SELF RELIANCE reliance cannot be at the expense of the self-reliance of others; and lt implies the autonomy to set one's own goals and reallze them as far as possible through own efforts, using one's own factors. ln general terms the way to fight penetration is not through counterpenetration, trying to do to the Center what the Center has always done to the Periphery (persuasion, threats and promises) but to become autonomous. There is much evidence to indicate that this is best done in a process of struggle; that the struggle itself generates patterns of attitude and behavior and new structures that not only serve to break down ties of penetration but also to build true self-reliance. 7 This was certainly true for the Chinese and much of the success of thelr revolution was no doubt due to their ability and opportunity to combine liberation with positive self-reliance during the long years of struggle. Whether this type of experience is a necessary condition for true self-reliance later is another question, however - the Chinese, Vietnamese and partly Cuban experiences s~em to indicate that it may be closer to a sufficient condition. The double character of self-reliance - breaking up old relations in order to build new ones - cornes out equally clearly in the efforts to counteract fragmentation and marginalizatlon. The point is to break up the Center monopoly, or near-monopoly, on inter-action by initiating new patterns of cooperatlon, and to break up the Center near-monopoly on organlzations by creating new organizatlons. These are both active, outward orlented aspects of self-reliance, showing clearly how different it is from self-sufficiency as a concept. The point is not to avoid Interaction but to interact according to the criterion of self-reliance. which means in such a way that no new center-periphery relationship emerges. ln practice this means a preference for horizontal interaction - particularly trade - with others more or less at the same level; and a preference for organlzations together with others at the same level - "level'' meanlng something like "degree of peripherization" rather than the highly misleading GNP per capita. The double nature consists in using 1 7 This ls probably a contingent re1atlon, though. lt ·ls hardly absoiutely necessary, but that lt ls not absolutely sufflclent ls seen from the Algerlan case today, and probably also from the Soviet case. ln both cases a tremendous struggle preceded lndependence and transition to soclallsm, but the systems can hardly be characterlzed as self-reliant. 53
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