The Cancun summit - The WTO on the edge of the abyss

Marxist Analysis · 2026-05-13

Core Argument

The article argues that the collapse of the 2003 WTO Cancun summit was not a diplomatic failure but an expression of deepening structural contradictions within global capitalism. The central thesis is that the imperialist powers cannot abandon agricultural subsidies — the immediate cause of the breakdown — because these subsidies serve a dual function: they manage the crisis of overproduction in agriculture and maintain national food security as an element of geopolitical strategy. The developing countries' demand for subsidy elimination is itself contradictory, because even if granted, they lack the productive capacity to compete on a level playing field. The real dynamic driving the impasse is inter-imperialist rivalry, intensified by the onset of economic stagnation, which is pushing the major powers toward protectionism, trade wars, and ultimately the fragmentation of the WTO framework itself. The article concludes that the only progressive resolution lies not in "fair trade" reformism but in the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and the construction of a World Socialist Federation.

Theoretical Grounding

The analysis is firmly rooted in the Marxist theory of imperialism and the political economy of capitalist crisis. It draws on Lenin's analysis of inter-imperialist rivalry, particularly the notion that the division and redivision of the world market is a permanent feature of monopoly capitalism. The article applies the concept of overproduction — agricultural productive capacity in the imperialist countries has outstripped the absorptive capacity of the world market, creating unsaleable surpluses that must be managed through state subsidies. This is a concrete application of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall: the massive development of productive forces in agriculture during the 1990s (higher yields per hectare, technological intensification) has compressed profit margins, forcing states to intervene to protect their national capitals.

The article also deploys a classical Marxist understanding of the state as an instrument of class rule, showing how the US and EU use trade policy, currency manipulation, and debt mechanisms to defend the interests of their monopolies. The discussion of food security as a component of "national security policy" is a sophisticated extension of Lenin's analysis of the interpenetration of economic and geopolitical competition. The reference to the Soviet Union's agricultural crisis as a factor in capitalist restoration is a distinctive contribution from the Trotskyist tradition, emphasising the material basis of political degeneration.

The argument sits within the Marxist tradition that rejects the possibility of a "progressive" or "regulated" capitalism. It explicitly counters reformist notions of "fair trade" or "capitalism with a human face" as utopian, insisting that the contradiction between the global development of productive forces and the national-private form of their appropriation can only be resolved through socialist revolution.

Conjunctural Relevance

The article was written in 2005, reflecting on the September 2003 Cancun summit. The conjuncture it analyses is the period following the dot-com crash and the 2001 recession, when the US economy was being propped up by historically low interest rates (1%), massive household debt ($1.7 trillion), and a trade deficit approaching $500 billion. The article correctly identifies that the "sad boom" of the 1990s had exhausted itself and that the US was resorting to desperate measures — currency devaluation, protectionist tariffs on steel, and military aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq — to maintain its position.

The specific data points are striking: US industrial sector unsold inventories of $1.5 trillion, 27% idle productive capacity, 1.57 million personal bankruptcies, and the loss of two million jobs under Bush. The article identifies the emerging trade war over steel, the US-EU dispute over Microsoft, and the "Salmon War" with Chile as harbingers of a broader breakdown of multilateral trade governance.

The article's prediction of a "1930s-style collapse" was premature in its timing — the Great Recession of 2008 was financial rather than trade-war driven — but its analysis of the underlying dynamics was prescient. The fragmentation of the WTO has continued: the Doha Round collapsed definitively in 2015, the US under Trump launched a full-scale trade war with China, and the WTO's dispute settlement mechanism has been effectively paralysed. The article's identification of agricultural subsidies as a non-negotiable element of imperialist strategy remains accurate — the US and EU have not substantially reformed their subsidy regimes despite decades of pressure.

The article's discussion of Latin American resistance — the Venezuelan uprising of 2002, the Argentinean rebellion of 2001, the Bolivian water wars — captures a moment of rising class struggle that was later partially absorbed by "pink tide" governments, many of which ultimately failed to break with neoliberal orthodoxy.

Where the Argument Continues

The article leaves several lines of analysis underdeveloped. The relationship between agricultural overproduction and the broader crisis of overaccumulation in manufacturing is asserted but not systematically theorised. The mechanism by which the crisis will "find an outlet" through the weakest links of world capitalism is stated but not elaborated — this is a question taken up in later IDOM articles on the debt crisis and IMF conditionality in the Global South.

The article's conclusion — that only a revolutionary party can lead the working class to power — is programmatic rather than analytical. The concrete question of how to build such a party in the conditions of the early 2000s, particularly in Latin America where the mass movements were most advanced, is not addressed. This is the subject of extensive discussion in Against the Stream episodes and IDOM articles on Venezuela, Bolivia, and Argentina from the same period.

The article does not explore the internal differentiation within the developing country bloc at Cancun — the Group of 21 versus the more radical Group of 16 — and what this reveals about the class character of the bourgeoisies in these countries. This is a recurring theme in Marxist analysis of the "semi-periphery" and is taken up in later IDOM pieces on BRICS and the New Development Bank.

The prediction of a 1930s-style collapse is not followed through with a concrete analysis of how such a collapse would unfold under conditions of financialised capitalism — a gap that the 2008 crisis would later fill. Readers should consult IDOM articles from 2007-2009 on the subprime crisis and the Great Recession for the continuation of this argument.

Connections

• Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism — the theoretical foundation for the analysis of inter-imperialist rivalry and the division of the world market.
• Trotsky, The Transitional Programme — the strategic conclusion (World Socialist Federation) is drawn directly from the transitional demand for a United States of Europe and the world.
• IDOM, "The WTO and the crisis of global capitalism" (2002) — an earlier article that sets up the analysis of the Seattle protests and the WTO's legitimacy crisis.
• IDOM, "The world economic crisis and the return of protectionism" (2009) — a later article that revisits the same themes in the aftermath of the Great Recession.
• IDOM, "Agriculture, food sovereignty and imperialism" (2011) — a more detailed treatment of the agricultural question and its relationship to the food crisis.
• Ernest Mandel, Late Capitalism — for the theory of long waves and the structural crisis of the 1970s-2000s that underlies the article's periodisation.
• Samir Amin, The Liberal Virus — for a complementary analysis of the WTO and the "globalisation" project from a dependency theory perspective, though the article would reject Amin's reformist conclusions.

Key Quotes

1. "The imperialist countries are now facing problems caused by a far more competitive agricultural sector. These problems, which were already present during the economic boom of the 1990's... have now become far more of a worry now that the world economy has entered a period of stagnation and recession."

2. "The main reason is the imperialist countries' fear of the damage that they could do each another if one of them implements a different farming subsidies policy to the current one, particularly in the current context of economic crisis which is shrinking the world market a little more each day."

3. "This time, the real opposition to the imperialists' plans will come from the working class and not the bourgeoisie of the underdeveloped nations. Only a massive defeat of the proletariat will allow the imperialist nations to intensify their looting and plundering even further."

4. "The US economy is currently beset with massive problems that are getting worse all the time. The budget deficit, according to the forecast made by the Congressional Budget Office, will reach 480 billion USD in 2004 and the trade deficit is already at around 500 billion USD."

5. "All this suggests that sooner or later the economy of the whole planet will experience a 1930's style collapse, although of course there will never be a 'final crisis of capitalism', given that, unless the working class takes power, the capitalists will always find partial and temporary solutions to the economic crises affecting their system by placing the burden on to the shoulders of the workers."

6. "The only way that the whole of humanity can benefit from each economic and technological step forward is by expropriating the bourgeoisie in each country and by placing the means of production under the democratic control of the workers, and then integrating each country into a World Socialist Federation."