 I'd just like to welcome Samir into our midst. Since everybody has come here to listen to him, he obviously needs no introduction. I just want to say one thing, that of all the third world intellectuals, there is nobody else I know whose commitment, whose dedication, and whose insight in the struggle against imperialism is as great as that of Samir Amin. I would like to welcome him to our midst and request him to give his speech. Thank you, Rabat, for saying more than I deserve, in fact. We are many of that type. But first, let me thank the organizer. Click. News click. With which I had just an interview on what is going on in the Arab world. Now, and thanks to all of you comrades and friends. Now, I think that we cannot speak of 21st century socialism without speaking of 21st century capitalism. And therefore I will start with that. That is, what are the major important fundamental changes in the capitalist system and I cannot dissociate capitalism from imperialism. And I think we should not dissociate at any point in time. In order to analyze what are the weaknesses, the contradictions of that system. And therefore to, after that, to look into what is the strategy, not the conspiracy, but the strategy of the major reactionary forces which defend and represent the interest of that capital at that point in time. That would be the prerequisite for being able to identify what counter strategy of what alternative strategies we should try to develop with a view of opening the moving ahead on the long road to global socialism and we would say global communism. From global capitalism and imperialism to global communism. Now, without giving a recipe a blueprint of what is that global communism. But starting therefore from the beginning, what is current, what is contemporary capitalist imperialist system. Now I submit that it's not enough to qualify it as monopoly capital. It's monopoly capital since the end of the 19th century and this monopoly capital has itself moved through stages. It's not enough to say that this capitalism of today has moved into a deep crisis not starting with the financial breakdown of 2008 but starting in the 70s of last century to which capital reacted. Now I have written elsewhere compare the long crisis, the first long crisis of modern capitalism starting in the 80s of 19th century and ending with the end of the Second World War and compared it with the first stages of the second long crisis of capitalism because I think there is a parallel, a very important parallel to do but that's not the point I want to raise. Now monopoly capital answered, responded to that crisis at the beginning from the mid 70s of last century when the rates of growth fell suddenly and never recovered to half of what they had been during the previous 30 years after World War II, monopoly capital reacted to that, responded to that challenge of a big crisis starting by one set of measures which was a higher degree of centralization of the control and I'm saying the control not the property of capital and that included or led to also reshaping the pattern of globalization into what is called in commonly globalization today that is the present pattern of globalization as compared to previous patterns of globalization and that led to the financialization of the system and that led to the deepening of the crisis and not correcting and not ending the crisis. Now I submit that in a very short period between 75 and 90, that is 15 years there has been an accelerated and tremendous move up in the centralization of the control of capital and that is a qualitative change it's not just a little more centralization of capital as compared to the previous periods of monopoly capital it is a qualitative change and if it is a qualitative change it has to be given a name I have given it a very banal vulgar name generalized monopoly capital call it as you want that's not important. What is the difference between this at that stage of centralization of capital and the previous stages that we have reached a point where through that centralized control of capital monopoly capital is controlling everything that is controlling directly or indirectly all types of production all throughout the world there are no more segments of economic life which are relatively autonomous from monopoly capital as they were as there have been for 150 years before and that's a qualitative change by controlling upstream and downstream for instance agriculture is controlled upstream and agriculture everywhere in India as well as in Europe as in the United States upstream by those who provide credit inputs, seeds and so on downstream by those who control monopoly who control the commercialization and so on and that degree, that high level of centralization of capital led to one gigantic change which is the capacity of this monopoly capital to pump out of the surplus value produced by labor all over the world to the benefit of a growing and fast-going monopoly rent which at the global level is an imperialist monopoly rent imperialist and monopoly rent cannot be dissociated now that is the reason for the growing inequality and simultaneously the breaking down the low levels of growth in the centers I will come to the emerging countries later now that is a qualitative change I submit that it should be central to our understanding of the present prices there are descriptions of the present prices multiple facets it's ecological facets it's labor-relation facets it's all kinds and sorts, all facets of the problem okay but that's not enough because all those facets of the crisis are related directly I submit to that centralization and that is a qualitative change I insist upon on this point because I feel a little lonely on this point in spite of the fact that all the studies that I have seen which are analytical of what has happened at the level of centralization of capital do provide, do support my assumption which becomes a thesis which becomes a major point now we start from there that change, qualitative change which as I said involved implied reshaping the globalization that was achieved through the so-called structural adjustment plans and the move from the national popular policies of development as we have seen in the previous period in the 30 or 40 years 30 years say of the Bandung non-alignment period into submitting, accepting the recipe of the so-called neoliberal privatization dismantling of the public services, etc, etc and that led to a pattern and I would use the word of my late old friend André Gouda-Franck, Lumpen development not the Lumpen development that he analyzed correctly with respect to another continent Latin America and in other period of history but a Lumpen development corresponding to the needs of the reproduction of that level of centralization of capital this is a very important point because otherwise we attribute the present pattern of globalization to our own weaknesses I mean the failure of really existing socialist the failure of national popular development and so on which are part of the picture but which are not really at the roots of the qualitative change now that qualitative change led to gigantic political consequences which I shall speak now first consequence it led, it created the objective basis for a new pattern of imperialism that is the collective imperialism of the triad US, Europe and Japan to simplify that was not the pattern of imperialists who are the previous ages of capitalism which was to be conjugated in the plural imperialist powers in permanent not only competition but even war among themselves and it being replaced by a collective imperialism it means that because at that level of centralization of capital there is a clear consciousness of that dominant monopoly generalize which I call generalize monopoly capital call it as you want, generalize monopoly capital to manage together the world and I'll come to what it means managing the world according to their own needs for the production of that system that is a gigantic change because it doesn't mean I have no time to go into that it's not my subject into the eventual secondary contradictions between a number of countries in Europe, not Europe and the United States perhaps etc etc but it means that there is this clear conception and it is reflected in the alignment of NATO countries behind not the hegemonic power but the leader because of military means of that leader the United States and we can see it daily and it leads also to the alignment of the compradors bourgeoisies and compradors states which are the majority in the south presently on that pattern of globalization and that pattern of management of the global system now that is one major consequence the other no less major consequence at the political level it has changed and I'll come to the social level that is the organization of classes with a stress perhaps or a focus on the changes in our societies of the south taking into account at least recognizing the diversity of cases but still it has led to a terrific dramatic change in political life that is until that, until that point in time let's say left and right as historically existing left and right whether in the north the bourgeois conservative reactionary eventually and the middle class working class progressive to various degrees social democracy had a meaning and similarly the conflict between right and left in our countries which means the old compradors allied with our old language the feudal and I don't know what on the one hand and the progressive national bourgeoisie popular support and eventually the radical left among them the communist and so on had also a meaning now that meaning is lost because at that centralization level of centralization of capital the political personnel if we call it so our employees our employees of abstract capital we have moved from we have moved to a level where capital is abstract capital the capitalism which was embodied in capitalists which were names usually men families rooted somewhere with all owners of a factory here and there has disappeared it is the property of you don't know whom it is controlled by you don't know whom and all these are employees and that reflects also we have a political personnel whether with a label left or right who are employees employees and are for sure with respect to the media perhaps not click what is it a news click but unfortunately it's a minor minor means for the media as compared to the others so and that is a gigantic change and a gigantic challenge for the radical left for our tradition of communist left because we are dealing with another pattern of society with another pattern of management of power now what is the strategy of that generalized monopoly capital to manage that world and there I'll come to the emerging countries on one hand perhaps the countries that we should call the sinking countries on the other hand the destroyed countries and I belong to countries which are targets for destruction by imperialism today the Middle East countries and the others but also not only the distinction among them what is also common because this is very important very important if we have in mind that there will be no step ahead towards socialism if there is not some common coming together I don't mean repeating a bandung there are no never remaking history remakes are bad films usually and you know that Mumbai is producing a lot of remakes but something of that kind now on that ground what we have had on the one hand we have the so called emerging countries who are they they are the countries which during the previous wave the first long crisis and as part of the answer to the first long crisis what was the answer to the first long crisis it was not a recipe produced by Keynes or somebody else no the answer to the first long crisis was a number of insignificant events such as World War I the Russian Revolution the breakdown of 29 Nazism, Imperial Japan the Second World War the Revolution and the Vietnamese Revolution the national independence movement of Asia and Africa these were the insignificant events which changed the world and which were the response to the first long crisis so we are exactly at a point where we are challenged by we are moving into such a period call it as you want wars and revolutions war is already on the agenda revolution not yet but some kinds of uprisings and so on now that is what is facing that challenge the strategy of now the emerging countries therefore were those which at the previous what was the previous wave the first wave of among this insignificant events you have the Russian Revolution in a periphery the Chinese Revolution in a periphery the Vietnamese and later the Cuban in peripheries the movement of national independence which changed the world more than than anything else which was in the peripheries social democracy in the west these changes this response to the crisis created the conditions for the emerging countries of today it is not by pure chance that the most successful and perhaps in my view the only successful emerging country is China is the one which had gone through the most advanced radical revolution among the periphery the most advanced radical revolution among the peripheries as compared to the limited limited in its radicality movement of national liberation in the rest of Asia and Africa in the sense that due to their success the first wave of building the basis the objective basis through the revolution, radicalization and so on the objective basis through the relative delinking in a relatively auto-centered development created the conditions for being able compelling during a period of 30 years maybe imperialist to adjust the opposite of structural adjustment where we are requested to adjust to the demands of the reproduction of generalized monopoly capital control over the world during that period it was the reverse they adjusted but they adjusted successfully in the sense that the center of gravity of the means of controlling moved from having the monopoly of industry centers and peripheries were almost synonymous of industrialized versus non-industrialized or de-industrialized countries of the south to the control of the five what I'm calling the five monopolies or calling the five advantages the control of technologies the exclusive access to the natural resources of the world the building of an integrated monetary and financial system controlled by them the media controlled by them and finally the armament of massive destruction if you are naughty we can bomb you it will be called humanitarian bombing of course so these are the ways and means by which on the one hand you had the emerging countries number one China number two or two and a half one and a half I don't know and one third India, Brazil and others that is facing having that capacity for a short period to achieve high rates of growth by capitalist means but different capitalist means I would call them state capitalism in the case of China even if they are so-called private owners of capital and in the frame of the globalized integrated market now but for a short period now those countries are facing and China is facing successfully that is having a strategy which reduces and perhaps will annihilate those advantages of global capitalism of global imperialism on the field of technologies which they are not only absorbing the capacity by themselves on the access to natural resources and I will come to that point because it is the main area of conflict on while the monetary and financial integrated system is breaking down and will break down more and more by its own internal contradiction and of course armament unfortunately at the level of media who are zeros or close to zero globally and in the south in particular now these are the emerging countries but now the major battlefront is that this system in order to produce the exclusive continuation of the domination of that the collective imperialism of the triad not the triad plus was corrupted in the G20 this is a masquerade they are not corrupted it's a tactic too and you just look at what comes out of the G20 it's close to zero to understand that this is a masquerade but in order to reproduce itself this system has to has to and cannot do and otherwise ensure the exclusive access to the natural resources of the whole planet in order to reproduce in society as it is with all the waste and ecological consequences that we know etc etc I do not deny this dimension at all but I don't think that it comes by itself because of the scarcity of natural resources of the misuse and perhaps even misunderstanding philosophical misunderstanding of the relation between humankind and nature and so on this comes as a result necessary result of the logic of the reproduction of that generalized monopoly capital and not as a reason by itself a force operating by itself now the the target is that exclusive control how to ensure that exclusive control of the access to the natural resources therefore depriving of course eventually or limiting eventually and that is containment the emerging countries particularly China for the access to those natural resources outside its boundaries but which is a strategy of containment with a view to rolling back in the future just similar to the strategy which developed for 70 years vis-à-vis the Soviet Union of that time but also depriving all the others which count for zero access to those natural resources from the logic of this generalized monopoly capital Africa is important because it has resources but Africans are rather an obstacle than anything else and that can be said et cetera et cetera including in the emerging countries and I will come to this point with respect to India you have simultaneously emerging India development of India for the majority and the two associated the two associated cannot be dissociated now that is their strategy it is a strategy which implies the military control of the planet and that was developed by what was formulated by Clinton not by Bush could not formulate anything by Clinton before Bush in the project of the 21st American Century American Century is not correct it is the collective of the Triad with not hegemony but with a leadership of the US for the 21st century that means the military control of the planet and the military control of the planet means able to contain containment eventually later or earlier through a pre-emptive war and that was written in the reports signed by Clinton against China and perhaps also Russia and India if the Indians are naughty but they are not naughty for the time being I mean the state and the ruling class et cetera that is a strategy of war it is that strategy of war which is in my opinion the explanation of the choice by the collective imperialism of the Triad and by its leader the United States the first strike on the Middle East countries in order to not only to control directly oil which is not unimportant but also to be Baghdad is at equal distance from London, Venezuela, Beijing and Singapore to control our old world as we say and therefore prepare for the step that implied the destruction of the societies of the region the destruction of the societies of the region and this I don't want to go I have started at 6 and 5 so I should until 10 to 7 I have a watch not an Egyptian one Japanese Japanese that is the strategy it is a strategy of war destruction of countries if I had time I would say the model is Iraq that is destroying a country by replacing a dictatorship but one which was what it was by three uglier dictatorships in the name of religion and ethnicity and by systematic assassination of all the intelligentsia of the country from engineers scientists including poets and so on systematically that is being said about Katyn and the Russians and Soviet in Katyn well two presidents of United States have assassinated much more Iraqis than were assassinated in Katyn and nobody says anything about their crimes so that is the pattern now that pattern includes therefore through this military control which means that it is a kind of call it development if you wish of economic reproduction in which the survival activities grow more than any other pattern of new modern productive activities survival economy and this is at the root of the rhetoric and policies of reducing poverty good governance fight corruption all those which are nothing else but management of properization in order to make it politically acceptable not acceptable but politically accepted and this is what I think this system is not sustainable it's not only not sustainable for ecological reason this is actual and real but it is also politically not only morally but politically not sustainable and the proof of it is that there is those movements of resistance explosion of prizes everywhere it will come everywhere etc etc that means that we have reached a point where really existing capitalist imperialist system at that point in history is an obsolete system which has nothing to offer but apartheid on a global scale destruction of the small minority that we represent the Asians, the Africans and the Latin Americans, 85% of humankind our destruction, nothing else now that lumpen development whether associated with emerging or not emerging that lumpen development has indeed changed completely and I come to the last part of what is the alternative to that has changed completely the map of let's say class construction, class structures that is that we have now a wider proletariat than we had at any point in time before because before we had working people, working classes but in different modes of productions which were interlinked and submitted to the domination of capital but some of them could be called our own language pre-capitalist whatever you call them feudal or not etc etc a petty production but relatively autonomous all interlinked with a certain pattern of distribution of classes accordingly now we have a very different pattern of the distribution of classes in which we have a wider proletariat but with more segmentation and fragmentation that is taking the form of a big variety of integration in the all submitted productive systems including the informal they are not marginal marginal or out of the system they are completely integrated in that it is part of the spiral down of surviving lumped development surviving activities inflating and developing at higher rates in employment of people if one can say etc etc and now we are facing that that is we have to conceive but that creates for us a gigantic opportunity which is that there is the objective ground if we if the radical left take it properly and I have no blueprint to say you should do this and that because it is different from one country to another for sure but it has something in common we have the objective ground for building an alternative historical block say to use Ramshi's language an alternative historical block I would call it anti-compador the new compador that is the small minority but which is benefiting from the increasing inequalities in which includes some segments of the middle class not necessarily the whole middle class depending on time and perhaps it included a good part of the middle class some time ago in India but now they are attacked by capital less and less so a broad alliance and this is the challenge this challenge should lead to if we meet the challenge correctly and as I said no blueprint but this is a challenge for the radical left because one of the two things that is we facing that those this challenge we have two alternatives of two choices one is to adjust to the system respond day after day to the immediate challenges of the system that is leaving the initiative in the hands of generalized monopoly capital and its local compador servants and allies and I think moving from defeat to defeat even if the movement of resistance grows no victories adjusting and this can be given some apparent legitimacy by saying well the crisis is so hard that we ought and capitalism has hard skin we cannot get rid of it and therefore moving out or trying to move out of the crisis of capitalism ending the crisis of capitalism helping capitalism to end its own crisis I think this would lead nowhere but to defeat nowhere but this is a challenge for the radical left for us for the communists all over the world and I feel it in as well as it could be felt I think in any other place including India the other alternative is to understand that this system which has reached the stage of becoming objectively obsolete capitalism this crisis might be its autumn the autumn of this system now how to have this autumn of the system coinciding with the spring of the peoples not only the Arabs but all that is of and this is another alternative not ending the crisis of participating to trying to end helping capital to move out of its crisis with no success because this crisis is due to the internal contradictions of that system and not to our attack on it and therefore those internal contradictions will deepen the crisis will continue to deepen the crisis whatever they do and whatever we would do to help them to do it and it will always be wrong and always be deceitful from our point of view the alternative we move to the offensive that is we move to that is the historical opportunity to start moving out of capitalism crisis of capitalism periods by developing and this is where I say independent initiative now I conclude on that independent initiative we had a parallel but a parallel is always dangerous to stress too much on it after World War II Bandung and non-alignment did not came out of the head of it came out of us the communists we started imagining a strategy of offensive and that led with all the water put in the wine of course to Bandung and to non-alignment etc etc now we have to in other conditions to move to such independent initiative of initiative of whom of the peoples of the nations and of the states I go back tomorrow on that the three levels of reality of the peoples meaning the popular classes and I would call them the new vast proletariat with its segmentation without starting there nothing else will change it will not come convincing the governments or the wishful thinking people to change or through a so-called consensus we are all in the same boat and there is a menace on the earth and therefore etc the naive ecological vision the naive because the ecological question is really is but it will not come so it has to start there and this is the challenge so the radical left associated to it is the national question call it as you want that is the so-called cultural I don't know what I would call them political culture not culture stressing on language religion I don't know what but on the political culture of the people that is fighting for a really pluricentric not hegemony you know the Chinese word hegemony is replacing imperialism because it's no more fashionable to say imperialism a pluricentric globalization that is a globalization which allows for a room of maneuver for the ruling classes and the states but also for the popular classes within states which have a wider room of maneuver and this is where we should be radical but not left this in the bad words meaning of the world that is do not do not value down the capacity of states to change we have the example of Latin America which has only initiated some changes precisely because they were stronger movement earlier than we have which took some initiatives which brought some changes positive but limited and so on so I stop at that point because it is time for discussion I'm afraid that I did not give an answer to the question raised what is to be done with labor today but I think that is part of the overall picture thank you