[Marxism-Thaxis] Superimperialism , Empire, Americofourthreich Charles Brown CharlesB at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Tue Dec 11 09:11:20 MST 2001
Previous message: [Marxism-Thaxis] An old chestnut Next message: [Marxism-Thaxis] Taliban screwed it up Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hugh- I think it's time Charles dipped into Trotsky's work on the Permanent Revolution. The essential book is the work of that name written in Trotsky's first place of foreign exile, the island of Prinkipo near Istanbul, but it should be read together with Results and Prospects, an amazing work written in 1904-06 before and after Trotsky led the first Russian Revolution of 1905. Both books are available at the Marx/Engels Internet Archive at http://www.marx.org/Trotsky/Archive/1931-TPV/ Chas.- Yes. I will look at this. By the way, on "figures" you claim I owe when I said "go to the books" on the working class as the major fraction of consumers of means of consumption, the "books" I was talking about going to were Capital and Marx and Engels' writings, the same one you introduced in support of what you said. If you produce some figures maybe I will. But I think there are some clear logical arguments within Marx's system. A big one I already gave you: means of production, by definition, are not an "end product" commodity; AND all of the value added to the means of production when they were worked on by labor is paid for in full down the exchange chain until the purchaser of the means of consumption commodity pays for all of the values back up the line. So, the consumer of the car (mostly workers) pays for all of the steel , wages of steelworkers and profit of steel capitalist. Generalize this and your means of production argument falls. But I will look at the exact wording of Marx on these issues. Chas.- > Also, what do you think of the idea that the >metropolitan imperialist nation structure from >the Leninist imperialism model has evolved to >superimperialism, meaning that rather than >several national centers , there is more of one >transnatioanl center ? So, that in fighting strikes >like that in Australia now, and in overall >strategy, we must think of the >enemy as having that structure. Hugh- Never confuse the world market, which was one and undivided already in Marx's day, with the national states that act as guard-dogs for multinational capital. Chas.- The stage of imperialism impacted the configuration of the world market of Marx's day. Monopolization and the shift to finance capital as the topdogs meant greater centralization of the capitalist dictatorships within the imperialist national centers, WITH FIERCE INTERIMPERIALIST RIVALRY BETWEEN THE CENTERS, including of course "world" war. The paleo-colonial system reached it's highest level of development and crisis.. There was a shift from exporting goods to exporting capital. Hugh- There are still several national centres, but the strains arising from the contradictions are becoming very noticeable. The subordination of formerly relatively autonomous nations (like Sweden) is becoming clearer now. But the utopianism of thinking that having the imperialist nations England, France and Germany all in the same sack will make them act as one is ridiculous. As long as it suits their purposes they'll gang up together against the US or Japan, but as soon as it doesn't, they shoot off on their own again. Chas.- There are more national centers now, but there is a center or maybe centers above the level of nation. The TRANSNATIONAL corporation is a qualitatively new phenomenon from Lenin's day and two levels from Marx's day. "Transnational " is a better term than "multinational", because the latter implies having a foot in several national centers. The former gives the sense of flying over the top of several and less controlled. The state-monopolization process Lenin tagged in Imperialism is further along than then. Thus, the direct use of the nation states by the biggest bourgeoisie is greater. But more a U.S. transnational uses the Korean state and really the Japanese state (e.g. Chrysler/Mitsubisi and Ford/?); and these states are not as hostile. Or Honda uses the U.S. state. The interimperialist rivalries are not especially along national lines as in the era of imperialism. A new contradiction in capital is between national and transnationals. This was reflected in Perot (national) screwing up the Presidential election by running against Clinton and Bush (both transnational). Hugh- As for fighting strikes, the economic tentacles of the enemy reach everywhere, so we can bang 'em hard in a lot of different places. The political set up is much less unified. In the current docks dispute in Oz, it seems no foreign capital is involved directly, and it's a home-grown operation, both economically and politically (although obviously there's been a lot of consulting and advice from professional British union-busters), and this means that a very strong united front on the part of the bosses probably won't materialize, which will make our struggle easier. Chas.- Yes, I started to realize this from the posts. The transnationals are waiting around like vultures to feast off of the general effect if the busting succeeds. Plus, I wouldn't bet that transnationals aren't doing something or won't unknown to us. >Chas. - I like an honest arguer, Hugh. > I agree "exchange-value" should be reserved >as you describe. I am still mulling over in my mind >whether there is some logical relation between >exchange-value and a dimension of >the product and surplus-labour (this is Marx's >term too, if you recall another quote posted) >of earlier modes. In other words, does it make >sense in a historical and dialectical approach, >as your discussion of the larva-butterfly analogy, >to see some form of abstract labor (proto- >to exchange value) in the earlier , non- >commodity use-values ? Maybe not. But >I am not closing my mind to it. Hugh- If we accept Marx's use of use-value for all products useful to human beings, then it follows that some products will have use-value but no exchange-value. Only commodities will have exchange-value, but commodities do appear in pre-capitalist economic formations, such as slave-holding (eg Ancient Greece) and feudal modes of production. But in these conditions they don't develop into capital. Marx deals with this in Grundrisse (Notebook II, 14-15, Coll Works 28, pp 183-85), for instance. My butterfly analogy only involves the development of forms of abstract labour where commodities are concerned, otherwise it's a question of surplus labour embodied in surplus product. Chas. -Yes. I know about the commodities as subordinate modes in precapitalism. However, that is not what I am talking about. I mean some concept of feudal-value to describe the surplus-labour products ripped off as tribute by the ruling class, as part of some economic analysis of the feudal system. However, doing an economic analysis of feudalism is not high on my list of projects. Anyway didn't somebody named Bloch do one ? Your butterfly analogy is dialectical and that method applies to everything,including the development of concrete labour . Marx says the discovery of use-values is the work of history. That implies a development of concrete labour which would have a butterfly analogy analysis. Chas. > This might be pertinent to conceiving of use-values >in communism or something , when the commodity is abolished. I am just >thinking out loud. Hugh- Again, if use-value is used to refer to any product meeting a want, then there will be more than plenty under communism, just no exchange-value. Mind you, there'll be excellent and simple forms of bookkeeping to keep tabs on the use of social labour. Chas. Yes. Labor from each according to ability, use-value for each according to need and lots of fancy. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
