Samir Amin and the Changing of the World

ABSTRACT

This article examines the answers that Samir Amin, a well-known theorist of the Third World, gave to three questions: why, how and by whom the global capitalist system must be changed. Among other topics, the article outlines Amin’s theory of unequal development, the generalized monopolies, the five privileges of the global centre, Eurocentrism, “delinking,” “long transition,” progressive nationalism, and the global class structure. Amin’s participation in the fight for the emancipation of developing countries and of all of the world’s oppressed social classes will also be addressed, as will his last call for a global alliance of workers and the people.

KEYWORDS:

• Samir Amin
• delinking
• generalized monopolies
• long transition
• unequal development

Acknowledgements

I am very grateful to the referees for their valuable comments on the first version of my article.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 This article (Amin 2008) is a shortened version of the original article: “Au-delà de la mondialisation libérale: un monde meilleur ou pire?” [Beyond Liberal Globalization: A Better or Worse World] (Amin 2006b).

2 See https://globalsouthstudies.as.virginia.edu/key-moments/belgrade-1961-non-aligned-conference.

3 See https://www.g77.org/doc/.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Annamaria Artner

Annamaria Artner, PhD, is a political economist, senior research fellow at the Institute of World Economics of the Centre for Economic and Regional Studies, Budapest. Her main research interests are the transformation of the world system, global capital accumulation, labour markets, crises, and their socio-economic consequences. Her recent publications are “Samir Amin and Eastern Europe” (Review of African Political Economy, 2021), “Planning and Social Change” (Critique, 2021), “Can China Lead the Change of the World?” (Third World Quarterly, 2020), “Accumulation of Advantage and Elimination of Scarcity—A Critique of the Neoclassical Approach” (International Critical Thought, 2019), and Marx 200 (2018, in Hungarian).