Imperialism

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Imperialism
Marxism Day School August 13, 2006

• Sartaj Khan

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The dominant issue

• Demonstration against imperialism everywhere
• Trend increased since 2001
• Against American invasion of Iraq
• Feb.2003 35 million demo
• 350 cities

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Resistancebut confusion

• Imperialism in 21 century?
• Development of capitalism 250 yrs
• Tool to grab raw material, investment -- increase
  profit?
• War against a religion/culture?
• Imperialism -- corporate/financial inst/
  globalization?

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Imperialism. Sensebroad and narrow

• Broad sense refers to the political, military
  and/or economic domination of small countries
  and/or weak countries by the powerful
  states/advance countries

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Characteristics of the conception

• Imperialism -- transhistorical
• Applicable to ancient/modern
• Roman empire,
• American imperialism
• Reformist view of imperialism
• Kautsky and Hobson

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Imperialism - Marxian View

• Relates imperialism with development of
  capitalism
• Historical/associated with development of
  capitalism/
• monopoly stage of capitalism
• 19th century
• Early 20th century theory
• Russian Revolutionaries
• V I Lenin and Nakoli Bukharin

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Marxist theory of Imperialism

• Links imperialism to capitalism. Lenin
• capitalism has grown into a world system of
  colonial oppression and financial strangulation
  of the overwhelming majority of the people of the
  world by a handful advanced countries. And this
  booty is shared by two or three
  world-dominating pirates( America, England,
  Japan), armed to the teeth who embroil the whole
  world in their war over the division of their
  booty

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Three main propositions

• Capitalism
• Created a world market
• Drive accumulation
• Highly unequal basis
• uneven combined development
• first third world...north vs south
• domination of weak by strong

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Imperialism

• the economic and military domination of globe by
  a handful western powers

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Imperialism

• Development of industrial capitalism in western
  world
• tendency of money and productive capital to
  fuse into capital... finance capital make it
  economically powerful

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Combination

• Large multinational corporations combine with
  their nation states
• Russian revolutionary Nokali Bukharin called it
• state capitalist trust

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Capitalism Competition

• Competition core of system
• Economic rivalries inseparable from
  military/territorial conflicts
• Dams, Bridges, Highways, Ports, Pipelines
• Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine,
  Balochistan, Iran
• Capitalist Competition to Capitalist Monopoly

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Competition to Monopoly

• Large Scale Industry replaced Small Scale
  Industry
• Concentration of production capital ---
  monopoly, cartels, syndicates, trusts
• Arif Habib, Jehangir Siddiqui, Aqeel Karim Dedhi,
  KASB
• Capital of dozen banks manipulates millions

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Competition to Monopoly

• Monopoly grows out of free competition
• But not eliminate competition
• Monopoly/Competition live together
• generate friction, conflicts -- Wars

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Imperialism 5 basic features

• Concentration of production/capital to create
  monopolies with decisive economic role
• Merging of bank capital with industrial capital,
  creating finance capital, financial oligarchy
• Export of capital (over commodities) acquires
  exceptional importance
• Formation of intl monopolist capitalist
  associations sharing world
• Territorial division of world among the biggest
  capitalist powers

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Imperialism -- Bourgeois Idea

• bourgeois economists
• admit the particularly incontrovertible facts
  concerning the latest stage of capitalist economy
• Globalist economists-- Imperialism
• must not be regarded as a phase or stage of
  economy, but as a policy preferred by finance
  capital
• must not be identified with present-day
  capitalism
• is all the phenomena of present-day
  capitalismcartels, protection, the domination
  of the financiers, and colonial policyflattest
  tautology imperialism is naturally a vital
  necessity for capitalism, and so on.

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Imperialism -- Globalist Idea

• Kautskys definition
• Imperialism is a product of highly developed
  industrial capitalism. It consists in the
  striving of every industrial capitalist nation to
  bring under its control or to annex all large
  areas of agrarian Kautskys italics territory,
  irrespective of what nations inhabit it.1
• No use arbitrarily, singles out only the
  national question (extremely important)
• arbitrarily/inaccurately connects this question
  only with industrial capital in the countries
  which annex other nations
• pushes into the forefront the annexation of
  agrarian regions.

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Imperialism -- Marxian Idea

• Imperialism is a striving for annexations but
  politically, imperialism is... a striving towards
  violence and reaction.

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Imperialism -- Economic Part

• Feature of imperialism is not industrial but
  finance capital.
• France extraordinarily rapid development of
  finance capital, weakening of industrial capital,
  1880s onwards gave rise to the extreme
  intensification of annexationist (colonial)
  policy -- not an accident
• Today US economically weak, militarily stronger
  than Europeweakens hegemony of rival Europe

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Imperialism -- Economic Part

• Imperialism strives to annex not only agrarian
  territories, but even most highly industrialised
  regions
• German appetite for Belgium French appetite for
  Lorraine
• World already partitioned
• -- redivisionists reach out for every kind of
  territory
• Rivalry b/w powers striving for hegemony, To
  weaken the adversary
• and undermine his hegemony.
• Belgium is particularly important for Germany as
  a base for operations against Britain Britain
  needs Baghdad as a base for operations against
  Germany, etc.

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Imperialism -- Progressive!?

• Cunow argues that
• imperialism is present-day capitalism
• development of capitalism is inevitable and
  progressive
• therefore imperialism is progressive
• therefore we should grovel before it and glorify
  it!
• Development in Balochistan is Progressive!

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Imperialism -- Progressive!?

• Kautsky
• reply to Cunow
• imperialism is not present-day capitalism
• it is only one of the forms of the policy of
  present-day capitalism.
• This policy we can and should fight, fight
  imperialism, annexations, etc.

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Fight Against a policy of Imperialism!?

• Quite plausible?
• Effect
• more subtle, more disguised, more dangerous
• advocacy of conciliation with imperialism
• a fight against the policy of the trusts and
  banks that does not affect the economic basis of
  the trusts and banks
• Mere bourgeois reformism and pacifism
• the benevolent and innocent expression of pious
  wishes.
• Evasion of existing contradictions

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Imperialism and Wars

• The question is what means other than war could
  there be under capitalism to overcome the
  disparity between the development of productive
  forces and the accumulation of capital on the one
  side, and the division of colonies and spheres of
  influence for finance capital on the other?
• Redivision of World Not Possible Peacefully

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Things to Read
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MIA Archive Kautsky Karl Kautsky Ultra-imperia
lism V. I. Lenin Imperialism, the Highest
Stage of Capitalism A POPULAR OUTLINE
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Things to Read

• Analysing Imperialism by Chris Harman in
  International Socialism Journal 99, 2003
• New Mandrains of American Power by Alex
  Callinicos, 2004.
• Ultra Imperialism (Kautsky) and Imperialism the
  Highest Stage of Capitalist Development (Lenin)
• All available with Intl Socialists Pakistan
• www.geocities.com/internationalsocialistpakistan

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Common Sense View of Class

• Status
• Social position
• Perception Own/Others
• Life Style
• Consumption Patron
• Occupation
• Kind of work one does
• Manual Worker/White Collar
• Income

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Marxist Conception

• Class as a relationship
• Relationship of an individual in a group with
  other social groups
• Antagonistic relationship
• Forms in Process of Production
• Exploiter/expolited
• Exploiter owns means of production
• Exploited sells labour power
• ClassStruggle-Class inseparable
• Class Struggle Owners Security Control of
  Labour

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Layers in Class

• Two Main Classes
• Capitalist
• Workers
• Layers
• White Collar
• Middle Class
• Who are Capitalists?
• Owners of means of production/distribution
  (machinery, land, tools)
• Have effective control of MoP
• Who are Workers
• Productive Labour
• Produces surplus value (profit)
• Non-Productive

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Effective Control?

• MoP Not a problem of Legal Definition
• Bosses Seth, Director
• Bosses
• Multinational Executive IBM, Boeing
• State Bureaucrats
• Administrators
• State Owners
• China, Pakistan Railway, PIA
• Effective Control matters rather than the type of
  ownership

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Layers in Class

• Middle Class?
• White Collar?
• Independent Classes?
• Statistics
• Working Class Disappering
• Working ClassManual
• Service WorkersNon-Manual
• Less Working Class
• More White Collar

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Nature of New Middle Class

• Read Alex ad Chriss
• The Changing Working Class
• Changing Working Class
• Capitalism A Process
• Changing Capitalism Changes Shape of Working
  Class
• All White Collar/Middle Class
• Wage Labour
• All are not Working Class

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New Middle Class

• Three Divisions
• Managers/Supervisors
• Varying degrees of control over
  investment/resource-allocation, labour power
• Clearly part of capitalist class
• Minority among new middle-class

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New Middle Class

• Semi-Autonomous
• Employees
• No longer Self-Employed
• Designers, Media Producers
• No or little control..
• The New Middle Class have a measure of
  operational control delegated to them from above,
  thanks to their success as individuals in
  climbing up a bureaucratic career-structure.

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The Rest of the New Middle Class

• Managerial, Professional, Administrative,
  Clerical
• Lower-Professionals School Teachers, Nurses,
  Draughtsmen, Lab Technicialns, Social Welfare
  Workers, Call Centre Workers, Sales Promoters,
  Computer Operators, Computer Programmers,
  Copy-Writers, Sub-Editors, Reporters, Medical
  Reps
• Purely wage labour
• Have no control at all over investment, decision
  making, resource allocation
• Treated on the same or even weaker grounds than
  manual workers

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Therefore

• Capitalists Class
• Working Class

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Conclusion

• All those who sell their hours for a salary or
  wage are working class
• They have no role in decision making or over the
  means of production
• They are exploited by one or the other type of
  exploitation
• Their only way out is the abolition of
  class-based system

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Books to Read

• Changing Working Class
• Alex Callinicos Chris Harman
• Revolutionary Ideas of Karl Marx (Chapter 8 Marx
  Today)
• Alex Callinicos
• International Socialism Journal
• Socialist English/Urdu