Semiperipheral Delinking and Global Democratic Socialism

Patrick Bond has raised some extremely important problems that should
not be papered over with fine phrases.  Should “we” reform or eliminate
the World Bank? Do democratic socialist movements in Africa and other
non-core regions really need a World Bank, even a progressive one?  Does
acknowledging the possible importance of democratic global (or even
regional) institutions weaken the movement to promote a “non-capitalist,
inward-oriented, basic needs-drive development”?

These are tough questions about important contradictions among the
people. His quotes around “we” raise a host of questions about the
interests of those in the core vs. the non-core, privileged vs.
marginalized, as well as different kinds of interests.  The events in
Seattle also raise these issues. And they have been used by
conservatives to imply that Seattle was a bunch of spoiled gringos with
cell phones and labor muldoons trying to protect their featherbed jobs.

 Patrick’s problem is different. Self-reliance in the non-core must
challenge many of the basic presumptions about globalization. People
mainly need clean water, clean air, good food, and good housing. They do
not need to program their hair dryer from their car radio.
Non-capitalist self-reliance is a sensible strategy, especially for
those who have no say in the existing global institutions.

Self-reliance is not new, though it may sound radical in the context of
the capitalist globalization project.  Indeed both England and the
United States achieved hegemonic status by first going through a period
of import substitution. In the 20th century this strategy has been tried
by socialists in the semiperiphery (Russia and China) but capitalism
responded by further expanding and deepening its own organization and
networks until it has finely reincorporated the state socialisms.

The point of  a world-systems perspective is to notice these long-term
trends and to devise our strategies accordingly.  Though globalization
(meaning international economic integration)  is not new, it has
probably reached a higher peak in the most recent wave than in any of
the earlier waves.  This will make self-reliance more difficult.
Patrick says South Africa does not need a World Bank, even a socialist
one.  He says schools can be built and teachers can be paid in local
currencies.  I agree that much can be done without help from abroad and
I understand the motivation to do this in an extremely hierarchical
world-system.  But the idea of building  a Peoples’ World Bank is not
only for helping to balance out development on a world scale.  A
Peoples’ World Bank could facilitate both trade and grants, but more
importantly it could be part of a political movement to get progressives
in the core to support semiperipheral and peripheral democratic
socialism.  In the absence of this, conservative core governments will
destabilize or militarily confront non-core socialism.

Also the environmental and warfare holocausts that global capitalism is
likely to bring upon us will not only be tragedies for the core.
Non-core semiperipheral and/or regional movements need to help to avert
these catastrophes.
 Patrick is rightly skeptical about progressive reform of the existing
World Bank and/or the WTO,  and sees most of the proposals for reform as
white-washes that might dilute the movement to throw these institutions
out of the non-core.  I agree. But to design and constructing a Peoples’
World Bank and  a Peoples’ WTO we need to understand the history and
organizational structure of the existing institutions and we need
explain to people why socialist versions of such institutions are needed
and what they should look like.

Patrick is right that the period of world history that is emerging is
going to be hard one in which to organize global democratic socialism.
The alternative to trying would be to put all our energies into
supporting semiperipheral socialism on the presumption that it will be
easier to pick up the pieces after the capitalists have destroyed each
other.  But that position is both risky and  immoral, at least if you
hold that both the human species and the individual humans (core or
non-core) are worth saving.

Chris Chase-Dunn