From: Gerald_A_Levy@MSN.COM
Date: Fri Jan 28 2005 - 17:57:33 EST
----- Original Message ----- From: "Jurriaan Bendien" <andromeda246@hetnet.nl> Sent: Friday, January 28, 2005 5:00 PM Subject: highest, last, latest, or no longer existing stage of capitalism? You asked: what are we looking for on world markets? It is possible using price data to examine the patterns, movements and volumes of imports and exports with regard to different classes of goods and services as well as flows of funds over a long time-span, e.g. 150-200 years. From an analysis of that you could draw some conclusions about when the turningpoints or breaking points in world development really were, and thus delineate "stages". But it's a lot of work. Long-run GDP series are already available for most countries, but world trade patterns are not so well analysed. Point is that the concept of a "stage" in history assumes a periodisation, and this periodisation must not be speculative, but be grounded in empirical facts. You wrote: Well, I guess that returns one to long standing debates on whether what was meant by imperialism in early capitalism is what Lenin meant by imperialism. I think that Lenin emphasized that imperialism was a necessary consequence of industrial capitalism, not merely a state policy that could be changed by political will. In this he was surely correct, even although the ultimate beneficiaries of imperialism might have been different from what you might expect. It is just that Lenin never explicated any law of motion of imperialism in terms of the forms of capital, beyond noting the influence of monopolies and finance-capital, i.e. he offered no substantive analysis of market development or foreign trade or the world market based on the analysis of Marx's Capital. His work was a short, abbreviated political pamphlet designed to meet the requirements of the censor, based on extracts from 148 books and 232 articles in four languages, mainly German - and not a scholarly treatise. In its general meaning, imperialism refers to the domination of a people or nation by another people or nation, politically, militarily, economically, culturally. Lenin also adopts that concept, especially with reference to the national question, except that he sought to specify the forms it took under conditions of industrial capitalism. "Imperialism in early capitalism" was clearly different from imperialism in industrial capitalism, I don't think anybody would deny that, but it was nevertheless imperialism, i.e. the expansion of international trade went hand in hand with the conquest of foreign territories, and international trade was part of the very origins of industrial capitalism. You wrote: In any class conflict, a key element in the formulation of strategy and tactics is to know the 'game plan' of your enemy for with that knowledge it allows you to better map strategic responses and answer the question "what is to be done?". I think it is pretty clear what the game plan is, you only need to read IMF reports, Trilateral Commision reports and other thinktanks etc. for that - it is the integration of all countries into a global capitalist marketplace with standardised rules for trade, and the removal of obstacles to that process. I think that for the purpose of "what is to be done" we ought to keep the valid insights of people like Marx, Lenin etc. but drop Marx-ism in order to focus on the meaning of modern socialism. When we drop the idea of Marxism qua theoretical system which defines all of the answers to all of the questions in advance (in Lenin's own words, "omnipotent because it is true"), we are no longer bothered by the pitfalls of rigid orthodoxy, so that theoretical renewal and intellectual creativity can take place - we can begin to critically examine and theorise the relationships between planning, democracy, bureaucracy, technology and markets, in order to understand the kind of social organisation we should really positively be aiming for. To some extent that is already happening I think, and in outline I think most of the answers are really already there, there is nowadays a big literature on it. We can say where planning is or is not appropriate, and what it can and cannot achieve. We can specify the benefits and limits of democracy. We can explain the sources, benefits and problems of bureaucracy. We know a lot about how technologies develop and how they interact with social systems. And we can also specify the advantages and limitations of markets. Once we drop the idea of "Marxism as the ideology of the party" etc. we can begin to develop an intelligent social alternative grounded in real experience, and based on a cogent appraisal of the current state of knowledge about these things, to inform the socialist movement. Essentially, the larger socialist parties of our time are much like the social democratic parties in Lenin's time, i.e. to the left of the modern social democratic parties where the "social" dropped out of social democracy. Socialist science can provide social alternatives for them to aim for, and insightful analyses. Until revolutionary crises occur again, causing political splits between reformist and revolutionary wings, socialist parties will be essentially reformist or centrist. If all Marxists have to say is that the Left is reformist rather than revolutionary, Marxism has no future at all. Jurriaan
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