[Pen-l] Samir Amin: There is no alternative to socialism

[John Gulick <john_gulick@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Patrick Bond writes:

> I had some long discussions about these problems about 8 weeks ago with
> Samir, but didn't find a way to dislodge his support for South-South
> alliances no matter how much of a stretch (the current most ridiculous
> one is Venezuela-Zimbabwe).
 
I reply:
 
Well, does it not seem that one key and underscrutinized issue is determining
what distinguishes a decadent Bandung I regime from a protean Bandung II
one? And hence figuring out the criteria separating rotten Bandung I trade/
investment/diplomacy/etc. alliances from promising Bandung II ones? Perhaps
this is unfair, but despite my deep respect for Amin's work too often it feels
as though his analysis is long on acclamation (very impressive acclamation
indeed!) and short on analysis. I guess he is first and foremost a theoretician.
 
Patrick Bond writes: 
 
>Much else of that interview is fantastic, especially the orientation to explaining
>global capitalist crisis not momentary financial bubble burst.
 
I reply:
 
Well of course Dr. Overaccumulation himself would lend his endorsement! But isn't
that just Marxism 101? It gets you through the door but not out the other end of
the passageway. What I find to be a more deft theoretical move is Amin's attempt
-- the analysis is not terribly well-developed -- to intermingle analysis of the over-
accumulation of capital, the concentration of capital, and imperialism. If I'm not
mistaken a major portion of a recent big book of his revolved around the theme of
how the big powers are engaged in a fraternal competition to win superprofits in
the leading sectors of global capitalism and jointly committed to keeping the old
machinery of uneven development chugging along. I suppose upon reconsideration
it seems to be a rather abstruse updating but not a fundamental reconstruction of
hoary dependencia theories, the added features being a convinction that global
capitalism is ever more overripe (in part because of previously unappreciated
ecological crises) and a conviction that socialism is one country is ever more illusory.
Maybe Amin hasn't made any dramatic new moves since 1991, which is not to say
that his perspective lacks potency for it.
 
Regarding Amin and China, an irony just occurred to me. Perhaps it is the very failure
of the CCP to achieve one self-proclaimed goal -- that is, to have the opening up and
market reform policies yield a crop of PRC-based, high value-adding Global Fortune 500
firms -- that accounts for Amin's refusal to admit the PRC to the collective imperialists'
club. I would develop this point further were my homemade spaghetti sauce not boiling
over, but I think you can grok the irony here... 

 

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