Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century

I am at the end of this book. I recommend it. You just need some updated figures while you are reading.

The Globalisation of Production, Super-Exploitation and the Crisis of Capitalism

Two major factors cause capitalist crisis: declining profitability and overproduction. I am not convinced that the latter is a major factor. The problem is not that capitalism produces too much, but that what it is produced is not provided to the global population. Half of the world population is unable to buy what is produced or buys too little of what is produced because it is too poor.

That means that lack of investment in large swathes of the world–Latin America and South Africa, Africa, parts of the Middle East and Asia–unemployment, precarity, etc. deprives half of the world from getting access to what is produced. Those who produce get little or almost nothing from what they produce.

According to the WHO “around 45% of deaths among children under 5 years of age are linked to undernutrition. These mostly occur in low- and middle-income countries.”

Capitalist production also wastes or destroys huge amounts of what it generates.

It not a problem of underconsumption, either, for in the advanced capitalist countries, many people ‘consume’ more than what they need and needs themselves are manufactured. 900 million tonnes of food are thrown away every year. UK, for example wastes more food than any other European country.

Instead of the overproduction argument, I think that exploring combined and uneven development of capitalism is crucial in understanding both capitalist crisis and capitalist form of development. While exploitation takes place within the production process, crisis are generated by the decline of profit but also by the way capitalism develops nationally, regionally and globally.

Determinism should be avoided. Stating that the capitalist crisis that ‘began’ in 2007/08 is ‘capitalism’s final crisis’–in the title of the book and on p. 316–is a deterministic statement. After all, despite the crises, wars and revolutions of the twentieth century, capitalism survived. In fact, it has consolidated its system globally. If the history of capitalism tells a thing, it is its dynamism albeit at a cost of surviving its cyclical crises. In addition, there has not been any force or an alternative in the last 40 years that has challenged the system.

Although many in the West question ‘democracy’, capitalism as a whole is rarely questioned.

Comments

Ursula Le Guin on Capitalism

I think hard times are coming, when we will be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, and can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies, to other ways of being. And even imagine some real grounds for hope. We will need writers who can remember freedom: poets, visionaries— the realists of a larger reality . Right now, I think we need writers who know the difference between production of a market commodity and the practice of an art. The profit motive is often in conflict with the aims of art. We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable; so did the divine right of kings. … Power can be resisted and changed by human beings; resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art—the art of words. I’ve had a long career and a good one, in good company, and here, at the end of it, I really don’t want to watch American literature get sold down the river. ... The name of our beautiful reward is ...

The Qarmatians (Al-Qaramita)

By Nadeem Mahjoub Documentary film-makers G. Troeller and M. C. Defarge once asked a cabinet minister in South Yemen, why socialistic ideas were so readily acceptable in that part of the Arab world. He replied: “Because we have been communists for a thousand years! My mother was Qarmatian.” Official Muslim scholars and clerics, and many so-called moderates (whether individuals or groups) oppose sedition ( fitna ). Tensions and contradictions in society should be solved peacefully and even if the ruler was unjust and impious, it is generally accepted he should still be obeyed, for any kind of order is better than anarchy and sedition. “The tyranny of a sultan for a hundred years causes less damage than one year’s tyranny exercised by the subjects against one another.” Revolt was justified only against a ruler who clearly went against the command of God and His prophet.” 1 Here we look at not what happened in the minds of people who call for calm, oppose dissent and preach the re...

"A second position argues against transition, which is transitology itself. It is well known—especially among economists—as the sudden mobilization of a considerable mass of experts who are generally foreigners,generally Western, who come to preach the good word and to propose ready-made models of democracy. The science of the transition has become a financial windfall, a market. And the word transition has of course become a reflex of language, a term of reference, a call for tenders ( appel d’offres ) to which the whole society was supposed to respond. Consequently, the reticence that one can express is the following: our history is framed, transition is a heteronomy. Every democratic revolution is henceforth supposed to take a unique, imposed path, which is, at the same time, indistinctly democratic and liberal (or neoliberal). A more or less non-“negotiable” package. It is necessary to highlight the imposed character (and imposed from the outside) of this coming to t...

Women and Sex Work in Syria, Tunisia, Morocco and the West

A long exchange How much is the condition of syrian women changing under the new regime? The condition of Syrian women under the new transitional government following the fall of the Assad regime is changing in a highly contradictory manner, marked by symbolic high-level appointments juxtaposed against a sharp decline in overall political representation, deteriorating legal protections, and a severe humanitarian crisis. While the interim administration promotes an image of inclusivity, women’s rights groups and activists express deep concern over an increasingly patriarchal and conservative political environment. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] The transition has impacted Syrian women across several distinct areas: 📉 Declining Political Representation Marginal Parliamentary Presence : In the transitional elections, women won just 6 out of 119 seats (roughly 4%) in the new parliament. This is a severe drop from the 10% to 13% representation they held under the Assad ...

UK

"We are all in it together" A letter from a doctor to Boris Johnson published a few months ago: ' Johnson has contributed to thousands of deaths ' Related 'The greatest global science failure for a generation' 'Herd immunity' or lockdown

Over 51,000 refugee children missing across Europe

Putting a Racist in Their Place

Middle Eastern Cinema

"The 20-year evolution of modern independent Middle Eastern cinema has been exciting, unpredictable, and in some cases, awe-inspiring. A few masterpieces have been made, such as Ala Eddine Slim’s Tlamess ; Shahram Mokri's Fish & Cat ; and Annemarie Jacir’s Wajib . Documentary filmmaking has experienced a major leap in form (see for example the likes of Suhaib Gasmelbari's Talking About Trees ; and Raed Andoni's Ghost-hunting ). And film-makers have gained the confidence and experience that previous generations lacked. But foreign money and international exposure have come at a price: the subject matter of films has become repetitive; simplistic liberal politics have become mandatory; and formal experimentation has become a gimmick rather than genuine artistic expression. People tell stories partially to redress historical silences, but if the stories and the resulting images are so ubiquitous, then what’s the point? And if the message and sentim...

Street art

Inside the Expert Bubble Talk All Is of War with Russia

“Neither China nor Russia today offers an ideological alternative to the existing order. As capitalist, oligarchic, extractivist states, they are fully integrated into the postwar global economic architecture.” The writers forget the inherent contradictions in capitalism that determine cooperation and conflict. China, not Russia, represents an economic and technological threat to the Western capitalist expansion (share of markets, extraction of resources, capital accumulation, etc), which in turn affects the social and economic relations in Western societies (domestic social conflicts). The threat of China is enough to create conflict between states. No ideological alternative is required. The writers seem to ignore the economic relative decline the major Western countries have been experiencing (in productivity, living standard, infrastructure, growth…) and how that impacts on the states's imperialist policies. In search of new geopolitics Le Monde diplomatique , October 2026 Exce...

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