Rethinking Samir Amin’s legacy and the case for a political organization of the global justice movement

Abstract

A case is made here for the desirability and viability of the late Samir Amin’s call for a new International. However, the project to forge a political organization of the global justice movement must in the first instance draw lessons from the limitations of the recent network structure of new social movements, notably the World Social Forum, and rectify the failures of the old internationals of left-wing cadres. The actualization of such a radical idea also needs to observe the realpolitik of class formation and class struggle under conditions of the imperialistic globalization of capitalism today. Envisioned as a plural and participatory learning organization, the new International’s progression should be evolutionary and its strategic engagements have to balance the imperatives of political realism with the ideals of democratic values.