Statements

Explaining the anti-quarantine protests to the Spanish media

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We were asked a number of questions related to the protests taking place in Serbia’s capital, by the Spanish paper 14milimetros.

Do you think Vucic’s announcement to impose a new quarantine over the weekend has finally made people explode in anger? The protests are not simply against quarantine, they are much more complex.

It is more complex. The protests are the finale of years of protests by various opposition groups, frustrated by the inability to mobilize the numerically superior classes, or, more precisely, by the inability to export their policies outside their own class. Apart from left and right liberals – since Trump came to power in the USA – another current of that class has been strengthening in our country – the radical (or, at the insistence of the media: “Alt”) right, whose tactics of breaking class barriers consist in spreading conspiracy theories, related to racial and migrant issues, as well as anti-Chinese propaganda in support of American diplomacy. Independent and separate protests of these currents would end in fiasco, and the parliamentary fight did not bear fruit, so it was clear that a silent unification was imminent.

When Vučić announced quarantine this week, members of these options took to the streets again. This, of course, does not mean that there is no widespread popular discontent. On the contrary, we are witnessing a health crisis for which the government is directly responsible because it abruptly abolished protection measures in May, in order to hold parliamentary elections. In addition to using the spring quarantine for the perfidious election campaign, the government also falsified the data on the numbers of infected and dead in order to “return to normal state” before the elections. This led to a near collapse of health care, which logically requires a return to quarantine after the elections have passed.

However, the opposition failed to score on all this, because, in accordance with its ideologies, it advocated the free flow of labor and capital, and often accused the government of stifling civil liberties and damaging the economy with a state of emergency and quarantine. Of course, the further to the right, the crazier, so some even insinuated that the virus does not exist. So, they did not advocate the tightening of health measures and full protection of the working people, the closure of factories, etc., but quite the opposite, which made the complete abolition of measures by the authorities easier. Why is it so? Because the upper classes around the world understand that the greatest burden of the pandemic is borne by poor citizens, while they are relatively protected, have the possibility of comfortable self-isolation, access to better health services, etc. Therefore, they favor their “civil liberties” over the health of the working people.

So, the motives and demands of the demonstrators were and are contrary to the interests of the working people and, as before, addressed the aspirations of the middle and upper classes. The ideological dissensions within that bloc are now giving way to class interest and, consequently, class unity.

Have you taken part in the mobilizations? There has been talk of the presence of multiple groups, from liberals and different groups on the left or even the extreme right and anti-vaccines. The protests, while peaceful, appear to lead to violence caused by a few and plenty of violence by the police. What do you think about it?

It started with the gathering of left-liberal sympathizers from the NDMBG, but the response was not significant. Then the extreme right-wingers and their sympathizers joined, which significantly increased the mass. Then they were spontaneously approached by many other citizens, who cannot be claimed to be members of one of those two options, but are certainly under the influence of those dominant ideologies, and very likely the electorate of the opposition. There are no significant anti-vaccination organizations in Serbia, and these people are mostly members of various political parties, most often the extreme right.

We, of course, did not participate. We are communists. This means that we propagate and conduct politics in the interest of the proletarian classes, not their executioners. Their “freedoms” and “rights” mean nothing to us, because we don’t even own them. We are forced to work and support the entire society despite the pandemic, and we are exposing ourselves to further health risks, so that they can take holidays to Greece and go out on the weekends. In civilized countries (a phrase often used by liberals to refer to the colonialist West) such as China, the state would take care of ceasing production, compensating workers, stimulating small private individuals, and providing effective health care. In a neo-colony like Serbia, we are faced with the eugenic policies of the government and the opposition.

However, not only do our interests not coincide with the interests of that class, but it is impossible for a communist to demonstrate together with the fascists. If we did that, we would lose any right to stand up for their victims, and we would bear the responsibility for spreading and strengthening fascism.

It is true that there were also radical leftists at the protests, but these are the idealist lines with which we have nothing in common. Their significance was certainly negligible. The radical left in Serbia consists of 5-6 organizations with fifteen members each, without greater representation among the masses. It is not difficult for us to admit that we are part of such a marginal group. As in all post-socialist societies, the left is being built from the ashes. This process is mainly characterized by re-branding and invoking those socialist traditions that the colonialist West sees as less “authoritarian”, “non-totalitarian” or harmless. On the contrary, it is our task to make socialism dangerous again.

These lines will copy the patterns from the colonialist metropoles, and at these protests the pattern was the same as during last year’s events in France. If you remember the famous Yellow Vests – the same lines that supported them, support these protests in Serbia. Even then, among the demands of the Yellow Vests were those to stop further migrations from the Middle East and Africa, as well as an increase in the salaries for French imperialist soldiers. Of course, those lines then decided to ignore both racism and pro-imperialism, for the sake of the progressive social demands of the movement. The support of the French left to Yellow vests is easy to explain by the parasitic character of French society, but how to explain the support of Serbian leftists to such a movement? It’s not hard, really. The key is in the class character of the left, which leads to identification with French workers and small private individuals, rather than with the victims of French imperialism and migrants.

Therefore, it can be said that these leftists were quite at home at this week’s protests, regardless of the right-wing character of the protests. Except here we have a different problem. Although they ignore the anti-migrant sentiments, statements and chants of the demonstrators, what buries them even deeper are the iconography and songs of the collaborators with fascism from the Second World War, ubiquitous among the demonstrators. And that damn technology, which records and memorizes everything today.

And, then, what’s left for them to do is spread false narratives about a kind of “neutrality” of the protest, about a “spontaneous gathering of the broad masses” and an open space for competition over the takeover of the protest between the right and the left. In fact, they are selling us the middle class as the “people”, and the interest of that class as the people’s interest. Communists cannot be deceived. We don’t wander in the dark, feeling the wall to find the light switch. We do not call on people to vote for Tsipras or Sanders, and then pretend to be dumb when the former introduces austerity measures and the latter votes for imperialist aggression. We do not call on the people to support the aggression on Libya, Syria, FR Yugoslavia, and then not to take responsibility for the colonial enslavement of those peoples. It is our job to interpret reality correctly and build credibility as an option worth turning to for explanations.

During the recent parliamentary elections, turnout was very low, especially in Belgrade. Do you think that the mobilizations are simply something characteristic of the capital or is it even bigger?

In neo-colonial economies like Serbia, there are obstacles to the accumulation of capital, and they can be simply reduced to three: 1. the limits of the growth of the accumulation fund; 2. transfer of surplus value from the colonies to the metropoles; and 3. irrational use of surplus value. The first two are untouchable and are not questioned by civil and right-wing options. There remains, therefore, a third. Simply put, all political battles are fought over the right to gnaw the colonialist bone. Whoever comes to power acquires the right to collect those crumbs from the colonial table. As awareness – or rather “intuition” – of this grows, voter turnout declines.

And the protests are not specific to a particular region.

If the mobilizations grow and extend, do you think there is a possibility that they will be hijacked by interests that are foreign and superior to the protesters?

Of course, that option always exists. All of the more significant groups at the protest are already being funded from outside: left and right liberals, and the radical right.

What role do you think the EU can take? At times we have seen it critical of Vucic, but most of the time the organization’s stance is passive and even favorable for him to remain in power. Donald Tusk (President of the European People’s Party) openly supported Vucic before the elections. Some sectors in the EU seem to fear the coming to power of an openly Eurosceptic and anti-NATO leader, do you see that as possible or is it unreal?

No. Such a possibility does not exist in the near future. There are organizations in Serbia that are nominally anti-EU/NATO (paradoxically, they are not anti-imperialist), but they are insignificant. These are the so-called “Sovereignists” – that is, followers of the protectionist currents of imperialism – and the extreme right. Both are financially and media-dependent on Western centers of power, so even their views on Kosovo are subject to change in line with Washington directorates.

Most Serbian citizens understand that EU membership brings significant benefits, which can be simply and vulgarly reduced to exercising the right (albeit unequal) to share the super-profits that the EU collects through the mechanisms of structural imperialism, and thus a higher standard of living. The only thing that could cause a change in that mood, and partly in the state policy, is a different historical course of world politics, that is, a faster economic and military rise of the East.

Vučić has nothing to fear when it comes to internal support. By the way, so far he has played a rather comical game (characteristic of populists), and that is to copy and incorporate the target groups of the opposition. In his address to the public the other day, he took a clear counter-stance for the first time. He called them “fascists”, “conspiracy theorists” and publicly stated that he did not want to attack migrants (which makes up a good part of the opposition policies). He thus showed self-confidence and understanding that the people of Serbia mostly do not support racists, as well as that he appreciates the nurturing of the socialist heritage. Bull’s eye.

Of course, there is always the possibility of taking him down by external pressures, if he decides to play too much independence. The EU has over 70% of investments in Serbia. Let them withdraw 20% and we’d be starving. So, we don’t see any wide room for maneuver.

What do you think of the possible agreement with Kosovo on mutual recognition? Kosovo is one of the big problems that has weighed for years on Serbian politics.

Kosovo is Serbia. NATO will leave Serbia, one way or another, someday. We do not have the military power to achieve that, and diplomacy at this stage requires finding a way for the resistance to remain active, but not suicidal. Therefore, in order for the people to recognize compromises (which are necessary in politics) as favorable, care must be taken to leave room for future generations to achieve greater diplomatic and other victories under possibly more favorable conditions. Roughly, as in occupied Northern Ireland.

In a few lines, what path do you think Serbia should take to solve its problems? It doesn’t look like it will end just with Vucic abandoning power.

At the macro level, most of our problems stem from the neo-colonial position imposed on us. So decolonization is now the primary goal. But even if we were to achieve that, it wouldn’t mean solving our problems. If, in the imaginary scenario for now, the socialist option came to power, we would encounter only a number of other problems, such as the organization of national production under transnational capitalism, a partial or complete delinking with the global economy, military, diplomatic and financial pressures, etc. At the micro level, our problems can be reduced to building forces capable of solving problems at the macro level.

 

Analysis

Marxism: Science and Conspiracy Theories

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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

 

Featured, World

Republican SINN FEIN: “Continuity not Compromise”

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We are reproducing the interview with Diarmuid Mac Dubhghlais of Republican Sinn Fein originally published in Serbo-Croatian language on Princip.Info. Enjoy!

The audience in Balkans is not familiar with details of Irish politics beyond what mainstream media serves them, which in reality means that little to no news from Ireland reach us. Could you briefly introduce Republican Sinn Fein and tell us how is it different from other organisations that split from the original Sinn Fein that claim historical continuity?

While it is generally accepted that Republican Sinn Féin (RSF) split from Provisional Sinn Féin (PSF), this is not quite true. In 1986 the annual conference discussed the acceptance of one of the two partitionist assemblies (governments) in Ireland that owed their existence to British laws. The majority voted in favour of acceptance, leading to a number of members leaving. Technically those who walked out retained the existing constitution and thus are the continuation of the Sin Féin formed in 1905. It was a mistake to adopt a different name but such is history.

As for the difference between RSF and others who did split from PSF; the simplest explanation is that they too accepted the partitionist assemblies in Ireland, some of the newer groups to split from PSF accepted the legitimacy of Stormont assembly in the Occupied Six Counties and thus the overall legitimacy of the rule of Westminster.

A question from history: relation to the issue of Michael Collins, what is the correct road for RSF, a treaty with the British or not?

Short answer- NOT. Britain has no place in Ireland, they have tried every tactic in our land except one; – WITHDRAWAL. While the war/peace levels have ebbed and flowed over the generations one has remained, there will always be some resistance to the occupation of our land. M Collins used the analogy of his deal being “a stepping-stone” to unity. 100 years on and 3 more splits from the attitude of driving out the occupation all these parties have watered down their attitude towards the British interference in Ireland, all have used that same “stepping-stone” line, yet we are no further down the line towards unity.

What are the political objectives of Republican Sinn Fein and what is its strategy to achieve them?

The obvious first objecting is to remove all British interference in Irish affairs and re-establish the Republic. Then we must work towards regaining our sovereignty, much of this has been ceded to the EU in treaty after treaty. The people of Ireland rejected both the Niece and Lisbon treaties but the establishment parties told the people they made wrong decisions and made them retake the vote, with the implication that we would re-do the voting until the correct decision is made.

RSF want a 4 province Federal Ireland, and have had policies promoting (see Éire Nua program ). This we feel is best suited Ireland where we have hugely differing requirements for different areas, ie West of Ireland ( Connaught )having a majority of small farmers, North of Ireland (9 county Ulster) having a high population of Protestants etc

We understand that bourgeois elections are far from being an objective measure of political strength, so we wanted to ask you how do you compare the strength of RSF in comparison to other political formations beyond the parliamentary representation?

RSF are not a huge group, but have a steady and dedicated membership, over the years members have left to become involved in other newer organisations, but it is fair to say that RSF have firm written policies that deal with many aspects of life in Ireland. While some of the newer parties are in my opinion more popular today, like those who initially split from PSF, their membership tends to dwindle after a relatively short time and they do not have policies other than a demand for unity, with no idea what form a United Ireland should take ie; – Federal, Neo-Liberal, Anti-Imperialist etc.

Ireland witnessed a surprising victory of Sinn Fein in Ireland. What is the relation of RSF with the (Provisional) Sinn Fein?

There is no great relationship between both, the split of ’86 is still fresh enough in the memories of many, Also the fact that PSF administer the Occupied Six Counties for Westminster means they are (to us), puppets at best and collaborators at worst. They project themselves as Republicans yet call for recognition of Westminster superiority in politics, call for recognition of colonial paramilitary police at a legitimate police in Occupied Ireland and call on the people to inform on those who still oppose the occupation by physical means.

The victory which surprised even Sinn Fein. Does it mean that the right-wing neoliberal policies pushed the people of Ireland to demand a more radical break with the unrestrained capitalist policies? Do you think Sinn Fein would be able to keep its promises?

While for many in the wider world a vote for more leftist policies and parties may seem of little consequences, for Ireland it was and is somewhat significant. For generation the control of church and neo liberal politicians has kept 2 parties in power for 100 years. This past election more younger people made conscious decision as to who they would vote, This was a direct result of the unrepresentative policies inflicted on the people for the past decade in particular, no social housing, underinvestment in schools and hospitals and an increase in retirement ages for older our generation while at the same time generous and early pensions for politicians, an ability for politicians and those of better means to access first class private health alongside being able to afford private housing or rent.

For generations people voted the way their parents did or not at all, so it is good to see a higher number of youth (20-35) get out and vote, the majority of whom voted for parties professing to be left. I feel IF PSF can form a coalition with other parties they will try bring in some progressive left policies. They have written legislation for returning the age of retirement down by 2 years, and everyone knows there has to be a program of house building. This feeling is however tempered by the knowledge that in Occupied Ireland they have stood over an increase in retirement age and an increase in some regressive taxes. Also for those who may know the administration in Occupied Ireland did not sit for almost 3 years, yet the PSF assembly members (along with all others) continues to draw their wages, which at best is not good socialist politics.

In case Sinn Fein does not manage to keep up with the promises, could a further radicalisation of the society be expected? For example, among the youth which seems to be carrying all the weight of the neolibral burden. Does it also mean that RSF could gain from that situation?

A good question and if it was asked 2 years ago I would have said NO. But the politicization of a huge swath of our youth will mean that things will change, whether at a slow pace or in a radical manner is really unknown. A mass movement in the past few years against water tax and a home tax surprised the establishment and PSF, on both these new taxes PSF were on the wrong side and had to do a complete turnaround. RSF are an abstentionist party, until such time as the Republic has been re-established, this does somewhat stifle our growth. Alongside this the oppression from the state, through their political police makes it hard to grow, but if the youth become more radical there is the chance of better growth but equally a growth in other left parties. Also an awareness that a United Ireland would be a more prosperous Ireland will dawn on the politically aware citizens and a growth in the calls for Unity and disengagement of British Imperialism.

When talking about Ireland, the media talks about the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland as two separate entities without mentioning the context of British colonisation. The language being a way to legitimise particular political contexts, what is for you the correct way to refer to those two entities?

As you will have seen from earlier answers the correct term for “northern Ireland” is Occupied Six Counties” or “Occupied Ireland”. If it is correct to call all lands of Zionist Israel Occupied Palestine then the same has to be true for the area occupied by the British.

For the area known at The Republic, we use the “Twenty-Six County State” or the “Freestate”. Historically the Republic was founded under arms is 1916 and consisted of all 32 counties, it was also confirmed with the only All-Ireland election of 1918. What was established in 1922 by M Collins was called The Freestate consisting of only 26 counties.

There was a recent survey which claims that only 22% of Irish citizens in the occupied 6 counties desire independence. Does it reflect the reality? Does a British standard of living play a role in how the citizens of the occupied 6 counties percieve Irish unity?

I have not heard of this particular survey, but any survey result depends on the complexity or simplicity of the question put and the demographic asked. What I do know is that over the past 2 years the results of such surveys have consistently resulted in a majority favouring. Unity/Independence. Many surveys have also done to gauge the impact unity would have on the finances of a United Ireland over the existing 2 states; again these consistently concluded that a United Ireland would be financially better off to the tune of Billions.

For the second part of your question, my belief is that all those within the UK will be financially worse off after Brexit is finalized, people in Occupied Ireland will obviously see a financial benefit of unity irrespective of their present allegiance.

In regards to Balkans, how does RSF evaluate the situation around the imperialist-imposed independence of Kosovo?

This is something I have only briefly looked at, I suppose the propaganda of my early adulthood had be believing the age-old tactic of Imperialists, that warring tribes within Yugoslavia could not work together and areas wanted independence etc. The arbitrary recognition of an independent Kosovo stands in stark contrast with that of Catalonia. It is clear that a politically weakened Serbia was the desire or USA, UK and others within the EU. To date it is still difficult to find hard facts from independent media outlets, I would be very interested in a full analysis of the situation from on-the-ground activists.

And about Rojava?

The fighting of the Rojava is well documented in all media here, which is strange in many ways, normally we see hear little of groups seeking a homeland considering our past/present. Traditionally Irish Republicans have called for a homeland for the Kurds, we have stood in solidarity with their political prisoners. Today, it is clear that the Rojava are again being used as a tool by Imperialists, the USA has established airbases in areas controlled by Rojava and at the same time facilitated Turkeys annexation of areas of Syria. It is clear this is a continuation of the proxy war against Syria and its people.

Finally, what is your favourite football club?

Football? American football? British/European football? Rugby football? Australian football or Gaelic Football?

I can assume it is the football of Liverpool + Manchester United. This is SOCCER J and I have no interest in it. Over-payed soft men who fall and roll round crying if a strong wind from a challenge blows them. I recommend you look at; Hurling or Gaelic Football for a real man’s game 😉

Analysis, Featured

Donald Clelland and Radical Interpretation of World-System Analysis

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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:

  1. it is effected via commodity by realising production and distribution through different zones of the system, and
  2. 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:

  1. export of capital (FDI) which enables the repatriation of profit to the country of origin;
  2. system of monopolies to bypass the competitive market;
  3. monopolistic control through patents and intellectual property;
  4. 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
  5. 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:

  1. surplus drain is free for the capitalist, hence, as it is not a cost it is not accounted for in the official registers;
  2. 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;
  3. 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]

  1. capitalists do not bear the costs for the biological reproduction of women, nor for the upbringing of the new generation of workers;
  2. households engage with an array of unpaid activities for survival which indirectly subsidise capitalists, i.e. collection of unpaid resources;
  3. women and female children provide unpaid labour in form of support to the male-owned household-based business, and
  4. 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:

  1. to lower the product price in relation to the price of the competition;
  2. to expand the accumulation by converting dark value in bright value (reinvestment), and
  3. 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”

  1. 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. ↑
  2. 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). ↑
  3. 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. ↑
  4. Formal labour refers to the legal employment of workers with all welfare benefits. ↑
  5. 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.↑
  6. 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

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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.

  1. https://www.princip.info/2017/12/21/arghiri-emmanuel-marksisti-nejednaka-razmena/https://anti-imperialist.net/2019/05/31/arghiri-emmanuel-unequal-exchange-revisited/ ↑
  2. 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 ↑
  3. David Ciplet, “Splintering South: Ecologically Unequal Exchange Theory in a Fragmented Global Climate”, JOURNAL OF WORLD-SYSTEMS RESEARCH, Vol. 23 Issue 2 ↑
  4. Donald Clelland, “Unpaid Labor as Dark Value in Global Commodity Chains”, https://sites.google.com/site/surplusdrain/ ↑
  5. Donald Clelland, “The Core of the Apple: Dark Value and Degrees of Monopoly in Global Commodity Chains”, JOURNAL OF WORLD-SYSTEMS RESEARCH ↑
  6. https://newsolution17.wordpress.com/2017/06/01/bergama-against-eurogold/ ↑
  7. 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 ↑
  8. https://www.france24.com/en/20190925-un-calls-for-global-green-new-deal-to-boost-world-economy ↑

World

Kim Il Sung – South-South cooperation and the establishment of a new international economic order

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South-South cooperation is a noble way for the developing countries to strengthen their economic independence and achieve complete economic freedom through close economic and technical cooperation. Only when they are economically independent can the developing countries free their peoples from backwardness and poverty, starvation and disease, the consequences of imperialist colonial rule, and consolidate the political independence which they have already won. A nation which is dependent on another country economically is bound to be politically subordinate. Economic dependence inevitably leads to political dependence and economic subordination results in political subordination.

The struggle for economic independence is a second liberation struggle to remove economic backwardness and poverty and achieve complete national sovereignty. The peoples of the developing countries have to take it upon themselves to attain economic independence. The imperialists never present developing countries with economic independence. The non-aligned and developing countries must pave the way for survival by effecting South-South cooperation under the banner of collective self-reliance and build their independent national economies. Today the international economic situation is changing to the disadvantage of developing countries. In these circumstances it is all the more urgent to effect South-South cooperation. When their people are faced with the threat of ever-worsening hunger and disease, the developing countries ought to pool their efforts and support and cooperate with each other. At the moment the leaders of many non-aligned and developing countries are calling for close cooperation among these nations, insisting that they should shape their destiny independently and on their own responsibility. This is quite natural.

If they realize South-South cooperation, the developing countries will be able to build up sufficient strength to countervail and negotiate with the developed countries, and begin a period favourable to establishing a new international economic order. There are many real situations and opportunities for South-South cooperation. The nonaligned and developing countries have vast territories rich in raw materials and have acquired valuable experience and expertise in the course of creating a new life. If they mobilize their manpower and material resources to the full and build up economic cooperation and exchange on the principle of providing for each other’s needs, the developing countries will find solutions to the difficult and complex problems that arise in building a new life without asking for the help of the developed countries. Historical experience shows that even poor and backward countries can achieve great things if they combine efforts. The non-aligned and developing countries must start in those areas where cooperation and exchange are feasible and urgent and extend cooperation and exchange in every way so as to free their peoples from backwardness and poverty, hunger and disease and achieve economic independence.

First, South-South cooperation must be expanded and developed in the sphere of food and agriculture. Solving the problem of food and agriculture is of tremendous significance in pressing ahead with the building of a new society and promoting the people’s welfare. Cooperation and exchange in agriculture must be centered on laying on one’s own production foundations soundly with a view to attaining self-sufficiency in food in a short time. It is a good and necessary thing that the UN and other international organizations are now taking steps to help some famine-stricken nations. If the developing countries are to find a fundamental solution to the food problem, every country must increase grain production substantially by growing good crops. Today many of the non-aligned and developing countries are unable to rid themselves of the hunger and poverty that are a result of imperialist colonial rule. This is not because farm lands are inadequate, but because they cannot raise good crops on account of lack of irrigation and machinery and technology.

We believe that firstly we must increase cooperation in the field of irrigation construction. For the developing countries to prevent damage from drought and ensure a good and regular harvest, it is necessary to establish an irrigation system. Most of the non-aligned and developing countries, including the African countries, have vast water resources and the future for irrigation construction is promising. It will be reasonable to work out together a “ten-year plan for irrigation construction in the developing countries” and a “ten-year plan for irrigation construction in Africa”, to establish an organization which coordinates cooperation in irrigation construction, and also set up irrigation enterprises jointly so as to put cooperation into effect in this field.

The non-aligned and developing countries must also cooperate closely with each other in their efforts to improve the farming method. The most important way to increase grain production in the developing countries is to improve the farming method and grow crops scientifically and technologically. Improving the farming method alone will mean a great increase in agricultural production even though a large investment is not required. The developing countries must create a new farming method that suits the topographical and climatic conditions of every zone and country and must make the good experience gained in this improvement widely known. The non-aligned and developing countries must establish wide cooperation and exchange with each other in the field of seed selection and production. Those countries whose technology and experience are good in this field must supply the technology on seed selection and production to other developing countries and provide progenitors where needed. In order to increase grain production, it is necessary to intensify joint study and mutual cooperation in the field of agricultural science.

The non-aligned and developing countries must start a joint venture in agriculture. A joint venture in agriculture is one reasonable way for the developing countries, including the African countries, to solve the food problem. If they undertake an extensive agricultural joint venture the developing countries will not only be able to save the people from starvation by a rapid increase in agricultural production but also strengthen the foundations of agricultural production. In this venture, it is important to organize and operate farms under joint management. These farms can be run in such a way that those countries which are backward in agricultural technology provide land and labour and those whose agricultural technology is developed supply farm machinery and fertilizers, agricultural chemicals and other farming implements and technical knowledge. It will be an effective measure for the non-aligned and developing countries to organize joint enterprises for the production of farm machinery and materials in order to satisfy their needs for farm machinery, irrigation facilities, fertilizers and agricultural chemicals. For the time being, it will be worthwhile for those developing countries which are relatively backward in expertise to build farm machinery factories with the help of the more experienced countries, to increase the production of cattle-drawn farm machines as well as other medium and small farm machines and implements and then use them.

We will intensify cooperation with the non-aligned and developing countries and the African countries in particular, directing the main effort to ensuring that these countries lay solid foundations for agricultural production and attain self-sufficiency in food.

Secondly, cooperation and exchange must be promoted widely in the field of public health. South-South cooperation in this field must be concentrated on solving the most urgent problems arising in providing health care for the people of every developing country until the year 2000. The one problem which must be solved above all else in saving the peoples of non-aligned and developing countries from disease is to eliminate epidemics and helminthiases. The non-aligned and developing countries must draw on the valuable experience gained so far in health care, at the same time as cooperating actively to find more effective ways and means in this sphere. In the first place, it is essential to develop medical science through a good combination of modern and traditional medicine, of modern treatment and folk remedy and thus strengthen cooperation in this field.

If South-South cooperation in health care is to be substantial, efforts must be channeled into solving the problem of a shortage of medicines. The non-aligned and developing countries must increase cooperation to develop the production of preventive medicines and also improve cooperation for the production of basic medicines. Cooperation to build up medicine-producing bases in particular must be intensified. The establishment of joint venture pharmaceutical enterprises is an important way of cooperating effectively in this matter. If joint venture pharmaceutical enterprises are to be built and developed, it will be advisable to sign agreements on specializing in the production of medicines on a worldwide scale, in consideration of raw material resources, production capacity and the demand for medical supplies in each country. The running of joint venture hospitals will also be an effective means of cooperation in the sphere of public health.

Thirdly, it is necessary to take practical action to expand and develop cooperation and exchange among the non-aligned and developing countries according to the program for economic cooperation which has already been worked out. First of all, in order to settle the problem of finance, a stumbling block in South-South cooperation, and to encourage mutual accommodation, it is necessary to build the Bank of the South and adopt whatever measures are needed to promote trade and cooperation in the field of finance and currency. Establishing a Global System of Trade Preferences between developing countries is of great importance in the improvement of trade among these countries. The non-aligned and developing countries must make joint efforts to introduce this system as early as possible.

It is absolutely necessary to increase political support for South-South cooperation in order to implement the action program for economic cooperation. The non-aligned and developing countries must discuss the matter of South-South cooperation at high-level talks and develop relevant conditions so that practical measures can be adopted. The non-aligned countries must pay due attention to coordinating the economic cooperation program of the non-aligned movement and the economic cooperation program of the Group of 77 and also to adjusting the cooperation items on the economic cooperation program of the non-aligned movement in a rational way. The non-aligned and developing countries must ceaselessly explore and develop positive ways and means of widening South-South cooperation and increasing its effectiveness in line with the demands that arise in practice. They must overcome any difficulties in developing economic and technical cooperation by displaying the spirit of mutual cooperation and solidarity to the highest degree.

***

One of the important tasks confronting the non-aligned and developing countries today is to do away with the old international economic order and to establish a new fair one based on the principles of independence, equality and mutual benefit. In the past these countries mapped out a joint strategy for the establishment of a new international economic order and have fought to put it into effect. As a result of the energetic efforts made by these countries, many international conferences including a special session of the UN General Assembly have adopted a declaration, and programs of action, for establishing a new international economic order, taken the relevant steps and formed various international organizations. However, owing to the unfair standpoint and attitude of the developed capitalist countries in maintaining the old international economic order, the struggle of the developing countries to establish the new international economic order has not made any real progress.

The developed capitalist countries are reluctant to give up meekly their monopolistic position in international economic relations, nor do they accept the proposal of the developing countries for negotiations to establish a new international economic order. Relying as ever on the old international economic order, the imperialists are plundering the developing countries of their natural resources and paying only a pittance for the results of the peoples’ labour and obstructing the economic development of these countries. Protective trade and the high-interest policy pursued by the developed countries along with the continually worsening terms of trade and the massive increase in foreign debts of the developing countries are having a serious effect on the social and economic development of the non-aligned and developing countries. Because of the unfair international economic order, the economies of the developing countries are growing weaker and becoming stagnant. The economic situation in the African countries in particular is worsening.

The long-drawn-out world economic crisis and the difficult economic situation in the developing countries for which the unjust economic order is responsible are making the world situation more unstable and threatening justice and peace. In reality, without abolishing the old economic order, the product of the colonial system and the lever of imperialist exploitation and plunder, it will be impossible for the non-aligned and developing countries to free themselves from international exploitation and plunder and then develop. It is only when they reorganize the wide range of unfair and unreasonable economic relations in all branches of trade, finance, currency and so on that the developing countries can eliminate the source of international exploitation and create favourable conditions for their economic development.

The non-aligned and developing countries must fight to establish a new international economic order in accordance with their joint strategy.

First, they must continue to make patient efforts to promote negotiations for the establishment of a new international economic order. An important factor in implementing their strategy for negotiations is for the non-aligned and developing countries to take concerted action. The non-aligned and developing countries must together lay down the strategy for negotiations to suit the international economic situation, explore procedures and ways for negotiations and effectively coordinate the policy and stand of negotiations so as to enhance the position of negotiations still higher. For this purpose, it would be a realistic idea to set up a standing Ministerial Committee of the non-aligned and other developing countries as recommended by the Foreign Ministers’ Conference of the Coordinating Bureau held in New Delhi. The establishment of a new international economic order will be beneficial for the developed countries as well. The developed countries should accept the just proposal of the non-aligned and developing countries for holding negotiations on a worldwide scale to establish a new international economic order.

Secondly, efforts should be directed to establishing a fair and stable international system of finance and currency. The economic difficulties of the developing countries and the world economic crisis have much to do with the unfair international system of finance and currency. This system must be reorganized to meet the needs of today and in favour of economic progress for the developing countries. A new international system of finance and currency must be a fair one capable of facilitating economic cooperation on a worldwide scale and of revitalizing the world economy by eliminating the privileges and arbitrariness of the developed capitalist countries and by guaranteeing the stability of monetary circulation and the financial conditions for international trade. To this end, international financial agencies should adopt such resolutions as to guarantee equality between developing and developed countries, establish a stable and realistic exchange rate system, create international liquidity according to demand and distribute it fairly between the developing and the developed countries.

The foreign debt problem of the developing countries, too, must be solved fairly and completely, thereby ensuring their social and economic development and stability. The non-aligned and developing countries should, at an early date, hold an international conference on finance and currency for development to provide an occasion for setting up a new international system of finance and currency.

Thirdly, an active effort must be made to establish a new system of trade. At present a non-equivalent exchange is being made as ever in trade between the developing countries and the developed countries. The developing countries sell raw materials at low prices and buy manufactured goods at exorbitant prices, and the share that manufactured goods make up in the exports of these countries is decreasing continually. The result is that the trade deficit of the developing countries is increasing all the time and their economic difficulties are becoming more serious. The non-aligned and developing countries should prevent the fluctuations in price of primary products and increase their earnings from exports by remodeling the unfair price system in trade and establishing a fair and profitable price system for primary products. What is important here is to strengthen the existing producers’ associations, while at the same time forming new associations and enhancing their role. The setting up of a common fund for the general plan of primary products will be an important step for the developing countries to stabilize prices and income through exporting primary products. In order to ensure that the common fund is inaugurated as early as possible, the developing countries will have to hasten their approval of an agreement for establishing this common fund.

The developed countries must give up their protectionist policy and make the markets more open to the developing countries. They should also remove the tariff and non-tariff barriers for major products of the developing countries, take measures to stabilize export incomes for these countries and allow them to increase their share of the processing, sale, distribution and transportation of raw materials and products. The preferential treatment that is given to the products of the developing countries must be further improved, and international efforts be made to establish fair trade principles and regulations. The developing countries should not allow the developed countries to use the system of general preferences as a means of putting pressure on them, but fight against any act of encroachment upon their permanent sovereignty over natural resources.

If the non-aligned and developing countries wage a vigorous struggle together to establish a new fair international economic order, the developed countries will have to comply, in the long run, with the demands of the developing countries whether they like it or not.

 

Kim Il Sung, June 20, 1986.
Selected Works, Vol. 40, pp. 117-144 Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1995.

 

Analysis

Exploitation of workers by the workers

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“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

  1.  https://rnp-f.org/2016/06/22/teorija-nejednake-razmene-i-konkretan-odgovor-na-imperijalizam/  ↩

  2.  https://www.jura.uni-frankfurt.de/43029805/paper70.pdf  ↩

  3.  Hicks, A. (1988). Social democratic corporatism and economic growth. The Journal of Politics, 50(3), 677-704.  ↩

  4. Ibid  ↩

  5.  Schertler, A. (2003). Dynamic efficiency and path dependencies in venture capital markets (Vol. 327). Springer Science & Business Media.  ↩

  6.  http://www.oecd.org/finance/private-pensions/42565755.pdf  ↩

  7.  https://www.telekom.com/en/investor-relations/company/shareholder-structure  ↩

  8.  https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-10/deutsche-telekom-eyes-telekom-srbija-serb-politician-says  ↩

  9.  https://www.statista.com/statistics/419830/germany-pension-funds-investments/  ↩

  10.  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?

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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

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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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