Samir Amin - The path of development for underdeveloped countries and Marxism Speech

Samir Amin: Ni hao, good morning, and thank you for the attendance. Now, fortunately, I have some time today. I assume that most of you have been at the opening and perhaps have heard what I said, therefore I shall not repeat it at all unless necessary in the discussion. Now I am going to a look into what are the problems of Global South, and China is part of Global South, with a very special position, I would say advantageous position as compared to the others, but is part of it. The Group of 77 is called the Group of 77 plus China. But, of course, the Global South is enormous. We are a minority of 85% of humankind. We are the vast majority. And the three continents, Asia, Africa, and Latin America, are huge. And conditions and history are different from one country to the other. And therefore, there are many dangers to generalize. The way out of the present dramatic situation of almost all of those countries will be different from one country to another. But still, there are generalities. I start with a critique of what is suggested to us because the World Bank The U.S. propaganda, and I mean it, propaganda, even conveyed by so-called scholars, repeats the same for everybody. The same for everybody. Exactly on the opposite of our position, which is that it cannot be the same for everybody. But they always say the same for everybody. Globalization, liberalization, privatization, efficiency, blah blah blah. All this is not only superficial, but a lie. Globalization is nothing new. What was colonization? What was the war against China in 1840, if not compelling China to globalization? What was the colonization, the earliest form of globalization? But certainly globalization, as everything has changed, and we have moved into a new era of globalization. Globalization is nothing new. Then they say the capitalist countries, the advanced capitalist countries, which they don't call capitalist, the advanced countries have achieved efficiency, etc., etc. You must go on the same road. You come later, but you go on the same road. without questioning if it is possible to go on the same road, if we even want it, and if we wanted it, if it would be possible to go on the same road. I shall explain why it is impossible to go on the same road. Capitalism is not possible. Capitalism leading us to be similar to them. because they are imperialist and dominating. And the dominated cannot become also dominating because there would be no dominated. But they say, oh, de-linking is a nonsense. It means that you move out. You cut all your relations with the rest of the world. You close yourself on yourself. And this is bad. benefit of globalization of the advantages of exchange. This is a lie. De-linking does not mean that. De-linking means something else. It's a strategy that you try to Submit your external relations, which means that you have external relations, political, economic, trade and law, to the priority of your own internal development. It's a strategy of submitting external relations to your own needs, to the extent that it is possible. Nothing is possible 100%. Of course, the margin for a huge country and with it. glorious history as China, the margin is wider than it is for a poor country of less than 1 million inhabitants here or there in Africa. But there is always a margin, small or wider. Now, it is exactly the opposite, delinking is exactly the opposite of what is suggested to us, which is Structural adjustment. Structural adjustment is that you, the weak, adjust to the need of the strong. That is, you accept submission. Structural adjustment is Congo should adjust to the needs of the US. Why the US should not adjust to the needs of Congo? The opposite. So the opposite is delinquent. is that we try to, and we succeed never 100%, we succeed more or less to compare the other, the stronger, to adjust to you. Now, that had to be said from the very beginning because many of you have been brain brushed by the US propaganda, by US universities, saying that there is no alternative but capitalism and globalization. Now, that is my small introduction. Now I shall deal with three sets of problems. One, What is new in capitalist imperialism today as compared to what it has been in the previous periods of recent history? Because if we want to know what are the challenges to which we are faced, we cannot remain on generalities such as capitalism, imperialism. They are realities, but these are realities who have changed throughout recent history, throughout history and recent history. And we ought to be precise on what are the challenges today. They are similar and different from the challenges which China and other countries have been confronted to 100 years ago, 150 years ago, or even 50 years ago. Second point will be how the peoples and the nations and eventually the states of the south of the global south have reacted to that challenge in the recent past that is after world war ii which i'm calling the bandung era the first huge wage of national liberation struggles leading to changes social political and economic inside and to changes in the global order and third point will be and what about today can we benefit from the lessons of bandung to imagine strategies for global south to move out of its being not only dependent but exploited super exploited to the benefit of monopoly capital of the triad now first point what is new imperialism is nothing new Lenin but also Hilferding, Hobson, at the end of the 19th century noticed that capitalism has moved from industrial competitive capitalism of 19th century into the era of monopoly capital and they associated imperialism to that monopoly capital. I shall not go back to discussing that theory because I have another theory that capitalism has been imperialist from the very start. That is not imperialism is not related necessarily and exclusively to monopoly capital. what have been the conquest and destruction of the peoples and nations of the Americas, if not precisely a pattern of imperialism and globalization at the very beginning of modern capitalism, of historical European capitalism. But I shall say the following. imperialism has itself, monopoly capital, has itself moved through various stages. I think that in a very short period, exactly between 1975 and 1990, 15 years, in those 15 years There has been a qualitative change in monopoly capital. Monopolies have become within this very short space of time what I'm calling generalized monopolies. That is that they are now in a position to control everything. That is The whole economic system, the whole productive system, which was made of monopolies dominating some sectors and a lot, millions and millions of non-monopoly capital, this has changed. Monopoly capital now controls everything. which means that the other activities, because other activities, juridically there are many small enterprises, capitalist enterprises, I'm speaking of the West now, they are de facto subcontractors. And I take one example, agriculture, family agriculture in Western Europe and in the US. totally controlled by monopoly capital. Upstream, monopoly capital provide the credit, provide the inputs, the equipment, Monsanto the seeds, et cetera, et cetera. Downstream, monopoly capital controls the chains of trade, of supermarkets, et cetera. They, so that the value added, and even the value produced by the farmers, their work, is completely pumped out to the benefit of monopoly rent, upstream and downstream. To the extent that their income, what Madame Lagardère calls true prices, is stupid. They are prices which are fabricated by the domination of monopoly. They use the income of peasants to zero so that they survive thanks to subsidies, which are the taxpayers covering it. And this goes on for everything, including the activities in the South. directly or indirectly to a large extent that is something qualitatively new qualitatively new it's not very popular among the Marxists to say that because among the Marxists too many of them simply repeat the thesis of Lenin about monopoly capital as it was 100 years ago, more than 100 years ago, 120 years ago. As if it had not moved into a new stage I submit that it has moved into a new stage and this is essential to understand the real challenge. The consequences of that are fabulous. One, capitalism has become the dictatorship of oligarchies. Dictatorship of oligarchies in the United States, in Europe, in Japan. The demonstration in New York with the 99% is correct. 1% is controlling everything in the US, and even less than 1% in the number of people. Now, second, that means that it's the end of democracy. Democracy has become a farce. Electoral democracy leads nowhere. because if any majority would be against the dictatorship of the oligarchy, they are annihilated immediately and compelled to adjust. Now, the other consequence of that is that we have moved, you know, imperialism, the word imperialism, corresponded in the time of Lenin of imperialist powers, countries, plural. There were British imperialism, which was dominating, US nascent imperialism, German imperialism, moving on, French imperialism, traditional, et cetera. It had to be conjugated in the plural. Today, we have the collective imperialism of the triad. That is US, Western and Central Europe. I don't speak of Eastern Europe. They are semi-colonies of Central Europe, of Germany in particular, and Japan. Now, it's a collective imperialism. One may say, oh, Samir Amin is on the line of Kautsky with the theory of super imperialism, etc. I don't care about that. I'm not speaking of super imperialism because states remain a reality. Even in Europe, there is no Europe. And we can see it very clearly on every problem. There is no... A global state, even a global state of the North. There is no a global bourgeoisie of the North. But there is a deep strategic alliance. Who is the Yahya? The chief is the US. And the others are what I call subaltern allies. The Europeans and the Japanese. But they have common interests in the sense that they are aware that they cannot dominate the South. That is, they cannot dominate China, India, Southeast Asia, the Arab countries, the African countries, Latin America, the Caribbean, without having a common strategy. And the common strategy starts from the military strategy. nato is the central organization of this collective imperialism and the alliance with japan is similar since the san francisco agreement now this is my first point this is the challenge that we have to face today now second point how The challenge of being submitted to the previous stage of imperialist globalization has been met by the peoples, the nations, and the states, whenever there were states, of the South. It is post-World War II. World War II has created a new situation. Nazism was defeated. It was not defeated by the Americans. It was defeated by the Soviet army. Almost alone. 90% of the effort. Japan was defeated. It was defeated by the Chinese people. It was not defeated by the Americans. Even if they achieved their victory by bombing. Now, It had created, therefore, a new situation in which the peoples of Asia and Africa who had been compelled to accept being dominated and had adjusted or tried to adjust to that. Not for so long. We have a long history. We are in China, long history. I am Egyptian, a long history. So for us, a hundred years is a small drop in the ocean of our history. But had been compelled to. Now they started, no. We shall not accept it. And the victory, the fantastic victory of the Chinese people led by the Communist Party. In a war of liberation against Japanese but simultaneously a peasant revolution and simultaneously a revolution with a socialist communist perspective have changed the relations It's no surprise that a few years later, 55, the countries of the South, or many of them, meet in Bandung, Indonesia.

Speaker 2: Now, in 1947 or 48, 47 I think, Truman,

Samir Amin: in fact it was not Truman, it was Churchill, Truman could not think by himself, but Churchill thought for Truman, said the world is divided in two camps. The camp of freedom and the camp of communist slavery. Communist slavery was, at that time, Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. China was not already liberated. And the rest is the free world. Free for whom? Were the people colonized in Africa free? Were the people submitted to colonial and semi-colonial rule free? Free for capital. Only. Two worlds. The free world, free for capital, but including enormous mass of people oppressed by capital, by their capital, and so-called the empire of sin, the communists. One year later, Zhdanov wrote a report, and it is a Stalin report, saying the world is divided in two camps. The camps of socialism restricted to, at that time, 48, Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and the camp of capitalism, the rest of the world. Very similar to the description, but only qualifying differently. The two ignored the South. ignored the people who were in struggle against the pre-existing capitalism. I do remember, because of my age, that I participated in 1951, 1952, 1953 to a group of communists of the Middle East criticizing the Zhdanov report. Of course, Truman, we don't accept it by definition. But Zhdanov say, no, there are not two wars, there are three wars. There is the world of socialism, that we recognize as such, and China was already in now, and the world of imperial powers, the global north, US and Europe and Japan, Western Europe, and the Third World, the South, were in a struggle for simultaneously national independence and social and economic development without qualifying it as necessarily socialist for everybody at that point in time. And therefore there are three words. I can tell you that we were in contact with Zhou Enlai in that time and that we criticized in a very diplomatic way Zhdanov saying that it was good report but not enough. because it did not give its importance to the coming, growing struggle of liberation of the peoples of Asia and Africa. And the answer we received from Chu and Lai was think by yourself, which is a very diplomatic way of saying perhaps you are not wrong. And On this basis came Bandung, April 55. In Bandung I know also that Gamal Abdel Nasser traveled from Rangoon to Jakarta with Chuen Lai. And it is Chuen Lai who talked with him about the new situation. And that also changed a lot of things. Now, what Bandung said is the following. We have, or a number of us, have reconquered our independence. It was not given. In a way, China, which formerly had never been a colony, but was semi-colonized, and the Japanese imperialists wanted to change it into a real colony, like Korea. India had to conquer, Southeast Asia, and Middle East to a certain extent. But not yet most of Africa. But it was to come a few years later only. And some had already started the war of liberation. The Algerian war has started in 54. And the Portuguese colonies were to move in very fast in 1960, which accelerated the process of reconquering the independence. But Bandung said, we cannot consider that having reconquered our independence is the end. It's the beginning of the struggle for constructing our own modern economy. They did not specify whether the road should be the capitalist or the socialist road, or something associating the two, but rebuilding or building our economy. It was left to the governments now and popular movements to make clearer what they meant. But the target was clear. We, out of Bandung in 1960, the group of non-aligned countries came into existence. And almost all the countries except the lackeys of the US, the direct lackeys like the Gulf countries, Pakistan, and all the countries of Africa, including all those who were called and were neo-colonies, joined. The US propaganda today says that this history has to be read as the history of the Cold War. That is, two actors, US and Soviet Union, and all the others are allies or lackeys of one or the two. This is the concept of the Cold War. It is a lie. The countries of the South were not non-aligned, meaning not aligned on the US and on Soviet Union. They were non-aligned on globalization of that time. And this is why Derrida could invent a few years later the word self-reliance. I used a year, some year even before, de-linking. As you know, it has been immediately explained voluntarily, lied by the whole bank. And I said, yes, what we have to do? And this was not my personal position, it would have had no weight, but it was the position of enormous parties, communists and others, and national liberation parties, that we have to compel imperialism to, they adjust to us, to what we need. That is, we should control as far as possible, not only our trade, but investments, but also try to support one another as far as possible. That is South-South solidarity, which was at that point in time more a political and eventually a military solidarity than an economic. We were all poor. practically with no industry. No way. And therefore, we could not develop among us important economic trade exchanges. But we had political solidarity and military. We have had it, and this is this political and military solidarity between the countries of the South, which have facilitated the struggle of the African people to reconquer their independence, facilitated the military victory of the Algerians, the Portuguese colonies, facilitated the victory later against apartheid in South Africa. Now, this was political solidarity. Now, what was very clever from Soviet Union is Soviet Union and China were isolated after the World War. They had not chosen to be isolated. The Cold War against Russia, Soviet Union started in 1917 and it never stopped, as I said. China was also, you know, it was Taiwan which was considered as the representative of the Chinese people. Soviet Union was able to break that isolation by saying, yes, we support Bandung. We support your struggle. And they did support it. including in providing arms to those who had to struggle for their liberation, which I approve. It was not interference. It was supporting people in their struggle. China was part of Bandung and therefore did not have to... They also broke the isolation through Bandung. Now what Bandung has achieved and what it has not achieved. Bandung has achieved a lot. For people of my age who remember our countries in Africa, considered as savages by the so-called civilized Europeans, with no school, no hospital, nothing. the most brutal forms of exploitation, quasi-slavery. And today, Africa, whatever ugly might be a government here or there or in many places, has nothing to do. In 1960, at the independence of the Belgian Congo, there were nine No, I think six. No, six Congolese who have gone... No, nine. Nine Congolese who had gone through studies beyond the secondary school. Nine. Six churchmen and three, I don't remember if they were two doctors and one lawyer, or two lawyers and one doctor. 30 years later, with the Mobutu regime, one of the ugliest regimes in the history of humankind and in the history of Africa, this figure is now more than a million. That is the ugliest African government has done a million times or a hundred thousand times better than colonization. To say that Bandung has achieved nothing is laughable, is simply laughable. Enormous. Now, depending on the struggles, Bandung was legitimate because at that point in time, in 55, the governments, and I would say in 64 Africa, the governments were the product of the national liberation struggles, whether the Communist Party in China or whether including a neo-colonial, a very pro-capitalist, reactionary leader, but was the leader of the Parti Démocratique of Côte d'Ivoire, which was the party of national liberation, and struggled for it. The governments were, to that extent, legitimate. And the one party was not one party because it was decided to be so. It was the result of history, of the unity of the people in the struggle, which had created a one party in most cases, which was legitimate because it was the party of national liberation. There was coincidence between the states, the nation, and the people. That coincidence allowed, gave to Bandung a very strong, and the non-aligned movement, a very strong power. And indeed, during something like 20 years, imperialism was compelled to adjust. That is to accept its retreat, it was not defeated, its retreat, and negotiate. It was the time of negotiation on anything, trade, investment, or political questions. But now we have to see what were the limits. We, the communists, we were divided into two tendencies. I'm not saying that one party was on one side, another on another side, but two tendencies operating in a very complicated way everywhere. One was to understand Mao, the new democracy, as going beyond the liberation cannot be led by a bourgeoisie, because a bourgeoisie accepts imperialist globalization, is a comprador bourgeoisie. But a popular democracy, popular in the sense of the people, which means something wider than the proletariat, including the majorities of peasants in that case. and of urban, let's call it without despise, petit bourgeoisie, intellectuals and so on. Or the other understanding that the bourgeoisie in our countries have not yet finished their historical role. They can develop our economy beyond a liberation and run it. Now in the case of Egypt, the struggle between the Nasserian and the communist was on that point and I wrote, I published recently documents of the 50s and my comment today of those documents but with the documents, I mean I'm not coming out of the blue. Therefore, there was a wide range of experience of Bandung. There were the most radical, China. How many? No, I have seen. I started at 9.15 and you gave me one hour. So I have seen some time. So I go a little faster. There was a wide range of experience, though I don't want to go into more detail on that point. Where are we now? The end of Bandung led to a counteroffensive of imperialism. We, it's very typical, the structural adjustment, that is you adjust, you accept to be recolonized, you accept to be dominated again, but in the new conditions, that is by the modern monopoly capital, not the capital of yesterday. And was put into a practice. Almost all countries of the South and the East, with the explosion of the Soviet Union, with the reconquer of Eastern Europe by Western capital, with the end, or the tragic end, of the national popular regimes of the South, with the change in China to a certain extent, and I will say after Deng Xiaoping, as of the 90s, we have had this very unilateral view that there is only one way. This way is close to us. Europe was able to move to industrialization in the 19th century thanks to two advantages. One, the type of industries of the time which was massively labor using, and second, emigration to the Americas. In 1500, the Europeans, and there were no Europeans out of Europe, were 18% of the global population. In 1900, Europeans in Europe plus European descent, basically in America, 36. That is emigration which allowed the Europeans to create in population another Europe. Moving through the similar way today would mean with the fast destruction of the enormous, gigantic peasant reserve in Asia and Africa that we would need five Americas to emigrate to. so it is closed it is absurd to say say do as we have done we have to do it otherwise the otherwise i would summarize it into three points pretty quickly now one we need for each country big or small a sovereign project that is a project giving top priority to constructing a modern industrial system. It's easier in a larger country. In a small country, it would need to be in strong cooperation with others, but a sovereign project. That is, no item should be accepted, no policy without negotiation. And true negotiation. We don't accept the rules of the game. Competition, open competition, which provides efficiency, all this blah blah. Efficiency for dominating and exploiting. Not efficiency for constructing our own future. Negotiate. A sovereign project. That is... Very important, because today, the ideology of so-called globalization is that we are, we should not insist on our national, it's nationalism, it's quasi-chauvinism, it's narrow-minded, we must open, et cetera, et cetera. Open means Americanized. So that is one. Second, this industrial system should be interconnected, connected with a pattern of agricultural development different from the capitalist one. Because the capitalist way was to reduce fast the rural and agricultural population, which was, as I say, made possible because of the massive labor-intensive industries and the massive emigration, and both are close to us today. Therefore, another pattern of revival of the peasant agriculture as opposed to capitalist agriculture. Peasant agriculture doesn't mean no market, but it means a market dominated, negotiated market. by the actors, in that case the peasants, and let's say on the other side the consumers who happen to be urban, but not consumers as such, but with the interaction of the state. I have written more and in detail for the Conference of Bandung, for the anniversary of Bandung during the last months and years on that. Now, in that respect, there are very few experience, experience, menaced as every experience, but positive to a certain degree or to a large degree. I think there are two experiences of that, and only two, China and Vietnam. Because of the nature of their own revolution, They did not give the land as property to the peasants, but organized, under the umbrella of formal state property, access to land, more or less just or unjust. with nothing is perfect, to land. And now, I visited two years ago in China with Dao Qingshi, Wen Tiejun and others, a lot of experiences in nine provinces or eight provinces of China. of the attempt of renewal of the peasant agriculture. Not as a folklore or a museum for tourists, but with a dynamic of moving up the potential productivity of that peasant agriculture. Nowhere else And last week, not only 10 days ago, I was in Cairo, we had a meeting with the peasant organization who are struggling against capitalism, which is dispossessing at a fast rate the poor and middle peasant to the benefit of the poor. of the rich peasant, but also of the modern agro-business, Egyptian associated as subcontractor of international, basically European and US. Now, that is the question. Now, this I have no formula for everybody. because it depends on the historical conditions and on the natural and other conditions but the principle should be the same the third one the third point and this is my last point in that in that program would be to recreate south south solidarity i don't speak of cooperation solidarity which of course is one political solidarity, including eventually military solidarity against the aggressors are always the same, the US and the Europeans behind, and the menace of Japan. But also, we now can have more than trade. And China has a big responsibility in that, or a special responsibility, because China is among all the countries of the South the most advanced on many fronts. On industries, industrial capacities, and therefore, and technologies, the mastering of technologies. Other countries have to lesser degree, but various degrees that also. Now, China should not offer just to the countries of the South opening a little similar to the opening that the West is requesting from those countries. That is, free trade with you or trade with you. Investment, including for land grabbing and things of that kind, which is plundering the resources of the victims. But projects, agreements, treaties, providing the support to the construction of the integrated industrial potentials, possibly help in studying the vision of renewal of the peasant agriculture, There is a counterpart for that for China. China needs access to raw materials. Needs. And we can provide that. But not just on a trade agreement we sell and we buy, but within a framework of industrialization. And that would be better for China because If China tries to do as the imperialists, it will fail. Because the imperialists have one weapon to impose their plan. We can bomb you. Chile, 11 September for me is not the famous 11 September. It's the assassination of Allende by the US elected president. If you don't agree on copper in that case, we destroy you. And we bomb you. China has not the means to do it. And therefore, if you imagine in China having a similar policy in the name of globalization, you will fail. But if you understand it as you and I understood it at the time of Bandung, of solidarity, you will win. And we will all win with you. Thank you.