From The Jakarta Method by Vincent Bevins
liberal international order
:wtyp:
But yeah, definitely recommend this book.
I finished Against Empire by Parenti last night, this one is up next.
What am I in for?
all the above emojis with a better understanding of geopolitics
Supplement with the Hickel study (that you’ve probably already seen) for a quick explanation of the why behind Jakarta’s how.
Would you recommend that study before or after JM? Actually haven’t heard of it!
It doesn’t hurt to read the details but the highlights are a good enough summary:
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Rich countries rely on a large net appropriation of resources from the global South.
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Drain from the South is worth over $10 trillion per year, in Northern prices.
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The South’s losses outstrip their aid receipts by a factor of 30.
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Unequal exchange is a major driver of underdevelopment and global inequality.
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The impact of excess resource consumption in the North is offshored to the South.
Also a few things I copied from either a summary here or on Twitter:
In 2015, the North’s net appropriation from the South included:
- 12 billion tons of embodied raw material equivalents, 43% of North’s consumption
- 822 million hectares of embodied land, enough to grow food for 6 billion people
- 21 Exajoules of embodied energy, enough for all 6.5b people in the Global South have access to all basic needs.
- 188 million person-years of embodied labour
I will always gladly add more coals to the fire in my heart that burns with rage against the American Empire.
Death to America
But this is a two-pronged lesson.
Yes, the most obvious is that an armed and locally independent vanguard movement has the most staying power. But also, that the lay citizens do (initially at least) yearn for a peaceful transition and non-violent confrontations.
Therefore, a truly popular leader must always appear peaceful, contrite, and willing to compromise, but forced into a position of conflict out of self-defense or risk-mitigation. Meanwhile, the martial arm of the movement needs to be occluded and out-of-focus. Martial participants must be presented as peace keepers and community members. Copaganda works. People crave stability and peace. And a successful Leftist movement needs to advertise itself as a solution to the chronic agitation rather than the cause of it.
Text for those with screen readers:
This was another very difficult question I had to ask my interview subjects, especially the leftists from Southeast Asia and Latin America. When we would get to discussing the old debates between peaceful and armed revolution; between hardline Marxism and democratic socialism, I would ask: “Who was right?”
In Guatemala, was it Árbenz or Che who had the right approach? Or in Indonesia, when Mao warned Aidit that the PKI should arm themselves, and they did not? In Chile, was it the young revolutionaries in the MIR who were right in those college debates, or the more disciplined, moderate Chilean Communist Party?
Most of the people I spoke with who were politically involved back then believed fervently in a nonviolent approach, in gradual, peaceful, democratic change. They often had no love for the systems set up by people like Mao. But they knew that their side had lost the debate, because so many of their friends were dead. They often admitted, without hesitation or pleasure, that the hardliners had been right. Aidit’s unarmed party didn’t survive. Allende’s democratic socialism was not allowed, regardless of the détente between the Soviets and Washington.
Looking at it this way, the major losers of the twentieth century were those who be. lieved too sincerely in the existence of a liberal international order, those who trusted too much in democracy, or too much in what the United States said it supported, rather than what it really supported what the rich countries said, rather than what they did.
That group was annihilated.
