Jurriaan,
Your denial to accept the Marxist theory of imperialism, developped by
Lenin, as well as other fundamental concepts of Marx himself in previous
posts, are imo important chalanges that Marxists must face and answer, and
I have found many of your posts very useful. Non-Marxist authors in fact
deny almost all of the more important findings by Marx, Engels and their
more respected followers, like Lenin and many others. Everyone also knows
of the controversies within Marxist circles themselves. Those
controversies have of course not only theoretical groundings, but also
political ones. The class struggle that characterises capitalism is also
present in the theoretical sphere in general, mostly in the sciences of
society. When one sees that Darwin’s theory of evolution is still
disputed, in spite of being one of the more vastly demonstraded and
documented theories, one cannot be surprised even by the more absurd
controversies (which is not the case of imperialism) in such fields as the
political economy and the sciences of society in general, where the class
struggle has its origin.
In the debate between different theories about the same subject, like in
political economy, there are different assumptions, different methods and
consequently different conclusions. Since you do not accept Marx’s theory,
it is no surprise that you don’t accept the conclusions arrived at by the
use of his theory in the research in specific fields, like this one, and
this has to be taken into consideration. This doesn’t mean that there are
no mistaken researches or conclusions of one theory pointed out by the
followers of opposing theories, and Lenin’s concept of imperialism might
be one of these. But this is not easy to prove or to disprove.
The objections you make to Lenin’s theory of imperialism are no doubt part
of one of the mentioned controversies. However, I must confess that I used
to think that the controversy was about Lenin’s interpretation of the
nature of the process of monopolisation, not about the latter itself, ie,
of it being a historical fact or not. It always seemed to me that what was
subject to dispute was the interpretation and the degree of monopolisation
of the economy, not the fact of monopolisation itself. On the other hand,
it is also a fact that important non-Marxist authors accept the process of
increasing monopolisation (more generally called oligopolisation) as a
historical fact. As far as I know Schumpeter, for instante, whom you
mentioned, did not deny the process, he denied that monopolisation
eliminated or reduced competition and technical progress, which had been
asserted by Marxist authors. Alfred Chandler, a historian of the
capitalist firm based his interpretation of the evolution of the
capitalist enterprise in great part on the process of monopolisation.
Without having anything to do with Marxism, he used phrases similar to
Lenin’s, like saying that with the big enterprise competition had been
replaced by the administration of markets and so on.
Thus, each of us could select authors and quotations to support each one
of the lines of interpretation mentioned above, which wouldn’t be very
useful and I wouldn’t be able to go on with it, for lack of time and of
expertise in the subject. What we can do, however, is to discuss
particular aspects of the debate, and this is what I’m going to do in what
follows, attempting to comment the particular points you raised.
You argue that there were *corporations with a big market-share* before
the 1870s, and that imperialist countries existed before the same date. I
don’t see why this should invalidate Lenin’s theory. Marx himself showed
that many of the characteristics of capitalism existed before capitalism,
like capital itself (but not industrial capital), profit (but not
industrial profit), wage labor (but not as the general form of labor
power), and so on, which do not seem to invalidate his theory of
capitalism. Corporations, stock exchanges, colonialism, imperialism,
oppressor and oppressed nations, etc., existed before the emergence of
monopoly capital, and this by itself doesn’t invalidate Lenin’s theory
either. Several social categories that exist in different contexts may be
identical in form but are different in substance, in their social roles.
Thus, those arguments of your seem to be pointless.
You also argue that:
> When Lenin tried to theorize "the most recent stage of capitalism", he was
> clearly thinking of new developments of capitalism which were not fully
> anticipated in Marx's "Capital". Yet, his diagnosis of quantitative and
> qualitative changes is not really linked at all to Marx's analysis of
> capital, it is more a sort of empirical description. Point is, even as an
> empirical description it simply isn't very good, other than e.g. that the
> world was being carved up into "spheres of influence" etc. (but that
> process
> was also already ongoing before the 1870s). The majority of criteria
> which Lenin chose to periodize his imperialist epoch have been shown to
> be erroneous by historians.
I think in this case you understate Lenin’s work, which turns it easier
for you to criticize it. But in this way what you criticize is not Lenin’s
work, but your caricature of it, even if you didn’t intend to. Imo it’s
just not fair to say that Lenin’s work is just an empirical discription.
It is an attempt to interpret empirical data on the basis of Marx’s
theory. You might be right in saying that the result was not good, but
this is different and would have to be demonstrated. You argue that it *is
not really linked at all to Marx's analysis of capital*, which is simply
not true. Lenin explicitly supports his interpretation of monopolisation
on Marx’s theories of the centralization of capital, of the role of
credit, the banking system and finance capital (the latter being actually
a development of Marx’s theory mainly by Hilferding). Even if he had not
made it explicit, one cannot just forget the fact that all of Lenin’s
theoretical writings are based on Marx’s theory. Thus, what other theory
could he have used in the analysis of monopoly capital? Your statement
that *The majority of criteria which Lenin chose to periodize his
imperialist epoch have been shown to be erroneous by historians* is imo
also not true, because not all historians agree with the ones you may have
read.
After presenting your arguments pointing to the inconsistency of Lenin’s
conception of imperialism you say:
> But from this it does not follow that imperialism is a "stage in the
> development
> of capitalism" and not a state policy. Namely, imperialism is inextricably
> bound up with the whole history of capitalism, and the assertion of
> imperialism occurred primarily by commercial and military methods which
> were
> sanctioned or facilitated by the state. Without state power foreign
> commercial interests could not be secured and defended.
Well, I would say that you present your own interpretation or conception
of imperialism,which is obviously opposed to Lenin’s. This by itself
doesn’t make your interpretation better than Lenin’s. And one has still to
consider that your interpretation is based on different theoretical
assumptions and methods. Thus, it’s not only the historical phenomenon of
imperialism that is in discussion, but also the validity of the theories
able to interpret it.
Comradely,
Claus.
> Claus,
>
> Thank you for your reply. It is certainly true I think that in the last
> quarter of the 19th century many corporations grew much bigger in size,
> qua
> assets, employees, and output. But by the same token the total population
> and workforce also strongly increased.
>
> *There is no evidence as far as I know that, before say the 1870s,
> corporations with a big market-share in each sector were absent, or that
> before the 1870s there was no close connection between industrial capital
> and bank capital. Joint-stock arrangements and corporate bonds were
> already
> well established. The main thing that changed structurally, in the last
> quarter of the 19th century, was the formation of integrated capital
> markets, principally on a national scale, but also, more and more,
> internationally. This refers to the expansion and growing sophistication
> of
> the credit system and the market for loan capital. When Marx was writing
> about the "levelling out of profit rates through competition", he was
> anticipating the kind of integrated capital markets which, in the 1860s,
> really were not so developed yet.
>
> *There is also no evidence that prior to the 1870s (capitalist) countries
> were not imperialist, because they were. To take one indicator, the number
> of colonies increased tangentially from the late 1400s century to the
> 1760s
> (from near zero to about 130 colonies), dropped to about about 80 colonies
> in 1820, and thereafter again increased tangentially to about 165 colonies
> at the eve of world war 1 (Bergesen & Schoenberg 1980, p. 236, based on
> Henige 1970). So we can say with confidence that imperialism was bound up
> with the whole era of the growth of the capitalist mode of production. We
> can even go further than that: before that time, i.e. before the 15th
> century, imperialism rarely assumed such a large and pervasive character.
> Why? An important factor, leaving aside technologies, was that the state
> funds required to mobilize, equip and maintain large armed forces were
> lacking. To quote Geoffrey Parker,
>
> "Between 1530 and 1710 there was a ten-fold increase both in the total
> numbers of armed forces paid for by the major European states and in the
> total numbers involved in the major European battles... the major waves of
> administrative reform in western Europe in the 1530s and at the end of the
> seventeenth century coincided with major phases of increases in army size.
> (...) The numerical expansion of armies was also dependent on certain
> elementary technological improvements such as mass-production of food,
> mass
> transport, construction of tent camps, roads, causeways and bridges. (...)
> In the eighteenth century, roads even began to be used as an instrument of
> imperialism, as they had once been by the Roman empire|Roman,
> History of China#Imperial era|Chinese and Inca empires... there had
> to be a certain level of wealth in society before heavy and prolonged
> military expenditure could be supported; second, there had to be ways of
> mobilizing this wealth. It would seem that between 1450 and 1600 the
> population of Europe almost doubled; and there is little doubt that,
> over the same period, there was a notable increase in the total wealth of
> Europe. (...) This new prosperity was tapped everywhere by taxation,
> either
> indirectly through excise duties upon consumer goods or directly by a
> variety of levies on land, capital, and (very rarely) income. Government
> revenues increased everywhere in the sixteenth century, delving ever
> deeper
> into the pockets and purses of the taxpayers. However, no government could
> pay for a prolonged war out of current taxation: the income which
> sufficed for a peacetime establishment could in no way prove equal to the
> unpredictable but inevitably heavy expenses of a major campaign. The state
> therefore had to spread the costs of each war over a number of peaceful
> years... or by spending in advance the income of future years with the aid
> of loans from bankers and merchants. (...) It was the Dutch people|Dutch
> who first perfected techniques of war finance capable of sustaining an
> enormous army almost indefinitely. The cost of the war with Spain from
> 1621 until 1648 steadily increased... but there was not a single mutiny or
> financial crisis. On the contrary, in an emergency, the Dutch Republic
> could raise a loan of 1 million florins at only 3 percent in two days. The
> key to this effortless financial power was, in part, the enormous wealth
> of
> Amsterdam, which by 1650 was the undisputed commercial and financial
> capital of Europe; but it was equally the good faith of the Dutch
> government, which always paid interest and repaid capital on time. This
> combination enabled the Dutch to raise an army and go on fighting,
> whatever
> the cost, until they got their own way: something no previous government
> had
> been able to do. (...) Thanks to all these improvements, by the first
> decade
> of the eighteenth century the major wars of Europe involved some 400,000
> men
> on each side, and major battles involved up to 100,000." - Geoffrey
> Parker,
> ''Spain and the Netherlands 1559-1659''. Fontana/Collins, 1979, pp.
> 95-102.}}
>
> Theoretically, Adam Smith, Ricardo and Marx explained that "monopoly" and
> "competition" are twins, insofar as competition begets monopolies which
> try
> to block competition, and monopolies beget competitors which try to break
> the monopoly. So both competition and monopolies always co-exist. For this
> reason, the concept of "monopoly capital" doesn't make much theoretical
> sense.
>
> When Lenin tried to theorize "the most recent stage of capitalism", he was
> clearly thinking of new developments of capitalism which were not fully
> anticipated in Marx's "Capital". Yet, his diagnosis of quantitative and
> qualitative changes is not really linked at all to Marx's analysis of
> capital, it is more a sort of empirical description. Point is, even as an
> empirical description it simply isn't very good, other than e.g. that the
> world was being carved up into "spheres of influence" etc. (but that
> process
> was also already ongoing before the 1870s). The majority of criteria
> which Lenin chose to periodize his imperialist epoch have been shown to
> be erroneous by historians.
>
> The main difference between Lenin/Luxemburg and Kautsky/Schumpeter was
> that
> for the latter, imperialism was essentially a state policy and, as such, a
> political option, a political choice. For Schumpeter, in fact, imperialism
> had non-capitalist or pre-capitalist sources, it could in fact be
> considered
> a sort of abberation for the functioning of the capitalist economy.
> Lenin/Luxemburg aimed to explain, that the imperialist state policy wasn't
> simply an option, but a necessary and inevitable political outcome of the
> expansion of the capitalist mode of production and the world market.
> If business expanded internationally, the bourgeois state had a stake in
> foreign territories, it had interests abroad to defend, and it could not
> very well not defend them.
>
> But from this it does not follow that imperialism is a "stage in the
> development
> of capitalism" and not a state policy. Namely, imperialism is inextricably
> bound up with the whole history of capitalism, and the assertion of
> imperialism occurred primarily by commercial and military methods which
> were
> sanctioned or facilitated by the state. Without state power foreign
> commercial interests could not be secured and defended.
>
> Patrick O'Brien, the conscientious British historian, complained that
> Marxist theories of imperialism do not hold water, for example because the
> British state never made money out of the empire and in fact lost money
> (the
> empire cost more money than it yielded) - so the story that money-making
> was
> a motive for imperialism must be wrong. But of course British business and
> its business partners made a lot of money out of it. It's the same today.
> The Democrats headed by Stiglitz said the Iraq war will cost the US state
> $3
> trillion in total, an enormous loss of funds which could have been better
> spent. But of course what they forget is that that three trillion is also
> INCOME
> for numerous capitalists, including Democratic capitalists.
> The war is lucrative and job-creating, it's a whole new market,
> and on that ground alone it would get support, even although in the end
> the
> taxpayers foot the bill. It is merely a special case of "privatising gains
> and socialising losses" where how you view things depends on how you do
> the
> account. If there are more losses than gains, that is very sad, but if the
> gains
> are mine and the losses are yours, I am quite happy although maybe I
> can pink a tear sympathising with your loss.
>
> I agree that there can be "many narratives" about imperialism which can
> all have a kernel of truth, I don't deny this obviously. But I think that
> by the time that veteran self-proclaimed Marxists recommend supporting
> the imperialists as an anti-imperialist strategy, the narratives have
> created
> an absurdity. It's like "cutting your nose off to spite your face".
>
> Suppose you work for a boss who exploits you to the bone. A fight
> breaks out between the boss and his manager because the boss thinks that
> the manager is doing a lousy job, and the boss fires the manager in order
> to appoint a new manager and restructure business operations. What are
> you going to say: "I love my boss, because he is graciously providing
> me with a new manager"? Or are you likely to think: "a plague on both
> your houses, this conflict only means more work and trouble for me"?.
> By the time veteran Marxist professors offer themselves as dildo's
> for Hilary Clinton's "inclusive foreign policy", I think there is
> something
> gone badly wrong.
>
> Jurriaan
>
>
>
>
>
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Received on Sun Mar 27 22:28:35 2011
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