askchapo

Yes, I do want to see the construction of a multipolar world, and that obviously means the defeat of Washington’s hegemonist project for military control of the planet. In my eyes it is an overweening project, criminal by its very nature, which is drawing the world into wars without end and stifling all hope of social and democratic advance, not only in the countries of the South but also, to a seemingly lesser degree, in those of the North.

The term ‘multipolar world’ calls for some clarification. Like other widely used expressions in the realm of politics, it remains unclear unless and until it is given a precise meaning. For my own part, it implies a recognition that the social system in which we live is thoroughly ‘global’ or ‘globalized’, and that any alternative to globalization based on the principles of liberal capitalism (or its more extreme ‘neoliberal’ form) can itself be nothing other than ‘global’. In other words, I am a champion of what has been called ‘alter-globalization’, not an advocate of ‘anti-globalization’ in the sense of opposition to any form of globalization. That seems to me not only unrealistic but undesirable.

Disagreements therefore centre on what is meant by multipolarity. Some think of it as a means of ‘restoring balance’ in the Atlantic alliance, or of ensuring that the other two partners in the triad (the European Union, or its major powers, and Japan) have a position equal to that of the United States in the running of world affairs. Others go further and argue that there is a need for large countries such as China, Russia, India and Brazil, perhaps even some more or less ‘emerging’ countries in the South, to have a place in the concert of the major powers.

So far as I am concerned, this is a quite inadequate conception of multipolarity: it does not hold out a satisfactory answer to the real challenges facing the peoples of the world, nor the prospect of social progress that can alone provide a reliable and robust basis for democratization. In other words, my idea of the multipolarity that is necessary today entails a radical revision of ‘North–South relations’, in all their dimensions. This revision must create a framework that makes it possible to reduce the power of forces within the system (the capitalist system, to call it by its name) that operate in such a way as to exacerbate the polarization of wealth and power. By calling into question the ‘imperialist’ tradition, or whatever one likes to call it, which governs core–periphery relations in the actually existing capitalist system (something quite different from the general market system dreamed up by mainstream economists), such a revision would automatically pose a challenge to the most fundamental aspects of capitalism.

• Beyond US Hegemony? Assessing the Prospects for a Multipolar World - Samir Amin.

That's just the introduction

Also subscribing to Leninist definitions of imperialism as a stage of capitalism, or how a country needs to meet certain criteria to be sufficiently imperialist, is not always the most useful in modern context. Especially for those that subscribe to the theories of a globalised law of value, super exploitation, polarisation and imperialist rent. Many third worldists disagree with Lenin and believe that capitalism has always been imperialist since the beginning. I'll just quote Samir Amin again because I'm not good at explaining it.

The modern global system of actually existing capitalism has always been polarizing by nature, through the very operation of what I call the ‘globalized law of value’, as distinct from the law of value tout court. In my analysis, therefore, polarization and imperialism are synonymous. I am not among those who reserve the term ‘imperialist’ for types of political behaviour designed to subjugate one nation to another – behaviour that can be found through the successive ages of the human story, associated with various modes of production and social organization. My analytic interest is anyway geared only to the imperialism of modern times, the product of the immanent logic of capitalist expansion.

In this sense, imperialism is not a stage of capitalism but the permanent feature of its global expansion, which since its earliest beginnings has always produced a polarization of wealth and power in favour of the core countries. The ‘monopolies’ enjoyed by the cores in their asymmetrical relations with the peripheries of the system define each of the successive phases in the history of the globalized imperialist system.