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The Veins of the South Are Still Open: Debates Around the Imperialism of Our Time
Inequality is not an abstraction or a mere theoretical speculation; it makes itself tangible in the bodies of the oppressed from the South./Imperialism is the most appropriate category to understand this global inequality. It is urgent to give substance, according to our current times and struggles, to this powerful concept in explicative and historical terms associated with the struggles of peoples for their liberation. Imperialism is both a concept and a native category of emancipation projects from the South./Understanding how imperialism acts today, through which mechanism it acts, defining the depth of its crisis and the possibilities of alternative hegemonies, allows us to re-edit our commitment to the liberation of our people in the Global South. It helps us realize that, to the greatest extent possible, we should close the wound that implies the spoliation of our bodies, our culture, our common goods and our jobs./The essays in this book argue against neoliberal globalization, against the ‘there’s no choice’ argument. They call into question the role that imperialist countries give to our Southern economies as the ones that guarantee cheap food; the new (old) forms of labour exploitation; the characteristics of competence between large-scale capitals; a new military strategy of the United States in the context of the crisis of its hegemonic project; and the nodal points to interpret the hegemonic succession we are living in as an opportunity and as a risk at the same time.
178 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2020
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December 19, 2022
2020 debates on imperialism, from Global South perspectives…
The Good:
--So much of theorizing imperialism involves detailing the actions of the Global North (i.e. British and now the U.S. empires). Global North theorists are therefore well-positioned to research this. However, this leads to structural bias, where theory is assumed to originate from the Global North while the Global South only contribute with survivalist guerilla manuals.
--To counter this, LeftWord Books (New Dehli) and Tricontinental Institute for Social Research have compiled an All-Star group of theorists centered on Global South perspectives. One well-known disagreement is with David Harvey's use (misuse?) of “imperialism”; see exchanges between Harvey and Vijay Prashad: https://youtu.be/NVqPSF4IlfE?t=816 . For the more economic debate with the Patnaiks, see A Theory of Imperialism.
...Note: Michael Hudson also comes from what seems like conflicting perspectives (esp. Killing the Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Bondage Destroy the Global Economy), so it is curious when he shares so many similar geopolitical conclusions with Prashad: https://youtu.be/p7ERe-_YpKs
The Missing:
--Although the essays are meant to introduce theories, the theories themselves are advanced; a beginner not familiar with political economy theories (esp. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume 1) might be lost for 3/4 of the book.
--Slogging through Marx and the rest of academic political economy has made me more cautious given the mountain of assumptions, abstractions and varying interpretations on deep topics like value and systemic crisis; meanwhile, “progressive” reformists have been churning out accessible and pragmatic(!) presentations for much-wider audiences (ex. Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist). I’m not sure how best to remedy this.
--Below is my attempt to make this more accessible; feel free to comment for clarifications! And if this is too much theory but you'd still like a historical overview, the go-to is The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions.
Highlights:
1) “Value of money” and imperialism:
--Power couple Utsa Patnaik and Prabhat Patnaik summarize their theses from A Theory of Imperialism and The Value of Money:
i) Capitalism is a money-using system.
Note: Marx identifies in Vol. 1’s Ch.3 (maybe the best part in a problematic chapter) that money is both (a) “measure of value” (thus can be a store of value) and (b) “means of circulation” (i.e. exchange); these two functions can conflict.
ii) As a measure of value, much wealth is stored as money/money-denominated assets. Thus, stability of the “value of money” must be preserved i.e. should not decline relative to commodity prices, or else the wealthy will move away from storing money and onto storing commodities, threatening the money system of exchange.
iii) Imperialism plays a key role in the preservation of the “value of money”: firstly, the reserve army of labour (think colonized/globalized workforce) keeps down both the South’s money wages (thus keeping down the prices of their raw material exports, i.e. commodity prices) and North’s money wages (threat of outsourcing). This reserve army is preserved via primitive accumulation (i.e. dispossession) and income inequality/South’s jobless growth.
iv) Secondly, income deflation in the South keeps down their demand for South’s scarce commodities. The Patnaiks stress the importance of South’s scarce agricultural capabilities/land and Classical political economists’ fears of increasing commodity prices from “diminishing returns” in agriculture (see: The Agrarian Question in the Neoliberal Era: Primitive Accumulation and the Peasantry). This scarcity is made worse because imperialism prevents South state infrastructure/technologies from improving yields.
...Colonialism used “drain of wealth” via colonial taxes (see Utsa Patnaik’s “British Raj siphoned out $45 trillion from India” article) and deindustrialization. This gave the British empire a free ride to pay for goods from newly-industrializing US, Germany, etc.
…US imperialism uses neoliberal globalization policies (primitive accumulation/income inequality labour reserves/fiscal austerity, etc.)… “Value of money” is an even greater concern now due to Financialization! (I’d be curious how this can be synthesized with Hudson’s post-1971 US dollar-debt imperialism: https://youtu.be/paUgY6SGlgY)
v) Solution? de-link from neoliberal globalization’s capital + trade flows, which requires revitalizing nation state autonomy. (I see a strong synthesis with the geopolitical regionalism/multi-polarity of de-dollarization https://youtu.be/h45Bovld7Vk …and perhaps later an international trade currency like Keynes’ bancor described in Another Now: Dispatches from an Alternative Present).
…as you can see, every connection made results in a myriad of questions. See Patnaiks' magnum opus: Capital and Imperialism: Theory, History, and the Present
2) “Super-exploitation” of imperialism:
--Independent researcher John Smith unleashes a flamethrower on Marxists soft on imperialism (the full-length inferno is Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century: Globalization, Super-Exploitation, and Capitalism's Final Crisis); I assume I’m on board with much of Smith’s accusations, but right now I’m delirious from the fumes of his scorched-earth campaign.
i) Several factors from Marx’s Capital project have left a vacuum (and thus confusion) in theorizing imperialism by subsequent Marxists: Marx’s assumption of a uniform global development of industrial capitalist production + Vol. 1’s assumption of ideal markets (buy/sell at value) + unfinished Capital project.
ii) Smith’s main target are Marxists who downplay imperialism (imperialism = North/South differences in rate of exploitation); a key assumption is that Global North labour are more productive (thus supposedly more surplus value generated, so perhaps more exploited!). While imperialism should be blatantly visible, it takes effort to synthesize real-world observations with abstract theory. Smith dives into Vol. 1’s value theory to raise misinterpretations and fill in gaps, in particular for the rate of exploitation (s/v) and distinguishing value generated by labour-power (‘s’, based on length of time worked) vs. value of labour-power (‘v’, necessary time to produce labour’s means of subsistence, i.e. a plethora of social factors that Marx breezes through in a few pages in Ch.6).
iii) “Super-exploitation” in its most economized (narrow) definition is labour-power bought/sold (i.e. wages) below its value. Vol. 1’s assumption of ideal markets results in the absence of this third method of increasing surplus value (relegated to footnotes), instead focusing on method 1 (Absolute surplus-value, i.e. increasing length of work) and method 2 (Relative surplus-value, i.e. increasing productivity).
iv) Smith expands super-exploitation beyond under-remuneration of wages to consider the sociopolitical suppression of the South’s value of labour-power via reducing consumption, i.e. surplus labour, structural unemployment, repression/borders, lack of social security etc.
v) The conclusions are familiar with anti-imperialist Marxists: South’s higher exploitation allows South elites to live like North elites, while still generating greater outflows to the North. This privileges the North to lower domestic exploitation for a more-stable class compromise (welfare state).
vi) Productivity? Smith mines Marx regarding illusions of productivity differences between “skilled vs. unskilled” workers as well as capital composition (capital-intensive vs. labour-intensive), where bourgeois economists assume machinery generate more value when it is actually a transfer of value from labour-intensive sectors. I enjoyed the debunking of North’s higher qualifications/“cultural enrichment” arguments, with the example of Indian truck-driver vs. British counterpart (I believe I first heard this example from Ha-Joon Chang). Productivity arguments are further derailed since much of production have been outsourced to the South.
3) Competition and imperialism:
--E. Ahmet Tonak, co-author with Anwar Shaikh in Measuring the Wealth of Nations: The Political Economy of National Accounts, focuses on: “real competition” (as opposed to bourgeois “perfect competition” or heterodox “imperfect competition”/“monopoly”); this was a key framework in Shaikh’s Capitalism: Competition, Conflict, Crises (which seems epic, but I'm uncomfortable with its focus on “developed” capitalism, i.e. how does it engage with the necessity of imperialism?). The “real competition” relies on empirical data (but mostly “developed” countries?) and is described as war.
4) Geopolitics of imperialism:
--The remaining 2 scholars focus on the geopolitics, first the significance of Latin American resources and finally the rise of China.
--On China, a comrade recommended a useful article by the first essay's co-author Prabhat Patnaik comparing China’s revolution with India, in particular China’s semi-colonial preconditions, unique peasant revolution led by working class and its legacies/contradictions: https://www.cpim.org/marxist/199904_m...
-Vijay Prashad on a Marxist analysis of China: https://youtu.be/8-m-DZHLNGs
-aforementioned Vijay Prashad + Michael Hudson on China/US: https://youtu.be/p7ERe-_YpKs
The Good:
--So much of theorizing imperialism involves detailing the actions of the Global North (i.e. British and now the U.S. empires). Global North theorists are therefore well-positioned to research this. However, this leads to structural bias, where theory is assumed to originate from the Global North while the Global South only contribute with survivalist guerilla manuals.
--To counter this, LeftWord Books (New Dehli) and Tricontinental Institute for Social Research have compiled an All-Star group of theorists centered on Global South perspectives. One well-known disagreement is with David Harvey's use (misuse?) of “imperialism”; see exchanges between Harvey and Vijay Prashad: https://youtu.be/NVqPSF4IlfE?t=816 . For the more economic debate with the Patnaiks, see A Theory of Imperialism.
...Note: Michael Hudson also comes from what seems like conflicting perspectives (esp. Killing the Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Bondage Destroy the Global Economy), so it is curious when he shares so many similar geopolitical conclusions with Prashad: https://youtu.be/p7ERe-_YpKs
The Missing:
--Although the essays are meant to introduce theories, the theories themselves are advanced; a beginner not familiar with political economy theories (esp. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume 1) might be lost for 3/4 of the book.
--Slogging through Marx and the rest of academic political economy has made me more cautious given the mountain of assumptions, abstractions and varying interpretations on deep topics like value and systemic crisis; meanwhile, “progressive” reformists have been churning out accessible and pragmatic(!) presentations for much-wider audiences (ex. Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist). I’m not sure how best to remedy this.
--Below is my attempt to make this more accessible; feel free to comment for clarifications! And if this is too much theory but you'd still like a historical overview, the go-to is The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions.
Highlights:
1) “Value of money” and imperialism:
--Power couple Utsa Patnaik and Prabhat Patnaik summarize their theses from A Theory of Imperialism and The Value of Money:
i) Capitalism is a money-using system.
Note: Marx identifies in Vol. 1’s Ch.3 (maybe the best part in a problematic chapter) that money is both (a) “measure of value” (thus can be a store of value) and (b) “means of circulation” (i.e. exchange); these two functions can conflict.
ii) As a measure of value, much wealth is stored as money/money-denominated assets. Thus, stability of the “value of money” must be preserved i.e. should not decline relative to commodity prices, or else the wealthy will move away from storing money and onto storing commodities, threatening the money system of exchange.
iii) Imperialism plays a key role in the preservation of the “value of money”: firstly, the reserve army of labour (think colonized/globalized workforce) keeps down both the South’s money wages (thus keeping down the prices of their raw material exports, i.e. commodity prices) and North’s money wages (threat of outsourcing). This reserve army is preserved via primitive accumulation (i.e. dispossession) and income inequality/South’s jobless growth.
iv) Secondly, income deflation in the South keeps down their demand for South’s scarce commodities. The Patnaiks stress the importance of South’s scarce agricultural capabilities/land and Classical political economists’ fears of increasing commodity prices from “diminishing returns” in agriculture (see: The Agrarian Question in the Neoliberal Era: Primitive Accumulation and the Peasantry). This scarcity is made worse because imperialism prevents South state infrastructure/technologies from improving yields.
...Colonialism used “drain of wealth” via colonial taxes (see Utsa Patnaik’s “British Raj siphoned out $45 trillion from India” article) and deindustrialization. This gave the British empire a free ride to pay for goods from newly-industrializing US, Germany, etc.
…US imperialism uses neoliberal globalization policies (primitive accumulation/income inequality labour reserves/fiscal austerity, etc.)… “Value of money” is an even greater concern now due to Financialization! (I’d be curious how this can be synthesized with Hudson’s post-1971 US dollar-debt imperialism: https://youtu.be/paUgY6SGlgY)
v) Solution? de-link from neoliberal globalization’s capital + trade flows, which requires revitalizing nation state autonomy. (I see a strong synthesis with the geopolitical regionalism/multi-polarity of de-dollarization https://youtu.be/h45Bovld7Vk …and perhaps later an international trade currency like Keynes’ bancor described in Another Now: Dispatches from an Alternative Present).
…as you can see, every connection made results in a myriad of questions. See Patnaiks' magnum opus: Capital and Imperialism: Theory, History, and the Present
2) “Super-exploitation” of imperialism:
--Independent researcher John Smith unleashes a flamethrower on Marxists soft on imperialism (the full-length inferno is Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century: Globalization, Super-Exploitation, and Capitalism's Final Crisis); I assume I’m on board with much of Smith’s accusations, but right now I’m delirious from the fumes of his scorched-earth campaign.
i) Several factors from Marx’s Capital project have left a vacuum (and thus confusion) in theorizing imperialism by subsequent Marxists: Marx’s assumption of a uniform global development of industrial capitalist production + Vol. 1’s assumption of ideal markets (buy/sell at value) + unfinished Capital project.
ii) Smith’s main target are Marxists who downplay imperialism (imperialism = North/South differences in rate of exploitation); a key assumption is that Global North labour are more productive (thus supposedly more surplus value generated, so perhaps more exploited!). While imperialism should be blatantly visible, it takes effort to synthesize real-world observations with abstract theory. Smith dives into Vol. 1’s value theory to raise misinterpretations and fill in gaps, in particular for the rate of exploitation (s/v) and distinguishing value generated by labour-power (‘s’, based on length of time worked) vs. value of labour-power (‘v’, necessary time to produce labour’s means of subsistence, i.e. a plethora of social factors that Marx breezes through in a few pages in Ch.6).
iii) “Super-exploitation” in its most economized (narrow) definition is labour-power bought/sold (i.e. wages) below its value. Vol. 1’s assumption of ideal markets results in the absence of this third method of increasing surplus value (relegated to footnotes), instead focusing on method 1 (Absolute surplus-value, i.e. increasing length of work) and method 2 (Relative surplus-value, i.e. increasing productivity).
iv) Smith expands super-exploitation beyond under-remuneration of wages to consider the sociopolitical suppression of the South’s value of labour-power via reducing consumption, i.e. surplus labour, structural unemployment, repression/borders, lack of social security etc.
v) The conclusions are familiar with anti-imperialist Marxists: South’s higher exploitation allows South elites to live like North elites, while still generating greater outflows to the North. This privileges the North to lower domestic exploitation for a more-stable class compromise (welfare state).
vi) Productivity? Smith mines Marx regarding illusions of productivity differences between “skilled vs. unskilled” workers as well as capital composition (capital-intensive vs. labour-intensive), where bourgeois economists assume machinery generate more value when it is actually a transfer of value from labour-intensive sectors. I enjoyed the debunking of North’s higher qualifications/“cultural enrichment” arguments, with the example of Indian truck-driver vs. British counterpart (I believe I first heard this example from Ha-Joon Chang). Productivity arguments are further derailed since much of production have been outsourced to the South.
3) Competition and imperialism:
--E. Ahmet Tonak, co-author with Anwar Shaikh in Measuring the Wealth of Nations: The Political Economy of National Accounts, focuses on: “real competition” (as opposed to bourgeois “perfect competition” or heterodox “imperfect competition”/“monopoly”); this was a key framework in Shaikh’s Capitalism: Competition, Conflict, Crises (which seems epic, but I'm uncomfortable with its focus on “developed” capitalism, i.e. how does it engage with the necessity of imperialism?). The “real competition” relies on empirical data (but mostly “developed” countries?) and is described as war.
4) Geopolitics of imperialism:
--The remaining 2 scholars focus on the geopolitics, first the significance of Latin American resources and finally the rise of China.
--On China, a comrade recommended a useful article by the first essay's co-author Prabhat Patnaik comparing China’s revolution with India, in particular China’s semi-colonial preconditions, unique peasant revolution led by working class and its legacies/contradictions: https://www.cpim.org/marxist/199904_m...
-Vijay Prashad on a Marxist analysis of China: https://youtu.be/8-m-DZHLNGs
-aforementioned Vijay Prashad + Michael Hudson on China/US: https://youtu.be/p7ERe-_YpKs
February 27, 2021
O título me enganou; achei que seria um livro à la Galeano mas os textos reunidos foram muito difíceis de entender (pelo menos pra mim).
June 10, 2021
Se o título leva a crer que o livro se trata de uma sequência da obra de Galeano, "As veias abertas da América Latina", a realidade se mostra outra. Na coletânea de escritos, boa parte tem um conteúdo bastante ancorado na teoria marxista do valor, podendo então ser uma leitura difícil caso não se tenha domínio dos fundamentos da economia política marxista. Nesses casos, a proposta é um resgate das noções de geração de valor no capitalismo e sua atualização, para o embasamento de uma defesa da categoria imperialismo, ao tratar concepções como a superexploração do trabalho na periferia e transferência de valor para o centro do capital. Contudo, os demais artigos deixam de lado a teoria do valor e tratam mais especificamente de questões geopolíticas, ainda usando de categorias e conceitos referentes ao materialismo histórico dialético, mas em menor densidade teórica e portanto numa leitura mais fluida e tranquila. O artigo que encerra o livro, de autoria de Gabriel Merino, é particularmente proveitoso para pensar a transição política e econômica em andamento nos dias atuais, com a ascensão da China a um lugar de destaque nas relações comerciais e seu absurdo desenvolvimento industrial, militar e tecnológico.
December 21, 2022
TE ODEIO ESTADOS UNIDOS
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