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]