1/7 Samir Amin: Exiting the Crisis of Capitalism or exiting Capitalism in Crisis? 06/05/2010

Speaker 1: Представит Лина Шекидучев-Коста, кое-узадлив на سورزي Филм Фестивал Доша и Сенегала. Рाजसекостовец в yaratно-здатя ذاتостой аудио Самир Амину. Самир Амин е роден у Кайру, потом е отишау Парис к е студирао, дипомирао экономия. у потоме докторирао. Вечум ладо сликао студент из Даво е радикалнечасопис, прикучио се мाओистима. Речице, prendа на Википедии пиши да вишени е мाओист, рециче да е јоржувик мाओист, то је јоржувик војелан да. Поретоге е комунист и так одали. Посне париза Самир Амин е био у مالю, а кушеневарен не кидесет година. Ги е радио каво Савитик, министру за економию, за економское планирение. Потом то га одла се у Сенegal. Děje svedodanas i deo snova World Forum. Dat forum zetreci svjet, kujehupla afrička aziské zemli, kujehupla svoreti alternativu globálno poředku, kujehupla afrička aziské zemli, kujehupla svoreti alternativu globálno poředku, kujehupla samira miničlan toga. Tek samira mina kao joštolitek svem može te pronaci uzborniku konferencije a sadariješ prepuštam našem kostu. Na pokradownia kaję owejkiła pyticie przyłukę zapitania publica. Hala.

Samir Amin: Thank you, thank you, Comrade Zdzisław. I'm not a neo neo neo, and I hope I'm not a paleo paleo paleo, but I I hope that I'm or try to be a Marxist and to be a communist also, and I cannot separate between the two. Which means not only a theoretician but an activist in actually existing politics. Now, the title of my intervention is being given in the paper which has been fortunately published in Croatian. With a very provocative title, voluntarily, Out of the Crisis of Capitalism or Out of Capitalism in Crisis? That is the challenge that the radical left has to face as of now. The paper published in Question is a summary of a book. The book has the same title. And therefore, even if you find it a little short, telegraphic, each of the points raised in this paper has been subject of more development in the various chapters of that book. But I shall not read it because you can read it, possibly if you wish. I shall present the same ideas in a different way, in a more directly political way perhaps, starting with why are we faced by that challenge, what we mean, or what I mean, but I'm not alone for sure, by moving out or starting moving out From capitalism, moving out of capitalism, but is moving ahead on the long road to socialism, and I will say to communism. Now, this crisis has not started in 2008. It's a long crisis. You know, no, I'll start differently. Capitalism is a parenthesis. Hmm. In history, a relatively short parenthesis of a few centuries, but a very important one because indeed it was a qualitative change. It cut with the long past, 3,000, 4,000 years for civilization before capitalism, which in that short bracket and this is where it has been positive, created the conditions, but did only that, created the conditions for moving to a higher level of civilization, which is being called communism. A higher level of civilization and not just the same system with some adjustments. Now, that system is very curious, capitalism. It had a long, long, long preparation. It took maybe 10 centuries before it matured, before it crystallized. It did not start in Western Europe, it started in Eastern Asia, but I shall not go back to Possibly what I have said also during the roundtable yesterday, and moved towards Europe and moved through the Italian cities before crystallizing in its historical form in the triangle London-Amsterdam-Paris late. But once That historical form of capitalism— there could have been other forms, there were other forms because societies were meeting the same challenges, the same contradiction fundamentally elsewhere also. Once it took this form, crystallized in its final historical form, it conquered the world and it created a new— it blocked avenues, and it created a new, a new possible future. Now, this historical capitalism has been based from the very beginning on accumulation by dispossession. Simultaneously, the dispossession, massive dispossession, which in many cases is synonymous to genocide, but not necessarily, of the people of the Americas, of the people of Africa through slave trade, but also and simultaneously of the peasants of northwestern Europe, not of Europe, of northwestern Europe, and perhaps from the enclosures. And gradually the same pattern developed in more and more areas of Europe. Now, that historical form of capitalism could not have developed without the enormous possibility— would have been explosive and would not have crystallized, would not have been possible if not the enormous outmigration of the victims Those who were expropriated by this, this, for this system of accumulation by dispossession, the peasants. Now, in 1500, in 1500, there were Europeans were 18%. Of the population of the planet. In 1900, Europeans plus Europeans of European descent in America, 36%. That is, this pattern of historical capitalism cannot be generalized to the whole humankind. It has been based from the very beginning on creating this center-periphery enormous and growing polarization, which from one stage to another continuously deepened. If we consider societies before the Industrial Revolution, the The really the distribution of productivities, average productivities of social labor was very, very close from one another for at least 80 or 90% of humankind. They were in the range between 1, Perot said, and 1.3. I'm saying perhaps 1 to 2. And not in the advantage— to the advantage of Europe, even of West, Northwestern Europe, Atlantic Europe. And within 2 centuries, it has moved to 1 to 60, which means that there has been a process— this process of accumulation has been simultaneously a gigantic process of populization. What Marx analyzed as pauperization associated logically with capital accumulation was— the reality is 100 times more than the worst that Marx imagined if we look at it at the global level, which means that we cannot look at capitalism as being the different— developed capitalist centers and the rest of the world being on the way to becoming capitalist and they will become similar. This is historically impossible. If it were possible, I think there would be no capacity, whatever ideologies, etc., could not stop it from moving along that route. But it cannot be. And therefore, the center-periphery conflict, growing conflict as a result of polarization, and the conflict between the alternative continuing in the frame of capitalism or starting moving away from it on the long road to global socialism cannot be dissociated. I'm not sure that Marx in his time was fully aware of that, whatever gigantic thinker he was. Possibly in the middle of the 19th century, he could have still the illusion that, that way will be gradually developing. Including through colonization. Remember what he wrote about India. But that is the fact, and I have— I'm focusing on that. Why is there war? Because it's this fact, this gigantic fact, that is not— that can be explained or put in the frame of a Marxist, and I would say a perfectly Marxist, not that I am perfect, but could be put in the frame of a Marxist analysis, not by another theory of history and society as many have produced, including some things which are not so bad or not absolutely bad such as the world system and so on, world economy and other things, which have focused— agreed on focusing on that dichotomy and growing polarization, but not accepted the idea that it can be, must be integrated in the Marxist analysis, in the— on the basis of the fundamental discoveries starting— started with Marx. Now, and that explains the real history, that it explains both the 19th century and the 20th century, and it continues to explain whatever, wherever we are in the 21st century. It explains, among other things, which is not something small, that the challenges or the attempts to move out of capitalism started from the peripheries and had an echo which also had an echo in the centers. That is, the moves or attempts to move beyond capitalism, out of capitalism through so-called socialist revolutions in the peripheries starting with Russia but moving to China, to Yugoslavia, to Vietnam, to Cuba, on the one hand, and social democracy and the victories of social democracies in the— at least in Western Europe and in another form in North America are connected, interconnected, cannot be dissociated And are both of them the product of that major contradiction of really existing capitalism as a global system? And that's my point. The second point, very briefly,