I would like to present some thoughts from the Indian Marxists Utsa Patnaik and Prabhat Patnaik on national sovereignty and delinking. A crucial matter for the peoples of the world, and show that their thoughts parallel Samir Amin.

Their seminal book on “Capital and Imperialism, Theory, History, and the Present” (2021) deserves to be widely read as an inspiration to the peoples of the Global South and progressives in the Global North.

They explain also how absolute poverty has risen with globalization in line with Marx that talked about capitalism producing wealth at one pole and poverty at another.

Global capital through the international finance system has obtained near hegemony and capitalism is projected as the best and most superior system in history. The wars and widespread poverty killing millions are excluded from the narrative and we are told to believe that overcoming this system will only lead to disaster.

But transcending capitalism is not impossible and nations are trying to follow their own path in a process to delink from global capital. Here the Patnaiks are in line with another well known Marxist Samir Amin, who made it his mission to develop alternatives in the Global South to global capitalism. With delinking as a general concept for liberation from imperialism.

Samir Amin has in “The liberal virus” (2004) outlined the challenges. He says that “The south should and can liberate itself from liberal illusions and undertake the construction of autocentered development” (p.107).  In a world with deepening inequality global capitalism and its preferred ideology that is liberalism, have no solutions. Instead we see Washington using military control and interventions to block any alternatives.  Using cold war rhetoric to warn any country that wants more autonomy about the dangers of a multipolar world, where U.S. imperialism and its financial institutions are losing control. Delinking is for Amin a precondition for development: “To develop is first of all to define national objectives that would allow for both the modernizations of productive systems and the creation of internal conditions in which those systems would begin to serve social progress”. Thus breaking with the imperatives of transnational capital.

The polarization that is inherent in the capitalist globalization leads in the peripheries to “a zone of storms” (a Chinese expression) says Amin that is inspired by the contribution of Maoism. “A permanent natural rebellion against the capitalist world order. Certainly, rebellion is not synonymous with revolution, but it raises the possibility of the latter” (Amin,2019).

The center dominates and the peripheries are dominated and the “North-South conflict between centers and peripheries is a central factor throughout the entire history of capitalist development……In the countries of the South, most people are victims of the system, whereas in the North, the majority are its beneficiaries. Both know it perfectly well, although often they are either resigned to it (in the South) or welcome it (in the North). It is not by accident, then, that radical transformation of the system is not on the agenda in the North whereas the South is still the “zone of storms,” of continual revolts, some of which are potentially revolutionary. Consequently, actions by peoples from the South have been decisive in the transformation of the world. Taking note of this fact allows us to contextualize class struggles in the North properly: they have been focused on economic demands that generally do not call the imperialist world order into question. For their part, revolts in the South, when they are radicalized, come up against the challenges of underdevelopment. Their “socialisms,” consequently, always include contradictions between initial intentions and the reality of what is possible. The possible, but difficult, conjunction between the struggles of peoples in the South with those of peoples in the North is the only way to overcome the limitations of both” (Amin, 2017).

The Patnaiks say that basically it would be ideal to create a world state built on the support of the world`s workers and peasants. Confronting international finance capital and “introduce measures for reviving the world economy and ensuring a basic minimum of living standard for all the world`s people”. But there is no such International to raise the class struggle to this level.  To wait for this “would be like waiting for Godot in Samuel Beckett`s play” (p.330).

The struggle is organized in countries

What we see is the coming to power of progressive governments trying to come out of the stranglehold of global capital and its finance institutions. Those are mainly IMF and the World Bank, that is controlled by U.S. and able to punish and enforce harsh conditions to nations with economic challenges.  A measure for progressive forces is the degree to which a government will defend the interests of the working people and their living conditions.  This is a question of life and death for people that daily fight to feed their children and keep them healthy. Imperialism and its ideologues present it as a fight between freedom and autocracy, abstracting from the facts on the ground in the poorer nations that suffer most from the international financial regime. See also Vijay Prashad: The poorer nations(2014).

Loyalty to the people

If a government decides to be loyal to the people that brought it to power with the hope for betterment of their living conditions, is has to take hard decisions. Here restrictions on the free flow of finances out of the country are central.  The Patnaiks say that this will arouse opposition from global finance. A fiscal deficit or taxing the wealthy will sure be a cause for concern in the financial monopolies. Soon there will start an exodus of finance putting pressure on such a government, to either roll back or face the consequences.  But if the government will be true to its promises it must control capital outflows.

Delinking from global capitalism and its globalization regime will also necessitate some form of import control. If this government is met with sanctions, the political pressure to subdue and destroy such a government will be enormous.

Importance of domestic market

Central is here rising the agricultural output by land reforms. Land redistribution that supports the peasants to stay in the countryside and grow products not only for themselves but also to sell on local markets. This can build a fundament for rising the self sufficiency and lower the demand for import of food. Capitalism has no feelings about the deprivation of the poor and multinational agribusiness and their allies in the domestic bourgeoisie are foremost focusing on crops for export.  The Patnaiks say: “What a strategy for transcending neoliberal capitalism must do instead is to undertake land redistribution and develop agriculture along cooperative or collective lines through the voluntary consent of the peasants” (p.331). They warn also about using a “dirigiste” planning, top down as inimical to such a process.

As a consequence the class struggle will intensify and finance will put pressure on the government. Any attacks on the privileges of the upper classes will be met with economic sabotage and investment strike. A government thus has a stark choice. To either be true to its class base or bow to this pressure.

A question of rights

This is crucial for any kind of transition to a more just regime benefitting the working classes.  A transition must not be seen as only a question of promises. The Patnaiks are quite clear this change “must be shrouded in the institution of economic rights. The regime that transcends the neoliberal development strategy must introduce a set of universal, justiciable economic rights on a par with the political rights typically enshrined in a democratic constitution. A minimal set of five such rights, namely the right to employment (or a wage payment if the state fails to provide employment); the right to food at affordable prices; the right to free, quality, public healthcare; the right to free, quality public education up to at least university level; and the right to old-age pension and disability assistance of an adequate magnitude can be immediately implemented.  And for this no more than an additional 10 % of GDP will be required. Ironically, it has never been attempted before” (p.332).

Neoliberals boasts about high growth rates and does not deliver. Instead inequality and poverty reigns in many countries, often rich in resources. The Patnaiks say that such a development may not seem to be socialism. But points out that if socialism is the goal, implementing the mentioned rights have to be pursued.

Obstacles

To come out of the neoliberal grip is difficult and the threat of or actual capital flight is a strong obstacle to any progressive regime that wants to serve the people. Direct political and military intervention in particular by the United States, is a constant threat and the U.S. military has divided the world in commands ready for this. The Patnaiks say  that it is the economic pressures that are a powerful force keeping countries in “thralldom to neoliberalism” (p.333) and an explanation why we don´t see so many armed imperialist interventions as before (but Libya is an example that imperialism is ready and on guard to crush any regime challenging the Empire). This is a main obstacle to delinking. To control your own resources and destiny is a difficult road to choose in global capitalism with western hegemony. Some countries rich in resources have had a boom in commodity prices, but a setback can easily return if the necessary political and structural changes for the future are not met.

The Patnaiks come out with a warning: “The left has to prepare the people of the third world better, to take them into confidence that a price has to be paid in the period of transition for their emancipation, instead of promising the moon to them as bourgeois formations habitually do” (p.334).

Nationalism and delinking

On nationalism the Patnaiks give an important critique of the left: “Delinking, it is argued, would involve a revival of nationalism, which is reactionary and unacceptable to the left, whose essence lies in being internationalist…The problem with this position is that it sees nationalism as one homogenous category that is unambigiously reprehensible…It misses, in short, the distinction between the nationalism of a Hitler and the nationalism of a Ho Ch Minh or a Gandhi, implicitly holding both to be reprehensible. This is a basic mistake” (p.335).

The main difference is that the nationalisms in Europe saw always an enemy within (a minority) and the people should serve the nation, not the nation serving the people. In contrast the Patnaiks say that: “The concept of nationalism that underlay the anti-imperialist struggle over much of the third world was inclusive: It had to be inclusive in order to mobilize an entire people against the might of imperialism. It did not entertain imperial ambitions; on the contrary, it had to have fraternal links with anti-imperialist struggles elsewhere, and therefore could not have ambitions of dominating them” (p.335).

Fighting for an inclusive nationalism is the way forward and not an exclusionary one, like the Indian Hindutva nationalism targeting minorities. When this reactionary anti-minority nationalism is growing it shows the weakness of anti-imperialism. The important message from the Patnaiks is that the left must support an inclusive nationalism, with the welfare of the people its main preoccupation.

Message to the left on the journey to socialism

Quoting Rosa Luxemburg on the historical obsolescence of the capitalist system, where the choice is between socialism and barbarism, the Patnaiks write that capitalism continues to be barbaric. To achieve human freedom only socialism can rescue mankind. We see widespread misery and poverty affecting millions of people and “capitalism is also conjuring up the forces of fascism everywhere” (p.339).

Many believe that globalization will lift the poorer nations, but it is a “productionist” argument, and we can`t wait passively for a new phase of capitalism less barbaric, the Patnaiks say.

“Unless the left overcomes this ambiguity toward contemporary globalization and mobilizes the working people around an agenda of transcending the neoliberal order by delinking from it, and thereby commencing a journey toward socialism, mankind will be long mired in crisis and fascism” (p.339).

Samir Amin (2019) writes in the same vein about the socialist struggle and summarizes this in “a beautiful Chinese-style expression: States want independence, nations want liberation, and peoples want revolution. States—the ruling classes of all countries in the world when they are something other than lackeys and conveyors of external forces—work to enlarge their space of movement that allows them to maneuver within the (capitalist) world system and raise themselves from `passive` actors, condemned to adjust unilaterally to the dominant demands of imperialism, to `active` actors, who participate in shaping the world order”.

John Graversgaard is a political commentator from Denmark

Originally published: Countercurrents  on July 30, 2024 by John Graversgaard, and MrOnline on Aug 13, 2024)

Sources:

Utsa Patnaik and Prabhat Patnaik: Capital and Imperialism, Theory, History, and the Present. Monthly Review Press, New York, 2021.

Utsa Patnaik and Prabhat Patnaik: Neoliberal Capitalism at a Dead End. Late imperialism. Monthly Review | Monthly Review Volume 71, Number 3 (July-August 2019)
https://monthlyreview.org/product/mr-071-03-2019-07/

Samir Amin: The New Imperialist Structure. Late imperialism. Monthly Review | Monthly Review Volume 71, Number 3 (July-August 2019) https://monthlyreview.org/product/mr-071-03-2019-07/

Samir Amin: The Liberal Virus. Monthly Review Press, New York, 2004.

Samir Amin: Revolution from North to South, Monthly Review, July 2017, Monthly Review | Revolution from North to South.

Vijay Prashad: The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South, New York, Verso, 2014.