Comparing Immanuel Wallerstein’s critique of the BRICS with that of the creation of the United Nations

Comparing Immanuel Wallerstein’s critique of the BRICS with that of the creation of the United Nations ramachandra byrappa THE CONSTRUCTION OF ALTERNATIVE WORLD ORDER AREPLY TO IMMANUEL WALLERSTEIN’S VIRULENT ATTACK ON THE BRICS ORGANISATION “Rome was not built in aday” goes the popular saying. Most of the criticism aimed at the BRICS organisation (at least what is in the process of being formed) is that the nominal ideological background of each member country varies substantially from that of the other. As they stand, it is very difficult to qualify the political and economic systems of the BRICS countries. The pace and priorities of development of each country vary radically. In short, each member of the BRICS organisation has its own way of existing and doing things. For analysts and historians, who legitimately want to get aclearer picture of what happened or for those who want to trace the historic trends, the above described eclectic picture can be quite disturbing; even on asunny day the BRICS organisation is difficult to apprehend. What one quite often forgets is that in real life things do not always happen as they are so often described in history books, sometimes what appears as history is an adjudication between what happens and the simplicity of configuration that ahistorian is searching for. In the past, the foundation of new international organisations went through similar apprehensions, at the divisions between the key players contributing to their construction. Financial analysts and unfortunately some dogmatically biased academics fail to grasp the nature of these developments. From the stand point of historians and academics, what is troubling is the fact that noted scholars like Immanuel Wallerstein have apparently joined the bandwagon in aconcerted effort to discredit the BRICS organisation. The main problem with Immanuel Wallerstein is that by partly appropriating, tinkering and tailoring Fernand Braudel’s worthy works, and by acting as acatalyst to the emerging wave of developmental studies, he has established astrong reputation for himself. And with his large and well integrated network of academics and specialised journals, germinates neo-Trotskyist ideals; as time goes by this has increasingly become evident. His analysis of world events is thus biased, motivated by aclose cooperation with Washington Consensus. In the following passages Iwill try to provide ample evidence to this extent. OPEN ACCESS 74 DVACÁTÉ STOLETÍ 2/2017 The reader of Immanuel Wallerstein’s article entitled “The BRICS— AFable for Our Time” will realise that it masks aveiled hatred of that group of countries. Starting from the 1930s, the Trotskyist mission has been to discredit, deform and distort intellectual thought in the so called Third World. By an intricate academic game of naming and beaming the Trotskyists of the globalisation era make aruthless march on the independent intellectual, patriotic movements around the world. While the Washington Consensus attacks them from the right, the Trotskyists attack from the left. And interestingly, overtime one realises that both attacks are very well coordinated. So it is nothing new that the emergence of anew world order is attacked by both, Immanuel Wallerstein joining the bandwagon was only expected. Unfortunately for him, the quality of his arguments against BRICS organisation are very poor, and have the opposite effect. As we will see his arguments are baseless and infantile, alast cry of desperation from someone who knows that he is on the losing side. In its current stage, we do not know the exact future of the BRICS organisation, but history is what teaches us to examine the historic evolution and not concentrate on the immediate picture. Immanuel Wallerstein does not make any effort to put the BRICS into any historical perspective, instead he decides to play with well-established prejudices and clichés, which is very disturbing. In the first sentence of his latest comment on the BRICS organisation, Immanuel Wallerstein lays out his prejudices when he says that, “The story of the BRICS is astrange one.”1 Why strange? What is strange about non-western regional powers and an ex-superpower coming together and protecting themselves from the excesses of the world’s only Superpower? If Immanuel does not get the basic logic of the BRICS organisation right he does not understand the historic structure and dilemmas facing the world. Wallerstein thus become avictim of atypical Trotskyist like mistake of oversimplification and categorization, what fails their effort of categorization fails to exist or is not worth existing. It seems that Washington is not alone in its confused efforts to handle the BRICS, it is accompanied closely by western financiers and most of all, an international network of left-wing academics. It is ashame that reputed academics take aturn into fanaticism, which is well demonstrated throughout Wallerstein’s arguments. Wallerstein argues that the BRICS organisation has lost its “significance”. According to him the reason for this is that since 2010 the onslaught of the economic crisis has reduced the attractiveness of the member countries and thus bringing down the whole structure.2 For scholars of international organisation, this assertion by Immanuel Wallerstein is more than puzzling. Just because there is abad economic conjuncture, amovement in the economic cycles, does not necessarily or automatically mean that an international organisation grinds to ahalt. Why should there be adirect and indefinite connection between the BRICS structure and the pattern of economic cycles? It is like saying that in agiven year there is less snow fall in the Alps and as 1 WALLERSTEIN, Immanuel, The BRICS— AFable for Our Time, Commentary No.416, January 1, 2016, Fernand Braudel Center, Binghamton University; available online: https:// www.binghamton.edu/fbc/commentaries/archive-2016/416en.htm [cit.25.12.2016]. 2 Ibid. OPEN ACCESS rAMAChAnDrA byrAppA 75 aconsequence the purpose of the river Danube becomes redundant. However much water there is does not radically modify the structural purpose of the river, it still carries water downstream. It is not the BRICS organisation that is strange, rather the reasoning of an Immanuel Wallerstein, whose intellectual capacities are chorused by his followers day and night around the world. There is no shortage of verbal disenchantment for the member countries, and as can be expected China becomes the focal point: “China’s boom had been built on some shaky and reckless loan policies of the large number of regional banks that had come into existence, aided and abetted by considerable corruption. When the Chinese government sought to repair the damage, its growth rate plummeted, although it still remained relatively high.”3 It is true that being an American citizen and in living in cosy suburbs of New York might have easily brought Immanuel Wallerstein into close contact with high profile bankers that brought about the near collapse of the international financial system, those that created the subprime “Ponzi” system in the United States and spread it across the globe. He probably means exactly this when he says “… aided and abetted by considerable corruption.” Once again Wallerstein is looking at the surface and fails to look deeper. It is true that there is what looks to be ahouse price bubble in the Peoples Republic of China and according the Chinese government’s official publications there is corruption in the system. Apart from these general problems that exist in all developing countries and very well developed countries like the United States, the Chinese situation is in no way comparable to the “subprime crisis”. The average American bought his house with the money he or she did not have and thus pushed the prices up. In China the prices went up because the Chinese had and still have too much savings. The interest rates were so low that all savers expected arelatively better rate of return. The proof of this was that house prices went up even faster after the stock market crisis of 2015. Another remarkable difference between the United States and the Chinese economy is that there was an asset bubble in the USA without sizable disposable revenue increases, especially in the lower wage earners. In China there are both nominal and real wages rises. The asset bubble in this case cannot be considered as dangerous as the one in the US;4 it is aconcern but nothing in the scale of what California experienced at the height of the subprime crisis. One could bring hundreds more examples to prove that what is dangerous in the context of the USA might not be the same in the case of China. Systematic generalisations that are preferred by world system theorists like Immanuel Wallerstein and other Trotskyists might be inappropriate instruments of analysis when we look closer at things. Wallerstein goes from wrong assumptions to equally false conclusions, when he argues that the slow-down in China will contaminate the rest of the BRICS countries. He assumes that, especially raw material producing countries like Russia, Brazil and South-Africa will experience an economic collapse. China is ahuge consumer of raw 3 Ibid. 4 FANG, Hanming— GU, Quanlin— XIONG, Wei –Zhou, Li‐An, Demystifying the Chinese Housing Boom, April 2015. Available online: https://www.princeton.edu/~wxiong/papers/ HousingBoom.pdf [cit.28.12.2016]. OPEN ACCESS 76 DVACÁTÉ STOLETÍ 2/2017 materials and there is no doubt about it, but history has examples with similar situations that did not provoke an endurable collapse of the supplier countries. The best and the most recent example is that of Japan and the South-East Asian countries. Japan too had an asset bubble and the economy switched into lower gear in the 1990s, this should have led to the collapse of the ASEAN countries. There were temporary tremors but the region moved ahead producing 5–6% growth rates, while Japan stayed in the 0–1% lane for decades. The collapse of the Japanese growth rates in the 1990s interestingly coincided with the resurgence of the American economy and its market for imported goods expanded. Countries like Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand were quick enough to adapt their export systems to the new opportunities provided by the US economy. The same example can be taken to demonstrate another point. The ASEAN countries did experience economic and political upheavals but these developments had nothing to do with Japan. Once again, Wallerstein is playing with clichés and wishful-thinking and does not equip himself with in-depth analysis of historic patterns. All events and patterns have their specificities and are unique in their occurrence, but ahistoric similitude of happenings will allow us to make better judgements, coming closer to reality as it existed, drawing the right conclusions. When one reads Immanuel Wallerstein, one is confronted with avery disturbing style of reasoning and structuring of arguments. It is very difficult to decide if it is due to lack of in-depth knowledge of international relations or afanatical blindness brought about by Trotskyist vision of the world. Concerning Russia’s position, Immanuel Wallerstein has the following to say, “Russia’s policies of heavy investment in the military combined with state-aided economic redistribution were strongly threatened by the fall in gas and oil price. Its geopolitical assertiveness in Ukraine and the Middle East led to various kinds of boycotts that hurt its economic national income sharply.”5 Economic sanctions related to the Ukrainian crisis were indeed very hurtful to the Russian economy but what does it have to do with the BRICS? Most of the oil producing countries have similar budgetary problems. One has just to see what is happening in Venezuela to understand that BRICS or no BRICS, economic cycles come and go. The sanctions imposed on Russia cut on both sides, since they are harming the EU members as well, and sooner or later both sides will realise the folly of this useless economic brinkmanship. On top of this, the elite renewal that is currently taking place in the West is pro-Russia, more or less accommodating Russian policies in the Ukraine. As was expected, once more there is arealisation that an irritated and bleeding Russian Bear is more dangerous than acalmed and cajoled one. This realism on the part of many Europeans originates from the fact that when it comes to vital national interests Russia has shown that it can make the necessary sacrifices. What is more worrying for the Europeans is that, faced with enmity on the western flank Russia is increasing looking to its east, to China in particular. In the long-term, energy dependent Europe cannot do without Russia’s oil resources. One would assume that Trotskyists the world over are aware of this fundamental truth, but as it is well known Trotskyists always had aproblem with Russian patriotism. It is equally interesting to acknowledge the fact that aman who based his academic 5 WALLERSTEIN, I., The BRICS… OPEN ACCESS rAMAChAnDrA byrAppA 77 career on the analysis of “long cycles” should attach so much importance to the events spanning over several months. Or maybe it is the Trotskyist impulses that make him jump into the bandwagon along with the financiers who would like to see ablunted Russian power. More fundamentally, Immanuel Wallerstein fails to put the development of the BRICS organisation into context. The indiscriminate use and abuse of the international system by the Western powers, especially by countries like the United States and Britain, has raised questions of legitimacy of the system. The 2008–2010 economic crisis showed that the United States can recover from the problems it created by printing the necessary amount of dollars through “quantitative easing”, without any concern to what the rest of the world thinks about it. Big powers like Russia and China, who had massively invested in the American bonds, saw billions wiped off the asset value of their portfolio. The expansion of NATO and the planned expansion of the European Union is portrayed as the natural expansion of liberal democracy and the free market model of development. But in geopolitical terms, this is territorial expansion which is seen by Russia as athreat to its security, Washington is trying to expand its power through the European political and security systems like the European Union and NATO. At the global level the contextual position of most of the BRICS countries, especially that of Russia is evident: the Western powers are creating asense of lawlessness, if not open aggression of anew form. For, Russia, the motor behind the BRICS initiative, there is no other option than to create an alternative world order. It can be the BRICS or any other organisation, as long as it provides an alternative. Medium-sized powers, more importantly the regional powers are more than preoccupied that the current world order will stop the momentum of their development in one way or the other. Asearch for an alternative is therefore structural and evident. What apity that Immanuel Wallerstein does not see the structural adjustments that are taking place today, structures that will influence the way international relations are conducted in the coming years. Instead he wades-in empty arguments and trades phrases that have little substance. Verbal gyrations reach anew paroxysm when Immanuel Wallerstein euphorically declares: “Oh, how the mighty have fallen! What remains of the geopolitical aspirations of the BRICS is anyone’s guess.”6 To this we can add another phrase ‘Oh, how the mighty academics fall from grace because of their own inconsistencies’. But we would be quite wrong to make such an assertion, because it is aspecial craft that Wallerstein has used to create diversions and confusion in the nascent patriotic movements in the Third World. There is nothing on the ground to prove Wallerstein’s jubilation at the prospect of the eventual demise of the BRICS organisation, it is just adiversion. As mentioned earlier he is agrand master of intellectual subversion and deceit. One event singularly illustrates what Imean by this. We have to go back to the high noon of the ‘Arab Spring’. In March 2011 Chavez supports the view that the whole story behind the people’s uprising in North Africa is indeed about oil and the West’s move to grab it. This is how Wallerstein reacts to it: “Hugo Chavez’s analysis seems to focus primarily, indeed exclusively, on the fact that the United States and Western 6 Ibid. OPEN ACCESS 78 DVACÁTÉ STOLETÍ 2/2017 Europe have been issuing threats and condemnations of the Qaddafi regime. Qaddafi, Chavez, and some others insist that the western world wishes to invade Libya and “steal” Libya’s oil. The whole analysis misses entirely what has been happening, and reflects badly on Chavez’s judgment— and indeed on his reputation with the rest of the world left.”7 Wallerstein made this condemnation of Hugo Chavez on the 15th of March 2011, by the 20th of October 2011 Gaddafi was executed.8 Between the French, the British and Americans the blame game still has not stopped. WikiLeaks and the leaked emails are still creating waves and as historians we have to use the customary prudence, we should avoid making any premature conclusions. But one thing is for sure, Immanuel Wallerstein was playing his role of creating confusion among the patriotic movements of the Third world and defending the innocence and good intentions of the Western leaders, thus fully accomplishing the Trotskyist mission. Wallerstein concludes his article by astrange statement: “The key struggle worldwide right now is the second Arab revolt. It will be hard enough to obtain atruly radical outcome in this struggle. Qaddafi is amajor obstacle for the Arab, and indeed the world, left.”9 Once again by astrange coincidence the interests of the “world’s left”, whatever that might be, and that of the Western coalition are one and the same. In the light of this illustration we can arrive at atemporary conclusion, that when an organisation like the BRICS comes under fire from someone like Immanuel Wallerstein, in reality this means that the organisation is in the process of becoming asuccess. We can also assuredly say that it is part of alarger, coordinated effort to discredit the BRICS organisation. Amission to alienate the aspiring patriotic movements from supporting the effort of the BRICS organisation in building abetter alternative. Whatever the critics might say, there is one reality of the BRICS organisation that should not escape our attention: the more discriminatory the current world order becomes, the structural developments of the BRICS organisation will be strengthened and enhanced. One reality that totally escapes Immanuel Wallerstein is that economic woes will not bring down the BRICS organisation. On the contrary, every instance one or all of the members are confronted with aproblem, the BRICS becomes part of the response to the problem. As mentioned earlier, Russia faced with economic sanctions from the West, took the initiative to intensify its economic integration with China. First, it moved to eliminate all border contentions with China that had blocked deeper cooperation. Then it moved on to lay down the foundations of along term economic cooperation between the two countries with exchange of currency reserves and signing of important cooperation agreements in the energy sector. This does not involve the whole group but one important corner of the organisation is normalised. If asimilar hat trick can be pulled-off between China and India, the BRICS organisation could pride in putting the future of 40% of the world’s population on apeaceful 7 WALLERSTEIN, Immanuel, Libya and the World Left, Commentary No.301, Mar. 15, 2011, available online: http://iwallerstein.com/libya-world-left/ [cit.27.12.2016]. 8 Gaddafi’s last words as he begged for mercy: ‚What did Ido to you?’, The Guardian Newspaper, Sunday 23 October 2011, available online: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/ oct/23/gaddafi-last-words-begged-mercy [cit 28.12.2016]. 9 WALLERSTEIN, I., Libya… OPEN ACCESS rAMAChAnDrA byrAppA 79 path to development. Domestic and international problems of the member countries can in the same way contribute to the development of the BRICS organisation. The creation of the United Nations Organisation too was born of an ideal of wanting to unite the world against the tyranny of some. But the road to unity was not easy, it too was apermanent victim to diversion, subversion and sabotage. Ahistorical insight into the perilous journey of the United Nation will help to calm the critics of the BRICS organisation and hopefully give credit to the initial developmental steps it has taken. THE CONSTRUCTION OF UNITED NATIONS SYSTEM: THE BEHIND THE SCENES STRUGGLE The United Nations Organisation was not built on asunny day. There are alot of experts and pseudo-experts that qualify BRICS as being afailure or it not yielding the results expected by its founding members. This attitude is typical of scholars or commentators who do not have insight into the conditions of the creation of the UN, nor do they have, in my modest opinion, the foresight of historical trajectories and dynamics. More importantly, let us not forget that the United States had faced one of the biggest economic crises since its creation just one decade before the Atlantic Charter (1942) was agreed upon. The rapid economic resurgence and build-up of military power has alot to do with the hard work put into the war effort by ordinary American citizen as much as the collapse of other global powers, destruction of their industrial capacity. At the same time, it should be added that Franklin D.Roosevelt had astrong control of the timetable, giving him an undeniable tactical advantage not only against the Axis powers but also his closest allies, namely Churchill. Today, none of this postwar contextual reality exists for the People’s Republic of China. It very soon becomes evident that the United States, in the early 1940s, was at the doorstep to briefly becoming the world’s unrivalled power. But before that it had to peep into the abyss of war, defeat and deception. From ahistorical point of view, circumstances, timing and sometimes sheer good luck dictates whether an institutional set-up survives the upheavals of international relations. But it is almost certain that one criteria that upholds in most of the cases is— confidence. What matters most is confidence between the key players that undertake to build those institutions which will supposedly guarantee abetter conduct of relations between the member nations. Ultimately what mattered in the case of the United Nations and what will matter in the case of the BRICS is confidence and patience from all the sides. Not surprisingly, confidence, patience and perseverance were all tested to their utter limit during the Second World War on the side of the Allied Powers. And not surprisingly, the experience of bitterness, disappointment and the joy that comes when something succeeds against all odds formed the bedrock basis of the United Nations. Without this long journey of hurdles, probably, no one would have undertaken such arisky and cumbersome adventure as the United Nations. Most of the experts that write-off the viability of the BRICS organisation would have written-off the United Nations even before it was created, because few of the obOPEN ACCESS 80 DVACÁTÉ STOLETÍ 2/2017 jectives outlined in the Atlantic Charter seemed achievable at the time. Early January 1945, four months before his death, President Franklin D.Roosevelt, sent afinal letter to the Congress which was later published in the US newspapers. The ailing Roosevelt wrote the following, as awarning to future sceptics: “It is true that the statement of principles in the Atlantic Charter does not provide rules of easy application to each and every one of this war-torn world’s tangled situations. But it is agood and useful thing— it is essential thing— to have principles toward which we can aim.” And he continues, “Ido not wish to give the impression that all mistakes can be avoided and that many disappointments are not inevitable in the making of peace. But we must not this time lose the hope of establishing an international order which will be capable of maintaining peace and realizing through the years more perfect justice between nations.”10 Let us briefly look at the circumstances in which the United Nations Organisation was created and see how the job of the United States was difficult as that of today. The day the Atlantic Charter (1st January, 1942) was signed, Franklin Delano Roosevelt did not have the most flattering newsfeeds on his own forces and his assumed allies. The Milwaukee Journal described the moment as the following: “That was the day that American troops abandoned Manila to take final, futile refuge on Corregidor. The German armies were 57 miles from Moscow, and on another front they were hammering the British on the Egyptian frontier. Japanese troops were marching down the Malaya peninsula, bound for Singapore.”11 As for the other two of what were later to become the permanent members of the Security Council, China was in the middle of athree-way battle between the Japanese, the Nationalists and the patriotic front led by Chairman Mao; it was acivil-war coupled into awar for the control of Asia, itself aggregated within alarger world war. It was one of the darkest moments for the Chinese people. As for France, it was divided and subjugated, with most of its elite living alife of cordial oblivion as the guests of the British. For the outlay of anew post-war international institutional system astrong cooperation between the Allied Powers was aprecondition. After Operation Barbarossa (June 22, 1941) and Pearl Harbour attack (December 7, 1941)12 it was increasingly evident who the two camps and main contenders of the war were. The Americans and the British knew fully well what would happen if Hitler’s armies successfully completed Operation Barbarossa; Germany would possess the strategic hinterland, full of valuable resources, to fight aprolonged war and defend its Blitzkrieg conquests. Diplomatic relations between Operation Barbarossa and Pearl Harbour were intense between the United Kingdom, the United States and the Soviet Union but on the ground nothing significant happened in terms of cooperation and coordination of the war against the Axis Powers. On the 18th of August 1942 finally Churchill arrives in 10 Franklin Delano Roosevelt: No Question of Ultimate Victory, says President Roosevelt in his message to Congress, Spokane Daily Chronicle, Jan 6, 1945. 11 Fate of the World was at stake when United Nations was born, The Milwaukee Journal ( daily— newspaper), Milwaukee, June 29, 1948. 12 The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica: Pearl Harbor attack, https://www.britannica. com/event/Pearl-Harbor-attack [cit.20.7.2016]. OPEN ACCESS rAMAChAnDrA byrAppA 81 Moscow for asecret meeting with Joseph Stalin, twelve valuable months had passed since the agreement that followed the signature of the Atlantic Charter declaration (Aug. 14, 1941).13 The Glasgow Herald wrote the following in its columns, concerning Mr. Churchill’s secret visit to Moscow: “The news that Mr. Churchill has visited Moscow will be welcomed in all Allied countries. The great coalition of the United Nations has now existed in its complete form for eight months. There have been close consultations between the United States and Britain both before and since the attack on Pearl Harbour brought the Americans fully into the war. But in spite of the visits of Mr. Eden to Moscow and of Mr. Molotov to Britain and the United States, there have been many indications of alack of strategic co-ordination, in the widest sense of the term, between the Western Allies and the USSR.”14 Part of the delays were caused by the legal and technical aspects of who was fighting whom and since which date, the Japanese were at war with the Americans since Pearl Harbour attack but the Soviets declared war on Japan on the 8th of August 1945. In the absence of asecond front in the West to relieve pressure on the Soviets fighting the Nazi troops, the Soviets were in no hurry to open afront in the East by declaring war on Japan. Everyone was, as was expected, looking at their own self interests. The confidence that was visible after the declaration of the Atlantic Charter was in its infancy and had to be built piece by piece in avery practical manner. In atime of war good intentions are obviously welcomed but what really count are hard deeds, concrete help. The most concrete help that Stalin and Soviet authorities had hoped for was the opening of the Second Front, they quickly needed arespite to rebuild their lost industrial capacity. In his meetings with Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin had surely received assurances that aSecond Front would be imminent. Reflecting upon the role played by Dwight Eisenhower in the Soviet-American cooperation as the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, Robert Ivanov writes the following in the columns of Lawrence Journal: “The Second Front was not opened either in 1942 or in 1943. On June 24, 1943, Stalin sent amessage to Churchill saying that “the point here is not just the disappointment of the Soviet Government, but the preservation of its confidence in its allies.” … There existed influential groups in the USA which hoped that the Soviet Union and Germany would wear themselves out in the course of fierce fighting at the Soviet-German front. On June 23, 1941, the day after Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union, Sen. Harry Truman (who was to become president of the United States in April 1945) stated, “If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany and that way let them kill as many as possible.”15 Luckily for the war effort and the creation of the United Nations Organisation Harry Truman had to wait until the very end of the war to take over as the President of the United States of America. 13 The Atlantic Charter was later incorporated by reference in the Declaration of the United Nations which took place on Jan. 1, 1942). See: https://www.britannica.com/event/Atlantic-Charter 14 Mr. Churchill in Moscow, The Glasgow Herald (daily— newspaper), 18th of August, 1942. 15 What role did Eisenhower play in Soviet-American cooperation?, Lawrence Journal, Lawrence (USA), September 14, 1990. OPEN ACCESS