Abstract
The multiple challenges of the twenty-first century amount to no less than an existential crisis for the world’s working people. This is the century of the massive growth of labor reserves in the peripheries, compounded by accelerated global warming which is already subjecting the most vulnerable to extreme environmental conditions. For this reason, it is also the century of decline of the capitalist system. This system, which for 500 years has had the most profound effect on the development of the productive forces, has finally fallen victim to the contradictions which it has spawned. The exploitation of labor and nature beyond their reproductive capacities and the concentration and centralization of capital in monopolies based at the center of the system constitute today a systemic contradiction without precedent; capitalism as a system has reached the stage of maximum polarization, reproduction crisis, and conflict.
The transformation necessary to overcome this systemic crisis requires the development of the productive forces in the peripheries in a sovereign strategy to provide dignified living conditions for the majority of the world’s working people while also limiting global warming to sustainable levels. This transformation can only occur by wresting control over agricultural, mining, energy, and other vital resources of the peripheries from the monopolies and putting them to the service of sovereign industrialization. Any suggestion that imperialism is capable of pioneering a new phase of development and prosperity for humanity remains an abject illusion. The essential task is the search for a new combination of property relations at the base of society—among private, cooperative, collective, and state forms—under a centralized system of planning to ensure sovereign industrialization with a popular and sustainable orientation.
The present conditions for peripheral industrialization are given by concrete historical experience. Centuries of colonial rule in the peripheries and concentrated industrial transformation at the centers established the historical basis of today’s systemic polarization. This obtained its highest form in the transition to monopoly capitalism in the twentieth century and set the stage for the maturing of systemic crisis: on the one hand, the expulsion of the world’s peasantries from the countryside in a global process of proletarianization and urbanization under unorganized and unsustainable conditions; on the other, the advance of socialist revolution and national liberation in the peripheries in search of sovereign development and civilizational renewal. This systemic contradiction marked the whole of the twentieth century between West, East, and South. Its basic dynamic remains in force to this day.
The combined advance of revolution and liberation meant that, for the first time, the development of the productive forces could be pursued as an affirmation of sovereignty against imperialism. The whole of the Third World, whether adhering to the spirit of Bandung or not, set its sights on industrialization and pursued national planning to varying degrees. In some cases, important advances were made in incorporating heavy industry into the national productive fabric. Yet, truncated reforms and conservative modernization overall deepened the contradictions of peripheral societies. By the 1970s, imperialism could still retreat, adjust, and relaunch its strategy of containment of the Third World; those who could resist most effectively were the revolutionary states of China, North Korea, Vietnam, and Cuba, despite the fall of the Soviet Union.
Over the whole of the postwar period, the strategy of containment of the Third World included the promotion of a few robust capitalist growth trajectories in East Asia by means of extensive agrarian and structural reforms, but also restricted sovereignty under US occupation and patronage. In the rest of the Third World, the blocking of agrarian and structural reforms prevailed. This paved the way for new waves of capital exports and modernization on the terms of monopoly capital, which only aggravated internal contradictions. Between green revolution and dependent industrialization, most of the peripheries found themselves in a development trap, fastened to a US-led monetary and financial system underwritten by hundreds of US military bases spread around the globe. The new sovereignty regime was further weakened by the secular expansion of labor reserves and relegation of whole nations of peasants and workers to marginal conditions.
Imperialist strategy ensured a generalized transition to neocolonialism by the 1980s, but this could not avoid the escalation of contradictions. It remains an open question what the tally of the Cold War has been—and a most relevant question for our present concerns. Monopoly capitalism was already at an impasse in the mid-1960s, unable to resolve its profitability crisis in the productive sectors. This underlying crisis became permanent, giving way to a financial vortex operating against its own economic and social fabric, which ultimately gave the West only a Pyrrhic victory in the Cold War. It is also the case that the postwar sovereignty regime conquered by the liberation movements continued to take its toll on monopoly capitalism; frayed and violated though it has been, this sovereignty regime was never overturned and continues to form the basis of resistance to imperialism and new struggles.
Imperialism also did not eradicate the socialist experience of the twentieth century. Its great prize was the Soviet Union; yet, as we are well aware today, this did not bring an end to the central planning systems of East Asia and Cuba, which remain diverse and vital to this day. The Chinese experience especially has developed a sui generis system of central planning with market integration, which has radically transformed the productive forces of the country and social structure within a generation. China is now competing directly with the imperialist Triad (USA–EU–Japan) in advanced technologies, even surpassing it in renewable energy, while integrating the whole world in a new economic relationship of trade and investment. Thus, the conclusion that the West “won the Cold War” cannot hold.
This “New Cold War,” as it has come to be called, sets the stage for the systemic transformation that must be sought. The new rivalry plays out across the terrain of a highly differentiated South, which includes whole regions devastated by destabilization and war; and a renewed imperialist assault with genocidal intentions, as has become tragically clear in Palestine. The systemic contradiction remains to be grasped in all its complexities. Peripheral social formations are entirely unprecedented in their social structure, with large contingents of non-proletarian working people subsisting in poverty and insecurity across rural and urban areas. Domestic bourgeoisies, which were once given the task of national development, are today more grounded and diversified but also more absorbed into monopoly-finance capital. There are modern infrastructures and industrial plants spread across the South, unlike never before, but the size of the relative surplus population is also without precedent. The imperialist grip over finance, technology, natural resources, media, and high-tech weapons is finally slipping, but new property relations and planning systems have hardly taken root. The challenge of systemic transformation is indeed upon us, and it is urgent: a global leap forward must be made within a generation, if the existential crisis that threatens the working people of the South is to be overcome.
Grasping these contradictions continues to require collective intellectual effort. Research within the Agrarian South Network has reflected upon a wide range of questions pertaining to the conditions and struggles of working people today. These have been the subject of our annual Summer Schools and Study Groups, special issues in this journal, and our South–South book publications. The most recent of the latter have included: Revolution and Liberation: Struggles of Working People Today (ASN, 2025); Gender in Agrarian Transitions: Liberation Perspectives from the South (Tulika Books, 2024); Farming and Working under Contract: Peasants and Workers in Global Agricultural Value Systems (Tulika Books, 2022); Labour Questions in the Global South (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021); and Reclaiming Africa: Scramble and Resistance in the 21st Century (Springer, 2019). The center of gravity of our analysis remains the agrarian question, which will be the deciding factor of the systemic transformation required today. The global leap forward that is required must confront the double challenge of massive labor-reserve formation and deteriorating environmental conditions, and continue to seek the rural-urban equilibrium that is necessary for the resolution of the national question and affirmation of popular sovereignty. This entails a search for a modern “peasant path” of rural reconstruction in synergy with sovereign industrialization.
The articles in this special issue illuminate diverse aspects of the basic question of industrialization in the twenty-first century. Prabhat Patnaik, in his article entitled “The Free Trade Argument and Development Strategy,” provides a fundamental critique of the neo-classical assumption of full utilization of factors of production and its related postulates, that free trade enhances overall output and that supply creates its own demand. Given that involuntary unemployment prevails, the free trade argument for development strategy becomes invalid. Not only is it impossible, due to constrained demand, for all trading partners to benefit from trade, autonomous sources of expenditure are also constrained, such that if expenditure does not increase after trade, trade-surplus countries will pursue “beggar-thy-neighbour” policies vis-à-vis the trade-deficit countries. Patnaik argues that, historically, external stimuli for capitalist expansion relied on the colonial drain of wealth. It is argued that trade between countries should promote actual co-operation by ensuring that their economies are not demand-constrained. This, in turn, requires that the hegemony of globalized finance be eliminated and capital controls instituted. Growth must be essentially oriented to the home market, and trade should not be free but a matter of discretion.
Arturo Guillén and Iván Cortés, in their article entitled “Changes in the World Geopolitical Order and the Reconfiguration of Productive Systems: The Mexican Case,” examine the geopolitical shifts and economic transformations over the past five decades, emphasizing the decline of US hegemony, the rise of China as a global leader, and the impacts on global value chains (GVCs). The analysis focuses on Mexico’s role within North American economic integration amidst the transition from neoliberal globalization to regionalized production. It explores how nearshoring strategies, driven by geopolitical imperatives and supply chain disruptions, reshape Mexico’s economy. Infrastructure projects like the Maya Train and Trans-Isthmus Train aim to leverage Mexico’s geographic advantages and attract investment. However, challenges persist, including dependence on imported inputs, low domestic value-added, and regional disparities. The study highlights the potential of nearshoring to drive economic development while cautioning against perpetuating dependency and inequality. Ultimately, the authors argue, Mexico’s success hinges on coordinated strategies that balance national development and regional integration within evolving geopolitical dynamics.
Sit Tsui, He Zhixiong, Simon Kun Lung Heim, and Wen Tiejun, in their article on “Chinese Strategies of Delinking amid the Implosion of Financial Imperialism,” analyze the Chinese experience in the current juncture. Drawing on Samir Amin’s theory of delinking and financial implosion, the authors outline the problem of financialization in the Old Cold War, Post-Cold War, and New Cold War. The article highlights the Chinese efforts to pursue industrialization in the 1950s and 1960s, when the country was first delinked by the United States and then from the Soviet Union. Participation in the Korean War and the building of the Third Front were important in early industrialization. Today, industrialization in China is responding to delinking caused by financial imperialism. The authors discuss the emerging geo-currency alliance between Russia and China against Western sanctions, particularly after the outbreak of the Ukraine–Russia War. The article also provides examples of innovative technological experiments for ecological transformation in the current crisis, as well as the strengthening of the collective village economy for rural revitalization. In navigating the implosion of financial imperialism, China has explored and adopted alternative strategies for a soft-landing amid the unfolding global crises.
Dinesh Abrol, in his article entitled “Rural Industrialization, Drivers and Dynamics: Learning from India’s History,” offers a critical evaluation of the lived experience and ideas cultivated for rural industrialization as a residual path in India, to draw lessons for peoples’ democracies today and their strategies on the question of rural industrialization. The discourse on rural industrialization began under the influence of India’s freedom movement. The forces of national liberation articulated an agenda of emancipation to unite working people across the country. The author demonstrates that the outcomes of the decolonization of knowledge production were well manifest in the way the forces of national liberation generated their own distinct heuristics of industrial and technological upgrading, with the potential to influence positively the trajectories of development of peasants, artisans, and rural laborers as a productive force.
Karlo Mikhail I. Mongaya, in his article on “The National Democratic Front of the Philippines’ Draft Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms: Issues and Prospects,” critically interrogates the development agenda articulated in the draft Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms (CASER) of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP). The NDPG represented communist insurgents who, in 2017, were negotiating with the Philippine government a framework for implementing socio-economic reforms in the context of peace talks between two sides engaged in armed conflict for the last five decades. The document pushed for state-led agrarian reform and sovereign industrialization and offered an alternative development pathway to delinking, favoring working peoples’ rights over the profits of monopoly capital. CASER also represented significant adjustments in articulating the insurgents’ “national democratic” program to address recent issues and developments. The author argues, however, that the document has had the drawback of being silent on some significant challenges of delinking; and that it also needs to account for qualitatively changed conditions and shifting terrains of class struggle brought on by capitalism’s neoliberal phase since the late 1970s.
Finally, this issue includes an article by Max Ajl, entitled “Liberation, Ecology and Industrialization in the Thought of Ismail-Sabri Abdallah,” for our permanent special section on Third World Legacies. Ismail-Sabri Abdallah was a senior official in the Egypt National Planning Institute under Gamal Abdel Nasser and then Anwar Sadat. He was also a central figure in arenas such as the Third World Forum. The article examines the work of Abdallah in relation to two arenas of thought marginalized in current Marxist debate: socially and ecologically “appropriate” planning and technologies, and national liberation and post-colonial planning more broadly. As a theorist and practitioner, Abdallah faced the multi-scalar problems of planning in a post-colonial state. His work wove together the problematics of the appropriate technologies to use for supplying basic needs for a primarily rural or slum-dwelling population; the pressing problem of unemployment; the nascent problem of ecological degradation; the incipient problem of rapid depletion of exhaustible natural resources; and the existential problem of national defense as a component of Third World development. This article, therefore, reads Abdallah’s oeuvre as one articulation of peripheral ecological thought within the national liberation tradition, while placing it in associated debates concerning basic needs, the right to development, delinking, and the particularities of the Third World encounter with the ecological crisis.
We invite our readers to engage with these contributions and share new research and reflections on the question of rural and urban industrialization. We will return to this question in Part II of this special issue and continue, thereafter, to encourage contributions with the intention of producing a larger collection of studies in book form.
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The Editorial Board of Agrarian South expresses its deepest sympathies to the family, friends, and comrades of Francisco Nemenzo, Jr., who passed away on December 19, 2024, at the age of 89. Professor Nemenzo served on the Advisory Board of Agrarian South since its inception. He was an eminent scholar and former president of the University of the Philippines. Our editorial collective will organize a tribute to Professor Nemenzo in due course.