Re: [OPE] Britain--parasitic and decaying capitalism: A comment

Just saw this...good!!

paul
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: david@danyaf.plus.com
  To: Outline on Political Economy mailing list
  Sent: Sunday, December 27, 2009 7:23 PM
  Subject: Re: [OPE] Britain--parasitic and decaying capitalism: A comment

  I have no idea what world you live in. The correct theory I believe was the one developed by Lenin - not Hobson. It is concerned with state monopoly capitalism - this aspect of imperialism seems to escape you. Read Lenin and see how central the concept of monopoly is to the theory of imperialism. That is, large conglomerations of capital backed by the state or regional states plundering and looting the vast majority of an already divided world. It is the rivalry between these states or regions that will necessary force a redivision of the world by military means. It is not concerned with 'normal' capitalism or 'normal' market relations or 'free' markets but capitalism in its imperialist phase. The US could make other countries finance its deficit and therefore the standard of living of its citizens because of its overwhelming military power. I have no idea what your mean by working class and what you think the professional class is and how they earn such high incomes. How can Britain sustain such a large 'middle-class' - where do the income and the cheap commodities come from that allow it to have such a high standard of living? Why do the vast majority of the world live in abject poverty? Why are the main imperialist countries determined to destroy Cuba and the new Latin American and Caribbean countries in ALBA trying to break away from imperialist domination? Is all this my imagination?

  The new labour aristocracy in Britain cannot look in the mirror and recognise the source of its privilege, so I am not surprised that it is the theory of the labour aristocracy - a position that was obvious to all revolutionaries at the time of the first imperialist war - that is rejected by nearly all socialist currents in the imperialist countries.

  We start from a very different understanding of the world and I am sure I could never convince you about the real nature of imperialism. Not to worry, reality will soon drive these points home even to the professional middle classes in the imperialist countries.

  David Yaffe

   At 00:15 27/12/2009 +0100, you wrote:

    A comment on David Yaffe's article "Britain--Parasitic and decaying capitalism".

    The general outline of the article is consistent with the orthodox theory of imperialism going back to Hobson and Lenin. But even after subtracting the typical complaints against other far-Left groups in Britain, I find parts of the article unconvincing and not well-argued.

    Imperialism
    --------------------------------------
    A key problem is that what actually constitutes 'imperialism' is not well defined, and in what sense its operation differs from the laws of motion of capitalism that operate within an established market. I would agree that the classical era of capitalist imperialism was characterized by the dominance of the rentier interest and its distinguishing feature is the 'export of capital', i.e. global investment, as opposed to the export of commodities. But I do not think these features are sufficient, and to believe they are will lead into the traps of nationalism and misconceived notions of 'national oppression'.

    If capitalists in region A invest in region B, this in itself is not imperialism, but the operation of capitalism. Further, if the capitalists are transformed into rentiers that merely transfer interest payments and dividends from region B to A, then it is the operation of capitalism with finance capital. Both scenarios occur persistently across regions, especially between countries considered to be 'imperialist'.

    If 'imperialism' is to mean anything specific it has to relate to 'empire' and therefore to the system of territorial states which pre-dates capitalism. Classical imperialism in the capitalist era then was the convergence of the rentier interest and the interests of the territorial state to establish the above scenario in regions where either the market did not exist or where states opposed the capitalists from outside. Capitalist imperialism is therefore the set of extra-economic mechanisms of coercion used by states when the standard operation of rentiers through an established free market cannot operate in a region for various reasons.

    The extraction of interests and dividends by rentiers in Britain from various regions of the world is not equivalent to 'national oppression' as such. Any oppression that results from this economic relation is done by the rentier class, the state apparatus and the client states or organizations that they may involve and not the exploited classes in Britain. (The only sensible use of 'oppressor nation' is the case of settler-colonial states, when an entire community is founded in a region that exploits or excludes the indigenous population.)

    The article rightly points out the differential between rates of return on foreign assets flowing between the rich and poor regions. This is to be expected since capital exports from a region is driven by precisely the low rate of return that follows from a stagnant workforce and high levels of capital investment.

    This may very well lead to a parasitic extraction by agents in the rich countries but to conclude the nature of this it would be necessary to look at the income flows across all regions. A substantial---I would guess the bulk---of these streams flow between the advanced countries. It is however clear the advanced economies that have been running a persistent trade deficit the past years are parasitic since it means that they are appropriating a part of the surplus product produced elsewhere, from both developing and advanced countries.

    Moreover, it does not follow logically that a high rate of return in underdeveloped countries is a result of super-exploitation. Work by Paul C, Allin and myself has shown that rates of return on capital stocks are independent of the wage share, and are determined by the growth of labour, productivity and the level of investments. Still less does it entail that rate of exploitation would be lower if the local working classes were exploited by 'national' capital.

    Labour aristocracy
    --------------------------------------
    It is certainly true the current levels of living standards in the advanced countries are dependent on income flows from abroad. But to conclude that there exists a 'labour aristocracy' that is somehow bribed by super-profits from 'oppressed nations' is a really weak theory in my view. The article does little to corroborate the theory by identifying the sections of the working-class more precisely; how they actually are benefited by super-profits; from which investments are these super-profits in 'oppressed nations' flowing; how this hypothetical economic relation leads to an ideological mechanism which supports the rentier interest?

    The only plausible candidate for the so-called 'labour aristocracy' that the article gives is within the financial sector, which I agree is unproductive and the center of the rentier interest. Employees in the financial sector have an interest in preserving their employment and therefore also the financial system.

    But I think the general argument behind the 'labour aristocracy' thesis is conflating the professional middle-class with the working-class. They do not share the same positions in the economic structure anyway. In my view this theory was primarily adopted by small far-Left groups who failed to give a proper account for the reformism within the working-class movement and hence their own political weaknesses. The consequence of such a theory is to destroy the confidence of the labour movement in the advanced countries.

    The real issue is the need for global trade-unions with coordinated activities across borders, and the primary obstacle is the wage-differential between regions of varying levels of development in an era of global capital flows. It makes capital flow to low-wage economies with labour reserves and migration flow towards the high-wage economies which weakens bargaining power there. This creates real problems for socialist politics in the advanced countries and is predicted to stabilize once the labour reserves begin to deplete. Then the bargaining power of labour can begin to rise on a global scale.

    //Dave Z
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Received on Mon Dec 28 08:08:50 2009