On 3/19/07, Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Since Yoshie works with MR, it seems that she's simply siding with one camp of the crisis theory/imperialism debates, i.e., the Magdoff/Baran/Sweezy/Bellamy view. In desperate brevity, that camp sees a chain of causation as follows: monopoly capitalism --> inherent stagnation tendencies --> counteracted by imperialism.
Perhaps it's because John is a sociologist, not an economist, but if you follow his articles about imperialism, signed or unsigned Notes from the Editors, I don't think you'll see that chaine of causation spelled out and elaborated often, though there sure are mentions of imperialism as one way to solve the problem of stagnation ( <http://www.monthlyreview.org/0305jbf.htm>). Also, some people who are close to MR and write for it often, like Samir Amin, think that it's truer to say that imperialism is just the constant political side of capitalism, contradicting both the Magdoff/Baran/Sweezy/Bellamy view and competing crisis theories: e.g., "Imperialism is not a stage, not even the highest stage, of capitalism: from the beginning, it is inherent in capitalism's expansion" ( <http://www.monthlyreview.org/0601amin.htm>). He doesn't elaborate much more than that. So, counting MR, too, don't you think both sides of the debate have become rather attenuated?
> Is > anyone still trying to explain today's imperialism from the laws of > motion of capitalism? I tried to do so once. Look at my dissertation or my big article on the origins of the Great Depression, for example. (The latter is available on my website.) There, the emphasis was that macro-political expansion (imperialistic aggression, etc.) was the result of the normal tension that is part and parcel with capitalist competition and class antagonisms (inherent in the structure of capitalism). Of course, the success of such expansion depends on the nature of the resistance encountered. Similarly, the competition amongst capitalists and class antagonism drives a capitalist economy ahead, into over-accumulation. The nature of the crisis that result (if one does, natch) depends on the nature of the barriers faced. I distinguish between "strong labor" and "weak labor" periods (e.g., the 1960s, the 1920s, respectively). The strong labor period resulted in over-accumulation relative to supply, while weak labor periods result in over-accumulation relative to demand (and the underconsumption trap). [This is quite abstract, while reality is concrete: government can change the specific way in which crisis tendencies are expressed.] In this view, imperialist expansion and crisis theory are joined at the hip. It's like what N. Bukharin wrote: he saw imperialism as leading to either war or depression. His "imperialism" is similar to the structure of capitalism that I posit (except that he rightly sees state-vs.-state competition as often a form of capitalist competition). "War" of course plays the role in his theory as imperialistic expansion does in the one I just sketched. "Depression" plays the role of crises.
Your theory is logical and coherent, but I think that most people, including many who self-identify as Marxist or Marxian, now tend to think of imperialism, especially the most militaristic aspects of it but also more generally, as a matter of policy, rather than as a necessary expression of any inherent crisis of overaccumulation or stagnation tendency of capitalism that cannot be overcome otherwise. I'm not saying it's right or wrong at this point -- I'm describing it as a general tendency in leftists' thinking. A lot of emphasis, instead, is put on ideology, political factions, resource competition (esp. oil), etc. -- Yoshie
