Severian
3rd August 2006, 14:49
Text of Chapter 5: DIVISION OF THE WORLD AMONG CAPITALIST ASSOCIATIONS (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/ch05.htm#v22zz99h-246-GUESS)
This is a transition chapter, seems to me. Earlier, Lenin points out how a few giant companies and banks divide the domestic market between them. In this chapter, he's pointing out how cartels and trusts divide up the world market. Which is the economic basis for the political division of the world between a few Great Powers.
The example of the oil industry seems especially appropriate today.
A struggle began for the “division of the world”, as, in fact, it is called in economic literature. On the one hand, the Rockefeller “oil trust” wanted to lay its hands on everything; it formed a “daughter company” right in Holland, and bought up oilfields in the Dutch Indies, in order to strike at its principal enemy, the Anglo-Dutch Shell trust.
Despite the government break-up of Rockefeller's Standard Oil, here remain only a few major oil companies in the world today. At one time, they were called the "Seven Sisters" - Shell, British Petroleum, and various pieces of Standard Oil. Today, thanks to mergers, it would be fewer. Today, according to Wikipedia, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BP) there are "four vertically integrated private sector oil, natural gas, and petrol (gasoline) "supermajors" in the world," - BP, Royal Dutch Shell, ExxonMobil and Total. ChevronTexaco is about as large as Total, but I don't know if it's vertically integrated, etc.
Many people suspect that the oil majors are engaged in price-fixing - and certainly they profit, even more than the oil-producing countries, when prices are high. In the United States, gasoline prices are driven even more by a bottleneck in refining capacity - owned by the oil companies - as by supply of crude oil.
And of course control of oil is a major geopolitical issue and source of conflict. Including rivalry - often indirect - between major world powers over control of oil resources, with all the strategic leverage that brings.
This reality doesn't stop some people from advocating an updated version of Kautsky's theory of ultra-imperialism, which Lenin takes up in this chapter:
Certain bourgeois writers (now joined by Karl Kautsky, who has completely abandoned the Marxist position he had held, for example, in 1909) have expressed the opinion that international cartels, being one of the most striking expressions of the internationalisation of capital, give the hope of peace among nations under capitalism.
......
The capitalists divide the world, not out of any particular malice, but because the degree of concentration which has been reached forces them to adopt this method in order to obtain profits. And they divide it “in proportion to capital”, “in proportion to strength”, because there cannot be any other method of division under commodity production and capitalism.
.....
To substitute the question of the form of the struggle and agreements (today peaceful, tomorrow warlike, the next day warlike again) for the question of the substance of the struggle and agreements between capitalist associations is to sink to the role of a sophist.
In other words, the capitalists cannot behave politely and altruistically in dividing the world; and if today they use non-military means of struggle against each other...that's not a guarantee for tomorrow. They can only divide it according to strength.
The only way they can definitely measure the relationship of forces is in the course of conflict. The willingness to engage in armed conflict, to suffer its risks and suffer through its consequences - is part of the strength which has to be measured.
This is a transition chapter, seems to me. Earlier, Lenin points out how a few giant companies and banks divide the domestic market between them. In this chapter, he's pointing out how cartels and trusts divide up the world market. Which is the economic basis for the political division of the world between a few Great Powers.
The example of the oil industry seems especially appropriate today.
A struggle began for the “division of the world”, as, in fact, it is called in economic literature. On the one hand, the Rockefeller “oil trust” wanted to lay its hands on everything; it formed a “daughter company” right in Holland, and bought up oilfields in the Dutch Indies, in order to strike at its principal enemy, the Anglo-Dutch Shell trust.
Despite the government break-up of Rockefeller's Standard Oil, here remain only a few major oil companies in the world today. At one time, they were called the "Seven Sisters" - Shell, British Petroleum, and various pieces of Standard Oil. Today, thanks to mergers, it would be fewer. Today, according to Wikipedia, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BP) there are "four vertically integrated private sector oil, natural gas, and petrol (gasoline) "supermajors" in the world," - BP, Royal Dutch Shell, ExxonMobil and Total. ChevronTexaco is about as large as Total, but I don't know if it's vertically integrated, etc.
Many people suspect that the oil majors are engaged in price-fixing - and certainly they profit, even more than the oil-producing countries, when prices are high. In the United States, gasoline prices are driven even more by a bottleneck in refining capacity - owned by the oil companies - as by supply of crude oil.
And of course control of oil is a major geopolitical issue and source of conflict. Including rivalry - often indirect - between major world powers over control of oil resources, with all the strategic leverage that brings.
This reality doesn't stop some people from advocating an updated version of Kautsky's theory of ultra-imperialism, which Lenin takes up in this chapter:
Certain bourgeois writers (now joined by Karl Kautsky, who has completely abandoned the Marxist position he had held, for example, in 1909) have expressed the opinion that international cartels, being one of the most striking expressions of the internationalisation of capital, give the hope of peace among nations under capitalism.
......
The capitalists divide the world, not out of any particular malice, but because the degree of concentration which has been reached forces them to adopt this method in order to obtain profits. And they divide it “in proportion to capital”, “in proportion to strength”, because there cannot be any other method of division under commodity production and capitalism.
.....
To substitute the question of the form of the struggle and agreements (today peaceful, tomorrow warlike, the next day warlike again) for the question of the substance of the struggle and agreements between capitalist associations is to sink to the role of a sophist.
In other words, the capitalists cannot behave politely and altruistically in dividing the world; and if today they use non-military means of struggle against each other...that's not a guarantee for tomorrow. They can only divide it according to strength.
The only way they can definitely measure the relationship of forces is in the course of conflict. The willingness to engage in armed conflict, to suffer its risks and suffer through its consequences - is part of the strength which has to be measured.