Imperialism

Imperialism: A Guide for the Movement

edited by Farah Reza (SWP) "There is not, nor can there be, such a thing as a 'negative' Social-Democratic slogan that serves only to 'sharpen proletarian consciousness against imperialism'. A negative slogan unconnected with a definite positive solution will not 'sharpen', but dull consciousness, for such a slogan is a hollow phrase, mere shouting, meaningless declamation" -Lenin, 1916. This SWP book has no grip on the nature of modern imperialism and is imbued with the politics of negativism. There is no mention of the real anti-imperialist force - the working class - and it peddles a series...

Empire of Capital

Empire of Capital by Ellen Meiksins Wood (Verso) "Imperialism", wrote J A Hobson a century ago, "is the word on everybody's lips". A century later, when capitalism is again in the ascendant, and the US has fought three wars in five years, the word is once more on everybody's lips. But "imperialism" is an essentially contested concept, with many different meanings and ambiguities. That's why this new book by Ellen Meiksins Wood is so valuable. It provides a coherent account of capitalist imperialism to explain the period we are living in. Imperialism old and new Wood distinguishes between...

RDG on imperialism

Introduction Below are sections from the RDG's 1995-6 programme which address the question of imperialism. We felt it might be useful as part of this discussion on imperialism to bring this forward, not only to let AWL comrades see our views, but because we will be needing a redraft soon and your observations or criticisms should be helpful. Imperialism and the Russian revolution 14. At the end of the l9th century the most powerful capitalist economies were becoming dominated by a few large monopoly enterprises and banks. In conjunction with their own nation-states they began to export capital...

"Ultra-imperialism": a debate

"Ultra-imperialism": a debate from Workers' Liberty Australia no.31 As usual, a leading WL spokesperson has put their finger on something very significant, something much of the Left has missed. And again, as usual, WL takes it too far and onesidedly, leading to the article missing what's correct in the reaction of the rest of the Left. In the meantime, uncharacteristically, WL passes up the opportunity to get really stuck into the contradictions in the Cliffite position. Martin [Thomas]'s picture of the "imperialism of free trade" [in Workers' Liberty 2/3 ] seems to me to resemble Kautsky's...

Engels on the Mexican-American war; week 1 of "Imperialism"

Engels on the Mexican-American war This short excerpt from an article by Engels in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung of February 1849 is significant not because every phrase in it can be taken as a model - it is an aside in the heat of polemic - but because it illustrates very vividly how far Marx and Engels were from wanting to stop or restrict the spread of capitalism across the world. In 1846-8 the USA fought a war with Mexico over Texas (where North American settlers had won independence from Mexico in 1835), California (then under Mexican rule), and the area in between (now called New Mexico...

Kautsky on imperialism: week 2 of "Imperialism" course

Karl Kautsky: from "Socialism and Colonial Policy", reprinted in Workers' Liberty 2/3 (this passage: pp.102-109). VI. NEW STYLE EXPLOITATION COLONIES Up to this time exploitation colonies were regarded as suppliers of capital, which was extracted from them in the most varied ways. Today, however, the productive power of large-scale industry and the exploitation of the working class has so enormously developed in the capitalist countries that it supplies colossal surpluses - surplus value - a large part of which is again used as new, additional accumulated capital. The capitalist mode of...

Globalisation. For week 6 of "Marxism and Imperialism"

From Workers' Liberty 2/3 . TODAY, WORLD markets - not just markets in goods and services, but, as important, credit markets - create vast and increasing inequalities. They convey the choicest fruits of the world's labour to the billionaires in the global centres of finance. They are regulated by the IMF, the WTO, the World Bank - international institutions dominated by the ruling classes centred in those "global cities". At every stage of market haggling - who gets contracts, where investment is sited and on what terms, which trade barriers remain (as they do, lower than in the past, but...

Course outline: Marxism and Imperialism

Week 1. Marx In the Communist Manifesto Marx and Engels presented the spreading-out of industrial capitalism across the world as a revolutionary, civilising process. "The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world-market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. To the great chagrin of Reactionists, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood... By the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, [it] draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into...

Hilferding: for week 3

Rudolf Hilferding: excerpt from NEW PALGRAVE: MARXISM, 1990 pp. 201-202 Hilferding published his major work, Das Finanzkapital, in 1910; it was immediately hailed by such diverse figures as Kautsky (1911), Lenin (1916) and Bukharin (1917), as a path-breaking development of Marxist economic analysis. Essentially, Hilferding argued that the concentration and centralization of capital had led to the domination of industry and commerce by the large banks, which were transformed into 'finance capital' (p. 225). The socialization of production effected by finance capital required a correspondingly...

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