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Choice 2000: Socialism or BarbarismAuthor(s): Samir AminReviewed work(s):Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 35, No. 28/29 (Jul. 15-21, 2000), pp. 2515-2519Published by: Economic and Political Weekly
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Perspectives
Choice 2 0 0 0 - Socialism
o r Barbarism
The20thcenturysaw euphoriaover capitalism;but also
experimentswithcommunism.Thoughthe latter is in a troughat
present,the 21st centurywill not be America'scentury.It will seethe rise of social struggles thatquestionthe disproportionateambitionsof Washington nd global capital.
SAMIRAMIN
T he 19thcentury came to a close in
an atmosphereastonishingly remi-
niscent of that which had presidedover its birth- the 'belle epoque' (and it
vws beautiful, at least for capital). The
bourgeois of theTriad,which hadalreadybeen constituted (the European powers,the US andJapan)were singing hymns to
the glory of theirdefinitive triumph. The
working classes of the centres were no
longer the 'dangerous classes' they had
beenduringthe 19thcentury,and the other
peoples of the world were called upon to
accept the 'civilising mission' of the west.The 'belle epoque' crowned a century
of radical global transformations, duringwhich the first industrial revolution and
the concomitant constitution of the mod-
ern bourgeois nation state emerged from
thenorth-westernquarterof Europe - the
place of their birth - to conquer the rest
of the continent, the US and Japan. The
old peripheries of the mercantilist age -
LatinAmerica, British and Dutch India -
were excluded from this dual revolution,while the old states of Asia (China, the
Ottoman sultanate, Persia) were being
integrated n turnas peripherieswithin thenew globalisation. The triumph of the
centres of globalised capital was mani-
fested in a demographic explosion, whichwastobring heEuropeanpopulationfrom
23 per cent of global population in 1800
to 36 percent in 1900. The concentration
of the industrial revolution in the Triad
had simultaneously generated a polaris-ation of wealth on a scale humanity had
never witnessed during the whole of
its preceding history. On the eve of the
industrialrevolution, thegaps in the social
productivityof work for80
percent of the
planet's population hadnever exceeded a
relation of 2 to 1. Towards 1900, thisrelation had become equal to 20 to 1.
The globalisation celebrated in 1900,
alreadyas the 'end of history', was never-
theless a recent fact, brought about pro-
gressively during the second half of the
19th century, after the opening of China
and of the Ottoman empire (1840), the
repression of the sepoys in India (1857)andfinally the division of Africa (startingin 1885). This firstglobalisation, farfrom
accelerating the process of capital accu-
mulation, brought on a structural crisis
from 1873 to 1896;almostexactly acentury
later, it was to do so again. The crisis,however, was accompanied by a new
industrial revolution (electricity, petro-leum, automobiles, the airplane), which,it was expected, would transform the
human species; much the same as is said
today about electronics.
Inparallel, the firstindustrialand finan-
cial oligopolies were being constituted -
the transnationalcorporationsof the time.
Financial globalisation seemed to be esta-
blishing itself definitively in the form of
the gold-sterling standard,and there was
talk of the interationalisation ofthetrans-
actions made possible by the new stock
exchanges, with as much enthusiasm as
companies talk of financial globalisationtoday. Jules Verne was sending his hero
(English, of course) around the world in
80 days - the 'global village', forhim, was
already reality.The political economy of the 19th cen-
tury was dominated by the figures of the
greatclassics (AdamSmith, Ricardo,then
Marx's devastating critique).The triumphof fin de siecle liberal globalisation
brought to the foreground a new genera-tion, moved
bythe desire to
provethat
capitalism was 'unsurpassable' because it
expressed thedemandsof aneternal,trans-
historicalrationality.
Walras - a central
figure in this new generation, who was
rediscovered (no coincidence here) by
contemporaryeconomists - dideverythinghe could to prove that markets were self-
regulating. He never managed - no more
thanthe neoclassical economists of todayhave been able to prove the same thing.
Towards Globalised Liberalism
Triumphant liberal ideology reduced
society to a collection of individuals and,
through this reduction, asserted that the
equilibrium produced by the marketbothconstitutes the social optirnm andguaran-tees,bythe sametoken,stabilityand demo-
cracy. Everything was in place to substi-
tute a theory of imaginary capitalism for
the analysis of the contradictions in real
capitalism.Thevulgarversionofthis econo-mistic social thought would find its ex-
pressioninthemanualsof the BritonAlfred
Marshall, he bible of economics at the time.
The promises of globalised liberalism,'as they were vaunted at the time, seemed
to come truefor a while - duringthe 'belle
epoque'. After 1896, growth startedagain
on the new bases of the second industrialrevolution, oligopolies and financial
globalisation. This 'emergence from the
crisis' sufficed not only to convince or-
ganic ideologues of capitalism - the new
economists butalsoto shake hebewildered
workers'movement. Socialistpartiesbegan.to slide from their reformistpositions to
more modest ambitions: to be simple asso-
ciates in managing the system. The shift
was very similar to that constituted today
by the discourse of the Britishprimemin-
isterTony Blair and the Germanchancellor
Gerhard Schroeder a century later. The
modernist elites of the peripheryalso be-lieved then thatnothingcould be imaginedoutside the dominant logic of capitalism.
The triumphof the 'belle epoque' lasted
less than two decades. A few dinosaurs
(still young at the time - Lenin, for in-
stance) predicted its downfall, but no one
heard them. Liberalism - that is, the uni-
lateral domination of capital - would not
reduce the intensity of the contradictions
of every sortthatthesystem carries within
itself. On the contrary, it aggravated their
acuity. Behind the workers' parties and
tradeunions,
mobilisation in the cause of
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capitalist-utopian nonsense, lurked themutedrumbleof afragmentedsocial move-
ment,bewildered but always on the vergeof exploding and crystallising around the
inventionof newalternatives.A fewBolshe-vik intellectuals used their gift of sarcasm
withregard o theLenitive discourse of the
'rentierpolitical conomy', astheydescribed
the sole way of thinking of the time.
Liberalglobalisation could only engen-derthesystem's militarisation in relations
among the imperialist powers of the era,could only bringabout a war which, in its
cold and warm forms, lasted for 30 years- from 1914 to 1945. Behind the apparentcalm of the 'belle epoque' it was possibleto discern the rise of social struggles and
violentdomestic and nternational onflicts.
In China, the first generation of critics of
the bourgeois modernisationproject were
clearing a path; this critique, still in its
babbling stage^n India, the Ottoman and
Arab world and in Latin America would
finally conquer the three continents and
dominate hreequarters f the20thcentury.Threequartersof our century are there-
fore markedby the management of more
orless radicalprojects designed to retrieve
ortransform heperipheries, projectsmade
possible bythedislocationof 'belle epoque'
utopianliberalglobalisation. Ourcentury,
coming to its end, has therefore been the
century of a series of massive conflicts
between the dominant forces of globalised
oligopolistic capitalism andthe states that
support it, on one hand, and the peoples
and dominated classes that refuse suchdictatorship, on the other.
Succession War
Between 1914 and 1945, the stage was
held simultaneously by the 'thirty years?war' between the US and Germany, over
who would inherit Britain's defunct hege-
mony, andby theattempts o 'catch-up', byothermeans,thehegemony describedas the
construction f socialism n theSovietUnion.
In the capitalist centres, both victors
and vanquished in the war of 1914-1918
attempted persistently - against all odds- to restore the utopia of globalised liber-
alism. We thereforewitness a return o the
gold standard; the colonial order was
maintained through violence; economic
management was liberalised once again.The results seemed positive for a brief
time, and the 1920s witnessed renewed
growth, drawnby the US's dynamism and
the establishment of new forms of assem-
bly line labour(parodied so brilliantly byCharlieChaplin n 'ModernTimes'). These
would find fruitful ground for generali-
sation only after the second world war,however. But the restoration was fragile,and as early as 1929 the financial stakes -
the mostglobalised segment of thesystem- collapsed. The following decade, untilthewar,was anightmare.Thegreatpowersreacted to recession as they would againin the 1980s and 1990s, withsystematicallydeflationist policies which served only to
aggravate the crisis, creating a downward
spiralcharacterisedby massive unemploy-ment - all the more tragic, for its victims,inthat hesafetynetsinventedbythewelfare
state did notyet exist. Liberalglobalisationcould notwithstand hecrisis; themonetary
system based on gold was abandoned.The
imperialistpowers regrouped n the frame-
workofcolonial empiresandprotected ones
of influence- the sourcesof theconflict that
would lead to the second world war.
Western societies reacted differentlyto the catastrophe. Some sank into fas-
cism,choosing
war as a means of redis-
tributing the deck on a global scale
(Germany,Japan, taly).TheOSandFrance
were the exceptions and, throughRoosevelt's New Deal and the Front
Populaire in France, launched another
option: that of marketmanagement regu-lation through active state intervention,backed by the working classes. These
formulas remaintimid, however, and were
expressed fully only after 1945.The collapse of the belle epoque myths
triggeredananti-imperialistradicalisation.
Some of the countries of Latin America,
taking advantage of their independence,invented populist nationalism in a varietyof forms: Mexico renewed the peasantrevolutionof the 1910s- 1920s;Peronism in
Argentinain the 1940s. In theeast, Turkish
Kemalism was their counterpoise, while
China settled into civil war between bour-
geois modernists, engendered by the 1911
revolution - the KuoMinTang- and com-
munists. Elsewhere, the yoke of colonial
rule imposed a delay several decades longon the crystallisation of similar national-
populist projects.Isolated, the Soviet Union sought to
invent a new trajectory. During the 1920s,it had hoped in vain that the revolution
would become global. Forced to fall backon its own forces, it followed Stalin into
a series of five-year plans meant to allow
it to make up for lost time. Lenin had
alreadydefined thiscourseas"Sovietpowerplus electrification". We should note that
the reference here is to the new industrial
revolution - electricity, not coal and steel.
But electricity (in fact, mainly coal and
steel) would gain the upperhand over the
power of the Soviets, emptied of meaning.
Centrally planned accumulation, of
course, was managed by a despotic state,
regardless of the social populism that
characterisedits policies. But then, neither
GermanunitynorJapanese modernisation
hadbeen theworkof democrats.TheSoviet
system was efficient as long as the goalsremained simple: to accelerate extensive
accumulation (the country's' industriali-
sation) and to build up a military forcewhich would be the first capable of facingthe challenge of the capitalist adversary,first by beating Nazi Germany, then by
ending the American monopoly on atomic
weapons and ballistic missiles during the
1960s and 1970s.
Post War
The second world war inaugurated a
new phase in the world system. The take-
off of the post-war period (1945-75) was
based on thecomplementarity
of the three
social projects of the age:(a) In the west, the welfare state projectof nationalsocial-democracy, which basdits action on the efficiency of productive
interdependent national systems.(b) The 'Bandung project' of bourgeoisnational construction on the system's
periphery (development ideology).(c) Finally, the Sovietist project of 'capi-talism withoutcapitalists', relatively auto-
nomised fromthe dominant world system.The double defeat of fascism and old
colonialism hadindeed createda conjunc-
ture allowing the popular classes, thevictims of capitalist expansion, to imposethe forms of capital regulation and accu-
mulation, to which capital itself was forced
to adjust, and which were at the root of
this period of high growth andaccelerated
accumulation.
The crisis that followed (starting in
1968-75) is one of the erosion, then the
collapse of the systems on which the
previous take-off had rested. This period,which has not yet come to a close, is
therefore not that of the establishment of
a new world order,as is too often claimed,
but thatof chaos. Thepolicies implementedunder these conditions do not constitute
a positive strategy of capital expansion,but simply seek to manage the crisis of
capital. They have not succeeded, because
the 'spontaneous' project produced by the
immediate domination of capital, in the
absence of any framework imposed bysocial forces through coherent, efficient
reactions, is still a utopia: that of world
management via what is referredto as 'the
market' - that is, the immediate, short-term interests of capital's dominantforces.
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In moder history, phases of reproduc-tion basedon stable accumulation systemsaresucceeded by moments of chaos. Inthefirst of these phases, as in the post-wartake-off, thesuccession of events gives the
impressionof a certainmonotony, because
the social and international relations that
make up its architecture are stabilised.
These relations are therefore reproduced
through hefunctioning of dynamics in the
system. In these phases, active, defined
and precise historical subjects are clearlyvisible (active social classes, states, politi-cal parties and dominant social organi-sations). Their practices appearsolid, and
their reactions are predictable under al-
most all circumstances; the ideologies that
motivate them benefit from a seeminglyuncontested egitimacy. Atthesemoments,
conjunctures may change, but the struc-
tures remain stable. Prediction is then
possible, even easy. The danger appearswhen we
extrapolatethese
predictionstoo
far, as if the structures in question were
eternal, and marked 'the end of history'.Theanalysisof thecontradictions hatriddle
these structures is then replaced by what
the postmodernists rightly call 'grandnarratives',which propose a linear visionof movement,guided by 'inevitability', or
'the awsof histor.y'.Thesubjectsof history
disappear, making room for supposedly
objective structural logics.But the contradictions of which we are
speakingdo theirworkquiety, and one daythe 'stable' structures collapse. History
then enters a phase that may be describedlater as 'transitional', but which is lived
as a transition toward the unknown, and
during which new historical subjects are
crystallised slowly. These subjects in-
auguratenewpractices, proceeding by trial
and error, and legitimising them throughnewideological discourses, often confused
at the outset. Only when the processes of
qualitative change have matured suffi-
ciently do new social relations appear,
defining 'post-transitional' system.The post-war take-off -allowed for
massive.economic, political and social
transformations nall regions of the world.These transformationswere theproductof
social regulations imposed on capital bythe working and popular classes, not, as
liberalideology would have it, by the logicof market expansion. But these transfor-
mations were so great that they defined a
new framework for the challenges that
confront the world's peoples now, on the
threshold of the 21st century.For a long time - from the industrial
revolution at the beginning of the 19th
century to the'1930s (as far as the Soviet
Union is concerned), then the 1950s (forthe thirdworld) - the contrast between the
centreandperipheriesof themoder world
system was almost synonymous with the
opposition between industrialisedand non-
industrialised countries. The rebellions in
theperipheries whether hese were social-
ist revolutions (Russia, China) or national
liberationmovements revised his old form
of polarisation y engaging heirsocieties inthe modernisationprocess, Gradually, the
axis around which the world capitalist
system was reorganising itself, and which
would define the future forms of polari-sation, constituted itself on the basis of the
'five new monopolies' that benefit the
countries of the dominantTriad:control of
technology; global financialflows (throughbanks, insurancecartels andpension funds
of thecentre); access to theplanet'snatural
resources;media andcommunications;and
weapons of mass destruction.
Takentogether,
these fivemohopoliesdefine the frameworkwithin which the law
of globalised value expresses itself. The
law of value is hardly the expression of
a 'pure' economic rationalitythat could be
detached from its social andpolitical frame;
rather, it is the condensed expression of
the totality of these circumstances, which
cancel out the extent of industrialisation
of the peripheries, devalue the productivework incorporated in these products, and
overvalue hesupposedaddedvalueattached
to the activities through which the new
monopolies operate to the benefit of the
centres. They therefore produce a newhierarchy n the distributionof income on a
worldscale, moreunequalthanever, while
makingsubalterns f theperipheries'ndus-
tries, and reducing them to the status of
putting-outwork. Polarisation inds its new
basis here, a basis which will dictate its
future form.
During the 'Bandung period' (1955-75),the states of the third world had begun to
implement autocentric development poli-cies aimed at reducing global polarisation
(catching up). This implied systems of
national regulation as well as the perma-
nent, collective (North-South) negotiationof international regulatory systems. (Therole of the United Nation Conference onTrade and Development (UNCTAD) was
particularly mportant nthisrespect.)This
also aimed at reducing "low-productivitylabour reserves" by transferringthem to
higher-productivity modern activities
(even if they were 'non-competitive' on
open world markets). The result of the
unequal success (not the failure, contraryto common belief) of these policies has
been the production of a contemporary
third world now firmly engaged in theindustrial evolution.
Theunequalesults fan ndustrialisation
imposedon dominantcapital by socialforces engendered by the victories ofnational iberation odayallow us to dif-ferentiatehefront-line eripheries, hichhave beencapableof buildingproductivenationalystemswithpotentiallyompeti-tive industries in the framework ofglobalised apitalism,nd hemarginalisedperipheries,which havenotbeen as suc-cessful. The criterionof differencethat
separatesheactiveperipheriesrom hosethat have been marginaliseds not onlythatof competition n industrialproduc-tion: it is also political.
The politicalauthoritiesn the active
peripheries-and,ehindhem, llofsociety(thisdoes notprecludehecontradictionswithinsociety tself) - have aproject, ndastrategyor ts mplementation.hisclearlyseems tobethecase for
China,Korea,nd
to a lesserdegree, or certain ountries fsouth-eastAsia,Indiaandsome countriesof LatinAmerica.Thesenationalprojectsareconfronted ith hoseofgloballydomi-nant mperialism;heoutcomeof thiscon-frontationwill shape omorrow'sworld.
On the other hand, the marginalisedperipherieshave neithera project(evenwhenrhetoric ike that of politicalIslamclaims the contrary), or theirown strat-
egy. Inthiscase,imperialistircles'thinkfor them' and take the initiativealone in
elaborating'projects'concerningthese
regions (like the EuropeanEconomicCommunityEEC)-ACPassociation, he'Middle Eastern'projectof the US and
Israel,or Europe'svagueMeditarranean
projects).No local projectsoffer an op-position; hese countriesare thereforehe
passive subjectsof globalisation.This rapid overview of the political
economyof transformationsn the 20th
centuryglobal capitalistsystemmust be
completedby a reminder f thestunning.demographicevolutionhathas aken laceinthesystem'speripherytthesame ime,bringingthe proportion ormedby the
populations f Asia(excludingJapan ndtheUSSR),Africa,LatinAmericaand heCaribbeanrom68 percentof theglobalpopulationn 1900 to 81 percent today.
Thethirdpartnern thepost-warworld
system,madeup by the countrieswhere
'actually xisting ocialism'prevailed, asleft hehistorical cene.Theveryexistenceof theSovietsystem, tssuccesses nexten-sive industrialisation and its militaryaccomplishments,ereoneoftheprincipalmotors f all thegrandioseransformationsof the 20thcentury.Without he 'danger'
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thatthe communist ounter-modelepre-sented,westernsocial democracywouldneverhavebeenable oimpose hewelfarestate.Theexistenceof theSovietsystem,andthecoexistence t imposedon the USfurthermore, einforced the margin of
autonomy vailable o the bourgeoisieofthe south.
The Soviet system, however,did not
manageopass o anewstageof intensiveaccumulation;t thereforemissed out onthenew computer-driven)ndustrialevo-lution with which the 20th century is
comingto an end. The reasons for thisfailurearecomplex;still, it placesat the
.centreof its analysis he anti-democraticdrift fSovietpower,whichwasultimatelyunable o internalisehe fundamentalxi-
gencyofprogressoward ocialism srepre-sented ythe ntensificationfademocrati-sation apable f transcendinghatdefinedand imitedbytheframeworkf historical
capitalism.ocialismwill bedemocratic r
willnot exist: his s thelessonof thisfirst
experience f the breakwithcapitalism.Social thoughtand the dominanteco-
nomic,sociologicalandpolitical heoriesthategitimisedhepractices f autocentricnationalwelfarestatedevelopmentn thewest,of the Sovietsystem n the east andof populism o the south,as well as the
negotiated, regulatedglobalisationthat
accompaniedhem,werelargely nspiredbyMarxandKeynes.Thelatterproducedhis critiqueof market iberalism n the
193Cs,but was not read at the time.
Relationsbetweensocial forces,skewedincapital's avourat thetime,necessarilyfuelled the prejudices f liberalutopia-as is the caseagain oday.Thenew socialrelations of the post-warperiod, morefavourable o labour,would inspirethe
practicesof the welfarestate,relegatingthe iberals o apositionof insignificance.Marx'sfigure,of course,dominated hediscourse f 'actually xistingsocialism'.But the two preponderantiguresof the20thcentury raduallyost theirqualityas
originators f fundamentalritiques,be-
coming he mentors f the legitimation f
thepractices f statepower.Inbothcases,we maytherefore bservea shift towards
simplification nddogmatism.Critical ocial thought hen shiftedfor
a time - the 1960s and 1970s - toward the
peripheries f the system.Herethe prac-tices of national opulism apoorversionof Sovietism triggered brilliant xplo-sion in the critiqueof 'actuallyexistingsocialism'. At the centre of this critiquewas a new awarenessof the polarisationproducedby capital's global expansion,which had been underestimated,f not
purely and simply ignored, for over a
century ndahalf.This ritique ofactuallyexistingcapitalism,of the social thoughtthatlegitimatedts expansion,andof thetheoretical ndpractical ocialistcritiqueof both of these- was at theoriginof the
periphery'sdazzling entry into modern
thought.Herewas a rich andvariegatedcritique,which it would be mistaken o
reduce o 'dependencyheory',since thissocial thoughtwas to ieopen the funda-mentaldebateson socialismandthe tran-sition towardt, but also on Marxism ndhistorical materialism, understood as
having o transcendhe limitsof theeuro-centrismhatdominatedmodem hought.Undeniably nspired or a momentby theMaoist eruption, it also initiated the
critiqueof both Sovietismand the 'new
globalismglimmeringon the horizon.
Structyral Crisis
Startingn 1968-71, hecollapseof thethreepost-warmodelsof regulated ccu-mulationopenedup a structuralrisis ofthesystemveryreminiscent f thatof theend of the 19thcentury.Growthandin-vestmentrates fell precipitouslyo half
previous levels; unemployment oared;pauperisationwas intensified.The ratioused omeasurenequalitynthecapitalistworld(1 to 20 toward1990; 1 to 30 in
1954-48; 1 to 60 at the end of the post-wargrowthspurt) ncreased harply: hewealthiest20 per cent of humanity n-
creased heirshareof the globalproductfrom60 to 80 percentduring he two lastdecadesof thiscentury globalisation asbeen ortunateorsome.Forthe astmajority- notably, or the peoplesof the south,subjectedounilateraltructuraldjustmentpolicies,andthoseof theeast,locked ntodramaticnvolutions it hasbeenadisaster.
But thisstructuralrisis,like its prede-cessor,is accompanied ya third echno-
logicalrevolution,whichprofoundlyltersmodes of labourorganisation, ivestingthe old forms of worker and popularorganisationnd truggleftheir fficiency,
and therefore heirlegitimacy.The frag-mented ocialmovement asnotyetfounda strongformulafor crystallisation, a-
pableof meeting hechallengesposed;butit hasmaderemarkablereakthroughs,ndirections hat-enrichts impact:princi-pally,women'spowerful ntry nto social
life, as well as a new awarenessof envi-ronmentaldestruction n a scale which,for the firsttime in history, hreatens heentireplanet.
Themanagementf thecrisis,basedona brutalreversalof relationsof powerin
capital'sfavour,has made t possibleforliberalistrecipes to impose themselvesanew.Marx ndKeyneshavingbeenerasedfromsocialthought, he 'theoreticians' f
'pure conomics'havereplacedheanaly-sis of the realworldwith thatof animagi-nary apitalism.But he emporaryuccessof thishighly reactionary topian houghtissimply hesymptom fadecline witch-
craft takes the placeof critical houghtthattestifies to the fact thatcapitalisms
objectivelyreadyto be transcended.Crisismanagement asalready ntered
thephaseof collapse.The crisis in south-eastAsiaandKoreawaspredictable. uringthe 1980s these countries,andChinaas
well, managed o benefit from the worldcrisis throughgreater nsertion n world
exchanges(basedon their 'comparativeadvantage'of cheap labour),attractingforeigninvestmentbutremaining n thesidelines of financialglobalisation,and
inscribingheir
development rojectsn a
nationallyontrolledtrategyinthecasesof ChinaandKorea,not the countriesofsouth-eastAsia).Inthe 1990s,Koreaandsouth-eastAsia opened up to financial
globalisation, while China and India
beganto evolve in the same direction.Attractedby the region's high growth
levels, hesurplusffloatingoreign apitalflowed in, producing not accelerated
growthbut inflationin stocks and realestate.As hadbeenpredicted,hefinancialbubbleburstonly a few yearslater. Po-liticalreactions o this massivecrisishave
been new in severalrespects differentfrom hoseprovoked ytheMexican rises,for nstance.TheUS,withJapan ollowingclosely,attemptedo takeadvantage f theKoreancrisis to dismantle he country'sproductive system (under thefallaciouspretextthat it was controlled
oligopolistically)and to subordinatet tothestrategies f US andJapanese ligopo-.lies. Regionalpowersattemptedo resist
by.challenginghequestionof their nser-tion within financialglobalisation withthe re-establishmentf exchangecontrolin Malaysia), or - in China and India- by
removingparticipationrom their list ofpriorities.
Thiscollapseof the financialdimensionofglobalisationorced he'G-7oenvisageanewstrategy, rovoking crisis n liberal
thought. t is in lightof this crisis thatwemustexaminetheoutlineof the counter-attack aunchedby theG-7. Overnight,t
changed its tune: the term regulation,forbiddenuntil then, reappearedn the
group'sresolutions. t becamenecessaryto 'regulatenternationalinancial lows'.TheWorldBank's hiefeconomist, tiglitz,
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suggested a debate aimed at defining anew 'post-Washington consensus'.
Towards 21st Century
At this chaotic conjuncture,the US tookthe offensive once more to re-establish its
global hegemony andtoorganise the world
system in its economic, political and
militarydimensions according to this he-
gemony. Has the US hegemony entered its
decline? Or has it begun a renewal that
would make the21 st century 'America's'?It we examine the economic dimension
in the narrow sense of the term, measured
roughly in terms of per capita GDP, and
the structural endencies of the balance of
trade, we will conclude that American
hegemony, so crushing in 1945, receded
asearlyas the 1960s and1970s withEuropeand Japan's brilliant resurgence. The
Europeans bring it up continuously, in
familiar terms:TheEuropean
Union is the
first economic and commercial force on
a world scale, etc. The statement is hasty,however, for, if it is true that a single
Europeanmarketdoes exist, and even that
a single currency is emerging, the same
cannot be said of 'a' European economy
(at least, not yet). There is no such thingas a 'European productive system', such
a productive system can be spoken of in
the case of the US. The economies set upin Europe through the constitution of
historicalbourgeoisie in therelevantstates,and the shaping, within this framework,
of autocentricnationalproductive systems(even if these are also open, even aggres-
sively so), have stayed more or less the
same. There are no European TNCs: onlyBritish, German,or FrenchTNCs. Capital
interpretation s no denser in inter-Etro-
peanrelations than n the bilateral relations
betweeneach Europeannation and the US
or Japan. If Europe's productive systemshavebeeneroded,and thereforeweakened
by 'globalised interdependence' to such an
extent thatnationalpolicies lose agood deal
of theirefficiency, this is precisely to the
advantage of globalisation and the forces
that dominate it, not to that of 'Europeanintegration',which does not exist as yet.
US hegemony rests on a second pillar,however: that of military power. Built up
systematically since 1945, it covers the
whole planet, parcelled out into regions,each underthe relevant US military com-
mand. This hegemonism had been forced
to acceptthepeaceful coexistence imposed
by Soviet military might. Once this check
collapsed, the US went on the offensive to
reinforce tsglobaldomination,whichHenry
Kissingersummedup in amemorablyarro-
gantphrase: Globalisationsonlyanotherword or US domination". hisAmerican
global strategyhas five aims:
(1) To neutralise ndsubjugateheother
partnersn the Triad EuropeandJapan),while minimising heirabilityto act out-side the US orbit.
(2)Toestablishmilitaryontrol verNATOwhile Latin-Americanising'he ragmentsof the former.Sovietworld.(3) To exert uncontested influence inwestAsia, especiallyover its petroleumresources.
(4) To dismantleChina,ensurethe sub-ordinationftheother reatnationsIndia,Brazil),and preventthe constitutionof
regionalblocs potentially apableof ne-
gotiatingthe terms of globalisation.(5)Tomarginaliseheregionsof the souththatrepresentno strategic nterest.
The favoured nstrument f this hege-mony is thereforemilitary,as the US's
highest-rankingepresentativesever ire
of repeating d nauseam.Thishegemonydemands hatUS alliesaccept o navigatein its wake.GreatBritain,Germanyand
Japanmakeno bones (not even cultural
ones)about his mperative. ut hismeansthatthe speecheswhichEuropean oliti-cians make o theiraudiences regardingEurope'seconomicpower- haveno real
significance.By placing tselfexclusivelyon the terrainof mercantilesquabbles,Europe,which has no politicalor social
projectf itsown,has ostbefore heracehaseven started.Washingtonnows hiswell.
Theprincipalmeans n theserviceof thestrategychosenby Washington-isNorthAlliance Treaty Organisation NATO),which explains why it has survivedthe
collapseof theadversaryhatconstitutedthe organisation's aisond'etre. NATOstillspeaks oday n the nameof the 'inter-national ommunity', hereby xpressingits contempt or the democraticprinciplethatgoverns his saidcommunityhroughthe UN. Yet NATO acts only to serve
Washington's ims- no moreandno less- as the historyof the pastdecade,fromthe Gulf warto Kosovo,goes to show.
The strategy employed by the TriadunderUS directiontakes as its aim theconstructionfaunipolarworldorganisedalongtwo complementary rinciples:heunilateraldictatorship f dominantTNC
capital,andtheunfurlingf a US militaryempire,o whichallnationsmustbe com-
pelledto submit.No otherprojectmaybetoleratedwithin hisperspective, oteventheEuropeanprojectof subalternNATO
allies,andespeciallynota project ntail-
ingsomedegreeofautonomy,ikeChina'swhichmustbebroken y orce,f necessary.
This vision of a unipolarworld s beingincreasinglyopposedby thatof a multi-
polarglobalisation,heonly strategy hatwould allow the differentregionsof theworld o achieveacceptableocialdevelop-ment and would thereby foster socialdemocratisationand the reduction ofmotives for conflict. The hegemonisticstrategyof theUS and ts NATO allies is
todaythe mainenemyof social progressdemocracyandpeace.
The 21stcenturywillnotbe 'America's
century'.It will be one of vastconflicts,and the rise of socialstruggles hatques-tion the disproportionateambition of
.Washingtonand of capital.Thecrisis sexacerbatingontradictions
within heblocsofdominant lasses.Theseconflicts must takeon increasingly cuteinternationalimensions, nd herefore it.states and groupsof states againsteachother.Onecanalready iscern he irsthintsof a conflict betweenthe
US, Japan,and
their aithfulAustralianlly,on onehand,andChinaand the otherAsiancountries,onthe other.Nor is it difficult oenvisagethe rebirthof a conflict betweenthe USandRussia, f the lattermanages o extri-cate tselffrom hespiralBorisYeltsinhas
dragged t into. Andif theEuropeanLeftcouldfree tselffrom ts submission o thedoubledictateof capitalandWashington,it wouldbe possibleto imaginethat thenew European trategywouldbe articu-latedon the lines of Russia, China,andthe thirdworld ngeneral, n theperspec-
tive of anecessarymultipolaronstructioneffort. If this does not come about,the
Europeanproject tself will fade away.The centralquestion, herefore,s how
conflictsandsocialstruggles it is impor-tant o differentiate etween hetwo)willbe articulated.Who will triumph?Willsocialstruggles esubordinated,nframed
byconflictsand hereforemastered ythedominantpowers,even instrumentalisedto the benefit of these powers?Or willsocialstruggles,on thecontrary, onquertheirautonomy nd orce hemajor owersto conformto theirexigencies?
Of course, I do not imaginethat theconflictsandstrugglesof the 21stcenturywillproduce remake f the29thcentury.Historydoes notrepeattselfaccordingoa cyclicalmodel.Today's ocieties recon-fronted ynewchallenges nalllevels.But
preciselyecausehe mmanentntradictionsof capitalism resharper t theendof the
centuryhanheywereat tsbeginning, ndbecause he meansof destruction realsofargreaterhan heywere,thealternativesfor the 21stcenturymore hanever beforeare 'socialismor barbarism'J
Economic and Political Weekly July 15, 2000 2519
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