11.

What is the relationship of Third world states to various social classes

in the Third World? What role does the state play in class politics and
whose interests does it serve?
Historically, the state has played a pivotal role in developing societies, serving as a
powerful superstructural institution to maintain the prevailing social order,
protecting dominant class interests.
Today, the controllers of the state in less-developed contries are the local capitalists,
the large landowners, and the transnational corporations and their imperialist
states. In these societies, the state has become increasingly repressive and
authoritarian in order to crush any popular opposition to its role in promoting the
interests of local and transnational ruling classes.
The necessity of legitimizing this repressive rule causes some of these states to
attempt to convey a technocratic image with a focus on capital accumulation and
economic growth, combined with severe repression of labor and marginalized
sectors of society. These states have played a key role in the globalization of capital
and its predominance in much of the less-developed world, promoting further
penetration of their economies and societies by the transnational corporations.
The state in many third world countries has evolved in a manner reflective of its
dominance by foreign investors and rulers. In some regions such as Latin America
and parts of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, the Oriental despotic state was
overrun by European colonialism. Feudal land-tenure practices were introduced.
Although formally independent of foreign capitalists, the local ruling classes
developed as appendages of European colonialism and imperialism. This
relationship continued despite shifts in power in the colonial and imperial centers,
so that the transition from colonial status did not alter the underlying relationship
between the ruling classes in the ex-colonies and colonial centers.
Within this framework of the colonial and neocolonial states in these regions, there
resulted the development of two variants of the neocolonial capitalist state: the
semifeudal or semicapitalist.

12. What is imperialism? What are its dynamics and contradictions? How is
capitalist globalization related to imperialism?

Parenti defines imperialism in Face of Imperialism as follows: the process whereby

the dominant investor interests in one country bring to bear military and financial
power upon another country in order to expropriate the land, labor, capital, natural
resources, commerce, and markets of that other country.
Examples of imperialism can are cited by Parenti:
Arid Spain and Portugal siphoned off South Americas gold; tiny Holland dominated
vast Indonesia. Britain, barren except for coal, built an imperial swap shop of grain,
lumber, cotton, tea, tobacco, etc. Japan, less than a century out of its bamboo
armored era, conquered much of China for its iron and coal.
Imperialism is not only meant to secure resources for investors, but to maintain a
global system of dominance in which transnational investors are the arbiters of a
countrys economic mode: in the eyes of the Western Imperialists, Saddam was
charting an independent course and was guilty f committing economic nationalism.
He would have to be taught a lesson.
The imperialists are among the socio-economic and political elites who are the
keepers of the dominant paradigm. The dominant paradigm is the prevailing
ideology or mode of thought that purports to explain how and why society functions
as it does. This dominant paradigm is protected because it falsely legitimizes the
acts of empire, making the world safe for capitalists.
The U.S. imperialists are inclined to pursue imperial diplomacy rather than
traditional diplomacy. Imperial diplomacy is really a misnomer; it isnt diplomacy at
all:
It usually begins with the issuance of a set of demands that are treated as
nonnegotiable-even if presented as proposals. The other sides resistance or even
hesitancy to accede to U.S. demands are denounced by Washington as an
unwillingness to negotiate in good faith. U.S. leaders announce theyre running out
of patients. If any concessions are made by the weaker nation, the empire then
escalates its demends. Despite the other sides attempts at accommodation and
concession, in short time it is labeled recalcitrant and belligerent and is subjected to
U.S. attack.
Imperialism involves stifling the development of other countries in order that they
dont become competitors to the current world champions. This has been seen in
the wiping out of indigenous populations on nearly every continent.

Imperialism involves the destruction and subsequent dominance of local markets

through capital dominance and government aid. Haiti is a good example. Decades
of U.S. farm imports pouring into Haiti heavily subdidized by the U.S. government
and therefore easily sold at lower prices than local agrarian commodities wiped
out three million small farmers, created more debt and hunger, and seriously
damaged Haitis ability to be self-sufficient.
Foreign aid comes with strings attached. It often must be spent on U.S. products,
thereby creating more dependency and debt. The world bank and IMF also supply
aid, allegedly to assist nations in their development but this aid usually comes
with strings attached that are favorable to transnational investors as well.

Capitalist globalization works as an engine to obscure the democratic sovereignty of

individual nations and subordinate it to the interests of transnational capital. The
IMF and World Bank have been established, given great power to overrule national
limits on penetration of foreign capital, and have been created so as to be
answerable to nearly no one.

b. The WTO is the first multilateral organization with authority to enforce

national governments compliance with trade rules.
c. Since WTOs inception many criticisms, angry, and violent protests have
occurred.
i. Its trade legislation without representation.
1. Its not a democratic body
ii. It disregards all other factors such as environmental issues,
working conditions, and human rights, to the issue of trade.
iii. It has the power to institute sanctions against governments.
1. And there is no mechanism for citizens to make appeals to
WTOs dispute resolution process.
iv. Just like NAFTA, the WTO, empowers foreign investors to sue if nations act in their own
interest rather than foreign capitals interest.

Globalization, much as during earlier stages of worldwide economic expansion, is

driven by:
-

the logic of profit

for the private accumulation of capital
through the use of low-wage labor abroad.

The economic sphere of globalization involves:

-

export of capital by transnational corporations

control of labor, resources, and markets
profit-making on a global scale

accumulation of capital in private hands globally

domination of the world economy by capital in pursuit of greater profits

The social sphere of globalization involves:

-

transformation of peripheral societies to market-oriented ones integrated into

the global economy
restructuring of the international division of labor through transfer of
manufacturing to low-wage third world countries
women workers constituting bulk of low-wage labor in third world export
processing zones, and increasingly elsewhere in the periphery

The political / military sphere of globalization involves:

-

Erosion of democratic governance

Support of right wing authoritarian regimes

The ideological sphere of globalization involves

-

neoliberal globalization propagates the superiority of a private economy that

promotes privatization and private profits

it celebrates private ownership and criticizes the public sphere as inefficient

and undesirable -- ideas that are a reflection of the interests of capital

13. In what ways does globalization facilitate imperialist domination of the

world, and for whose benefits? Discuss with examples from your readings.
Another way the empire accumulates wealth and spreads poverty is by imposing
international rulings midleadingly referred to as free trade and globalization.
The goal of the transnational corporation is to become truly transnational, poised
above the sovereign power of any particular nation, while being served by the
sovereign powers of all nations. Globalization is utilized pursuant to this. As
presented to the public, globalization is an inevitability resulting from expansion of
trade and economic development beneficial to all. Globalization was also supposed
to lift the living conditions of third world nations. But globalization really amounts to
a global overthrow of governmental sovereignty by giant business interests.
With the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the general agreement on
tariffs and trade (GATT), the General Agreement on Trades in Services and
numerous other multilateral international covenants, the transnational corporations
have been elevated above the sovereign powers of nation-states.

These covenants are never democratic, and work in the interests of capital. Not one
of GATTs 500 pages of rulesand restrictions are directed against private
corporations; all are against governments.
And when countries refuse to change its laws when a WTO panel dictates, it faces
fines and trade sanctions.
Free trade is not fair trade; it benefits strong nations at the expense of the weaker
ones, and rich interests at the expense of the rest of us. Free trade elevates
property rights above every other right among the nations of the world.
Globalization has illegitimately pushed for the privatization of nature, as seen in the
case of the Neem tree, which had been cultivated for centuries in India. The tree
attracted the attention of pharmaceutical companies, who filed monopoly patents
on this ancient resource of the common, causing mass protests. As dictated by the
WTO, big pharma now had exclusive control over the marketing of neem tree
products, forcing thousands of previously independent farmers to work for big
pharma.
Globalization means rolling back on egalitarian structures of government and forced
privatization of public services free trade is in direct competition with public
services. One example can be seen where the UPS charged the Canadian Postal
service for lost market opportunities, meaning that under NAFTA, the Canadian
government would have to compensate UPS for all the business that UPS thinks it
wouldve procured had there been no public postal service. Luckily, the Canadian
government won that suit.

14. (Skipped)

15. What are the consequences of globalization and empire building on

people and countries around the world, including people in the imperial
center (United States?)
Globalization creates a race to the bottom in which the working class citizens
globally are indoctrinated with the mindset that working class people in other
countries are competing with them, working harder for less, and that they pose an
imminent threat to their livelihood. So, the logic is that we must work even harder
than them and for less which plays into the advantage of transnational
corporations which have stakes in multiple countries. It is sort of like when capital
plays race to create subordinate groups that can work as a reserve army of the
unemployed, using them as strikebreakers and union busters , forcing the working

class to work for less and less as they compete against each other rather than in
class interests.
Specific to the United States, Parenti has said that the empire robs the Republic to
feed itself. Perhaps the most obvious example of this is the maintenance of
Americas global military empire, which is enormously overfunded at the expense
of the working class and to the advantage of transnational capital. Every year the
military spending package is by far the largest item in the discretionary federal
budget.
Each imperial acquirement brings new territories to defend, and a new necessity to
collect money in order to pay for that defense.
This comes at the cost of public interest programs such as Social Security and
Healthcare.
The citizens of the imperium pay for the costs of empire with their blood and taxes
the empire feeds off the republic. As we moved deeper into the Great Recession
almost every part of government spending was cut, sparing one the Defense
Budget. The amount spent on it is a vastly larger sum than is spent by all fiftystates
on education, housing, police, fire fighting, roads, hospitals, human services,
occupational safety, and the like.

18. What are the classes that play a central role in bringing about
revolution? What are the classes that have an interest in preventing
revolution? Why?
Marx thought that it was the global proletariat those suffering from exploitation by
the bourgeoisie under capitalism who were going to be the engine of revolution
once they attained class consciousness and worked as a class for itself. The ruling
classes have an interest in preventing revolution because they rule only by virtue of
the exploitation of the proletariat.
19. How does class conflict lead to revolution? Discuss with reference to a
major socialist revolution of the 20th century covered in your readings.
Class conflict