Contents
1 The Globalized Law of Value........................................................................ 1
2 Capitalism and Ground Rent........................................................................
52.1 Rent and the Ownership of the Soil: Going Back to Capital.... 9
2.2 From the Capitalist Mode of Production to Capitalist
Formations: Class Alliances and the Creation of the World
Capitalist System.......................................................................................... 14
2.3 The Development of Capitalism in Agriculture:
The Theories of Kautsky, Lenin, and Chayanov........................................... 18
2.4 The Domination of Agriculture by the Capitalist
Mode of Production...................................................................................... 22
3 Modernity and Interpretations of Religions.............................................. 31
3.1 The Flexibility of Religious Interpretations........................................ 31
3.2 Judaism, Christianity, Islam, One or Three
Religious Metaphysics?............................................................................... 34
3.3 Religion and Society: The Risk of Theocracy..................................... 38
3.4 The Reformation, The Ambiguous Expression
of Christianity’s Adaptation to Modernity................................................... 44
3.5 Political Islam....................................................................................... 52
3.5.1 The European Renaissance and the Arab Nahda........................ 52
3.5.2 Contemporary Political Islam................................................. 55
4 Re-reading the Post War Period................................................................. 61
4.1 The Postwar Period, 1945-1992: An Overview....................................
614.2 Establishing the Global Economic System: 1945-1955...................... 61
4.3 TheBandungEra: 1955-1975................................................................. 63
4.4 The Collapse of the Global System: 1975-1992................................. 64
4.5 Establishing the Global Economic System: 1945-1955...................... 67
5 Historical Capitalism: Accumulation by Dispossession........................... 79
5.1 Capitalism: A Parenthesis in History................................................... 82
5.1.1 The Twentieth Century: The First Wave of Socialist
Revolutions and the Awakening of the ‘South’................................................... 85
5.1.2 Bandung and the First Globalization
of the Struggles (1955-1981)................................................................................ 85
5.2 The Long Decline of Capitalism and the Long Transition
to World Socialism........................................................................................ 86
5.2.1 The Counter-offensive of Capitalism in Decline...................... 87
5.2.2 In Counterpoint: The Aims and Means of a Strategy
of Constructing Convergence in Diversity.......................................................... 88
5.2.3 For a Socialist Renewal of the Twenty First Century:
The CapitalismZSocialism Conflict and the NorthZSouth Conflict are Inseparable 89
5.3 The Plutocratic Oligarchies and the End
of Bourgeois Civilisation.............................................................................. 91
5.3.1 The Wheeler-dealers, The New Dominant Class
in the Peripheries................................................................................................. 91
5.3.2 Senile Capitalism and the End of Bourgeois
Civilization........................................................................................................... 93
5.3.3 The Fragility of Capitalist Globalisation.................................
935.3.4 Is Lucidity Possible in the Transformative Activities
of Societies?.......................................................................................................... 95
References.................................................................................................... 98
6 The Two Paths of Historical Development: The Contrast
Between Europe and China......................................................................... 99
6.1 The General and the Particular in the Trajectories
of Humanity’s Evolution.............................................................................. 99
6.2 The Peasant Question at the Heart of the Opposition Between
the European and Chinese Development Paths........................................... 100
6.3 Modern China Before Europe............................................................. 101
6.4 The Great Pre-modern Regionalisations and the Centralisation
of the Tributary Surplus.............................................................................. 102
6.5 The Centralisation of Tributary Surplus............................................ 102
6.6 The Chinese Itinerary: A Long, Calm River?..................................... 103
6.7 Phonetic Writing, Conceptual Writing.............................................. 104
6.8 China was Five Centuries Ahead of Europe...................................... 105
7 Russia in the World System: Geography or History?............................ 107
References.................................................................................................. 114
8 China: The Emerging Nation.................................................................... 115
8.1 TheAgrarianQuestion......................................................................... 116
8.2 PresentandFutureofPettyProduction................................................... 118
8.3 Chinese State Capitalism.................................................................... 120
8.4 The Integration of China into Capitalist Globalization..................... 122
8.5 China, Emerging Power...................................................................... 124
8.6 Great Successes, New Challenges...................................................... 127
References.................................................................................................. 131
World Forum for Alternatives........................................................................ 133
About the Author.............................................................................................. 139
About the Book.................................................................................................. 143