Re: [Marxism] sub-imperial characteristics - was Erdogan’s imperial play comes undone
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 3/12/2020 9:27 AM, RKOB via Marxism wrote: As Ioannis commented, this is too abstract. If the character of states is "fluid", it is not really a character. pb: Yes it is; at any given moment, the world capitalist system has had imperial powers. However, those imperial powers change over time; it's a fluid situation. That doesn't mean the system doesn't need to continue to build imperial power - or when it falls into dysfunctionality, to shift to a different hegemonic state coordinating bloc that is different to the prior one. This is the phenomenon of uneven and combined development, not so? Of course, the character can change under specific conditions but these are rather exceptions and do not take place permanently. pb: Ah, but you'd agree that we witnessed, over centuries, the permanent relative decline of Italy, the Netherlands and Britain, prior to the U.S.? Likewise, the character of classes does not change permanently. pb: Yes, if you mean during the era of the capitalist mode of production - but even so, certain people and even national proletariats find themselves in fluidity, in relation to others, moving up and down the ladder of relative privilege from lumpen to labour aristocracy and sometimes back. That's not controversial. This is the whole point about scientific characterizations! Otherwise, we arrive to a post-modern approach where everything changes, nothing is clear! pb: No, the categories I provided - again, just below - seem to have better depth and meaning than pomo diversions, surely? * playing the role of a 'key nation' in imperialism's expansion (as Ruy Mauro Marini stressed), which in my view would entail substantial assimilation into the G20 (e.g. at capitalism's worst crisis moment, October 2008) and much greater financial subsidisation of (and greater voting power within) multilateral agencies that blatantly support corporate rule at the expense of poor countries, of peoples and of the environment (Bretton Woods Institutions, WTO, UNFCCC, etc); * suffering a high degree of overaccumulated capital and needing to export it (as David Harvey alerts us to in The New Imperialism); * regional 'deputy sheriff' duty when, e.g. in Latin America, Eastern Europe, South Asia, East Asia and Africa it is apparent that each of the BRICS' ruling classes has ambitious economic, geopolitical and often military ambitions; and * within world-capitalist surplus flows, being unable to retain net multinational corporate profits and dividends at the same level the imperialist powers do (which is typically 150%+), and instead operating at a net surplus retention of just 20-80% (my data are unpublished dividend repatriation accounts compiled by the SA Reserve Bank so let me know if you'd like to see these, offlist, as they're in graphic format so can't be posted here). Well, "siding with workers etc." is fine. But in the real world there are conflicts between states. Sometimes, Marxists side with some, sometimes they do not. Marxists defended the USSR against imperialists. Likewise they defended colonial or semi-colonial countries against imperialists. In 1991 and 2003 we defended Iraq (despite the bourgeois dictatorship of Sadam Hussein) against US imperialism. Today, we would would defend Iran against a similar attack. On the other hand, we don't side with China or Russia against the US. pb: Obviously there are different views on this, depending upon the circumstances. When Washington bombs a Chinese embassy, we'd join the CCP and mass citizen protests, to express outrage, surely? During the U.S. bombing of Serbia that was a real option. In short, clear class characterizations are important for political tactics. Saying only that we are "siding with workers" evades a central question of political tactics in the real world. pb: Yes, each situation needs to be evaluated on its own merits. If China starts wrecking the environment in Ecuador (e.g. drilling the world's most biodiverse hotspot at Yasuni), for example, you can expect organisations like Accion Ecologica to be out protesting just as loudly (in one case doing a sit-in inside the Quito embassy) as if it were Chevron. We've yet to see sufficient international labour solidarity when Foxconn workers are demonstrating in Chinese cities, as another example, but I hope that's not too far off given the excellent labour networks that have been emerging, especially through Hong Kong marxists such as https://borderless-hk.com/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Re: [Marxism] sub-imperial characteristics - was Erdogan’s imperial play comes undone
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * As Ioannis commented, this is too abstract. If the character of states is "fluid", it is not really a character. Of course, the character can change under specific conditions but these are rather exceptions and do not take place permanently. Likewise, the character of classes does not change permanently. This is the whole point about scientific characterizations! Otherwise, we arrive to a post-modern approach where everything changes, nothing is clear! Well, "siding with workers etc." is fine. But in the real world there are conflicts between states. Sometimes, Marxists side with some, sometimes they do not. Marxists defended the USSR against imperialists. Likewise they defended colonial or semi-colonial countries against imperialists. In 1991 and 2003 we defended Iraq (despite the bourgeois dictatorship of Sadam Hussein) against US imperialism. Today, we would would defend Iran against a similar attack. On the other hand, we don't side with China or Russia against the US. In short, clear class characterizations are important for political tactics. Saying only that we are "siding with workers" evades a central question of political tactics in the real world. Am 11.03.2020 um 17:32 schrieb Patrick Bond: On 3/9/2020 10:15 AM, RKOB via Marxism wrote: ... 1) Which states concretly are sub-imperialist? I'll work on a listing but the characteristics I've proposed give you a clear idea. ...as far as I know, Patrick (and others) characterize China and Russia as such states. At times, yes; this is a fluid category - as are the categories of imperialist or "core" or "periphery." So if one of the main characteristics of sub-imperialist states is that they act as "regional deputy sheriffs", my question is simple: who's deputy are they? Who is the boss they are serving? U.S. imperialism? No one can seriously claim this! Of "global capital" which is not related to any Great Power? Yes, multilateral corporate neoliberalism, which both Xi and Putin strongly support, as so much recent evidence demonstrates. This seems to me the only possible conclusion of such a position. But then, such "global capital" above the sphere of national states is a myth which was wrong already in past (including the period of globalization in which this claim became popular) and which is even obvisously wrong today. 2) What are the political consequences of such a characterization? If the U.S. is imperialist (on which surely everyone here agrees) and China and Russia are "sub-imperialist" (i.e. qualitatively less imperialist), should one side with China/Russia against the U.S.? As we all know numerous Stalinists and Bolivarians arrive to such conclusions. What about siding with workers, peasants, women, environmentalists, youth and all others who toil against the depradations of elites everywhere - including here in Africa where they often get material support from Western imperialism and from Chinese and Russian subimperialism alike. -- Revolutionär-Kommunistische Organisation BEFREIUNG (Österreichische Sektion der RCIT, www.thecommunists.net) www.rkob.net ak...@rkob.net Tel./SMS/WhatsApp/Telegram: +43-650-4068314 -- Diese E-Mail wurde von Avast Antivirus-Software auf Viren geprüft. https://www.avast.com/antivirus _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] sub-imperial characteristics - was Erdogan’s imperial play comes undone
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * . 2) What are the political consequences of such a characterization? If the U.S. is imperialist (on which surely everyone here agrees) and China and Russia are "sub-imperialist" (i.e. qualitatively less imperialist), should one side with China/Russia against the U.S.? As we all know numerous Stalinists and Bolivarians arrive to such conclusions. What about siding with workers, peasants, women, environmentalists, youth and all others who toil against the depradations of elites everywhere - including here in Africa where they often get material support from Western imperialism and from Chinese and Russian subimperialism alike. "Siding with workers" is too abstract. The working class is certainly what everybody in this list is siding with. Nevertheless there are real world situations which one must analyses precisely in order to side with the workers. And different analyses imply contradicting ways to do so. "Siding with the workers" just evades the question JA _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] sub-imperial characteristics - was Erdogan’s imperial play comes undone
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 3/9/2020 10:15 AM, RKOB via Marxism wrote: ... 1) Which states concretly are sub-imperialist? I'll work on a listing but the characteristics I've proposed give you a clear idea. ...as far as I know, Patrick (and others) characterize China and Russia as such states. At times, yes; this is a fluid category - as are the categories of imperialist or "core" or "periphery." So if one of the main characteristics of sub-imperialist states is that they act as "regional deputy sheriffs", my question is simple: who's deputy are they? Who is the boss they are serving? U.S. imperialism? No one can seriously claim this! Of "global capital" which is not related to any Great Power? Yes, multilateral corporate neoliberalism, which both Xi and Putin strongly support, as so much recent evidence demonstrates. This seems to me the only possible conclusion of such a position. But then, such "global capital" above the sphere of national states is a myth which was wrong already in past (including the period of globalization in which this claim became popular) and which is even obvisously wrong today. 2) What are the political consequences of such a characterization? If the U.S. is imperialist (on which surely everyone here agrees) and China and Russia are "sub-imperialist" (i.e. qualitatively less imperialist), should one side with China/Russia against the U.S.? As we all know numerous Stalinists and Bolivarians arrive to such conclusions. What about siding with workers, peasants, women, environmentalists, youth and all others who toil against the depradations of elites everywhere - including here in Africa where they often get material support from Western imperialism and from Chinese and Russian subimperialism alike. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] sub-imperial characteristics - was Erdogan’s imperial play comes undone
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Naturally this is a broad and complex subject. We have dealt with various theoretical aspects of this issue somewhere else (see the links I provided in previous emails on the discussion about "sub-imperialism". At this point I just want to point out two issues concerning the concrete application of the theory of sub-imperialism. 1) Which states concretly are sub-imperialist? I already pointed out how far Alex Callinicos has gone in applying such characterization. I am sure Patrick Bond and other supporters of this theory don't share this position. But, as far as I know, Patrick (and others) characterize China and Russia as such states. So if one of the main characteristics of sub-imperialist states is that they act as "regional deputy sheriffs", my question is simple: who's deputy are they? Who is the boss they are serving? U.S. imperialism? No one can seriously claim this! Of "global capital" which is not related to any Great Power? This seems to me the only possible conclusion of such a position. But then, such "global capital" above the sphere of national states is a myth which was wrong already in past (including the period of globalization in which this claim became popular) and which is even obvisously wrong today. 2) What are the political consequences of such a characterization? If the U.S. is imperialist (on which surely everyone here agrees) and China and Russia are "sub-imperialist" (i.e. qualitatively less imperialist), should one side with China/Russia against the U.S.? As we all know numerous Stalinists and Bolivarians arrive to such conclusions. Does Patrick share such conclusions? As comrades will be aware, I do not. Am 05.03.2020 um 10:51 schrieb Patrick Bond: regional 'deputy sheriff' duty when -- Revolutionär-Kommunistische Organisation BEFREIUNG (Österreichische Sektion der RCIT, www.thecommunists.net) www.rkob.net ak...@rkob.net Tel./SMS/WhatsApp/Telegram: +43-650-4068314 -- Diese E-Mail wurde von Avast Antivirus-Software auf Viren geprüft. https://www.avast.com/antivirus _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] sub-imperial characteristics - was Erdogan’s imperial play comes undone
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Comrades, apologies for self-referential posting but just by coincidence, the latest version of our analysis of impi U.S. and sub-impi BRICS political economy can be found in a brand new (and decommodified) book from the University of the Witwatersrand Press, where below, editor Vishwas Satgar sums up two chapters by myself and two Brazilians. I'm in debate with BRICS anti-imperial claims offered by Jacob Zuma, Gennady Zyuganov and others, and critiques of sub-imperial analysis by Yash Tandon, William Robinson, Bill Martin etc. BRICS and the New American Imperialism: Global rivalry and resistance http://oapen.org/download?type=document=1007788 (Thanks to the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation for subsidy allowing free download/sharing.) And in case you want to see the data I mention way below, it's also provided: Figure 4.3 Profit flows, 2015–2017 (average dividend receipts as a per cent of dividend payments) Source: SA Reserve Bank (personal correspondence, 1 October 2019). Feedback is very welcome. *** (from Vish Satgar's intro) ... Patrick Bond provides an analysis of the BRICS as an ersatz bloc of subimperial countries. The concept of subimperialism has been explained by Ruy Mauro Marini and David Harvey, using characteristics ranging across class structure, geopolitics and the displacement of overaccumulated capital, to which Bond adds a vital component: select middle-income countries’ contributions to neoliberal global governance. One of the best examples of the phenomenon is the BRICS bloc, which for a decade since 2009 has rhetorically asserted an ‘alternative’ strategy to key features of Western imperialism, while in reality fitting tightly within it. This fit works through amplified neoliberal multilateralism serving both the BRICS and the West, the regional displacement of overaccumulated capital, financialisation and persistent super-exploitative social relations. In short, in spite of what some term the ‘schizophrenic’ character of subimperialism, the BRICS all generally promote extreme spatio-temporal fixes and the predatory condition known as accumulation-by-dispossession. They thus amplify the world’s ‘centrifugal’ BRICS and the New American Imperialism capitalist crisis tendencies, instead of providing a coherent bloc and the purported alternative to Western power. While Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin remain Washington’s most durable potential competitors, the other BRICS countries are splintering in unpredictable ways. Narendra Modi’s Hindu-nationalist defeat of the Congress Movement in 2014, Cyril Ramaphosa’s replacement of Jacob Zuma in 2018 and Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s ascension in 2019 together confirm the rightward political drift. The ‘anti-imperialist’ potential of the BRICS, if it ever existed, is exhausted, although fierce debate continues over the merits of subimperial theory. Bond takes on this debate to provide a strong defense of subimperial analysis. All told, he concludes that a much more brutal period appears on the horizon – in social, political, economic and ecological respects – unless ‘BRICS from below’ forces can make their resistance more coherent. In chapter 5, Ana Garcia and Karina Kato draw on Rosa Luxemburg’s inside-outside model of capitalism and the subjection of the natural economy to capitalist accumulation, and Harvey’s innovation of accumulation by dispossession to explore a detailed case study of Brazilian and global interests in the development of the Nacala Corridor in Mozambique. Their study reveals increasing expansion and penetration of Brazilian capital, in a symbiotic relationship with the global power structure, to deepen resource extraction in Mozambique. This spans massive investments in coal, gas, construction and food production as part of the Nacala Corridor. Brazil’s leading corporations, like Vale, are at the vanguard of this and have invested heavily to create an export pipeline that brings together coal and gas extraction, transport infrastructure (including an export terminal) and external markets. At the same time, the ProSavana farming programme pushes a model of export-led agriculture that also connects with this value chain. The dispossession, social conflict and violence associated with this necessitates thinking in terms of the subimperial dynamics shaping Brazil–Mozambique relations. In response to this subimperial accumulation by dispossession, Garcia and Kato, like Bond, make the argument for a ‘BRICS-from-below’ approach to resistance. ... On 3/5/2020 11:51 AM, Patrick Bond via Marxism wrote: Just briefly, qualifying as sub-imperialist entails
[Marxism] sub-imperial characteristics - was Erdogan’s imperial play comes undone
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Just briefly, qualifying as sub-imperialist entails some or all of the following political-economic characteristics: * playing the role of a 'key nation' in imperialism's expansion (as Ruy Mauro Marini stressed), which in my view would entail substantial assimilation into the G20 (e.g. at capitalism's worst crisis moment, October 2008) and much greater financial subsidisation of (and greater voting power within) multilateral agencies that blatantly support corporate rule at the expense of poor countries, of peoples and of the environment (Bretton Woods Institutions, WTO, UNFCCC, etc); * suffering a high degree of overaccumulated capital and needing to export it (as David Harvey alerts us to in The New Imperialism); * regional 'deputy sheriff' duty when, e.g. in Latin America, Eastern Europe, South Asia, East Asia and Africa it is apparent that each of the BRICS' ruling classes has ambitious economic, geopolitical and often military ambitions; and * within world-capitalist surplus flows, being unable to retain net multinational corporate profits and dividends at the same level the imperialist powers do (which is typically 150%+), and instead operating at a net surplus retention of just 20-80% (my data are unpublished dividend repatriation accounts compiled by the SA Reserve Bank so let me know if you'd like to see these, offlist, as they're in graphic format so can't be posted here). Amendments or corrections are warmly welcomed. Cheers, Patrick _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
