Greg Schofield wrote:
>
>
> Ian, I would put to you that given the concept of Imperialism developed by Lenin
>(which I believe lies at the core of our collective understanding) - the evidence is
>in a sense just in such an exhaustion of the means of Imperialist competition.
>
> Bear with me a little. Lenin's Imperialism was conceived as a transitional stage,
>part of the process of further socialisation of the means of production and property
>as such. In this it was defined by the conjunction of national finance capital with
>existing states, which established the basis for imperial competition (and the nature
>of Imperialism as such).
A common way of abusing Lenin (practiced by both friends and enemies) is
to misjudge the level of abstraction at which, in any given case, he was
operating. I think Greg does that here. _Imperialism_, I think, is of
immense theoretical use only if it is not seen as general theory: as
often noted, Lenin's fundamental purpose was to explain 1914. Hence he
was not really all that concerned with whether imperialism was
"transitional" but of the fact that imperialism led to inter-imperialist
war.
So the claim that "things have changed" can take one of three forms:
1. Imperialism is evolving into "super-imperialism" (i.e., either
dystopia, as in Orwell, or utopia as in Chris Burford)
2. Inter-imperialist rivalry continues, but now takes peaceful form,
with the U.S. gracefully handing over empire to the EU or Japan or both
(Dennis Redmond)
3. I guess Hardt and Negri would be some third version, but after
repeated rereadings and after extensive debate on one list or another, I
can't really take them seriously enough to bother even to argue against
them. And apparently none of their admirers takes them seriously either,
since references to them are never grounds for concrete strategic
proposals but serve only a vaguely negative purpose of dismissing
someone else's concrete proposals.
Any of these moves "beyond Lenin" imply that there will never again be
war between "advanced nations."
Carrol
