Part 1
https://umanitanova.org/allarrembaggio-del-futuro-necessita-e-problemi-del-superamento-del-capitalismo/- Part 2 https://umanitanova.org/allarrembaggio-del-futuro-2-parte/ ----
Economic transformation in underdeveloped countries ---- The need for a
phase linked to the themes of national independence and the development
of internal capitalism are the themes often used by authoritarians
(Marxist Leninists of various shades, Maoists, Stalinists, Third
Worldists) to exclude the possibility of social revolution, and
therefore of the overthrow of the state and the abolition of private
property, in the areas controlled by these states.
Let's resume our journey on the transformation of the mode of production
by following once again the reflections of Ernest Mandel starting from
chapter XVI of his "Marxist Treatise on Economics".
In the section dedicated to this problem, entitled "Sources of
accumulation in underdeveloped countries", the concept of "vicious
circle of poverty" is examined, summarized by the Estonian economist
Ragnar Nurske, due to the fact that they have a low per capita income,
underdeveloped states do not have adequate savings, without savings the
investment fund remains inadequate; the lack of investments has the
consequence that labor productivity remains low and so does the level of
income. Furthermore, poverty hinders the growth of the internal market,
so any private savings are directed abroad, towards speculation or
usury. Finally, poverty brings with it the emigration of the most
qualified personnel, making it impossible to open a business where there
is no workforce capable of making it work.
Paul A. Baran has demonstrated the falsity of this reasoning, based on a
confusion between the productive accumulation fund and what Baran calls
"potential surplus". In fact, it is the social surplus product. The
social surplus product in the underdeveloped countries constitutes a
higher and no less percentage of the gross national product than in the
industrialized countries. Poverty does not arise so much from the
insufficiency of this surplus product as from its misuse.
Baran lists various parts of the social product of the underdeveloped
countries that are practically lost for the productive investment fund.
First of all, the agricultural surplus product hoarded by landowners:
the greater part of this surplus product is squandered in an
unproductive way (residences in exclusive holiday resorts or frequenting
casinos) or hoarded (the enormous hoarding of gold in India). To this
must be added that part hoarded by usurers and traders who live in
agricultural regions. It is generally used for the purchase of land
(which means that it simply causes an artificial rise in the price of
land and rent), for an increase in usurious and mercantile capital, for
hoarding or for luxury consumption. The largest part of the social
surplus product is exported from the country by foreign companies, a
phenomenon that affects all the states of the so-called global South. To
this must be added the part of the social surplus product that is
hoarded (and transformed into unproductive consumption) by the state
bureaucracy, by the military circles and by the bourgeois stratum that
surrounds them, with corruption, with crime, with immodesty. This part
too can acquire proportions that are often unsuspected in the West.
Alongside this real product there is an enormous potential surplus
product that many underdeveloped states can mobilize; it is the unused
labor potential due to underemployment in the countryside.
This is how Mandel puts it. "To note that the mass of the rural
population of densely populated underdeveloped countries works on an
annual average only a few days a week, means implicitly admitting that
an enormous mass of products and services could be made available to the
national community, if this population were regularly employed from five
to six days a week.
Of course, we must be wary of simplifications. First of all, a good part
of this increased production will manifest itself in the form of
agricultural production, especially given the lack of tools of work that
would allow its profitable use in small rural industry. Of this
increased agricultural production, a considerable part will be consumed
by the producers themselves; it will be the surest way to improve their
standard of living. This increase in peasant consumption is moreover a
physiological necessity, since the miserable subsistence rations that
these peasants have today only allow for unproductive work, at a very
slow pace.
Furthermore, this mobilization of thousands of peasants for regular work
that disrupts their ancestral customs, requires the existence of a
mobilizing political and (or) social force, capable of obtaining this
voluntary effort of the peasants; any attempt to transform this
mobilization into a system of forced labor would quickly lead to a
decrease in yield and would appear to a large extent as a waste from the
point of view of economic development.
Finally, the possibilities for increasing agricultural production are
not infinite (limited cultivable surface; availability of work tools,
fertilizers, etc.; impossibility of disrupting the technique without new
work tools, etc.). Consequently, full employment of the rural mass may
entail the need to mobilize it in part for infrastructure work (roads,
canals, railways), real estate construction and even primitive industry,
if the equipment for its use in industry is lacking.
In the latter case, the voluntary character and enthusiasm of this
mobilization will be more difficult to maintain, as the example of the
Chinese communes has shown. The solution to the problem consists in the
priority execution of works that allow an immediate improvement in the
standard of living of the rural communities themselves, for example, the
construction of peasant houses, schools, infirmaries and hospitals, etc."
The normalization of the working hours in the countryside as a means of
increasing disposable income for the population of underdeveloped states
is subordinated to the social revolution in agriculture. Without the
abolition of private property, Mandel continues, "the mobilization of
the peasants inevitably approaches forced labor. Moreover, the presence
of a class of landowners causes these owners to appropriate a large part
of the new social surplus product and transfer it from a fund of
potential productive accumulation to their fund of unproductive
consumption."
How current these considerations on the surplus transferred from
underdeveloped to advanced countries are is demonstrated by an article
from 2022 published on the Valori website
(https://valori.it/scambio-ineguale-nord-sud-mondo/). Valentina Neri
gives us an account of a study published in a scientific journal
(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095937802200005X)
that confirms what Mandel claimed with data from 1960:
"The article, published in the scientific journal Global Environmental
Change, traces financial flows between nations based on the MRIO
(Multi-Regional Input Output) model. From here, through an original
methodology, it estimates the resources and labor that the North has
appropriated. To then parameterize them on market prices and then
calculate their monetary value.
What emerges? That in 2015 the Global North appropriated 12 billion tons
of raw materials, 822 million hectares of land, 21 exajoules of energy,
188 million years of work. All resources that are incorporated into
goods and that, translated into money, would have a price of 10,800
billion dollars. Enough to put an end to extreme poverty; not once, but
70 times. During the 25 years examined, the drain from the Global South
reached a total of 242 thousand billion dollars, a quarter of the GDP of
the Global North. It is true, the authors emphasize, that industrialized
countries also give something in return through development aid. But it
is also true that the losses of the South exceed them by a good 30
times. The authors' conclusion is clear: "Our analysis confirms that
unequal exchange is a determining factor in global inequality, unequal
development and ecological collapse".
Some strategic indications emerge from Ernest Mandel's notes. First of
all, the possibility of socialist revolution even in underdeveloped
countries, without any democratic transition or national liberation.
Furthermore, the need for a spontaneous mobilization of peasants,
stimulated by the action of a political force that pushes them to a
voluntary mobilization, which therefore does not pass through the
conquest of political power and regimentation from above.
How far we are from the indications that Marx and Engels give in the
"Manifesto": "8. Equal obligation of work for all, institution of
industrial armies, especially for agriculture". The use of the word army
is not accidental, and it is precisely the expression that led Bakunin
to define the Marxist conception as "barracks communism". That Marx and
Engels refer precisely to an army, with its general staff, with its
plethora of marshals, sergeants and corporals, is demonstrated by the
application that Lenin and Trotsky made in the aftermath of the Russian
Revolution, with the militarization of the labor force. Furthermore,
this mobilization of thousands of peasants for regular work that
disrupts their ancestral customs, requires the existence of a mobilizing
political and (or) social force, capable of obtaining this voluntary
effort of the peasants; any attempt to transform this mobilization into
a system of forced labor would quickly lead to a decrease in yield and
would appear to a large extent as a waste from the point of view of
economic development.
Finally, the possibilities for increasing agricultural production are
not infinite (limited cultivable surface; availability of work tools,
fertilizers, etc.; impossibility of disrupting the technique without new
work tools, etc.). Consequently, full employment of the rural mass may
entail the need to mobilize it in part for infrastructure work (roads,
canals, railways), real estate construction and even primitive industry,
if the equipment for its use in industry is lacking.
In the latter case, the voluntary character and enthusiasm of this
mobilization will be more difficult to maintain, as the example of the
Chinese communes has shown. The solution to the problem consists in the
priority execution of works that allow an immediate improvement in the
standard of living of the rural communities themselves, for example, the
construction of peasant houses, schools, infirmaries and hospitals, etc."
The normalization of the working hours in the countryside as a means of
increasing disposable income for the population of underdeveloped states
is subordinated to the social revolution in agriculture. Without the
abolition of private property, Mandel continues, "the mobilization of
the peasants inevitably approaches forced labor. Moreover, the presence
of a class of landowners causes these owners to appropriate a large part
of the new social surplus product and transfer it from a fund of
potential productive accumulation to their fund of unproductive
consumption."
How current these considerations on the surplus transferred from
underdeveloped to advanced countries are is demonstrated by an article
from 2022 published on the Valori website
(https://valori.it/scambio-ineguale-nord-sud-mondo/). Valentina Neri
gives us an account of a study published in a scientific journal
(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095937802200005X)
that confirms what Mandel claimed with data from 1960:
"The article, published in the scientific journal Global Environmental
Change, traces financial flows between nations based on the MRIO
(Multi-Regional Input Output) model. From here, through an original
methodology, it estimates the resources and labor that the North has
appropriated. To then parameterize them on market prices and then
calculate their monetary value.
What emerges? That in 2015 the Global North appropriated 12 billion tons
of raw materials, 822 million hectares of land, 21 exajoules of energy,
188 million years of work. All resources that are incorporated into
goods and that, translated into money, would have a price of 10,800
billion dollars. Enough to put an end to extreme poverty; not once, but
70 times. During the 25 years examined, the drain from the Global South
reached a total of 242 thousand billion dollars, a quarter of the GDP of
the Global North. It is true, the authors emphasize, that industrialized
countries also give something in return through development aid. But it
is also true that the losses of the South exceed them by a good 30
times. The authors' conclusion is clear: "Our analysis confirms that
unequal exchange is a determining factor in global inequality, unequal
development and ecological collapse".
Some strategic indications emerge from Ernest Mandel's notes. First of
all, the possibility of socialist revolution even in underdeveloped
countries, without any democratic transition or national liberation.
Furthermore, the need for a spontaneous mobilization of peasants,
stimulated by the action of a political force that pushes them to a
voluntary mobilization, which therefore does not pass through the
conquest of political power and regimentation from above.
How far we are from the indications that Marx and Engels give in the
"Manifesto": "8. Equal obligation of work for all, institution of
industrial armies, especially for agriculture". The use of the word army
is not accidental, and it is precisely the expression that led Bakunin
to define the Marxist conception as "barracks communism". That Marx and
Engels refer precisely to an army, with its general staff, with its
plethora of marshals, sergeants and corporals, is demonstrated by the
application that Lenin and Trotsky made in the aftermath of the Russian
Revolution, with the militarization of the labor force. Mandel, on the
contrary, warns against any forced labor and insists on the voluntary
contribution of workers. We find ourselves faced with a strident
contradiction: what is the purpose of the government, the state if it
cannot establish a fixed and single plan of reconstruction, to be
imposed by love or by force, but must count on the voluntary
contribution, on the action of a political force external to it that
"mobilizes" to use Mandel's words the masses with propaganda and
example, I add, and not with force? What sense does it make, then, to
leave the social surplus in the hands of the state that has shown
itself, up to now, to be a center of corruption through the misdeeds of
its bureaucracy, a phenomenon that has affected the Soviet Union itself?
Luigi Fabbri wrote in "Dittatura e Rivoluzione":
"We are, as we have repeated many times, communists, because we believe
that the communist organization of production and consumption is the
most perfect type of socialism that can be implemented, in harmony with
the multiple needs of well-being and freedom of all men. We would
therefore like for ourselves the freedom to organize ourselves in
communism wherever we can and we will find people who agree with us. But
we will not pretend to impose our system on others by force, confident
that our example will be the best means of persuading others to follow
us, - just as the example of others can serve us to improve, modify, and
perfect our system.
Nothing will prevent us from experimenting with different systems in
certain branches of production, for certain types of consumption, as
long as the spirit of mutual support presides over us and others, for
exchanges, for common public services, etc., and as long as no system
permits any form of exploitation of man by man. Among the various types
of organization there may be more or less centralized ones, according to
the type of work, public service, environmental needs, etc. The systems
and organisms will gradually change, according to experience, following
the example of those that prove to be better, that is, less costly to
work and more useful and productive for the good of all.
Even in a completely anarchic regime, we are convinced that, while the
organization of production and consumption on a communist basis will be
the dominant type and the general rule, precisely because it will be a
free rule and not coercively imposed on all, it will not prevent the
existence - either by the will of individuals or by special needs of the
environment or work - of different forms of organization, collectivist,
mutualist, etc., and not even of some form of individual property, as
long as this does not imply subjection or exploitation of anyone."
One seems to hear an echo of Fabbri's words in Ernest Mandel's
reflections on forced labor. But Mandel was a leader of the Fourth
International, the organization created by Leo Trotsky with the
Leninists who dissidents from Stalinist orthodoxy, but who still declare
themselves Leninists. Mandel's writing is another testimony to the
confusion that reigns in authoritarian currents, especially after the
end of the Soviet Union, the return of capitalism in the areas that were
part of it, and the growth of state capitalism in China. Faced with the
prospect of the next social revolution, this increases the
responsibility of the anarchist movement towards the exploited classes
of the world. We must study, we must organize, we must spread our
proposals for the victory of the revolution first, to orient society on
new bases that exclude exploitation and domination from relationships
between people.
Tiziano Antonelli
https://umanitanova.org/allarrembaggio-del-futuro-3-parte/
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