The structural crisis of the world-system

The unfolding real possibilities for world peace and prosperity

May 02, 2023

In seven recent commentaries, I have reviewed the historical development of the modern world-system and the capitalist world economy; the emergence of twentieth century imperialism as a new form of colonialist domination; the fall of imperialism into decadence during the last forty-five years; and the resurgence of the Third World during the last thirty years, seeking to construct a more just pluripolar world-system. In these commentaries, we have seen that conquest has been central in human history for the past 5,000 years and that conquest often has provided the foundation for economic development and civilization (see “Conquest in human history: On the dialectic of domination and development,” April 4, 2023). We have seen that the Islamic conquests of advanced empires stretching from Spain in the west to India in the east during the period 622-675 built upon the previous achievements of said empires, forging transcultural integration that was the basis for an Islamic civilization that from 800 to 1500 was advanced in moral norms, in humanitarian legislation, in religious toleration, in literature, science, medicine, architecture, and philosophy (“Islamic conquests, 622 to 675,” April 7, 2023).

We have seen that the Spanish conquest of vast regions of America stimulated the modernization of English and northwestern European agriculture, giving rise to the emergence of a capitalist world-economy, with England and northwestern Europe forming the core, and with Latin America, the Caribbean, and eastern Europe pertaining the periphery. The capitalist world-economy was characterized by a geographical division of labor, in which the periphery exported cheap raw materials on a base of forced labor to the manufacturing core, thus functioning to promote the development of the core and the underdevelopment of the periphery. (See “European conquests of the Age of Exploration: The origins of the capitalist world-economy,” April 11, 2023). We have seen that European military incursions from 1750 to 1914 in India, Ceylon, Africa, Indochina, and China expanded the world-economy by incorporating vast territories into its periphery, thus stimulating the further economic development of Britain, France, and northwestern Europe (“European conquests in the Age of Empire: The world-system becomes global,” April 14, 2023).

We have seen that the socialist revolutions in China and Vietnam, led by Mao Zedong and Ho Chi Minh, were influenced by Western socialism adapted to the colonial situation. They sought the liberation of peasants from landlord exploitation and well as the liberation of the nation from foreign domination. Both took decisive steps in socialist transformations for the benefit of the nation and the people following their taking of political power, illustrating possibilities for the future of humanity. (See “The conquered peoples seek a more just world: The emergence of socialism in the world of the colonized,” April 18, 2017).

We have seen that, with the transition to neocolonialism, the world powers would no longer seek to conquer and control new territories in colonial empires, but would seek economic, political, and ideological penetration of what were deceptively declared to be independent states. The USA was particularly well suited for the new form of imperialism, because of the particular characteristics of its ascent. During the period of American hegemony, the Cuban Revolution forged an exemplary model of anti-neocolonial and socialist resistance; and exceptional leaders from all regions of the world proclaimed for a period of two decades the principles that ought to guide humanity in the formation of an alternative international economic order that respected the sovereignty of all nations. See “Neocolonialism and the New Imperialism: The persistent quest of the neocolonized peoples for true sovereignty,” Abril 21, 2023.

We have seen that the U.S. post-World War II turn to a permanent war economy reflected a limited understanding, and its Cold War ideological justifications blinded the U.S. political establishment to possible future courses of action. Subsequently, the U.S. turn to the neoliberal project in the 1980s further exposed the limited understanding of the U.S. political establishment, and it generated a worldwide movement against neocolonialism and imperialism. The post-2001 turn to aggressive wars makes evident the decadence into which U.S. imperialism has fallen. See “Imperialism in decadence: Neoliberalism and military invasions make evident US decline,” April 25, 2023.

And we have seen that the peoples of the Third World during the past twenty-five years have been constructing a more just, pluripolar world, as is indicated by the renewal of the Third World project, observable in the Non-Aligned Movement, BRICS, and regional associations seeking mutually beneficial trade. A new political reality has emerged in Latin America, with the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, the Movement Toward Socialism in Bolivia, the return to power of the Sandinista Front in Nicaragua, and other progressive governments, such as the Workers’ Party government in Brazil. In the vanguard in the construction of an alternative, more just world are China, Vietnam, and Cuba, which have developed a new paradigm of “socialist-oriented planned market economies," in which the state directs a mixed economy of both state and private enterprises, with priority on increasing economic productivity and providing for the needs of the people. The “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. See “A more just world under construction: Circumventing imperialism in decadence,” April 28, 2023.

When I was a young man first learning of the European conquest of Africa, I was disturbed by its profound amorality. I asked four graduate students from Africa, speaking on a panel in an undergraduate course on African history, what they thought of the white man. One of the four, an older gentleman from Angola, responded that in his view the white man is human; that is, the white man has behaved in relation to Africa in a form consistent with human comportment since ancient times. It seems to me that, in looking at the history of human invasions and conquests, we can see that there was wisdom in the words of the gentleman from Angola.

It also seems to me that we ought to understand the positive consequences of force and violence in human history, in contributing to economic development and advances in civilization. To understand this dimension of human existence is not to justify force and violence, but to discern an essential paradox of the human condition: we have been blessed and endowed with the natural resources and intelligence for advanced civilization, but in order to unleash this potential, we have to act like barbarians toward one another. What is more, as we observe force and violence, we begin to discern that the human tendency toward force and violence has itself established in our time the unprecedented conditions that make possible (and necessary) the construction of human relations on a different structural foundation, a permanent foundation of peace and cooperation. This perhaps can be viewed as the irony of human history.

As we look at the story of modern European colonial conquest, it seems to me that discrediting the memory of individuals who were slaveholders encourages superficiality of thought. Because, in the first place, the benefits of slavery were widely dispersed. There were societies without slaves in which the entire society was benefitting from slavery, because of trading relations that had been developed in a commercially interconnected world. Further, given the importance of slavery in the economic development of the modern world, it can be said that all citizens and residents of the advanced economies of Western Europe and North America, including those who are descendants of slaves, benefit today from the slavery of yesteryear. Slavery is a human social sin, for which we are all guilty, and for which we are all today are blameless.

And because, in the second place, African slave labor was part of the more widespread phenomenon of forced labor, all of which was superexploitative, repressive, and often brutal, and which functioned for the common purpose of providing cheap raw materials for the manufacturing centers of the world-system. Especially important in propelling the economic development of the capitalist world-economy were the coerced cash crop labor of eastern Europe in the sixteenth century, the encomienda and the repartimiento in the Spanish colonies in Latin America, and the hut tax in Africa in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

In addition, any association of colonialism and conquest with skin color is a distortion of what happened, and it unnecessarily contributes to a dysfunctional racial division. In fact, the people of Ireland suffered from English conquest, colonial domination, and superexploitation; and the peoples of Eastern Europe were reduced to forced labor, in connection with the modernization of English agriculture in the beginning in the sixteenth century. That is to say, significant numbers of Europeans (so-called “whites”) were victims of the modern project of Western European colonial dominations of the world. The great migrations to the United States during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries consisted overwhelmingly of these unfortunate victims of worldwide processes that they never would arrive to understand. Today, the memory of their difficult life journeys has been erased from the collective consciousness of their descendants. They are simply considered “white,” expected to acknowledge that they benefit from “white privilege.”

On the other side of the coin, people of color participated in the process of European conquest, colonialism, and enslavement. Some African societies developed systemic structures for participation in the lucrative African slave trade. In addition, throughout the colonized world, an educated elite was formed, a class that supported the colonizers in the implementation of European colonial domination. The Third World anti-colonial movements for true sovereignty have had to struggle against the accommodationists to the European colonialist project from their own nations.

Thus, the reality is more complicated than the simplistic white as oppressor and person of color as victim. Such a simplistic distortion serves no useful social purpose.

If we in the societies of Western Europe and North America, regardless of our race, color, or gender, were to observe the struggle of the colonized peoples of the world, we would find that their primary orientation is an anti-colonial struggle, seeking the transformation of colonial political-economic structures; and that struggles against racism and for the rights of workers and women unfold in the context of this primary anti-colonial paradigm.

And we also would find that the peoples in anti-colonial struggle implicitly assume that truth is singular; that there is not my truth as against your truth. They stand against the post-truth tendencies of our time, because if there were no reasonable grounds for discerning the true and the right, then questions of the true and the right are resolved on the terrain of power, which favors the interests of the powerful. And they stand against post-truth tendencies because to them it is self-evident that, in a world where some live in super luxury, no child should be without a roof or a school. To them, everybody, regardless of their particular life experiences, everybody knows that a child has the right to a school.

The key to arriving to truth, the singular truth in relation to complex questions, is continuous collective dialogue across cultures and civilizations. This was the road taken in the formulation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, constituting a collective expression by representatives of the world’s people concerning the rights that all humans possess. And it is the road that today is advocated by China and the Non-Aligned Movement, which are struggling to create a more just, sustainable, and prosperous world-system.

We confront the difficult challenge of understanding the unfolding structural crisis of the modern world-system. The unfolding contradictions are themselves pointing the way, through the political struggles of the masses, to their resolution, and to the development of a world characterized by peace and prosperity. Let us observe and discern, and embrace and support, these emancipatory possibilities, which the Prophet Muhammad proclaimed as the human destiny.

Knowledge, ideology, and real socialism in our times

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