Mandel on Ultra-Imperialism...
4. Back to the Fallacy of Ultra-Imperialism?
In order to deny any major role for inter-imperialist competitions
today, Martin Nicolaus has to contend:
that =91from the viewpoint of the major cor****ations in industry and
finance, national boundaries have long ceased to be obstacles ... They
naturally resist the pressures toward protectionism and capitalist
nationalism emanating from the non-imperial or backward industries,
chiefly from the smaller manufacturers among them.=92
that =91no major of whatever internal economic structure sits idly by
while another power m***** its forces for an attack on its
industry ... On the two previous occasions in this century when major
national capitalisms have entered into major ex****t conflicts, the
=93competition=94 between them necessarily rapidly escalates into
protectionism, embargos, financial blockades, colonial wars, and
finally the First and Second World Wars ... The threat which Mandel
depicts, if it had the magnitude he ascribes to it, would clearly be a
casus belli.=92
that =91Mandel=92s procedure of equating the economic sphere of US capital
with the territorial area of the USA is highly misleading ... The
sphere of US capital is not confined to the territorial nation, but of
course extends in varying degrees throughout Canada, Japan, the states
of Europe and the Third World.=92
that US banking capital is =91predominant=92. =91The role of banks in
competitive battles is crucial, and becomes more so as the production
advantages of one antagonist over the other diminish ... The ability
of European industry to force a crisis on US industry thus depends on
the relative strength of the respective privately-controlled capital
reserves and credits ... These financial powers are based in US
imperialism.=92
At first glance, these arguments are at least partially in
contradiction with each other and self-eliminating. If all =91major
cor****ations=92 systematically and definitively resist pressures toward
protectionism and capitalist nationalism, how can one then explain
that =91major ex****t conflicts=92, which Nicolaus modestly assigns to
=91major national capitalisms=92 but in reality have always involved major
monopolistic cor****ations and imperialist powers, could break out at
all? Was it perhaps =91smaller manufacturers=92, and not Messrs. Krupp and
Thyssen, Vickers-Armstrong and Deterding, Morgan and Rockefeller, who
were responsible for the First and Second World Wars? If the economic
spheres of influence of imperialism are not tied up with national
state powers (the notion of =91territoriality=92 is dragged in here by the
hair; what is involved is the key role of states in these conflicts!),
how can one then explain the very same =91protectionism, embargos,
financial blockades, colonial wars and First and Second World Wars=92 we
have been talking about? Is capital ex****t and foreign capital
investment a =91new=92 phenomenon? Wasn=92t it already well developed
befor=
e
and during the First World War =96 so much so in fact that innumerable
liberal pacifists and op****tunist Social-Democrats were convinced that
imperialist wars would become impossible? [10] How can US banking
capital be =91predominant=92 =96 i.e. US imperialism control most of the
financial resources of the world =96 and at the same time, firstly be
forced to =91neutralize=92 the reduction of productive advantage of US
capitalists (where did the European and Japanese capitalists get the
capital for financing their huge outlays of productive investment?
They didn=92t borrow them from US bankers!) and secondly be increasingly
dependent for borrowing capital on the European capital market?
Nicolaus also alleges that the wage-costs of American cor****ations
should be calculated on =91world averages=92, given the fact they transfer
a growing part of their operations abroad. In this, he seems to have
lost his sense of pro****tion. What is the fraction of total output of
US industry produced abroad in competition withus units of production
at home =96 excluding activities complementary to domestic production,
such as oil extraction? Obviously, only a marginal pro****tion. What is
the fraction of total manpower employed by US industry beyond the
frontiers of the USA? Again, only a marginal one. Indeed, if US
monopolies were ever to succeed in transferring 30, 40 or 50 per cent
of their output of, say, automobiles, computers, airplanes and
turbines, this could only lead to a massive increase of unemployment
in the USA itself. What would be the consequence (and purpose) of this
unemployment? To erode the wage differentials between the USA and
Europe (or even the USA and Japan) by lowering the standard of living
of the American working class. Why would US monopolies ever embark on
such a course in the first place, if not under the compulsion of
international competition?
The methodological toots of Nicolaus=92s mistakes lie in an inability to
distinguish quantitative from qualitative changes, relative from
absolute superiority, the beginning from the final outcome of a
process. They are connected with a gross underestimation of the State
as the major instrument of defence of the capitalist class interests
today (against their class enemies, against foreign competitors, and
against the menacingly explosive nature of the inner contradictions of
the system).
The relation****p of forces between various imperialist powers can
develop greatly to the advantage of one and at the expense of another.
A massive relative superiority on the European continent was possessed
by Germany, in the periods 1900-1916, and 1937-1944, and by France in
the period 1919-1923. But that does not transform the competitors of
the predominant power into semi-colonial nations, which have lost
control over the means of production of their country. Such
semicolonial nations only arise when in fact the key industries and
banks in the country are owned or controlled by foreign capitalists,
and when for that reason, the State itself fundamentally protects the
interests of the foreign imperialist class, as against those of the
=91native=92 bourgeoisie. That is the situation in Greece, Brazil, Ghana
or Iran today. It is obviously not the situation in France, Britain or
Italy, not to speak of Japan or Western Germany. Quantitative changes
in the relation****p of forces between imperialist powers are one
thing; a qualitative change in status, the transformation of an
imperialist country into a semicolonial country (as could have
happened in France, if Germany had won the Second World War, or as
could have happened in West Germany, if the 1945-47 trend had been
maintained and the =91Cold War=92 had not broken out) is quite another
thing. There is not the slightest evidence to show that US imperialism
controls more than 10 per cent of the industrial means of production,
and much less of the financial means of exchange, of any other
imperialist power (with the exception of Canada, which is indeed a
border case). There is for that reason not the slightest evidence that
these powers have lost their basic independence as imperialist powers,
and have become US semi-colonies.
In fact, if one studies the evolution of the inter-relation****p of
forces between US imperialism and its main foreign competitors, one
has to conclude that the USA reached the zenith of its power at the
end of the Second World War, and that its hegemony has ever since been
in decline. Of course, it still retains a great relative superiority.
This relative superiority might even increase again, if there is no
sufficient international interpenetration of capital on a European
scale, if =91European=92 multinational cor****ations are not established
for systematic competition with US-based =91multinational cor****ations=92
on relatively equal terms. But independent owner****p of capital,
independent control of the =91internal market=92 and independent use of
State power, are still basic characteristics of European and Japanese
imperialists. [11]
But what about US military superiority? What of the possibility of new
inter-imperialist wars? US military superiority over its main
competitors is, indeed, much more striking than its relative economic
superiority. But precisely because there has come about a
contradiction between the resurgence of independent financial and
industrial power of Western European and Japanese imperialism, and
their continuous military dependence on the USA, the NATO and Nippo-
American alliances are in deep and permanent crisis. There is only one
way in which this crisis can be solved, in the long run (inasmuch as
imperialism survives and the present trend in relation****p of forces
is not fundamentally altered): an adaptation of the military
relation****p of forces to economic reality, the re-emergence of
independent military strength in Western Europe and Japan =96 in the
last analysis, the emergence of independent =91nuclear deterrents=92 in
Western Europe (Franco-British, or Franco-German-British, or even on a
broader scale) and Japan.
As for new inter-imperialist wars, which the late Joseph Stalin
predicted in his political testament, they are indeed extremely
unlikely to break out, but not for reasons of US supremacy, but
because all imperialist powers are threatened by a much more deadly
menace then inter-imperialist competition: the menace of the non-
capitalist part of the world expanding through new victorious
revolutions. Against the so-called =91socialist countries=92 and new
revolutions, imperialist powers indeed have an attitude of collective
solidarity, which makes the NATO and Nippo-American alliances real
alliances, in the common interest of the capitalist class everywhere,
and not simply stooge sets for US expansion.
Imperialist competition continues, and will continue, including some
very ruthless developments indeed; but it will unfurl within the
framework of that collective solidarity towards the common enemy. Yet
within that framework, the law of uneven development continues to
operate inexorably, causing the relative decline of previously supreme
powers and the emergence of newly strengthened imperialist forces. The
fate of US imperialism=92s supremacy will be decided neither on the
battle-field nor in the =91Third World=92 =96 at least in the coming
years.
[12] It will be decided by the capacity of Western European
imperialists (and Japanese imperialists) to set up colossal
cor****ations, equivalent in financial power and industrial strength to
that of their US competitors. I do not say that this development has
already taken place on a sufficient scale or that it is inevitable. I
have elsewhere made clear the obstacles and resistances towards that
process. I only state that, if it takes place, it will force US
imperialism greatly to intensify the exploitation of the American
working class, under the pressure of competition.
The discussion on =91ultra-imperialism=92 is, in fact, an old one. It was
initiated by Kautsky after the outbreak of the First World War, and
received at that time a scathing reply by Lenin. It was revived during
the mid-=92twenties by various Social-Democrats (Hilferding, Vandervelde
and others), celebrating the constitution of the world steel cartel as
a triumph of =91ultra-imperialism=92 and =91peaceful development=92; the
rebuff which history inflicted a few years later to that illusion is
still well known by everybody.
Lenin=92s answer to the fallacy of =91ultra-imperialism=92 can be
summarize=
d
in one formula: the law of uneven development.
=91It is sufficient to pose the question clearly to see that the answer
can only be negative. For one couldn=92t conceive, under capitalism, any
other basis for the division in zones of influence, of interests, of
colonies etc., than the strength of the participants of that
partition, their economic, financial, military strength etc. Now among
these participants of partition, that strength changes in a different
way, for under capitalism, even development of enterprises, of trusts,
of industries, of countries, is impossible.=92</>
Lenin adds:
=91But if one speaks about the =93purely economic=94 conditions of the
epoc=
h
of finance capital, as about a concrete historical epoch situated in
the beginning of the XXth century, the best answer to the dead
abstractions about =93ultra-imperialism=94... is to oppose to them the
concrete economic reality of the present-day world economy. Kautsky=92s
theory of ultra-imperialism is completely void of meaning and can
only, among other things, encourage the deeply mistaken idea ... that
the domination of finance capital reduces the inequalities and
contradictions of the world economy, whereas in reality it strengthens
them.=92 [13]
The developments of the last year =96 to go no further into the recent
past =96 are a perfect illustration of the fact that the law of uneven
and combined development, =91strengthening the inequalities and
contradiction of the world economy=92, operates today as it operated 50
years ago. In 1958, West Germany=92s ex****ts of machinery and trans****t
equipment amounted to $3.9 billion, those of the United States
amounted to $6.3 billion, 62 per cent more than the West German
figure. In 1968, West German ex****ts of machinery and trans****t
equipment had risen to $11.3 billion, as against $14.5 billion by USA;
the difference had declined to less than 30 per cent. In 1969, the two
figures will practically meet at somewhere near $15 billion. Total
West German ex****ts were half of US ex****ts in 1958; in 1969, they
will amount to more than two-thirds of that figure.
This industrial power is by no means without relation to capital
ac***ulation and financial strength. The revaluation of the Deutsche
Mark (in fact: the devaluation of the dollar compared to the main
European currency) is correlated with a tremendous ex****t of German
capital. Net long-term private capital ex****t was $1 billion in 1967;
$2.4 billion in 1968 and probably more than $5 billion =96 at the new
exchange rate =96 in 1969, i.e. already more in absolute figures than US
capital ex****ts! In fact, during the first semester of 1969 there were
more bonds issued in dm (including by US cor****ations) than in
dollars, on the international capital market.
The sapping of the dollar=92s strength by foreign military outlays has
so changed the financial relation****p of forces in favour of other
major imperialist powers, that the US government now undertakes
systematic efforts to force them... to spend more on rearmament (i.e.
to redivide and so the speak =91internationalize=92 the common burden of
defending the =91borders of the capitalist world=92). But this is
inconceivable without a military strengthening of these powers (the
strengthening of Japan is now on the agenda, after that of Western
Germany), which again ****fts the inter-imperialist relation****p of
forces at the expense of US imperialism.
5. The Politics of the Debate
The most astoni****ng passages of Martin Nicolaus=92s polemic are these
in which he accuses me of =91making sense=92 only if I assume the
=91pacification=92 of the Soviet Union, a military alliance between
European capital and the ussr, and =91peaceful coexistence=92. In other
words, he seems to imply that =91beneath Mandel lies de Gaulle=92. Here we
have again a typical example of how Martin Nicolaus is led astray by
operating too much with metaphysical abstractions, instead of
understanding real, contradictory social forces at work and in
conflict with each other.
The competition between Western European and US imperialism is a fact,
visible for anybody who studies not only trade statistics but polemics
and debates in all capitalist circles on both sides of the Atlantic.
What did =91Gaullism=92 represent in this debate? An attempt to
=91strengthen=92 Western European imperialism by outmoded techniques of
19th-century diplomacy (18th-century dynastic diplomacy would perhaps
be a more correct, if more severe *****sment, at that). The attempt to
establish =91European independence=92 under the hegemony of one of its
economically weakest imperialist powers, France, was condemned to
fail, =91independent=92 deterrent or not, as I pointed out in the early
=92sixties. It could only lead to a deterioration of the relative
position of French imperialism as compared with German and Italian
imperialism, for the capital squandered by De-Gaulle in his force de
frappe determined a growing antiquation of French industrial equipment
compared to Italian and German plant and a growing exacerbations of
social tensions in France itself. His attempt at a diplomatic and
economic flirtation with Moscow was equally condemned to failure,
because over and above the obvious im****tance of commercial expansion
towards Eastern Europe, common to all European capitalists (and for
which German, British and Italian groups were often better equipped
than their French competitors), there was the staunch class
consciousness of the French bourgeoisie, which could not but consider
the Soviet Union, in spite of all the conservatism of its leaders and
the reformism of the French CP, as a class enemy with whom no alliance
was possible in the present world context.
In fact, the only durable change which occurred in the French economy
under de Gaulle, occurred in spite of de Gaulle: it was the constantly
growing integration of France into the Common Market. Today, 45 per
cent of French ex****ts are directed to these countries, as against 22
per cent before 1958. This economic fact was strong enough to create
so much opposition inside the French bourgeoisie against de Gaulle=92s
particular views on capitalist Western European integration that it
actually caused his downfall. I predicted this years ago in the same
way as I predicted that de Gaulle was blindly working pour le roi de
Prusse, for German hegemony in a Common Market limited to six
countries.
Now what is the main social and political ideology of the advocates of
=91European independence=92 in Western European capitalist and
pettybourgeois circles? Is it Mandel=92s thesis of inter-imperialist
competition? Not at all! It is an ideology very close indeed to that
of Martin Nicolaus and the thesis of =91ultra-imperialism=92. Europe is
=91in danger of being colonized by the USA=92. This colonization is
=91irresistible=92, unless Europe unites. In my book on the Common Market,
shortly to appear in English, I have exposed the ideological function
of this propaganda: it is to use the endemic =91anti-Americanism=92 of the
European working class as a means to tune down the class struggle in
Europe, to disarm this working class against capital concentration and
capitalist rationalization, and to collaborate with its own exploiters
against the =91common enemy=92: US imperialism.
The idea of complete US imperialist supremacy on a world scale, and
the idea of Western Europe and Japan being slowly but surely reduced
to the status of semi-colonial powers, logically leads to such
conclusions. For after all doesn=92t Marxism-Leninism teach that there
is a basic difference between an inter-imperialist conflict, and a
conflict between an imperialist power and an oppressed and exploited
semicolonial bourgeoisie? So it is the theory of absolute US hegemony
which leads to capitulation before the class enemy and to class
collaboration, and not at all the classical Leninist concept of inter-
imperialist competition, which I continue to uphold. This theoretical
prediction has already been borne out in practice, at least twice: in
the early =92fifties, when the French CP (and, to a lesser degree, other
CPs in Western Europe) were making a block with Gaullists and speaking
on the same platform with them against =91US imperialism=92 and the
=91abandonment of national sovereignty=92, as if France were a semi-
colonial power, and not one competing gang in the international
brotherhood of robber barons and imperialists plunderers; and in the
early =92sixties, when, starting from that very same assumption, certain
Maoist groups proposed to sup****t De Gaulle in the Presidential
elections against Mitterrand, using the justification that de Gaulle
was =91more anti-American than Mitterrand=92.
Our theory, at the contrary, does not lead to the subordination of any
sector of the international working class to any sector of world
capitalism. We stand for independent class struggle of the working
class in all capitalist countries, We stand for independent
organisation of the working class, defending its own class interests
and bent upon a socialist revolution. We do not preach to American
workers that they should =91ally=92 themselves with any sector of the
ruling class, nor do we propose anything of the kind to European
workers. To say that bourgeois ideas lie underneath such a clear
strategy of independent working-class struggle is somewhat
preposterous.
There is a lot in Martin Nicolaus=92 article with which we can agree.
There is no doubt that we are living in an epoch of tremendous
=91socialization=92 and =91internationalization=92 of productive forces,
on=
a
scale unexpected even by Lenin or in Lenin=92s time. [14] There is no
doubt that the basic contradiction in such an epoch is the
contradiction between capital and labour, in the process of production
itself, and that the direct road of the working class towards a
socialist revolution in the industrialized imperialist countries will
be not through a fight for wages, but through objective challenges
against capitalist relations of production. We have been writing this
for many years, and there is no reason to assume that this will not be
true in the United States too.
It is also evident that the very supremacy of US imperialism at the
end of the Second World War tended to involve the ruling class of the
USA with all world contradictions of imperialism, and tended to
introduce all these contradictions in some form into American society
Itself. In spite of all its ac***ulated wealth and reserves, even US
imperialism has proved itself unable in the long run to pay, at one
and the same time, the costs of playing world gendarme, of introducing
=91reforms=92 into US society in order to avoid an exacerbation of social
tensions, and of financing a constant modernization of equipment to
assure a rate of productive capital ac***ulation which would enable it
to maintain its technological advance on all its competitors. It is
obvious that the origin of all the strains and tensions, increasingly
visible in US society since the early sixties, are linked to world
developments. We ourselves have pointed out many times how great the
impact of the colonial revolution and of the Vietnamese war has been
on the formation of a new revolutionary youth vanguard in the USA, on
the politicization of the Blacks, on the emergence of a new radicalism
among intellectuals, technicians and public service employees. So we
see no reason suddenly to deny these evidences now. One should add
that a new wave of objectively revolutionary militancy of the West
European working class, as well as militant struggles of Eastern
European workers, students and intellectuals for socialist democracy =96
not to speak of a parallel rise of political revolution in the ussr =96
could not fail likewise to strengthen the rise of a new revolutionary
vanguard and an upsurge of mass radicalism in the USA.
All these factors =96 as well as many of those which Nicolaus cites =96
contribute to shake the relative political and social stability of the
USA, to stir up against class consciousness in advanced American
workers, and to facilitate the eruption of a sweeping radicalization
and massive class struggles of the proletariat in that country. But
all these subjective factors, reacting from the social superstructure
on class relations, cannot be the main cause of a new mass
radicalization of that working class. The main cause can only be found
in a change of material conditions. The growing crisis of American
imperialism can only transform itself into a decisive crisis of
American society through the mediation of a growing instability of the
American economy. This is our key thesis. In this growing instability
of the American economy, the loss of US suzerainty over the whole
imperialist world, the relative decline of US economic superiority vis-
`-vis its imperialist competitors, and the sharpening competition and
redivision of the international capitalist market =96 of which the
internal market of the USA is the most im****tant single sector =96 will
play an im****tant role.
In =91Where is America going?=92 I did not predict that the
=91re-emergence
of the contradiction between labour and capital in the USA=92 would
present itself =91as a re-run of some textbook accounts of the contract-
bargaining sessions between Reuther and GM=92. I only predicted that the
American working class, which today has trade-unionist but not
socialist class consciousness, would become radicalized from the
moment the capitalist system showed itself less and less able to
=91deliver the goods=92, i.e. to guarantee regular increases in real wages
and a high level of employment. For I argued that the relative
stability of American society during the past 30 years was basically
not due to some ideological factor (the alleged anti-communism of the
working class) but to this capacity of the system to =91deliver the
goods=92. Nicolaus agrees with me that this capacity is now declining,
and that the roots of that decline are to be found in the
deterioration of the world situation of American imperialism. It is
hard to deny, under these conditions, that the weakening of the
competitive position of US imperialism on the world market has
something to do with that deterioration.
December 5 1969
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Notes
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