 So thank you Gilbert. Thank you, all of you. I'm invited to present to you a reading, my reading, of the 60 last year, say, from after World War II to this day, which happened to coincide to my active life from the age of 20 until now, and in which I was continuously, and I continue to be as long as possible, involved as an activist of what I would say the rise of the south, the renaissance of the south. Now, I noticed recently that I had read Karl Marx's capital four times in my life, exactly every 20 years at the age of 20, 40, 60, 80, which happened to have coincided with important changes in the deployment of the global system. And each time, therefore, I read it a little differently because asking myself the questions of the time, and I did find a lot of instruments to understand it, but I remained unsatisfied each time in the sense that my exclusive or major central question, which is why capitalism is polarizing and why the countries which are the majority of humankind have been unable to catch up, that is to become similar to in their capitalist development to the centers. I did not find any answer in Marx, but instead of thinking as many people that well, that means that Marx belongs to the past, I thought just that it was unfinished and that the answer to the question could not be an economic answer, but should use or make use of the instruments of historical materialism that is associating the economic dimension of social life with all the rest, which is no less important. And I think until now that there are no better tools in the sense that any alternative tool to try to understand the world, whether Weber or whether anybody else is far less efficient than using the Marx tools, far less efficient, not to say about conventional economics, which is really something of no value at all. Therefore, I may say that I have never been an economist of development or a development economist. I have been a critic of development economics even before development economics existed as such. My PhD thesis, which was written in 54-55, the title of which, the real title, Accumulation on World Scale, was an anti-Rostov six years before the book of Rostov on Stages of Development appeared, that it was rejecting a theory of linear development, which could be reproduced with time lag from the north to the south, say, precisely because the system was global, and that the logic of the system was creating, producing and reproducing and deepening polarization. That is the impossibility of catching up. And since development economics is the art to catch up, it's simply a formulation which does not coincide with the historical possibility, and therefore it is necessarily nonsense, useless at least. Now, that being saying, I would add to that that my reading today, which was gradually, of course, I don't think that everything was in my head already at the age of 20, it would be absolutely ridiculous, but which developed gradually my reading of historical capitalism to use Wallerstein's phrase or call it as you want really existing capitalism, capitalism as a historical reality has a trajectory which is far different from the usual vision of let's say Eurocentric, also more the reading of history of civilization, and which is more different even from the reading, the poor reading or the non-reading of conventional economics. That is a very long preparatory, a very long preparation, maybe ten centuries, not just the three last centuries so-called mercantilists, and not involving exclusively, but only late, some European societies but starting rather in the east, starting with China at the time of the Song in the 10th century. A series of waves with each wave coming after the other and building a little more until perhaps the last well-known wave, Eurocentric, the wave of mercantilism from the discovery and the conquest of the Americas, the people who were there had discovered it before, but the conquest of the Americas 1500 to the double evolution, the English industrial revolution and the French political revolution end of 18th century. Then a very short period, very short period of mature capitalism appearing in all, it's the 19th century, a short period, very short period in history, and it was precisely the time of Marx who understood and explained the logic, the historical logic and the way that this system is reproducing itself in that 19th century. Then starting very early, what I would call today a long decline, starting with this mature capitalism moving fast towards the end of the 19th century to monopoly capital, that is the opposite of what is being called about transparent competition, real true prices and so on, all the blah blah of market economy, a long decline which coincided with the first wave also of the rise, we call it the south. Now it was called the east, it was the east and the south, the peripheries, precisely those societies which in the historical, in the very short period of the 19th century had been turned into peripheries of that mature capitalism, even if there was some preparation before, but okay. Now a long decline and this decline coincided as I said with this rise of the peripheries. If you look at the 20th century how it starts, it starts 1905 in Russia, a periphery or a periphery which announced 1917, it starts with 1911 in China which announced the long series leading to 1949, it starts with the revolution in a smaller country, 1907 in Iran, which has a very big importance, it started with the young Turks, which announced Ataturk and something different, which announced in its way in Gamalabdonos 30 years later, et cetera, et cetera. All important events in the periphery which announced the 20th century or what has started changing the world, started changing. I would call that 20th century the first wave of the rise of the peripheries and now my presentation will go along three periods. One, the first wave itself, the Bandung Era from 1955 to 1975 or 80, it's not very important, let's say 75, then this system and that will be tomorrow, this system coming out of steam and eroded and breaking down, opening the offensive of capital but with change in its nature and in its structure, so-called neoliberal, I'll tell tomorrow why it's nonsense to call it neoliberal, but anyway, and then this short period ending and we are living in the end of that period and starting perhaps and probably a second wave of the rise of the peripheries. What is happening in China particularly is indicative of that, but it's not alone. Now, I shall therefore take the historical lineament for my presentation, but focusing not on events in three lectures, it's impossible, but rather on major issues, major challenges and major right or wrong answers which were given, particularly from those who want to build something else than capitalism or at least catch up perhaps, want to catch up even if they fail to do so within the logic of the system. Now, the first long wave of the rise of the South coincides and not by pure chance with the first long crisis. That is, the crisis started, the first long crisis started exactly one century before the second one. An economic historian says 8073, it's not important whether it is 73 or 75, 80. Just as the second one started in 1971 or 73 or 75, just one century later, a long. With a number of characteristics which are very similar in the two long crises and that's interesting, they are also different of course, but a sudden and brutal move down of the rates of growth which of course in the 19th century had been far less than it were in the 20s. Capital reacting to that challenge by three sets of measures of strategies. One, concentration and centralization of the control of capital, monopoly capital. Second, globalization and third, financialization. Today we can speak of also a system which has these characteristics. We'll see later in which in what respect they are similar and different. But now, it was the first wave of monopoly capital. Hilferding, Robson, Lenin, drawing the political conclusion of that qualitative change in relation without even having perhaps been fully aware with the rise of the peripheries. Starting with the weak link, Russia, that is a periphery at that time or a semi-periphery. I won't go into more details. Now, that is the monopoly capital as one of the dimension of the response, which by the way annihilate completely the nonsense of conventional economics which is the pure and perfect market, etc., etc., with transparent competition, revealing the true prices and leading to equilibrium between supply and demand. All these respond to an imaginary system, not to historical capitalism, of generalized markets, which has nothing to do with reality. And therefore, it's pure ideology and pure legitimation of the practices of capital, nothing more just as we have seen it. We can say there have been other examples of ideologies to legitimate some practice, for instance, in really existing socialism, but that is something very common in the history of humankind. Now, the other dimension was globalization, which took at that time the first wave very, very brutal form, colonization, that is simply annihilating the independence of people, whatever you call them, and it's really globalization. It's not something new. There had been waves before, preparation with the conquest of the Americas and so on, but I don't want to go into far past. And financialization, the city of London and the financial role of the city of London and of Wall Street have not been created at the time of Bush, but in 1900. That was the first wave of financialization. Now, this is my reading today of this. Now, how this first long crisis was concluded by a number of insignificant events such as World War I, the Russian Revolution, the crisis of the 30s, Nazism, Imperial Japan, the Second World War, the Chinese Revolution, all insignificant events because they are not considered by development economics as being part of the questions, they are not economic questions. But this is how the balance of forces was changed to socialists, not to socialists, but was changed for sure, and we can say without being too pretentious to a large extent to the benefit, to the benefit. Re-shaping in which the peripheries did exist not simply as colonies with no voice and submitted to the structural adjustment. Now, this was my question. My first answer was my PhD thesis, Accumulation and a Wall Scale, on which I wrote that the peripheries are submitted to a permanent structural adjustment. The words are there, structural, unilateral, that is being adjusted in order to facilitate the reproduction of accumulation at the centers and at that unequal arrangement of the global system is a permanent adjustment which not allowed for catching up, but on the opposite, is making catching up impossible in the frame of that logic. And therefore, if one looks at the history that way, I won't repeat, it means that development economics is simply starting by a false question, not necessarily any response to a false question can be of little interest. Now, therefore today what I shall see, what I shall try to offer you is the panorama of the first period from 1945, at the end of the war, to let's say, to put it it, 1975, the beginning of the second long crisis. Now, that period, thanks to those insignificant events, started with a global system, globalized, but with three faces, social democracy in the developed capitalist imperialist center, really existing socialism, call it as you want, in Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and China, and third wall, or Afro-Asian rather than Afro-Asian, but I'll say a word about Latin America, Afro-Asian, I call them national popular, not populist, national popular attempts to simultaneously enlarge the margin of maneuver within the system, but come into conflict also with the logic of the system. Now, we had no three, we can call them three patterns of regulation of accumulation with different historical and social and therefore political content, and which were, if one wants to say, the three of them to some extent progressive, in the sense that they allowed, and it's very funny, they allowed very high rates, one can be very critical about that, but they allowed very high rates of growth, they allowed for, let's call it full employment, they allowed for massive change in the levels of education and health, none of those things being particularly negative. It's very funny that the three decades of after World War II, when social democracy was social democracy, that were characterized by high rates of growth, full employment, inequality, the same level of inequality or inequality in the distribution of income, that is wages raising at the level of average productivity in the economies are considered having been hell and bad, and the beautiful thing that zero growth with massive unemployment was with growing inequality, this is the good pattern. It's very funny how things are presented, I mean, just the opposite of the banal reality. Now, we had these three patterns, the Eastern one was the product itself of that revolution starting with the Russian Revolution, which was a revolution in periphery, and faced the problems that we continue to face, not only in Russia, but all over the world or at least for 85% of humankind. That is if we start something, we are limited by the fact that we inherit, we start by inheriting a weak economy, a backward economy, call it as you want, low levels of productivity and so on and so forth. And with all the limitations and internal contradictions which arise from that starting from the periphery. I won't go further in philosophy in saying perhaps history has been continuously a history of unequal development and of the start of change from the peripheries, etc., which would be the opposite of Eurocentric and the opposite also of reverse Eurocentric such as Islamocentric or Inducentric or whatever it is. Now, this is, and we had, and we had very quickly in the South a project which became a reality of historical change. Now it is bandung. Now I happen, I have been a communist all my life and I remain and perhaps because of some reasons, I had the enormous pure chance that I was the junior, I was 20 years old at that time in a team which brought together communist of the Middle East, Iran, it was basic, Egypt, Syria, Iraq and some other countries to discuss, that was in 1950. To discuss in 5051 and there are writings and a magazine published at that time in Paris, Moyen-Orient reflecting that, discussing, starting by rejecting the Truman Churchill was the inventor, Truman could not invent anything important of the two worlds, the free and beyond the iron carton, etc., etc., two worlds, two. And two years later, one year later, Zhdanov, he means Stalin, produced a famous report on two worlds also, but calling them capitalist and socialist. And we say no, there are three worlds. The south, which the west was classifying in the free world because it was free for capital, but not of course for the people who are still colonized. And how do you classify them in the free world? And Zhdanov, you belong to the capitalist system. Yes, but we have a curious position in that capitalist system that we are peripheries and we are revolting against this position. And we started thinking that, no, we should see, we should reject both, we should reject, no, we did not reject Zhdanov at that time. We were too respectful, but we said it should be formulated differently. And it happened that we entered in contact with the Chuen Lai without knowing that there was a team in China around Chuen Lai, just one or two years after the establishment of the new China, thinking also on that question. And the answer of Chuen Lai, which was transferred to us by a Chinese comrade who came especially for that, his name is Wang Hui, he died since, Wang told us, Chuen Lai says, think by yourself. It was very diplomatic. He didn't say that Zhdanov report should throw it into the basket, think by yourself, which was very encouraging. I think this was the origin of Bandung. It didn't come out, it didn't come out of the minds of Nehru, Sokarno, for sure is Nasser, which at that time had no idea at all of anything. But it came out of Chuen Lai, out of a number of communists who happened to have learned later in the 60s that there was, has been something very similar in India, which gave the CPM appearing different from CPI and similar in the Philippines and also in Indonesia, the debate within the Communist Party before being the massive assassinations of 66, etc. That is, it was finally a good number of communist parties, organizations of the peripheries. It was not Latin America, which was totally Euro thinking. And Soviet thinking at that time, it's no more that, fortunately, but it was that. Now, this is the origin of Bandung, this is the origin of Bandung. Now, Bandung, therefore, was crystallized and turned into also at political level non-alignment, Bandung was 55, non-alignment started formally in 60, but that is a project of, let us avoid qualifying it socialist or capitalist. Many of them qualified themselves to socialism, but that's not the point. And to say they were not socialist, they were capitalist is not also the point, because it was indeed something consistent in conflict with the logic of imperialism and saying and having the target of moving into industrialization in conflict with the logic of capitalism, because historical capitalism of the 19th century has built what? A periphery, center periphery was de facto synonymous to industrialized to non-industrialized or even de-industrialized, that was the case of India particularly, non-industrialized versus non-industrialized. Therefore, moving from that position into industrialization of the peripheries is not the logic of capital accumulation, of really existing capital accumulation, which is imperialist capital accumulation and which is reproducing and deepening the polarization, but a conflict with that logic. That is a very important point, because many, even Marxists and the respectable, analyze it as the logic of capital accumulation through the industrialization of the South. At the apparent surface economic level, it may look reasonable, but if you take the historical materialist complete picture that is giving to classes, nations, states their role in the making of history, it is based on a conflict and not on the deployment of the logic of capital accumulation. That is therefore the beginning. Now, I happen to have been a little more but you. I was around 40 at that time instead of 20 and I was involved personally, at least in two cases in Egypt and in Mali, to the attempt of deployment of that project, which I qualified not long after, but sometime after as a national popular, and not populist, national popular, and I will say something about it. But I have also been a consultant, if you want to say so, or because of political activities in relation with comrades elsewhere, discussing this matter also for other countries, particularly in Asia and Africa, and later, much later, with Latin Americans. Now, therefore, the ingredients were created to have three systems and not two. Imperialist centers, the Triad, US, Europe, and Japan, the East, both Soviet and Chinese, which developed differently from very early, from 55, 57, but still with some characteristics common, and the South, or the South in plural, because there was an enormous variety of, but belonging to that same global family. The three being completing one another and in conflict, simultaneously in conflict, the conflicts were could be, so my reading is not the reading of the Cold War. I think this is nonsense to read the year after Second World War as Cold War. Cold War was an invention of the US propaganda, and it was turned into a reality. But only one facet, this is one facet, and it reduces completely the tremendous change that was started from the peripheries, the third partner in that trilateral system, I would say, or three basis system. Now, to make the, we can discuss, and there is no time to discuss it, what were the, you see, the national, why I call them national popular experiences, or if national popular face or attempt coinciding with the first wave. The first wave in the peripheries under the flag of socialism and Marxism, Soviet Union and China, and or under the flag of national liberation associated with social transformation, including to various degrees radical changes to various degrees in the social organization. Now, this is why I'm coming back, qualifying or trying to qualify too quickly where they're socialist, or even if they had socialist intent and serious ones in the case of Soviet Union and China for sure, and some others, or not understanding exactly what it is but still moving in that direction in some other places, or capitalist because it was still based on patterns of organization of labor, submitting labor to those who take the decision and who are owners or not owners formally, and therefore not socialist relations, not communist relations, one should say, but that's another question on which maybe in the discussion we can come. Now, what were the limits and contradictions? Most of the limits came out of the fact that the project was thought from above, from a minority, from minorities, I don't want to call them petit bourgeois or middle class, from minorities, which had a project of, let's call it the banal which could be discussed, modernization associated to industrialization, anti-imperialists and aware of the clash with imperials, particularly at the political level, not culturalists, not culturalists at all. Nobody says we are Muslims or we are Hindus or we are, I don't know what, at that time, a nationalist in the good sense of the term that is whether we are or we are not, we are a nation, whether we are or we are not, we can open the debate of what is a nation, historically and what are the variety of nations, but we are and in that sense we ought to be respected and participate actively in the shaping of the world which is rejecting that unilateral structural adjustment and all that goes with the economic unilateral structural adjustment that is the political submission to the policies or the global policies decided by the strongest that is particularly the US and behind as usual the Europeans. Now, and therefore with no democracy, you know, I am not a Democrat in the sense that I don't think that democracy can be summarized if you have multi-party elections, you have a democracy, you have a masquerade including in the West, but okay, but not an alternative democracy democracy that is panel, the trivial word participatory or I don't know what, that is in which the popular classes organize themselves by themselves and therefore become a real partner even if they are not alone, if some other classes are also organized whether they are ally or enemies, whether they can be neutralized or included in the alliance and so on. That is we had systems which achieved without democracy or without I prefer democratization of the society which is a wider concept than so-called the blueprint of political democracy and showing social progress, I am not saying socialism, but social progress in some cases, some grand reforms in many cases by a through education, a moving up in the social hierarchy and widening the middle classes the educated, semi-educated middle classes and so on and reinforcing a degree of national sovereignty that is of capacity to negotiate really with dominant forces whether at economic or at political and inclusive security and military affairs with the dominant forces that means that there was a sovereign project, now that sovereign project gave we can call it state capitalism but state capitalism is so wide, it includes so many patterns of state capitalism which are historically different we have each time to give it a more precise social content to that state capitalism and therefore also the capacity of that state capitalist to evolve in one direction or another now in that case we had a state capitalism which doesn't exclude that there were also private property and private capitalism depending of the countries to various degrees but in which and not just the so-called bureaucratic state control the vision of the World Bank about what it was which as usual with the World Bank is nonsense and is wrong but with a social content which included as active members middle classes, the new middle classes, the popular support of the popular classes excluded perhaps some not necessarily always segments of the previous ruling classes called aristocracy in some cases feudalism was the usual word bad also but used by historical Marxists and the comparador now and I think that my personal experience convinced me that even in very different conditions historical and on the terrain as Egypt as compared to Bali there were very very strong similar characteristics now that led you know recently there is the publication of a book of Amil Karkab Kabral with whom I had long discussions at that time on the so-called suicide of the Petit Bourgeoisie I think he was wrong he called it Petit Bourgeoisie we can call it different the nascent ruling classes the nascent leadership of a new historical block national popular with a variety of classes this nascent ruling class did not commit suicide but on the opposite reinforced its unilateral control of the power now that leads me also to an important point which I observed relatively early but which I think I understood better later the famous analysis of Mao on the reality being three layers not one not class only state nation people and by state meaning the ruling class and meaning the ruling class not meaning the capitalist ruling class necessarily but also meaning those new ruling class coming out of the leadership of a historical block which has been in conflict with the logic of imperialism and capitalism which meant also the communist party of China fire on the headquarters now that is the state second is the nation the nation call it as you want is another level of reality Mrs. Thatcher said once that she never met a nation but only individuals while in the Falkland war she proved that she knew what Britain was as a nation good or bad in that for the event it does exist one of the terrible weakness of the European system is that it negates a strong historical reality the nations and that whether we are aware we are not whether Senegal is or is not a nation that's not we can have long discussions and we can say perhaps China for sure or Egypt for sure the Arab nation I don't know this or that but a nation that is a historical reality with history a political culture coming out of that history which has its peculiarities I do not reduce it at all it's not a culturalist position it's an anti-culturalist because the laws which govern the formation of those political cultures historical political culture are not specific to a race or to a people belonging to a set of religion or another but are common to humankind but they operate in different historical formations and that the nation the state and I come back and people's meaning not everybody but meaning the popular classes that is the classes which are exploited, dominated and oppressed which is not necessarily reduced to the so-called proletariat or the industrial proletariat now what Mao said is the state want independence the nation liberation the people's revolution that is the state the ruling class wants to enjoy as far as possible a barging that allows them to be participating to the shaping of the world not just subject now if the circumstances that is the state which means in our conditions of the peripheries if the circumstances created partly by the struggles allow for such a margin they become national even one would say nationalist but in the good sense if no well they accept submission and they become compradores so the theory was there is not a bourgeois a national bourgeoisie visible and a comprador the good and the bad and a comprador one the bad ones it's the same class which is national or comprador or partly national partly comprador according to the circumstances and among those circumstances the internal balance of force between them and the popular classes second the nation want liberation that is might be understood in a culturalist way that they want to say we are speaking Arabic or we are Muslim or we are I don't know what as such no it means we in order to capitalize on the history and on our history of political culture we have to we cannot just submit to the logic of the global system dominated by some and the people's want revolution it's a big world not revolution with a capital R which means that potentially not necessarily actually the oppressed dominated classes would would would support moving beyond capitalism and that you cannot understand the reality if you suppress one of the three terms you have to take them in their complementarity and conflict and interaction you cannot therefore neither develop a geo strategy of nations of states the classical geo strategy geo politics the classical one the bourgeois one there are only states and interaction among states is the decisive factor this is one side and you cannot take the other extreme there are only classes and the class exploited class are revolutionary are struggling for changing the world yes but there is and there is in in between I don't know if it is in between there is a third dimension which I mentioned now I think that is that is I but I'm coming to towards the end of my first presentation this is how I read the it has been perhaps a little abstract and too abstract but general how I read the bandung period now in that we could go endlessly into details but and the so-called neocolonial to which extent they were neocolonial you know Gabon was neocolonial but it was a member of the donna line movement and it would have never enjoyed the enormous oil rent without non-alignment whether it wasted this rent is another affair but you cannot therefore reduce it to just neocolonial and forget about the overall stage now what has happened during this this first wave first wave to summarize and conclude with this summary before moving tomorrow to the second stage of that history what we has been achieved is that some have moved far in industrialization other very little those who have moved far where those who have made a revolution under the flag of socialism Soviet Union China China creating the basis for it which deployed later but sovereign project we a strong one and the others to various degrees now and in the case of most of African Arab and Muslim countries but that would lead to another set of problems little of it not necessarily zero but very little of it which will explain also the second wave later that will be the third lecture now I introduce here Latin America later not only because I personally discovered it late but it was also a late comma in this global history we call it so in the sense that it was terribly American or centric in the sense that Monroe Monroe doctrine the domination of the US over the whole continent the European minded vision of the ruling classes historical ruling classes of Latin America and along with that the denying the existence even of the Indian American Indian component of the nations and and even for the left the historical communist parties until the the coup against the end and the second wave of with gave a reason with me in Chile and so on of a new approach of the radical left and with the whole evolution of Cuba but that would lead us somewhere else we had things which were similar in very different conditions from what happened in Asia and Africa that is we had there are these are ways more in Latin America which was the illusion of being able to catch up that was premised catch up within the logic of the system through a series of reforms which would allow industry which would open the way to industrialization and to the building of middle classes wrongly associated to a demand of democracy now so that that is the picture of that time now it came out of steam pretty quickly and when the three system it's very interesting to see that the three system and I'll come to that tomorrow the three system a walk down social democracy historical socialism and the national popular systems walk down simultaneously or almost in the same relatively short period the third third of the 20th century so that is my reading of that first wave and I call it the first wave of the rise of the peripheries and I look at it not as a gigantic failure either gigantic failure of the socialist dream Soviet Union and China or the gigantic failure of the nationalist dream the other countries and that everything will come better with with negating the state negating the nation and and and and accepting the logic of globalization which as a frame for catching up in and in the system and by means of the system that means within really existing global capitalism and by capitalist means while the third lecture will be that this cannot work and it's something else which is starting and not that so maybe we should stop at that point in order to allow for some discussion. Thank you.