Chris thanks for your reply. As I have to be away for a few days I thought to break it into two parts, first a simple response to the criticisms raised and later a second where I hope to elaborate a little on the theme.
At 00:37 4/10/01 +0100, you wrote: >At 27/09/01 17:29 +0800, Greg wrote: > >><snipp> > >This appears to be his core argument that relates to what you are saying > >"Thus, the principle stages in the history of monopolies are the >following: 1) 1860-70, the highest stage, the apex of development of free >competition; monopoly is in the barely discernible, embryonic stage. 2) >After the crisis of 1873, a wide zone of development of cartels; but they >are still the exception. They are not yet durable. They are still a >transitory phenomenon. 3) The boom at the end of the nineteenth century >and the crisis of 1900-03. Cartels become one of the foundations of the >whole of economic life. Capitalism has been transformed into imperialism." Yes this is the exact paragraph. My general concern is about historical transformation. I found this interesting only because it illustrates how Lenin saw historical self-transformation coming about as a process of pushing the envelope, suffering setbacks and most importantly prefiguring future developments. >><snip> >>It is the qualification of "towards" which I find harkens back to a >>similar approach when Lenin dealt with the rise of monopoly capital. >>Moreover, his special use of the term supermonopoly is only used in this >>context - the distinction between monopolies and supermonopolies seems >>strongly implied. > >I wonder what he could have meant if this really is a considered distinction. I cannot disguise the fact that my attempt to rework Lenin's Imperialism depends on trying to extract the entire concept from what is a very well written political tract. I doubt that Lenin wrote anything without political purpose being foremost on his mind and this raises certain problems so long after the original context has passed. I approach the text (in particular those texts written after his study of Hegel's Science of logic - 1914) on the assumption that Lenin has in his head the entire concept but in political exposition of his idea he carefully crafts it so that the political import is entirely unambiguous - for us the problem then is that the pure theoretical concept can become ambiguous. Is SuperMonopolies a clear distinction from ordinary monopolies in Lenin's concept? In the text Lenin is careful not to make the distinction except in his use of terms - the weight of evidence in the text points to no great distinction being made (it is mentioned and then passed over without further elaboration). Now my point would be whether such a distinction is logically required by the historical concept of Imperialism, which by my reading would be in the affirmative. However, this is a very weak argument by itself. Consider this, which sounds like a return to Kautsky - exclude class struggle and simply look at the logic of capital's self-development. Imperialism becomes sandwiched between classic capitalism and "Super-Imperialism" (I use quotes to indicate that this term may not be the best description but serves well within the context). Excluding class struggle is justified only in order to draw the concepts out, it is an artificial but necessary exercise in order to focus on the development of capital itself - Kautsky became locked into this hence his error was not so much the concepts themselves but their projection as universal human objectives abstracted from class struggle. The main features of Imperialism arising out of classic capitalism has two broad aspects. The first is that it is a result of competition (appropriators appropriating appropriators), a process which inevitable leads to greater socialisation of the productive process. The historical expression of this was the arising of both monopolies and finance capital which welded together with the state become the very definition of Imperialism. These tendencies from within capital are the very product of its being - towards greater socialisation parallels the growth of capital worldwide - in a sense it is the inescapable result of capital's historical existence. If capital has been locked into the transitional phase of Imperialism it would appear that this process of further socialisation must have been negated, and as the growth of capital is clearly not abated it suggests a rather drastic de-coupling of a main feature of capital's historical nature. I know of no argument that this has come to pass and hence am driven to the conclusion that the process of socialisation must have continued but we have avoided recognising it for what it is. Which brings me back to that distinction between monopolies and supermonopolies. It is easy enough to see why Lenin passed over the distinction (even went to some lengths to disguise it) as making such a distinction clear immediately runs into focussing on future development when Lenin wants the focus squarely on the world as it is the political struggle that is before him. On the other hand if it is suggested that we have moved on (and the passage of time and the further accumulation of capital is the a strong material fact suggesting that we have), then we must look for some distinction of further socialisalisation then those being brought into central focus. In this Supermonopoly stands out rather peculiarly in the text, just as the references to Kautsky who clearly sees such monopolies as precursors for his super-imperialism (and noting that Lenin actually does not raise any specific objections to Kautsky except those of the then current conditions of class struggle). <SNIP> >I do not want just to appear to quibble but I think competition and >politically rivalry between different imperialisms remain important, even >though it takes place in coded language. I do not know whether this is >important for your train of argument. This is not a quibble as I also concur they do remain important, the question is wether they are still decisive. Historical process hardly ever completely overturn old forms, but rather subjugate them to new dominant forms - in this they nearly always continue. In terms of various states, the central location of various parts of capital etc, the logic of Imperialism still shapes and will no doubt to continue to shape policy - in a sense in this limited way I would suggest that the idea of Super-Imperialism is best restricted to this area. That is, Super-imperialism seems the appropriate concept for understanding the relations between capital and the smaller fragments of capital (and some of the largest) as they have historically derived and currently confront us. I here use Super-imperialism as a concept which encompasses the transformed logic of relations which were once dominant in the period of Imperialism proper. Of course this suggests another concept is needed to encompass the character of the current period, despite Kautsky's attempt to elevate this notion to supremacy. Imperialism has become Super-imperialism but also this has dethroned itself from historical dominance. Imperialism became dominant because of a historical conjuncture between a particular development of capital (the development of monopolies and national finance capital with particular capitalist states), once things move past the confines, the state, state policies must be transformed, subjugated to capital but no longer THE necessary condition for its expression. This of course is my own elaboration, neither Lenin nor Kautsky speculate on any of this - however I believe the logic is pretty straightforward and inescapable once historical movement is restored to capital's development. ><SNIP> >I am not sure of your line of reasoning here, and of whether "logical >instaiblity" means more than the dialectical unity of contradictions. Nothing so very dialectical but rather a straightforward contradiction between capitalistic monopolies part defined and part nestles within the alliance and territories of a particular power, and the push towards extended past this confine and spread "Cartels" across and in spite of actual territories of particular powers. One reason for instability is simply the monopoly has holdings and interests which some national power needs to control in order to develop its own national production - especially if this is related, however indirectly, to gaining military power. Hence the state will be tempted and sometimes forced to destroy the cartel in order to have better control over this aspect of production. The other reasons are far simpler - the lack of a universal currency needed for the safe and reliable transfer of capital around the world. Added to this a means of secure communications to enable such super-cartels to operate more or less regardless and over the top of particular states. (I would argue the first occurred in 1944 while the latter developed in the 1970s to such a degree that it was no longer necessary to have a secure currency because the speed of transfer had so increased that movement was no longer fettered by transactions - rather transactions operated at such high speeds capital can flit past any specific prolems). >> My point would only be that the question of instability adds some >> dimensions to these examples, and provides a conceptual way of >> distinguishing the past forms from the present. Obviously I do not >> expect anyone to swallow my conclusion as I have put it forward, the >> question is not whether I have provided enough weight of evidence (on >> such a basis I fail rather miserably), but whether this conclusion >> actually grows out of and adds to the original conception (in this I >> believe it does, without for a second believing that this was on Lenin's >> mind at the time, rather it is a question that could only be posed long >> after him and in a very changed context). > > >But if you imply that the current situation should be characterised >differently, perhaps it would make these ideas clearer, if you did so. I may have to leave the bulk of this for a second email, but my present conclusion based on a number of other arguments is basically in this context: The further socialisation of capital is the key concept, the thread that gives expression to the variety of historical forms that capital adopts. Lenin remarks that production has been socialised to the extent that only the means of appropriation remain in private hands. I have read this to mean that the levers of national finance capital rested within private fortunes, and that likewise the monopolies dependant on this capital were still owned to some extent privately and through private shares (non-transferable). What I believe has happened is while the appropriation remains private (that is the actually rendered surplus) the means of appropriation has become socialisied through public shares. The trade in shares, which is no more than socialisied redistribution of the means of appropriation (meaningfully done between the big bourgeoisie with a residue of trash made available for the wider public) allows the bourgeoisie to plan on a world scale. In fact I would argue part facilitated by the trade in shares actual competition between big capital is blunted as the interconnections between world capital is so now enmeshed. What we take as the results of competition (that is the fall of one monopoly and the reassigning of markets to others) is more and more a result of evolving plans by the world bourgeoisie (I use the term plans loosely to encompass a tendency towards a logical super-exploitation of the world and the elimination of meaningful markets into regional price-fixed distribution and buying). I know having said this I can be shot down by any number of counter-examples, but I assume the persistence of many older forms of capital and am trying to identify a dominant and emerging character to our age - in short I believe we are in a period of Bourgeois Socialism, not that this promises any escape from class struggle or any better world, rather that capital in its developments has been forced to adopt the only logical means for its survival. Greg Schofield Perth Australia
