I wrote:
>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.
Charles writes:
>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 ?
neither. It says that Lenin felt and said that Bukharin's book was more
complete and accurate than his own little pamphlet on the subject.
Bukharin's analysis doesn't fit today's imperialism very well at all, since
his emphasis was on the aggressive competition amongst the rich capitalist
nation-states (national capitals). These days, it's more a matter of the
center vs. the periphery (e.g., NATO vs. Serbia).
>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.
I'm not sure that there's much basis at this point for the revival of the
kind of inter-state rivalry within the capitalist center that Bukharin saw.
Maybe if we see a severe depression or if the kind of social collapse that
Tom Walkers says might happen...
>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.
this is a big argument, but I agree in the end that what we see nowadays is
a kind of imperialism.
>Or are you saying that the G-7 countries ( today's "imperialist powers" )
>don't export capital as a main process ?
instead of "export of capital," I see imperialism as involving the
generalization of commodity production (and what Braverman called the
"Universal Market") and of the proletarianization of labor, i.e., an export
of capitalism. Because of the dominance of the center (over the periphery)
in this process, there has also been a redistribution of surplus-value
toward the center.
>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 ?
these days, the US mostly imports capital, as I said before.
>Are you saying that today's big capitalist countries are not characterized
>by the dominance of finance capital and financial oligarchy?
The industrial capitalists are important too. There's a shifting coalition
of financial and industrial capitalists in power.
>...Are you really saying that monopoly is not an accurate description of
>the U.S. economy 2001 ?
yes.
>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.
Microsoft is more of an exception than the rule. BTW, I'd also point to the
drug companies as monopolies.
>Are you saying GM, Ford, Daimler, Toyota etc. are not monopolies ?
No they aren't, since they compete with each other.
>The oil companies, seven sisters. The vast majority of the Fortune 500 ? I
>don't get it. ( But you say more below on monopoly )
I use the economic definition of monopoly.
I have to go now...
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
