nancy brumback wrote: < Re: the imperialism discussion of a few days ago, i was wondering if the list had any comments about my question about the lenin-luxemburg disagreement about the nature of imperialism. I recently studied up on this disagreement. as far as i could make out, while lenin believes that imperialism is the "highest stage" of capitalism," luxemburg believes that imperialism is innate in capitalism because accumulation of capital is impossible without inputs from non-capitalist sources.
She did point out that Marx considered his political economy to be taking place in a "closed system," and i looked up her reference which i can't put my fingers on just this instant but will look it up if anyone wants it. i thought it made a lot of sense from just considering the definition of capitalist exploitation -- being paid less than your labor is worth. She did point out that Marx considered his political economy to be taking place in a "closed system," and i looked up her reference which i can't put my fingers on just this instant but will look it up if anyone wants it. > - Of course, Nancy, endogenous or exogenous accumulation is the crucial point of Marxism. I tried to point it out on this list, and refering to a recent dispute on it about market's supposed virtues, I apologize to be forced to repeat myself, but nobody pertinently answered my arguments. For Lenin, imperialism is motivated by the race to a "superprofit". For Rosa Luxemburg, it is motivated by the accumulation process which needs relentless expansion. For the former, imperialism is the product of the behaviour of capitalists looking for ever more profit. For the latter, it is the product of an organic necessity. This contradiction has its origin in the problem of realizing the surplus-value. Trying to explain the "extended reproduction" of capital by the addition of an endogenous profit, Marx did not succeed. Rosa Luxemburg discovered this failure and resolved the problem by the exogenous surplus-value realization, that is by an expansion into geographical and sociological spaces. There is no doubt that current Globalization's events agree with Rosa Luxemburg's theory. Lenin's theory is reducible to the human-nature metaphysics, while Rosa Luxemburg's continues the scientific Marxism that have been ignored, even censored by both reformists and Leninists for almost ninety years. It is besides noticeable that the belief in an endogenous realizing surplus value gathers, on the same side, the persisting social-democracts and the Marxist-Leninists (including Trotskysts). If surplus value realization is endogenous, capitalism does not need any expansion and it has no limit in accumulating within a closed area. So that two solutions are possible: either to build socialism within capitalism, or to subvert this latter. Such is the difference, but basically these two streams continue the same theoretical deadlock. On the other hand, the exogenous realizing surplus value allows a theoretical approach of both imperialism history and today's "Globalization", by taking together Luxemburg's and Wallerstein's works. < In a closed system, the same people who work for the capitalists also buy the wares of the capitalists in order to live. If the workers are consistently paid less than their labor is worth, doesn't it follow that over time, their buying power will consistently decrease? Until the capitalists must break out of the closed system to keep from being killed by the shrinkage of their markets? > I wish that your objection help some Marxists still steeped in piety begining to think by themselves. What I can add, refering to my own works, is that the problem is solved by separating the profit of capital from the profit of capitalists. The former is exogenous, as Rosa Luxemburg discovered it, and the latter is a simple tribute to support capitalists' lives, not at all a "surplus value". Besides, when He was evolving in the falling profit rate theory, Marx treated his "surplus-value rate" as an external given, not at all as an explanatory variable. What Leninists never recognized. Regards, Romain Kroês
