Carrol how good to hear from you and I would like to start off by agreeing with you - that, vis a vis Lenin's Imperialism, the level of abstraction is a determining point.
Whether or not we are "beyond Lenin" is a loaded phrase, I would say we are certainly beyond Lenin's Imperialism but within his overall conception of it (that is not only Imperialism as such but its historical context). To take you last points first. The implication is surely there, in the position I take, that war between "advanced nations" will never occur again - that is as an implication it is true that such wars may well happen but the overarching logic that they must occur is no longer with us. That wars, and bloody ones at that, do happen and will continue to happen is taken as a matter of course - however, there is a caveat in this. Territorial wars will more and more be confined to the least developed regions and the most neglected (that is wars between contending states) other forms of war will become more common, wars that take on the appearance of police actions, wars against abstract enemies which slaughter the innocent as a military objective (abstract enemies not being easily distinguished from surrounding populations). In an odd way, what I think we can expect are wars which increasingly look like civil wars. If as I would contend that the force of capital has become internationalisied two aspects of this support the idea that wars such as the one in Afghanistan are not just the result of knee- jerk reactions but are a precursor of our new context. From capital's perspective the state, particularly the leading states, are an instrument rather than a board of directors. The first aspect is that the state increasingly is reduced just to becoming a force to be used - internationally this in its initial stages will look just like a single world Empire using forceful measures to administer its dominions but there are contradictions in this because in the end it rests on a council of states. Hence it is no accident that actual use of force looks more and more like civil war with all the international force (like a police action) being on one side - this should be expected from what is, defacto, a superstate. Capital can no longer identify itself so thoroughly with the geo- politics of any state, the "enemy" has to become reified if only to gain substantial agreement amongst the bourgeoisie and, of course, they will be looking at how such conflicts can be turned to their advantage (I no longer believe the anti-islamic rhetoric is a mistake, rather there are plans afoot to revamp the "East" especially in how oil is controlled - this of course is mere speculation). The second aspect is that the hegemony within states is very much weakened, which is a statement which appears to fly in the face of reactions to the events of September 11 but something I would uphold is apparent in the widespread alienation of social life as a whole, which in the past, in leading economies, was not the case at all. Abstract enemies such as "terrorism" and "drugs" are a shallow basis for gaining wide social support, shallow because the commitment to such reified campaigns cannot support the sort of jingoist popularity of past imperial wars - they are sufficient to turn loose the professional army but not I think sufficient to support conscription (though this has already been touted in Australia). Carrol, I do not expect you to accept the above, but rather than avoid the issues you have raised I thought it was better to demonstrate how far I think we have proceeded down the path of Super-imperialism (though for other reasons I do not believe this to be an adequate label - nor Empire for that matter). To return quickly to your other points. (Referring to point 3) Hardt and Negri are useful only insofar as they have re-introduced the concept of Super-Imperialism into debate. To be more precise they are useful because they have attempted to dispose of Imperialism as an adequate periodization. Politically I have a lot of reservations over the way they have conceptualised their work but I place this at a very secondary level in the light of what I see as their main point. (Referring to point 2), the idea of peaceful anything in this world, is obscene. There may be some argument about the attenuation of old imperial rivalries but where it might exist it has been completely overshot by developments elsewhere. I would place the concept of peaceful inter-imperialist rivalries as nothing but a side expression of a Kautskian-like evaporation of class from the equation and a dwelling on an unimportant historical detail. (Referring to point 1) well I am in agreement with this, Imperialism has evolved into Super-Imperialism. While this may be useful for analyzing inter-state relations (which has some real political importance), it is not in-itself an adequate concept. Imperialism was dominant because of a conjuncture between state interests and national finance capital. The nexus between the state and leading capital has since been broken which would tend to relegate state interests to a lower level and leave open the question of what is the dominant form of capital in our period (though I think Lenin answers this himself - ie that it is a form of Socialism). All of which brings us back to Lenin. First you are absolutely right that Lenin's concern was immediate political issues and not the exposition of abstract historical concepts. Lenin wrote for 1914 (well for the then immediate period) and this is, for me, the source of most of the erroneous reading of him and why it has been the most passing aspect of his work (the immediate political) which has been preserved while the underlying abstract concepts have been so neglected. I would turn your observation around and address it in a backwards fashion. Given the immediate political impact of Lenin's work on Imperialism (that is in shaping the political foundations of what would become the Third International - that is the promise of that International not all the less than savoury aspects that did emerge), could this have been done without an adequate abstract historical concept of the period? Obviously I am arguing that buried within Lenin's Imperialism is much more than a political platform (which can only be an expression of a particular level of development), is a full historical concept and not just some journalistic observation. So long as we lived in times when the major contradictions were compatible with Lenin's political conceptions, the more abstract levels need not overly concern us because in a sense we could take them at face value. However, once things change, once the dominant contradiction moves, then the need to find the correct level of abstraction becomes vitally important. At such a point in time, we can denounce Lenin as merely a political figure whose day is over (this is entirely legitimate argument though I would strongly disagree with it), or we are forced to find within his political pronouncements the abstract concepts which gave them shape and historical force. What we cannot do is maintain Lenin in the style of his corpse. I therefore cannot dismiss your reading of Lenin, but the conclusion of such a view can only be that Lenin like Mao is of passing historical impact (I would support that Mao was and remains a substantial military theorist but find little Historical Materialism in his works - I do not apply this limitation to post- 1914 Lenin). If Lenin's Imperialism is more than a passing political tract then what is it? For me it is one of the milestones in the development of Historical Materialism and act of praxis (political and theoretical insight together), the political impact has naturally faded, but not I think the theory has in the least, but I grant that it is no easy matter to extract it in its entirety. Carrol, no doubt by this response I have simply dug my grave deeper in your eyes, however, I cannot do otherwise as many stray pieces which I have been wrestling with for a time have begun to find their place and something of a comprehensible picture is emerging - not a static one where all forms are clothed in familiar colours, but a moving one where each colour exposes some unexpected feature. Politically, there are concrete suggestions which emerge from this, suggestions of struggling for direct popular control of the state, using the state to direct economy and using this democratic socialist struggle as a mainspring for international solidarity which maifests in actual changes of inter-state relations. Greg Schofield Perth Australia --- Message Received --- From: Carrol Cox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Sun, 21 Oct 2001 12:50:12 -0500 Subject: [PEN-L:18931] Re: Re: Re: Re: Discussion of Empire 26.10.01 Greg Schofield wrote: > > > Ian, I would put to you that given the concept of Imperialism developed by Lenin >(which I believe lies at the core of our collective understanding) - the evidence is >in a sense just in such an exhaustion of the means of Imperialist competition. > > Bear with me a little. Lenin's Imperialism was conceived as a transitional stage, >part of the process of further socialisation of the means of production and property >as such. In this it was defined by the conjunction of national finance capital with >existing states, which established the basis for imperial competition (and the nature >of Imperialism as such). A common way of abusing Lenin (practiced by both friends and enemies) is to misjudge the level of abstraction at which, in any given case, he was operating. I think Greg does that here. _Imperialism_, I think, is of immense theoretical use only if it is not seen as general theory: as often noted, Lenin's fundamental purpose was to explain 1914. Hence he was not really all that concerned with whether imperialism was "transitional" but of the fact that imperialism led to inter-imperialist war. So the claim that "things have changed" can take one of three forms: 1. Imperialism is evolving into "super-imperialism" (i.e., either dystopia, as in Orwell, or utopia as in Chris Burford) 2. Inter-imperialist rivalry continues, but now takes peaceful form, with the U.S. gracefully handing over empire to the EU or Japan or both (Dennis Redmond) 3. I guess Hardt and Negri would be some third version, but after repeated rereadings and after extensive debate on one list or another, I can't really take them seriously enough to bother even to argue against them. And apparently none of their admirers takes them seriously either, since references to them are never grounds for concrete strategic proposals but serve only a vaguely negative purpose of dismissing someone else's concrete proposals. Any of these moves "beyond Lenin" imply that there will never again be war between "advanced nations." Carrol
