Dr. Samir Amin
Samir Amin (1931-2018) was an Egyptian
Marxist economic thinker known for his criticism of liberal capitalist
globalization, which he said entrenches dependence on major industrialized
countries (center and periphery), and for presenting an alternative theory of
development based on the role played by the state in organizing production and
financial processes and managing relations with the outside world for the
benefit of the local community.
His life
Samir Amin was born on September 3, 1931,
in Cairo, the son of an Egyptian father and a French mother, both doctors. He
spent his childhood and adolescence in Port Said, studying at the French Lycée,
where he obtained his baccalaureate in 1947. From 1947 to 1957, he studied in
France, where he obtained a doctorate in economics (1957), preceded by diplomas
in political science (1952) and statistics (1956).
After receiving his doctorate in 1957, Amin
returned to Cairo, where he served from 1957 to 1960 as Director of the
Research Department of the Economic Development Organization. Planning for
Egypt's future development was going against Amin's vision, so for political
reasons, Amin left Cairo to become an advisor to the Ministry of Planning in
Bamako, Mali, from 1960 to 1963. This was a time when many African countries
were gaining independence. In 1963, Amin was offered a position at the African
Institute for Economic Development and Planning
( IDEP ). From 1963 to 1970, he
worked at this institute in Dakar, established by the United Nations, while
simultaneously teaching at the University of Poitiers and later
at the universities of Dakar and Paris
VIII-Vincennes . In 1970, Amin became
Director of IDEP , a position he remained
until 1980.
In 1980, Amin left IDEP and became director of the Forum du
Tiers Monde (Third World Forum
), also based in Dakar. This forum is a non-governmental organization ( NGO )
whose
mission is to link projects, conferences, and transcontinental discussion
platforms on development issues from the perspective of Latin America, Africa,
and Asia, with a global orientation. In 1996, Amin also accepted the presidency
of the World Forum for Alternatives, which sees itself as a counterpart to the
World Economic Forum in Davos, and which presented its manifesto "Il est
temps de renverser le cours de
l'histoire" (It's time to revisit history ).
Dieter Sengasse reviews Samir Amin's
scholarly output in his introduction to the 2014 memorial book as follows:
Samir
Amin published nearly 50 books, most of which were translated into several
languages. His most important early book is undoubtedly “Accumulation on a
World Scale “ 1970 .
Another landmark is “Uneven Development” 1973, which has been translated
into many languages. Between these two books, there were numerous publications
in which Amin dealt with his theory in the light of country-specific studies
(in Egypt, Mali, Guinea, Ghana, the Maghreb, Côte d'Ivoire, Senegal, West
Africa in general, and the Arab region). “Class and Nation in History and the
Contemporary Crisis” (1979) is another important publication that opens a
perspective on global history and development history that transcends narrow
discussions of development theory. Amin's analysis of the socialist alternative
to development can be found in “The Future of Maoism” (1981). After 1989 and
1990, Amin published several books on globalization and its underlying crisis
(e.g., “Empire of Chaos”, 1991). He also offered a critical assessment of
current debates, especially in response to postmodern dogmatism, in “Critique
of the Zeitgeist” 1997. His book, “US Hegemony and the Eradication of the
European Project” (2000), is a brilliant claim for a “European project” as an
equivalent to the unquestionable hegemony of the United States in order not to
surrender any further—as in the case of the Gulf War and the Kosovo War—to
Washington’s dictatorship. Amin later repeatedly lamented that this much-needed
European project remained weak and was not in a position to develop its own
globalist position. Amin’s characterization is that it collapsed due to
surrender to American hegemony. His later works develop his critique of
capitalism and his critique of the global power structure (“Beyond Aging
Capitalism”, 2002); they also intervene in the debate on cultural movements,
intellectual fashions, and postmodernism (“Modernity, Religion, and Democracy”,
2008). In all his publications, Amin was an intelligent analyst, but at the
same time, he was always a political writer.
His intellectual project
1- Intellectual roots
Dieter Singas reviews the intellectual
roots of Samir Amin's project as follows:
His political leanings, already evident
during his time at the École Normale Supérieure, continued in
Paris—unsurprisingly, as Paris has always been a cosmopolitan metropolis with an incomparably
vibrant intellectual life. The city was a meeting place for intellectuals and
students from all over the world, not just from the Francophone regions of
Africa. Immediately after his arrival in Paris, Amin joined the French
Communist Party ( PCF ) and thus naturally became involved in the political
and intellectual debates within the leftist movement and its various factions,
which subsequently dominated the intellectual scene in the cosmopolitan French
city for several decades. His
subsequent break with Soviet Marxism and its evolutionary model was influenced
by his experience during these early years when, along with other Third World
students, Amin edited the journal Étudiants
Anticolonialistes (Anticolonialists Students). This journal was not always
popular with the PCF Central Committee. A
number of Amin's fellow activists rose to leadership positions in the
administrations of newly liberated Third World countries, particularly in
Africa.
In 1957, Amin submitted his doctoral
dissertation, and one of his supervisors was François Perroux . Amin suggested the title "On the
Sources of Underdevelopment: Capitalist Accumulation on a Global Scale."
However, this title was too sensitive for Paris in the mid-1950s. His
supervisors persuaded him instead to choose a less direct and straightforward
title: "The Structural Effects of the International Integration of
Pre-Capitalist Economies - A Theoretical Study of the Mechanisms That Led to
the Formation of So-called Underdeveloped States." In his dissertation,
Amin correctly assumed that the hypothesis that underdevelopment is a product of capitalism had not previously been considered from the
perspective he proposed. His basic idea, as presented in 1957, was that the
'underdeveloped economy' should be considered as an independent unit (referring
to itself) but only as a building block in the construction of a world
capitalist economy, and that these periphery societies require permanent
structural adjustments in relation to the dynamics of reproduction of the world
capitalist centers, i.e., the advanced capitalist industrial state.
One must take into account the context of
the 1950s. Amin's message was truly new and original within the general
framework of discussions on development theory and policy, which were in their
initial stages of ascendancy: at that time, what was called desarrollismo was
emerging in Latin America , which
developed further a decade later in discussions of dependence . Wallerstein's
analysis of the world order came even
later. But even the traditional theories of development had not yet become
mainstream; their representatives were introduced by the World Bank in 1984 in
Pioneers in Development . Only
from the late 1960s onwards could we observe that discussions on development
policy were given a major impetus by international institutions, such as UNCTAD , the World Bank, and, more recently, the International Labour Organization (ILO).
It is therefore surprising that Amin
produced as early as 1957 such a nuanced and insightful critique of positions
taken 10–20 years later by his intellectual opponents. His critique also
extended to Soviet Marxism and its evolutionary model of "catching up and overtaking ." These facts did not
attract attention at the time because Amin's treatise was not published in book
form until 1970 under the broader title of Accumulation at the Global Level .
2-Motives for the project
Then, in the same article, Dieter Singas
presents a general picture of the motives that have driven Samir Amin’s
intellectual project over a period of sixty years.
Samir
Amin was one of the most important and influential Third World thinkers. In
contrast to the many development researchers who emerged in both industrialized
and developing countries over the nearly six decades covered by his extensive
work, he always adopted a global perspective. Accumulation at the global level:
this model for diagnosing the ills in history, the dynamics of the structure,
and the development of the world as a whole rather than individual continents,
societies, or regions, has become a political and analytical challenge to
current analytical and political thinking on development, especially for the
new -classical and Soviet-Marxist
schools.
In the chronological context of his thesis,
Samir Amin examined three social projects:
Fordism , with
its associated (at least in Europe) social-democratic welfare state; the Soviet
model as the antithesis of capitalist development; and developmentalism as a project of development by catch-up. As
early as 1989-1990, but especially during the 1990s and beyond, Amin examined
the failure of these three projects in a number of publications. The
social-democratic welfare state and its regulatory mechanisms had eroded; the
possibilities of political control through the state had diminished due to the
globalization of capitalism; and equivalent instruments of control, which could
only be arranged through international organizations, had ceased to exist at
either the regional or global levels. The Soviet model collapsed due to its own
internal contradictions, particularly because the transition from a large-scale
to a centralized economy had failed, a consequence (among other reasons) of the
absence of political reform. Thus, all hopes placed in this alternative model,
which was widespread in developing countries but never shared by Amin,
collapsed. Finally, there was the failure of Bandung, which was seen as a
hallmark of the "catch-up" development model. This produced a
distinction between the Third World into several centers, which Amin considered
to be new semi-industrialized states, and the 'marginalized' world of the
'Fourth World', which included not only large areas of the southern continents
but also parts of the former socialist states .
It is not surprising that, given these
developments, Samir Amin described the situation in what he clearly referred to
in one of his books as "The Great Tumult (1991 )" and
"The Empire of Chaos (1991)." A world without reliable regulatory
mechanisms at the international and global levels, without an inspiring
counter-model, and without clear prospects for successful development—a world
in which polarization continues to grow, is unbearable at the international and
inter-societal levels, and is becoming increasingly police-like. In such a
world, the worst of the worst is expected, not to mention other world problems,
such as global climate change .
For Samir Amin, the global capitalist
crisis has intensified steadily over the past twenty-five years, despite
intermittent phases of economic growth that, viewed in retrospect, have not
overcome the system's fundamental contradictions: the tendency toward
polarization, inequality, and marginalization, all of which have instead
intensified. During this period, the "liberal virus" has spread—that
is, the tendency toward deregulation (The Liberal Virus, Permanent War and the
Americanization of the World, 2003). Amin anticipated the global financial
crisis resulting from a combination of rising wage inequality, deregulated
financial markets, irresponsible behavior by corporations and businesspeople,
and other factors. For example, when he wrote as early as 2001: "But a
financial bubble cannot grow indefinitely: one day it will burst. This is
already cause for concern. Some reformers are therefore proposing to reduce the
risk by eliminating incentives for short-term speculative investment, for
example, through a fabulous Tobin tax ."
This development of the financial
market—its limitations and the expansion of its self-directed dynamics without
any self-correcting mechanism—is a real example of what Amin called “the blind fetishization of the market.” These and other
disastrous developments, especially over the past two decades, are the result
of political herd instincts, particularly in the behavior of the leading
capitalist industrial societies. They all followed the orthodoxy that prevailed
in the Anglo-Saxon world: “There is no alternative.” This led Amin to
characterize American hegemony, but now it is linked to the development of
“collective imperialism,” especially among the societies of the United States
or North America, the European Union, and Japan (the triad). This
club also attempts to monopolize areas of action that are relevant to the
further development of the world: technology, financial flows, access to the
world’s raw materials, means of communication and media, as well as weapons of
mass destruction. This club shares in collective imperialism the so-called
“half-party” countries. The transition from the G8 to the G20 , as has recently happened,
at least in terms of the announced decisions, could be a step toward mutual
cooperation. The rest of the world will remain “the rest.” Wherever Political
concerns make it necessary, and these countries will remain the subject of
military intervention. However, given the chaotic situation in many countries
around the world, prospects for a successful and cost-effective intervention
remain poor .
Are there ways out of this disastrous
situation? Samir Amin has always been not only a perceptive analyst but also a
political actor with a clear perspective, which has led to the emergence of a
program of action, which Dieter Sengass outlines in the following points:
1.There is a need for a "new beginning
toward development," that is, an alternative, critical conception of
development, not based on "development by catch-up" but directed
toward a non-capitalist alternative to development. According to Amin, this
would be "socialist development," but not in the sense of the
one-formula socialist development projects implemented by Soviet Marxism. This
new beginning must be grounded in social movements. This assumption is the
driving force behind Amin's global activities, which have not waned in various
NGOs—because the elites are unlikely to propose such a new beginning.
2. Furthermore, and in a logical consistency,
Samir Amin argues that without the process of separation (which is not
identical with secession), there will be no new beginning toward development.
Separation means making external relations subservient to the needs of the
internal structure, and not the other way around—for example, there is no
unilateral reconciliation with prevailing trends at the global level .
3. Samir Amin passionately calls for
transforming the world into regions for a multipolar world (2005). This
represents a call for a regionally oriented "collective
self-reliance" as a basis for reshaping the structure of global relations
and organizing needs agreed upon at the global level.
He adds,
It may be asked: Are these points, which
together constitute a program of action, and which we have briefly presented
here, nothing more than an expression of an ideal world, a "utopia"?
Amin's answer to this question is: Yes, but these proposals, which point the
way forward, follow the logic of "creative utopia." "History is
not governed by the infallible successive steps of pure economic law." It
is created by the social reactions of these tendencies, which express
themselves in these laws and determine the social conditions within which these
laws operate. The forces of asymmetry have an impact and influence both real
history and the pure logic of capitalist accumulation .
Samir Amin was exposed to such oppositional
police logic throughout his life, and he himself participated convincingly in
controversial debates about this type of logic at the global level.
His approach
The approach followed by Samir Amin is
generally Marxist (historical materialism), but it is also based on scientific,
analytical, empirical (i.e., experimental in the social sense) methodology,
through which he accurately analyzes political, economic, and social reality.
In his introduction to the previously mentioned memorial book on Samir Amin,
Dieter Sengass presents a picture of Amin's methodological approach as follows:
Samir Amin is a distinguished thinker with
a truly global outlook and a prolific output. His scholarly work overcomes the
over-specialization that characterizes many development planners and theorists.
Their narrow scientific approach and adherence to paradigms are alien to Amin.
His ability to conduct evidence-based research, from both historical and
comparative perspectives, in every sense of the word is truly rare. His
analyses always take into account socio-structural conditions and
considerations of political power, and his inclinations, ideologies, and ways
of thinking point the way forward. This has made him an inexhaustible source of
inspiration through his historical-materialist approach that rejects orthodoxy
and dogmatism. Amin's driving force has always been to recognize new trends in
development, revise his own position, initiate dialogues, and engage in ongoing
ones. The source of this intellectual and political drive has been an incessant
thirst for knowledge and a dialectical inclination that extends from analytical
contributions to pre-capitalist world historical developments to reflections on
development projects in their narrowest contexts. His work represents radical
empirical critiques of capitalism, but it also offers groundbreaking proposals
for the desired future. As Samir Amin once argued, he was never a
“ tiers-mondiste ” (i.e., his work focused solely on Third
World issues), but always a “ mondiste ” with a globalist bent.
This—and not only this—distinguishes him from many of those who occupy
prominent places in the “ Who’s Who ” of social and development
theory, and more recently, global analysis. His scholarly achievements over his
long life demonstrate a freedom of thought that has always resisted various
inhibitions.
From a more precise perspective, Samir Amin
presents the approach he followed in his project in the introduction to his
work "The Law of Globalized Value," entitled "Marx Without
Borders." Amin presents himself as a developer of Marxist theory,
extending the Marxist critique of capitalism to its global dimensions. He also
expands the concept of capitalist exploitation from the exploitation of the
poor classes (the proletariat) by capitalists to the exploitation of poor
countries (the countries of the South, the periphery) by capitalist states
(global imperialism, the center). This requires developing Marx's law of value
into the law of "globalized" value—that is, how global imperialist
states are systematically able to achieve capitalist accumulation through the
exploitation of the countries of the South. It also requires accepting the idea
of a state founded on a national class of capitalists within the framework of
the socialist state. This, too, represents a departure from the narrow
framework of Marxism, which opposes the concept of the state in favor of
proletarian internationalism.
Amin first presents the essence of Marx's
ideas in the following lines:
Marx was the first to offer a radical
critique of the real world in our time. This radical critique of capitalism
allows, indeed requires, the discovery of the basis of commodity alienation and
the exploitation of labor that accompanies it. The fundamental value of the
concept of value stems from this radical critique. It alone allows for the
understanding of the objective laws that govern the reproduction of the system,
which exist beneath the surface movements we observe when observing reality.
Marx adds to his critique of the real world a critique of the discourses
concerning this reality, whether philosophical, economic, social, historical,
or political. This radical critique reveals their ultimately defensive nature,
which legitimizes the practices of the dominant power of capital .
Then he presents his vision of how to build
on these ideas so that they can be developed as reality develops, i.e.
transforming them from closed, dogmatic concepts into open (without borders)
concepts.
To be a Marxist means to complete the work
begun by Marx, even if that beginning is extremely vigorous. It does not mean
stopping with Marx, but starting from him. Marx is not a prophet whose
conclusions are all "correct" and "final," and his work is
not a closed theory. Marx is "without borders," because the criticism
he began without borders always needs to be completed and criticized (Marxism,
as it is formed at a given moment, must be subjected to Marxist criticism).
Marxism must always enrich itself with radical criticism and consider any
innovations produced by the system as new fields of human knowledge.
But Marx left a school, and historical
Marxist schools followed in his footsteps. They clashed and fought (sometimes
fiercely) as religious schools do, but their interpretations are inherently
"anti-Marxist." A Marxist can only be an independent Marxist, but
until recently, those who tried to be independent were described by traditional
Marxist schools as deviants. Perhaps their situation is no longer so bad today .
These historical Marxisms, which I describe
as popular and which occupied the forefront of the stage, were generally
addressing two discourses :
On the one hand, there is proper economics,
which criticizes and complements Ricardian economics, which it considers
inadequate, and categorically opposes so-called neoclassical economics, a
worthless ideological discourse. On the other hand, there is the science of
societies, namely historical materialism, which is built on the fundamental
concept that class struggle is the driving force of history. These two wings of
Marxism complement each other, and their unity stems from the philosophy of
dialectical materialism. We do not intend here to refute this reading of
Marxism or offer an alternative. Rather, we will limit ourselves to examining
how the laws of economics and class struggle are related within the framework
of capitalism .
The subtitle of Capital, "A Critique
of Political Economy," does not mean a critique of bad (Ricardian)
political economy in favor of good (Marxist) political economy. Rather, it is a
critique of so-called economics, revealing its true nature (i.e., what the
bourgeoisie claims about the nature of its practices). It is also a critique of
the epistemological value of this economy, exposing its limitations, and
calling for understanding that this so-called science, which claims to be
independent of historical materialism, cannot be independent of it .
After proving the possibility of viewing
Marxist thought as an open thought that is capable of addition and development,
Amin presents his idea of building on this thought as follows:
My thesis is as follows: a) that historical
materialism is the essence of Marxism, and therefore: b) that the
epistemological status of the laws of capitalist economics makes them subject
to the laws of historical materialism; c) that under the capitalist mode of
production the laws of economics take on a theoretical status different from
those under pre-capitalist modes; d) that the laws of economics only appeared
with the capitalist system of production; e) that the laws of capitalist
economics have an objective existence; f) that these laws are subject, in the
final analysis, to the law of value .
Thus, in my opinion, the class struggle
under capitalism in general, and in the imperialist world in particular,
operates on a specific economic basis, and in turn changes that basis .
We will treat these concepts in the book in
the following general order: 1) Accumulation in the capitalist system of
production (Chapter 1); 2) Monetary equilibrium and the theory of the rate of
interest (Chapter 2); 3) The division of surplus product between capitalists
and landlords and the theory of land rent (Chapter 3); 4) Accumulation on the
world level in the imperialist system, the hierarchy of prices of labor power
and imperialist rent (Chapter 4).
Amin adds his founding additions to Marxist
thought,
My careful reading of Capital and other
works by Marx and Engels began early in my university studies (1948-1955). I
also carefully read the works of the economists criticized by Marx (Smith,
Ricardo, Bastiat, Say, and others), preferring to simply peruse their theses as
they appear in university economics courses . My
reading of Marx was certainly a source of great satisfaction and confirmed the
power of his thought, but a feeling of dissatisfaction remained because I did
not find in him a satisfactory answer to the "backwardness" of
contemporary Asian and African societies. Nor did I find satisfaction in
reading those works, which were not published in French until 1960 (the
Grundrisse) .
Rather than dismissing Marx as outdated, I
concluded that his work was incomplete and that his analysis failed to capture
the global dimension. This was partly because his analysis failed to include
the global dimension of capitalism, and partly because it failed to connect the
issue of power (the political) with the economy (capitalism and its
predecessors).
Given that the deficiency in Marxist
thought was centered on the absence of an explanation for the backwardness of
Asian and African societies (i.e., the Third World countries), it becomes
obvious that Amin would attempt to fill this gap. The idea of the opposition
between the worker and the owner of capital expanded, so that "the
worker" became "the countries of the Third World, the
periphery," capital became "the countries of the capitalist world,
the center," and the issue of "surplus capital" became the issue
of "unequal development." This is shown as follows:
My thinking has focused on the issue of
(unequal) development that characterizes the reality of global capitalism, as
evidenced by my doctoral dissertation, "Accumulation on the World
Scale," submitted in 1957. This was the starting point for my work over
the next fifty years, and I will not enumerate the stages of this thinking
here, contenting myself with referring to my subsequent books: "Uneven
Development" (1973), "Unequal Exchanges" (1973), and "The
Law of Value and Historical Materialism"
( 1977) .
Benefiting from Marx's rigorous method, I
carefully read the fundamental works of popular economics produced after Marx,
especially by Böhm-Bawerk, Walras, and Keynes, who laid the foundations of
"subjective" popular economics. This critical reading began first
with the "Accumulation" thesis of 1957, and then with "Uneven
Development." Reading these works convinced me of the ideological nature,
in the functional sense, of bourgeois economics, which followed and was hostile
to Marxism .
Marx did not limit himself to a theoretical
response to his predecessors, but confronted them with a wealth of organized
facts. Therefore, I considered that a theoretical response to the bourgeois
economists was insufficient, and that a systematic collection of facts that
revealed the globalized path of capitalism was necessary. I began collecting
this material in Accumulation and continued it with the books of the 1970s. I
paid special attention to the developments taking place during that period,
particularly the first awakening of the countries of the South, represented by
the Bandung period ( 1955-1980 ) .
My studies then took two directions:
development economics, on the one hand, and a deeper analysis of markets (and
the role of expectations), on the other. The first direction seemed to me
rather dull, barely going beyond the concept of "necessary and insurmountable
stages of growth." I had offered a radical critique of this common,
mechanistic view even before Rostov expressed his criticism in 1960. Never
since have the agencies entrusted with serving these policies (the World Bank,
"cooperation" programs, or universities) gone beyond such nonsense .
The second trend has been to pursue this
common deviation to its logical conclusion—the concept of "generalized
markets"—a fictional economic construct that bears no relation to
capitalism as it exists. The necessary conclusion of this deviation is the
empty and utopian concept of "expectations." At the same time, this
deviation, which claims to be empirical, gathers an increasing number of
heterogeneous facts to incorporate into its theses. The use of mathematical
treatment is not in itself objectionable, but the increasing complexity of
these treatments does not negate the illogical and empty nature of the issues
raised by their users: "expectations ."
However, neither the criticism I have
leveled at the popular theories and their 'applications', nor the
counter-arguments I have made in return, by incorporating the ordered facts
into a general theory describing globalized capitalism as it actually is, seem
to me sufficient to fully understand the reality of uneven development .
Indeed, the link between the
political/ideological/cultural dimension and the economic dimension is the
essential axis of the unavoidable historical materialist reading. In this
regard, my reading of Marx convinced me that reading these early formulations
calls for daring to move forward. I attempted this, first by proposing the
concept of the "tributary production system" as the basis for a large
family of advanced pre-capitalist class societies, where the dominant
power/subordinate economy nexus stands in contrast to the inverse nexus in
capitalist societies. From this, I deduced some important results regarding the
forms of alienation in ancient historical societies and modern capitalist
society. To explore the movement of concrete contradictions operating within
these societies to accelerate or decelerate progress toward capitalism, I
attempted to link the issues raised in historical materialism with those
related to the economic dimension. This is what reading the two books,
"Uneven Development" and "The Law of Value and Historical
Materialism," reveals. This confirms what I previously said: that as a
Marxist, I do not stop with Marx or his successors (Lenin and Mao) in
constructing historical Marxisms, but rather begin with him .
Finally, Amin the essence of his
contribution to Marxist thought and its consequences in the following lines:
The central focus of my efforts is the
establishment of a "law of globalized value" that is consistent, on
the one hand, with the foundations of capitalism's law of value as discovered
by Marx, and, on the other, with the reality of uneven global development . This is what I dare to describe—without
false modesty—as my multiple contributions to enriching Marxism without
borders, especially with regard to their importance for understanding the
nature and extent of the major contradictions and associated conflicts within
the framework of contemporary capitalism .
Within these scattered contributions, I
have not hesitated to "complement" Marx's theses, or even to
"correct" them. I point to the role of credit in achieving
accumulation (and in response to Rosa Luxemburg's question about the
realization of surplus value), as well as to my analysis of the determination
of the interest rate and land rent and my alternative proposals in this area.
On these issues, I refer the reader to my book “Uneven Development “.
My main contribution concerns the
transition from the law of value to the law of globalized value, based on the
globalized hierarchy of labor-power prices around its value. This globalization
of value, along with practices related to access to natural resources, is the
basis of imperialist rent. I claim that this is the driving force behind the
actual contradictions of capitalism/imperialism as they exist, and the
associated conflicts in which classes and nations are entangled with all their
complex interconnections. I claim that our reading of the history of the
twentieth and twenty-first centuries will not depart from the history of the
emergence or "awakening" of peoples and nations on the periphery of
the globalized capitalist-imperialist system .
There are, undoubtedly, many other
contributions by Marxists other than myself that enrich Marx's concept of
without borders, but this is not the place to enumerate them .
My theoretical analysis of the globalized
capitalist system, as it exists, begins with the law of value, as Marx
established it in the first part of Capital. This is the only valid starting
point; without the concept of value, the concept of capital accumulation is
meaningless. Thus, it is impossible to escape the detour through value and
simply review the immediate reality (actual prices), as required by
positivist/empirical methods of study .
Thus, the analysis I will present will
consider the three stages of value transformation: 1) to “production prices”;
2) then to “market prices” (which are monopoly prices under contemporary
capitalism); 3) then to “globalized prices” (under the globalized imperialist
system) .
The first of these transformations, which
is mentioned in the first chapters of the third part of Capital, is
indispensable for understanding the commodity alienation that controls economic
and social life under capitalism, and which gives the laws that govern its
reproduction their true place .
The second of these transformations,
related to the transformation of production prices into market prices, was
partially addressed by Marx in the third part of Capital, when he spoke about
the distribution of surplus value in the case of agricultural land ownership .
We must then examine the distortion of the
price system resulting from the emergence of monopolies, and in particular,
take into account the dangerous transformation of the system of expanded
reproduction that resulted after the First World War, and even more so after
the Second World War, from the massive expansion of a tertiary sector to absorb
surplus value. With the concept of surplus they presented, Baran and Sweezy
responded to the challenge and unwaveringly enriched and expanded Marxist
theory. I claim that those Marxists who refuse to recognize the central
importance of Baran and Sweezy's contribution lack the capacity to offer an
effective critique of contemporary capitalism, and their Marxism remains
confined to commentary on and explanation of Marx's texts .
The central goal of my reflections is
the third transformation, which allows us to move from the law of value at the
highest levels of abstraction (i.e., the capitalist system of production) to
what I call the law of globalized value, operating at the level of the
polarized and already existing system of capitalism/imperialism. Only this
transformation allows us to measure the magnitude of imperialist rent, which is
the basis of the polarization deepened and reproduced by the global expansion
of capitalism .
It is impossible to "understand the
world" through a realistic analysis of capitalism as it exists, outside
the framework of addressing these shifts in the concept of value. Likewise, it
is impossible to develop a strategy for "changing the world" without
relying on these foundations. Conversely, the positivist/empirical methods of
popular economics do not allow us to understand the world and appreciate the
challenges facing workers and peoples, let alone change it. Moreover, popular
economics does not attempt to transcend capitalism, which it considers
"the end of history," but rather merely to legitimize the fundamental
principles of capitalism and describe how it should be governed .
I believe this work, which draws heavily on
my book “The Law of Value and Historical Materialism”, is timely, as the
current crisis revolves primarily around the various possible developments of
social and international relations that shape the law of value under the
combined influence of conflicts in contemporary capitalist societies in the
core and periphery, as well as conflicts between dominant imperialist societies
and subjugated periphery societies, conflicts that challenge the continued
dominance of what I call “late (contemporary) capitalism of generalized,
privatized, and globalized monopolies.”
3-His theory of development
Amin's contribution thus focuses on his
theory of development, which is based on fundamental elements of Marxist
thought, as well as fundamental elements of his conceptions of the development
of Marxist thought, as well as contemporary transformations in capitalist
thought and its practical developments. This theory is scattered throughout a
large number of Amin's works over a period of approximately fifty years. In his
introduction to the aforementioned memorial book on Samir Amin, Dieter Sengass
provides a brief overview of the basic elements of this theory as follows:
What then was Amin's contribution to global
and development analysis: that of a scholar, a contemporary analyst, and a
thoughtful debater, but always from a knowledge-based political perspective?
From a global historical perspective,
development is a concept identical to capitalist development. However, unlike
Marx and bourgeois economics, Amin always relied on the observation that real
capitalism can only be analyzed from a global perspective. Hence, his title
indicated the path to follow: Accumulation
on a World Scale (L'accumulation à
l'échelle mondiale). However, Amin does not assume that the
plunder of the southern continents during the early colonial and mercantile
phase caused a leap toward agrarian and industrial capitalism within the early
successful industrial countries. Nor does he assume that industrial development
in the so-called centers or metropolitan (i.e., urban) cities of capitalism
could have existed without the peripheries in the southern continents (zones of
occupation, informal empires, etc.). During the early phase of agrarian and
industrial capitalist development, which was successful only in Europe, this
process facilitated the existence of the periphery but was not its functional
cause. The developmental dynamics of the centers resulted from immanent
dynamics of accumulation, the structural and political background of which was
the result of an agrarian revolution as a result of the process of
defeudalization. This produced a simultaneous or successive industrialization
that first led to the production of simple, non-durable products for the mass
market; from this, and simultaneously or shortly thereafter, a new capitalist
system developed; the products of this capitalist sector increased their
productivity significantly in the agricultural and consumer sectors and later
also in the capital sector. For
Amin, it is important to note from a secular evolutionary perspective that in
the European centers of capitalist development, as a result of successful
political struggles, the rise in real wages followed the rise in productivity
in the economy as a whole; this facilitated the creation of a domestic market
dynamic that stimulated productivity increases in all sectors. This dynamic was
created very early in the United States and in the European colonies of
Australia and New Zealand by the relative shortage of labor .
Just as the dynamics of urban accumulation
cannot be explained solely through economics, but also through an analysis of
socio-structural development and sets of political conflicts (political
conflicts with open historical and principled consequences), so too the
dynamics of accumulation in the peripheries cannot be conceptualized solely
through economics. For Amin, they emerged as the peripheries, as external
territories isolated from the capitalist centers, were forced to integrate
within an unequal international division of labor, and as a result, a structure
of asymmetric interdependence developed. In a way that differs from how the
idea of dualism underlies modernization theories, this type of integration in
the global market leads to a strengthening of the image of the
"periphery," since, as a result of the dynamics of accumulation
prevalent in the peripheries, a reservoir of cheap labor remains inexhaustible,
regardless of whether the economy in the isolated regions is actually based on
agriculture, mineral extraction, or the early stages of industrialization
("import-substituting industrialization," industrialization through
import substitution to encourage local production) .
Why does the pool of cheap labor not
diminish? Why does not productivity and wage growth in the periphery balance
out? Why does not a broad diffusion and concentration of capital occur? The
answer can be found in the model of the dynamics of peripheral accumulation,
which Amin gradually developed based on case studies of numerous countries and
using a large number of comparative observations. These facts can be described
relatively simply: the dynamics of peripheral accumulation are systematically
deviant. As a background, they lack an agrarian revolution in the broadest
sense. They gain their dynamism from an export economy based on exclaves , whose counterpart is an
import sector of "luxury goods," defined as demand from the consumer
portion of earnings. What is lacking in this type of accumulation dynamics is
"automatic central development": the inevitable feedback loop of a
broad consumer goods sector and a capital equipment sector (i.e., equipment
that was previously produced locally) dependent on increased agricultural productivity.
From this it becomes clear that for Samir
Amin, the question of agriculture was and remains of central strategic
relevance to development. Much of his empirical research has dealt with this
problem. As an unavoidable consequence, for him, the question of agriculture
was not simply a question of land distribution but could also be understood as
the problem of how legal certainty for this sector (property rights) could
emerge and the extent to which a corresponding industrial sector would be
willing and able to supply the goods and infrastructure that would enable the
development of a dynamic agricultural sector.
From Amin's analysis, it can be argued that
the transition from a dynamic of accumulation in the periphery to economic
development based on urban capitalism remains unlikely, if not impossible. This
leads to his call for decoupling. Decoupling,
then, is defined as the surrender of a state's external relations to the logic
of genuine internal development. This contrasts with the prevailing orientation
toward the periphery, which must satisfy the needs of urban capitalism with the
inevitable consequences of polarizing current capitalism at the global level:
its formulation of an urban capitalism and a periphery dependent on it. Such a
strategy of "automatic centralized" development through
"decoupling" is inconceivable without active state intervention.
Therefore, the role of the state, in conjunction with interested socialist
parties, is to devise this hybrid strategy, the goal of which should be the
selective use of opportunities in the global market—as long as they are
compatible with the state's own project—in order to consolidate development
dynamics in the broadest sense .
For Amin, it was clear that this
alternative to development (separation, not secession) entailed corresponding
political preconditions. The countries to which he applied his case studies,
initially limited to North and Sub-Saharan Africa, taught him that such an
elite, i.e., a national bourgeoisie oriented toward a national project, did not
exist and was not in the process of formation. Instead, he saw the emergence of
a comprador bourgeoisie (or local agents of global capitalism) everywhere. This
comprador bourgeoisie—and this was confirmed by empirical material—saw its
future only in the integration of its countries within the framework of a
global capitalist market with an asymmetric structure, from which they directly
benefited. Separation could only be an instrument for a type of development
with a different orientation—a development beyond capitalism (including its
variant, state socialism). These considerations prompted Amin to analyze in
detail the Chinese development strategy .
This model of development, which Amin
continually refined and corrected at the detailed level, directly contradicted
the linear evolutionary model of development. His approach challenged the
bourgeois or neoclassical evolutionary alternative to development
theory. Amin directly opposed the evolutionary concept of " desarrollismo , " which emerged through the CEPAL school (Economic Commission for
Latin America and the Caribbean). He considered the latter, although plausible
(though not entirely convincing), politically illusory. With this model, Amin
also opposed the developmentalist ideology of Soviet Marxism, which attracted
much sympathy among the new elites in the Third World during the independence
period as well as during the post-colonial and state-building years. As a
result, during the 1970s and 1980s, Amin was deeply skeptical and radically
critical of a number of prominent development policy and planning programmes:
for example, the New World Economic Order (and its operational concepts), the
Basic Needs Strategy, and the ILO's informal
sector programme .
From his perspective, the goal could not be
"catching up and then overtaking," but only another form of
development: "doing something else": a different development strategy
for these groups of the population, who were systematically marginalized and
discriminated against, requiring their politicization and democratization.
Having emancipated the people as a result of the successful struggle for
independence, Amin now focused on revolutionary social movements, a revolution
of the large groups. Economic development was always, and still is, for Amin a
political economy and even more a process of cultural revolution, because
"doing something else" is unthinkable without a corresponding political
consciousness.
His most important works
Books in French
1. Egypt
Nassérienne , Minute Editions, 1964. (with the pseudonym Hassan
Riad), Translation into
Spanish.
2. Learn about
development experiences in Africa : Mali, Guinée and others.
Ghana , Paris, PUF, 1965.
3. Economie du
Maghreb , Paris, Minuit Editions, 1966,
Vol. 1: The
colonization and decolonization ;
Vol. 2: These
perspectives .
Translation into Polish.
4. The
development of capitalism in the Côte d'Ivoire , Minute Editions,
1967,
2nd Ed. Postface 1971.
5. Le Monde des
Affaires Sénégalais , Minute Editions, 1969, Translation into
Japanese
6. From Congo
Français to the UDEAC, history of the African Equatorial Economy1880 – 1968 ,
Paris-Dakar, Anthropos, 1979, in collaboration with Catherine Coquery.
7. Le Maghreb
moderne , Paris, Minuit Editions, 1970. Translation into English, Arabic
8. Accumulation
to the World Cup, criticizing the sous - development theory
,
Anthropos, 1970, Coll.
10–18. Translation into English, Spanish, Italian,
Arabic, Swedish, Greek,
Serbo-Croatic, Japanese, Chinese, New Edition with
Preface, Economica 1988.
9. African bloque,
economic policy of colonization 1880 –
1970 , Editions de
Minuit, 1971. Translation into English.
10. English
development , Minute Editions, 1973. Translation into English,
Arabic, Spanish, German,
Portuguese, Greek, Italian, Korean, Danish, Japanese, Chinese
11. The original
change and the value of the money , Anthropos 1973, with a
contribution by
JC Saigal. Translation into Italian, Spanish, English, Arabic, Japanese. New edition, Econo-mica,
1988.
12. The question
pays and capitalism , in collaboration with Kostas Vergopoulos, Anthropos 1974.
Translation into Spanish, Portuguese.
13. La crise de
l'impérialisme , in collaboration with Faire, Hussein and Massiah, Editions de Minuit, 1975.
Translation into Spanish, Greek, Italian, Danish,
Portuguese, Arabic.
14. Impérialisme
et le development in English , Minute Editions 1976. Translation into Portuguese, Greek,
Japanese.
15. Impérialisme
and sous development in Africa , Anthropos, 1976. New Edition, Economica 1988.
16. The Arab
nation: nationalism and classes , Minuit Editions, 1976.
Translation into English,
Arabic, Japanese.
17. The story of
the value and the material history , Minute Editions, 1977.
Translation into English,
Portuguese, Greek, Japanese, Spanish, Arabic.
18. Class and
nation in history and contemporary craze , Minute Editions
1979. Translation into
English, Spanish, Arabic, Japanese, Portuguese, Greek.
19. L'économie
arabe contemporaine , Minuit Editions, 1980. Translation into English, Danish, Arabic,
Japanese, Portuguese.
20. Lavenir du
maoïsme , Minute Editions 1981. Translation into English,
Arabic, Korean, Japanese,
Portuguese, Turkish, Bengal.
21. Irak et Syrie
1960 – 1980 , Minuit Editions 1982.
22. La crise,
quelle crise? Maspero 1982, in collaboration with G. Arrighi, AG Frank and I. Wallerstein.
Translation into English, Spanish, German, Turkish.
23. The
deconnexion, to sort out the global system , Discover 1985.
Translation into Spanish,
Italian, English, Japanese.
24. Eurocentrism,
critique of ideology , Economica 1988. Translation into
English, Spanish,
Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Norwegian, Turkish, Chinese.
25. The
development failed in Africa and in the middle of the world ,
L'Harmattan, 1989.
Translation into English, Spanish.
26. The large
number? La Découverte 1991, in collaboration with G. Arrighi, A. G. Frank and I.
Wallerstein. Translation into English.
27. The Empire of
chaos, the new mondialisation capitalist , L'Harmattan
1991. Translation into
English, Arabic, Spanish, German, Turkish.
28. Itineraire
Intellectual, Regards on the Demi - Siècle 1945 – 1990 ,
L'Harmattan 1993.
Translation into Arabic, English, Italian, Spanish, Turkish, Chinese.
29. Ethnicity in
the Nations, with a contribution from Joseph Vansy ,
Harmattan 1994.
30. La gestion
capitaliste de la crise , L'Harmattan 1995. Translation into Italian.
31. Les defies de
la mondialisation, L'Harmattan 1996. Translation into Spanish, Italian, German,
Portuguese, Chinese.
32. Critique de
l'Air du Temps , L'Harmattan 1997. Translation into English,
Italian, Tutkish, Greek,
Spanish, Arabic, Chinese.
33. The
organization of the organization - Universities and the
efficiency of the European project , L'Harmattan 2000. Translation into
Italian, German, Spanish, Chinese, Greek, Arabic.
34. This old
capitalism, for a non-American country , PUF Actuel Marx 2002.
Translation into English, Arabic, Spanish, Greek, German, Polish, Japanese, Italian
35. The virus is
free, its permanent status and its American origin; Le
Temps des Cerises , Paris 2003.
Translation into Arabic, English, Italian,
Spanish, Turkish,
Swedish, Russian, Portuguese, Chinese, Polish.
36. The Arabic
language, including social and media perspectives ; incollaboration with Ali El Kenz,
L'Harmattan, 2003. Translation into Arabic, English, Swedish, Italian.
37. For many
people ; Syllepse 2005. Translation into English, Spanish.
38. For the
international cinema; Le temps des cerises , 2006. Translation into
Italian, Spanish,
English, Turkish.
39. Capitalism to
civilisation ; Syllepse 2008. Translation into Spanish,
English, Turkish
40. The world,
political panorama and personnel from the country of Bandoung; Le Ceremony time , 2008.
41. Modernity,
Religions, Democracy, Critique of Eurocentrism, Critique of
culturalism ; Parangon, 2008.
Translation into Turkish, English.
42. Sur la crise,
sortir de la crise du capitalisme ou sortir du capitalisme en crise; Le Temps des Cerises , Paris 2009.
Translation into Spanish, Italian, English.
43. The heart of
the world's value; Le temps des cerises , 2011. Translation into English, Arabic, Spanish,
German.
44. Samir Amin,
intellectual organization at the Sud administration service;
Entrepreneurs and
selected texts by Demba Moussa Dembélé , Codesria 2011.
45. Deliver capitalism ;
Contradictions, Bruxelles 2011.
46. The Arabic
language in the long period, the Arabic print? the temperatures Cerises 2011. Translation into
English, Spanish, Italian.
47. Implosion of
contemporary capitalism, Automation of capitalism, print templates people? Delga 2012
Books in English
1. The Maghreb in the Modern World , Penguin,
1970.
2. Neo
colonialism in West Africa , Penguin, 1973.
3. Accumulation
on a World Scale , 2 vol. Monthly Review Press, New York, 1974.
4. Unequal
Development , Monthly Review Press, New York, 1976.
5. Imperialism
and Unequal Development (includes “The end of a Debate”),
Monthly Review Press, New
York, 1977.
6. The Arab
Nation , Zed, London, 1978.
7. The Law of
Value and Historical Materialism , Monthly Review Press, New York 1978.
8. Class and
Nation, Historically and in the current crisis , Monthly Review
Press, New York, 1980.
9. The Arab
Economy today , Zed, London 1982.
10. Dynamic of
Global Crisis , Monthly Review Press, 1982, in Collaboration
with G. Arrighi, A. G.
Frank and I. Wallerstein.
11. The Future of
Maoism , Monthly Review Press, New York 1983; simultaneously Daanish Books, India 2002
12. Eurocentrism ,
Monthly Review Press, New York, 1989.
13. Delinking,
towards a polycentric world , Zed, London 1990.
14. Maldevelopment,
Anatomy of a global failure , Zed, London 1990.
15. Transforming
the Revolution , Monthly Review Press, 1990, in collaboration with G. Arrighi, A. G.
Frank and I. Wallerstein.
16. The Empire of
Chaos , Monthly Review Press, New York 1992.
17. Re - reading
the Post War period, An intellectual Itinerary , Monthly Review Press, New York 1994.
18. Capitalism in
the Age of Globalisation , Zed, London 1996. Translation into Spanish, Turkish,
Italian.
19. Specters of
capitalism, A critique of current intellectual fashions , Monthly Review Press, New York
1998; Simultaneously Daanish Books, India, 2002
20. Obsolescent
capitalism , Zed 2003.
21. The liberal
virus ; Pluto, London 2004.
22. Beyond US
hegemony ; Zed, London 2006; simultaneously Daanish Books, India 2006.
23. A life
looking forward, Memoirs of an independent Marxist ; Zed, London
2006. Translation into
Spanish.
24. The world we
wish to see : revolutionary objectives for the 21st Century ;
MR Press,
NY, 2008.
25. From
Capitalism to civilization, Reconstructing the socialist perspective ;
Tulika Books Delhi, 2010.
26. Ending the
crisis of capitalism or ending capitalism? Pambazuka, Oxford 2010.
27. Global
History, A view from the South ; Pambazuka, Oxford 2010.
28. Eurocentrism (new
enlarged ed); MR Press, NY and Pambazuka, Oxford 2010.
29. The law of
worldwide value ; MRPress, NY 2010.
30. Maldevelopment,
Anatomy of a Global Failure ; Fahamu Books, Oxford 2011.
31. The people's
spring, the future of the Arab revolutions ; Fahamu 2012.
Books in Spanish
1. Hassan Riad ,
Egypt, actual phenomenon , Nova Terra, Barcelona, 1969.
2. Categories and
Fundamentals of Capitalism , Nuestro Tiempo, Mexico, 1973.
3. El capitalismo
periferico , Nuestro Tiempo, Mexico, 1973.
4. Desarrollo
desigual , Nuestro Tiempo, Mexico, 1973.
5. Capitalismo
periferico y comercio internacional , Ediciones Periferia, Buenos Aires, 1974.
6. The original
design, including the social forms of capitalism
periferico , Libros de
confrontacion, Barcelona, 1974.
7. Elogio del
socialismo, El capitalismo: una crisi estructural, feminismo y
lucha de clases (Con Eynard and Stuckey),
Ed. Anagrama, Barcelona, 1975.
8. The
acumulation in the world , Siglo XXI, Buenos Aires and Mexico, 1975.
9. Sobre la
transmission , Ed. Zero, Madrid, 1975.
10. Los Angeles,
US of plastics, this is a crisis of imperialism, global influences y cultural areas , Ed. Anagrama,
Barcelona, 1975.
11. Classes and
places in the materialismo historico , El Viejo Topo, Barcelona, 1979.
12. The highest
value and historic materialism , cultural economic fund,
Mexico, 1981.
13. La
deconnexion, hacia un sistema mundial policentrico , IEPALA, Madrid,
1988.
14. El
Eurocentrismo —Siglo XXI, Mexico, 1989.
15. Capitalismo y
systema mundo , Lafarga editions, Barcelona, 1993.
16. El Juego de
la Estrategia en el Mediterraneo , IEPALA, Madrid, 1993.
17. The Fracasso
del Sarollo in Africa and in the Tercer Mundo, a political analysis ,
IEPALA, Madrid, 1994.
18. Los desafios
de la mundializacion , Siglo XXI, Mexico, 1997.
19. The capitalism in the
global era, Paidos, Barcelona, Buenos Aires,
Mexico, 1998.
20. Los fantasmas
del capitalismo , El Ancora, Bogota, 1999.
21. Miradas a un
medio siglo, Itinerario intellectual 1945 – 1990 ,
IEPALA,
Madrid; Plural—La Paz,
1999.
22. The
hegemonismo of the Unidos Estados and the proyecto desvanecimiento
europeo ; Ed. El Viejo
Topo; Madrid 2001.
23. Critica del
nuestro tiempo ; Siglo XXI, Mexico, 2001.
24. What is the
cause of capitalism ? El Viejo Topo, Barcelona 2003.
25. El
imperialismo colectivo ; CTA, Buenos Aires 2004.
26. For a
multipolar world; The view is topo ; Barcelona 2005.
27. Classes
sociales, nationalities, and institutions in the global history ; Ed
Garetto, Argentina
2005.
28. The original
design ; Ed Garetto, Argentina 2005.
29. Intercambio
desigual ; Ed Garetto, Argentina; 2005.
30. Sobre el
desarrollo desigual en la historia universal ; Ed Garetto, Argentina
2005.
31. The virus
liberal ; Ed Garetto, Argentina 2006; Hacer, Barcelona, 2007.
32. For
international quinta ; The view topo, Barcelona 2007.
33. Memorias ;
El Viejo Topo, Barcelona, 2008.
34. Transactions
and alternatives in debate; America Latina on the move , no. 436,
2008.
35. The imperio
del caus, the new mundializacion capitaliste ; IEPALA, Madrid 2008.
36. El socialismo
del siglo XXI, Reconstruir la perspectiva socialiste ; IEPALA, Madrid 2009.
37. La crisis,
salir de la crisis del capitalismo o salir del capitalismo en crisis ;
El Top
Life, Barcelona, 2009.
38. Primavera in
Arabic, the world in Arabic during the course ; El Viejo Topo, Barcelona 2011.
Research
·
Economic Globalization and Political
Universalism: Two Opposing Themes ,
Journal
of World System Research
·
Economic Globalism and Political Universalism:
Conflicting Issues?, Journal of World System Research, 2000.
·
Imperialism of the United States,
Europe, and the Middle East ,
a
monthly review.
·
US Imperialism, Europe, and the Middle East,
Monthly Review, Nov. 2004
·
Nation, State, and Classes in the Arab
World -
Al-Mustaqbal
Al-Arabi Magazine
Dialogues
·
Samir Amin: We are witnessing the autumn
of capitalism, and we are not yet in the spring of peoples -
Beginnings
·
We need a consensual, non-authoritarian,
humane globalization -
Qantara
website
·
Samir Amin: Arab countries are
experiencing the "militarization of globalization" -
Al-Bidaya
Newspaper
·
Globalization is an ancient phenomenon -
Qantara
website
Articles about him
·
Dr. Samir Amin, the Marxist -
Fouad
Al-Nimri
·
Thinking with Samir Amin, Imperialism
and Anarchy -
Amer
Mohsen
·
On Samir Amin's Criticism of Nationalist
and Islamic Discourses -
Farhan
Saleh
·
Samir Amin, the thinker who heralded the
return of socialism -
Muhammad
al-Hamamsi
·
Samir Amin... and the Arab Spring -
Hashem
Saleh
·
My Memoirs: A Past to Guard the Future -
Abdelmalek
Ashhaboun
·
Samir Amin and the Future of Marxism -
Mr.
Ould Abah
Texts
·
The Law of Globalized
Value, translated by Saad Al-Tawil - Chapter One: “The Basic Status of the
Law of Value.”
·
After the Fall of
Capitalism, translated by Fahmiyya Sharaf al-Din and Sanaa Abu Shakra - Introduction and Chapter One "The
Political Economy of the Twentieth Century."
·
Accumulation on a Global
Scale, translated by Hassan Qubais - Chapter One: “Uneven International
Specialization and International Capital Flows.”
Sources
·
“Samir
Amin, Pioneer of the Southern Renaissance,” 2014, Springer ( foreword by Dieter Singas ).
·
“The
Law of Globalized Value,” 2012, translated by Saad Al-Tawil, National Center
for Translation, Cairo ( introduction titled “Marx Without
Borders” ).
by: Samir
Abu Zaid