Friday, October 18, 2024

Venezuela: Opposing the blockade is our main task

By Chris Slee
Published 
pro-Maduro rally

The United States is waging an economic war against Venezuela.

The US has imposed sanctions that attempt to prevent governments and companies from having any dealings with Venezuelan government bodies, such as the state-owned oil company PDVSA, unless granted an exemption that is only given with conditions that are very unfavourable to Venezuela. Non-US companies can be targeted with secondary sanctions if they defy US orders.

The sanctions amount to an economic blockade. They aim to prevent Venezuela's government from participating in trade with the outside world. The goal is to cause an economic crisis leading to the overthrow of the Venezuelan government.

Sanctions began in March 2015 when US president Barack Obama declared Venezuela an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States”.1 The severity of the restrictions intensified under US president Donald Trump.

The US and its allies have seized about $60 billion in Venezuelan assets, including the US subsidiary of the Venezuelan national oil company, CITGO. The Venezuelan government can not pay its dues to the United Nations because US banks have confiscated Venezuela's money.

Impact of the blockade

The blockade has severely damaged the Venezuelan economy. The oil industry is unable to get spare parts for machinery. This has reduced Venezuela's oil production and revenue. Similarly, electricity and water supply have been affected by sanctions.

The blockade has caused severe hardship to the people. There are shortages of medicines, vaccines and medical equipment. The sanctions have caused an increase in the death rate. Jeffrey Sachs and Mark Weisbrot estimated that there were more than 40,000 excess deaths during the years 2017-18.2

Despite the blockade, Venezuela has made progress in some areas. The house building program begun by former president Hugo Chavez continues, and has now built 5 million social housing units. People in many areas have organised themselves into communes, with the support of the government.

Nevertheless, the blockade has caused an economic crisis and a lot of suffering. Venezuela’s human development index, which improved greatly under Chavez, declined dramatically after the imposition of the blockade.

Attempts to circumvent blockade

The Venezuelan government tries to circumvent the sanctions by using private companies as intermediaries. Of course, the intermediaries expect to make a profit on such deals. The sanctions have enriched a section of the capitalist class.

Some government functions have been effectively privatised. In addition, secrecy surrounding the government’s attempts to circumvent the blockade creates increased opportunities for corruption. The blockade is largely responsible for the rise of corruption.

Impact of the blockade on election results

The US hopes that by creating hardship, the blockade will lead to growing discontent, which will undermine support for the government: some people may blame the government for the country's problems; others may come to believe that the US is too powerful to be successfully defied.

In the recent presidential election, Venezuelan voters faced a difficult choice. If they voted for Nicolas Maduro, the blockade would continue. If they voted for Edmundo Gonzalez, the candidate favoured by the US, the blockade would be lifted.

This blackmail was partially successful. According to the results announced by the National Electoral Council (CNE), Maduro won, but with a fairly narrow majority. Maduro got 52% of votes cast, while the extreme right candidate Gonzalez got 43%. Other opposition candidates got a combined 5%.

There was a 42% abstention rate. This means Maduro got the votes of about 30% of eligible voters, while Gonzalez got 25%.

For comparison, in the 2013 presidential election Maduro got 51% of the vote with an 80% turnout, meaning he obtained the votes of 41% of eligible voters.3 The rise in abstention may indicate that some people had become discouraged by the difficulties of life under the blockade, or that they were critical of both the government and the opposition.

However, the government still has enough support to organise big rallies throughout the country — larger than those of the opposition.4 An important section of the population refuses to be intimidated by the US economic war.

Tasks of socialists

The main task of socialists in the US and its allies such as Australia is to campaign against the blockade. However, some recent articles in LINKS International Journal of Socialist Renewal have had a different emphasis.5 They condemn the Maduro government as a dictatorship and accuse it of electoral fraud. They also describe its economic policies as neoliberal.

There are some good reasons for criticising the Maduro government. It has carried out some undemocratic actions — for example, depriving the Communist Party of Venezuela of its electoral registration.

In a society under siege, it is not surprising that the government becomes more repressive. We should criticise the repression, but we must also campaign to end the siege.

It is understandable that many Venezuelan leftists criticise the government’s economic policies. Wages are very low, while some people are very rich, including the capitalists who help the government circumvent the blockade.

Some government policies ease the hardship to a certain extent. Certain basic services, such as electricity and public transport, are cheap or free. People receive food parcels from the government. But workers are still understandably dissatisfied.

We can criticise how the government responds to the blockade. But we should acknowledge the reasons for the policies adopted — in particular, the attempt to circumvent the blockade, which involves working with capitalists and making concessions to them.

Andreina Chavez Alava, a writer for Venezuelanalysis.com, is critical of the Maduro government, but condemns attempts by the US government and the Venezuelan extreme right to overthrow it. She says:

A lot of people like me are not entirely happy with the government’s liberal overtures in the name of circumventing the US blockade that moves away from the socialist alternative. We have felt ignored when making criticisms or requesting information regarding salaries, socioeconomic data, and the real state of healthcare, education and the electrical system and what investment is going (if any) into them.

We don’t want to surrender our country to the US, but we also need guarantees about the next six years if Maduro wins. Will the government continue trapped in its echo chamber? Will they weed out the opportunists and corrupt? Will the socialist project be revitalized?

No matter what goes down on July 28, only the Venezuelan people can save themselves and guarantee real democracy on the ground and hope for the future.6

While criticising the Maduro government, Chavez Alava supported Maduro's re-election. She explained that the right-wing opposition supports extreme neoliberal policies and would make Venezuela a “US client state”, whereas the Maduro government stands for “sovereignty” and the “construction of socialism” (however imperfect it may be in pursuing the latter goal).7 She places great importance on the building of communes, with government support.

Activists in Venezuela have every right to criticise government policy. But for socialists in the imperialist countries, our priorities should be different. We should put the main blame for Venezuela’s problems on US imperialism, and campaign to end the blockade.

Accusation of election fraud

Some leftists claim that the election results published by the CNE are false. This claim is based on the CNE's failure to publish results broken down by polling stations. Critics assume that fraud is the only possible explanation, but other explanations are possible. For example, it may be because the government, while winning the nationwide vote, is embarrassed by the loss of support in some traditional Chavista areas.

The results reported by the CNE seem plausible, given the large attendance at pro-Maduro rallies. The proportion voting for Maduro according to the CNE is similar to that reported by opinion polling company Hinterlaces (55.6% in an opinion survey in June, compared to 52% reported by the CNE in the election on July 28).8

The US is using the accusation of electoral fraud as an excuse for continuing and intensifying the blockade. This makes it very important for us not to make unproven allegations.

The extreme right is planning to “inaugurate” Gonzalez as “president” in January 2025, as they did with Juan Guaido in 2019. We should denounce this plan. We should also denounce the use of the blockade as a form of blackmail to influence the election results.

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The post-election challenge in France: An interview with John Mullen of La France Insoumise

By John Mullen & Tempest
Published 
Depose Macron poster

First published at Tempest.

Tempest interviews French socialist, John Mullen, about the challenges facing the Left in France following the the formation of a new right-wing government led by prime minister Michel Barnier. This comes after massive mobilizations to keep the far-right, under Marine Le Pen, from taking power, in what was widely seen as a show of strength for the broad Left. Barnier’s traditional center-right parry party came in fourth place in the recent parliamentary elections and in circumstances in which President Emmanuel Macron did not allow the Nouveau Front Populaire (New Popular Front), the party with the largest number of seats, led by La France Insoumise (France in Revolt), to attempt to form a government.

What do you understand to be the main lessons from the summer’s electoral process? Given Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (RN) won the greatest number of votes (more than 10 million) in each round of the election, despite failing to win a majority of parliamentary seats, do you consider the outcome of the second round a defeat for the forces of the far right?

You have to look at the dynamic of the situation. What looked like the unstoppable rise to government of the fascists was pushed back by the biggest mobilization against them for decades.

The second round was an important tactical victory for the Left and for the working class. Consistent polls predicted that the RN would win more seats than any other group, and might even secure an overall majority in parliament, but they ended up in third place. However, the far right will only remain on the back foot for a short period.

Four parties of the Left formed a coalition — the Nouveau Front Populaire, the New Popular Front (NPF), comprised of the Communists, Socialists, Greens, and La France Insoumise (France in Revolt)—and agreed on a fairly radical minimum program for government in record time. They were, it is true, under tremendous pressure from below (outside the building where negotiations happened, hundreds had gathered to chant slogans of unity). The result is that we do not have a fascist government.

Those political groups who were (and are) opposed to the coalition, one must imagine, consider that it changes little or nothing who is in government. Given that Marine Le Pen’s party has declared it wants the hijab to be banned in all public places, social housing to be reserved to French nationals, and certain public sector jobs to be forbidden even to people with dual nationality, one can imagine there are few Muslims or people from ethnic minorities in France who are quite so relaxed about this prospect. Even a minority government controls the police and the schools, and fascist ministers in charge of these domains would be a demoralizing nightmare for our class.

The reason I speak of a tactical victory is that the fascists remain very strong. They have 140 or so MPs (several dozen more than before) and they garnered ten million votes. The need for a mass antifascist movement to go onto the offensive against them is clear.

For the moment, the National Rally is very weak indeed on the ground. In many towns they have practically no party structure, and they have not organized a street demonstration of more than 10,000 people for decades. At its annual conference the NR leadership noted that, in addition to continuing the long march through the institutions and their obsession with respectability, they absolutely must build locally. It would be quite possible for antifascists to stop them with broad campaigns of education and harassment.

Because the NR has concentrated on a parliamentary strategy, hoping to win power in the institutions to then permit a mass of street fighters, it is particularly the wrong time to argue that elections have no importance.

Earlier this month, President Emmanuel Macron, himself a figure of authoritarian neoliberalism, ignored historical precedent in overseeing the creation of the new government after the election. Macron facilitated the creation of a new government led by a prime minister (Michel Barnier) from the traditional center-right party, The Republicans, which had come in fourth place. In doing so, Macron refused to allow the NFP, with the largest number of parliamentary seats, to seek to form a government. How do you assess the stability of this government and the role that now has to be played by the NFP, France Insoumise, and the forces of the revolutionary left, respectively? What has been the response of the Left, as well as the working-class, to Macron’s decision?

Although the present crisis is a slow-burning one, it is the deepest in the country since 1968. The constitution forbids repeat parliamentary elections until next June, so we will see weak minority governments, rapidly changing alliances, and significant space for extraparliamentary revolt.

Barnier’s government is stuffed with reactionaries who are copying ideas from the RN. But Macron would have preferred a more stable left-right coalition, and is unhappy that (so far) the left coalition, the New Popular Front, has held.

Every political organization and political alliance in the country is fragile, including the Barnier government. It took a long time for him to choose ministers, and apparently he had to threaten to resign to make Macron accept his list. The ministers are already bickering publicly about whether RN is a legitimate democratic party or not.

The NFP has reacted by insisting that Macron is in contempt of democracy and that Lucie Castets, the agreed NFP candidate for prime minister, should have been appointed. Nevertheless, nearly half the Socialist Party National Committee wanted to break the left alliance, and voted to support a compromise PM, Bernard Cazeneuve.

It seems to me essential that the whole of the Left should defend the very limited democracy we have under capitalism. It does matter whether Macron respects elections or not. France Insoumise (but not the rest of the NFP) is campaigning for Macron to be impeached for not respecting democracy. This is a healthy, popular demand. The reactions of the revolutionaries have varied, but sadly almost none of the groups have supported the campaign for impeachment.

On other important questions of strategy, the far left organizations are very far from unanimous. One of the bigger groups, Le Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste — The New Anticapitalist Party (NPA), has joined the NFP as a minor player. Others are busy denouncing it.

At very short notice, the NFP was able to build an electoral coalition, one that mobilized broadly across the Left, and within working-class, immigrant, and Arab and Muslim communities, to win the largest plurality of seats. What, if any, is the ongoing impact of these mobilizations in the face of the right-wing government? Can this coalition be the basis for ongoing struggle against the Right?

To some extent. On September 7, demonstrations led by youth organizations and the France Insoumise, and looked on favorably by the leadership of the main left trade union confederation, the Confédération Générale du Travail — General Confederation of Labour (CGT), took place in some 150 towns across France. The Green party and the Communists called for people to get on the streets, but the Socialist Party did not. On September 21, there was a similar mobilization, but it was considerably smaller. France Insoumise is at the center of this dynamic, with other parts of the NFP sometimes agreeing to join in.

It is impossible to say what will come out of a situation which sees both dynamic mass activism and plenty of discouragement on the Left. No doubt the key result on the ground is the 60,000 new people who have asked to get involved with the of France Insoumise and the many hundreds who have joined the different revolutionary organizations.

The more parliament is paralyzed, the more mass action outside parliament is crucial.

There is a lot of criticism and skepticism of the NFP from sections of the revolutionary left based on the participation of the historically social liberal, and pro-NATO Socialist Party. How do you respond to this line of criticism? And how do you understand the balance of forces within the NFP between its constituent parts? How stable do you expect it to be in the face of the Barnier government?

You form coalitions with people you do not agree with. If the France in Revolt leadership had said, “We will not ally with the social-liberals,” there would be a fascist-led government in France today. Every day gives good reason to mistrust most of the leadership of the Socialist Party (as well as the Communist Party), but it is critical that their leaders were pressured from below to sign on to a radical program to block a fascist government.

Like every political force in France today, the coalition is unstable and the right-wing of the Socialist Party are getting organized in case the alliance falls apart. Among other crises, a small group of four or five France Insoumise members of parliament has split off to its right, accompanied by acres of joyful newsprint from the right-wing media. Some of the less right-wing of Macron’s MPs have left his grouping, and the Greens are also having fierce internal debates.

The good news is that Macron’s plan A and plan B both failed. Plan A was the lightning speed election which was supposed to knock out a divided left and leave Macron as “our only defense against fascism.” Plan B was to split the left alliance and set up a “national unity” government with the Right and with sections of the Left outside the France Insoumise.

The huge movement of strikes and street mobilizations, which is necessary and likely, stands more chance against this weak Barnier government.

Insofar as the forces of the far right, led by Marine Le Pen’s RN — which won the greatest number of votes in each round of the election — are essentially giving support to the Barnier government, how do you assess the impact of the new government on the growth of the far right?

This support could be very temporary indeed. But obviously the fascists are hoping to advance in the crisis. Firstly, they want to gain respectability outside their own electorate, particularly in upper-middle-class circles. Secondly, they want to pretend they are the realistic alternative to discredited Macronism. Lastly, they need to encourage their fascist core with red meat racist rhetoric. It’s a difficult balance. In addition, they want to build local party structures everywhere. So, they have real strengths, but lots of weak points that antifascists can attack. There are some signs of antifascist activity increasing around the country, including in France Insoumise.

Given the role that France Insoumise has been playing, and its undisputed mass support within left-wing and antifacist sections of the working-class and immigrant and Arab and muslim communities, it seems clear that revolutionary socialists should relate to this in some way. At the same time, there is some criticism of its inability or failure to create a “democratic membership organization.” In what ways can the revolutionary left relate to LFI?

I was a member of revolutionary organizations in France for more than 30 years. If I am no longer a member now, it is because I think they are wrong on crucial questions and their attitudes to the French new left is at the center of this.

The emergence of the France Insoumise over the last eight years represents a remarkable success for mass left reformism, which must be clearly understood if revolutionaries are to react appropriately.

This is an organization that secured more than 7.5 million votes in 2022 and that speaks of “a citizen’s revolution.” Its leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, calls it “an anticapitalist force, aiming at ecological planning of the economy.” Tens of thousands of people have flocked to the movement over the last couple of months. France Insoumise organized a summer school with 116 meetings and more than 5,000 people in August 2024. It has set up regular educational courses for activists, including “Introduction to Marxism” classes, and is taking the accumulation of cadre seriously.

France Insoumise was the driving force behind the coalition that pushed back the fascists—and it is the force attracting the best young activists now. The organization has succeeded in transforming public debate and breaking the reigning “there is no alternative to neoliberalism” atmosphere. It has brought opposition to islamophobia into the mainstream of left politics, from where it had been absent for several decades (even though both France Insoumise and the revolutionary left in France have some distance still to go on this question).

The organization is organizationally independent of the old reformist left (unlike, say, mass Corbynism in the United Kingdom). It now publishes books, organizes weekend schools and lectures, and seems to be becoming hegemonic on the radical left.

In sharp contrast to left reformist groups in several other countries, France Insoumise’s leadership has held firm on the two issues on which the establishment pressure has been strongest: Palestine and police violence. Two of its leaders, Mathilde Panot and Rima Hassan, were called into the police station, accused of the crime of “supporting terrorism.”

Mélenchon had an official police complaint lodged against him by the Ministry of Higher Education because he criticized the disgusting attitude of the Chancellor of Lille University who banned the group’s lecture on the genocide in Gaza. A far-right police trade union organized a demonstration in front of France Unbowed headquarters some time back. In short, France Insoumise is the center of gravity of radical left politics.

Its emergence is the result of two phenomena. Firstly there is the generalization of political class consciousness in France after the mass political strikes of 1995, 2006, 2010, 2013, 2019, and 2023 (against attacks on pensions or on labor protection legislation) and the popular revolts of 2005, 2018, and 2023 (against police violence or rural poverty). Secondly, there was the weakness and division of the revolutionary left, which we would have liked to have become hegemonic. The result is a mass left reformism, seen as an open-ended determination to rethink the whole of society.

It would be disastrous for revolutionaries to primarily see this new force as unwelcome competition. Seeing tens of thousands of new activists flood in to defend a “citizens’ revolution” and “spectacular change” should delight every Marxist. “Debate, debate, debate” should be the priority — not “denounce, denounce, denounce!” It is essential to take as a starting point what the relation is between France Insoumise and workers’ interests, not to start with what effect the rise of the FI will have on our small organizations.

It is easy to read online what the main newspapers of the French revolutionary left have written about France Insoumise in the last few years. The organization is almost never mentioned, except to denounce selected actions, tactics, or slogans. You find almost no debates with its representatives, nor do you find fraternal in-depth articles explaining agreements and disagreements. I think these two kinds of articles should have been present in every issue of every publication.

Mélenchon has written seven books in the last ten years. I have been unable to find a review of any of them in the main far left publications in France.

This tendency to assess other parties of the Left in a sectarian manner has led to some serious mistakes, cutting the far left off from the most promising new masses of activists. I will mention three examples.

In the presidential elections in 2022, two separate Trotskyist candidates stood against Melenchon, obtaining 0.56 and 0.77 percent of the vote (as against Mélenchon’s 21.95 percent). What is more, the campaign of the least unpopular, Philippe Poutou, mostly spoke of radical reforms, not of revolution.

Then, two months ago, a few France Insoumise MPs split off from the party, after having prepared a new organization (L’Après — L’Association pour la République écologique et sociale). It is becoming clear that this formation will, in fact,be less left-wing. Much of the far left supported the split and continues to support the small organization born from it, citing worries about democracy within France Insoumise.

And, third, the far left has refused, with occasional honorable exceptions, to contradict and fight against the horrific smear campaigns against Mélenchon and other France Insoumise leaders, which are similar to those run against Corbyn in the United Kingdom a few years ago, that he is an antisemite and “friend of Vladimir Putin” and so on.

Concerning the kind of organization France Insoumise is building: unimpressed with the results of traditional radical left parties in France, which are frequently bogged down in endless faction fighting, its leadership wanted to try something different. The party has no formal membership, no one can be expelled, representatives at national delegate meetings are chosen by lottery, and local action groups are very much autonomous. The program is meant to hold the organization together.

Revolutionaries may agree or disagree with these methods (though no one is asking our opinion, to be clear), but they give rise to a situation that has advantages for Marxists. You can be an activist in France Insoumise and a member of another organization. You can openly publish your own paper and have your own meetings.

Personally, I can’t see why revolutionaries won’t work openly inside the France Insoumise. Two or three Trotskyist groups do, keeping their independent voice. But even groups that prefer to stay outside should be ten times more interested than they are in debating with France Insoumise people on the many crucial questions thrown up by the present crisis.

Despite its important work building up movements, the revolutionary left is a small player, and needs to recognize this. Mostly, what we have to offer is ideas, analysis, history.

Many debates are in progress inside France Insoumise. How should we understand women’s oppression? How can a radical program be implemented? What should we think of the animal rights movements, privilege theory, the crisis of imperialism, or left patriotism? Marxists have a huge contribution to make to these discussions.

There are also numerous serious disagreements between Marxists and the leadership of France Insoumise over French imperialism, the role of parliament, the potential for constitutional reform, and so on.

But in the France Insoumise, we have an attractive, dynamic mass organization looking for a “citizens’ revolution.” We Marxists want a workers’ revolution. But in a situation in which 90 percent of the working class do not see a clear difference between the two, it’s better to be inside the hall discussing the way forward than standing in the bus shelter across the road, searching through lists of tactical decisions by the France Insoumise looking for one to denounce.

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The Nobel Prize for Institutions: A critique of Acemoglu and Robinson’s framework

By Dmitry Pozhidaev
Published 
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Nobel Prize economy winners

On the same day the Nobel Committee announced its decision to award the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economics to Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James A Robinson for their work on institutions and prosperity, I found myself critiquing their explanatory framework in the context of my new project on public administration in Serbia. Their argument, primarily from Why Nations Fail (2012), posits that long-term growth depends on the presence of inclusive political and economic institutions — those that promote democratic participation and fair economic practices. But how does this theory hold up in Serbia’s case?

If we look at GDP growth as an indicator of Serbia’s governance capacity to foster economic development, the trend reveals some contradictions. GDP growth peaked around 2008, plateaued for about seven years, and then accelerated around 2015 — coinciding with the rise of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS)-led government. According to the ruling coalition, this resurgence vindicates their superior governance compared to prior administrations.

Interestingly, however, Serbia’s Electoral Democracy Index (EDI) and GDP growth ran in parallel until about 2012, after which they diverged. While Serbia’s democratic standards eroded, economic growth continued to climb, suggesting that prosperity has become increasingly decoupled from democratic governance.

Serbia’s Electoral Democracy Index and GDP, 2001-2023 Source: Author based on V-Dem and National Bank of Serbia data
Serbia’s Electoral Democracy Index and GDP, 2001-2023 Source: Author based on V-Dem and National Bank of Serbia data

This observation raises a fundamental question: How well does Serbia’s recent economic performance fit into the Acemoglu-Robinson framework?

The Acemoglu-Robinson framework: A brief overview

Acemoglu and Robinson’s Nobel-winning research focuses on the relationship between institutions and prosperity. In their view, inclusive institutions — those that allow broad participation, respect for the rule of law, and constrain the power of elites — are essential for long-term economic growth. By contrast, extractive institutions, controlled by elites with no democratic accountability, suppress broad economic participation, leading to stagnation and eventual decline.

Their theory, most famously articulated in Why Nations Fail, posits that inclusive institutions were historically essential for the development of Western economies. They argue that without such institutions, permanent innovation and sustainable growth are impossible, as elites in extractive systems tend to block any development that threatens their power.

The distinction between inclusive and extractive institutions is central to their explanation for why some countries are rich while others remain poor. In their view, countries that embrace inclusive, liberal democratic institutions experience prosperity, while those ruled by rent-seeking elites suffer under extractive institutions.

Critique: The Serbian exception and beyond

However, Serbia presents a challenge to this framework. Despite deteriorating democratic standards and increasing centralisation of power under the SNS, Serbia has experienced sustained GDP growth. This divergence suggests that economic performance in Serbia is not contingent on the type of inclusive institutions Acemoglu and Robinson champion.

Critics have noted similar discrepancies elsewhere. De Vries, for instance, argues that the connection between democracy and economic growth is far more complex than Acemoglu and Robinson suggest. He points out that democracies were exceedingly rare during the economic take-off of most countries, and there is no clear evidence that democratic governance is necessary for growth — rather, the contrary seems to be true in some cases. Furthermore, democracy does not guarantee sustained growth once take-off has been achieved.

This is not an isolated critique. Scholars like Branko Milanovic have been particularly critical of Acemoglu and Robinson’s framework, which Milanovic called “Wikipedia with regressions.” He emphasises a striking and non-accidental omission in Acemoglu and Robinson’s work, a total absence of Communism, which is obviously a set of complex institutions. This is because the functioning of institutions under Communism cannot be explained within their framework. Communism had bad institutions, but they were not put there to serve an "extractive minority".

In Capitalism, Alone, Milanovic points to the economic success of China and Vietnam, which do not possess the “inclusive” institutions described by Acemoglu and Robinson, yet have achieved some of the highest growth rates in the world. In Why Nations Fail, Acemoglu and Robinson dismiss the successes of China and Vietnam as temporary, predicting that their growth will falter as their extractive institutions catch up with them. This prediction, however, remains unfulfilled even as China approaches the status of a global economic superpower.

Michael Roberts, critiquing from a Marxist perspective, highlights the limitations of Acemoglu and Robinson’s framework. He questions how they explain the economic performance of states such as the Soviet Union and China if these regimes are labelled as extractive. Roberts notes that their model oversimplifies the complex relationship between political structures and economic growth, ignoring the role of state-driven development under socialist systems. Moreover, he points out that AJR’s examples — like Britain’s 19th-century democratisation or United States independence — fail to account for the broader economic forces, including the expansion of capitalism, trade, and colonisation, that drove growth.

A broader Marxist critique

In many ways, Acemoglu and Robinson’s framework echoes the “end of history” thesis popularised by Francis Fukuyama, which proclaims Western-style neoliberal democracy as the pinnacle of political and economic development. Their theory essentially reduces the pathway to prosperity to adopting Western liberal institutions, ignoring the historical role capitalism has played in perpetuating unequal development. As Baran and Sweezy argued, capitalism in the Global South is structurally constrained by its relationship with the Global North, which continues to extract surplus value from developing economies.

My research (with Boris Kagarlitsky) on foreign direct investment (FDI) in the Global South shows how surplus value is extracted from the periphery by these same liberal democratic institutions in the centre that Acemoglu and Robinson consider the pinnacle of institutional development. In the case of Serbia, economic growth under a regime that does not fit the definition of “inclusive” challenges the simplistic binary of inclusive versus extractive institutions. Serbia's growth underscores the ways in which global inequality, driven by the same capitalist mechanisms that Acemoglu and Robinson overlook, continues to funnel surplus from the periphery to the centre.

Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson built their framework on the foundation of institutional economics, drawing heavily from Douglass North. However, while North and his followers provided valuable insights, their approach was often too general, too value-neutral, and focused primarily on the transaction costs of institutions. In the 1990s, as post-Communist “end of history” euphoria took hold across Western intellectual fields — from philosophy to history and political science — there was a growing social demand for more ideological clarity. This demand spread to economics as well, which led to a search for a framework that went beyond North’s value-neutral analysis. Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson responded to this demand by developing a more ideologically-oriented model that positioned liberal democratic institutions as the pinnacle of development.

This limited view of democracy has significant consequences, especially for the left. Kagarlitsky warns in his most recent book: “But if our concepts of democracy and freedom are limited by the horizon of liberal political institutions, then we, members of the left, risk losing both our social rights and our political freedoms.” This critique underscores the danger of accepting narrow definitions of democracy that align solely with liberal capitalism, thereby sidelining more radical or socialist alternatives.

In my view, Acemoglu and Robinson’s framework is a product of the neoliberal shift that occurred in the West in the 1970s and ’80s, a period marked by the collapse of the Socialist Bloc. Following the intellectual tradition described by Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Acemoglu and Robinson’s work can be seen as the culmination of a paradigm in institutional economics.

Their framework has cemented itself as part of the dominant discourse in economics, shaping how scholars and policymakers understand development within the liberal capitalist order. Their work provides an ideological justification for the expansion of Western liberal capitalism as the only path to prosperity. However, just as Kuhn argued that paradigms eventually give way to new, more accurate frameworks, the limitations of Acemoglu and Robinson’s theory indicate that the field may soon be ripe for such a paradigm shift.

Conclusion

Marx once said, “theory also becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses.” The strength of Acemoglu and Robinson’s work lies not in its empirical accuracy but in its alignment with the political and economic demands of its time. Their theory of institutional development, though flawed, has become a standard reference point in discussions on economic growth and governance. Acemoglu, Jackson and Robinson have made a notable contribution to firmly establishing institutions as an important part of mainstream economics and economic analysis. That their approach was ideologically consistent with the ruling ideals of liberal democracy did help to overcome the widespread long-entrenched hesitance and suspicion of institutions in economic science, which often viewed institutional analysis as smacking of Marxism despite the pioneering breakthroughs of North and Elinor Ostrom (both of whom were previously awarded Nobel prizes).

While I largely disagree with their conclusions, I included their work in the literature review for my new project on Serbia’s public administration. Their framework, however incomplete, has shaped the debate on institutions and development in a way that cannot be ignored. Despite the evidence to the contrary, their theory continues to hold sway — much like the liberal capitalist order they champion. Pointing to the ideological orientation of the prize, Juan Torres argues Nobel prize awards in economics are inherently partial and ideological, by an institution at the service of the dominant power that has the world in a situation of great instability and risk in which it finds itself.

When analysts like Michael Roberts suggest that Acemoglu and Robinson have recently produced better and more relevant work, it reflects, in a way, the decline in the power of liberal bourgeois institutional economics. This raises the question: does the prize still reflect contemporary reality, or is it a step behind? Had the Nobel Prize been awarded to them a few years earlier, the reaction could have been more enthusiastic. But the mixed reaction within the economic profession now is a promising sign. It suggests that the field has outgrown the restrictive paradigm completed by Acemoglu and Robinson and is actively searching for new, better answers to the challenges of development in today's world.




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RSS enters its centenary: A saga of uninterrupted fascist assault on modern India

By Dipankar Bhattacharya
Published 

Modi RSS

The RSS has now entered its pre-centenary year. The 99th Vijayadashami or foundation day address of RSS supremo Mohan Bhagwat gives us some broad idea as to how the RSS is approaching its centenary. We must however always remember that the RSS remains a conspiratorial organisation at its core and in its essential operational mode and the ideological proclamations and public utterances only give us an outline. But given that the RSS now operates from an unprecedented position of power, it can afford to reveal a lot more, especially if we view the RSS as the coordinating centre or the bridge between the Modi government and the agenda and action of the wider Sangh brigade.

Hindu consolidation remains the central theme of the RSS and to achieve this goal it simultaneously plays the twin cards of victimhood as well as pride and power. Bhagwat talks about international developments selectively and twists them to suit his narrative of aggressive Islam and endangered Hindus. The year-long genocide of Palestinian children and women becomes an Israel-Hamas conflict and the popular upheaval in Bangladesh a violent coup bringing Islamic fundamentalist forces to power. In the same breath he talks about the growing danger of Bangladeshi infiltration and resultant population imbalance in India. This can only raise logical questions that Bhagwat will however never bother to answer.

The only source of authentic demographic data is the decadal census and the Modi government has been careful to avoid the 2021 census to keep the WhatsApp university rumour mills actively churning out fake population figures and projections. If there is infiltration happening across the border in the Modi era, the responsibility lies squarely with the Modi government which has the power and duty to guard the country's borders. And if Islamic fundamentalists are ruling in Bangladesh and the Hindu community there finds itself increasingly endangered, India should expect an influx of Bangladeshi Hindus and not Muslims. Anybody familiar with the Sanghi vocabulary would know that Hindus are described as refugees and the word 'infiltrator' is reserved exclusively for Bangladeshi Muslims. Yet the RSS continues to invoke the bogey of Bangladeshi infiltration to intimidate and mislead the common people of India.

Mohan Bhagwat would like us to believe that India has made great advances on all fronts during the Modi era even as almost all comparative global indices show India in a declining, if not alarming, situation. The Global Hunger Index has once again placed India in the 'serious' category in the global map of hunger, occupying the 105th rank among 127 countries, behind Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka. In Bhagwat's eyes, protest movements within India are all disturbances and obstacles. He has in fact described whole regions of India, 'Punjab, Jammu-Kashmir, Ladakh on the north-western border of the country; Kerala, Tamil Nadu on the sea border; and the entire Purvanchal from Bihar to Manipur' as disturbed. Characterising a region as 'disturbed' has often been the first step towards complete suspension of democracy and brazen violation of human rights. Bhagwat tells us that attempts to disturb and destabilise the country are gaining momentum from all directions.

Just as every dictator has a problem with dissent, the RSS has a problem with every identity and idea that challenges it or that the RSS has failed to appropriate in spite of all attempts. Unlike the period of Golwalkar, Bhagwat cannot possibly openly call for a Unitary State and Presidential system. But he believes that the RSS can dictate terms to regulate identities and the competitive nature of parliamentary democracy. He repeats his 2023 address to blame 'wokeism' and 'cultural Marxism' for creating 'artificial identities' and importing foreign ideas alien to what he calls India's cultural tradition and national interests. In Bhagwat's ideal India there will be no room for a dissenter like Gauri Lankesh, Stan Swamy, GN Saibaba or Umar Khalid - there will be no room for any 'alternative politics' which means every vision of social transformation, comprehensive justice and effective equality will be snuffed out.

Bhagwat says even gods do not protect the weak. In other words, attacks on minorities and marginalised groups are now sanctified as a divine duty. Assault on the weak, bulldozing of diversity, delegitimisation of dissent and conflation of majority with the nation - Bhagwat's 99th RSS anniversary address hardly seeks to camouflage this blueprint of a fascist order. Of course, while unveiling the centenary expedition of the RSS, Bhagwat is keenly aware of the impending Assembly elections in Maharashtra and Jharkhand. We are therefore reminded that the centenary of the RSS coincides with the 300th birth anniversary of Queen Ahilya Bai of the House of Holkar of the Maratha Confederacy known for her campaign of temple construction, the 150th birth anniversary year of Birsa Munda, stripped in the Sangh narrative of his anti-colonial history and the current context of the indigenous people's resistance against corporate plunder, and the centenary of the Satsang set up by Anukulchandra in Deoghar.

The organisation that had openly rejected the Constitution of independent India at the time of its adoption today sets the terms of the Republic's future as we observe the 75th anniversary of the adoption of the Constitution. This is the biggest calamity that Ambedkar had prophetically warned us about and the Republic and its people must summon all their innate strength and courage to overcome this calamity.

Dipankar Bhattacharya is General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation.


LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Hinduism Is Fascism 

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