68485820 amin samir democracy and national strategy in the periphery

7/30/2019 68485820 AMIN Samir Democracy and National Strategy in the Periphery

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Democracy and National Strategy in the Periphery

Samir Amin

Third World Quarterly, Vol. 9, No. 4. (Oct., 1987), pp. 1129-1156.

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S A M I R A M I NDem ocracy and national strategy in the periphery* It is well-known tha t the T hird World is a heterog eneou s grouping an dtha t generalisations are there fore usually impossible. It can be agreed ,how ever, th at social inequalities are unfortunately all too often quiteblatant, in fact scandalous, and that even the most primitive form ofdemocracy is the exception rather th an the rule. T he lack of solidaritybetween Third W orld states in internationa l economic negotiations is asmarked as the animosity which frequently characterises their politicalrelationships.Is there a connection to be discerned among these three aspects:social inequality, lack of democracy, lack of solidarity? Doubtless,eve ryo ne will readily acknowledge th at on e exists. Bu t th e natu re of th econnection and its underlying causes is the focus of diametricallyoppo sed theoretical and ideological points of view. Th er e a re in effecttwo perspectives on th e global evolution of m odern societies which, onthis question as on oth ers, radically contradict on e a nother.In the dominant ' l inear' perspective, social inequality and theabsence of democracy ar e the price of poverty. T he accum ulation ofcapital is necessarily accompanied, in its initial stages, by theimpo verishm ent of the peasa ntry an d the penury of th e working-class,described by Engels in the case of England in the middle of thenineteenth century. L ater on , when the rural surplus population hadbeen absorb ed, th e labour movement m anaged progressively to imposeboth better material conditions and political democracy. Sir ArthurLewis's familiar thesis con cern ing th e 'dualism' of societies 'in trans itiontowards developme nt', like that of the Latin-Am erican desarrollismo ofthe 1950s, makes th e sam e point: economic development would crea tethe objective con ditions for a bette r social distribution of inc ome as wellas providing th e basis for a dem ocratic political life.' This thesispresupposes that the external factor (integration into the worldecono mic system) is basically 'favourab le', in the sen se that it offers the* Translated f o r Third W orld Quarterly by T h o m a s Clegg.'For further reading see also various works of CEPAL, published under the direction of RaulPrebisch, during the 1950s and 1960s.

1129WQ 9(4) October 1987lISSN 0143-6597187. $1.25


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- --THI RD W ORLD QUARTERLY

oppo rtunity for 'development' . Development in this context proceedsat a r ate w hich is governe d by the internal co nditions that characterisedifferent Third W orld societies. These conditions are thus thought to bedecisive in this process.In the context of a linear perspective, today's developed countriesfor m the im age of th e 'developing' countries as they will be to m orrow .A formalistic nationalism would also characterise various Third W orldsocieties during the first period of 'developm ent'. T he con struction ofth e nation state would dem and it. This nation sta te would assert itself byopposing othe rs, notably its neighbours. As the E uro pea n nations wereconstituted through an uninterrupted series of wars from theseventeenth to the mid-twentieth centuries, a similar confrontationam on g contemp orary Third W orld states would not b e surprising.The thesis advanced in this article takes the opposite view. Wecontend that the emergence of capitalist expansion on a world scaleentails an inherent inequality, which prevents the 'delayedreproduction' of the same evolutionary scheme. Social inequality andthe absence of democracy are thus, in the periphery, the product ofcapitalist development.

I would like to illustrate this thesis, in what follows, by insisting ontwo aspects of the worldwide expansion of capitalism:i) that this expansion is accompanied by a growing inequality in thesocial distribution of income in the periphe ry, w hile at th e system'sco re, it effectively crea tes the conditions for a lesser degree of socialinequality (and greater stability in the distribution of income, thefoun datio n of a dem ocratic consensus);

ii) tha t the bourgeoisie of the periphery is incapab le of m astering thelocal process of ac cum ulation, which thereby remains in a perpe tualprocess of 'adjustm ent' to the constraints posed by accumulation o na world scale. In these conditions, the project of constructing abourgeois national state is not merely handicapped by a basicallyunfavourable external factor, but is rendered completelyimpossible. T he p eripheral s tate is then necessarily despotic becauseit is weak. In order to 'survive', it has to avoid conflict with thedominant imperialist forces and attempts rather to improve itsinternational position at the expense of its more vulnerableperipheral partners.This twofold o bservation strongly suggests the conclusion that politicalan d social democrac y as well as international solidarity am ong peoples


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- - -D E M O C R A C Y A N D N A T I O N A L STRATEGY IN T H E P E R I P H E R Y

require the abandonment of the myth of the 'national bourgeoisie', andthe replacement of the 'bourgeois national' project by a 'popularnational' project. This is the price to be paid for democracy.Inequalities in the distribution of income a t the core and at theperiphery of the world capitalist system

Although empirical research concerning the distribution of income isrelatively recent, there are figures available today for a great number ofcountries, both developed and underdeveloped, which measure thedegree of inequality in income distribution by means of Gini coefficientsand Lorenz curves.In general, this research shows that inequality in the distribution ofincome is more pronounced in the periphery of the system than in itsadvanced core. This inequality arises for a number of reasons, includingthe following:Firstly, labour productivity varies from unit to unit, and from sectorto sector. Productivity would only become equalised given thetheoretical hypothesis of an economy constituted by production unitswhich were all equipped with the most efficient means (and thus a stateof competition would no longer continue between them!). The mostdeveloped capitalist countries approach this model, while theunderdeveloped formations diverge from it in an extreme way. This iswhy the distribution of value added per job from one sector to another isgrouped relatively closely around its average in the OECD countries, butis very unevenly spread in the Third World c ount r i e~ .~he fact that acomparison gives results of this kind proves, in our opinion, that the lawof value operates at the level of the world capitalist system, rather thanat the level of its national component^.^Secondly, the differential in salaries and payment for work in theThird World, however small, is never as reduced as it would be if it weredetermined solely by the social costs of training. The spread here resultsfrom the strategy of those in power and of capital, from its history andfrom those political requirements compatible with the exercise of powerby the hegemonic social bloc at the system's core.Thirdly, the distribution of industrial, commercial, real estate,

Samir Amin , 'Niveau d e salaires, choix des techniques de production e t rtp arti tion d e revenu', in A D Smith (ed), Cahiers de I'IIES (Geneva, 1969). See the a rgum ent concerning the conten t of the law of value ope rating at the world scale in Samir A m i n , L'avenir du maoisme, Paris: Min uit, 1981, pp 7-28; trans. The Future of M aoism , New York : Monthly Review Press, 1982.


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T H I R D W O R L D Q U A R T E R L Y

agricultural, financial and other property is itself the outcome of thehistory of the social formation and of local capitalist development. Ifone admits that there exists no 'ideal model' of capitalism, but only itsconcrete historical forms, there is no reason why this important elementin determining the structure of the distribution of income shouldoperate in the same way everywhere.Whatever the causes, it is possible to compare the current empiricaldistributions in the world. It is striking to see that the spread of Lorenzcurves is by no means accidental. As a matter of fact, the. curves of allthe OECD developed capitalist countries are grouped in a tight bunch. Incontrast, income distribution in all the contemporary Third Worldcountries is considerably more unequal. Two clear medians placedwithin each of the two groupings correspond with the following values425 per cent of the population disposes of 10per cent of total incomein the core, and 5 per cent in the periphery;50 per cent of the population disposes of 25 per cent of income in thecore, and 10 per cent in the periphery;

75per cent of the population disposes of 50 per cent of income in thecore and 33 per cent in the periphery.The bunching of Lorenz curves for the developed countries impliesthat Western societies have obviously similar income distributioncharacteristics. The position of different countries within the coregrouping of Lorenz curves also implies that the improvement in incomedistribution is linked to the existence of powerful social democraticforces, but that the real extent of this improvement is very limited. Themost advanced social-democratic countries, in Northern Europe, aresituated close to the minimum inequality curve; the most liberal (the

USA) and the least developed (Mediterranean Europe) are close to themaximum inequality curve.The spread of curves for the Third World may seem disconcerting atfirst sight. There is no visible correlation between the degree ofinequality on the one hand, and the ranking of these countries in termsof factors such as per capita GDP, the degree of urbanisation, the level ofindustrialisation, and so on. But, as we will show later, a more attentiveexamination can provide a.basis for an interpretation of this spread ofresults.We will refrain from providing here th e technical argum ents which permitted us to elab oratethese statistics based on the work of the World Bank (Hollis Chenery, Ahluwalia, etc., Growthwith Redistribution) and of the ILO (WEB programme, the work directed by Dharam Ghai andothers ). F or an explanation of the G ini coefficients and Lorenz curves used in our model, see ourarticle in Review (cited in note 5 ) .


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D E M O C R A C Y A N D N A T I O N A L S T R A T E G Y I N T H E P E R I P H E R Y

We can now proceed to the more interesting questions in thefollowing section: i) is it possible to m ove from the cru de empirical levelto a higher plane, to explain the essential reasons for the relativepositions of different countries?; and ii) is there a direction to themovem ent observed (towards more or less equality) and how is it to beaccounted for?W e will not go back o ver th e details of th e theoretical recon structionof these curves, which have been expounded e l ~ e w h e r e . ~e will onlyset out the broad outlines here.Regarding the distribution of income in the capitalist core, threesuccessive theoretical hy potheses suffice to accou nt for the m edian ofthe tight grouping of Loren z curves representing the OECD countries.First hypothesis: if the social formation were reduced to a purecapitalist mode of production, the structure of income distributionwould be d eter m ined by the rate of extraction of surplus value. If it we rethe case that the entire population were proletarianised and allproletarians w ere to sell their labour power at the sam e price, which isthe value of labour power, and if we retain the complementary

assum ption tha t th e num ber of capitalists was negligible, the m odel ofincom e distribution could be show n by a straight line whose slo pe wouldbe de term ined by th e rate of extraction of surplus value within a socialformation.Secon d hypothesis: we suppose that the prices paid to th e labour forceare distributed unequally around its average value, so that the ratiobetween the quartiles was 1 to 4.Third hypothesis: we introduce within this scheme the existence of acertain number of small and medium-size firms and various activities(similar to those of the liberal professions), the salaried populationcomprising 80 per cent of the total population, and we suppose thatindividual revenues of members of these social groups are situated inthe middle and high-income brackets within th e total distribution.In this way, a curve is finally obtained which is very close to onerepresenting the empirical reality of the contemporary developedcapitalist world.With reg ard to the peripheral capitalist societies, we have p roceed edin two steps. In the first instance, we looked at the case of a rural,

Samir Am in, 'Incom e distribution in the capitalist system', Review, Summer 1984; Samir Amin,Classe et nation d a m l'histoire et la crise con tem por aine , Paris: Minuit , 1979, pp 15 74 7; trans.Class and Nation: Historically and i n the Current Crisis, New York : Monthly Review Press, 1980,pp 149-72.


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'pre-capitalist' society in which 90 per cent of the population, alsopredominantly rural, is subject to exploitation of an 'egalitarian' kind bya state-class of rentiers who receive a tribute equal to half the totalagricultural output. At the same time, the peasant communities haverelatively little internal differentiation, but benefit to different extentsfrom favourable natural conditions, resulting in per capita outputsranging from 1 for the poorest quartile to 2 for the richest.Next, one supposes that an agrarian society originally of this type isintegrated into the global capitalist development of a 'semi-colony'. Asmall class of latifundists and rich peasant landowners (10 per cent of therural population) appropriates tribute in the form of land rent. Withdemographic pressures acting over a period of fifty to a hundred years,and in the absence of industrial outlets, a third of the population fallsinto absolute poverty. This third of the rural population (landlesspeasants and minifundists) disposes of an income barely equal to that ofthe lowest quarter of the peasant farmers. Agrarian reforms haveeventually taken place in most regions of this type. If one excludes thesocialist countries (China, North Korea, Vietnam), these reforms,more or less radical in nature, have redistributed land in favour of themiddle strata, to the detriment of the richest latifundists, withoutaltering the fate of the poorest half of the peasantry.In the end, the curve which best fits these hypotheses in factcorresponds with a median representing real situations existing inSouthern and Southeast Asia, as well as in the Arab world today.It is interesting to see that this structure, associated in the currentphase of capitalist development with the hegemony of the localbourgeoisie (agrarian reforms and industrialisation), can be explainedby four essential factors: i) the prior history of a rural class society whichonly allows the peasantry to keep roughly half its output; ii) the privateappropriation of surplus in the form of land rent by latifundists and,following agrarian reform, by rich peasants; iii) a 'natural' inequality inthe productivity of agricultural land ranging from 1to 2; iv) an increasein rural population density and the formation of a reserve of surpluslabour consisting about a third of the rural workforce.The 'model' in question also corresponds, it seems, with the situationin Latin America, at least in the case of the bigger countries such asMexico, Colombia, Peru, and Brazil. It fits less well the situation incertain Central American regions, of which Nicaragua under Somoza orGuatemala are prime examples. In contrast, the 'model' is certainlydifferent in Sub-Saharan Africa where the prior experience of local class


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societies is weaker, the availability of land greater, and so on. In theseareas the distribution of income is no doubt less unequal, althoughprecise information is unobtainable. Nevertheless, even here the trendis towards the appearance of greater differentiations, as all theempirical studies have shown.In our second step, we introduce the concept of the urban economyinto our model. In this instance we find a capitalist sector (whichemploys at most half of the urban working population), for which theconclusions reached above remain valid, given the followingassumptions: i) a higher rate of surplus value resulting in a wage-profitsratio of 40:60 instead of 60:40; and ii) a steeper wage scale (1to 6 insteadof 1to 4). Moreover, the 'informal' sector, which manages somehow toemploy half the urban working population, earns incomes of roughlythe same size as those of the poorest quartile of the capitalist sector.In order to combine both curves, rural and urban, two principalfactors must be kept in mind: i) the proportion of rural to urbanpopulation, which differs from one country to another; and ii) the largegap between net per capita output in rural and urban areas, when thisoutput is measured in current prices and income, as it is in currentstatistics. This gap is always roughly about 1 to 3, that is, per capitaoutput is three times greater in the urban economy than in the rural. Theend result obtained, i.e. the curve constructed by combining the simplerelements, is an interesting one. The resulting curve is, as we havealready seen, a median of the actual income distributions that occur inthe contemporary Third World.The question arises as to whether this situation is 'transitory' or not, i.e.whether the corresponding income distribution and that described areevolving towards the model outlined above. In other words, is there a'tendential law' of the movement of income distribution, in conjunctionwith the movement of capital? On this difficult topic, the followingthree types of response can be identified:

i) That there is no tendential law governing this movement. In otherwords, income distribution is only the empirical outcome of diverseeconomic and social factors whose movements, convergent ordivergent, have their own autonomy. This proposition may berestated in 'Marxist' terms by noting that income distributiondepends on class struggles in all their complexity, both national(such as bourgeois-peasant alliance, social-democracy) andinternational (imperialism and the position occupied within the


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international division of labour, and so on) . The capitalist system iscapable of adapting itself to all these different situations.ii) That there is a tendential law working to bring about a progressivereduction of inequalities. The situation in the periphery today issimply one of an unfinished transition towards capitalistdevelopment.iii) That there is a tendential law of progressive pauperisation andgrowing inequality. It remains to be seen why pauperisation shouldtake place, and by means of which preponderant force (one thatcannot be countered by opposing forces?), and on what scale theprocess occurs (at the level of each capitalist state, of all thedeveloped countries, of all the underdeveloped countries, orthroughout the worldwide core-periphery system?).

The Marxist thesis of progressive pauperisation is an abstractformulation of a concrete issue: does capitalist expansion eventuallybenefit the majority of people in terms of relative standards of living, or,on the contrary, does it tend to polarise society?The actual history of accumulation in the developed centres ofcapitalism is fairly well known. Disregarding local variants, a plausiblegeneralisation could be constructed on the following lines. The peasantrevolutions, which often introduced the capitalist era in these centres,reduced the degree of inequality in the countryside, at least when theyadopted a radical form. This reduction of inequality took place at theexpense of the feudal aristocracy, but at the same time led to theimpoverishment of a minority of poorer peasants who were expelled tothe cities. The working-class wage was fixed from the outset at a low

level determined by the income of these poorer peasants. I t tended toincrease after stagnating for a period at this level (or even diminishing),when the expulsion of landless peasants from the countryside finallyslowed down. From this point onwards (about 1860?) workers' wagesand the real incomes of the 'middle' strata of the peasantry tended toincrease together, in conjunction with a rise in productivity. There waseven a tendency for a rough parity to be established between theaverage wage of workers and peasant incomes, although this tendency isnot observable at each stage of accumulation (it depended on thestructure of alliances between the hegemonic classes). In the stage oflate capitalism, there is perhaps a 'social-democratic' tendency towardsthe reduction of inequalities. But this operates in conjunction withimperialism: a favourable position within the international division of


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labo ur favours social redistribution. B ut it would b e wrong to generalisehere , as com parable cases of evolution, for example Sweden and th eU S A , diverge in this respect.It is necessary to move beyond an exam ination of the capitalist co reconsidered on its own , and take into account the evolution of th e worldsystem as a whole. Our thesis here is that the stability of incomedistribution in the core during the present presupposes rather thanexcludes a far more u nequal distribution of income in th e periph ery.T he realisation of value at th e scale of t he system as a whole requ ires thiscom plem entary opposition of structures.One is thus led to an unavoidable question: what is the overalltendency of the changes in income distribution within the periphery?Althou gh precise information in this domain is fragm entary, it seemsthat the most pronounced trend has been towards the worsening ofinequalities, certainly during the last hundred years (188C1980).A thesis often advan ced to explain this fact is that inequality in theseregions is the price of accu mu lation, and once th e first phase of th e latteris com plete d (with the reduction of the lab our reserve provided by thepea san try), th e system will tend t o reduce this inequality. This thesis hasrene we d its app eal am ong a wide variety of circles, from the trad itionalRight to certain Anglo-Saxon Marxists. The work of the late BillWarren and various critiques which have been directed at our ownstance a re situated on this terrain.6 This thesis appe ars to us to replaceth e con crete analysis of t he w orldwide expansion of capitalism, whichdiversifies while a t th e sa m e time unifying, with th e abstract vision of acapitalism reduced to its tendency towards unification. T he a rgum ent towhich the supporters of this thesis turn as a last resort is that theworsening of inequalities is only 'provisional'. This abuse of theargu m ent con cerning time remo ves any political significance from th ethesis in qu estion. T o say that capitalism aggravates the situation for acentury or two, but that it will improve matters thereafter is not ananswer to the problems of our society, but a way of sweeping themunder the carpet. This line of reasoning suffers in general from analmost complete lack of any political analysis concerning thediversification of capitalist formations, and a consequent refusal tomake any qualitative distinction between core and peripheralformations.

Bill Warren, Imperialism, P ioneer of Capitalism, London: Verso, 1980. See our commentariesin Samir Am in, La de'connexion,Paris: La Dtco uve rte, 1986, Ch. 4; Samir Am in, 'Exp ansion orcrisis of cap italism?', Third Wo rld Quarterly 5 ( 2 ) April 1983.


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Without going into the details of this debate, let us say that our thesishere is that even the most radical bourgeois national projects in theThird World are probably destined to failure and will in the end submitto the demands of transnationalisation. As a corollary to this thesisregarding the transformation of the peripheral bourgeoisie into acomprador class, we believe that there is no discernible tendencytowards diminishing inequality in income distribution in the ThirdWorld. If any movement can be observed, it is rather in the oppositedirection: towards growing inequality. The idea of progress by stageswhich could be repeated after a given time-lag is obviously a powerfulconcept in its simplicity, but one which is obviously false. However, thebelief that developed countries provide the model for the futuredevelopment of the underdeveloped countries remains firmlyentrenched, despite its refutation by four centuries of capitalistdevelopment, and particularly by the experience of the last hundredyears.According to the logic of the 'stagist' perspective described above,the issue of inequalities in the distribution of income is seen merely as aquestion of relative quantity, without any qualitative significance. But itis not just a matter of greater inequality: inequality itself determines thecreation and development of a productive system in the periphery,which is qualitatively different from that which exists in the capitalistcore.If in fact the various resources (unskilled and skilled labour, capital)are allocated to the types of final consumption (of the different strata ofpopulation according to their income) which directly or indirectlycommand them, one finds:

that in the core the various resources are allocated to theconsumption of each stratum in proportions similar to the share ofeach of these stratum in consumption. For example, if necessaryconsumption (meaning necessary for the reproduction of labourpower) represents 50 per cent of total consumption and surplusconsumption 50 per cent, the shares of capital and of labour powerwith different skills (low, medium, high) allocated to necessary andsurplus consumption respectively are 50 per cent-50 per cent foreach category of resource (capital, unskilled workforce, skilledworkforce).that in the periphery, on the other hand, the scarcer resources areallocated to the consumption of the wealthier strata in greaterproportions than their share of total consumption. This 'distortion'

1138


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in favour of the upper strata within income distribution is all thestronger when distribution is more un equal. Fo r exam ple, accordingto our calculations concerning the employment of medium andhighly skilled labo ur (with secondary, technical or higher ed uca tion)in the Arab world, surplus consumption constitutes 50 per cent oftotal consum ption, but absorbs 75pe r cent of these scarce resources(as against 50 per cen t in France).In addition, one observes a tendency both for a deepening ofinequalities in income distribution in the A rab world (before an d after1974) an d for a worsening of this distortion in the em ploym ent of scarceresources. It is also noticeable that inequalities ar e m ore m arke d in theA ra b world (where per capita GDP is higher than in othe r regions of th eThird World, such as Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa) and that thedis tort ion in the use of resources is at the same time more p r o n ~ u n c e d . ~T he productive app aratus of th e peripheral countries is thus not am ere copy of that of th e core at a n earlier stage of ev olution. I t differsqualitatively, and therein resides the very purpose of the intern ation aldivision of labou r. The se differences explain why, when in the c ore th eLo renz curve is stab le (or is even moving towards less inequality), in th eperiphery it is shifting in the opposite direction, towards even greaterinequality. The distortion in income distribution is a condition ofexp and ed repro duc tion, of accum ulation on a world scale.O n this point, M arx's thesis concerning progressive paupe risation isperfectly visible on a world scale. If income distribution tends to bem ore and m ore une qual in the periphery, which constitutes th e majorityof th e world system's popula tion, and is stable in the c ore , then at th eglobal level it is moving tow ards gre ater inequa lity. Th e very fact thatpauperisation manifests itself at the world level but not at the core issurely proof of the fact that the law of value acts at the global level,rather than at the level of individual capitalist formation.Marginalisation and impoverishment in the periphery, however,operate not only by means of an increase in the rate of extraction ofsurplus valu e, but also through th e indirect extraction of surplus labou rin non-capitalist forms, bo th traditional a nd newly-invented.

'amir Amin, L'economie arabe contemporaine, Paris: Minuit, 1980; trans. Th e Arab Economy Today, London: Zed, 1982. 1139


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From the bourgeois national project to the bourgeoiscomprador projectIf in the nineteenth century the imperialist system is seen as havingvirtually extended colonial and semi-colonial regimes throughoutAfrica and Asia, national liberation movements in the aftermath of theSecond World War reconstituted them into independent states. Has thismajor transformation of the world capitalist system put an end to thecorelperiphery dichotomy? The prevailing opinion in the West is thatindependence effectively opened the way for the creation of newbourgeois states with the capacity to advance along the path of capitalistdevelopment. This process would depend essentially on internalconditions within each state. Thus the pace and the orientations ofeconomic growth, of social developments and of political organisation(the latter's despotic or democratic character) would be determined, forthe most part, by internal class struggles. This thesis therefore deniesthat there is a qualitative difference between bourgeois national statesin the core and in the periphery of the system. In other words, it acceptsthe hypothesis that a bourgeois national project is capable of beingcarried out. I think, for my part, that this thesis is mistaken and isrefuted by what I call the failure of the bourgeois national option in thecontemporary Third ~ o r l d . ~Of course, the Afro-Asian states, nations and peoples understoodthat the reconquest of political independence was only the means to anend, the final goal being the conquest of economic, social and culturalindependence. But here the forces of national liberation were splitbetween two visions: there was the opinion, shared by a substantialmajority, that 'development' was possible through 'interdependence'within the world economy; and that of the socialist leaders who thoughtthat abandoning the capitalist bloc would lead to the reconstruction,with the USSR, if not under its leadership, of a world socialist bloc.The leaders of the capitalist Third World did not envisage 'delinking'from the capitalist system, but nor did they share a common strategicand tactical view of 'development'. While this is not the place to expandon our concept of 'delinking' (see La dkconnexion) we should makeclear that this concept is not to be confused with 'autarky'. It refers tothe need to submit foreign relations to the logic of an internal popularstrategy of development, as opposed to the strategy of 'adjusting'

Samir Amin, La dkconnexion, Chs. 1 and 4. See also 'Bandung 30 years later ' , a paperpresented at the UN con ference in Cairo, 1985, unpublished.


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internal development to the constraints of the global expansion ofcapitalism. Delinking therefore assumes opting for an intern al price a ndincome system autonomous from the global system. This nationalsystem would therefore constitute the yardstick for measuring arationality which reflects popu lar interests, while th e global system ofso-called economic rationality, on the basis of which 'comparativeadvantage' and 'competitivity' are measures, actually reflects theinterests of inte rna tiona l capital an d its subo rdin ate local transmissionbelt classes. To varying degrees, however, they believed that thebuilding of a indep end ent dev eloped ec onom y an d society (even withina framework of global interdepe nden ce) would entail a certain amo untof 'conflict' with the dominant West (the radical wing reckoning thatwould put an en d to th e control of th e national econom y by th e capital offoreign monopolies). M oreov er, careful to preserve their recently-wonindepe ndenc e, they refused to e nter into the global military gam e or toprovide support for the encirclement of the socialist countries whichAmerican hegemonism had tried to impose. However, they alsobelieved tha t to refu se to join t he A tlantic military bloc did not imply thenecessity of placing themselves under the protection of its adversary,the U SSR . Fro m this stance em erged 'neutralism' or 'non-alignment'.T he coming together of th e Afro-Asian states had already begun withthe constitution, within the UN, of the Arab-Asian group, aimed atdefending the cause of the colonies still engaged in the struggle forindepe ndenc e. Ba ndung in 1955 reinforced this rapproche me nt a ndgalvanised t he struggle. From summ it to summ it during th e 1960s andth e 1970s, 'non-alignmen t' gradually shifted from a platform of politicalsolidarity based on support for national liberation struggles and therejection of military pacts, to that of a 'trade association of economicdemands vis-a-vis the North' . The battle for a 'New InternationalEconomic Order' (NIEO) ommenced in 1975, following the Israeli-A ra b war of O ctober 1973 and the subsequent upward revision of oilprices.Neither on th e political nor th e econom ic plane was the W est readyto accept the spirit of Ban dung . W as it really only a coincidence tha t,one year later, France, Britain and Israel tried to overthrow Nasserthrough their aggression in Egypt in 1956? T he genuine hatred whichthe West maintained towards the radical leaders of the Third Worldin the 1960s (Na sser, Sukarn o, Modibo Ke ita, almost all of th emoverthrown in the same period, 1965-68, during which the Israeliaggression of Ju ne 1967 also occurred) shows tha t th e political vision of


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Bandung was not accepted by imperialist capital. It was thus a politicallyweakened non-aligned bloc which confronted the global economic crisisfrom 1970-71 onwards. The firm opposition of the West to the idea of aNIEO demonstrates conversely that there was a very real logic at worklinking the political and economic demands of the Afro-Asian blocfollowing Bandung.Thirty-two years after that historic conference, we have the factuallessons and the necessary hindsight to take stock of the situation. Whatwere the real objectives of the Bandung project? Has it simplyexhausted its force, having attained its goals? Or did it fail to attain itsgoals because they were objectively impossible? Of course, what withhindsight appears as an 'ideology of development' was never the subjectof a consensus of interpretation. Having enjoyed its 'golden age'between 1955 and 1975, it has now, as we will later show, entered aperhaps fatal crisis.The traditional socialist bloc was not prepared to accept theobjectives which emerged from Bandung. In 1948, Zhdanov proclaimedthe division of the world into two camps, capitalist and socialist,preemptively condemning as illusory any attempt to place oneself outsidethem, in other words to seek to be 'non-aligned'. In this spirit, thesocialists did not foresee the possibility of the conquest of independenceby a national liberation movement which they themselves did not lead.It was only following the first 'stabilisation' of 1950-55 (the victory inChina, the armistice and division of Korea and Vietnam, theacknowledged defeat of guerrillas elsewhere in Southeast Asia); thedemonstration of the viability of the new 'bourgeois' regimes of theThird World; the inception of these states' conflict with the West, albeitunder a 'bourgeois' leadership; and the death of Stalin (1953) and theideological opportunities offered by Khruschchev, that the possibility ofa 'viable' third bloc and of a 'third path to development' began to beperceived.On the other hand, the radical non-socialist nationalist leaders of theThird World certainly believed in the possibility of a 'third path todevelopment' which would be neither 'capitalist' nor inspired by thesocialist models of the USSR and China. Their rejection of Marxismcombined a number of considerations: they occasionally perceived inMarxism an avatar of European culture incompatible with their ownpeoples' value systems; they sometimes simply feared the loss of theirindependence, particularly given the Soviet domination of EasternEurope (which was then being denounced by Yugoslavia and China);


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they were also drawn towards the Western model of efficiency andconsumption, even of freedom (though perhaps this was a value towhich they attached less weight), rather than to the Soviet and Chinesemodels, which seemed less efficient and more austere. It was perhapsfrom this ambivalence that the ideologies of 'particular socialisms'(African, Arab) progressively emerged.A 'Bandung project' did, therefore, exist, in our opinion, although itwas implicit and imprecise in nature. I will not shrink from labelling itour era's bourgeois national project of the Third World. Beyond thevarious concrete manifestations and specificities of its nationalexpressions, the project can be defined by the following elements: i) thedesire to develop the productive forces, to diversify outputs (notably byindustrialising); ii) the desire to reinforce the nation-state's directionand control over this process; iii) the belief that the process did notimply in the first instance popular initiatives but only popular supportfor state actions; iv) the belief that the process did not fundamentallycontradict participation in the international division of labour even if itdid entail momentary conflicts with the developed capitalist countries.

The realisation of this bourgeois national project implied control overa series of processes by a hegemonic national bourgeois class, throughits state, including at least the following: i) control of the reproductionof labour power, which entails a relatively complete and balanceddevelopment so that local agriculture, among other economic activities,is able to provide the essential elements for this reproduction insufficient quantity and at suitable prices to assure the valorisation ofcapital; ii) control of national resources; iii) control of local markets andthe capacity to penetrate the world market in competitive conditions;iv) control of the financial circuits permitting the centralisation ofsurplus value and the orientation of its productive uses; v) control of thetechnologies in use at the level of development reached by theproductive force^.^Seen from this angle, the development experiences of the ThirdWorld can be classed into two categories of objectives: that of thosecountries which have simply attempted to accelerate their growthwithout worrying about achieving the conditions listed above (IvoryCoast, Kenya, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia . . . the list is long); and that ofthe countries which have tried to realise the conditions in question(Egypt under Nasser, Algeria, Tanzania, India, Brazil, South Korea).

Samir Amin, La dtconnexion, Chs. 1 and 2.


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As can be seen, this classification does not necessarily match thedivision between those regimes anxious to promote a certain degree ofsocial justice and bring about reforms, notably agrarian (such as Egyptunder Nasser, or South Korea) and those which did not hesitate beforeaccepting a worsening of social inequalities (Brazil for example). Nordoes it correspond to the division created by their attitudes vis-a-vistransnational capital (Brazil and Kenya both welcome such capital, butthe former tries to integrate it within its own national policies, while thelatter is content to adjust to its demands), nor to the divide over theissue of maintaining political relations of conflict or alliance with Eastand West. Correlations do exist, but the nuances of the combinationsformed to meet concrete circumstances make each Third World countrya special case.It is now no longer possible to ignore the inadequacies of all attemptsat development, which have not withstood the reversal of favourableconjunctures. The food and agriculture crisis, the external financialdebt , the increased technological dependency, the fragility of capacitiesto resist eventual military aggression, the waste produced by capitalistmodels of consumption and their ideological and cultural impact, pointto the historical limits of this option. Even before the current crisisoffered the opportunity for the 'offensive of the West' which managedto reverse the previous trends, these deficiencies had in many cases ledto an impasse. I do not claim that these experiences in principle hadnecessarily to end where they did, and that consequently their'bankruptcy' was predestined. I can only contend that, to go anyfurther, a genuine 'revolution' was required, capable of putting an endto the twin illusion concerning the possibility of a national developmentwithout this being the product of a truly popular force, and thepossibility of this development without 'delinking' from the worldsystem. It is not certain whether some movements in this direction couldnot have been possible (and I am thinking notably of the case of Egypt).Yet significantly, popular revolution did not occur, and because of this,the historic page was turned.In view of the experience outlined above, we can say that the projectin question deserves to be called a bourgeois national project and assuch was demonstrably impossible to achieve. In this way, history hasshown that the national bourgeoisie within the Third World is notcapable, in our era, of achieving what it achieved elsewhere, in Europe,North America and Japan in the nineteenth century. There is nothingnew in this thesis, and the failure of the bourgeosis national project has


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--- - -DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL STRATEGY IN THE PERIPHERY

been repeated many times in the past. O ne such failure is that of Egy pt.T h e history of Egy pt since Mo ham ed A li is tha t of a series of challengesby the national bourgeoisie, broken each time by the conjunction oftheir internal fragility and imperialist aggression.A detailed exam ination of th e history of oth er countries and regionsof the Third Wo rld would illustrate, in our opinion , the sa m e thesis: thatof a un inter rup ted succession of bourgeo is national bids, their repe atedmiscarriage a nd t he submission to th e dem ands for subordination whichfollowed each time. This has occurred in Latin America since thenineteen th century (we cite here only the most recent exam ples of t heM exican Revolu tion of the period 1910-1920 an d tha t of Pero nism inArgentina), in India (whose evolution from Nehru's 'First Plan' to thereturn of the Right to government following Congress's first defeat iseloqu ent), and in numerous A rab and African countries.The favourable conjuncture of the post-war period was due to anexceptional combination of circumstances. O n the economic side, thestrong growth of the 'North' facilitated the 'adjustment' of the South.O n th e political side, peaceful coexistence was accom panied by the riseof Soviet military and industrial might (from the first Sputnik to theachievem ent of strategic 'parity' during the 1960s and 1970s), com binedwith th e decline of th e ageing British and Fren ch colonial emp ires andthe spread of A fro-Asian independence struggles. This conjun cture lentreal weight to the con cept of no n-alignment.Bu t success may bring delusions with it. O n e such delusion is plainlyencapsulated in the theory of a so-called 'non-capitalist path',concerning a 'gradual' evolution towards socialism. Of course, thetheo ry in question did not convince everyone . I n th e 1960s it wasviolently attacked by China a s an opiate me ant t o lull the peoples anddouse the fires of the 'zone of storms'.T h e page of history has today been tu rne d. Since the beginning of th e1970s, the economic boom of the W est had fade d to m ake way for thecurrent structural crisis, while the competition among Europe, Japanand the United States has replaced reconstruction under Americanprotection . In th e Soviet U nion , Khrushchev's promises to overta ke theAmerican standard of living by 1980 and the expectations of a rapiddem ocratisation following the 20th Party Congress (1956) gave way toimmobilism under Brezhnev (which now appea rs to be unde r challengefrom Go rbache v). I n Chin a, the revisions which followed Mao's deathrevealed that neither the question of economic efficiency, nor that ofdemocracy, had yet found their 'definitive' answer. Throughout the


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T H I R D W O R L D Q U A R T E R L Y~

Third World, the hunger crisis, that of external debt and the impassecreated by imported technology have led to a series of surrenders to thediktat of transnational capital, reorganised around the IMF, the WorldBank and the consortium of big Western banks. In the countries with aradical orientation, the coups d'e'tat and acts of military aggression (the1967 war was not an accident) greatly contributed to putting an end tothe experimentation of the post-Second World War period.The basis of the new world conjuncture is formed by the aggression ofthe capitalist West against the peoples and nations of the Third World.The objectives of the capitalist West is to subordinate the subsequentevolution of the Third World to the requirements of the redeploymentof transnational capital.''But is this situation really only a conjuncture, fleeting in naturethough painful, which will perforce be followed by a new hatching ofadvanced 'national bourgeoisies'? Or does it involve a historicalturning-point which will no longer permit the pursuit of successive bidsby the bourgeois national project, a project which has characterised thehistory of capitalism for at least a century? The real debate concerningthe nature of future challenges and options is focused on these twoconsiderations.The hypothesis which we are putting forward is that thecontemporary crisis marks the end of an era, an era which for Asia,Africa and Latin America might be termed the century of nationalbourgeoisies, in the sense that it has been characterised by successiveattempts at bourgeois national construction. To note simply that theseexperiments have not produced results is hardly new. What is new,according to this hypothesis, is the affirmation that such attempts will nolonger take place in the future. In other words, the bourgeoisie of theThird World has now finally accepted the pursuit of its developmentthrough economic subordination to the core. This is a project imposedupon it by the expansion of transnational capital, which has forced thenew bourgeoisie to become comprador subordinates.Many reasons militate in favour of this hypothesis. The depth ofsubordination of the periphery to the core and the globalisation ofcapital in the contemporary world indicate the existence of a politicaland economic situation which has little in common with thelo Samir Am in, 'A propos du NOEI et des relations economiques internationales', Socialism in theWorld (29) 1982; trans. 'After the NI EO ,he future of international econom ic relations', Journalof Contemporary Asia (12-14) 1982. See also Samir Amin , 'La crise, le Tiers Mon de e t lesrelations Nord-Sud et Est-Ouest', Nouvelle Revue So cialiste, Paris: September-October, 1983.


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circumstances existing at the e nd of th e Second World W ar.A thousandindicators illustrate this point overwhelmingly, not only in terms ofnational economic planning, finances an d technology, but also in term sof consumption, culture and the ideology of everyday life. The socialstructures formed and deformed by these phenomena draw ourattention t o the fact that th e present challenge has little to d o with tha twhich once confronted th e Soviet and Chinese peop le.

The alternative: popular national developm ent, political andsocial democracy, and the ending of dependenceThe worldwide expansion of capitalism is thus of a polarising nature.Since the origins of capitalism, fo ur centuries ag o, th e corelperipheryopposition has rema ined inhe rent within this system. This opposition,which constitutes the principal aspect of capitalism's contradictions, isunsurmountable within the framework of the world system. Inclusionwithin this world system, the 'external factor', is not only in itself anunfavourable influence, but I would go so far as to say that it isbecoming increasingly so. It only took nineteenth-century Germany afew decades t o 'catch up a nd overtak e' En gland. H ow long will Brazilrequire to 'catch u p and overtake' th e USA? Later attempts to createbourgeois national states thus, as ever, remain doomed to failure,condemned, through compradorisation, to perpetuate polarisation inrenewed forms corresponding to the development of the system as awhole. l1It is this polarisation which is in fact responsible fo r the app eara nce ofsocially and politically unacceptable regimes in the periphery of thesystem. They are socially unacceptable because they are founded onimpoverishment an d the exclusion of the great mass of the people . The ywere politically unacceptable in the past in the sense that the settingup of the system required colonial domination; and they remainunacceptable because the pursuit of a form of local developmentintegrated within the system dem ands that the new ind epend ent stateremains despotic. Th us, democracy is not the 'rule ', but the exception,produc ed from time to time by the impasses of capitalist deve lopm ent,but always vulnerable. Contrary to the 'optimistic' thesis of" See Sarnir Arnin, La deconnexion, and three other forthcoming studies: Samir Arnin, 'L'Etat etle dkveloppernent' ('Stare and D evelop me nt'); L'accumulation 30 ans plus tard' (Accumulationon a W orld Scale, 30 Years Later); and 'A propos "The Third World Revolt"'.


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----- -THIRD WORLD QUARTERLY

develop me nt by stage s, according to which social misery and de spotismwill be progressively overcom e by capitalist expan sion, tha t exp ansionwill continually repro duc e these conditions.Given these conditions, capitalism has raised t he spectre of its beingoverthrown through a 'revolt of the periphery'. In this sense the'socialist revolutions', all of them emerging in the periphery orsemi-periphery of the system (Tsarist Russia, China, etc.), constitute,along with the generically similar national liberation movements, themost essential change in our contemporary world. These struggles,effectively or potentially, ushe r in the 'post-capitalist' era .I would co nten d that 'delinking' on the basis of a popular nationa lsocial alliance (as opposed to the bourgeois na tional project) constitutesthe only positive prospect for avoiding capitalist relegation to theperip hery . By 'delinking', I me an in precise term s the sub ordination ofexternal relations to internal demands for popular transformation a nddevelopment, as against the bourgeois strategy of adjustment ofintern al growth to th e constraints of th e worldwide expansion of cap ital.The unequal character of capitalist expansion, which cannot beove rcom e from within its own frame work, thu s objectively dem and s th ereconstruction of th e world on th e basis of a noth er social system. T hepeoples of th e periphery .ire obliged to becom e awa re of this dem andand to impose th e new system, if they a re to avoid the w orst, which mayexte nd t o geno cide, as the history of this expansion shows.Th es e challenges to the capitalist order in th e form of revolts in th eperiphery force one seriously to rethink the question of the 'socialisttransition' towards the abolition of classes. However carefullyformu lated, t he M arxist tradition continues to be handicapped by itsinitial theo retica l view of 'workers' revolutions' paving the way, on thebasis of advan ced productive forces, at least in relative term s, for a fairlyrapid transition c haracterised by democratic rule of th e popular masses.While termed a 'dictatorship over the bourgeoisie' (by means of aprole tarian sta te of a new type w hich will soon 'wither a way'), th is rule isnevertheless considerably mo re dem ocratic than th e most dem ocratic ofbourgeoisie states. Obviously, reality has not turned ou t like this. A llrevolutions of an anti-capitalist bent have so far taken place in theperiphery of th e system; all have been confronted by the problem s ofthe development of the productive forces and the hostility of thecapitalist world; none has yet been able to establish any real form ofadvanced d emocracy; all have end ed u p reinforcing the state system.Th ey have reached a point where doub ts are increasingly cast upon the ir1148


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'socialist' character and on the prospects for effecting, at whatever timein the future, the definitive abolition of classes. For some people (ofwhom we are not a part and whose theses we have criticised in the past)these systems are nothing more than specific forms of capitalistexpansion itself. l2The crucial task is not of course to 'label' these systems, but tounderstand their origins, problems and specific contradictions, thedynamics which they allow or exclude. We have arrived at the thesis thatin cases of popular national states and societies; we stress that they arepopular, and neither bourgeois nor socialist. In the same way, wereached the conclusion that this popular national 'phase' was inevitablyimposed by the unequal character of capitalist development.These systems are, because of this, effectively faced with the task ofdevelopment of the productive forces and are founded upon socialforces that refuse to accept the argument that development can beachieved by means of a simple 'adjustment' within the framework ofcapitalist expansion on a world scale. They are the product ofrevolutions led and supported by progressive social forces in revoltagainst the effects of the unequal development of capitalism. Thereforesuch systems are contradictory and conflicting combinations of threedifferent forces.The first of these, socialist or at least potentially so, translates theaspirations of the popular social forces which gave birth to the newstate. The second, capitalist in nature, expresses the fact that, given theactual state of development of the productive forces, capitalist relationsof production are still necessary, and hence require real social forces tomaintain them. This is why each time an extension of market relations istolerated within a country of the Eastern bloc, the situation improves.But the existence of capitalist relations should not be confused withintegration within the capitalist world system. Many of the criticismsdirected at China, Yugoslavia, and Hungary have foundered on thisslippery terrain, wrongly objecting that these countries are undergoing'reintegration' into the capitalist world system. On the contrary, thestate is present to isolate these relations from the effects of inclusionwithin the system dominated by the capital of the core monopolies.The third series of real social forces operating in these regimes, whichwe term 'statist', have an autonomy of their own. They are neitherl 2 Samir Amin, La dtconnexion . . . Ch. 4; Samir Amin, 'Expansion or crisis of capitalism',Contemporary M arxism (9) 1984.


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- - -THIRD WORLD QUARTERLYreducible to a disguised form of capitalist relations (as statismeffectively is in the capitalist Third World), nor to a 'degenerate' form ofsocialism. Statism represents real and potential social forces in theirown right.The problems faced by the capitalist Third World with the advent ofpolitical liberation were similar in nature. But the ambiguity of thestrategies it adopted was more pronounced because, even whereradicalisation had occurred during the struggle for independence, theoption in favour of a programme of popular content and delinking washampered by bourgeois aspirations and the illusory promise of thebourgeoisie national project. Why did the 'Third World' then not set offon the path to constructing a bourgeois national state by copying thoseof the capitalist core? To be sure, the outcome did not simply result from'ideas' without any reference to the social base; it was rather theexpression of certain social classes and strata of a bourgeois inclination,which dominated the 'national liberation movement' (i.e. the revoltagainst the effects of the unequal development of capitalism) andcontinue to dominate the states which emerged from it. History teachesus that the bourgeoisies of the periphery have attempted this task ofconstructing the state at each stage of world capitalist expansion,although of course in forms appropriate to their respective times. It alsoteaches us that in the end such attempts were always blocked by theconjunction of external aggression and the internal limits of theseattempts.The question of democracy, both in the socialist countiies and inthose of the Third World, must be placed within this context.Let us be clear on this point: the critique which Marx directed atbourgeois democracy, i.e. of its limited and formal character, remains, tomy mind, wholly correct. All the same, this democracy was not offeredby the bourgeoisie to its people but conquered, relatively late in the day,by working-class struggles. For the capitalist mode itself does notrequire democracy. The spring behind its social dynamism is located onanother level, that of the competition among capitalists and individuals.Moreover, capitalism separates economic and social management,ruled by fundamentally undemocratic principles, from politicalmanagement, run today according to the democratic principle ofelection. We would add that this form of democracy only functionswhen its social impact has been annihilated by the exploitation carriedout by the dominant forces of the core powers within the capitalist worldsystem, that is to say once the labour movement has renounced its own


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DEMOCRACY A N D N A TIO N A L STRATEGY IN THE PERIPHERY

project for a classless society and accepted the capitalist 'rules of thegame'.In th e periphery, dem ocracy, even more restricted in natu re, is barelym ore tha n the expression of th e crisis of despotism which is here a formof th e capitalist system. Countries in Latin Am erica, S outh Korea an dothers, currently furnish blatant examples of the violent politicalcon tradic tions afflicting a Th ird Wo rld in crisis. I me ntioned earlier thatLatin American desarrollismo had claimed that 'industrialisation' and'modernisation ' (along bourgeois lines and within th e context of a n evengrea ter integration into the world system) would automatically lea d to adem ocratic evolution. Th e 'dictatorship' was look ed upon as th e vestigeof a supposedly pre-capitalist past. The facts have demonstrated thatmo dernisation within t he frame work of this bourgeo is project has only'modernised dictatorship' and substituted an 'efficient' and 'm ode rn'violence of a fascistic type for the old oligarchic, patriarchal systems.Th e bourgeois project, however, has not delivered the prom ised results:the crisis has revealed the vulnerability of this construction and theimpossibility of t he 'independen ce' which legitima ted dictatorship forsome. But were not the democratic systems, which were imposed inthese circumstances, faced with a formidable dilemm a? The re ar e onlytwo choices available: Either the democratic political system acceptssubmission to th e dem ands of 'adjustment' to th e world system, and isthe rea fte r incapable of effecting social reforms of any impo rtanc e, soonprec ipitating a crisis for democracy itself; o r else pop ular force s, seizingthe m eans provided by democracy, impose these reforms. T he systemthen ente rs into conflict with dom inant w orld capitalism, moving from abourgeois national project to a pop ular national one.13 Th e dilemma ofBrazil an d th e Philippines derives entirely from this conflict.The popular option requires democracy. This is so becausedemocracy is a necessary internal condition of socialism. Once thespring of competition amongst capitalists is broken, social relationsbased on cooperation among workers instead of submission toexploitation are unthinkable without the complete expression ofdemocracy.In t he socialist countries complex reasons of a particular n atu re whichrelate to the history of Marxism, and which we have analysedl 3 Is not the doctrine of the Brazilian P M B D , which believes in the possibility of reconciling liberalpolitical democracy and a dependent economic development, a return to the illusions of

desarrollismo?1151


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-- -THIRD WORLD QUARTERLY

elsewhere,14 have their sha re of responsibility for the deadlock cre atedby the refusal of political democracy. Despite the national and socialachievements which have brought with them eventual support of thepopular masses, the denial of political democracy attests to thepreponderance of statist forces to the detriment of the socialisttendencies present.This situation is graver still regarding the radical experim ents withinth e Third Wo rld. The re th e absence of political demo cracy works infavour of capitalism, either of the private or state form, and causesthe system to degenerate towards a bureaucratic capitalism whichultimately risks becoming a fo rm of com pradorisation. In the socialistcountries, this risk is unlikely to materialise, as the popular nationalsta te (althou gh und emo cratic) has sufficient solid historical groundingto allow the c ontinuation of relative stagna tion within th e confines ofstatism, or the renewal by society of its move forward. In contrast,examples abound of complete failure among the radical states of theThird W orld and their subsequent 'recompradorisation'.In every case democracy is the only mean s of reinforcing th e chancefo r socialism within pop ular national society, of isolating the inte rna lcapitalist relations of production from the influence of theircompradorised insertion into the capitalist world system, and hencereducing the de gree of their external vulnerability.W hat kind of democracy are we talking about? N o doubt th e heritageof W este rn bourgeois democracy is not merely to be scor ned , bestowingas it does a re spect for rights and fo r legality, freedom of expression f or adiversity of opinions, the institutionalisation of electoral proceduresand the separation of powers, the organisation of countervailingpowers, and so on. But nor is this legacy the last word. Westerndem ocra cy is lacking in any social dimension.15 T he po pular dem ocracyof the moments of revolutionary social transformation (such as theUSSR in the 1920s, Maoist China) also teaches us a great dea l abou t thena tur e of any 'popular pa rticipation', to use a tired expre ssion, which isto h ave real m eaning. To conserve W estern democratic forms withouttaking into consideration the social transformations dem anded by thel4 Samir Amin, La dkconnexion . . . Chs. 1, 2 and 4; see also Sarnir Amin, L'avenir du

maoisrne . . .l5 There is no form of social phenomenon which does not allow for the occasional exception.Swedish social dem ocracy is by no me ans inferior to the best achieve men ts of the Eas tern bloc.This is surely attributable to the peculiar history of Sweden an d to its labour movem ent, w ithoutparallel elsewhere in the West. But it must also be conceded that the privileged position whichSweden occupies within the international division of labour has facilitated this exceptionalevolution.


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D E M O C R A C Y A N D N A T I O N A L ST R A T E G Y IN T H E P E R I P H E R Y

anti-capitalist revolt of the periphery is to become trapped within atravesty of bourgeois democracy, which will remain alien to the peopleand consequently extremely vulnerable. In order to take root,democracy should above all inscribe itself within a perspective whichmoves beyond capitalism. This domain, like others, must be governedby the law of unequal development.'"Obviously, it is this prospect which imperialism finds intolerable. Forthis reason, the campaign concerning 'democracy', orchestrated by theWest, stresses only certain aspects of the problem and neglects others.For example, it identifies multiparty political systems with democracy.No doubt the 'single party' has more often than not, become, theexpression of statist dominance.17 But equally, it is often the product ofthe effective achievement of popular national unity: this is true in thecase of the Chinese Communist Party and some other organisationswhich emerged from the liberation struggle. In these instances, thecreation of 'other parties' might be an artificial operation, not an urgentitem on the agenda of popular struggles. The democratisation of theParty, its separation from the state, the clear distinction between stateand civil society, the opening up to debate of the party and socialorganisations (truly independent trade unions, peasant cooperatives)are the essential reforms here which false Western friends of the peoplesof the Third World refuse to acknowledge as democratic advances.The question of the divergence of interests and of conflicts betweenThird World countries should also be situated within this context.The illusions fostered by the bourgeois national project lead thestates of the periphery to emphasise the divergent interests dividingthem, on account of their different functions within the world system.Thus producers of energy or raw materials and semi-industrialisedcountries, countries liable to become indebted to the world financialmarket and those lacking resources, countries with food deficits andthose with food surpluses, will find it difficult to form a united frontagainst the North. This front could only be established on the basis ofthe common denominator linking these countries; namely, their statusas peripheral entities. On this basis the popular national regimesengaged in a strategy of 'delinking' could strengthen their nationall6 See my general thesis regarding the significance of unequal dev elopm ent in Samir Am in , Clusseet

nation . . ."For the sakc of a rgument on e could c i te numerous cases of 'one par ty ' regimes or even regimes of'nopar t ie sa l lowed a t a l l 'whichd onot provoke Western ire , s imply because theses ta tesac cept theneo-colo nial submission. Similarly, ther e are many well-known exa mplesof 'multi-party systems'which are in practice hardly dem ocratic!


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options by a form of regional cooperation, itself delinked from theworld capitalist system. At present South-South cooperation iscomplementary to unequal North-South relations.'' As long as ThirdWorld countries continue to attempt to achieve a capitalist developmentintegrated in the global expansion of capitalism, these countries will bebound to compete among themselves and therefore conflict amongthem will be the rule. Of course, the matter of intra-Third Worldconflicts is vast and complex, and could by itself constitute a subject forstudy, for which this is not the place. So to make this long story short,and recognising that the political (and sometimes military) conflictsbetween Third World countries are certainly not all of the same kind, Ipropose here to distinguish four different groups of such conflicts:i) Certain conflicts are merely the continuation of the struggle forliberation of the peripheral peoples against imperialism, due to thefact that certain radical regimes have constituted or constitute atarget for the West to destroy, with the latter mobilising neo-colonial regimes to fight on its behalf. The actions of the

accomplices of the permanent aggression of Israel and SouthAfrica against Egypt and the Southern African front-line statesrespectively provide evidence of this type of conflict;ii) The illusions fostered by the bourgeois national project may havestimulated 'sub-imperialist' ambitions, about which much has beenwritten in the past. Experience has shown that, far from establishingthemselves as new imperialisms, even second class ones, theseattempts have finally ended with the absorption of local surrogateswithin the sphere of influence of the real imperialist centres. Theconflicts that occur within regional groupings, conceived as'common markets' between local surrogates in which the activitiesof monopoly capital concentrate, and the other second rank statesof the periphery (e.g. Kenya vs. Tanzania; Nigeria and Ivory Coastvs. the ECOWAS partners), are one outcome of this problematic.19The Iran-Iraq conflict is the result of excessive regional hegemonistambitions of the leadership of both these countries;

iii) Without doubt conflicts of a purely local origin exist, both withinl8 Fayqal Yachir, 'La coopkration Sud-Sud, une alternative?' Bulletin du Forum du Tiers Monde( 2 ) October 1983; Samir Amin, 'Afro-Arab co-operation, the record and the prospects', AfricaDevelopment (1987).l9 Samir Amin, Imptrialisme et dkveloppement inkgal, Paris: Minuit, 1976, Ch. 5; trans.Imperialism and Unequal Developm ent. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1977, Ch. 5.


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the frontiers of a single stat e and between neighbouring states. T heheteroge neous and even artificial c haracter of m any Th ird Worldstate s is often responsible for these conflicts. I t remains th e case tha tthes e conflicts a re frequently cause d by struggles betwe en differentsegm ents of th e com prad or ruling class. The se segm ents mobilise intheir s upp ort forces which the m ere fact of social diversity (ethn ic,religious, regional) would not alone have caused t o confront on eano ther , either spontaneously or unde r th e force of necessity;20iv) Nor do the conflicts between socialist countries stem from aninevitable clash of nationalisms traversing social classes andregimes. In some cases, they involve profound differencesconcerning international politics (for example the refusal ofYugoslavia and China to submit to the strategy of the Sovietsup erpo we r). In others , the conflict is rat he r the expression of theexpansionist ambitions of powers aspiring to regional hegemony(such as that of Vietnam vis-a-vis Laos and Kampuchea) . Hereagain democratisation is the only response capable of disarmingadven turist leaderships and preventing their going astray.21

In all these cases the conflicts of minor o r secondary pow ers in thecontemporary world are, a t some point, bound to conform with thestrategies of the superpowers. It can thus be perceived that theseconflicts d o not simply replicate the con frontations which accom paniedth e forma tion of th e core capitalist nations. O n the con trary, they arethemselves either the result of the polarisation between core andperip hery , or a vector of its reproduction.In conclusion I d o believe tha t the issues of 'social justice' (a be tte rdistribution of inc om e), political dem ocracy and inte rnatio nal solidarity(rath er than intra-Third World conflicts) in the Third W orld ar e indeedcon nec ted, so th at it is impossible to 'cure' any of these evils withoutconsidering the whole problem of their interlinkage. Our thesis hasbee n t ha t th e global expansion of capitalism is responsible for growingsocial inequality, political despotism and growing intra-Third Worldconflicts. Th ere for e, opting for 'ano ther development'-based onpop ular interests an d democracy-and building intern ation al solidarityon the basis of this op tion necessarily involves 'delinking' from th e logicof global capitalism. T h e dram a of Th ird World nationalism is tha t it has' Samir Amin, 'Etat, nation, ethnie et minoritCs dans la crise', Bullet in du Forum du Tiers Monde(6) 1986.,Samir A m i n , Classe et nation . . . Ch. 7; Samir Arnin, Imptr ia l isme et d tveloppement inegal ,C h . 8.


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continuously hoped that the global system could adjust to additionalnational bourgeois projects. History has proved that these projects areultimately doomed to failure and are followed by compradorsubalternisation, with all its negative social and political consequences.

68485820 amin samir democracy and national strategy in the periphery

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