The Trump project offers an interpretation of the history of the United States that ignores a number of political and economic factors that are necessary for understanding the ascent of the United States.  And it proposes a defense of “American values” and U.S. economic interests, ignoring the moral evaluations and demands of the majority of humanity, and ignoring the serious global problems that require the cooperation of all nations (see “The State of the Union under Trump” 2/13/2018).

     We tend today to be influenced by post-modern tendencies and to view truth as relative.  We tend to think that understandings, in both the realms of fact and value, are shaped by culture, social position, and personal experiences.  Among the bewildering variety of truth claims that exist in the world today, which have the most validity?  Out tendency is to believe that it depends on your point of view.  In accordance with this belief, we often assume that all truth claims have equal epistemological standing, and that all grand narratives unavoidably distort.  With such relativist assumptions, we have no epistemological basis for challenging the historical distortions and the moral decadence of the Trump project.  

     Not that the Trump project is a radical departure from recent and historic trends in U.S. history.  Since its establishment as an independent nation, the United States has taken a road of aggressive, ethnocentric nationalism, justifying it through ideological distortions.  It conquered the indigenous nations and peoples as well as Mexico, ignoring their rights and claims.  It built its economic wealth through commerce related to slavery, in both the U.S. South and the Caribbean islands.  It turned to imperialist policies in the twentieth century, using a variety of interventionist means to gain access to the natural resources, human labor, and markets of various regions of the world, especially Latin America, thus fueling its economic growth.  These various stages of conquest and exploitation were justified with blatant and subtle forms of racism.  Following the Second World War, the United States turned to the permanent militarization of its economy and society, accompanied by the ideological distortions of the Cold War.  And in subsequent stages, it expanded the militarization with the conservatism of Reagan, the neo-conservatism of Bush II, and the neofascism of Trump, at first justifying it with the Cold War ideology and later with the so-called War on Terrorism.

       The Left did not have an effective response to the aggressive, ethnocentric nationalism of the United States, even before relativist tendencies dulled the Left’s epistemological reflections.  With the deepening of the crisis that humanity confronts during the last forty years, the emergence of post-modern and relativist epistemological assumptions forms part of the problem.  Post-modern assumptions provide justification for personal indulgence and retreat from social responsibility, and they promote a sense of hopelessness with respect to the possibilities for the development of a more just and truly democratic world.  They undermine possibilities for the formulation of a scientifically informed grand narrative that effectively calls the people to the construction of a more responsible, just, and truly democratic nation.

      Trump does us the favor of making clearer the urgency of the situation, and thus calling us to self-critical reflection.  Can we of the Left not now see that we need to reconstruct our discourse and our strategies?

     Our reconstruction must begin at the foundations, addressing the philosophical question of how we know.  What is the basis for distinguishing what is true from what is false in both the realms of fact and value?

      As we have seen, Marxism-Leninism has taken the lead with respect to the development of scientific knowledge (see “The significance of Marx” 2/16/2018).  This legacy of the Left, unfolding on a global scale, is an important dimension of the necessary reconstruction of the Left in the United States.  With pedagogically effective methods, we must teach our people that, although the universities claim to be centers of knowledge, they have in fact developed forms of philosophical, historical, and social scientific knowledge that are fragmented and Eurocentric.  The universities, with the encouragement of their rich benefactors, have evolved in this manner in reaction to the wisdom that was emerging from the movements of the people.  The universities have effectively disseminated among our people the false epistemological claim that Marxists and Leninists are ideologues, when it fact it is the universities that have cast aside the quest for truth in the defense of particular interests, which is precisely what ideology is.

      Marxism-Leninism, as it has evolved in the Third World, provides an alternative narrative that pertains to the realms of fact and value and that provides a foundation for a universal human knowledge.  It has empirically demonstrated that the modern world-system is constructed on a foundation of colonial and neocolonial domination, and as a result, the logic of the system requires the negation of the true sovereignty of nations and the social and economic rights of the people.  Marxism-Leninism has shown, in theory and practice, that an alternative, more just, democratic, and sustainable world-system is possible and necessary (see various posts in the category Marxism-Leninism and its evolution).

      The evolution of Marxism-Leninism to this understanding has dovetailed with tendencies in Christian epistemology and theology.  Many years ago, I encountered black nationalist thought, and I could not overlook the fundamental differences in assumptions and understanding between white social scientists and black scholars.  This led me to an investigation of the problem of the social foundation of knowledge, and to the question of whether objectivity in the social sciences is possible.  In the pursuit of this question, I arrived to Fordham University, where two Jesuit priests, sociology professor Joseph Fitzpatrick and philosophy professor Gerald McCool, introduced me to the cognitional theory of Bernard Lonergan.  The eminent Jesuit scholar was investigating whether or not there was any basis for affirming the validity of Thomist philosophical and theological claims in the modern era, and this led him to an investigation of the various forms of human knowledge.  He arrived to the understanding that an objective knowledge is possible, not a knowledge that has certainty, but a form of knowledge in which claims of truth have a high probability of being correct, if the person seeking to understand were to explore all relevant questions through personal encounter with persons of different social positions and cultural horizons.  Knowledge formed in this way, although not characterized by certainty, has far greater validity than claims formulated in a form that ignores historical understandings and disregards understandings that were emerging in other cultures and societies.  True knowledge, for Lonergan, is a continually evolving understanding that transcends cultural differences, and it pertains to the realms of fact and value, that is, it includes understanding of both the true and the right (see “What is personal encounter?” 7/25/2013 and “What is cross-horizon encounter?” 7/26/2013 in the category Knowledge).

      Lonergan’s investigation of human understanding did not include study of the work of Marx.  But as Father Fitzpatrick sent me on my way, he counseled that my next step should be a study of Marx, with attention on epistemological issues.  In my subsequent study, I found that Marx had followed an epistemological method that illustrated the validity of Lonergan’s cognitional theory.  Marx systematically studied forms of knowledge that were beyond his native horizon of German philosophy, in that he obsessively studied British political economy and French socialism after his arrival in Paris in October 1843 (see “Marx illustrates cross-horizon encounter” 1/7/14 in the category Marx).  Marx gave cross-horizon encounter a class dimension: he encountered the working class, or more precisely, the social movement in Paris organized by artisans, workers, and intellectuals in defense of the working class.  Marx here discovered the key to the evolution of understanding in an integrated philosophical-historical-social science: encounter with the social movements of the dominated, taking seriously their insights and their vantage point, thereby discovering questions relevant to the issues at hand.  This epistemological foundation established by Marx’s pioneering work was ignored by the universities, who organized study in a form that constrained the evolution of knowledge of social dynamics.  Such structural limitations on understanding were consistent with the interests of the dominant class, inasmuch as understanding of the dynamics of domination and exploitation constitute the foundation for the emancipation of the people.  As has been noted, the evolution of understanding from the foundation established by Marx proceeded from the practice of revolutions in Russia, China, and the Third World, at the margins of the Western universities.

      Therefore, in our day, the alternative epistemology and political philosophy that is the foundation of the Left’s response to imperialism, neoliberalism, and neofascism must be discovered and developed through encounter with the Third World revolutions, whose key insights have been most fully and clearly articulated by their most outstanding and committed leaders.  But the Left in the North, by and large, has not done so.  How many Leftist intellectuals and activists of the North have studied the speeches and writings of Lenin, Mao, Ho, Fidel, Chávez, Correa, and Evo?  How many have sought to understand the dynamics that were shaping the achievements and setbacks of the revolutionary processes of Latin America, Asia, and Africa?

      The reconstruction of the discourse and strategies of the Left, necessary for effectively responding to emerging neofascism, must be based on a foundation of learning from the popular revolutions that have been forged by the neocolonized peoples of the earth.  The leaders and intellectuals of the movements of the neocolonized peoples constitute the vanguard of the struggle for human emancipation, as were the intellectuals and workers of the Western European working class movement in the time of Marx.

     We have seen that Mao made “ultra-Leftist” political errors, and that China has been able to overcome its ultra-Leftist tendencies to develop a pragmatic approach to socialism (see “Mao’s ‘ultra-Leftist’ political errors,” 2/1/2018 in the category China).  However, ultra-Leftist tendencies remain alive in the world, and they are particularly damaging to the credibility of the Left in the nations of the North.  Leftists ought to observe carefully the pragmatic approaches taken in the long-standing socialist projects in China, Vietnam, and Cuba; and through critical reflection, arrive to avoid ultra-Leftist tendencies in making proposals for an alternative road in the nations of the North.  

      Reflecting on the Chinese manifestation of ultra-Leftism in the epoch of Mao, let us ask, what are ultra-Leftist tendencies in the progressive and socialist movements in the nations of the North today?  In general, ultra-Leftist tendencies are rooted in a failure to take into account the need for advancing economic productivity.  In the vast regions of the planet that form the Third World, where more than two-thirds of humanity lives, economic development is necessary in order to provide for the social and economic needs of the people.  Most of the intellectuals of the North live in a context of advanced economic development, established on a foundation of the colonial and neocolonial domination and superexploitation of the Third World.  They tend not to appreciate sufficiently the urgent need to produce and to improve production, a situation invariably confronted by Third World revolutionary leaders that have been carried by popular social movements to political power.  Northern intellectuals of the Left often propose ideas worthy of careful consideration and planning, especially in the long term, but first the people must be fed.  

      The ultra-Leftist underestimation of the importance of production not only influences attitudes toward Third World revolutions; it also has negative political consequences in the political dynamics of the nations of the North.  Many of the ecological and anti-militarist proposals of the U.S. Left, for example, do not adequately address the nation’s economic situation, characterized by dependency on environmentally destructive patterns of production and consumption and on the military-industrial complex, a dependency that complicates an alternative direction with respect to the environment and militarization.  Of course, the Left must call the people to the protection of the environment and the reversal of the expansion of military industries.  However, the Left must make its proposals in a form that (1) appreciates the preoccupations of the people with respect to employment; and (2) shows that it possesses the comprehensive knowledge necessary for leading the nation in a direction that promotes peace and protects the environment, and yet responds to the material needs of the people.  

     In addition, ultra-Leftism tends to possess a rigid concept of property ownership, objecting to space in the economy for private property.  Some insist on cooperatives, objecting to private property as a form of worker exploitation, and at the same time rejecting state ownership as a top-down form of management that does not differ from capitalism.  Others insist on state ownership of all means of production, viewing cooperatives as a form of private ownership, and defining private ownership as inappropriate for socialist economies.  Ultra-Leftism ignores the challenges that socialist nations face with respect to the production and distribution of goods and services, and it thus cannot see that, in determined circumstances, private ownership can be a useful mechanism for distributing particular goods and services to the people or for contributing to the expansion of national production.  In different moments and circumstances, Russia, China, Vietnam, and Cuba all found it necessary to allow space in various ways for private capital.  They did so, however, in a form in which state ownership of the economy was extensive, and state management of the economy was fundamental, with control and regulation of private enterprises, and with extensive state interrelationships with cooperatives.  Moreover, they defined space for private capital in a context in which the various institutions of the society were guided by socialist values.  Similarly, in the new popular socialist revolutions that have emerged in recent years in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua, the revolutionary leaders have proclaimed a new form of socialism, with the economy under the direction of the state and with state ownership of the principal and most important industries, but with a mixed economy, including private property.

     Moreover, ultra-Leftism tends to an exaggeration of the concept of equality.  Modern bourgeois and socialist revolutions have affirmed the fundamental principal of equality, proclaiming the equality of all persons, regardless of race or ethnicity, class, or gender.  However, socialist nations in practice have found it necessary to tolerate some differences in income, because production tends to suffer when highly productive work is not rewarded.  Socialist nations have arrived to the view that some differences in income, not great, should exist, in order to reward those who make greater sacrifices and are more committed with respect to work, thus ensuring the continuity of highly valued and necessary labor.  Ultra-Leftism has a tendency to protest income inequalities in all forms, even when they are necessary and sensible.  Although the nations constructing socialism permit modest levels of income inequality, they are more advanced than capitalist societies with respect to the principal of equality, for they affirm in practice that social and economic rights to education, health care, nutrition, and housing are not conditioned on capacity to pay.  

     Ultra-Leftism tends to advocate the abolition of disciplined work.  It views management demands for productive work as an oppression of workers, and it objects to the adoption of normal management practices in socialist nations as anti-socialist.  It does not see that, in the context of overcoming the legacy of underdevelopment, revolutionary leaders must exhort the people to disciplined work.  Socialist nations protect the rights of workers not by being relaxed with respect to work expectations and demands, but by establishing and supporting worker’s mass organizations, in which all workers are members, and that elect their own leaders.  The workers’ organizations raise all issues of concern to the workers, including salary, working conditions, and living conditions.  In Cuba, for example, the company managers and the union leadership work together in balancing the nation’s need to elevate production with the worker’s right to humane work and living conditions.  Although Marx envisioned the reduction of labor time to marginal time, humanity is not close to such a communist paradise, especially in the Third World.  Socialism does not yet mean the abolition of work.  In the construction of socialism, we are all called to disciplined work, each in the areas and specializations where our talents and capacities lie, which also implies the necessary continuation of a functional division of labor.

     Ultra-Leftism romanticizes the small and the local as a more humanist form of production and politics, leading to a disdain for centralized state planning.  Certainly, in some cases, small is beautiful.  However, in the constant pressure to expand production, the national commitment to the small and the local must include evaluation of productivity.  To the extent that they respond to the productive needs of the nation, or in other ways respond to local needs or to the needs of the workers, small and local industry should be supported by the state.  In such cases, the state would include them as part of its centralized plan, and it would include subsidies when feasible and intelligent.  Local and smaller scale production has its place, and in rural areas, it can contribute to agricultural production and reduce rural unemployment, thus reducing the unsustainable rural-urban migration.  However, recognizing the place of the small and the local does not imply a rejection of centralized state planning or large-scale industry.  Ultra-Leftism has a general disdain for the large and for centralized planning, on the basis of an idealist vision that is removed from the practical challenges that revolutions confront.

      Ultra-Leftism in the North tends to ignore the need for the taking of political power.  It views political power as corrupting, and this belief to some extent nourishes its quickness in criticizing socialist revolutions that have taken power.  However, it is idealist to think that a better world can be made without delegates of various sectors of the people taking political power and directing the state toward the fulfillment of the needs of the people.  Popular socialist revolutions in China and the Third World have demonstrated that the taking of power by the people is possible through the creative political application of fundamental principles and concepts.  To confine political action to protest, without an intention or plan for the taking of power as delegates of the people, is to ensure that political power will be in the hands transnational corporations and their political allies, which will continue to defend their particular interests, at the expense of the needs of the nation, the people, humanity, and nature.

     Ultra-Leftist tendencies damage the Left in the North in two ways.  First, ultra-Leftist attitudes lead to judgmental evaluations of socialist projects in China and the Third World on the basis of impossible standards, giving the impression that socialist revolutionary leaders betray the revolution when they come to power.  They thus imply that socialism is an impossible dream.  Secondly, inasmuch as ultra-Leftism involves the advocacy of idealist proposals, it is in conflict with the common sense intelligence of the people, and thus it undermines the credibility of the Left among the people, who must be mobilized to support the alternative project proposed by the Left.

     The insights necessary for overcoming ultra-Leftism emerge in the context of social and political movements.  Following the October Revolution of 1917 (since the early eighteenth century in the case of Latin America), advanced movements emerged in what would become the Third World, fueled by colonial and neocolonial structures of superexploitation.  These dynamics have given rise to advances in understanding, most clearly expressed by exceptional and committed Third World revolutionary leaders and by Third World intellectuals tied to the movements.  In contrast, the nations of the North materially benefitted from colonial/neocolonial structures of exploitation, so that they possessed, until the 1970s, sufficient resources for reformist concessions to popular movements.  In these political dynamics, ideological development in the North has been hampered by the political need to ignore the colonial/neocolonial foundation of the world-system and to justify imperialist policies necessary for the preservation of the economic advantages for the neocolonizing nations.  Therefore, Leftist intellectuals in the North have developed their understandings in an ideological context that is less mature than the Third World, and they live and work in a situation that is isolated from the neocolonial context.  Accordingly, they do not have the necessary social and political base to make judgements concerning the difficult political decisions that Third World revolutions must make; they tend to make judgements on the basis of idealist conceptions, disconnected from the struggles of the most advanced popular movements.

     The solution to this problem is for Northern intellectuals to encounter the Third World revolutions, taking seriously their insights and reformulating their own understandings, empowering them to lead their peoples in an alternative road toward a must just world-system.  This is a political possibility in the current context of sustained global structural crisis.  Third World leaders and intellectuals consistently demonstrate their openness to dialogue with leaders and intellectuals of the North.  At the same time, the unsustainability of the neocolonial world-system and the moral and intellectual unpreparedness of the political leaders of the core nations is increasingly evident to the peoples of the North.  Indeed, as the structural crisis of the world-system deepens, liberalism gives rise to its invisible partner, neofascism, exposing the brutality of the neocolonial world-system.  These dynamics create opportunity for the emergence of an alternative Left in the North, with an advanced understanding and a politically intelligent discourse inspired by the examples and teachings of Third World revolutions, capable of playing a dynamic political role in the nations of the North, challenging and offering an alternative to both liberalism and neofascism.

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August 17, 2017

     Anti-fascism is not the way; popular education is.  The new form of fascism that has emerged in the United States is a consequence of the fact that a sector of the people is angry about the decline of the nation from its once dominant position as an economic, political, and military superpower; about the increasing percentage of the population is that not white and not Christian; and about the apparent incapacity and indifference of the political establishment in the face of these developments.  Many of our people are angry about these phenomena because they do not understand them.  They do not understand the sources of the nation’s spectacular ascent and recent decline; the causes of uncontrolled international migration; and the narrow class interests that shape the actions of the elite.  They have formulated a neofascist discourse that scapegoats immigrants, persons of color, Muslims, gays, and liberals; and that advocates military strength and economic nationalism.  When they organize demonstrations to promote their causes, the necessary response is not counterdemonstrations, but the education of the people.

      When I speak of education, I do not refer to what occurs in schools, colleges and universities, which cultivate a fragmented and distorted understanding of the nation and the world; nor do I refer to a media advertising campaign with the same limitations.  Rather, what I have in mind is the development of people’s schools, which would conduct classes in homes, churches, temples, mosques, community centers, and other public buildings, with teachers who lead the people in on-going discussions of readings.  The people’s schools would create a cadre of well-informed citizens, comprising fifteen to twenty percent of the people.  The members of the cadre would be present in places of work and study and in neighborhoods, constantly present among the people, explaining and exhorting.  If this educated vanguard can be effectively present among the people, modeling exemplary citizenship and informed understanding, the influence of neofascist tendencies would decline.  Some members of the cadre could present themselves as candidates for public office at all levels, representing an alternative political party that is dedicated to popular education, modeling an alternative form of political leadership.

        Anti-fascist counterdemonstrations escalate the conflict; they do not help the people to acquire the necessary understanding of the alternative road that the nation must find.  At their best, they generate the competitive shouting of alternative slogans; and their worst, they degenerate into violence.  Our strategy must not be to shout, and even less to fight; we must seek to explain, based on a lifetime commitment to deepening our own understanding of the contradictions and challenges that humanity confronts.

      Nearly one hundred years ago, Lenin wrote of what he called the infantile disorder of the Left.  It is an infirmity characterized by radical action based on superficial understanding.  Lenin believed that infantile, unreflective extremism was causing serious harm to the communist movement, which at that historic moment had taken control of the state in Russia and had a significant presence among the political parties in Germany, England, Holland and France (see “The infantile disorder of the Left” 12/19/2016).  In our time, infantile extremism is one of the principal sources of the limited influence of the Left in the nations of the North.  Unfortunately, it is occurring during a historic moment in which the emergence of an intellectually mature and politically effective Left is an objective possibility in the North, given the profound and sustained crisis of the world-system and the renewal of the Third World popular movements.

      When neofascists announce a march, progressive organizations should not organize a counterdemonstration, and they should call upon the people to stay away.  They should use the occasion to disseminate well-formulated critiques of the assumptions and stated objectives of the march.  They should negotiate with law enforcement agencies, ensuring the protection of all citizens from neofascist violence.  They should make clear their respect for the right of the marchers to peacefully assemble and speak, as long as violence does not occur and the march respects legal restrictions.  Similarly, progressive organizations should deemphasize efforts to restrict so-called hate speech, for this enters the murky ground of freedom of speech, and it can place the Left at a disadvantage in what Fidel Castro called “the battle of ideas,” which he defined as the most important struggle of the current historic moment.  In this battle, the Left ought to be able to establish a clear scientific and moral advantage.  Although direct confrontation appears to be more decisive action, it is less politically functional in the long run, for it does little to lead the people toward the necessary road.  The strategy of the Left cannot be endless battles with the extreme Right, while the contradictions that humanity confronts remained unexplained and thus unattended.

     Nor should we attack Confederate monuments, especially in a violent and illegal form.  Let neofascism have its heroes and its public spaces; every cause celebrates its heroes, and this cannot be suppressed.  We should focus on identifying our own heroes and public spaces, formulating a narrative that teaches the important role of leaders of popular movements of all popular sectors in expanding and deepening the meaning of democracy.  With an informed and comprehensive narrative, we should be able to establish a political upper hand over right-wing populism as well as liberal elitism with a politically effective and scientifically informed discourse, efficiently disseminated among our people.  

      In the aftermath of Charlottesville, progressive organizations are being drawn into a confrontation with the extreme Right.  This temptation should be avoided.  The Left should explain the inadequacies of the proposals of the extreme Right, standing above, rather than being drawn into, confrontation.  The Left should focus on the long-term goals of educating the people and leading them toward the necessary road of cooperation and solidarity with the peoples and nations of the world, standing in opposition to the common enemies of humanity, including imperialism, the unconstrained exploitation of labor and of nature, violence, exclusion, and poverty.  

      For further reflection on the failure of the Left and its implications for the emergence of Trump, see my various posts in the category Trump. For further reflections on these and other relevant themes, see my book, The Evolution and Significance of the Cuban Revolution: The light in the darkness.

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August 25, 2017

      At the present moment, the extreme Right in the United States has been able to mobilize significant numbers of people to mass demonstrations, constituting a popular complement to the neofascist policies of the administration of Donald Trump (see various posts in the category Trump).  Liberal and progressive organizations are turning to anti-neofascist and anti-racist counterdemonstrations.  However, it would be an error for the Left to be drawn into counterdemonstrations against the surging populist Right.  The Left ought to take a clear position, not only against populist fascism and racism, but also against the imperialist policies that the U.S. elite has promoted since the end of the nineteenth century.  And it ought to explain to the people the sources of current national and global problems, proposing concrete solutions based on cooperation with the popular anti-imperialist movements and progressive governments of the Third World.

      The U.S. power elite consistently has been imperialist.  However, the emergence of Trump has created anti-Trump faction of the elite, which sees racism and fascism as detrimental to imperialist goals.  On the other hand, there is a pro-Trump sector of the elite, which views a turn toward fascism, in the form of economic nationalism and increased militarism, as necessary for the attainment of imperialist goals, taking into account the sustained global crisis and the relative economic decline of the USA.  The pro-Trump sector appears strong among the military chiefs and perhaps the business sector with less globalized enterprises; it cannot overlook the need for patriotic as well as scapegoating rhetoric in order to mobilize popular support, but the military chiefs will be cautious about blatant forms of racism, given the high percentage of blacks and Latinos among the troops.  

     If the Left were to join the anti-neofascist and anti-racist agenda of the liberal sector of the elite, it would lose the opportunity created by the political division within the elite to mobilize the people into an effective anti-imperialist movement that would seek to take political control of the nation from the power elite.  An anti-imperialist national project, if well explained and presented with political intelligence, would have vibrancy among the people, inasmuch as many are alienated from both elite liberalism and neofascism.

     Let us define terms.  Imperialism is the quest for markets for surplus manufactured goods and agricultural products, as well as the pursuit of the raw materials necessary for production and commerce.  Imperialism uses a variety of methods, including military conquest, military occupation, intervention in the political affairs of nations, economic penetration, and control of finance and banking.  Fascism, in its twentieth century manifestations, was characterized by: the attainment of economic goals through military aggression and occupation; the scapegoating of religious and ethnic groups and homosexuals; and the repression of criticism, directed primarily toward Left-wing organizations and leaders.  Neofascism, the twenty-first century renewal of fascism, grants positions of leadership to selected members of ethnic groups and women, insofar as they support the fascist project, in accordance with post-1965 norms that protect the political and civil rights of all, regardless of race, ethnicity, or gender.  Racism involves prejudice and discrimination against persons of color, in accordance with an ideology of white supremacy.  It assumes the superiority of Europeans and persons of European descent; and it views as necessary their control of the most powerful nations of the world-system.

      In the modern era, imperialism was connected historically to fascism and racism.  The European colonial empires that covered vast regions of the Americas, Asia and Africa were established through military aggression and force, which made possible the conversion of the economies of the conquered nations and peoples, so that they became suppliers of cheap labor and raw materials as well as markets for surplus goods in the expanding world-economy.  At first, the conquest of diverse nations and peoples was justified on religious grounds, inasmuch as the conquered peoples were not Christians; but with the emergence of democratic revolutions during the eighteenth century, racism emerged as a justification, rationalizing the domination of peoples of color and their exclusion from the promise of democracy.  Imperialism, racism and fascism were intertwining threads in the fabric of European domination of the world.

     However, during the period 1933 to 1979, in response to the anti-imperialist and anti-colonial movements of the colonized, the U.S. power elite developed imperialism with a democratic face, a form of imperialism that stood against fascism and racism.  The new form of apparently democratic imperialism proclaimed that all nations are equal and sovereign; and that all persons, regardless of race or color, possess political and civil rights.  It obtained its imperialist objectives indirectly, through diplomatic maneuvering, covert interventions in the affairs of nations, and control of the production, commerce, and banking of supposedly independent nations.  Repression of popular movements in the dominated nations was necessary, but supposedly independent governments, which often were military governments, carried it out. Direct military intervention by the United States was reserved only for moments of breakdown of control, such restraint being necessary to preserve the democratic façade.  The new form of imperialism was possible for the United States when it enjoyed productive, commercial, financial, and military ascendancy in the world.

      The new form of imperialism led to a world-system that was named neocolonial by the newly independent colonized peoples of Africa and Asia and the semi-colonized, economically dependent peoples of Latin America.  The neocolonial world-system attained its height in the 1950s and the 1960s, and it was without doubt the most impressive world-system in human history, far surpassing earlier empires, when rated by economic, political and territorial measures.  American glory was at its height, leading the world economically, politically and militarily; and projecting itself as the defender of democracy against all challenges to the established, supposedly democratic world-system.

     But during the 1970s, the world-system entered into a profound and sustained crisis, as a consequence of the fact that it had reached and overextended the geographical and ecological limits of the earth.  The world-system needed a fundamental structural transformation, basing itself not on the endless competitive pursuit of raw materials and markets, but on a quest for ecologically sustainable economic growth and global political stability.  Such a transformation required abandonment of imperialist policies and a turn to cooperation with popular movements and governments in the Third World, which had been seeking during the 1960s and 1970s a more just international economic order.  

      Coinciding with the structural crisis of the world-system, the United States entered a period of relative decline, caused by spending in excess of productive capacity, overspending in the military sector, and insufficient investment in new forms of production.  Confronting a situation of global crisis and national relative decline, the U.S. power elite, rather than taking an enlightened turn toward cooperation and global political stability, reverted to pre-1933 strategies.  At first, in the 1980s, its aggression was economic, involving the use of international finance agencies to impose the neoliberal project on the governments of the Third World.  Subsequently, in the 1990s, and especially after 2001, it turned to aggressive wars against selected Third World nations, chosen for the especially high value of their raw materials or for the resistance of their political leadership.

     The post-1980 economic and military aggression against the peoples and nations of the Third World has undermined the democratic image of imperialism.  The United States can no longer effectively pretend to be promoting democracy in the world, as it did in the 1950s and 1960s. The great majority of the people of the world have consciousness of the fact that the USA seeks raw materials, markets, profits, and particular interests.  Yet the continued pretense to democratic values and ideals by the U.S. power elite constrains its ability to act militarily and politically in accordance with its interests.  And thus there has emerged within the power elite a movement toward fascism, toward the elimination of the democratic pretense, and toward the aggressive defense of national economic interests, enlisting the support of popular sectors that have been excluded and ignored by liberal elitism.  However, within the U.S. power elite, there continue to be those sectors who believe that the continued pretense of democracy is necessary for global political stability and economic growth.  Thus there has emerged a political and ideological division within the U.S. power elite.

       When the Left takes a position in opposition in neofascism and racism, it unwittingly joins the ranks of elite liberals who promote imperialism with a democratic face.  It is hard to avoid this trap, because the liberal wing of the power elite controls the media of information and is able to shape the terms of the discourse and the debate.  In this difficult context, the Left must be historically and globally informed, and politically intelligent.  It must explain to the people that both liberal elitism and neofascism seek to maintain control of the world by the power elite, but by different means; and that both stand against the historic democratic call of “power to the people” in the United States, and they stand resolutely against the popular movements of the Third World.  The Left must call the people to an alternative to both liberal elitism and neofascism; it must call the people to an anti-imperialist popular movement that seeks to take control of the U.S. government in the name of the people, casting aside both liberal elitism and neofascism.  

       In 1964, Malcolm X, conscious of the limited gains that would result from the protection of black civil and political rights, advocated black community control as the means to economic and social development; and he sought to develop alliances with the governments of Africa and the Third World.  In 1967 and 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in the aftermath of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, developed a Poor People’s Campaign, formed by blacks, Latinos, indigenous persons, and whites; and he advocated support for the anti-colonial revolutions of the Third World.  In the 1980s, Rev. Jesse Jackson sought to form a Rainbow Coalition of the various sectors of the people, including white workers and the white middle class, for the purpose of taking political power; and he called for a foreign policy of North-South cooperation, casting aside the legacy of imperialism. These proposals remain viable and significant: political coalition among various popular sectors; alliance with anti-imperialist movements and governments of the Third World; and black community control of local educational, law enforcement, and judicial institutions.

     But since the 1990s, these prophetic voices have been forgotten. The Left has drifted into identity politics, post-modernist celebration of lifestyle diversity, and segmented movement from issue to issue, without offering a comprehensive analysis, a programmatic platform, or a plan for the popular taking of power.  Like the U.S. power elite, the U.S. Left is unprepared to explain national and global dynamics to the people, and it is not able to lead them to an alternative road.  However, we should be aware that the myopia of the U.S. power elite is historic, whereas popular movements in the United States have pointed to the necessary road during important historic junctures, thus indicating a possibility for emergence of gifted leaders among the people, capable of discerning and leading the people toward the necessary road.

      The Left must find a way beyond its present limitations.  We must have consciousness of the fact that fascism and racism have been revitalized by structural factors; they will not be brought to an end by street confrontations, but by leading the people to an alternative road. We must search for effective strategies for the education of the people and the taking of political power by the people.  The popular taking of power is necessary, so that a government of and for the people can develop policies and political discourses that respond to the interests of the people, and not the elite.  Such a government can act decisively in defense of the needs of the people, in accordance with the long-term good of the nation, and in cooperation with the peoples of the world.  

     Today, the peoples of Latin America are proclaiming, in word and deed, that a more just, democratic, and sustainable world is possible. We in the United States must share in this faith in the future of humanity. We must envision the solidarity of the peoples of the United States with the peoples and movements of the Third World, whose historic vantage point as colonized provides them with wisdom from below, enabling them to discern the unsustainability of the neocolonial world-system as well as the necessary alternative road.
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     For further reflections on these and other relevant themes, see my book, The Evolution and Significance of the Cuban Revolution: The light in the darkness.

      Founded in 1959 and with headquarter in Storrs, Connecticut, the International Studies Association has more than 7000 members from more than 100 countries.  Its members are mostly academics who are dedicated in some form to the study of international affairs and dynamics.  A few years ago, members from the global South, in reaction to the Northern bias of the association, formed the Global South Caucus.  The Third Global South International Studies Workshop met in Havana from July 6 to July 8, 2017.  

      Academic meetings are characterized by panels of three or four panelists, each presenting a paper, providing an oral summary of the paper in ten or fifteen minutes.  There often is a discussant, who ought to have received the full papers in advance, and who provides a critical analysis of the papers presented.  Generally, there are two or three such sessions of two hours concurrently, combined with a few plenary sessions that does not have to compete with other concurrent sessions. Many academic meetings make a determined effort to ensure that there are thirty minutes to an hour dedicated to questions and comments from the audience, with the panelists given an opportunity to respond.  It is a tedious structure, too much for most participants to take in for eight hours each day.  But it has the advantage that all participants has an opportunity to present, however briefly, there ongoing work.

     The presentations and commentaries during the proceedings of the 2017 ISA Global South Workshop in Havana revealed the limitations of those employed as professors in the English-speaking universities of the Global North.  These limitations include a disconnection from Latin American perspectives; an insufficient knowledge of critical political actors in Latin American today, namely, Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States; and an insufficient critical analysis of the epistemological assumptions that ground the rules of the bureaucratized university of the North.  

      There was in evidence at the meetings a tendency to view certain governments, repeatedly labeled as “regimes,” as repressive.  Such supposedly repressive governments include China, Russia, Venezuela, and to a certain extent, Cuba.  Inasmuch as a solid understanding of the dynamics in these nations was not demonstrated, I assume that the participants had been influenced by the demonizing distortions of these governments in the major international news media.  

     In addition, there was the frequently expressed view that Chinese foreign policy is imperialist, and in this regard, the participants in the conference were standing against the prevailing view in Cuba and the Latin American Left in general.  A notable exception to the prevailing anti-China view at the conference was a paper presented by Dr. Betty Sedoc-Dahlberg, an independent scholar from Suriname.  Dr. Sedoc-Dahlberg maintains that, because of the more just trade that China accepts with her commercial partners, the nations of the Third World will be increasingly oriented to trade with China during the next twenty years, establishing the dominance of the Chinese approach in international affairs.  Casting aside the prevailing cynicism that distrusts the motives of any major global actor, she discerns the wisdom of the Chinese approach, inasmuch as mutually beneficial trade is in the common interest of humanity, and as such, it establishes the possibility for a future stable international relations and a multicultural global civilization.

      Dr. Sedoc-Dahlberg’s conclusion points to a more hopeful possibility for humanity than what can be projected on the basis of the current dynamics of the world-system.  But the rules of academia do not permit the optimistic approval of a particular political project.  They require a detached neutrality, in which the researcher does not take sides.  The embracing of proclamations by revolutionary leaders (like “A better world is possible,” “We are making real the dreams of Bolívar and Martí,” and “We can save humanity”) is not permitted.  Scholars are expected by their publishers and universities to find fault with popular social movements and progressive governments.  Of course, critical analysis is necessary, but what is expected is not a constructive critique that could possibly help find the road to human emancipation, but a destructive critique that discredits.  Because in the final analysis, the rules and structures of higher education in the North are designed to reaffirm the status quo by discrediting all proposed alternatives that cannot be coopted.

       I observed with sympathy the efforts of scholars of the South who are working in the universities and research centers of the North.  Some were asking the right questions and were seeking to develop scholarship characterized by fidelity to their national and cultural roots. But they seemed a little lost, disconnected from historic popular struggles.  In Cuba, one hears constant reference to the heroes that formed and led the struggle since 1968.  But the outstanding leaders and intellectuals of the African world and the African diaspora were for the most part absent in the reflections at the conference, and not present as a point of departure and as a source of inspiration.  At the same time, the participants were disconnected from the alternative world projected in theory and practice in Latin America today, from which principles and possible strategies could be discerned.

      Above all, what is needed is a connection between the English-speaking academics of the North and the revolutionary theory and practice of Latin America today.  Since the time of Marx, it has been possible for us to see that the most advanced understanding of human social dynamics emerges from connection to the revolutionary movements from below.  Today, in the context of the sustained crisis of the world-system, the Latin American popular revolutions have reached an advanced stage, and they constitute a source for our inspiration in the North.

Posted July 5, 2017
 
      There have been criticisms everywhere of Donald Trump’s June 16 speech announcing a hardening of the Cuba embargo, as it is called in the United States.  The criticisms of Trump’s Cuba policy reveal the limited understanding and influence of the so-called Left in the United States, and the narrow perspective and strategy of the opponents of the “embargo.”

      Some have argued that the embargo violates the rights of U.S. citizens to engage in commerce and to travel.  However, we ought to appreciate that the rights to trade and travel are not without limit. Governments reasonably and necessarily regulate them, and they have the authority to restrict them, if there are compelling reasons.  In defense of its embargo, the U.S. government has claimed that the Cuban government is undemocratic and denies human rights.  If this were true, a case reasonably could be made that the U.S. government has the authority to impose restrictions on its citizens with respect to Cuba, as a dimension of a foreign policy promoting democracy in the world.

     Therefore, the legitimacy of the U.S. government’s restrictions of its citizens with respect to Cuba depends upon the validity of its claim that Cuba is not democratic.  Yet many of those who oppose the embargo assume that Cuba has an undemocratic political process, and they do not analyze the U.S. government’s claim to this effect.  They in effect are saying, “It may be that Cuba violates human rights, but our farmers and agricultural enterprises want to sell there, and our citizens want to travel there, so let’s ignore violations of human rights.”  This is a weak and unprincipled argument.  Trump has the moral upper hand when he calls for a return to a Cuba policy that makes clear a commitment to democratic values and for an end to tolerance of violations of human rights.

     Those who oppose the economic and financial blockade of Cuba should challenge the fundamentally false assumption, held by both defenders and opponents of the embargo, that the Cuban political process is undemocratic and that Cuba denies human rights.  Such an argument would go beyond pointing to the excellent and universal systems of health and education in Cuba.  It would explain the Cuban alternative structures of popular democracy, which function without electoral parties and without campaign contributions.  These structures were developed in the 1970s by the revolutionary project as an alternative to representative democracy, which the revolutionary leadership perceived as a form of democracy that benefits those with greater financial resources.  The outstanding health and educational systems are a consequence of popular democracy.  Inasmuch as the elected delegates to the National Assembly of Popular Power are not dependent on the campaign contributions of a corporate class to sustain their political careers, they are free to address the social and economic rights of the people, to the extent that limited resources permit.  Once this is understood, one could not reasonably deny that Cuba has exemplary norms and practices with respect to democracy and human rights; and the deceptions and distortions of the politicians and political intellectuals who created and have maintained the embargo would stand exposed.  

     The embargo should be ended not because it restricts the trade and travel of U.S. citizens, but because it was established and is maintained on false premises.  Presenting such an argument requires knowledge of the Cuban political process and its structures of popular democracy, However, for the most part, the U.S. opponents of the blockade have not informed themselves of the Cuban political process and the historical development of its structures, which would provide them with a potent arm in the battle of ideas.

     Some have argued that the “embargo” has not worked, so we need to use other strategies in undermining the Cuban Revolution.  They ask, “What other strategies could we try?”  They do not ask, “Why has the embargo failed?”  If they were to reflect on the latter question with seriousness and persistence, they eventually would arrive to awareness that the Cuban Revolution is a popular democratic revolution, capable of invoking the people to material sacrifice in defense of their revolution.  

     If they subsequently were to ask, “Was our mistaken policy with respect to Cuba simply a misunderstanding of the particular situation in Cuba, or have we opposed democracy in other nations as well?” Serious and persistent investigation of this question would lead to awareness that U.S. opposition to popular democratic revolutions and governments is the general norm in U.S. foreign policy, even as the United States persistently claims that its actions promote and protect democracy.  If such awareness were combined with commitment to the proposition that U.S. foreign policy ought to be based in democratic values, it would lead to a search for a democratic reformulation of foreign policy, based on the principle of respect for the sovereignty of all nations, rejecting imperialism in its various manifestations.

      Barack Obama was among those who argued that the Cuba embargo is not working, and he sought an alternative strategy for undermining the Cuban Revolution.  The Obama strategy was to promote the expansion of an entrepreneurial middle class, which would ally itself with U.S. economic interests and seek changes in Cuba that would facilitate greater possibilities, with less regulation, of foreign investment in Cuba.  Like his ten predecessors, Obama assumed that Cuban political processes and structures are undemocratic.  And like all U.S. presidents from William McKinley to George W. Bush, Obama pursued imperialist policies with respect to Cuba, Latin America, Asia and Africa, seeking to secure markets for U.S. goods and capital.  The Obama opening was characterized by a turn to a different imperialist strategy, keeping intact the goal of undermining the Cuban popular democratic socialist revolution.  At the same time, the U.S. Left did not seize the moment of the opening with Cuba to ask the necessary relevant questions that would expose and delegitimate the essentially anti-democratic character of U.S. foreign policy.

      Some have argued that the June 16 discourse of Trump is a return to the outdated language of the Cold War.  It is true that Trump’s anti-communist rhetoric seemed like it belonged to an earlier time.  But the Cold War had distinct dimensions.  Insofar as it was a confrontation between hostile and competing empires, the Cold War ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern European socialist bloc.  But the Cold War also had its manifestations in the Third World, and the issues at stake in the Third World did not disappear with the collapse of the Soviet Union.  Although U.S. foreign policy during the second half of the twentieth century was driven by an anti-communist ideology, U.S. opposition to certain Third World governments was not based in reality upon their communist or socialist tendencies, actual or fabricated.  What really was at issue for the United States was the insistence of these Third World governments on their national sovereignty.  They laid claim to the right of all nations to be truly independent, and accordingly, to develop their own policies with respect to domestic forms of property, distribution of land, and regulations concerning foreign investment and international capital flow.  They maintained that they had the right to exercise their sovereignty, without interference by foreign powers. Moreover, they influenced many other Third World governments to join in affirming certain principles that should guide international affairs, such as the rights of all nations and peoples to self-determination and development.  From the vantage point of the United States and the European ex-colonial powers, such pretensions to national sovereignty were an unacceptable threat to the neocolonial world-system, which depends on the subordination of the nations of the world, masked by formal political independence.  The rhetoric of the Cold War was invoked by the neocolonial powers as justifications for interfering in the affairs of nations, but this was an ideological maneuver that functioned to obscure that the issue at stake was the intention of some governments to establish the true sovereignty of their nations.

      The collapse of the Soviet Union placed independent-minded Third World governments at a political disadvantage; and external debt and the neoliberal project placed the Third World in an increasingly disadvantaged position economically.  With the anti-communist rhetoric less effective, the neocolonial powers turned to other ideological frames for justification of their interventionism, including the “War on Drugs” and terrorism, with the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 providing the basis for launching the “War on Terrorism.”  During the last two decades, as progressive and socialist governments in Latin America sought an autonomous road to development, the United States has justified its interventionism with any workable pretext, with allegations of violations of human rights and participation in drug trafficking being the most common.  The June 16 anti-communist discourse of Trump with respect to Cuba is fully consistent with the U.S. rhetorical distortions and interventionist policy toward progressive and socialist governments in Latin America today.   Trump’s rhetoric distorts, but it is not outdated

     The opponents of the Cuba embargo have to go beyond “it violates the rights of U.S. citizens,” “it hasn’t worked,” and “Trump uses an outdated rhetoric.”  They should condemn the policy in an integral form, making the case that the failure of the Cuba embargo, like the U.S. defeat in the Vietnam War, is a symptom of a larger problem.  In essence, that problem is the fundamentally undemocratic structures of the world-system, rooted in European conquest and colonial domination of vast regions of the world; and the imperialist policies of the United States, which are designed to preserve world-system structures and to secure a U.S. position of dominance in the neocolonial world-system. The embargo of Cuba has failed because it has been integral to an effort by a global power to preserve undemocratic world structures, standing against a revolution that proclaimed its democratic rights to sovereignty and self-determination.  The people of Cuba, led and formed by revolutionary leadership, understood this, and as a result, they have been willing to persistently sacrifice in defense of their revolution, finding in such persistence a sense of meaning and purpose, as each contributed in a modest way in making the world more democratic.  

      The persistence of the Vietnamese in the face of the barbarous attacks by U.S. military forces led to questioning of U.S. policy in Vietnam, which for many of us led to awareness of the essentially imperialist character of U.S. foreign policy.  Similarly, the persistence of Cuba in the face of the fifty-five year embargo establishes the possibility for popular education with respect to the essentially imperialist and undemocratic character of U.S. foreign policy, if progressive and Leftist activists and intellectuals were to explain it in these terms.  

      The people of the United States feel a sense of loss, for the nation is not what it once was.  Accordingly, they are susceptible to the influences of a Donald Trump, who speaks of making America great again.  He speaks of an America that once again defends democracy in the world, without ambiguity in its moral proclamations.  He wants to expand American military strength, thus investing in the nation’s strongest industry.  He calls upon U.S. corporations to invest in production at home, and he intends to free productive processes in the United States from excessive environmental regulations that result from the claims of idealist ecologists.  He wants to protect the U.S. border from illegal immigrants, who possibly include terrorists and drug dealers.  The Trump discourse recalls the memory of a great power that once was, a nation that sees itself as the most democratic, powerful, and wealthy nation in human history, and that acts in the world with confidence and decisiveness.

      The Left dismisses, but has never effectively debunked, the prevailing American grand narrative.  The Left should be working on a reconstruction of the American grand narrative: explaining the historical and economic reasons for the U.S. ascent and its relative decline; lifting up heroes from the history of popular movements in the United States, connecting the people to visionaries of the past and to historic popular struggles for democracy; and indicating the necessary national direction in the context of the sustained global crisis, in solidarity with the movements and peoples of the Third World.  Trump and his neoliberal opponents should be delegitimated by an informed public discourse that exposes the false premises of both, with respect to Cuba, the meaning of democracy, and the relation of the United States to Latin America and the world.

Posted February 22, 2017
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      The problem of immigration is, more precisely, a problem of uncontrolled international migration.  Some political leaders have reacted to the problem with proposals of exclusion, while others focus on inclusion and respecting the rights of the immigrants.  Neither band analyzes or proposes solutions to the global problem of uncontrolled international migration.  

     In his first month in office, President Donald Trump has taken decisive steps toward controlling and reducing immigration to the United States and deporting undocumented immigrants, consistent with his campaign rhetoric.  The measures taken by the Trump administration, although they have generated a high level of conflict and controversy, respond to concerns and fears of the people, inasmuch as there is widespread belief that the government has not been taking sufficient steps to control illegal immigration, and that the United States does not have sufficient employment or social services to receive immigrants, legal and illegal, from the impoverished and conflicted areas of the world.  

       Popular concerns are to some extent fed by the sometimes cavalier attitude with respect to immigration laws on the part of some of the defenders of the rights of the immigrants.  David Bacon, for example, criticizes the U.S. government for its enforcement (during republican and democratic administrations) of immigration laws, and he advocates direct action resistance against them.  He maintains that the firing and deportation of undocumented workers, in accordance with immigration laws, functions to ensure low-wage labor, because it leads to greater use of guest worker programs, which typically are limited to one year of employment (Bacon 2017).  Such commentary implies that nations do not have a right to enact laws controlling migratory flows, and to enforce them.   

      To be sure, immigration policies should not be driven by an orientation to providing a cheap labor supply and maximizing corporate profits.  But governments ought to control immigration, adopting policies that are designed to serve the good of the nation and the world; and to this end, all governments must enact, and should enforce, immigration laws.  

      The current demands of the Left for non-enforcement of immigration laws and its orientation to direct action resistance give the impression to the people that the Left does not recognize the right and the duty of government to enact and enforce immigration laws.  They give an impression of immaturity, irresponsibility, and idealist disconnection from real problems.  In this and in many issues, the Left conveys an image that does not inspire confidence, thus ensuring its limited influence among the people.  

      In the raging conflict, many have viewed the Trump anti-immigrant measures as a violation of a tradition in the United States of receiving immigrants.  Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, for example, declared that “there are tears running down the cheeks of the Statue of Liberty.”  However, comments of this kind ignore the fact that the situation today is fundamentally different from the great migrations of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  The world-economy has become stagnant since the 1970s, having overextended its geographical limits; and the U.S. economy has declined since the 1970s, relative to other core economies.  The immigrants today to the countries of the North are not being pulled by expanding economies; rather, they are being pushed by the increasing deterioration of economic and social conditions in peripheral and semiperipheral zones of the world-economy, and by the violence and chaos resulting from wars of aggression and interventions by the core powers.  

     The world situation is today out of control, with poverty and violence in many regions of the world, and uncontrolled migration from the most desperate countries.  The political elite, committed primarily to the defense of its interests and those of corporations, does not respond adequately to the situation.  Living in an exclusive manner, the members of the power elite are less adversely affected by the problems that the people face, such as that of uncontrolled international migration, so they have little interest in addressing them. This is sensed by the people of the United States, who do not have good understanding of global dynamics, but they do have the commonsense intelligence to intuit that the global situation is out of control and that the elite is responding only to its own particular interests.  This is why the anti-immigrant messages and actions of Trump are attractive to many of the people.

       In this situation, the Left does not have an adequate response.  It defends the rights of the immigrants, which of course is demanded and required by ancient prophetic calls of justice for the poor, the oppressed, and the foreigner.  But defending the rights of legal and illegal immigrants is not enough.  What is required is a credible and workable alternative to the anti-immigrant discourse and policies of the Right.  The Left, however, does not come close to offering an alternative.  It dismisses the concerns of the people as symptoms of xenophobia.  It does not take seriously the concerns of the people and propose solutions to address them.  

     The Left should recognize the right of governments to enact and enforce immigration laws, and it should propose more just immigration laws, designed from the vantage point of the well-being of the people and the nation.   The guest worker program, for example, could be reformed, such that, instead of a maximum of one year, the worker’s participation could be renewed for a period of five to seven years, following which the worker would be eligible for permanent residence and citizenship.  The reform could include guarantees for the protection of the workers’ rights, including minimum wage and the right to organize.  It also could establish that criminal behavior would give the government the right to deport the worker.  The reform of the guest worker programs could be the basis for a controlled, orderly and legal migration that responds to: the need for workers in fields where labor is in short supply; the desire of persons to migrate to the United States; and the concerns of people in the United States with respect to the existing uncontrolled nature of immigration.  Such specific proposals for immigration reform should be at the forefront of the Left’s presentation, for they would convey a much more mature and responsible image to the people than do calls for non-enforcement of laws and direct action resistance.  It is a question of having the political intelligence to propose solutions to problems and having the patience and the capacity to educate the people on the reasonableness of the proposed solutions.

     In addition, the Left should be explaining to the people that uncontrolled international migration is one of several symptoms of the sustained structural crisis of the neocolonial world-system, which demonstrate its unsustainability.  It should make clear that, in the long run, the problem of uncontrolled international migration will be overcome when the regions from which the migrants come experience economic and social development.  Accordingly, the governments of the North should be cooperating with the governments and movements of the Third World, seeking to promote the development of peripheral and semiperipheral regions, so that a just, democratic and sustainable world-system can emerge.  

     I will have further commentaries on the need of the Left to formulate an alternative discourse in subsequent posts in the series of posts on Trump.

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​Reference
 
Bacon, David.  2017. “What Donald Trump Can and Can't Do to Immigrants,” NACLA Newsletter, February 6.

Posted February 23, 2017

      The other day I was getting caught up on my breakfast reading, taking a look at an article in the Sunday edition of the Cuban newspaper, Juventud Rebelde, written by three Cuban journalism students.  I said to my Cuban wife, “According to this article, the proposed wall on the U.S.-Mexican border will cost twenty-five billion dollars, and it will consume seven million cubic meters of concrete and a million cubic meters of cement.”  She replied, “You could build a lot of houses with that quantity of concrete and cement.”  Olga Lidia is a mineralogical engineer and a member of the Cuban Communist Party, and she persistently demonstrates a good head for technical and practical issues, combined with a commitment to social justice for the people.

      Reading on, I saw that the three Cuban journalism students were doubtful that the wall would have any effect.  They observed that the traffickers of drugs and other illegal products always find alternative methods for entering the United States when their existing methods confront new obstacles.  They asked, “Why would the illegal trafficking of human persons be any different?”  I began to imagine expanded opportunities for those in the business of fabricating documents; or for those who have boats capable of transporting persons from the Mexican Gulf coast to the shores of Texas or Louisiana, or from the Pacific coast of Mexico to California.

     Since the wall might not have much effect on the number of persons who enter the United States illegally, maybe we should go with Olga Lidia’s idea.  Rather than using all that concrete and cement to little effect, why don’t we use them to construct houses in Mexico?  If we were to do it in cooperation with the government of Mexico, we could be the co-sponsors of a significant housing program in Mexico. This would be consistent with what we should be doing with respect to the problem of uncontrolled international migration: cooperating with the governments of the Third World in promoting the economic and social development of their nations, so that their people do not feel compelled to undertake the risky journey to the North in order to make a living and to provide financial support for their extended families back home.

     On February 21, the Trump administration released documents that reveal plans for a significant increase in deportation of undocumented immigrants.  The new measures would include: an expansion of the expedited deportation process, which would affect undocumented immigrants that have been in the country for less than two years; the detention of undocumented immigrants while their deportation cases are being processed; and the training of local police officers for cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the enforcement of immigration laws.  

     For the most part, the new measures point to a more complete and more efficient enforcement of U.S. immigration laws.  As the New York Times writes, “President Trump has directed his administration to enforce the nation’s immigration laws more aggressively, unleashing the full force of the federal government to find, arrest and deport those in the country illegally. . . .  Because of the changes, millions of immigrants in the country illegally now face a far greater likelihood of being discovered, arrested and eventually deported.”  Whereas the Obama administration gave priority to the deportation of undocumented immigrants who had been convicted of serious crimes, the new measures are directed against undocumented immigrants in general, regardless of whether they have committed serious crimes. The new measures are intended to achieve “faithful execution of our immigration laws,” according to John F. Kelly, the secretary of homeland security.  They seek to overcome a legacy of lax enforcement, which has created an endless flow of illegal immigrants, according to some Congressional Republicans.

      Why is there a legacy of lax enforcement of immigration laws?  It is a consequence of the U.S. government catering to the interests of corporations that have an interest in a supply of low-wage labor, unprotected by any labor rights or labor laws.  Although lax enforcement benefitted certain corporations and other employers of domestic labor and informal workers, it was unjust to the undocumented immigrants themselves.  The great majority were pushed by the limited economic opportunities in their countries of origin, some with a distorted image defined by the “American Dream,” and others with a determination to provide support for their families in their native countries.  The situation of lax enforcement combined with restricted legal immigration compelled many to make exorbitant payments to traffickers, to undertake physical risks, and to exist in a condition of perpetual illegality and uncertainty.

       The legacy of lax enforcement has had consequences for the people of the United States, and we are experiencing today its political effects.   The New York Times reports that the new measures will be supported by Trump’s “core constituency — those who blame unauthorized immigrants for taking jobs away from citizens, committing heinous crimes and being a financial burden on federal, state and local governments.”  The New York Times maintains that these folks are mistaken: “research shows lower levels of crime among immigrants than among native-born Americans.”  Many advocates of immigrants’ rights point to this fact, and they also note that the immigrants hold jobs that no one else wants, and they contribute more to the economy and they take.

       But isn’t it understandable for people with little meaningful personal contact with illegal immigrants to believe the worst about them, even though untrue?  Isn’t understandable, in a world that is uncertain and insecure on many fronts, for people to have doubts about eleven million persons who entered the country in a form that nullified normal legal requirements for review, and who are compelled by their circumstances to live in a kind of permanent illegality?  If for no other reason than the potential of erosion of confidence in public institutions, lax enforcement of immigration laws should not have occurred.  The fact that it was permitted by the political-corporate elite, ignoring the inquietudes of the people, has now led to a level of popular support for the anti-immigrant rhetoric of Trump, who is taking decisive action to rectify the lax enforcement.  Thus far, however, the Trump administration does not show any indication of turning to enforcement of immigration laws in a manner that makes any allowance for the fact that the U.S. government has encouraged illegal immigration for years, through a combination of lax enforcement and limited legal immigration.  

      Before this situation, the Left has not had a politically effective and comprehensive proposal.  It has a limited understanding of the global sources of the problem of uncontrolled international migration.  It has not proposed reasonable strategies in response to the problem, and even less has it figured out how to explain to the people the benefits to the nation and the world of its proposed strategies.  It has embraced the cause of the rights of immigrants, as it should.  But it has done so in a manner that appears to imply advocacy of lax enforcement.  Thus the Left came to be seen as part of the problem by a significant sector of the people, enough to make possible the election of Trump as well as a level of popular support for his immigration policies.   

      The Left has come to the defense of the rights of immigrants, but without a comprehensive proposal with respect to the problem of uncontrolled international migration.  Moreover, it has not taken seriously the inquietudes of the people, dismissing them as manifestations of racism and xenophobia.  With its limited understanding and attitude of moral superiority, the Left has discredited itself in the eyes of the people, thus undermining its influence.  The Left is reduced to shouting from the sideline, scarcely present in a public debate between the corporate neoliberalism and the neo-nationalism of Trump and his team.  The protests of the Left are sometimes noticed, but this is hardly a venue for effective explanation.

      The Left must reconstruct its discourse on a foundation of an historical and global understanding that is rooted in universal philosophical-historical-social science.  It must explain to the people in a manner that respects the sentiments and the common-sense intelligence of the people, even as it recognizes that the people must be educated.  In regard to the problem of uncontrolled international migration, the Left should be proposing: cooperation with Third World governments, seeking Third World economic and social development, so that the people will have more opportunities to earn a living in their native lands; an end to the aggressive wars and proxy wars in the Middle East, so that people are not forced to flee the violence being unleashed in their native countries; a controlled process of international migration, with work permits and permanent residency being legally emitted on a scale that fully responds to the labor needs of the United States, thus creating an orderly process for persons from other nations who desire to migrate to the United States; full respect for the labor rights of foreign nationals with work visas, including the right to organize; amnesty for most illegal immigrants that have been living in the country for more than two years, in recognition of U.S. government complicity in illegal immigration, by virtue of its lax enforcement combined with its limits on legal immigration; and the full and effective enforcement of U.S. immigration laws, with the cooperative participation of various U.S. law enforcement agencies. 

       The Left in the nations of the North must recognize that international immigration is out of control.  It cannot simply seek to protect the rights of immigrants, without seeking to attend to the issue of uncontrolled international immigration, which itself is a symptom of the sustained structural crisis of the world-system.  It cannot dismiss the inquietudes of the people, rather than attending to them.  It must make clear its commitment to: overcoming the current chaos with respect to international migration; the establishment of a legal, controlled, orderly and safe process of international migration; the enactment of just laws and policies with respect to immigration and the rights of immigrants; the enforcement of the nation’s laws; and cooperation with other nations in a quest for a just and sustainable world-system. To continue on its erroneous path of defending the rights of immigrants while dismissing the inquietudes of the people as racist and xenophobic would be to perpetuate its marginality, and thus leave the political terrain open for right-wing politicians made in the image of Donald Trump.

Posted March 8, 2017
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      The Third World project of national and social liberation is a comprehensive project that embraces universal human values, including respect for the sovereignty and equality of nations, the social and economic rights of all persons, and the rights of nature.  It continues to present itself to the colonized and neocolonized peoples of the world as an alternative to accommodation to the West, to traditionalism, and to terrorism.  And it continues to present itself to the global powers as the best hope for the future of humanity.  It seeks, through popular democratic political processes, to take control of states, and from this position of political power, to reduce global political and economic inequalities and to conserve ecological stability.  

     Since the Third World emerged with a definable global project in the 1950s, the West has consistently tried to destroy it.  The global powers have supported and cultivated politicians who are oriented to accommodation to the West, including many who were brutal dictators; they have assassinated charismatic leaders who could not be bought; and they have utilized all kinds of military, economic and ideological attacks against Third World nations that persisted in an autonomous road.

       The attack on the Third World project, which stands without moral and reasonable defense, must be understood by the leaders and intellectuals of the Left in the North, and it must be central to the narratives that they are formulating for presentation to their peoples. Alternative narratives of the Left in the North must be moral indictments of the global powers, for their irresponsibility in rejecting the proposals of the Third World project and in leading humanity to a condition of deep and sustained global crisis.  In the United States, such a narrative would enable the Left to mobilize the people in opposition to the neoliberal policies of Reagan-Bush I-Clinton-Bush II-Obama as well as the neofascist project of Trump and his team.  It would delegitimate both neoliberalism and neofascism for their false “war or terrorism.”  It would discredit the former for failing to respond to the sources of uncontrolled international migration, and the latter for attacking the human rights of immigrants.  

     The Left narrative ought to include a number of key points.  (1)  It ought to include an alternative narrative on Islamic history.  It ought to defend and explain the project of Nasser as form of Islamic modernism, which took a middle position between accommodation to the West and Islam traditionalism, and which envisioned modern, independent and republican nation-states in the Arab world.  It ought to make clear the strategy of Western governments to block the project of Nasser, whose crime was a desire to be truly independent and not subject to the neocolonial domination of the West.  And it ought to expose the support of the United States and its accommodationist allies for Islamic traditionalism and Islamic extremism, in its efforts to destroy Nasserism (see Ansary 2009:261-68, 324-26; Prashad 2007:31-34, 51-52, 96-99, 148; Schulze 2000:148-52, 174-75).

     (2)  A narrative of the Left ought to explain the formation of OPEC in 1960 as an example of the general Third World strategy of creating public commodity cartels that united raw materials exporting nations.  It ought to defend this Third World strategy as justified, for it had hoped to curb the power of the private cartels that had been formed by the manufacturers and distributers of the West, with the belief that public primary product cartels would enable exporting nations to set prices for their raw materials, thus generating more income for investment in national industry and social development (Prashad 2007:69-70, 180-86; 2012:16-21).  The narrative of the Left ought to support all Third World efforts to promote the economic and social development of the Third World, declaring that the development of the poor nations is necessary, if humanity is to attain a world-system that is not only just, but also politically stable and economically and ecologically sustainable.

     (3)  A narrative of the Left ought to expose the strategy of the U.S. government in the 1970s to pressure Arab governments to invest oil surplus money in the banks of the North and to purchase arms manufactured in the West, thus severing the oil surplus revenues from the Third World project of national and social liberation.  The goal of the strategy, in addition to obtaining funds for the banks and arms manufacturers of the North, was to stimulate a limited form of development in the Arab world that was consistent with the interests of the West.  This successful strategy led to an accommodation between the Arab elite and the West, an accommodation that included support for an Islamic version of religious fundamentalism (Ansary 2009: 335-42; Prashad 2012:21-24).  As we have seen (see “Trump and the war on terrorism, Part Two” 2/21/2017), Islamic literalism grew significantly with U.S. and Saudi support as the Nasserist project was unable to attain its hopes for social and economic development.
      
     (4)  A narrative of the Left ought to make clear that the United States turned to direct support for Islamic insurgency, rather than indirectly through Saudi Arabia, in Afghanistan in the 1980s.  As we have seen (see “Trump and the war on terrorism, Part Two” 2/21/2017), the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan led to the establishment of the country as a base of operations for jihadists who were undertaking a war against the West, including the adoption of a new form of terrorism, consisting of a strategy of indiscriminate killing of civilians.

     (5)  A narrative of the Left ought to present an alternative approach to the war on terrorism.  It ought to make clear that by blocking the reasonable and just changes sought in theory and practice by Nasserism and other Third World projects of national and social liberation, the West created a political and social environment favorable to terrorism.  Although the capture and criminal prosecution of terrorists is necessary in the short-term, the most effective way to eliminate the scourge of terrorism in the long term would be for the global powers to support and cooperate with movements and governments of the Third World.  This would require that the global powers cease their efforts to preserve the basic structures of the neocolonial world-system, which would require an alternative political will.  

    The Left must be present with a politically effective narrative, explaining that a more just, democratic and sustainable world-system is necessary for the survival of humanity and for the continued development of human societies and human civilization.  The Left should present to the people a well-formulated alternative to the neoliberalism that reigned from Reagan to Obama and the neofascism of Trump.

References
 
Ansary 2009:, Tamim.  2009.  Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes.  New York: Public Affairs.
 
Prashad, Vijay.  2007.  The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World.  New York: The New Press.
__________.  2012.  The Poorer Nations: A possible history of the Global South.  London: Verso.
 
Schulze 2000:, Reinhard.  2000.  A Modern History of the Islamic World.  New York: New York University Press.


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Posted March 9, 2017
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    As I have maintained (see “Trump on immigration” 2/22/2017), the Left makes a strategic error in defending the rights of immigrants in a form that explicitly or implicitly advocates non-enforcement of immigration laws.  Instead, the Left should make specific proposals for more just immigration laws, and it should make clear its commitment to a legal, controlled, and orderly process of international migration, developed and enforced through the cooperation of various nations.  

     Some have defended the rights of immigrants by noting that the United States has a history of openly receiving immigrants, and that departing from this tradition violates American values.  Such an argument, however, ignores fundamental aspects of the history and contemporary reality of the United States and the world-system.  Yes, it is the case that following a period of colonization and settlement by people from England, the British Isles, and Northwestern Europe, there occurred, during the period 1865 to 1914, open and legal mass migrations to the United States from Ireland and Southern and Eastern Europe.  However, we should understand the context of these migrations.  During that period, the world-economy was expanding, as a result of the peripheralization of vast regions of Asia and Africa; and the United States was ascending, as a result of rapid industrialization, utilizing capital that had been accumulated through trade with the slave region of the Caribbean and the U.S. South.  The United States needed workers for its rapidly expanding industrial economy, and it therefore had an open immigration policy.  

      But the situation today is entirely different.  There is a significant illegal international migration, and it is provoked not by the expansion of the economies of the North, but by the collapse of economic and social structures in peripheral and semiperipheral regions of the world-economy.  That such a collapse would occur is entirely predictable, if one understands the structures of the neocolonial world-system, which deepen underdevelopment and poverty in the peripheral and semiperipheral zones.

     In looking at the history of immigration in the United States, we should be aware that the immigration of 1865 to 1914, even though it was a legal and economically necessary migration, provoked hostility from native-born U.S. citizens, because of the ethnic and religious makeup of the immigrants.  Such hostility gave rise to a nativist movement and to a curbing of immigration in the 1920s as well as to cultural pressures for the “Americanization” of the immigrants.  If in a favorable economic context, a legal migration provoked hostility among a sector of the people, certainly it would be expected that, in today’s uncertain times, an illegal immigration would become a politically exploitable issue.  So the issue has to be intelligently addressed by the Left.

      A narrative of the Left ought to explain the sources of the uncontrolled international migration in the structures of the neocolonial world-system.  And it ought to explain that international migration would be reduced by the transformation of neocolonial structures and the development of a just and sustainable world-system, which among other things, would respect the right of all nations to economic and social development and the right of all persons to have the possibility to earn a decent standard of living in their native lands.  To this end, the narrative of the Left should include proposals for North-South cooperation, in which the governments of the North cooperate with the governments and movements of the Third World in developing mutually beneficial trade and in promoting the economic and social development of the Third World.

     The Left, however, does not explain to the people the source of the problem of uncontrolled international migration, and even less does it offer a solution.  It does not propose a comprehensive project of North-South economic and social cooperation, so that the problem of uncontrolled international migration could be attacked at its source, which would include cooperation among governments to ensure a legal, controlled, orderly and safe process of international migration. The Left acts as though the problem is simply xenophobia, rather than an international situation that is out of control on many levels, with elites behaving in interested and irresponsible ways, all of which is sensed by the people. 

      In his address to the Congress on February 28, Trump declared that “it is not compassionate, but reckless, to allow uncontrolled entry from places where proper vetting cannot occur.”  In this declaration he was correct.  There is an historic tendency in the Left to indulge in extreme and reckless proposals, with disdain for laws and structures of authority in any form, even those that are legitimate and necessary for social order.  But if we observe revolutionary processes in Russia and in the nations and colonies of Asia, Africa, Latin American and the Caribbean for the last 225 years, we see that revolutions involve the taking of power by leaders who have the backing of the people, and that the leaders do not obtain popular support through irresponsible and reckless proposals or behavior.  Far from being revolutionary, reckless proposals and behavior are examples of infantile Left-wing radicalism, which Lenin condemned as a significant threat to revolutionary processes (see “The infantile disorder of the Left” 12/19/2016).  The Left must recognize that uncontrolled international migration is a social problem that reflects social disorder and insecurity in the migrants’ countries of origin, and it implies a level of social disorder and insecurity in the countries where the migrants arrive, provoking popular concerns in said countries.  The Left must intelligently analyze the problem of uncontrolled international migration, and it must formulate politically intelligent proposals that defend the rights of the migrants and that also attend to the social disorder that is both source and consequence of the international migration that exists in the world today.

     In defending the rights of the immigrants, the Left is morally right.  But its response is politically and analytically weak, not informed by an historical and global analysis that would be the basis for proposed solutions that address the fears and concerns of the people.  In contrast to the Left, Trump appears to be acting decisively against the government bureaucracy and in defense of the concerns of the people.  On the issue of immigration, the Left has the moral advantage, but Trump has the political upper hand.  On this as in other issues, the Left has to reconstruct its formulation.