Samir Amin: The Second Wave of the Rise of the South; the Emerging Countries (as of 2000), SOAS

Samir Amin: Thank you. Yes, indeed, we are reaching the third chapter of that story, which is focusing on the present and more than the present, the possible future of futures, the best and the worst. I mean by present starting roughly 2000. That is when the system, that system of so-called neoliberal and which I analyze as generalized, globalized, financialized monopoly capital. has started imploding and if the word imploding is too strong because implosions is usually very brutal, it's falling apart at least and it will continue to fall apart in my view. Now that started, this is the start and not by pure chance of a second wave of the, let's call it the rise of the south that is the rise of the peripheries. Now this rise of the peripheries appear as something not in conflict with the apparent logic of capitalism. because what we have is a zero growth in the historical centers of imperialism, the triad, US, Europe, and Japan, and 8% growth in China, 5% growth in emerging countries, and even 3 or 4% growth in the countries which are not emerging at all. And on the average, high rate of growth in the peripheries. So it looks as if it were catching up. And therefore, many people jump into Samir Amin's theory about center and peripheries belong to the past. We are in a phase of catching up. Now, The historical trend since the Industrial Revolution and the French Revolution that is the end of the 18th century to this day is a trend of a growing gap between centers and peripheries including the most successful peripheries. And, but this growing gap is not linear. And there are phases where it is going fast and phases where it seems to be stagnating or even reduced and this, the period, the time where precisely it is repeated that the process of catching up is is deploying and that we are going to have a new phase of brilliant capitalism reducing the inequalities at global level. That has been repeated many times and it has happened already to be incorrect. Now associated to that is another vision of that future which is flattering the countries of the south, particularly China, that is that they will have another phase of capitalism, but the center of gravity is moving from declining Europe at least, and possibly declining even North America, but surely declining Europe, to brilliant success of East and South Asia in particular, and perhaps Latin America, and particularly of China. This is very flattering and a number of Chinese intellectuals who have been brainwashed in the U.S. believe that nonsense. And they are probably believing strongly. Now, what I'm going to try to show that the process is much more conflictual and complex. and that it is not a process of catching up but a process of questioning the very logic of the capitalist system itself. That is the, now the falling apart or the implosion has many facets and I cannot look, even present a very short or brief presentation of all the, of many of the major facets of that falling apart because we could look at it from, within the societies of the historical centers, North America, Europe, and Japan. We could look at it, this falling apart from the point of view of the global economy, but also from the point of view of political practices including questioning the historical democracy from the point of view of new potentially emerging culture. I don't know exactly what it means. Or we could look at it from some specific but important facets such as the destruction of the natural basis of reproduction of perhaps even life on the Earth, the ecological major problems, et cetera, et cetera. I shall restrict to one dimension that is the conflict between precisely the centers and the peripheries, opposite to what is being said. the growing conflict, growing conflict, and not adjustment within the system. Now, during the short period of the Belle Epoque, that is in that case the 90s of last century, for something like 10 years, the success of high growth in the peripheries within the globalization and with, of course, the tools of capitalism, including social relations within the society, seemed to be and was successful in terms of quantitative results. It was precisely the of the Chinese leader after Deng Xiaoping, after the 80s, starting from the early 90s, that China could make a good use of globalization by participating to it and having an accelerated export oriented, export oriented industrialization, accelerated industrialization and export oriented with rates of growth of exports which were roughly one and a half or twice the rates of growth of GDP. which meant moving from a country with a very little participating in the global trade to a country which is a major trade partner today. And simultaneously inviting foreign capital to associate to that process of acceleration by inviting transnationals to invest in China. And that gave results which I'll come to that point later again, which is said to be very successful. And it was of course said that is the end of socialism in China. I will come to that point later. It is the triumph forever of capitalism. It is the end of center periphery. It is a new wave of capitalism. And legitimated by big generalities such as capitalism has proved throughout the history that it is a system able to adjust to many things and many changes and so on and so forth. Which are generalities half true but adjusting to which extent and at what cost and how, and not just adjusting and so on. So now we have to see, I shall look therefore with respect to that growing conflict, A, to the emerging country, China, B, to the so-called emerging country, let's call them China, semi-emerging or partially emerging, a number of others, and C, the non-emerging, or even submerging, or how do you say in English? Thinking countries. And D, that does create a problem, or more than problem, makes impossible conceiving the north-south, if we call it so, conflict as one, but look into it in a more careful way by, taking into account the fragmentation of the south, which is not something very new. Now, we take those in that order. One, China. Now, China, the debate on China is usually restricted to is it socialist or is it capitalist? And the obvious conclusion is it is capitalist. And the obvious. In spite of the fact that the official discourse of the Chinese leadership, it is a phase of building socialism. And the two answers are very quick, superficial, misleading. Because indeed, if we look at the relations of production between the worker, the person who offers his labor, and those who organize the labor, whether they are private owners, capitalists, or a public company, the state, or even the cooperative in which the worker is simultaneously theoretically the owner, these relations are very similar to what they have been as being constructed by capitalism. In that respect, I would say it's obvious the Soviet Union has never been socialist. It has always been capitalist. But that doesn't mean that it was capitalist. The fact that it was not socialist. Because the transition is something much more complicated than that. And this is why a very simple qualification of that kind is a little useless. It's good for superficial polemics, but nothing more. What we see is that in spite, even during the 90s, even during the 90s, when the pattern of Chinese moving into globalization successfully, seem to be accepting or submitting to the new pattern of future center periphery, as I said, I won't repeat, based on the control by the centers of major tools of control, technologies, access to natural resource, et cetera, et cetera, the financial system, and take, taking benefit of that in spite of those tools and the process of industrialization being a process of de facto subcontracting to the extent that one could say, where is the working class of the United States? It is in China. which is half true and half incorrect. And we have to see therefore what it is exactly, what is this relation. But even in the 90s with that, two features remain different for China than they are for any other country. I will put some nuance later. That is one, land, I mean agricultural land, remained public commons. That is the formal property of the state managed by the communities, the villages, the association of villages, and not a private property of agricultural land. And it remains such until today. Only Vietnam. there are no other exception, has the same fundamental rules. I'll come to that point because it is essential in assessing the nature of China and of state capitalism and the variety different possibilities of its evolving. The second characteristic which makes China different from the others is that China did not move into the globalized financial monetary market. That is the Yuan question. that they have kept the whole, until now, the whole financial system, banking and so on, completely controlled by the state, not only by Chinese but by the state, and managing their yuan out of the flexibility or so-called flexibility. It's the, a very big difference also. I'll come to that later also. Now, that has been maintained in the 90s and has been in some way reinforced during the past decade, the early 20s, 21st century, and until now, or at least maintained. That is a sovereign project. That is China has a sovereign project. And at that point in time, I'm not qualifying it whether this sovereign project is capitalist or socialist. It is non-capitalist, it is non-socialist. It can move towards capitalism, it can move towards socialism, or a further stage on the long road to socialism, but it cannot be reduced to, in spite of what I said about, and in spite of a number of very ugly and common features of capitalism with respect to the exploitation and conditions of labor. This is important. really important, but it is not enough to qualify a system. Now, this sovereign project, it's important to know what it is because in contrast, we'll see what is not the projects, whenever there are projects, in other countries called or so-called emerging or not emerging. or thinking. The sovereign project is a project one, one of building a fully integrated and we should add modernized if even if the world is done, have no big sympathy to it, industrial modern system. That is not industries. An industrial system is something very different from industries because you can have a set of industries who are de facto subcontracting for the global economic, global market and global monopoly capital which is managing and running that market and shaping it. You can have many. Turkey has, for instance, but all of them are subcontractor, I would say in the case of Turkey, de facto of Germany. But China, the sovereign project is different. And this project cannot be, is a sovereign project because it is planned. Planned doesn't mean necessarily the bureaucratic, inefficient, et cetera. planning, no, it means it is, there is a systematic thinking, there are targets, and even for the private sector, or for the public sector which is also accepting market rules. The planning cannot be by orders, it is anticipation about what could happen, and it is given a very big importance. And if you read the Chinese plans carefully, and if you read the results, you see that the results are not very different from what was planned, they are. better or worse or having appearing differences between actual achievements and the intentions of the plan but not not gigantically wrong and that is very important that is using again the Chinese formula, working on two legs. One leg is this one. And this one can have targets of exports because they provide the imports and it provides the capacity to import technologies and so on. But it has to, and it is being corrected as 2002 by the gap between the rate of growth of exports and the rate of growth of internal market being gradually reduced. Chinese are never going fast. They are always planning on the long run by not brutal change of line in the Soviet tradition, for instance. That is one leg. The other leg is precisely that one of not moving into the integrated monetary and financial market by managing their financial system. and the UN. This is one area of, as you know, a continuous, if not conflict, US protesting and Europe behind. The rate of exchange of the UN is too low, blah, blah, blah, et cetera, and the answer, of the governor of the Central Bank of China, the yuan is our currency, it is your problem. So solve your problem to adjust to China and don't ask us to adjust to you. That is very, very important. And that makes this sovereign project successful and different. Now, that sovereign project has produced growing inequalities. But let us be careful about growing inequalities. These are growing inequalities without growing poverty, even of a minority. On the opposite, reducing relative poverty and so my criticism to the Gini coefficients is that one. Gini coefficients are very relevant if we consider a society structure, given the structure and the structure doesn't change in the short run because it indicates if the trend is towards more or less inequality. But it is not a tool for measuring apparently same phenomenon inequality in different social systems. Then you have to look at it more carefully. So a growing inequality, let's say to make it a caricature, with a growing inequality better conditions for the middle class more than better conditions also for the popular classes, that is the working class and the peasants, and a small minority of even millionaires and so on. That is one pattern. And the other pattern is to take an example, India, where you have the same move in the Gini coefficient, but with growing popularization. of half or perhaps more than half of the people, of the particularly more the peasants and the poor in towns, the shanty towns and so on. It's very different, social and political. Because I would say, and that is what the Chinese Maoists say today, the Chinese society is for that reason very stable, very stable because everybody's happy. It doesn't mean that there is no criticism and struggles, but it is stable, while the others are not because precisely of that process. In the other cases, we have emerging associated with lumpen development, not in the Chinese case. Therefore, we ought to be careful distinguishing emerging markets, which I would call, in a more trivial way, expanding markets, which And only that or emerging societies or countries, call them as you want, that are two different historical phenomenon. And it cannot be analyzed purely in economic terms because it is in the terms of language and concepts of historical materialism integrating the political and the social perspective that you can understand the phenomenon. That is the case of an emergent society. Now, if we look at the others, Now, I come back to the question of the, very briefly, because I have written a lot on that, on the question of land, rural land, not being a commodity. There are marginal exceptions of land which is recuperated by the expansion of urban areas, potentially, possibly also, plots for a modernization out of the family exploitation of the land, but on small scale that could expand with higher population of Chinese Han in particularly in Central Asia. Roughly, it remains so. Now, the format, and I have given a lot of details on that, the format of how this non-commodity common good, say, agricultural land is associated, is managed in different ways by, you have something very important to see for the longer run, particularly those who are green. Small production without small property and distinguishes the two. In China, you have small production, if we mean by small enterprises which are, after all, family farming, without small property. They are not owners of their land. And that is not only exclusively rural, it is also to a very large extent the unclassificable with the concept of the West number of activities in the urban areas of China. Along with, of course, larger normal enterprises, industrial and trade and so on. So that is a very important point. Now if we take this criterion and we look into the other emerging countries, that is the successful who had high rate of growth associated with indeed progress in, I wouldn't say industrialization, but in industries. That is different again. case of India, case of Brazil, but these are two gigantic countries, but also case of more normal countries in their size, like Malaysia, or perhaps Turkey even, and perhaps other countries. It is being said Colombia, I think it's mascara there, but that's another problem. Here and there, to various degrees. Now, there you have First, none of them is based on the negation of private property of land. And therefore, all of them are places, areas, where you have the acceleration of process of land dispossession. And that is a major, gigantic difference. That is, whatever be the rate of industries, if not industrialization, it does not absorb. Now, the fact, the difference is that, to a certain extent, and the Chinese Maoists are not very optimistic about, are severe, they said the system, masters the transfer from rural to urban, but not enough. But the transfer from rural to urban in the other countries is not mastered at all, it is zero. So between zero and 70%, 70% is not 100%, but it's better than zero. So we have to be very careful about that, about, now this is one leg. The other leg, which is the financial, participating to the financial system, two countries, and only two countries to my knowledge, which are India and Russia, have maintained until now, they're not, control of their capital account, but much less control than China, half-half. In that sense, they associate successfully, apparently, some aspect of emerging that is the industries which are developing in India and Brazil particularly are not just industries. There is some industrial system. But the industrial system is not conceived and created by a systematic policy. It is left to the spontaneous tendencies full of limitations and contradictions. There is no industrial policy in India. There was in the time of Nehru, but there is no today. I don't know what is the situation with respect to Russia. I have heard in Russia the two sounds of, the two, some say, people who know and who are critical say yes and others say no. I don't know where is the truth in between. Anyway. So that is first a big difference. Then we have the countries which appear to be successful in terms of rates of growth, but which are not emerging at all. And I was having an interview with our friend from Indonesia. Indonesia is typically the type of that. And perhaps other countries of Southeast Asia in different ways. But Indonesia is typical because it's not a small country first. And therefore, even 5% rate of growth when we have such a wide population means a widening enlarging market for sure in many respects it's not just peanuts but it is based it is based on plunder of the natural resources, particularly wood in the case, but also more classic, which is a catastrophe for Indonesia in the longer run and for humankind probably because it has enormous effects at the ecological level. that is not emerging. Then on that can be grafted expanding comprador market of middle classes and also a number of industries without an industrial project. and some of them being subcontractor, subcontracted by international, de facto, because they can be private property of the new class of so-called industrialists, Indonesian, or I don't know what, associated, but de facto, and some others, apparently more autonomous because they are more interconnected with the expanding market of the middle classes. That is a very different, it's not a sovereign project. It's not a sovereign project at all. And it has very little future. It is, it is, it is, how do you say? It is more gauging the future to a terrible extent. And we have that in Africa on a large scale that is the relatively not bad rates of growth of Africa on the range which are saluted by the World Bank as glorious success. are most of them related directly to the plunder of natural resources and nothing else. Now, We have some more complicated features here and there. If I had time, I would look at Malaysia in particular. On the other side, I would look more particularly at countries like Brazil and other countries of Latin America, et cetera. Now, which means, that all means that Now, I shall not repeat what I said previously, which would have come more logically now, but questions were asked which were ahead of with respect to the areas of that growing conflict, which are precisely the five advantages through which generalized monopoly capital can hope by maintaining them, maintaining its overall control and pumping of surplus value plus waste of natural resources to its exclusive benefit. That is the control of technology. You can see in the case of the control of technology that China is the only country which is not only importing technology, but absorbing it and able to reproduce it and perhaps even develop it later by its own. And they have been very severe in the contracts with Siemens for the high-speed train, in the contracts with Airbus for the, no other country in the South has been as severe. Therefore, I would conclude that by saying that the success of China is not due to its moving into globalization, but to its control of its moving into globalization. That is something very different from just adjusting to globalization. Now, these are areas of conflict. Now, that leads me to another point. What is the future of all that, of that system? My... leads me that the conflict is growing to the extent, to a very dangerous extent, and that therefore there is a need if we are in favor of the rise of the nations of the south, which is fundamental for me, I mean, if this is the historical target, to, one, to build let's call it a common front, vis-a-vis the project and the strategies of generalized monopoly capital of the historical imperialist center of the new collective imperialism. Second, to associate this strategy to a vision of the long road to socialism, long road, not building socialism tomorrow, or moving away from it fast, but as preparing the next stages. Now, these are the two challenges, the two real challenges. Now, if we look at those two real challenges, one, Yes. You see, I think the almost caricature case of some relations between China, but we could say the same with India and Brazil, but we would think that it's normal for India and Brazil, which are capitalists and never suggested they are not, but it could look not normal for China, who pretends to be different and social, Stephen, et cetera, in their relation with Africa. Now, in the relations with Africa, what is the attitude of the West, the donors, the club of donors? which is the Club of Plunderers of Africa, the Western imperialist countries, the U.S., European Union, USAID, World Bank, et cetera, et cetera, all those people. They have their organization of donors. What they say is that you have first fundamental conditionality. You have to accept globalization as it is that is you have to accept to be fully integrated in the system as it is and then private capital will come and make the miracle for you that is their position and therefore completely also against supporting a sovereign project they hate it and a for sure a sovereign project of both industrialization, organized industrialization, and food sovereignty. That is totally out. But China, when they come into relations with Africa, does not put that out of the possibilities. They say, we want what we want. We know what we want. For instance, in Zabia, I discussed this matter a few days ago, we want copper. This is open to negotiation, how, organized how, managed how, et cetera, et cetera. What do you want in counterpart? If you want precisely what the West will never give you, that is moving into industrialization and creating the infrastructure proper to that, as they had done in the time of Mao with the Tanzan, with the railway Dar es Salaam Lusaka, we are prepared to do it. But now, if the country in question is summarized in its president, and the president is just a person, a man, who wants $100 million in his pocket and nothing else, well, the temptation is very strong to have the copper at that very low price. There is a room for a renegotiation, so the ball is in the camp of the other countries of the south. Those who are not emerging, who are still thinking, but which could start thinking differently. That is, of course, an internal battle. The other aspect is the connection of all that with socialism and capitalism. Now, assuming that the better would happen. That is the pattern of the sovereign project is given a growing, let's call it modestly, social dimension, not socialist. That is less inequality, more social services, better health, pension, et cetera. and is associated with something very complicated. I will have only a few minutes to deal with it. Democratization of the society, not accepting the pluriparty elections as the blueprint and the magic tool, but Going back to the bus line that is learning from the people, et cetera. Call it participatory democracy if you want. A lot of things. Moving along that. That is associating and not dissociating democratization of the society. A long process. A historical process. With social progress. preparing, going beyond social progress to change in the relations, social relations. And third, reinforcing the national sovereignty that is compelling the system to globalize, remain globalized, but as a, the language would be non-hegemonic, that is really negotiated which enlarged the room. Now, whether, who is going to take advantage of that? Is it the bourgeoisie? including the potential bourgeoisie which is coming out of the power system, Mao thought about it, becoming national, or more national and less comprador, or is it the popular classes? Now, that is the issue. That is the issue. It's not socialism or capitalism, you see. It's the issue of, we can call it class struggle, because this is an envelope for a wide range of historical phenomena, of course, but it is somehow different from the oversimplification of building socialism. Now, This is my vision of that growing conflict. Now, vis-a-vis that, the imperial center, the collective imperialists, and particularly the United States, and particularly because they have lost their hegemony while remaining the leadership of the collective imperialism, lost their hegemony in the sense that they are no more so the center of, let's call it innovation if we want to, exclusively, et cetera, that leads to a very dangerously nervous position, which is that, as of Clinton, the only, Conclusion was that the only way to maintain this leadership and operating for the benefit of the collective imperial is the military control of the planet. And this is where, unfortunately I don't have time enough, but this is where also that conflict is involving those countries which are not emerging but which are still down, particularly the Arab countries but not exclusively the Arab countries, that this system is no more viable. or not sustainable and therefore explodes. The process of permanent lumpen development has such dramatic social effects that it is no more acceptable. But things a little similar happen even if they are a little less dramatic. They are dramatic because being without home in London or worse in United States in cold weather is not something very amusing. It's not much more better than being a poor elsewhere. But perhaps globally, overall less dramatic for those who are impoverished. Anyway, it happens also there. So that leads me, now, those explosions, but again, This morning I had the opportunity to answer to some questions with respect to the Arab countries. I read it also with respect to the Arab countries and particularly to Egypt. Perhaps I am a little biased, but it still has the beginning of a long wave. That is, my reading of the Egyptian history is long waves of rise and long waves of stagnation and even decline. We had a long way from Muhammad Ali in the beginning of the 19th century to the middle of Khedive Ismail to the mid-70s of the 60 years. of modernization with a high degree of national autonomy and success in that. And then we had a long wave starting with the financial, financial, breakdown of the ismail 1877 i think to the british occupation 1982 to 1920 40 years may of submission decline and restructuring from a relatively progressing autonomous which aim to be a partner in the centers into a real periphery the famous cotton farm for Lancashire. And then we had a long wave from 1920 to 1967 or to 1970, that is to the defeat of the war of 67 or to the death of Nasser, which was in which with two sub-phase, let's call the waft period and the other Nasirian period of a project, also a sovereign project of emerging and then a long period of 40 years of decline, Sadat and Mubarak and now we are starting perhaps a long period. So I put all the questions with respect to the rise of the nations and the peoples of the South in that long framework. I don't think that it can be, and it is there that, of course it cannot be analyzed purely in, unless in conventional economic terms, irrespective of taking into account the working of the society, the class struggles, the political culture, et cetera, et cetera, all those dimensions, and the geopolitics also. That is, now, Vis-a-vis that, what can we have with the 21st century? Some people, particularly in Venezuela, have been very hurriedly saying, what is socialist for the 21st century? I am quite unable to answer to that question. It's very easy on paper to write the rules managing a beautiful complete socialist society and even communist society, which I look at, but I look at it as a higher level of development of civilization of humankind. And this is far more than more efficiency and more social justice, but within the same. And it's difficult to, impossible even to summarize. You have to start, and the future starts always today, not tomorrow. And how to start in that perspective? And that is my conclusion, audacity. Audacity means that what is being, until now, if we look at what has been developing throughout the 15 first years of this 21st decade, and perhaps we could say 20 years starting from the mid-90s, very fast the end of the illusions of the Belle Epoque and the start of the people protesting and organizing and moving into struggles in order, but in a fragmented way and on defensive lines. more to defend, to protect what they had been achieved before and is gradually eroded by the success, the new patterns of neoliberalism, then more. How to move from there to an alternative offensive. This was the question which was raised, I think, yesterday, a major question, or this morning, a major question about contributing to the building of a alternative historic block of the victims, a variety of classes. And I would say, to be very brief, for the North as well as for the South, And perhaps for the north we can speak a little in singular, a little to a certain extent because still from a country to another there are differences. And for sure in plural for the south which are not one. I would say audacity means alternative block in the north, anti-generalized monopolies. because the victims are not only the industrial working class with growing unemployment, with the effect of delocalization to the benefit of capital, et cetera, not only the majority, two-thirds maybe, of the wage earners, which include, without going into this debate, productive and non-productive activities and so on, but also, also, by capitalist property, which are in particular the modern agriculture, which is a capitalist modern agriculture, but family and farmers, which are the so-called small and middle enterprises, And that is a historical block that I think could be built and that is the challenge for you British people, for the other Europeans, together or not together, et cetera, et cetera. Which implies starting with nationalization. but nationalization with a view which is possible of socialization, which is inventing, and therefore not easy to describe in advance, the ways and means of managing. I have given some examples how they could be conceived to start with, but not with the idea of producing a blueprint for what is socialism, but just ideas to be not only discussed theoretically, but through practice. Now, for the South, it is an anti-comprador, I would say, historical block. Anti-comprador means starting by understanding that the logic of that any sovereign project cannot be successful unless it accepts to be in conflict with imperialism. cannot be successful. It would turn to, even while achieving apparently some good results in the short period, would turn into a blind alley. And second, cannot be that without a growing support of the majority of working classes, of the majority of popular classes. And therefore it has to associate, when I come back to the point of departure, democratization of the society with social progress and with not only national sovereignty as a nationalist narrow but associated with the building of South-South Anti-Imperialist Cooperation. And I would call it Anti-Imperialist Cooperation. Now, that is the And I'll conclude on that. I think that this is the program of the organization to which I have contributed building the World Forum for Alternatives. That is a network of think tanks of the radical left of many countries to discuss that, not on the basis of, let's call it serious research, but not academic serious research, related to commitment and not only moral commitment to the poor or I don't know what, but political commitment to contribute to the building of the alternative historical social bloc. Thank you.