In my last post, I maintained that the Marxist-Humanist Initiative does not discern the evolution of Marx’s philosophy in connection with the Russian Revolution and subsequent revolutions of national and social liberation in the Third World (“The relation between theory and practice” 9/9/2016).  I continue today with critical reflections on the Marxist-Humanist Initiative.  

     The Marxist-Humanist Initiative maintains that when socialist revolutions arrived to power, they did not proceed to establish “a truly new, human socioeconomic system” in accordance with the philosophy of Marx.  It maintains that nationalization of the economy and the financial system does not transform capitalism.  It argues that, in nationalizing industry, agriculture and banking, socialist revolutions were developing structures not essentially different from capitalist nations that regulate the economy and intervene in the economy in defense of the interests of the capitalist class.  It asserts that both state ownership of economic enterprises and state regulation in support of private capital belong to the state-capitalist stage of capitalism, as was analyzed by Raya Dunayevskaya.

     Marx’s vision of the abolition of alienated labor, hierarchy and the state was rooted in his observations of the technological development of large-scale capitalism toward automated industry.  However, the anti-colonial movements for national and social liberation took power in social and economic conditions very different from those that Marx was observing.  Moreover, the triumphant revolutions confronted serious political and economic obstacles: the determined and morally unconstrained resistance of the global powers and their allies within the nation seeking liberation; the deep roots of national economic structures, designed to facilitate the wealth of the few and the poverty of the many; and the established weight of global commercial and financial structures, designed to protect the interests of the Western power elite.  At the same time, triumphant revolutions faced the challenge of feeding the people and providing for their materials needs, in order to maintain popular support for the revolution.

     Accordingly, in Third World nations in which socialist revolutions triumphed, charismatic leaders reformulated the meaning of socialism on the basis of reflection on their particular conditions.  And recognizing that their societies did not have the possibility to fully develop socialism, even in accordance with their reformulated socialist vision, they declared their nations to be in transition to socialism.  

       Thus, we can understand Third World socialist nations as characterized by the political will to take steps toward socialism, to the extent that such steps are politically and economically possible.  In spite of their incomplete and imperfect character, the socialist revolutions maintain that they have established political and economic structures significantly different from capitalist societies, for they have developed: structures of popular democracy, eliminating the electoral farce of representative democracy and establishing a decision-making process of, by and for the people; protection of the social and economic rights of the people, including universal and free health care and education; defense of the sovereignty of their nations, blocking imperialist and neoliberal intentions; and a foreign policy based on cooperation and solidarity, rather than domination and superexploitation.  They see themselves, and they are seen by progressive and Leftist social movements throughout the Third World, as in the vanguard of a global movement that seeks a transition from a capitalist world-economy to a socialist world-system. 

     Certainly, if a triumphant socialist revolution does nothing more that nationalize industrial and agricultural enterprises and convert them into state property, this step in and of itself does not imply a significant move toward socialism.  However, this step is integral to a transition to socialism, when it is accompanied by other measures, such as: the elimination of representative democracy and the development of popular democracy; the nationalization of the media of communication, thus restricting the capacity of the wealthy to ideologically manipulate the people; the cultivation of values of cooperation and solidarity through educational institutions and the media; the teaching of national and world history in a form that is liberated from the distortions of the previous ruling class; and the formation of community and political leaders, intellectuals, and artists with advanced scientific understanding of national and global social dynamics.  Third World socialist revolutions have taken such steps, and we intellectuals of the North, whose own nations are floundering between reform and reaction, should obverse these revolutions, as we seek to understand socialism and envision a future socialist world-system.

     The development of the capitalist world-economy since Marx’s time has made some of his conclusions dated.  We should take today not Marx’s conclusions, but his method, and seek to understood capitalism and socialism from the vantage point of social movements from below, most fully expressed in Third World socialist nations.  In Third World nations that have declared their intention to build socialism, the delegates of the people are taking concrete steps in the transition from a capitalist world-economy to a socialist world-system.  They are building socialism in practice each day, and it is through reflection on that experience that we intellectuals of the North must construct our theory of socialism.


Key words: Third World, socialism, Marx, Marxist-Humanist Initiative

     In my last post (“The Dangers of Trump and Trumpism” 9/5/2016), I expressed my agreement with the editors of With Sober Senses: A publication of Marxist-Humanist Initiative, who maintain that Trump represents a potential serious threat to civil liberties, and I supported their recommendation that voters in key Electoral College states where the outcome is uncertain should vote for Hillary Clinton.  In this post, I offer reflections on the Marxist-Humanist Initiative.

     The Marxist-Humanist Initiative maintains that “past revolutions have changed forms of property and political rule, but have failed to go on to uproot capital, abolish alienated labor and hierarchical society, and establish a truly new, human socioeconomic system.”  It maintains that a central reason for this failure has been “the lack of internalization of Karl Marx’s philosophy of revolution” and insufficient “theoretic preparation.” It seeks to contribute to the transformation of the world on the basis of a more complete understanding of Marx’s philosophy and its further development by Raya Dunayevskaya, whose writings span the period from 1941 until her death in 1987 (Statement of Principles of Marxist-Humanist Initiative).  

      I appreciate the Marxist-Humanist Initiative’s recognition of the importance of intellectual work and the necessary role of theory in forging emancipatory revolutionary processes. And I appreciate its recognition of the foundational significance of Marx’s work and the exemplary character of Marx, an intellectual educated in the university system of a relatively advanced Western European nation, for US intellectuals and academics.  However, Marx understood that concepts are shaped by social position, and he intuitively grasped that this limitation can be overcome and scientific knowledge attained through encounter with social movements formed from below.  The implications of this methodological insight for our understanding today are that intellectuals of the developed nations of the North ought to encounter the anti-neocolonial movements of the Third World as the foundation for the development of their understanding.  Such commitment has not been central to the Marxist-Humanist Initiative.

      In the 1840s, Marx, who had previously attained a doctorate in philosophy in his native Germany, encountered a social movement formed by workers, artisans and socialist intellectuals in Paris.  This personal encounter enabled him to discover relevant questions that were previously beyond his horizon, empowering him to formulate a critique of German philosophy and British political-economy from the vantage point of the worker.  Marx’s groundbreaking analysis of human history and the system of capitalism demonstrated that advances in understanding could be attained by analyzing the political-economic-social-cultural system from below.  Moreover, his life exemplified a methodological principle: intellectuals not organically tied to social movements from below can overcome the limitations imposed on their understanding by their social position through personal encounter with the social movements emerging from below, taking seriously the understandings of the leaders and organic intellectuals of the movements (McKelvey 1991).

      The work of Marx must be understood in relation to its time and place.  During the period 1750 to 1914, the modern-world system experienced a tremendous geographic expansion, as vast regions of Africa and Asia were conquered by the Western European colonial powers and incorporated into peripheral zones of the world economy, thereby facilitating the ascent of the United States and its imperialist projection toward Latin America.  The resulting increase in the material wealth of the Western colonial and imperialist powers enabled them to seduce, coopt and assimilate the working-class movements, undermining their revolutionary and emancipatory potential and channeling them toward reformism.  At the same time, the expanding and deepening structures of colonial domination and imperialist penetration gave rise to anti-colonial movements in Africa and Asia and popular anti-imperialist movements in Latin America.    

     Marx did not and could not fully anticipate these developments.  As a result of his social-temporal location, he could not have foreseen: the reformist turn of the proletarian movement in the West; the triumph of a proletarian-peasant revolution in Russia in 1917, resulting in a reformulation of Marx by Lenin and the emergence of “Marxism-Leninism;” the turn of the Russian Revolution to Stalinism; nor the rise of anti-colonial and anti-imperialist movements in the Third World that would challenge the political and economic structures and the ideological constructs of the neocolonial world-system, ultimately endeavoring to construct an alternative in theory and practice.  The most radical of the Third World revolutions have sought not only national liberation from European colonial and neocolonial domination and imperialist penetration, but also social liberation from national ruling classes that were tied to the Western-centered transnational capitalist class and that were accommodating to the interests of the Western powers.  The revolutions have been led by charismatic leaders, persons with exceptional capacities for political leadership and for understanding social dynamics, giving each of the revolutions a unified direction.  Of the six paradigmatic revolutions, three (China, Vietnam and Cuba) emerged during the stage of imperialism and transition to neocolonialism, and persist to the present; and three (Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador) emerged in the current post-imperialist stage of neoliberalism, in which the structural crisis of the neocolonial world-system is increasingly manifest.

     Just as Marx’s encounter with the revolutionary proletariat of Western Europe in the 1840s enabled him to formulate an advanced and comprehensive analysis from below, so today intellectuals of the developed nations can arrive to an advanced understanding of the capitalist world-economy and the modern world-system through personal encounter with the Third World movements of national and social liberation. Third World charismatic leaders and organic intellectuals have forged an evolution of Marxist-Leninist theory on a foundation of a constantly evolving political practice.   This theoretical development in Marxist theory must be taken seriously by Western Marxist intellectuals, if we are to arrive at an understanding that is not utopian and that is connected to existing global political-economic-social-ideological conditions.

Reference
 
McKelvey, Charles.  1991.  Beyond Ethnocentrism:  A Reconstruction of Marx’s Concept of Science.  New York:  Greenwood Press. 
 
 
Key words: Marx, Marxist-Humanist Initiative, Third World socialism

     In the context of discussion of my post, “Hillary Clinton or the Greens?” 8/24/2016, on the Progressive and Critical Sociologist Network List, Andrew Kliman sent a link to an editorial, “The Extraordinary Dangers of Trump and Trumpism,” published on August 29 in With Sober Senses: A publication of Marxist-Humanist Initiative.

      The Marxist-Humanist Initiative takes the works of Marx as the foundation of its perspective.  It maintains that socialist revolutions have not been guided by Marx’s philosophy of revolution, and that so-called socialist societies in reality are forms of “state capitalism.” Based on the writings of philosopher, activist and feminist Raya Dunayevskaya (1910-1987), the Marxist-Humanist Initiative maintains that “past revolutions have changed forms of property and political rule, but have failed to go on to uproot capital, abolish alienated labor and hierarchical society, and establish a truly new, human socioeconomic system” (Statement of Principles of Marxist-Humanist Initiative).

     In contrast, my perspective is based in the writings and speeches of Third World revolutionary leaders that have synthesized Marxism-Leninism with the Third World perspective.  In my view, Marx correctly discerned that the most advanced understanding of social dynamics could be attained by taking the vantage point of a revolutionary class, and in Marx’s time, the Western European working class was at the vanguard of the revolution seeking to transform the expanding capitalist world-economy.  However, the subsequent development of the capitalist world-economy and the modern world-system put the Russian proletariat at the vanguard of the world revolution from the period 1905 to 1924.  Subsequently, with the failure of the Western European working-class revolution, evident to Lenin by the early 1920s, and with the fall of the Russian Revolution to a bureaucratic counterrevolution with Stalin at the head, the role of vanguard of the global revolution passed to the colonized of the world, as Lenin understood.  From 1917 to the present, anti-colonial movements of national and social liberation in Asia, Latin America and Africa have reformulated Marxism-Leninism, in theory and practice, from the vantage point of the colonized.  There emerged charismatic leaders, persons with exceptional understanding and leadership capacity, such as Mao, Ho, Fidel, Nkrumah, Nyerere, and Nasser; and Chávez, Evo Morales and Rafael Correa in the neoliberal stage.  Third World charismatic leaders have led the revolutionary political process, and they have played a central role in the formulation of an understanding of human history and the capitalist world-economy from below, continuing the project that Marx initiated.  Third World Marxism-Leninism sees current socialist nations not as undemocratic forms of state capitalism but as characterized by popular democracy, as against representative democracy; and as making necessary economic adjustments to the changing conditions of the capitalist world-economy, seeking to defend the sovereignty of the nation and to defend the social and economic rights of the people, while reformulating the meaning of political and civil rights.  

      In spite of our different perspective, I and the editors of With Sober Senses have arrived to similar conclusions with respect to Trump. First, we agree that there is a significant difference between Trump and Clinton, because Trump represents a serious threat to civil liberties and freedoms of speech, press and organization.  The editors maintain that “we are witnessing the beginnings of what could develop into a modern Americanized version of the Nazis’ Schutzstaffel (SS).” They assert that “to falsely equate Trump and Clinton is to ignore the grave threat to our civil liberties and lives that Trump represents. He and Clinton are not ‘basically the same.’”  They further argue:

      Secondly, we agree that common sense requires taking the threat seriously, which means that US citizens voting in key Electoral College states, in which neither Clinton nor Trump have a decisive advantage, ought to vote for Clinton.  It is not a question of supporting Clinton or the democratic party, believing that she or the party is capable of leading the nation toward participation in the development of a more just, democratic or sustainable world-system.  Rather, it is a question of a strategic decision to cast a vote, as With Sober Senses expresses it, not in support of the lesser evil, but to order to prevent a greater evil.  

     In the long term, constant and diligent efforts should be maintained to develop an alternative party of the Left, whether it be in accordance with the vision of the Marxist-Humanist Initiative, or the Third World Marxism-Leninism to which I am committed.  A strategic decision to vote for Clinton in the 2016 presidential elections in no sense precludes efforts on behalf of the development of an alternative political party of the Left.

       A factor in our common strategic recommendation to vote for Clinton (and not the Green Party) in key Electoral College states is that the Marxist-Humanist Initiative and I share a similar view with respect to the limitations of the Green Party.  It clearly is not a Marxist party, and this is a serious limitation, inasmuch as Marx’s work represents the breakthrough to a more advanced understanding forged from below.  I view the Green Party has a popular party that seeks to develop a political force independent of the control of the corporate class, and it should be appreciated by the people for this effort.  But it is lacking in philosophical and political understanding and historical consciousness, and therefore, at the present time it does not have the capacity to lead the people toward their emancipation from corporate domination.  However, it could overcome these limitations in the long term, if it were to recognize them and to take decisive steps to overcome them, seeking to further develop its theory and practice (see “The Green Party Platform” 8/26/2016; “Can the Green Party evolve?” 8/29/2016).

​Key words: Trump, Clinton, presidential elections, Marxist-Humanist Initiative

       A recent poll found that 4% of voters support the Green Party of the United States.  This is a considerable achievement.  In recent decades, the third parties that were able to move beyond statistically insignificant levels of support in presidential elections were those that were formed by persons who were known previously to the public (Ralph Nader, Ross Perot, John Anderson), and their party structures dissipated following the elections.  The Greens have attained a level of popular support without benefit of a known personality, and they have developed permanent party structures that include candidates for various offices at different levels of government.  

     The emergence of the Greens is fully understandable in light of contemporary national and global dynamics.  The two principal parties in the United States have responded to the national economic and commercial decline and the structural crisis of the world-system by safeguarding the interests of the corporations and turning their backs on the people.  In contrast, the Green Party affirms the responsibility of government to protect the rights of the people.  The Green Party Platform upholds the social and economic rights of the people, advocating free tuition at public universities and vocational schools, universal health care, a minimum living wage for all, and measures to guarantee affordable housing.  Its platform includes affirmation of the fundamental moral principles of modern democratic revolutions, including respect for the sovereignty and self-determination of nations and for the right of workers to organize.  

     The Green Party Platform has good proposals for the creation of employment. It advocates public funding to create living-wage jobs in such areas as “environmental clean-up, recycling, sustainable agriculture and food production, sustainable forest management, repair and maintenance of public facilities, neighborhood-based public safety, aides in schools, libraries and childcare centers, and construction and renovation of energy-efficient housing.”  It calls for government subsidies for renewable energy companies, which among other benefits, would generate employment.

       Consistent with the widespread feeling among the people that the political process is not responsive to their needs, the Green Party Platform calls for reform of the electoral process, and it has several good proposals that would strengthen the capacity of officeholders to be independent of the demands and expectations of the corporate elite.  The proposed reforms include the enactment of proportional representation voting systems, full public funding for election campaigns, equal television and radio time for candidates, and the prohibition of corporate contributions to election campaigns.

      Although the political gains and moral commitment of the Green Party ought to be appreciated by the people, we must recognize that current objective and subjective conditions make possible a level of popular support for an alternative party of the Left much higher than four percent.  I believe that the inability of the Green Party to attain more support is a consequence of its limitations, which is revealed in the party platform, a document that is ahistorical, unphilosophical, and unreflective (see “The Green Party Platform” 8/26/2016).  In order for the Green Party to begin to play during the next thirty years the role that an alternative party of the Left can and must play, the party must incorporate into its leadership persons who are capable of leading the Green Party toward becoming a party that: is characterized by philosophical understanding, historical consciousness and political reflection; redefines what a political party is and does; takes seriously its mission of taking power; and is capable of forming alliances with various social movement organizations in all popular sectors.

     Philosophical understanding.  We all have perceptions of reality and opinions of what ought to be done.  But what is the foundation on which we can truly discern the true and the right?  This is the central philosophical question, and popular social movements (but not academic philosophy departments) have been teaching us the answer: we understand social reality from below.  Marx was the first to demonstrate this, by forging a comprehensive understanding of human history and the capitalist world-economy from the vantage point of the emerging Western European working class, thus moving Western European understanding beyond the conceptions of German philosophy and British political economy, which had been formulated from the vantage point of the bourgeoisie.  The Marxian breakthrough represented a threat to the established world order, inasmuch as it provided the epistemological foundation for the emancipation of the people.  Recognizing this, the dominant class has successfully marginalized the work of Marx.  Moreover, through donations and grants to universities, the dominant class has guided higher education toward a bureaucratization that has ensured that knowledge would not be formulated from below, and that it would be fragmented into specializations.  And so it was left to the charismatic leaders of the socialist revolutions of the world to further develop the insights of Marx, gradually creating a comprehensive understanding of human history and the capitalist world-economy, formulated from below, an understanding that has become a heritage of the popular social movements of the world.

      Inasmuch as the economic, political and cultural system in which we live is a world-system and a world-economy, in seeking to look at reality from below, we must take seriously the vantage point of those who form the dominated and superexploited sector of the entire world-system, and not merely the excluded in a particular nation.  Thus we must examine reality from the vantage point of the colonized.  We must seek to understand the insights of the charismatic leaders who have led the anti-colonial and anti-neocolonial movements formed by the peoples of the Third World during the last 200 years, which have sought to attain both national and social liberation.  In the discourses of leaders lifted up by the people and formed in heroic struggle, the insights from below can be found, enabling us all to discern the central dynamics of the world-system, thereby making possible united liberating political action by the people.

       Global historical consciousness.  What insights can be attained when we take seriously the discourses of the charismatic leaders of the Third World movements for national and social liberation?  Above all there emerges the understanding that the modern world-system and capitalist world-economy were built on a foundation of European conquest and colonial domination of vast regions of America, Africa and Asia; and that the Third World movements for the most part accomplished political independence but not true sovereignty and genuine independence, resulting in a neocolonial world-system in which the essential economic structures of the colonial era are preserved.  Thus, global structures continue to promote the development of the core nations as they promote the underdevelopment of the peripheral nations of the Third World.  

     In addition to enabling understanding of the foundation of the modern world-system, global historical consciousness, acquired through listening to the voices of the neocolonized, enables us to discern that the world-system is no longer sustainable.  Built on a foundation of conquest and expanding for four centuries through the conquest of new lands and peoples, the world-system has run out of lands and peoples to conquer, and thus it is no longer capable of its form of development, skewed to the advantage of the core nations.  It has entered a profound structural crisis, the signs of which have been evident since the 1970s.  This means, as the leaders and movements of the Third World understand, that the world-system must abandon the logic of domination in favor of a logic of cooperation, if is it to attain a new equilibrium.

      Fortified with global historical consciousness, an alternative political party of the Left would be able to delegitimate the ideology of the corporate elite and the strategy of the two political parties allied with it. It would be able to explain to our people that current US foreign policy cannot attain its objective of preserving US domination, because the world-system itself is no longer sustainable on a basis of domination. Aggressive economic and militaristic polices, although based on a certain logic, that of domination, have deepened the global crisis, have increased the decline of the United States, and have placed the earth and humanity at risk, as a consequence of the fact that they are inconsistent with current needs of the world-system.  An alternative direction is not only demanded by our fundamental values; it also is necessary.

     National historical consciousness.  Global historical consciousness helps us to understand our own nation in global context, and it would enable an alternative political party of the Left to debunk the dominant historical narrative of US ideology.  That narrative has many of our people believing that the United States has been a land of opportunity in which many ordinary people, many of them immigrants, experienced upward mobility through hard work.  But looking at US history in global context, we see that the economic ascent during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries of New England and the mid-Atlantic colonies was made possible by a lucrative trading relation with the Caribbean, in which middle class farmers of the English-American colonies sold food and animals to Caribbean slaveholders, who found it most profitable to use sugar income to purchase food and animals, rather than cultivate and raise them on their plantations.  It thus can be seen that the farmers of the English-American colonies, in addition to their work ethic, also possessed a blind eye with respect to the morality of slavery.  Their strategic economic and geographic location, combined with their capacity to be indifferent to the morality of their trading partners, enabled them to become middle class farmers who were accumulating capital.  A similar story would be repeated in the first half of the nineteenth century in a somewhat different form, as slaveholders in the US South sold cotton to northern US industry, inasmuch as the middle class farmers/merchants with accumulating capital were transferring capital into industry.  This North-South core-peripheral economic relation was central to the spectacular ascent of the United States during the nineteenth century.  In understanding the role of these regional economic relations in US commercial and industrial ascent, we see that the industrial expansion of the United States was rooted in slavery, or more precisely, the amoral capacity of upwardly ascending farmers and merchants to engage in lucrative trading relations with slaveholders.

     The rapidly expanding US industry needed factory labor, so the shores of the United States were made open to immigrants, mostly European peasants, during the nineteenth and the first quarter of the twentieth centuries.  These immigrants also experienced upward mobility, benefiting from an expanding national economy, built on slavery, and on an expanding world-economy, based on new European conquests in Africa and Asia.  The factory jobs that the new immigrants could attain, since they were in advanced and new industries in a core nation, were relatively good-paying, and the higher income enabled higher levels of education for the children of the factory workers. Persons of color, however, were excluded from this process of upward mobility, due to customs of racial segregation and job discrimination. Thus, the upward mobility of white immigrants in the United States was made possible not only by slavery but also by patterns of racial discrimination.

     By the time the United States decided to end racial discrimination in employment in 1964, the industrial expansion of the United States was coming to an end, and the world-system was entering a profound structural crisis.  The opportunity window was being closed just as the doors of racial barriers were being opened.  This dynamic made necessary a political will to pay the accumulated social debt to persons of color, in the form of programs of community development, employment, and education.  But the debt was not payed.  To the contrary, the people, both blacks and whites, were abandoned.

     An alternative political party armed with national historical consciousness could educate our people with respect to these basic dynamics.  In doing so, it would delegitimate the dominant ideological discourse. And it would discredit the leaders of the two political parties, who catered to the discourse and to the interests of the corporate elite, for their own gain.  It could call upon the people to cast aside the historically inaccurate narrative and to reject the political parties that have betrayed the nation and the people; and to support an alternative party that has attained, through its commitment to understanding and to justice for the people, a capacity to lead the nation in an alternative direction, in defense of the people.

     Political reflection.  What it is the meaning of democracy?  Elite control of the US political process and US educational institutions and news media has had the consequence that popular reflection on the meaning of democracy has been limited.  An alternative political party of the Left should endeavor to stimulate popular reflection on the concept of democracy, including an analysis of the class, racial and gender dynamics of the American Revolution, and the evolution of these dynamics since 1776.  It could put forth the proposition that democracy includes not only the protection of civil and political rights but also economic and social rights as well as the right of the self-determination and sovereignty of nations.  It could propose constitutional amendments that would guarantee the protection the social and economic rights of citizens, as has been done in new progressive constitutions in Latin America, and that would mandate that US foreign policy respect the sovereignty of other nations.  

      Redefining what a political party is and does.  Taking as an example the efforts of socialist movements and nations to develop popular councils, an alternative party of the Left could seek to form regular meetings among neighbors and co-workers for the purpose of public discussion and dialogue.  It could disseminate reading materials for discussion, taking as its example the publication and distribution of pamphlets during the American Revolution, such as Tom Paine’s Common Sense.  The meetings and reading materials would be the basis not only for the nomination and election of candidates to office at various levels of government, but also for political reflection and for the development of global and national historical consciousness among the people.  The party would be not only an electoral party, but also a social movement organization that educates and organizes the people.

     Taking seriously the mission of taking power.  We in the movements of the Left are so accustomed to our powerlessness and marginality, that often it is difficult for us to internalize the idea that an alternative political party seeks to take political power.  Sometimes we debate among ourselves tactics that seek to pressure those in power to adopt particular measures, losing sight of the fact that the more just and sustainable world that we seek can only be attained when a party of, by and for the people takes power and, once in power, struggles to implement policies that promote the will, interests and needs of the people.  In the Green Party Platform, some of the proposals were put forth in the form of demands to the government.  But we should be consistent and clear on this point.  An alternative political party should not put forth demands.  It should make promises to the people, which will be implemented when the people bring the party to power.

     In order to take power, an alternative political of the Left would have to attain the support of the majority of the people.  Often, the discourse of the Left lacks consideration of what kind of arguments it would take to convince the majority.  It indulges in self-expression, satisfied that it has expressed its views, rather than reflecting on the kind of discourse that would be necessary to attain a majority consensus.  An alternative party of the Left in the United States should be sensitive to the fact that many of our people have conservative values with respect to religiosity, marriage and sexuality.  These are private and personal matters, and governments and social movements should respect such views and should interfere with them only when they violate rights, and in these cases, with sensitivity.  With respect to reproductive rights, for example, the discourse of the Left should affirm the right of abortion in a form that is sensitive to those who believe that abortion is morally wrong.  It should explain that society has no option but to uphold the right of each woman to make a difficult decision without state interference, even as it affirms the right of persons and organization to be opposed to and to teach against abortion.  It could propose full public support for all available options, without intending to promote either abortion or adoption, and it could commit itself to the development of a kind of society that provides support to all parents in the difficult and important task of child-rearing.  Similarly, with respect to gay rights, the party should affirm the rights of all to select partners, without suffering discrimination or exclusion; but the party should be careful to avoid the appearance of celebrating a lifestyle that some define as sinful, or of denigrating those with more conservative views. In all issues that have the potential to divide our people, an alternative party of the Left should seek to defend what is right in a form that is sensitive to the values of our people, recognizing that, if it is going to take power, it cannot afford to alienate the people. Progressive social goals, standing in opposition to the interests of the corporations, cannot possibly be attained if the people are divided, and the discourse of progressive movements must be formulated with sensitivity in relation to issues that divide our people.

     Popular coalition.  The people of the United States are characterized by ethnic, class, occupational, religious and gender diversity.  All of our people in their diversity have formed organizations that seek to protect and defend their basic rights.  An alternative party of the Left must actively seek coalition with the various organizations that our people have formed, always being careful in its discourse to adopt language that is fully inclusive, and does not offend any the sectors of our people.  The discourse of an alternative party of the Left should be offensive only to the corporations and to the one percent who want to preserve special privileges.  

     An alternative political party of the Left that redefines what a political party is, that leads a coalition of popular organizations, and that educates the people toward an alternative national and global historical narrative is attainable.  The current economic decline of the nation and the structural crisis of the world-system establish conditions favorable to fascism, but they also strengthen the possibilities for an alternative party of the Left that is rooted in philosophical, historical and scientific understanding as well as the fundamental values of modern democratic revolutions, and that, as a result of the exemplary commitment of its leaders, is able to earn the trust and confidence of the people.

     The Green Party could evolve to be such a party.  But in order to do so, it has to recognize its current limitations.  It has to turn for help to those who could assist it to move to a more advanced stage, for the good of the people and the nation.

​

     The Green Party Platform reflects limited understanding of the historical development of global structures of domination.  This limitation is a consequence of a subtle form of Eurocentrism, in which we intellectuals and activists of the developed world do not seek to learn from the leaders and intellectuals of the Third World, whose social position as colonized provides the social foundation for understanding structures of domination.

     The limited historical consciousness and subtle Eurocentrism of the Green Party Platform is manifest throughout the document and in various ways.  (1) It scarcely mentions colonialism, neocolonialism and imperialism, and it provides no evidence of awareness of the central tenet of the Third World perspective, namely, the colonial and neocolonial foundation of the world-system.  It makes specific recommendations with respect to a few Third World nations (Iran, Palestine, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Kurdistan and Hawaii) which more or less point to a progressive agenda in foreign affairs, and it vaguely calls for cooperation with all the world; but it falls far short of explaining the need for a redirection of US foreign policy toward North-South cooperation.

     (2)  The Green Party Platform demonstrates limited awareness of the great struggles for national and social liberation that have propelled the peoples of the Third World for the last 100 years.  It does not mention the Chinese Revolution, the Vietnamese Revolution, the Cuban Revolution, the Sandinista Revolution, and the Bolivarian Revolution, all of which have had significant impact on the foreign policy of the United States and the consciousness of the popular movements in the United States.  It calls for democratic reform of the United Nations, without acknowledging that this is an historic and contemporary demand of the Third World project.  It advocates reform of Free-Trade Agreements, without recognizing that progressive and Leftist Latin American governments have been developing alternatives to FTAs and have been pursuing a strategy of South-South cooperation in a quest for a more just, democratic and sustainable world-system.

    (3) The Green Party Platform displays a stunning lack of historical consciousness with respect to the United States.  It offers a couple of cryptic comments with respect to US history: “Our nation was born as the first great experiment in modern democracy;” and “Historically, America led the world in establishing a society with democratic values such as equal opportunity and protection from discrimination.”  It makes no effort to analyze the class, race and gender limitations of the American Revolution nor the evolution of these dynamics from 1776 to 1980.  It considers that belief in white supremacy was the cause of slavery, without understanding that African slavery in the Caribbean, Brazil and the US South was an economically-motivated integral structure of European colonial domination, and that racism emerged as a justification of this global political domination and economic superexploitation.  

     (4) The Green Party Platform demonstrates a limited understanding of US imperialism.  It rejects US neoliberal policies since 1980, without appreciating that imperialist penetration of foreign lands has been central to US policy since the beginning of the twentieth century, a consequence of its arrival to the stage of monopoly capital.  The Platform makes no effort to analyze neoliberalism as a new stage of imperialism; or as a neo-fascist violation of the tenets of imperialism that is rooted in the profound structural crisis of the world-system.  It treats contemporary problems as a consequence of the post-1980 neoliberal turn, without appreciating that they have long and deep historic roots.

     In addition to being ahistorical and Eurocentric, the Green Party Platform is decidedly unreflective.  It calls upon the people “to think deeply about the meaning of government of the people, by the people, and for the people,” but it does not provide leadership in reflecting on the meaning of democracy.  It merely proposes citizen participation, with apparent unawareness of alternative structures of popular democracy that have been developed in Cuba and in other nations.

      Consistent with its ahistorical, Eurocentric and unphilosophical perspective, the Platform presents the Green Party as an alternative to capitalism and socialism, without reflecting on the development of socialism in Third World nations for the last 100 years, and especially its manifestations in such nations as China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Egypt, Tanzania, Cuba, Chile, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. The Platform displays a distrust of the state, without appreciating that a strong state, controlled by delegates of the people and acting decisively in the interests of the people, is the key to checking the power of large transnational corporations, as the history of Third World socialism shows.

     The Green Party Platform rightly affirms the fundamentals: the right of all nations to self-determination and sovereignty; the social and economic rights of all citizens of the United States and the world; the need for ecological sustainability; the principal of gender equality; and the importance of a reduction of US military expenditures.  But in order for an alternative political party to arrive to political power, it must obtain the support of the people, which would require it to demonstrate an understanding of the sources of the serious problems that the nation and humanity confront.  For in demonstrating such understanding, the Party would be showing to the people its capacity to lead the nation in a more positive direction.  And it would be showing its moral commitment, because no party could arrive to such understanding without the strong moral commitment of its leaders. Fortified by an evident understanding of historical and social dynamics and by fidelity to fundamental moral principles, such a party would be capable of earning the confidence and the support of the people.  This possibility for the evolution of the Green Party will be the subject of my next post. 

     On August 13, Harry Targ published in his blog, “The Diary of a Heartland Radical,” a post in commemoration of the ninetieth birthday of Fidel, entitled “Fidel Castro at 90: US-Cuban Relations, the Road Ahead.”

     Historical consciousness is of fundamental importance for understanding the issues that we today confront, and as is typical of his posts, Harry provides an overview of Cuban history and the history of US-Cuban relations.  And he demonstrates an appreciation of the fidelity of the revolution led by Fidel to the Cuban movement for national and social liberation and to the promise to the people made in conjunction with the attack on Moncada barracks of July 26, 1953.

      However, I have two critical comments with respect to Harry’s post.  First, I believe that we intellectuals of the Left in the United States must educate our people concerning the colonial foundations of the present-day world-economy.  In this respect, Harry’s description of colonialism and neocolonialism is insufficient, for it does not touch upon the economic structures developed during the colonial process. This is fundamental to our understanding of the world-economy today, for colonial economic structures are still in place and continue to create development in the West and underdevelopment in the Third World. And this is central to understanding the Cuba, for the Cuban Revolution seeks to transform global economic structures as a necessary precondition for the true sovereignty of the formerly colonized nations.  (See various posts on the Origin and Development of the World-System and on Neocolonialism; see also “Cuba: The historical and global context” 6/12/2014; “Cuba and the United States” 6/13/2014).

      Secondly, as I have expressed in a previous post (“The role of US intellectuals, Part I” 8/5/2015), I am not in agreement with Harry’s characterization of the new economic and social model that has been unfolding in Cuba since 2012.  Harry believes that the “economic reforms” promote “work-place democracy” and “empower workers.”  In my view, this is a misreading of current Cuban dynamics, invoking a rhetoric that one scarcely hears in Cuba.  The new model has been formulated by the party as a response to the growing dissatisfaction among the people with respect to the material standing of living, a phenomenon that has emerged as a consequence of two significant trends since the early 1990s, namely, international tourism and economically-motivated emigration.  Both trends are results of the economic adjustments made necessary by the collapse of the socialist bloc, and both imply an increasing concrete awareness among the people of the standard of living of the developed economies of the North, establishing in popular imagination a reference point that is impossible for an historically underdeveloped nation to duplicate.

      In the current debate in Cuba, “workplace democracy” is not the issue.  Quite the contrary, since 1959, the development of mass organization and structures of popular power have created structures for the empowerment of the people, including workers, all of whom are organized in the Confederation of Workers of Cuba.  The problem is that the control by workers and by the people of structures that themselves have control over limited resources can be very satisfying and fulfilling to some of the people, because of the opportunities for leadership that they provide; but not for many of the people, especially those whose perspective is focused on material goods.

      So the people have said that the standard of living ought to be higher, and hearing this, the party is searching for ways to improve the productive capacity of the nation.  The new model is developing various strategies to improve production, including the development of cooperatives, which Harry applauds, but also including a relaxing of some restrictions of foreign investment as well as the expansion of small-scale private enterprise, which Harry does not applaud.

      Harry and many of his colleagues of the Radical Philosophy Association, who have sponsored interchanges in Cuba for more than twenty years, champion the development of cooperatives, and they call upon all those in solidarity with Cuba to support the cooperatives and the work-place democracy that they represent, seeing them as an alternative to the private entrepreneurship in Cuba that the Obama administration is supporting.  The Radical Philosophy Association and the Obama Administration are in a battle for the soul of Cuba, the former proclaiming “cooperatives,” and the latter providing financial support for private enterprise.

      Both the Radical Philosophy Association and Obama believe that the private enterprise being promoted in Cuba by the party and the government contradicts or potentially undermines Cuban socialism.   But this is a mistaken belief, because it is small-scale private enterprise, and it is being developed in the context of socialist principles, such as: an economic and social plan directed by the state; a significant level of state-owned enterprises; strong state intervention in the economy; the control of the media by the state; and the overwhelming predominance of socialist consciousness at all levels of the educational system.  Recognition of various forms of property in a socialist economy is one of the basic principles of the new forms of socialism that have been emerging in Latin America, proclaimed as “socialism for the twenty-first century.”  

      We also should question if anyone from the United States, whether it be the Radical Philosophy Association or Obama, has the moral authority to offer guidelines for the future development of the Cuban nation.  Few of the Left would doubt that the Obama administration is imperialist and ethnocentric, arrogantly believing that the United States has the right to shape the structures of the world.  But what should be said of US Leftists who believe that they know the correct road for the future of socialist Cuba?  I am reminded of what a Cuban academic said to me a number of years ago: “The worst imperialists are the Leftists.”

      I believe that we US Leftist intellectuals must acknowledge that socialist and progressive movements in the United States have accomplished far less than their counterparts in Latin America, and especially the Cuban Revolution; and that we in the United States have much to learn from progressive and socialist movements in Latin America.  Rather than supporting tendencies within Latin American movements that are consistent with our conception of socialism, we should be oriented to studying the strategies of the Latin American movements, understanding how they accomplished as much as they have, and trying to figure out what this might mean for strengthening socialist or progressive movements in the United States.  We socialists and progressives in the United States do not have the experiential foundation for formulating socialist concepts to be recommended to other nations, especially since the fall of the Revolution of 1968 during the 1970s.

     Harry’s concluding recommendations reveals the limitations of a perspective that has not learned from Latin American examples, where Leftist intellectuals and activists formed alternative political parties that have taken power.  Harry calls upon activists and solidarity organizations to continue with their efforts in pressuring Congress to end the blockade of Cuba and in educating the people with respect to Cuba.  Harry seems to imagine the possibility of US Leftists contributing to the empowerment of workers in Cuba, but not the possibility of the empowerment of the people of the United States.


Key words:  Cuba, socialism, cooperatives, Harry Targ

October 3, 2016

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

     A series of seven posts, published from June 16 to June 27, 2016, reflect on Asin Shivani’s article, “This Is Our Neoliberal Nightmare: Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, and Why the Market and the Wealthy Win Every Time” (Alternet, June 8, 2016).  In these posts, I express agreement with Shivani’s description of Hillary Clinton as an avatar of neoliberalism; in contrast to Bernie Sanders, who represents a humane alternative to neoliberalism, and Donald Trump, who rejects neoliberalism through a turn to authoritarianism.  And I maintain that Shivani’s rejection of what he calls “neoliberal multiculturalism” has some validity.  

     At the same time, I maintain that the article is not sufficiently historical and global, and that the author does not seem to understand the origins of the neoliberal project, nor discern its unsustainability.   He does not, in this article at least, propose a political strategy to hasten the future demise of neoliberalism.  

     Drawing upon what has been occurring in Latin America during the last twenty years, I call upon intellectual and activists of the North to form alternative popular parties, rooted in an alternative comprehensive and global understanding, that would seek take control of governments in key nation-states of the core, directing these governments toward policies that are consistent with the universal human values that have been proclaimed by humanity.  The Bernie Sanders campaign is not necessarily the take-off point for such a project, and neither is the Occupy Movement.

      The series of posts reflecting on Shivani’s article are as follows:
“Neoliberalism” 6/16/2016; 
“What are the origins of neoliberalism?” 6/17/2016; 
“Ideological frames” 6/20/2016; 
“The nation-state in a neoliberal world” 6/21/2016; 
“Neoliberalism and presidential elections” 6/23/2016;
“Neoliberalism, multiculturalism & identity politics” 6/24/2016; and
“The future of neoliberalism” 6/27/2016.
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To find them, in the category Critique of the Left, scroll down.

Posted June 16, 2016  

​     “This Is Our Neoliberal Nightmare: Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, and Why the Market and the Wealthy Win Every Time,” by Anis Shivani, was published on Alternet on June 8, 2016.  

      Shivani maintains that neoliberalism has not been well defined, even though it has been the dominant ideology of the last forty-five years.  He offers the following definition.

     Neoliberalism, in Shivani’s view, believes that the market can resolve all problems, including climate change, educational inequality, unequal access to health care, racial injustice, and police violence.  In the neoliberal perspective, education is treated not as a right, but as a consumer good; accordingly, all persons should invest in their own education, as a form of investing in their own future earning potential. Neoliberalism cannot fathom education, health care, child care, and a minimum wage as human rights, nor can it grasp the responsibility of the state to ensure such rights.  

      Shivani maintains that neoliberalism seeks to transform everything. “Neoliberalism expects . . . that economic decision-making will be applied to all areas of life (parenthood, intimacy, sexuality, and identity in any of its forms), and that those who do not do so will be subject to discipline. Everyone must invest in their own future, and not pose a burden to the state or anyone else, otherwise they will be refused recognition as human beings.”

     Shivani rejects, however, the description of neoliberalism as “market fundamentalism.”  He maintains that neoliberalism is different from classical liberalism, which idealized a free market, untethered by states, as it pretended that states were and should be neutral.  In contrast, neoliberalism, he argues, makes no pretense to state neutrality; it advocates for a strong state that interferes in the market to defend the interests of the wealthy, as it seeks to reduce state intervention in the market in defense of the needs of the people.

     Shivani observes that neoliberalism became the prevailing paradigm in the 1970s, replacing Keynesianism, which had been the dominant economic theory since the 1930s.  He notes that since the adoption of neoliberalism, inequality has exploded, undermining the principal ideological claim of neoliberalism, namely, that it promotes the general welfare.  Shivani maintains that neoliberalism must therefore turn to multiculturalism as a form of social recognition.

     Shivani’s description of the neoliberal project rightfully focuses on its emphasis on the reduction of market regulation, except to defend the interests of the capitalist class.  And the article insightfully sees neoliberalism not only as an economic policy but as a project that shapes our philosophical and cultural assumptions and that pervades all aspects of life.

     However, in my view, Shivani describes neoliberalism as it has unfolded in the core nations of the world-economy, and not as an economic package imposed on peripheral and semi-peripheral regions of the capitalist world-economy by the core.  Not describing neoliberalism from a global perspective, the articles does not point to an understanding of neoliberalism as a new phase of imperialism. This omission is related to the article’s insufficient analysis of the origin of the neoliberal project, a theme that I will discuss in the next post.

      For a description of the characteristics of neoliberalism, when it is understood as a core project imposed on peripheral and semi-peripheral regions and as a stage in the continuous application in imperialist policies, see “Imperialism as neoliberalism” 10/7/2013.


Key words: neoliberal, Shivani