Type of bind: Paperback
EAN num: 9780318364377
ISBN number: 0318364379
Label: China Books & Periodicals
Manufacturer: China Books & Periodicals
Printing Date: 1989-06
Publishing house: China Books & Periodicals
Sale Popularity Level: 5941751
Studio: China Books & Periodicals
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In Lenin's now classic work Imperialism, he accounts for the increasing importance of the world market in the twentieth century. The concept of imperialism lies at the very heart of Marxist analysis and debate and Lenin offers a prescient scenario of a world shaken by competitive instability, war and crisis, dominated by monopolies, the merging of finance and industrial capital, and fierce territorial competition. Itâ€(tm)s relevance is now greater than ever.
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The durability of Lenin's Imperialism no doubt owes as much to the stature of the man as to the accomplishment of the work itself. Lenin drew a distinction between the contemporary (late 18th, early 19th century) imperialism of the European great powers and pre-Capitalist imperialism. "Thus, the beginning of the twentieth century marks the turning point at which the old capitalism gave way to the new, at which the domination of capital in general made way for the domination of finance capital." He argued that monopoly had become the inexorable result of the capitalist system, with the concentration of production into vertically integrated enterprises. Moreover, he argued that the banks had come to play a central role in this new system, "instead of being modest intermediaries they become powerful monopolies having at their command almost the whole of the money capital of all the capitalists...". The financiers and the industrialists had now fused into a complex in which the means of production were socialized but the profits remained private.
This pattern of capitalist development within the state, Lenin argued, was also repeated at the international level. "The supremacy of finance capital over all other forms of capital means the rule of the rentier and of the financial oligarchy; it means the crystallization of a small number of financially "powerful" states from among all the rest." This system was predicated on the export of capital by the great imperialist nations, especially Britain. As financiers in the metropolis sought ever-higher returns, they exported capital across the empire, maintaining peripheral states in subjugation via a system of debenture. Moreover, as the imperialist nations of Western Europe had finally carved up the known world into their respective spheres of interest, the only means by which an imperial power could expand its domain was at the expense of another. Indeed, this is one of the frequently cited explanations for the outbreak of WWI.
What insight does Lenin's work provide for us in the contemporary world? While contemporary Marxists remain enthusiastic about the notion of a periphery of nations held in subjugation by a neo-imperialist center (e.g. Noam Chomsky, (2003), Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance, Metropolitan Books), America's categorical shift from creditor to debtor nation represents an awkward empirical anomaly for this theory. However, one does not have to adopt a socialist perspective to be critical of empire; the liberal critique is well presented in the work of Jennifer Pitts (2005) A Turn to Empire: The Rise of Imperial Liberalism in Britain and France, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
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Over the last generation much has been made of the positive effects of the later day `globalization' of the international capitalist markets. By this, I assume, commentators mean that kids in Kansas and kids in Katmandu have equal acess to those same pairs of Nike sneakers. Although the outlines of the development of globalization have been known for at least a century, called by less kindly souls like myself- imperialism- apparently the latest devotees of the trend just got the news. Russian revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin analyzed this tendency of international capitalism in 1916 in a little book called Imperialism-the Highest Stage of Capitalism reviewed here. While Lenin's analysis could benefit from a little updating, particularly on the effects of the shift of the industrial labor market away from the high cost metropolitan areas to the former colonial areas in the search for lower wage bills and higher profit margins and the increased role of state intervention in in regulating markets, the basis premises are still sound.
While much of that positive `globalization' rhetoric mentioned above has been overblown- especially concerning its effects on the demise of the nation-state and its replacement by multi-national corporations and a multicultural ethic- the chickens are now starting to come home to roost on the down side of the world political situation. Everyone and their brother and sister, multi-national corporation or local "mom and pop" shoestring operation, is scurrying back to the allegedly safe confines of the nation-state. With their guns drawn. What gives?
What gives is this. The international capitalist system which after the fall of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the early 1990's lived in a self-imposed fool's paradise that the contradictions of the system would flatten out on their own and that, in any case, we had reached the best of all possible worlds. There was even some sentiment for one-world government, from quarters not normally known for such flights of fancy. The events of the last several years have graphically disabused the more cutthroat capitalist elements of this notion.
This retrogression to the defenses of nation-states reminiscent of the so-called "Dark Ages" apparently is only the vanguard of what promises to be a much more restrictive world. The ruling classes, however, seem unable to put serious efforts in other types of endeavors. Which takes us back to Lenin. He not only wrote this little book on the tendencies of international capitalism as a piece of analysis but he did it for a reason. And that reason was to demonstrate to the militant leftists of his day that the hitherto for progressive nature of capitalist development had run out of steam and the socialist revolution was on the historic agenda. And he then proceeded to put theory into practice by leading the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917. Today, the critics of globalization are much stronger on the effects of the process but weak, very weak, on the way to organize out of the impasse. Lenin knew what to do. Do we?
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This pamphlet by Lenin was very first published 90 years ago in the midst of World War I and on the eve of the Russian revolution.
In this work Lenin sets out to achieve two things; first, to give a concise and scientific explanation of the nature of Imperialism and, secondly, to debate the ideas of influential and long time German Social Democratic Party leader Karl Kautsky who, under the pressure of war helped to lead the capitulation of the majority of his party to the side of the German ruling class.
Advocates for social change familiar with arguments on the "left" blaming the cause of the today's ills on various forms of globalisation, - which is meant to represent a more aggressive and rapacious form of imperialism - will find Lenin's polemic against Kautsky invaluable.
Lenin presents a more than convincing case that what we see yesterday is no more than the normal workings of imperialism and therein lays the source of the problem
Taking in Lenin's five principal features of imperialism starting from the very first chapters is essential to understanding his discusion with Kautsky near the end of pamphlet. In fact, it goes a long way to clarifying the world as it is today.
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This is one of Lenin's major works. He shows how the economical system of capitalism leads to large contradictions between states and war. A clasic still relevant in theese times of "globalisation" (imperialism).
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Although often too complex for most Canucks, it logically states yet another case against capitalism. Whether he was right or not, and whether his theories were applied is up to the reader.
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