A more just world under construction
A more just world under construction
Circumventing imperialism in decadence
During the last twenty-five years, the peoples of the global South have been constructing in practice an alternative world order. There are various signs of the phenomenon: the renewal of the Non-Aligned Movement, the emergence of BRICS and BRICS plus, the evolution of a new socialist paradigm in the countries that have been constructing socialism since the middle of the twentieth century, the declaration for socialism and the emergence of a new political reality in Latin America, the formation of regional associations that seek mutually beneficial trade, and the current reiterated call for a multipolar world.
The renewal of the Non-Aligned Movement
As I observed in my commentary of October 22, 2021, the Non-Aligned Movement grew out of the Bandung conference of 1955, and during its classic period of 1961 to 1983, it formulated the fundamental principles and concepts of a more just post-colonial international economic order. Its formulation included the demand for the abolition in practice of the core-peripheral economic relation and for the development of a new international economic order based on mutually beneficial trade among sovereign states. The Non-Aligned Movement was highjacked by representatives of the Asian tigers in the 1980s. However, on the basis of widespread disgust among the world’s peoples with neoliberalism, because of the neoliberal project´s evident negative consequences for concrete daily life, the Non-Aligned Movement began to retake its classic principles at the beginning of the twenty-first century.
The renewal became evident in the 2006 Summit in Havana, in which 118 member nations were represented, speaking on behalf of three/quarters of humanity. The 2006 Declaration of Havana called for a “more just and equal world order;” and it condemned “the excessive influence of the rich and powerful nations in the determination of the nature and the direction of international relations.” It rejected the neoliberal project as promoting global inequality and “increasing the marginalization of countries in development.” It affirmed the principles of the UN Charter, including the equality and sovereignty of nations, non-intervention in the affairs of other states, and “the free determination of the peoples in their struggle against foreign intervention.” It proclaimed that “each country has the sovereign right to determine its own priorities and strategies for development.”
Since 2006, the Non-Aligned Movement has maintained its rejection of the structures and fundamental tendencies of the international world order. The 2019 Summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, approved a 241-page document previously approved at a meeting of foreign ministers in Caracas, Venezuela, which declared that the foreign ministers “reaffirmed the Movement’s irrevocable political and moral commitment, and determination to [implement] full respect for the Bandung Principles and those adopted at the Havana Summit.” The ministerial meeting document named the principal culprits in world inequality: lack of resources of the developing countries, unequal terms of trade, and lack of cooperation by the developed countries, with unilateral measures imposed by some of them. And the ministerial document affirms the long-standing principles of the Non-Aligned Movement: the right of all nation to undertake their own development strategies and to control over their national resources; and the need for international cooperation. The document lamented the “increasing and deepening tendency of certain States to resort to unilateralism, arbitrariness and the imposition of unilateral coercive measures, to the use and threat of use of force.”
The emergence of BRICS and BRICS Plus
BRICS was formed by Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa in 2009 and 2010 as an economic-commercial association for the purpose of developing mutually beneficial cooperation. As expressed by China’s Global Times, “From the very beginning, the BRICS countries had a broad vision, hoping to find a more inclusive and sustainable way for humans to work together.” The philosophy of BRICS is that “by adhering to openness, inclusiveness, and win-win cooperation, we can discover a wider world.”
The nations of BRICS, therefore, associate with one another not merely to ascend in the world-economy, but with the intention of forging an alternative, more just international order, with win-win cooperation that benefits all. They are developing in practice structures that circumvent the exploitative exchange relations of the capitalist world-economy, exchange relations that promote the development of some and the underdevelopment of others.
The imposition of sanctions on Russia, as a result of its military operation in Ukraine, has not led to division in BRICS; to the contrary, it has led to an increase in trade among the members of the association. The President of the International Forum of BRICS, Anand Purnima, maintained that “with the crisis in Ukraine, new alliances are forming, and the people are looking toward the East.” She is convinced that “we are living in the creation of a new world order.” Similarly, Paul Antonopoulos, a geopolitical analyst publishing on the BRICS information portal, writes that the discussions at the Summit concerning the war in Ukraine stressed that “Western sanctions against Russia necessitate the immediate need to establish an alternative global economic model and order.”
A proposal to expand BRICS was put forth several years ago, but the idea has gained force during the past year, as the capitalist world-economy makes increasingly evident its incompatibility with the interests and needs of the nations of the Global South. China has launched an extended BRICS+ ministerial meeting, occurring in the context of expressions of interests by several governments, including Argentina, Egypt, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Thailand, and the United Arab Emirates.
The most recent BRICS Summit, the fourteenth, hosted (online) by China on June 23, 2022, adopted a final declaration that affirmed the commitment of BRICS to strengthen multilateralism. It called upon the member countries to deepen cooperation, with the intention of creating “a fair competition market environment for international economic and trade cooperation.”
BRICS is a unique forum that holds dozens of meetings prior to their annual summits, including meetings of think tanks, academics, corporate representatives, journalists, and government advisors. During China’s chairmanship of the past year, more than 70 conferences and events were held, including the fields of political security, economy, trade, finance, sustainable development, and public health.
The new socialist paradigm
Alberto Gabrielle and Elias Jabbour, in Socialist Economic Development in the 21st Century (London: Routledge, 2022), maintain that China and Vietnam have developed in recent decades what they call “socialist-oriented planned market economies," different from the centralized planning socialism of the Soviet Union. In socialist-oriented planned market economies, the state directs the economy, with priorities oriented to increasing the productivity of the national economy and to providing for the needs of the people; and they strive for fair distribution, in accordance with one’s contribution to the society. They mix socialist and capitalist modes of production in which there exist possibilities for private capital, for the autonomy of private and public enterprises, and for local enterprises, all of which function under state direction and state control over the national economy.
Gabrielle and Jabbour further maintain that, because socialist-oriented planned economies set the speed and direction of capital accumulation, they are superior to both neoliberal capitalism and Soviet centralized planning with respect to productivity and responding to human needs.
Although I am not in agreement with certain aspects of their formulation, I find Gabrielle and Jabbour’s creation of the category of “socialist-oriented planned economies” to be an important aid to our understanding. Such socialist-oriented planned economies have emerged in recent decades from the first efforts in human history of direction of the mode of production by delegates and deputies of the people, in accordance with the needs and interests of the majority. Following an experience of approximately thirty years, the new political processes of people’s power were able to discern limitations and weaknesses in the political-economic systems that they had created, such as simplistic and overly centralized solutions to problems, corruption and inefficiency in production, and a certain degree of unfairness in distribution. They sought to rectify these errors by expanding the role of the market in the economy and by including the principles of the market in state planning. The resulting “socialist-oriented planned market economy” is the most advanced system of production that humanity has known, advancing in science, technology, productivity, and efficiency; and at the same time, attentive to the social and public obligation to provide for fundamental human needs.
The People’s Republic of China
The People’s Republic of China was declared by Mao Zedong on October 1, 1949. The period of “socialist revolution and reconstruction,” from 1949 to 1978, was characterized by the socialist transformation of agriculture and industry, in which there was central planning and large public and collective enterprises, which enabled China to feed the population (excepting certain abnormal circumstances), to accomplish basic industrialization, and to advance significantly in social and human development. However, by the late 1970s, it became evident that China had not closed the gap with the advanced capitalist economies of the West and Japan. Therefore, the Communist Party of China proposed market-oriented reforms. In the period of “reform, opening, and socialist modernization,” from 1978 to 2012, agricultural and industrial enterprises, both state-owned and private, were permitted to sell products to domestic and foreign markets, under state direction in accordance with a long-term development plan. The reform and opening had enormous success in increasing productivity in agriculture and industry.
China’s economic growth since 1978 indicates that the key to economic development is not a limited state, as bourgeois and especially neoliberal ideology have it, but a strong state, a state capable of formulating a long-term development plan and implementing interrelated economic interventions in guiding the country’s development; a state capable of commanding public and private firms in implementing nationwide coordination of the investment decisions of the state’s policymakers.
In 2012, Chinese socialism entered a third stage, launched at the 2012 National Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba and led by Xi Jinping. The focus during the third stage has been on attacking problems that intensified during the economic growth of the second stage, including inequality, poverty, environmental damage, and corruption. During this stage, basic health services have been restored in the countryside, rural economic enterprises have caught up, and absolute poverty has been eliminated. In China today, all are assured food, clothing, medical services, and housing.
In the era of Xi Jinping, China pursues a foreign policy based on the principles of cooperation among nations and the sovereignty of nations. Chinese foreign policy affirms, in theory and in practice, that all nations of the world ought to be free to control their economies, their political systems, and their foreign policies; and they ought to be free to trade among themselves, without interferences and interventions by global powers that seek control of natural resources and markets. During the third stage of Chinese socialism, China has sought to develop win-win relations with the Latin American and Caribbean region, with African nations, and with the Arab world. It has played a leading role in East Asian integration and cooperation.
China is making a bid today, not to dominate the world, but to lead the world. In 2021, Xi presented to the General Assembly of the United Nations a Global Development Initiative, based in the principle of mutually beneficial trade and cooperation among nations. At the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference 2022, Xi proposed a Global Security Initiative, based on the principle that the security needs of each nation are protected by attention to the security needs of all nations. On March 15, 2023, at an online dialogue among political parties of the world convened by the Communist Party of China, Xi put forth a proposal for a Global Civilization Initiative, which maintains that all countries should refrain from imposing their values or political-economic models on other countries, and they should avoid ideological confrontation. Xi maintained at the online dialogue that all countries have the goal of the modernization of their countries, because modernization is the key to development; however, each country must forge its own modernization path, in accordance with its national conditions. (See “China proposes Global Civilization Initiative,” March 21, 2023).
The Socialist Republic of Vietnam
Following the reunification of Vietnam in 1975, the leaders of the Communist Party of Vietnam initially were oriented to a centrally planned economy, which had been applied with success in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) since 1955. However, Party leaders soon recognized that the centralized planning approach was not adequate for responding to the serious problems that related to challenges presented by the reunification and by the destruction of more than thirty years of war. Initial departures from the centralized planning model were ad hoc and experimental responses to emergency situations, many of which were not legal. The central government, seeing their effectiveness, legalized them, but setting limits. Meanwhile, in the North, agricultural cooperatives that had been progressively formed by peasants had been productive and efficient in 1960s and 1970s, but during the 1980s, they declined in productivity, due to insufficient incentive to work, leading to the launching in 1981 of a Contract System.
Vietnam’s policy of economic renewal was formally proclaimed at the Sixth National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam on December 15-18, 1986, when the various economic reform initiatives of the 1980s were formulated into a coherent and radical reform strategy, which the Party called Doi Moi (renovation). It established a socialist-oriented market economy, in which state-owned economic enterprises would co-exist with private enterprises, both domestic and foreign, and in which state planning would utilize market forces. The goal of the Doi Moi is to increase productivity with respect to food, consumer goods, and export products.
The Doi Moi policy was successful in overcoming macroeconomic imbalances, and it led to exceptionally fast economic growth. At the same time, with the state directing the distribution, significant advances have been made with respect to poverty, malnutrition, public health, and education. Key indicators such as growth in GDP, GDP per capita, labor productivity and wages has been faster in Vietnam than in other countries in Southeast Asia, which is one of the best performing regions in the Global South.
The Cuban Revolution
The exodus of the Cuban national bourgeoisie following the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959 and the refusal of the U.S. government to cooperate with Cuba in the financing of compensation for U.S.-owned nationalized properties meant that the Cuban socialist economy in its early years had a much higher percentage of state-owned property than was initially intended by the revolutionary leadership.
In the early 1990s, following the collapse of the socialist bloc, Cuba reinserted itself into the capitalist world-economy, under highly regulated and controlled conditions. It established international tourism as the key economic sector, developing it with joint ventures by the Cuban state and foreign capital. And it expanded space for small scale Cuban private capital, particularly in restaurants and lodging related to tourism.
In 2012, a new socioeconomic model was launched. The new model further expands space for private property, seeing privately-owned enterprises as an engine that helps to drive the economy. In addition, the new model establishes a salary structure that incentivizes work and productivity. The new model was politically necessary, inasmuch as the increasing standard of living since the early 1990s (as a result of tourism and family remittances) has generated rising expectations with respect to the material conditions of life. The new model is conceived by the Communist Party of Cuba and the Cuban Revolutionary Government as a socialist model, but one in which the role of private property is recognized. The various forms of property were given juridical foundation in the new Cuban Constitution of 2019.
In Cuba, the expansion of private property during the last ten years does not mean a reduction of state regulation and control of the economy. Private enterprises operate in the context of an economy planned, directed, and regulated by the state, which includes an active role by the government ministries is seeking creative ways to integrate the public and private sectors and to integrate science and the economy, in order to increase agricultural and industrial production. In Cuba, the state, and not the market, directs the economy.
The new political reality in Latin America
In the late 1990s, there emerge a great wave of rejection by the peoples of Latin America of neoliberalism, imperialism, and neocolonialism. A new political reality in Latin American emerged, in which self-proclaimed socialist revolutions and populist movements took political power in a number of countries. They took power through electoral processes in systems of representative democracy, which is a difficult terrain for the practice of democracy or socialism or for the implementation of social change, far more difficult than the structures of people’s democracy found in China, Cuba, Vietnam, and the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea.
Nations that struggle to construct socialism or another variant of rule by the people in the political context of representative democracy are on a very difficult road, because the structures of representative democracy favor the corporations, the power seekers, and the unscrupulous. In contrast, structures of people’s power and people’s democracy facilitate the development of a vanguard party dedicated to teaching the people what the powerful do not want them to know; and teaching them in practice what respectful debate and dialogue are. That is to say, teaching them the meaning of democracy in practice. Having learned these lessons, the people are able to form consensus concerning possible courses of action. It is a process that takes thirty years or so, which is why it is important that the process be led continuously by an exceptional leader or leaders.
Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela.
Hugo Chávez was the author of three politically effective proclamations. First, he named the subservience of the Venezuelan political class and the Latin American bourgeoisie. “They are on their knees,” he repeatedly declared, “before the imperial power.”
Secondly, Chávez stressed the importance Latin American unity as the necessary response to U.S. and Western imperialism. Once elected President of Venezuela, he played the leading role in forging regional projects of Latin American and Caribbean integration, alternatives to U.S. imposed integration.
Thirdly, he stressed the importance of the true control of the government over the nation’s extensive petroleum resources. The Venezuelan state had nationalized the petroleum industry in 1976, as the culmination of the popular movement of “petroleum nationalism,” which had emerged in the 1960s. But the Venezuelan state did not have effective control of the state petroleum companies, inasmuch as the Venezuelan managers of the companies had been socialized into the norms of the international petroleum companies. They adhered to the expectations of the international petroleum industry, rather than to the demands and needs of the Venezuelan state and people. So, Chávez replaced existing directors of the state petroleum company with others who had a greater understanding of the possibilities for the petroleum industry in promoting the development of Venezuela. This was Chávez’s first confrontation with the USA; he prevailed, but with the negative consequence that he was demonized in the Western media.
Chávez illustrates the importance of the exceptional leader in understanding world dynamics and explaining them to the people, forging and maintaining the necessary unity among the people. As he was dying of cancer, Chávez called upon the Socialist Party of Venezuela to name Nicolás Maduro to lead the revolution. Maduro has been able to lead Venezuela to persistence in its revolutionary road, in the face of a U.S. blockade and other strategies of unconventional war directed against Venezuela. Venezuela holds regular elections, and in the great majority of cases, the United Socialist Party and its allies have been victorious, in many cases by ample majorities.
Movement Toward Socialism in Bolivia.
Evo Morales and the Movement Toward Socialism created two revolutionary innovations. First, they led the nation in the development of a Constitutional Assembly that created the Pluripolar State of Bolivia, recognizing the presence of the indigenous nations in the territory of the state. Morales himself was born to an Aymara family of subsistence farmers in the Bolivian high plains, emerging to prominence as a leader in the coca farmers’ union.
Secondly, Morales and the government announced the nationalization of the foreign natural gas and petroleum companies. However, in reality, confiscation by the state was a last resort, to be used if the companies were to fail to cooperate. The government cancelled all existing contracts, and required the companies to renegotiate new contracts, which generated far more income to the Bolivian state and which included provisions for investment in the capacity of Bolivian industry to process natural gas and petroleum, moving beyond the exportation of raw materials.
Nationalization has been demanded as a right by the neocolonized peoples, as necessary for the economic development of the nation. And it has been a historic point of conflict. As noted, the Cuban nationalizations led to a severing of relations between the USA and Cuba, remaining an unresolved question for more than sixty years. In Venezuela, there was a cooperative form of nationalization in the petroleum industry, which did not result in effect control of the industry by the Venezuelan state. When Chávez took effective control, a rupture with the USA occurred, and it remains unresolved. In Bolivia, Morales negotiated a cooperative form of nationalization, accepted by the natural gas and petroleum companies, yet viewed by the people’s-controlled state as consistent with the needs of the national economy and the people. There is a lesson here. The question of nationalization can be resolved through genuine North-South cooperation.
The forging by Evo Morales of a cooperative nationalization, mutually beneficial, did not prevent him from being demonized by the imperialist power. He was removed from power by a parliamentary/military coup d’état, following an electoral victory by a narrow plurality, and in the aftermath of a campaign against Morales for seeking a third presidential term. The ideologues of representative democracy do not see that in people’s revolutionary processes, the sustaining of the revolution requires the continuation of exceptional leaders in positions of authority for approximately thirty years, during which time a vanguard political party, capable of leading and educating the people, is formed.
In the case of Bolivia, new elections were held, and the Movement toward Socialism returned to power with a 55% majority. Luis Arce, Minister of Economy under Morales, was elected president. Bolivia today continues on its revolutionary road. It has played and continues to play an active role in the process of Latin American union and the construction of a pluripolar world-system.
The Sandinista Front in Nicaragua
The Sandinista Front for National Liberation triumphed by means of armed struggle against the notorious Somoza dictatorship on July 19, 1979. Having arrived to military occupation of the capital city, and with the established political structures completely discredited, the Sandinista leadership was in a position to develop structures of people’s democracy, similar to what had been developed in Cuba. However, the movement decided for the development of structures of representative democracy, believing that this would make the Sandinista revolution and its anticipated structural changes and reforms more acceptable to the United States
Not so. Beginning in 1980, the USA launched an economic, ideological, and low-intensity military campaign, operating from Honduras. Although the Sandinistas had won the 1984 elections with 63% of the vote, they narrowly lost the 1990 elections to a coalition of parties directed by the USA, a result that was influenced by the increasing hardships caused by war and by the incapacity of the revolution to implement reforms in the most remote regions.
During their period of governance from 1979 to 1990, the Sandinistas nationalized companies owned by Nicaraguans who had abandoned the country following the fall of Somoza. The nationalizations in conjunction with agrarian reform led to a significant redistribution and decentralization of land. Programs in health, literacy, education, and food production were developed.
In the period of neoliberal rule from 1990 to 2006, the illiteracy rate tripled, and previous Sandinista gains in health were rapidly reversed. However, during the period, the Sandinista party comprised 40% of the national assembly, the largest single party in the nation. The redistribution of land accomplished by the Sandinista government, which resulted in 82% of the land being in the hands of small farmers and cooperatives, could not be undone. Moreover, the military under the Sandinistas had been formed from the Sandinista guerrilla army, replacing the brutally repressive Somoza National Guard, and it continued to be so during the neoliberal reign.
In the context of the new political reality in Latin America in the beginning of the twenty-first century, Daniel Ortega and the Sandinista Front returned to power as the head of a coalition of parties. In the second stage of Sandinista rule, the government has been successful in supporting the family farmers and cooperatives, which produce more than half of the GDP and employ more than half of Nicaraguan workers. A great majority of consumed foodstuffs are produced in the domestic economy, and people’s markets are the main distributors of imported goods. Daniel Ortega is a visible actor in the process of Latin American union and integration.
Regional associations of sovereign nations seeking mutually beneficial trade
During the first decade of the twenty-first century, Latin American states formed regional associations that intend to facilitate cooperation and mutually beneficial trade, circumventing the U.S.-imposed integration that favors U.S. interests. Fidel and Chávez in 2001 formed the Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA). When Bolivia joined in 2006, ALBA became ALBA-TCP, a commercial treaty of the peoples. In 2008, the nations of South America formed UNASUR, with Brazil, headed by the Workers Party and Lula, playing a leading role in its formation. In 2010, CELAC united all thirty-three countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. At its 2014 Summit in Havana, CELAC advanced in clarifying its objective of developing a form of integration based on complementariness, solidarity, and cooperation. (See “ALBA-TCP seeks alternative integration: The voice that US imperialism cannot silence,” December 17, 2021; “ALBA-TCP Summit in Havana: The quest for Latin American and Caribbean unity and integration,” May 31, 2022; “CELAC and OAS: The tale of two opposed regional organizations,” January 24, 2023; “The Declaration of Buenos Aires: CELAC seeks peace and economic productivity,” January 27, 2023).
In addition, mutually beneficial relations are attaining advanced expression in southeast Asia, including China. The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), launched on January 1, 2022, includes fifteen countries that make up almost one-third of the global economy. The Partnership includes the ten nations of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN—Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam) plus China, South Korea, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. The goal of the organization is to reduce tariffs, unify trade rules, and strengthen the supply chain among the members, seeking a form of integration not imposed by any or some of the nations.
In the same vein, Arab states are increasingly seeking the road of mutually beneficial trade, and they are developing relations with China. And there has been recently a reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Iran, two Islamic nations, the former long-allied with the USA, and the latter with a history of seeking an autonomous road. In addition, Türkiye, an historic ally of the USA, has recently joined efforts in the development of mutually beneficial relations with nations of Middle East, East, and South, and with China. See “Türkiye looks toward a new world order: An alternative, more just, pluripolar world-system under construction,” December 6, 2022; “China and the Arab world: The land of the Prophet embraces the wisdom of the East,” December 13, 2022.
An emerging pluripolar world
The basic concepts of a more just world and a new international economic order have been formulated by exceptional and committed leaders of the Third World since 1955. They today are implementing their alternative vision in concrete forms, step-by-step, circumventing the structures of the Western-centered capitalist world-economy. The alternative vision has the support of giants, especially China, but also Russia. See “The Construction of a Pluripolar World: The neocolonized peoples seek cooperation and mutually beneficial trade,” December 9, 2022.
Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, recently declared that the world “has entered a period of fundamental, revolutionary transformations,” in which new centers of power are emerging, new centers that represent a majority of the international community. Increasingly, the governments of the world see multipolarity as an opportunity for them to strengthen their sovereignty and to exercise their right to independent, creative, and distinctive forms of development. “An essentially emancipatory, anti-colonial movement against unipolar hegemony is taking shape in the most diverse countries and societies. Its power will only grow with time. It is this force that will determine our future geopolitical reality.”
A free subscription option is available, with capacity to read, send, and share all posts. A paid subscription ($5 per month or $40 per year) enables you to make comments and to support the costs of the column; full subscribers ($40 per year) also receive a free PDF copy of my book on Cuba and the world-system.