"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."—Declaration of Independence of the United States of America, July 4, 1776
On Independence Day in the United States, I invite the reader to see my blog posts from November 1 to November 14, 2013 on the American Revolution. These posts maintain that a movement in opposition to British commercial policies initiated by the American elite in the 1760s had come under the control of popular sectors during the period 1775-77; and that the elite forged a counterrevolution that culminated in the Constitution of 1787, which eliminated structures of popular participation and popular control that had been developed by the people and permitted by the Articles of Confederation. Thus, the US Constitution of 1787 was limited, not only with respect to its exclusion of blacks and women, but also in regard to its establishment of structures for limiting popular participation and with respect to its ignoring issues of social and economic rights. US political culture subsequently developed with a limited understanding of democracy that does not include the social and economic rights of the people or the right of the people to form popular assemblies. Nor does US public discourse meaningfully address the right of nations to self-determination and sovereignty, a democratic concept that would emerge during the world-wide anti-colonial struggles of the twentieth century. The blog posts on American democracy conclude by calling upon the people of the United States to renew its tradition of popular revolution, which expressed itself in three historic moments, with the intention of replacing rule by corporate interests with rule by delegates of the people, and with the purpose of seeking to establish a government that acts in accordance with universal human values.
The blog posts on the American Revolution are as follows: "The US popular movement of 1775-77" 11/1/13; "American counterrevolution, 1777-87" 11/4/13; "Balance of power" 11/5/13; "Popular democracy" 11/6/13; "Social and economic rights" 11/7/13; "Right of nations to self-determination" 11/8/13; "The rights of women" 11/11/13; "Sustainable development" 11/12/13; "The limitations of American democracy" 11/13/13; "What is revolution?" 11/14/13. Scroll down to find them.
Also relevant to our understanding of the limitations of American democracy is the fact that, since the beginning of the twentieth century, US foreign policy has been imperialist, seeking to promote the economic, commercial, and financial penetration by US corporations and banks, in violation of the rights of nations to self-determination and true independence. A renewed American popular revolution would have to include an anti-imperialist dimension, substituting imperialist foreign policy with a policy of North-South cooperation. For documentation of the imperialist character to US foreign policy, even under progressive presidents, see: "The origin of US imperialist policies" 9/18/2013; "US Imperialism, 1903-1932" 9/19/2013; "Imperialism and the FDR New Deal" 9/20/2013; "The Cold War and Imperialism" 9/24/2013; "Kennedy and the Third World" 9/25/2013; "The Alliance for Progress" 9/26/2013; "US Imperialism in Latin America, 1963-76" 9/27/2013; "Imperialism falters in Vietnam" 9/30/2013; "Jimmy Carter" 10/1/2013; "Reaganism" 10/4/2013; "Imperialism as neoliberalism" 10/7/2013; "The "neocons" take control" 10/8/2013; "Obama: More continuity than change" 10/9/2013; "Imperialism as basic to foreign policy" 10/10/2013.
To my compatriots in the United States, enjoy the hot dogs and beer. Here in Cuba, the Fourth of July is not celebrated, but it is acknowledged, out of respect for the traditions of the people of the United States, and in recognition of a day of historic significance in the democratic struggles of the peoples of the earth.
The US popular movement of 1775-77
Beginning in 1763, the British Parliament enacted a series of measures designed to raise revenue for the British government in order to pay debts accumulated during the Seven Years' War (known in the United States as the French and Indian War). The measures involved taxes and duties on trade with the North American colonies, favoring British over American merchants and undermining the commercial and political power of the American elite. They included the Proclamation Line of 1763, the Currency Act of 1764, the Sugar Act of 1764, the Stamp Act of 1765, the Quartering Act of 1765, the Declaratory Act of 1766, and the Townsend Duties of 1767 (Shalhope 1990:27-31; Zinn 59-60).
The measures stimulated a movement in opposition to British commercial policies and ultimately in opposition to British control of the North American colonies of British settlers. It was led by the American elite, a wealthy educated class consisting primarily of merchants and large planters. Lawyers, editors, and merchants of the upper class mobilized popular energy through writings and speeches that used the language of liberty and equality. Utilizing newspaper editorials, pamphlets, and mass meetings, the educated elite rallied the mass of ordinary citizens from the urban middle class (small merchants, lawyers, ship captains, and clergy) as well as the urban working class (artisans, seamen, laborers) and small farmers. The use of writing and publication to reach the popular classes was a new step for the educated elite, who had previously confined themselves to writing solely to an audience of fellow gentlemen (Shalhope 1990:27-31; Zinn 58-61).
The conflict between the British government and the American movement came to a head from 1773 to 1776. The Tea Act of 1773 led to the Boston Tea Party of December 16, 1773, which led to the Coercive Acts of 1774, leading to the summoning of a Continental Congress and to confrontation in Lexington and Concord in 1775. The Continental Congress turned increasingly to the question of declaring independence from Britain, leading to the Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776 (Shalhope 1990:28, 83-84). Written principally by Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration of Independence formulated a vision of a society composed of equal individuals, in which each individual has inalienable rights: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
But the mobilization of the popular sectors involved risks for the American elite. The energy of the people was rooted in anger provoked by accumulated grievances against the upper class itself. In order to avoid that popular energy would turn against the upper class, the elite sought to channel popular rage toward Britain and the pro-British sector of the American elite. The key was the rhetoric of Patrick Henry and Thomas Paine, who used language that provoked anger at the British and was vague on class issues (Zinn 61-65).
In spite of the success of the rhetoric of liberty and equality in unifying the colony and in obscuring class divisions, popular aspirations could not be contained. By 1775-77, the nationalist movement had evolved into a popular democratic movement in which small farmers, artisans, and workers played an important role. During this time, all of the constitutions of the thirteen colonies were rewritten or substantially modified. Setting aside property and educational requirements, they granted the right to vote to ordinary men of European descent. They vested power in the legislative assemblies established by this broadly-based vote, giving the assemblies authority over the executive and legislative branches of the government. They had many other democratic provisions, including programs of aid for farmers and artisans, systems of taxation that were more egalitarian, programs for the redistribution of land, and limitations on the accumulation of property by one individual (Foner 1998:17-21; Shalhope 1990: 83-91).
The popular democratic movement of 1775 to 1777 was in important respects limited. The British settlers in North America were accumulating capital through the sale of food and animal products to slaveholders in the Caribbean. They had no economic interest in the abolition of slavery or in the rights of slaves, and the popular movement did not address these rights. Nor did the movement address the rights of women. But the popular democratic movement was very progressive for its time, and it provoked a conflict with the large landholders and the emerging commercial bourgeoisie, which began to resist the popular movement. We will discuss this reaction of the elite in the next post.
Foner, Eric. 1998. The Story of American Freedom. New York: W.W. Norton.
Shalhope, Robert E. 1990. The Roots of Democracy: American Thought and Culture, 1760-1800. Boston: Twayne Publishers.
Zinn, Howard. 2005. A People's History of the United States: 1492 – Present. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Harper Perennial Modern Classics
Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, American Revolution, Patrick Henry, Thomas Paine, Eric Foner, Robert Shalhope, Howard Zinn
American counterrevolution, 1777-87
The Articles of Confederation of 1777 established a federation of states that essentially preserved the self-government of the thirteen states and the democratic structures established by their recently written or modified constitutions (Shalhope 1990:84-85; see "The US popular movement of 1775-77" 11/1/2013). But the democratic structures established by the state constitutions were a threat to the privileges of the educated gentry, a class of large landholders and educated men. As Shalhope explains:
​Members of the gentry had welcomed their poorer countrymen's support in opposition to the British aristocracy but expressed shock and dismay upon hearing, shortly after the outbreak of the Revolution, their cries that 'we have not cast off a British aristocracy to be saddled with an American one." In many colonies groups of individuals demanded "no guvernair but the guvernair of the univarse' and pressed for state constitutions eliminating governors and upper houses, as well as supporting annually elected lower houses based upon universal male suffrage. Worse, in the minds of the gentry, the people insisted on electing representatives who were not gentlemen, but men who would represent the local interests of their constituents. The whole fabric of social hierarchy seemed to be coming under concerted attack (1990: 92).
​ The elite responded to the threat from below with a reactionary movement that sought to reverse some of the gains of the revolutionary movement. They sought to revise state constitutions, and they ultimately were able to replace the Articles of Confederation with the Constitution of 1787. The Constitution transferred significant powers to the federal government. It also established much larger voting districts for the House of Representatives, thus making it much more difficult for ordinary men to be elected, and tilting the playing field in favor of educated and wealthy men, or men of modest means who could obtain the support of the wealthy. In addition, the new constitution transformed the separation of powers into the balance of powers, facilitating that the executive and judicial branches and the upper house could check the action of the lower house, should the lower house fall under the control of the popular classes (Shalhope 1990:97-101).
The Constitution provoked a reaction from the popular democratic movement. Ordinary farmers, traders, artisans, and workers formed associations and published pamphlets and newspapers. These popular organizations were developed to promote the interests of the popular classes, and their participants were generally referred to as anti-Federalists. In reaction to repression by the government, the popular organizations advocated freedom of speech, press, and association. They were able to force the adoption of ten amendments to the Constitution that came to be known as the Bill of Rights, although even this apparent guardian of the people's liberties contained ambiguities. And they were able to elect Thomas Jefferson as president in 1800. As the most radical member of the upper class ruling elite and the author of the stirring words of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson was identified with the popular cause (Foner 1998:42-43; Shalhope 1990:105, 150, 164; Zinn 2005:90-102).
But the Constitution had established the legal and political foundation for a political process that favors elite control. It represented the victory of an elite counterrevolution that reversed the gains of the popular democratic revolution of 1775-77, a phenomenon that is nearly erased from our national consciousness.
In addition to recognizing that the Constitution was the product of a victorious elite counterrevolution, we also should be aware that the theory and practice of American democracy were formed in a particular historical and social context. The structures of competing political parties emerged in the context of a social conflict between the elite and the popular classes. And the emphasis on freedom of speech and association emerged in the context of repression of the popular movement. And we should understand that the American historical and social context is not universal. Revolutionary processes developing in different historical and social contexts will forge different understandings and practices of democracy, appropriate for their particular situations. We should avoid the ethnocentric error of assuming that the American theory and practice of democracy is the universal standard for humanity.
Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, American Revolution, Articles of Confederation, US Constitution, Eric Foner, Robert Shalhope, Howard Zinn
The Articles of Confederation of 1777 were in opposition to the interests of the American elite. The document gave limited power to the federal government and concentrated power in the state governments, which were controlled by the popular classes. The elite were particularly concerned that limitations on property rights would be established by state governments under popular control. So the upper class formed a successful movement for a new Constitution that expanded the power of the federal government and that went beyond the separation of power to the balance of power, creating a situation where one of the three branches (legislative, executive and judicial) is able to check the power of the other two (see "American Counterrevolution 1777-1787" 11/3/2013).
The balance of power is generally presented in US culture as a wise mechanism designed to ensure that no one group has too much power. What this widely-accepted view fails to mention is that it was designed by the elite to ensure that the representatives of the people did not have too much power vis-à-vis the elite. The representatives of the popular classes were concentrated in the legislative branch, whereas the executive and judicial branches of that era were selected through processes much less democratic. So the balance of power constituted a mechanism to enable elite representatives to check the power of the representatives of the popular classes. In addition, the new Constitution expanded the size of voting districts, which facilitated that ordinary and common people would have less possibility of winning elections, since the larger voting districts required candidates to have more resources. Thus key components of the Constitution were established with the explicit intention of frustrating the popular will (Beard 1960:154-63; Miller 1991:18, 97, 105-9; Foner 1998:24; Shalhope 1990: 99-107; Edelman 1984:16).
Some commentators have observed that the writers of the Constitution established the form of democracy without the substance. Their mechanism for doing so was the concept of popular sovereignty, which is the idea that the government exercises power in the name of the people and with the consent of the people. Although this seems like a democratic concept, the exercising of power by the government in the name of the people is something fundamentally different from the exercising of power directly by the people themselves. The concept of popular sovereignty gives power to the people, but converts the people into an abstraction, into "a mythic entity that never meets, never discusses, and never takes any action" (Miller 1991:113). The concept of popular sovereignty makes it possible for political leaders who distrust democracy to invoke the rhetoric of democracy (Miller 1991: 105-28; Shalhope 1990: 102, 106).
The legacy of the balance of power remains with us. Proposed projects of law or national action must make their way in a system of checks and balances in which elite representatives are everywhere present to guarantee the protection of elite interests, generating ideologies that obscure their true intentions. At the same time, with the destruction of fledging efforts at local popular assemblies at the end of the eighteenth century, our people have not developed the practice of popular discourse. We are a divided and confused people, manipulated by the mass media, which are owned by the elite.
The system of checks and balances that we have inherited is a contentious process, and proposals that become law are based on compromise rather than consensus, and for this reason rarely enjoy the unqualified support of the majority. We lack the capacity to develop a reasonable national project on the basis of national consensus. We have seen the fall of worthy and necessary national projects: LBJ's War on Poverty, Jimmy Carter's proposal for the protection of the environment, and the health insurance proposal of the Clintons in the 1990s. Obama's health insurance proposal was passed only after significant modifications that may have undermined its intention, and its initial steps at implementation are full of contention and discord. The exceptions to this pattern of contentious discord are those proposals that have overwhelming popular support on the basis of manipulation of popular fear of a supposed internal or external enemy or threat.
I have seen firsthand an alternative political process, and I can affirm that it need not be this way. But first we must rediscover our history, and particularly our history of popular struggle, which from time to time has lifted a bright star in the American political landscape, as a result of the heroic efforts at different historic moments of farmers, artisans, workers, African-Americans, women, Native Americans, Latinos, defenders of the earth, and intellectuals committed to defense of the true and the right. And we must come to appreciate the popular movements formed by the peoples of the Third World, whose anti-imperialist struggles must be tied to our own struggles for a true fulfillment of the American promise of democracy.
Beard, Charles A. 1960 (1913). An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States. New York: Macmillan.
Edelman, Martin. 1984. Democratic Theories and the Constitution. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Miller, Joshua. 1991. The Rise and Fall of Democracy in Early America, 1630-1789: The Legacy for Contemporary Politics. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press.
Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, American Revolution, Articles of Confederation, US Constitution, balance of power, Eric Foner, Robert Shalhope, Charles Beard, Martin Edelman, Joshua Miller
Popular democracy
In 1976, the people of Cuba overwhelmingly approved a Constitution that established a political system based on popular participation. The Constitution established structures of "Popular Power," where the highest authority resides in the National Assembly of Popular Power. The deputies of the National Assembly are elected by the delegates of the 169 Municipal Assemblies in the country, who are elected in elections with two to six candidates in voting districts of 1000 to 1500 voters. The candidates are nominated in a series of nomination meetings held in each voting district. They are not nominated by any political party, and focus at the nomination meetings is on the leadership qualities of the candidates. The deputies of the National Assembly are elected to five-year terms. As the highest political authority in the nation, the National Assembly enacts legislation, and it elects the 31 members of the Council of State and Ministers, including the President of the Council of State and Ministers, who is the chief of state.
The Cuban Constitution of 1976 also established requirements for consultation by the national, provincial, and municipal assemblies with mass organizations. The mass organizations are organizations of workers, women, students, peasants and cooperative members, and neighborhoods. They meet on a regular basis to discuss concerns of their members, and the discussions range from concrete problems to major global issues. The mass organizations have a participation rate of 85%.
There are other examples of revolutions and movements forming popular assemblies and popular councils: the Paris Commune of 1871, the Russian Revolution of 1917, the German Revolution of 1918, the Hungarian Revolution of 1919, the General Strike in Great Britain in 1926, and the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (Grant 1997:61). Popular councils also have been developed in Vietnam (Ho 2007:162-76), and they are being developed today in Latin America, particularly in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador.
Popular assemblies and popular councils are structures of popular democracy. They are fundamentally different from bourgeois structures of representative democracy. Popular democracy is characterized by regular face to face meetings of small groups in places of work and study and in neighborhoods, where the people meet to discuss the challenges and issues that they confront. In such settings, if someone has a confused or distorted conception, those persons with a more informed and comprehensive understanding of the issue can explain further, thus reducing the tendency to distortion and confusion, helping the people to understand the issues. In this process, those with a capacity to explain and with a commitment to fundamental human values earn the respect, trust, and confidence of their neighbors, co-workers, and/or fellow students. It is an environment that gives space to natural and indigenous leadership, and many leaders are able to develop their leadership capacities in the various mass organizations, serving from the local to national level. In Cuba, for example, it is not uncommon to find informed, committed, and articulate persons serving as president of the neighborhood organization for a city block, or as president of a municipal assembly in a small rural town.
In contrast, representative democracy is an impersonal and anonymous process. The people vote, or they select from predetermined answers for an opinion survey, but they do not meet to discuss and to inform themselves. They respond not to arguments, reasons, and evidence presented in face to face conversations, but to slogans and sound bites presented in the mass media, sometimes in the form of political advertising. Representative democracy is a process in which organizations compete, vying to see which political party or particular interest can generate the most support in elections or opinion polls, or better said, to see which party or interest can more effectively manipulate the people, who never meet to argue, debate, and discuss. In such a context, with competing particular interests presenting different and opposed spins and manipulations, the development of a consensus that could be the basis of a constructive national project is no more than an idealistic and naïve hope.
The formation of popular councils is an integral and necessary dimension of a social transformation that seeks a just and democratic world.
August, Arnold. 1999. Democracy in Cuba and the 1997-98 Elections. Havana: Editorial José Martí.
Grant, Ted. 1997. Rusia—De la revolución a la contrarrevolución: Un análisis marxista. Prólogo de Alan Woods. Traducción de Jordi Martorell. Madrid: Fundación Federico Engels.
Ho Chi Minh. 2007. Down with Colonialism. Introduction by Walden Bello. London: Verso.
Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, popular democracy, popular assembly, popular council, representative democracy, Paris Commune, Cuban Constitution, popular power in Cuba, mass organizations, Arnold August
Social and economic rights
The American Constitution did not include provisions for the protection of social and economic rights, such as the right to an adequate wage and adequate nutrition as well as equal access to education and health care. In response to this situation, there emerged popular democratic movements that sought to expand the scope of democratic rights to include the right to the social and economic conditions that are a necessary for a decent human life.
An important example is the labor movement. In the United States, the labor movement developed primarily trade unionism as against working-class consciousness (Cohen 1970). Trade unionism focuses on the attainment of better wages and working conditions for the organized workers of the higher paid trades, and it tends to lead to a division of the working class and the incorporation of higher paid workers into the consumer society. In contrast, working-class consciousness stresses the unity of all workers, and it seeks the protection of the social and economic rights of all.
But working-class consciousness did exist as a secondary tendency in the US labor movement. From 1905 to 1920, the International Workers of the World (IWW, or Wobblies) sought to form one big union that included workers of all trades, skilled and unskilled workers, women workers, and black workers; in contrast to the American Federation of Labor, which was an exclusive federation consisting overwhelmingly of white male workers who were organized in the higher-wage trades. But government repression of the IWW beginning in 1919 led to its destruction. In the 1930s, communists played an active role in organizing textile workers and tenant farmers in the South and urban workers in the North, and they sought to educate workers into working-class consciousness. But their influence in the labor movement was eliminated by repression during Cold War of the post-World War II era (Zinn 2005:328-54, 381-86).
In 1935 and 1936, there were sit-down strikes, not organized by union leadership but by rank-and-file workers, thus constituting a serious threat to the stability of the system. In response to these threats, the National Labor Relations Board was established. It controlled labor rebellions by granting legal status to unions, making concessions to union demands for improvements in living and working conditions, and channeling labor energy into contracts, negotiations, and union meetings. Such reforms as a minimum wage, the forty-hour work week, and retirement and unemployment benefits were established. These were concrete and important gains, but the new labor-management system undermined the possibility of a working-class alliance with other popular sectors that could take control of political institutions from the capitalist class and its political representatives (Zinn 2005:393-402).
The African-American movement also provides an important example of the demand for social and economic rights in the United States. Its expression can be found in the Reconstruction and populist movements of the South in the period of 1865 to 1895, the declarations of the NAACP in the 1920s, the concept of black community control formulated by Malcolm X and the black nationalist strain from 1964 to 1972, the Poor People's Campaign of Martin Luther King in 1968, and the Rainbow Coalition of Jesse Jackson in the 1980s (McKelvey 1994).
In Western Europe, working-class consciousness was more fully developed than in the United States, and the social democratic movement had a greater impact on Western European political culture. There emerged a broadening of the definition of democracy to include the social and economic rights, such as the right of all citizens to a decent wages and adequate working condition as well as to nutrition, housing, education, and health care (Miller and Potthoff 1986; Paterson and Thomas 1986). Nonetheless, the reversals of the gains in Western Europe since 1980 suggest fundamental limitations in the reformist strategy that has been adopted by the Western European working-class organizations and parties, as distinct from a revolutionary strategy that would seek to take control of national political structures through an alliance of workers with other popular sectors (Regalado 2007:43-47).
Partly as a result of the influence of the social democratic movements of Western Europe, and partly as a result of the participation of the communist governments of Eastern Europe in the United Nations, the deepening of the meaning of democracy to include social and economic rights has occurred in the world as a whole. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, emitted by the United Nations in 1948, includes articles that proclaim protection of social and economic rights, including the right to a decent standard of living and to food, housing, and medical care.
In addition, the protection of social and economic rights has been an integral component of the anti-colonial and anti-neocolonial revolutions of the Third World, commonly expressed as a dimension of the right to development, viewed as the most fundamental of all human rights. The demand for the protection of social and economic rights can be found in the declarations of the Non-Aligned Movement, an organization of the governments of the Third World. And it is a fundamental dimension of the renewed popular movements of Latin America today. We will discuss these movements in future posts.
Although the US government conducts its foreign policy on the premise that the United States is more democratic than any other nation, most of the nations and peoples of the earth have a more advanced understanding of democracy with respect to the protection of social and economic rights.
Cohen, Sanford. 1970. Labor in the United States, 3rd edition. Columbus, Ohio: Charles E. Merrill Publishing Co.
McKelvey, Charles. 1994. The African-American Movement: From Pan-Africanism to the Rainbow Coalition. Bayside, New York: General Hall.
Miller, Susanne, and Heinrich Potthoff. 1986. A History of German Social Democracy from 1848 to the present. Translated from the German by J.A. Underwood. New York: St. Martin's Press.
Paterson, William E., and Alastair H. Thomas, Eds. 1986. The Future of Social Democracy. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Regalado, Roberto. 2007. Latin America at the Crossroads: Domination, Crisis, Popular Movements, and Political Alternatives. New York: Ocean Press.
Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, labor, labor movement, labor unions, trade-union consciousness, working-class consciousness, social democracy, social and economic rights
Right of nations to self-determination
As a result of the influence of popular democratic movements throughout the world, the meaning of democracy has evolved. Accordingly, there has emerged the understanding that not only individuals have rights, but nations and ethnic and cultural groups have rights, and among these are the rights of nations to self-determination and sovereignty and of ethnic and cultural groups to cultural autonomy and to the preservation of their cultures.
V.I. Lenin affirmed the right of the self-determination of the oppressed nations of the Russian empire as well as of the European colonies of Asia and Africa. He understood that colonial domination of the nations and peoples of Asia and Africa provided markets and raw materials for the capitalist powers, and that revolutionary anti-imperialist movements emerge in the colonies, formed by workers, peasants, and enlightened members of the middle class. He believed that the proletarian revolution in the developed countries ought to be allied with the anti-imperialist revolutions in the colonies (Lenin 2010; 1968).
When the young Ho Chi Minh became involved in the socialist movement in Paris in the early 1920s, he encountered the debate between the second and third internationals, and he wanted to know which side supported the struggle of the colonized people. He was told that it was the Third International, and he was given a copy of Lenin's "Theses on the National and Colonial Question." The affirmation by Lenin of the rights of the colonized people converted Ho into a Leninist, and it would lead to his affiliation with the French Communist Party, to a study of Marxism-Leninism, and ultimately to his creative practical synthesis of Marxism-Leninism with a Third World anti-colonial perspective. Ho's "Report on the National and Colonial Questions" at the Fifth Congress of the Communist International as well as other writings of 1924 reveal that Ho was critical of the communist parties of the West for lacking contact with the colonial peoples and for ignoring the colonial question, thus not following in practice the theoretical formulations of Lenin on the national question (García Oliveras 2010:25-27; Bello 2007:xii-xiv; Ho 2007:24-38).
Ho Chi Minh illustrates the importance of the principle of the self-determination of nations in the anti-colonial movements that emerged in Africa and Asia during the twentieth century and that culminated in the attainment of political independence by the colonies in the period 1948 to 1963. Reflecting the new political reality established by the African and Asian national liberation movements, the United Nations in 1966 gave official certification to the right of nations and peoples to self-determination and development. The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, proclaimed: "All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development. All peoples may, for their own ends, freely dispose of their natural wealth and resources without prejudice to any obligations arising out of international economic co-operation."
The right of nations to self-determination is repeatedly affirmed today in the declarations of the Non-Aligned Movement, an organization of governments of the Third World who represent three-quarters of humanity, and in the declarations of the Alternative World Movement, a global social movement that emerged in the late 1990s in opposition to the imposition of the neoliberal project by the global powers and the international finance agencies. In addition, respect for the sovereignty of all nations is an integral component of the process of integration and union that is occurring in Latin America today under the leadership of Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador. We will be discussing these movements in future posts.
During the course of the twentieth century, US foreign policy has sought to maximize access by US corporations to the natural resources and labor of the world, generally manipulating the idea of democracy as a pretext for its intervention in the affairs of other nations, with the consequence that the sovereignty of nations has been denied in practice. The United States pretends to be defending democracy in the world, but in fact it systematically negates the democratic right of self-determination of nations, a right affirmed by the peoples of the world. In opposition to this historic tendency, Jesse Jackson in his presidential campaign of 1988 proposed a US foreign policy of global North-South cooperation that would respect the right of self-determination and that would seek to overcome poverty and underdevelopment in the Third World (McKelvey 1994:284-90).
Bello, Walden. 2007. "Introduction: Ho Chi Minh: The Communist as Nationalist" in Ho Chi Minh (2007).
García Oliveras, Julio A. 2010. Ho Chi Minh El Patriota: 60 años de lucha revolucionaria. La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.
Lenin, V.I. 1968. National Liberation, Socialism, and Imperialism: Selected Writings. New York: International Publishers.
__________. 2010. "Tesis sobre la cuestion nacional y colonial" in La Internacional Comunista: Tesis, manifiestos, y resoluciones de los cuatro primeros congresos (1919-1922). Madrid: Fundación Federico Engels.
Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Ho Chi Minh
The rights of women
The American Constitution made no affirmation of the rights of women. As Howard Zinn writes in relation to the Declaration of Independence, "The use of the phrase 'all men are created equal' was probably not a deliberate attempt to make a statement about women. It was just that women were beyond consideration as worthy of inclusion. They were politically invisible. Though practical needs gave women a certain authority in the home, on the farm, or in occupations like midwifery, they were simply overlooked in any consideration of political rights, any notions of civic equality" (2005:73).
Seeking to expand the meaning of democracy, women in the United States during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries formed a movement that sought the affirmation and protection of their rights as women. The movement included liberal reformist efforts to extend the concept of individual rights and liberties to women, radical critiques of the structures and ideology of patriarchy, and syntheses of feminism and socialism. The movement was able to attain the constitutional right of women to vote in 1919. And it had a significant impact on the dominant US culture from the 1960s to the 1980s, as many feminist ideas, especially from liberal feminism, became widely disseminated. Fundamental principles of the movement, principles such as equal educational and occupational opportunity and the right of women to full participation in the public sphere, became widely accepted (Buechler 1990; Madoo Lengermann and Niebrugge 2008).
But the feminist movement encountered organized opposition in the 1970s, blocking the passage of a proposed constitutional amendment. Successfully exploiting issues such as abortion rights and gay rights, the anti-feminist counter movement portrayed the women's movement as opposed to "family values" and as contributing to a moral decline in the nation. By the 1980s, a conservative mood was ascendant, and there occurred a de-radicalization of the movement, in which its potential to attain a social transformation was lost (Buechler 1990:120-25, 186-98).
The inability of the movement to protect itself against the counterattack of the right is related to its limitations. The movement never organized women into a mass organization, in the context of which intellectual work could have been tied to the practical concerns of women, leading to the formulation of a proposed national program of action that would have the recognized support of the majority of women. At the same time, issues of gender have been fragmented from other issues, such as poverty, class inequality, race and ethnicity, environment, and imperialism. Social scientists in the 1980s spoke of the need to unify issues of "race, class, and gender," but this was not accomplished in theory or practice.
In the presidential campaigns of 1984 and 1988, Jesse Jackson tried to unify progressive forces through a "Rainbow Coalition," a progressive alliance of women, blacks, Latinos, workers, farmers, and ecologists. In relation to women, his 1988 campaign proposed a reform of salary structures in accordance with the principle of comparable worth and funding for child care, and it affirmed the right of women to reproductive choice. Although overwhelmingly supported by black and Latino voters, he received only 12% of the votes of white women voters in the democratic primaries of 1988, equal to the percentage of votes that he received among white men (McKelvey 275-84).
Fundamental principles of the women's movements of the developed nations were widely disseminated throughout the Third World during the 1970s and 1980s, and they became integrated into the renewed Third World movements that emerged after 1995. In its global dissemination and integration into Third World movements, feminism was transformed. The new Third World feminism selected key ideas from liberal, radical, and socialist feminism in order to formulate an understanding that could attain popular consensus. Taking from liberal feminism its focus on equal rights for women, Third World feminism affirms the right of women to full and equal participation in the construction of a just, democratic, and sustainable world. Taking from radical feminism the recognition that violence against women is a systemic problem, Third World feminism mobilizes public opinion and engages in political education in relation to the problem of violence against women, and it seeks to establish structures of support for women who have been victimized by violence. Taking from socialist feminism the need for integration, Third World feminism sees its role as one of redeeming the general social struggle of the people and of bringing the struggle to a more advanced stage. In this process of integration into the popular movement, Third World feminism treats with delicacy the issues of lesbianism and abortion, seeing these issues as divisive and as undermining the possibility for a practical integration of fundamental feminist concepts into the unfolding anti-neocolonial popular movements. As a result of its creative adaptation to its particular social and economic conditions and its sensitivity to popular sentiments, Third World feminism has become an integral part of a global movement that today challenges global neocolonial structures and that seeks to construct a just, democratic, and sustainable world-system.
In a series of conversations that I had in 1998 with founders of women's organizations in Honduras, the principal leaders of the Honduran women's movement described to me this process of the transformation of feminism. They had found compelling the fundamental concepts of feminism that had been formulated in the developed nations. But they understood the necessity of adapting feminism to their particular social and economic conditions. Thus they gave emphasis to some concepts and rejected others, and they developed an alternative form of feminism. Their approach was sometimes criticized by feminists from the North as an immature feminism, but they insisted on defending their feminism as valid and as appropriate for the neocolonial situation of their country (McKelvey 1999).
Thus we may speak of the internationalization and transformation of feminism. As a form of feminism that is integrally connected to popular anti-neocolonial movements, Third World feminism could be interpreted as a more advanced formulation that synthesizes concepts that emerge from social struggles against multiple forms of domination. Perhaps the "womanist" formulations that have emerged in the black community are a particular manifestation of this integral and more comprehensive form of feminism.
Buechler, Steven M. 1990. Women's Movements in the United States. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Madoo Lengermann, Patricia and Gillian Niebrugge. 2008. "Contemporary Feminist Theories" in George Ritzer, Sociological Theory, Seventh Edition, Pp. 450-97. Boston: McGraw-Hill.
__________. 1999. "Feminist Organizations and Grassroots Democracy in Honduras" in Jill Bystydzienski and Joti Sekhon, eds., Democratization and Women's Grassroots Movements. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, Pp. 196-213.
Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, women, women's movement, feminism, Third World feminism
We have seen that in the evolution of the meaning of democracy, the movements and nations of the Third World arrived to proclaim that nations and peoples have rights, and among these are the rights to self-determination and development ("Right of nations to self-determination" 11/8/2013; "Social and economic rights" 11/7/2013). Since the 1980s, the concept of development has itself undergone an evolution, and it is now understood as "sustainable development," in which the satisfaction of the needs of the present does not compromise the capacity of future generations to satisfy their needs. By the end of the 1980s, the concept of sustainable development was diffused widely throughout the world, as reflected in "Our Common Future," a report emitted by the World Commission on Environment and Development.
The evolution from development to sustainable development was tied to what Pearce and Warford (1993) have called the second environmental revolution. The first environmental revolution of the 1960s had seen economic growth and environmental protection as irreconcilable opposites, always in conflict. But the second revolution of the 1980s did not question the need for growth. Rather, it sought to define how to grow, or how to develop in a form that is sustainable.
The Cuban scholar and environmental specialist Ramon Pichs (2006) maintains that the turn to sustainable development occurred as a result of the participation of organizations and movements of the Third World in the global process of reflection on environmental issues. From the point of view of the Third World, the ecological revolution of the 1960s, with its call for conservation and for constraints on economic growth, made sense in the context of the developed societies, characterized by over-production and irrational patterns of consumption. But limiting growth was not a reasonable approach for the underdeveloped societies, which did not have productive patterns that could provide even basic human needs, as a consequence of the neocolonial situation. However, the Third World discerned from the outset the importance of the ecological revolution as it developed from the 1960s through the 1980s, given its consciousness of the contaminating effects of the prevailing patterns of production and of the global scope of environmental problems. Thus, Third World participation in the discussion led to a reformulation of the issue, and sustainable development emerged as a new consensual understanding.
In spite of the emergence of a global consensus on sustainable development, the concept is subject to different interpretations. In the developed nations, there is a tendency to recognize the immense global socio-economic inequalities, but a failure to understand the mechanisms that have generated these inequalities. This can lead to utopian interpretations of sustainable development, in which it is imagined that there is a union of interests between the North and South, and the two worlds can together attain social equality, economic growth, and conservation of the environment. From the Third World perspective, there are indeed common human interests, but to find expression for common interests, the different and opposed interests that emerge from different sides of the colonial divide must be acknowledged and addressed.
In addition, as the international environmental debate has proceeded, the governments of the North have insisted on treating separately the problems of the environment from those of development, in spite of the fact that the 1992 Summit on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro affirmed that the eradication of poverty and the protection of the environment are connected. From the point of view of the Third World, this appears to be a maneuver by the governments of the North to avoid their responsibilities.
Pichs maintains that, in spite of the different interpretations that emerge from the North-South divide, sustainable development is an important and necessary concept, and the emergence of a global consensus embracing the term is a significant step. The concept assumes that the economic and social objectives of development ought to be defined in terms of sustainability. It establishes the possibility of a multidimensional global process that seeks sustainable development in economic, social, and environmental terms. However, Pichs maintains that the creation of a world characterized by economic, social, and environmental sustainability will require a fundamental transformation of the world-system and a restructuring of international economic and political relations on a foundation of equality and social justice.
The renewed movements of Third World national liberation that have emerged since 1995 have embraced the principle of sustainable development, and they proclaim sustainable development as a right of all nations and peoples. They maintain that "a just, democratic, and sustainable world" is possible and necessary.
Pearce, D. and J. Warford. 1993. World Without End: Economics, Environment, and Sustainable Development. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pichs Madruga, Ramón. 2006. "Medio Ambiente y Desarrollo, 1964-2004" in Libre Comercio y subdesarrollo. La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.
Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, sustainable development, environment, environment and development, ecology, ecological revolution
The limitations of American democracy
We have seen in eight posts since November 1 that there are several limitations to American democracy. The American Revolution began in 1763 as a movement led by the American elite, which called upon the masses for support, invoking a rhetoric that was nationalist and anti-British but vague on contradictory class interests within the American colonies. By 1775-77, the popular classes had emerged as significant actors that were moving the revolution toward addressing the interests of the popular classes vis-à-vis the elite. However, the elite was able to retake control of the movement, and the Constitution of 1787 was the culmination of the victorious elite countermovement. Thus in the final analysis the American Revolution was a bourgeois revolution, although it did establish the foundation for a popular discourse and movement that could expand and deepen the meaning of democracy to address the interests of the popular classes.
The Constitution of the United States, as a document of a bourgeois revolution, contained limitations in relation to popular interests. It established the balance of power, in order that the elite could check the power of the popular classes. It established larger voting districts, facilitating the dependence of candidates on financial resources. And it confined the proclamation of democratic rights to political and civil rights.
In the years since the American Revolution of 1763-87, popular classes in the United States and in the world have sought to expand the meaning of democracy, so as to include persons initially excluded, and to deepen the meaning of democracy, in order to include rights that had not been addressed. The expansion of democracy involved above all the inclusion of people of color and women, and the struggle for their inclusion essentially had been won by the 1960s, although the legacy of the earlier period of exclusion and denial survives in subtle and indirect forms. The deepening of democracy has involved the proclamation of rights in new areas as well as the proclamation of the rights of nations and peoples. Thus humanity has affirmed: the social and economic rights of all persons; the rights of nations to self-determination and sovereignty; and the rights of all nations and peoples to sustainable development. And the deepening of democracy also has involved the development of popular power, a form of democracy characterized by the direct participation of the people, as an alternative to representative democracy.
At the time of the American Revolution, the thirteen colonies had entered the world-system in a semi-peripheral role, profiting from a lucrative trade relation with the slaveholders in the Caribbean. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, various factors would facilitate the ascent of the United States in the world-system, culminating in its emergence by the middle of the twentieth century as the hegemonic power of the neocolonial world-system ("Slavery, development, and US ascent" 8/30/2013; "Cotton" 9/9 2013; "The military-industrial complex" 8/29/2013).
The spectacular ascent to hegemony distorted popular discourse in the United States, as popular interests came to be understood as tied to the rise of US economic and political power. As a result, constraints were placed on the capacity of US popular movements to reflect on the expanding and deepening meaning of democracy occurring throughout the world. The notion of the protection of social and economic rights came to be much more widely accepted in Western Europe and in the Third World than in the United States. And the rights of nations and peoples, such as the rights of self-determination and sustainable development, have been essentially beyond the scope of popular discourse and reflection.
It is widely believed in the United States that it is the most democratic nation on earth. There is some truth to this belief. The Constitution of the 1787 establishes the United States as the longest-standing constitutional democracy. And the nation has a strong tradition in the protection of political and civil rights, although it also has a record of periodically violating political and civil rights in the defense of its neocolonial interests.
However, in reality, the United States has a limited understanding of democracy. The political culture does not affirm that housing, health care, and education are rights held by all, not conditioned by one's capacity to pay. And the political debates concerning foreign policy assume that US economic and political interests in the neocolonial world-system should be defended, with little concern for the rights of nations and peoples of the world to self-determination and sustainable development. At the same time, US popular culture lacks structures to facilitate popular reflection on the meaning of democracy. Thus, as the peoples of the world have sought to deepen the meaning of democracy during the course of the twentieth century, the people of the United States have been largely absent from this global process. As a consequence, both the political elite and the people have a superficial and limited understanding of democracy, which leaves the nation unprepared to act responsibly in the world.
There was a time when it was not so. In the 100 or so years following the American Revolution, the United States of America was viewed as a symbol of the promise of democracy, especially in Latin America, in spite of its recognized expansionism in relation to the indigenous nations and Mexico. But as the United States rose to neocolonial hegemony, it increasingly intervened in other nations in order to promote its economic and political interests, hypocritically pretending to be defending democracy. And the American promise of democracy was transformed into the American Creed, a belief in opportunity for material success integrally tied to a consumer society. Thus the potential for the development of a democratic nation unleashed by the American Revolution has not been realized.
We the people of the United States should seek to renew the American promise of democracy. But how? I will seek to address this question in the next post.
Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, American Revolution