Discussion of Empire/ Imperial Cannibalism by Carrol Cox 21 October 2001 17:52 UTC
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." ((((((( CB: I think the widespread holding of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction puts a qualitative limit on wars between "advanced" nations that was not there in 1914 when Lenin analyzed the stage of capitalism in his day. Also . the rise and fall of the Soviet Union contributed to a qualitative change in interimperialist rivalry as all the imperialist, great power nations united in anti-Sovietism. That unity is not broken in the short period since the fall of the Soviet Union, and the warmaking tendency of capitalism has found sufficient outlet in the neo-colonial world, including especially recently in U.S.betrayal of its former comprador client regimes as in The Phillipines, Panama, Iraq , and now Afghanistan. Sort of military cannibalism: Empire eats its own babies. At any rate, for 55 years there has not been significant warfare on the territory of the imperialist great power nations that Lenin discussed in interimperialist rivalry ( rivalry resulting in wars on t! he territories of the imperislist nations). The recent military attack on U.S. soil introduces a new (relatively slim ) possibility of war on the territory of an imperialist power not seen since WWII, although, this is not so clearly interimperialist rivalry and war. It is a stretch to see the attacks on the U.S. as coming from an imperialist state, despite the great riches and economic power in Saudi Arabia, et al. due to the criticality of oil in the imperialist economies. Saudi Arabia's relationship to the Taliban government is contradictory. It would take a new theory of the form of the imperialist state rivaling the U.S. imperialist state to see this as interimperialist rivalry and war. Of course, apparently Saudi Arabia or other oil rich nations in the region are allies of the U.S..So, the theory of this as an interimperialist war would be complicated indeed. But stranger things have been true. At any rate, for a Leninist, Lenin's theory must be supplemented and developed as concrete analysis of the new concrete situation, ( including several intervening historical phases since 1914) though some of his most general observations persist in relevance.
