Was Kautsky right about superimperialism?

[heiss93]

From my understanding Lenin argued that the separate imperialist powers would intensify rivalries and engage in warfare with each other, while Kautsky argued they were merging together in common interest. World War I and World War II would seem to prove Lenin right. But since 1945, the imperialist bloc has largely coalesced into a single pole led by US hegemonic globalization. The interimperialist rivalry between the USA and the EU and Japan is very limited and they have more foreign policy interests in common than in conflict.

[Yehuda Stern]

Yes, but don't forget that after WWII there was a long period of capitalist upswing - followed in the 1960s and 1970s by massive struggles of the workers and oppressed all over the world. Inter-imperialist rivalries usually explode only in times of capitalist crisis, when the working class is demoralized and the ruling class doesn't have to fear that a war might intensify its struggles.

You can still see inter-imperialist rivalries and conflicts of interest in many spheres, though - frictions between Israel and the US, clashes between different imperialist blocs in the EU, etc.

[Tower of Bebel]

Kautsky was, along with Bernstein I guess, the more sceptical theorist regarding the expected death struggle of capitalism (something which can be found in the letters and writings of Engels, Bebel, Lenin and Trotsky). I think Kautsky also wrote that, eventually, it was up to social democracy to push capitalist nations towards ultra-imperialism and that it would benifit the working class if it did (eventually posponing or evading capitalist wars, forcing democratic reforms which would (partially) end the rule of the old aristocracy). Yet post-world war social democracy did this through coalitions with bourgeois parties, and it couls only guarantee its reforms after the surpression of social revolutions. If the 50's really witnessed the advent of ultra-imperialism then it only did so at the cost of the working class. Not exactly what Kautsky the theoretician wanted.

[Q]

Kautsky was, along with Bernstein I guess, the more sceptical theorist regarding the expected death struggle of capitalism (something which can be found in the letters and writings of Engels, Bebel, Lenin and Trotsky). I think Kautsky also wrote that, eventually, it was up to social democracy to push capitalist nations towards ultra-imperialism and that it would benifit the working class if it did (eventually posponing or evading capitalist wars, forcing democratic reforms which would (partially) end the rule of the old aristocracy). Yet post-world war social democracy did this through coalitions with bourgeois parties, and it couls only guarantee its reforms after the surpression of social revolutions. If the 50's really witnessed the advent of ultra-imperialism then it only did so at the cost of the working class. Not exactly what Kautsky the theoretician wanted.
So what did Kautsky want/expect to happen?

[Tower of Bebel]

So what did Kautsky want/expect to happen?
I don't know how (what tactics the proletariat was to use), but if the working class could push its oppressors towards international cooperation instead of war (which was at the time unlikely since ultra-imperialism was only written just after the outbreak of the Austro-Serbian conflict), it would do so by threatening to "wreck" the system "on the reef of the rising political opposition of the proletariat" (Kautsky). Kautsky believe there existed a stage after the stage of imperialism. It was an economic step further. Imperialism was a policy. A policy which could be changed on the grounds that the proletariat, with its vast numbers, would step in.

I didn't find anything by Kautsky himself (yet)(on MIA), but I recall having read about Kautsky's views of the role of social democracy in a small book with the interesting title "Kautsky and the marxism of the second international".

We must however, keep in mind, that the Kautsky of 1914 is a theoretician who fell in the trap of imperialism. In his analysis of imperialism there is nothing mentioned of the labour aristocracy (Lenin) or the fact that imperialism even tends to buy out the whole class (Bucharin). The renegade Kautsky, when writing his ultra-imperialism never thought of even attacking those corrupting elements within the working class. This results in vague answers. Organizationally he was weak; and this weakness became stronger and more visible when the organizational question really mattered: around 1910, when a split, or better: an expulsion of corrupting elements, became necessary (remeber the final Bolshevik-menshevik split of 1912). Instead he compromised by giving to the trade unions on the Jena congress.

Kautsky didn't dare to call for the mass strike for example, he even argued against Rosa Luxemburg when she offered kautsky the chance to devote Die Neue Zeit to struggle for the democratic republic at a time when Europa was preparing for war; nor did he really criticize the war efforts of the SPD leadership.

No, he was only able to attack the Bolsheviks and Spartacists... because they went too far (he believed that the war did so much harm (splitting the workers' movement and destroying the economy) that a social revolution was impossible; even in germany :glare:).

Here's an extract from ultra-imperialism:

So there developed with the tendency to export capital to agrarian lands the effort to reduce these lands to a state of political dependence.

Another element in the situation operated in the same direction. It has already been noted that there is a tendency in every agrarian region to develop independent industry. In case a country in which foreign capital has been invested is able to develop its own industry and maintain its political independence the benefit of the foreign capitalists is only temporary, as in the United States and Russia. Instead of furnishing raw materials and a market for finished products such a land soon becomes a competitor. This fact becomes a strong motive tending to force the capitalists to attempt to make the new lands dependent, either as colonies or as parts of a sphere of influence. Through the impeding of industry by means of unfavorable legislation they hope to keep them agrarian.


These are the chief roots of imperialism.


We have seen that imperialism replaced free trade as a means of capitalist expansion. This brings us face to face with an important problem: Is imperialism the final form of capitalist world politics, or are we to look for still another? In other words, is imperialism the only means of maintaining the necessary relation between industry and agriculture within the limits of the capitalist system?


There is no doubt as to the answer. The construction of railways, the exploitation of mines, the increased production of raw materials and means of life have become necessary to the continued existence of capitalism. The capitalist class will not commit suicide; no capitalist party will be willing to surrender with regard to these things. The effort to conquer agrarian regions, to reduce their populations to slavery, is too vital to the very life of capitalism to render possible the serious opposition of any capitalist group. The subjection of these lands will cease only when their populations or the working class of the great industrial countries becomes strong enough to call a halt.


This phase of imperialism is only to be conquered by Socialism.


But imperialism has another phase. [...]


There is no economic necessity for the continuation of the great competition in the production of armaments after the close of the present war. At best such a continuation would serve the interests of only a few capitalist groups.


On the contrary capitalist industry is threatened by the conflicts between the various governments. Every far-sighted capitalist must call out to his associates: Capitalists of all lands unite!


In the first place we have to consider the growing opposition of the more developed agricultural regions, which threatens not only one or the other of the capitalist governments, but all of them together. This refers both to the awakening of eastern Asia and India and to the pan-Islamite movement of Asia Minor and northern Africa.


In the same category is the increasing opposition of the proletariat of industrial nations to additional taxes.


To all this was added after the close of the Balkan war the fact that the cost of armaments and colonial expansion reached such a point that the accumulation of capital was threatened, and so the very basis of imperialism was placed in danger.


Industrial accumulation in the interior did still go on, thanks to technical development of industry. But capital was no longer pushing itself into foreign fields. This is proved by the fact that European governments had difficulty in floating their loans. The rate of interest was constantly rising.


This will grow worse rather than better after the war if the increase in armaments continues to make its demands on the money market. Imperialism is digging its own grave. Instead of developing capitalism it has become a means of hindering it.


But this is not equivalent to saying that capitalism is at the end of its tether. So long as it is possible for the capitalism of the old countries to provide a sufficient expansion of agricultural domain it can go on developing. It may, to be sure, be shattered by an uprising of the working-class. But until it has exhausted the resources of the agricultural regions which it can make subsidiary to its activities it will not necessarily perish in an economic cataclysm.


Such economic bankruptcy would be hastened by a continuation of the present imperialist policy. This policy cannot be carried on much longer.
If imperialism were necessary to the continued existence of the capitalist method of production-these arguments against it would make little impression on the capitalist mind. But they will make a deep impression if imperialism is only one among several means of achieving this object.
We can say of imperialism what Marx said of capitalism: Monopoly creates competition and competition creates monopoly.


The violent competition of great concerns led to the formation of trusts and the destruction of small concerns. Just so there may develop in the present war a combination of the stronger nations which will put an end to the competitive building of armaments.


From a purely economic point of view, therefore, it is not impossible that capitalism is now to enter upon a new phase, a phase marked by the transfer of trust methods to international politics, a sort of super-imperialism. The working class would be forced to fight this new form of capitalism as it did the old, but the danger from it would lie in a new direction.


This analysis was completed before Austria surprised us with her ultimatum to Servia. The conflict between these two nations did not result from imperialistic tendencies alone. In eastern Europe nationalism still plays a role as a revolutionary force and the present conflict has a nationalist as well as an imperialist cause. Austria attempted to carry out an imperialist policy; she annexed Bosnia and appeared to be on the point of bringing Albania within her sphere of influence. Through these activities she roused the nationalist spirit of Servia, which felt itself threatened by Austria and thus became a danger to the Austrian government.


The world-war was brought on, not be cause imperialism was necessary to Austria, but because Austria, on account of the peculiarity of its organization, endangered itself through following an imperialist policy. Such a policy can be successfully followed only by a state which is internally united and which has for its field of operations a region far behind it in civilization. But in this case a state divided against itself, a state half Slavic in population, attempted to carry out an imperialist policy at the expense of a Slavic neighbor state which is quite the equal in civilization of the adjacent parts of its imperialistic enemy.


Such a policy could bring down upon us such terrible results only through the conflicts of interest between other great powers which had been fostered by imperialism. Not all the consequences of the present struggle are yet apparent. It may lead to an increase of armaments In this case the peace which will follow will be only in the nature of truce. But from a purely economic point of view there is nothing to hinder its resulting in a Holy Alliance of imperialists. The longer the war lasts, the more it exhausts all participants, the nearer we shall approach the latter solution, no matter how improbable it may appear at present.

[Q]

In a sense Kautsky seems to predict the League of Nations, the United Nations and - perhaps the most vivid example - the European Union. The error he seems to make however is to overestimate the importance of a supra-national body in the interests of the capitalists that it transcends imperialism. Even the EU is still a cooperation of individual nations, not a federation or "super-state", which all have their individual interests (as this crisis points out very clearly).

[Die Neue Zeit]

To me, it seems that the unity/rivalry debate is akin to the formation and breakup of supercontinents. This is clearly reflected even in recent crap by a right-wing media pundit in the US called "The Capitalist Manifesto" (published on MSNBC), where he laments about the national nature of politics and thus the inability to tackle global economic problems.


In his analysis of imperialism there is nothing mentioned of the labour aristocracy (Lenin) or the fact that imperialism even tends to buy out the whole class (Bukharin).

Perhaps my class analysis needs further developing at this point, but remember my class schema?

- Lumpenproletariat, lumpenbourgeoisie, lumpen
- "Class[es] #2" (in the wage labour system but not advancing society's labour power or capabilities): lawyers, cops, judges, armed private security; self-employed; etc.
- Proletariat
- Coordinators
- "Active" and "passive" petit-bourgeoisie (active small business owners, non-managing partners with ownership stakes in small businesses, etc.)
- Bourgeoisie (business magnates, money-capitalists, and functioning capitalists)

I think that enough time has passed to have a new, more class-based definition of "labour aristocracy." Imperialism allows the developed countries to have a disproportionate number of people inside the wage labour system that do not advance society's labour power or capabilities, most notably but not limited to those in self-employment.