>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 07/19/01 11:59AM >>>
I wrote:
>(On net these days, the US is _importing_ tremendous amounts of capital.)
Charles writes:
>CB: What is the comparison between US export of capital and export of goods ?
US net exports of goods and services + net US income earned on foreign
operations = a negative number these days (so the US is spending more than
it's selling and paying income to the rest of the world for their
investments and workers in the US). The magnitude of this negative number
is approximately equal to the amount of capital inflow into the US: the US
is borrowing from the rest of the world and selling US assets in order to
raise the dough that allows the US to over-spend and pay income.
(((((
CB: Thanks for this.
-clip
I don't think the current day fits Lenin's sketch very well at all. Lenin
himself once wrote that Bukharin's book on imperialism was superior.
((((((((
CB: Are you saying 1) that Bukharin's analysis of imperialism of that period
contradicted Lenin's main points , or elaborated them,making it better ; 2) that
Bukharin's analysis of imperialism then fits today better ?
((((((
If
anything, the current day approaches fitting Kautsky's story of
"ultra-imperialism" (the rich capitalist powers unified against the world),
but without the positive connotations that Kautsky saw (the ending of the
anarchy of production).
(((((((
CB: Yes, I agree. I often say way have a sort of Kautskyian superimperialism today.
Because the Soviet Union came about after Lenin's analysis of imperialism ( and
because in large part because of the Leninists political work) , to make a long story
short, the imperialist nations of the 1914 period, have had to unite against the SU
and socialist countries, ending the interimperialist rivalry dimension of Lenin's
definition of imperialism in the 1914 period. There has also been a world wide
revolution against the colonial system of the 1914 period. With the fall of the SU,
this interimperialist _unity_ has not dissolved ( yet), so we have , dialectically,
especially through the mechanism of the Soviet Union and imperialist reaction to it,
Kautskyian ultraimperialism or superimperialism.
But the other dimensions of the imperialism of the 1914 period have not gone away. In
other words, it is still appropriate to refer to capitalism today as imperialism. Or
are you saying that the G-7 countries ( today's "imperialist powers" ) don't export
capital as a main process ? In the above, are you saying that export of capital does
not accurately characterize the U.S. big corporations today ? How can that be ? What's
globalization if not export of capital all over the world by the U.S. and other G-7
countries' corporations ?
Are you saying that today's big capitalist countries are not characterized by the
dominance of finance capital and financial oligarchy? Isn't the export of capital
especially in the form of finance capital, financial investments, loans from banks ?
Are you really saying that monopoly is not an accurate description of the U.S. economy
2001 ? If so, that would seem to defy their surface appearance. Microsoft is in court
right now , accused of being a monopoly even by the bourgeois legal system. Are you
saying GM, Ford, Daimler, Toyota etc. are not monopolies ? The oil companies, seven
sisters. The vast majority of the Fortune 500 ? I don't get it. ( But you say more
below on monopoly )
The US/NATO against the world is quite different
from the Lenin/Bukharin story of big capitalist powers fighting each other,
encouraging war (of either the military or trade sort). However, the L/B
story applied pretty well until 1945 or so.
((((((((
CB: Again, I agree that the interimperialist rivalry dimension of the L/B definition (
as well as the direct colonialism aspect) have been transformed ( especially due to
the struggle of the imperialist powers with the SU and socialist countries).
But the L/B definition of imperialism included much more than intermimperialist
rivalry, no ? It included monopoly, state-monopoly, export of capital predominating
over export of goods, finance capital and financial oligarchy. These aspects of the
L/B definition of imperialism seem to have good use in understanding today's world.
Even these have to be modified, but much of the modification is to say there is more
of it rather than less. The _World_ Bank or International Monetary Fund seems to be a
super finance capital mechanism rather than a negation of the L/B concept. The role
of Third World debt is a finance capital mechanism on its face. That would make the
L/B concept of finance capital fresh for 2001. It is difficult for me to understand
how hedge funds are not finance capital institutions. That's like the latest model .
The role of the Federal Reserve Bank ( controlled by Wall Stree bankers ) in leading
and controlling so much as talked about by economists all t!
he time seems clearly a development of L/B's logic on finance capital, only much more
of the same. L/B seem completely confirmed by today's everyday economist discussion.
The notion of "finance capital" seems a sterling prediction by L/B or Hilferding.
Credit card debt is a finance capital mechanism, isn't it. Everytime I turn around
some economist is talking about the trillions of dollars of financial transactions
going on everyday worldwide made possible by computers. How could L and B have been
more prescient than to make finance capital the heart of their definiton of
imperialism ?
As far as state-monopoly, the state(s) ( in classical sense of state) are totally
involved in aiding the monopolies to increase profits. That is , state-monopoly has
not been negated but augmented.
In sum, from the L/B concept of imperialism, interimperialist rivalry is down, but
finance capital is way, way up.
>CB: The fact that there is net import of capital doesn't mean that there
>isn't enormous absolute ( though not relative) export of capital , does it
>? Isn't there still enormous amount of export of U.S. based capital
>today, even if Japanese and European export of capital to the U.S. is more
>than U.S. export ?
you're right that the US _is_ exporting capital, but most people who read
Lenin, etc. interpret it in terms of _net_ exports of capital.
(((((((((
CB: But most wouldn't read Lenin to mean that England was exporting capital to France,
net. Rather that England was , e.g., exporting capital to India , net, no ? Lenin was
talking about the shift from England exporting goods to its colonies ( in exchange for
raw materials) as in the era of Marx, to exporting capital to its colonies. In other
words, the imperialist countries were starting to establish capitalist relations of
production in their colonies, proletarianizing their colonial populations.
To me , the whole current globalization, or runaway shops , setting up plants in
Mexico, Brazil, Korea, etc. , etc, investing in establishing capitalist relations of
production all over the world, seems an updated version of the export of capital that
Lenin was characterizing. Aren't sweatshops around the world very much Lenin's export
of capital ?
Transnational capital is exactly export of capital increased exponentially and in
many new qualitative ways than from the 1914 era. But it is more export of capital,
not its negation.
Today, aren't the G-7 or present day imperialist countries exporting capital to their
neo-colonies, net ? The U.S. exports more capital to Mexico, Brazil, Korea, etc. than
those countries export to the U.S.
>Not a period of monopoly ? How so ?
Monopoly, like competition, is a normal part of capitalist markets.
However, during the period since 1975 or so, the US has seen an increase in
the degree of competition.
((((((((
CB: Ok, but what do you make of the fact that one of Lenin's main points in
_Imperialism_ was precisely that monopoly does not mean the end of competition but a
fiercer form of competition - monopoly competition ? In other words, that the US has
had increased competition since 1975 would comport with rather than conflict with
Lenin's thesis.
((((((((
The "old system" that had prevailed in the US,
where stable oligopolies (shared monopolies) dominated a world that
couldn't compete very well with US industry, started disappearing in the
late 1950s and especially the 1970s. The rise of competition from Japan and
Germany (and later South Korea, etc.) undermined the privileged situation
of companies like GM and US Steel (now called USX). Technological change
undermined monopolies like Western Union (which went from having a _total_
monopoly in the telegraph services to being one company of several allowing
the "wiring" of money out of town). Deregulation undermined monopoly power
in trucking and airlines, etc. Anti-trust broke up AT&T. The neoliberal
movement aimed at not only promoting "globalization" but also domestic
competition (often in order to undermine labor's power which, if restricted
to narrow trade union, is dependent on the employer's ability to pass wage
increases onto consumers in the form of price increases). Part of the
problem was that the "old system" was thrown into crisis during the 1970s
and policy-makers were looking for a way to restore the system. A serious
series of shocks to the system (such as the 1980-83 recessions) shook up
the _status quo_ again. So by the 1990s, most US businesses lacked the
ability to raise prices significantly.
(((((((((
CB: Surely, I accept your brief factual sketch, and find many other sources confirming
it. However, I would beg to differ that the above does not describe a struggle among
monopolies (oligopoly). The challenges to GM etc. were from monopolies from other
countries.
For Lenin ( as you quote Marx below) , monopoly is in unity and conflict with
competition. Lenin construes "monopoly" dialectically and as a Marxist.
Can we agree that Lenin's idea was to contrast monopoly with the socalled "free
competition" of old capitalism from Marx's era and before ? The above post 1975
situation is not a return to the 1800's. The pertinent point here can only be made by
constrasting the titanic struggles you describe with the millions of small business
and their plights in this context. "Monopoly capitalism" is meant to get at this
contrast between the Fortune 500's , who may fight each other some, but still rule
the economy relative to the small businesses. Also, it is difficult for me to believe
that the auto companies, for example, do not collude on prices. When is the last time
the price of cars went down ?
I don't think the concept of monopoly capital is meant to imply a fixed system of
giant companies with no change or flux whatsoever. But the Seven Sisters remain
roughly that same number , etc. There is some fluxuation in the exact level of
monopoly, but the notion of a "Fortune 500 " or some such persists as a valid
characterization. There is a hierachy of companies.
One test of whether a company is a monopoly is whether it is "too big to allow to
fail" as with Chrysler or that hedge fund recently.
(((((((
As Marx wrote in the POVERTY OF PHILOSOPHY, monopoly generates competition
(as described above) -- and competition generates monopoly. Now we're in a
new era in which the concentration and centralization of capital is
occurring on a world scale, tending toward the creation of world-wide
oligopolies. We also see a shift toward using intellectual property rights
as the basis for monopoly.
(((((((((
CB: Yes, this concept is included in Lenin's concept of monopoly and monopoly
competition ( see above). I agree wholeheartedly with your comment that we are moving
toward or in world-wide oligopolies ( I think that Marx and Lenin's "monopoly" was
always "oligopoly" ; they didn't mean just one company, but a few ).
However, I think that Lenin's development of Marx's concept to address the world
historical period between Marx's era and today is very useful , critical even, for
demonstrating the continuing and non-dogmatic validity of Marx's concepts in 2001 and
the era of globalized capital. In other words, the use of Lenin's concepts in
_Imperialism_ functions as the exact opposite of dogamtism ( as is usually accused) .
Lenin modified Marx's concepts to apply to the changed circumstances of Lenin's
historical period. That act in itself is a non-dogmatic approach to Marxism; and
anyone following Lenin's example would modify Lenin's concepts as Lenin modified
Marx's to apply to the changed concrete situation. But furthermore, the facts of the
shape of the world economy today can be most easily seen to be simlar but different
from the facts of Marx's day through the intervening link of the facts of the period
of Lenin/Bukharin's analysis. In other words, today's globalization makes mos!
t sense as Marx's capitalism, transformed through old imperialism transformed
(sublated ) into new imperialism or whatever we call it.
<ellipsis>
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
