Category Archives: Analysis

Multipolarity in capitalism? A lie, but a very useful one!

22. November 2023. RNP-F Leave a comment

We’ll start by ditching the anachronistic “Victorian Marxists’” theory of development of human history (which tended to map the pattern of historical development of Europe onto the whole world) in favor of the modern Marxist World-System theory.

Therefore, the modern World-System is a capitalist World-System, the roots of which go back to the beginnings of the 16th century. Previous – pre-capitalist – systems were only regional. The more advanced among them are called “tributary” (Amin), which refers to the systems of 300 BC – 1500 CE. What they have in common is that they extracted the surplus through peasant activities through transparent mechanisms in connection with the organization of the power hierarchy, which was reproduced (and legitimized) strictly by the dominance of ideology (state religion). Therefore, there the government was the source of wealth, while in capitalism the opposite is the rule.

The general capitalist market provides a framework in which economic laws (competition) act as forces independent of subjective will. No pre-modern society was based on such principles. Those did contain elements of proto-capitalism, but they succumbed to the prevailing tributary logic. Within and among them exchanges of every kind were intense and served as a means of significant redistribution of surpluses. However, the eventual “centralization” of the surplus was essentially linked to the centralization of political power, and this never crossed local, state or regional borders (except in two shorter periods: the Macedonian and Roman expansions, neither of which gave rise to mechanisms of continuous reproduction).

On the other hand, they gradually crystallized the preliminary elements of the capitalist mode of production; affirmation of modern forms of private property, protection of these forms by law and significant expansion of wage labor (in agriculture and crafts).

So, as shown in the illustration, multipolarity was inherent to pre-capitalist relations of production. The disruption of multipolarity was conceived by the colonization of the Americas and the slave trade, which greatly accelerated the expansion of the proto-capitalist elements mentioned above. Mercantile society, with the accelerated development of production forces, over time imposed the “factory” as the main form of production, a system based on the minimization of production costs in order to maximize profits, giving priority to the endless accumulation of capital (Wallerstein) and non-interfering forms of government.

The vertical expropriation of the surplus (which transformed the aristocracy-peasant polarization into the bourgeoisie-proletariat) gradually lost its primacy over the horizontal one (which, by universalizing the law of value, established the center-periphery antinomy) due to the need to extend the reach of the system to ensure a reduction in costs, thereby peripheral regions historically developed as complementary to the central ones. Capital’s search for unpaid costs and the organized allocation of elements of the production process according to the cheapest labor force are the basic elements of the global transfer of value (Heinrichs), and without global transfers of surplus there can be no world capitalism (Frank).

Therefore, we can define the capitalist world-system as a hierarchy of the center-periphery complexes through which the surplus is drawn from the periphery to the center, which makes it not homogenizing but polarizing (Cleland). Accordingly, imperialism is not a phase of capitalism (nor its highest stage), but capitalism was imperialistic and inherently polarizing from its inception. So, can capitalism be multipolar? If we allude to a more permanent version of multipolarity, the answer is definitely negative. Multipolarity within capitalism is possible only temporarily, during the process of restructuring the world economy, until the new division of cards is completed (the First and Second World Wars are the most recent examples).

Imagine the situation where we had several capitalist centers that simultaneously extracted value from the periphery – they would need at least one more planet. In reality, in order to form a new – parallel – center (like the East-West bipolarity in the 20th century), it is absolutely necessary that the other pole exists outside the capitalist world-system, that is, in socialism. Precisely such conclusions are imposed on Russia today, which, due to the necessity of economic efficiency under sanctions and military pressure of imperialism, has no alternative to the application of at least some socialist policies and a more internationalist approach to international relations than it practiced in previous decades.

However, as our perspective is always the perspective of the most oppressed social strata, whether in a national (proletariat) or world framework (Global South), every struggle for restructuring the World-System is our chance for further revolutionary advances. The struggle for the establishment of new capitalist metropolises also requires political means to disrupt that complementarity, which meant submission to the hegemonic capitalist power (Aglietta). The Bolshevik revolution, national liberation and unification of the Southern Slavs, the rise of anti-colonial struggles, etc. are just some of the examples of using these contradictions, and there is no doubt that for now West Africa and the progressive countries of Latin America use the given advantage most effectively.

Missing a chance for an alliance with a block of countries challenging the global hierarchy would mean remaining stuck in the current – complementary – role in each of the combinations of the future world order.

Abdelraheem Kheirawi

Analysis

Westernization is not modernization!

5. January 2023. RNP-F Leave a comment

If on social media, you have often had the opportunity of seeing photos comparing fashion trends in various Islamic countries dating from the period of secularization, with today’s period of Islamization. This is usually accompanied by a comment, as: “Such and such country in 1966 versus the same country in 2016”, below which you find a merry woman in a miniskirt, opposite a woman with a hijab, sad or angry, perhaps chanting slogans amidst some sort of anti-Western protests. The idea, of course, is to lure the liberal minded folks into supporting military actions against these “barbarians” till the skirts are done justice.

Isolated from anti-imperialist practice, or more importantly, the suffering that imperialism causes, left liberals do not possess the mechanism of class analysis to explain the social dynamics at the periphery, outside the framework of “liberal mind”. Thus, according to them, it is about reactionary forms of exploitation of women, by no means about resistance to cultural imperialism, about restraining emancipation, by no means about abandoning passivity. The Third world is waking up and, what hurts the liberal left the most, it recognizes that the so-called superiority of Western civilization and its values is based on constructed lies and myths; and that the contradictory nature of European self-understanding is completely cut off from their practice. And yet, it is obvious they never bother to ask themselves how many people in the world see five centuries of European hegemony as continuous ordeal.

Simply put – no one desires to be a cut-haired Indian in a suit and tie anymore, to whom racial and class divisions will be sold as progress, and land, resources and culture taken away at will. Or as the great Frantz Fanon said: “The colonized is elevated above his jungle status in proportion to his adoption of the mother country’s cultural standards. In the colonial context, the breakdown of the natives is complete only when they, clearly and loudly, recognize the superiority of Western values.”¹

Under the influence of First-Worldist Marxism, for a long time there was a misconception among the Communists of the periphery that in the ideological sense only the Western right, and in the class sense only the Western bourgeoisie, promoted cultural racism; as if the Indians and other indigenous peoples were exterminated, displaced, stripped of their land and had their culture destroyed only by the bourgeoisie, and not by all classes of Western European settlers, and as if today the Western left does not lead the way in asserting cultural superiority as a means to “modernize” Islamic countries. Today, not only the communists but also many peoples of the world’s periphery get to see more and more clearly the origins of such ideas, but also the basis of cultural racism – that westernization is subsumed under modernization.

This subterfuge would remain largely misty had contemporary China and the DPRK not provided the indisputable proof that modernization and Westernization are not the same; that their combination inevitably leads to (neo)colonialism; that the transition from a traditional to a modern society not based on an endless accumulation of capital is possible; that it is equally effective while accepting the existence of different models of development, without the need to impose one’s own particularity as a supposedly universal value; that it can be carried out with the coexistence of man and nature, nurturing spiritual civilization, without huge class differences and destruction of the environment. It is, in fact, one of the basic engines of Western aggressiveness and hysteria when trying to discredit the Chinese model of development, since it is inconceivable to a person whose consciousness is deeply embedded with the idea of Western exceptionalism that he is actually not needed (nor desired) as a participant in that process.

A speech by the great Malcolm X comes to mind, where he says: “Until recently, all the power was concentrated in Europe. In London and Paris, Brussels and Washington, etc. Now the power bases are changing. As these power bases increase, in Europe they shrink. And that’s what causes trouble. The white man is worried. He knows he didn’t do right when all the power was in his hands, and if the power base changes, those who get it might know how to actually do the right.”²

Moreover, the westernization of traditional societies is directly in the service of integration into the global liberal economic structure and the global division of labor, and as such brings the peripheral peoples nothing but economic dependence, and only modernizes the West, providing it with an additional economic basis for the further development of its own technologies and economic dominance. Global polarization and the insurmountable gap between the First and Third World are the result of such a model of Westernization posing as “modernization”. It is harmful and “arrests”, even “paralyzes” the development of the productive forces of the colonized or economically dependent people.³

***

The photo below was taken in 1874 during the Government of Canada’s program of forcibly removing children from Native American parents, after which they would be placed in “residential schools” to, as they called it, “kill the Indian in them. “This program was implemented for more than a century and continued until the second half of the 20th century. It is estimated that at least 150,000 Metis and Inuit children went through this education system, which was compulsory for Native Americans and funded by the Department of Indian Affairs and Development of the North.

The aim of the program was to separate the children from the influence of their families, culture and language, and assimilate them through a very early European education. At least 6,000 children died after being forcibly separated from their parents, and many children were exposed to sexual abuse and forced sterilization during the early 20th century, due to the eugenics notion that members of inferior races should be prohibited from reproducing.

The context is the same, only the form is different. Today, the “liberal mind” is a tool for killing both the traditional “savages” in Serbians and among Islamic nations. True modernization lies elsewhere, and now we know where.

Abdelraheem Kheirawi

https://princip.info/2017/01/26/franc-fanon-o-nasilju/ ↩
https://princip.info/2017/09/05/malkolm-x-novi-odnos-snaga/ ↩
https://princip.info/2017/08/28/amilkar-kabral-oruzje-teorije/ ↩

Analysis

Third-Worldist position on police violence

29. December 2022. RNP-F Leave a comment

Here we’ll talk about the attitude towards police violence. Since many of you are wandering in search of a position to adopt, we are here to help from a Marxist perspective, which treats the world economy as singular, with its sectors (center, semi-periphery, periphery) just performing different functions.

Accordingly, at the start, we reject the First-Worldist approach that tends to universalize every issue, and so ideas like those that “all cops are bastards” (ACAB) and sadists or, contrary to them, that the police are “working class”, have no political significance to us.

The police is a repressive apparatus of the state (which is an institutionalized form of class and identity relations), so it is clear that it cannot be viewed in isolation from it. It follows that the attitude towards a given state also determines the attitude towards its police.

Therefore, position of the state in the world-system also shapes the primary function of its police. The higher the state is positioned in the hierarchy of the world capitalist economy, the more it is able to invest in its own society and thereby ensure social peace, so police repression is less pronounced (in some of them the police are not even armed). Such an internal organization is more often defended from the outside, so the role of repression is taken over by the army (or military alliances), which, by engaging abroad, ensures an unhindered flow of profits to the states of the center (you’ve all heard of the name “world policemen”); and by the border police that seek to prevent labor mobility.

Those states of the center with a relatively high rate of immigration deviate from this pattern; and so do those built on settler colonialism (e.g. USA, Israel, Australia, South Africa, etc.) where the repressive apparatus was in the service of maintaining the colonial order, and where the internally colonized were subsequently integrated into society as the most oppressed class (with the exception of Canada, in which case the natives are reduced to a statistical error).

On the other hand, the lower the country is positioned in the world-system hierarchy, the more pronounced the police brutality. In the peripheral states, the comprador bourgeoisie perform management and supervisory functions in the process of exploitation of their own lands and the transfer of value to the states of the center. In addition to the police (in the fight against social unrest or high crime rates), they often rely on the army, which suppresses regional rebellions or simply establishes military dictatorships when the civil authorities prove to be insufficiently stable.

Before we address the capitalist semi-periphery (of which we ourselves are a part), let’s also mention the states of real-socialism, where state repression is mainly aimed at reactionary forces that advocate the restoration of capitalism, separatism, etc. The image of a Chinese policeman wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt (illustration) standing with his colleagues for the decolonization of Hong Kong and carrying out violence against pro-imperialist protesters is still remembered by many.

To address the attitude towards the police of semi-peripheral countries, one should note that those states could be progressive or reactionary, which primarily depends upon their attitude towards our principal contradiction – Imperialism. It does not take much wisdom to conclude that the police of Venezuela and Haiti do not play the same political role.

Finally, let’s also mention Serbia, which in post-socialism, due to its various specificities, has not yet been brought to a stable course, so it contains a lot of – some progressive, some reactionary – political expressions. In this case, when police violence is directed against communists, anarchists, labor strikes, forced evictions, etc. it is, of course, reactionary; yet when it is directed against fascists, the so-called “alt-right” and pro-Western liberals it is quite tolerable.

Here we could also follow up on the current issue of mandatory military service. Unlike liberals (who are anti) and conservatives (who are pro), we will by no means isolate that question from the question of imperialism. Therefore, as long as Serbia is militarily (but also politically) neutral, and is not formally part of the imperialist alliances (EU/NATO) that carry out structural and military violence against oppressed nations, we consider mandatory military service positive and useful. If at some point it joined those alliances, our position would change. Accordingly, we believe that comrades in Croatia or Macedonia should oppose such tendencies, while in Serbia they should support them.

Abdelraheem Kheirawi

Analysis

Two anti-totalitarianisms: imperial and anti-imperial!

26. December 2022. RNP-F Leave a comment

“The concept of totalitarianism is itself a false concept, invented in the contemporary era for the purpose of confining social analysis and critique within the horizon of so-called liberal, democratic, and insurmountable (the “end of history”) capitalism.” – Samir Amin

***

In the early 2000s, with the expansion of the European Union (EU) over the countries of the former Eastern Bloc, the narrative of “two totalitarianisms” spread throughout Europe. Jean-Pierre Faye’s book with his Horseshoe Theory seems to be most responsible for popularizing this narrative. According to this theory, the political spectrum is presented not as a linear continuum with the radical left or communism at one end and the extreme right or fascism at the other, but as a horseshoe where these two extremes, “two totalitarianisms” meet as two sides of the same totalitarian tendencies. Thus, a completely different conceptualization of the political sphere is realized, according to which on one side there is a (neo)liberal center with a certain, limited space for maneuver (left or right) and on the other side totalitarianism with its two faces – fascism and communism.

This way, totalitarianism as an antithesis to liberalism becomes the defining term of 20th century politics because the brutal demonization of so-called totalitarian systems indirectly generates unconditional support for neo-liberalism. We encounter symptoms of this tectonic shift in political thinking in every corner of public life. When support for Hillary Clinton, as the embodiment of American imperialism and right-wing neoliberal politics, is presented as a moral imperative in the fight against the fascist evil of Donald Trump, behind such a statement hides a view of politics based on the opposition between liberalism and totalitarianism. The same setup is used when it is necessary to justify American aggressions in the Third World. When a more aggressive policy towards left-wing governments in Venezuela, Cuba or North Korea is advocated, it is justified by the fight against totalitarianism, and leftists and right-wingers both in the West and in countries that are targeted by imperialism fall into this given matrix.

The anti-totalitarianism of Western liberals, leftists and conservatives is the basis of their anti-Russian and anti-Chinese hysteria. In other words, wherever Western-style liberalism isn’t established, the anti-totalitarian card is drawn, which then consolidates the entire political spectrum in the fight against what is labeled as totalitarian. The horseshoe theory is so deeply embedded in the matrix of political opinion in the West that it is enough to label the target of Western aggression and hysteria in the media as totalitarian, and the leftists and the rightists start competing in demonization of that totalitarian threat. Leftist media outlets in the West such as The Guardian or DemocracyNow are more likely to broadcast articles criticizing North Korea or China than many conservative media outlets. Thus, in the countries of the imperial core, the term “totalitarianism” and the associated Horseshoe Theory represent the key point and mobilization password that gathers all imperialist forces and directs them towards the external enemy. At the same time, totalitarianism functions as the main justification of the liberal order of the countries of the imperial core against which they are positioned as the “lesser evil”.

The power of anti-totalitarian ideology also lies in the fact that it gathers auto-colonial forces in peripheral or semi-periphery countries. Russia and China are probably the main targets of this ideology. The Russian opposition uses the epithet tyrant or totalitarian ruler to describe Vladimir Putin on a daily basis. Without going into whether such a description is adequate, what is crucial is that the term itself acts as a certain kind of moral blackmail that leaves the interlocutor without arguments. Any attempt to oppose such an appellation automatically leads to defeat because anyone who opposes this characterization is immediately described as a fascist or a totalitarian. The power of this rhetorical strategy is very well known to people in Serbia, where many politicians and intellectuals who opposed the Western policy towards Yugoslavia at the end of the 90s were automatically described as fascists, even if they self-declared as leftists. Being a leftist and opposing the Western imperial policy towards the FRY had them labeled as “National Socialist” or Nazi due to the supposed fusion of nationalism and socialism. Politically illiterate collaborators of imperialism who carried out their political activities on the ground to the greatest extent through cooperation with open and direct Nazis and fascists who were ready to confront the police, routinely labeled leftists who opposed imperialist aggression on the FRY and open interference in its political processes as the “Nazis”.

Currently, a very similar dynamic is developing in China, primarily on the topic of the so-called persecution of the Uyghurs or the Muslim population of central and southwestern China. The element of ethnic intolerance that is thus added to China, which has already been labeled totalitarian, completes the image of this society as proof that communism and Nazism are ultimately one and the same, and all of this gives justification to the Western power centers to implement as aggressive a policy as possible towards China.

For any even remotely objective witness of the history of geopolitical events from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the present day, it is quite clear that the anti-totalitarian narrative played unmistakably into the hands of Western politics throughout this period. From the overthrow of Milosevic and the aggression against Iraq, over the attack on a series of left-wing governments in Latin America, to the offensive against China, Russia, North Korea and Iran, the fight against totalitarianism was a war cry that rallied conservatives, liberals and pro-imperialist leftists behind NATO interventions. However, the mere fact that this narrative served the benefit of the US and NATO does not constitute direct evidence that it is an ideological subterfuge. “What if the US was really led through all these processes by a sincere struggle against total state power?” could be asked by those who advocate imperial policy. In order to prove that the US is really committed to the fight against totalitarianism, it is first necessary to demonstrate that it actually implements an anti-totalitarian and liberal policy on the internal and external level. However, the facts show that the internal policy of the US more often corresponds to the description of a totalitarian state than many regimes that it accuses of totalitarianism, as well as that the regimes installed in countries that undergo Western interventions fulfill the anti-totalitarian criteria of the West exclusively through the accommodation of their economic interests, so as such do not pose a threat to the hierarchical division of the world economy.

We would not have to go beyond the fact that the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Israel are European settler colonies that were initially established by totalitarian methods of enslavement, often genocide of the indigenous population. However, as this fact is lightly passed over, because through the perspective of Eurocentric history and the international legal order, each of the mentioned occupations is legalized, critics are expected to ignore the past and devote themselves exclusively to the present image of the mentioned societies, and even separately from the rest of material reality and current world conditions. Thus, it is often overlooked that liberal and anti-totalitarian policies in the countries of the core of the world system are made possible by both historical and contemporary political circumstances, which are the direct consequences of totalitarian, i.e. colonial and neo-colonial policies and the absence of economic hardships due to the hierarchical structure in the world economy.

American political philosopher Sheldon Wolin, who identifies as a consistent liberal democrat (so, not a communist or an anarchist), exposes the totalitarian nature of American corporate capitalism. Wolin coined the term “inverse totalitarianism” to characterize the US political regime. According to his diagnosis, that political system has all the practical and essential characteristics of totalitarianism, although it retains the formal framework of democracy. Unlike classical totalitarianism, which is reflected in the absolute power of an individual who rules thanks to his charisma and ability to manipulate the masses, inverse totalitarianism ensures the total power of corporate networks and the complete powerlessness of the individual to influence the decisions of the government, even though there is a formal possibility of political organizing. Wolin observes that the US does not meet any of the criteria of the liberal system on which it formally rests. The murders of African-Americans by the police are only the most recent manifestation of the police state, which in poor neighborhoods has long been acting as an occupying force and not as an organ of law and order. Related to this is the highest percentage of prisoners per capita in the world. The US has 5 times more prisoners per capita than China. Of course, the vast majority of prisoners belong to colonized populations, so there is definitely an ethnic and racial dimension in American totalitarianism.

The revelations of Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning show that this totalitarian government possesses such an apparatus of internal espionage that would pose an envy to widely denounced and demonized regimes such as the one in East Germany with its famous secret police. Furthermore, it has long been shown that the US Government does not adhere to its Constitution when it comes to the rights of prisoners and the right to a fair trial within a reasonable time. There are many political prisoners in Guantánamo prison who have been denied almost all human rights without ever being charged. There is also concrete and irrefutable evidence that the US authorities have carried out the murders of their own citizens, which is the grossest violation of the Constitution. Anwar al-Awlaki is perhaps the most famous example of an American citizen killed by a drone in the so-called War on terror. In the end, studies show that the policies of the American authorities do not have any correlation with the wishes and beliefs of almost two-thirds of the citizens of that country, while they are almost one hundred percent aligned with the wishes and political beliefs of the richest one percent. In other words, as Wolin explains, the US has all the elements of a totalitarian regime even though it retains a formally democratic framework.

Inverse totalitarianism is in a very certain way more dangerous than what they perceive as classical totalitarianism precisely because of the fact that in this form of government power is less concentrated. In the classic totalitarianism of the Nazi or fascist type, the leader holds all the power in his hands and his associates make only parts of the pyramid at the top of which he stands. In inverse totalitarianism, the president or head of state is essentially a puppet or chief manager of a corporation that has a slightly larger board of directors that includes the owners of major corporations from the military-industrial complex, the financial industry, the energy sector, the media, the pharmaceutical industry, etc. Because of this distribution of power, classical totalitarian systems often collapsed after the death of a dictator, or regimes fell after the leader was removed from office by a military coup, or sometimes even after defeat in an election. What makes totalitarian rule in the US particularly frightening for citizens who see its essence is the fact that it is impossible to imagine a scenario in which the corporate state could be reformed. On the other hand, Putin’s opposition in Russia, for example, has only one goal and that is to replace Putin, which makes its narrative much more powerful and dangerous.

Some apologists of imperialism may say that even such a form of government as the USA has is better than all other forms of government in the world. However, many of those regimes that the US and its allies call totalitarian have far fewer elements of totalitarianism than the US itself. Let’s just take the example of Bolivia, whose previous president, Evo Morales, was accused of being an autocrat and often a totalitarian leader, even though elections were regularly held during his entire reign, in which he convincingly won, and even though the media and financial power of the opposition was at least on par with his party, very likely even bigger. Morales himself was removed from the presidency with a huge effort by the US propaganda machine despite winning the election and replaced by a proven racist and Christian fundamentalist. Let’s also mention that the socialist regimes that the West considers totalitarian are organized on the principle of participatory democracy, which means that the share of working people in managing their own workplace or electing their local and central political representatives is far greater than is the case in parliamentary democracy, where voters are only offered to choose once every five years which subgroup of the ruling class they will give free rein to arbitrarily lead state policy.

Finally, what the so-called critics of non-Western totalitarianisms are unable to do is broaden their horizons to a global perspective. In that case, it would become more than obvious that the very way of organizing the global economy – which is based on the transfer of value from impoverished to enriched countries, and which we call imperialism – was established and maintained by totalitarian methods (from monopoly on telecommunications and technology, through access to resources and global finance, to means of mass destruction). Such a perspective would very easily expose the totalitarian nature of precisely those countries that they represent as democratic, while even those that, at the expense of formal democracy, build a system potentially resistant to imperialist domination and exploitation, would be amnestied from the label of totalitarianism. Also, through such a perspective, the transfer of formal democracy of the Western model to oppressed, peripheral countries, and the restrictions it imposes in terms of pretensions to more independent development, would become an easily noticeable handicap.

We have seen so far how the anti-totalitarian narrative serves to justify imperialism around the world, regardless of the fact that the USA and other Western countries have far more characteristics of a totalitarian system than the numerous countries that they try to demonize with that label.

On the other hand, we have also seen that the very insistence on the notion of totalitarianism produces a very powerful line of criticism of the US policy. Since the West, as we have shown, has shaped its entire ideological narrative around the concept of totalitarianism, people who truly understand and consistently use this concept perceive the totalitarian essence of the West itself. So, if we return to the economy and class struggle and level the horseshoe again, we prove that one part of the spectrum (fascism) does not occupy the extreme position of this line, but the middle one – it is (economically speaking) not a digression but a necessary progression from liberalism, once liberalism becomes uncompetitive or is under pressure from other world (anti-imperialist) forces. Of course, it must not necessarily lead to a general consensus, so we can have, as we do in the US, a divided society into those who believe that the same economic goals of global domination can still be achieved with liberalism as with fascism, but at some point we could expect a two-party national strategy and the acceptance of fascism or liberalism as a national model, depending on world economic trends.

For our part, as Engels said (and we would have to apply it to the periphery and the internally colonized in settler colonies) the revolution (or, in this case, national/economic liberation) is the most authoritarian act there is, because it is about imposing the political will of the majority (in this case the world majority) over the minority. We, therefore, must not forget that development through stages is key to Marxist thought and, accordingly, we should not run away from authoritarianism, but accept it as one of the tools at our disposal, which (as history proves) give birth to more progressive social relations, more capable of giving birth to anti-authoritarian mechanisms. Also, it is important that we completely stop the practice of addressing imperialist and pro-imperialist critics, and start addressing our own peoples, status groups and classes with an interest in anti-systemic and anti-totalitarian action in the true sense of the meaning of the word.

Predrag Kovačević & Abdelraheem Kheirawi

Analysis

Marxism: Science and Conspiracy Theories

20. May 2020. RNP-F Leave a comment

During the pandemic of COVID-19, science has played an exceptionally important role in the public discourse. On the one hand, we have seen numerous policies and measures being imposed or carried out based on the idea that they had been approved by scientists and experts. Science and expertise became a way of avoiding all debate and portraying all opposition to the measures at hand as mistaken, harmful, irrational and backward. On the other hand, there has been a resurgence of various conspiracy theories offering “real” explanations for what was going on often linking the pandemic with the issues of vaccination, immigration, 5G technologies, digital surveillance, etc. Proponents of these conspiracy theories usually reject the official scientific rationale behind the policies and measures being undertaken looking for a “correct” conspiratorial account that explains the official one. In that sense, a polarization of public discourse has been created whereby the word of Science and Expertise became the unquestioned truth and ultimate justification for any policy for one portion of the population while for another segment of the population, the scientific rationale behind a given measure became nothing but a façade for a pernicious underlying plan of the elite. It should be noted that it has become extremely difficult to steer some kind of middle course where one does not automatically accept the official line without immediately invoking elaborate, unproven conspiracy theories, which often fail the test of plausibility.

In such a situation, the question of what the Marxist attitude towards these matters should be becomes highly pertinent as Marxism embraced the scientific, fact-based worldview while being highly distrustful of the establishment and the elites of any kind due to the fact that elites belong to the opposing side of the class conflict defending the interests of the bourgeoisie against the proletariat. The goal of this essay will be to provide an answer to this question and outline the political implications of this polarization on the issue of science. It will be argued that Marxism must not abandon its intellectual roots in science and rationality but the adherence to these principles does not entail the automatic adoption of all policies, measures, positions and explanations that have the aura of science and expertise around them. On the other hand, the Marxist stance towards conspiracy theories is not to rule out any kind of conspiratorial account a priori, but to insist on clear thinking and standards of intellectual clarity and argumentation, which most conspiracy theories that are present in the public discourse fail to meet. Moreover, in general, conspiracy theories usually involve moralistic accounts where a particular individual (e.g. Bill Gates, George Soros, etc.) is portrayed as villain who is out to harm ordinary people, who are portrayed as honest, decent and moral. These morality tales are also often inflected with various rightwing assumptions revolving around religion, race, ethnicity, etc. In contrast to such narrative account, Marxism privileges structural analysis, which means that policies, measures and proposals are evaluated from the standpoint of their socio-economic and political effects. As a result, Marxist analyses do not look for villains and heroes. Instead, they are focused on issues of profit, capital accumulation, ideological hegemony, etc.

Marxism also enables us to analyze the political and ideological effects of polarization created by the opposition between uncritical obedience to the professed view of experts and the automatic rejection of science in favor of conspiratorial thinking. Such a polarization works directly in the interests of the bourgeoisie because blind adherence to the views of experts enables the bourgeoisie to justify any policy by attaching a label of ‘expert opinion’ to it. Any opposition to the supposed view of experts is smeared as conspiracy theory and effectively dismissed in that way. The existence of conspiracy theories represents an impotent challenge to the bourgeois rule because these theories do not focus on the nature of the capitalist system as they are concerned primarily with individuals and ethnic, racial and religious groups but they almost never address the issue of class.

The idea that the opinions of scientists and experts should not be automatically accepted is probably the most contentious part of the argument presented here, which is why a large portion of this essay will be devoted to demonstrating that this is, in fact, a correct position to take both based on Marxist theory and based on the historical record.

Science and Conspiracy Theories

Marxism is, of course, a secular doctrine coming out of the modern Enlightenment tradition of political theorizing, and as such it upholds the scientific worldview. The Marxist view of science is positive because the development of science leads to the improvement in the technological capacities (the means of production) making them capable of producing more material wealth, which is a precondition for overcoming scarcity. Moreover, science and rationality are the only tools that lead to the demystification of ideological constructs that justify bourgeois rule. At the same time, this abstract property of science cannot be fully realized in a class society because the bourgeoisie control the material resources that are necessary for scientific and technological development. In this way, the bourgeoisie steers scientific development towards its own class interests and away from the interests of the proletariat. The bourgeoisie also recognizes the ideological power of science and attempts to use it as an ideological tool. These obstacles in the way of scientific development cannot be eliminated without the elimination of the capitalist mode of production. The remainder of the article will provide concrete illustrations and evidence for these theoretical claims.

Let us start with the theoretical or ideological side of the issue. The discipline known as sociology of science rests on the commonsense assumption that scientific knowledge is produced by actual people working inside scientific institutions that are embedded into state and corporate structures. As Bruno Latour points out, the scientific community, as any other community of people, operates according to its own internal logic where questions of power, status and prestige compete with other principles such as rational inquiry, production of knowledge, public interest and ordinary morality[1]. This nexus of factors ensures that the knowledge that comes out of scientific institutions is not always completely objective and value neutral.

It is important to notice the difference between the conspiratorial account, which treats science as a hostage of evil individuals, and the Marxian structuralist position, which treats scientific knowledge as a product of a particular set of social institutions (universities, labs, institutes, etc.). The conspiratorial logic holds that scientific knowledge is almost always false and distorted in the interests of whoever is the villain of the conspiracy theory at hand. On the other hand, the structuralist account holds that scientific knowledge is the best approximation to truth that is currently available but that it can also contain distortions, which stem from it being the product of social institutions embedded into state and corporate structures. The fact that state and corporate institutions impact the scientific institutions suggests that these distortions in scientific knowledge will occasionally appear will favor political and ideological interests of the bourgeoisie and disfavor the results, findings and theories that challenge the bourgeois rule.

Evolutionary theory is a good example of how ideological and political concerns tend to suppress the actual scientific theorizing in favor of a simplistic view that is in line with bourgeois ideology. Edward Wilson, an evolutionary biologist from Harvard, created the discipline of sociobiology as an approach to social science derived from Darwinian evolution. According to Wilson, socioeconomic inequalities that exist in the modern society and have existed in virtually all human societies are rooted in evolutionary biology. In biology, organisms that are best adapted to their environment are able to transfer the greatest number of copies of their genes to the next generation equipping their offspring with higher chances of survival. As a result, desirable traits accumulate in the population leading the gradual improvement of the species. In human societies, competitive behavior and the pursuit of self-interest, which are central to capitalism, are, thus, explained as natural occurrences stemming from the biology of the human species.

In response to Wilson’s book Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, a group of prominent evolutionary biologists lead by Steven Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin wrote a scathing critique in the form of an open letter published in the New York Review of Books. In that letter, they accused Wilson of distorting the science behind evolution and rehashing the same myths about evolution that had been advanced in support of rightwing politics for decades by Herbert Spencer, a rightwing sociologist, and Konrad Lorenz, a Nobel Prize winning biologist and the member of the Nazi Party[2]. According to Gould, Lewontin and others, the view of natural selection embraced by Wilson is not in accordance with what the facts of evolution show, but it is in accordance with the capitalist ideology. Namely, evolution does not proceed in a gradual and linear fashion the way Wilson and others describe it. Such a view implies that evolution is always moving towards one, predetermined goal with those organisms that survive always being somehow more ‘worthy’ because they are closer to the predetermined evolutionary ideal.

What happens instead is that evolution proceeds not in a steady linear manner but in series of abrupt surges or saltations (from Latin ‘saltus’) with long periods of stasis or equilibrium in between them. The evidence for this view of evolution is overwhelming. Firstly, as Gould points out, the fossil record that exists on earth is far too restricted to support the gradualist view of evolution. According to him, a gradual transition between any two species would take millions of years and hundreds of millions of individual specimen meaning that the fossil record should show plenty of ‘links’ between species[3]. However, in reality, cases when paleontologists uncover a fossil that might represent a ‘missing link’ between two species are extremely rare and represent a cause celebre in the scientific community. If the gradualist view of evolution were true, the fossil record should contain just as many ‘missing links’ as there are fossils of known species. The fossil record itself should be a continuum.

Of course, a widely known account of the evolution of mammals makes it clear that the gradualist approach to evolution cannot work. Namely, biologists agree that the evolution of mammals from small creatures the size of rats or rabbits to humans or whales is the result of a gigantic contingency and by no means a predetermined outcome. The fact that an asteroid had hit the Earth (or some other factor that disturbed the climate pattern on the planet) was responsible for wiping out dinosaurs which had dominated the planet previously. The sudden disappearance of dinosaurs and a change of climate provided mammals with an evolutionary advantage which enabled them to become far more widespread and diverse. This means that traits that might have hindered the spread of mammals before this catastrophic event turned out to be an advantage in a completely new environment.

It is important to stress that the sketch of the theory of evolution that is taught in schools still echoes the main tenets of the classical Darwinian gradualist approach which has clear ideological baggage and does not stand up to serious scientific scrutiny. Those students who develop an interest in biology and choose to study it in greater detail later find out about newer theories, but the practical outcome is that the vast majority of students leave high school with a caricatural understanding of evolution with clear ideological implications.

The aura of science has often been used to develop and strengthen pure ideological constructions. In economics, for instance, views and theories that challenge the hypothesis of so-called efficient market hypothesis are routinely disregarded as non-scientific and ideologically biased despite the fact that the efficient market hypothesis is obviously biased in favor of the prevailing capitalist ideology. It is no wonder, then, that intellectual gurus of this ideological abuse of economics have resorted to other pseudo-scientific pursuits designed to legitimate the existing order. Ludwig von Mises, one the of the most prominent figures in the so-called Austrian School of economics alongside Friedrich Hayek, subscribed to the ‘science’ of racialism, according to which differences in the abilities of and behaviors among different races stem from biological facts. He wrote,

“It may be admitted that the races differ in talent and character and that there is no hope of ever seeing those differences resolved. Still, free trade theory shows that even the more capable races derive an advantage from associating with the less capable and that social co-operation brings them the advantage of higher productivity in the total labour process”[4]

What he is arguing in this passage is that there are more and less capable races, but that free trade might be beneficial for everyone especially the more capable ones. Therefore, in one passage written by this economic genius we find a fusion of racialism and free market economics brought to what reads like a reduction ad absurdum of both. This should not come as a surprise, however, because this is the author, who praised the European fascist movements in the late 1920s, which he saw as a necessary defense against socialism:

“It cannot be denied that Fascism and similar movements aiming at the establishment of dictatorships are full of the best intentions and that their intervention has, for the moment, saved European civilization. The merit that Fascism has thereby won for itself will live on eternally in history. But though its policy has brought salvation for the moment, it is not of the kind which could promise continued success. Fascism was an emergency makeshift. To view it as something more would be a fatal error”[5]

From the standpoint of mainstream economics, these ideological slippages are obviously not signals of some kind of ideological bias in Mises economic thought, and references to his work can be found in most economic textbooks and a prominent economic think-tank with branches in various parts of the world carries his name with pride.

The list of these obvious examples of ideological and political misuse and abuse of science is too long to summarize here, but I should mention at least some. The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in Negro Male was a protracted experiment that went on for almost four decades in the Macon County, Alabama, This study, which was conducted by the United States Public Health Service, included 600 African American men, around 400 of whom had contracted syphilis, and it consisted of withholding treatment from these 400 men and observing how the disease develops in them until they finally succumb to the terrible complications associated with these illness.[6] Another example of brutal politicization and abuse of science is the infamous MK Ultra Project run by the CIA. Around 80 educational and medical institutions throughout the United States participated in this project whose focus was to develop what is now known as ‘advanced interrogation techniques’ but actually translates as effective forms of torture and extraction of information. The experiments conducted as part of this project included hypnosis, electroshocks, sexual and verbal abuse, electroshocks and many other forms of torture[7][8].

These historical examples prove that science has, in fact, been misused and abused to forward the interests of the ruling classes in the past, which means that such things may happen in the future warranting a dose of skepticism about ‘expert’ opinion and policy advice.

When it comes to conspiracy theories, it is important to realize that all of them are not always wrong by definition but the way they operate also serves the interests of the bourgeoisie because they challenge skepticism and resistance towards the official narratives into politically impotent moralizing and the promotion of various rightwing positions. Therefore, the reminder of this article will be dedicated to showing that conspiracy theories can sometimes be true, but in the majority of cases, they actually deflect criticism from the capitalist system as a whole to specific individuals or groups, thus ultimately upholding the ruling ideology by guarding against more potent forms of criticism and promoting individualist, nationalist and racist worldviews.

Some conspiratorial accounts of certain historical events have actually been proven correct. One of the best-known examples of this is the infamous Gulf of Tonkin incident. In August 1964, the US government reported that there had been two naval confrontations between the US military and North Vietnam. In one of these incidents, a US destroyer ship exchanged fire with three North Vietnamese torpedo boats. The US destroyer was only slightly damaged while all three of the Vietnamese boats were damaged and four Vietnamese sailors were killed. Two days after this incident, the US government stated that there was another similar confrontation. These incidents were later used as pretext for the escalation of the Vietnam War and a massive surge in American troops being deployed to Vietnam. However, the Pentagon Papers combined with the admission of the then-US Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara revealed that the second incident never happened. Therefore, the escalation of the Vietnam War was based on false pretense. Similarly, in 2003, the US invaded Iraq based on the claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction but no evidence of these weapons has ever been acquired even after the US invaded Iraq, and no convincing evidence has been provided to support the idea that the US intelligence had any reason to believe that such weapons existed in Iraq prior to the invasion. Both of these events represent proven conspiracies to present false information to the public in order to carry out a secret agenda.

While there are many other examples of proven conspiracies, the vast majority of conspiracy theories that are being circulated cannot even be proven or disproven as it is hard to see what kind of evidence could be used to demonstrate the truth or falsity of these theories. Moreover, many of them are not plausible to begin with. However, such theories have very significant ideological functions. First, these theories suspend reason and evidence as the most important criteria in debate making it impossible to either prove or disprove other people’s arguments. Essentially, they license everyone to believe what they want resulting in the collapse of shared knowledge and meaning, which is essential for any kind of political action and organizing.

Secondly, these often incoherent ‘theories’ provide a facile smear that can be used to dismiss any critique of the establishment. At this point, conspiracy theories have replaced all coherent critiques of capitalism and bourgeois rule in the public discourse. While it is possible to see every conspiratorial hack even in the mainstream media, intellectuals, activists and politicians who express a genuine critique of the cultural, scientific, political and economic establishment are allowed no room in the public discourse. As a result, the critique of the establishment has become associated with buffoons and charlatans of various kinds making it easy for the defenders of the establishment to slap the label “conspiracy theorist” on everyone who dares to voice the criticism of the official positions on various crucial issues.

Thirdly, conspiracy theories are usually based on the intellectual tools of the bourgeoisie, and for that reason, most of them are perfectly compatible with the ruling ideology. For instance one conspiracy theory holds that Bill Gates orchestrated the response to the COVID-19 pandemic through World Health Organization in order to profit on the sales of vaccines, once they are discovered, and the migration of large parts of the economy into the digital world. The implication of this theory is that one individual is powerful enough to carry out such a massively complicated plan while keeping it a secret. The rest of the world population are portrayed as powerless pawns whose lives are completely in the hands of these all-powerful individuals. Such theories also offer simplistic solutions, which is that all the problems we are facing would disappear if we were to somehow get rid of these immoral and lawless individuals or groups. Finally, the evil motivations of the main villains of conspiracy theories are explained either as individual quirks or demonic inclinations as in the case of Bill Gates or they are attributed to the person’s ethnicity as in the case of conspiracy theories about George Soros, which usually make reference to his Jewish background.

A Marxist approach militates against the fetishization of science and conspiratorial thinking at the same time. While it is essential to realize that science does not operate in a vacuum free of the constraints of the surrounding capitalist society, the solution is not to abandon science and rationality and sink into conspiratorial moralizing. Instead, the shortcomings and failures of science (e.g. medications that do not work or have bad side-effects) should be explained as resulting from capitalist pressures on science such as the profits of pharmaceutical industry. At the same time, the critique of the elites cannot be left to conspiracy theorists nor should any critique of the establishment be labeled as a conspiracy theory. For example, the fact that pharmaceutical companies and tech companies will make tremendous profits as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic should not be neglected. It is uncontroversial that Eric Yuan, the owner of the company that has produced the Zoom platform, which is used for online meetings, classes and conferences, has seen his net worth increase by 100%, from around $4 billion to $8 billion in the last three months[9]. However, reference to such facts should not be accompanied by insinuations that he is somehow responsible for the pandemic nor should it focus on Yuan as an individual. Instead, this fact should be pointed out as an example of the irrationality and instability of the capitalist system, which enables companies (and individuals) to make enormous profits while millions of people are suffering from disease and poverty.

Predrag Kovačević

References

Horrock, Nicholas M. (4 Aug 1977). “80 Institutions Used in C.I.A. Mind Studies: Admiral Turner Tells Senators of Behavior Control Research Bars Drug Testing Now”. New York Times.

Otterman, Michael (2007). American Torture: From the Cold War to Abu Ghraib and Beyond. Melbourne University Publishing.

[1][1] https://books.google.rs/books?id=sC4bk4DZXTQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Science+in+Action:+How+to+Follow+Scientists+and+Engineers+through+Society&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiDgtr7u6XpAhUiBhAIHbg_BhgQ6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=Science%20in%20Action%3A%20How%20to%20Follow%20Scientists%20and%20Engineers%20through%20Society&f=false

[2] https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1975/11/13/against-sociobiology/

[3]https://books.google.rs/books?hl=en&lr=&id=3ULyAgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA239&dq=Punctuated+equilibria:+an+alternative+to+phyletic+gradualism&ots=j_h7zYmCtg&sig=wHX4YxIrOVDzhfE3H6gu-7pQ7PE&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Punctuated%20equilibria%3A%20an%20alternative%20to%20phyletic%20gradualism&f=false

[4] https://books.google.rs/books?id=K-mRDQAAQBAJ&pg=PT291&dq=It+may+be+admitted+that+the+races+differ+in+talent+and+character+and+that+there+is+no+hope+of+ever+seeing+those+differences+resolved.+Still,+free+trade+theory+shows+that+even+the+more+capable+races+derive+an+advantage+from+associating+with+the+less+capable+and+that+social+co-operation+brings+them+the+advantage+of+higher+productivity+in+the+total+labour+process&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj3_-_tvaXpAhXMlosKHfvZB1IQ6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=It%20may%20be%20admitted%20that%20the%20races%20differ%20in%20talent%20and%20character%20and%20that%20there%20is%20no%20hope%20of%20ever%20seeing%20those%20differences%20resolved.%20Still%2C%20free%20trade%20theory%20shows%20that%20even%20the%20more%20capable%20races%20derive%20an%20advantage%20from%20associating%20with%20the%20less%20capable%20and%20that%20social%20co-operation%20brings%20them%20the%20advantage%20of%20higher%20productivity%20in%20the%20total%20labour%20process&f=false

[5] https://books.google.rs/books?id=TMkSpFYc_SEC&pg=PA51&dq=%E2%80%9CIt+cannot+be+denied+that+Fascism+and+similar+movements+aiming+at+the+establishment+of+dictatorships+are+full+of+the+best+intentions+and+that+their+intervention+has,+for+the+moment,+saved+European+civilization.+The+merit+that+Fascism+has+thereby+won+for+itself+will+live+on+eternally+in+history.+But+though+its+policy+has+brought+salvation+for+the+moment,+it+is+not+of+the+kind+which+could+promise+continued+success.+Fascism+was+an+emergency+makeshift.+To+view+it+as+something+more+would+be+a+fatal+error%E2%80%9D&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjZvO39vaXpAhUKx4sKHW3-DHcQ6AEIODAC#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9CIt%20cannot%20be%20denied%20that%20Fascism%20and%20similar%20movements%20aiming%20at%20the%20establishment%20of%20dictatorships%20are%20full%20of%20the%20best%20intentions%20and%20that%20their%20intervention%20has%2C%20for%20the%20moment%2C%20saved%20European%20civilization.%20The%20merit%20that%20Fascism%20has%20thereby%20won%20for%20itself%20will%20live%20on%20eternally%20in%20history.%20But%20though%20its%20policy%20has%20brought%20salvation%20for%20the%20moment%2C%20it%20is%20not%20of%20the%20kind%20which%20could%20promise%20continued%20success.%20Fascism%20was%20an%20emergency%20makeshift.%20To%20view%20it%20as%20something%20more%20would%20be%20a%20fatal%20error%E2%80%9D&f=false

[6] https://www.nytimes.com/1997/05/12/us/families-emerge-as-silent-victims-of-tuskegee-syphilis-experiment.html?searchResultPosition=1

[7] https://books.google.rs/books?id=wiVqrgS68NoC&printsec=frontcover&dq=American+Torture:+From+the+Cold+War+to+Abu+Ghraib+and+Beyond&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi4ttfivqXpAhWOl4sKHXr9A1kQ6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

[8] https://www.nytimes.com/1977/08/04/archives/80-institutions-used-in-cia-mind-studies-admiral-turner-tells.html

[9] https://www.businessinsider.com/meet-zoom-billionaire-eric-yuan-career-net-worth-life

Analysis, Featured

Donald Clelland and Radical Interpretation of World-System Analysis

22. November 2019. Informacioni Sekretarijat Leave a comment

Introduction

Donald Clelland is an American sociologist with over 30 years of research and teaching experience, yet with a fairly small number of published works covering the subject of World-Systems Analysis. His existing works and drafts published over the last decade bring the World-Systems Analysis back to its radical roots basing itself on new research.

Clelland’s main subjects cover analysis of commodity chains with a special focus on the role of female labour. Due to this feminist perspective, he refers to commodity chains as Gendered commodity chains.

Although it has the word “chain” in its name, commodity chains are in fact networks of production consisting of a number of geographically distributed producers, each of whom produces a single component of the final product. Every producer in the network is a node, and the distribution of nodes forms a hierarchy akin to core-periphery relationship. For example, the producers of raw materials are to be found in the lowest part of the production hierarchy, just as they happen to be on the periphery of the world-system. Above them are the producers that process the raw materials, then those who produce individual components, followed by the ones that assemble the components into final product that is delivered to the company on top of the hierarchy that maintains control over the commodity chain, owns the final product and markets it. This company is typically a corporation based in a core country.

Clelland focuses on the process of creation of value in each node and its transfer to the last node in the chain. For this reason, he describes commodity chains as surplus extraction chains. This question had been posed by Wallerstein in the 70s when he first formulated the concept of commodity chains.

The key elements of his analysis are:

surplus drain,
bright value, and
dark value.

Surplus Drain

Economic Surplus

Although Marxism is one of the foundations of the World-Systems Analysis, its theorists often criticise and modify Marx’s economic model. That is also the case with Clelland who presents his theory of surplus drain through modification of Marx’s labour theory of value.

Marx’s model supposes that the source of surplus value is to be found in the difference between the value created by the worker and the value of reproduction of his labour force. The logical outcome of that assumption is that the wage covers the costs of survival of the worker and his family^[1]. Yet, this does not correspond to the existing situation in the periphery where labour is not completely proletarianised^[2].

As an alternative to Marx’s model, Clelland uses Baran’s and Sweezy’s concept of economic surplus. Baran’s definition of surplus is shortly: “The difference between what society produces and the costs of producing it.” Baran’s concept of surplus is not to be mixed up with Marx’s concept of surplus value: economic surplus is a part of the surplus value that is being accumulated, hence it does not include capitalist consumption, state expenses for administration, defence, repressive apparatus, etc. Defined in such a way, this concept is more flexible as it allows for analysis of additional cases which do not fit into the classic model that Marx devised. For example: unpaid labour, underpaid labour, ecological degradation as a source of value, etc.^[3] It would be wrong to claim that Marx did not contemplate those cases, however he did not include them into his abstract model as he considered them to be precapitalist features.

Degree of Monopoly

Second dimension of the criticism of Marx’s model refers to the supposition about the free market exchange. Much like Smith’s classic model, Marx too bases his theory on free market relations without external influences such as state intervention and monopolies.

Clelland considers that the main tendency of the capitalists is not the increase of exploitation but the increase in the degree of monopoly (deviation from the free market).

Degree of monopoly is defined as any kind of mechanism which lowers the price of production or increases the sales price in comparison to free market. Degree of monopoly is present in every node of a commodity chain, and its efficiency is directly related to the position of the node in the hierarchy of the chain. Within every node unpaid value is drained and moved upstream in the chain.

Observed from another perspective, the degree of monopoly could be understood as a capacity of an enterprise to transfer its costs to the enterprises lower down the chain.

Degree of monopoly as we have it today in commodity chains is mainly a degree of oligopsony. Oligopsony is a situation on the market characterised by a small number of buyers and a large number of sellers. This situation allows buyers to lower the price of commodities by leveraging the competition between the sellers. That is, the degree of oligopsony allows buyers to control the prices.

The Importance of Surplus Drain

Surplus drain as a concept is akin to unequal exchange, although it is used in a winder sense and it can be applied to precapitalist systems.

Surplus drain is considered to be a basis of every world-system. Hence, the core-periphery relationship is also defined as a relationship of surplus drain – the zone which creates value but is unable to retain it, is the periphery, while the zone which captures the value is the core. Semi-periphery can be understood as a proxy which drains the value from periphery, while it is itself being drained of value by the core.

Therefore, the division of world into core-periphery zones according to the World-Systems Analysis is neither geographic nor nation-bound, it is a division which reflects the flow of surplus.

In the precapitalist systems, surplus drain was effected by forceful appropriation, or what Marx called “primary accumulation”. Modern, capitalist world-system has two characteristics regarding surplus drain:

it is effected via commodity by realising production and distribution through different zones of the system, and
the system has to expand in order to sustain its growth and survival, and that is achieved by searching for new locations with lower prices. (Clelland, 2012)

Surplus drain is one of the mechanisms which reproduces the core-periphery hierarchy and the capitalist world-system itself. At the same time, surplus drain not only allows increased accumulation of profit for the capitalists, but it also makes subsidies for the consumers possible by lowering the final price of the product.

Two Categories of Value

To explain the concept of value, Clelland uses the analogy from the world of physics which considers that 90% of the matter is invisible. According to this analogy, the biggest portion of value is not officially accounted for. It is not a terminology one would come across in World-Systems Analysis, rather a way for Clelland to illustrate the transfer of value.

Value is categorised as bright and dark depending upon it being registered or not in the accounting books. Namely, the capitalists run their accounting in conformity with the information they need for efficient business management. In this respect, they do not account for costs which are not closely related to production. In other words, they do not register externalised costs – the costs borne by someone else even though they should be borne by the capitalist. Unregistered costs are invisible, dark value.

Bright Value

The mechanisms of bright value drain are:

export of capital (FDI) which enables the repatriation of profit to the country of origin;
system of monopolies to bypass the competitive market;
monopolistic control through patents and intellectual property;
expats in the peripheral countries who send their earnings back to their home country or they buy luxury items from their country of origin, and
debt slavery – loans which, in spite of being paid over and over, keep being serviced due to accumulated interests.

Additional mechanisms include: capital flight – when comprador bourgeoisie transfer their personal wealth to the core countries; foreign exchange manipulation – devaluation of local currency which reduces the income from imports; portfolio investments – transfer of dividends from periphery to core, among others.

Dark Value

Clelland considers dark value to be present in all factors of production: capital, labour, land, natural resources, knowledge, and energy. Dark value is being realised through ownership over each component in the production chain under its price on the world market.

Dark value is hidden in the way it subsidises commodity chains:

formal labour^[4] paid under the market price;
commodity inputs to commodity chains which are paid under the market price, and they originate from the household labour in the informal market^[5];
cheap natural resources, and
ecological and human externalities which are free for the capitalist (such as unpaid labour, ecological degradation, etc.).

Characteristics of dark value are:

surplus drain is free for the capitalist, hence, as it is not a cost it is not accounted for in the official registers;
unaccounted surplus can be converted into accounted surplus (bright value) either by being transformed into profit to the benefit of the capitalists, or it can be transferred into lower prices to the benefit of the consumers;
the economic significance of dark value grows over time which is why it’s transfer has to expand with the increase of trade volume. In that case, the increase in consumption is what triggers dark value drain from the periphery.

In the context of knowledge and natural resources as a source of dark value, we can name two examples:

By the means of transnational flow of labour and brain drain from periphery to core, the costs of training and reproduction of the labour force is externalised to the periphery.
By controlling the ecosystem of the periphery, the core exercises the so called ecologically unequal exchange. The core maintains low price of the raw materials through ownership of their sources. The effects of the uncompensated ecological damage are borne by the peripheral communities via health risks, loss of access to resources for food and costs for rehabilitation of the ecosystem.

Labour as Source of Dark Value

The contribution of labour to the value of commodity consists of the total hours of work – both accounted and unaccounted (i.e. paid and unpaid)–which are realised in the production, including the work on reproduction of the labour force.

Unpaid Labour

Household labour and household resources subsidise the income of the peripheral workers allowing capitalists to pay them wages below subsistence level. The essential characteristic of semi-proletarian households is their capacity to survive via unpaid labour, which is what lowers the price of their labour force in the market.

Unpaid labour of semi-proletarian households has 4 forms:^[6]

capitalists do not bear the costs for the biological reproduction of women, nor for the upbringing of the new generation of workers;
households engage with an array of unpaid activities for survival which indirectly subsidise capitalists, i.e. collection of unpaid resources;
women and female children provide unpaid labour in form of support to the male-owned household-based business, and
women provide unpaid labour for search and use of capitalist products.

From the standpoint of the capital, households are commodity producers: they produce labour force. As such, households are the basis of capitalist production.

Informal Sector

Commodity chains include horizontal chains of small commodity production based on informal sector and non-waged labour. They provide cheap labour, services and inputs for commodity chains below market price. They are also based on semi-proletarian households.

An example of this relationship is a female worker who works in a factory but also employs a caregiver from informal sector to provide care for her child while she’s at work.

Consequences of the Surplus Drain

Consumers in the Core and Dark Value

As mentioned previously, dark value is based upon uncompensated labour or underpaid labour. If production were to be carried out in the core, the final price would be significantly higher. Consumers in the core enjoy the benefits of the exploitation of the periphery through the lower prices provided by dark value.

Social consequences are reflected in the maintenance of the high living standard in the core by the means of high consumption in spite of the decrease in social spending and salary levels. In such a manner, neoliberal reforms counter the effect of lowering real wages by providing cheap imports.

Core-Periphery and Dependence

Surplus drain is super-exploitation of peripheral labour, households and ecological resources which blocks economic growth through investments and expanded production by depriving periphery of its surplus.

On the other hand, dark value drain is also a threat to the ecological sustainability and quality of life of the workers in the periphery, especially that of women.

Surplus drain from the periphery represents a big portion of its economic wealth, but it doesn’t mean a big increase of wealth in the core because the biggest portion of trade is carried out among core countries.

Commodity-Chain Analysis

Let us reformulate the analysis of commodity chains. Commodity chains are exploitative structural relations which occur in the arrays of unequal exchange between its nodes and across world-system zones. Powerful companies use degree of monopoly within the commodity chain to capture bright and dark value.

The cost structure of each node is as follows:

raw materials	Value added
production costs
management
overhead costs
profit	Value captured
Total: sales price

Every following node in the array takes the price of the component from the previous chain as the first item in the cost structure. Values calculated this way constitute bright value. In parallel, each node contains dark value in form of externalities. For example: by lowering the wages, the unpaid portion of the created value is captured as profit – i.e. the cost is externalised onto the worker who has to work additional hours in order to earn the wage that covers his subsistence costs.

In a purely competitive system dark value capture would quickly become universal. However, in the monopoly capitalism, the dark value can be leveraged in 3 ways:

to lower the product price in relation to the price of the competition;
to expand the accumulation by converting dark value in bright value (reinvestment), and
as a protection from competition via degree of monopoly.

Enterprises achieve the degree of monopoly via: scale, tariff and non-tariff barriers to protect access to the market, innovation, intellectual rights, marketing… and via monopsonic conditions. Monopsony allows for unequal relations between the participants in the chain. Hence, it allows for surplus drain via unequal exchange.

Clelland reached his conclusions by applying the existing theory on Apple’s commodity chain:

In the capitalist world, Apple is the prime example of an enterprise that perfected commodity chain management becoming a model for other companies. Its model is fabless (without owning a factory) which outsources the whole production process to individual component suppliers and producers which assembles them. On top of the chain, Apple designs the product, controls the production process, coordinates it, manages marketing, logistics and sales.

The way Apple carries out its degree of monopoly is via: innovation, intellectual property, oligopoly relations with the producers in the commodity chain, and externalisation of costs onto them. Apart from the products themselves, the innovation is also to be found in the control of the production process, selection of component suppliers etc. However, innovation alone is not enough. What is also required to ensure monopoly conditions is the legal protection (intellectual property and patents), strict control over the production process and quality control.

The buyer, Apple in this case, encourages competition between suppliers by hiring multiple producers of the same component. At the same time, it keeps searching for new ones who could deliver the component at a lower price. In this way the “non-competitive” suppliers are eliminated from the chain, and on the other hand, pressure is applied by the means of competition in order to prevent the increase of component prices. As a result, the suppliers are forced to drive their costs down and externalise them onto their own suppliers in the lower instances of the chain (for example, suppliers of raw materials, informal sectors, households, etc.).

Finally, Apple provides credit lines for the suppliers. The credits are conditioned by long-term obligations which provide: raw materials below market price, transfer of risk over to suppliers and long-term use of the suppliers’ labour force.

Reference:

Amin, Samir, 1974. “Accumulation on a World Scale: A Critique of the Theory of Underdevelopment”

Baran, Paul, 1957. “The Political Economy of Growth”

Baran, Paul and Sweezy, Paul, 1966. “Monopoly Capital: An Essay on the American Economic and Social Order”

Clelland, Donald, “Surplus Drain versus the Labor Theory of Value”

—, 2012.”Surplus Drain and Dark Value in the Modern World-System”

—, 2014. “Unpaid Labor as Dark Value in Global Commodity Chains”

—, 2015. “The Core of the Apple:Dark Value and Degrees of Monopoly in Global Commodity Chains”

Emmanuel, Arghiri, 1972. “Unequal Exchange: A Study of the Imperialism of Trade”

Wallerstein, immanuel, 1974. “The Modern World-System I”

This is what the reproduction of labour force refers to, i.e. it’s renewal on daily basis by covering basic material necessities, and upbringing of new generation of workers. ↑
Proleterisation refers to a process which integrates workers into the labour market making them dependent on it (i.e. selling their labour force on the labour market is their only source of income). Contrary to the full proletarisation, a class of semi-proletarian labour has to complement their income from the sales of labour force by different means typically outside of formal economy in order to subsists (for example, cultivating their own crops for personal use). ↑
Emmanuel ‘sand Amin’s formulation of the concept of unequal exchange is completely based on Marx’s classical model and does not deviate from Marx’s assumptions. ↑
Formal labour refers to the legal employment of workers with all welfare benefits. ↑
Informal employment refers to production without legally arranged work and production relations between the worker and the capitalist. This implies various types of violation of workers’ rights.↑
Examples for this cases. Families in Uganda survive first and foremost by horticulture. However, they need money for scholarisation of children and other expenses which drives them to grow coffee. Coffee cultivation is performed mostly by women, although children also take part in the harvest. The sales is carried out by men as owners. They also keep the earnings. Also, the excess of food produced in semi-proletarian households is sold on the market to the formal workers. Food produced in such a way has a price lower then the market price which lowers the price of the workers that buy it. They then sell their labour force to a supplier which takes part in a commodity chain of a big core-based corporation. ↑

Analysis, Featured

Ecologically Unequal Exchange and the Green New Deal

19. November 2019. Informacioni Sekretarijat Leave a comment

Thanks to Greta Thunberg’s media protagonism, the until recently ignored environmental pollution problem came into public focus, and all other problems are as if forgotten. Is the environmental problem really as catastrophic as Greta claims, and is the ecological question more important than all else?

The problem of destruction of the environment, contrary to what is shown on the screen with Greta and the biggest polluters she shakes hands with, must be ripped out of national boundaries (especially the boundaries of the few most developed countries) and regarded from the perspective of economic and political relations of all the countries of the world as a whole.

Upon looking at the world organization from that angle, we may savvy what is to be done, plainly speaking, about the hierarchical division between countries, in which the countries at the bottom of the hierarchy produce raw materials for the countries in the middle of the hierarchy, who then make final products for consumption intended for those at the top.

Such an organization of the world order is a consequence of economic processes whose goal is to accumulate wealth at the top of the hierarchy, or what we call “capitalism” in its monopolistic form. Capitalism as economic world order is on the one hand maintained by global political institution such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the World Trade Organization (WTO), etc.; on the other hand, it is “secured” by the military force of the wealthiest and most developed countries (NATO and its allies).

There are almost no products being produced entirely in one country (from raw materials to final product), instead the production takes place through so called global commodity chains, in which hundreds, and for certain products even thousands of individual suppliers and manufacturers spread all across the world take part. If the environmental problem is a direct consequence of the capitalist way of production, the production that includes dozens of countries per product, how do we not link the “ecological catastrophe” to all other problems that the most of the world faces, and that the handful of the most developed countries would rather cover up?

Ecologically Unequal Exchange

One of the mechanisms of accumulation of wealth in the developed countries on the top of the hierarchy is the so called unequal exchange. More precisely, if one of the countries doing the exchange has low worker’s income (in poor countries), and the other country has high worker’s income (in wealthy countries), value produced in the first country is transferred into the second.

Let us simplify why it comes to this: Marx saw that national economies produce what he called “General Rate of Profit” – when a new branch of production appears for capital inflow, the rate of profit falls, and when it falls to a low enough level, the investments stop and relocate to another, more profitable branch. During a long enough period, the relocation of capital from one branch to another makes all the branches give a similar, so called general rate of profit. This happens because of the mobility of capital – its feature to be freely invested wherever needed.

At the same time, Marx noted a similar thing happening with workers’ salaries. When there is a high demand for workforce in one branch, the workers are paid higher salaries, so they naturally gravitate to higher paying branches. This mobility of the workforce makes average salaries grow and equalize over a longer period of time.

However, we are speaking about international trade, not national. In that context, capital has the same mobility as in the national (it can relocate from one country to another), but not the workforce – its mobility is limited by state borders. Because of that effect, a general rate of profit is formed internationally, but labor wages aren’t equalizing, which makes the poor stay poor.^[1]

One way to understand unequal exchange is this: if we assume that technology all across the world is the same or similar, that productivity of the Third World is the same or similar, while the only difference is the cost of the workforce, then we may presume that the value made by a poor country worker is the same as the value made by a rich country worker. However, the produced item is being sold as if produced by the rich country worker, meaning that the source of profit for the capitalist is in the discrepancy of salaries between the worker of the rich country and the worker of the poor country.

The basis for unequal exchange of goods also applies to the theory of “ecologically unequal exchange”, more precisely as “ratio of unequal exchange between countries holding different positions in the world-system”. This theoretical perspective focuses not only on the damage being done to the environment of poor countries as a consequence of trade with wealthy countries, but also on its effects to health, safety and socio-economic occurrences. Likewise, we must accentuate the fact that this way of “exchange” is far more beneficial for wealthy countries than for the poor ones.^[2] Wealthy countries “export” pollution into poor countries, intending to make the countries of production pay the expenses of environmental protection, not the company that manages the production (from another, usually more developed country). The aforementioned global institutions are a part of maintaining the order that “expropriates ecological well-being” of poor countries by the wealthy ones.^[3]

The main motive behind the ecologically unequal exchange is first and foremost an economic one. The biggest companies tend to increase income and competitiveness of their products on the market by reducing the cost of production. Or we can put it like this: they tend to snatch the biggest possible ration of value that is produced somewhere else. The source of that value can be human labor (paid, unpaid or underpaid paid) or expenses that the possessor of capital should bear, but someone else bears them instead.^[4]

Expenses of ecological damage belong in the last category, and that’s called externalization. As an example, we can mention the American company Apple, one of the most famous examples of an efficient commodity chain. Every produced iPad takes almost 15kg of ore, almost 300l of water, as well as fossil fuel for power used in production that emits 30kg of carbon-monoxide. First generation of iPads made 47.5kg of greenhouse gas per product. If the iPad were produced in the USA, every product, for ecological expenses only, would cost 190 dollars more.^[5]

It is clear that the iPad has the same components and takes the same amount of work wherever produced, so the pollution is the same independent of the location of the factory. Production of the iPad in Asian countries means that those countries would carry the burden of pollution, but also the cost of its elimination. That’s how the aforementioned “export of pollution” functions, and there are two winners in this combo: Apple as the owner of the product on the market, but also the consumer in the wealthy countries who gets the product way bellow its value.

Consequences of Ecologically Unequal Exchange

To reduce all ecological problems to global warming is to close our eyes to reality. Truth be told, that may be easier than it sounds, because that reality hits countries and populations somewhere far from those who focus on the emissions of carbon-monoxide. Degradation of the eco-system in peripheral countries leads to a whole chain of problems. Let us look at some examples.

In the Turkish town of Bergama, EuroGold Group was given license for the exploitation of gold. However, EuroGold used cyanide, which lead to the destruction of the soil and the revenues of local farmers. ^[6]

In the Niger Delta oil is exploited. Oil drillings are destroying the water and they are a serious threat to local communities who survive thanks to fishing. The situation is so critical that in the region there are a number of guerilla groups who attack the oil rigs.

The reach of ecological consequences is fairly evident in the case of coffee farming in Uganda. Most farmers in Uganda live on agricultural products they breed themselves. However, the need money in order to send their children to school, and the only way to acquire it is through coffee breeding. Coffee breeding is the cause of deforestation on the mountains, which increased the number of landslides over the years. Every year the number of farmers who lose their lives due to landslides gets bigger. Aside from landslides, the number of malaria cases increased because coffee needs shade and moisture, the ideal conditions for mosquitoes to breed. By expanding the areas for coffee farming, the number of mosquitoes increases and farmers often take mosquito nets off of their houses and use them to make shade, which makes them far more vulnerable and exposed to bites and malaria.^[7]

The Green New Deal

The media frenzy around Greta and the ecological catastrophe aims to make a positive public opinion about the so called Green New Deal. It is about a series of policies alike to Roosevelt’s New Deal – policies close to social democracies of the ‘70s that combined infrastructural state investments with social policies, salary increments and other, but this time the emphasis is on protecting the environment.

The originators of this initiative are the “progressive” US democrats, who are enjoying the support of the UN as of a couple of days ago. Due to the forthcoming recession, they call for an abandonment of austerity measures, but also for infrastructural state investments like ecological transport, “clean” energy and food systems, as well as investments into developing countries, with a goal to create a “greener” industry.^[8]

This is an open confession that the forces of the market and the logic of free trade lead directly into a crisis, not out of it. More accurately, they lead to the impossibility of the market and financial capital to create growth, development and prosperity. A call to an open intervention of the state to break the sacred rule of liberalism about the non-intervention in trade relations, it only means that the oligarchy is looking for a way to get out of the problem at the expense of its profits. However, that solution only means that the problems will “nationalize” (taxpayers’ money will finance the growth of private businesses without making the state a competitor for private capital), but also that the West will impose the “green solution” on the rest of the world, by any means (political, economic and through global institutions), for its own problems.

Let’s revisit the externalization and the shifting of expenses outside of the production process: just as the burden of pollution is shifted onto the peripheral states, the burden of making the industry “green” falls on the state. When it comes to most developed countries, the effect of this policy is different.

It is expected that the state will invest into a new, greener infrastructure, which can only mean a few things: 1. To use public means to create demand where it otherwise couldn’t be (another way of externalization, companies believing that the infrastructure cost of their business should fall on the state), 2. To subsidize the shift to an ecological production (the cost of shifting to a new way of production shouldn’t be paid for by the companies, and the whole operation shouldn’t severely effect the profit margin and growth), 3. To invest into the development of new, greener technologies.

This way a monopoly is created on the global market in the field of green technologies, by protecting the new technologies with intellectual rights and patents (another way of robbing other countries of their wealth), and it guaranties the owner of that technology (either of the land or a company) that they will harvest high profit just up to that technology spreading so far and wide that it becomes unprofitable. At the same time, they will be able to compel manufacturers and suppliers from poor countries to use them, and that way they will create a market for their capital green products, but also maintain the dependency of those countries in economic, and therefore political sense.

Subsidies may be looked upon as a protectionist measure. Wealthy countries are protecting their businesses by bearing a part of the expense, which brings down the price of their products on the global market. On the other hand, peripheral countries will be compelled to import the green technology, to pay for the patents and to maintain the free trade regime. That way they won’t be able to independently develop their own green technology because violating the patents would have negative economic consequence (they wouldn’t be able to find a buyer on the global market), and their green technology would be uncompetitive, it would be more costly than the imported one. Thus, while poor countries are expected to be almost religiously devoted to free trade, rich countries are openly interfering with it by protectionist measures, in order to ensure their economic hegemony.

The Green New Deal is nothing but a political maneuver to get out of the neoliberal deadlock over the backs of peripheral countries, just as it was the custom with all previous solution to a crisis. That’s the solution for a crisis in rich countries, and it means exporting it to poor countries. It is pretty clear that the main cause behind the ecological destruction is the capitalist logic, universal for the whole planet. Changing the way of accumulation doesn’t change the logic of the system, and therefore doesn’t eliminate the cause of ecological problems. The biggest share in those problems will still go to those whose share in the wealth is the smallest.

In the end we should answer the questions posed at the beginning of the text. The ecological problem is critical and it leads to a catastrophe. Equally, it is a part of a chain of other problems, and a direct consequence of political and economic world order. The problem of climate change cannot be regarded, and let alone solved, as if it were in a vacuum; it can be completely solved only by transitioning to a sustainable way of production, incompatible with the accumulation of capital.

https://www.princip.info/2017/12/21/arghiri-emmanuel-marksisti-nejednaka-razmena/https://anti-imperialist.net/2019/05/31/arghiri-emmanuel-unequal-exchange-revisited/ ↑
Paul K. Gellert, R. Scott Frey, Harry F. Dahms, “Introduction to Ecologically Unequal Exchange in Comparative Perspective”, JOURNAL OF WORLD-SYSTEMS RESEARCH, Vol. 23 Issue 2 ↑
David Ciplet, “Splintering South: Ecologically Unequal Exchange Theory in a Fragmented Global Climate”, JOURNAL OF WORLD-SYSTEMS RESEARCH, Vol. 23 Issue 2 ↑
Donald Clelland, “Unpaid Labor as Dark Value in Global Commodity Chains”, https://sites.google.com/site/surplusdrain/ ↑
Donald Clelland, “The Core of the Apple: Dark Value and Degrees of Monopoly in Global Commodity Chains”, JOURNAL OF WORLD-SYSTEMS RESEARCH ↑
https://newsolution17.wordpress.com/2017/06/01/bergama-against-eurogold/ ↑
Kelly F. Austin, “Brewing Unequal Exchanges in Coffee:<br /> A Qualitative Investigation into the Consequences of the Java Trade in Rural Uganda”, JOURNAL OF WORLD-SYSTEMS RESEARCH, Vol. 23 Issue 2 ↑
https://www.france24.com/en/20190925-un-calls-for-global-green-new-deal-to-boost-world-economy ↑

Analysis

Exploitation of workers by the workers

29. September 2018. marshall 1 Comment

“It often happens that ideas lag behind reality; this is because human knowledge is subjected to restrictions due to many social conditions. We are opposed to diehards in our revolutionary ranks, whose ideas fail to advance with changing objective circumstances and have manifested itself historically as right opportunism. These people do not see that the struggle of opposites has already pushed the objective process forward, while their knowledge has stopped at an old stage. Their ideas are divorced from social practice; they cannot march ahead to guide the chariot of society; they simply trail behind, grumbling that it goes too fast and trying to drag it back or turn it in the opposite direction.” – Mao Tse Tung

In the second half of the 19th century, Marx and Engels posited that proletarian revolution would arise in countries at the highest stages of capitalist development – England, Germany, and the United States. According to their understanding, capitalism is in crisis when its technological abilities and productivity are brought to such a level that they can no longer be reconciled with outdated capitalist social relations in which everything has to be paid for and everything must extract profit. When technology reaches a stage of development where poverty, hunger and disease become problems that the existing technology can easily solve, the socialist revolution will arise. The echoes of these views can be seen in aspects of Lenin’s work, since he also thought that the October Revolution was a transitional step that must lead to the final socialist revolution, which would arise in Germany and secure a global proletarian revolution. Lenin later revised this view, relying on his experiences from 1905 to 1917, broadly explaining the world’s first socialist seizure of power, the Russian revolution, through the theory that the dictatorship of the proletariat would first find purchase at the “weakest links” of imperialism, yet correctly noticing the influence of imperialist super-profits in fostering the social-chauvinism of the Western left. Today, we see the consequences of this view in the programs of numerous so-called “revolutionary” organizations that still hold great hopes in the moribund “revolutionary” movements in the West, whether this hope is embodied in Bernie Sanders or Jeremy Corbin and the social-democratic fractions of Britain’s Labour Party.

To place hope for revolution in the imperialist West, however, is a rather obsolete view within the Marxist tradition. Since the second half of the 20th century, theorists such as Arghiri Emmanuel, Samir Amin, Andre Gunder Frank, Che Guevara and others, by elaborating Lenin’s theorization of a “labour aristocracy” and studying changes in national and global conditions of economic evolution, argued that under the conditions of global capitalism, revolutionary forces must be sought on the global level. These authors argued that revolutionary advances must start at the periphery of the world capitalist system, that is, in colonies or former colonies, as only those layers of society that have an actual material interest in bringing down the existing system will contend for revolution. The Western working class, its wages and conditions of life subsidized by imperial loot, has not only had a lack of material and subjective interests in breaking down the existing system. Because of its favourable position within the world division of labour and income, this fraction of the world’s working class has instead maintained interests in the preservation of the capitalist order.¹ It is now evident that the initial Marxian theory of socialist revolution first grasping state power in the West has proven false, despite that in these countries, productive capacities have long been such that the elimination of poverty – even globally – is a quite realistic possibility.

As mentioned, Arghiri, Amin and others have developed sophisticated economic models in order to explain why workers in the imperialist nations actually have an interest in preserving capitalism. During the 1960s and 1970s, while there was still a strong union movement in the West, strikes were almost everyday occurrence, and the events of May 1968 convinced public opinion of the possibility of socialist revolution in the Western nations. It was then that, with cursory dismissals, that Arghiri’s and Amin’s theories we claimed to be totally meaningless. Yet even then, just as today, it was clear to the careful observer that alongside surface-level discontent and short-lived insurgencies, workers in the West were not interested in systemic changes. Further, these upsurges in struggle were focused on the distribution of the imperial pies – their hunger was not for proletarian revolution and internationalism, but to secure as big a piece of the pie as possible for themselves.

In our current moment, however, confirmation for those theories which emphasize that revolution will ignite on the periphery is well-secured. While referring to concrete historical experiences of the 20th century, we will also deal here with the current state of the economic conditions of labour in the West. At first glance, we observe increasing working class support to political figures such as Donald Tramp and Marine Le Pen, who are promoting open hatred for immigrants and non-Europeans by advocating for a close to national borders and the forging of a new deal between labour and capital by which Western workers are promised a return to a lost Golden Age of prosperity. The appeals of the left do not resonate with the same intensity. While most commentators see the breakthrough of such reactionary national populist policies as a consequence of irrational racism or an expression of defiance against the liberal establishment, a consistent Marxist interpretation warns that these right-wing currents express the actual economic interests of the Western white working class.

To prove the accuracy of this claim, one needs to look a deeper into economic indicators which clearly show that the Western working class has become a kind of collective capitalist with an increasing share in the world capitalist system. When we use the term “collective capitalist,” we are not introducing a new concept, as today virtually all major companies are shareholding companies with numerous owners. What we are arguing is that, beginning in the 1970s, Western workers have not only received a portion of profits from their privileged position in the global division of labour and income, but have even become active participants in the ownership structures of Western corporations.

The acquisition of part of the ownership of imperialist corporations by Western workers undertook several forms, and what is common to all of them is that they reflect the class compromise between Western labour and capital, and the former’s alliance with the enslavement and exploitation of the peoples of neo-colonial states. In Germany, this class alliance has reached its most advanced form. It can be seen in the fact that a number of the directorates of German corporations elect half of their members from the ranks of workers with the other half coming from shareholders.² In addition, in many companies the workers themselves also hold an important part of the shares, and even receive them as employment benefits.

What is particularly interesting about the participation of labour interests in capital is the way in which these interests have been united in the period of the so-called social-democratic consensus.³ Alexander Hicks, as well as numerous other authors, has argued that social democracy in the second half of the 20th century, coupled to the interests of large-scale capital, led to the creation and consolidation of a form of government known as corporatism, which served as the theoretical basis for fascist movements in the first half of the 20th century.⁴ The leading corporatist or fascist idea was that class and all other disagreements in capitalism would be resolved by allowing participation of groups in society seen as integral to decide on the direction in which society would develop – that is, class collaboration. Workers, capitalists, bankers, craftsmen and others were to work together to make these decisions. For the corporatist, it is essential that social unity is always maintained and that compromises are made. Corporatism as the leading ideology in the West is accepted by large capital, the social-democratic parties, and the major unions.

The most significant example for this rise of corporatism is again Germany. Very little is said about how since the 1980s, an unprecedented wave of economic integration of labour and capital in Germany began, with the same program taking place in many of the core countries. By the end of the 1990s, pension funds became the most important investors on stock exchanges in the United States, and after the unification of Germany, the same process was seen.⁵ Laws have been passed that allow pension funds to invest significant capital (which has been collected for decades from the payment of pensions to workers) on the stock exchange in the shares of large corporations.⁶ The argument was that a quick inflow of money into corporations would enable large profits and stock market growth, and that funds would increase their capital through dividends or payments that all shareholders receive when a company records profits.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the unification of Germany, the infusion of capital from pension funds has created a sufficient amount of money in German corporations to carry out the privatization of the industrial giants from the former DDR and not destroy them – as they were destroyed in Serbia and many other post-Soviet nations – as it was politically important to undergo a smooth transition to capitalism in Germany in order to forestall social unrest. Soon afterwards, the same capital was used in the privatization of industrial companies throughout Eastern Europe after the fall of the Soviet Union. German firms were most likely to pick up all the strategically important companies in a short period of time. For example, Wolkswagen bought the Czech Škoda and integrated it into its automobile conglomerate, where it still operates successfully today.

The best example of this economic trend, however, is the German telecommunications giant Deutsche Telekom, which is partly owned by the state (holding 32% of shares), and a large part of the remaining shares then held by various pension funds.⁷ This company, whose ownership structure represents the embodiment of corporatism, is owned by the German state, German big capital and German pension funds. In addition, it is part of the world’s telecommunications cartel and has a significant share in the ownership of British Telecom and major US telecommunications companies., Operations of Deutsche Telekom are of great importance to Serbia and other countries created by the breakup of the communist republics. Deutsche Telekom has purchased near the entirety or a significant part of the telecommunications giants in Slovakia, Hungary, Albania, Montenegro, Croatia, Romania and Greece. The Greek OTE (Greek Telecommunications Organization), which is largely owned by Deutsche Telekom, held 20% of Serbia Telekom shares by 2012, and then sold the company back to the Serbian state for 380 million euros in preparation for the complete privatization of Serbia Telekom. It was said at the time that Serbia Telekom could reach the price of approximately one billion euros, and Bloomberg wrote that Deutsche Telekom was the main contender for the purchase.⁸ A simple calculation shows that the state of Serbia bought 20% of its shares of Serbia Telekom for 38% of the sum for which it planned to sell the company. For now, this malversation has not been realized, but we are aware that the sale of Serbia Telekom is one of the most important obligations of the Government of Serbia towards European, primarily German, capital.

We see that Deutsche Telekom owns the most important telecommunication companies across a large section of Europe, as does Wolkswagen, which bought Audi, Seat, Porsche, Bentley, Bugatti and other smaller companies in addition to Škoda. It is clear that this is a matter of forming unprecedented monopolies in the region’s key and most profitable industries. This entire project was made possible by the infusion of additional capital by pension funds. In Germany, pension funds now account for over 200 billion euros in stock market investments.⁹ By comparison, this is four times more than the total economic production of Serbia, which amounts to less than 50 billion euros. Even just one pension fund, BVK, which has a portfolio of 55 billion in shares of various corporations, is more powerful than the entire Serbian economy.¹⁰

German pension funds are now in the hands of the most qualified investors, and capital is so diversely distributed in shares of various companies that the losses of individual companies cannot significantly damage it. In other words, as the stock market grows, the capital accumulation of these funds grows, and thus the interests of workers whose pensions are found in these funds are structurally linked to the interests of capital. The higher the accumulation of capital, the higher wages can these workers expect. When all this is added to savings, which is an inevitable item of almost every traditionally generous German household, and which was made possible by the extremely high salaries of past decades, the question of the real interest of German workers for any changes other than those favouring capital is starkly raised.

When the German state, German capital and the German banks sit parasitically on the back of the European (and world) periphery, and German workers reap tremendous benefit from this parasitism, there is no concrete possibility of revolution in that country – such a possibility does not exist! Germany is only taken here as an example of a dominant European economy, and its role here is largely played out by the United States at the global level. In structural terms, it is clear that one cannot speak of an international solidarity of the working class emerging evenly from all regions of the world. The class struggle has completely shifted to the level of global conflict between the core and the periphery.

Predrag Kovačević

https://rnp-f.org/2016/06/22/teorija-nejednake-razmene-i-konkretan-odgovor-na-imperijalizam/ ↩
https://www.jura.uni-frankfurt.de/43029805/paper70.pdf ↩
Hicks, A. (1988). Social democratic corporatism and economic growth. The Journal of Politics, 50(3), 677-704. ↩
Ibid ↩
Schertler, A. (2003). Dynamic efficiency and path dependencies in venture capital markets (Vol. 327). Springer Science & Business Media. ↩
http://www.oecd.org/finance/private-pensions/42565755.pdf ↩
https://www.telekom.com/en/investor-relations/company/shareholder-structure ↩
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-10/deutsche-telekom-eyes-telekom-srbija-serb-politician-says ↩
https://www.statista.com/statistics/419830/germany-pension-funds-investments/ ↩
http://citywire.co.uk/wealth-manager/news/germanys-biggest-pension-fund-hunts-for-new-investments/a536093?section=global ↩

Analysis

Russia imperialist? Can’t you get anything right?

18. April 2018. marshall 1 Comment

Idealists labeling Russia an “imperialist” power are sprouting like mushrooms these days. No valid analysis of course, just talking gibberish. The only ones putting an effort into actually articulating their theses are the ones who rely on Lenin’s “5 points” to make a case for themselves, which is expected as being “uncreative Marxists” (Stalin’s term) they remained stuck on archaic positions, and fail to see Marxism as an ever developing theory. These dogmatists have no clue that it’s not Capital export but Unequal exchange that’s at the core of North-South system of exploitation and the uneven development (although it’s not the only form and Capital export still plays a significant portion of it); they have no clue that historical capitalism has actually always been imperialist, in the sense that it has led to a polarization between centers and peripheries since its origin, which has only increased during later globalized development; let alone explain the development of generalized-monopoly capitalism, as capital’s response to the challenge of its long systemic crisis.

Their failure of understanding Russia’s position in the world capitalist system is, therefore, of no surprise. Although reduced to almost complete dependence in the 90-ies, Russia has risen from the world periphery (due to numerous factors) to become the growing semi-peripheral power, whose rise naturally pressures the Core countries for restructuring the monopolies of capitalist reproduction and imperialist exploitation. Such a request, as a result of objective economic growth, may reach the consent (as in case of China before Trump) or resentment (Iran) of the Core countries, which in turn shapes foreign policy of the country in question. In case of Russia, the pressure from the Core countries (actual imperialism) forced its foreign policy to play a progressive role, resorting to sort of fair-trade in it’s struggle to obtain desperately needed markets, and counter the aggressive geostrategy of the imperialist powers, which is opposed to any attempt by the peoples and states of the periphery to get out of the impasse. Luckily for Syrians, that meant avoiding the Serbian or Libyan scenario, and the most concrete form of help. Countries seeking an alternative to adjustment to structural imperialism are watching the development of the situation in Syria and their future choices heavily depend on it.

Which is why, when the world was pealing about the Chinese “green light” for the coup in Zimbabwe, Bashar al-Assad appeared unannounced in Moscow, where he was paraded all over the city. That was a clear message to all the underdeveloped countries seeking a way to overcome the limited possibilities of transformation within the capitalist world economy: “Watch how China treats their allies and see how we treat ours!”. But for Russia to hold on and win this long-lasting battle, in such unfavorable conditions, it must overplay the classic scenarios. And that includes some very unpopular moves amongst the progressive countries. For instance, when the US defeated the USSR in 1980-ies, they achieved so by imposing an arms race and convincing Saudi Arabia to reduce the price of oil in the long run. This time the Russians managed to secure good relations with the Saudis and achieve some kind of cooperation (Moscow gave Riad an excellent deal in managing its desperately needed diversification of economy), ensuring the scenario would not repeat itself.

So should we – the peoples of neocolonies – not take advantage of the situation as analyzed here? Yes, we should ally with Russia in our struggles to defeat imperialism. However, we should be careful not to develop a new dependency. That’s not an issue as long as Russia is compelled to obtain new markets (beyond the official one) and while under the pressure of imperialism. But since it is not socialist, it might become an issue once it is freed (if freed) from the pressure of imperialism. This seems the most favorable moment for the countries of the periphery, seeking an alternative to structural imperialism to use Russia for obtaining “development investments”. In the absence of the socialist superpower and with the final goal of complete delinking, although revolutions are immediately less likely, what we could and should achieve are the “revolutionary advances”.

So why exactly have the leftists from the imperial Core suddenly swamped us with “Russian imperialism” nonsense? The answer is actually quite simple: After the air strikes on Damascus, it has finally struck them that they have been supporting the the Axis of evil (US/UK/France/Israel) in Syria from the start, by giving them a foothold in Rojava, thus helping them achieve their geostrategic objectives and commit genocide over the peoples of the Middle East. A small portion of them repented, self-criticized and corrected themselves. But the larger part needed a new thesis as a support for their deviation. Thus, they’ve managed (in their heads, of course) to finally find a theoretical cover for equalizing the oppressor and the oppressed and continue serving as the prolonged hand of the imperialism in the Third World. Remember their slogan “Neither NATO nor Gaddafi”? If not, you should.

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Analysis, Featured

Third Worldist perspective on protests in Iran

11. January 2018. Informacioni Sekretarijat Leave a comment

As practice has shown, this organization has never failed to give an accurate analysis of political events deemed important for the struggle of world proletariat for socialism, from wars on Syria, Palestine and Libya, over the coup in Zimbabwe, aspirations for secession in Rojava, Kosovo and Catalonia, economic pressures on DPRK and Venezuela, to the First world social imperialism of Sanders and Corbyn. That analytical superiority derives as much as from the ability to apply the theoretical knowledge on those events, as from the constant development of that theory, paying attention to notions of time and place and regarding the changes in national and global conditions of the constant economical evolution. Yet, the factor to accentuate is that of the class character of our members in both national and global terms, which gives no room for mistakes or failures, considering the stakes for organizations in neo-colonies are much higher than for those in First or Second world countries.

With responsibilities, therefore, being larger, any sort of speculation denied by the reality on the ground must result in severe sanctions, even to the point of removal from the organization. Which is why we were astonished to find that even some of the Third Worldist organizations who, unable to grasp the role of Greek Syriza a few years ago, after promoting it as “progressive”, never underwent the self-criticism process (a practice long abandoned by the Marxist organizations). On the other hand, unlike Trots and Maoists who are constantly firing blanks, the only other Western leftist organizations not to take part in the imperialist interventions across the Third World are the so called “Stalinists”. When we say “taking part”, it’s obvious we consider the misunderstanding of material reality and mismanagement of available resources and the opportunities of action against imperialism as a direct help to imperialism.

Although wrongfully named, since Stalin was a creative Marxist and they are merely a by-product of Stalin’s compromise with the West in order for the USSR to gain some breathing space after the WW2 and pursue the revolutions in the East (which is why they got stuck in legalism and never developed a parallel apparatus of action), these organizations tended to show the greater understanding of the very nature of imperialism and continuously defended the progressive governments in the Third world under the attack by imperialism. However, that “defense” was merely vocal, and not sufficient to greatly impact those events, since their political achievements at home, even after many decades of organized struggle, are hardly worth a mention. That is, of course, of no surprise, as the theory they rely on hasn’t developed since the 1950-ies and is of little or no relevance today in terms of understanding the mechanisms of world polarization and its economic consequences, which in return shape the aims and methods of class struggle accordingly.

Yet, their continuous rejection of reactionary positions on imperialist interventions and spurs or support of social unrest that often precedes those interventions, tells us the theoretical writings of Lenin and Stalin are almost quite sufficient to adopt the correct attitude towards the events developed out of the imperialist need to partly restructure the world economy after the collapse of the USSR and prevent the tendencies of certain peripheral countries to reject the global division of labor and, partly or fully, delink from the way the global economy is run. That is, if interpreted correctly.

The principle of “primary contradiction” attributed to Mao, actually has its roots in Marx’s views on temporary denying the right of self-determination to certain European peoples whom he perceived as the outposts of the then Russian tsarism.¹ Building upon that, Lenin rejected the evaluation of the national liberation movements from the aspect of formal democracy, and judged them from the standpoint of the current results of the state of the struggle against imperialism – not in isolation, but on a global scale.² That’s where Lenin fully adopted the combination of Marx and Durkheim – emphasizing the class struggle, yet giving priority to whole over parts. Although usually not regarded as a theoretician that further developed Marxism (which is far from the truth) and considered simply a Leninist of a new epoch, Stalin took it a significant step further, with almost a complete disregard for the matters of formal democracy when compared to results of the struggle against the principal contradiction – imperialism. Unlike Lenin, he even considered the monarchist views held by certain national liberation movements as secondary compared to actual results in the general balance sheet of the struggle against imperialism (a very important point for the Third Worldists of today, since a wide specter of mostly Islamists lead the armed struggle against imperialism in the periphery, and even the Western Third Worldists – including the comrades from KAK – failed to understand that there’s no such thing as “reactionary anti-imperialism”), yet classified the struggle of those national liberation movements with high level of formal democracy who fail to deliver outright blows to imperialism and even strengthen it, as reactionary.³

Considering the above mentioned, it may seem that those who name themselves “Maoist”, expressing their support for the Kurdish national liberation movement in Rojava from the standpoint of formal democracy, regardless of their role in strengthening the imperialism in the Middle East, are at odds with Mao’s principle of “primary contradiction”. But they are not. From the Third Worldist perspective, and let us remark that our theory never ceased with Stalin or Mao and is developing even today, it is precisely their primary contradiction they have taken into account whilst directing their vocal and material support to the YPG, alongside the volunteers from across the Western world. For what is a primary contradiction to the Westerner today but Islamism? One might argue that, declaring oneself a communist requires redefining that contradiction and still be wrong. For in reality, one’s primary contradiction is determined according to the class character, whether in national or global terms. Which is why we never saw any of those volunteers hasty to join the Palestinian Intifada(s) against the Israeli settler-colonialism. To be able to redefine that contradiction, as we have been taught by Amilcar Cabral, western communists (in this case) need to commit a class suicide – the only method of arriving at the line of the masses.⁴

On the other hand, their so called “Stalinist” counterparts almost succeeded in getting there, as we have previously shown. They wouldn’t go as far as openly denouncing the likes of the YPG as reactionary, as Stalin would have done, but they’d pick their allies more carefully and stand by the government under siege by imperialism, almost regardless of its character, understanding that the siege itself has nothing to do with pretexts given and everything to do with not accommodating (partly or fully) the profit making activities of the core countries. That is, until we recently came across their positions on the on-going protests in Iran.⁵ According to what they’re insinuating, the protests should be supported for the two main reasons: they’re socially driven – targeting the economic policies of the “repressive regime” and the Iranian communists (Tudeh Party) declared their support for the protesters.⁶ That (KKE) support is also accompanied by the statement of the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) who boldly claims that “the alternative to the mullahs and imams doesn’t have to be the Yankee”.⁷

Although immune to Maoist type liberalism on the one side, it’s clear they’re not resistant to Trotskyist type idealism on the other. Unfortunately, it’s not some junior party members we’re referring to here, but the actual leadership itself – supposed to be the cream of the crop of the modern socialist thought. To briefly address that attitude by both theory and practice, let’s start by pointing out that one cannot be against something and for nothing. Marxism is about dealing with objective antagonisms not imaginary scenarios. More plainly – basing one’s position on the statement by marginal forces is what it’s not about (Tudeh party leadership is based in exile and its influence amongst the Iranians at home is barely worth a mention). And that’s how we got the so called “Stalinists” sharing goals on Iran with Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. But wait, just to be on the safe side, they quickly published another statement by the Tudeh, which expressed the opposition to “any kind of foreign intervention”.⁸ In a parallel universe Trump and Netanyahu both read it and discussed it over tea, then decided to carry it through as the means of achieving peace and stability in the Middle East.

Now let’s take a look at the historical practice, for unfortunately, to the anti-materialists, etiam repetitio est non mater studiorum. In 2003, amidst the imperialist sanctions and all sorts of pressures on the Iraqi government, just before the Western military aggression, the Iraqi Communist Party called on “social and political forces to take political change into their own hands in order to topple the ‘dictatorship’ and set up a democracy”. However, it announced the opposition to “any kind of foreign intervention”.⁹ In 2011, after the Trots expressed their support to the Libyan opposition protests, they emphasized the rejection of any foreign involvement, and pointed to some of the protesters with banners upholding similar views.¹⁰ And how about a more recent event, when just a few months ago the Communist Party of Zimbabwe, based in South Africa, called for “the people” to march down on government buildings and help the military topple Mugabe?¹¹ As you may know, all of that went down well: the Iraqi Communist Party was rewarded by 1 out of 328 seats in the neo-colonial Parliament of Iraq after the intervention; Libyan opposition succeeded in bringing the country to the state of dependency, whilst their Trotskyist spokesmen transferred their analytical “skills” to Syria; and the Zimbabwean communists are still to release a statement on Zimbabwe applying to rejoin Commonwealth and first cases of “returning” the land to the settler-colonists – except they temporarily run out of ink.

Did they think history will not hold them accountable?

But enough with references to “infantile disorders”. Shall we give a few accounts on protests in Iran ignored by the pro-imperialist left? Most of the protests included chants “bless your soul” and other slogans praising Reza Shah whose dynasty was deposed in the Iranian Revolution.¹² Protesters also shouted slogans praising Reza Pahlavi, Crown Prince of Iran.¹³ Other dominating slogans include “Let go of Palestine”, “Not Gaza, not Lebanon, I’d give my life only for Iran” and “Leave Syria, think about us”.¹⁴ Are these not all pro-imperialist slogans? And how do “socially driven” protests with “large sections of working class” end up aiming at re-establishing the pro-imperialist monarchy and supporting Israeli settler colonialism? The answers are quite simple.

Yes, the protests were initially socially driven, and have started as a gathering instigated by the younger opponents of Rouhani in the conservative city of Mashhad in eastern Iran, caused by the general rise in prices and draft budget, presented to parliament in December, that would have cut subsidies for the poor, if adopted.¹⁵ Although at first not aimed at a radical change, once the protests spread and gained momentum, by inclusion and dominance of other social strata, they gradually became political and tended to misinterpret the causes of financial hardships of the bottom layer as consequences of the anti-imperialist aspect of the government’s policies. Whether it’s the CIA and Mossad operatives that should claim the credit or the organized liberal groups constituting the “pro-American” element is hard to tell, but what’s easy is concluding who the objective forces are and aren’t. Since then, the demands shifted to “down with dictator”, “let go of Palestine” and “bless Reza Shah”. So, there’s the answer, if it insofar wasn’t clear, whether the “alternative to the mullahs and imams has to be the Yankee”.

As we haven’t seen any concrete analysis from the statement of the General Secretary of TKP, except plain claims that the “regime” protested is itself “reactionary”, it’s difficult for a proper Marxist not to wonder – compared to what objective force? Or have the so called “Stalinists” finally adopted the Trotskyist slogan of “Neither NATO nor Gaddafi” and “We support the (imaginary) people”?

So what would an objective opposition force need to represent in order to be classed as “progressive” in Iran? Let’s take a look. Iran has a mixed economy with a large public sector. About 60% of the economy is centrally planned and another 10-20% is in the hands of five semi-governmental foundations.¹⁶ These “bonyads” were set up after the revolution chiefly to administer property confiscated by the state, for charitable purposes. Although under the US sanctions since 1979 and under the UN sanctions since 2006, an estimated $40-100 billion was paid every year to keep Iranians supplied with cheap energy, water, fuel and basic food, even in the most remote villages – the huge cost of subsidizing the growing population of 77m.¹⁷ Iran is classed as a middle income country and has made significant progress in provision of health and education services in the period covered by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). 70% of Iranians own their homes.¹⁸ The literacy rate is over 85%, with 68% of university entrants being women and some 234,000 new engineers graduating every year. Iran has a very low debt: net government debt to GDP is a mere 4%.¹⁹ Interestingly, Iran ranked first in scientific growth in the world in 2011 and has one of the fastest rates of development in telecommunication globally.²⁰

The Library of Congress study from 2008 complains that the allure of the country to foreign businesses and investors as a field for profit-making remains unfulfilled, and the public sector squeezes out opportunities for private investment.²¹ Even the Western press was losing patience with Iran’s protectionism openly demanding cuts to subsidies to allegedly help privatize the country’s uncompetitive industries.²² Additionally to sabotaging Iran’s economy by sanctions for more than a decade, imperialism forces Iran to divert critical resources to its military and self-defense. That’s the part of a low-level campaign of warfare in order to goad a civilian population into pressuring its government to change the policies the West objects to – the policies which deny Western banks, corporations and investors access to Iran’s markets, labor and natural resources.²³

To those familiar with the Third Worldist terminology, the economic policies of the Iranian revolution aimed at exploiting the limited possibilities of transformation within the capitalist world economy. Conscious and deliberate movement towards achieving a different position in the world hierarchy of production, profits and consumption doesn’t mean avoiding the inevitable dependency nor the rejection of the world division of labor, but may demand a partial restructuring of the world economy at the expense of the core countries. It is in the interest of such a movement of the semi-peripheral country to reduce foreign trade, even if it is balanced, as one of the main ways in which the overall profit margin can be increased is to win high percentage of its domestic market for its domestic products. One way to expand the market for national products is to control the access of other manufacturers to that market: hence prohibitions, quotas and customs. That may (or may not in case of China) lead to the common structural response of economic pressure and isolation.²⁴ Accordingly, Iran’s exports grew from $8.5bn in 1987 to $70bn in 2006, representing an 824% increase.²⁵

But Iran’s response to exclusion from the world financial markets was equally efficient. Although initially burdened by sanctions, that exclusion actually helped Iran to avoid recession in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis. To continue on the path towards becoming upwardly mobile, even under sanctions, the country transferred its strategy from “seizing a chance” to “development by invitation”, which is why the net flow of foreign direct investment (FDI) into Iran has grown. That was made possible by Iran’s successful and increasing reliance on ‘South-South’ trade, which effectively translated into its own sanctions against the West.²⁶ It’s former strategy, as Third Worldists should know, also carries some of the inherent problems, given that industrial development suggests to import both machinery and semi-finished reproduction materials from the core countries, essentially replacing the old dependency with a new one. That’s how Germany became Iran’s key trading partner, and even Iran’s nuclear program depended mainly upon German products and services (for example centrifuges used to enrich the uranium are controlled by multi-purpose automation hardware and software made by Siemens).²⁷ Yet, as interdependence would have it, the economic sanctions against Iran were to cost more than 10,000 German jobs and have a negative impact on the economic growth of Germany,²⁸ which beamed for a shift in German business ties with Iran from long-term business to short-term and from large to mid-sized companies.

But, each strategy being targeted by new rounds of sanctions, and with no backing in the UN SC from Russia and China, the country was pushed towards developing plans for a partial delinking. The supreme leader Ali Khamenei and ex-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad both revealed the government’s plans to build a self-reliant economy,²⁹,³⁰ recognizing there’s no other alternative in fighting isolation. The decision wasn’t taken well in the Western diplomatic circles for two reasons: 1. The historical practice proves the “self-reliance” strategy as the most efficient (out of the three) way of transformation within the capitalist world economy for the underdeveloped countries (Tanzanian Ujamaa),³¹ 2. Juche socialism turned North Korea to impenetrable by the world counter-revolution and easy to manage amidst the isolation,³² 3. The larger the country, with wider specter of resources, the better the forecasts for achieving the self-reliance.³³ Being an energy superpower, with 10% of the world’s proven oil reserves and 15% of its gas reserves, Iran’s economy was dominated by oil and gas production.³⁴ But the road to self-reliance leads through diversification of the industrial base – the first step almost completed by Teheran.³⁵ That in time led to over 40 industries being directly involved in the Tehran Stock Exchange, one of the best performing exchanges in the world over the past decade.³⁶

It is important to note that the strategy of self-reliance wasn’t the first choice of the Iranian government nor an ideological decision to delink from the world economy for the purpose of building socialism. The government of Iran was simply pushed into it. In countries based on private entrepreneurship (which Iran partly is) it leads to what we call a “development federation”, since it includes a temporary convergence and the gathering of industrial bourgeoisie and urban workers in the search for certain forms of state action. That inevitably leads to different and more progressive modalities of internal profit sharing.³⁷ The program of cash transfers to the working class under Ahmadinejad’s government should be viewed from this perspective.³⁸

Has Iran succeeded in defeating the effects of isolation by managing to build a self-reliant economy? Not exactly. But the possible effects of that strategy surely accelerated the P5+1 efforts to secure the deal with Iran which would reintegrate it into global economy. So actually, the West thought it might and Iran thought it mightn’t. The so called “Nuclear deal”, which reduced the country’s uranium stockpile by 98% and directed it to Russia³⁹ and China⁴⁰ for its nuclear energy, pretty much assured that Iran would not relink into the world economy on its own protectionist terms as a self-reliable economy nor as a military super-power. The new administration of Hassan Rouhani and the IMF both had a role to play in that process,⁴¹ and are managing the so called “transition to the market economy”.⁴² In return, the transition slowly takes its toll on the bottom strata, recreating “healthy” conditions for the class struggle in national frame, which the latest protests were a fruit of (well, at least initially).

But not so fast. Additionally to the obstructions by the parliamentary opposition and remnants of legal obstacles to carrying out the transition in full, unfortunately for Rouhani’s clique, the new “dotard” led US administration has its own geopolitical reasons for prolonging the economic warfare on Iran. Iranian Privatization Organization (IPO) complains to be granted inadequate authority in the process of privatization and can’t overcome the pressure from the officials and the Parliament, nor the resistance of the state-owned companies.⁴³ According to the IPO, merely a small fraction of state-owned enterprises, estimated at about 5%, have actually been divested to what would be regarded as the real private sector. On a broader, structural level, the private sector still only makes up roughly one-fifth of the economy. Meanwhile, 80% of fiscal spending is allocated to state-owned enterprises.⁴⁴ Foreign investors can bid in Iranian privatization tenders, but need permission from the Economy Ministry on a case-by-case basis.⁴⁵ After the threat of new US sanctions and a clear warning by Rex Tillerson to Europeans not to invest in certain Iranian businesses,⁴⁶ a stream of major international corporations announced a departure from the Iranian market. For instance, the French company Total withdrew from developing the South Pars gas field, which is in the hands of the Revolutionary Guard. China National Petroleum Corporation replaced the French company but pulled out as well, and withdrew all its experts and workers from Iran’s Assaluyeh region.⁴⁷ Additionally there’s the military threat to Iran’s regional interests conducted by the US/EU proxies, whether in Yemen, Syria or Palestine which Iran, unlike the West, cannot sustain on the long run and needs relatively quick victories in order not to endure significant damages to its budget.

It’s not that hard concluding that if Iran’s going to relink, it’ll happen on the terms set up by the structural imperialism or it’s not going to happen at all. What to non-Marxist observers may seem as a paradox, which it is by no means, is that the process of delinking inevitably produces more progressive, both internal and external politics, and vice versa. In Lenin’s language, “the bourgeois nationalism of any oppressed nation has a general democratic content that is directed against oppression, and it is this content that we support”.⁴⁸ That’s exactly what the Syrian communists understood perfectly in their determination to support the government under the attack by imperialism.

The latest protests and the world’s response are a clear sign to Iran’s political actors of which direction the country should take in order to secure its sovereignty, independence and social progress. The fact that Khamenei stressed that those with legitimate complaints about Iran’s economy should be heard, differentiating between the “righteous and honest demands” and “barbaric and disruptive moves by different groups” is a sign the events were understood properly.⁴⁹ Eshaq Jahangiri, first vice president of Iran, admitted that there is an increase in the prices of some products and the government is working on fixing causes of high prices.⁵⁰

As we have shown, Iran’s recent push towards the market economy opens up space for organized class and political struggle. That may take part on the streets, inside the parliament, even within the government, but most importantly it is the global class struggle that defines the objective political options inside the country at present. If leftists are going to engage it must be done by correctly interpreting the material reality from the anti-imperialist position and physical presence inside the country. Otherwise, if “the alternative to the mullahs and imams” is idealism of the marginal forces, then we’d rather have mullahs and imams”.

Bonus Info:

Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK) claimed the Kurds have played an important role in the protests in Iran saying they’re “expecting help from the US”.⁵¹

The other country to watch is the Sudan. After the accusations against the US that it’s intending to split the country into 5 states, Sudanese president openly required military help from Moscow. In our opinion, the US may very soon increase funding to the rebel groups in the west of the country or stir up larger opposition protests in the capital.⁵²

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https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/self-det/ch04.htm ↩
http://time.com/5094700/3700-iranian-protestors-arrested/ ↩
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/12/trump-warns-iran-world-watching-rare-protests-171230073658110.html ↩
http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Kurds-in-Iran-expect-US-intl-community-support-against-regime-522565 ↩
https://www.voanews.com/a/sudan-president-visits-russia-asks-for-protection-from-us/4131704.html ↩

Revolutionary People's Party–Front

Category Archives: Analysis

Multipolarity in capitalism? A lie, but a very useful one!

Westernization is not modernization!

Third-Worldist position on police violence

Two anti-totalitarianisms: imperial and anti-imperial!

Marxism: Science and Conspiracy Theories

Donald Clelland and Radical Interpretation of World-System Analysis

Introduction

Surplus Drain

Economic Surplus

Degree of Monopoly

The Importance of Surplus Drain

Two Categories of Value

Bright Value

Dark Value

Labour as Source of Dark Value

Unpaid Labour

Informal Sector

Consequences of the Surplus Drain

Consumers in the Core and Dark Value

Core-Periphery and Dependence

Commodity-Chain Analysis

Ecologically Unequal Exchange and the Green New Deal

Exploitation of workers by the workers

Russia imperialist? Can’t you get anything right?

Third Worldist perspective on protests in Iran

Само још једно Revolucionarna narodna partija–front веб место