Re: GLOBAL KEYNESIANISM

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2000 11:34:29 -0600 (MDT)
From: Abu Nasr <abu-nasr@usa.net>
To: md7148@cnsvax.albany.edu
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

md7148@cnsvax.albany.edu 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



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