects of Obama’s policy toward Cuba since the two governments agreed to move toward the normalization of relations.  It was imbued with a firm commitment to Cuba’s right to be a truly sovereign nation.

     Vidal described the presidential directive emitted by President Obama on October 14 as a significant step toward the lifting of the blockade.  She noted that it is only the second time that a US president has emitted a directive with respect to Cuba, the first being a secret document of President Jimmy Carter in 1997, which was declassified at Carter’s request in 2002.  Vidal observed that the Obama directive is the first official document to recognize the independence, sovereignty and self-determination of Cuba and the legitimacy of the Cuban government.  Moreover, the directive recognizes the benefits to both countries of a relation defined by civilized co-existence and cooperation in areas of mutual interest.

      However, Vidal maintained, in spite of such positive characteristics, the directive contains interventionist elements.  It makes clear that the objective of US policy is to advance US interests in Cuba by promoting political, economic and social changes in Cuba, especially through the development of the Cuban private sector.  It announces the continuation of old instruments of US policy, such as illegal radio and television emissions against Cuba, and the subversive programs designed to “promote democracy” in Cuba.  And it declares that the United States has no intention of returning to Cuban jurisdiction the territory occupied by the US Naval Base in Guantanamo.

      The Obama administration recognizes that the blockade against Cuba has failed.  But, Vidal asks, in what sense has it failed?  She maintains that, from the perspective of the Obama administration, the blockade has failed to attain the changes in Cuba that would be consistent with US interests.  Therefore, the United States is changing its policy, but not its strategic objective of promoting change in Cuba. For this reason, it utilizes some of its old methods, combining them with new methods in the context of the new bilateral reality being shaped by the process of normalization.  And because the intention of changing Cuba remains, Obama does not utilize various executive capacities that he has to weaken the blockade; he has acted to change only those aspects of the blockade that are seen as the greatest obstacles to US interests.

     Vidal maintains that the Obama directive reiterates the call to the Congress to lift the blockade, and it affirms that the United States does not intend to impose a political-economic model on Cuba; however, the directive “does not abandon . . . the habitual comportment of wanting to interfere in the internal affairs” of Cuba.  Vidal took the occasion to reiterate “the will of the Cuban government to develop respectful and cooperative relations, but this has to be on the basis of full equality and reciprocity, absolute respect for the independence and sovereignty of Cuba, and without interference in any form.”

     Vidal also analyzed the new package of measures that were announced by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control on October 14. She described the measures as positive, but very limited in scope. There continue to be significant restrictions on US investments in Cuba, the sale of US products in Cuba, and the sale of Cuban products in the United States.  She maintains that the president has prerogatives to authorize transactions in these areas, but up to now, he has not exercised them.  In her view, the measures adopted benefit more the interests of the United States than Cuba or the people of Cuba.

      Vidal concluded: “The blockade persists.  President Obama has just reiterated in the presidential directive that the blockade ought to be lifted, but the reality is that he has not exhausted all his executive prerogatives in order to contribute in a decisive manner to the dismantling of the blockade.” 

     In response to questions from the students, Vidal maintained that any future president could ignore or reverse the directive, but the document also could serve as a guide or point of reference for the continuation of the normalization of relations initiated by Obama. She also discussed the growing opposition to the blockade in the US Congress, and the difficulties in bringing legislative proposals to a vote in the Congress, as a result of the opposition to the lifting of the blockade by the leadership in the House of Representatives.  She further noted that the growing opposition to the blockade in the Congress is not, for the most part, based on the damage that it does to Cuba, but on the damage that it does to US economic interests and US strategic interests with respect to Cuba. 

      In responding to student questions, Vidal also reviewed the various laws that have established and shaped the blockade:  the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917; the Emergency Powers Act of 1973; the Torricelli Law of 1992; the Helms-Burton Law of 1996; and a law reforming sanctions in 2000.  Because of these laws, there are a number of things that Obama cannot do through executive action: he cannot end the blockade; he cannot permit any transaction involving US properties that were nationalized by Cuba; he cannot authorize subsidiaries of US companies in third countries to engage in commerce in Cuba; and he cannot permit US citizens to travel to Cuba for touristic purposes.  But the Helms-Burton law specifically states that the law does not eliminate the presidential prerogative to approve transactions by means of licenses.  Presidents Clinton and Obama have exercised these prerogatives, on a limited scale, but at a level sufficient to demonstrate their legality.  The President could use his prerogatives on a much larger scale to advance the process of normalization, including the authorization of US investments and sales of US products in various essential branches of the Cuban economy as well as the sale of Cuban products in the United States.

     Josephine Vidal’s discourse at the University of Havana on October 17 was widely and fully covered by Cuban television and newspapers. Following the nightly news on Cuban national television on the evening of October 17, Vidal’s speech and subsequent interchange was broadcast in its entirely.  The unscheduled broadcast played havoc with the evening television schedule, but there it was.  The following morning, the country’s principle national newspaper, Granma, provided an excellent and thorough summary of the basic points of Vidal’s discourse (written by reporters Lissy Rodriguez Guerrero and Iramsy Peraza Forte), including a wonderful photo of Vidal seated on a wooden chair on a makeshift stage, surrounded by students.  On October 20, Granma provided a twelve-page special supplement devoted to the day of protest against the blockade.  Vidal’s speech and subsequent dialogue were printed in their entirety, taking up four of the twelve pages.  Her discourse was given the title, “President Obama goes away, but the blockade remains,” which was a sentence that she uttered in her discourse.  The Special Supplement also printed the Presidential Directive issued by Barack Obama (three and one-half pages), placing in boldface those parts of the directive that Granma considers interventionist or vestiges of the past policy.  And the Special Supplement provided a list of eighteen things that Obama has the authority to do that would weaken the blockade and advance the process of normalization, but thus far he has not done so.

     The excellent discourse of Josefina Vidal and the extensive news coverage of it are in no sense exceptional events.  High-quality discourses by government officials and news coverage that provides the people with full access to the discourses are regularly occurring events.  

      No one could claim that the majority of people take in all in.  Most did not listen to or read Josefina’s discourse in its entirely.  But most listened or read in part, or listened to those who did, which enabled them to form a general understanding that the Obama administration is changing its method but not its objectives, and the that Cuban leadership is capable and is doing the best that it can to defend the nation in this complex situation.  So that a people is continually being formed, with trust and confidence in their leadership, and with a general understanding of political complexities.

     But there were some of the people who were taking it all in, listening to or reading it in its entirely, exemplified by the students who were asking questions.  Such persons emerge as leaders in a variety of institutions, and they continually are attentive to educating themselves, capacitating them to lead the people.  This is an integral part of a social process that involves the formation and self-education of the leadership and the people, in which educators, political leaders and journalists all play a central role.  For more than fifty years in Cuba, a revolutionary leadership and a revolutionary people have been forming themselves, seeking to defend the people and the sovereignty of the nation, believing that a more just and democratic world is possible through defense of Cuban values and in solidarity with the peoples of the earth.

     Whereas capitalism must ideologically manipulate the people in order to try to obscure the fact that government policies promote corporate interests, socialism depends upon the political and cultural formation of the people.  I have seen both first hand, and I can give personal witness that the latter is far more beneficial to the society and the individual.  And I believe that the high quality of Cuban leadership, standing in sharp contrast to the qualities of political leaders in the powerful and wealthy countries, will become increasingly evident to the peoples of the world as the profound structural crisis of the world-system deepens.
      

     Cuban government officials, journalists and people are describing the unanimous UN vote against the US blockade of Cuba as a historic day of glory for Cuba, and they are celebrating it with pride in the nation and the Cuban Revolution.

     Every year since 1992, the Cuban government has submitted a resolution to the UN General Assembly on the need to put an end to the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States of America against Cuba.  In the first year, 59 governments voted in favor of the resolution, with 71 abstaining and 46 absent; only the United States, Israel and Rumania voted against the resolution.  Each year from 1993 to 2006, the delegations in increasing numbers moved from abstention or absence, such that one can observe a pattern of steadily increasing numbers of votes in favor of the resolution, with the following numbers each year in chronological order: 88, 101, 117, 137, 143, 157, 155, 167, 167, 173, 179, 179, 182, and 186.  From 2007 to 2014, the vote in favor fluctuated between 184 and 188.  In 2015, the vote in favor increased to 191, with no abstentions, and with only the United States and Israel voting against. From 1992 to 2015, no more than four nations voted against the resolution in any given year, and only the United States and Israel voted against the resolution every year.  Only six nations voted against the resolution one or more times: Rumania (1992), Albania (1993), Paraguay (1993), Uzbekistan (1995, 1996, 1997), Marshall Islands (2001 through 2007), and Palau (2006 through 2009 and 2012).  

     The vote on October 26, 2016 was unanimous: 191 votes in favor; two abstentions (United States and Israel); and no votes against.  It was a historic moment, for marked the first time that the United States did not vote against the resolution.

      In explaining the decision of the US delegation to abstain, the US Ambassador to the United Nations observed that the original intention of the US policy was to isolate Cuba, but as the vote demonstrates, it is the United States that has become isolated.  She also commented that the cooperation between Cuban and US doctors in combatting the Ebola epidemic in Africa shows that cooperation among nations, rather than confrontation, is the better guide for international relations.

       Following the vote, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez addressed the General Assembly.  He thanked the US Ambassador for her words and for the decision to abstain, but he insisted that words must be joined to action, and the US blockade of Cuba must be put to an end in practice.  He emotionally expressed his pride in the people of Cuba, for their resistance and for their support of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel and Raúl.  He aggressively defended to right of Cuba to be sovereign and independent, and to develop its political-economic system in accordance with its values and its history.  He proclaimed that Cuba will never return to capitalism, and that it sees its future as a road of developing a prosperous and sustainable socialism.  He concluded his address by thanking the nations, organizations, and peoples of the world for their unanimous condemnation of the US blockade against Cuba, and he thanked the people of the United States for their increasing consciousness and rejection of this violation of international law by the government of the United States.  

     In the days leading up to the October 26 vote, Cuban mass organizations and civil society were engaging in a variety of activities in protest of the blockade and in support of the Cuban resolution before the General Assembly.  Student organizations were especially active in all the provinces of the country.  That people who have suffered from the material consequences of the blockade would be opposed to it is hardly surprising.  But one could imagine a different scenario, taking into account what often occurs in many nations of the world, where the government is repressive and/or indifferent to the needs of the people. In any nation confronting an economic blockade by a superpower (and historic trading partner) for more than fifty years, it would be possible for the people to be demanding that their government make the changes that are ordered by the global power, so that the blockade and consequent suffering of the people would end.  But it has not been so in Cuba.  There has been and continues to be overwhelming popular support in Cuba for the firm insistence by the Cuban government on its sovereignty, regardless of the consequences.  The support by the Cuban people of the Cuban government’s policy with respect to the US blockade is yet one more sign of the commitment of the people to the Cuban Revolution, and of their trust and confidence in its leadership.  As the Venezuelan ambassador to Cuba said on the historic day, the persistent sacrifice of the Cuban people in defense of its revolution and the sovereignty of the nation is truly remarkable. 

      The October 26 vote by the General Assembly changes no law or policy.  It is merely a protest.  But what an incredible protest it is, organized by the Cuban revolutionary government.  Twenty-four years ago, when the protest began, Cuba was in the midst of an economic freefall caused by the collapse of the socialist bloc, and the United States was deepening and expanding the blockade.  At that historic moment, the Cuban government, in addition to refusing to adopt the structural adjustments demanded of the world by the global powers, made the commitment to seek the support of the governments and peoples of the world in demanding an end to the immoral and illegal blockade, then in its thirtieth year.  The protest has been persistent, involving constant work with delegations to get and keep them on board.  And most importantly, it has been accompanied by thorough oral and written explanations, which: (1) have documented in detail the various consequences of the blockade for the people of Cuba and for the people of other countries, including the United States; (2) have presented arguments showing that the blockade violates international law, and that it is inconsistent with moral principles that have been enshrined in documents emitted by international organizations, including the United Nations and numerous organizations in which the majority of the nations of the world are members; and (3) have connected the blockade to larger issues of global social justice, including the imperialism of the global powers, the denial of the right of true sovereignty to the majority of nations of the world, and the need to develop a more just, democratic and sustainable world-system.

     This protest of the US blockade, organized by the Cuban revolutionary government, is of such length, scope and power that it cannot possibly be ignored, even by an arrogant superpower.  

     The blockade will end.  And Cuba will have survived it, battered by its consequences, but with its sovereignty intact, and its revolution looking to the future.  

     From July 19 to October 10, 2016, I published twenty-three blog posts on the Third World project.  The Third World burst into the international scene in the post-World War II era, as the newly independent nations of Asia and Africa demanded a voice in global affairs.  The most insightful and most committed of the Third World leaders would lead the Third World states and peoples toward the formulation of a New International Economic Order, based on cooperation and solidarity rather than domination.  They would be joined by socialist Cuba, which would assume a leadership role in the formulation and defense of the Third World project.

     With the imposition of neoliberal and structural adjustment policies, many thought that the Third World project had died.  In reality, although hidden, it was alive: in the hopes and aspirations of the people; in the historic memory of committed intellectuals, community organizers, and political leaders; and in the tremendous thirst of humanity for social justice.  It would re-emerge as a political force, on the foundation of a massive popular rejection of the global neoliberal project, by virtue of its negative consequences at a concrete level, in the daily life of the people.

     In the developed nations of the North, the political actors have been quicker than the intellectuals in discerning the rebirth of the Third World project.  The political representatives of corporate interests see the renewed Third World project as a threat to the established global order, and they are using any and all means to destroy it. Intellectuals, however, especially those of the Left, are content to assume that the Third World project is no longer what it was; they therefore do not find reason to encounter it and to take seriously its insights, permitting their own understanding to be challenged at its roots.

     Against the tendency of the societies of the North to be divided between attacking and failing to appreciate, I maintain that we have a duty to encounter, for wisdom emerges from below.

      The twenty-three posts in this series on the Third World project are as follows:
“The significance of the Third World project” 7/19/2016; 
“The Third World Project, 1948-79” 7/20/2016; 
“The Asian Tigers” 7/21/2016; 
“Derailing the Third World project” 7/22/2016; 
“Fidel speaks on the global crisis, 1983” 7/25/2016; 
“Fidel proposes new global structures, 1983” 7/27/2016; 
“IMF & USA attack the Third World project” 7/29/2016; 
“The Cuban structural adjustment plan” 8/1/2016; 
“Renewal of the Third World project since 1994” 8/2/2016; 
“The neocolonial era in Venezuela” 8/3/2016; 
“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; 
“The new counterrevolution of the Right” 9/27/2016; 
“The subtle Eurocentrism of the Left” 10/3/2016; 
“Beyond Eurocentrism” 10/5/2016; and
“The possible and necessary popular coalition” 10/10/2016.

      The Website automatically places the most recent blog posts first.  So to enable you to scan down and see the posts in the order that they were written, I have changed the dates.  However, each post begins with a notation of the actual date of publication.  I apologize for any inconvenience or confusion that this may cause.

Posted July 19, 2016

     The Third World project was born in the post-World War II era in the context of the Cold War.  The colonized and formerly colonized peoples envisioned a Third World, an alternative to both the modern capitalism of the West and the form of socialism in Eastern Europe under the leadership of the Soviet Union.  The Third World project sought to break the economic structures established by European colonialism and to develop an alternative just and democratic world-system based on economic cooperation and solidarity among peoples (see “What is the Third World?” 7/16/2013; “What is the Third World Revolution?” 7/17/2013; “What is the Third World perspective?” 7/18/2013; “Third World anti-neocolonial movement” 7/19/2013).

     The key to understanding social structures and social dynamics is appreciation of the vantage point forged from below.  Therefore, intellectuals in a social position of relative privilege, in order to move beyond the assumptions rooted on one’s culturally-based horizon, must encounter the social movements emerging from below, taking seriously their understandings and permitting their insights to stimulate questions that will lead to an understanding that transcends the limited possibilities imposed by one’s own cultural horizon (“What is personal encounter?” 7/25/2013; “What is cross-horizon encounter?” 7/26/2013).  Such a process of cross-horizon encounter was central to the advanced understanding formulated by Marx, who encountered in Paris in the 1840s the movement formed by workers, artisans, and intellectuals.  Marx’s encounter with the workers’ movement, in conjunction with his intense study of British political economy and his previous study of German philosophy, enabled him to formulate an analysis of capitalism and human history from the vantage point of the worker (“Marx illustrates cross-horizon encounter” 1/7/14; McKelvey 1991).  

      Marx could not have formulated his analysis prior to the emergence of the workers’ movement.  He himself appreciated the relation of understanding to technological development and the emergence of social movements.  In his critique of the science of political economy, he maintained that David Ricardo, because he was writing after the emergence of large-scale industry, was able to discern the tendency of capitalism to reduce the percentage of the population involved in productive labor; however, writing before the emergence of the proletarian movement, Ricardo was not able to discern the importance of the reduction of labor time for the development of a more just and humane society (Marx 1969a, 1969b, 1972; McKelvey 1991:57-72).  

     Just as capitalism must be analyzed from the vantage point of the worker, the modern world-system must be analyzed from below, that is, from the vantage point of the colonized.  As Marx himself without question would appreciate, Marx was limited in his capacity to understand the structure and dynamics of the world-system from the vantage point of the colonized, because he wrote before the emergence of the anti-colonial and anti-neocolonial movements of the Third World.  The anti-colonial movements had begun in Latin America in Marx’s time, but the Third World anti-colonial movement did not attain maturity until the twentieth century, and in addition, Marx was geographically isolated from Latin American political and intellectual developments.  He was aware of the importance of the conquest of America in the development of modern capitalism, but writing before the full implementation of the European colonial project of world domination and before the emergence of anti-colonial movements in Asia and Africa, he could not consistently maintain an anti-colonial perspective in his analysis or develop an anti-colonial frame of analysis.  As a result of his time and place, he could not possibly have sought to formulate a synthesis of an analysis rooted in the vantage point of the worker with an anti-colonial perspective, as would be possible for Third World movement leaders and intellectuals during the twentieth century.

     Just as Marx sought to analyze social dynamics from the vantage point of the social movement emerging from below, we should do the same in our time.  In seeking to understand the structures and dynamics of the world-system today, we have to take seriously the insights of the anti-colonial, anti-neocolonial and anti-imperialists movements of the Third World, which reached political and intellectual maturity in the period 1946 to 1979, and which have reemerged since 1994.  Leaders and intellectuals of the Third World project have formulated a frame of analysis that is rooted in the perspective of the colonized. The most advanced among them have formulated a synthesis of the Third World national liberation perspective and Marxism-Leninism, developing an understanding beyond the parameters established by Marx and further developed by Lenin. 

     Yet there is a tendency in the nations of the North, including the Left, to not listen to the leaders and intellectuals of the Third World and to criticize the Third World project from the vantage point of assumptions and ideas rooted in the European side of the colonial divide.  In this series of posts on the Third World project, I seek to point to a correction of the Eurocentric under-appreciation of its significance.

      In addition to clarifying the theoretical formulations and political practice of the Third World project, these posts maintain that, after suffering setbacks and distortions during the period 1980 to 1995, the Third World project has reasserted itself as an actor on the world stage, and indeed, it is in the process of formulating, in theory and practice, the best hope for humanity.  And while the Left in the North underappreciates the importance of the Third World, the global powers do not: they discern that the Third World project is a threat to the established world order, and their policies are dedicated to its destruction.

      I turn in the next post to a review of the formulation of the Third World project during the period 1948 to 1979.

References
 
Marx, Karl.  1969a.  Theories of Surplus Value, Vol. I.  London: Lawrence & Wishart.
 
__________.  1969b.  Theories of Surplus Value, Vol. II.  London: Lawrence & Wishart.
 
__________.  1972.  Theories of Surplus Value, Vol. III.  London: Lawrence and Wishart.
 
McKelvey, Charles.  1991.  Beyond Ethnocentrism:  A Reconstruction of Marx’s Concept of Science.  New York:  Greenwood Press. 
 

Posted July 20, 2016

     The Third World project of the post-World War II era was rooted in the twentieth century anti-colonial movements in Asia and Africa and anti-imperialist movements in Latin America.  The giants of the era, who had enormous prestige based on the leadership of their peoples in anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles, met with another to formulate a united vision for the future of the world-system and to develop cooperative strategies of action.  They sought to transform the structures of the neocolonial world-system, which were ensuring the preservation of European economic, financial and cultural domination, and which were obstacles to the genuine sovereignty of Third World nations.  
    
     At the UN Conference on Trade and Employment in Havana in 1948, delegates from the Third World criticized Western ethnocentric assumptions with respect to economic development.  They denounced the creation of the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) for its exclusion of the Third World, thus enabling the advanced industrial states to make the economic rules of the world.  They argued for the right of the Third World nations to utilize tariffs to protect their domestic industries.  And they called upon Third World nations to invest in industrial development with capital attained through foreign aid and the surplus from the exportation of raw materials (Prashad 2007: 62-69).

      In Bandung, Indonesia in 1955, representatives of twenty-nine newly independent Asian and African nations met.  Sukarno of Indonesia was the leading force; Nehru of India, Nasser of Egypt, Zhou En-lai of China and U Nu of Burma were among its prominent participants.  The Bandung conference declared the importance of Third World unity in opposition to European colonialism and Western imperialism.  It advocated economic cooperation rather than exploitation as the base of international relations.  It sought to break the core-peripheral relation, in which the Third World nations export raw materials and import manufactured goods, and thus it called for the diversification of the economies of the formerly colonized nations and the development of their national industries.  It supported the regulation of international capital flows.  It advocated international regulation and control of arms, the reduction of military forces, and the prohibition of nuclear arms.  It denounced cultural imperialism and the suppression of national cultures (Prashad 2007:32-33, 36-46).

      The Bandung conference had a tremendous impact on the peoples of the Third World.  Vijay Prashad writes:

      In 1957, the Afro-Asian Solidarity Conference was held in Cairo, Egypt.  Egyptian head of state Gamal Abdel Nasser, who had come to power through a military coup that overthrew a corrupt monarchy that had served European interests, was an advocate of the ideology of “Arab Socialism”.  In 1956, his government had nationalized the French-owned Suez Canal in order to finance construction of the Aswan Dam, after the United States revoked its agreement to finance the project.  The Afro-Asian Solidarity Conference was dominated by the Bandung Spirit, although it was more strongly partisan against the First World than the Bandung conference, which had been characterized by a distancing from both the First and Second Worlds. Cairo also differed from Bandung by virtue of the prominent participation of women speakers that defended the rights of women, linking the liberation of women with the anti-colonial struggles for national liberation.  Distinct from the European women’s movements, Third World women’s movements, which had emerged in the early twentieth century, conceptualized the struggle for the rights of women as integral to the broader social struggle of national liberation and for the protection of the social and economic rights of the people, and they organized the struggle for women’s rights within the national liberation movement.  At the 1957 Afro-Asian Solidarity Conference, the Afro-Asian Federation for Women was established (Prashad 2007:51-61).   

     In 1960, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was established by Venezuela, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran, which together produced eighty-two percent of the world’s crude oil exports.  The creation of OPEC was one example of a general Third World strategy of creating public commodity cartels that united producing and exporting nations, with the hope of curbing the power of the private cartels that had been formed by core manufacturers and distributers.  Public primary product cartels would enable producing and exporting nations to set prices for their raw materials exports, thus generating more income for investment in national industry and social development.  In addition to petroleum, public cartels were formed by nations that were producers and exporters of cocoa, sugar, rubber, copper, and bauxite (Prashad 2007:69-70, 180-86).

     In 1961 in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, representatives of twenty-three governments of Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe established the Non-Aligned Movement.  Tito of Yugoslavia, Nehru and Nasser were its founders.  U Nu, Ben Youssef (Algeria), Sukarno, Nkrumah (Ghana) and Osvaldo Dorticós (President of Cuba) were present at the first Summit in Belgrade.  The Summit called for the democratization of the United Nations, particularly with respect to the Security Council, which holds unbalanced power vis-à-vis the General Assembly, and which is dominated by the core powers.  The Summit called upon the nuclear powers (United States, Soviet Union, Great Britain and France) to eliminate their nuclear arsenals.  And it supported the armed struggles of national liberation movements in Algeria and the Portuguese colonies (Mozambique, Angola, and Cabo Verde) in Africa (Prashad 2007:95-97, 100-4, 110).

     In 1964, seventy-seven nations of the Third World formed the Group of 77, an organization that functions as a bloc within the United Nations.  It called for the First World nations to finance Third World projects, as compensation for colonialism, and to permit Third World states to use protective tariffs without sanctions.  It supported Third World efforts to improve the prices of raw materials, and it called upon the Third World nations to develop new forms of mutually beneficial trade among one another in order to ameliorate the effects of imperialist exploitation (Prashad 2007:70-71).

     In 1966, the First Solidarity Conference of the Peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America was held in Havana, convoked by the revolutionary government of Cuba.  The 513 delegates represented 83 governments and national liberation movements from Africa, Asia, and Latin America, including the National Liberation Front of Vietnam, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam), and Amilcar Cabral of Guinea-Bissau.  The conference named colonialism and imperialism as the source of Third World underdevelopment, and it defended nationalization as an effective strategy for attaining control over the national economy.  It supported armed struggle as a necessary tactic in opposition to colonialism and imperialism, and it pledged solidarity to the Vietnamese struggle against the United States (Prashad 1007: 106-13, 310).

     At its 1973 Summit in Algiers, the Third Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement declared that the international order continued to promote the underdevelopment of the Third World nations.  The Summit supported the creation of public cartels to transfer power to raw material producers; it called for a linking of the prices of raw material exports to the prices of imported manufactured goods; and it affirmed the principle of the sovereignty of nations over their natural resources, including their right to nationalize property within their territories.  The Summit endorsed a document on the New International Economic Order, which had been in preparation by Third World governments for a decade (Prashad 2007:189, 330).

     In 1974, the UN General Assembly adopted the Third Word document on a New International Economic Order, which was supported by the Non-Aligned Movement, the G-77 and the socialist nations.  The document affirmed the principles of the right of self-determination of nations and the sovereignty of nations over their natural resources.  It advocated: the creation of raw materials producers’ associations to give raw material exporting states control over prices; a new international monetary policy that did not punish the weaker states; increased industrialization of the Third World; the transfer of technology from the advanced industrial states to the Third World; regulation and control of the activities of transnational corporations; the promotion of cooperation among the nations of the Third World; and aid for Third World development (Castro 1983:27-28; Prashad 2007:189, 334-35).

     Later in 1974, the UN General Assembly approved the “Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States,” which drew upon the New International Economic Order.  It affirmed the right of the nationalization of foreign properties, endorsed the establishment of raw material cartels, and called for the creation of a system with just and equitable terms of trade (Prashad 2007:189). 

     In 1979, the Sixth Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement was held in Havana.  Ninety-three countries of the Third World reaffirmed their commitment to national sovereignty, economic integrity, cultural diversity and nuclear disarmament (Prashad 2007:113-14). They declared: “The Chiefs of State and Government reaffirm their deep conviction that a lasting solution to the problems of countries in development can be attained only by means of a constant and fundamental restructuring of international economic relations through the establishment of a New International Economic Order” (quoted in Castro 1983:25).

     In the aftermath of the 1979 Havana Summit, representing the Non-Aligned Movement as its President, Cuba called upon the United Nations to respond to the desperate economic and social situation of the Third World.  It proposed: an additional flow of resources to the Third World through donations and long-term low-interest credit; an end to unequal terms of trade; ceasing of irrational arms spending and directing these funds to finance development; a transformation of the international monetary system; and the cancellation of the debts of less developed countries in a disadvantageous situation (Castro 1983:25).            

     The Third World project, formulated with clarity and commitment and on a basis of a knowledgeable understanding of the world-system, confronted the hostile opposition of the global powers.  It thus found itself in a war on two fronts, on the one hand, with the aggressions and maneuvers of the global powers, and on the other hand, with the colonial legacy of underdevelopment and poverty.  And it would be temporarily derailed by Third World spokespersons who were tied economically and ideologically to core corporations and international organizations, and who promoted their particular interests.  We will discuss these themes in the subsequent posts in this series on the Third World project.

​References
 
Castro, Fidel.  1983.  La crisis económica y social del mundo.  La Habana: Oficina de Publicaciones del Consejo de Estado.
 
Prashad, Vijay.  2007.  The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World.  New York: The New Press.
 
 
Key words: Third World, Non-Aligned Movement, Bandung, G-77, New International Economic Order

Posted July 21, 2016

     The implementation of the Third World project confronted numerous obstacles, as we will discuss in a subsequent post in this series.  The formerly colonized nations did not have sufficient capital to develop and diversify industry, and they did not have the necessary transportation infrastructure for the development of mutually beneficial trade with one another.  These limitations were a legacy of one to four centuries of European colonial domination, and the imposition of a peripheral role in the world-economy, involving the exportation of raw materials on a base of cheap labor.  Moreover, whenever a Third World nation was able to mobilize the political will to seek to sever the neocolonial core-peripheral relation, it was targeted by the global powers, which used all forces at their disposal to destroy the dangerous examples and to convey to other Third World nations that going beyond the permitted limits of national sovereignty would be punished.

     However, there were some East Asian states that were in a position to ascend in the world-economy without violating the established rules of the neocolonial world-system.  Their strategy was to develop low-wage export manufacturing in their hinterlands, served by urban export distributorships connected to core markets.  These East Asian “tigers” or “dragons” were Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan.  From 1960 to 1990, they attained spectacular economic results, such that the World Bank released in 1993 a report on The East Asian Miracle (Prashad 2007:245-48).

       Particular exceptional characteristics enabled the Asian tigers to follow this ascent strategy.  Singapore and Hong Kong had been port cities in the unequal treaties imposed on China by the colonial powers, and their role in Chinese-European trade promoted their commercial development.  Taiwan and Korea, on the other hand, had been Japanese colonies, and Japanese colonialism imposed structures different from those of European colonialism.  To some extent because of limited available land in Japan itself relative to its population size, Japan developed core-like activities in its colonies, thus contributing to the economic development of the Japanese colonies.  In addition, South Korea and Taiwan were important allies of the United States in the Cold War, and they thus had access to high levels of aid and credit (Prashad 2007:249, 252).

     As a result of the exceptional historical, political and economic situation of the Asian Tigers, they had access to capital that other Third World formerly colonized nations did not possess.  They applied the capital to investment in low-wage export manufacturing and distributing, using strong state action to develop a national plan, to guarantee credit for private entrepreneurs, and to develop state-owned enterprises (Prashad 2007:250-53).   

     The turn of the Asian tigers to low-wage export manufacturing coincided with a restructuring of the international division of labor, thus facilitating its success.  Technological developments in transportation and communication across continents made possible the breakdown of the production process, in an historic moment in which core corporations, facing stagnating profits, were increasingly looking for cheaper sources of factory labor (Prashad 2007:253; Wallerstein 1999).
     
     The development of low-wage export manufacturing was not a good development strategy in the long term.  The core nations, in contrast, had developed their manufacturing on a base of relatively high wages.  Core manufacturing was tied to the importation of cheap raw materials attained through the superexploitation of labor in peripheral regions, thus making possible concession to workers’ unions in the core, leading to relatively high wages.  Accordingly, the development of industry in core nations contributed to the development of strong domestic markets in the core, continuously fueling an industrial development that supplied manufactured goods primarily for expanding domestic markets (although secondarily for export, often to peripheral zones whose manufacturing capacity had been undermined by peripheralization).  But low-wage export manufacturing in the periphery or semi-periphery contributes little to the development of the domestic market; it represents a continuation of the peripheral role of providing low-wage labor for the production of goods destined for export to the core.

      In spite of the limitations of the East Asian development strategy, it was recommended by the IMF as a general strategy for Third World nations (Prashad 2007:248).  This recommendation was flawed on three counts.  (1) The conditions and possibilities for the East Asian nations were not the same as those of Third World nations in general, as we have noted above.  (2) The IMF recommendation in fact departed from the East Asian model.  The IMF recipe for Third World nations involved a weak state and a reduced state role in the economy, whereas the Asian tigers had ascended on a foundation of strong state involvement in the economy.  This distorted recommendation of the model, ignoring a fundamental and clearly evident component, suggests that the recommendation was politically and ideologically motivated, designed to imply that ascent in the world-system is possible and to legitimate neoliberal policies with respect to the Third World (Prashad 2007:248).  (3)  Economic development must be based on the development of high-wage production or service industries, so that the domestic market will expand.  Those who promoted the East Asian model tended to ignore that the benefits applied only to some, inasmuch as they were based on the superexploitation of factory labor.

     In 1997, the Asian tigers collapsed, brought down by a fall in the prices of the computer chip as well as the financial speculation ushered in by IMF-recommended neoliberal deregulation (Prashad 2007:255-56).  But as a result of the prestige in which the Asian tigers were held for a period of time, East Asian leaders were able to exert themselves in the Non-Aligned Movement, in opposition to the defenders of the Third World project, led by Fidel, as we will see in the next post.
​

References
 
Prashad, Vijay.  2007.  The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World.  New York: The New Press.
 
Wallerstein, Immanuel.  1999. “The Rise of East Asia, or the World-System in the Twenty-First Century” in The End of the World as We Know It:  Social Science for the Twenty-First Century.  Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press.
 
 
Key words:  Third World, Asian Tigers, IMF, Prashad