Lets read some theory: Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism

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Greg Legg: Oct 6, 2004

I'm good with a chapter a week for discussion. This is a good idea for a thread, thanks for starting it.

# ? Mar 11, 2022 01:09

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# ? May 6, 2024 19:12

Despera: Jun 6, 2011

I guess his failure trying imperialism in 1918-21 only strengthened Lenin's argument.

# ? Mar 12, 2022 02:44

F Stop Fitzgerald: Dec 12, 2010

Despera posted:

I guess his failure trying imperialism in 1918-21 only strengthened Lenin's argument.

# ? Mar 12, 2022 02:50

AnimeIsTrash: Jun 30, 2018

Despera posted:

I guess his failure trying imperialism in 1918-21 only strengthened Lenin's argument.

The Russian revolution was one of the greatest triumphs of the proletariat. No amount of your D&D smoothbrained pedantry will ever take away from it.

# ? Mar 12, 2022 03:02

AnimeIsTrash: Jun 30, 2018

You should be saddened by it's collapse, and ashamed and angered by the looting your country did in the period after the collapse.

# ? Mar 12, 2022 03:04

Gumball Gumption: Jan 7, 2012

Despera posted:

I guess his failure trying imperialism in 1918-21 only strengthened Lenin's argument.

You're not showing strong understanding of what an empire is.

# ? Mar 12, 2022 07:41

Greg Legg: Oct 6, 2004

Despera posted:

I guess his failure trying imperialism in 1918-21 only strengthened Lenin's argument.

What are you talking about?

# ? Mar 12, 2022 13:39

Cuttlefush: Jan 15, 2014; Gleichheit soll gedeihen

How do you communicate with people whose worldviews are immune to history.

# ? Mar 12, 2022 14:02

croup coughfield: Apr 8, 2020; Can't post for 92 days!

Cuttlefush posted:

How do you communicate with people whose worldviews are immune to history.

with a tire iron

# ? Mar 12, 2022 15:42

Cpt_Obvious: Jun 18, 2007

Gumball Gumption posted:

You're not showing strong understanding of what an empire is.

It's a tough topic. Maybe someone should write a book about it?

:magemage:

# ? Mar 12, 2022 17:32

emTme3: Nov 7, 2012; by Hand Knit

His definition of imperialism seems a bit reductionist and old in the context of 21c conditions, but it's an excellent read. He's a snarky puppy.

If we roll with Lenin, then neither Russia nor China are actually capable of doing imperialism, simply because they are not the monopoly finance cores at the top of the system. But like, there are all kinds of economic reasons for resource grabs, and all cores need peripheries - Russia is trying to become more of its own core right now, and China is the lynchpin of the world-system itself.

We live in conditions of scarcity that Lenin did not. We are way past the days of there being an infinite periphery to expand into. Resource wars are inevitable, and people die whether it is precisely imperialism generated by finance capital monopolies, or by other material imperatives.

# ? Mar 12, 2022 22:06

Crusader: Apr 11, 2002

Greg Legg posted:

I'm good with a chapter a week for discussion. This is a good idea for a thread, thanks for starting it.

# ? Mar 13, 2022 02:08

b mad at me: Jan 25, 2017

Why is China the lynchpin?

# ? Mar 13, 2022 06:58

Danann: Aug 4, 2013

made it past the prefaces this time around :shobon:

what are the modern equivalent to railroads that are a summation of basic capitalist industries these days? automobiles?

# ? Mar 13, 2022 07:19

e-dt: Sep 16, 2019

Lenin's analysis of the effects of imperialism remains trenchant. However, I find that his analysis of the methods of imperialism is a little bit off base and will lead you wrong: if you go by imperialism principally being the export of capital, as Lenin seems to, then Canada would be a third world nation! Emmanuel's conception of imperialism as principally mediated through unequal exchange, aka global "free trade", seems to me to be more useful. But I would appreciate corrections, I might be wrong.

# ? Mar 13, 2022 11:55

Mafic Rhyolite: Nov 7, 2020; by Hand Knit

Lenin's theories were pretty much correct at the time, but have since been modified over a hundred years of constant capitalist collapse and redefinition, especially after WW2. It's still good to get an education in the fundamentals of Marxism-Lennism but Lenin himself would have gladly reworked his theories in the post-war period if he was around to do so.

# ? Mar 13, 2022 15:24

Pentecoastal Elites: Feb 27, 2007; Can't post for 3 hours!

e-dt posted:

Lenin's analysis of the effects of imperialism remains trenchant. However, I find that his analysis of the methods of imperialism is a little bit off base and will lead you wrong: if you go by imperialism principally being the export of capital, as Lenin seems to, then Canada would be a third world nation! Emmanuel's conception of imperialism as principally mediated through unequal exchange, aka global "free trade", seems to me to be more useful. But I would appreciate corrections, I might be wrong.

I don't think you're wrong, I think neoliberalism, and specifically global markets backed by computing and logistics advances that Lenin couldn't have foreseen, are genuinely unlooked for innovations from capital. That said, I think it only throws Lenin off in the details, not in the big picture. Cartels and the drive towards monopoly are stronger than ever, finance capital still increasingly dominates, etc. etc. it's just that capital has now fully transcended the state. Instead of talking about eg. England's colonial/neocolonial holdings we talk about global capital's.
I think this will become more clear as the imperial frontier continues to dry up and capital is continued to be forced to turn inwards. We'll see the poor in the comfortable global north increasingly exploited in the same way the global south is now.

# ? Mar 13, 2022 20:13

huhwhat: Apr 22, 2010; by sebmojo

oh we talkin about empyres in here? lets talk

A History of Empire Without Empire by Jiang Shigong

Preface to the Chinese edition of After Tamerlane: The Global History of Empire Since 1405 by John Darwin (2008).

https://redsails.org/jiang-on-empire/ (edited, emphasis mine, full text @ link)

quote:

Darwin argues that the �Great Divergence� of the West over the East in the 18th century was the result of historical contingencies. In this view, the total expansion of European empire was made possible not only by the destruction of Eastern empires through the �industrial imperialism� emphasized by classical social theory, but also, and more importantly, by the development of a �civilized� �imperial liberalism.� This idea of �civilization� was so appreciated and supported by Eastern elites that European empires were able to expand not only through violent conquest, but also through the active collaboration of colonial subjects. It could be said that this �new imperial history� no longer places the onus of colonial expansion on the European powers, but instead on the various economic, social, and cultural interactions between Europe and the colonies. In this way, though �new imperial history� seems to deconstruct Western-centrism and the notion that Western imperial dominance was the product of rational planning, it also deconstructs political economy as the basis of imperial expansion, and in doing so undermines critiques of the Western order as distinctly �imperialist.�

To this end Darwin emphasizes the need to separate the concept of �empire� from the theoretical critique of �imperialism,� sees �empire� as �the default mode of political organization throughout most of history� (Ch. 1), and argues that �the history of the world, it is tempting to say, is an imperial history, a history of empires� (Ch. 9). Darwin balks at portrayals of the West�s rise and conquest of the East as �the brutal saga of predatory imperialism,� while also advising against glorifying it as �the long march to modernity, with the West as a guide, and using its template� (Ch. 9). He tries to provide nuance to the history of global empire with an objective and dispassionate view, unclouded by emotional judgment. Having turned �empire� into a neutral concept, �imperialism� becomes �the attempt to impose one state�s predominance over other societies by assimilating them to its political, cultural and economic system� so that �it was not just a European phenomenon, although Europeans had tended to carry it furthest� (Ch. 7). In his book, he not only sees the expansion of Tsarist Russia in Central Asia as �inland imperialism,� but even calls the expansion of Ottoman Turkey �imperialism.� �Imperialism� is no longer a historical phenomenon particular to �the highest stage of capitalism,� as Lenin theorized, but simply the expansive drive of empires throughout human history. This �new imperial history� effectively sterilizes left-wing critiques of �imperialism� from the 19th century onward, and allows Darwin to write a history of European imperial expansion unburdened by guilt.

This sanitization of �imperialism� also leads the concept of �empire� to lose its specific historical connotation, becoming very broad. Surprisingly � given the subject matter � Darwin does not theoretically define the concept of �empire,� and does not emphasize any differences between ancient and modern empires. He simply describes them as �the accumulation of power on an extensive scale� (Ch. 1) and �systems of influence or rule in which ethnic, cultural or ecological boundaries were overlapped or ignored� (Ch. 9). In his descriptions he limits himself to adding modifiers to account for external characteristics, and so we have �commercial empire,� �military empire,� �undeclared empire,� �unlimited empire,� and so on. Although in the last chapter he discusses three forms of empire � �classical,� �colonial,� and �informal� (Ch. 9) � he does not emphasize any distinctions between them, instead focusing on the commonality that all three faced challenges to their rule. They do not form part of his analysis of the �Eurasian Revolution.� To truly understand the causes and consequences of the �Eurasian Revolution� or the �Great Divergence,� however, we must account for different types of empires, and the ancient and modern worlds which contained them.

Adam Smith not only identified an economic basis for the �Great Divergence,� he also identified how �anti-natural,� commerce-driven development in Europe shaped the modern structure of the �military-financial state.� The profitability of commodity trade depended on sales markets, and in order to open up markets European countries were constantly waging wars. The wars contributed to the rise of finance, and the issuance of bonds allowed European states to significantly scale up their capacity to wage war. The vast markets opened up by the wars in turn stimulated the development of manufacturing industries to provide more cheap goods. Thus, the four factors of trade, war, finance, and industry � all mutually reinforcing in this �anti-natural� path of modernization � led to the formation of an unprecedented political organization: the �military-financial state.� The rise of Europe was not only the globalization and industrialization of commerce and trade, but also the globalization of finance and war machines. This new political organization of the �military-financial state� unleashed the most barbaric forces of human nature, fundamentally reverting many of the achievements of civilization. This is how Darwin understands �modernity�: the unified mobilization of �human� and �material� forces, the organization of economic, political, and cultural factors into a �magnetic force� (Ch. 9).

If �civilization� means the restraint of the savage animal nature of humanity, then �modernity� means its release, and what Darwin called the �cultural revolution� was a struggle to redefine �civilization� so as to make the savage power unleashed by desire and liberty its benchmark: science and technology, industrial and commercial capitalism, sovereign states based upon liberal democracy, and � in what was finally revealed to the highest principle of �modernity� � the violence of war. Thus, the fundamental driving force of the �Eurasian Revolution� and �Great Divergence� is that China�s �natural� path to modernization and Confucian ethics led it to insist on restraints on violence with appeals to morality, whereas Europe, in order to join the world system of the East, took an �anti-natural� path to modernization which involved a revolutionary turn from �tradition� to �modernity,� resulting in a new and unprecedented imperial form. Thus, the history of global empire is also the history of the rise of �civilized barbarians,� the history of the transformation of classical Eastern empires into modern European empires, the history of the rise of European sovereign states and colonization, the history of the slave trade and capitalist exploitation, and the history of never-ending imperialist wars. Darwin�s intentional or unintentional erasure of the differences between ancient and modern imperial forms has the precise effect of downplaying the extraordinary barbarism of the modern imperial form brought about by the rise of Europe. We still live in the barbaric world it created, and racist Social Darwinism is its underlying ideology. Globalization aggravates geopolitical inequality while trade wars, technology wars, financial wars, and cyber wars become the norm.

The rise of Europe also introduced a new imperial structure. The European empire has a modern sovereign state at its core; a small entity with internal cohesion and strong organizational mobilization that we usually call the �military-financial state,� �constitutional state,� or �nation-state.� This imperial core is the engine of a new kind of empire. It was by relying on the special capabilities of the imperial core that tiny sovereign states in Europe could conquer the vast empires of Asia and the New World, and thus build huge colonial empires. The categories of �colonial empire� and �colonialism� refer to the economic exploitation, violent domination, and military conquest of colonies by European sovereigns. However, in �new imperial history� narratives it is common to emphasize that European colonial empires were not planned nor purposefully built by governments, but rather the haphazard result of the advent of global commercial trade following the Great Voyages of Discovery. In particular, Dutch and British overseas colonies were established as private companies by merchants and adventurers who obtained charters from their governments. Thus, �new imperial history� places special emphasis on the fragmented and diverse modes of governance established by merchants, missionaries, adventurers, and settlers � all based on the interests of commercial trade, all nominally loyal to the British king but in fact operating as �highly autonomous� forms of government. These new empires, unlike classical empires built on territorial conquest, combined the method of violence with compromise and cooperation in the interest of commerce, resulting in what Darwin refers to as �empires of free trade� or �informal empires.� On this basis Darwin prefers to think of the British Empire as a �world-system.�

However, whereas Wallerstein used the concept of �world-system� to emphasize the economic exploitation of the periphery by the central regions of Europe, Darwin�s view of the British Empire as a �world-system� is instead a response to the critique of European �colonial empires� or �imperialism.� Although the two concepts are used interchangeably, the concept of �colonialism� is more politically and even militarily associated with imperial territorial appropriation and violent conquest. The development of capitalism allowed the extraction of economic resources through trade and investment. Thus, in contrast to the �colonial empire� of naked conquest and plunder, �imperialism� is actually an advanced form (the highest stage of capitalism, per Lenin), an unequal redistribution of economic wealth enabled by seemingly mutually-beneficial commercial transactions and investments, imperial domination by more covert and superficially civilized means. In this sense, we can say that the �formal empire� associated with colonialism retained some aspects of the traditional �tribute empire� (Samir Amin) of the ancient agrarian era and is an intermediate form between classical and modern empire, whereas the �informal empire� or �world-system� of �imperialism� is fully modern and the product of the capitalist mode of production, where economic power plays a decisive role and political power is subordinate.

If we place these two forms of empire in the context of Darwin�s �Eurasian Revolution,� Portugal and Spain�s early direct plunder exemplifies more the classical �colonialist� form, while the subsequent Dutch and British colonization of North America and the East Indies exemplifies the �imperialist� form, with gradual development based on trade and investment overshadowing the �colonialist� element. However, the formal empire of �colonialism� and the informal empire of �imperialism� must not be seen as two different stages of historical development, but rather as two different ways of constructing empires. In fact, the rise of European empires exhibited both �colonialist� and �imperialist� traits from the very beginning, as they have always been intertwined, taking different forms at different times and in different regions. In the case of the early Spanish and Portuguese empires, they engaged in �colonial� direct plunder in Africa and the Americas, but operated more on the basis of trade upon entering the Eastern world. Analogously, the British Empire, despite its Victorian-era promotion of �free trade,� resorted to gunboats in order to force open the doors of trade to China. In the history of European empires, maritime trade has always been closely linked to naval development, and free trade policies have always been linked to gunboat policies. While Britain was more �imperialist� in the period of global free trade, it intensified its �colonialist� policy in India, reverting from an �informal empire� into a �formal empire� with colonial rule.

As one can see, modern empire has a richer arsenal than the ancient agricultural �tribute empire.� Complex combinations of military, religious, commercial, financial, and cultural influence generate a varied and dynamic imperial landscape. Fierce competition among European empires in the 18th century led to a more colonialist monopoly of mercantilist strategies, but in the 19th century the dissolution of Napoleon�s empire meant that Britain was no longer kept in check by France, its archrival in Europe, and with this decisive advantage it ushered in an era of global commercial trade and the promotion of �free-trade imperialism.� The rise of Europe thus resulted in a complex web of sovereign states, colonial empires, and �informal empires.�

If we place this imperial model in the spatial-historical context of the �Eurasian Revolution� we will see that such empires form a triangle in geographic space between a �Greater Europe� comprised of sovereign states (the Westphalian system); the vast �colonial empire� built on the margins of the Americas, Africa, and Eurasia; and the �informal empire� (the One World System) that is built up globally through trade and investment. This is both a triangle of organizational structures within the modern imperial system and a triangle of historical spaces created by global geopolitics. If we place this triangle in the context of geopolitical transformation we will find that, no matter how much we criticize the so-called �Euro-centrism� in the �discourse,� we can never deny that in actual practice the fundamental driving force of Europe�s construction was properly European, i.e. Europe did not surrender or yield to geopolitical pressure, but instead waged an indomitable struggle to the death in the face of �challenges.� This resilience in the face of �challenges� became the savage spirit of �freedom� that Europeans came to cherish, and resistance to pressure and the impetus for world domination were elevated to the position of dominant philosophical ethos. In this context, the domestication of barbarism in Confucian civilization was seen by Westerners as stifling of this spirit of �freedom,� and unethical. Montesquieu often characterized Oriental Despotism as �rule by the stick,� especially in reference to the absolute authority of the father in the family. Therefore, whether in the case of voyages throughout the world to find alternative routes to the East, or in life-and-death struggles within European countries, material conditions drove Europe towards a �modernity� that sought control by force.

What links the tiny sovereign imperial core to vast colonial holdings and �informal empires� all over the world is this �magnetic force� exerted by �modernity.� Science and technology replace religious superstition, unlimited growth of objective knowledge replaces folkloric traditions, large-scale division of labor replaces self-sufficiency, industrial products replace natural products, abstract currency replaces visible wealth, law (the rule of law) replaces morality (the rule of man), citizens replace subjects, democracy replaces monarchy. It is by virtue of the enormous energy unleashed by �modernity� that tiny European countries were able to deal a �staggering� blow to huge traditional Eastern empires. Thus, �modernity� is not a simple development based on tradition, but a revolutionary leap in a different dimension. The small British Isles constructed an unprecedented form of empire. Not by conquering global territories with military power, as Tamerlane did, but by using trade and finance to draw a constant stream of resources and profits into London. Whereas traditional empires demanded a finite amount of money and tribute, the British Empire extorted a virtually unlimited amount of wealth. The British Empire replaced the iron horses of the Mongols with the pound sterling and industrial goods, and thus fulfilled Tamerlane�s dream of a new world empire.

The reason why I emphasize here that this is a new type of �world empire,� instead of accepting Darwin�s �world-system� designation or the usual �liberal international order� from international political theory, is that the theory of sovereign states obscures the imperial essence of Western hegemony. This �new imperial history� narrative, based on postmodern theory, diminishes the political dimension of imperialism. The framing of �U.S.-China relations� or �U.S.-China competition� that is so commonplace today, premised on the concept of sovereign states, is actually deceptive and misleading. It is deceptive and misleading to portray China and the United States as two equal sovereign states, ignoring the three faces of modern Western imperialism, and the fact that the imperial system of the United States is even more complex than the British Empire�s ever was. The United States operates an imperial arrangement within its continental territory, followed by a second imperial core in the form of the Five Eyes alliance, followed by a system of vassal states in the guise of allies such as the military domination systems of Europe, East Asia, and the Middle East, operates Latin America as a �backyard,� and, of course, it also has control over other supplementary �world-systems� such as the Internet, finance, and trade. Thus, the U.S.-China relationship is better characterized as China, a rising sovereign state, facing the U.S.-dominated world empire or world system. It�s not a question of managing a relationship between two sovereign states, but a question of how China faces the U.S.-dominated world empire. The �U.S.-China decoupling� that has been the focus of public discussion in recent years would be better understood as an effort on the part of the U.S. to expel China from the �world imperial system.� Therefore, the U.S.-China struggle is not only about the fate of the two countries, but also about the future of the world order itself, i.e., is the whole world subservient to the U.S.-dominated world empire, or will it establish truly equal international relations between sovereign states? When the U.S. and Soviet superpowers were trying to build two different types of world empires, the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) that emerged in countries like India and China intended to create a more fair and rational international order. Today�s U.S.-China rivalry represents a struggle over these two world visions and the shared destiny of humanity.

# ? Mar 13, 2022 21:17

Mayman10: May 11, 2019

Finished chapter 1 and this line stood out to me

Liefmann posted:

As a general rule, in such periods of radical economic change, speculation develops on a large scale.

all I could think about were NFTs and crypto scams. A very stupid place for excess capital to flow to.

# ? Mar 13, 2022 22:24

Harold Fjord: Jan 3, 2004

China makes everything. :shrug:

# ? Mar 14, 2022 00:23

huhwhat: Apr 22, 2010; by sebmojo

ah yes china makes everything therefore making it the lynchpin of the world system which automatically makes it imperialist, hmm yes

kinda like the workers at the bottom of this pyramid right, without them the whole thing would collapse, goddang imperialist workers lynchpinning up in here

# ? Mar 14, 2022 05:48

AnimeIsTrash: Jun 30, 2018

It's time to begin our reading with

# ? Mar 14, 2022 16:54

Harold Fjord: Jan 3, 2004

Having trouble understanding the difference between describing the situation accurately and assigning blame?

# ? Mar 14, 2022 17:18

huhwhat: Apr 22, 2010; by sebmojo

Harold Fjord posted:

Having trouble understanding the difference between describing the situation accurately and assigning blame?

emTme3 posted:

If we roll with Lenin, then neither Russia nor China are actually capable of doing imperialism, simply because they are not the monopoly finance cores at the top of the system. But like, there are all kinds of economic reasons for resource grabs, and all cores need peripheries - Russia is trying to become more of its own core right now, and China is the lynchpin of the world-system itself.

# ? Mar 15, 2022 05:55

Gorman Thomas: Jul 24, 2007

Putin gonna recreate the Trump/Romney dinner picture with Zelenskyy when Russia gets that peace deal.

# ? Mar 15, 2022 07:30

Danann: Aug 4, 2013

some misc thoughts about chapter 1:

- huh the statistics used by lenin to prove the concentration of industries are the same statistics i can access through the internet today
- on the other hand i don't think they do "we produce xyz amount of commodity abc" these days while the nominal gdp stuff is super easy to find and seems to be the only measure available

# ? Mar 16, 2022 19:02

Private Cumshoe: Feb 15, 2019; AAAAAAAGAGHAAHGGAH

SorePotato posted:

Idk man that looks like Russian propaganda

yeah Russian propaganda kicks rear end some of the most finely crafted on earth'

some even say its artisanal

# ? Mar 16, 2022 23:56

Greg Legg: Oct 6, 2004

I have nothing to add because I'm honestly not too smart, I just wanted to say I appreciate the discussion here.

# ? Mar 17, 2022 00:10

Hilario Baldness: Feb 10, 2005; Grimey Drawer

b mad at me posted:

Why is China the lynchpin?

The Chinese Communist Party are, unironically, the best managers of global capitalism.

China has the most robust and dynamic economy in the world with the highest level of global trade and investment, to my knowledge.

Hilario Baldness has issued a correction as of 00:49 on Mar 17, 2022

# ? Mar 17, 2022 00:47

ram dass in hell: Dec 29, 2019; Can't post for 5 hours!

Greg Legg posted:

I have nothing to add because I'm honestly not too smart, I just wanted to say I appreciate the discussion here.

# ? Mar 17, 2022 05:37

Janitor Ludwich IV: Jan 25, 2019; by vyelkin

Preface

Lenin seems racist against Slavish tongues, their tongues are too stupid to be censored by the Tsarists? Also we're doing some country swap mini game, cool.

Chapter 1

the first country he mentions is Germany, are Germans great Russians or is he talking about Korea?!

ok, so out of every 1000 large enterprises (> 50 employees), of which there were 3 in 1882 (3 in every 1000 enterprises?!), 6 in 1895 and 9 in 1907, out of every 100 workers employed, hese enerprises employed 22, 30 and 37, respecively (I guess this means about 1% of organisations employed ~37% of the workforce in 1907?)

ok yeah I get it. That's what he's saying and says shortly after I reread this to understrand it. .9% of enterprises use ~76% of consumed horses and electrolytes.

Now we're talking about the USA which I guess is Korea and Germans are actually Great Russian. Monopolies are bigger in Korea by a number that I won't reproduce here. Korea has much bigger numbers in general than Great Russian Germany.

We start discussing diversifying your portfolio at this point after we learn about how concentrated things are in Korea. Wait maybe it's up/downstream integration.

Yes it is.

Chapter 1 is all about how large enterprises have total power in the market as they basically can't be dislodged by shake-out periods in the economy or out-competed by technically more efficient, smaller organisations because of the scale of their resources.

I guess the next chapter is about banks and finance. Thanks OP, I would never have read this. Good idea for a thread.

# ? Mar 17, 2022 14:38

Yadoppsi: May 10, 2009

quote:

But facts are stubborn things, as the English proverb says, and they have to be reckoned with, whether we like it or not. The facts show that differences between capitalist countries, e.g., in the matter of protection or free trade, only give rise to insignificant variations in the form of monopolies or in the moment of their appearance; and that the rise of monopolies, as the result of the concentration of production, is a general and fundamental law of the present stage of development of capitalism.

Its not as obtuse as Marx's linen stats but Marxist seem to love opening their works with statistics, observations, and thoughts from mainstream economists before driving home the conclusion they could/should make but won't.

quote:

Capitalism in its imperialist stage leads directly to the most comprehensive socialisation of production; it, so to speak, drags the capitalists, against their will and consciousness, into some sort of a new social order, a transitional one from complete free competition to complete socialisation.

Production becomes social, but appropriation remains private. The social means of production remain the private property of a few. The general framework of formally recognised free competition remains, and the yoke of a few monopolists on the rest of the population becomes a hundred times heavier, more burdensome and intolerable.

Look at Dean Koontz over here ending a chapter with such an obvious cliffhanger:

quote:

Monopoly! This is the last word in the �latest phase of capitalist development.� But we shall only have a very insufficient, incomplete, and poor notion of the real power and the significance of modern monopolies if we do not take into consideration the part played by the banks.

# ? Mar 17, 2022 20:38

Cpt_Obvious: Jun 18, 2007

What does Lenin mean when he said that the production is social?

# ? Mar 17, 2022 22:21

Pentecoastal Elites: Feb 27, 2007; Can't post for 3 hours!

everyone has to do the work
specifically Marx says that society changes so that it embodies the labor process: work is no longer a thing you do (like as an individual artisan) but who you are within society, and embeds itself into the structure of society. You can't live without working, and you also can't appreciably interact with society. Your job dictates where you stand in the social hierarchy, who you associate with, what do and what you can do, the clothes you wear, the food you eat, etc etc. In ways both directly associated with the money you make but also the cache associated with your specific career and where you are within architecture of production. It happens in society at large but especially within "vertically integrated" industries like Lenin talks about -- you have explicit organizations where everyone works together to get something done (and is defined by their position/capacity in this effort) but the products of that deeply socialized labor still all go to the boss.

To Marx this is the substrate from which Real Actual Socialism arises: the socialized labor becomes so foundational that workers are able to identify themselves as workers in relation to their bosses, rather than as certain types of workers to other types of workers.

e: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch32.htm
tldr: capitalism's tendency to monopolize/vertically integrate socializes labor in a way eg. serfdom or slavery doesn't, and this is what changes laborers into the proletariat. You can't stop vertically integrating, and so can't stop socializing your labor, and so can't stop the transformation into the proletariat and eventually the class-identified proletariat then baby you've got a stew goin

e2: to bring it back to the topic what Lenin is talking about here with monopoly is the process by which boxes out the labor aristocracy that arises when you have certain jobs with better pay and/or social cache within the same industry. If you're making good money by making the widgets I need to make your productive machines I buy you out or otherwise take you over and now I can make the widgets for myself and you're either out of a job or making $7.50 an hour doing the thing that was making you $200/hr yesterday.

Or, I monopolize so completely that the nice comfortable email job you had that was netting you a cool quarter million a year is now going to pay out at $7.50 an hour. Where else are you gonna work? You only know about widgets and I'm the only game in town. Take it or starve.

Anyway, like the man says: "heavier and more intolerable" -- but also more ripe for class consciousness.

Pentecoastal Elites has issued a correction as of 23:03 on Mar 17, 2022

# ? Mar 17, 2022 22:39

arcticmog: Jan 9, 2018; Goona get you!

Despera posted:

I guess his failure trying imperialism in 1918-21 only strengthened Lenin's argument.

I have a few hot takes on lenin's direction regarding orthodox marxist theory but what is this?

# ? Mar 18, 2022 18:20

Pentecoastal Elites: Feb 27, 2007; Can't post for 3 hours!

arcticmog posted:

I have a few hot takes on lenin's direction regarding orthodox marxist theory but what is this?

Despera is a blue no matter who guy who loves to make himself insanely mad at the tankies in cspam by reading all of our bad posts

# ? Mar 18, 2022 19:42

Kaedric: Sep 5, 2000

Despera posted:

I guess his failure trying imperialism in 1918-21 only strengthened Lenin's argument.

Kaedric posted:

Good book that made me learn that "imperialism" doesn't just mean 'one country invades another, for some reason'

Maybe Despera needs to read the book too

# ? Mar 18, 2022 22:16

arcticmog: Jan 9, 2018; Goona get you!

Pentecoastal Elites posted:

Despera is a blue no matter who guy who loves to make himself insanely mad at the tankies in cspam by reading all of our bad posts

Is this an ML thread or orthodox Marxists in general?

# ? Mar 20, 2022 08:40

AnimeIsTrash: Jun 30, 2018

arcticmog posted:

Is this an ML thread or orthodox Marxists in general?

This is a thread for reading the book "Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism".

# ? Mar 20, 2022 16:23

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# ? May 6, 2024 19:12

AnimeIsTrash: Jun 30, 2018

I got busy this weekend and completely forgot to come up with some discussion questions. I'll try to think some up for the next couple of chapters.

If anyone had any points in the preface + chapter 1 that they wanted clarification on, wanted to discuss in greater detail, or just general observations, etc that would be a good jumping off point.

We'll also start chapter 2 today.

# ? Mar 21, 2022 16:05

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > Lets read some theory: Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism

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