Matthijs Krul writes:
I don't necessarily disagree that the classical age of imperialism might be drawing to a close, though I think it is too early to draw conclusions from it. In any case it would imply that the age of _western_ imperialism is coming to a close, as I do not think capitalism can exist without some form of imperialism. But as long as this hasn't happened yet, I think it is legitimate to refer to the social-democratic inclined (skilled and/or white) worker in the First World as a labor aristocracy, and all the more so for the Western union bureaucracies.
============================================= It may be too early to draw definitive conclusions about whether the classical age of Western imperialism is drawing to a close, But it's pretty clear there's only one imperialist power deserving of that designation today, and I don't see a revival of inter-imperialist conflict of the kind which precipitated the two world wars.
The global bourgeoisie has progressively become more integrated and less tethered to nation-states, and it manages its internal affairs in a more orderly way. The revolutions in military and economic affairs wrought by weapons of mass destruction and by technological advances in communications and transportation have contributed to stability and integration. But these developments also correspond more generally to capitalism's progress at each stage from anarchic conflict to uneasy cooperation in the struggle for local, regional, and national markets. This process now seems to unfolding at the international level. Of course, it's a matter of some debate from left to right today whether the US and China are on a collision course or whether they will manage their relationship in the same way a declining Britain and a rising US managed their own a century ago, when there was similar talk of an inevitable clash as the two countries crossed paths. So far, the evidence points to the accomodation. I don't know that "capitalism can't exist without some form of imperialism", as you say, following Lenin's understanding of imperialism as capitalism's highest stage. Why does China, which has been restoring capitalism, necessarily have to become an imperialist state? What markers would indicate that it had? One thing we already know. The rise of China, India, Brazil, and other newly emergent economies - especially during the past decade since the Asian crisis - has profoundly altered the relationship between the old capitalist powers and the super-exploited colonial world upon which the classical theories of imperialism were built. Portugal is no longer "imperialist" and Brazil no longer a colony, and while this may be a particularly exaggerated illustration, the same holds true of the other European states and Japan and their relationship to their old colonial possessions and spheres of influence. The power of the lone remaining imperialist state bent on world domination also seems to be on the wane - Iraq and the debtor status of the US being the most recent examples of America's increased vulnerability to the military and economic challenges being presented to it from what we used to call the third world. Perhaps it will make the necessary adjustments to cope with "asymmetric" warfare and to correct its current account deficit, but it's unlikely it will ever attain it's former preeminence in world affairs. The present divisions within the US ruling class are between that faction which recognizes this and wants to adapt to the new global reality, and the reactionary wing represented by the Bush administration which refuses to do so and is making the adjustment so wrenching. The relationship between the working class in the OECD countries and the workers in the newly emergent economies mirrors this larger picture. If the Western working class once constituted an aristocracy, it is now a decaying aristocracy. Economic growth and labour markets are expanding more rapidly in the developing capitalist countries than in the developed ones, and the gap in living standards is narrowing. It seems to me that leftists who continue to see the central contradiction of our time as the exploitation of the "periphery" by the "core", together with it's corrolary - ever greater privileges for workers in the West and intensified pauperization of the masses in the rest of the world - are, to an ever increasing degree, living off old theory. I also think that while conflicts will continue to be perceived as national ones and led by nationalists as excluded nations struggle to assume their rightful place in the global economy by recovering their sovereignty from imperialism, the trend towards greater international interdependence and mobility could well see longer term lines drawn more on class than national ones. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
