---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2000 11:34:29 -0600 (MDT) From: Abu Nasr <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [What is happening to Samir Amin? regression to global keynesianism?] Dear Mine I don't know why this article comes up for discussion now, five years after its publication. Samir Amin published a book, "Spectres of Capitalism" (Monthly Review Press, 1998), not to mention numerous articles here and there since 1995 and these might be important to look at if the real question is "where is Samir Amin going?" Anyway, I agree, by the way, Amin's thinking has changed or evolved since the late 1980s-early 1990s the period of the fall of the USSR. Where he used to emphasise "delinking" as a solution to third-world countries' problems, this notion seems to be deemphasizing this more recently. He mentions it in the Monthly Review article but seems to bring up the topic less and less these days. Aside from these changes, though, I think that what Amin is doing in the Monthly Review article is to present a series of reforms that would transform the world economy into a socialist one. I think he is trying to begin with the objective "where we are now" and proceed to set targets for attention and activity. Clearly the "reforms" he outlines are not going to be implemented any time soon because they would totally undermine the US hegemony of the world, at least economically. But I think Amin is reluctant to state dogmatically and a priori that for this a violent revolution is necessary. One sets one's goals and then sees what is necessary to attain them. Amin, of course, is an economist, not a political activist. He has worked with several third-world governments and not, to my knowlege, as a member or supporter of any specific Communist or revolutionary Marxist party. In general his writing focuses on objective economic reality and on tasks that are objectively needed, not on how to go about mobilizing the political will to bring them about. If you are looking for that, I think Amin is not the writer to refer to. Another factor here is related to another development in Amin's thinking, or anyhow something he has written about in the last few years. He has maintained recently that the transition to socialism is not turning out to be a sudden all-at-once event but a process with many transitional stages along the way. He brought this out in, for example, a series of articles about China in Arabic in the Palestinian magazine al-Hadaf in the summer of 1997. In addressing the question, "is China capitalist or socialist?". He noted the presence in China of strong factors for both prospects. The struggle there would determine which way the country's development went. But more generally he suggested that the path to socialism would be longer than Marxists used to assume, that it would involve many half-way points, transitional stages, situations that could not be defined as entirely capitalist or as fully socialist, and so should not be looked at dogmatically with a priori criteria. Personally, I find that approach useful. The socialist movement has suffered greatly from dogmatism and the present juncture is one that requires a thorough re-examination. I don't think Amin is trying to impose a reformist limit on anti-imperialist action in his Monthly Review article (if he is, I certainly oppose that), I think what he is outling is a direction for work with the understanding that the struggle will most likely demand all sorts of strategies and tactics. As I see it, reformism -- i.e., demanding that socialism be attained "within the system" or else abandoned as "too destructive" -- is treason to socialism. The system must be smashed. At the same time, the great violent revolutions in Russia and China that smashed the old systems there did not secure the benefits of socialism to those countries either, at least not permanently and not so far. And it doesn't help much to say simply, "ok, we need a world-wide violent revolution, not one limited to one country." That statement is probably true, but if revolution in one country has proven extraordinarily difficult, world revolution is even more so. We must begin by understanding how the world system works, isolating its weak links and concentrating pressure there. That is the process, the revolution, that must continue and is continuing. I don't think that Amin intended his programme of "evolution" to be read as reformist, i.e., excluding violent revolution or qualitative transformative change (revolution). Even if he did, however, his desingnation of specific points for pressure is extremely useful for anti-imperialist revolutionary forces. After all the revolutionary forces are going to have to go beyond Amin's books and articles anyway and into the world of practical revolutionary action. Amin might point to useful targets, but it's up to the revolutionary fighters to figure out how to storm them. With revolutionary greetings! Abu Nasr [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >>Here are some quotes from Amin's article. >>REFERENCE: >>Samir Amin, "Fifty Years Is Enough", _Monthly Review_, vol.. 46, no. 11 >>(April 1995), pp.. 8-50 >In a section with the heading "Reforming Bretton Woods" (starting on p. >44) >Amin writes: >(p.45) "In this last era, there is no lack of ideas. The most radical proposals call for a return to Keynesianism, this time on a world scale -- a redistribution of income to the benefit of Third World peoples and workers in every region of the world (a megaeconomic stimulation, as Walter Mead says). According to their advocates, these proposals imply major reforms affecting the international economic institutions: (1) The transformation of the IMF into a genuine world central bank with the power of issuing real currency (similar to the SDRs) that would replace the dollar standard, ensure certain stability of exchange rates, and provide developing countries with the liquidities needed....(2) The transformation of the World Bank into a fund that would collect surpluses (from countries such as Japan and Germany) and lend them not to the United States, but to the Third World. This operation ... would simultaneously force the United States to reduce its deficit. ... (3) The creation of a genuine international trade organization (ITO) ... (4) Consideration of environmental issues might become an internalized feature of the World Bank's loan system. One might take this even further by setting up a world tax on energy, non-renewable resources, etc. ... (5) Reform of the economic institutions would be accompanied by a heightened political role for the United Nations...." >p. 47 "In my opinion, this is a very fine project for reform of the world economic and political system. It proceeds from a central idea that strikes me as incontrovertible -- the idea that development can only be revived by a redistribution of income both at the global level (in favor of the peripheries) and at the social level (within centers and peripheries, in favor of workers and popular classes), and that world trade and capital movements must be subordinated to the logic of this 'demand-side approach to trade,' as Walter Mead calls it. Yet it must be recognized that reforms of this scope clash with the interests of dominant capital...." >p. 48 "The project is thus a kind of rediscovery of the fact that a different social order--socialism, to call it by its name--is objectively necessary and must be worldwide. ..." >p. 49 "The priorities for action that I am suggesting are therefore different from those outlined in the project under consideration. I emphasize ... (1) Constructing Third World regions ... (2) Reviving the European left .... (3) Reviewing the financial and commercial relations between Europe, Japan, and the United States in a direction that would permit a relative stabilization of exchange rates and force the United States to give up its structural deficit ... (4) Reconstructing the UN system ... (5) Reforming the IMF ..." >p. 50 [last sentence of article:] "The strategy of creating a world socialism necessary to avoid barbarism focuses on defining the paths most likely to lead to evolution in the direction of this objective." [ note: there is no "R" at the beginning of "evolution". Whether that is a printing error by the otherwise infallible _Monthly Review_, I cannot determine.] >GK ____________________________________________________________________ Get free email and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1