8. Imperialism, geopolitical disorder and resistance - Peter Drucker

Introduction to report and reporter

Reporter: A US, Jewish, queer anti-imperialist in Holland

Not an economist or regional expert

Links with other reports: far right, women, LGBTIQ, and especially Palestine (overlapping, complementary?)

I. 20th-century imperialism

Basics of Lenin’s theory

Uneven development & export of capital

Competition for raw materials

The division of the planet: colonial empires

Spheres of influence and semi-colonies

Two imperialist world wars (according to Third & Fourth Internationals)

Cold War imperialism and colonial revolution

One imperialist superpower (and one ‘anti-imperialist’)

Trilateral imperialisms: US, Western Europe, Japan

Neocolonialism, wars of national liberation & breaks with capitalism: China, Vietnam, Cuba

Consumerist imperialism: oil and cars (2023 top 10 companies by revenue: 4 oil v. 2 tech)

II. Neoliberal globalization and the ‘war on terror’

Imperialism and global inequality: Claudio Katz’s theses

Unequal exchange: from raw materials suppliers to dependent industrialization Repatriation of profits

Global competition & growing inequality (with a few major shifts, above all in Asia)

2022/3: OECD countries (17% pop.) GDP per cap. $46,280; world $12,688

GDP 2023: US (330 mil. pop.) $25.5 trillion; India (1.3 bil. pop.) $3.4 trillion

Supply chains: from national to global (due to technology & above all defeats in class struggle)

Accumulation by dispossession (David Harvey): genes, air, water, music, schools, health

Armed globalization and the ‘clash of barbarisms’ (Gilbert Achcar)

US as enforcer of global neoliberal order: 37.5% of global military spending

Tools: ‘Coalitions of the willing’, NATO and UN

The ‘Arab despotic exception’ (Achcar), 1979 Iranian revolution, the clash of fundamentalisms (Saudis) & ‘femonationalism’/‘homonationalism’

III. Neoliberalism’s apogee: hyperglobalization (Dani Rodrik)

NAFTA (1993), Maastricht (1992), WTO (1995)

Armed hyperglobalization and the ‘unipolar moment’: US invasions of Iraq (1991 & 2003) & network of US bases

China’s rise, phase I: as a key link in the hyperglobalized world

Bourgeoisifying bureaucracy & overseas bourgeoisie (Hong Kong & Taiwan)

Foxcomm and Walmart (world’s biggest company)

A new imperialism

BRICS/regional sub-imperialisms: the challenge that wasn’t

IV. Imperialism in crisis (from 2008)

China’s rise, phase II, as a factor of crisis: trade & technological wars, sea lanes, One Belt One Road – and Hong Kong/Taiwan

Middle East crises I: revolution & counterrevolution in the Arab region (and echoes in Iran); Turkey, Qatar and Muslim Brotherhoods; hyper-Zionism

Clashes with Russia

Bourgeoisifying bureaucracy & ‘extractivism’

From NATO expansion to war in Ukraine (by way of Syria)

Brexit, Trump and the new far right

Cracks in the power bloc (analogy with 1930s)

The EU project in crisis

The global far right: Putin, Orbán, Modi, Bolsonaro, Erdoğan…

Covid-19: nail in the coffin of hyperglobalization

Middle East crises II: genocide in Gaza, pinkwashing and the polarized world

Iran and the anti-Zionist/counterrevolutionary ‘Axis of Resistance’ (Iraq/ Syria / Hezbollah / Hamas)

V. What’s next?

What next for imperialism as a system? What role within it for ‘multipolar’ actors like Trump, China and the EU?

What next for resistance?: rise and difficulties of anti-imperialist solidarity in an essentially capitalist but fragmented world

Questions for small group discussion

1. How should anti-imperialists define victory in Ukraine (‘self-determination’?)? How can we contribute to this victory?

2. How should anti-imperialists define victory in Gaza/Palestine/the Middle East? How can we contribute to this victory?

Readings

V. I. Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (Excerpts), 1917 [1]

Claudio Katz, ‘Imperialism in the 21st Century’ (Excerpts), 2002 [2]

David Harvey, The ‘New’ Imperialism: Accumulation by Dispossession, 2004 (Excerpts) [3]

Peter Drucker, ‘Imperialism Transformed’, 2022 (Excerpts) [4]

Pierre Rousset, ‘Imperialism(s), Russia, China – a contribution to the debate centred on the historical context’, 2022 (Excerpts) [5]