Tom wrote-
<Wouldn't it be reasonable to consider the USSR's "client states" to be
part of a Soviet empire? What was the debacle in Afghanistan if not an
attempt by the Soviets to maintain their crumbling empire? Wouldn't it
be reasonable to consider the Sino-Soviet alliance not very much
different from the Austro-Hungarian Alliance?>
No, it's not unreasonable at all. The Bolshevics gained power in a
defeated, demoralized Russian Empire. They subsequently fought a
civil war where their pro-capitalist and monarchist opposition was aided
and joined by foreign imperialisms. The strategy was to hang on to
the territory of the Russian Empire (as much as possible), and to extend
the national revolution into being a world revolution.
The Empire that the Bolshevics had inherited in the defeat of the Czar,
did resemble in many ways, the Austro- Hungarian Empire and The Turkish.
That was how world imperialism arranged itself in that particular
political epoch. But much has changed since then.
The financial aspect of imperialism is much more dominant in the
concentrated neo- imperialism that rules the world today. This neo-
imperialism usually is acting as a bloc, rather than confronting each
other in a canabalistic struggle over military control over colonial
terrain.
<Tony, is it necessary to accept a Marxist definition to engange in the
discussion? Cannot imperialism have Military, Economic, Social,
Geographical,and Political factors combined? I also fail to understand
the subtle difference in terminoloy between "FINANCIAL" and "ECONOMIC".>
Well, as mentioned before, imperialisms of the beginning of the 20th
Century did have military, economic, social, geopraphical, and political
factors ALL combined in the oppression of other groups by the core
oppressing group.
But once again, what has changed with neo-imperialism, is the rise of
financial dominance as being supreme.
Marxists often talk of financial capital being the 'highest form' of
capital. What that means, is that it is determinant over industrial
and agricultural capital (assets). Farmers don't run the world
today, nor even industrialists. It is the financial sector that
does. It is the financial sector that dominates.
Recently, I wrote that a triumvirate runs Mexico today (Zedillo, Fox,
and Gurria). If Bush wins the election in November, one might even
mention a US triumvirate of (Clinton, Bush, and Greenspan). The
answer to defining imperialism might be best approached, by asking just
who are these unelected people, like Gurria and Greenspan? We know
Tony Blair, but who is his Alan Greenspan counterpart?
What do these neo- imperialist governors (Greenspan) and lieutenants
(Gurria) do, that diffenrentiates them from economic planners in the fSU
or China? They preside over a world store of capital, that
functions in the Third Wold, very much like the old company store in
isolated mining areas used to function with the dependent and
impoverished workers in the mines.
Capital is food. Need capital for your family? then here is a loan
and the interest requirements. Third World Countries are in hock,
very much as miner families were in the olden, golden days of less
concentrated imperialist extracture. Everything is on loan to the
company store.
Notice how the definition has strayed from the definition of imperialism
being 'a bully that beats on the small guy' version? Now, we have
more the real situation and definition of neo- imperialism as 'a banker
that robs food from children'. Think Ebenezer Scrooge, not Milosevic
or Putin, Suharto or Saddam.
But Scrooge has associates that or not bankers, too. The Blairs,
Clintons, and Schroeders of the world.
<I realize I am temporarily omitting the idea that if it's Marxist it
can't be imperialism. >
Tom, communist countries have taken this financial sector out of private
hands of ownership. The argument is made by some marxists, that the
state is just turned into a capitalist of sorts, when this is done.
This is a whole other, long and convoluted, historical dispute in the
communist movement.
I would briefly mention at this time, only that capital flows in the
communist bloc countries often (though not always) were in reverse to
capital flows between the First and Third World countries. The core
nationality often was not as well off as some of the peripheral sectors
of these multi-national planned economies.
I'll stop here, because the subject is gigantic, and there are many
angles and elements beyond those I briefly mentioned.
No, nobody has to agree with marxism, or be a marxist, to engage in this
discussion on CrashList over what constitutes imperialism. However,
this is a pretty key point on why we are haeding for a crash
ecologically.
The militarism that is promoted throughout the world by First World
neo-imperialism, has led to the military being the most destructive
force ecologically on the planet.
Tony
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