What is imperialism

[Paul Cockshott]

There is a prevalent misconception among Marxists that imperialism is equivalent to or dependent upon the export of capital. This was a view I shared until the late 1970s when a marxist political economy group that I participated in did a conjunctural analysis of the UK economy from the 1850s to the 1970s and found contrary to our expectations that the UK had not been a net exporter of capital for more than a handful of years during the previous century.

The key point that one has to recognise is that a net export of capital from a country can only occur if the country runs a trade surplus. Capital is dead or embodied labour so an export of capital is an export of embodied labour, and to do this a country must ship out goods whose value is greater than those it imports.

The trade surplus gives the capitalists in the exporting country claims over assets in the importing country. Initially these may be monetary - Toyota ships cars to the US and acquires dollar assets in US banks. At this stage the exported capital is just financial - Toyota earns interest on its deposits with US banks, but they are likely to go on and convert these into other forms : US government debt, factories in the US making cars etc.

But such capital export arises inevitably from the uneven development of the productivity of labour and from uneven rates of surplus value between countries and uneven savings rates.

It is not closely tied with imperialism per se:
In the end the essence of imperialism is the use by one state of political, military and economic power to expand the territory under its control.
This does not necessarily have any close relation to the export of capital.

If we look at the leading economies in the world today we see that some countries are net exporters of capital: Germany, China , Japan
other leading economies are net importers : UK, France, Australia, Canada, USA, India

There is no close correlation between this and imperialism and imperialist agression. There can be little doubt than in the last 20 years the main source of revived imperialist agression has been the alliance of the USA, UK, Canada and Australia - the same powers that were victorious in the two great imperialist wars of the 20th century but this imperialist agression does not coincide with being capital exporters. Capital export has little or nothing to do with it. Indeed it is arguable that the reverse is the case. It is the imperial power of the US alliance that enables them to run a trade deficit ( Ie, be net importers of surplus value ).


This net position does not of course prevent individual firms or capitalists in deficit countries like the USA, UK or India acquiring capital assets overseas. US and UK firms open call centers in India, Tata acquires steel plants in the UK and employs 50,000 workers there. But these individual acquisitions of capital assets abroad do not indicate that the state is a capital exporter. If individual firms in a deficit country acquire assets abroad it is only possible to the extent that they borrow directly or indirectly from firms in surplus countries.

[Let's Get Free]

Lenin defined imperialism as capitalism at it's highest stage. He liked to say that imperialism was “rotten ripe” capitalism. The term “imperialism” comes from the word “empire,” which is defined as the complete domination of territories and peoples by another foreign state power.

“Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development at which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital is established; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun, in which the division of all territories of the globe among the biggest capitalist powers has been completed.” (Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism)

Lenin's definition of imperialism is how many socialists define imperialism. But I would say that imperialism is not a product of capitalism; it is not capitalism developed to its highest stage. Instead, capitalism is a product of imperialism. Capitalism is imperialism developed to its highest stage, not the other way around. Capitalism was born parasitic, born of the rapes, massacres, occupations, genocides, colonialism and every despicable act humans are capable of inflicting on others.

[l'Enfermé]

If we define imperialism as essentially "the use by one state of political, military and economic power to expand the territory under its control", do we not turn imperialism from something exclusive to capitalism into something practiced by ancient cultures thousands of years ago(Romans, Persians, Chinese, etc, etc)? I'm very reluctant to do that.

While there is much misconception about "imperialism" among "Marxists", wasn't the first Marxist to systematically explain imperialism Lenin? I.e, the theory of imperialism was a later addition to Marxism. While his theory is not perfect(clearly imperialism/monopoly capitalism is not "moribund" capitalism, capitalism in it's death throes, since we're well past that and capitalism is still around - and if imperialism was the "latest" stage of capitalism in 1916, what stage is capitalism in now?)that's no reason to succumb to this vulgar theory of imperialism being essentially aggressive and expansionist foreign policy.

And anyway, I think the question should be, "does imperialism exist?", not, "what is imperialism?". There's no state in the world that exists or has ever existed that didn't wish to expand. If imperialism is the default attitude of any state, there's no reason to place such importance upon it.

[helot]

If we define imperialism as essentially "the use by one state of political, military and economic power to expand the territory under its control", do we not turn imperialism from something exclusive to capitalism into something practiced by ancient cultures thousands of years ago(Romans, Persians, Chinese, etc, etc)? I'm very reluctant to do that.


Why are you reluctant to conclude that the Roman Empire for example was imperialist?

[l'Enfermé]

Why are you reluctant to conclude that the Roman Empire for example was imperialist?
I explained it precisely in the part of my post which you quoted. If Marxists begin to subscribe to this vulgar theory of imperialism, where imperialism is equated with expansionism and conquest and aggressive dealings, then we no longer consider imperialism something unique to capitalism. I'm somewhat reminded of how Marx mocked 19th century British historians that claimed that capital was fully developed during Roman times, with the exception of the existence of the "free worker".

[helot]

I explained it precisely in the part of my post which you quoted. If Marxists begin to subscribe to this vulgar theory of imperialism, where imperialism is equated with expansionism and conquest and aggressive dealings, then we no longer consider imperialism something unique to capitalism. I'm somewhat reminded of how Marx mocked 19th century British historians that claimed that capital was fully developed during Roman times, with the exception of the existence of the "free worker".

So you don't want to conclude imperialism existed before capitalism because you want to consider imperialism unique to capitalism? I don't consider that valid in and of itself and using the analogy of Marx mocking historians over claims about Rome isn't useful as Marx no doubt based that on atleast a basic analysis of Rome while you've offered no such analysis of ancient states. I don't necessarily disagree with you, i hold no strong opinions either way, but i would prefer an actual reason.

Why is it important for imperialism to be considered unique to capitalism?

[l'Enfermé]

So you don't want to conclude imperialism existed before capitalism because you want to consider imperialism unique to capitalism? I don't consider that valid in and of itself and using the analogy of Marx mocking historians over claims about Rome isn't useful as Marx no doubt based that on atleast a basic analysis of Rome while you've offered no such analysis of ancient states. I don't necessarily disagree with you, i hold no strong opinions either way, but i would prefer an actual reason.

Why is it important for imperialism to be considered unique to capitalism?
I'm leaning almost entirely on Lenin's analysis of "imperialism" as specific historical stage of capitalism that took "final shape" between 1898(Spanish American War) and 1914(First World War), whose specific character is threefold: monopoly capitalism, parasitic/decaying capitalism, and moribund capitalism, whose quintessence is the supplanting of free trade by monopoly(and monopoly according to Lenin manifests itself 5 principal forms, "(1) cartels, syndicates and trusts—the concentration of production has reached a degree which gives rise to these monopolistic associations of capitalists; (2) the monopolistic position of the big banks—three, four or five giant banks manipulate the whole economic life of America, France, Germany; (3) seizure of the sources of raw material by the trusts and the financial oligarchy (finance capital is monopoly industrial capital merged with bank capital); (4) the (economic) partition of the world by the international cartels has begun. There are already over one hundred such international cartels, which command the entire world market and divide it “amicably” among themselves—until war redivides it. The export of capital, as distinct from the export of commodities under non-monopoly capitalism, is a highly characteristic phenomenon and is closely linked with the economic and territorial-political partition of the world; (5) the territorial partition of the world (colonies) is completed."
http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/oct/x01.htm

[Tim Cornelis]

While there is much misconception about "imperialism" among "Marxists", wasn't the first Marxist to systematically explain imperialism Lenin? I.e, the theory of imperialism was a later addition to Marxism. While his theory is not perfect(clearly imperialism/monopoly capitalism is not "moribund" capitalism, capitalism in it's death throes, since we're well past that and capitalism is still around - and if imperialism was the "latest" stage of capitalism in 1916, what stage is capitalism in now?)that's no reason to succumb to this vulgar theory of imperialism being essentially aggressive and expansionist foreign policy.

And anyway, I think the question should be, "does imperialism exist?", not, "what is imperialism?". There's no state in the world that exists or has ever existed that didn't wish to expand. If imperialism is the default attitude of any state, there's no reason to place such importance upon it.

Well clearly Lenin did not take into account that 'conventional modern imperialism' could itself become unprofitable and that 'the system' could find a way around it.

In the 1940s colonies started to become less profitable. They required more investment (education, infrastructure) which did not immediately translate in higher returns on investment--thus a fall in the rate of return.

The British, therefore, allowed India to be independent relatively peacefully. Other imperial powers such as France and the Netherlands believed they would see higher returns on investment in the future and thus did not allow their independence.

Today we see that maintenance of unequal economic relations is not done through direct coercion, but through the IMF, World Bank. This is greatly advantageous to the imperial powers: they reap the profits of the lands and businesses forcefully privatised by the IMF, but have no obligation to provide education or infrastructure thus increasing the rate of return.

Evidently, we also have the more directly coercive approaches such as waging war, as we can see between Japan and China, Great Britain and Argentina.

The issue is not whether a state wants to expand, or even whether it is in such a position, but whether it expands its economy through maintaining unequal economic relations.

So in conclusion, imperialism exists and not all countries are imperialist.

[Die Neue Zeit]

While there is much misconception about "imperialism" among "Marxists", wasn't the first Marxist to systematically explain imperialism Lenin? I.e, the theory of imperialism was a later addition to Marxism. While his theory is not perfect(clearly imperialism/monopoly capitalism is not "moribund" capitalism, capitalism in it's death throes, since we're well past that and capitalism is still around - and if imperialism was the "latest" stage of capitalism in 1916, what stage is capitalism in now?)that's no reason to succumb to this vulgar theory of imperialism being essentially aggressive and expansionist foreign policy.

No, actually, it was Kautsky even before the liberal Hobson.

[l'Enfermé]

No, actually, it was Kautsky even before the liberal Hobson.
Nothing I can find from Kautsky that's translated into English and is available on the MIA is even near to Lenin's "popular outline" of Imperialism, in terms of length and detail, though.

[Paul Cockshott]

I explained it precisely in the part of my post which you quoted. If Marxists begin to subscribe to this vulgar theory of imperialism, where imperialism is equated with expansionism and conquest and aggressive dealings, then we no longer consider imperialism something unique to capitalism. I'm somewhat reminded of how Marx mocked 19th century British historians that claimed that capital was fully developed during Roman times, with the exception of the existence of the "free worker".

These are two quite separate issues. Yes capital was not fully developed in the Roman Empire, but that does not answer the question about imperialism. Even considering the British Empire, much of it was gained during the period of competitive capitalism not monopoly capitalism. In the 18th century Britain and France fought wars over colonies, so the 20th century wars over colonies were nothing new.

One also has to consider the context of the imperialist war that Lenin was writing about. This was a war between states that openly called themselves empires and who openly aimed at territorial expansion, and built up huge armed forces to carry this out. Winning territory was not an add on to imperialism it
was the whole point.

It makes sense to call Japan in 1936 an imperialist power, openly engaged in building an empire in China and the rest of Asia. It does not make sense to say that Japan in 1980 was an imperialist power capital export not withstanding.

[Zealot]

What becomes the point then of imperialism if no capital is exported?

[Paul Cockshott]

What becomes the point then of imperialism if no capital is exported?

This is a good question.

Firstly lets look at what the export of capital implies. It implies that part of the surplus value produced in the country is not consumed within the country. Such a course of action has a cost to the society that is exporting the capital. On the one hand it probably means that there has to be a higher rate of exploitation to support the capital export. Look at Germany today, the worlds biggest capital exporter, and the low rate of wages there compared to for example Britain. The low wages are the price that German society pays for its propertied class being able to export capital.
Alternatively the export of capital could come about by the upper classes cutting their consumption, in which case the cost of capital export is born by the propertied classes themselves.

So the export of capital is not something that is desirable in the short term from the standpoint of either the working class or the propertied class of a country.

I think that if you look both at recent US policy and at historical episodes of imperialism that led to war in the 20th century a major motive was the control over raw material resources - oil was an objective recently and in the 1940s. In 1914 access to iron ore and coal fields was a major German objective.

But one must realise that there is something in imperialism for several social classes. For the upper class there is the potential to acquire large landed estates for as for example the British upper class did in Kenya. For the middle class there is the chance to get administrative jobs in the empire in which they could enjoy a life with cheap servants that they could not have afforded in the metropolis. For the working class there was the option to emigrate to the colonies and become a self sufficient farmer. The imperialist powers in the early 20th century were countries with a relatively high birth rate, and by historical standards, a low rate of infant mortality. This meant that they had a surplus population to export, the export of people was perhaps more important than the export of capital. Hence the envy of the German ruling class for the ruling classes of Russia, America and Britain who had large empires in the temperate zone that suitable for settlement rather than the barren deserts of SouthWest Africa or the jungles of Dahomey with which they had to be satisfied and which could not provide land for territorial settlement for the growing population of the German Empire.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Nothing I can find from Kautsky that's translated into English and is available on the MIA is even near to Lenin's "popular outline" of Imperialism, in terms of length and detail, though.

It's in a new Historical Materialism book on imperialism, with various Marxist writers writing on the subject before Lenin's pamphlet. Kautsky's work was a polemic against Bernstein's support for colonialism: http://www.amazon.com/Discovering-Imperialism-Democracy-Historical-Materialism/dp/1608462358

[Luís Henrique]

There is a prevalent misconception among Marxists that imperialism is equivalent to or dependent upon the export of capital. This was a view I shared until the late 1970s when a marxist political economy group that I participated in did a conjunctural analysis of the UK economy from the 1850s to the 1970s and found contrary to our expectations that the UK had not been a net exporter of capital for more than a handful of years during the previous century.

The key point that one has to recognise is that a net export of capital from a country can only occur if the country runs a trade surplus. Capital is dead or embodied labour so an export of capital is an export of embodied labour, and to do this a country must ship out goods whose value is greater than those it imports.

The trade surplus gives the capitalists in the exporting country claims over assets in the importing country. Initially these may be monetary - Toyota ships cars to the US and acquires dollar assets in US banks. At this stage the exported capital is just financial - Toyota earns interest on its deposits with US banks, but they are likely to go on and convert these into other forms : US government debt, factories in the US making cars etc.

But such capital export arises inevitably from the uneven development of the productivity of labour and from uneven rates of surplus value between countries and uneven savings rates.

It is not closely tied with imperialism per se:
In the end the essence of imperialism is the use by one state of political, military and economic power to expand the territory under its control.
This does not necessarily have any close relation to the export of capital.

If we look at the leading economies in the world today we see that some countries are net exporters of capital: Germany, China , Japan
other leading economies are net importers : UK, France, Australia, Canada, USA, India

There is no close correlation between this and imperialism and imperialist agression. There can be little doubt than in the last 20 years the main source of revived imperialist agression has been the alliance of the USA, UK, Canada and Australia - the same powers that were victorious in the two great imperialist wars of the 20th century but this imperialist agression does not coincide with being capital exporters. Capital export has little or nothing to do with it. Indeed it is arguable that the reverse is the case. It is the imperial power of the US alliance that enables them to run a trade deficit ( Ie, be net importers of surplus value ).


This net position does not of course prevent individual firms or capitalists in deficit countries like the USA, UK or India acquiring capital assets overseas. US and UK firms open call centers in India, Tata acquires steel plants in the UK and employs 50,000 workers there. But these individual acquisitions of capital assets abroad do not indicate that the state is a capital exporter. If individual firms in a deficit country acquire assets abroad it is only possible to the extent that they borrow directly or indirectly from firms in surplus countries.

The imperialist countries, as a block, export capital to non-imperialist countries. You can find British or French companies operating in India, Brazil, or Russia. Can you find Indian, Brazilian, or Russian companies operating abroad? (of course you can, but the extent is what matters here.)

And even if an imperialist country is not exporting capital at this moment, the amount of capital it has exported in the past gives it dominant positions within the economy of other countries.

The flux of capital into imperialist countries is always originated in other imperialist countries: foreign capital in the US is Japanese or German (or even British or French), but not Argentinian or Korean.

There is only one significant exception to this rule, which is capital exported by countries such as Kuweit or Saudi Arabia; but this is due to the local ruling classes refraining to develop capitalism in their countries.

So, while I can agree that the relation between imperialism and net capital exports is more complex than the theory you are criticising holds, I would disagree that those are two different, unrelated, issues.

Luís Henrique

[Paul Cockshott]

The imperialist countries, as a block, export capital to non-imperialist countries. You can find British or French companies operating in India, Brazil, or Russia. Can you find Indian, Brazilian, or Russian companies operating abroad? (of course you can, but the extent is what matters here.)
Well India runs a trade deficit so is not a net capital exporter. On the other hand of course individual indian companies can hold substantial positions abroad. Look at the scale of Tata's invesment in the European steel industry.




And even if an imperialist country is not exporting capital at this moment, the amount of capital it has exported in the past gives it dominant positions within the economy of other countries.

I agree that prior holdings are important, but in some cases the prior export must have been a long time ago. In the British case probably before the 1860s. In the case of the USA it occured during the 1920s to the 1970s.



The flux of capital into imperialist countries is always originated in other imperialist countries: foreign capital in the US is Japanese or German (or even British or French), but not Argentinian or Korean.

That is a reasonable point so far, but what about Chinese capital holdings in the US. Remember that capital holdings can be financial as well as productive.

The point about Kuwait and Saudi Arabia is that they acquire title to vast capital holdings without producing much surplus value at all. Oil sells above its mean labour content so the revenue of the Kings of Arabia is surplus value produced by the workers of the rest of the world and transfered to these monarchs through the mechanism of differential ground rent.

[Zederbaum]

It is not closely tied with imperialism per se:

In the end the essence of imperialism is the use by one state of political, military and economic power to expand the territory under its control.
This does not necessarily have any close relation to the export of capital.
....

There is no close correlation between this and imperialism and imperialist agression.

I agree with this analysis and see it as emanating from the inherent differences between the state and capital. they have separate origins and operate quite differently, most notably in their methods of appropriating the social surplus. The one uses taxation, the other appropriates surplus value as per the classic socialist (or Smithian for that matter) analysis. This leads them to behave quite differently in how they interact with other entities, both their peers and those who they exploit.

The best way for non-capitalist elite classes to enhance their power, wealth, and prestige is to expand the available territory under their control since territory brings more people who can be taxed or otherwise have their wealth forcibly extracted from them. Hence the strong tendency of the pre-capitalist states to go to war with other states since that is pretty much the only way you can expand your territory.

Rival states’ ruling classes - i.e. the aristocracy - were pursuing a zero-sum strategy, a gain of territory for one was a loss for the other. This made the struggle between them often quite bitter. Internally, the struggle for supremacy also provided less opportunities for the ambitious. There can only be one government, one cabinet etc and since all wealth had to be turned back into land, there was only so much to go round.

Capitalism by contrast, extracts the wealth via appropriating the surplus value of labour in the context of free exchange (i.e. labour in exchange for a wage). It does not, therefore face the same pressure to so completely dominate every facet of society, including the holding of territory and in particular expansion does not necessitate war.

Capitalism also provides more opportunities for the elite to be successful. There is an inherent limit on the amount of land that can be accumulated. Not so with wealth in a capitalist system, which can almost be reduced to the ability to command labour.

Thus there is a lot more room for rival capitalists to co-exist. Capitalists do not need to struggle for the complete suppression of their competitors, as England did with France and Germany. They still compete of course, but it is not at all a competition to the death, as the rivalry between the states was.

Capital does require access and a minimum set of conditions, e.g. a state which will prevent labour from organising to expropriate the means of production. There are other more contingent considerations of course, e.g. levels of infrastructure, raw materials, taxes. But mainly capital just needs access, stability, and a measure of control on labour. Hence the countries which restrict or place conditions on western’s capital’s access, such as Russia, Iran, Venezuela or, in the past, the USSR and Chile are enemy states which must be subverted.

In the modern era of the democratic capitalist countries, capital and the state exist in symbiosis: a state in which the economy is mainly non-capitalist will find itself behind the technological curve and therefore much weaker in the interstate competition. It must bend the knee to capitalist production if it doesn't want to fall behind other states.

Capitalism in turn is quite dynamic especially in terms of technological development but is also a very unstable phenomenon. Here, its alliance with the state is essential both in terms creating a stable environment for investment but also in occasionally preventing its worst excesses through, for example, the provision of welfare and the long-term investment in education, infrastructure, diplomatic representations and the like.

The current situation with a clear hegemon but with many other powerful states which prevents it from becoming a universal state is greatly to capital’s advantage. It gains the benefits of global stability, compared to say the period of 1905 - 1945 when there was a serious struggle for global supremacy, but leaves it plenty of room to manoeuvre by playing states off each against each other.

To bring it back to this thread somewhat, capitalism isn’t necessarily or particularly aggressive and, even since it became the dominant mode of production, most of the major conflagrations can be traced to state rivalry rather than capitalist competition. Capital just wants to exploit labour and doesn’t need territory to accomplish that. But it is necessary to be on good terms with the powerful states, and in particular the hegemon.

[Zealot]

This is a good question.

Firstly lets look at what the export of capital implies. It implies that part of the surplus value produced in the country is not consumed within the country. Such a course of action has a cost to the society that is exporting the capital. On the one hand it probably means that there has to be a higher rate of exploitation to support the capital export. Look at Germany today, the worlds biggest capital exporter, and the low rate of wages there compared to for example Britain. The low wages are the price that German society pays for its propertied class being able to export capital.
Alternatively the export of capital could come about by the upper classes cutting their consumption, in which case the cost of capital export is born by the propertied classes themselves.

So the export of capital is not something that is desirable in the short term from the standpoint of either the working class or the propertied class of a country.

I think that if you look both at recent US policy and at historical episodes of imperialism that led to war in the 20th century a major motive was the control over raw material resources - oil was an objective recently and in the 1940s. In 1914 access to iron ore and coal fields was a major German objective.

But one must realise that there is something in imperialism for several social classes. For the upper class there is the potential to acquire large landed estates for as for example the British upper class did in Kenya. For the middle class there is the chance to get administrative jobs in the empire in which they could enjoy a life with cheap servants that they could not have afforded in the metropolis. For the working class there was the option to emigrate to the colonies and become a self sufficient farmer. The imperialist powers in the early 20th century were countries with a relatively high birth rate, and by historical standards, a low rate of infant mortality. This meant that they had a surplus population to export, the export of people was perhaps more important than the export of capital. Hence the envy of the German ruling class for the ruling classes of Russia, America and Britain who had large empires in the temperate zone that suitable for settlement rather than the barren deserts of SouthWest Africa or the jungles of Dahomey with which they had to be satisfied and which could not provide land for territorial settlement for the growing population of the German Empire.

Okay I understand your point, however, I have a few questions and comments. Are you saying that most violent imperialism that is carried out is done for raw material resources rather than the export of capital? And does being an importer of capital strengthen their imperialist position? Also, your last point doesn't make much sense; it may have held true in previous centuries but no worker these days is really moving from the US to, say, Japan to become a self sufficient farmer. And what data do you have to demonstrate your point? According to the UN, the US is still the largest foreign direct investor in the world and own as much abroad as Britain and Germany combined.

[RedMaterialist]

What exactly is export of capital, anyway? Is it merely the lending of money? When Britain occupied India, wasn't the chief reason the robbery of Indian raw material, cotton, then production of cloth in Britain which Indians were forced to purchase to purchase at the threat of starvation?

Or the U.S. in Vietnam. The U.S. spent huge sums of money, capital, in Vietnam, but surely, no one expected the South Vietnamese government to pay any of it back to the U.S. If anything, the U.S. people paid for it with inflation.

[black magick hustla]

I think the term imperialism is more often used as a sort of crutch to call upon to justify a particular political opinion. marxist theories of imperialism are a dime a dozen, and even within a particular theoretical framework there is a lot of disagreement about specificities. Within stalinist circles, it is more often than not used as a justification to put the chips behind a national bourgeosie.

Rather than talking about imperialism I think its more important to engage the question of whether the "third world" can follow a similar trajectory to the west and reach its standards of living. The west was able to "develop" to the extent it is today because of two main reasons - they plundered the earth, and where able to expand their market to all the corners of the planet. I don't think India or China will ever reach the standard of the US because they did not engange in the sort of plunder necessary at the specific historical window that was necessary, nor there is enough room for their markets to expand. So its a moot point to really talk about imperialism because there is no "imperialism" to overthrow, unless one talks not about imperialist countries but of imperialism as a stage of capitalism. The only way I can see the periphery to level the game with the first world countries is either through a massive cataclysm like WWII, or the destruction of states and capital through world revolution.

[Paul Cockshott]

Rather than talking about imperialism I think its more important to engage the question of whether the "third world" can follow a similar trajectory to the west and reach its standards of living. The west was able to "develop" to the extent it is today because of two main reasons - they plundered the earth, and where able to expand their market to all the corners of the planet. I don't think India or China will ever reach the standard of the US because they did not engange in the sort of plunder necessary at the specific historical window that was necessary, nor there is enough room for their markets to expand. WWII, or the destruction of states and capital through world revolution.

Well to whom were the imperialist powers supposedly selling ? An underdeveloped perifery hardly provided the good export market that the US does to China now.

But remember that running an export surplus does not directly enrich a country, so it is unclear why this should be seen as necessary for prosperity.

If by plunder you mean the use of mineral resources that are relatively small and finite, then you are probably right. It unlikely that China and India will ever be able to have the level of car ownership that the USA had even 40 years ago so long as these cars are oil fueled. However it is not impossible that improvements in wind power could not allow a comparable standard of living.

[Luís Henrique]

What exactly is export of capital, anyway? Is it merely the lending of money?

Nowadays it is usually direct productive investment.

Luís Henrique

[Paul Cockshott]

Nowadays it is usually direct productive investment.

Luís Henrique

I am not sure that that is true. A very large component of international capital flows goes to finance government debt in deficit countries, and as bank finance to firms and other banks.

[Grenzer]

All this talk of "world revolution" is kind of a throw away. It relies on a lot of assumptions and that good should always be the enemy of best.

What if a mythical world revolution doesn't spontaneously break out? Any contingencies? The idea that we should base our strategy on the best of all possible worlds and refuse to consider workable alternatives is pretty shortsighted. Thankfully the people professing such views will never be in a position to make such a call. Like Stalinism, left communism is not an organic movement of the working class, but can only come into existance from the demoralization and degeneration of existing segments of the revolutionary workers.

[Zulu]

By Lenin's definition of imperialism as the "highest stage of capitalism", the term is synonymous with "monopoly capitalism". As such it must not to be mixed up with the more traditional understanding of imperialism as some nation state's projection of military and political powers (synonymous with "colonialism"). So neither the British empire, nor any other (Russian, French, etc.) were not imperialistic in this Marxist-Leninist sense until the onset of the monopoly capitalism in the late 19th century.

And today the globalization has brought about something that is awful close to Kautsky's notion of "ultra-imperialism". Between the super-national political and economic institutions (UN, WTO, World Bank, etc.) and the transnational corporations all countries must be considered parts of a single world imperialist system, with no separate "national imperialisms".

[commieathighnoon]

I'll throw in Mike Macnair's take, from Louis Proyect's blog comments:


Louis, your objection to Milios & Sotiropoulos seems to be mainly to the political conclusions of “euro-centricity”. But your contrary political conclusions are problematic.

Let us suppose – and I agree – that capitalism, the state and imperialism are “joined at the hip” (beginning with Venetian imperialism in the Mediterranean in the late middle ages). It then follows that

(1) the flow of surplus from the ‘global south’ to the ‘global north’ results in the last analysis from the use of coercion: whether this is coercion to pay taxes imposed by imperialist occupiers; to sell commodities at undervalues; to pay debts (and interest on debts) incurred by states for the benefit of traders and investors from the ‘global north’; to pay returns on FDI; or whatever. The forms are highly variable; the flows of surplus are small in *absolute* terms (e.g. van Zanden & van Riel, The strictures of inheritance, find inflows of 3% of Dutch GDP in the 19th century from exploitation of the colonial regime in what became Indonesia) but create positive multiplier effects in the economies of the ‘north’ and negative multiplier effects in the economies of the ‘south’.

(2) Some countries can pass from the camp of the ‘underdeveloped’ and exploited to that of the ‘developed’ and potential exploiters. But they do so by geopolitics. That is, by creating powerful armed forces and arms production complexes, backed by native finance-capitalist operations, to set themselves up as rival imperialists – as in the case of Germany and Japan in the late 19th century. Or because they are “front-line states” subsidised by the central imperialist powers, as in the cases of several minor European states, South Korea and Taiwan. The idea – ‘Brennerite’ or promoted by these authors – that the domestic relations of production in different countries is decisive of which outcome occurs is illusory.

(3) However, this also implies that the idea that (a) socialism can come first to the ‘global south’ (b) through national liberation struggles, is equally illusory.

(a) The flow of surplus from ‘south’ to ‘north’ is given by military power – and it is the needs of this military power which leads capital to make economic concessions to the working and middle classes of the ‘north’, to secure loyalty. The relative military power is given by relatively high-tech productive capacity: this, too, is true of Venice and the Netherlands as much as of Britain and the US more recently. The military power is precisely there to enable the capitals of the ‘north’ to enforce ‘open markets’, ‘the security of property rights’ and ‘responsible budgets’ in the south, and thereby enforce the flow of surplus. It is able to do so because states which ‘break the rules’ can be subjected to financial exclusion, naval blockade, covert operations (like British financiers’ and arms dealers’ support for the break-up of Gran Colombia in the 1820s) and ultimately direct military action. These actions will be most sharply enforced against states which attempt socialist change. The largest example is the USSR: but the US still maintains, for example, substantial tech sanctions against China even after that state has largely taken the capitalist road. At the end of the day the USSR failed precisely because of the financial exclusion and blockade operations of imperialism.

(b) If all the countries of the ‘south’ *simultaneously* defaulted on debts to the ‘north’ and seized the property of the ‘north’, the disruption would probably be sufficient to break the ability of the ‘north’ to reassert control. But such a course of action would precisely not be a project of *national* liberation but an internationalist project of the global overthrow of capitalism as such. A project of *national* liberation implies, in contrast, manoeuvring to improve the *relative* position of the subordinated country in the global hierarchy. Hence the endless disappointments the left has suffered with one or another sort of ‘left nationalist’ leadership: it is illusory to imagine the internationalist solidarity of nationalist movements.

(4) It follows that the right strategy is not “third world first”, but global internationalist solidarity of the working class for the overthrow of capitalism *as such* and both ‘north’ and ‘south’. It is this approach – only held by trivial minorities today – that is capable of both promoting the global solidarity of the exploited, and breaking up the military-economic power of the imperialist states from within.

(5) This does not mean that socialists should not oppose imperialist military, etc, operations; but they should be anti-imperialist on grounds of political democracy (as Lenin argued in the polemics against the ‘imperialist-economists’), i.e. that limited political self-determination is preferable, even if economic self-determination is impossible. We should not be attracted to the illusory idea that national liberation movements in themselves contribute to the overthrow of capitalism, and we should not lead opposition to our own states’ imperialist operations to lead us to lend *political* support to nationalist movements.

User Karl Friedrich:


Mike: I was intrigued by the flow of your argument until the end when I got a more than a bit confused at your conclusions.

I’ve been on barricades and picket lines full of capitalism’s victims around the globe for the last 40 years and never really met anybody who imagined that: “that national liberation movements in themselves contribute to the overthrow of capitalism.” That’s more like a NY Times caricature of a leftist.

What national liberation movements have the potential to do, particularly when the imperialists invade & get bogged down militarily, is weaken imperialism, which in turn strengthens the progressive forces at home.

After all revolutions tend to follow wars. With Russian involvement in WWI the Bolshevik revolution would have been unthinkable.

So for example while many fell under the illusion that the Vietnam War might’ve actually brought capitalism to it’s knees, what with cities burning and conscripted troops on the verge of mutiny, revolution was indeed illusory, however progressive forces did come to the fore.

Same with in Iraq today. If it weren’t for the heroic resistance of the Iraqi people G.W. Bush would likely be revered as some holy political genius today and for all we know blogs like this would’ve been shut down in all the neocon’s fascistic glory, that’s the kind of stifling mood all their shock & awe executive authoritarianism was putting on the national body politic.

We did still manage to lose the great writ of habeus corpus after all, but if the Iraqis didn’t resist so effectively these maniacal neocon jackbooters might have managed to ammend the constitution so that we’d living under Bush’s 3rd term (nevermind that Obama IS effectively Bush’s 3rd term.)

With that in mind what the hell sense does it make to argue: “we should not lead opposition to our own states’ imperialist operations to lead us to lend *political* support to nationalist movements”?

Call me a third worldist if you will but when Uncle Sam attacks Brown peoples I say: “Victory to those Brown people!”

Anything less and you might as well change your name to Christopher Hitchens.

Macnair's reply:


Karl Friedrich (#19):

(1) The group of which I am a member has participated without hesitation in the anti-war movement, and we headlined in the week of the invasion of Iraq (from memory) “Better the defeat of British troops than their victory”. (Various leftists told us this was an ultraleft headline, but it sold pretty well.)
However, this is not the same as giving *political* support to whoever is targeted by US (and hence by British) imperialism. Example No. 1. We campaign as hard as possible (with very limited resources) against the “sanctions” blockade of Iran and the recurrent diplomatic /media drumbeat against Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme. But we are opposed to, on that basis, prettifying the corrupt, neo-liberal, privatising clerical regime in Iran, and we argue that the international workers’ movement needs to give solidarity to Iranian workers, and so on, repressed by the regime, while at the same time opposing the imperialist war drive.
Example No. 2. George Galloway has done some brilliant work in the leadership of the anti-war movement. But it is undoubtedly true that his *political* support for the Ba’athist regime in the 1990s – “I salute your indefatigability” and all that – was a tactical mistake which weakened the effectiveness of the antiwar movement. (That is, it weakened it once – after the invasion – the section of the British military-security apparat which had indirectly supported the anti-war movement before the invasion withdrew its support.)

(2) On “weaken imperialism, which in turn strengthens the progressive forces at home”.
(a) Revolutions follow wars. True, but most clearly true of great-power wars like 1791-1815, 1914-18 and 1939-45. Britain has been engaged in imperialist military operations with pretty varying outcomes continuously (except the year 1968) since 1945, and probably on something like the same frequency since the 1750s, without any of the sort-of defeats, scuttles, etc leading to revolution in the home country. British defeat in America in 1776-83 triggered reaction, not revolution. The single exception of colonial war triggering a (defeated) revolution is Portugal in 1974-76; and it is far from clear that the colonial war would have triggered revolution in Portugal without the European context of May ’68, the ‘creeping May’ in Italy, and so on.
(b) I don’t buy the proposition that the Vietnamese victory in 1975 *strengthened* the US left. On the contrary, if anything the organised left, which had been growing through the civil rights movement and anti-war movement, fell into crisis in the later 1970s, while US capital rapidly reorganised its policy round neo-liberalism and the use of covert support for local rivals to destabilise nationalist governments; beginning with Jimmy Carter’s “human rights” offensive.
(c) I think you are counting your chickens before they’re hatched on the beneficial effects on the US movement of Iraqi military resistance. But for the global financial crash, the Republicans could have got a third term; and you yourself say that “Obama IS effectively Bush’s 3rd term”: Obama has escalated in Afghanistan, continued Bush’s policy towards Iran, and offers at most phrases on Palestine. Is the US antiwar movement strengthened? I doubt it.
Overall, we should fight for the defeat of our own imperialism’s military operations because that is the right outcome, and because promoting opposition to imperialist wars will *in the long term* strengthen the workers’ movement; not because we have illusions that the victory of their opponents will immediately strengthen us.

3. If you’ve “been on barricades and picket lines full of capitalism’s victims around the globe for the last 40 years and never really met anybody who imagined that: ‘that national liberation movements in themselves contribute to the overthrow of capitalism.’” – then you’ve encountered different arguments than I’ve encountered in the last 35 years. Leave aside Maoists, I’ve encountered plenty of ‘official’ communists and Trotskyists who have argued in the past and continue to argue precisely that. And my comment was addressed in part to Louis’s quote from Jim Blaut:
“Euro-Marxists, … nonetheless insisted as they always had done that … socialism will rise in the heartlands of advanced European capitalism, or perhaps everywhere all at once; but socialism will certainly not arrive first in the backward, laggard, late-maturing Third World.”
It seems to me that Blaut’s implicit argument – that socialism *can* arrive first in the Third World – is precisely disproved by the failure of the USSR and ‘Soviet bloc’, the Chinese turn to the capitalist road, and around it, the political collapse of the various left-nationalist regimes.
In the first place, US-led imperialism still disposes of sufficient resources, both military and political, to inflict blockade and destruction on states which resist or take a different path – even if they can no longer impose positive order.
Secondly, precisely because imperialism is not the “highest stage of capitalism” but a normal feature of capitalism from its beginnings, the overthrow of *US-led* imperialism without the overthrow of capitalism would merely result in a global imperialist system led by some other power: just as 1914-45 resulted mainly in the transfer of imperialist military and financial leadership from Britain to the US.

http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2010/06/09/critiquing-a-critique-of-lenin/

[commieathighnoon]

By Lenin's definition of imperialism as the "highest stage of capitalism", the term is synonymous with "monopoly capitalism". As such it must not to be mixed up with the more traditional understanding of imperialism as some nation state's projection of military and political powers (synonymous with "colonialism"). So neither the British empire, nor any other (Russian, French, etc.) were not imperialistic in this Marxist-Leninist sense until the onset of the monopoly capitalism in the late 19th century.

And today the globalization has brought about something that is awful close to Kautsky's notion of "ultra-imperialism". Between the super-national political and economic institutions (UN, WTO, World Bank, etc.) and the transnational corporations all countries must be considered parts of a single world imperialist system, with no separate "national imperialisms".

Baseless. The UN is dominated by the Western security council votes, with a pittance for the other victories WW2 Allies. The World Bank and IMF are almost entirely controlled and financed by the Western bourgeoisie, US as leadership figure. WTO is highly preferential to OECD states: US still maintains technological sanctions on China.

The Leninist theory of imperialism is just pretty shitty and provides little-to-no actual revelations of how the bourgeois national balance-of-power and world economy actually operates and empty but MLs cling to it as a kind of street-cred credo.

[Zulu]

Baseless. The UN is dominated by the Western security council votes, with a pittance for the other victories WW2 Allies. The World Bank and IMF are almost entirely controlled and financed by the Western bourgeoisie, US as leadership figure. WTO is highly preferential to OECD states: US still maintains technological sanctions on China.
That's kind of logical, as the British and American "national" empires practically merged as per Churchill's Fulton speech, and economically subjugated the all the rest.




The Leninist theory of imperialism is just pretty shitty and provides little-to-no actual revelations of how the bourgeois national balance-of-power and world economy actually operates and empty but MLs cling to it as a kind of street-cred credo.

Today there is no "national balance-of-power", so indeed many aspects of that book are quite outdated 100 years after it was written. A new iteration of the theory of imperialism needs to be done, but it's no use to try to figure it out from the "national interests" PoV. It needs to be done from Kautsky's "world trust" PoV, which, contrary to a wide-spread notion, Lenin did not deny per se, as opposed to pointing out that it would not prevent disbalanced development, exploitation and wars as Kautsky suggested. And indeed we see just that. But wars today are not like "Roman legions marching to conquer another tribe", they are like "Roman legions quelling a restive province within the empire" ("civil" wars between several rival "emperors" are also quite possible but they would be wars of succession, not conquest, too).

[Zealot]

I'm pretty sure Lenin said something about imperialism trending in the direction that Kautsky suggested but that "ultra-imperialism" could never be maintained in the long run since they would inevitably break out into hostilities.

[Lowtech]

Although it is true to say there are nolonger any nations except large corporations. The noticable, traditional imperialism anymore is any time a richer group uses military or economic clout to pressure smaller groups into complying with thier economic agenda.

Examples would be the US invasion of Iraq, opium used to force China into trade with Europe, ancient Rome assimilating other cultures etc.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Although it is true to say there are nolonger any nations except large corporations.I don't think so - these aren't oppsosing things, they are connected. The nation-state is the way that big capital organizes itself. Each regional ruling class have political and economic control over a region and can "rationalize" trade and governance for the interests of that regional capital in general. But the capitalist economy is also "international" and so the large companies can use influence in nation-states in order to then exhert their interests in other regions.

If there were no capitalist nations and only corporate power, then corporations would ultimately need some kind of privite military force, the capitalist economy would kind of tear itself appart and it would be harder for companies to make contracts and enforce the contracts etc.


So you don't want to conclude imperialism existed before capitalism because you want to consider imperialism unique to capitalism? I don't consider that valid in and of itself and using the analogy of Marx mocking historians over claims about Rome isn't useful as Marx no doubt based that on atleast a basic analysis of Rome while you've offered no such analysis of ancient states. I don't necessarily disagree with you, i hold no strong opinions either way, but i would prefer an actual reason.

Why is it important for imperialism to be considered unique to capitalism?I don't think it's about if we consider it to be unique or not, IMO, it already is distinguished from similar actions by conquorers in other periods and other societies.

Just as there was anacient slavery and modern slavery which may appear similar on the surface, but filled different kinds of roles in different kinds of societies, I think the imperialism of Rome or conquest was different than modern imperialism which is an outgrowth of the realtions of world capitalism. It is important to make the distinction in order to understand the causes and dynamics of modern imperialism - and liberal or some other interpretations of modern imperialist phenomena often fall into problems seeing imperialism as a sort of policy or tendency of all states under any conditions, or ignoring imperial dynamics that don't involve direct military intervention and territorial conquest.

[Paul Cockshott]

On the other hand the USA was initially a slave economy and deliberately modelled its political structure on Rome. Until the civil war its expansion had much in common with Roman imperialism being based on the conquest of pre-existing tribal societies around its metropolitan heartland, and the expansion of the slave mode of production to the conquered territory.
The Leninist theory of imperialism understates the importance of colonial settlement in the establishment of even the empires that existed in his day. I find it implausible to say that 1914 was an imperialist war but the Anglo French wars or the Anglo Dutch wars were not imperialist.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

I can not recommend highly enough Butch Lee's Nightvision: Illuminating War and Class on The Neo-Colonial Terrain. It examines, in a way I find interesting, the seemingly contradictory simultaneous existence of both new neo-colonial relationships (with big Chinese companies buying up the Canadian oil sands, with Barrack Obamas, and so on), and reconfigured old colonial relationships (the continued annihilation policies of the Canadian state against indigenous peoples, wars in the middle-east, etc.).