Peripheral Liberation in the Perspective of Samir Amin: Essence, Logic and Its Possibility

Samir Amin (1931-2018), the renowned Egyptian neo-Marxist theorist, expert on dependency theory, world-systems theory and globalization theory, and international political economist. Amin was a prolific writer throughout his life, producing numerous works, including *Accumulation on a World Scale* (1970), *Unequal Development: An Essay on the Social Formations of Peripheral Capitalism* (1973), *The Crisis of Imperialism* (1975), *Imperialism and Unequal Development* (1976), *The Law of Value and Historical Materialism* (1977), *The Law of Worldwide Value* (1978), *The Arab Economy Today* (1982), *The Challenge of Globalization* (2003), *The Crisis of Capitalism* (2003), *The Liberal Virus* (2007), *The Multipolar World and the Fifth International* (2014), *The People’s Spring* (2017), and many other classic texts. In *The People’s Spring*, Amin defined this social movement that originated in the Middle East and North Africa as an anti-imperialist and (potentially) anti-capitalist movement. To firmly grasp the power to create the future in their own hands, the Arab people must unite, find positive development paths truly suited to each country’s national conditions, and unite with the world’s people to wage a resolute struggle against imperialism and capitalism.

萨米尔·阿明(Samir Amin，1931-2018)，埃及著名的新马克思主义理论家，依附理论、世界体系理论、全球化理论专家，国际政治经济学家。阿明一生笔耕不辍著述颇丰，出版了《世界规模的积累》(1970年)、《不平等的发展：论外围资本主义的社会形态》(1973年)、《帝国主义的危机》(1975年)、《帝国主义和不平等的发展》(1976年)、《价值规律和历史唯物主义》(1977年)、《世界价值规律》(1978年)、《今日阿拉伯经济》(1982年)、《世界一体化的挑战》(2003年)、《资本主义的危机》(2003年)、《自由主义病毒》(2007年)、《多极世界与第五国际》(2014年)、《人民的春天》(2017年)等诸多经典文本。在《人民的春天》中，阿明将这场肇始于中东和北非的社会运动界定为反帝国主义、(潜在的)反资本主义的运动。为了把创造未来的权力紧紧掌握在手中，阿拉伯人民必须团结起来，寻找到积极的、真正适合各国国情的发展道路，并与世界人民联合起来同帝国主义、资本主义展开坚决的斗争。

I. From Center to Periphery: The Historical Trajectory of the Transformation of the Arab World’s Status

一、从中心到边缘：阿拉伯世界地位嬗变的历史轨迹

The category of world-system was first proposed by Rosa Luxemburg. It broke through Marx’s ideal-typical analysis of the capitalist mode of production, advocating the extension of the object of analysis of the mode of production to the non-capitalist world, i.e., constituting a world-system whole composed of the capitalist mode of production and the non-capitalist environment. In Luxemburg’s view, the global accumulation of capital and the acquisition of surplus value are achieved not through commodity production, but through commodity exchange between capitalist and non-capitalist countries. Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein was the first to define Luxemburg’s concept as the “modern world-system.” He emphasized that the tribes, nationalities, and states formed in human history do not evolve or develop in isolation, but always form a certain “world-system” in interconnection with each other. In terms of time, “from the end of the 15th century to the beginning of the 16th century, a structure we can call the European world-system was proclaimed to have taken shape. In other words, the world-system only encompassed the entire globe with the formation of a unified world market in the 16th century, i.e., a global capitalist economic system truly took shape.” Both Luxemburg and Wallerstein described the modern world-system as an economic unity.

世界体系这一范畴最早由卢森堡(Rosa Luxemburg)提出，它突破了马克思对资本主义生产方式的理想型分析，主张将生产方式分析的对象扩展至非资本主义世界，即由资本主义生产方式和非资本主义环境共同构成一个世界体系整体。在卢森堡看来，资本的全球积累和剩余价值的获得不是通过商品生产来实现，而是通过资本主义国家和非资本主义国家之间的商品交换来实现的。沃勒斯坦(Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein)最先将卢森堡的概念界定为“现代世界体系”，他强调人类历史上形成的部族、民族与国家，都不是孤立地演化与发展，而总是在相互联系中形成一定的“世界性体系”。就时间而言，“从15世纪末到16世纪初，一个我们可称为欧洲世界体系的格局宣告形成。换言之，世界体系直到16世纪统一的世界市场的形成才涵盖整个全球，即全球性资本主义经济体系真正形成。无论是卢森堡，还是沃勒斯坦，都将现代世界体系描述为一个经济统一体。

Consistent with Luxemburg and Wallerstein, Amin’s dependency theory and world-systems theory also maintain: 1. “Center and periphery” is the basic structure of the world-system. 2. “The relationship between center and periphery is essentially economic.” The modern capitalist system signifies the emergence of the first unified global social system. This system is a world economic system governed by the law of value on a world scale. Amin argues that this is not an arbitrary judgment, “but a manifestation of the dominance of the economy in the capitalist mode, and the domination of capital accumulation over politics and ideology.” The point of divergence from Luxemburg and Wallerstein lies in Amin deepening the understanding of the “center-periphery” relationship from the perspectives of global history and political economy.

与卢森堡、沃勒斯坦一致，阿明的依附论和世界体系理论也主张：1.“中心与边缘”是世界体系的基本结构。2.“中心和边缘的关系本质上是经济的”。现代资本主义体系意味着第一个统一的全球的社会体系的出现。这个体系是一个由世界化价值规律统治的世界经济体系。阿明认为，这不是一个武断的判断，“而是经济在资本主义模式中的统治地位，以及资本积累对政治和意识形态的支配的体现。”与卢森堡、沃勒斯坦不一致的地方在于，阿明从全球史和政治经济学视角深化了对“中心与边缘”关系的理解。

Re-understanding the world-system from the perspective of global history, Amin broadened the temporal scope of the world-system. Unlike Wallerstein, who demarcated the world-system with 1500 as the temporal node, Amin argues that from 500 BCE to 200 BCE, Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Western Iran in the Middle East had already achieved integration with the oldest civilizations of the Eastern Hemisphere, such as India and China, and a “global system” had emerged. This global system was an ancient world-system, called the tributary system or suzerain-vassal system [1]1 The tributary system (朝贡体系) refers to a network of loose, hierarchical international relations in East and Southeast Asia, centered on China, where neighboring states acknowledged Chinese suzerainty in exchange for trade and protection, primarily as a ritualized political arrangement rather than direct rule., which, together with the treaty system and the colonial system, was one of the world’s major models of international relations. The so-called tributary system was a hierarchical, reticular political order system existing in Asia and the Middle East from the 5th century BCE until the end of the 19th century, with China, India, and the Arab world as its multiple centers. Amin argues that the general form of class society after the clan commune form was tributary society, not slave society or feudal society. Slavery and feudalism were not the general rule; they were merely peripheral forms of the tributary formation. “Various conditions determined the specific forms of each tributary society” (caste, European feudal manors, villages subject to the state bureaucracy, etc.).

从全球史视角重新理解世界体系，阿明拓宽了世界体系的时间范围。与沃勒斯坦以1500年为时间节点界化世界体系不同，阿明认为从公元前500年到公元前200年，中东的埃及、叙利亚、美索不达米亚、西伊朗已经和印度、中国等东半球最为古老的若干文明实现了整合，“全球体系”得以出现。这种全球体系是古代世界体系，称为朝贡体系或宗藩体系，与条约体系、殖民体系同为世界主要国际关系模式之一。所谓朝贡体系，是自公元前5世纪开始，直到19世纪末期，存在于亚洲与中东，以中国、印度、阿拉伯为多元中心的等级制网状政治秩序体系。阿明认为，氏族公社形态之后阶级社会的一般形式是朝贡社会，而不是奴隶社会和封建社会。奴隶制和封建制并非通例，它们只是朝贡形态的外围形式。“各种条件决定了每个朝贡社会的具体形式”(种性、欧洲封建庄园、受制于国家官僚体系的村庄等等。)

Over the more than twenty centuries examined by Amin, the global structure of the tributary system was relatively stable, but with changes in wealth, population, and modes of production, the structure of the center and periphery of the global system was also quietly changing. First, the member states of society under the tributary system coexisted with each other, maintaining various forms of equal contact—trade, technological and cultural exchange, etc.—with tribute being more of a political symbolic significance. In contrast, member states in the modern world-system are unequal; the central regions are in a leading position, playing a dominant role, while the peripheral international regions are in a led and dominated position. Second, although China and India played a decisive role in the tributary system, the Middle East’s advantage lay in its geographical location; it was “the hub of the global system, the only region with direct connections to all other places.” However, the Middle East’s stagnation during a certain period caused its “central” status in the world-system to decline to the “peripheral” zone. Third, Europe gradually joined the world-system and became a potential new center. After 1000 CE, Europe began to develop rapidly, with bustling towns and towering monuments everywhere, fully demonstrating the enormous growth of the surplus created by European agriculture. “In the 13th century CE, Europe and China established direct contact for the first time via Mongol territory,” making the Middle East no longer a necessary route and thus excluding it from the central system. Fourth, the wars for Jerusalem directly accelerated the decline of the Arab region. When the military campaigns for Jerusalem, initiated by the Roman Catholic Pope, ended, the Arab world began a process of military feudalization and self-isolation. Decline gradually ended the brilliant civilization created by the Caliphs in earlier centuries, while Europe was beginning to abandon feudalism and set about creating modernity and subsequently conquering the entire world. “And when Saladin reconquered Jerusalem, it proved to be a Pyrrhic victory.” [2]2 A “Pyrrhic victory” is a victory that inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that it is tantamount to defeat; here it refers to Saladin’s costly reconquest of Jerusalem in 1187 CE, which, despite its symbolic success, contributed to the long-term decline of the Arab world by provoking further Crusades and internal fragmentation. Fifth, the modern capitalist system, which began to develop from 1500 onwards, was fundamentally different from the previous tributary system. This was not merely a matter of overturning the central position of the Middle East and ceding it to Europe and America; more critically: 1. Europe and America became the dominant center worldwide, while Japan began to emerge, expanding the scope of the center and gradually forming the prototype of today’s “collective imperialism.” 2. The tributary system disintegrated, and the dominance of the social system shifted from the political and ideological level to the economic level. 3. The tributary system was a regional, decentralized, polycentric social system, whereas the modern world-system is a global, unified social system. The principal contradiction of capitalism in the current era is no longer the contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat in the “central” regions, but rather the contradiction and conflict between the exploiters and the exploited on a world scale, formed by the monopoly capital of the “center” uniting with the bureaucratic comprador bourgeoisie of the “peripheral” regions to oppress and exploit the vast working masses—the proletariat, peasants, petty bourgeoisie, etc.—of the “peripheral” regions. This determines that the national liberation movement in the “periphery” is inevitable, its goal being not only political independence but also economic liberation.

在阿明所考察的20多个世纪里，朝贡体系的全球结构是相对稳定的，但随着财富人口和生产方式的变迁，全球体系中心与边缘的结构也在悄然发生改变。第一，朝贡体系下的社会成员国彼此共存，他们之间保持着各种形式平等的联系，贸易、技术和文化交流等，朝贡更多是一种政治象征意味。而现代世界体系中的成员国是不平等的，中心区国家处于领导地位，起着支配性作用，边缘国际地区则处于被领导和被支配地位。第二，尽管中国和印度在朝贡体系中发挥着决定性的作用，但中东的优势在于其地理位置，它是“全球体系的枢纽，是唯一与其他所有地方都有直接联系的地区。”但中东在某个期间的停滞使得其在世界体系中的“中心”地位下滑到“边缘”地带。第三，欧洲逐步加入世界体系中，并成为一个潜在的新中心。1000年以后欧洲开始迅猛地发展，遍布活跃的市镇和高耸的纪念碑，充分显示了欧洲农业所创造的盈余有了巨大的增长。“公元13世纪，欧洲与中国首次途径蒙古的领土建立了直接联系”，使得中东不再是必经之路，也因此被排除在中心体系之外。第四，为争夺耶路撒冷而发生的战争在直接的意义上加速了阿拉伯地区的衰落。由古罗马天主教教皇发起的争夺耶路撒冷的军事行动结束之际，阿拉伯世界开始了军事上的封建化和自我孤立的过程，衰落逐渐终结了早前几个世纪哈里发所创造的灿烂文明，而欧洲此时正在开始抛弃封建主义，并且着手创造现代性并进而征服全世界。“而在萨拉丁再次征服耶路撒冷之际，事实证明它是一场得不偿失的胜利。”第五，1500年起开始发展的现代资本主义体系，与之前的朝贡体系有着本质上的不同。这不仅是颠覆中东地区的中心地位从而让位于欧美的问题，更加关键之处在于：1.欧美在世界范围内成为居于支配地位的中心，同时，日本开始崭露头角使中心的范围得以扩大，慢慢形成今日之“集体帝国主义”的雏形。2.朝贡体系瓦解，社会体系的支配权从政治和意识形态层面转向了经济层面。3.朝贡体系是地区性的、分散式的、多中心的社会体系，而现代世界体系是全球性的、统一的社会体系。当今时代资本主义的主要矛盾已不再是“中心”地区的资产阶级和无产阶级之间的矛盾，而是“中心”垄断资本联合“外围”地区的官僚买办阶级，压迫和剥削“外围”地区的无产阶级、农民和小资产阶级等广大劳动群众，从而形成在世界范围内的剥削者和被剥削者之间的矛盾和冲突。这决定了“外围”的民族解放运动必然发生，其目标不仅是政治上的独立，而且是经济上的解放。

II. Peripheral Liberation: Form and Substance

二、边缘解放：形式与实质

Proceeding from the long-duration world-system theory and the historical logic of the transformation of Arab states’ position within the world-system structure, Amin argues that the Arab movement, as the “second awakening of the peoples of the South,” is in essence a national liberation movement on the periphery of the world system. In order to firmly grasp the power to create the future in the hands of the people, the Arab world must unite, find development paths truly suited to each country’s national conditions, and join with the world’s people in waging a resolute struggle against imperialism and capitalism.

从长时段世界体系理论和阿拉伯国家在世界体系结构中地位嬗变的历史逻辑出发，阿明认为作为“南方人民的第二次觉醒”之阿拉伯运动，在实质上是作为世界体系边缘地带的民族解放运动。为了将创造未来的权力紧紧掌握在人民手中，阿拉伯世界必须团结起来，寻找到真正地适合各国国情的发展道路，并与世界人民联合起来同帝国主义、资本主义展开坚决的斗争。

First, the nature of the Arab movement is an anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist movement. Amin holds that the target of the Arab movement is the “collective imperialism” led by U.S. imperialism. Unlike Lenin’s view that imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism, Amin believes that capitalism has always been imperialist; the difference is that today’s imperialism is not the plural form of imperialism of traditional Germany, Japan, the United States, France, Britain, etc., but a “collective imperialism” composed of the United States, Europe, and Japan, in which the contradictions and conflicts of interest among imperialist countries have receded to a secondary position. “Collective imperialism” does not want to see the rise of a democratic Egypt; in its view, Egypt would inevitably be anti-imperialist, reject neoliberal globalization, reduce Saudi Arabia’s status, and revive Arab unity. As for the Arab movement itself, the participants are diverse, and their demands are also diverse. Because it inherently lacks strong organizational leadership, in order to achieve maximum cohesion, the participating parties held many intense discussions and reached a minimum common program—anti-imperialism, escaping the trap of neoliberalization. Its proposals include: 1. rebuilding state power; 2. breaking free from the control of the United States, Israel, and the Gulf states; 3. opening up new partnerships with China, Russia, India, South Africa, and other countries.

首先，阿拉伯运动的性质是反帝国主义反资本主义运动。阿明认为阿拉伯运动的对象是美帝国主义领导下的“集体帝国主义”。与列宁认为帝国主义是资本主义的最高发展阶段的看法不同，阿明认为资本主义历来都是帝国主义，只是现在的帝国主义和传统的德国、日本、美国、法国、英国等复数形式的帝国主义不同，今天世界面临的是由美国、欧洲与日本三方组成的“集体帝国主义”，各帝国主义国家之间的矛盾和利益冲突退居到了次要地位。“集体帝国主义”不愿意看到一个民主埃及的崛起，在他们看来埃及必定反帝国主义，拒绝新自由主义全球化，降低沙特阿拉伯的地位，重振阿拉伯世界的团结。就阿拉伯运动本身而言，运动参与者群体多样化，诉求也是多样化的，因为本身缺乏坚强的组织领导，为了最大限度地凝聚到一起，参与各方进行了多次激烈的讨论，达成了一个最低共同纲领——反帝国主义，摆脱新自由主义化的陷阱，其方案包括：1.重建国家权力；2.从美国、以色列和海湾国家的控制中挣脱出来；3.开辟与中国、俄罗斯、印度、南非等国新型伙伴关系等。

Second, the driving force of the Arab movement is the popular masses. The Arab movement is a rehearsal of the people’s struggle for dominant power. To call the Arab movement a “spring of the people” basically means that this movement changed the people, making their resistance more organized. In the final analysis, the Arab movement was only a large-scale movement because it ultimately did not change the social system; the Muslim Brotherhood continued and submitted to the old system of international monopoly capitalism. As Amin says, “Politics does not mean operating within the predetermined balance of power today; it changes the balance of power.” Amin goes to the extreme of arguing that the liberation movement Marx predicted—the worldwide unification to change the capitalist system—has never existed and may never exist; he is more inclined to incremental progress. Although this Arab movement was only based on immediate plans, it was still a form of progress. In his view, liberation does not mean immediately jumping completely outside globalization; as long as one begins to break away from the capitalist world system, that is a big step forward.

其次，阿拉伯运动的动力是人民大众。阿拉伯运动是人民争取支配性权力的斗争操演。说阿拉伯运动是“人民的春天”，其基本喻意是这场运动改变了人民，让人民的抗争变得更有组织性。说到底，阿拉伯运动只是大型的运动，因为它最终没有改变社会体制，穆斯林兄弟会延续和屈从于国际垄断资本主义的旧体制。如阿明所言，“政治的意思不是在今天那种被限定好了的权力均衡中进行运作，它在改变权利的均衡”，阿明极端地认为马克思所预言的全世界联合起来改变资本主义体制的解放运动，从来没有过，将来可能也不会有，他更加认同的是渐进式进步。尽管阿拉伯的这场运动只是依据即时性的计划，但也是一种进步。在他看来，解放并非一下子就要完全跳出全球化之外，只要开始从资本主义世界体系中脱离，就是向前迈了一大步。

Third, the goal of the Arab movement is to build a truly democratized Arab world. This movement has three tasks: 1. Achieving social justice, including a set of reform measures such as reclaiming privatized assets, introducing a minimum wage, and new rules to protect labor rights. 2. Safeguarding national independence and autonomy. One of the movement’s demands is to build a government that can represent Egypt with dignity and independence, and that does not accept the domination of U.S. imperialism. 3. Achieving thorough democracy. Many people think democracy means bourgeois democracy and multiparty elections in the Western sense. But in Amin’s view, democracy does not only mean elections; Egyptian democracy should mean a change in daily attitudes and in the daily relations between people. “In the Arab world, as in other regions, the politicization of democracy is also a core theme.” The universal high concentration of monopoly capital makes political power unconditionally and completely subservient to it; the strengthening of presidential power appears to vary with individuals, but in fact it internally serves the rule of financial oligarchs. Hence the Arab movement strives to achieve thorough democracy.

再次，阿拉伯运动的目标是建立一个真正民主化的阿拉伯世界。这场运动有三个任务：1.实现社会公正，包括收回私有化的资产、出台最低工资、保障劳工权益的新规则等一整套改革措施。2.维护国家独立自主。运动的诉求之一是要构建一个能代表埃及有尊严的、独立自主的政府，不接受美国帝国主义的支配。3.实现彻底的民主。很多人认为民主就是西方意义上的资产阶级民主和多党选举。但在阿明看来，民主不只意味着选举，埃及民主应意味着日常生活态度和人与人之间日常关系的改变。“在阿拉伯世界正如与其他地区一样，民主政治化也是核心主题。”垄断资本普遍高度集中使得政治权力无条件地、彻底的听命于它，总统权力的加强看起来是因人而异，事实上往往内在地服务金融财阀的统治。因而阿拉伯运动致力于实现彻底的民主。

Finally, the future of the Arab movement may lead to socialism, thereby bringing about the “second awakening” of the Arab world. To say that the Arab movement brings the people’s spring represents Amin’s personal good wishes; he actively called for the movement’s success. Before the manuscript was submitted for publication, the Arab movement had not yet ended, so the claim that the Arab movement brings the people’s spring was more of a prediction and a beautiful vision. Of course, we now know the movement failed, and the Arab world continues to wander on the dominated periphery, unable to become a positive force for reorganizing the world. There are many reasons for the movement’s failure. First, the movement lacked long-term goals: peasants demanded land, workers demanded wage increases, the middle class demanded democracy, and women demanded rights—all realistic goals, but the entire movement lacked a more long-term strategy and objectives, so it inevitably lost morale and direction. Second, the movement lacked strong organizational leadership; the retreat of the radical left and the Communist Party was one reason for the movement’s failure. The Arab movement took a nationalist path; the Communist Party was co-opted and marginalized by nationalism. The radical left experienced a comprehensive defeat in the Arab region, no longer representing any alternative path, and became part of the establishment. Another reason, for example, is that the movement’s failure is closely related to capitalism’s still tenacious vitality. In this sense, *The People’s Spring* means the possibility brought by the people’s active resistance, means that all kinds of movements and struggles that snipe at imperialism are legitimate, and means that the struggle for secular democratization still has important significance at present.

最后，阿拉伯运动的前途有可能走向社会主义，从而带来阿拉伯世界的“第二次觉醒”。说阿拉伯运动带来人民的春天，它代表了阿明个人的美好愿望，他积极呼唤运动的成功。在书稿交予出版之前，阿拉伯运动还没有结束，因此关于阿拉伯运动带来人民的春天的说法，更多的是预测和美好的愿景。当然，我们现在知道运动失败了，阿拉伯世界继续徘徊在被主宰的边缘地带，无法成为重组世界的积极力量。运动失败有很多原因，其一，运动没有长远的目标，农民要求获得土地，工人要求加薪，中产阶级要求民主，妇女要求权利都是现实的目标，但整个运动缺乏更加长远的战略和目标，因此运动不可避免地会失去斗志和方向。其二，运动没有坚强的组织领导，激进左翼和共产党的退却，是运动失败的原因之一。阿拉伯运动走向了民族主义的道路，共产党被民族主义收编，边缘化了，激进左翼在阿拉伯地区经历了全面的失败，不再代表任何替代性道路，而变成了建制派的一部分。再如，运动失败与资本主义仍有顽强的生命力密切相关。在此意义上，《人民的春天》意味着人民积极抵抗所带来的可能性，意味着各种各样的抵抗狙击帝国主义的运动和斗争都是正当的，意味着力争世俗的民主化斗争在当前仍具有重要的意义。

III. Can the Periphery Bear the Space of Hope for Human Liberation?

三、边缘能否承载人类解放的希望空间

Amin’s works and articles enjoy a high reputation in international academia, which is closely related to his firm radical leftist stance and highly original thought. Using the structuralist “center-periphery” explanatory paradigm, Amin proposes the theoretical hypothesis that the capitalist world system causes peripheral countries of the Third World to be dependent on the developed countries of the center, and advocates taking a socialist path of “delinking” from the globalized monopoly capitalist system. His academic contribution lies in revealing that “the unequal development of peripheral capitalism is a historical product of the relationship between center and periphery, the result of continuous, world-scale capital accumulation favorable to the center.” The essence of the “center-periphery” relationship is the imperialist invasion and domination of peripheral Third World countries by the central capitalist countries, achieved through “five monopolies” [3]3 The “five monopolies” refer to Samir Amin’s concept of the five monopolies through which the center dominates the periphery: monopolies over technology, global finance, natural resources, media and communications, and weapons of mass destruction. that firmly control the politics, economy, culture, ecology, and direction of social development and resource allocation of peripheral countries and regions. Therefore, the socialist movement must necessarily begin from the “periphery” of capitalism. Amin believes that the world history of the first half of the 20th century is the history of the struggle and liberation of peripheral nation-states. The 1905 revolution in semi-peripheral Russia created the conditions for the socialist revolution of 1917; the 1911 Xinhai Revolution in peripheral China led to the long years culminating in the founding of socialist China in 1949; the 1910 Mexican bourgeois movement continued until it subsided after the reformist Lázaro Cárdenas assumed the presidency in 1934; and the 1955 Bandung Conference’s Non-Aligned Movement of Asian and African countries, etc. Their common features are: first, they all opposed imperialism and refused submission to the central capitalist countries. Second, they all started from the periphery. Therefore, Amin asserts that peripheral liberation has been placed on the historical agenda. Our question is whether the peripheral liberation that Amin strongly advocates represents an inevitable law of human liberation, and whether it can bear the space of hope for human liberation. The author believes that peripheral liberation itself does not represent an inevitable law of human liberation; the theory of peripheral liberation reflects, from one aspect, the narrowness of measuring the political and economic structure of the central capitalist countries. There are two reasons.

阿明的著作与文章在国际学界享有盛名，这与其坚定的激进左翼立场，富有原创性的思想密切相关。阿明借助于结构主义“中心—边缘”解释范式，提出资本主义世界体系导致第三世界边缘国家依附于中心发达国家的理论假设，主张走与全球化的垄断的资本主义体系“脱钩”的社会主义道路。其学术贡献在于揭示“外围资本主义的不平等发展是中心与外围关系的历史产物，是有利于中心的、持续的、世界规模的资本积累的结果。”“中心—边缘”关系的实质是中心资本主义国家对边缘第三世界国家的帝国主义入侵和统治，其方式是通过“五大垄断”牢牢操纵边缘国家和地区的政治、经济、文化、生态及其社会发展方向与资源配置权。因而，社会主义运动必然从资本主义的“外围”开始。阿明认为，20世纪上半叶的世界史就是边缘民族国家斗争和解放的历史。半边缘地带的俄罗斯1905年革命，为1917年社会主义革命的到来创造了条件；边缘地带的中国1911年辛亥革命，通往的是1949年社会主义中国建国的漫长岁月；1910年的墨西哥资产阶级运动一直延续到1934年改良主义者拉萨罗·卡德纳斯就任总统后才偃旗息鼓，以及1955年的万隆会议上亚非国家的不结盟运动等等，其共同点在于：其一，都反对帝国主义，拒绝对中心资本主义国家的屈从。其二，都是从边缘地带出发。因此，阿明断言，外围解放已经提上历史议事日程。我们的问题在于阿明极力推崇的边缘解放是否代表着人类解放的必然规律，以及它能否承载人类解放的希望空间。笔者以为，边缘解放本身不代表人类解放的必然规律；边缘解放理论从一个侧面反映了测度资本主义中心国家政治经济结构的狭隘性。原因有两点。

First, from a practical perspective, peripheral liberation lacks a long-term socialist strategy and goals, and lacks a historical subject; the delinking path also does not conform to reality. Looking at the actual situation of the Arab movements, the anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist movements in peripheral countries lack a long-term socialist strategy and goals, because of the retreat of the radical left-wing alliances in these countries and their half-baked understanding of socialism. For example, socialist movements in Latin America show that there are two broad types of struggle against capitalism in Latin America: one type has clear, radical goals, namely, abolishing capitalist private property and replacing it with workers' ownership; the other type is less radical than the former, seeking only some substantive and important changes in labor-capital relations. Yet both types of movement are called "struggles for socialism." Thus, the goals and methods of struggle of the so-called 21st-century socialist movements in Latin America are themselves ambiguous. In this sense, Amin emphasizes the urgency of constructing a global socialist system today, because the polarization between the world's rich and poor has reached an unprecedented scale, and "it has become an urgent task to reconcile humanity's exploration at the level of universality and respect for the differences among nations, using means that cannot be conceived by bourgeois thinking and methods that go beyond bourgeois practice." But as for what socialism actually is, Amin believes that Marx did not provide a complete definition of socialism, only treating it as a more efficient, more just, and higher-level civilization. In Amin's view, "whether to choose a policy of breaking with the world market is the main criterion for measuring whether a country is taking the socialist road or the non-socialist road." The prescription Amin prescribes for the vast number of peripheral nation-states is to "delink" from the global economic system, to break away from the capitalist world system and carry out socialist movements.

其一，从现实来看，边缘解放缺乏长远的社会主义战略和目标，缺少历史主体；脱钩路径也不符合现实。从阿拉伯运动实际来看，外围国家反帝反资本主义运动缺乏长远的社会主义战略和目标，原因在于这些国家激进左翼联盟的退却，以及对社会主义一知半解。比如，拉美社会主义运动表明在拉丁美洲有两大类反对资本主义的斗争：一类是运动本身就有着明确的、激进的目标，即废除资本主义私有制，代之以工人所有权；另一类没有前者这么激进，它们只是谋求劳资关系上的一些实质的、重要的改变。但这两类运动都被称为“争取社会主义运动”。由此可见，拉美所谓21世纪社会主义运动的目标、斗争方式本身就是模糊不清的。在此意义上，阿明强调当前构建社会主义全球体系的紧迫性，因为全世界范围内的两极分化现象已形成史无前例的规模，“用资产阶级思维无法构想的手段和超乎资产阶级实践之外的办法，重新协调人类在普遍性层面和尊重各个民族差异层面的探索，已成为当务之急。”但究竟什么是社会主义，阿明认为马克思没有对社会主义进行完整的界定，只是将其视为一种更高效率的、更公正的、更高等级的文明。在阿明看来，“是否选择这种同世界市场决裂的政策，乃是衡量某一国家走社会主义道路还是走非社会主义道路的主要标堆。”阿明为广大边缘民族国家开出的药方就是同全球经济体系“脱钩”，从资本主义世界体系中脱离出来，进行社会主义运动。

From the perspective of the constituent forces of the Arab social movements, there is a lack of broad participation by the radical left, a lack of strong leadership by communist parties, and therefore a lack of long-term strategy and goals. Amin believes that because social democracy dominates the proletariat in the Arab world, the working class is no longer the basic driving force for transforming the world, and national liberation movements have risen to become the main driving force of historical progress. This situation is relatively similar to that of Africa. In modern African history, for about ten to twenty years, nationalism prevailed in various countries, and they all had similar visions of modernization and uniting the people, but they were far from Marxism; they did not recognize class, thinking that anti-imperialism could unite everyone. "Under normal circumstances, this movement would eventually transform into a socialist revolution." In fact, this is unrealistic. In *The People's Spring*, Amin proposes redefining the historical subject, a new historical subject capable of controlling development and steering it in a socialist direction. But as we see now, the facts are clear: the Arab movements not only failed to achieve their expected goals but also imposed enormous costs on the people.

从阿拉伯社会运动的构成力量来看，缺少激进左翼的广泛参与，缺少共产党的坚强领导，因此缺少长远的战略和目标。阿明认为，由于社会民主主义在阿拉伯世界无产阶级中占据主导地位，工人阶级已不再是改造世界的基本动力，民族解放运动跃升为历史进步的主要动力。这个情况与非洲较为相似，在非洲现代史上有十到二十年左右时间，各国民族主义盛行，他们都有现代化、团结人民等类似的愿景，但距离马克思主义很远，他们不承认阶级，以为反帝国主义就可以团结所有人。“在正常情况下，这个运动最终将转变为社会主义革命。”事实上这是不切实际的，在《人民的春天》中，阿明提出要重新界定历史主体，新的历史主体能够控制发展并使之走向社会主义的方向。但我们现在看来，事实摆在眼前，阿拉伯运动，不仅没有达到预期目标，而且使民众付出了巨大代价。

Second, from a theoretical perspective, the theory of peripheral liberation itself is incomplete and ambiguous, and cannot play a role in guiding and inspiring struggles in peripheral countries and regions. This is manifested in the following aspects: First, the logic of polarization between center and periphery does not penetrate into the problem of uneven development within peripheral capitalism. That is, Amin rarely discusses the forms of uneven development within peripheral countries, which is a matter of particular concern for classical Marxism. Even today, within developed capitalist countries there are central zones and peripheral areas; the United States, as the world's most powerful capitalist country, despite having the world's largest GDP, is also highly unevenly developed—the northeastern Atlantic coast develops rapidly, while the West and South develop slowly for various reasons. Furthermore, unevenness occurs at all levels of social development, not only in the field of international political and economic relations. The theory of the periphery does not fully account for this. Second, it does not adhere to the Marxist paradigm of production and class analysis. Amin claims on various occasions to adhere to "living Marxist theory," and his works represent an attempt to establish the law of capital accumulation on a world scale, striving to explain the impact of capitalism's external expansion on peripheral countries. In his view, there are two modes of capital accumulation: 1. "self-centered" accumulation in developed countries; 2. "outward-oriented accumulation" in peripheral countries. The essential difference between periphery and center lies in the outward-oriented nature of the peripheral economy; the periphery is integrated into the world system according to the needs of the center countries. The flaw in this view is that it does not highlight the class nature and production analysis framework of the peripheral accumulation model. As Brenner puts it, "the origin of capitalism lies not in trade itself, but in class formation and class struggle, arising from the internal contradictions of pre-capitalist modes of production." [4]4 Robert Brenner, "The Origins of Capitalist Development: A Critique of Neo-Smithian Marxism," *New Left Review* I/104 (1977), p. 27. In addition, regarding the discussion of the logic of capital, Amin focuses on capital accumulation, "confining himself to the sphere of commodity exchange and circulation, without touching on the sphere of production." [5]5 This is a critique of Amin's focus on circulation rather than production, echoing a common Marxist objection to dependency and world-systems theories. As is well known, Marx's *Capital* first discusses the production of capital, because without production there is no distribution and exchange, and thus no realization of surplus value. Third, regarding the expression of the world's principal contradiction. From the standpoint of Marxist globalization theory, the contradiction between center and periphery is not the basic contradiction of contemporary international society, but only a particular contradiction in a certain aspect of global international relations determined by the basic contradiction. The basic contradiction of the contemporary international system in the process of globalization can be expressed as: the contradiction between the globalized large-scale production that peoples of all countries seek to establish for the pursuit of their own well-being and the hegemonic world pattern dominated by international monopoly capital. Amin clearly does not examine the world's basic contradiction from the fundamental contradiction between productive forces and relations of production. The construction of "a community with a shared future for mankind," [6]6 "A community with a shared future for mankind" (人类命运共同体) is a key concept in Xi Jinping Thought, advocating for international relations based on mutual benefit and cooperation rather than zero-sum competition. one of the fourteen basic strategies of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, is the only correct solution to the basic contradiction of the contemporary international system. Therefore, as soon as this concept was put forward, it demonstrated an irresistible great power. Its power comes from the pursuit of their own well-being by the peoples of all countries, from the historical law that the development of productive forces determines relations of production and that the economic base determines the superstructure, and from the general trend of human historical development.

其次，从理论上来看，边缘解放理论本身具有不周延性与模糊性，不能起到引领和鼓舞边缘国家地区斗争的作用。这表现在以下几个方面：第一，中心与边缘的极化发展逻辑没有深入到外围资本主义内部的不均衡发展问题。即阿明很少提及不均衡发展在边缘国家内部的形态，而这是经典马克思主义特别关注的问题。当下即使发达资本主义国家内部也有中心地带和边缘地区；作为世界上最强大的资本主义国家，美国尽管GDP总量处于世界第一，但发展也很不平衡，大西洋沿岸的东北区发展很快，而西部、南部则因为多方面原因发展缓慢。更进一步而言，不均衡发生在社会发展的各个层次，而不仅仅发生在国际政治和经济关系的领域。边缘理论没有充分考虑到这一点。第二，没有坚持马克思主义生产和阶级分析范式。阿明在不同的场合声称自己坚持“活的马克思主义理论”，其著作代表了想要建立世界范围内的资本积累规律的愿景，努力解释资本主义的外部扩张对边缘国家所造成的影响。在他看来，资本的积累模式分为两种：1.发达国家“以自我为中心”的积累；2.外围国家的“外向型积累”。外围和中心的本质不同在于外围经济的外向性质，外围地带是按照中心国家的需求而被整合进世界体系的。此观点不合理之处在于，没有突出外围积累模式的阶级本性和生产分析框架。正如布雷纳所言，“资本主义的起源并不在贸易本身，而在阶级的形成和阶级斗争，是从前资本主义生产模式内在矛盾中产生出来的。”另外，关于资本逻辑的讨论，阿明侧重的是资本积累，“将自己限制在商品交换和流通领域，并未涉及生产领域”。众所周知，马克思的“资本论”首先讨论的是资本的生产，因为没有生产就没有分配交换，也就没有剩余价值的实现。第三，关于世界主要矛盾的表述。从马克思主义全球化理论的立场来看，中心与边缘矛盾并非当今国际社会基本矛盾，而只是由基本矛盾决定的全球国际关系上的某个方面的特殊矛盾。全球化进程中当代国际基本矛盾可以表述为：各国人民基于追求自身福祉所要建立的全球化大生产与国际垄断资本支配的霸权主义世界格局之间的矛盾。阿明显然没有从生产力与生产关系这一基本矛盾出发来考察世界的基本矛盾。作为习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想的十四个基本方略之一的“人类命运共同体”建构，是解决当代国际基本矛盾的唯一正确的方案，所以理念一经问世，就展示出不可阻挡的伟大力量。它的伟力来自世界各国人民对自身福祉的追求，来自生产力的发展决定生产关系、经济基础决定上层建筑的历史规律，来自人类历史发展的总趋势。

Of course, Amin's theory also has many aspects worth learning from for us. One of these is that it reminds us to think, on a broader scale, about the following questions: how to explain the uniqueness and world-historical significance of China's socialist revolution and construction path; how to discuss global justice, as well as domestic justice, fairness and efficiency, and their interrelationships, from a perspective of modernity different from that of the capitalist world system.

当然，阿明理论对我们来说也有诸多值得借鉴之处，其中之一便是提醒我们需要在更广泛的范围内思考如下问题：如何解释中国社会主义革命和建设道路的独特性与世界历史意义；如何以一种不同于资本主义世界体系的现代性视野来讨论全球正义以及国内正义、公平与效率及其相互关系问题。

Online editor: Tongxin

网络编辑：同心