From: Jurriaan Bendien (adsl675281@TISCALI.NL)
Date: Mon Dec 31 2007 - 06:23:00 EST
I'm sorry but this does not add much to the knowledge I obtained twenty years ago. Contrary to the Left, I take the view that the theories of Hilferding, Lenin, Bukharin and Luxemburg about imperialism were in large part mistaken, - partly because of simple faults in interpreting business activity, - partly because of a faulty reading of the real history of capitalism, and - partly because they extrapolated from Marx's unfinished work, without completing what he said out to do. This has the effect that short-term trends and surface phenomena are mistaken for structural, durable phenomena. Presumably a valid theory of economic imperialism would need to begin with a critique of the theory of foreign trade and the political economy of colonialism, and it would need to show how the international expansion of capitalism conforms to the logics of capital accumulation. It would also need to pay attention to the international labour market and migration. I think the 1970s Anglo-Saxon discussions in the New Left about imperialism were also set back, because important works such as by Palloix, Neussus and Busch were never translated. Jurriaan
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