Table Of ContentSPRINGER BRIEFS ON PIONEERS IN SCIENCE
AND PRACTICE TEXTS AND PROTOCOLS 17
Samir Amin
Theory is History
SpringerBriefs on Pioneers in Science
and Practice
Texts and Protocols
Volume 17
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Samir Amin
Theory is History
123
ThirdWorldForum(TWF)
Forum du Tiers Monde (FTM)
Samir AminProf.Dr.
Directeur Forum duTiers Monde
RueMoussé Diop,Dakar,Sénégal
Paris
France
ISSN 2194-3125 ISSN 2194-3133 (electronic)
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Foreword
ThisanthologyfollowstheselectionoftextspublishedunderthetitleSamirAmin,
PioneeroftheRiseoftheSouth.Thetextschosenfocusonacentralconceptwhich
can be concisely formulated as Theory is History, meaning that the theory of
capitalism can only be formulated on the basis of an analysis of its history. In
contrast, bourgeois thinking replaces the analysis of historical capitalism with an
abstracttheorywithoutanylinkstoreality.‘Economics’,whichisthetheoryofan
imaginary system, then becomes an apologia which reminds us of the medieval
debates about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, and whose sole
function is to give legitimacy to the behaviour of the owners of capital.
My views are those of an independent Marxist in that they do not necessarily,
and definitely not unconditionally, belong to any school of thought of historical
MarxismasformulatedbypartiesthatclaimtobeinspiredbyMarx.Nevertheless,
I do not belong either to the purely academic sphere chosen by others, who
I consequently believe to be Marxologists rather than Marxists. I am a militant
whointendstocontributeto‘changingtheworld’.Thisiswhy,whenIdefendmy
opinion, I do so without any criticism of those who also intend to act from a
socialist perspective by joining a party.
Does the reading of historical capitalism I propose add anything to Marx’s
teachings?Ibelieveso(butthereadermustdecide),sinceIpayspecificattentionto
the globalization of the law of value in this interpretation. This is why I have
decided to begin this anthology with the theoretical and political conclusions that
I drew from formulating the globalized law of value. The chapters following
illustratemythesis(TheoryisHistory)byfocusingonthelinksbetweencapitaland
ownership (Chap. 2), between modernity and religious interpretation (Chap. 3),
and on questions of the global expansion of capitalism (Chaps. 4–6), and on the
particular ways it has unfolded in certain countries, in this case Russia and China
(Chaps. 7 and 8).
This anthology supplements my previous work, centred on the Rise of the
South—my reading of capitalism having been one of the unfolding of its impe-
rialist nature.
v
vi Foreword
Photograph of Samir Amin. Source Photo from the author’s personal photo
collection
Foreword vii
PhotographofSamirAmininDakar,WorldSocialForum,February2011.Source
Photo from the author’s personal photo collection
Photograph of Samir Amin in Bamako, World Social Forum, 2006. Source Photo
from the author’s personal photo collection
Contents
1 The Globalized Law of Value. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
2 Capitalism and Ground Rent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.1 Rent and the Ownership of the Soil: Going Back to Capital. . . . 9
2.2 From the Capitalist Mode of Production to Capitalist
Formations: Class Alliances and the Creation of the World
Capitalist System. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.3 The Development of Capitalism in Agriculture:
The Theories of Kautsky, Lenin, and Chayanov . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.4 The Domination of Agriculture by the Capitalist
Mode of Production. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
3 Modernity and Interpretations of Religions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3.1 The Flexibility of Religious Interpretations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3.2 Judaism, Christianity, Islam, One or Three
Religious Metaphysics? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
3.3 Religion and Society: The Risk of Theocracy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
3.4 The Reformation, The Ambiguous Expression
of Christianity’s Adaptation to Modernity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
3.5 Political Islam. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
3.5.1 The European Renaissance and the Arab Nahda. . . . . . . 52
3.5.2 Contemporary Political Islam. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
4 Re-reading the Post War Period. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
4.1 The Postwar Period, 1945–1992: An Overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
4.2 Establishing the Global Economic System: 1945–1955 . . . . . . . 61
4.3 The Bandung Era: 1955–1975. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
4.4 The Collapse of the Global System: 1975–1992 . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
4.5 Establishing the Global Economic System: 1945–1955 . . . . . . . 67
ix
x Contents
5 Historical Capitalism: Accumulation by Dispossession. . . . . . . . . . 79
5.1 Capitalism: A Parenthesis in History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
5.1.1 The Twentieth Century: The First Wave of Socialist
Revolutions and the Awakening of the ‘South’. . . . . . . . 85
5.1.2 Bandung and the First Globalization
of the Struggles (1955–1981). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
5.2 The Long Decline of Capitalism and the Long Transition
to World Socialism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
5.2.1 The Counter-offensive of Capitalism in Decline. . . . . . . 87
5.2.2 In Counterpoint: The Aims and Means of a Strategy
of Constructing Convergence in Diversity . . . . . . . . . . . 88
5.2.3 For a Socialist Renewal of the Twenty First Century:
The Capitalism/Socialism Conflict and the North/South
Conflict are Inseparable. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
5.3 The Plutocratic Oligarchies and the End
of Bourgeois Civilisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
5.3.1 The Wheeler-dealers, The New Dominant Class
in the Peripheries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
5.3.2 Senile Capitalism and the End of Bourgeois
Civilization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
5.3.3 The Fragility of Capitalist Globalisation . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
5.3.4 Is Lucidity Possible in the Transformative Activities
of Societies?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
6 The Two Paths of Historical Development: The Contrast
Between Europe and China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
6.1 The General and the Particular in the Trajectories
of Humanity’s Evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
6.2 The Peasant Question at the Heart of the Opposition Between
the European and Chinese Development Paths . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
6.3 Modern China Before Europe. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
6.4 The Great Pre-modern Regionalisations and the Centralisation
of the Tributary Surplus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
6.5 The Centralisation of Tributary Surplus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
6.6 The Chinese Itinerary: A Long, Calm River? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
6.7 Phonetic Writing, Conceptual Writing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
6.8 China was Five Centuries Ahead of Europe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
7 Russia in the World System: Geography or History? . . . . . . . . . . 107
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
Contents xi
8 China: The Emerging Nation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
8.1 The Agrarian Question. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
8.2 Present and Future of Petty Production . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
8.3 Chinese State Capitalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
8.4 The Integration of China into Capitalist Globalization. . . . . . . . 122
8.5 China, Emerging Power. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
8.6 Great Successes, New Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
World Forum for Alternatives. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
About the Book. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
