jake williams
4th March 2010, 01:05
I'm wondering what folks think about two related questions that come up a lot for me. I'm well aware that they're not new or innovative questions, but I've never really seen them addressed.
1) Could capitalism still be developing? Either with respect to itself, or with respect to history in general (are these two even distinct)? It's probably been more than a century that it's been taken for granted, at least by some, that capitalism has achieved its highest level of development, and now we're just waiting for socialism. Every crisis is the last crisis, that sort of thing. Capitalism has thus far always resolved its crises, in basically all cases in the benefit of the bourgeoisie - by increasing the exploitation of the working class, by expanding its markets and profitability through imperialism, etc. And I don't see any serious explanation as to how it will stop being able to any time soon. There is still a huge chunk of the world where imperialist or capitalist expansion is still to be had. I read a lot of what are effectively the discussion organs of the ruling class; and both in the "layman" press and in more academic work, a huge focus is "poverty alleviation" where the authors and the readers are extremely open about how this is a way of achieving rapid profits compared to a stagnant metropolis.
2) If we indeed face a capitalism in the process of its own development, what are we as Marxists to do? I think everyone sensible accepts that history is not simply a direct and linear process of modes of production originating, expanding, and wearing themselves out in some sort of a methodological pattern. But at the same time, if capitalism is proving itself quite able, at the present time, quite able (of course with a lot of hurt and difficulty, even on the part of the ruling class) to resolve its own crises, what can we actually productively do?
I'm tempted to interpret Marxist anti-imperialism as an attempt to stem the capacity of capitalism to resolve its crises outside of developed capitalist countries, and to turn their viciousness inward, to radicalize the working class of industrialized countries and urge them forward to socialism. Is that actually what's going on? How conscious is it?
1) Could capitalism still be developing? Either with respect to itself, or with respect to history in general (are these two even distinct)? It's probably been more than a century that it's been taken for granted, at least by some, that capitalism has achieved its highest level of development, and now we're just waiting for socialism. Every crisis is the last crisis, that sort of thing. Capitalism has thus far always resolved its crises, in basically all cases in the benefit of the bourgeoisie - by increasing the exploitation of the working class, by expanding its markets and profitability through imperialism, etc. And I don't see any serious explanation as to how it will stop being able to any time soon. There is still a huge chunk of the world where imperialist or capitalist expansion is still to be had. I read a lot of what are effectively the discussion organs of the ruling class; and both in the "layman" press and in more academic work, a huge focus is "poverty alleviation" where the authors and the readers are extremely open about how this is a way of achieving rapid profits compared to a stagnant metropolis.
2) If we indeed face a capitalism in the process of its own development, what are we as Marxists to do? I think everyone sensible accepts that history is not simply a direct and linear process of modes of production originating, expanding, and wearing themselves out in some sort of a methodological pattern. But at the same time, if capitalism is proving itself quite able, at the present time, quite able (of course with a lot of hurt and difficulty, even on the part of the ruling class) to resolve its own crises, what can we actually productively do?
I'm tempted to interpret Marxist anti-imperialism as an attempt to stem the capacity of capitalism to resolve its crises outside of developed capitalist countries, and to turn their viciousness inward, to radicalize the working class of industrialized countries and urge them forward to socialism. Is that actually what's going on? How conscious is it?