Harry Targ
A
Reuters report on the weekend meeting of the G77 plus China in HAVANA:
Closing Statement Issued by the Group of 77
A Radio Conversation about the Global
South:
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THE REALITIES OF
IMPERIALISM AND DEPENDENCY: STILL RELEVANT TODAY
Council on Foreign Relations, October 31,
2022
Leftist former President Luiz Inácio Lula
da Silva, commonly known as Lula, won
Brazil’s presidential runoff (Reuters) yesterday,
defeating incumbent Jair Bolsonaro by less than two percentage points.
Bolsonaro did not concede the election last night nor make any public
statement. Heads of state from around the world congratulated Lula on
his victory.
Imperialism
Students of imperialism appropriately refer to the
polemical but theoretically relevant essay authored by Marx and
Engels, The Communist Manifesto. In this essay, the authors argue that
capitalism as a mode of production is driven to traverse the globe, for
investment opportunities, for cheap labor, for natural resources, for land. One
can argue that Marx and Engels were among the first to theorize about
globalization.
Lenin advanced the theory of imperialism in his famous
essay Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. In addition to
the inspiration from Marx and Engels, he drew from the sophisticated writings
of Rudolf Hilferding and John Hobson. For him, writing in the midst of the
bloodshed of World War I and revolutionary ferment in Russia, there was a need
to understand the connections between the expansionist needs of capitalism,
competition among capitalist states, and imperialist war. With that motivation,
Lenin postulated five key features of what he called imperialism, the highest
stage of capitalism. This new stage of capitalist development in the twentieth
century included:
1) The concentration of production and capital
developed to such a high stage that it created monopolies, which play a
decisive role in economic life.
2) The merging of bank capital with industrial
capital, and the creation, on the basis of this, "finance capital,"
or a "financial oligarchy."
3) The export of capital, which has become extremely
important, as distinguished from the export of commodities.
4) The formation of international capitalist
monopolies, which share the world among themselves.
5) The territorial division of the whole world among
the greatest capitalist powers is completed.
Lenin’s descriptions of these five features of
twentieth century imperialism were prescient as to their long-term vision.
Imperialism was not just a way in which powerful states acted in the world but
a global stage of capitalism. The political, military, and economic dimensions
of the world were inextricably connected in a profoundly new way, different
from prior periods of human history.
In this stage national economies and the global
economy were dominated by monopolies. That is, small numbers of banks and
corporations controlled the majority of the wealth and productive capacity of
the world. (The Brandt Commission in the early 1980s estimated, for example,
that 200 corporations and banks controlled twenty-five percent of the world’s
wealth). Monopolization included a shrinking number of economic actors that
controlled larger and larger shares of each economic sector (steel, auto, fossil
fuels, for example) and fewer and fewer actors controlling more of the totality
of all these sectors.
Lenin added that twentieth century finance capital
assumed a primary role in the global economy compared to prior centuries when
banks were merely the bookkeepers of the capitalist system. Corporate capital
and financial capital had become indistinguishable. This, in our own day,
became known as "financialization.”
The development of finance capital, Lenin argued, led
to the export of capital, the promotion of investments, the enticement of a
debt system, and the expanding control of all financial transactions by the few
hundred global banks. Capitalism was no longer just about expropriating labor
and natural resources, processing these into products for sale on a world
market but it now was about financial speculation, the flow of currencies as
much as the flow of products of labor. It was in this stage of capitalism that
the financial system was used as a lever to transform all of the world’s
economies, particularly by increasing profits through imposing policies of
austerity. Austerity included cutting government programs, deregulating
economies so banks and corporations could act more freely, and, further,
instituting public policies to maximize the privatization of virtually every
public institution. Also, and of particular relevance to the Brazilian case,
was the opening up of natural resources and land to global corporations. These
policies were referred to as “neoliberal.”
And lastly, Lenin observed, world politics was shaped
by economic and political collusion of international monopolies to collaborate,
routinize, and regulate economic competition. But, as he saw in 1916, that
world of routinized global finance capital had broken down, states representing
their own financial conglomerates engaged in massive violence, in World War, to
maintain their share of territory and wealth. So that imperialism, the highest
stage of capitalism, always had embedded within it, the seeds of ever-expanding
war between states driven by their own monopolies.
Dependency
Theorists and revolutionaries from the Global South found Lenin’s theory of imperialism to be a compelling explanation of the historical development of capitalism as a world system and its connections to war, violence, colonialism, and neo-colonialism. However, they argued that Lenin’s narrative was incomplete in its description of imperialism’s impact on the countries and peoples of the Global South. Several revolutionary writers and activists from the Global South added a “bottom up” narrative about imperialism. Theorists such as Andre Gunter Frank, Samir Amin, Frantz Fanon, Walter Rodney, Fernando Cardoso, Theotonio Dos Santos, and Jose Carlos Mariategui added an understanding of “dependency” to the discussion of imperialism. And today the writings of V J Prashad and his colleagues at Tricontinental carry on the tradition.
Dependency theorists suggested that the imperialist
stage of capitalism was not enforced in the Global South only at the point of a
gun. Dependency required the institutionalization of class structures in the
Global South. Ruling classes in the Global South, local owners of factories,
fields, and natural resources, and their armies, collaborated with the ruling
classes of the global centers of power in the Global North. In fact, the
imperial system required collaboration between ruling classes in the global
centers with ruling classes in the periphery of the international system. And
ultimately, imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism, was a political and
economic system in which the ruling classes in the centers of power worked in
collaboration with the ruling classes in the Global South to exploit and
repress the vast majority of human beings in the world.
Dependency theory, therefore, added insights to the
Leninist analysis. First, the imperial system required collaboration from the
rich and powerful classes in the centers of global power, the Global North,
developing and recruiting the rich and powerful classes in the countries of the
Global South. It also meant that there was a need to understand that the
imperial system required smooth flows of profits from the Global South to the
Global North. Therefore, there was a mutuality of interests among ruling classes
everywhere. The addition of dependency theory also argued that people in the
periphery, workers and peasants in poor countries, had objective interests not
only opposed to the imperial countries from the north but to the interests of
their own national ruling classes. And, if this imperial system exploited
workers in the centers of power and also in the peripheral areas of the world,
then there ultimately was a commonality of interests of the poor,
oppressed, and exploited all across the face of the globe.
Relevance for the Twenty-First Century
Although the world of the twenty-first century is
different from that of the twentieth century, commonalities exist. These
include the expansion of finance capital, rising resistance to it everywhere,
and conflicts in the Global North and the Global South between powerful ruling
classes and masses of people seeking democracy and economic well-being. In the
recent past, the resurgence of protest by workers, students, farmers and
peasants, the popular classes, has been reflected in mass movements against neoliberal
globalization and international financial institutions. These include Arab
Spring, the Fight for Fifteen, and a number of campaigns that challenge racism,
sexism, joblessness, the destruction of the environment, land grabs, and
removal of indigenous peoples from their land. The electoral victory of Lula is
the most recent example.
In Latin America, movements emerged that have been
labeled “the Pink Tide” or the “Bolivarian Revolution.” These are movements
driven by struggles between the Global North and the Global
South and class struggles within countries of the Global South.
Workers and peasants from the Global South have been motivated to create,
albeit within powerful historical constraints, alternative economic and
political institutions in their own countries. The awakening of the masses of
people in the Global South constitute one of the two main threats to
Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. The first threat is the movements
that are struggling to break the link between their own ruling classes and
those of the North. That includes working with leaders who are standing up
against the imperial system (leaders such as in Venezuela, Bolivia, and, of
course Cuba). The other threat to Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism,
is, as Lenin observed in 1916, war between imperial powers.
In sum, as activists mobilize to oppose US war against
the peoples of Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, it is critical
to be aware of the imperial system of finance capital, class systems in the
Global North and Global South, and to realize that solidarity involves
understanding the common material interests of popular classes in both the
Global North and South. In 2022, solidarity includes opposing United States
militarism in Latin America, economic blockades against peoples seeking their own
liberation, and covert operations to support current and former ruling classes
in their countries that collaborate with imperialism.
Concretely, this means supporting the Bolivarian
Revolution in Venezuela and throughout the Western Hemisphere, protests in
Haiti, of course, the Cuban Revolution, and now the transition to democracy in
Brazil.
https://heartlandradical.blogspot.com/2022/10/how-world-is-framed-spokespersons-from.html
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THE UNITED STATES
OVERTHROWS ALLENDE BUT THE GLOBAL SOUTH CONTINUES TO ORGANIZE
A Radio Conversation About the Overthrow
of Allende and Its Long-Term Consequences
The Allende Years and the US Coup
National Security Archive
The election of Socialist Salvador Allende in Chile in
1970 became the target of sustained interest of the Nixon Administration. The
United States had supported the Christian Democrats in Chile with official
assistance and CIA financing since the 1950s. Eduardo Frei, Chile's president
from 1964 to 1970, had been its favorite Chilean politician. Frei had been
opposed in presidential elections by the Marxist Allende, who, leading a left
coalition, finally won a plurality of votes in 1970, despite much CIA money
funneled into the coffers of the Christian Democratic candidate. From the time
of the election in October, 1970, until September, 1973, when a bloody military
coup toppled Allende, the United States did everything it could to destabilize
the elected government. From October to November, 1970, the United States
pressured members of the Chilean parliament to vote against certification of
the election victory, traditionally a routine exercise.
After Allende had been confirmed as president, energy
and resources were used to damage the economy and make contact with right-wing
members of the Chilean military to plan a coup. Allende carried out many
policies designed to improve the material conditions of the lives of the
workers and peasants in Chile. Land was redistributed, major industries were
nationalized (copper had been partially nationalized under Frei), and diplomatic
relations were established with the Soviet Union, China, and Cuba. All these
moves exacerbated tensions with the United States, since investments in copper,
iron, nitrates, iodine, and salt were large.
The Nixon administration formed a secret committee, headed by Kissinger and enthusiastically endorsed by the International Telephone and Telegraph Company, a major economic power in Chile, whose purpose was the overthrow of Allende. The committee's preference was for an Allende defeat resulting from public rejection, but, if all else failed, a military coup was preferable to a continuation of his government. Among the policies utilized by Washington were an informal economic blockade of Chile, termination of aid and loans, IMF pressure on the government to carry out antiworker policies, fomenting dissent in the military, and funding opposition groups and newspapers, like the influential newspaper El Mercurio.
Allende's economic policies were effective and generated much support from workers and peasants during 1970 and 1971; but, after the economic squeeze on the government increased, Allende had to grapple with inflation, balance-of-payments problems, and the inability to get spare parts and capital goods that had traditionally come from the United States. In trying to forestall military intervention in the political process, Allende allowed the "constitutionalist" officers to be replaced by avowed fascist generals. U.S. contacts with these generals provided the organizational basis for the impending coup. Excessive demands by more well paid workers and more secure peasants, coupled with a truckers' strike and demonstrations of middle-class housewives organized by the rightwing, added to the problems of the Allende government in 1972 and 1973. Despite the increasing economic and political problems being faced by Allende and the systematic efforts by the U.S. government to create discord within Chile, the Allende-led left coalition scored electoral victories in municipal elections throughout the country in March, 1973.
Since "making the economy scream" had not led to the rejection of Allende at the ballot box, the Kissinger committee and the right-wing generals decided to act. On September I l, 1973, the military carried out a coup that ousted the Allende government, and Allende himself was assassinated in the presidential palace. A junta headed by General Pinochet began a policy of extermination, torture, and imprisonment on a massive scale. A year after the coup, Amnesty International reported that some 6,000 to 10,000 prisoners had been taken. The new regime also banned all political parties, abolished trade unions, and continued its political repression both at home and abroad. In reference to the latter, Orlando Letelier, foreign minister in the Allende government, was blown up in a car in Washington, D.C., by Pinochet agents.
Socialist Worker.org
The spirit of the brutal U.S. policy in Chile was expressed by Kissinger in 1970: "I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people" (James A. Nathan and James K. Oliver, United States Foreign Policy and World Order, Little, Brown, 1981, p.496) and by President Ford in his first press conference, defending the coup as being in the "best interests of the people of Chile and certainly in the best interests of the United States" (Nathan and Oliver, p. 497). A somewhat more accurate assessment was made by historian Alexander De Conde, who wrote that the United States “had a hand in the destruction of a moderate left-wing government that allowed democratic freedoms to its people and to its replacement by a friendly right-wing government that crushed such freedoms with torture and other police-state repressions" (Alexander DeConde, A History of American Foreign Policy, Volume ll Charles Scribner, 1978, pp.388-389).
The Third World Demands a New
International Economic Order
The brutal overthrow of the Allende government
in Chile was reminiscent of traditional US. activities as world policeman. The
impact of the coup on the Chilean people in terms of economic justice and
political freedom was negative in the extreme. The bloody victory of
counterrevolution in Chile, however, came at a period in world history when the
rise of Third World resistance to U.S. imperialism would reduce the prospect of
more Chiles in the future.
By the 1970s, the worldwide resistance to U.S.
and international capitalism was growing. The revolutionary manifestation of
this resistance was occurring in Southeast Asia, southern Africa, the Horn of
Africa, the Middle East, and Central America and the Caribbean. During the
Nixon-Ford period, the United States and its imperialist allies lost control of
the Indochinese states, Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau. South Yemen,
Nicaragua, Iran, and Grenada would follow later in the decade.
The Progressive International
Along with the rise of revolutionary victories and
movements throughout the Third World, a worldwide reformist movement began to
take shape around demands for a New International Economic Order (NIEO). Its
predecessor, the. nonaligned movement of the 1950s and 1960s, had been nurtured
by leading anticolonial figures such as Nasser of Egypt, Nkrumah of Ghana, and
Nehru of India. Their goal was to construct a bloc of Third World nations of
all ideological hues which could achieve political power and economic advantage
by avoiding alliances and political stances that might tie them to the United
States or the Soviet Union. The nonaligned movement saw the interests of member
nations tied to the resolution of "north-south" issues, which in
their view were of greater importance than "east-west" issues.
After two decades of experience with political
independence from formal colonialism, revolutionaries who believed that
economic exploitation resulted from the structure of the international
capitalist system were joined by Third World leaders who saw the need to reform
international capitalism. Consequently, a movement emerged, largely within UN
agencies, increasingly populated by Third World nations and addressing itself
to Third World poverty and underdevelopment. This movement presupposed the
possibility of reducing the suffering of Third World peoples without
necessarily bringing an end to capitalism as the internationally dominant mode
of production.
To counter the declining Third World percentage of
world trade, fluctuations in prices of exported commodities, foreign corporate
repatriation of profits earned in Third World countries, technological
dependence, growing international debt, and deepening crises in the supply of
food, Third World leaders were forced by material conditions and revolutionary
ferment to call for reforms. The inspiration for a NIEO movement came also from
the seeming success of OPEC countries in gaining control of oil pricing and
production decisions from foreign corporations.
Two special sessions of the General Assembly of the UN
in 1974 and 1975 on the NIEO "established the concept as a priority item
of the international community" (Ervin Laszlo, Robert Baker Jr., Elliott
Eisenberg, Raman Venkata, The Objectives of the New
International Economic Order, New York, Pergamon, 1978, pp. xvi). The NEIO
became a short-hand reference for a series of interrelated economic and
political demands concerning issues that required fundamental policy changes,
particularly from wealthy nations. The issue areas singled out for action
included aid and assistance, international trade and finance,
industrialization, technology transfer, and business practices.
Paradoxically, while the NIEO demands were reformist
in character and, if acted on, could stave off revolutionary ferment (as did
New Deal legislation in the United States in the 1930s), the general position
of the Nixon, Ford, and Carter administrations on the NIEO were negative.
European nations were more responsive to selected demands, like stabilizing
Third World commodity prices and imports into Common Market countries, but the
broad package of NIEO demands continued to generate resistance from the wealthy
nations, which benefited from the current system. Nabudere correctly
understands the interests of Third World leaders in the NIEO when he wrote
that:
“The demands of the petty bourgeoisie of third world
countries are not against exploitation of the producing classes in their
countries, but of the domination of their class by monopoly. The demands
therefore for reform—for more credit to enable the petty bourgeois more room
also to exploit their own labor and extract a greater share of the surplus
value. This is unachievable, for to do so is to negate monopoly—which is an
impossible task outside the class struggle” (Wadada D. Nabudere, Essays on
the Theory and Practice of Imperialism, London: Onyx Press, 1979, p.179).
Therefore, the NEIO, commodity cartels like OPEC, and
other schemes for marginal redistribution of the profits derived from the
international economy would not have gone beyond increasing the shares which
Third World ruling classes received from the ongoing economic system. Minimal
benefits to workers and peasants would accrue. Third World successes against
monopoly capital, however, served to weaken the hold the latter has on the
international system.
Also, while channeling Third World militancy in a
reformist direction, the NIEO and OPEC had the opposite effect of
generating a new militancy among masses of Third World peoples where it did not
exist before. Those workers, peasants, and intellectuals who gained
consciousness of their plight in global structural terms through their leaders'
UN activities came to realize that NIEO demands were not enough. They would
come to realize what Nabudere argued, namely that:
“in order to succeed, the struggles cannot be
relegated to demands for change at international bodies, mere verbal protests
and parliamentary debates, etc. Therefore demands for a new economic order are
made increasingly impossible unless framed in the general context of a new
democratic revolution; the role of the working class and its allies is crucial
to the achievement, in any meaningful way, of a new international economic
order” (180).
Conclusion
In a period of less than twenty-five years, the United
States had solidified a worldwide military alliance system, stimulated
integrated economic institutions based on monopoly capitalism, started the most
dangerous arms race in world history, and engaged in repeated acts of military,
political, and economic intervention in nations throughout the world.
Similarly, labor militancy was crushed at home. The U.S. public was mobilized
by rhetoric about "fighting communism," "liberating" Eastern
Europe, constructing a "new frontier," aiding in economic
development, stopping "wars of national liberation," and 'building
peace with honor. "
Paradoxically, in this same period many political
forces were emerging to challenge the economic, military, and political
hegemony of the United States. Intervention in Chile admittedly fit the pattern
established in Iran and Guatemala in the 1950s and the Dominican Republic in
the 1960s. Between Iran and Chile, however, the United States had lost a major
war to the Vietnamese people and was unable to forestall Marxist victories in
southern Africa. Even reform minded Third World ruling classes were making demands
on the United States and its allies that impinged on the free workings of world
capitalism.
