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Shane Mage:
> In asserting that the "relationships" are between *countries*, rather
> than among divergent and competing capitalist interests, aren't you
> begging the question, by asserting of the validity of the term
> "imperialism" as descriptive of geopolitical relations without reference > to
> the categories of political economy defined and determined in Das
> Kapital?
I think the problem is that Louis, like many Marxists, mixes up two different
notions of 'imperialism', and thinks he is using the word in a coherent sense.
The one sense is that used by Lenin, Bukharin, et al, which is a testable state
of statements concerning actual developments in the world and the theory
allegedly explaining these developments, with a claim to fealty to Marx's
critique of political economy.
The second sense is just a fancy way of expressing the fact that large and
powerful nation states are in a position to exercise force and influence over
smaller ones. Which is of course true, but also completely banal, and
certainly does not constitute a 'theory of imperialism'.
So it is often the case when someone is asked to justify and test their use of
'imperialism' in the first sense, they will simply point out some world even or
development that conforms to the usage of imperialism in the second sense, as
if it is entirely self-evident and that they are the same thing.
I am convinced that Ellen Meiksins Wood's account of the 'empire of capital' is
both a more coherent theory of global dynamics compatible with the critique of
political economy, as well as a fairly accurate portrait of empirical reality.
And as a bonus, moralists who derive a frisson of righteousness by deploying
the term 'empire' can continue to do so.
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